U.S. Diplomacy Is Betting That Rabin Wins in Israel : Policy: The Administration’s plans are now predicated on the Labor Party leader scoring a big win in the Tuesday national election.

In the last two years, Israel has experienced both war and peace--or at least peace process. The collapse of the Soviet Union has allowed hundreds of thousands of Jews to emigrate to Israel. Presiding over these dramatic developments as prime minister has been crusty Yitzhak Shamir, whose strongest suit, say his friends, is consistency.

Yet this very stolidness, which once benefited Israel and served U.S. interests, no longer appeals to the Bush Administration, In fact, a top priority for the Administration is Shamir’s defeat in Israel’s national elections on Tuesday.

His erstwhile American friends say the sooner the Likud Party leader leaves office the better. No foreign leader was more crucial to U.S. success in the Middle East than Shamir. Yet Administration officials no longer commend him, as they did almost daily, on his remarkable forbearance in the face of Iraqi missile attacks--restraint that kept Israel out of the war and the U.S.-led coalition intact.

Those officials, who just the other day were congratulating Shamir on his statesmanship for participating in the peace process, now join with his Arab interlocutors in declaring that any conceivable replacement would be an improvement.

No one, of course, will say this for the record. Even Arab diplomats observe the niceties by stating their preference for his chief opponent, Labor Party leader Yitzhak Rabin, only on background. But, as one top State Department planner said, “Only a fool would try to pretend that everyone who cares isn’t praying for Rabin’s victory.”

According to Administration officials, the best that can be said of Shamir is that he has outlived his usefulness. The more often heard sentiment is that he is impossible to deal with. “He is an ideologue, pure and simple,” says one State Department Middle East expert, who then adds what he considers a more damning criticism, “He is incapable of making a deal based on Israel’s security needs.”

No one, not even his foes, would consider Rabin, an architect of Israel’s spectacular 1967 victory over the Arabs, anything less than a first-rate analyst of Israel’s security requirements. One Arab ambassador pays Rabin the compliment of calling him “more dangerous” than any other Israeli leader. “As a strategist,” explains this diplomat “he will know how to shape and present policy to increase Israel’s power and buttress Israel’s relationship with the United States.”

Administration officials acknowledge the likelihood of improved U.S. relations with Israel should Rabin triumph. They see Rabin’s views as closer to their own. Where Shamir and his aides grudgingly dickered with Palestinians over an interim agreement, Rabin urges implementation. Where Shamir and Likud assert Israel’s right to all occupied territories, Rabin and the Labor Party reiterate their commitment to “territorial compromise.”

While no one would ever accuse Rabin of being charming, Administration analysts are certain there will be a vast improvement in atmosphere. They expect, at least to begin with, none of the debilitating personal animus that has come to dominate the working relationship between Shamir and Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

The dream scenario is for a Rabin victory so complete that he would be able to form a new government within 10 days. Should that occur, Administration insiders say they would scramble to arrange another round of peace talks in Rome in July--they are now tentatively scheduled for the fall. Then Rabin would be invited to Washington where he would receive the keys to the city and--something a bit better--access to $10 billion in loan guarantees for the resettlement of Jews from the former Soviet Union.

A more realistic appraisal--and Israeli opinion polls--suggests that, while Rabin is likely to become prime minister, he will have to form a “National Unity Government” with Likud. The question then will be whether he has to “rotate” leadership with Shamir. In that case all bets are off, say State Department analysts.

But assuming that Rabin emerges with at least a qualified win, Administration strategists expect more cooperation--not only from the Israelis, but also from the Arabs. “The Arabs want to help Bush,” asserts one State Department official.

It is a given that, if progress in the peace talks requires Rabin’s election, then their existence needs four more years of President George Bush. All the Arabs who signed on to the U.S. peace initiative did so on the assumption that Bush and Baker would be on the scene.

Even with the best of intentions, it is assumed by Middle Easterners that a new Administration would need at least a year to “get up to speed” on the intricacies of the peace process. Moreover, it has not been lost on the Arabs that Gov. Bill Clinton has been making all the right noises to attract the Democratic Party’s traditional Jewish constituency, which is unnerved by the lack of comity between Bush and Shamir.

As for Ross Perot, a story making the rounds at the State Department suggests a trenchant political analysis of the Middle East. During a nonpartisan foreign-affairs briefing, Perot was informed that, in light of Bush’s leadership during the Gulf War and Baker’s diplomatic gymnastics in bridging Arab and Israeli hostility, there was little to criticize about Administration Middle East policy. Perot’s reported rejoinder: “Then why are the Jews so upset?”