European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 25, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes columns Anthony Lewis it s up to the palestinians to Start negotiations t1ik conflict Between israelis and palestinians is off the front pages of our newspapers. The drama of he uprising in the West Bank and Gaza is reduced to a few paragraphs recording another 12-year-old shot dead by israeli soldiers another alleged Collaborator killed by fellow palestinians. Hut the absence of headlines in fact signifies some thing important. The uprising and its repression have become routine. The Chance that a new Force could move the panics into the path of negotiation the Chance to change the brutal history of the conflict is slipping away. It was a real Chance. The Intifada gave palestinians in the occupied territories a new self Confidence of the kind that can make political Compromise possible. The Palestine liberation organization accepted the reality of Israel. The United states began a dialogue with . Prime minister Yitzhak Shamir proposed that the resident of the West Bank and Gaza elect representatives to negotiate with Israel. To the world the logic of a political solution seemed More compelling than Ever. But on the ground the trend has gone the other Way. The hatreds and fears that obstruct rational discourse have not diminished by All reports they have grown worse. Both sides have pressed physical confrontation rather than political initiatives. On the palestinian Side the uprising has taken on a More Naruta i ing character As the months have passed no doubt inevitably. The remarkable communal unit that marked it from the Start has shown signs of giving Way to Unity enforced by threat. More and More asserted collaborators have been maimed and murdered. Some observers believe the Plo has lost influence with Young activists and islamic fundamentalists. Is Raki s strategy has been to put protest Down by Force not to Deal with the underlying reality of pales Tinian National feelings. In the 21 months of the Intifada israeli forces have killed More than 550 palestinians deported dozens blown up hundreds of Homes. More than 40,000 palestinians have been in prison at one time or another most of them detained without trial. The Standar period of detention has just been doubled from six months to a year. The result is an ugly stalemate. Israel cannot make the palestinians Stop their protest because it cannot destroy an idea the longing for political identity. Israeli generals have been saying that to the govern ment to no Avail. It. Gen. Dan Shimron. Chief of staff put it last year William f. Buckley " there Are Only three ways to end the Intifada Transfer removal of the Arab population starvation or physical elimination that is  but if Israel cannot put Down the Intifada by any Force Short of ultimate brutality neither can the palestinians achieve their Hopes by the Mere fact of continuing it. That is Why it is so sad to Sec the Chance of negotiation slipping away. The responsibility for missed chances lies on both sides. But 1 think there is a special Burden on the palestinians now to try to break the stalemate. As the weaker party they would naturally resent that idea. But it is where their interest lies. Many palestinian leaders have come to understand in the last two years that they must do one thing above All if they arc to get out of the occupation and have political rights. That is to convince israeli opinion persuade Israel that its Security and peace lie in the direction of accommodation with them not Domina Tion. The uprising is not working to that end now. Most israelis have come to live with it and to live with the corruption of Israel s own standards of Justice that the policy of repression requires. They arc not More sympathetic to palestinian yearnings if anything they arc More hardened. The Only practical Way out of the stalemate. I think is a bold political stroke. That is not going to come from Shamir who is always reluctant to move and who can live indefinitely with the present situation. It has to come from the Plo. And in practical terms it has to be a step to accept the israeli election proposal. The Plo has criticized Shamir for hedging the elec Tion idea so much As to make it meaningless. But Cheplo has made it easy for Shamir by insisting on a condition of its own that elections must be a Ste toward a palestinian state. Demanding to know the end before a negotiation starts cannot work. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has put Forward ideas to get the parties into a negotiation. Shamir does not like them but he has been Able to Waffle because the Plo has been negative. An Intifada that sacrifices Young lives without bringing about political negotiation cannot be Justi fied. It is time for the palestinians to say yes. Koch s thirst for Candor was what did him in Twenty four years ago i ran for mayor of new York City. That i should have won that race under the sponsorship of the conservative party was not problematical it was out of the question. The highest score the fledgling conservatives had gotten up to that Point was about 3 percent. The Point in running was to ventilate publicly alternative views of sensible municipal govern ment. The newspapers published my views they were expressed on television and i wrote a Book about them and taught a course at the new school called conservative views and municipal pol  now. A Quarter Century later it is roughly speaking fair to say that these views have not prevailed. Schooling in new York under the monolithic control of the teachers bureaucracy is both More expensive and worse than it was. Spend ing by the City is wild. At the time i ran professor John Kenneth Galbraith opined that there was nothing wrong with new York that doubling its budget would t  mayor John Lindsay saw Galbraith and raised him another 100 percent and most things became worse crime is rampant rent control is a continuing cause of building sclerosis and City pensions beginning As Early As age 40 requite taxes heavy enough to drive peo ple from the City who should stay in it. My bicycle overpass has t been built. Enough. The late Theodore White a shrewd Liberal political analyst and his Torian gave it As his opinion in an article 14 years ago that new York City was  the reason for it he said is that More than i million voters either work for the City or arc closely related to those who do and they will not tolerate any diminution in their Perks. That he said was the Basic scaffolding of City politics everybody s right to everything resulting in everybody s victimization by everything. The candidates this time around needed to be judged with that perspective in mind. Ronald Lauder defended the Correct principles and was wiped out by Rudolph Giuliani who sought to ingratiate himself with the Liberal party even As John Lindsay did. Lindsay and the Liberal party won. The City lost. Giu Liani wiped out Lauder in the Republican primary notwithstanding a sustained negative Campaign against him which in the opinion of Many Lauder s managers cruelly overdid for instance in Sug Gesting that Giuliani tolerated references to Auschwitz to intimidate jewish defendants. David Dinkins is a kindly Man utterly the prisoner of lib Raj shibboleths. He has been campaigning in new York City for six months and if one were to arrest a passer by on the Street and ask what Dinkins stood for he would be Able Only to mutter racial  if or. Dinkins can offer anything other than his own Good nature and intelligence we will need to find this out. The human focus of the Campaign was of course de Koch. He came to prominence As an anti machine demo crat defeating tammany Hall s Carmine Disapio. He went to Congress and then became mayor. Not since Fiorillo la Guardia did any mayor so crowd the scene ased Koch. Although he did not go on the air to read the funny papers to us when there was a newspaper strike one sometimes had the impression that he was the traffic cop on the Corner the third Grade schoolteacher the garbage truck Driver and the admissions officer at the City Hospital. If there was a Public function without Koch it meant Only that he was at another Public function going on simultaneously. It sometimes seemed As though Koch looked for opportunities to estrange other Public figures Many of whom were featured As objects of scorn and derision in his Best Selling Book. He was sur rounded the City would learn by crooked politicians though they had got ten to where they were before Koch be came mayor. When they got into trouble de Koch would shrug his shoulders and suggest that it is True that this is a wicked world with wicked people in it. But it appears that his most ingratiating Quality an unquenchable thirst for Candor was what finally did him in. This was his statement in the Spring of last year that no jewish voter in his right mind would vote for Jesse Jackson. Although there is no reason to conclude that this was a racist statement it was so interpreted and resented by Blacks and by Many jews who joined a consolidated Black hispanic Community in voting no to de Koch. For the record i like de Koch and i think he is a Good Man and the quintessential new yorker he has been a per Sonal Friend for 20 years and the Only favor i Ever asked him he granted which was to invite a harpsichordist to Grade mansion to perform in commemoration of Bach s 300th birthday. Our politics take us on separate roads but though the difference Between us is for that reason great i am glad to know that we were Arm in Arm As personal friends and will 1 Hope continue to be. Univ Ril Prosi Symma