U.S. Tenacity Can Break the Impasse

Everything is wrong with the Arab-Israeli peace process begun by Secretary of State George P. Shultz: No one has accepted his plan, it is based on “old ideas,” it is mechanical and cumbersome, and the Reagan Administration has only 314 days to go. Yet Shultz can succeed.

That judgment is not based on the secetary’s recent visit to the Middle East. In a mini-shuttle, Shultz paid a succession of visits to Jerusalem, Cairo, Amman and Damascus. No one said no to his ideas, but no one in authority said yes , either. The next round will begin when Shultz gets answers to letters that he left behind with regional leaders.

Many experts argue that Shultz’s effort is doomed because of the conditions that he has imposed. For Palestinians to take part, they must accept U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which imply Israel’s right to exist. That would mean a major leap for anyone associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which still has a hammerlock on Palestinian politics. For its part, Israel must accept that Resolution 242 enshrines the principle of trading land for peace--that is, Israel must agree in advance to cede most of the West Bank and Gaza. The Labor Party led by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres accepts the idea; it is anathema to the Likud Party and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

Shultz also insists on an absurd timetable. The secretary want talks on the interim arrangements for the occupied territories to begin about May 1 and to last for no more than six months. Talks on the final status of the territories should begin no later than the end of the seventh month and be concluded within a year from then. The period from the first talking to the implementing of the final status should be no more than three years and nine months, tops. This intricate timing has more to do with the Administration’s expiring lease than with reality; peace is usually built at a pyramid-like pace.

The promise in the U.S. effort lies not in its substance but in the fact of its happening. Indeed, any successful outcome is sure to look radically different from Shultz’s opening bid and to take much longer. But so what? The object is agreement, and it matters not how circuitous the route must be to get there.

In the words of Bob Dylan, “The times they are a-changing.” Most important have been the riots that erupted three months ago in Gaza and the West Bank. They were a decisive break with past Palestinian behavior, and became regular fare on the U.S. nightly news. Now, on all sides, old assumptions are being revisited. As the 1973 Yom Kippur War shook things up enough to start the march to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, what is happening today could recast politics throughout the region.

Every successful Arab-Israeli negotiation has had two elements. One has been the desire on the part of Israel and at least one Arab partner to accomplish something. Jordan’s King Hussein and Israel’s Peres fit this bill. Yet the king needs the blessing of an international conference to take a step toward Israel, plus some Palestinians willing to take part. But such a conference invites Soviet meddling, and Palestinians acceptable to Israel may not be available.

Another complicating factor arose this week in a PLO guerrilla attack on an Israeli bus in which three civilians were killed. That attack eliminated a good deal of the sympathy that has been engendered by television images of Palestinians being beaten and killed, and it is bound to harden opinion in Israel. This isn’t the first time that PLO terrorism has been used to destroy a peace process.

Peres, meanwhile, has to contend with Prime Minister Shamir, who will go to Washington next week to argue against the principle of “land for peace.” Yet the effect of the Palestinian riots can be seen in an unprecedented event: a letter to Shamir from 30 U.S. senators, including strong supporters of Israel, urging him to change his stance.

The impasse can be broken by the second element of successful negotiations: the active and sustained involvement of the U.S. government, beginning with the secretary of state and including the President. This will be the test--whether Shultz decides to devote to Arab-Israel diplomacy at least half the time left to him in the Reagan Administration.

History argues that such American involvement, with pit-bull tenacity, can gradually reshape Arab-Israeli politics in ways that, while they cannot be foreseen, can be a success. If so, Shultz has an excellent chance of handing to his successor at least a new framework for sorting out once-intractable issues.

But it is equally true that, once begun, the effort cannot be abandoned. A host of characters wait in the wings for American failure--including radicals in the PLO, the Syrians and the Soviets. America and its regional friends would take more hard knocks. Thus, when next week’s visit from the Israeli premier is over, Ronald Reagan and George Shultz must decide between “go” and “no go.” Once they start, there is a high price for quitting.