2 Israeli Scholars See Hope for Lasting Mideast Peace : Future: The allies should immediately lay the groundwork for regional treaty talks and Marshall Plan-style reconstruction aid, the professors say.

The Gulf War has reshaped Israeli politics, and a decisive allied victory would give new hope for a lasting peace settlement in the Middle East, two Israeli scholars said Saturday.

The two Hebrew University of Jerusalem professors--one an expert in international terrorism, the other a leading peace activist--said the allies should immediately lay the groundwork for a postwar regional peace conference and a Marshall Plan-style package of Mideast reconstruction aid.

If people in the region start hearing that good changes will occur after the war, “they will be more willing to end it,” said Edy Kaufman, director of the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace.

“If there is no clear peace initiative, fundamentalism could prevail and terrorism could prevail,” he said.

“A decisive victory will solve problems within the Arab world,” agreed Ehud Sprinzak, a specialist in political extremism, violence and terrorism. “Indecisive situations are the mother of riots and unrest.”

Sprinzak said the allies should be “magnanimous in victory,” both toward Iraq and the Palestinians.

He suggested a world Marshall Plan for the Middle East, with heavy financial contributions by Japan, Germany and others “who have been sitting on the sidelines but who will benefit from the outcome--including the stabilization of oil prices.”

“The Iraqi people and the Palestinians, they should not be asked to pay the price for this,” he said.

Sprinzak, a visiting professor at George Washington University, and Kaufman, who left Jerusalem for a teaching post at the University of Maryland 10 days after the war began, will discuss the Israeli perspective on the war at 9 a.m. today at the Temple Bat Yahm in Newport Beach.

In separate interviews Saturday, the scholars agreed that the war has boosted Israel’s standing overseas and has united the usually fractious public squarely behind the conservative government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

“This has changed the Israeli position overnight,” Sprinzak said. “Israel for the first time in many years has again become the underdog, and when you are the underdog, certainly in American public opinion, you are doing great.”

Although international pressure is growing for Israel to make territorial concessions to Palestinians at the end of the war, the liberal professors each expressed concerns that Shamir’s soaring domestic popularity may encourage him to continue intransigent policies.

“As a political analyst, I think that the Israeli government will come out much stronger than it went into this war,” Sprinzak said. “As an Israeli who thinks there needs to be movement, I’m not that happy about that.”

Kaufman, whose family remained closeted in a sealed room in Jerusalem during Friday’s Scud attack on Israel, said solidarity is high in Israel.

“Missiles do not distinguish between liberals and conservatives, Jews and Arabs,” he said.

Even Israeli doves have praised their government’s handling of the crisis, and public opinion polls show a rare 90% support for the decision to delay retaliation against Iraq.

“This is a trigger-happy government,” Kaufman said. “It is not a moderate government. So if a trigger-happy government says restraint, people accept it. If it were the Labor Party, they might not.”

Despite the temporary surge to Shamir, Kaufman said, the Israeli public is deeply weary of decades of war.

He expressed hope that Israelis could be persuaded to accept the loss of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in return for the security of a comprehensive postwar Mideast peace settlement.

“After a major war, throughout history, there is an opportunity to make the world better,” he said.

He proposed international peace talks modeled on the Helsinki accords of 1975. Kaufman said the talks should include discussions of elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and autonomy for the Palestinians.

But he said discussions should also begin on other regional border disputes, conventional arms limits for the region, economic development projects that include joint Arab-Israeli ventures and steps toward democratization.

If Saddam Hussein is defeated, if Palestinians feel scorned and humiliated by the West and if there are no concrete steps toward resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there will be a period of “chaos, violence and street terrorism that will be disastrous for everyone,” Kaufman warned.

The Israeli public is deeply upset by revelations that German companies provided materials for Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons, both professors said.

“In Israel, everybody is upset--left, right, everybody,” Kaufman said. “Where is the sensitivity of Germany?”

Germany’s apologies and promises of loans to Israel will mollify the public only if Hussein does not launch a chemical attack against Israel, Kaufman predicted.

Though the West has been girding for Gulf-inspired terrorism, Sprinzak said he is not surprised that large-scale attacks have not materialized.

Although low-level attacks and simple sabotage are always possible, he said, most recent major attacks have been the work not of Iraqi-based groups but of well-organized Palestinians, including Palestinian Liberation Front leader Abul Abbas and the Abu Nidal group, blamed for the 1985 attacks at the Rome and Vienna airports.

These groups have had close ties to Syria which, as part of the allied coalition, may be urging them not to strike, Sprinzak said.

Moreover, professional terrorists expect tangible rewards for their services and may calculate that Hussein will be unable to deliver, he said.

“They know,” Sprinzak said, “Saddam Hussein is broke, he doesn’t have a penny to pay. . . . If they think he’s doomed, why should they risk themselves? Who’s going to reward them?”

Moreover, he said, a besieged Baghdad can no longer offer returning terrorists a safe haven.

“The professionals are professionals--they think twice,” Sprinzak said, adding “I wouldn’t do any jobs for Saddam right now.”