U.S. Mideast Peace Plan Faces Uncertain Future : Shultz Proposal Has Something for Almost Everyone but Also Many Critics

If the United States had the power to impose its will on the rest of the world, the new American plan for Middle East peace would seem to be a just and equitable way to end four decades of strife between Arabs and Israelis.

It has something for almost everyone. And it tries to avoid the things that each of the parties most strongly oppose.

For Israel, it holds out the prospect of peace with all of its neighbors for the first time in its modern history. For the Palestinians, it offers more control over their own destinies than they have enjoyed for years, and maybe more than they have ever known. And for the Arab states of the region, it offers an end to the humiliation that followed their military defeat by Israel in 1967.

Attracted More Critics

But the United States does not have the power to impose a settlement. And the new U.S. plan already seems to have attracted more critics than supporters.

“There are so many people who can pull the rug out,” Secretary of State George P. Shultz mused as his Air Force plane began the last leg of an exhausting 21,916-mile Middle East shuttle that ended Saturday.

The list of potential spoilers--any one of which could torpedo the plan--is a long one:

-- Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who immediately passed the word to Israel Radio that the proposal was not acceptable without significant changes, and who has never embraced the land-for-peace concept at the heart of Shultz’s latest plan.

-- The Palestine Liberation Organization, which maintains a strong influence over the Arab population of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, but which is offered no official role in the proposed settlement despite its longstanding claim to be the only representative of the Palestinian people.

-- The Soviet Union, Britain, France and China, which are called upon to play cameo roles in launching negotiations but are offered no real influence.

-- Jordan’s King Hussein, who has long insisted that he will make peace only if Israel gives up all of the Arab land it occupied in 1967, something that the Shultz plan does not provide.

-- Syria, Israel’s most implacable foe, which has indicated that it would consider a peace settlement only if it could recover the Golan Heights, which Israel has formally annexed.

That sort of opposition has destroyed all attempts at Middle East peace since the 1978 Camp David conference, which fashioned the only peace treaty Israel has ever signed--its 1979 pact with Egypt.

In normal times, Shultz admits, his plan would almost surely be shot down by some group that preferred the status quo to the uncertainties of a negotiated future. But, Shultz maintains, these are not normal times.

“There are many things about what we are doing that are very ambitious and the time line is very ambitious,” Shultz said. “But we also think that there is an attitude of readiness to work to change things that should be taken advantage of by everybody.”

Sense of Urgency

The sense of urgency results from the bloody, 12-week-old uprising of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Both Israelis and Arabs agree that things will never again be quite the same as they were before the riots began last December.

But it is not yet clear whether the violence will produce a compromise. West Bank and Gaza Palestinians say that, despite at least 80 unrest-related Palestinian deaths, the uprising has put their cause back on the international front burner. They might want to keep it there a while longer. And Israeli leaders, for their part, are reluctant to appear to be giving in to the demonstrators.

Shultz tried to neutralize the opposition with an interlocking package in which the most cherished position of each party is linked to issues that party opposes.

He delivered a 1 1/2-page memo on the proposal to Israel, Jordan, Syria and Egypt on Thursday and Friday. And, as the trip drew to a close, the secretary of state clearly was pleased with his work.

Limited Self-Rule

The plan calls for an interim period of limited self-rule for West Bank and Gaza Palestinians while negotiations are proceeding over the shape of a final settlement. Shamir supports some sort of “autonomy” for the Palestinians and would like to make that the final settlement, not just an interim measure. For their part, the Palestinians, joined by Arab governments, complain that limited self-rule is not enough, and they are worried that if they accept autonomy, that will be all they can ever get.

Shultz’s proposed compromise calls for negotiations, expected to last six months or less, to establish the outlines of an interim period of autonomy. The interim arrangement would not take effect, however, until negotiations on a final status have begun.

That is intended to reassure the Palestinians that they will have a fair chance at their ultimate objective, an independent state. But the autonomy plan would last for exactly three years, regardless of progress in the final status talks. That is intended to reassure Shamir that autonomy will get a fair trial and that Israel will not be stampeded into a final settlement.

Similarly, Shultz is attempting to finesse the issue of an international conference. Jordan, joined by other Arab states, demanded a conference to be attended by the major powers and all of the parties to the dispute. Although Hussein said he would engage in direct talks with Israeli leaders at such a conference, he stressed that the conference itself must play a substantial role. Israelis, even those favorably disposed to the concept of an international conference, want a much less formal gathering that would have no real power.

The Shultz plan calls for an advisory role for the major powers, although they could not impose a settlement and would not have a veto. The conference would meet at the start of talks and reconvene from time to time as the Arab-Israeli negotiations progress.

Perhaps the most audacious part of the Shultz plan is its schedule. The secretary of state called for a formal response from all parties by the middle of March. He envisions the start of talks about the interim arrangement on May 1 with the final status talks to begin in early November. He wants the international conference to be held between April 1 and April 15--the earlier the better.

If that schedule holds, the final status talks would begin shortly after general elections in Israel. The peace process is sure to be a major issue in the balloting, and the new government could go to the table with a fresh mandate from the voters.

The final status talks also would take place after the presidential election in the United States. But Shultz says he is determined to continue pushing his plan as long as the Reagan Administration remains in office and then turn the process over to the next secretary of state.

“If we can achieve something in this Administration, fine, we’d like to do that,” Shultz said. “On the other hand, if we can get something going that our successors can use in a successful way, then we’d like to leave that, too.”