TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/032591/0325008.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.7 KB | 121 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 43

MIDDLE EAST

Ready, Set -- Crawl


Baker sets out on a race for peace in the wake of the gulf war,
but so far he's the only one who has crossed the starting line

By GEORGE J. CHURCH -- With reporting by Jon D. Hull/Jerusalem,
Scott MacLeod/Damascus and Christopher Ogden with Baker


    A return to normal in the Middle East would be an
unqualified disaster. Yet, as U.S. Secretary of State James
Baker toured the area last week, signs multiplied that after
the shock of the gulf war the region might already be slipping
back into its usual catastrophic habits. Renewed violence
claimed 12 lives -- six Israelis, six Arab guerrillas -- in the
24 hours prior to Baker's arrival in Jerusalem. Israeli
legislators asserted that the government plans to build as many
as 11,000 new apartments for Jewish settlers in occupied
territories, continuing what looks like a de facto annexation
of the West Bank and Gaza. And in Damascus, Baker and his hosts
confirmed a sign of a new arms race: Syria had just received
from North Korea a shipment of 24 Soviet-built Scud-C missiles,
which have bigger warheads and are more accurate than Iraq's
Scud-Bs.

    It was precisely to get some momentum going toward a
regional peace settlement before the area relapses totally into
its old hatreds that Baker set out on his tour. In talks with
officials from nine Arab nations and the leaders of Israel, the
Secretary pressed on his hosts the necessity for new thinking
and a quick start. Moreover, though he proclaimed himself to
be mainly listening, Baker did put forward some ideas for a
fresh approach.

    A chicken-and-egg problem has long stymied Middle East
diplomacy: Arab states refuse to recognize Israel until it
deals with the Palestinians; Israel refuses to deal with the
Palestinians until Arab states recognize its right to exist.
To get around that, Baker advanced a two-track proposal:
parallel contacts between Israel and Arab governments and
between Israel and Palestinian representatives.

    Further, he suggested that they start with small steps or
"confidence-building measures." Israel, for example, could
reopen West Bank universities that have been closed for three
years and ease its harsh policies of arresting and deporting
suspected Palestinian troublemakers. The Arabs, in return,
could end their formal states of belligerency against Israel
(Saudi Arabia, Syria and several other countries are officially
still at war with what they term the "Zionist entity") and
call off their boycott of foreign companies that do business
with the Jewish state. The idea is that if each side could
overcome its fear of going first and being snubbed, concessions
might prompt reciprocal concessions and build some momentum
toward peace.

    There is just enough of a new atmosphere that this approach
might at least be considered. In the wake of Iraq's defeat, the
clout and credibility of the U.S. is at an all-time high, and
it is no longer being offset by Soviet troublemaking; Moscow
has neither the power nor the inclination to keep backing the
most radical Arab elements. Saudi Arabia promises to come out
of its shell and take a more active role in regional diplomacy,
and Syria, a radical state now bidding for increased influence
without its customary Soviet support, is talking about a new
commitment to peace. Israel, needing massive aid from
Washington to help resettle Soviet Jewish immigrants, is newly
vulnerable to pressure. For all these reasons, nobody replied
with a flat no to Baker's ideas. Neither side wants to take
the onus of torpedoing a peace effort before it is properly
launched.

    But every time the talk got around to specifics, Baker's
hosts retreated to their usual dug-in positions. For example,
10 Palestinian nationalist leaders from the occupied
territories insisted to Baker that the Palestine Liberation
Organization, which Israel spurns as a terrorist gang, must
remain their sole representative. Said Faisal Husseini, the
most prominent Palestinian leader in Jerusalem: "We told him we
are here because [P.L.O. Chairman] Yasser Arafat told us to be
here."

    The biggest problem is that Israel shows no sign of yielding
an inch of the West Bank, Gaza or the Golan Heights. The
crippling of Israel's most formidable foe, Iraq, does not seem
to have enhanced Jerusalem's sense of security; Israelis are
still worried about turning over any territory to the
Palestinians, who loudly cheered Saddam Hussein's Scud attacks
on Tel Aviv. A new poll shows the public split right down the
middle on the idea of trading land for peace: 49% for, 49%
against. And no government is in sight that would even try to
break the stalemate.

    Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir cannot pay anything more than
lip service even to his own 1989 plan for elections to choose
Palestinian leaders, who would negotiate some form of limited
autonomy. Otherwise his government might well be toppled by
rightist members who want to annex the territories outright.
The Labor Party, which accepts the idea of land for peace, has
never had less popular support. So new elections might well
return a government even further to the right than the present
Likud-led coalition.

    Baker thus was only being realistic when he asserted, "We
are dealing with the most intractable problem, I think, that
there is." He professed nonetheless to be encouraged even by
the slight progress he made. Said the Secretary: "You have to
crawl before you walk, and you have to walk before you run."
But how much time will there be to crawl or walk before the
Middle East returns to a normality spelled d-e-a-d-l-o-c-k --
if not w-a-r?