Why Israel Is Uneasy About Madrid

...Since Israel's rebirth, every American administration has opposed Arab attempts to have a say in the immigration of Jews to their homeland...

...Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign Minister Boris D. Pankin announced on October 18 in Jerusalem that invitations had been issued to a Middle East peace conference set to start in Madrid 12 days later, Israelis have been debating whether Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir belongs to the first category, the second, or neither...

...But one needs to understand that Shamir sincerely believes Jews have a right to settle anywhere in historic Palestine (and that, eventually, the Arabs will accept their doing so...

...It seems equally strange that Prime Minister Shamir not only fails to prevent such provocations, he appears to support them...

...Moreover, although Washington tried to keep it a secret from Israel, Assad had informed Baker in Damascus back in September that Syria would not attend the third stage of the peace conference...

...Yet in addition to giving in on an international conference altogether, as well as on EC participation and a UN observer, Israel made two other important concessions: It went along with not having the invitations specifically mention peace treaties as the aim of the talks, and it did not walk out upon learning that President Hafez al-Assad was refusing to have Syria take part in the multilateral phase of the conference until Israel withdrew to its pre-1967 borders...

...Some observers have described the present tensions as the usual nervousness and jockeying for position one might have expected to accompany the start of the peace conference, suggesting that they will subside as the atmosphere improves...

...The opposition Labor Party has declared it would support the Prime Minister in Parliament on matters related to advancing the peace process...

...He has already announced that at the next Likud convention he will challenge the Prime Minister for the top post in the 1992 elections...

...It does not matter that the resolution very clearly calls for a "just and lasting peace" to be established before the disposition of the disputed territories is discussed—a fact recently reiterated in a New York Times Op-Ed article by Eugene V. Rostow, who helped write 242 when he was an Under Secretary of State...

...Public opinion polls on the eve of the peace conference found that a majority of Israelis, albeit a small one, oppose Shamir and Sharon's rejection of any territorial adjustments in exchange for lasting peace...

...As for Shamir, giving up any part of Palestine was against his principles and would lead to the departure of his far Right coalition partners...

...As for the PLO connection, Baker's half-ultimatum to the Palestinians obliged them to accept most of Shamir's formal demands...

...Losing the support of the extreme Right, however, would not necessarily topple Shamir's Likud regime...

...stage three...

...That hit a very sensitive nerve here...

...Even before Baker arrived in midOctober for the eighth round ? f his Middle East shuttle diplomacy, one sensed that both sides were being dragged to the conference table— or at least being pushed faster than they were ready to go...

...loan guarantees that would enable it to borrow $10 billion from private banks to help finance the absorption of an expected 1 million Soviet immigrants...

...Israel's stance, though, did have an unexpected dividend: It helped Husseini and Ashrawi persuade Arafat to accept several delegates deemed more representative of the local population than those he suggested...

...Officials warn that, in any event, it may take as long as two years...

...Jerusalem had been led to believe all parties accepted the three-stage process advanced by Secretary Baker...

...For months Shamir negotiated with Washington to secure conference terms that would automatically exclude an outcome unacceptable to his Likud Party...

...Ultimately, Shamir had to accept a less satisfactory letter of guarantees...

...At first glance it appears that, indeed, there was more erosion of the Palestinians' original positions than of the Jewish State's...

...Ever sinceU.S...

...Especially mistaken was the Administration's decision to postpone for four months any action on Israel's request for U.S...

...Israel had made this a condition of Soviet co-chairmanship of the conference...

...Finally, it should be noted that the situation today is not comparable to the Camp David period...

...no identification of the Palestinian delegation to the talks with the Palestine Liberation Organization, to prevent any impression of recognizing PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat and his terrorist cohorts...

...But in the agreed framework of the conference, at present the Palestinians could only achieve self-government, not total independence...

...But they do share a feeling that President Bush's reactions were wrong and counterproductive...

...But it would be a mistake to assume that in the end the conference will succeed...

...This probably motivates him much more than a desire to prove that going to the peace conference does not mean selling out the national patrimony...

...Around the same time, a strange rash of leaks from Washington toldof thealleged bad shape of Israel's economy, raising questions about its ability to repay any new loans...

...It could have set up strict conditions to prevent the fungibility of the funds and thereby assured their use only for the purpose stated...

...and no Jerusalemite on the Palestine delegation, lest that be interpreted as a sign that the status of Israel's capital is negotiable...

...The principle of land for peace was not mentioned in the invitations, but White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, speaking about the conference, referred to UN Security Council Resolution 242, now a code word for giving up the occupied areas as part of a peace settlement...

...The Bush Administration, by contrast, actually invited such interference...

...If there is anything that might induce Shamir to countenance territorial concessions, it is the reward of an overall normalization of relations with the Arab states...

...Camp David, with Egypt alone, took eight months—under President Jimmy Carter's personal direction...

...Everybody realizes of course, that Moscow's influence in the Middle East has diminished considerably...

...The list of Palestinian delegates did not include chief negotiators Faisal alHusseini and Hanan Ashrawi, both Jerusalemites, but Israel agreed to other residents of nearby villages that have in reality become Arab suburbs of the reunified city...

...Ariel Sharon demanded Shamir's resignation and, alone of the Likud Cabinet members, voted against going to Madrid...

...The other two said they would quit the very moment the issue of territorial concessions is put on the negotiating table...

...No Arab government had protested the guarantees to Baker...

...Shamir's efforts, however, wereonly partly successful...

...When Egypt'sPresident Anwar Sadat arrived in Jerusalem, he unhesitatingly said that his objective was a peace treaty—and he negotiated the details afterward...

