‘Gap Between Words and Deeds’ : U.S. Skeptical on Feverish Mideast Diplomatic Pace

Middle East diplomacy appeared Thursday to reach its most feverish pace since the historic Camp David conference in 1978, but U.S. officials talked skeptically about “a gap between words and deeds” and rebuffed calls from all sides to serve as go-between.

“These are beginning positive steps, but there remains a long road ahead,” State Department spokesman Edward Djerejian said of the sudden flurry of diplomatic activity.

Within the last three weeks, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization have called for negotiations to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict, although each side attached conditions that made its overture unacceptable to at least one of the other parties. In the past, the United States has sought to play the role of mediator in such situations, attempting to underline the agreements and to gloss over the disagreements.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak plans to visit Washington next week to urge President Reagan to again have the United States play that role. His visit comes on the heels of calls from leaders of Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia for Washington to take a more active interest.

But, judging from the comments of U.S. officials Thursday, the Egyptian leader faces a difficult task in persuading the Reagan Administration.

“We are ready to step in and be helpful when the time is appropriate, (but) . . . it is up to them (the Arabs and the Israelis) to get started, to set the tone,” White House spokesman Larry Speakes said.

“We can’t want peace more than they (the parties) want peace,” Richard W. Murphy, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, told a House subcommittee.

The uncharacteristic U.S. reticence seems to reflect basic differences among the parties that make a breakthrough in the foreseeable future unlikely.

The most significant impediment is the role of the PLO at any peace talks. The Arabs, except for Egypt, insist that the PLO must be present, but Israel adamantly refuses to participate in any conference attended by the PLO. U.S. officials admit that they know of no way to bridge that gap.

Israeli Pullback

Another basic problem involves U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, adopted after the 1967 Six-Day War. It calls for Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied (the West Bank of the Jordan River, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula) in that conflict in exchange for a peace treaty and recognition of its right to live within secure and recognized borders. (Israel has already withdrawn from virtually all of the Sinai and returned it to Egypt.)

Egypt, Jordan and Israel all recognize the resolution, although sometimes with reservations. But the PLO rejects it because it does not refer to Palestinian rights.

Mubarak has urged Israel and the United States to finesse both the PLO issues. He suggested that a joint Jordanian-Palestinian negotiating team could include Palestinians who support the PLO, but not PLO leaders, such as Yasser Arafat and his chief lieutenants. The Egyptian president also proposed fuzzing over the issue of Resolution 242 by moving ahead with the peace process without trying to pin down the PLO on a specific endorsement of the document.

But Djerejian, the State Department spokesman, described Resolution 242 as “the bedrock of the peace process” as far as the United States is concerned. He said Washington is not prepared to consider any sort of compromise on that issue.

Israel insists that any negotiations must be direct and face to face between its representatives and delegates of its Arab neighbors. The United States supports that position. The situation is made even more complex by the inherent weakness of the three key parties, Jordan, Israel and the PLO.

It is clear that Hussein is still convinced that he cannot make concessions to Israel--especially before the negotiations actually begin--because he is afraid of the Syrian response.

Jordan is understood to have intercepted terrorists trying to slip across the Jordan-Syrian border with pistols and rifles equipped with silencers and other assassination weapons. This has increased the king’s concern that he and his top aides might be a target if the Syrians believe the Amman regime is going to give in to the Israeli enemy.

Arafat, the PLO chairman, is on even shakier ground. His organization is split into factions, some of which openly favor killing him, and Syria has called for his ouster.

PLO Waffled

Hussein and Arafat signed a joint negotiating position Feb. 11, but the PLO began almost at once to waffle on its key provisions. In an official statement Thursday, the PLO denied that the section of the Hussein-Arafat accord accepting U.N. resolutions on the Middle East specifically constituted approval of Resolution 242.

Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres this week enthusiastically welcomed suggestions of direct negotiations with Jordan. But Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Peres’ partner in the Israeli coalition government, is far less enthusiastic.

Peres’ Labor party has long been prepared to consider trading territory for peace--the key provision of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242. But Shamir’s Likud bloc has said it will never agree to give up any of the West Bank.