Time Is No Longer on the Side of Success in the Mideast Talks

It took a conjunction of once-only events--the end of Moscow’s support for Arab radicals that came with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait--to create the historic moment when Arabs and Israelis could agree under American prodding to begin talking face to face about a political settlement to their enduring conflict. But 16 months into that process the momentum behind it seems clearly in danger of running down.

The periodic talks do seem to have moved beyond the propaganda state to a point where civil discussions are possible. But political breakthroughs appear to remain well out of reach. Next month, just a few weeks into the new Clinton Administration, the talks are scheduled to resume in Washington. What can Secretary of State Warren Christopher and his foreign policy team do to move them along?

EXPULSION ISSUE: The first need is to make sure that all the Arab delegations in fact show up. Syria, Jordan and Lebanon have indicated they will be there. But the Palestinians say they will stay away until the 400 Arabs expelled by Israel from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Lebanon are allowed to return.

Ironies attach to this gesture of solidarity. The expellees are supporters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, fundamentalist Muslim organizations that seek the obliteration of Israel and condemn as traitors any Palestinians who are ready for a political accommodation with Israel. The fundamentalists are competing with the Palestine Liberation Organization for influence in the disputed territories, and have grown steadily since the intifada erupted five years ago.

It was the PLO’s expressed readiness to reach a compromise with Israel--and implicitly to ease away from its own maximalist political program, including the vacuous declaration that Israel as a political entity is “null and void”--that made Palestinian participation in the peace conference possible. But now, desperate to see no further erosion in their domestic credibility, the moderate Palestinians have felt compelled to line up in a show of political support behind the very radicals who are trying to undermine their standing in the disputed territories. That is the first irony. The second is that it was Israel itself that allowed Hamas and Islamic Jihad to emerge and prosper in the territories, in the hope that they would divide the Palestinian camp and weaken the PLO, which Israel saw as its chief enemy.

Israel has now acted to try to rectify this blunder, with a Knesset vote to repeal the 1986 law that made it a crime for any Israeli to have direct contacts with the PLO. The action decriminalizes what most Israelis now see as a necessary option if a political settlement with the Palestinians is to be achieved. Specifically, it can be expected to bring identifiable leaders of the PLO to the negotiating table as part of the Palestinian delegation. That at least will do away with the pretense that Israel had managed to cut the PLO out of the negotiating process.

A POLICY DEPARTURE: This action effectively buries a central and sterile tenet of the late Likud government’s foreign policy, and reflects the consensus of an electorate that made clear in last June’s national elections that it was prepared to have Israel take some chances for peace.

PLO participation in the Washington talks would not, however, guarantee a breakthrough. The PLO remains a coalition whose different elements are deeply divided on the fundamental question of peaceful coexistence with Israel. The PLO, or at least its most moderate and responsible leaders, must yet demonstrate that it can make and carry out the compromises on which any political settlement must rest.

It ought to be clear to all the parties that only the radicals will gain if Israeli-Palestinian talks collapse. Among the first foreign policy imperatives confronting the Clinton Administration will be to do all it feasibly can to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating table and to see that the problem of the expellees is resolved. That should involve a resumption of direct U.S. talks with the PLO, broken off in 1990. And then?

And then the United States should resume the role of facilitator that it has successfully taken in the past--in the shuttle diplomacy that led to a separation of armies after the 1973 Middle East war; in the Camp David Accords of 1979; in arranging the very peace talks it must now try to save.

TIME FOR COMPROMISE: A facilitator in this context must be more than a passive observer and much less than a strong-arm meddler. Christopher and his Middle East aides--among them the experienced Foreign Service professional Edward P. Djerejian, who will continue in his post as assistant secretary of state for Near East and South Asian policy--can, at the right moments, provide vital bridges between the opposing camps. Not the least of the values in such a role is the chance it provides for the antagonists to make face-saving retreats when tactical concessions must be made.

It’s important that all sides understand the limits of this role; Washington cannot possibly dictate a Middle East settlement--something Arabs have always hoped for and Israelis have always feared--and it would be folly to try.

The only chance for a durable settlement lies in the parties themselves making the necessary compromises and accommodations. The Clinton Administration should not be shy about pointing out opportunities or necessities for compromise. Above all it should constantly remind the parties that failure or even excessive delay in their efforts would only bolster those radical and fundamentalist forces that directly endanger all of them, Arab and Israeli alike. Time may indeed finally be running out on the peace process, adding urgency to what the new Administration should be trying to do.