Barak `honeymoon' nears end but momentum for deal still strong

After three years of near paralysis in the Middle East peace process, the breakneck fervour with which newly-elected Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has thrown himself into the business of peacemaking has raised expectations in the entire region. Only days after entering office in early July, Mr Barak was sitting in Cairo talking to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak about rekindling the process that his hardline predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, had all but extinguished.

Days later he was meeting with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, then consulting with Jordan's King Abdullah. Soon after he was jetting off to the US to meet President Clinton, exchanging ideas on a comprehensive peace agreement in the region.

That visit was followed by a historic unplanned meeting with Algerian President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika at the late July funeral of Morocco's King Hassan.

But now, after only a month in office, there are signs that Arab patience with Mr Barak is starting to wear thin. Mr Arafat yesterday accused his Israeli counterpart of trying to wriggle his way out of implementing the long overdue Wye land-for-security deal. That was followed yesterday by comments by an Israeli-Arab lawmaker visiting Damascus that the Syrians were already disillusioned with Mr Barak.

The source of the tension on the Palestinian track is Mr Barak's desire to introduce alterations to the US-brokered Wye deal, signed last October.

The Israeli leader wants Mr Arafat to agree to delay implementation of the third of three West Bank land transfers outlined in Wye to final status talks. He fears that the handover of territory will leave about 15 Jewish settlements engulfed in Palestinian-controlled territory and exposed to attacks by Palestinian militants. Such attacks, he has argued, could threaten the entire peace process.

In exchange, he has offered Mr Arafat various inducements, including the accelerated release of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails.

But Mr Arafat has stood firm. After three years of dealing with the obstinate Mr Netanyahu, he is under pressure to show his people that the peace process can produce tangible gains. He is also loath to forgo land that would put him in a stronger position going into final status negotiations with Israel, that will deal with issues like the final borders of the Palestinian entity. In the back of Mr Arafat's mind is an additional fear - that if he consents to Mr Barak's requests to delay full implementation of Wye, the Israeli leader will complete what remains of the West Bank troop withdrawals and then make a sharp turn on to the Syrian track, leaving the Palestinians on hold until Israel has concluded its business with President Assad.

Mr Arafat may well have a point, for it seems that Mr Barak not only views an agreement with Syria - including a withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon - as the key to a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East, but he also seems convinced that progress on the Syrian track will be much swifter than with the Palestinians.

Mr Barak has faced some quiet criticism in his own party, with some Labour ministers suggesting anonymously that he would have had a better chance of convincing Mr Arafat to agree to a delay in Wye had he promoted his ideas privately, rather than publicly.

Uzi Baram, a Labour deputy who was passed over by Mr Barak for a cabinet post, has argued that it was a mistake to think that the Palestinians would ever accept the Prime Minister's ideas, and that Mr Barak would have been better off implementing Wye immediately to rebuild confidence with the Palestinians - a move that would have served him well in final status talks. Mr Barak, who has said that he will carry out the agreement if the Palestinians reject his ideas, feels that the Palestinians are refusing to see the bigger picture. A statement, issued by his office late on Sunday night, blamed the Palestinians for the soured atmosphere, and accused them of being "stubborn."

While some Palestinian officials have angrily protested that they are already beginning to miss Mr Netanyahu, their pique over Mr Barak's suggestions represents only a mini-crisis, which will probably look mild in comparison with the arguments that are likely to surface when the two sides sit down to final status talks. And, while the fallout may dampen some of the starry-eyed peace projections following Mr Barak's electoral victory in mid-May, it in no way represents a fundamental breakdown.

The downbeat comments by Mr Beshara, the Israeli-Arab lawmaker visiting Syria, should also not be construed as a Syrian retreat from the almost daily official statements being issued in Damascus about

President Assad's readiness to reach an agreement with Israel. In addition to the positive verbal signals from Damascus, there was also the recent report of a meeting between senior Syrian officials and leaders of the Palestinian rejectionist organisation in Damascus, who were informed that the era of armed struggle was coming to an end. Israeli military officials have also reported a decline in attacks in the Israeli-controlled security zone in south Lebanon by members of the Iranian-backed Shia Hizbullah movement, which operates with Syrian consent.

The key question, though, is how to get the two sides back to the negotiating table. Official talks broke off more than three years ago and did not resume under Mr Netanyahu who refused to accept the Syrian precondition for the resumption of talks - that Israel agree to a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights, the strategic mountain range it captured in the 1967 War.

Mr Barak has also refused to state publicly that he is prepared to concede the entire heights, although he has said that he is ready to make "painful compromises" in his quest to end conflict in the region. The sudden appetite of the supremely cautious Mr Assad for a speedy deal with Israel has been the subject of much conjecture. There have been suggestions that the deaths this year of Jordan's King Hussein and Morocco's King Hassan have made the Syrian leader acutely aware of his increasing years and of the need to step up efforts to groom his son, Basheer, as his successor.

By cutting a deal with Israel and getting back the Golan Heights - which were lost in 1967 when Mr Assad served as minister of defence - the Syrian leader hopes to hand over a stable regime to his son. Mr Assad also has his eye on a US aid package, and he knows that progress in talks with Israel could help him procure such assistance.

In order to kickstart talks, Israel has suggested that both sides agree to restart negotiations at the point they broke down in 1996 and then bring their differing interpretations to the table.

Until US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visits the region later this month, though, there is unlikely to be any breakthrough. But her visit could well signal the first real test of whether Mr Barak and Mr Assad are ready to get down to business.