BACKGROUND

HELEN DAVIS

Foreign Correspondent

W

hen Secretary of
State James Baker
left the Middle East
last week, he trailed doubts
in the slipstream of his
departing jet about his de-
termination to commit the
time and energy that are
necessary to resolve the
Arab-Israeli dispute.
Mr. Baker's diplomatic
counterpoint to Gen. Nor-
man Schwarzkopf's Desert
Storm has indeed focused at-
tention on the urgent need to
find a settlement to the
outstanding regional prob-
lems and to restabilize the
Middle East in the wake of
the Gulf conflict.
In the course of his "victory
swing" he highlighted the
urgent need for an Arab-
based security structure in
the Gulf, for an arms limita-
tion agreement and, not least,
for a settlement of the Arab-
Israeli dispute and the
Palestinian issue.
Yet, two days at the hub of
the conflict in Israel produc-
ed little more than
declarative statements and
pious hopes. Mr. Baker told
his Israeli and Palestinian
interlocutors that he had
come to the region in order
to "reason, cajole and
plead," eschewing the notion
of pressure and defining his
role as that of a "catalyst."
But something more than
a facilitator is necessary to
unknot this most intractable
regional problem: What is
needed now is a powerful,
sustained search at the
highest levels for common
denominators and common
interests that will persuade
the parties it is worth taking
their chances at the negotia-
ting table.
The full extent of the "new
thinking" that Mr. Baker
said he detected in Riyadh

Baker and Shamir:"New thinking"?

Baker's Window
Of Opportunity

In the wake of its victory in the Middle East, the
United States has a good shot at solving the
Arab-Israeli conflict. But the clock is running.

has yet to be unveiled, but
what is known is that there
has been no substantive
movement in Israel's posi-
tion.
Israel will not countenance
negotiations under the um-
brella of the UN Security
Council; it will not negotiate
with the Palestine Libera-
tion Organization (PLO); it
will not relinquish the West
Bank and Gaza Strip and it
will not entertain the idea of
an independent Palestinian
state.
At a meeting with Pales-
tinian leaders in the ter-
ritories — the first such en-
counter with a U.S. Secre-
tary of State in Jerusalem —
Mr. Baker was bluntly told,
like it or not, that the PLO is
the sole, legitimate repre-
sentative of the Palestinian
people.
The Palestinians re-
iterated their 1988 demand
for an independent Palestin-
ian state alongside Israel in
the West Bank and Gaza

Strip, and they again in-
sisted that negotiations
must be conducted under the
auspices of an international
peace conference.
Said Jonathan Kuttab, a
Palestinian lawyer who also
attended the meeting: "The
problem is that the Israelis
want to keep all the territory
and still make peace with

The question that
is exercising
Middle East minds
. . . is whether Mr.
Baker is prepared
to seize the
moment .. .

the Arab world. They want
to have their cake and eat
it."
That much must be clear
to Mr. Baker. What must
also be clear to him is that
the portents for peace have
never been as favorable than
they are today.

The question that is exer-
cising Middle East minds,
however, is whether Mr.
Baker is prepared to seize
the moment; to attempt a
reconciliation of the con-
tradictory messages he
received in Jerusalem; to
translate America's stunn-
ing military victory into a
diplomatic settlement of this
intractable problem.
By implicitly recognizing
Israel's right to exist and ac-
cepting a territorial solution
based on the West Bank and
Gaza Strip in 1988, Yassir
Arafat has largely satisfied
the demands of the interna-
tional community.
His problem now is to per-
suade the world, particular-
ly Washington, that he
meant what he said when he
renounced terrorism and to
find a means of explaining
away his embrace of Iraq's
Sadam Hussein, which is
still deeply etched on the
international consciousness.
But Mr. Arafat's maneu-

vering will not materially
affect what the international
community perceives to be
the central issue: Israel's re-
jection of any territorial
compromise in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, a
move that would ostensibly
open the door for serious
negotiations over a set-
tlement of the Palestinian
issue.
Only the United States has
any chance of opening that
door, but some Israelis who
favor a settlement on the
basis of trading land for
peace doubt whether Wash-
ington is prepared to exer-
cise the degree of determina-
tion that is necessary to
kick-start such a process.
Judging by Mr. Baker's
words and deeds during his
Middle East visit, the Bush
administration is disinclined
to take a hands-on approach
to the Arab-Israeli dispute,
apparently preferring to
wait until the supplicants
appeal to Washington to act
as "honest broker." Knowl-
edgeable observers would
advise them not to hold their
breath.
According to Dr. Yossi
Beilin, a close aide to Labor
Party leader Shimon Peres,
all U.S. attempts at peace-
making in the Middle East
since the 1979 Israel-Egypt
peace treaty have failed be-
cause Washington was not
prepared to allocate suffi-
cient "time and intellectual
resources to achieving this
target."
He believes, however, that
it will be difficult now for the
Bush administration to
simply pull its forces out of
the region and walk away
while this "time bomb" is
still ticking: "I think Wash-
ington understands that the
conflict between Israel and
the Arab world is now. solu-
ble.
"The United States has
achieved credibility in the
region," says Dr. Beilin,

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