America Abroad

By Strobe Talbott

George Bush has overthrown two foreign governments since becoming President. Toppling the dictatorial regime of Panama in December required 24,000 U.S. troops. Sending Israel's overwrought democracy into a nervous breakdown last month took only four words from Bush's lips.

Actually Israel was asking for it. Its political system has long been based on the adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, or at least my coalition partner. Since 1984 Israel has claimed to have a government of national unity, a misnomer if ever there was one. The odd couple of Likud and Labor never had a unified position, or even reconcilable differences, on the most important issue of national security and national identity: What are the boundaries of the Jewish state?

Likud's Yitzhak Shamir believes that Israel should include the West Bank captured from the Arabs in 1967 -- and still heavily populated by Arabs in 1990. Labor's Shimon Peres believes in trading land for peace. The territory traded would become part of a Palestinian "entity," a cryptogram that many predict will someday be decoded to mean a Palestinian state. While opposing that particular outcome, Labor is at least willing to begin negotiating with the Palestinians and see where the process leads. Likud seems not to be, which is why Shamir did everything he could as Prime Minister to delay the opening of peace talks.

Getting those talks started is the central goal of the U.S.'s efforts in the region. George Bush was understandably fed up with Shamir's twin tactics of stalling on the diplomatic front while claiming that the influx of Soviet immigrants justifies a "big Israel." So the President said on March 3 that he was opposed to new settlements in the West Bank "or in East Jerusalem."

It is hard to imagine four more explosive words in the semantic minefields of the Middle East. Most Israelis consider East Jerusalem liberated, not occupied. Even the most dovish government would insist on an undivided Jerusalem as the permanent capital of Israel.

Bush did not mean to equate the Holy City with the West Bank or to prejudge its ultimate status. Rather, he was expressing his impatience with Shamir's settlement policy. But Bush's comment was read in Israel as a signal that the U.S. might be hardening its own policy. Israelis resent American pressure in part because they are so vulnerable to it. The body politic, which was already in a state of paralysis, suddenly went into spasm. Within 13 days the government collapsed.

The pro-Israel lobby in Washington howled in protest, and First Friend James Baker, though hardly an apologist for Shamir, privately told his boss in the bluntest terms that he had better learn to choose his words more carefully.

Yet it may turn out that Bush did Israel a favor. However inadvertently, he helped expose the Likud-Labor coalition for what it was -- a government of national disunity and incapacity. The crisis he sparked underscored the need for a new electoral system that will yield a Prime Minister who is free of crippling alliances. To their credit, many Israelis were in the streets last week, venting their exasperation with deadlock democracy. From now on, the U.S. Government should encourage not just diplomacy between Israel and its Arab neighbors, but political reform within Israel as well. So should the American Jewish community -- including the one in Brooklyn.