BACKGROUND

Three Pillars
Of Peace

Secretary of State Baker this week
confronted issues afloat on the complex,
fluid substrata of Middle East politics.

HELEN DAVIS

Foreign Correspondent

I

sraeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir shrugg-
ed off any concern he
might have felt about the
unexpected visit to
Jerusalem by Secretary of
State James Baker this
week to prepare the way for
the arrival of the least sym-
pathetic president in at least
30 years.
"We have nothing to fear
from Mr. Baker's visit," he
declared boldly at the
weekend. "We will welcome
him and we will work with
him."
Brave words indeed from a
prime minister who cannot
help but see a minefield of
problems looming with a
Bush administration which
believes itself to be deeply
indebted to its Arab coali-
tion partners for their coop-
eration in the Gulf crisis.
The extent of that debt was
underscored by Washing-
ton's bizarre claim that any
attempt to save the Kurds of
Iraq from the wrath of
Saddam Hussein's
helicopter gunships would
constitute interference in
Iraq's internal affairs.
Mr. Baker's swing through
the Middle East, which
followed an explosion of
outrage over Washington's
failure to save the Kurds,
was primarily designed to
signal his concern about
their fate —a form of com-
pensation for American
military inaction.
His stopovers in
Jerusalem, Damascus and
Cairo, his second such tour
in one month, were widely
perceived to have been pre-
mature.
But the reasons which
made his visit to the Middle
East necessary this week
should serve notice that the
Arab coalition partners now
exercise substantial,
perhaps unprecedented, in-
fluence in Washington.
Mr. Baker's visit to Israel
will have given the secretary
an opportunity to take up
several issues which may
well prove to be explosive in

future relations between
Washington and Jerusalem.
First and foremost is
Washington's attempts to
get an Arab-Israeli peace
process off the ground.
According to recent
visitors to Damascus, Syrian
President Hafez Assad,
regarded by Israel as its
most implacable and
dangerous enemy, has
hinted he is ready to reach
an accommodation in
exchange for a settlement of
the Palestinian issue and
the return of the Golan
Heights, which were cap-
tured in the Six Day War.
While it is not clear
precisely what Mr. Assad
has in mind, it is clear that
Mr. Baker fully intends to
explore the possibility of a
breakthrough at this most
combustible flashpoint on
the Arab- Israeli map.
To achieve this, Mr. Baker
has proposed a regional
peace conference aimed at
negotiating bilateral
agreements between Israel
and its Arab neighbors.
Such a format, which is
expected to encounter Soviet

Israel would strive
to show the United
States its most
conciliatory face
but it will not,
"repeat not;' agree
to exchange
territory for peace.

A senior Israeli source

opposition, is designed to
overcome Israeli objections
to an international peace
conference under the
auspices of the UN Security
Council.
According to a senior polit-
ical source in Jerusalem,
Israel shares Washington's
enthusiasm for peace in the
region, but not at any price.
The first obstacle will
come when they are forced to
confront their differences in
interpretation of UN Securi-
ty Council resolution 242,

which is widely regarded as
the basis of any peace pro-
cess.
The operative clauses of
the resolution, adopted in
November 1967, assert the
right of all states to live in
peace within secure borders
and calls for Israel to
withdraw from territories
occupied in the June war.
Israel, said the source,
would strive to show the
United States its most con-
ciliatory face and would seek
by all means to avoid a head-
on confrontation, but it will
not, "repeat not," agree to
exchange territory for peace.
The second area of poten-
tial friction concerns the
urgent need to absorb the
flood of Soviet Jews (an issue
of great concern to the Arab
world) and the Likud
government's determination
to continue the process of
settling Jews on the West
Bank (an issue of great con-
cern to Washington).
While Israel insists that
less than 1 percent of Soviet
immigrants have settled in
the West Bank, State
Department figures show
that some 3,000 have settled
in the West Bank and Golan
Heights, while an additional
5,830 now live in east
Jerusalem, which is regard-
ed by Washington as
disputed territory.
Soviet immigrants, it says,
now account for 20 percent of

the growth in settler popula-
tion during 1990.
According to the figures
obtained in Israel by the
Peace Now movement,
Housing Minister Ariel Sha-
ron has committed more
than $250 million to
building houses on the West
Bank and Gaza Strip this
year, while the Jewish
Agency has budgeted more
than $11 million for similar
purposes in the territories. A
defiant Ariel Sharon denies
Washington's assertions
that Jewish settlements in
the territories represent an
obstacle to peace: "On the
contrary," he said at the
weekend, "the more Israel
feels secure, the greater the
chances for peace.
"I trust that the prime
minister will make it clear
to our honored guest (Mr.
Baker) that Israel has
always'built, is building and
will in the future build in
Judea, Samaria and the Gaza
Strip."
The third area of tension
concerns the Palestinians —
both the local leaders in the
occupied territories and the
PLO in exile from whom
they demonstrably take
their instructions.
At their first meeting in
Jerusalem last month, the
Palestinian representatives
made it clear to Mr. Baker
that the PLO retained its
primacy, whatevei Wash-

ington might think of its
support for the regime of
Saddam Hussein, and that
the meeting had won prior
approval from the PLO.
Moreover, they insisted, it
should not be regarded as a
precedent: Any further en-
counters would only take
place if Tunis flashed the
green light.
Indeed, Washington is
understood to have conclud-
ed over the past month that
the PLO is an essential in-
gredient in any future peace
process and it is now negoti-
ating the terms of resuming
their official dialogue.
The dialogue, which was
established in December
1988 after PLO chairman
Yassir Arafat implicitly rec-
ognized Israel's right to exist
and renounced terrorism,
was suspended by Washing-
ton last June after Arafat
refused to condemn an abor-
tive seaborne raid on the
Israeli coast by members of a
PLO affiliate.
While Israel's leaders
declare their intention of in-
creasing the destruction of
homes and the deportation of
Palestinians who are
suspected of security
offenses, they would be ad-
vised to concentrate their
collective attention on the
tangled web of problems
with the Bush administra-
tion that are now staring
them in the face.

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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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