PERSPECTIVE ON ARAB-ISRAELI PEACE : One Victory Can Produce Another : The success of the anti-Iraq coalition should give momentum to settling the Palestinian question.

The signs of allied victory in the Gulf War are bringing with them gloomy forecasts about the prospects for winning the peace, especially an Arab-Israeli peace. On the face of it, the war against Saddam Hussein appears to have made a solution to the Palestinian problem more necessary and yet less likely. But it is a mistake to assume that it will be bloody-minded business as usual in the Arab-Israeli conflict after our triumphant victory over Saddam Hussein. Instead, the region will be in shock and a narrow window of opportunity will have been opened. If we exploit it adroitly and expeditiously, we may well succeed in generating a viable Arab-Israeli negotiating process.

Countering such optimism is the argument that the war has made the Israelis even more sensitive. Having been attacked, they are newly aware of the security threat posed by Arab armies, the zero-sum intentions of the Palestinians and the strategic value of retaining the West Bank and Golan Heights.

As for the Palestinians, in the despair and frustration generated by their failed dependence on yet another perfidious pan-Arab leader, they are expected to be too bitter, divided and leaderless to engage in reconciliation with the Jewish state. Indeed, it is ironic that while the Gulf crisis has highlighted the Palestinian issue, it has also delegitimized the Palestine Liberation Organization, the supposed “sole legitimate representative” of the Palestinians. This leaves no obvious answer to the perennial question, “Who, in the wake of the decline of Yasser Arafat and the PLO, will have the authority to represent the Palestinians in negotiations with Israel?”

But if on the surface the postwar trend looks unpromising, the subterranean currents are moving in a more positive direction. In the aftershock of the Gulf War, new realities are bound to intrude on the comfortable calculations of all the players in the Israeli-Arab conflict. Israelis have been reminded of the horrible costs of war at a time when they are confronting the huge challenge of absorbing a million new immigrants from the Soviet Union. Israel simply cannot afford a new arms race when the immigrant absorption price tag is put at $35 billion.

The choice between seeking peace and preparing for the next war has also been eased by this war’s removal of the Iraqi army as a major threat to the Jewish state. And the discrediting of Arafat has provided Israel with a golden opportunity to deal with an indigenous Palestinian leadership in the territories before the PLO phoenix rises again.

True, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir leads an unruly coalition of right-wing and religious parties unwilling to countenance territorial compromise in the West Bank. But if there is a genuine offer of peace from the Arab side, Shamir is capable of delivering a territorial deal on the Golan Heights and an interim deal for Palestinian self-government that leaves open the final status of the territories.

On the Arab side, the Gulf crisis has produced a new dominant axis that combines the largest, the richest and the most nationalist states. This unprecedented alignment of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria would be unassailable if it chose to negotiate with Israel. In this crisis, they have faced a common threat with Israel and should have come to appreciate the contribution that Israel’s restraint made to their interests (providing that Israel continues to exercise restraint). After the crisis, President Hosni Mubarak and King Fahd certainly have a big incentive to demonstrate to the Arab street that, through peace with Israel, they are better able to secure Palestinian rights than Saddam Hussein could with his grandiose claims and aggressive behavior.

Can they bring Syria along? That depends on how President Hafez Assad will view the package of likely incentives--territory on the Golan Heights, stability in a Syrian-dominated Lebanon, an interim arrangement for the Palestinians, improved relations with the United States and Saudi aid. Will that be more attractive than the potential of a radical alliance with Iran, a post-Hussein Iraq and a post- glasnost Soviet Union?

Assad knows that Syria will be the “swing state” in the postwar regional balance of power, and that the radical pole looks less attractive for the moment than staying with the winning side. He will at least be prepared to receive offers and exploit the naivete of Western leaders only too willing to make the pilgrimage to Damascus to warrant Assad a man of peace. If Saudi Arabia, emboldened by the protection we have afforded it, refuses to fund a renewed Syrian effort to achieve “strategic parity” with Israel, and if the Soviet Union--in return for a seat at the table--refuses to provide the weapons, then Assad might be persuaded to engage in negotiations with Israel.

