From The President Of Israel To The President Of Egypt, With Historical High Regard

President Chaim Herzog of Israel sees Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as “the central, pivotal figure around whom the whole peace process is now revolving” in the Middle East.

Herzog is convinced that this process is inevitable since a new climate prevails in the region, although it “could move backward from time to time” amid steps forward.

He is upset, however, because Israel “is split right down the middle” over the peace question--survival of the current coalition government is seriously threatened.

In praising Mubarak, Herzog appeared to be parting company, publicly, with hard-line Prime Minister Yitzak Shamir, who has little use for the Egyptian leader’s mediation proposals and calls for their rejection.

Herzog conveyed his views at the presidential residence in Jerusalem last week, just as Shamir was denouncing Mubarak’s news conference on Israeli TV the previous day.

Herzog said he was the person who had talked Mubarak into appearing on Israeli television in the first place, when the presidents met at the Hirohito funeral in Tokyo last February.

Rarely has an Israeli president focused applause on an Egyptian president. Extremely rarely has an Israeli president granted an interview on controversial policies. Under Israel’s constitutional system the president, elected apart from partisan campaigns, is to be above the fray--usually leaving major pronouncements to prime ministers.

But the 71-year-old Herzog, in his seventh year as president, chose to speak out, apparently from a sense of urgency. Israel is suffering the worst domestic political crisis in its 41-year national history, against the background of a two-year-old Arab uprising in Israeli-occupied territories.

The imminent danger is that Israel’s fragile coalition of opposing parties--Shamir’s rightist Likud Party and VicePrime Minister Shimon Peres’ more liberal Labor Party--may collapse because of deep differences over the peace process--especially the degree of Palestinian participation.

Shamir and Foreign Minister Moshe Arens insist on restricted roles for Palestinians, even in preparations for local elections in the occupied territories. Peres and Defense Minister Yitzak Rabin favor much greater flexibility. A coalition collapse at the planning stage would only reflect even more profound disagreement about an ultimate peace settlement.

Herzog’s powers include the selection of a candidate for forming a cabinet; he is aware that he may have to intervene to assure a viable government.

In the past, he said, he had “to step well over the line” of presidential prerogatives to protect the national interest. He was “instrumental” in creating the first “national unity” government in 1984, which “saved the country economically and got it out of Lebanon.” He said the public expects the president to act in such situations, that his office “has an influence far beyond what people imagine.”

The Belfast-born president, son of Isaac Herzog--the theologian who became Israel’s first chief rabbi--made clear his intention to play an active part in the unfolding events. His background helps. Herzog was an intelligence officer in the Israeli army, the first military governor of the West Bank and Jerusalem after the 1967 Six-Day War and Israel’s chief delegate to the United Nations. The president is kept informed of all developments, including official secrets, and he knows most world statesmen.

Herzog sees religious fundamentalism as one of the most perilous problems facing Jews and Arabs alike in the Middle East.

The day before the interview, Herzog had flown to Ganei Tal, a settlement of Orthodox Jews in the Gaza Strip within sight of vast Arab refugee camps, an area where Orthodox Jews had been attacking Palestinians. Herzog told the settlers: “Recently I have been worried, if not horrified, by the extremist acts on the part of religious people . . . they clearly violate our heritage and the rules of our holy Bible prohibiting mistreatment of the weak and the non-Jew.”

He was also concerned about the September election of five Jewish fundamentalists among 50 new mayors, finding it an example of “the move to the right by a great part of the population.”

Mubarak has his own pressures, from the extremist Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic groups opposing peace policies toward Israel. “Mubarak has great problems inside with Islamic fundamentalists, but people don’t realize the extent of his troubles,” Herzog said.

Islamic fundamentalists are increasingly behind violence among Arabs in the occupied territories, Herzog continued, and they exacerbate tensions between local residents of the intifada uprising and the Tunis-based Palestine Liberation Organization headed by Yasser Arafat.

“Today,” Herzog said, “the bulk of the casualties suffered by the Palestinians is caused by the Palestinians, not by Israel.” In the course of this year, he added, more than 100 Palestinians were killed by Palestinians as alleged collaborators with Israel although “our security services tell me that at least 60% of their names are completely unknown to them.”

Herzog remains suspicious of Arafat and he understands why Israelis are hesitant about “putting on the line the future of their children, their existence.” The PLO leader, Herzog said, “is a man who never has kept his word, even to an Arab.” He quoted Jordan’s King Hussein to that effect and then said Arafat is rejected by many of his own constituents.

Arafat announced last December that the PLO recognized Israel’s existence and renounced all forms of terrorism against it; he has been pressing ever since for direct PLO-Israel talks. Since December, the United States has had regular discussions on the peace process with the PLO and, last month, Arafat met with Mubarak three times to review peace initiatives advanced by Egypt’s president.

Israeli Defense Minister Rabin also sat with Mubarak last month, later indicating that he went along with the Egyptian proposal for a preliminary Israeli-Arab meeting in Cairo, including Palestinians. As part of a 10-point plan, Mubarak has offered to appoint the Palestinian delegation, subject to Israeli approval. This is the issue that ruptures the current Likud-Labor government.

Herzog, while believing the process must not be paralyzed, said that Arafat’s previous announcements “are not good enough.” What must follow is elimination of sections in the PLO charter calling for the destruction of Israel. Israel’s acceptance in the Middle East began after Egypt’s late President Anwar Sadat made a breakthrough visit to Jerusalem in 1977. Herzog indicated that the PLO must now offer similar recognition to make itself credible in the peace process.

Yet Herzog is also critical of Israeli attitudes: “Our problem here is that we don’t look at these things historically: We’ve got our face right up against the picture instead of moving back and seeing it in its proper perspective and proper dimensions.”

He characterized Israeli posture as “a rather barren debate over whether you have to give up territories, not give up the territories, whether you talk to the PLO or not, and it has been to a degree a philosophical debate, an abstract debate.” Now, Herzog said, “It has become a concrete debate because there are moves forward, especially with the involvement of the Egyptians.”

He made a point, however, of hoping that “the major powers, especially the United States, do not push matters, but allow this debate to work itself out on both sides . . . because in the final analysis, they each are trying to reach their own conclusions.”

During the past decade, in the new relationship with Egypt, Herzog said tens of thousands of Arabs visit Israel and tens of thousands of Israelis visit Egypt--to talk and to trade. “Sadat really rose above everything, above the tumult,” Herzog said; “he gave the direction and he changed the entire atmosphere in the area.”

And now, Herzog added, Mubarak “has achieved what nobody had believed would happen after the Israeli flag began flying over the Israeli embassy in Cairo--Egypt was received back in the Arab League with all the pomp and circumstance and dignity.”

As Hussein has moved into the background, Mubarak has become the central figure for Arab-Israeli peace. Mubarak, according to Herzog, is the leader of the greatest Arab country, a “most impressive individual” who “has tremendous self-assurance--and with reason.”

In Israel, Herzog emphasized, “there is an agonizing reappraisal going on to evaluate where we go from here.” But the peace process, he insisted, is “irreversible.”