Adam Keller is editor of the alternative news journal, The Other Israel, which contains analysis of the Israeli peace movement. Contact: PO Box 2542, Holon, Israel, 58125. Or email: otherisr@actcom.co.il | http://members.tripod.com/~other_Israel/

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat are playing brinkmanship. If Arafat does not get the bare minimum he needs in the peace negotiations, he will be driven to a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) of a Palestinian state in November, or, perhaps, in January 2001 - despite all the risks. And it is also a dangerous time for Barak: if he finds himself implementing a right-wing agenda and alienating his Labour voters, his chances of survival are very low.

I still hope that - out of Barak's need for political survival - there will be no UDI, but a negotiated agreement, which is very possible if the two sides overcome the emotional mine of Jerusalem. The most important question is: what will UDI would mean on the ground? The Palestinians have now a series of enclaves, surrounded by Israeli settlements, military camps and roads, with passage between them controlled and hampered by Israel, and liable to be cut off at Israel's pleasure. If a Palestinian state does not significantly improve this situation, most Palestinians will not consider it worth very much - and rightly so.

After brinkmanship

So any UDI will most likely include a claim over the whole of the territories occupied in the 1967 war, including the settlements, East Jerusalem, and the assertion that Palestine will control its own borders, and no longer - as at present - tolerate Israeli border controls. The question is, what will Labour Prime Minister Barak do in the face of unilateral Palestinian action (he has threatened to retaliate by annexing "settlement blocks", and closing down the entry points to Israel - which means depriving some 120,000 Palestinian workers of a livelihood and blocking movement between the West Bank and Gaza). What could the Palestinians do if this happens? One tactic would be for crowds of unarmed civilians to march at Israeli settlements or checkpoints - a very old Palestinian idea, and now given new popularity because of Hizbullah success in using similar tactics in Lebanon, last May.

If the army shoots at them, Barak loses politically, both internationally and on the internal Israeli scene. If the army does not shoot, then the crowd breaks through. (If Palestinians march on a settlement, the army will certainly shoot.)

This depends, of course, on Arafat's ability to mobilise the Palestinian masses. There is certainly some disillusionment with Arafat, due to the corruption of Palestinian Authority officials, human rights violations by the Palestinian security services, and, especially, the economic stagnation. Still, I think that if Arafat calls upon the people to confront the occupation, they will come out in massive numbers. The other possibility is a major military clash.

There is the force of 40,000 armed Palestinians known as the Palestinian Police - in fact a Palestinian army. It has light arms, some armoured vehicles and (perhaps) anti-tank missiles. There are also several militias, including the Tanzim, part of Arafat's Fatah party, which has several thousand militant and highly motivated fighters. And of course there is [the Islamic fundamentalist group] Hamas, with its own organisational structure, and hidden arms caches. They will certainly join in any confrontation with the Israeli army, but will, of course, have their own agenda.

Clearly the Palestinians do not have enough power to be any kind of match to the Israeli army in pure military terms - and especially if the Israeli side uses tanks and helicopter gunships. But the Palestinians could be the winners politically.

The idea of UDI developed in the period of Netanyahu's right wing Likud government (1996-99), under conditions of an Israeli government highly unpopular both abroad, and among left-leaning Israelis. The political model is the fighting and confrontations of September 1996, when 16 Israelis and more than a hundred Palestinians were killed, but which were counted as a clear Palestinian political victory. Netanyahu withdrew from Hebron (or most of Hebron, anyway) shortly afterwards.

That was achieved because the confrontation was widely understood as being caused by Israeli provocation: there was wide international condemnation, including from the US, and very vocally from the Europeans; there were two big peace rallies in Tel-Aviv, both with participants in the tens of thousands, plus many smaller protests; Labour's Shimon Peres put the blame firmly on Netanyahu. The fact that we now have Barak, a Labour PM, makes a big difference. This was shown especially in the armed confrontations between Israelis and Palestinians in May this year, which ended - politically - in a draw because the fight broke out just as Barak was about to give up the town of Abu Dis, so the Palestinians were perceived - even by some prominent Israeli doves - as "ungrateful".

Barak's main strategic aim at Camp David and in its aftermath was to deprive the Palestinians of the UDI option by showing willingness to compromise in Jerusalem, as - truly - no earlier Israeli Prime Minister ever did. He offered meagre terms over Jerusalem, which Arafat could not accept. And so Arafat was pushed into the position of being the intransigent one. Barak got the open and outspoken support of Clinton, who threatened to cut off aid to the Palestinians if they declared UDI.

So, the optimal scenario for UDI, from the Palestinian point of view, would be: the Israeli Peace Camp supporting, with big demonstrations and protests by soldiers' mothers; Europe and Japan diplomatically recognising a Palestinian state; the US at least equivocating. What Arafat could have expected, had they declared UDI on 13 September, would have been: the US in all-out opposition, mobilising all its diplomatic and economic resources against the Palestinians; Europe and Japan at best equivocating and quite possibly opposing; the Israeli peace camp divided, with some groups supporting (Gush Shalom and Hadash), and the more mainstream ones, like Peace Now and Meretz, perhaps torn down the middle, and the Labour Party - except some dovish dissidents - supporting Barak in a war against the Palestinians.

So, it was very prudent of Arafat to wait a bit longer. The next possible date for UDI is 15 November, by which time the US elections will be over. There will be time for the "intransigent" stamp to be removed from the Palestinians - the postponement of the UDI itself has helped to create a more "moderate" image.

And, perhaps most important of all, the longer Barak hesitates and fails to get the agreement with the Palestinians which he promised his voters, the more his power base - in the Knesset (parliament), in the Labour Party and on the grassroots level - is eroded.