A liberal rabbi's hope amid deep Israeli pessimism

There is a paradox in Israeli attitudes towards the Middle East peace process. Opinion polls show the Labour Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, at almost the lowest point in his popularity and bound to lose an election to the right-wing Likud Party, which opposes the current peace process. But when asked whether they want the process to continue very solid majorities of Israelis say they do.

That difference is what has emboldened the left-liberal peace constituency in Israel, according to Rabbi Michael Melchior, minister for the diaspora in the Barak government. In an interview during a recent visit to Dublin he explained that he and those who think like him have been "willing to make more compromises and deeper ones in the belief that if the Israeli public sees there is a partner and the prospect of a long peace in the region they will respond." While single components of the process might be strenuously opposed, such as Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, if they are presented as part of a wider package "to bring the conflict to an end and peace without battlefields and the graves that go along with it" the picture looks very different, he says.

But it is precisely that confidence to drive the process forward that has been deeply affected by the violence of the last four weeks. "It has been a tremendous disappointment to the peace camp in Israel. I have never seen the national mood so gloomy," says Rabbi Melchior. It has given the right-wing opponents of the process the opportunity to confirm their belief that if guns were given to the Palestinians they would be turned back on the Israelis eventually.

The same point is made repeatedly about Yasser Arafat. He cannot be trusted as a partner, according to the Israeli right wing. The willingness of Mr Barak and Mr Rabin to engage him in negotiations was based on an alternative interpretation - that there was no alternative and that Mr Arafat could deliver a peace agreement. That assumption is now in tatters.

This helps to explain the vehemence with which left-liberal Israelis are inclined to denounce Mr Arafat, whom they believe has betrayed them. They cannot understand why this intifada should have been launched at this stage and assume the Palestinian leader controlled its timing and fury.

"It is a crazy uprising. There is no reason for it. You can't do what you want by breaking the rules of the Oslo game," Rabbi Melchior says. His only hope is that it will be seen as the last convulsion before the birth of peace, based on what was so nearly agreed at the Camp David negotiations last July. But that optimism is daily far more difficult to sustain without an end to the violence.

Michael Melchior is that rara avis, a left-liberal Orthodox rabbi. His family has been rabbis for eight generations, and he was Chief Rabbi of Norway for 20 years. He was elected last year to the Israeli parliament and asked by Mr Barak to join the cabinet. This was to counter the usual identification of orthodox Jewry with the right wing and to create a political bridge towards more secular Israelis. He believes religion has a real role to play in Middle East peacemaking - not by interpreting its conflicts as religious, when they are national, but by asserting that "the spiritual realm is not a matter of my God against yours, but on the basis that there is one God and it is possible to find solutions together". This may sound utopian when confronted with the sheer hatred and anti-Semitism unleashed over recent weeks. Many Muslims believe the Jews want to destroy their mosques after Gen Sharon's provocative walk on the Temple Mount.

He has no time for Sharon and strongly cautioned Mr Barak against agreeing to give him a veto on the peace process - "we cannot give up on peace. We don't have that option open to us". But he is fearful indeed of elections, which most feel a Likud led by Sharon or Netanyahu is bound to win. Barak's deal with the right-wing Shas party this week has bought him perhaps another month to explore whether negotiations can be got back on track. There are very few now who believe that is possible among Israelis who supported the Oslo process.

An example of this deep pessimism is found in an article published last week by Shlomo Avineri in the International Herald Tribune. A well-known Israeli political scientist, he was also director-general at the foreign ministry some years ago. He says there is only one solution - to abandon the Oslo process, which is dead as conceived. "There is no meaningful way for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to resume . . . The failure of Yasser Arafat to restrain his forces disqualifies him totally in the eyes of most Israelis as a partner. That may be regrettable but it is a fact."

He thinks only one option remains for Israel: to withdraw unilaterally from most of the Palestinian-occupied territories in the West Bank that are still under Israeli rule, with the Jerusalem status quo remaining as it is. A border, fortified and clearly delineated by Israel, would separate it from this Palestinian entity or state. No Palestinian workers would be allowed to pass into Israel. Such a unilateral programme might stop the violence, Avineri argues, and in a year or two negotiations based on the new status quo could commence.

It is a bleakly hard-nosed approach, although it stops short of the further measures reportedly being prepared by the Israeli army. These would cut off water and electricity to the West Bank and Gaza.

Israelis are prone to paranoia and rapid mood swings. This deep pessimism could conceivably shift if circumstances change. Other voices have been heard questioning the whole management of the peace process during the closing stages of the Clinton presidency.

Reports in Washington tell of a debate within the administration and the parties to the Camp David talks during the summer as to whether it was premature then to push for such a comprehensive package of agreements. Arafat said he was not ready for it at that stage, that he had still to convince his people such compromises were necessary, especially on Jerusalem. But Barak's political survival and Clinton's timetable dictated the pace.

Since the talks broke on that question the criticism bears further examination in the light of October's traumatic events. Sovereignty-sharing is a difficult concept at the best of times. Neither Israeli nor Palestinian slow learners had a Sunningdale precedent to enlighten them. It may well be up to new mediators, including the Europeans, to broker a new process in the years to come. Whoever does it will have to return to the hopeful perspective on the conflict represented by Rabbi Melchior, however bleak is their outlook at present.