Barak’s money-for-peace plan brings ridicule, little else so far

JERUSALEM -- Two "down payments" that Ehud Barak offered to make this week have provided political pundits with the raw material for a series of jokes at the expense of the increasingly beleaguered prime minister.

Barak has promised his largest coalition partner, the fervently religious Shas Party, a multimillion-dollar payment in the form of additional state financing for the party's financially troubled education network.

And to the Palestinians, Barak has promised to turn over three villages just outside the Jerusalem city limits as an advance on a West Bank withdrawal that Israel is required to make under previously signed agreements.

In both cases, the premier hopes the down payments will keep the recipients content, at least in the medium term, and thereby keep his government and his peace policy intact.

The two moves, which are intricately linked, exemplify former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's purported observation that "Israel has no foreign policy -- only domestic politics."

In return for the funding, Shas is expected to throw its support behind Barak in upcoming Knesset votes on the peace process, particularly when it comes to handing over control of Abu Dis, Al-Azariya and Sawahara -- the villages that comprise Barak's down payments to the Palestinians.

The Palestinians may turn Abu Dis into the capital of a future state.

Barak's offers, however, may look better on paper than when put into practice.

Shas, which holds 17 pivotal Knesset seats, has so far given no guarantee that it will indeed support the prime minister's peace moves if it gets the money it is demanding.

Moreover, Shas' rival in the coalition, the secular Meretz Party, gave notice that it will secede from the government -- though not yet from the coalition -- if the Shas schools receive more money.

Meretz leader Yossi Sarid, who heads the Education Ministry, insists that the proposed payment would betray all the government's previous efforts at getting the Shas school system to operate efficiently and with financial transparency.

For their part, the Palestinians are making it clear that the three villages will by no means mitigate their demand that Israel hand over, in the next troop withdrawal, all of the West Bank aside from settlements, eastern Jerusalem and Israel-specified security locations.

The Palestinians maintain that their demand conforms to the letter with the original Oslo accords. These agreements, they say, call for Israel to hand over some 90 percent of the territory in advance of a final peace agreement, which the two sides hope to conclude by September.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian Authority would not accept any Israeli advance on the next redeployment without first knowing the total scope of the planned pullback.

Palestinian officials also cried foul when Israel announced its intention to build 174 new housing units in a Jewish settlement near Jerusalem. Palestinian officials called the plans for Ma'aleh Adumim a betrayal of the peace process.

Negotiations, both on the West Bank withdrawal and on an outline of a final peace accord, reopened Sunday in Eilat and were due to stretch into next week with the active participation of U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross.

But there was little optimism on either side that these talks could bridge the remaining gaps.

After joining the talks on Wednesday, Ross said it may take up to another two months to put the outline together.

"I would say that over the next six to eight weeks, we are going to see if there is a potential and a need to make big decisions to reach a framework agreement," Ross told reporters.