Many losing hope of peace BOTH ARABS AND ISRAELIS DISILLUSIONED AS `WAR' RETURNS TO LIFE

BY NOMI MORRIS AND BARBARA DEMICK

Knight Ridder

JERUSALEM -- Jonathan Livny, 57-year-old lawyer, gourmet cook, and longtime supporter of pro-peace governments in Israel, was numb with despair.

``The peace is dead. This is a war,'' he said of the rapid escalation of violence with the Palestinians and on the Lebanese border. ``We've been in wars before. But what really upsets me is that this has put an end to the concept among most Israelis that peace is possible.''

Sunday is the anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War -- considered Israel's last war of pure survival. Now, 27 years later, and just a few months after it seemed the parties were closer than ever to reaching a permanent peace, people are bracing for the possibility of a new war.

This weekend in Lebanon, Jordan and other parts of the Arab world, protesters were yelling ``death to Israel.'' And the Israeli army was on a war footing, preparing for the possibility of pounding Beirut and the Palestinian Authority if there is no improvement by Monday night on both fronts.

Livny, like many liberal Israelis and moderate Palestinians, feels the baseline of trust, the basis for peace in the Middle East, has been shattered.

``The peace process may not be clinically dead, but it's about to die,'' said Nabil Khatib, director of a Palestinian media center at Ramallah's Bir Zeit University. ``It's a depressing situation, especially because it's due not just to the tough issues, but to psychology.''

The last straw for Livny was the news Saturday evening that three Israeli soldiers had been spirited to Lebanon by Hezbollah guerrillas. That morning, Palestinians had dismantled a Jewish religious site in Nablus stone by stone after their security leaders broke an agreement with their Israeli counterparts to protect it.

Just days earlier, Israelis were stunned by the sight of Arab Israelis rioting in solidarity with their Palestinian compatriots, who were stoning and shooting Israeli soldiers.

And they were livid that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had yet to call for calm, even after more than 70 of his people had been killed in clashes with Israel forces.

``Those who said you cannot trust the Palestinians and that they don't want peace are right,'' said Livny. ``It has shattered every belief we have. That we can have peace with the Palestinians and that Arab-Israelis were a bridgehead.''

For his part, Khatib said Palestinian moderates have lost their partners among the peace movement inside Israel -- partners who have been largely silent this week as Israeli soldiers killed young people expressing their anger over an Israeli display of sovereignty over Jerusalem.

``The Palestinian population do not feel like they were the ones to start the violence,'' said Khatib. ``I have to be shot for throwing a stone?''

``Usually the leftist groups in Israel would stand up for conciliation in such a situation and criticize their government and call for calm,'' said Khatib. ``This time they stood in between and were helpless.''

Khatib believes that after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak opened up the sensitive issue of who would controls Jerusalem during peace negotiations last July, even moderate Palestinians and Israelis found their emotional bottom line: holding onto the city that for centuries has figured greatly in each people's identity.

And then there's the hate. Liberal Israelis are disillusioned by the depth of the hate they feel directed at them from both Palestinians and Arab Israelis. And they are shocked by the depth of hate within their own society toward Arabs after so many years of peaceful contacts.

``This week, I am learning that people really hate the Arabs,''' said Raz Chen, an academic and longtime peace supporter. ``Even people who I thought were liberal. You scratch a little and you hear all kinds of racist statements.''

Livny said this weekend was the first time since 1993 that he had given up on the dream of peace, and that he also had abandoned the conviction that the Arabs also believe that war is not a viable option.

``When the Yom Kippur War broke out, I wasn't surprised. Then we expected war,'' he remembered with a sigh.

``But this Yom Kippur, I was really expecting peace.''

Nabil Khatib says he, too, is disappointed -- disappointed that Barak and his supporters are acting like this is a battle they must win, instead of helping Arafat show his people that 70 deaths in 10 days weren't for nothing.

And he blames both Arafat and Barak for making critical mistakes at this late stage of the game.

``The peace process is like a man on the operating table having open-heart surgery,'' he said. ``The man's heart is Jerusalem. Any mistake is fatal.''

http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/world/docs/despair08.htm

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), October 08, 2000

Answers

I find it ironic that Barok must await word from Clinton -- one who loathes the military -- for directions on whether or not to launch a full scale attack on his attackers.

-- RogerT (rogerT@c-zone.net), October 08, 2000.

I am surprised OPEC has not demanded payment in euros, getting the great satin off their backs and frances ideas of settlement too!

-- Lee Blocher (cblocher@northernway.net), October 09, 2000.