After more than a year focused almost exclusively on securing a Mideast peace treaty, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has spent the last five weeks preparing for the possibility of failure.
As he goes into his meeting with President Clinton in New York on Wednesday, Barak already has begun to craft a fallback position to fight for his political survival in case Clinton fails to bring the Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.
After suffering one crisis after another at home in recent weeks, Barak took a first step Sunday toward shoring up support among his left-wing supporters by reining in the influence of Orthodox religious officials in Israelis’ daily lives.
That step was to abolish the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which until recently controlled a half-billion-dollar budget under the ultra-Orthodox Shas party. Barak also has promised to break the monopoly that prohibits non-Orthodox marriages in Israel and to set up Israel’s first constitution.
The Israeli media has dubbed his civil-reform campaign a “secular revolution,” while Barak’s opponents called it a panicked desperation move.
Barak also has been making public overtures to the right-wing Likud party, saying he would ask it to join his left-wing Labor Party in a government of national unity if the peace talks fizzle.
Likud opposes Barak’s proposed peace concessions to the Palestinians but would support his domestic efforts to restrict religious influence. And some believe that party leader Ariel Sharon would rather join a Barak government than face a challenge from former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for party leadership if new elections were called.
Barak’s moves, along with a populist sales-tax cut that is saving Israelis thousands of shekels on refrigerators and other purchases, are seen as preparations for possible new elections in case there is no breakthrough in the peace process.
A split in the prime minister’s ruling coalition over the peace talks has left him with only 42 votes in the 120-member Knesset, or parliament. The Knesset is in recess until the end of October, but analysts believe it would have the votes to declare early elections soon after that.
Barak’s maneuvers also serve to put pressure on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, in effect warning him of how quickly the door will shut on the possibility of a peace deal if no agreement is reached soon.
While Barak’s entourage was reportedly pessimistic as it departed for the New York meeting with Clinton, the prime minister insisted this week that a peace deal has a “50-50 chance.”
“This is not a sign that the peace process with the Palestinians is over,” said Michael Melchior, one of Barak’s Cabinet ministers. “Barak very much wants to complete it. Now he has just had a chance to put these other things on the agenda.”
Barak’s domestic troubles began when his coalition crumbled on the eve of July’s Camp David summit with Clinton and Arafat. His woes were compounded when his chief of staff, Chaim Mendel-Shaked, and another top aide quit last month, the latter declaring publicly that Barak was running the country like a “banana republic.”
Barak had handpicked the two men to work closely with him because they once served together in Israel’s most elite army unit.
The prime minister also faces soured relations with his own Labor Party, whose officials have bristled at his attempts to reduce its influence. One party comrade, Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, has refused to rule out a challenge to Barak’s leadership before new elections.
And Barak received much criticism for surprising even his own staff with his civil reform program, not long after he was accused of having caved in to the Orthodox community by endorsing a plan that would maintain military exemptions for yeshiva students.
In response, the former army general and war hero has begun acting more like the politician he says he is not.
His office is trumpeting successes such as his decision to pull Israeli troops out of Lebanon and ending the diplomatic “isolation” Israel fell into under Netanyahu’s government.
Acknowledging his tough predicament in a newspaper interview last week, Barak attributed some of his recent actions to the decision by Shas and other religious parties to drop their support for the peace process and to drop out of his coalition.
“The past 100 days have proven that this government was elected in order to make difficult decisions and that it has not shied away from them,” Barak said this week.
Barak’s fortunes could see a serious turnaround if the meetings in New York on Wednesday lead to a second summit and a peace deal. Polls continue to show a majority of Israelis support the peace process.
