Barak makes a bold plea for peace

EHUD BARAK pledged to achieve peace with Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians yesterday as he was sworn in as Israel's new Prime Minister.

"I call on all the region's leaders to stretch out their hands to meet our outstretched hands and forge a peace of the brave," he said in an impassioned speech to parliament.

The contrast with Mr Barak's predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, could not have been clearer. Mr Netanyahu sought to deep-freeze the peace process during his three years in office, which ended when he was resoundingly defeated by Mr Barak in May.

Mr Barak's words yesterday were clearly intended to quell Palestinian fears that their concerns would be forgotten in the quest to make peace with Syria. "These two assignments together - the reaching of a permanent agreement with the Palestinians and the achieving of peace with Syria and Lebanon - are equally vital and urgent in my eyes," he said.

Seven weeks after the election, Mr Barak has managed to forge a coalition government, making clear that all parties within it must accept territorial compromises in the Golan Heights and West Bank. His coalition comprises 75 of the Knesset's 120 members.

The new Israeli leader is being greeted with relief in the rest of the Middle East and in the US, where Mr Netanyahu was regarded as an obstacle to peace. Mr Barak will meet President Bill Clinton in Washington later in the month.

Senior members of the Israeli Labour party, which Mr Barak heads, have complained that they have been marginalised or kept at a distance from peace negotiations in the new cabinet. Shimon Peres, the former prime minister defeated by Mr Netanyahu in 1996, becomes Minister for Regional Development. Yossi Beilin, the architect of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, has been made Justice Minister.

Mr Barak, a former Israeli chief of staff who spent thirty years in the army before his meteoric political rise over the past four years, has a reputation for centralising power in his own hands. He will serve as Defence Minister as well as Prime Minister. However, the limits of Mr Barak's authority were shown at the weekend when his own party voted down his candidate for Knesset speaker.

Negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians are expected to start in October after Mr Barak has had time to settle in.

But his election has already led to a quickening of diplomatic activity in the Middle East with President Hafez al-Assad of Syria paying his first visit for years to Moscow this week, in search of support.

Although he won the election thanks to a secular Jewish reaction against ultra-orthodox influence, the inclusion of three religious parties in his government shows that he will give the peace process with the Arabs priority over internal reform.

Patrick Cockburn, Review, page 5