Great Expectations

By J.F.O. MCALLISTER WASHINGTON

Now that the cold war is over, one can sometimes hear diplomats gently rue its passing: communism was terrible, but at least you knew where you stood. Yitzhak Rabin's first days as Israel's Prime Minister have put Arabs and Palestinians in a similar bind. He has yanked open the door to serious negotiations against which they had been pushing, only to find them in a tangled heap on the floor, their muscles stiff and unprepared for a vigorous pas de deux.

Can the parties figure out how to dance together now that Rabin has raised great expectations? Secretary of State James Baker, the master choreographer of the peace process, is traveling around the Middle East this week to see. His task is not easy. Even with an Israeli government genuinely committed to negotiating, the tactical challenges of bringing all the parties together are still complex. And if Baker decides to leave the State Department to run President Bush's re-election campaign, as officials widely forecast last week, he has less than a month before the Republican Convention to give the talks his personal impetus.

Each party has its own agenda and political constraints in approaching the others. Rabin has three immediate priorities, all linked: quick progress with the Palestinians; repairing the damage done to Israel's ties with Washington during the tenure of his predecessor, Yitzhak Shamir; rerouting Israeli shekels from building settlements in the occupied territories to creating jobs and absorbing immigrants.

His electrifying maiden speech to the Knesset was intended to warm the atmosphere with the Palestinians. Differentiating himself from the intransigent Shamir, Rabin set a reasoned and pragmatic tone, inviting the Palestinian negotiators for an informal parley before the next formal session in Rome, in a month or two, and pledging to bargain continuously until agreement is reached. "Rabin believes that the expectations the Israeli public has of him are very high," says Gad Yaacobi, designated to become Israel's next U.N. ambassador. "He would like to fulfill them early on in his term so as not to erode his political capital." In a more concrete vein, Housing Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer announced that the government was for the moment freezing all public housing starts in the settlements and was determining what to do with thousands of units already begun. Israel hopes its eagerness to make progress on this contentious issue will allow it to enlist Washington's help in delivering the Arabs, instead of Arabs' employing Washington's leverage to put pressure on a recalcitrant Israel.

That strategy makes Palestinian negotiators anxious. They must show tangible results quickly to fend off fundamentalist opponents, yet must satisfy multiple constituencies -- factions in the territories and the Palestine Liberation Organization, Palestinians in camps and abroad -- before they can make any concessions. Publicly, their negotiators professed disdain for Rabin's speech, exaggerating its tough elements and ignoring its invitations for cooperation.

The Palestinians rightly seek deeds from Rabin as well as words, but in fact his words caught the peace delegation off guard. They are not accustomed to Israel's setting the pace for substantive talks. They must now take seriously Rabin's campaign promise to complete the arrangements for Palestinian autonomy in nine months, and they are not ready. They lack a coherent negotiating strategy, a clear chain of command, qualified technical advisers, even a unified set of position papers. "We are a bunch of academics and politicians who are not qualified to run technical negotiations," admits a team member. Meanwhile, the Palestinians want Rabin to flesh out exactly what kind of autonomy he has in mind. Last week he insisted that he would not stand for a full-fledged legislature in the occupied territories, as the Palestinians want, only an elected "administrative council." Says a West Bank delegate: "For us, Rabin gets scary when he starts talking about the details."

The Israelis are expected to concentrate on the big picture instead of trying to settle one issue at a time before moving to the next. They could draft an agreement in principle on the transfer of power to an interim government in the territories, then let working groups spell out the specifics. Palestinian negotiators would like this approach, and anticipate that Rabin's basic proposal for autonomy will be, in spokeswoman Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi's words, "much more comprehensive and serious" than Shamir's. But they are looking first for some tangible gestures to set the right tone: a complete brake on settlements and an end to harsh occupation rules.

Israel's Arab neighbors are also struggling to respond. Although no Arab leader from a confrontation state has publicly praised Rabin's pledge to speed negotiations, or accepted his call to an immediate summit, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak invited the Prime Minister to Cairo this week to encourage and reward Israel's moderation. Deep political divisions in the Arab world, sharpened by Jordan's decision to side with Saddam Hussein in the gulf war, are responsible for the limp response; Arab leaders do not trust one another and need time to grope toward a common approach to the Rabin era.

Syria faces a particularly delicate balancing act. Rabin's strategy of focusing first on a Palestinian settlement irritates President Hafez Assad, who is skeptical about ever achieving peace with Israel and is determined that no Arab party should conclude a separate deal. Even if Damascus-Jerusalem talks do proceed, Rabin has taken a very tough line on returning the Golan Heights, captured in the 1967 war. Yet without Moscow as a patron, Assad has little choice but to renounce his traditional role of spoiler and board the peace train if he wants access to Western trade and investment.

Rabin's forthcoming attitude can only be good news for Jordan's King Hussein, who has bargained secretly with Israeli leaders for years. Helping prod the peace process is his best ticket to rehabilitation in Washington and to defusing the appeal of his own fundamentalist opponents, the Muslim Brotherhood. But Hussein faces an awkward problem: Should Jordan eventually confederate with the Palestinians, giving them a state they can call their own but that they may come to dominate? A senior parliamentarian argues that the King will eventually have to accept this as the only stable solution. P.L.O. leader Yasser Arafat has also been pressing for confederation, to counter the growing influence of local leaders like Faisal Husseini of Jerusalem.

U.S. officials are silent about any specific proposals Baker may advance to push negotiations ahead. They are still not looking to become direct participants in the talks, but Washington remains the essential catalyst for peacemaking. Baker would prefer to direct that effort himself. If he does depart for Bush's campaign, it could give the peace process a backhanded boost: the parties have come to trust his mediation, and smart hands might grasp the wisdom of making deals while the Bush Administration is still in charge.

With reporting by Lisa Beyer/Jerusalem and Dean Fischer/Amman