I CUSTOM MIRRORS BY INSIDE WASHINGTON GLASTCH formerly b !1::!°r Gi • P•Sc ETCHED GLASS GLASS FURNITURE CUSTOM RAILINGS SHOWER ENCLOSURES Political Climate In U.S. Favors Israeli Peace Initiative WOLF BLITZER Special to The Jewish News I LIMITED TIME 00111 Franklin's GREAT RATE 12-Month CDs With Big Interest Get in on the biggest CD rates in the Detroit metro area! For a limited time, Franklin Savings is offering a great 8% interest rate on 12-month Certificates of Deposit, with a minimum deposit of $1,000. Interest on the great 8% rate may be compounded or interest checks may be 30 ANNUAL paid monthly. % a,YIELD Franklin also offers the highest rates on Money Market Accounts in the Detroit metropolitan area . . . and has had the highest rates for the past 188 weeks. Franklin Savings 20247 Mack Avenue Grosse Pointe Woods 26336 Twelve Mile Road Southfield (A r Norrhwestern Highway) (313) 881-5200 (313) 358-5170 srael would be wise to take full advantage of his approaching final year of the Reagan Ad- ministration to try to advance the stalled peace process with its Arab neighbors. Waiting until after next year's U.S. presidential elections could prove rather costly for Israel. Reagan and Shultz, by all accounts, are genuinely fond of Israel; that is not the case as far as the Arabs are con- cerned. That one-two com- bination in Washington may not exist in the next Admin- istration. Thus, what the national unity government in Jeru- salem should do in the com- ing months is to try to set in motion a negotiating format that would be as favorable as possible in protecting Israel's long-term interests. Even if less friendly faces should ap- pear in the next U.S. Ad- ministration — as is, of course, very possible irrespec- tive of a Democratic or Republican victory — the components of these negotia- tions would by then already be set in concrete. This, in fact, was the advice Shultz privately offered both Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres during his re- cent talks with them in Jerusalem. On the surface, Shultz ap- peared to make some head- way. Shamir and Peres, for ex- ample, seemed to narrow their differences on the touchy matter of Soviet par- ticipation in the peace pro- cess. But there is still a long way to go before any negotia- tions — under any format — get off the ground. Some in Israel would no doubt welcome such a delay as an opportunity to further con- solidate Israel's position on the West Bank. But from the vantage point of the real politics of Washington, that approach seems incredibly short- sighted. Instead of allowing the status quo to continue, Israel should aggressively take the initiative in making certain that genuine negotia- tions begin sooner rather than later. The process can drive the substance, and Israel now has an excellent chance — with American backing — of estab- Yitzhak Shamir and Ronald Reagan: Not much pressure coming from Washington. lishing the ground rules for the process. Israeli officials should understand that they now need not fear too much pressure coming from Wash- ington as they enter into negotiations with a joint Jordanian-Palestinian team. Israel, moreover, has an unusually strong position in Congress now. With the Democrats in control of the Senate as well as the House of Representatives, the Republican White House in- stinctively knows that it can- not lean too heavily on Israel. This combination of polit- ical circumstances can only help to strengthen Israel's standing. But even if the badly- divided government in Jeru- salem should get its own act together and press hard for the start of serious peace negotiations, there is by no means any guarantee that the top leadership in Washington will take all the necessary steps to help. The Arab-Israeli conflict has not exactly been at the forefront of the Reagan Administra- tion's interests in recent years. Strategically, militarily, politically and economically, Israel's situation has im- proved in recent years. It is much stronger today — vis-a- vis its immediate Arab neighbors — than it was only a few years ago. The last time Israel man- aged to open serious peace negotiations with the Arabs was in 1973-74, shortly after the Yom Kippur War. At that time, Israel's strategic posi- tion was weak, despite its ability to reverse its early losses in the war. Israel had lost a huge per- centage of its air force. It was forced to enter into great debt to pay for a new generation of replacement weaponry. In- creasingly, Israel was isolated around the world. The PLO seemed on the rise. The Arabs, moreover, had the political momentum and the oil weapon. Much of that has now changed. There is a peace treaty with Egypt, meaning effectively that Israel need worry only about a one-front conventional war with Syria. Oil, at least in the short term, is no longer a weapon. During the war in Lebanon, for exam- ple, it was never even mentioned. Militarily, Israel has been armed with the most reliable and sophisticated American weapons. It can handle the worst-case scenario involving both a conventional as well as terrorist threat. And politically, ties with Washington are much closer today than they were in the mid-1970s when President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger im- posed their six-month "reassessment" of policy toward Israel to force it into accepting the Sinai II accord. In the coming weeks and months, the U.S. and Israel will strengthen their military and strategic ties in all sorts of ways. There are formal discussions scheduled for Washington in mid-Novem- ber. There is also a realistic chance that Israel will manage to refinance part of