Opportunity and Peril

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

Beirut's crisis could lead to the solution of a larger Middle East problem

Physically, emotionally and politically they made a diplomatic odd couple. Towering Prince Saud al Faisal, elegantly attired in thobe and ghitrah, represented with cool reserve the oil-rich monarchy of Saudi Arabia; Abdel Halim Khaddam, a diminutive figure in an ill-fitting business suit, spoke excitedly and volubly for hard-line Syria, backed by the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, as Arab Foreign Ministers they found themselves calling together at the State Department and the Oval Office last week.

Their visit symbolized a rare diplomatic opportunity that the U.S. has not so much acquired as fallen into. Israel's invasion of Lebanon has shattered old power equations and political lineups in the Middle East in such a way as to leave all parties in the area looking to Washington for help in averting a new explosion. Both moderate and radical Arabs hope that the U.S. can restrain Israel from a final assault on West Beirut; Israel is waiting impatiently for the U.S. to negotiate a pull-out of Palestine Liberation Organization guerrilla fighters from the besieged city.

American policymakers, for their part, see a new chance to use the leverage that the Beirut crisis has given them to prod both sides toward the solution of a larger Middle East problem: the status of the Palestinians, who yearn for a homeland in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Under heavy pressure from Arabs and some Europeans, the U.S. is considering the possibility of negotiating directly with the P.L.O., in return for an open declaration by the P.L.O. that it recognizes Israel's right to exist as a state. The hope: that Prime Minister Menachem Begin might then be convinced that a P.L.O. no longer dedicated to Israel's destruction should be brought into negotiations that look toward some form of self-determination for the Palestinians.

Even if the U.S. should decide to try for a deal with the P.L.O., it is highly problematic whether one could be struck. Although P.L.O. Chief Yasser Arafat has hinted privately that the P.L.O. might be ready to recognize Israel, his position has generally fallen far short of the unequivocal public declaration the U.S. would demand. Hopes for a deal rose somewhat on Sunday when Arafat signed a document accepting "all U.N. resolutions relevant to the Palestinian question." California Republican Paul N. McCloskey Jr., visiting Beirut with five other Congressmen, said that the P.L.O. leader in effect had recognized Israel's right to exist. By doing so, McCloskey said, Arafat had cleared the way for direct negotiations with the U.S. McCloskey told reporters that he would urge Secretary of State George Shultz to begin talks with the P.L.O. as soon as possible.

It was unclear, however, whether Arafat had specifically endorsed U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, which he would have to do to win U.S. recognition. Referring to the term "all relevant resolutions," a senior State Department official said, "That could mean one thing to us and something else to him. What's relevant could be in the eye of the beholder." Skeptical U.S. officials also noted that the declaration was signed only by Arafat and not by more radical factions within the P.L.O. Moreover, some American foreign policy experts fear that Arafat, who is desperate to preserve the P.L.O. as a force in the Middle East, will haggle endlessly over the terms of a recognition of Israel.

Persuading Israel to deal with the P.L.O. as currently constituted could be still more difficult. Begin regards the P.L.O. as a terrorist gang bent on Israel's extermination; it will take more than words to change that opinion. Indeed, his government launched the invasion of Lebanon largely to destroy the P.L.O. as a force in Middle East politics. Seeing the organization emerge from the wreckage of Beirut with new respectability would thus, in Jerusalem's view, amount to letting a brilliant military victory turn into a galling political defeat. There is a worldwide suspicion, too, that Begin's government has no intention of ever negotiating Palestinian self-determination (a code word for eventual statehood) with the P.L.O. or anyone else, but aims instead at a creeping annexation of the West Bank.

At the very least, winning Israeli acceptance of a P.L.O. recognition deal would seem to require heavier pressure on the Jewish state than any U.S. Administiation has ever exercised. There are signs, however, that Washington may be edging into a mood to exert such pressure. Shultz is less sympathetic to Israeli policy than his predecessor, Alexander Haig. His boss, President Ronald Reagan, is reported by aides to be "livid" at Begin over the invasion of Lebanon and the civilian deaths it has caused. As a sign of displeasure, Reagan last week held up a shipment of cluster artillery shells to Israel while his Administration continued to investigate whether Israel had violated its agreements with the U.S. by dropping American-supplied cluster bombs on civilian targets in Lebanon.

Some U.S. officials fear that even unofficial talk of a U.S.-sponsored deal with the P.L.O. may provoke Israel into a final assault on Beirut, to smash the organization once and for all. These officials insist that the U.S. is concentrating its efforts on mediating a P.L.O. evacuation of Beirut, leaving the guerrilla group's long-range status to be negotiated later. The two issues, however, are not easy to separate.

On their visit to Washington, Saud and Khaddam endorsed a new plan for getting the P.L.O. out of Beirut: the guerrillas would first withdraw to other parts of Lebanon. At week's end Philip Habib, the U.S. special envoy in the Middle East, was reportedly hammering out a detailed version: the P.L.O. would go to Tripoli in northern Lebanon, while the Israelis would withdraw to Damur, twelve miles south of Beirut. This would be the first stage in a phased withdrawal of all P.L.O., Syrian and Israeli forces from Lebanon.

Any agreement would be contingent partly on finding somewhere else for the P.L.O. fighters to go later. Habib, at Reagan's orders, took off last week on a swing through Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt (he will also visit Israel) to try to persuade those countries to take in some of the guerrillas. Saud and Khaddam made clear in Washington that their countries would agree to house P.L.O. troops only if the U.S. committed itself to speeding up negotiations for Palestinian self-determination. To the Arabs, that means direct U.S. dealings with the P.L.O., in exchange for P.L.O. recognition of Israel.

There is no time to lose. Begin last week pledged to American Jewish leaders visiting Jerusalem that, one way or another, the P.L.O. guerrillas would shortly be cleared out of Beirut, and indeed out of Lebanon. Late in the week, Israeli bombs and shells fell again on Syrian positions in the Bekaa Valley and P.L.O. strongholds around West Beirut. That new fighting seemed to be a pointed warning that Israel would not tolerate endless stalling over a P.L.O. evacuation of Beirut.

Saud, in turn, warned members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Arab nations "would hold the U.S. responsible" for a bloody Israeli assault on West Beirut, and hinted at retaliation. Committee Chairman Charles Percy of Illinois wondered whether this might take the form of a cutback in the oil production vital to Western economies and a massive withdrawal of Arab money from American banks. So the moment of opportunity for American policymakers in the Middle East is also a moment of peril.

The peril is the more acute because the U.S. has no direct way to affect the other conflict that is shaking the Middle East: the Iran-Iraq war. It is some consolation, though, that except for the U.S., no nation has enough influence on either the Arabs or the Israelis, let alone both, even to try for a Beirut-Palestinian settlement. The Soviets, having failed to keep Syria and the P.L.O. from military defeat at the hands of Israel, have been at least temporarily pushed out of the picture, as attested by Khaddam's presence in Washington rather than Moscow. Soviet President Brezhnev last week suggested a U.N. force to separate Israeli and P.L.O. fighters in Lebanon, and a Middle East peace conference. One White House aide airily and accurately dismissed his views as "not relevant."

In contrast, the Reagan Administration, after much temporizing, seems to be on the verge of formulating a new Middle East policy--tentative and risky, but a policy nonetheless.

--By George J. Church. Reported by Johanna McGeary/Washington and William Stewart/Middle East

With reporting by Johanna McGeary, William Stewart

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