Reagan's "Fresh Start"

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

A bold try to reconcile Israel's security needs and Palestinian rights

No area of the world is more torn by strife, more poisoned by age-old hatreds, more strewn with the seeds of potential superpower conflict than the Middle East. And yet nowhere are there brighter chances for creative U.S. diplomacy to put an end to incessant bloodshed and lead the way to peace. The greatest opportunity of all has arisen, paradoxically, from the death and destruction of the war in Lebanon, which has upset political allegiances and power structures. Last week President Ronald Reagan launched a bold and ambitious initiative to seize the historic moment.

Speaking on national television shortly after the last guerrillas of the Palestine Liberation Organization left Beirut, the President looked far beyond Lebanon to call for "a fresh start" on ministering to the most serious of all the Middle East's festering sores: the status of the Palestinian people, especially the 1.3 million living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Reagan dropped the former U.S. role of anxious and often baffled mediator to outline an American plan for progress toward a settlement, setting out some firm U.S. guidelines while leaving the Arabs and Israelis plenty of room for their own negotiations. Its essence: Palestinian self-government "in association" (presumably some kind of loose federation) with Jordan, which ruled the West Bank from 1949 to 1967. Reagan called upon Israel to halt any further Jewish settlement in the occupied areas, and to prepare for eventual withdrawal from, most, though not all, of the territories. With equal force, Reagan called on Arab states to recognize explicitly Israel's right to exist as a nation. He flatly rejected an independent Palestinian state constructed out of the West Bank and Gaza.

Reagan's plan could take years of patient diplomacy and negotiation to bring to fruition, if in fact that can be accomplished at all. Prime Minister Menachem Begin denounced the plan as "an affront to Israel"; in an emergency session his Cabinet unanimously agreed that "on the basis of these proposals, Israel will not enter into any negotiations with any party whatsoever." U.S. officials expected that initial negative reaction; they hope that Arab interest in the plan as the basis for negotiations, and internal debate within Israel will eventually soften Begin's hard-line stand. There was little public comment from Arab leaders, most of whom will meet at a summit this week in the Moroccan city of Fez. The Arabs, who have formally designated the P.L.O. as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, can hardly endorse Reagan's Jordanian option without much painful soul searching.

At the very least, Reagan has belatedly answered critics who contended that the U.S. had no Middle East policy but was merely letting events drift. White House aides now concede that the President privately agreed with that accusation, and began pressing his subordinates as early as May to come up with some fresh ideas. The effort made little headway while the staunchly pro-Israel Alexander Haig was Secretary of State. Haig resigned in late June; by then the Israeli invasion of Lebanon had both dramatized the explosive potential of the Middle East and smashed the military power of the P.L.O., thereby altering power relationships.

Haig's successor, the coolly pragmatic George Shultz, organized what was in effect a series of seminars on Middle East policy. Some involved Reagan and his top staff; others brought the Administration's diplomats together with outside advisers, prominently including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Officials even sought the views of Middle East experts from the Carter Administration. Reagan approved the ideas they were formulating at a Camp David meeting in mid-August. Early last week letters from the President describing the new American proposals were being delivered to Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Reagan, who was on vacation at his ranch near Santa Barbara, Calif., woke up Wednesday morning not knowing that he would be delivering the most important foreign policy address of his Administration on TV that very night. But his letter to Begin had prompted the Israeli Prime Minister to cut short a vacation of his own at Nahariya, a resort in northern Israel, and call a special meeting of the Israeli Cabinet for Thursday; on receiving Reagan's letter from U.S. Ambassador Samuel Lewis, Begin exclaimed, "It is the saddest day I have had since becoming Prime Minister." Fearful that the Israelis might leak their one-sided interpretation of the proposals before Reagan had a chance to define them for the American public, aides persuaded the President to deliver at once a speech he had not planned to make until Thursday at the earliest.

There ensued several hours of what one White House adviser described as "chaos." While a text that had been in preparation for two weeks was transmitted to the President, White House aides bounced the cast of Mama Malone out of a studio in Burbank, Calif., where episodes of the new situation comedy were being filmed, so that Reagan could take over. Rehearsing half an hour before air time, the President, recalling an earlier TV series of which he had been the host, cracked up his staff by looking into the cameras and announcing: "Welcome to Death Valley Days."

Though Reagan and aides tinkered with the text until a few minutes before the President started speaking for real, none of the patchwork showed. The speech was as well crafted and lucid as any that Master Speechmaker Reagan has delivered.

