Talking Up Middle East Miracles

It was a far cry from the usual trudging pace of the Middle East peace process. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker whirled through the region, soliciting conciliatory gestures at every stop and obtaining at least more favorable rhetoric. The leaders of Egypt and Israel met in Cairo in the first summit between these only nominally friendly states in six years. The intent was to signal to the world that with a new, left-leaning Israeli government in place, the climate is ripe for rapprochement. Baker seemed to think so. Said he: "There is a new opportunity to move forward."

In its first concrete action to advance the peace negotiations that began last fall, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin made good its promise to slow down settlement activity in the occupied territories by freezing construction of 6,500 planned units (10,000 housing units already under construction will be completed). Baker said that Israel was embarked on a program of "severe and substantial curtailments," greatly improving the chance that Washington will now grant at least part of the $10 billion in loan guarantees Israel has requested to help resettle Russian Jews. The U.S. had pointedly withheld that aid from Rabin's predecessor, Yitzhak Shamir, whose government in the past two years built or began construction on 15,000 housing units.

Arab reaction to Rabin's move was mixed. Syria dismissed the policy change as a p.r. trick. But Palestinian delegates, following a meeting with Baker in Jerusalem, backed away from their threats to walk from the talks in the absence of a complete halt in settlement building. Egypt showed the most enthusiasm. After his tete-a-tete with Rabin, President Hosni Mubarak lauded Israel's "good step on the right track." While he cautioned that "we need much more," Mubarak expressed confidence in his Israeli counterpart. "The man is only one week in office," he said. "What do you expect him to do, miracles?"

Baker was plainly eager to inspire a few miracles himself. Revived prospects for peace could bolster the floundering Bush re-election campaign. Baker has mentioned the idea of a late-summer parley in Washington to steal a jump on the next round of talks in Rome, expected no sooner than September. After that, the sessions may well relocate to Cairo, which Mubarak has offered as a future venue, if Syria will go along.