Middle East conference

Press, 14 May 1987, Page 20

Middle East conference

The possibility of an international conference to discuss the Middle East has become so strong that an election might be held in Israel on the issue. Mr Shamir, whose turn it is to be Prime Minister under the arrangement by which the Israeli prime ministership rotates, does not want an international conference. Mr Peres, who is Foreign Minister until it is his turn again to be Prime Minister, thinks that a conference should be held and has threatened to bring the Government down unless he has his way. One report says that the evenly divided inner Israeli Cabinet has instructed Mr Shamir and Mr Peres to find a compromise. But what compromise there can be between supporting a conference and not supporting a conference is difficult to see. The most recent proposal for an international conference was made by the European Economic Community. The participants would include the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, a number of Arab countries including Egypt and Jordan and possibly even Syria, and Israel. Just how the Palestinians would be represented is unclear. Mr Shamir’s supporters would find it unacceptable to have the Palestine Liberation Organisation represented, and even Mr Peres’s Labour Alignment would have difficulty in sitting down at the table with the P.L.O. However, the Palestinians would need representation. They might have members as part of the delegation of Jordan. But King Hussein of Jordan wants the approval of the P.L.O. before he takes part in talks with Israel, and Mr Arafat, leader Of the P.L.0., is unlikely to agree to anything but a significant P.L.O. presence at the talks. The approach to resolving Middle East - issues through an international conference is in contrast to the approach that Israel should talk directly to its neighbours, one by one. The direct talks approach had its finest — and only — flowering in the peace agreement

that was signed between Israel and Egypt Ever since that agreement, of March 1979,. the Israelis have hoped that Jordan would be the next Arab country to talk. But the anger of other Arab .nations towards Egypt apparently has been enough to dissuade King Hussein. Eight years after the IsraeliEgyptian accord it seems foolhardy to believe that it is only a matter of time before other Arab countries take turns to sign peace treaties with Israel. An international conference would involve the participation of the Soviet Union in Middle East negotiations. The advantages in that lie in the fact that the Soviet Union would become one of the guarantors of any accord reached, and the Middle East would thus not be a ground for confrontation between the East and the West. The Arab countries, some of which receive extensive arms supplies from the Soviet Union, might feel that the Soviet Union would champion their cause in peace talks. The Soviet Union does not have diplomatic links with Israel and doubtless Israel will want those links to be established before it agrees to take part in talks with the Soviet Union. Israel has its own interests, particularly immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel, to pursue with the Soviet Union. It will be curious if Israel holds an election to choose between two parties, one of which favours an international conference arid the other which does not. War and peace must be a core concern of Israelis. But to hold or to fail to hold an international conference will not automatically lead to peace or war. The fundamental problems — dispossessed Palestinians, the land claimed by both Arabs and Israelis, and the right of Israelis to live at peace within their own borders — will need more than a conference if they are to be settled. An international conference would raise these issues but changes of attitudes within Israel and the Arab world would need to occur before the issues could be resolved.