Following Will-o'-the-Wisps

By William E. Smith

Reagan's ambiguous statements are matched by the P.L.O.

Frustration over the slow pace of Middle East diplomacy has often produced inconsistencies in U.S. policy, and rarely has this been more evident than last week. In an address to the American Legion, Ronald Reagan declared that the U.S. "is prepared to take all necessary measures to guarantee the security of Israel's northern borders in the aftermath of the complete withdrawal of the Israeli army."

The statement seemed to be significant. It implied that if only Israel would remove its forces from Lebanon as part of a withdrawal of Israeli, Syrian and Palestinian troops, and if Israel would drop its demand to retain some kind of military presence in a 28-mile-wide "security zone" along the Lebanese border, then the U.S. would guarantee the security of northern Israel. But even as the President was delivering his speech, White House aides were insisting that the address contained nothing really new and that U.S. policy had not changed.

The following day, at a breakfast meeting with a group of reporters, Reagan spoke of the need of the Palestinians for "something in the nature of a homeland," though he added quickly, "on the other hand, no one has ever advocated creating a nation." Apparently, Reagan was merely trying to describe the ambiguous nature of the Palestinian "entity" on the West Bank and Gaza Strip that is envisioned in his Sept. 1 peace plan. The problem was that the word homeland, like so many other bits of language concerning the Middle East, has become such a buzzword that it automatically invites an angry reaction. When Jimmy Carter spoke of the need for a Palestinian homeland in 1977, he provoked an uproar in Israel. So once again the White House insisted that the President had meant to say nothing new and that he was merely restating his call for a future link between a West Bank entity and Jordan.

The President's various comments produced a certain amount of confusion. Even a State Department official, after hearing of Reagan's offer to "guarantee" security along Israel's northern border, said, "I'm not sure if the word was calculatedly chosen or just grabbed out of a hat." Neither was anybody else. But Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin quickly remarked that Israel was not interested in security guarantees, adding, "There is no guarantee that can guarantee a guarantee." Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir explained at some length why the idea was unacceptable. Said he: "This is for us a great national and ethical principle. Only Jews shall defend the Jewish state. The day we need foreign troops to defend us will be a day of mourning and tragedy for our people."

In the meantime, the Begin government announced two more part-time jobs for Ariel Sharon. Following the recommendations of the commission of inquiry that investigated the Beirut massacre, Begin removed Sharon from the Defense Ministry and made him a Minister Without Portfolio. Last week the government added that at Begin's insistence, Sharon would retain seats on two Cabinet committees, one dealing with national security and the other with the negotiations between Israel and Lebanon. An aide to the Prime Minister said that while Sharon would no longer maintain direct contacts with Lebanese officials, the government valued his expertise on Lebanon and still wanted his views to be heard.

A possible explanation for Washington's contradictory comments last week lay in the fact that the diplomatic process was going nowhere. The Israeli-Lebanese talks were stalled, and not merely because Lebanon was being assaulted by the most severe blizzard in memory. The Palestine National Council, the policymaking body of the P.L.O., was ending its meeting in Algiers on an ambiguous note. The council refrained from rejecting the peace plan Reagan presented last September; that was considered a modest victory for P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat. On the other hand, the council refused to endorse either the Reagan plan or an effort by King Hussein of Jordan to join future negotiations. Though many Palestinian moderates were encouraged by Arafat's strength at the meeting and by his ability to keep the organization united, the result was murky. Snapped an uncharacteristically caustic U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz: "We are constantly following the will-o'-the-wisp of what Arafat thinks lately. It is always very, very difficult to pin down."

U.S. officials hoped that King Hussein would still find a way "one fine day," as Shultz put it, to enter negotiations over the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. He is expected to meet with Arafat again soon, perhaps to pursue the idea of a Jordanian-West Bank peace delegation whose makeup would be acceptable to the P.L.O. Hussein has said that he would reach a decision by March 1. But with no action on the Lebanese withdrawal talks, that statement is likely to be delayed. Says an Administration official: "Hussein set that March 1 date when it looked like the Lebanon talks were moving. Now I'll bet he wishes he had said April 1, or May 1, or God knows when." Nonetheless, Hussein is known to be deeply worried about the rapid pace of Israeli colonization of the West Bank. He may yet decide that he must make a move without waiting for explicit P.L.O. backing.

Of all the trouble spots of the Middle East, the only one that offered Washington solace was Libya. A week earlier the U.S. had dispatched air and naval units to the eastern Mediterranean in the face of reports that Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was about to attack Sudan or Chad. U.S. pilots were under orders to follow any Libyan aircraft that attacked their planes "back to the hangars," meaning that they should bomb the airfields from which the Libyan planes had taken off. But the crisis receded as quickly as it had arisen, leading Shultz to declare that "at least for the moment, Gaddafi is back in his box where he belongs."-- By William E. Smith. Reported by Harry Kelly/Jerusalem and Johanna McGeary/Washlngton

With reporting by Harry Kelly, Johanna McGeary This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.