ASSASSINATION AFTERMATH : POLICY : U.S. Seeks Hope Out of Israeli Tragedy

The Clinton Administration moved quickly Sunday to prevent the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin from derailing the Middle East peace process, with President Clinton bringing with him to Israel the most high-powered U.S. delegation ever to attend the funeral of a foreign leader.

Martin Indyk, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said he hopes the extraordinary U.S. delegation “will have a very powerful impact on the people of Israel as they try to unite and try to overcome this traumatic and tragic event.”

U.S. officials made it plain that after the mourning period for Rabin ends, they hope to turn the tragedy of his death into a new diplomatic opportunity for peace in his memory.

Their hope is that in the aftermath of Rabin’s assassination by a Jew, right-wing forces in Israel opposed to giving up land for peace may be weakened and that, as a result, it might be easier to work out a peace agreement between Israel and Syria.

“We will be determined in every way to press forward to ensure that the great achievements that this great man was able to make in the last few years, in terms of ending the conflict and ending the bloodshed, that that legacy will be preserved and maintained and taken to a higher level,” Indyk said on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”

But some Middle East specialists outside the Administration are pessimistic that any new peace initiatives can accomplish much.

“There’s not a lot we can do,” said Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations, who served on former President George Bush’s National Security Council.

“There is virtually no chance the negotiating process can break new ground until Israeli politics sort themselves out--and after that only if you have new [Israeli] leadership that is committed to negotiating and has the ability to sell it back home.”

Noting that the U.S.-led effort to negotiate peace between Israel and Syria was stalled before Rabin’s assassination, Haass said that “the odds are minuscule now. . . . It would take great political strength by an Israeli leader to sell it [a deal with Syria], and the bottom line is there is no such Israeli leader.”

Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, appearing on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley,” predicted that “peace is going to be Yitzhak Rabin’s legacy. . . . The process will continue now with even more effort and emphasis.”

Yet moments later, Baker too gave voice to some pessimism.

“The real question, I think, is Syria, and whether or not this means that the Syrian-Israeli track will be even more deadlocked and gridlocked,” he said. “And, unfortunately, I think that perhaps [that] will be the case, because it is possible that there will be an earlier election in Israel.”

Clinton left Washington Sunday afternoon to attend today’s funeral in Israel accompanied by virtually every top official in his Administration: Secretary of State Warren Christopher; Defense Secretary William J. Perry; Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin; Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; National Security Adviser Anthony Lake and White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta.

Traveling with them on Air Force One were two former Presidents (Bush and Jimmy Carter); three former secretaries of state (Baker, George P. Shultz and Cyrus R. Vance); House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.); Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.); House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.); and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

A handful of other members of the Administration, including Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown, U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor and Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, made their own ways to Israel to be part of the U.S. delegation.

Altogether, there were more than 40 people in the official U.S. delegation to pay respects to Rabin. State Department officials say the typical delegation to a foreign funeral is usually about five to 10 people.

When French President Charles de Gaulle died in 1970, then-President Richard Nixon led the U.S. delegation to his funeral. After Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981, the U.S. delegation, headed by Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, included three former Presidents. Then-President Ronald Reagan did not attend Sadat’s funeral because he was advised by U.S. security officials to stay home.

Some Israeli officials contended Sunday that the efforts to bring about peace with Syria have not been undermined by Rabin’s death.

“I clearly disagree with that assumption,” said Uri Savir, director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. “With these terrible tragedies, one thing has been consistently going on: a fundamental change of the rules of the game of the Middle East.

“You can see it by the tribute paid to Mr. Rabin by [Egyptian] President [Hosni] Mubarak, by [Jordan’s] King Hussein coming to salute him and coming to salute his policies.”