Talk explores question of 'Why not Wye?'

Proclaiming that last October's Wye River peace accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority collapsed under the weight of political word-games, Political Science Department Chairperson Ian Lustick delivered a short lecture Tuesday night on progress of the Middle East peace process. The speech -- fittingly entitled "Why Not Wye" -- argued that the recent freeze on the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks might be directly traced back to the intentionally vague wording of the Wye accords, which both the Israeli and the Palestinian governments have used to subvert the peace process. Under the watchful eye of the Clinton administration, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat agreed in principle to the "Wye River Memorandum" last October at Wye Mills, Md., following many intensive days of negotiations and bargaining. As part of the agreement, Israel was to relinquish a portion of the West Bank to the Palestinian government, grant further recognition of Palestinian sovereignty and release a number of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the cessation of Palestinian violence and terrorist activities. "Netanyahu never did anything to prepare for a real peace accord," Lustick said during his speech in the Hillel Lounge. He went on to explain that instead of releasing political prisoners, Israel in fact released a host of criminals. Of course, under the terms of the accord, Israel had fulfilled its obligations, but clearly this was not what the Palestinians expected, Lustick said. "The Likud [Netanyahu's political party] treated the accord as a legal document" that could be followed to the letter, Lustick argued. When his party failed to support him, Netanyahu recruited the support of the opposition Labor Party but they soon abandoned him to force an early elections. As expected, many of those in attendance responded to Lustick's argument critically. Attending the speech was Israeli Consul-General Dan Ashbel, who charged, "You can't expect one side of the contract to hold if the other doesn't fulfill." "His argument is a perverse simplification," added Dave Crystal, a College senior. "[Lustick] uses semantics to obscure the truth." Other audience members suggested an alternative impediment to peace -- that the process may be moving along too rapidly. "I would be happy if [Palestinian] settlers were allowed to live in their settlements," said Alex Grinshpun, a College senior who has spent a year in Israel. "But I think perhaps the process has to be slower."