New Search for Unity

By Thomas A. Sancton

The Arabs try to find a common approach to an accommodation with Israel

It was a timeless ritual of power and brotherhood. Dressed in the long, flowing arbayas of Bedouin chieftains, Saudi King Khalid, Crown Prince Fahd and Prince Abdullah sat in a sumptuous lounge at Riyadh International Airport last week and awaited their royal guests. One by one, special jetliners landed, carrying the rulers of the five Persian Gulf nations that, along with Saudi Arabia, constitute the Gulf Cooperation Council (G.C.C.).* Fahd and Abdullah emerged onto the shimmering tarmac to greet each arriving sheik and sultan, then escorted him in to meet the King. While white-robed Saudi national guardsmen, armed with machine guns and golden daggers, looked on, the rulers exchanged embraces and sipped cups of hot, aromatic coffee before being whisked off by limousines to their luxurious suites at the Nasseryah Conference Palace.

The two-day convocation in the Saudi capital, the second meeting of the six-month-old G.C.C., may well be remembered as one of the key sessions in recent years dealing with the complex and convoluted Middle East. The six rulers, whose combined oil reserves represent about one-third of the world's total, took the first steps toward playing a role in international diplomacy commensurate with their financial power. Their decisions included final approval of a far-reaching economic treaty that could turn the organization into a Gulf States common market, and agreement to set common regional defense priorities. But by far their most dramatic step was to endorse a Middle East peace plan that was getting increasing backing in Europe and the Arab world as an alternative approach to the flagging Camp David talks for working out a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

First suggested by Crown Prince Fahd last August, the proposal reiterates Arab demands for a Palestinian state but implies Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist (see box). The Gulf States' endorsement could be the first step toward transforming the Fahd proposal into a pan-Arab peace plan, provided the Saudis can win approval for it at the 23-nation Arab League summit in Fez, Morocco, on Nov. 25. If the league, which includes the Palestine Liberation Organization, endorses the Fahd plan, the step would be the most important in Arab summitry since the Rabat meeting in 1974 that recognized the P.L.O. as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

But the Saudis, who were touring Arab capitals last week drumming up support for their plan, had some opposition. The Libyans were working just as vigorously against the plan among their allies, including radical P.L.O. groups, Syria, Algeria and South Yemen, which at this point are not prepared to recognize Israel's right to exist at all. As the Fez summit approached, the future of the Saudi plan depended on two key questions: 1) Would the Libyans draw the other Arab hardline states into intractable opposition? 2) Would the P.L.O. endorse the proposal?

P.L.O. Leader Yasser Arafat, who has called the Fahd plan "a good beginning," although he has not backed it, was lobbying discreetly to put the proposal on the Fez agenda. But he faced strong opposition from radicals within his own ranks.

Arafat's room to maneuver was also cramped by his dependence on Syria, which helps sustain the P.L.O. as a military force. Syrian Prime Minister Abdul-Rauf Kassem has criticized the Fahd plan as "ineffective." But Foreign Minister Abdul Halim Khaddam is known to favor it, and President Hafez Assad has yet to be convinced. Should the Syrians and the P.L.O. finally side with the Saudis, other intransigent states like Algeria would probably go along, leaving Libya the main opposition to the plan.

One way for the Saudis to win over the Syrians and some of the other hard-liners would be to buy their support-with promises of massive foreign aid. Another possible way to silence radical opposition would be to secure the endorsement of

Moscow, perhaps by holding out the hope of returning the peace process to the long-suspended Geneva Conference that the Soviets chaired in tandem with the U.S. That appeared to have been the aim of Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal, who recently spoke approvingly of a possible Soviet peace role in the future.

The prospect of bringing the Soviets back into the Middle East picture was just one of the problems that the Saudi campaign, for all of its hopeful aspects, posed to U.S. policymakers. If the Fahd plan is approved at the Fez summit, Washington would come under increasing pressure from its own Western allies to deal with the P.L.O. in spite of Israeli protests. Said one senior State Department official: "It will mean a new ball game in the Middle East. People will say, 'The P.L.O. has finally done what the Americans have wanted it to do. It has accepted Israel's right to exist, so there should be some movement toward the P.L.O.' That's certainly what the Europeans will be telling us to do."

