Let Deportees Return, U.S. Is Urging Israel

With the 15-month-old Middle East peace talks hanging in the balance, the Clinton Administration is exerting heavy diplomatic pressure on Israel to take back almost 400 Palestinian deportees before the U.N. Security Council considers sanctions against Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s government, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

The new Administration has told the Israeli government that the Palestinians, trapped in a tent city in the snowy mountains between Israel and Lebanon, are a source of continuing international condemnation for Israel and of severe embarrassment for the United States.

In effect, the American message is: You created this mess, you clean it up.

The issue was brought to a head late Monday when U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali recommended that the Security Council impose sanctions on Israel unless Rabin’s government complies with an earlier resolution calling on Israel to permit the deportees to return.

If sanctions come to a vote, the United States will be forced either to allow punishment of its closest Middle East ally or to disrupt Security Council cooperation by casting the first veto by any member in more than two years. Neither outcome is acceptable to Washington, officials said.

To avoid that stark choice, the Administration plans to stretch out the Security Council consideration for a minimum of several weeks to give American diplomats time to pressure Rabin to make the problem go away by allowing the Palestinians to return.

“We don’t want to be trapped into being forced to make a decision on the veto,” one State Department official said. Another official added that the Security Council’s normal procedures are so “ponderous” that an early vote is unlikely in any event.

For years, successive administrations have assured Israel that the United States would always veto sanctions against the Israelis.

But State Department spokesman Richard Boucher left little doubt Tuesday that an American veto is no longer a sure thing. He dismissed the issue as “hypothetical.” Other officials said no decision has been made yet, but they said Israel would be making a mistake if it chose to rely on a veto.

Nevertheless, in Jerusalem, Rabin told a closed-doors meeting of the Knesset Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee that he is counting on a veto. “Until now, no American administration has allowed sanctions against the state of Israel. I hope this will continue,” Rabin said, according to an official who briefed journalists.

White House spokesman George Stephanopoulos said that Clinton raised the issue in a Saturday telephone conversation with Rabin. Stephanopoulos has declined to discuss the substance of that talk. But he left no doubt that Clinton wants the issue resolved before the Security Council has a chance to act.

“The President continues to hope that the parties work this out among themselves,” he said.

At the State Department, Boucher said the United States will try to settle the dispute by “active diplomacy.” He also noted that the Israeli Supreme Court is considering the issue and may decide to reverse the government’s expulsion order. An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said the court’s decision might come this week.

American officials said privately that the best possible outcome would be an Israeli court order to return the deportees. This would give Rabin’s government a way to end the controversy without appearing to cave in to outside pressure.

The already emotional issue is made even more complex by the delicate Middle East peace talks. Israel says it will pull out of the negotiations if the Security Council imposes sanctions. The Palestinian delegation says it will not resume the talks until the deportees are allowed to return.

Times staff writer Michael Parks in Jerusalem contributed to this report.