HELEN DAVIS

Foreign Correspondent

T

he fact that Israeli and
Arab leaders are still
talking about sitting
down at a peace conference
later this month is eloquent
testimony both to the diplo-
matic skills of Secretary of
State James Baker and to
Washington's awesome po-
litical muscle.
The Likud government of
Yitzhak Shamir may feel
betrayed and abandoned by
the decision last week of 68
senators to yield to their
powerful president and
agree to a four-month hiatus
in considering its request for
a $10 billion loan guarantee.
The Palestinians may be
deeply unhappy about the
terms of their participation
at the proposed Middle East
peace conference — no PLO
officials and no represent-
atives from east Jerusalem.
Neither side, however, is
talking about pulling out of
the process and neither is is-
suing the bold, declarative
threats that experience has
taught Middle East diplo-
mats to expect. In simple
language, neither can afford
the high price of wrecking
the initiative.
The world order now
emerging from the ashes of
the Cold War and the Gulf
War is clearly imposing new
realities on an old conflict,
handing veteran Middle
East politicians an unac-
customed lesson in biting
the bullet.
As Mr. Baker prepares to
put the finishing touches to
the proposed peace con-
ference, he will have to start
the potentially perilous task
of filling in some of the con-
spicuous cracks that have so
far been papered over with
creative ambiguity.
While his stated declara-
tion was simply to get the
Arab-Israeli protagonists
face to face around the con-
ference table, that modest
goal fell far short of the need
by all sides for concrete
guarantees about the
parameters of the negotia-
tions.
Indeed, some fear that in
accepting procedural terms
they may be perceived to
have given way on substan-
tive issues. The Palestin-
ians, for example, are con-

Artwork from Newsday by Bernie Cootner. Copyright° 1991, Newsday. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

Biting The Bullet

Israel and the Palestinians aren't happy about
the conditions for peace But they're afraid
of the U.S. — and Islamic fundamentalist

cerned that their cir-
cumscribed delegation may
be interpreted as a negation
of the PLO's role and a rec-
ognition of -Israel's annexa-
tion of east Jerusalem.
All sides are anxious to
receive official assurances
from Washington before the
conference begins, but that
would entail Mr. Baker
abandoning diplomacy for
real politik:
• He must reassure Israel
that Jerusalem will not be
divided again while convinc-
ing the Palestinians that he
does not recognize Israel's
claim to sovereignty over
east Jerusalem.
• He must reassure the
Palestinians that he sup-
ports their claim to a na-
tional homeland while con-
vincing Israel that he op-
poses the establishment of
an independent Palestinian
state.
• He must reassure Israel
that he appreciates its stra-

tegic concerns while convin-
cing Syria, Jordan and the
Palestinians of his belief
that Israel must abandon oc-
cupied territories for peace.
The bottom line is that he
must convince both Israel
and the Arabs they have
more to gain than lose from

A little-discussed
factor in bringing
the Israelis and
Palestinians
together is their
mutual fear of the
Islamic
fundamentalist
movement.

cutting a deal: that Israel
can look forward to genuine
peace if it evacuates the oc-
cupied territories; that the
Arabs will be adequately
rewarded for recognizing
Israel's right to exist in
peace.

One little-discussed factor
in bringing the Israelis and
Palestinians together is
their mutual fear of the
Islamic fundamentalist
movement, Harms, which is
growing rapidly and has no
use for either the Israelis or
the PLO.
The threat posed by
Islamic fundamentalism is
not contained in devout re-
ligious observance, but in
the embrace of Islam as a
total identity —religious, po-
litical and cultural — which
demands uncompromising
antipathy for non-Islamic
traditions.
Washington last week ex-
perienced a blast of this
chilling reality in Saudi
Arabia, where King Fand's
determinedly feudal
kingdom is sensitive to the
growing challenge from its
own Islamic radicals.
Fearing the burgeoning
fundamentalist opposition,
which is currently

distributing videotapes of a
recent royal wedding that
featured alcohol and belly-
dancers, the Saudi king re-
jected U.S. requests to
redeploy 3,000 troops and 80
military aircraft on Saudi
soil for possible action
against Iraq.
He also refused to allow
the United States to build a
helicopter base in nor-
theastern Saudi Arabia,
imploring his friends from
Washington to realize their
plans in Kuwait: "The whole
thing must not look like a
Saudi-American operation,"
he reportedly said.
The radical Islamic move-
ment on Israel's borders —
the Muslim Brotherhood in
Jordan and Syria; Hamas in
the West Bank and Gaza
Strip —resolutely reject rec-
ognition of the Jewish state,
let alone negotiations with
it.
According to Islamic law,
any land that has ever fallen
under Muslim rule is eter-
nally Islamic and it is both
the highest and holiest duty
of Muslims to redeem the
land from its "foreign
usurpers."
The charter of the Hamas
movement, with its message
of visceral hatred for Jews
and the Jewish state, leaves
no room for doubt about its
rejection of any accommoda-
tion with Israel and its con-
tempt for the predominantly
secular nature of the PLO's
nationalist struggle.
By contrast, the PLO
seems flexible.
The point has not been lost
on either the Israelis or PLO
leader Yassir Arafat (who
has significantly abandoned
the slogan of a "secular,
democratic Palestine") that
since the start of the intifada
in December 1987, support
for llamas has grown like
mushrooms in the rain.
Hamas is now able to
claim the support of 40 per-
cent of Palestinians in the
Gaza Strip, with a substan-
tial, and steadily rising,
minority within the West
Bank, too.
The specter of a rampant,
violent, uncompromising
Islamic fundamentalist
threat may yet prove to be
the catalyst that impels the
various parties to come to
terms with an imperfect
resolution to their long- ,
festering conflict.

❑

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

33

1 T ERNATIONA

BACKGROUND