Israel and Syria: 1 Goal, 2 Views : Mideast: U.S. tries to broker differences in perception as old enemies strive for peace.

It was, the Syrian foreign minister said later, a most shocking scene: American Jewish leaders took over the office of a leading congressman, and one even sat in the lawmaker’s own chair. To the Syrian, it was a clear indication of the unchecked power of the Jewish lobby in Washington.

U.S. officials in turn expressed alarm at the astonishment voiced by the foreign minister, Farouk Shareh. To them, Shareh’s reaction to the meeting in the office of House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) underlined a potentially troublesome blind spot in the world view of the Syrian leadership.

As Secretary of State Warren Christopher prepares for another Middle East shuttle next month to mediate peace talks between Israel and Syria, U.S. officials are becoming increasingly concerned that miscalculations by the Syrians may become a serious obstacle to agreement.

U.S. officials say they are cautiously optimistic that Israel and Syria will come to terms next year, before the election season reaches full steam in Israel and the United States in 1996. But they worry that the process will be complicated--and possibly derailed--by the way Syria’s leaders view reality.

Christopher has said Syrian President Hafez Assad and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin are seriously striving to reach an agreement that will end the Middle East’s most bitter conflict and probably clear the way for a comprehensive peace between Arabs and Israelis for the first time since the birth of the modern state of Israel.

Both men are meticulous negotiators who are unwilling to complete an agreement until they are sure the details are just right.

U.S. officials do not object to the painstaking negotiations, but they are becoming concerned that one side or the other might inadvertently scuttle the talks by pressing for more than the other side is able to give.

On Rabin’s side, the process is complicated by Israel’s internal political situation. He has said repeatedly that he will not accept an agreement unless he is sure that it will win the support of a majority of the Israeli public. To Rabin’s right, the opposition Likud Party is trying to whip up resistance to the foundation of the talks--the exchange of land, the Golan Heights, for peace.

On Assad’s side, U.S. officials are concerned that the Syrian president is so determined to impress other Arab leaders with his toughness that he will fail to take “yes” for an answer on his bedrock demand for Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

On each side, distrust of the other may be so pervasive that genuine attempts at compromise will be written off as empty posturing.

U.S. officials say the primary purpose of Christopher’s frequent trips to Damascus and Jerusalem is to try to nudge the Syrian and Israeli negotiating positions closer together. But they say a major secondary objective is to try to reconcile the differences between the way the two sides view reality.

Christopher has said he tries to explain to each leader the other’s viewpoint, to correct misperceptions on either side and to identify possible areas of compromise.

But officials say it is a slow and subtle process, because Christopher tries to avoid direct confrontations with either Assad or Rabin.

For most of this year, the Syrian leadership has been trying to reach out to the Israeli public and the American Jewish community to convince them of Assad’s good intentions. But most of the overtures have been a bit off-key, often because of Syria’s perceptions of history and reality.

When Shareh visited the United States in early October to attend the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, for instance, he made two highly unusual gestures toward Israel and its U.S. backers. He granted an interview to Israeli television, and he met with a group of American Jewish leaders.

The meeting with the Jewish leaders was held in Hamilton’s office because Shareh was already there for a meeting with the Foreign Affairs Committee chairman.

No one on the American side considered the venue at all unusual, but Shareh viewed it as confirmation of his belief that Jewish groups wield undue influence on Capitol Hill.

Shareh’s interview with Israeli television was unprecedented. Less than three years earlier, at the Middle East peace conference in Madrid, he had refused to go ahead with a press conference until Israeli reporters left the room.

Most of the interview was diplomatically vague. But in response to the last question, Shareh infuriated many Israelis by insisting that Syrian gunners had never attacked Israeli civilian targets during the wars between the two countries. He said people who believe otherwise were misled by the “Zionist-controlled international news media.”

Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, said later that Shareh’s answer had undone at least part of the good that the interview had done for Israeli-Syrian relations.

The ambassador speculated that Shareh probably genuinely believed that Syria had not shelled Israeli civilians and that international newspapers were controlled by pro-Israel Jews; both assertions are integral parts of traditional Syrian propaganda.

Assad participated personally in another slightly out-of-focus attempt to reach Israeli public opinion. During a joint press conference with President Clinton in the Syrian capital of Damascus last month, Assad called on the diplomatic correspondent of the Jerusalem Post to ask a question. Syrian officials had agreed in advance to permit the correspondent to attend the press conference and ask a question.

The reporter asked about public opinion polls showing that a majority of the Israeli population distrusted Assad’s motives and doubted his assertions that he wanted to make peace. Assad, finding the question offensive, replied angrily that his word should be good enough.

“There is nothing we have that proves our design for peace, except our saying that we want peace,” he said. “And anyone who does not believe what we are saying, he would have no other way for peace.”