Secretary of State George Shultz’s departure for the Middle East tonight appears to be an all-out effort to resuscitate President Reagan’s September I peace initiative before it is officially pronounced dead, as many have already done.
Yet Reagan’s official announcement of the trip, Shultz’s first to the Mideast as Secretary of State, concentrated on the effort to achieve an agreement on the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon. Shultz’s announced itinerary included only Egypt, Israel and Lebanon, although other Arab countries were not ruled out and presumably will be included if progress is made in Lebanon.
The “primary purpose” of the Shultz trip is “to bring to a successful conclusion the negotiations in Lebanon,” the President said in announcing the trip at a brief news conference Friday. But when he was asked if he thought his peace initiative was still alive, Reagan replied, “Yes, that’s why George Shultz is going there.”
The President indicated that an agreement on Israeli withdrawal would be needed before progress could be made on bringing King Hussein of Jordan into the peace negotiations.
SHULTZ: ARABS TAKING A SECOND LOOK AT U.S. PLAN
In an interview published in The Washington Post today, Shultz suggested that Arab leaders may be taking a second look at Reagan’s peace initiative. “It does seem to me that there’s a certain shock that has taken hold, as I read the cables from the various Arab capitals, in which people are saying to themselves, Are we really going to pass this up? Maybe we can’t afford to do that,” Shultz said.
According to Shultz, “the desire for peace is not dead. It’s very much alive.” The Secretary was also optimistic that “an agreement between Lebanon and Israel is very likely.” He said both “agree on the essential ingredients … they both want a secure southern Lebanon. Neither wants to see PLO terrorist groups re-enter that country, particularly that area.”
He added: “That being the case, the construction of security arrangements is not a matter, you might say, of high principle or strategy … It’s a question of working out in a kind of tactical way what those arrangements are, consistent with Lebanese sovereignty, and give assurance of security in the area. Both want it.”
Shultz reiterated the Administration’s earlier contention that King Hussein had a tentative agreement in principle with PLO chief Yasir Arafat to represent the Palestinians in peace talks, but Arafat bowed to “radical” elements within the PLO and set new conditions that were unacceptable to Hussein and to the U.S.
SAYS HUSSEIN NEEDED ASSURANCES
But according to Shultz, Hussein needed assurances that Israel would freeze its settlement activities on the West Bank for the duration of negotiations, a key point in Reagan’s peace plan.
“We have consistently continued to emphasize the importance of that because, after all, you’re talking about a negotiation dealing with an area and, if the area is being changed while you are in the process of negotiating or considering negotiating, it’s tough to make that negotiation as meaningful as it otherwise might be,” Shultz said.
He explained that the President had told Hussein in effect, “I will not press you actually to sit down at the bargaining table unless we can find some form of freeze … Of course, King Hussein might decide to sit down anyway and say, ‘The first thing I want to talk about is a settlement freeze.’ But we haven’t got to that point,” Shultz said.
“I might note that in the President’s plan it’s very explicit that if the settlers want to stay in their settlement, they stay, but they would live under the jurisdiction of whatever is the jurisdiction of that territory. In the President’s plan, it’s perfectly consistent with Jews living in the West Bank,” he said.
REAGAN, SHULTZ UNDER INCREASED ATTACK
The Secretary of State’s trip comes after a week in which both Shultz and Reagan were under increased personal attack for being themselves to blame for the failure of the Reagan initiative. Shultz has been criticized for months for not going to the Mideast. Both he and the President were accused of not giving enough attention to the problem.
Karen Elliott House, the Wall Street Journal’s Middle East expert, in an article last Wednesday (April 20). accused Reagan of seeming “not to understand his own initiative” and Shultz of appearing “studiously aloof from the plan.” Similar criticism has appeared in other publications with the usually anonymous sources in the White House and State Department sniping at each other.
However, Mrs. House’s article, as well as her series on the Mideast which preceded it, seemed aimed at getting Hussein off the hook. She even criticized Saudi Arabia and Morocco. In fact, much of the media has sought to absolve Hussein of the blame.
The State Department was visibly shocked when Hussein announced that he would not join the negotiations. But as one pro-Israel observer here said, Israel’s supporters in Washington were not surprised, they never expected Hussein to enter.
The “plucky king” has long been praised in the United States for his courage, but his courage is based on his desire to stay alive. Long-time observers of Hussein did not expect him to follow the example of the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
The Israelis, who would agree with this assessment, were at the same time visibly relieved that Hussein blamed the Palestine Liberation Organization and not Israel, especially as the Reagan Administration also took this position.
THE ADMINISTRATION’S FAILURE
Yet, by placing the blame on the PLO the Administration is again refusing to deal with the problem of Hussein, Many believe that the problem has been the failure of the Administration to put pressure on Hussein.
After all, Reagan announced his initiative after he reportedly had the assurance from Hussein that he would agree to enter the negotiations. The President was willing to anger the Israelis to achieve his goal. Israel, angrily rejected the peace initiative because Premier Menachem Begin charged that it made promises to the Arabs that would violate Israel’s security.
But part of Israel’s anger was due to the initiative being discussed secretly with Jordan despite an agreement with Israel that it be kept informed on all matters concerning its security.
Throughout the period there has been pressure on Israel to freeze settlements, to leave Lebanon; weapons deliveries like the F-16 jet fighter have been held up. Yet no similar action has been taken against Jordan. Hussein likes to appear as a friend, but his friendship means that the U.S. should protect his country when it is in danger and expect nothing in return.
PLO BECOMING IRRELEVANT
At the same time, the recent events may have had some beneficial effects in making the PLO irrelevant to the Mideast peace process. Many believe the only reason that Arafat has been negotiating with Hussein is because he fears that if he doesn’t, the knockout blow the PLO received from Israel in Lebanon will finally be recognized in the Arab world.
Shultz suggested that very thing when he indicated that the Arab League take away the mandate to represent the Palestinans it gave the PLO in Rabat, Morocco in 1974, It was no coincidence that the next day Arafat denied that he had broken negotiations with Hussein.
The Secretary of State zeroed in again on the PLO in his interview with the Washington Post. “If they are given leadership of a group and there’s an opportunity for something constructive and they don’t do it, it certainly calls into question whether or not they should continue to have that leadership,” he said. “What other forms of Palestinian representation there may be remains to be seen, but there are all all sorts of possibilities.”
Reagan also pointed out the PLO’s irrelevance Friday. “Maybe we are making the PLO more important than they are,” he said. “The negotiations don’t have to hinge on the PLO.” The President added:
“There has to be a solution to the problem of the Palestinans. No one ever elected the PLO among the Palestinians. I don’t think that what an element of that group is doing should turn us away from trying to find a solution to the problems of hundreds of thousands, millions in fact, of Palestinians who aren’t radical and who simply want something of a homeland.”
But if the negotiations do not hinge on the PLO, let alone the radical elements in it, they do hinge on Hussein. Perhaps if Shultz gets to Amman he should give Hussein the same advise he gave the PLO about its mandate: “Use it, or lose it.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
