U.S. Planning No New Initiatives on Mideast Peace, Officials Concede

The White House, beset by complaints that the United States has abandoned its traditional role of Middle East peacemaker, announced Friday that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir will visit the White House on March 16, following next week’s Washington trip by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

In announcing the planned Reagan-Shamir talks, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said that almost two months of often-bloody confrontations between Israeli troops and Palestinian demonstrators in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip “have given a new urgency to the search for a solution in the Middle East.”

Nevertheless, Administration officials conceded that Washington plans no new initiative to rejuvenate the long-moribund Middle East peace process. Officials say privately that there is not enough time left in Reagan’s presidency to break the impasse that has persisted since shortly after Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979.

U.S. Role a Passive One

Administration officials say the United States is prepared to play a mediating role if Israel and its Arab neighbors restart peace talks. However, the U.S. position is almost entirely passive--Washington will take part only if the process begins in the region.

“If there is any possibility of some new, practical courses of action, we certainly want to follow them,” Fitzwater said. “But I’m not aware of any dramatic new proposals that are going to be proposed at this time.”

However, Mubarak, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and many Western European leaders believe the U.S. approach is far too timid.

In an interview with The Times, published Friday, Mubarak, who is scheduled to meet Reagan next Thursday, said the situation is too dangerous to be allowed to drift until a new U.S. administration takes office next Jan. 20. On the Israeli side, a key Peres adviser, Yossi Belin, director general of the Foreign Ministry, told U.S. officials this week that only “new ideas” from the United States could break the deadlock.

Deep Mutual Mistrust

Belin said the mutual mistrust is so deep that the Arab states would be certain to reject any Israeli proposal, no matter how forthcoming, and that Israel would be equally sure to turn down any sort of Arab idea.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, interviewed Friday by NBC-TV, complained that the Reagan Administration has done nothing to get Israeli-Arab peace talks started.

“We hoped that during the last eight years there would be some American initiative,” Thatcher said. “It’s not come about.”

Fitzwater defended the Administration against Thatcher’s criticism.

He said Richard W. Murphy, assistant secretary of state for the Near East and South Asia, “has spent the better part of three or four years shuttling back and forth, searching for solutions in the Middle East, that for one reason or another have not materialized.”

Disappointed in Progress

“We also are disappointed that progress has not been made in that area,” he added.

State Department spokesman Charles Redman said there are no plans to send Murphy or another envoy back to the region.

Another State Department official said the Administration’s Middle East experts are constantly considering the situation but have come up with no new ideas.

“It’s a case of people scratching their heads and trying to think of something,” the official said. “It really goes like this: ‘Is this an idea?’ ‘No, we tried that before.’ ‘How about this?’ ‘That was tried six months ago.’ ”

Murphy and his boss, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, had hoped to devise some sort of framework for direct negotiations between Israeli leaders and King Hussein of Jordan. But they found that procedures that were acceptable to Jordan were unacceptable to Israel and vice versa.

U.S. officials say that in the meetings with Mubarak and Shamir, Reagan will probe for any possible areas of progress, but they acknowledge they have very little hope of a breakthrough.

Officials Hold Little Hope

However, Middle East specialists say it is in the interest of all concerned--Americans, Israelis and Arabs--to keep up the appearance of action. White House meetings with heads of government are always dramatic even when they do not result in new initiatives.

Ever since the latest round of anti-occupation violence began in the West Bank and Gaza Strip last month, U.S. officials have been critical of the Israeli army for shooting and beating demonstrators. However, Shultz has said that U.S. support for Israel remains unshaken.

Shamir is expected to devote much of his visit to the United States to an effort to refurbish Israel’s image in this country.