Although the Reagan Administration remains committed to the Camp David process as the best means of working out a settlement in the Middle East, U.S. officials regard the Fahd plan as a possible starting point for new negotiations if there is a hopeless deadlock in talks between the Israelis and the Egyptians. Then, too, the Administration wants to encourage the Saudis in general to use their power to work for moderation in the region. Thus Reagan last week gingerly praised the Fahd plan, calling it a "hopeful sign" and one that indicated the willingness to negotiate." Secretary of State Alexander Haig also had cautious words of praise for the Saudi initiative.

Faced with this growing discussion about the Saudi proposal, the Israelis reacted swiftly and strongly. At a Tel Aviv press conference Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon blasted both the plan and its authors. "It's very hard to sell the Saudis to us," he said sarcastically. "They are the biggest supporters of the terrorists, after the Soviets." He added a warning that "Israel will treat the Saudis exactly as we treat every confrontation state." Only a few hours earlier, Israeli air force jets had made Sharon's point in a different fashion. They carried out a highly visible reconnaissance sortie over Tabuk, a major Saudi airbase 125 miles from Israel.

At midweek the Israeli position seemed to soften. Emerging from a 90-min. meeting with Secretary of State Haig, Moshe Arens, leader of a parliamentary delegation sent to Washington by Prime Minister Menachem Begin to talk about rising Israeli concerns, had some unexpectedly encouraging words about the Fahd plan. Arens declared that the Saudis had gone "a little way beyond the kind of statements they have made in the past." Coming from an Israeli hardliner, a close Begin associate and Israel's next Ambassador to Washington, that remark stirred speculation that the Israelis might consider at least some of the Saudi points to be negotiable. But after talking by phone with Begin, Arens in effect repudiated his statement and said that "basically it's a plan for the dismemberment of Israel."

As they denounced the Saudi plan, the Israelis were sending out encouraging signals about their desire for progress on Camp David's more limited approach to the Palestinian problem: the Israeli-Egyptian talks on autonomy arrangements for the 1.3 million Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Apparently hoping for a definite breakthrough in the sluggish talks, Begin dispatched to Cairo his four most senior Cabinet members, whom he empowered to make decisions on the spot.

Begin, who has long worried about the viability of the Camp David process once the Israeli withdrawal from Sinai is completed next April, feels that the peace would be more durable if a settlement could be reached before then. Further more, there is growing concern in Jerusalem that Washington is becoming disenchanted with the slow pace of the autonomy talks and might abandon the Camp David approach in favor of the Fahd plan or some other alternative.

But for all the professed Israeli eagerness to reach a settlement, the two-day session at Cairo's elegant old Mena House hotel brought no tangible progress. Along with U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Alfred Atherton and Ambassador to Israel Samuel Lewis, the participants dutifully avowed their "dedication to the Camp David framework" in their closing statement. Still, Egypt and Israel remained as far apart as ever on the issue that has bedeviled the talks from the beginning: the size, scope and powers of the Palestinian body that is to govern the occupied territories once they become autonomous. The Israelis conceive of that body as a small council, with limited administrative powers and no legislative authority. The Egyptians want an assembly of 70 or more elected members that could become the legislature of a Palestinian state.

Meanwhile, the Israelis last week revived a dormant but still explosive issue. Israeli Defense Minister Sharon charged that P.L.O. units in southern Lebanon were rapidly building up their artillery and rocket arsenals in defiance of a July cease-fire agreement. He also complained of the continuing presence there of Syrian antiaircraft missiles. Accusing the U.S. and Europe of ignoring the problem while they flirted with the Fahd plan, Sharon warned that if "political means" failed to get results, "Israel will have to act." As the search for peace continued, so did the threat of war. -- By Thomas A. Sancton. Reported by David Aikman/Cairo and William Stewart/Riyadh

*Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates.

With reporting by DAVID AIKMAN, William Stewart

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