President Faces Shifting Winds on Mideast Trip

WASHINGTON — As President Clinton embarks this morning on a delicately balanced trip to Israel and the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip, he faces a level of uncertainty almost unheard of in the carefully choreographed world of presidential diplomacy.

He does not know if he will be able to entice Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend a three-way meeting with himself and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, an event that Washington had envisioned as the centerpiece of the visit.

He does not know if the sometimes violent Palestinian demonstrations against Israel that have been raging for a week will be suspended to avoid disrupting or upstaging his visit.

He does not know if Netanyahu and Arafat will agree to resume implementation of the peace accord they negotiated less than two months ago in the United States.

He does not know how much the impeachment case against him in Washington or the politically precarious positions of Netanyahu and Arafat with their own constituencies will damage U.S. relations with Israel and the Palestinians.

And he does not even know if his welcome in Israel--enthusiastically friendly on three earlier visits--will be warm or chilly.

It was not supposed to work this way.

When Clinton, Netanyahu and Arafat agreed in October that the American president would visit the region, the trip was envisioned as a victory lap for a successful U.S. effort to revive the moribund Middle East peace process.

The visit was intended to underline Washington’s traditionally close ties to Israel and to establish a new and cordial relationship with the Palestinians.

Now, everything seems strangely ill-timed. Netanyahu returned from the signing of the agreement to face a rebellion in his own ranks as religious and nationalist members of his Cabinet balked at the land-for-security deal he had struck with Arafat.

Last month, Arafat renewed his threat to declare a unilateral Palestinian state in May, a rhetorical broadside that never fails to enrage the Israelis. In response, Netanyahu suspended implementation of the agreement, accusing the Palestinians of failing to fulfill their own obligations.

U.S. officials in Israel say Netanyahu will refuse to agree to a three-way meeting with Clinton and Arafat until he can assess the result of Monday’s events in Gaza.

The Palestinians are supposed to vote to remove provisions of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s charter calling for the destruction of Israel.

White House National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger insisted Friday that a three-way session was still a possibility.

However, a U.S. official in Israel observed: “It’s a real Middle East cliffhanger.”

Clinton is clearly caught in the middle.

The president intentionally allotted equal time during the trip to Israel and the Palestinians. The balance was designed to give Arafat a symbolic boost and to show Palestinians that there are rewards for making peace with Israel.

Yet in the zero-sum game of Middle East politics, Israelis read the symbolism too. To them, it looks as if Washington is treating them and the Palestinians the same, and they do not like that.

As a result, Netanyahu has mused that it might be better if Clinton stayed home. Some right-wing Israelis have mounted anti-U.S. demonstrations.

On the surface, the U.S. relationship with Israel--for half a century one of the closest between any two countries--appears to be fraying.

At the same time, the United States appears to be warming to the Palestinians, whose leaders were such pariahs a decade ago that American diplomats could be disciplined just for talking to them.

But Middle East experts in Washington say the apparent shift does not necessarily signal a long-term trend. In their view, the U.S. relationship with Israel will remain close despite occasional rifts.

Robert Pelletreau, who was the State Department’s top Middle East expert earlier in the Clinton administration, said the current rough patch in U.S.-Israel relations is at least partly a result of personal friction between Clinton and Netanyahu.

“It is clear that the president and Prime Minister Netanyahu do not have any particular chemistry despite the president’s effort to create it,” said Pelletreau, now a private consultant in Washington.

On the other hand, the Palestinian leadership is so eager to curry favor with Washington that during the October peace talks, a Palestinian spokesman publicly endorsed a U.S. proposal before the American side had even presented it.

Pelletreau said Arafat had apparently decided that a warm relationship with the United States was more important to the Palestinians than the details of a pact with Israel.

The unusual warmth in the U.S.-Palestinian relationship has produced anguished rhetoric in Israel. American Jewish leaders, on the other hand, have indicated that they do not foresee any lasting changes in U.S. policy on the Middle East.

“There is no concern that the relationship is cooling,” said a spokesman for the American Jewish Committee in New York. “With this president, it is one of the strongest relationships in U.S.-Israel history.”

Writing this week in Israel’s largest daily, Yediot Aharonot, analyst Shimon Shiffer said: “Netanyahu and [Foreign Minister Ariel] Sharon are very perturbed lately by the unusual closeness of the U.S. administration and Yasser Arafat. They see this as a dangerous development. But it must be admitted that the person responsible for this closeness is none other than the prime minister himself, Netanyahu.”

There is no question that if Clinton hopes to get the faltering peace process back on track, he will have to speak sternly to both his hosts. It is not clear whether he is prepared to do that. And even if he is, it is not clear that it will do much good.

“Clinton is flying into a hornet’s nest,” said Geoffrey Kemp, a Reagan administration Mideast specialist. “It will take all his ingenuity and powers of persuasion to make this a successful trip.”

Kemp said Clinton must try to persuade both Netanyahu and Arafat that they have much to gain by making peace with each other--and much to lose by allowing the process to stagnate.

“Maybe all Clinton can do is tell both of them, ‘Don’t throw everything away,’ ” said Richard Murphy, formerly the State Department’s top Middle East expert.

Murphy said it is in Washington’s interest for Clinton to do that. U.S. goals will suffer, he said, if Netanyahu and Arafat are unable to find a way through their mutual distrust and animosity.

Times staff writers Tracy Wilkinson and Rebecca Trounson in Jerusalem contributed to this report.