			Foreign Correspondent

		      Inside Track On World News
	    By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
		 Eric Margolis <emargolis@lglobal.com>

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LIKUD'S VICTORY ROCKS THE ARAB WORLD
by
Eric Margolis  24 June 1996


First, the good news: Israel's new prime minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu, has finally cobbled together a cabinet dominated,
at least for now,  by moderates. .   

These include Foreign Minister David Levy,  Finance Minister
Dan Meridor, and Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai.  All
are capable, sensible, middle of the road men. This will somewhat
reassure Israel's worried patrons in Washington, and its
alarmed Arab neighbors. Both fear the rightwing Likud would
kill the infant Arab-Israeli peace crafted by former PM
Shimon Peres, and return to its expansionist Greater Israel
policies of yore. 

Now, the bad news.   Gen. Ariel Sharon is back.  Sharon, a
brilliant, ruthless  general, led Israel's disastrous 1982
invasion of Lebanon, in which an estimated 10,000 civilians 
were killed. He oversaw the massive shelling of Beirut by
Israeli guns.  Sharon was widely censured in Israel for his
role in the massacre of 1,000 Palestinian civilians at
Shatilla and Sabra refugee camps. 

Netanyahu created a new super-ministry for Sharon that him
czar of West Bank and Gaza roads, and the nation's powerful
military industrial complex.  Extremely very bad news for
Palestinians,  for it gives Sharon the means to expand
Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories.  As 
Israel's new, super Road Warrior,  Sharon is probably
itching to pave over all the Arab towns  and village in the
West Bank and Gaza. 

The new agriculture minister, former Gen. Rafael Eitan, is
another Greater Israel hardliner who gained notoriety by
calling Arabs `cockroaches.'  Various little ayatollahs from 
Jewish fundamentalist religious parties included in the new
Likud coalition will make life miserable for  Jews and Arabs
alike.

Netanyahu says he wants peace, and that negotiations should
continue with the Arabs, `with no preconditions.'  Yet in
the next breathe he vows Palestinians will never get their
own state, or  Jerusalem. Israel will  not withdraw from the
Golan Heights. Jewish settlements in the Occupied
Territories will be expanded.

Much of this may be political blarney, something to which
Netanyahu is no stranger. In the Mideast, you always begin
negotiations by making outrageous demands. Netanyahu's
policies may turn out to be rather more flexible than they
now appear. Israel is under intense pressure by the world
community to stick to the Oslo Peace Agreement signed by the
outgoing Labor Party.

Even so, Netanyahu's  seeming repudiation of the peace
accords with the PLO, and his reassertion of Likud's
expansionist hard line, is a devastating  blow to Yasser
Arafat and to the moderate Arab states that have been
gingerly beginning to engage in peace with Israel.

Last Fall, over 80% of Palestinians in the Occupied
Territories voted in  a referendum to back Arafat's peace
deal with Israel. But now, half of all Israelis have just
voted against the peace process by backing Likud.  This
leaves Arafat, who is accused of being a traitor and Israeli
stooge by hardliners of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, way, way
out on a shaky limb.  The defeat of Shimon Peres made 
Arafat terribly vulnerable to his Arab and Jewish enemies,
with no room for manoeuvre, unable to advance or retreat. 

If Likud unleashes `Bulldozer' Sharon to resumes building
settlements of the West Bank, Arafat will probably be
finished, along with fellow Palestinian moderates.  Even
strong pressure by Washington on Israel to be nice to Arafat
may not save the peace - nor, for that matter, his head.  


Likud's victory has also stuck other US-backed Arab leaders
in an embarrassing, dangerous position.  After half a
century of both genuine and put-on hostility,  Arab leaders
tiptoed out of the closet after the Oslo Accords to begin
making real peace with Israel.  Morocco and Egypt took the
lead, deepening diplomatic, commercial and social relations
with Israel.  The Gulf States, notably Oman and Bahrain,
followed under the cover offered by Cairo and Rabat.  The
Arab masses, however, watched sceptically, or rejected the
peace their leaders were promoting.

King Hussein, long a discreet ally of Israel, finally showed
his true colors,  travelling there and exchanging
ambassadors.  Even the cautious Saudis began playing footsie
with the Israelis, talking business deals and ways to
contain mutual enemies, Iraq and Iran.

Until Likud's victory, the US had seemed finally about to  
consolidate its Mideast Raj by getting America's squabbling
Israeli and Arab clients to cooperate against radical Arabs
and Iran.  Now, it may be back to square one for everyone. 

America's Arab allies are now extremely vulnerable, like
Arafat, to charges they betrayed the Palestinian cause and 
Arab World by selling-out in a bogus peace with Israel.  They met
in an emergency summit last weekend to try to concoct some face-
saving response to Likud's victory.  No new ideas were
forthcoming. The participants left the summit looking glum and
perplexed.  




The US-supported oligarchies of the Arab World all face mounting
internal challenge by Islamic, nationalist, and democratic
forces.  Their safest course is a fast retreat back to the
old confrontation with Israel.  Meanwhile, Syria's Hafez
Asad, the wiliest of Arab leaders, who refused to make a
disadvantageous peace with Israel, is sneering `I told you
so's' at his glum, brother Arabs.  

Washington is desperate trying to get Israel to at least
give the appearance of flexibility, and keep talking peace,
in order to save the thrones of its badly frightened Arab
allies.  

Arab and Iranian radicals, however, are cheering  the
Likud's return.  Extremists on both sides need each other.
Better honest hate than phony love, they say.

copyright   Eric Margolis 1996

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