Latest Baker Visit to Israel Ends on Sour Note of Mistrust

A pervasive gloom appears to have settled in official circles over the weekend following U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s third round of talks with Israeli leaders here.

The most Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Foreign Minister David Levy could tell their Cabinet colleagues Sunday was that there is “no crisis” in relations with the United States.

But well-placed Israeli officials spoke of a “mutual lack of confidence” between the Shamir government and the Bush administration that may have soured the latest round of talks.

By contrast, spirits were high in East Jerusalem, where Baker reportedly made certain promises to a trio of local Palestinian leaders with whom he met for over two hours on Saturday.

Later Saturday, he went to Jordan, for meetings with King Hussein, followed by a stop in Cairo, for meetings Sunday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

While Baker did not say much about the outcome of those talks, there has been clearly no breakthrough in the meetings Baker has been conducting in the region since mid-March over how to get peace talks started.

Israeli officials have now accused the United States of backing away from positions it had agreed to earlier.

“The talks continue,” Health Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters after the full Cabinet was briefed Sunday. He conceded “disagreements” with the Americans, but no crisis.

‘ALL THE HEAT IS ON ISRAEL’

The government’s disappointment, frustration and growing feeling that it has been let down by Washington were echoed by the health minister’s brother, Dr. Yossi Olmert, who is director of the Government Press Office.

“The Arabs have not delivered anything, but we are being asked to make concessions,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview Sunday. “We feel all the heat is on Israel.”

Those remarks contrasted sharply with the almost jubilant feeling in Jerusalem at the close of Baker’s second visit on April 10.

By endorsing a regional conference to serve as opener for direct talks, Israel seemed to have captured the diplomatic high ground, especially after the Arabs gave the idea a cold reception.

But the atmosphere changed markedly in the week between Baker’s two forays into shuttle diplomacy in the region.

As Olmert, the press office chief put it, Israel feels a “basic discrepancy” in the American approach to the two sides in the conflict.

Unlike Israel, the Arabs have only to hint a readiness to negotiate with Israel and they are credited with making a “concession,” he said.

Olmert implicitly confirmed media reports that Baker had asked Shamir to agree to some sort of U.N. involvement in the proposed conference and a role for the European Community.

That would be tantamount to an international conference, which Israel ruled out from the start.

The Arabs, for their part, are not happy with the idea of a ceremonial regional conference that would permanently adjourn as soon as bilateral talks got under way.

NO ‘GIVE’ ON JERUSALEM ISSUE

Olmert disclosed that Syria demanded “an effective conference” instead of the Israeli prescription.

Baker, who has taken to referring simply to a “peace conference,” is trying to find a middle ground between the two positions.

He is also trying to prod Israel to agree to talk to local Palestinian leaders linked by residence or registration to East Jerusalem.

The Shamir government refuses on grounds that to recognize an East Jerusalem Arab as a negotiating partner would compromise Israel’s claim to sovereignty over the entire city.

On that point, there is unlikely to be any “give,” Olmert said. But he thought there could be “fruitful negotiations” over the conference format.

Olmert told JTA that Baker was not able to assure Israel that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait would participate in the proposed conference.

The two conservative Persian Gulf regimes are reluctant to become involved in any process that could raise controversy in the Arab world, he explained.

The Saudis could offer to ease the Arab boycott of countries trading with Israel, but they have not done so, even unofficially, he observed.

According to media accounts, Israel did not offer a positive response to Baker’s urging of an exchange of “confidence-building” measures with the Palestinians.

The Shamir government refused a freeze on settlements in the administered territories in exchange for an easing of the Arab boycott.

According to the daily Ha’aretz, the Palestine Liberation Organization was prepared to reduce intifada violence as part of the deal.

Other media reports mentioned reopening Arab universities in the West Bank, a proposal Baker has made more than once.

NO REWARDS FROM GULF WAR

Behind the impasse seemed to lie profound disappointment within the government that Israel’s policy of restraint when it came under Iraqi missile attack during the Persian Gulf war did not yield the expected dividends of warmer, more understanding relations with Washington.

Shamir “does not feel that support from the United States, which has always been posited as a prerequisite for Israel to enter into a negotiating process from a position of strength,” one official here said.

Baker has met with local Palestinian leaders on each of his three visits to Jerusalem, and each time the delegation was smaller.

He received 10 Palestinians at the U.S. Consulate on March 12, but only six showed up for a second talk earlier this month.

On Saturday, there were only three — East Jerusalem activist Faisal Husseini, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi of Ramallah and Dr. Zakkaria al-Agha, chairman of the Palestinian Physicians Association in Gaza.

They reportedly handed Baker a stiff memorandum laying out their demands. They want “territories for peace,” meaning Israel’s complete withdrawal from the administered territories, in which they include East Jerusalem.

They also want full Palestinian sovereignty in the territories and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to those areas.

Baker is said to have promised to continue to apply pressure on Israel to suspend settlement building in the territories and to find a way to include East Jerusalem residents in a delegation to the proposed peace talks.

He also promised to discuss Palestinian readiness to consider “self-government” in the territories as an interim solution.

If Baker accomplished nothing else during his latest trip to Israel, he at least got to tour Jerusalem’s Old City, which he had tried unsuccessfully to do on his two earlier visits.

The secretary slipped out of his hotel room for two hours Friday evening and stopped at both the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, before traveling to see Manger Square in Bethlehem.