The second track of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations also holds more promise than might at first appear. Shamir’s principal objection to the last effort to launch an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue was that the United States was trying to force him to negotiate with PLO proxies over a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. With the PLO out, Likud ministers are now discussing the idea of municipal elections in the West Bank and Gaza to produce a Palestinian leadership with which Israel would negotiate an interim arrangement for self-government.

Would the Palestinians boycott such elections, seeing in them an effort to exploit their weakness? There is clearly a powerful self-destructive urge in the Palestinian national movement. But in the postwar environment, other factors may come into play.

The Palestinian leadership is up for grabs. Nationalists in the territories already believe that the movement would be better led by people rooted in the land who would be more responsive to the needs of the local population. The Palestinian fundamentalist movement, Hamas, is likely to seize the opportunity of elections to demonstrate its strength, much as its brother organizations have done lately wherever elections were offered in the Arab world. Other Palestinians would then have to participate for fear of being shut out from the negotiating table. Egypt and Saudi Arabia can lend vital Arab legitimacy to that process. Now that the Arab allied foreign ministers have dropped any reference to the PLO in last week’s Cairo communique on postwar arrangements, it should be relatively straightforward for them to support an elected Palestinian leadership in the territories.

The United States also will be in a better position to wield its influence on the peace process. In the wake of Iraq’s devastating defeat, all the local powers will take their cues from us. There will be a great temptation to launch a “Bush plan” for Middle East peace; there will be immense pressure to agree to a U.N.-sponsored international conference; and there will be much unfinished business in the Gulf to secure postwar stability and bring Western troops home. If we do not move expeditiously to the launching of a viable Arab-Israeli peace process, the endemic instability of the region will be fueled.

We will therefore need some guidelines for productive engagement:

--Avoid the appearance of a Pax Americana. In the wake of victory, the Arab world will tend to view the United States as the new imperialist power. In this context, a “Bush plan” would generate unnecessary opposition. Better to work with Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia on initiatives that they can propose and we can support.

--Give priority to Gulf security. Lack of secure postwar arrangements would adversely affect the prospects for progress on the Arab-Israeli front. We should want to avoid the fate of the 1982 Reagan Plan, which, because it was premature, failed to secure Lebanon or achieve an Arab-Israeli breakthrough.

--Avoid a U.N.-sponsored international conference. Israel’s government is allergic to this idea. Egypt also has reservations, and Saudi Arabia is no longer insisting on it. Instead, the focus should be on regional talks between the Arab states and Israel, perhaps under superpower auspices if the Soviet Union is prepared to play a constructive role, as opposed to its diplomatic dabblings on the eve of war, a futile gesture to enhance the Gorbachev government at the allies’ expense. Regional arms-control talks might provide the “back door” into the peace process.

--Engage the Arab states. Previously, the Bush Administration had ignored that dimension of the Arab-Israeli conflict in favor of Israeli-Palestinian negotiation. Now the opportunity exists to ease the risks of peacemaking for an Israel that has always been more threatened by Arab armies than by Palestinian rock-throwers. The logic of the process should be to encourage Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council to make Israel an offer of genuine peace and full recognition in return for an Israeli offer to negotiate on the Golan Heights and an interim arrangement in the territories. The more generous and comprehensive the Arab offer of peace, the more forthcoming Israel might be.

--Avoid code words. Arab-Israeli peacemaking has accumulated a great deal of verbal baggage over the last decade. Terms like “territories for peace,” “Camp David,” Palestinian “homeland,” “autonomy” and “self-determination” have all been invested with political meanings that render them obstacles to quick progress. What we need is a new, positive vision of peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Israelis articulated by the parties to the dispute themselves.

--Get the process started. If too much attention is paid to the outcome, our efforts will be diverted from getting the process under way. After almost a decade of false starts, what is now needed is a breakthrough to a viable negotiating process that builds confidence among very distrustful partners.

All wars in the Middle East have presented opportunities for making peace. But few wars in this volatile region have actually resulted in peace agreements. It is too much to expect that the war in the Gulf could produce peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. But it will provide an opportunity for Arabs and Israelis to pursue a better vision of coexistence than the dark, false prophesy of Saddam Hussein. If they have the will, we can help them find their way.