Barak's Honeymoon

By Jonathan S. Tobin

So much for the honeymoon. Israel's press, true to form, has begun dumping on Ehud Barak, the nation's new Prime Minister. Some are calling him "Barakyahu," suggesting that he's not so different from his predecessor after all. Many are faulting his governing style, which is more presidential than prime ministerial; not since David Ben Gurion has an Israeli prime minister paid less attention to his cabinet. Barak's preference, at least so far, is to spend considerable time with individual members of his cabinet, seeking their advice - and then making up his own mind. This helps avoid the messiness of his dissonant cabinet, composed as it is of wildly opposing elements.

The press has a valuable - nay, essential - function in society. But in Israel, with its penchant bordering on an obsession for devouring its own, where journalistic reputations too often rest on a foundation of cynicism, the press may well be engaging in a self-fulfilling prophecy; if it persists in its refusal to see the emperor's clothes, it may end up denuding him.

The clothes, so far: Ehud Barak appears to grasp the truth, largely hidden from a number of his predecessors, that the path to peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not a straightforward path. Israel versus the Palestinians is not the United States versus Japan, two mighty military forces at battle, from conflict to victory to a peace largely dictated by the victor. It is a conflict across porous borders in which the civilian populations on both sides are immediately involved. That is why, in recent years, so much has been made of the importance of "confidence-building" measures. The theory of Oslo was that such measures would in due course enable more productive negotiations on the terms of the permanent settlement. Barak understands that the timetable for progress in the negotiations must now be considerably accelerated, so badly has confidence in fact been eroded rather than enhanced these past years. But he knows at the same time that the atmosphere in which negotiations take place, and, perhaps still more important, the environment in which a negotiated peace is finally implemented, cannot be ignored. Accordingly, and while the headlines scream of new irritations between Israel and the Palestinians, he has with alacrity moved on a number of side issues - issues that are in and of themselves of relatively minor importance, but that mark a sharp departure from past Israeli behavior.

Back in April, the Jerusalem municipality worked out an arrangement with two East Jerusalem (Arab) neighborhoods whereby there would be a moratorium both on illegal housing construction and on demolition orders against such housing, while the objections of residents to the Jerusalem master plan as it affected them would be considered. But the Interior Ministry was not party to that arrangement, and in recent months ordered the demolition of two houses. Now the Interior Ministry has joined the arrangement. If all goes well, there will be both an increase in housing construction and an end to demolitions.

Israel's Arab citizens have never been subject to military service. A few have volunteered, but there hasn't been any formal encouragement of such volunteering. That is apparently about to change. There will be no draft, it being much too soon to contemplate such a change. But the Israel Defense Forces are working on a plan to encourage widespread volunteering for military service by Moslem and Christian Arabs - a dramatic move towards making Israel a state of its citizens, as sooner or later it plainly must become.

In addition to the Arab and Druze Knesset members who now, for the first time, sit on the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Barak has named an Arab Knesset member of his own party to be Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs - also a first.

Rather than treating the current conflict with Arafat over the Barak's proposed revision of the Wye timetable as an excuse to back away from the process altogether, Barak continues to reach out, using every channel available to him, to the Palestine Authority Chairman.

All this may come to nothing. But these several modest straws in the wind may tell us as much about what is in prospect in this very new regime as we learn from the bolder and more publicized events of the day.

Although not directly relevant to the peace process, Barak's unexpected appointment of Yuli Tamir as Minister of Immigrant Absorption, warrants comment. Dr. Tamir first came to my attention in 1978, when she was known as Julie Neriya and, together with her then-husband and some friends, founded Shalom Achshav (Peace Now). I met her the following year; encountered her through her very important and much-praised book on nationalism (Liberal Nationalism, Princeton University Press, 1993), where she proposes in a careful, persuasive, and scholarly way that liberalism and nationalism are not irreconcilable; saw her at Harvard, where she was a visiting scholar, a couple of years back. None of what I know and admire about her has anything in particular to do with her ability to handle her new job, but I will be very surprised if we don't see a rather dramatic change in the condition of the Ethiopians in Israel.

Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia. He can be reached at jtobin@jewishexponent.com.