The President began by noting that "today has been a day that should make us proud." It marked the successful completion, ahead of schedule and without significant incident, of the U.S.-mediated P.L.O. evacuation from Beirut, and meant that "we can now help the Lebanese to rebuild their war-torn country." But, he said, putting Lebanon back together should be only a start. "We must also move to resolve the root causes of conflict between Arabs and Israelis." He identified the most troublesome root as being the "homelessness of the Palestinian people," coupled with Israeli fear that fulfilling their demands for a homeland would give birth to a contiguous, Soviet-dominated terrorist nation bent on destruction of the Jewish state. Said Reagan: "The question now is how to reconcile Israel's legitimate security concerns with the legitimate rights of the Palestinians."

Under the Camp David accords, hammered out by Israel, Egypt and the U.S. in 1978, that reconciliation was supposed to be accomplished by Israeli-Arab negotiations aimed at granting some form of self-government to the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza during a five-year transition period. The final status of the territories was to be determined by further negotiations that would not begin until the autonomy arrangements were in effect. So far, however, the autonomy talks have been supported in the Arab world only by Egypt, and even the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations have been suspended since April.

Reagan implied that it is up to the U.S., as the only nation "in a position to deal with the key parties to the conflict on the basis of trust and reliability," to break the impasse. To do so, he recognized, Washington can no longer confine itself to the role of mediator. "It has become evident to me that some clearer sense of America's position on the key issues is necessary."

The President first made clear what the U.S. would not accept. One was the opening of any more Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Since 1967 Israel has established roughly 100 settlements in those territories, housing about 30,000 people. Arabs fear that the purpose of the settlements is to tie the territories so closely to Israel that they can never be detached. Said Reagan: "The immediate adoption of a settlement freeze by Israel, more than any other action, could create the confidence needed for wider participation in these [autonomy] talks."

Reagan also declared bluntly that "the United States will not support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, and we will not support annexation or permanent control by Israel." As for the final status of the territories, Reagan asserted, in perhaps the most significant sentence of his address, "It is the firm view of the United States that self-government by the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza in association with Jordan offers the best chance for a durable, just and lasting peace." He called specifically on Jordan and representatives of the Palestinians (though obviously not the P.L.O.) to join a new round of autonomy talks "with the support of their Arab colleagues."

Fully aware that he was asking the Begin government to take steps it would surely reject, the President filled his talk with more than the usual number of reassurances about American concern over Israel's legitimate needs for security. At one point he made a fairly standard statement that "America's commitment to the security of Israel is ironclad." Then came seven words that he had penciled into the speech text himself: "And I might add, so is mine."

The President said that his proposals imply eventual Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank and Gaza. But he also suggested that Israel might keep some portions of the territories to retain defensible borders. Recalling that before 1967 "the bulk of Israel's population lived within artillery range of hostile Arab armies," Reagan asserted, "I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again."

The speech marked a long move away by Reagan from his previous instinctive sympathy for Israel and his hesitancy about opposing any of its policies publicly. Advisers agree that two things converted the President to the view that he had to become more assertive with the Israelis: the nightly TV pictures of the civilian carnage in Lebanon, and his experiences in dealing by cable and telephone with Begin during the Israeli siege of West Beirut. One aide recalls the President exclaiming: "That man makes it awfully hard for us to support them."

Reagan began pressing Shultz for a fresh Middle East policy even before the new Secretary of State was officially installed. On July 14, the day before his confirmation by the Senate, Shultz met with the President and National Security Adviser William Clark in the Oval Office. Said Reagan: "This is a moment when we should be really working on these issues and not allow ourselves to be totally consumed by what's going on in Beirut, important as that is. So, get with it." One of Shultz's first moves was to solicit ideas from a specially summoned panel of outside experts, headed by Kissinger, in a daylong meeting.

Within the Government, Shultz put together a balanced team of subordinates: Robert McFarlane, Paul Wolfowitz, Nicholas Veliotes, Richard Fairbanks and Lawrence Eagleburger. They developed a consensus that Shultz outlined to Reagan and his top White House staff during a three-hour chicken-salad lunch at Camp David on Saturday, Aug. 14. One participant recalls that Shultz, reading from four or five pages of notes on a yellow legal pad, was in quiet control of the meeting; the President accepted his ideas with little disagreement. Further meetings refined the plan, and the last act in the backstage drama occurred two weeks ago when Shultz secretly summoned Ambassadors Alfred Atherton and Richard Murphy from Cairo and Riyadh to Washington. They returned to their posts last Monday carrying Reagan's letter.

