NEWS ANALYSIS : Animosity Between Baker and Shamir Reduces Chances for Arab-Israeli Peace : Diplomacy: ‘They are going to have to get along. They are, as the French say, condemned to live together,’ says a former diplomat.

Long festering personal animosity between Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has clouded the traditional American role as a mediator in the Middle East and sharply reduced the chances for Arab-Israeli peace, experts on the region said Thursday.

Although State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler insisted Thursday that Baker will not “throw in the towel” on his efforts to bring Israelis and Palestinians to the bargaining table, it seems clear that the level of distrust between Washington and Israel will preclude new initiatives, at least for a while.

“I sympathize with his (Baker’s) frustration,” said California Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica). “But there is plenty of blame to go around, and a lot of it rests at the capitals of Arab states. This has become a relationship of animosity between the Administration in Washington and the administration in Jerusalem.”

It is perhaps inevitable that Baker, who holds an almost mystic belief in the value of negotiations and split-the-difference bargaining, would have a troubled relationship with Shamir, a rigid ideologue who has never displayed doubts about the rightness of his own cause. But neither man seems to have much of an alternative to getting along with the other.

“They are going to have to get along,” said Richard W. Murphy, a former Foreign Service officer who served as the State Department’s top Middle East strategist during the Reagan Administration. “They are, as the French say, condemned to live together.”

Baker long has been known to believe that Shamir is too inflexible to make the sort of deal that could produce an Israeli-Palestinian peace. But he has seldom revealed that opinion in public.

All that changed Wednesday when Baker told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that Shamir’s conditions for negotiations are so harsh that “there won’t be any dialogue, there won’t be any peace.”

Angered by press reports that Shamir and his new right-wing government had adopted a tough bargaining position that was sure to repel Palestinians, Baker sarcastically recited the White House telephone number and advised the Israelis: “When you’re serious about peace, call us.”

Tutwiler reminded reporters that Baker was also critical of the Palestine Liberation Organization and of Arab governments for failing to advance the peace process. But there was little doubt that most of the frustration was directed at Israel.

When White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater was asked Thursday if the Administration seriously questioned Israel’s desire for peace, he replied: “Well, we certainly hope they do, but we have not yet seen the dialogue start, so we’ll just have to wait and see. . . . There is a question, certainly, on both sides.”

Baker clearly hoped to shock Shamir and his new government into adopting a more conciliatory stance. But many Middle East experts believe that his action will have the opposite effect, strengthening the forces both in Israel and among the Palestinians who oppose any negotiated deal because they believe that time is on their side.

“There are many people to the right of Shamir who want the situation to be hopeless,” said Joyce Starr, a Washington-based Middle East expert who co-chairs the Global Strategy Council.

Rep. Levine said Baker’s criticism “simply helps the far right in Israeli politics . . . and reduces the likelihood of progress.”

However, Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, a liberal Jewish publication that has long been critical of Shamir, praised Baker for a “courageous stand.”

“Shamir has always argued that there is no political cost to continuing the occupation because, even if some American Jews have doubts about some Israeli policies, when push comes to shove, they will stand up for Israel--and the U.S. government, despite its reservations, will always give full public support to Israel,” Lerner said.

“What (President) Bush and Baker could do is to communicate to the Israelis that there will be some political cost to continuing the occupation.”

So far, there has been no indication that the US.-Israeli friction over the peace process will affect other aspects of the relationship. Despite periodic outbursts of criticism, the United States continues to provide Israel with more than $3 billion per year in military and economic aid.

Further, the Administration continues to support Israel diplomatically--vetoing, for instance, a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an investigation of Israeli practices in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

However, a State Department official said the automatic American backing for Israel may be affected by the disagreements over the peace process.

“Once, anything to do with Israel was approved almost without debate,” the official said. “More questions are being asked now. An entirely different kind of atmosphere is being created.”

Shamir’s new government of right-wing secular and orthodox religious parties enjoys a very slim majority of two votes in the 120-seat Israeli Knesset, or Parliament. However, in Israel’s complex political system, a narrowly based government can be very stable because the parties that make it up have a strong incentive to avoid early elections.

The term of the current Knesset runs until the fall of 1992, which means that the Bush Administration probably will have to deal with the Shamir government for the rest of Bush’s first term.