Let the Mideast Negotiations Resume : Wise Israeli tactical retreat, engineered by Christopher, just may work

The diplomatic gamble behind Israel’s Washington-brokered decision to take back one-fourth of the 400 Palestinians it thrust across the border into Lebanon nearly seven weeks ago was that it would be enough to lift the threat of U.N. sanctions on Israel and keep the Middle East peace process on track. It may pay off.

Israel, to be sure, remains in defiance of the U.N. Security Council’s vote to readmit all of those it expelled last Dec. 17, a vote in which the United States joined. But Secretary of State Warren Christopher insists that Israel’s partial retreat obviates any need for further council measures. That view appears to reflect more than Washington’s own perception. Enthusiasm for sanctions has in truth never been very strong, with even many Arab states giving only lip service to the call by Palestinians for punitive measures. It’s noteworthy that after Christopher pronounced the sanctions effort all but dead no major player on the council spoke up to contradict him.

Besides clearing the way for 100 expellees to return, Israel also says it will cut the length of the expulsions from a maximum of two years to one. Not surprisingly, the response from the expellees--all members or supporters of two radical Muslim groups that reject any notion of political compromise with Israel--has been that either they must all go back or none will. That almost certainly guarantees they will stay just where they are until December.

The Israeli action represents partial rectification of a serious and now acknowledged miscalculation. Even a majority of Israel’s Cabinet quickly came to regard the middle-of-the-night roundup and deportation of the Palestinians as a mistake, if not because it was an avoidable injustice then at least because it proved to be so politically self-wounding. Besides inviting nearly universal condemnation, the deportations also seem to have boosted the radicals’ standing in the disputed territories, as well as the prestige of fundamentalist forces elsewhere in the Arab world.

The Washington-Jerusalem deal seems to end the possibility that an American veto might have to be cast to shield Israel from Security Council sanctions, although the United States has committed itself to that role in the unlikely event that a sanctions resolution is in fact pressed. The larger issue now is how soon the Middle East peace talks can be resumed. Ironically, the steady growth in influence of the Islamic fundamentalists in the disputed territories could force both Israel and the Arabs--including the Palestinian delegation, whose loyalty is to the PLO--to address the talks with a fresh sense of urgency and purpose. If that happens the Clinton Administration’s first venture into Middle East diplomacy can be counted a clear success.