Key to Syrian deal lies in hands of Israeli voters

JERUSALEM -- Israelis are already buzzing about whether Prime Minister Ehud Barak can win a referendum vote on a Golan Heights withdrawal in return for peace with Syria.

It's as if an Israeli-Syrian peace deal is already a done deal instead of just beginning.

On Wednesday, Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa started two days of talks in Washington -- the highest-level discussions the two sides have ever held.

Until last week's surprise announcement of the talks, Israelis believed Israel-Syrian negotiations were in limbo as they had been for the past 3-1/2 years.

Barak, it is now known, had spoken to President Clinton more than a dozen times on the phone in recent weeks about the prospects for reactivating the stalled Syrian track. Every conversation between the U.S. president and the Israeli premier was followed up by one between Clinton and Syrian President Hafez Assad.

The current drama focuses on the negotiating table -- but it is also being played out in the streets and squares of Israel's cities where a battle for the heart of the nation will be fought.

Earlier this week, the Knesset reflected the intense feelings Israelis have about the Golan, home to about 16,000 Israelis.

After some six hours of heated debate Monday, the Knesset narrowly backed Barak's plan to negotiate a peace treaty with Syria.

The vote of 47-31, with 24 abstentions, fell short of what Barak might have expected, given the broad-based coalition he had forged to advance the peace process.

Three parties in Barak's governing coalition withheld their support during Monday's vote: The fervently religious Shas Party abstained; the settler-backed National Religious Party and the immigrant-rights Yisrael Ba'Aliyah Party voted no.

Barak warned his fellow citizens against losing the opportunity to make peace with Syria.

"Squandering, heaven forbid, could cost us in blood."

Barak added that he believed the agreement would be overwhelmingly approved in the referendum.

Appealing to the Golan Heights residents, he said even they know "in their heart of hearts" that peace with Syria would come at a painful price.

During the Knesset session, several thousand Golan residents and supporters opposed to a Golan withdrawal demonstrated outside.

The protest was part of a campaign being waged by foes of any territorial concessions in the name of peace.

"We will not give up, and we will reach every home in Israel, every party, every Knesset member, and with them we will all fight and declare, 'We are not moving from the Golan,'" said Eli Malca, chairman of the Golan Residents Committee.

Weekend newspaper polls found the opposing camps fairly evenly matched.

A Gallup poll for the Israeli daily Ma'ariv showed 46 percent in favor and 46 percent opposed. A Dahaf Institute poll for Yediot Achronot showed nearly 60 percent said they supported a pullout from "nearly all" of the strategic plateau.

People on both sides confidently claim that once their campaign gets into gear, the referendum will begin to tilt their way.

Girding for the battle ahead, Barak is calling together the same team of Israeli and American pollsters and statisticians that helped him wrest the premiership from Benjamin Netanyahu in the spring.

On the right, the Likud and the other parties are seeking to put aside their differences in the interests of running a unified campaign and wooing undecided members in Barak's coalition, especially the National Religious Party, Yisrael Ba'Aliyah and Shas.

Some legislators on the right, like Zvi Hendel of the National Unity Party, are openly calling for Israeli Arabs to be barred from participating in the referendum.

"This is a matter for Am Yisrael" -- a term for Jews -- "to decide," Hendel said, "and nobody else."

Others refrain from saying so publicly, but privately they endorse that viewpoint.

One anti-withdrawal campaigner, former air force Commander Herzl Bodinger, said Sunday the referendum needs to be decided by "a massive majority...This is not a matter for a 1 percent margin."

Not surprisingly, such sentiments are roundly criticized by Barak's supporters.

But beneath their indignation, they know they will need a solid success in the referendum in order to make the decision "stick" -- both internationally and in terms of future domestic tranquility.

Meanwhile, Barak is facing the tactical question of whether to hold the referendum on an agreement with Syria simultaneously with one on a peace treaty with the Palestinians.

The premier is committed to reaching a framework agreement with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat on a final peace deal by mid-February.

That agreement is designed to spell out, in broad terms, the shape of the Palestinian entity -- and the related issue of Israeli withdrawals from West Bank lands.

That ambitious timetable appears to coincide with the hopes, expressed this week both in Jerusalem and Damascus, that Israel and Syria can reach an agreement within a few months.

At the core of the question facing Barak is whether holding the two referendums at the same time will enhance his prospects of achieving a convincing endorsement of each deal.

On the face of it, presumably not.

Over the weekend, movements representing Golan residents and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip agreed to work together in one massive anti-withdrawal campaign.

This would seem to spell huge popular and political resistance to the prime minister's peace policies.

This same settlers coalition, on the other hand, might galvanize the pro-peace forces in a way that two separate campaigns could never do.

Israelis who are dubious about ceding all of the Golan would be swept into Barak's camp by their deep-felt opposition to the West Bank settlers, who are widely seen as neo-messianic.

Similarly, people who are wary about handing back biblical sites in the West Bank might be drawn into supporting the peace package in the referendum because it means peace with Syria, Israel's last "strategic" enemy.

Just as Israelis had no idea that the breakthrough with Syria was imminent, so, too, no one genuinely knows what Barak is planning -- whether he intends to fuse the two peace tracks together into one referendum or would rather keep them staggered.