After two days of alternately coaxing and pressuring Israel to join the peace process, Secretary of State James A. Baker III departed Monday with
”great hope” that a Middle East peace conference can be convened this fall.
”I think this is a moment of historic opportunity,” Baker said as he left Israel for a meeting of Asian foreign ministers in Malaysia.
”For 43 years Israel has sought direct negotiations with its neighbors, and it has been right to do so. . . . Now there is a real opportunity to get to those face-to-face negotiations. Israel now has Arab partners willing to engage in direct negotiations.”
Baker said he expected Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to say within a few days whether Israel would join Syria and other Arab states and accept President Bush`s terms for a regional peace conference in Cairo in October sponsored by the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
Later Monday, on Israeli television, Shamir also spoke of possible progress.
”It is a fact that we stand here in front of a change,” he said. ”It may be only a tactical one, but it is a change. . . . I hope that we will reach direct bilateral negotiations with Syria.”
Asked if a peace conference could start within the next few months, the prime minister said, ”It`s very possible that talks could be held in the framework of peace negotiations between us and the Arab world.
For the second straight day, Baker hinted that Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev might issue invitations to the peace conference at their summit in Moscow next week regardless of Israel`s response, thus increasing the pressure on Shamir.
But Baker said he hoped it would not come to that. He said he had set no deadline for an Israeli response but voiced confidence one would come before the Moscow summit.
Baker said he assured Shamir, Defense Minister Moshe Arens and Foreign Minister David Levy that the U.S. had cut no secret deals with Syria and would not act to undermine Israel`s security.
Senior Israeli officials said Shamir had been feeling increasingly cornered by Baker`s step-by-step approach of encircling Israel with a ring of Arab assent for the peace process before his talks in Jerusalem.
Before arriving in Israel, Baker lined up acceptance of Bush`s terms for a conference from Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. He said the Arabs were prepared to hold unprecedented face-to-face talks with Israel to end 43 years of war against the Jewish state.
Most Israeli newspapers and commentators speculated Shamir and his government would have no choice but to say yes to Baker, and senior Israeli officials said their nationalist leader genuinely did not know how he would respond.
Shamir`s spokesman, Avi Pazner, said the Israeli government would deliberate over Baker`s proposals. ”There are still difficult problems which we must consider in the next few days. We had very good talks yesterday and today.”
Shamir, a former Jewish underground guerrilla leader and Israeli intelligence chief whose life has been spent fighting for Israel, has acknowledged his deep distrust of a peace process that he fears will inevitably result in Israel being forced to give up lands captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Shamir faces agonizing political pressures abroad and at home. Several small right-wing parties have threatened to leave his ruling coalition and bring down his Likud government if he accepts the U.S. plan. But relations with the U.S. would be seriously strained and Israel would face severe international isolation if he refuses.
National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, en route to Washington from Turkey with Bush aboard Air Force One Monday, said Israel`s response to the pressure may be to delay and ”study” the proposals until they finally go away.
”That is a tactic the Israelis have used in the past,” Scowcroft said.
”. . . I don`t think we`re prepared for indefinite delay.”
But Scowcroft conceded, ”It`s pretty difficult to have a conference if one of the sides is not going to be there.”
Scowcroft also refined the administration`s attitude on the relationship between Israel`s response to peace initiatives and an Israeli request for an additional $10 billion in U.S. housing loan guarantees to settle the influx of Soviet Jews.
”There would not be a formal conditioning but, of course, they are related issues,” Scowcroft said.
Baker spent nearly all of his one-on-one meeting with Shamir Sunday night and his session with the Israeli leader and Arens and Levy Monday morning outlining in detail Syrian President Hafez Assad`s recent letter responding to Bush`s peace proposal and answering ”many questions” the Israelis had about Syria`s position.
The secretary of state said the Arab states` acceptance of the Bush plan included their willingness to engage in unprecedented direct bilateral talks with Israel after the initial session of the peace conference adjourns, thus satisfying a longstanding Israeli objective.
Baker said the U.S.-brokered peace initiative was designed to forge direct talks between Israel and its neighbors and Israel and Palestinians, to construct a process acceptable to the Jewish state and to create a positive international climate for negotiations.
”In our view, we have done all three,” he said.
Israel so far has objected to two provisions in Bush`s plans for a conference: that the conference can reconvene with the approval of all parties, and the presence of United Nations observers at the talks.
But even if Shamir decides to drop those objections, new stumbling blocks over Palestinian representation still could block the peace process.
At a news conference in Israel Monday, Palestinian leaders insisted they will not attend the peace conference if Faisal Husseini, who has led the Palestinian delegation in each of its talks with Baker, or other East Jerusalem Palestinians are not included.
Israel insists on the right to veto any individual Palestinian participants.
The Palestinians also called on Shamir to freeze Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Baker said the U.S. and Israel continue to differ openly over the question of Jewish settlements, which is championed by Shamir`s government but opposed by Washington.
Baker said Shamir also flatly rejected a call by the U.S., its main Western allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia for an end to the Arab economic boycott of Israel in exchange for a freeze on Jewish settlements in the territories.
