The Wye River Memorandum

A secluded rural retreat in Maryland, USA, became a focal point of world attention last October. President Clinton had persuaded Yasser Arafat and Benjamin Netanyahu to meet at the Wye Valley Plantation Centre in an attempt to re-vitalize the stalled Middle East Peace Process: there had been no progress for nineteen months!

The negotiations were tortuous and at times tempestuous, with threats of walk-outs only overcome by intense American diplomatic pressure. At one critical juncture King Hussein of Jordan was called in to help, even though he was at the time physically weak and undergoing treatment for cancer at an American clinic. Midway through the talks came news from Israel that two grenades had been thrown into a bus station by Hamas terrorists, injuring sixty-four people; a deliberate outrage intended to provoke the Israeli delegation to break off further talks with the Palestinians.

Despite all these problems the rival parties were finally pressurized into accepting the 1998 Wye River Agreement. Its terms included:

�Israel agreed to pull back troops from 13% of the occupied West Bank, and 14% of jointly controlled land.

�The phased release by Israel of selected Palestinian prisoners, starting with 750 of the 3,000 at present held.

�Israel agreed to further negotiations on the safe passage of Palestinians from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip.

�Agreement to allow the new airport in Gaza to operate, but Israel to retain responsibility for security at the airport.

�Modifications to the Palestinian Charter which calls for Israel's extermination.

The Agreement represents only modest progress, for the territory conceded by Israel is but a sparsely inhabited area in the West Bank. However, along with the release of some prisoners and the opening of the Gaza airport, plus a few other concessions, President Arafat had gained sufficient to justify further promotion of the Peace Process. Yet the struggle to achieve some kind of agreement on these relatively minor issues underlines the difficulties ahead. The really big issues still await resolution; such problems as the status of Jerusalem; the return of Palestinian refugees; the creation of a separate Palestinian State; the Jewish settlements in 'occupied territory'.

A major factor in the Peace Process negotiations has been Israel's concern for security. Promises made by Yasser Arafat to clamp down on Palestinian terrorists have been difficult to fulfil because of determined extremists who disagree with any negotiations with Israel. Their repeated terrorist attacks are intended to wreck the Peace Process. During the week after the Wye River agreement was signed, a member of Hamas, the largest Palestinian Islamic Group, attempted to blow up a bus loaded with forty Israeli children travelling to school from a settlement in the Gaza Strip. An Israeli army jeep took the brunt of the explosion, in which a soldier and the bomber died. Later that same week a splinter group called Islamic Jihad sent two bombers into a crowded market in Jewish West Jerusalem. The plan went wrong when they lost control of the car, which exploded; the bombers were killed and twenty-one by-standers injured.

Politicians realize the vital importance of furthering peace in the Middle East. Extremists among both Jews and Palestinians make that task most difficult. Rival claims to territory are supported fanatically by Arab and Jew according to their historical perspectives. Fundamentalist Muslim and Orthodox Jew are similarly passionate in their diverse religious convictions. Any peace deal which politicians cobble together is less than satisfactory to these extremists. They are not prepared to compromise.

Through the prophet Ezekiel God rebuked the prophets who:

...misled My people by saying, 'Peace!' when there is no peace. And when anyone builds a wall, behold, they plaster it over with whitewash; so tell those who plaster it over with whitewash, that it will fall. A flooding rain will come, and you, O hailstones, will fall; and a violent wind will break out. 'Behold, when the wall has fallen, will you not be asked, "Where is the plaster wherewith you plastered it?"' (Ezek. 13:10-12 NASB).

Is the Wye River Agreement but another 'covering over with white-wash'? Even the 'firm covenant' yet to be negotiated with 'the prince that shall come' at the time of the end (Dan. 9:27) will prove to be a 'covering over with whitewash'. Not until Israel's acknowledgement of the Lord Jesus as their true Messiah will abiding peace be theirs (Is. 9:6,7).

unknown | Mar 1999
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