...While Israelis recognize that their government was less than straightforward in using a previous $400 million housing loan guarantee to free other funds for building settlements in the West Bank, Washington could have pursued another tack...

...The charge that the Administration was "out to get Israel" was supported by pointing at several hamfisted actions...

...In particular, there was to be no advance endorsement of the "land for peace" principle, to avoid the implicit suggestion of Israeli readiness to give up parts of the West Bank, Gaza or the Golan Heights...

...Eliahu Salpeter, a regular NL contributor, is a correspondent for Ha'aretz...

...It appeared to support the hawks' argument that the Bush White House is the most pro-Arab ever, and therefore the Jewish State has to be wary of its demands or proposals...

...Soon afterward, there appeared a spate of U.S...

...Why Israel Is Uneasy About Madrid BY ELIAHU SALPETER Tel ?viv Smart men can extricate themselves from situations wise men would not get into, an old saying goes...

...Shamir and Sharon may also feel that with American pressure for compromises increasing, the time for setting up new settlements is running short...

...So intense was the debate over the preconditions and terms of the peace conference that little attention was given to what would otherwise have been a dramatic event—the renewal of full IsraeliSoviet diplomatic relations, broken off by Moscow 24 years ago...

...Claiming that the loan guarantees might interfere with the scheduled peace conference, as President Bush did, was an entirely different, and patently disingenuous, story...

...It was further understood that the thorny Palestinian issue would be handled in accordance with the Camp David Agreement: Efforts would be limited now to instituting a transitional period of local autonomy (but for three years, instead of five) in the West Bank and Gaza, then the question of their permanent status would be addressed...

...Israelis also reacted with anger to a leak from Washington that Israel was shadowing a Korean arms ship en route to Syria, with the intention of sinking it in international waters...

...press reports discussing Israel's nuclear arms—an almost routine occurrence whenever Washington has a fight with Jerusalem...

...Last, but not least, Sharon is believed to have his own agenda: to torpedo the conference, make Shamir call new elections, and present himself as the leader of the faithful...

...Many Israelis, too, are distressed that the advocates of annexing the West Bank, like Housing Minister Ariel Sharon, provoke repeated U.S...

...Partnership in disarmament and development projects is viewed as the real guarantee of Arab readiness for genuine peace...

...If there is progress in the talks, the conditions of any agreement will probably be the central issue of the 1992 general elections...

...In these circumstances it may be more appropriate to recall the aborted Geneva peace conference following the 1973 Yom Kippur War...

...One of the Likud's three small Rightwing coalition partners went a step further and announced its immediate withdrawal from the government...

...Palestinians have even claimed that Madrid was chosen as a venue for the conference because there is an officially recognized PLO diplomatic mission there and it is close to Tunis...

...Refusing to comment on the story itself, spokesmen here privately called it a warning shot: "After having failed to destroy Iraqi missile sites aimed at Israel, America is now extending protection to Syria to set up more accurate and powerful missiles even closer to Israel...

...Then there was the attitude of Assad, who has repeatedly said he will not negotiate a Syrian-Israeli peace treaty until the claims of the Palestinians were conclusively settled...

...This, plus Syria'shuge Scud missile purchases in North Korea and large tank purchases in the Soviet Union, indicated that in any case Assad would at best agree to a state of non-belligerency...

...Initially, for example, Secretary Baker promised the Prime Minister that his procedural worries would be dealt with in a U.S.-Israeli memorandum of understanding...

...This is seen as an important step in strengthening the local versus the exile leadership...

...Now the Arabs want Israel to agree to withdrawal from the occupied territories first and talk about full normalization—perhaps— afterward...

...Nevertheless, the consultations between the Palestinian negotiators and PLO headquarters in Tunis have rendered the fig leaf of its noninvolvement completely transparent...

...Soviet chaired opening general session (stage one), followed immediately by the beginning of parallel face-to-face negotiations with Syria, Lebanon and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation (stage two), followed about two weeks later by the launching of concurrent multilateral talks on regional matters—water resources, communications, disarmament, etc...

...On the other hand, its failure is what convinced Sadat that there was no alternative to coming to Jerusalem and persuading the Israeli people that he wanted genuine peace...

...Still, the step has more than symbolic significance here...

...What most clouds the prospects of the conference, though, is the sea change in relations between Washington and Jerusalem, which has given Shamir another reason to be wary of the American peace enterprise...

...In Israel, it was widely observed that if Arafat settled for less than an independent Palestinian state without firm guarantees for more, his position as chief of the PLO would be in jeopardy...

...A foretaste of the anticipated internal dispute was provided on the day the Cabinet approved Israel's participation in the peace undertaking...

...denunciations by demonstratively establishing new settlements whenever Washington's attention is focused on Israel...

...Nonetheless, in his many visits to Damascus Secretary Baker failed to convince Assad to slow his arms buildup, making it especially difficult for Israel to be flexible vis-à-vis Syria...

...In between, tensions were exacerbated by the clash over new West Bank settlements...

...And the feeling was confirmed when the news that the invitations had been issued was greeted with a marked absence of rejoicing throughout the region...

...Thus Israel expected a short U.S...

...It was the White House's own idea and, predictably, the cue was soon taken...

...Most Israelis were outraged early in October, for instance, when Washington—despite its having failed to locate, let alone destroy, Saddam Hussein's extensive nuclear arms plants, or most of the Scud missile sites that bombed Israel in the Gulf War—waxed self-righteously indignant in publicizing Israel's reconnaissance flights over western Iraq...