Former Israeli ambassador sees link between elections and peace process

By Annie Litvak '02

During a busy week marked by prominent visitors to the Cornell campus, Itamar Rabinovich, president of Tel Aviv University and former Israeli ambassador to the United States, gave a talk April 11 in Goldwin Smith Hall on "Arab-Israeli relations in the Aftermath of the U.S. and Israeli Elections."

Itamar Rabinovitch, right, A.D. White professor-at-large and president of Tel Aviv University, lectures in Uris Hall April 12 while Cornell Professor Judith Reppy, associate director of the Peace Studies Program, looks on. Richard Killen/University Photography

Here during Wednesday and Thursday of last week in his role as a Cornell A.D. White Professor-at-Large, Rabinovich last appeared on campus in 1998. He served as Israel's ambassador during the administration of former Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin. Since his retirement from the government, Rabinovich has written several books on the Arab-Israeli conflict, including The Road Not Taken, Early Arab-Israeli Negotiations (Oxford 1991), which won the Jewish Book Award.

In his lecture, which touched on issues of the peace process between Israel and both the Palestinians and Syria, Rabinovich stressed the importance of American politics in relation to Middle East over the past few decades. "(U.S.) foreign policy can be examined by its relationship to domestic policy," he said. He went on to chronicle the effects of previous U.S. election results on the peace process. After the breakthrough of the Camp David accords during the Carter administration, a newly elected President Ronald Reagan wanted to move himself and his country away from such intimate involvement with the conflict in the Middle East, Rabinovich said. "The 1980s, as a whole, were not a good period for the peace process," he said, attributing some of the responsibility to U.S. foreign policy of that time.

During the Bush administration, the peace process was revived in 1991 at Madrid, he said. The Bush/(James) Baker approach found its way into the Clinton administration, which prioritized the issue of the peace process enough to ensure its decline in the administration of George W. Bush.

Israeli elections and the peace process also have maintained a very close interdependency, argued Rabinovich. "There is a profound difficulty facing every Israeli prime minister in leading both the Israeli political system and Arab-Israeli relations," he said. He talked about the effect of the frequent passing of power from one Israeli administration to another and its costs to peace process and the Arab-Israeli relationship. In his discussions of efforts by recent Prime Minister Ehud Barak to reach an accord with the Palestinians and Syria, Rabinovich pointed out that Barak's positions as well as his political career became largely entangled with last year's looming elections.

"As of July 2000, when Barak went to Camp David, a very intimate and perilous linkage was established between Israeli politics and the peace process," said Rabinovich, adding that Barak knew that "he was negotiating on borrowed time."

Rabinovich said current Arab-Israeli relations are further complicated by such factors as a segmented Israeli government, the inflexibility of political systems of many Arab countries, the variable concern and participation of the United States in the peace process and the mixed sentiments of citizens.

"When you deal with history, you have the benefit of perspective," Rabinovich said, leading into a discussion of the theory of historical ripeness, which suggests that conflicts may or may not be ready for resolution, depending on various circumstances of that particular time.

When asked about his predictions for the future of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Rabinovich seemed hesitant to assign much hope for an Arafat-Sharon peace treaty.

"Arafat belongs to the desert generation," said Rabinovich. "Maybe Arafat is about struggle; he may not have it in him to sign an agreement," he added.

Concluding his speech on a less than triumphant note, Rabinovich declared that "the war of attrition goes on."