There is currently a wave of furor in Israel over the actions of a top IDF officer who happens to be a chief negotiator with the Palestinian Authority. It is alleged that he conducted unapproved meetings with leaders of Israel's main opposition party. Additionally, it is insinuated that the result of these meetings might have been what was broadcast over Kol Yisrael's "Hakol Diburim" on October 30, 1996. On the radio program former Police Minister Moshe Shachal said, "I am now holding in my hands an exact copy of the Hevron agreement, that I received from sources that are conducting the negotiations." In the same program, Labor party secretary-general Nissim Zvilli said, "We have full and exact information on the Hevron talks, even more complete than that which the government ministers have."

The accusation made by the government with an expression of "shock and astonishment" alleges that Maj.-Gen. Oren Shachor, who was named to the team of negotiators by prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, methodically leaked details of the negotiations with the PLO to leading members of the Labor party. The incident is based upon an investigative report by Ma'ariv, one of Israel's major dailies, which cited that Oren Shachor, Chairman of the Civil Affairs Committee in the Hevron talks, met with Shimon Peres on the evening of October 30, 1996 and that this was the third time in the past two months that such meetings have taken place. Shachor is said to have likewise met on two occasions with MK Yossi Beilin, and with other Labor leaders.

The reactions to this incident have been varied and telling. Sholom Dror, spokesman for Shachor stated that the meetings were purely social in that Peres and the rest are old friends and that the meetings were unrelated to the negotiations on the redeployment in Hevron. "We are talking of private meetings, which he has with politicians from the Left and Right who are his friends. Some are ministers, some former ministers, and others are MKs," Dror said. "It was a private meeting, so he didn't need permission. If he had been asked to brief someone, he would have sought permission." Several cabinet ministers, including MK Limor Livnat and MK Rafael Eitan, have requested Shachor's immediate dismissal if the reports are substantiated. Eitan expressed the concern that the information that was leaked to Shimon Peres in turn reached Yassir Arafat. Likud MK Uzi Landau, Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, reminded the Prime Minister of the pre-election pledge to distance all IDF officers from the negotiating teams and depoliticize Israel's military leadership. Deputy Education Minister Moshe Peled (Tsomet) said the affair demonstrated "behavior not becoming an officer of Shahor's rank" and demanded he resign from the IDF. On the other side of the political spectrum, Labor MK Yossi Beilin, chief architect of the Oslo Accords in the previous government, stated that he saw nothing sinister or unusual in the meetings. "I want to understand what is wrong with the meeting," Beilin said. "Did Shahor give Peres a secret document, such as the one Netanyahu received when he was opposition leader? We don't do such things. We simply talk with these people and will talk with them in the future, unless a regime comes to power here which forbids such talks."

However, according to the Jerusalem Post of November 1, 1996, "Netanyahu, [Defense Minister Yitzhak] Mordechai, and Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak reportedly knew nothing of the meetings before they were revealed by Ma'ariv, even though meetings between a general and an MK require the authorization of the defense minister and chief of general staff." In other words, if anything other than the weather or the health of their children were discussed, these meetings transgressed long standing government regulations.

Ha'aretz, another of Israel's dailies, had as its headline on Oct. 31: "Senior [IDF] officer: The draft of the Hevron agreement is identical with the one signed by the Labor government." It has even been intimated by military officers that the deal being worked out by the Netanyahu government is worse than that achieved by the Labor government. Such allegations are preposterous, simply because the Labor government feared implementing any settlement in Hevron lest they loose the election and therefore never arrived at a final settlement of redeployment. All told, the manner in which the opposition and the media are manipulating the negotiations over Hevron is at best unseemly and at worst undermining the government's negotiating ability. However, who is really at fault here?

The redeployment form Hevron is the most publically visible negotiation of the entire Oslo process. All of Labor's negations with the PLO were in secret. The Israeli public was presented with "done deals" and the level of darkness over the entire process was pitch black. Regardless of one's opinion of the redeployment from Hevron, there can be little doubt that the negotiations are as public as Sara Netanyahu's relationship with her nannies. The manipulation of the military negotiators by the leaders of the Labor party are either meant to embarrass the government or to destroy the negotiations and allow Labor to parade around as the only party able to talk with the PLO. That these IDF officers are in the pockets of top Labor leaders brings into question the negotiating tactics of the present government. Why not have political experts run the negotiating teams with military men, if needed, as advisors? Why are the very same individuals that the Likud criticized for making bad deals under the Labor regime allowed to continue in the same role under the new government? It looks as if all the characters remain the same and only the rhetoric changes.

If MK Moshe Shachal and Labor party secretary-general Nissim Zvilli want to discredit the Netanyahu government they should do so by reminding the Israeli public that little has changed with the arrival of a new government and that "politics as usual" appears as the game of the day. Of course, such statements would remind the voting public of why they threw Labor out of the government in the first place. Should, on the other hand, Prime Minister Netanyahu want to accomplish something of significance, he must necessarily clear out the old guard and allow the promises of his campaign for prime minister see the light of day. That is to say, he must depoliticize the IDF and ensure the security of Jewish residence of Hevron, even if it means no redeployment. The security as well as the meaning of the State of Israel is at stake.
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