Unrest Hardens Mideast Stands, Shultz Finds

JERUSALEM — Secretary of State George P. Shultz, nearing the end Monday of the first phase of his Middle East peace mission, has found that positions are hardening in Israel and the Arab world as a result of the 11-week-old Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Shultz had expected the unrest in the Israeli-occupied territories to create a new sense of urgency in the dormant Arab-Israeli peace process. But as he completed four days of intensive talks in Israel, Jordan, Syria and Egypt, key officials on both sides of the dispute stiffened their rhetoric and vowed to hold out for their maximum demands.

A senior U.S. official insisted that Shultz’s talks with Arab and Israeli leaders have been constructive, but he added that “we’re not at a point yet where anybody is saying yes or no.”

Shultz began and ended his day Monday with separate meetings with Israel’s top leaders, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. In between, he flew to Amman for talks with Jordanian officials.

Shultz’s Jerusalem-Amman round trip was, in its way, a microcosm of the entire dispute. Although the two capitals are less than 50 miles apart, it took more than two hours each way because of political considerations.

The Shultz plane does not use the Jerusalem airport because the field is situated in territory that was controlled by Jordan before the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. So Shultz and his party must travel by road to Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, about 30 miles in the wrong direction.

The flight was routed south to the Gulf of Aqaba, so the plane could travel briefly through Egyptian airspace over the Sinai before turning north again to Amman.

Meets With Crown Prince

In Amman, Shultz met with Crown Prince Hassan, the Jordanian regent while his brother, King Hussein, is out of the country. Shultz will travel to London today to meet with the king, the only person who can make firm decisions for Jordan.

Shultz will move on later today to Brussels, where he will attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit meeting Wednesday and Thursday. That will mark the end of the first phase of his Middle East shuttle.

U.S. officials say there is about a 50-50 chance that Shultz will decide to return to the Middle East immediately after the NATO summit to begin the second phase.

According to sources close to the royal court in Amman, Jordanian officials believe that the West Bank and Gaza uprising has stiffened the Palestine Liberation Organization’s determination to settle for nothing less than an independent state.

Difficulties for Jordan

The sources say the PLO’s harder position may make it more difficult for Jordan to put together a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation if peace talks get under way. Although Jordan continues to support this approach, the PLO may demand a separate seat at the table. Both the United States and Israel have made it clear that they will not take part in a conference with a PLO delegation.

In another setback for Shultz’s effort, a Syrian newspaper, Tishrin, said the U.S. peace package fails to address the basic issues of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“The Shultz ideas do not deal with the basic elements of the Palestinian problem,” Reuters news agency quoted the Tishrin article as saying. “They do not indicate the possibility of a serious attempt by Washington to put pressure on Israel. The U.S. Administration is still insisting on partial and unilateral solutions. It is also implementing Israeli policies aimed at containing the anti-Israeli uprising.”

On the Israeli side, Shamir has said that Israel will not negotiate under the pressure of the West Bank and Gaza rioting. A senior official in the prime minister’s office said recently that Shamir believes it would be disastrous for Israel to make concessions in the face of violence.

“If those that are behind the violence--mainly the PLO--get the impression that they can push us out of the territories by unrest and riots, our whole future is in danger,” the official said.

One of Shamir’s parliamentary lieutenants, Ehud Olmert, said the prime minister and his Likud Bloc are urging Shultz to reconsider several key points of the U.S. initiative.

Camp David Guidelines

Olmert said Likud is urging Shultz to pattern the American plan after the autonomy provisions of the 1978 Camp David agreement between Israel and Egypt.

“However, there are certain items and certain details of this program which I think have to be reconsidered,” he said. “I wish that the secretary would think again about the accelerated timetable. I think he should think again about the form for the negotiations to take.”

Shultz has said that his package is carefully balanced to appeal to all parties. He has said he will not permit either the Arabs or the Israelis to treat it like a cafeteria line, picking out some things and rejecting others.

Peres, leader of the Labor Alignment and Likud’s uneasy partner in Israel’s coalition government, is far more favorable to the Shultz initiative than is Shamir.

After meeting with Shultz, Peres said, “I’m quite encouraged, knowing the difficulties lying ahead of us, and I hope that this important mission will be continued.”