Jordan’s Plan Roils Israeli Politics : King’s Shunning of Peace Role Undercuts Peres’ Stance

Long before his new policy toward the Israeli-occupied West Bank has had time to alter practical conditions for Palestinians there, Jordan’s King Hussein already has left a distinct mark on Israel’s election campaign.

When he announced he would sever legal and administrative links with the territory his family ruled from 1948 to 1967, the Hashemite monarch also undercut the position of Israel’s centrist Labor Alignment less than three months before it faces a crucial date at the polls.

Labor and its leader, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, have long looked to Hussein as the key to resolving the Palestinian problem. So, when the king effectively renounced that role, he made Peres “look an absolute fool,” wrote Susan Hattis Rolef, editor of Labor’s monthly journal, Spectrum, in Tuesday’s Jerusalem Post.

Although leaders of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s rightist Likud Bloc have been gloating, some independent political analysts think that Likud ultimately may also be vulnerable in the wake of Hussein’s landmark decision.

‘Sobering Effect’

Likud officials, while arguing that the Jordanian ruler’s moves “will most likely have a positive effect on the Likud’s campaign effort,” conceded in a statement issued in response to a question from The Times on Tuesday that Hussein’s actions “have had a sobering effect in Israel.”

Strategists for both major political groups reportedly have been trying to update their election messages since the Jordanian ruler began implementing his new policy last week.

Long before the current uprising in the occupied territories forced the Palestinian issue before Israel, Labor had made it clear that it intended to make the Middle East peace process the central issue of the election, scheduled for Nov. 1.

During an April, 1987, meeting in London, Peres and Hussein even agreed on a formula for getting peace talks started. And when Secretary of State George P. Shultz jumped into the picture earlier this year with his own version of an international peace conference, Peres enthusiastically signed on.

A cornerstone of these efforts was that Hussein would head a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation in any talks, with the Palestinians playing a distinctly junior role.

But Shamir blocked the initiative, which was based on a principle his Likud party rejects--trading occupied land for peace. The prime minister frequently has pledged never to give up “one inch” of the West Bank and instead proposes “an accommodation” under which the Palestinians would gain local autonomy under Israeli sovereignty. To Jordan he offered only “peace for peace.”

In other words, Shamir has been saying, there is no “Jordanian option”--and now, he adds, King Hussein appears to be agreeing with him.

Problem for Labor

To be sure, it is not all that simple. Hussein’s action was a gesture to the Palestine Liberation Organization, which Shamir despises. But it nevertheless has clearly left Labor, rather than Likud, with more of an immediate problem of explaining its program to the Israeli voters.

Hussein, according to the Likud statement, “leaves the Labor party exposed--you could even say he’s left Peres naked--when it comes to their proposals for pursuing Arab-Israeli peace and reaching an accommodation with the residents” of the West Bank.

“I think Shamir was counting on the Jordanian option too,” Daniel Elazar, director of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, said in an interview. “But he was smart--he wasn’t saying it. . . . I think it’s Peres who’s really left holding the bag.”

“We have to be realistic,” declared a senior Labor minister who was quoted Tuesday in Hadashot, a Hebrew-language daily. “The Jordanian option . . . is not achievable,” at least in the near future.

Publicly, Labor’s response so far has been twofold.

First, it argues that Hussein remains the best Arab partner for negotiations and that he can still be lured back into the peace process if Israel shows flexibility.

“If, after the elections, there is an Israeli option, then there will be a Jordanian option,” Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a Labor member, said recently. The underlying message, of course, is that a Likud victory would close all options.

The second Labor tactic is to blast Shamir and Likud as responsible for leading the country into a dead end. The emergence last weekend of a Palestinian plan to unilaterally declare an independent state in the occupied territories, headed by PLO leader Yasser Arafat, has added bite to this argument.

“The Likud, who didn’t want Hussein, brought Arafat,” said Ezer Weizman, the head of the Labor election campaign. “The Likud, who rejected the Peres-Hussein initiative, brought the Faisal Husseini initiative (Husseini is the reputed mastermind behind the Palestinian independence plan). The Likud, who prevented peace talks within an international conference, brought us the danger of international coercion.”

If the Palestinians “do something that really stirs up a hornets’ nest,” said independent analyst Elazar, Likud could be vulnerable to charges that it was responsible for Israel missing a golden opportunity for peace.

No Talks With PLO

Meanwhile, both parties reject the notion of an independent Palestinian state and rule out any talks with the PLO.

According to the Likud statement: “Today, after Hussein’s declarations, we have to make it clear to the residents (of the West Bank) that there really is no alternative to peaceful coexistence with the state of Israel.”

How Likud intends to persuade the residents is unclear. But, according to the party statement, a theme of its campaign will be that Jews and Arabs can and must live together peacefully.

Labor argues that this formula will inevitably mean an Arab majority within a generation--a demographic “bomb” that is a far greater threat to the Jewish state than giving up some of the occupied territories.