Israelis Reject U.S. Date for Mideast Peace Talks : Diplomacy: They want a five-day delay and say they will agree to only a ‘meeting or two’ in Washington.

The Bush Administration can’t order Israel around, officials here said Wednesday, and to prove it the government rejected the Dec. 4 date set by the Bush Administration for a new round of Middle East peace talks and said Israel will agree only to a “meeting or two” in Washington, the U.S.-designated site, beginning Dec. 9.

But the Administration replied that it cannot change the date, which Jordan and Lebanon have already accepted. And American officials threatened--politely--to open the negotiations next week whether Israel shows up or not.

By day’s end, holdouts Syria and the Palestinians also had signed on to the U.S. plan for sessions in Washington starting Dec. 4, leaving Israel in a public relations lurch. The argument over the meeting date, thus, became an exercise in brinkmanship, testing the Administration’s ability to keep its newly launched negotiations going.

“We will have the negotiation facilities ready and open on Dec. 4, and they will be available on dates after Dec. 4,” State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said. “We ask those parties that have not already responded to let us know when they plan to arrive.”

Another official suggested that Secretary of State James A. Baker III might even convene the meeting with an empty chair at Israel’s place--an old political-campaign tactic to embarrass a debater who refuses to show up.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s government remained unmoved. Health Minister Ehud Olmert, a protege of Shamir’s, responded tartly: “I’m glad to hear that the facilities will be open and there will be guards and rooms. I hope when we come there, we will find them.

“The Americans,” he added, “understand that, if there will be no choice--it will start on the date we want it to start. There is no reason to worry over U.S. reaction. Our decision is reasonable, serious and responsible, and we are not obliged to accept automatically every nuance of the U.S. position.”

The latest in a series of disagreements between the Bush Administration and Shamir flared last week during the prime minister’s visit to Washington, when Baker issued invitations before Shamir met with President Bush. The Israelis were long aware that Baker would unilaterally decide on the peace talks’ place and date, but the timing became an occasion to give vent to suspicions about the American role in the talks.

“It happened either because of a planned insult or a decision to dictate the agenda of the talks,” said a senior Israeli government official. “If it’s the latter, the whole thing can’t work. We are not going to be told what to do.”

Although Israeli officials insisted that the delay to Dec. 9 is needed to give Israel more time to prepare, a statement issued in Shamir’s name expressed clear suspicion of the activist role taken by the United States.

The fear is that the Bush Administration will prod Israel to give up territory won from the Arabs during the 1967 Middle East War, a position that Shamir rejects but that would suit the Arabs. “We have reason to believe,” the statement said, “that the Arabs are not interested in talking to us or in conducting direct negotiations but want to talk with the United States and to try to exert pressure through it.”

In his reply to the Baker invitation, Shamir praised America as a “friendly country,” then proceeded to explain why talks should be held elsewhere. “We have repeatedly explained at all levels that for the negotiations to be effective, they must be in the region,” the statement said. “Israel is ready to hold a meeting or two in Washington so that later negotiations can be held in the region or near it.”

The Israelis have suggested Cyprus as a locale. However, that would raise the question of why it was necessary to leave Madrid, where the first round of talks took place more than three weeks ago.

Shamir reversed a previous position and is willing to discuss issues of substance and not just more scheduling, officials said. But it was unclear how much more than throat-clearing could occur in two days.

Tutwiler responded even before Israel’s answer was formally delivered to the State Department. In a brief statement that took Baker aides hours to hone, she struck a deliberately cheerful tone, dismissing the dispute over dates as “childish” and repeatedly expressing delight at Israel’s acceptance of Washington as a site for the meetings.

She flatly rejected any conditions from the Israelis or Arabs on what subject matter the negotiations will cover. “We cannot accept conditions,” she said, because “the parties would never sit down,” if one side or the other could restrict the substance of the talks.

Tutwiler said the Americans would be happy to open the talks on a date other than Dec. 4 if Israel and the Arabs can agree on it. “We would be pleased with any time, any date, that the parties want to get together,” she said, adding that U.S. diplomats will see if they can agree quickly on another date. But she noted that Israel and the Arabs have proven unable to agree on any such issue so far, and repeated, several times: “We will be open on Dec. 4.”

