Peres Will Seek U.S. Help on Soviet Relations : Restoring Formal Ties Is ‘Unlikely but Not Impossible,’ Israeli Leader Says

Not long after taking office last fall, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres enlisted Armand Hammer, the Los Angeles oil magnate, as an intermediary to explore with Moscow the possibility of renewing Soviet-Israeli diplomatic relations, which the Kremlin had broken during the 1967 Middle East War.

Hammer, after all, had known V.I. Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state, and the forthcoming 40th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany last spring seemed to make it a fitting time for such an approach.

But as Peres later related to a group of Israeli high school students, the Soviets told Hammer: “The matter of Israel depends on the relationship of the Soviet Union and the United States.”

It is with that in mind that Peres will arrive in Washington on Wednesday to confer with U.S. officials on Moscow’s role in the Middle East.

Peres has said privately that he will urge President Reagan to press Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev on three points when the two superpower leaders meet next month in Geneva: An easing of the Kremlin policy toward Soviet Jews, particularly concerning emigration; renewal of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Israel, and adoption of a more even-handed Soviet approach in the Middle East.

Prospects for Change

These are not new Israeli concerns, but Peres will be putting particular emphasis on them because of a perception among many experts here that the prospects for a change in Moscow’s Middle East policy are more favorable now than at any time in recent memory. Having been disappointed frequently in the past, the experts are cautious in forecasting whether these prospects might be translated into real improvement.

Peres himself has said he thinks that restoring Israeli-Soviet diplomatic relations is “unlikely, but not impossible.” But he has continued to send favorable signals to the Kremlin, including repeated statements that he will drop his opposition to any Soviet participation in the Middle East peace process if Moscow renews relations with Israel.

He reiterated that position last Thursday before the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, a day after Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir appeared to throw cold water on the idea in talks in Washington with Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

“This seems to be a little different than all the earlier flurries,” Galia Golan, a Hebrew University Sovietologist, said of the latest diplomatic moves. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything that looks to be this serious.”

Gideon Rafael, former director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said the next move is up to the Soviets and that so far there has been no “tangible” change in their posture. He agreed, however, that after years of a freeze in Israeli-Soviet contacts, “the relationship is in a state of transition.”

No Sudden Change Seen

No one here expects the situation to change in one dramatic step but there is a sense that any thaw in Soviet-American relations could have important fallout here.

The Soviet Union was an early supporter of the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and in 1947 it voted at the United Nations in favor of the creation of the state of Israel.

However, Moscow soon shifted its support to Israel’s Arab neighbors. In June of 1967, the Soviet Union and all its East Bloc allies except Romania broke relations with Israel as Israeli troops captured the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank of the Jordan River from Jordan, and the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.

Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt as part of the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries but it still occupies the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Moscow has long supported Arab demands for the return of those territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Israel and the Soviet Union have scientific and cultural relations but conduct essential diplomatic business through the Netherlands and Finland.

Changes in Leadership

A series of events, starting with the changes of leadership that brought Peres to power in Israel and Gorbachev to power in the Kremlin, have spurred speculation about a Soviet-Israeli thaw.

Last spring, the Soviet Communist Party daily Pravda published on its front page a congratulatory message from Israeli President Chaim Herzog on the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II. It was a startling move, given the Moscow media’s normally hostile coverage of anything Israeli.

A series of contacts between Israeli and Soviet ambassadors in third countries followed, culminating in a particularly well-publicized meeting in Paris last July.

According to accounts of that session leaked here, Soviet Ambassador Yuli M. Vorontsov told Israel’s Ovadia Sofer that Moscow might be ready to restore diplomatic relations and ease restrictions on Jewish emigration in return for Israeli flexibility in dealing with the future of the Golan Heights and a halt in what Moscow sees as Israeli-inspired anti-Soviet propaganda.

Officials of both countries subsequently sought to minimize the news reports, though the Israeli side admitted that the meeting had taken place.

Not long after the Paris contact, Peres sent a personal message to Gorbachev reportedly stressing that Israelis do not hate the Russian people and that, while Israel may disagree with the Soviet system, diplomatic relations are not limited to systems that are in agreement.

In early October, Foreign Minister Shamir met at the United Nations with his Bulgarian, Hungarian and Polish counterparts. The Bulgarian and Hungarian contacts were the first at that level since the 1967 break in relations and would not have been possible without the Kremlin’s prior consent, it is believed here.

Then, last week, Peres’ office denied a report published here that he had met secretly with Gorbachev during the Kremlin leader’s state visit to Paris.

Tempering Israeli optimism resulting from these developments are others that have caused concern here.

For one thing, the level of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union has slowed to a trickle. Only 93 Jews were allowed to leave the Soviet Union in September, after only 26 were able to depart in August. In the peak year of 1979, an average of well over 4,000 Jews a month emigrated from the Soviet Union.

Shevardnadze ‘Too Busy’

Also, while more of Moscow’s allies met with Shamir at U.N. headquarters this year, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze was pointedly “too busy” to do so, even though his predecessor, Andrei A. Gromyko, met with Shamir a year ago.

Rafael, the former Foreign Ministry official, said the mixed signals may reflect differences in Moscow between conservatives determined to continue courting the Arab countries and others who believe it is time for a change.

What does each side stand to gain?

For Israel, the most important incentive to re-establishing ties would be opening the gates to the emigration of Soviet Jews. It is estimated that there are between 2 million and 2.5 million Jews in the Soviet Union, about 400,000 of whom would like to emigrate, according to experts here.

While the United States has more Jews, most Israeli officials despair of attracting more than a tiny fraction of them to what they acknowledge is a tougher life here.

Soviet Influence on Arabs

Government officials said there would be two other related benefits to renewed Israeli-Soviet ties. Israel hopes that Soviet influence could help moderate Arab and Third World positions on the Middle East. Also, renewed relations would “go a long way toward ending Israel’s isolation,” one official said, speaking on condition that his name would not be published.

The most important thing the Soviets would stand to gain from thawing relations with Israel, Rafael said, is “good will in the West and in the United States.”

Also, according to Golan, the Hebrew University Sovietologist, Moscow has been effectively frozen out of Middle East diplomacy by the United States since the early 1970s and it may now be willing to pay the price of renewing relations with Israel to get back in.