The result was a speech that, for all its expressions of sympathy, clashed with Israeli policy more openly than any other U.S. initiative since the Eisenhower era. The specific ideas in it were not new; indeed they almost mirror the expert consensus on the necessary and the possible that has evolved in recent years. But the President went further than any of his predecessors in embracing a broadly defined concept of Palestinian autonomy as a goal that the U.S. should promote. His view that the West Bank and Gaza should be linked to Jordan was another proposal that the U.S. had not adopted officially before; both Carter and Reagan had previously declined to suggest what the final status of those territories should be.

Most important, perhaps, by the very act of delivering the speech, Reagan showed that he now realizes the success of any new Middle East policy requires his personal supervision--and the power of his office behind its execution. Says Joseph Sisco, who was a high State Department official under Nixon and Ford: "A visible U.S. presence is the key to progress. The substance of Reagan's speech was good, but his personal involvement is more than good; it is essential."

Just how essential a direct and continuing presidential involvement is likely to be was illustrated by the reaction of the Begin government. The Israelis were caught unaware by Reagan's plan; they had expected the next U.S. move in the Middle East to be a proposal for American-mediated negotiations aimed at withdrawal of Israeli and Syrian troops from Lebanon. Begin was incensed that Reagan's letter, outlining his proposals, was delivered only on Tuesday, a day after it had been transmitted to King Hussein of Jordan, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia's King Fahd. American officials justified this procedure on the ground that before they could communicate it to Israel, they had to have some indication that the Arab countries would at least discuss the plan.

The Israeli rejection of those proposals was harsh and specific. The Cabinet communique included a detailed examination of how the Israeli government believes Reagan's proposals deviate from the Camp David accords. In so doing, the Israelis disclosed some details of Reagan's proposals that he did not make public in his speech. For example, the President on television said only that "Jerusalem must remain undivided, but its final status should be decided through negotiations." In his letter to Begin, according to the Israelis, Reagan proposed to let the Arab inhabitants of East Jerusalem vote in elections to set up a self-governing council for the West Bank and Gaza, an idea that the Israelis have consistently opposed.

Reagan's stance on Camp David was strongly endorsed last week by the chief architect of the Camp David pact, Jimmy Carter. The President took care to keep his defeated rival informed; Geoffrey Kemp, a Middle East specialist on the National Security Council, visited the former President's home in Plains, Ga., three times, beginning in June, to brief Carter on events in the region and the Administration's developing plans. The final visit was last Wednesday, when Kemp, accompanied by Deputy Secretary of State Walter Stoessel, outlined the proposals that Reagan was about to present on TV.

Administration officials insist that Kemp never asked Carter for support or even advice, and the former President did not volunteer any. Anticipating that the Israelis would insist on their interpretation of the Camp David pact, the Administration hoped Carter would reply, as indeed he did. Going before TV cameras the day after Reagan's speech, Carter pronounced the new proposals "absolutely compatible" with Camp David. He also counseled Reagan that persistence could eventually overcome Israel's initial objections. Said Carter: "If they stick to their guns, there will be negotiations."

Carter may be right. The Israeli government's rejection of Reagan's proposals was not quite as vehement as it might have been. Some Reagan officials had feared that the Israeli Prime Minister might be provoked into proclaiming an immediate annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, and hardliners in the Cabinet pressed Begin to do exactly that. Others proposed a rapid development of new Jewish settlements. Begin rejected these courses and even left the door open a crack toward bargaining. The Cabinet communique proclaimed Israel's willingness to renew autonomy negotiations with the U.S., Egypt and "other states and elements," though not on the basis of Reagan's proposals.

Begin repeated this position in a meeting with Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who was visiting Israel as the guest of his counterpart, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. Weinberger, who was on a five-day, three-nation tour of the Middle East, replied that he hoped Israel would not reject Reagan's proposals "out of hand." Israelis regard Weinberger as the least sympathetic of all U.S. officials, but both men had their tempers under control; a Weinberger aide described the meeting as "totally civilized."

