Israel has again rejected territorial compromise and made clear it will not suspend settlement-building, even if a peace conference depends on it.
That was the message contained in speeches made over the weekend by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Defense Minister Moshe Arens.
They spoke as U.S. Secretary of State James Baker arrived in the region for his fourth and reportedly final attempt to get an agreement on a regional peace conference that the two superpowers would co-host.
Baker met in Damascus on Sunday with Syrian President Hafez Assad before flying to Cairo for talks with Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh, who was in Israel on Friday. Baker was to meet Monday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and was expected to arrive in Israel on Tuesday for talks Wednesday and Thursday with Israeli leaders.
Shamir also said Sunday that the Arabs have shown “no sign of sincere and true willingness for peace.”
The Israeli leader disagreed with Baker and with his own foreign minister, David Levy, over the importance of the reported willingness of Saudi Arabia and the five other states of the Gulf Cooperation Council to send an “observer” to a regional conference with Israel.
American officials hailed the decision, announced Saturday in Luxembourg by Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, as a “breakthrough.”
Levy told reporters after the weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday that the development represents “progress.”
NO PROGRESS AT ALL’
But Shamir’s senior aide, Yossi Ben-Aharon, dismissed the Saudi offer as “no progress at all” and proceeded to demolish its significance in a rare briefing for reporters.
Ben-Aharon, who is director general of the Prime Minister’s Office, said Israel would demand the full participation in a peace conference by the Gulf states and every other Arab country still technically in a state of war with Israel.
But according to observers here and abroad, the intransigent rhetoric may have been largely for home consumption.
There is a certain amount of uneasiness in the top policy-making echelons as a showdown over the peace process appears imminent. That is said to account for some of the discordant notes emanating from the highest government circles.
Baker has made it clear he will not persist with his peace initiative if the current “shuttle” fails to produce the desired peace conference.
There were predictions in Israel — causing alarm in some quarters and hope in others — that Baker and Bessmertnykh might actually issue invitations to the regional adversaries to attend a conference, challenging them in effect to refuse.
When Shamir remarked at Sunday’s Cabinet meeting that the settlement issue would “be a matter for negotiations when negotiations are held,” Ben-Aharon promptly explained to reporters that his boss only meant that the Arab side would be free to raise the issue when negotiations begin over the final disposition of the territories.
According to the Israeli plan, such talks would take place three years after limited autonomy goes into effect.
Shamir used the occasion of Jerusalem Day festivities Saturday night at the Mercaz Harav Kook yeshiva to deliver a ringing commitment never to withdraw from the territories.
He told his audience of largely Orthodox supporters that the territories were “all holy.”
Arens, addressing another religious audience in Jerusalem on Sunday, said the settlements are “what gives the negotiators strength.”
The settlements and the Israel Defense Force are the twin pillars of Israel’s defense, Arens said at the Netiv Meir yeshiva of Bnei Akiva.
Shamir’s remarks drew a sharp rebuke from the Labor Party, which accused him Sunday of rejecting peace.
But in Washington, a powerful U.S. senator often critical of Israel’s polices gave the Israeli prime minister the benefit of the doubt.
Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.), the Senate minority leader, advised Americans on a television talk show Sunday to “keep in mind that all politics is local.
“Shamir does not have much margin in the Knesset. There is a lot of posturing going on, not just in Israel, but in other countries,” Dole said, in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
The Kansas Republican, who last year suggested across-the-board cuts in U.S. economic and military aid to Israel and Egypt, counseled the American people to be “patient” during Baker’s Middle East junket.
U.S. MAY WANT TO “RETHINK’ POLICIES
But if he fails, the United States “may want to rethink our policies toward a number of countries,” Dole said. He named no countries nor did he mention foreign aid.
“We want the American people to understand if this fails, which country was the problem,” Dole said.
Appearing on the same program, Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-Maine) expressed disappointment that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states were not willing “to be more active in the peace process” despite all the United States has done for them in recent months.
Meanwhile, Shamir asked the opposition Labor Party’s chairman, Shimon Peres, to brief him privately on the hour-long unscheduled meeting Peres had with President Bush at the White House on May 8.
Bush walked in on an evening meeting Peres was having with National Security Council Adviser Brent Scowcroft.
Israeli commentators said Peres promised the president to support Shamir with Labor’s Knesset votes if the prime minister decides to pilot the country toward a peace conference, despite right wing threats to defect from the government.
The right wing is already applying pressure Yuval Ne’eman of Tehiya urged Shamir to insist that the United States, as a gesture, move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem before peace talks start.
Rehavam Ze’evi of Moledet wants Israel to reject both U.S.-Soviet sponsorship and any U.N. role in a peace conference.
(JTA correspondent David Friedman in Washington contributed to this report.)
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