The comeback trio

The most gripping part in Ehud Barak's exclusive interview with Gidi Weitz (Haaretz Magazine, May 1) was his statement that Benjamin Netanyahu can decide whether to be Yitzhak Shamir or Menachem Begin. It is not clear whether Bibi had confided his heart's desire to Barak, or if this was Barak's personal assumption. Or perhaps it was meant to justify Barak's joining the Bibi-Lieberman government.

One way or another, it's been a long time since I heard such compliments as Barak showered on Bibi in that interview. "There is deep understanding between us on the need to address the political issue and that it is impossible to leave things in a state of paralysis," Barak said. Since Barak is not generous with compliments, especially to potential rivals for the premiership, there's probably something else at play here.

In the last election, Bibi increased his power from 12 Knesset seats to 27, while Barak-led Labor plunged from 19 to 13, of which only eight are effective. Comparing Bibi to Begin seems like flattery, or implies if Bibi is Begin, then Barak is Bibi's Moshe Dayan. Dayan left Labor and part of Labor left Barak, and they both joined Likud-led governments. If Dayan was the one who drove Begin to make peace, Barak is pretending to be the man who will push Bibi to make peace with the Palestinians.

While it may be very hard to enter Bibi and Barak's convoluted minds, it is doubtful whether history repeats itself. We're not after the Yom Kippur War, which gave Egypt a taste of initiative and victory and Israel the bitter sense of power's limitations. It was a war that enabled both sides, for the first time, to negotiate with each other, first in the Kilometer 101 talks and later in a peace agreement. Today's Arabs have no courageous leader of Anwar Sadat's stature. There is no American president in the image of Jimmy Carter, who was willing to shut himself up for 13 days and nights with Sadat and Begin (and while dealing with the Jews and Arabs, he let Khomeini return to Iran, which has now paved its way to a world threat).

And another important difference: Begin made peace with Egypt without giving up one inch of Judea and Samaria. He gave up Sinai and its settlements without straying a hair's breadth from his worldview. This, after all, was the reason he insisted that the autonomy over the Palestinians would apply only to people, not to territories.

"When people say Bibi will be Begin," says Shlomo Nakdimon, Begin's former spokesman, "it's a very vague comparison. Ten years have passed since Bibi was defeated. How is it possible that he hasn't worked out his policy yet?"

Begin, who landed in Camp David in 1978, expressed hope that at the end of the conference we'd be able to say pacem habemus (we have peace). Begin's entourage relieved the tension by humming "we brought pacem unto you." But seriously, Begin knew in advance what he was going to renounce and what he wasn't. He personally objected to uprooting the Rafah Salient settlements, even though they weren't part of the Land of Israel. "The Knesset will decide," he said. That's the difference between then and now. Likud had an absolute majority, and Begin could count on Labor, which then commanded 32 Knesset seats, to support him. Thus the settlements were removed without Begin's appearing to be the only one responsible. When the time for autonomy came, he passed the issue to interior minister Yosef Burg, causing Dayan to resign.

If Netanyahu, as Barak implies, is the next Begin, he will have to renounce everything that Begin refused to renounce - the territories and settlements. Bibi and Barak desperately want to atone for their past failures as prime minister, understanding that we are in another era, facing different threats with a fast-moving American president. A president who may not give Israel a free hand in actions that delighted his predecessors.

Bibi canceled Barak's trip to Washington as the Defense Department's guest and decided not to take part in the AIPAC conference himself, for fear Obama would catch him unprepared. Instead he sent President Shimon Peres both to AIPAC and Barack Obama. This game shows an interesting development in the leadership. Comeback-kids Bibi and Barak, who haven't missed an opportunity to scorn Peres, have turned him into their confidant and consultant, and Israel's most reliable and popular representative in the world.

With Peres as a shock absorber, Bibi is no Begin and Barak is no Dayan. Only Peres, who has had his share of failures, is realizing his dream to be the leading star in this trio.