First Lady Rocks Boat of U.S. Mideast Policy

Struggling to prevent an offhand remark by his wife from scuttling plans for Israeli-Palestinian summit talks next week, President Clinton sent peace envoy Dennis B. Ross back to the Middle East on Thursday.

At the same time, the president turned to a less familiar side of U.S. ethnic politics with an address to an Arab American conference.

Ross left for Jerusalem to try to persuade Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept U.S. terms for a meeting Monday with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat in Washington to launch negotiations for a final Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty.

Playing hard to get, Netanyahu said in a televised interview, “I don’t know if we’ll get to Washington by Monday because there are a lot of issues that are left open.”

The Clinton administration had hoped to use the proposed Monday summit to pressure Israel into accepting Washington’s ideas for settling a territorial dispute with the Palestinians.

But the administration seemed to lose the psychological high ground when First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton called for creation of a Palestinian state--an issue that U.S. presidents have ducked for decades.

“I think that it will be in the long-term interests of the Middle East for Palestine to be a state, and for it to be a state that is responsible for its citizens’ well-being, a state that has responsibility for providing education and health care and economic opportunity to its citizens, a state that has to accept the responsibility for governing,” she said Wednesday in a closed-circuit television hookup from Washington with 75 Israeli and Arab teenagers attending a meeting in Switzerland.

Although the first lady is a private citizen with no formal governmental responsibility, her comments on a U.S. Information Agency-sponsored program were taken as evidence by Israel and its supporters in the United States of American bias. Even before the first lady’s remarks, Israel’s friends in Congress had demanded that the administration stop pressuring Israel to make concessions in the peace process.

“It is impossible to believe that in such a critical week, when the president is trying to get Bibi [Netanyahu] to come to Washington and accept the [U.S. proposal], that the first lady would address such a subject without checking with White House experts,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. “It’s not an address to Rotarians that you can wing. . . . This will harden the Palestinians. To them it seems like the president is on board for a Palestinian state.”

Hier added that the comments will strengthen the determination of Netanyahu’s right-wing allies to keep Israel from participating in the proposed Washington talks.

The first lady’s remarks angered White House and State Department Middle East specialists, although there was no public criticism.

“She’s free to be as outspoken as she wishes to be,” said Mike McCurry, the White House press secretary. Responding to a barrage of questions at his daily briefing, McCurry sought to distance the president from his wife’s comments, asserting that the “view expressed personally by the first lady is not the view of the president.”

Clinton did not mention his wife’s remarks in his Thursday night speech to a conference hosted by the Arab American Institute and two other Arab American organizations.

The president received a thunderous reception for his speech, beginning with a standing ovation that lasted more than a minute. James Zogby, president of the institute, told Clinton: “The applause you hear makes it clear that this is an audience that really loves you.”

“I understand that I am the first sitting president to address an Arab American conference,” Clinton said.

But, surprisingly, Clinton said nothing about the specifics of Washington’s effort to reopen face-to-face Israeli-Palestinian talks. Instead, he said the stalemated peace process has been “frustrating” to Americans, Israelis and Arabs alike.

“We have to get this done,” he said. “I’m doing the very best I can.” But he added quickly, “We can’t impose a solution.”

That assertion probably disappointed supporters of the Palestinian Authority, which has accepted the U.S. plan--so far rejected by Israel--to get the peace process moving again.

For decades, U.S. presidents--Republican and Democrat--have avoided taking a stand on the question of establishment of a full-fledged Palestinian state. U.S. policy asserts that it is up to the Israelis and Palestinians to decide through negotiations whether a Palestinian state will be created.

In State Department jargon, such statehood is a “final status” issue, a matter for a definitive peace treaty between the antagonists. Although some Israelis concede privately that creation of a Palestinian state is inevitable, they expect to trade statehood for some attractive concessions from the Arab side.

Paradoxically, the proposed Washington summit is intended to launch final talks after long, unproductive Israeli-Palestinian haggling over what were supposed to be far less difficult interim issues. Netanyahu’s government has called for accelerated negotiations to settle the conflict and supersede the interim agreement signed by the previous, Labor Party-led Israeli government.

Earlier this week, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright invited Netanyahu and Arafat to the summit, provided that both accepted a U.S.-drafted compromise to end a 14-month dispute over the amount of West Bank territory Israel will turn over to the Palestinian Authority in advance of a final settlement.

The U.S. plan calls for Israel to withdraw from an additional 13% of the West Bank; the Israelis, who have expressed concerns about their security, say they will give up no more than 9%. The Palestinians, who originally wanted much more, have accepted the U.S. plan.

Israel again today rejected the U.S.-backed compromise, Reuters reported.

“The very proposals being spoken of--a scope of 13% of redeployment as they are being presented--are not acceptable to the government of Israel for the very reason that it doesn’t fall into line with the security needs of the state of Israel,” Danny Naveh, a senior advisor to Netanyahu, told Israel Radio.

Although Clinton has come under attack for pressuring Israel, the president is generally regarded as a staunch friend of the Jewish state. American Jews make up an important part of his constituency, both as voters and contributors. Clinton regularly addresses pro-Israel groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. His relations with the Arab American community are much less close.

The latest face-off between the U.S. government and Israel follows a well-worn path of U.S. Middle East policy in which administrations over the years have tried to nudge Israel into going along with U.S. objectives in the strategic region.

Historically, Washington relies on a combination of carrots and sticks in its relations with Israel. By offering Netanyahu something he wants--opening of final negotiations--Clinton was offering a carrot. When Albright said Netanyahu had to accept U.S. proposals for interim steps, she showed the stick. And when Hillary Clinton advocated a Palestinian state, she gave the Israelis a shield to deflect the stick.

Times staff writer Jonathan Peterson contributed to this report.