Going Nowhere

At the urging of Jordan’s King Hussein, the United States a few months ago reluctantly agreed to involve itself anew in exploratory talks aimed at trying to revive the suspended Middle East peace process. The first step in that direction, not surprisingly, seems to have led to a collision with a stone wall. Asst. Secretary of State Richard Murphy--after conferring in Jordan, Israel and Egypt--has come home with little if anything to show for his trouble. The central problem is that the United States and Jordan don’t agree on what any preliminary talks are supposed to lead to.

Jordan’s own agenda is far from a mystery. Before anything else happens, it wants the United States to meet with a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, whose Palestinian members would be approved of if not nominated by the Palestine Liberation Organization. Jordan and the PLO have both made it clear that they would regard such a meeting as constituting U.S. recognition of the PLO. For a decade, U.S. policy has been not to deal with the PLO until it at least implicitly accepts Israel’s legitimacy by endorsing a couple of key U.N. Security Council resolutions. That policy hasn’t changed. Neither has the not-unreasonable U.S. view that the only acceptable mode of negotiating peace is by direct talks among the antagonists.

Direct negotiations are not on Jordan’s agenda. What Hussein has proposed instead is a grand international conference on the Middle East to which would be invited not just all parties to the Arab-Israel conflict but the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council as well. This approach, rejected by the United States, is of course the antithesis of direct talks and, more to the point, a sure prescription for failure. For by bringing in Syria, the Soviet Union and all their sisters and their cousins and their aunts, it guarantees that there would be no common ground among the conferees on the central issue of political compromise that could lead to peace with Israel.

The recent Arab demi-summit conference in Morocco again demonstrated how divided the Arab world remains when it comes even to thinking about a political settlement with Israel. Though they boycotted the event, the radical states led by Syria still were able to exercise a coercive veto and prevent any endorsement of Hussein’s initiative. Hussein, on his part, is not about to risk his head and his kingdom by venturing on a course bitterly opposed by the Syrians. For that reason, though he talks boldly about his quest for peace, he will not agree to direct talks with Israel. And certainly he will not seek a compromise on the West Bank without the explicit approval of Syria.

All this is welcome news to many in Israel, since it again postpones the day of reckoning that would come if the deeply split Israeli government was ever confronted with a plausible opportunity to negotiate a territorial compromise on the West Bank. Prime Minister Shimon Peres is probably eager for such a confrontation, precisely because it would break up his shaky coalition government and force a national vote on a fundamental issue. But for the time being at least that is not to be. Because the Arabs are not ready to get serious about peace based on territorial compromise, the Israelis have been spared the need to get serious on their part. This gives the territorial expansionists who advocate a Greater Israel more time to dig in while they wait for government leadership to pass into their hands next year.