TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/102191/1021000.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 7.4 KB | 149 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 67

MIDDLE EAST

Must We Talk? Now?


As the date for a peace conference nears, Israel and the Arabs
show acute discomfort at the idea of being face to face

By GEORGE J. CHURCH -- Reported by Lisa Beyer/Jerusalem and
J.F.O. McAllister/Washington


    Nothing, Samuel Johnson once remarked, so concentrates a
man's mind as the knowledge that he is to be hanged in a
fortnight. In the Middle East, the approach of a peace
conference has the same effect. As Secretary of State James
Baker took off last weekend for what he called his final swing
to nail down arrangements for the gathering that will at last
bring Arabs and Israelis face to face, those two sides were
anxiously bumping and jostling each other.

    Which does not necessarily mean the conference is in
danger of fizzling. Quite the contrary: almost everybody seems
to believe it really will meet. It is the very knowledge that
they cannot back out now without severely damaging their causes
in the court of world opinion that is prodding all parties to
stake out hard-line positions to be defended once the formal
talks begin. Says Shibley Telhami, a Middle East expert at
Cornell University: "Barring some crazy event, I don't see what
can stop the conference now. The momentum is there."

    Even Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser
Arafat is reconciled. He is being treated officially as a
nonperson by both Israel and the U.S., and the P.L.O. will be
pointedly excluded from participating. Nonetheless, in an
interview with TIME conducted last week at one of his safe
houses in Tunisia, Arafat was specifically asked whether Baker
was likely to succeed in setting up the conference. His reply:
"Yes. According to a message I just received from Soviet Foreign
Minister Boris Pankin after his meeting with Mr. Baker, it will
be at the end of this month." Moreover, Arafat made it clear
that he saw the conference as a real opportunity for the
Palestinians. "It is a turning point, no doubt of it," he said.
"We have to persuade our friends that it should not just be a
ceremonial session. There must be a determination to achieve
real peace."

    There is, of course, always the chance of that "crazy
event" -- some provocation by extremists on either side that
would push the other beyond endurance. Baker warned last week
that the approach of the conference is likely to prod
terrorists and other provocateurs into action intended to break
it up. And Arafat cautioned that while he would do everything
possible to prevent disruption, he could not control the most
radical factions. Almost on cue, violence erupted. In Tel Aviv
a Palestinian driver plowed a van into a group of Israeli
soldiers on a busy street corner, killing two and injuring 11.

    Jewish extremists were just as determined to make their
point. A group of settlers, accompanied by a deputy Cabinet
minister, moved into six houses and apartment buildings in Arab
East Jerusalem to send the government a message that no retreat
would be tolerated from the occupied lands, particularly the
Holy City. If that position makes it more difficult to convene
a peace conference -- well, said some far-right members of Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir's Likud-led coalition, so much the
better. The government, however, branded the move a "mistake,"
removed the settlers from five of the houses, and shuffled the
dispute over to the Attorney General's office.

    Then it was Syria's turn. Washington sources disclosed
that Syrian officials had told Baker at the end of September
that they had serious doubts about participating in the broad
regional talks scheduled to discuss such topics as water rights,
disarmament and protection of the environment -- to reach in
effect a general reconciliation between the Arabs and Israel.
These negotiations -- which also include the Gulf Cooperation
Council, representing states such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait
that have no territorial controversies with Israel -- are to run
concurrently with the bilateral talks between Israel and its
adversaries on such matters as disputed territory, including the
West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. The idea is to
convince both sides that neither is a demon and that however
envenomed the territorial disputes become, they can still reach
accommodation on other issues. Israelis, or so goes the
reasoning, especially need to be convinced that the Arab world
is ready to live with the Jewish state, and the regional talks
are a major way to provide such assurance.

    Syria, however, objected to such talks for fear that
Israel would pocket any concessions it made without giving
ground toward returning the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in
the 1967 war. If President Hafez Assad is really backing out
now, the other Arabs might follow suit. But he appeared
primarily to be laying down a marker -- no agreement on anything
without a return of the Golan -- and building pressure on the
U.S. to push Israel to do so.

    Israel adopted a lofty attitude. Says Yosef Ahimeir, a key
aide to Shamir: "This is a bad signal about the intentions of
the Syrians going into the conference, but we will not judge
the Syrians on what they declare now. The real test will be at
the negotiations themselves."

    But the Israelis did their bit toward increasing tensions
by sending four F-16 fighter planes over Iraq to scout out Scud
missile sites, crossing through the airspace of Lebanon, Syria,
Saudi Arabia and Jordan in the process. Jerusalem's explanation
was that it was not satisfied with U.S. intelligence on Iraq's
remaining military capabilities and wanted to see for itself
what it might be up against if the festering disagreements over
Iraq's disarmament came to blows. In fact, Shamir's government
seemed to be sending a firm message to its own people as much as
to the U.S. and the Arabs: Don't expect us to meekly follow the
U.S. We will look after our own interests whatever Washington
does.

    Convening the conference, of course, is only the first
step. Having it produce any kind of agreement that can be made
to stick will be much, much harder, if it is possible at all.
In particular, Arafat warned that even if his P.L.O. is
formally excluded from the negotiations, it must give its
imprimatur to any agreement that has the faintest chance of
being carried out. In his interview with TIME, the P.L.O. chief
belligerently asked, "With whom are the Israelis going to make
peace? With ghosts? With the Palestinians!" And like it or not,
with the P.L.O. Added Arafat: "None of the Palestinians inside
or outside the occupied territories can move or talk without
P.L.O. approval. If we have to follow what the American
Administration wants with the Israelis, we still have to know
who will sign and who will give the orders. The main issue is
between the Palestinians and the Israelis. They have to be
there, and we have to be there."

    A settlement acceptable to the P.L.O. and Israel -- and
Syria, and Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. -- is as
difficult to imagine as ever. As another saying goes, You can
lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. On the
other hand, a whole herd of wild Middle East horses is at least,
and at last, being led to the water of a peace conference. Just
getting them there and giving them an opportunity to drink is
no small achievement.