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Hirsh Goodman: Cries in the Dark

Oh, no - not Yossi Beilin again. That incorrigible peacenik going and making deals with our Palestinian enemies behind our backs and, worse, stabbing us in the back. One would have thought that he would have learned his lesson at Oslo and if not, at least taken heed of what happened to Ehud Barak at the Camp David talks three years ago. But no, Beilin just can't let go.

And lucky for us. How refreshing -- in this climate of doom and gloom, or to paraphrase Abba Eban, of more tunnel at the end of the light, of a dearth of new ideas, of deepening hatred and of revenge becoming a primary philosophy on both sides -- that someone is at least making an attempt to think differently.

The Geneva Accord -- the document of understanding reached by a group of Israelis and Palestinians over a period of months, and of which Beilin was one of the main architects, signed in Jordan on October 12 -- is not a na�ve document. Nor were the participants in the two groups that worked on it at several locations over the past three months na�ve. It encompasses 50 pages and details, not avoids, the core issues: the refugee problem, the right of return, the Temple Mount and the final border between the two states. On the right of return and the Temple Mount, Israel's reservations and claims are taken into account. On territorial issues, the agreement becomes very difficult for Israel with even Ariel, a town of 18,000, being handed over. The document does see modifications to the 1967 border on the West Bank, but it compensates for these by broadening the Gaza Strip into Israel proper. Rather than repeating the pitfalls of the Oslo process and the reasons for Barak's dramatic offer going awry, it takes these failures into account and tries to avoid them.

For the first time since this conflict erupted three years and a month ago, excepting the Ayalon-Nusseibeh grass-roots petition for a settlement that has received 85,000 Israeli and 50,000 Palestinian signatures, the front pages of the papers have carried something other than just more of the same. The agreement has also sparked off a political debate that has long been dormant, there being no effective opposition to the Sharon government and the Likud. Even the prime minister himself addressed the subject when he told a Likud rally in Bat Yam that there were those on the left trying to overthrow the government while it fought terror. At least something other than targeted killings, roadblocks and incursions into Rafiah is on the public agenda.

The Geneva agreement, the pilots' letter of refusal to attack civilian targets which shocked the nation, the Ayalon-Nusseibeh initiative -- these are voices crying out in the dark for leadership. The Labor party is in ruins, its ranks filled with tired politicians, even the young among them. Meretz is pathetic and leaderless. Tommy Lapid's Shinui party is mainly interested that Israelis be allowed to eat pork if they want.

But Beilin can't deliver. He has less credibility with the Israeli public than Arafat. Avraham Burg, another of the Geneva team, seems to have missed his moment. Amram Mitzna, who also signed the agreement, is a political joke with no chance at all of ever getting reelected as Haifa mayor, let alone head of the Labor party. There just seems to be no one out there on the horizon other than Benjamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, Shaul Mofaz and Ehud Olmert, all of whom individually and collectively would not blow their noses with the Geneva document.

This does not mean, however, that there is not a large segment of the Israeli public, who despite the ongoing terror would not support someone responsible who espoused the basic lines of the Geneva document. People here, notwithstanding a very deep fear that it is actually impossible to ever genuinely reach reconciliation with the Palestinians, are tired, scared and see no salvation in carrying on with the seemingly endless current battle. They will be prepared to rally behind someone of integrity, with the correct political skills, someone clean and not being investigated by the police, in the hope that a different way may bring a different future. There are those who would go with Beilin's ideas but not his leadership and that is one of the few consistent statistics all polls have shown these past three years: up to 70 percent of Israelis want a peaceful solution to the conflict and are prepared to give up the necessary territory.

One of the most troubling things in Israel at present, apart from the lack of leadership outside the Likud, is how corrupt politics has become. If I had the money and the inclination, even I could become a member of the Knesset. We don't have to go into the Sharon family�s problems with the police at present, but it�s worth noting that the 31-year-old uneducated "port worker" who put Omri Sharon into the Knesset, by getting him the votes at Ashdod Port, drives a Jaguar, lives in a penthouse, is a special adviser to the director of the port and draws a salary as director of the port museum -- which has yet to be conceptualized, let alone built.

How any serious politicians can emerge in this mud bath is something the country will have to work out. Until then you can love Beilin or hate him, agree with him or not, think he is a maverick who causes more harm than good or the other way round. But at least he is trying to think outside the box, which is refreshing and could, potentially, change the nature of the current political debate. Or, more truthfully, monologue.