Former Foes Buttonhole Peres at Summit

When President Clinton wanted to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres before the opening Wednesday of the historic antiterrorism summit in this sunny Red Sea resort, he had to wait in line. Peres was being buttonholed by some other prominent figures: the president of Egypt, a sheik from Bahrain and the kings of Morocco and Jordan.

If nothing else, the image of an Israeli head of government being sought after for conversation by a slew of Arab representatives in their kaffiyehs and flowing white robes showed how the political sands of this violence-racked region are shifting.

In the sun-blasted cloister of a luxury resort, with world leaders walking among American and European tourists wearing newly minted T-shirts emblazoned with the logo “Stop Terrorism!” there was a feeling that Peres’ long-dreamed-of new Middle East was on the horizon.

“This is the preview. These are the coming attractions,” said tourist Cheri Albers of Durham, N.C., watching over a hedge as Peres attended a post-summit lunch with several of his erstwhile enemies--Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Prince Saud al Faisal of the Saudi royal house and King Hussein of Jordan, to name three. “Maybe if we all pray hard enough, all those handshakes will become something permanent.”

Within the hotel complex that played host to the summit were representatives of 14 Middle Eastern nations, including Israel.

There were Moroccans in red fezzes and yellow shoes, Omanis with loose turbans on their heads and ceremonial daggers in their belts, Saudis in their brilliant white robes, and--here and there among the journalists--an Israeli in a yarmulke.

Peres’ white-walled bungalow was a few steps from the matching one assigned to Prince Saud, and a few doors up from that of Morocco’s King Hassan II.

Outside, Israel’s blue-and-white Star of David flag flapped in the wind alongside the crescent-symboled banners of its various Arab neighbors. Official Israel had come for a neighborly visit to the Sinai, land it seized from Egypt in 1967 and willingly returned in 1982 in exchange for peace. Israeli television vans parked next to the hotel, guarded by black-bereted Egyptian soldiers. It all seemed so normal.

After the day’s formal meeting and a late lunch, delegates from the United States, Canada, Europe, Israel and the Arab world could be seen walking past the azure swimming pool, the sparkling fountains, the gardens and flower beds filled with miniature palm trees and white and lavender impatiens.

At this moment, as the leaders grabbed a few minutes for private chats with their counterparts, the summit took on the atmosphere of a friendly village--an oasis of calm, infinitely removed from the horrendous violence of the four bus bombings in Israel that had brought all the participants here.

In his speech to the summit, Clinton noted that such a gathering once would have been unthinkable. Peres said it showed that the Middle East is on the verge of a new day, “better and more promising.”

The semiofficial Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram seemed to capture the emerging consensus in the Arab world:

“Saving peace is the only strategic choice,” it said in a front-page editorial. “Because only under the umbrella of peace will the Egyptian people and the other people of the region be able to defeat backwardness and poverty.”

A Clinton administration official said it was particularly important that Saudi Arabia, the richest and most conservative Arab country, guardian of the holy city of Mecca, came to such a summit. A senior Saudi has never before shaken hands with a ranking Israeli in public, he said.

Although a Saudi diplomat attended the Madrid peace conference in 1991, he was there as a representative of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, not as an envoy of the Riyadh government.

Despite U.S. enthusiasm about Saud’s participation, the prince--the kingdom’s foreign minister--underlined the limits of his government’s endorsement of Israel when he condemned bomb blasts “in Tel Aviv and the occupied territories,” a formulation that seemed to imply that Jerusalem is “occupied territory.”

Still, the administration official said: “Saudi Arabia is now saying that it’s legitimate to talk to the state of Israel. It took [48] years to get here.”

* EYE ON ELECTION: President’s activities are also aimed at U.S. electorate. A8