Middle East Must We Talk? Now?

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

Nothing, Samuel Johnson once remarked, so concentrates a man's mind as the knowledge that he is to be hanged in a fortnight. In the Middle East, the approach of a peace conference has the same effect. As Secretary of State James Baker took off last weekend for what he called his final swing to nail down arrangements for the gathering that will at last bring Arabs and Israelis face to face, those two sides were anxiously bumping and jostling each other.

Which does not necessarily mean the conference is in danger of fizzling. Quite the contrary: almost everybody seems to believe it really will meet. It is the very knowledge that they cannot back out now without severely damaging their causes in the court of world opinion that is prodding all parties to stake out hard-line positions to be defended once the formal talks begin. Says Shibley Telhami, a Middle East expert at Cornell University: "Barring some crazy event, I don't see what can stop the conference now. The momentum is there."

Even Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat is reconciled. He is being treated officially as a nonperson by both Israel and the U.S., and the P.L.O. will be pointedly excluded from participating. Nonetheless, in an interview with TIME conducted last week at one of his safe houses in Tunisia, Arafat was specifically asked whether Baker was likely to succeed in setting up the conference. His reply: "Yes. According to a message I just received from Soviet Foreign Minister Boris Pankin after his meeting with Mr. Baker, it will be at the end of this month." Moreover, Arafat made it clear that he saw the conference as a real opportunity for the Palestinians. "It is a turning point, no doubt of it," he said. "We have to persuade our friends that it should not just be a ceremonial session. There must be a determination to achieve real peace."

There is, of course, always the chance of that "crazy event" -- some provocation by extremists on either side that would push the other beyond endurance. Baker warned last week that the approach of the conference is likely to prod terrorists and other provocateurs into action intended to break it up. And Arafat cautioned that while he would do everything possible to prevent disruption, he could not control the most radical factions. Almost on cue, violence erupted. In Tel Aviv a Palestinian driver plowed a van into a group of Israeli soldiers on a busy street corner, killing two and injuring 11.

Jewish extremists were just as determined to make their point. A group of settlers, accompanied by a deputy Cabinet minister, moved into six houses and apartment buildings in Arab East Jerusalem to send the government a message that no retreat would be tolerated from the occupied lands, particularly the Holy City. If that position makes it more difficult to convene a peace conference -- well, said some far-right members of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's Likud-led coalition, so much the better. The government, however, branded the move a "mistake," removed the settlers from five of the houses, and shuffled the dispute over to the Attorney General's office.

Then it was Syria's turn. Washington sources disclosed that Syrian officials had told Baker at the end of September that they had serious doubts about participating in the broad regional talks scheduled to discuss such topics as water rights, disarmament and protection of the environment -- to reach in effect a general reconciliation between the Arabs and Israel. These negotiations -- which also include the Gulf Cooperation Council, representing states such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that have no territorial controversies with Israel -- are to run concurrently with the bilateral talks between Israel and its adversaries on such matters as disputed territory, including the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. The idea is to convince both sides that neither is a demon and that however envenomed the territorial disputes become, they can still reach accommodation on other issues. Israelis, or so goes the reasoning, especially need to be convinced that the Arab world is ready to live with the Jewish state, and the regional talks are a major way to provide such assurance.

Syria, however, objected to such talks for fear that Israel would pocket any concessions it made without giving ground toward returning the Golan Heights, seized from Syria in the 1967 war. If President Hafez Assad is really backing out now, the other Arabs might follow suit. But he appeared primarily to be laying down a marker -- no agreement on anything without a return of the Golan -- and building pressure on the U.S. to push Israel to do so.

Israel adopted a lofty attitude. Says Yosef Ahimeir, a key aide to Shamir: "This is a bad signal about the intentions of the Syrians going into the conference, but we will not judge the Syrians on what they declare now. The real test will be at the negotiations themselves."

But the Israelis did their bit toward increasing tensions by sending four F- 16 fighter planes over Iraq to scout out Scud missile sites, crossing through the airspace of Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan in the process. Jerusalem's explanation was that it was not satisfied with U.S. intelligence on Iraq's remaining military capabilities and wanted to see for itself what it might be up against if the festering disagreements over Iraq's disarmament came to blows. In fact, Shamir's government seemed to be sending a firm message to its own people as much as to the U.S. and the Arabs: Don't expect us to meekly follow the U.S. We will look after our own interests whatever Washington does.

Convening the conference, of course, is only the first step. Having it produce any kind of agreement that can be made to stick will be much, much harder, if it is possible at all. In particular, Arafat warned that even if his P.L.O. is formally excluded from the negotiations, it must give its imprimatur to any agreement that has the faintest chance of being carried out. In his interview with TIME, the P.L.O. chief belligerently asked, "With whom are the Israelis going to make peace? With ghosts? With the Palestinians!" And like it or not, with the P.L.O. Added Arafat: "None of the Palestinians inside or outside the occupied territories can move or talk without P.L.O. approval. If we have to follow what the American Administration wants with the Israelis, we still have to know who will sign and who will give the orders. The main issue is between the Palestinians and the Israelis. They have to be there, and we have to be there."

A settlement acceptable to the P.L.O. and Israel -- and Syria, and Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. -- is as difficult to imagine as ever. As another saying goes, You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. On the other hand, a whole herd of wild Middle East horses is at least, and at last, being led to the water of a peace conference. Just getting them there and giving them an opportunity to drink is no small achievement.

With reporting by Lisa Beyer/Jerusalem and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington