NEWS ANALYSIS : Israelis, Arabs Squabble Over Tactics, Locales

Ceremonial as were their ritual appeals for peace, the opening addresses by Israeli and Arab delegates to the Middle East talks Thursday betrayed unceremonious hints of how they expect the conference to proceed in the coming crucial days.

Their tactical views appear as irreconcilable as their differing notions about the Middle East conflict’s causes and possible solutions.

At issue is how and where the talks will continue after the three days of group discussions ending today give way to one-on-one talks between Israel and its Arab adversaries.

Israeli and American sources said late Thursday that the face-to-face talks will open Sunday or Monday in Madrid, the Arabs’ chosen site. But the Israelis’ first order of business, these sources said, will be to seek to move the new round of talks quickly to the Middle East before substantive negotiations can begin.

At the center of the Arab-Israeli clash over tactics are assumptions about the role to be played by the international community, and particularly by the United States, which convened the peace conference with a much weakened Soviet Union.

Paradoxically, it is Israel--basing its strategy on its military might, historic claims to statehood and the land it has won in warfare--that wants its steadfast friend, the United States, virtually to drop out of sight.

And it is the Arabs, armed with U.N. resolutions and insistent that the rights of Palestinians are being trampled, who demand that the United States activate its role as keeper of the “new world order.”

“Israel was saying, ‘We’re strong, we’re here, you have to deal with us,’ ” said Martin Indyk, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The Arabs were saying, ‘We’re in a weak position, and we need help from the world to make up the difference.’ ”

President Bush, who opened the conference Wednesday, seemed to take the Israeli side by insisting that the United States is available as a catalyst but that the rivals will have to work out solutions themselves. Yet, the likely presence of a high-ranking Administration official monitoring the talks left an unanswered question: Is Washington a referee or a judge?

At the heart of Israel’s position was that only one-on-one talks with its neighbors--without outsiders--can break the cycle of impasse and war. “We hope that Arab consent to direct, bilateral talks indicates an understanding that there is no other way to peace,” said Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in his opening speech Thursday.

Shamir was pressing the Arabs to hold the one-on-one negotiations in the Middle East, alternating between their capitals and Jerusalem. “There is no better way to make peace than to talk in each other’s home,” he said.

The Arabs want no part of that, for fear that a visit to Jerusalem would imply Israel’s right to nationhood. That is a concession that they are loath to make.

In Shamir’s entire 30-minute talk, he referred to the Americans only twice and only in the context of how the Bush initiative was meant to produce face-to-face talks.

“If the format has the expectation of an American role, then it is natural for everyone to address the Americans,” said Dore Gold, a defense analyst at Tel Aviv University and adviser to the Israeli delegation. “Real progress will be made when everyone stops singing to the Americans.”

Shamir, likewise, did not turn to the United Nations to intervene. He implied that the United Nations has disqualified itself because of a host of U.N. resolutions that Israel believes favor Arab positions. Foremost among them are resolutions that call for surrender of territory captured by Israel in return for peace and secure borders.

Arab speakers, on the other hand, made direct appeals for intervention. Addressing the United States and Soviet Union, the conference co-sponsors, Haidar Abdel-Shafi, the head of the Palestinian delegation, said: “This is the moment of truth. . . . The people of Palestine look at you with a straightforward, direct gaze, seeking to touch your heart, for you have dared to stir up hopes that can not be abandoned.”

Jordan’s foreign minister, Kamel abu Jaber, quoted his boss, King Hussein, as saying recently: “Our cause is not only between us and Israel but between the world and Israel.”

Arabs gave various reasons for wanting to keep the one-on-one talks in Madrid. “This should take place on neutral ground where the world is present,” said Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian spokeswoman.

Also, Ashrawi said, Palestinians could never hold peace talks with the Israelis at a place where, as they see it, they would be subject to the law of an occupying Israeli force. “We won’t negotiate under distress,” she vowed. “We will not subject our negotiators to curfew, detention and censorship . . . and then tell them you have to negotiate with your occupier.”

Syria viewed the sudden flurry of talks about the site of the next round of talks as evidence of Israeli attempts to change preset American guarantees. Syrian officials said they had assurances before the talks started that they would not be moved from Madrid.

“Our common understanding was wherever the peace conference starts, it will start and end, A to Z, in the same place,” said Zuhair Janaan, spokesman for the Syrian delegation.