U.S. officials insist that they will not bring overt pressure on Israel to respond to Reagan's initiative. In particular, they say that the U.S. will not threaten a cutoff of economic or military aid. Rather, their strategy is to dangle the hope of genuine peace before the Israelis and spark a debate within the country that eventually will force a reluctant Begin to come around. They note that some of Reagan's proposals are compatible with a plan advanced by Begin's chief rival, Labor Party Leader Shimon Peres, in 1980. Under the Peres plan, Israel would retain control of a strip of fortified territory along Israel's 1967 borders, but return the rest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to some form of Jordanian administration, with the provision that those lands be demilitarized. Indeed, the Labor Party leader cautiously endorsed Reagan's proposals as "a basis for serious dialogue." Peres added: "We are going to put our case before the people." There are some signs, too, that Israeli public opinion may be swinging in a direction favorable to Reagan's proposals. In a poll published last week, the Jerusalem Post posed this question: "Are you for a peace agreement with Jordan that will require Israel to abandon parts of Judea and Samaria?" Only 46.8% of the respondents answered no, vs. 58.3% as recently as May. The proportion of yes answers rose from 29.3% to 40.29%.

The U.S. hopes, of course, assume that Arab states will eventually agree to negotiate on the basis of Reagan's proposals, or some variation of them. That is possible, but far from assured. Although the initial response of Arab leaders was muted, State Department officials say that the private reaction was favorable. Saudi King Fahd was said to be "upbeat." An additional reason for the Administration's speed-up in presenting its own plan was to influence Arab deliberations at the Fez summit. At best, the summit might have endorsed an eight-point plan advanced last year by King Fahd. While that plan contains an implicit recognition of Israel's right to exist, it also insists on an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Administration officials feared the summit would reject even that plan and take a strong pro-P.L.O. position. Says one: "We had to take the initiative before their positions congealed."

Clearly, Jordanian participation in Palestinian autonomy negotiations would be a key to their success. The foreign ministry in Amman issued a mild statement that Reagan's initiative "contains a number of positive elements that deserve to be studied," but King Hussein said nothing. Hussein would like to regain authority over the West Bank, but he accepted a 1974 decision by an Arab summit in Rabat that only the P.L.O. could speak for the Palestinians; his country, which has a Palestinian majority, is more vulnerable to P.L.O. pressure than any other in the Arab world. Hussein dares not venture to negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians without backing from other Arab states and some assurance that the P.L.O. will not try to destabilize his regime for doing so.

Other moderate Arab states are aware that Reagan in his speech was at last showing a U.S. independence of Israeli policy that they have so long urged, and that this long-awaited initiative could die quickly if it is too adamantly rejected by both sides. At week's end there was speculation that even the P.L.O., which is struggling to preserve its political influence, would adopt a position in advance of the Fez summit that fell short of outright rejection of Reagan's proposals. Even if that happens, the most that American diplomats expect from Fez is a highly qualified pledge by the Arabs to consider the U.S. initiative.

The Administration has a program for follow-up moves to build momentum. Secretary of State Shultz, who did more to shape the new policy than anyone else, will confer with Arab and Israeli leaders on the prospect for autonomy negotiations while they attend the United Nations General Assembly session that convenes in New York City late this month. If his soundings are favorable, Shultz is prepared to tour Middle East capitals this fall to develop more specific ideas for getting these talks started. Once negotiations begin, if they do, the Administration may assign a special presidential envoy to watch over them full time.

Shultz also has been moving to assure strong backing at home for Reagan's initiative. While it was being drafted, he consulted interested parties ranging from former Du Pont Chairman Irving Shapiro to AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland. Shultz continued the effort last week, calling in both Jewish-American and Arab-American leaders.

The effort so far has paid off in impressive domestic support. Even leaders of the American Jewish community, who usually are quick to take issue with any Washington move that appears to dilute American backing for Israel, seem to have been partly disarmed, at least in public. Asserted Julius Berman, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations: "There are some very positive statements in there." He specified Reagan's call for "hard, fair and direct negotiating between the parties" and his "lack of support for an independent Palestinian state." Berman's criticisms were surprisingly mild: "What I am disappointed in is that the President seems to have altered the role of the U.S. from that of an honest broker to a party that now has a public position that must be defended."

Other Jewish leaders echoed the Israeli concern that by putting forward a plan of his own, Reagan was attempting to "impose" some kind of settlement on Israel. Those worries appeared to be misplaced, or at least greatly exaggerated. As Administration spokesmen made clear in background explanations, the President's ideas for a peace were not carved in stone, and were intended primarily to break a stalemate in the peace negotiation. That in itself was an act of creative diplomacy. Whether or not the President's plan would ever be initialed at a second Camp David summit, Reagan had reasserted U.S. leadership in a dynamic way, and come forward with proposals that were clearly stamped "made in Washington"--rather than Riyadh, Amman or Jerusalem. It was an initiative sorely needed.

--By George J. Church. Reported by Douglas Brew with Reagan, and Johanna McGeary/Washington

With reporting by Douglas Brew, Reagan, Johanna McGeary

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