Page 41 - Signs of the End

THE SIGNS OF THE END 5

government under Prime Minister Rabin and Foreign Secretary
Peres is that at long last, they want to "give peace a chance," a
phrase often heard in public pronouncements. This sentiment
was echoed by an Israeli guide who was a high-ranking officer
in the Army during Israel's major wars. He said, "We have been
fighting with the Arabs almost every day for 100 years. The
peace with Egypt is working all right; maybe this one with the
Palestinians will work as well. Let's give it a try."

Many Israelis are truly exhausted with the constant state of
war that has existed between them and the Arabs within and
outside of Israel all these decades. They feel that it must not go
on any longer. But they are just a bare majority. Prime Minister
Rabin w as able to muster only 61 votes in the Knessett to
approve the peace plan, one vote more than half of the members,
and it took considerable political maneuvering to get that. Not
only are a large percentage of Israelis concerned about the
situation on the West Bank, but they are just as worried, or more
so, about the parallel and related position of the Golan Heights,
which we will discuss further below.

The way the Rabin government is selling the peace agree­
ment to the unconvinced Israelis is that we will give the
Palestinians a chance to prove that they can govern themselves
and maintain the peace. If they foul up, if they don't keep their
end of the bargain, if they continue to cause trouble, we will
simply move them across the Jordan River. Furthermore, the
government believes that if such a circumstance were to develop,
world opinion would be with the Israelis, and there would be
little sympathy for the Palestinians.

The Israelis who are not for the agreement are very wary of
such a scenario, and feel it would be very difficult to reverse this
process once it gets started, even if some Palestinians fail to hold
up their end.

Israel Holds All the Cards

But, again, the Jewish government believes that it holds all
the cards. The Israeli Army will be watching the developments
with a careful eye. They will not allow the situation to get out
of hand. They will control the sparsely settled areas between the