American Jews are encouraged that President Bush appears determined to use some of the enormous prestige he has reaped from his successful leadership in the Persian Gulf to move ahead rapidly to find a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
But there is concern that if Bush decides to use pressure, it will be more on Israel to talk to the Palestinians than on Arab states to open negotiations with Israel.
“The time has come to put an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Bush said Wednesday night in a nationally televised address to Congress celebrating the U.S.-led coalition victory over Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces.
Bush stressed that peace requires “compro- mise” from both Israel and the Arab states. He made clear what the compromise would be from the Israeli side when he reiterated the long-held U.S. view that a comprehensive peace requires “the principle of territory for peace.”
White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater explained Thursday that Bush wanted Israel and the Arab countries to realize that “geography does not provide security.”
But Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s Likud government has emphasized its opposition to giving up the West Bank and Gaza Strip partly because of security reasons.
Bush added that the land-for-peace “principle must be elaborated to provide for Israel’s security and recognition, and at the same time for legitimate Palestinian political rights. Anything else would fail the twin tests of fairness and security.”
But the president has also stressed on several occasions since the end of the Gulf war that a peace settlement cannot be imposed by the United States, but must be reached through negotiations among the parties involved.
SUPPORT FOR TWO-TRACK APPROACH
Secretary of State James Baker, who left Thursday for the Middle East, including his first visit to Israel, “will go to listen, to probe, to offer suggestions and to advance the search for peace and stability,” Bush said Wednesday night.
Baker has said he will be working on a two-track approach in which he will be pressing the Arab states to seek peace with Israel and Israel to open a dialogue with the Palestinians.
The president did not refer directly to this approach Wednesday night except to say, “We must do all that we can to close the gap between Israel and the Arab states — and between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Bush also seemed to be speaking directly to the Palestinians and the Arab nations when he stressed that “the tactics of terror lead nowhere. There can be no substitute for diplomacy.”
In the Jewish community, there was general support for the two-track approach and for Bush’s warning to the Palestinians against terror.
But there was some unhappiness that Bush had specifically mentioned the land-for-peace concept, even though everyone acknowledges that this has been the U.S. position for years.
The main concern was how hard Israel would be pressed.
No one believes that the administration will push a specific program on Israel. But there is anxiety that if the Israeli government docs not move as rapidly toward negotiations as the administration thinks it should, “it will’ result in a new clash between Israel and the United States, even if the Arabs do not move any faster.
Perhaps anticipating this, the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council issued a statement in New York on Thursday asking the president to “urge those nations at war with Israel” to “end their state of belligerency and normalize relations with Israel.”
“Clearly there can be no hope for a peaceful future in the Middle East,” the statement said, unless a resolution of the Palestinian issue is “coupled with peaceful relations between Israel and the Arab states.”
Likewise, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations issued a statement saying, “We welcome the president’s commitment to promoting negotiations between the Arab states and Israel. We hope that Secretary Baker will be able to bring an end to the state of war with Israel maintained by Arab states for more than 40 years.”
Bush has accepted the view of those in the administration who believe the war has opened an opportunity to make progress in the Arab-Israeli conflict and that he should seize it now.
SPEAKS OF NEED FOR COMPROMISE
“All of us know the depth of bitterness that has made the dispute between Israel and its neighbors so painful and intractable,” he said in his address. “Yet, in the conflict just concluded, Israel and many of its Arab neighbors have for the first time found themselves confronting the same aggressor.
“By now, it should be plain to all parties that peacemaking in the Middle East requires compromise,” the president said. “At the same time, peace brings real benefits to everyone.”
But Fitzwater made clear that Bush will not directly involve himself in negotiations with Israeli and Arab leaders as President Jimmy Carter did when he met with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at Camp David.
However, two former government officials involved in the Camp David process, William Quandt, Middle East director at the National Security Council under Carter, and Samuel Lewis, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, stressed the need for such presidential involvement.
Speaking here last week at a conference organized by Americans for Peace Now, they said only the United States can provide the new ideas needed to move the peace process.
The United States cannot impose a solution, but it can try to “break the logjam to get a process started,” said Quandt, now a resident scholar at the Brookings Institution.
Lewis, president of the U.S. Institute for Peace, said that Bush proved he was an able commander in chief in organizing the coalition against Iraq after it invaded Kuwait and in successfully pressing the war. But to help bring about an Arab-Israeli settlement, “he is going to have to be commander in chief for peacemaking as well.”
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