Clinton and Israel

President Clinton has headed home from Gaza to battle against the impeachment process

President Clinton has headed home from Gaza to battle against the impeachment process. After a weekend visit to the Middle East, he has succeeded in getting the Palestinians to renounce their pledge in the PLO Covenant to destroy the state of Israel, but he has failed to get the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, to adhere to the Wye River agreement signed only weeks ago.

Mr Clinton's visit ended with two significant engagements. As a guest of the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, he visited the Church of the Nativity - a stark reminder at this time of the year of the degree to which Israelis and Palestinians alike need to heed the message of peace. As Mr Netanyahu's guest, he visited Masada - another reminder that Mr Netanyahu is holding on to office only through the support of politicians to his right who will never agree to ceding land for the sake of peace.

Over the past few days, Mr Netanyahu had two choices. He could have opted for the long-term prospect of lasting and real peace with Israel's closest neighbours after a 50-year struggle or he could have opted for the short-term gains of shoring up his government ahead of next week's confidence vote in the Knesset. Mr Netanyahu has opted for the short-term gain of appeasing critics further to his right. Inevitably, another cabinet crisis will loom in the weeks or months ahead, and he may then have to face his responsibility of having failed both to provide his country with political stability and his region with the peace it so justly deserves.

Mr Netanyahu has turned his back on those sectors of Israeli society urging him to make peace with the Palestinians. In his last bid to cling to power, he has failed to provide his people with the leadership so desperately needed at the moment, and has walked into the trap set for him by the far-right parties in his coalition.

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But if the Netanyahu government has failed to choose peace, the US has made its peace with the Palestinians and is now committed to steering them safely to independent statehood. Mr Netanyahu denies that he hardened his position in the last few days or that he has entered a period of confrontation with Washington. But as he was reminded at his news conference yesterday, his tough new stance may mean he has sacrificed Israel's special relationship with the United States for his own political considerations.

The vast majority of Israelis recognise the inevitability of a Palestinian state. And, in the long term, Israel can only benefit from a more stable Palestinian entity next door. That stability can be achieved only by halting new settlements and by trading occupied land on the path to permanent peace.

It now appears, however - despite Mr Clinton's assertion that the peace process is back on track - that these goals can only be reached after the inevitable collapse of the Netanyahu government and fresh elections in which the Israeli people themselves express a clear desire for peace.