The initial peace talks in Madrid last month opened only after the United States set a firm deadline and essentially forced Israel and the Arabs to show up.

“In the big picture, does a date make a lot of difference?” Tutwiler asked. “I’ve said no, I’ve said it’s childish. I have said what is important here is the substance. The United States cannot make anyone . . . discuss something if they are unwilling to discuss it. We cannot want these talks more than the parties themselves.”

In any event, politicians on the right-wing side of Shamir’s coalition praised his action for standing up to the Americans. Three rightist ministers opposed attending the talks at all when the 12-member Inner Cabinet made the decision. But liberal opposition spokesmen called the delay infantile, and Palestinians, who form part of a negotiating team with Jordan, criticized the delay. “This is frustrating,” said Haidar Abdel Shafi, who headed the Palestinian team in Madrid.

The Shamir government was incensed that Baker, in his invitation letter, made several proposals on how the talks should proceed. He asked Israel about conditions that might encourage it to give up the formerly Syrian-held Golan Heights; he inquired into first steps that the Israelis might take to transfer authority in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to the Palestinians; he proposed a return to the Lebanese government of a town that is controlled by an Israeli-supported militia.

Israel is unwilling to take such a plunge into such key issues. At every turn, the Israelis are working to dampen expectations of a breakthrough, especially among the Palestinians, who have become heartened by the chance to negotiate out from under Israeli occupation. “The feeling the Palestinians have is that we’re going to leave the keys and get out in one or two months, and that’s not the way it will be,” said a member of the Israeli team that talked with the Palestinians in Madrid.

Under a prearranged agenda, Israel and the Palestinians are to work out a period of self-rule for the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Palestinians are eager to take control of everything from health to education to roads and water, while the Israelis appear interested in showing the Palestinians that they cannot easily cut off themselves from Israeli control.

“Take health, for instance,” said the Israeli negotiator. “There are lots of Palestinians who are taking chemotherapy treatment in Israel. Who is going to take care of them? And what about agriculture? Are they ready to pay taxes in order to sell their products in Israel? And water? It’s all one system.”

The negotiator warned against the optimism that has swept the Palestinian community. “The more euphoria, the more chance of frustration,” he advised.

The delay in talks is derailing the original schedule for negotiations, the first between Israel and each of its Arab neighbors.

Originally, face-to-face talks were to get under way, in earnest, four days after the ceremonial opening of the peace conference in Madrid. A round took place but got stuck in the question of where to continue. Israel insisted the talks be in the Middle East as a show of good faith. But the Arabs were content to continue in Madrid or another European capital, saying these are neutral sites and symbolize international involvement in finding a Mideast solution.

The Arabs called for the co-sponsors, the United States and the Soviet Union, in a token role, to decide. Israel, which rejected U.S. intervention, nonetheless, complained of a lack of communication.

The opportunities for procedural disagreements appear to be multiplying. Israel plans to press for talks to take place on different days so that the Arabs won’t be tempted to coordinate their positions, which, in Israel’s view, would lead to hard-line control of the proceedings. Israel has also been pushing for talks in separate buildings, all the better to keep the Arabs from conspiring; the United States and the Arabs would prefer a single building.

Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze found themselves discussing these issues in a telephone call Wednesday, a senior official said, but left them unresolved until the issue of the meeting date gets closer to a solution.

Meantime, in Cairo, Egypt’s foreign minister said Wednesday that Arab states have “not ruled out” holding peace talks with Israel in the Middle East in the future, if progress is first made in negotiations in Washington.

Signaling Arab readiness to address Israeli concerns that peace cannot be made unless it is made at home, Amir Moussa, Egypt’s foreign minister, said he believes that the peace talks could be moved “to a certain other place,” including the Middle East, if the Washington negotiations go well.

“I should underline that moving the talks at a certain stage to a certain other place is not ruled out. . . . The negotiations themselves and the terms themselves would create the necessary atmosphere and circumstances for the talks to move,” he said in an interview. “However, moving the negotiations should not be a precondition to even beginning. Otherwise, there will be zero stability for the negotiators and the negotiations themselves.”

Williams reported from Jerusalem and McManus from Washington. Times staff writer Kim Murphy in Cairo also contributed to this report.