a • 4 Rabin Starts Off With A Bang Israel's new prime minister took office with a host of high-profile gestures, but watch out for those unsettled details. INA FRIEDMAN Israel Correspondent erusalem— Yitzhak Ra- bin's opening week as Israel's prime minister was certainly dramatic. In short order, he was descended upon by Sec- retary of State James Baker, hosted by Egyptian Pres- ident Hosni Mubarak, invited to see President Bush to work out terms for receiving the $10 bil- lion in loan guarantees, invited to Germany to discuss the possi- bility of receiving further guar- antees, and treated to a great outpouring of support before he had time to do anything to earn it. It was as though the world was so relieved to be rid of the rigid regime of "Stonewall Sham& that Mr. Rabin was em- braced with alacrity just for ji mama/ II v_n eNtlf1 "being there." Still, there was tangible sense of movement, and a feeling that perhaps now Israel can truly achieve a peaceful end to its long- standing conflicts. But behind the photo-oppor- tunity smiles, the rhetoric of the Baker visit remained muted, cau- tious, and stiff. One source even described the atmosphere of the talks in Jerusalem as "tense and tough." There was an odd undercur- rent in Cairo, too. As the model host, Mr. Mubarak chided re- porters pressing for some sign of a breakthrough by reminding them that Mr. Rabin had been in office barely a week. Yet the ef- fect of the gesture was to place the onus of any turnabout on Is- rael alone. What's more, President Mubarak's less-than-elegant re- jection of Prime Minister Rabin's invitation for a reciprocal visit dampened the prospects of a quick warm-up in trade, tourism, and other aspects of Egyptian-Is- raeli relations. Indeed, less than a week after Mr. Rabin's visit, a high-level source in the Egyptian Foreign Ministry linked further diplomatic thawing to a "clear Israeli stand on the principles of land for peace and the legiti- mate rights of the Palestinian people and to serious progress in the bilateral talks." After Secretary Baker's de- parture, there was a morning-af- ter sense regarding his visit as well. To the degree that the secre- tary's purpose was to jump-start the peace process, he certainly succeeded. Israel and its four Arab negotiating partners all ex- pressed their willingness to re- sume bilateral negotiations in Washington next month. Yet on the level of confidence- building measures, the accom- plishments of the visit appear to be mixed and modest. The Pales- tinians, for example, will finally get Israel engaged in talks on the constitution of self-rule in the oc- cupied territories. But Mr. Rabin's government is determined to keep Palestini- an expectations — if not their as- pirations — firmly in check. Israel will not permit them to hold elec- tions for a legislative assembly. Neither will it agree to a change in the makeup of their delegation to the peace talks to bring in Palestinians from E a st Jerusalem, namely, Feisal al- Husseini; the real head of the del- egation in everything but official title. If anything, Mr. Rabin's stand on the inclusion of an East Jerusalemite in the negotiations seems to have hardened. He has expressed a willingness to sit down with representatives from the Palestinian diaspora at the multilateral talks but draws the line at accepting an East Jeru- salemite in that context as well. The Palestinians are disgrun- tled, of course. They have tried to argue that the issue at stake is not Jerusalem but their right to choose their own representa- tives. Yet they are hardly likely to go to the barricades over the issue just when a chance for progress on substantive matters may finally be at hand. Mr. Baker was less successful in breaking the Syrian log jam and is said to have left the region frustrated by President Hafez el- Assad's refusal to accept the prin- ciple of a staged settlement on the Golan Heights. Mr. Assad is also sticking by his refusal to par- ticipate in the multilateral talks until satisfactory progress is made in the bilaterals. The greatest progress on the Syrian issue was actually made with Mr. Rabin, who was on record as favoring the postpone- ment of a settlement with Dam- ascus until Palestinian autonomy was in place. Now he has been prevailed upon to negotiate on both fronts simultaneously. Just what the Israelis and Syr- ians will talk about when they next meet remains unclear, since the positions of the two sides haven't changed at all. Israel still wants an understanding that the point of the talks is to achieve a full-fledged peace settlement. Syria still insists that Jerusalem must first endorse the principle of a full withdrawal. Moreover, the Syrian threat to block the constitution of self-rule for the Palestinians pending headway in their own talks with Israel re- mains firmly in force. Oddly enough, considering the week's broader cast of characters and gamut of issues involved, some of thefanciest footwork was exhibited in the efforts to patch up American-Israeli relations and restore them to a pre- E' Sharnirian level of cordiality. Here the key instrument is the $10 billion in loan guarantees — that the Israeli government is as eager to receive as the Bush administration is now (in light of the president's grim showing in the polls) eager to provide. Yet for the first time in quite a while, both sides find them- selves concerned with an almost forgotten element in their rela- tionship: appearances. Having made a total freeze on settlement activity the condition for granting the guarantees to the Shamir government, it would be unseemly for Washington to lift that stricture now for sake of partisan political gain. Mr. Ra- bin has moved in the "right di- rection," Washington noted, by having his declaration of a par- o tial freeze on the construction of housing and roads in the territo- ries. Yet he, too, is sensitive about his image and has had his min- isters stress that the freeze was prompted by purely economic motives — a reordering of Israel's domestic priorities — not by any :- desire to appease the U.S. The word in Jerusalem is that c'--1 Baker and Rabin: A meeting to jump-start the peace process.