Editorials
Thursday, September 5, 1996
Israeli premier
restarts Mideast peace process
THE inevitable has happened. Israel's new conservative prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has swallowed his objections and sat down with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to restart the stalled peace talks. The meeting ended months of stalemate and deteriorating relations following Netanyahu's election victory last May over Shimon Peres.
The Israeli premier owed his triumph to his criticism of the former government's deals with Arafat and his vow to take a tougher line against Arab terrorism. Having denounced Arafat as a terrorist, Netanyahu had until now refused to meet with him, although he never ruled out such a meeting.
Meanwhile the Palestinians have grown restive because of the Israeli leader's approval of new Jewish settlements in the West Bank and his stalling on a withdrawal of troops from the town of Hebron, the only Palestinian community still under Israeli occupation. In addition, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been kept from their jobs in Israel by a ban imposed after a series of terrorist incidents.
Despite Netanyahu's aversion to Arafat, he has evidently concluded that there is no real alternative to dealing with the PLO chief if the peace process is to survive. Indeed, Netanyahu may have deliberately delayed the meeting as a way of expressing his reluctance to his Israeli constituents while knowing that the session could not be put off indefinitely.
These tactics could pay off by lowering expectations. Everyone expects the new Israeli government to be harder for the Palestinians to deal with, and the result may be that they will demand less. Still, there may be areas of agreement with Netanyahu, and Arafat is shrewd enough to find them. He knows that his political survival depends on it. Arafat may also move to deal with Netanyahu's complaints that he has not complied with his commitments under the agreements already concluded with the previous government.
The result may be that the peace process can proceed - more cautiously, perhaps, but on a more solid footing in terms of Israeli public opinion, which remains distrustful of the Palestinians. The opportunity is there if Netanyahu and Arafat are equal to it.
President Clinton, who unwisely made no secret of his support for Peres in the May election, may have secretly prodded Netanyahu to meet with Arafat. U.S. backing remains essential to the success of the peace process.
Payments to OHA
GOVERNOR Cayetano's decision to suspend payments to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs of a share of revenues from airport landing fees underlines his determination to invalidate the law on which the payments are based. Cayetano previously expressed deep concern over the effects on state finances of a Circuit Court decision that the law requires the state to pay OHA 20 percent of the revenues from landing fees, duty-free sales and public housing rentals on ceded land.
There is no doubt that state programs would be severely affected if payments to OHA were increased as required by the Circuit Court.
Legal immigrants
LEGAL immigrants struggling to survive in their new homeland are bracing themselves for a harsh dose of politics. Last month President Clinton signed welfare legislation that will curtail benefits to legal residents who are not citizens. Social service officials report that the consequences could be catastrophic in some areas.
Discriminating against legal immigrants in social welfare programs is unacceptable. These measures unfairly punish legal immigrants for the problems created by illegals. The proper remedy to keep newly arrived immigrants off welfare is to make the pledges of support required of their sponsors legally enforceable.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited Partnership
Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor