Middle East: On the Bridge To Nowhere

By Lisa Beyer

Usually, busy diplomats travel from Amman to Jerusalem by air, but James Baker took the less traveled path last week and made the trip by road. With his two-hour drive, the Secretary of State wanted to underscore just how close the two adversaries are. But his stroll over the Allenby Bridge spanning the River Jordan, which marks the border, made the equally telling point that both sides are loath to come together. The two Jordanian officers who accompanied the Secretary midway across the bridge and the waiting Israeli escort spoke not a word to one another.

Baker's lonely crossing was an apt symbol for his fourth peace mission to the Middle East since the end of the gulf war. The Secretary has logged 67,500 miles in two months trying to convince the Arabs and Israelis that they should just get together to talk, but his guests would not budge from positions that make a broadly based parley impossible. Israel would not agree to a United Nations presence at such a conference, while Syria said it would not attend without U.N. participation. Israel insisted that the U.S. and Soviet Union be present only for an opening assembly, then allow the Jewish state to negotiate individually with the Arab parties. Syria demanded that the third parties remain involved throughout, hoping this would make Israel more pliable.

Baker's wanderings were not completely fruitless. He did manage to squeeze out of Israel an agreement that might finesse the problem of who would represent the Palestinians in talks. Israel has refused to sit down with Palestinians from East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in 1967, or with those from the occupied territories who have ties with the Palestine Liberation Organization. But now the Israelis have acquiesced to a joint Jordanian- Palestinian delegation, giving rise to speculation that its members might include Palestinians living in Jordan who are originally from East Jerusalem or are linked to the P.L.O.

Still, that breakthrough was an enormous letdown from the high hopes generated during the gulf war. Then, the conventional wisdom held that new alliances and new thinking might create an environment for making progress in settling the Arab-Israeli conflict. But as Baker's frustrations illustrate, no outside power can impose a solution; the bickering factions must want peace themselves. And the evident truth is that they don't, or at least not badly enough. "The only party willing to move is the Palestinians," says a senior Western diplomat in Washington, exaggerating only slightly. "And no one," he adds, "gives a damn what they want." Where the other major players stand:

ISRAEL Confidence is the basis of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's intransigence. Israel has the lands the Arabs want back -- the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights -- and does not anticipate being forced to return them. Only a defeat in war would bring that about, and who would deliver it? Iraq, previously Israel's fiercest enemy, has been neutered. Syria can no longer rely on now impoverished Moscow to bankroll its military machine, which runs on Soviet technology that was shown to be inferior in the gulf war. Egypt, which made a separate peace with Israel in 1979, is not interested. And in any event, Israel has nuclear weapons, a tough and proven military and a close alliance with the world's remaining superpower.

Moreover, Shamir enjoys the support of a majority of Israelis in holding on to the occupied territories, at least for the present. Iraq's Scud attacks on Israel during the war and Palestinian support for the bombardments heightened distrust of Arab intentions among Israelis. Even the opposition Labor Party seems reluctant to yield too much of the occupied lands; leader Shimon Peres suggested recently that he was not eager to give up the Golan Heights.

SYRIA President Hafez Assad's behavior is motivated mostly by one aim: the return of the Golan Heights. Outclassed by the Israelis militarily, the Syrians believe that their best chance rests in having outsiders pressure the Jewish state to abide by U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, which call on Israel to trade land for peace. Thus Damascus will not settle simply for a one-on-one session with Israel. At the same time, Assad is tempted by the opportunity he sees in Saddam's humiliation to take his old rival's place as the No. 1 radical Arab strongman.

SAUDI ARABIA Grateful to the U.S. and the other allies for saving them from Saddam, the Saudis suggested in the midst of the crisis that they would adopt a new openness toward Israel. But now that the kingdom is safe again, the old hostility is back. It took a diplomatic bludgeoning by the U.S. to get the Saudis and the other gulf states to agree earlier this month to serve collectively as an observer to a Middle East conference and to participate in talks with Israel on regional issues like water distribution, economic development and arms control. Worried about a backlash by Saudi conservatives, King Fahd is hesitant to go any further. The Saudis want to keep the U.S. happy in case their security is threatened again. Given U.S. reliance on gulf oil, however, the Saudis also realize that they do not have to be servile to Washington.

JORDAN U.S. officials think King Hussein badly wants to take part in the talks, in part to get back in Washington's good graces after leaning toward Saddam in the war. But last week the King refused to accept Baker's proposal for a parley for fear of incurring Assad's wrath. Asked whether he would attend a peace conference without Syria present, he replied, "I haven't said that." Would he attend if Syria did too? "I haven't said that, either."

THE U.S. Faced with the Kurdish tragedy and Saddam's tenacious hold on power, the Bush Administration dearly needs a diplomatic victory. Certainly Baker does not appear to be preparing to quit anytime soon. On his way home last week, he stressed the positive accomplishments of his mission and said little to dampen expectations for more progress.

Baker's strategy is to cajole, not push. If he makes no headway, there is the possibility of twisting arms. Leaning on Israel is the most obvious tactic, since Jerusalem receives more than $3 billion a year from Washington. But threatening Israel's lifeline would mean a vicious fight with both Congress, which is more pro-Israel than the Administration, and the powerful Israeli lobby in the U.S. What's more, Administration officials have learned from experience that the tougher they get with Shamir, the tougher he gets in return.

Thus a more likely next move for Bush, should he decide a new approach is needed, would be to cut through the tiresome deliberations over procedure and call a conference of his own design in Washington. The invitations in effect would be a dare to the recipients to say no. Alternatively, the U.S. might focus its efforts just on mending bridges between the Palestinians and Jordanians and the Israelis. That would be a less ambitious project than working for a broader peace, but for that reason it is perhaps a more realistic one.

With reporting by J.F.O. McAllister with Baker, Christopher Ogden/Washington and Robert Slater/Jerusalem