PERSPECTIVE ON ISRAEL : Political Warfare on U.S. Turf : The opposition leader’s ambitions preempt Peres’ visit to solicit congressional support for the peace process.

Today in Washington, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres will tell House Speaker Newt Gingrich about the historic summit that took place last week in Cairo between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, King Hussein of Jordan and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. Peres will ask Gingrich to support moving the Middle East peace process forward.

But Peres was beaten to the punch by Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Israeli opposition, who met with Gingrich Monday to spell out the latest arguments against the peace process.

Peres also will meet today with the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Benjamin A. Gilman (R-N.Y.). Peres will remind Gilman that the summit was arranged with the aid of the United States to help rescue the peace process from Islamic extremists who are prepared to die in order to bring down the first real chance to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. Peres will ask Gilman’s support for assistance to the Palestinian residents of Gaza and Jericho, explaining that improving their standard of living will make the murderous mission of Hamas and Islamic Jihad less appealing.

But just hours before, Netanyahu will have told Gilman that the entire Israel-Palestinian understanding, including the U.S. approach to the Palestinian Authority, should be reviewed.

When Peres meets today with members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, he will ask them to resist demands to prohibit the United States from dispatching peace monitors to the Golan Heights, should that become necessary to guarantee an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement. But the committee’s members may be confused; they will have already heard the head of the second-largest party in Israel argue against sending Americans to the Golan.

Of course, this is not the first time someone from the Israeli opposition has come to Washington to meet with the Administration or Congress about Israeli government policy. But never before has an Israeli political leader lobbied so aggressively and so recklessly. Imagine if Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole went to Russia or Korea a day ahead of Secretary of State Warren Christopher to lobby those nations’ leaders against the Administration’s policies. It would never happen.

If there is one thing about which there is an overwhelming consensus in Israel, it is the alliance with the United States. Until now, Israeli politicians have taken great care to protect the integrity of that relationship. This is where Netanyahu’s efforts differ drastically from all others before him, whether from Labor or Likud.

Netanyahu is in Washington not only to try to topple the Rabin government. By attempting to take advantage of the new and growing partisan split between Congress and the White House, he also hopes to chill the warm relations the two nations now enjoy. And at the same time, he encourages discord within the American Jewish community, hoping it will send mixed signals about its commitment to the peace process and its full support for Israel.

Just as Netanyahu plays on pain and emotions in Israel, he does the same in Washington by cynically manipulating Americans’ fear and concern in order to sabotage the compromise between Israel and the Arabs. He turns terrorism into a political issue, forgetting to mention that the actual number of terrorist incidents has gone down since the Israeli-Palestinian agreement was signed. The terrorists’ method, suicide, is now more extreme, but it would be just as dangerous to Israelis, if not more so, without the peace process.

A few months ago, speaking to the Council of Jewish Federations convention in Denver, Netanyahu said that debates about the peace process ought to be conducted in the Knesset, not in Congress. Nevertheless, he returns to Washington. This is his fourth visit in six months.

We Israelis understand that Netanyahu wants nothing more than to be prime minister. But as he works the halls of Congress in an effort to destroy his own government, he is compromising the closest relationship our two countries have enjoyed in years. This relationship and a legitimate chance at a comprehensive Middle East peace are not worth risking for anybody’s ambitions.