U.S. Effort Sole Hope for Stalled Talks With Syria, Top Israeli Official Says : Mideast: Christopher due in region for more shuttle diplomacy today.

Peace talks between Israel and Syria are going nowhere, and only a concerted diplomatic effort by the United States might salvage them, a senior Israeli official said Monday on the eve of Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s arrival here.

Christopher is on his first swing through the Middle East since he accompanied President Clinton to the October signing of Israel’s peace treaty with Jordan. He is due to stop in Damascus today before going on to Israel this evening.

“The pace of the negotiations (with Syria) is very slow, and even if there’s occasional progress, such progress won’t enable us to achieve peace in the remaining time, which may be several months to a year,” Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin told Israel Radio. “Therefore a breakthrough, either procedural or substantial, is essential.”

Beilin’s comments were made after Clinton telephoned Syrian President Hafez Assad and reported to Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres that nothing new had emerged from what was described as a lengthy conversation.

For weeks, Israeli officials have been expressing frustration over Syria’s refusal to enter into high-level negotiations. The Syrians broke off direct talks with Israel in February after a Jewish settler opened fire on Muslim worshipers in a mosque in the West Bank town of Hebron, killing about 30. The talks have never been revived. Instead, the Syrians have relied on U.S. mediation through Christopher.

Israeli newspapers reported Monday that there is a dispute within Israeli intelligence circles over whether Syria remains strategically committed to making peace with Israel. The dispute is said to be so fierce that it is holding up the delivery of the 1995 intelligence review to the government.

In Syria on Monday, Assad appeared to signal that he is still interested in pursuing negotiations.

His spokesman quoted the president as telling a private U.S. delegation that “Syria wants peace. The road to this peace is not constructed, but despite that, Syria has not lost hope.” Assad met with members of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israeli think tank.

“Peace could not be achieved on the ground if it was not just and comprehensive, even if all documents were signed,” Joubran Kourieh, Assad’s spokesman, quoted Assad as saying.

After three years of on-again, off-again negotiations, Israel and Syria remain far apart on what they are prepared to offer.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has publicly committed Israel to the return of an unspecified amount of the strategic Golan Heights in exchange for a peace treaty and full normalization of relations with Syria. In negotiations, Rabin has promised to withdraw to an unspecified borderline over a three-year period.

Assad, however, is demanding a commitment to a full withdrawal from the heights--which Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War--before entering into high-level negotiations on the terms of peace. He also wants the withdrawal to be completed within a year, with Jewish settlements--housing about 12,000 Israelis--dismantled.

Rabin and other senior officials warn that the territorial concessions the government will have to make in exchange for peace with Syria will become politically impossible in another year, when Israel’s next parliamentary campaign will get under way. Relinquishing even part of the Golan Heights is an explosive issue in Israel, because the northeastern plateau has long been considered vital to the nation’s security. A hostile army atop the heights would be seen as posing a threat to the entire Galilee.

Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Israel on Monday for a two-day visit with the defense Establishment, and military sources said the general will be exploring ways the United States can help ensure Israel’s security if it withdraws from the Golan.

The United States has already signaled a willingness to station 1,000 peacekeeping troops on the heights as part of a multinational monitoring force should a peace treaty be signed. But Israel’s defense Establishment believes that Israel also needs a deep withdrawal of Syrian forces and a reconfiguration of the Syrian army, together with early-warning stations atop the Golan, to be protected from the possibility of a surprise attack.

The problem facing the government as it contemplates the possibility that Assad might decide to opt out of negotiations is whether Israel can continue making progress toward establishing diplomatic ties with Arab states if it fails to make peace with Syria, the only Arab country that still poses a substantial military threat to Israel.

Beilin’s plea for greater U.S. involvement comes as Israeli officials are insisting that they can make no further gestures toward Assad.

Beilin evoked the memory of then-Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy between Damascus and Jerusalem in 1974 and said a similar effort is needed now from the Clinton Administration.

Ideally, Beilin said, senior Israeli and Syrian officials should directly negotiate a peace treaty.

“The alternative is greater U.S. involvement, not necessarily in the form of bridging proposals but in the form of continuous and more orderly visit diplomacy,” Beilin said. “We can’t dictate to the Americans whether to establish headquarters here or to come over once a week, but more American time devoted to the Israel-Syria subject may lead to a solution in a shorter period of time.”