But while Sharon’s commanding lead over Barak has removed some of the political suspense, the effect of the Feb. 6 election on the shaky Mideast peace process has yet to be determined. Alon Pinkas, the Consul General of Israel in New York, spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Arlene Getz about the election. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Is Likud leader Ariel Sharon going to win this election?
Alon Pinkas: Judging by polls it looks as if he is going to win.
Any chance the polls could be wrong?
There’s always the chance of the polls being wrong. But nonetheless there have been many polls [showing Sharon in the lead].
Israeli newspapers are so certain of a Sharon victory they are already looking at what they call “The Day After.” What will happen in the days after Sharon takes office?
Only in Israel do newspapers write about tomorrow and not report about yesterday. That practically sums up my answer. Assuming that Sharon wins, you will see him attempt to form a national unity government-he has pledged to do so repeatedly. He will be under pressure from his right-wing partners not to do so. The question is what will happen in [Barak’s] Labor Party, [which will] be under two competing sets of pressures. The one is to join such a government; the second is not to join. This is a very simple explanation because we don’t know exactly what politicians will say to each other come Wednesday.
There has been some speculation that there could be a last-minute breakthrough in the peace negotiations; some sort of surprise that could turn the tide for Barak. Is that possible?
No, it’s not. You’re looking at 24 hours before the election. We’ve had enough time to negotiate peace in the last seven years, certainly in the last year-and-a-half and the last six or seven months. If it has not produced any agreement until now-and it hasn’t, unfortunately, because the Palestinians seemed to be intransigent or reluctant when push came to shove-I don’t see one [happening] between now and tomorrow.
Ariel Sharon is seen as a hardliner; a hawk who led Israel into Lebanon in 1982 and who triggered the current spate of violence with his visit to a Jerusalem shrine last year. Will he be able to be a credible negotiator for peace?
I don’t think [a Sharon win] will affect the peace process.
Certainly not in the immediate aftermath of his electoral victory. There are two main reasons for this. One is that the peace process until now depended on the Palestinians. Israel has made extensive inroads into the negotiating process and has at least expressed a willingness to make far-reaching compromises. That has not been met positively by the Palestinians. So it’s really not up to Mr. Sharon or Mr. Barak. The onus is on the Palestinians. I’m looking at an interview Mr. Sharon gave to a French weekly, Le Figaro, yesterday. His peace plan does not depart that much from what the current government has been proposing in terms of a Palestinian state. It’s really up to Arafat.
Sharon’s critics argue that his peace plans are, at best, interim solutions-that they’re not designed for long-term solutions.
I think [Sharon] believes that an end-of-the-conflict kind of agreement is unattainable at this point and that we should therefore opt for prolonged interim agreements. That’s a valid and legitimate approach to the process. Whether or not the Palestinians will find that acceptable is something else. But I urge you not to look at the plans that candidates make public before elections, but rather judge them by their policies once they are in office. That applies to Mr. Sharon, but also to Mr. Barak. Whoever wins, look at the policy that he formulates and implements, not at the plan that was used before the elections.
Does that mean we should discount the campaign promises and proposals? Will a new political rabbit be pulled out of a hat on Wednesday?
No, I’m not saying not to look at [what they’re saying], because that provides some kind of indication of what they plan to do. What I’m saying is don’t prejudge anyone by his pre-election pledges on the peace process. Again, this is for two reasons: one because it mostly depends on Arafat, and not on a clinically formulated peace plan that looks fine, logical and rational on paper. And number two, because once you’re in office the pressures, the constraints, the limitations are enormous. Things tend to change.
This election is only to elect a prime minister, not a new ruling party. Are Labor and Likud likely to form a unity government after this?
Yes. Mr. Sharon has pledged to form one, and Mr. Barak has pledged to try and form one in the event that he wins.
What happens to Barak if he loses? Will he stay on as leader of his party?
That’s a good question; you’re going to have to ask him.
Will he have a moral obligation to resign if he’s shown to have lost the support of the public?
I’m sure such an argument will be made by some of his would-be successors inside Labor. But he’s not under any legal obligation to do so.
It’s been only 19 months since Barak was elected to office with a solid majority. Why has he fallen so far so fast?
There are going to be Ph.D dissertations on this, and you expect me to answer it in two or three lines? Let me try. I think that the extent to which he committed himself to the peace process, on the one hand, was supported by the public, but not necessarily by his coalition partners who had left the coalition as a result of this. And the lack of reciprocity on Arafat’s side; the fact that the Palestinians responded to this peace advance by the use of violence damaged Mr. Barak’s credibility in the public eye very much.
Former President Bill Clinton recently gave an interview on Israeli television that was seen as an indirect endorsement of Barak. Will that help Barak?
Although Mr. Clinton is a very popular figure in Israel, I doubt he changed the decision of any Israeli individual to vote this or that way.
What about Israel’s 1 million Arab citizens? They’re most likely to support Barak, and one of his final campaign messages was a plea for them not to sit out this election.
They haven’t made any decision to boycott the elections, but the political leadership of the Arab community in Israel-which constitutes 17 percent of the population-has urged them not to vote for two reasons. One is that they have been ill-treated by the Barak government-specifically the shooting deaths of 13 Arab-Israelis during the October riots. They blame the government and the police for instigating [that]. The second is that as far as they are concerned they see no difference between both candidates. From their point of view, they are discriminated against. But in terms of the opportunity and privilege they have as probably the only Arabs living in a democracy-I think it is a wrong decision not to vote. But that’s entirely up to them as a community and as individuals.
Obviously the subject of the peace negotiations have dominated this election. Did any domestic issues come up?
Unfortunately not. Some of the domestic issues, such as economic disparities, social justice, unemployment, state and religion, have been neglected in this election campaign as they have been in the last seven or eight election campaigns.
