The hopes pinned on the Wye Plantation summit in Maryland, US, are fading out. Extremism, as epitomized in the person of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, is to blame for the two operations. Netanyahu has infused despair into the souls of peace lovers on both sides. Netanyahu's hard-line negotiating position adopted with a view to wasting time and to eliciting more concessions from the Palestinian Authority. Because of Israeli intransigence, hopes pinned by the Palestinians on the Maryland summit have receded giving way to impending disaster.
Peace is the only means to security.
For it to prevail, the two sides should commit themselves to implementing the provisions of the Oslo Accord. If, however, Netanyahu chooses to have more pressure brought to bear on the Palestinians, the vicious cycle of violence is most likely to grow wider. US President Bill Clinton has been prodding the two sides to hammer out an agreement hopefully to break 19 months of stall blamed on Israeli rightwing government s continued construction of settlements in the occupied Arab territories and its haggling over implementing the second stage of withdrawal from the West Bank. Arafat is doubtless under extreme pressures from the combined duo of Netanyahu and Clinton the latter is anxious for a face-saving deal at any cost to restore his image as a world supreme. Judging by his faulty and bizarre perception of peace with the Palestinians, Netanyahu would not let the attack condemned by the Palestinian negotiators at Wye Plantation slip by his fingers without foisting his security agenda on the beleaguered Arafat.