Israel Gets U.S. Plan for Closing Gap With Arabs

Secretary of State James A. Baker III on Friday handed Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir a list of proposals intended to narrow Arab-Israeli differences over the Middle East peace process and warned that unless the issues are successfully addressed, regional talks would collapse before they start.

An apparently frustrated Baker refused to talk to reporters after meeting with Shamir for more than three hours, but his spokeswoman issued a terse written statement saying, in effect, that the ball is in Israel’s court. For their part, Israeli officials suggested that the Americans were reneging on agreements already reached.

“The secretary went over differences in Arab and Israeli positions on a number of issues and made suggestions as to how to bridge the gaps in order to get to a conference which would launch direct bilateral negotiations,” State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said.

“There are a number of outstanding issues that will have to be worked out and resolved if a process is to result,” she said.

Tutwiler said Shamir declined to respond at once to the proposals, asking for time to study them. She said it now is up to Israel to decide “when and how” to deliver its answer.

Shamir’s spokesman, Avi Pazner, giving an equally terse account, said: “There is a need for further consultation and thoughts. The talks will continue. We have not decided how and when.”

It was an inauspicious start to Baker’s third Middle East peace shuttle in six weeks. The secretary of state clearly had hoped to obtain Israeli concessions on at least some of the points to give him something to discuss when he visits Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Israeli officials expressed chagrin that differences with Washington they thought had been swept away during Baker’s two previous visits have resurfaced. “What’s needed now are agreements to be reached and maintained,” government spokesman Yossi Olmert said.

Among the disputes apparently still at large are the question of who will represent Palestinians at the proposed talks; whether residents of Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem can be included and whether the United States, the Soviet Union and perhaps European governments will be limited to a one-time ceremonial role or whether they will arbitrate deadlocks between Israel and the Arabs.

“Things are going to get tough from now on,” said Olmert. “We are touching on questions of substance, and the rosy-cozy stage of talks is over.”

In her statement, Tutwiler declined to disclose any details of the proposals Baker brought to the meeting with Shamir. But the clear implication was that the measures represented steps that Arab governments consider necessary to get peace talks under way.

“For now, given the prime minister’s desire to consider these suggestions, no one in the U.S. delegation will be briefing the press about the substance of today’s meetings,” she said.

Israeli Foreign Ministry officials told reporters earlier in the week that differences remained with Washington over several procedural issues which, in Israel’s view, hold concrete implications.

Israel opposes even an offstage role for the Palestine Liberation Organization, not only because of the group’s terrorist history but also because it demands an independent state. The Shamir government rejects participation of Palestinians from Jerusalem, whose Arab neighborhoods were annexed in 1967, because it fears that bringing in them in would throw into question Israel’s hold on half the city.

The issues are the same ones that soured Shamir on his own 1989 plan for Palestinian elections. The proposal fell apart when Shamir refused to agree to meet with a delegation that included PLO stand-ins or Palestinians from Jerusalem.

Baker’s outline for two-track negotiations includes not only Palestinian-Israeli talks but also face-to-face talks between Israel and Arab states. The original intent of the two-track plan was to provide sweeteners for both sides because the Israelis are most interested in government-to-government relations with neighboring Arab states. Arabs put their priority on solving the Palestinian problem.

Rather than smoothing the way to the negotiating table, the two-track approach may multiply complications. Syria, for one is asking Western powers and the Soviets to act as referees in case of a stalemate between Israel and any of the Arab states or the Palestinians. Shamir rejects the idea because he views it as exposing Israel to pressure to give up the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the Palestinians and the Golan Heights to Syria.

“Once you enlarge the scope to try to do it on two tracks . . . you bring in more partners. To find the common denominator to bring so many partners to agreement is much more complex,” commented Yitzhak Rabin, a former prime minister from the opposition Labor Party. Rabin met with Baker after the talks with Shamir.

Shamir’s reluctance to respond at once to the suggestions is certain to affect Baker’s talks with Arab leaders, which begin today when he calls on Jordan’s King Hussein in the Red Sea port city of Aqaba. He is scheduled to confer later with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd and Syrian President Hafez Assad, with time out for a postwar inspection tour of Kuwait.

It now seems almost certain that Baker will return to Israel after concluding his talks in Damascus on Tuesday. And officials declined to rule out the possibility that he might then return to the Arab capitals.

In late afternoon, Baker took an unannounced tour of Jerusalem’s Old City and visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, one of Christendom’s holiest shrines, and the Western Wall, Judaism’s most revered site. He did not visit Al Aqsa Mosque or the Dome of the Rock, which together make up Islam’s third-holiest site after Mecca and Medina.

Finished with the Old City, he visited Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity, revered as Jesus’ birthplace. Among the sites he probably viewed along the road to Bethlehem are the new checkpoints designed to keep Palestinian workers from traveling freely into Israel. The barriers were erected to reduce the chance that armed Palestinians might enter and attack Israelis.

The entire sightseeing trip lasted just over 90 minutes, from the time Baker left the King David Hotel until he returned. Israeli security was extremely tight with armed border police at almost every turn.