Shamir Assails U.S. Mideast Policies : Israel: Washington’s strengthened ties with Arabs are a slap in the face, he says. The growing tension is an unexpected turn in the gulf crisis.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, in a grim speech to the Israeli Parliament, attacked key pillars of U.S. policy in the Middle East on Monday, adding a bitter note to the strained relations between the two countries.

Shamir made no direct reference to the United States or the Bush Administration, but he referred clearly to short- and long-term Administration policy in the region, including a massive arms sale to Saudi Arabia, efforts to arrange Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and the promotion of close relations with Arab countries, even if they are hostile to Israel.

Israel is “expected to put up with the renewed and massive supply of arms of advanced weapons to those states, to agree to negotiations with the terrorist organizations and to ignore the words of incitement and hatred that are constantly voiced and written in the Arab states,” he declared.

“Each time, reality comes and slaps anew the faces of those who hold with theories of moderation. But the lesson is not learned. . . . Israel will not pay the price of the lessons that the international community must extract from this gloomy reality.”

The prime minister also repeated his government’s rejection of a U.N. Security Council plan to send a mission to investigate the police shooting of Palestinians in a riot last week in Jerusalem. The United States helped draft the U.N. resolution, which expressed condemnation of Israel and authorized the mission.

Shamir’s attack on Washington’s overall Middle East policy came as a surprise in light of the critical state of affairs in the region, with U.S. troops massed in Saudi Arabia against Iraqi forces in Kuwait, which Iraq invaded on Aug. 2. Israel, at Washington’s behest, has kept out of the Kuwaiti crisis.

Shamir accused the United Nations of hypocrisy and listed several terrorist attacks on Israelis that passed without censure by the international body. In this case, Shamir said, the Security Council ignored the danger of stones hurled at Jewish worshipers at the Temple Mount.

“What stood out was the absence of any mention of the grave attack on the Jewish people’s holiest place,” he said.

Shamir rejected any U.N. role in Jerusalem, which Israel considers under its sovereignty, although much of the world thinks the status of the city is still a matter to be negotiated.

In a direct reference to the Persian Gulf crisis, Shamir once again warned Iraq against setting foot in neighboring Jordan, and he declared that Israel will strike back if attacked.

To many Israeli observers, the growing tension between Washington and Jerusalem is an unexpected turn of events. In August, when the Persian Gulf crisis broke, Israeli officials predicted with some relief a renaissance of relations with the United States, its chief ally and benefactor: no more pressure to resolve its conflict with Palestinians, no more criticism of its dealings with Arabs or its settlements on occupied land.

Field conditions had changed, some analysts said, and Israel’s role as America’s dependable ally in the ever more dangerous Middle East would eclipse the disagreements of the recent past.

This view, it develops, was optimistic, and Israel is having to face the reality that the shifting landscape in the Middle East does not necessarily mean easier times. The Palestinian issue, seemingly in regression, was thrust back into the spotlight last week by the killing of Palestinians.

Rather than putting aside complaints about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians or the reluctance of Shamir’s government to enter peace talks, Washington voted for the U.N. resolution that condemned Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel’s strategic role was muffled. The Bush Administration told Israel to keep a low military profile so that Washington’s Arab allies against Iraq might not suffer the charge of being “stooges” of Zionism.

Israeli officials attribute U.S. criticism of its handling of the Jerusalem incident to a debt Washington owes to Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia for joining an American-led force to force Iraq out of Kuwait.

But this view ignores Washington’s longer-range concern with the Palestinian issue, observers say: Having grown accustomed to a U.S. shield against U.N. censure, Israel appears to have put out of its mind a long string of U.S. warnings over its handling of the Palestinian conflict.

The Shamir government also saw little diplomatic risk in the long standoff with the Palestinians and had resisted American-brokered proposals for peace talks over the last two years.

Now, with Washington tied to contradictory alliances, there is talk that once Kuwait is out of the way, the Palestinian issue will become a priority item on the international agenda.

Already, with the United Nations affirming that the Arab districts of Jerusalem are “occupied,” Israel is on the defensive in the city it sees as entirely its own.

Some analysts warn that the U.N. position may make peace talks even more difficult than expected because Israel is being pushed into a corner.

“We are starting at the most difficult issue--Jerusalem--and this is not helpful,” political commentator Aryeh Naor cautioned.

Shamir is taking steps to confirm the inviolability of Jerusalem by expanding housing programs in Arab districts of the city--but the price of this may well be a further strain with Washington, which has never recognized Israel’s 1967 annexation of the city’s eastern sector.

Israel also has overlooked the emergence of the United Nations as a key problem-solving tool, some observers say.

It was safe to ignore the United Nations, which is highly suspect in the eyes of the Israeli government for its traditional pro-Palestinian tilt, as long as the U.S. veto was in place. When Washington changes its mind, Israel finds itself in full isolation.