PERSPECTIVE ON ISRAEL : Miscalculation, Then Intransigence : By talking sweetly and doing nothing, Rabin fooled the world. But the deportation stripped his pretense bare.

The confirmation by the Israeli Supreme Court of the deportation of more than 400 Palestinians removes the last chance for the resumption of the peace process as initiated by the United States. What started at the Madrid Conference has ended at a hilltop in occupied south Lebanon.

Does this mean that hopes for peace have been shattered? I do not think so, but in order to get the process started again, the parties involved must replace the mechanism that has managed the peace process for more than a year with a more visible and active U.N. presence. The envisaged outcome of the peace process and the terms of reference also have to be made clearer and more precise.

During the Shamir regime, the vagueness of these terms provided Israel with a way to evade any concrete results. When Yitzhak Rabin took power, some changes were anticipated. The atmosphere in the talks indeed became more palatable and acquired a semblance of “reasonableness.” But the absence of an envisaged outcome, let alone a concrete one, enabled Israel to divest the talks of any chance of consequentiality. The discourse merely sounded more sensible.

Meanwhile, Israel pursued its time-buying strategy and repackaged its objectives--annexation of Jerusalem and continued occupation without the stigma of calling it that--which have been at the root of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The Arabs in general, and the Palestinians in particular, witnessed the benefits reaped by Israel from its change of tone and style--including $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees and a hands-off American attitude toward the talks. Israel’s continued permissive policy toward settlements and its stiffening posture on the question of withdrawal from the Golan Heights and south Lebanon deepened the sense of frustration among Palestinians and reinforced a growing conviction that the “peace process” was futile. As Israel gained more international approval and as the Arab governments, deferring to Washington, failed to press Israel on the Palestinians’ behalf, the Palestinian community sought a more activist stance.

It was here that the Muslim Hamas sought to prescribe its own confrontational approach, not in tandem with the PLO, but as an alternative to the PLO. While this inter-Palestinian debate took place, Rabin’s government took the fatal step of deporting the 415 Palestinians to south Lebanon.

Israel, in its habitual misreading of Palestinian reaction, believed that the debate could bring about a permanent split, a total collapse of Palestinian unity. But the deportation, guided by wishful thinking rather than objective analysis, brought about unity; it did not deepen the split, as Israel mistakenly believed it would.

Rabin additionally miscalculated Lebanon’s resolve not to remain Israel’s dumping ground. And he underestimated the outrage of the international community, as demonstrated by the speedy adoption of a condemnation, Resolution 799, by the U.N. Security Council.

In seeking to make Lebanon responsible for the fate of the deported, Israel again miscalculated the extent of agreement between the Palestinian position and that of Lebanon, which insists on preventing this deportation from becoming a pattern or the embryo of a new refugee camp.

Israel’s calculations were so flawed that its action led to a convergence of the PLO and Hamas in a manner that renders Palestinian moderates more innovative and Hamas radicals more deferential to collective decision-making in the Palestinian struggle.

This convergence process is likely to have a far-reaching impact, triggering similar trends in the overall Arab situation. Israel is banking on a surreptitious tolerance of its policies by certain Arab regimes that are confronting their own Islamic militant movements. This would evaporate if Arab nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists both modify and gradually abandon mutual, and at times contrived, suspicions.

It seems that Israel, showing contempt for the United Nations, is determined to treat this latest Security Council resolution as it has all previous condemnations. Yet Israel knows that the United Nations of today is different from that of earlier years. Now its resolutions are being taken seriously. Non-compliance and sustained defiance can lead more quickly to sanctions.

Perhaps Israel believes that a Clinton Administration would be reluctant to join in a precipitous confrontation, and hence it can continue procrastinating. This may be true, or it may be just another fatal Israeli miscalculation.

If it is to remain within the global mainstream and have any chance to enter a new peace process, Israel must abide by the U.N. Security Council resolution forthwith. It must recognize that Lebanon can no longer acquiesce to being an unwilling accomplice to Israel’s defiance of the U.N. resolution.