Middle East Backed into a Tight Corner

By Scott MacLeod

Seldom, if ever, was a leader of Israel under so much fire on the eve of an official visit to the U.S. In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, six casualties last week raised the death toll to at least 85, as Palestinians began a fourth month of rioting. At the same time, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was being pressed to accept a new U.S. peace plan that would initiate talks this spring with an international conference, settle arrangements for Palestinian self- rule, and begin by December to negotiate a permanent end to the occupation by handing back parts of the disputed land to Arab control. Adding to Shamir's troubles as he prepared for this week's meetings on the plan with President Reagan were sharp criticisms from 30 U.S. Senators who attacked him for rejecting the "land-for-peace" proposal. Finally, the European Parliament took a slap at the embattled Israeli government, refusing to ratify new trade accords that would give Israel easier access to European markets and loans.

In Jerusalem, Cabinet and Knesset discussions of the peace proposal grew heated. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who as head of the moderate Labor Party has backed the plan, spoke of a critical juncture for the country: "Perhaps for the first time in the history of Israel, we are about to turn our backs on the chance for peace." In Washington, Secretary of State George Shultz urged Israelis to address the "time bomb" of a rapidly growing population of disenfranchised Palestinians, adding that Israel's best defense is "seeking peace in the neighborhood."

But in a series of interviews, a defiant Shamir rejected the U.S. plan. Said he: "This paper given to us is not Moses' Commandments from Mount Sinai." Calling the proposal "fraught with danger" for Israel, he said the "document does not serve the cause of peace or advance it even by one centimeter." Shamir opposes surrendering the West Bank in return for a promise of peace, arguing that the territory, captured in 1967, formed part of the biblical land of Israel and now provides the nation with more secure borders.

Shamir, leader of the conservative Likud bloc, repeatedly resisted Peres' call for a formal Cabinet vote on the U.S. plan. He intends to offer his own peace initiative, which would give Palestinians some autonomy, but rather than beginning negotiations on the disposition of territories within nine months, it would stall for at least three more years. Last week the Palestine Liberation Organization foolishly played into Shamir's stonewalling strategy by hijacking a bus carrying civilians in Israel. The terrorist incident, which left three Israelis and all three guerrillas dead, bolstered Shamir's position that Israel should not enter into negotiations that might include the P.L.O.

Shamir hopes that a rightward trend in Israeli politics, fueled by the continuing Palestinian unrest, will enable Likud to oust Labor from Israel's power-sharing coalition government in this year's elections, scheduled for November. But a gnawing problem for Likud as well as Labor is that the nation continues to be deeply divided over what to do about the occupied territories. At week's end a poll of some 500 Israelis published in the Tel Aviv daily Hadashot showed that while 46% favored the land-for-peace proposal and 37% opposed it, fully 17% were undecided on the country's most urgent political issue.

With reporting by Johanna McGeary/Jerusalem