The Political Interest

By Michael Kramer

"Call us when you're serious about peace. Here's our number." Tough talk from the U.S. Secretary of State to the Israeli Prime Minister a few weeks back. But just talk. Yitzhak Shamir and his hard-line colleagues have shrugged off worse from Washington before. So they sat tight, and last Wednesday their arrogance was rewarded. Baker's studied pique was undermined by Washington's suspension of its dialogue with Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. It would now appear that the U.S. is talking to neither side in the Arab-Israeli dispute, a stance that at best is dangerous: history proves that the Middle East roils whenever prospects for peace recede.

This is not to say that Arafat did not deserve a slap. He renounced terrorism in 1988, but has so far refused to condemn specifically the foiled May 30 Palestinian attack on a Tel Aviv beach. Yet Arafat's predicament is understandable. The P.L.O. is a contentious collection of ideologically disparate factions, but they are united in wondering what 18 months of dialogue with the U.S. has bought. P.L.O. requests seem reasonable enough: direct talks with Israel, a United Nations team to investigate alleged Israeli abuses of Palestinian human rights in the occupied territories, a chance for Arafat to plead his case at the General Assembly in New York. What they have got is nothing, and it was the U.S. that vetoed U.N. inspection of the West Bank and Gaza.

Shamir is the one who really needs a clubbing from Washington. The policy guidelines of his right-wing government enshrine the central obstacle to peace: Jerusalem's insistence on the "eternal" claim of Israel to hold and settle the occupied territories.

So what does Bush do? Last week he sent Shamir a letter. Tell me, Prime Minister, asked the President, are you "serious" about peace? The answer, of course, is yes. As ever, Shamir is serious about a Shamir-style peace, a nonstarter that assumes Palestinian capitulation.

It is time for a change. As long as the U.S. funnels $3 billion a year to Israel regardless of Jerusalem's actions, Shamir will never move. A message stronger than a phone number is required. If an aid cut is politically impossible -- as was made evident when Senator Robert Dole first suggested a modest decrease last January -- then several other measures might capture Jerusalem's attention.

For openers, Washington could treat Israel like virtually every other recipient of U.S. aid. Israel receives its assistance in a single check, rather than quarterly. Since Jerusalem does not need all the money immediately, it invests in U.S. Treasury bonds. A sweet deal: Israel lends back America's own cash and earns an additional $76.7 million in interest.

If treating Israel like other nations is beyond Washington's courage, then certainly the U.S. must insist that the extra $400 million in congressionally approved housing loan guarantees be withheld until Israel promises not to move Soviet immigrants to the occupied territories.

How dare you even think of attaching strings to your aid, says Eliahu Ben- Elissar, an influential Shamir aide. "We are not a colony." Ben-Elissar is right. Israel is not a colony -- but neither is it an indigent client entitled to assistance as a matter of right against American interests.