Washington's hard line.

Israeli peace activists, Palestinians., and many other observers are beginning to believe that the Clinton Administration's Middle East policy is jeopardizing the peace agreement signed last September by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasir Arafat. The U.S. Government seems to be taking a harder line against the Palestinians than the Israeh government is. For almost two decades, the PLO has made known its willingness to negotiate with Israel for peace. However, when the United States set up the peace talks in 1991, it categorically excluded the PLO from taking part. The result was a dangerous stalemate in the negotiations. The 1993 breakthrough was made possible only when the Israelis - unable to talk directly with their Palestinian counterparts under American auspices - took the initiative to meet secretly with the PLO in a third country. The agreement caught the Clinton Administration by surprise, and only then did Washington offer its reluctant endorsement.

It is striking that the accord signed in September, while unfavorable to the Palestinians in some key respects (see Edward Said, A Palestinian Versailles." The Progressive, December 1993 issue), was far more generous to the Palestinians than a "compromise" proposal offered by the United States less than three months earlier. Palestinian officials described the U.S. proposal as "closer to the Israeli Likud position," referring to the Rabin government's right-wing predecessors.

A growing consensus in Israel holds that a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza is an inevitable outgrowth of the agreement. However, the United States remains adamant in its opposition to Palestinian statehood. Indeed, the Clinton Administration is the first in the United States to imply that the West Bank and Gaza are "disputed" territories, hinting that the Israelis and Palestinians have equal claim to the land, rather than recognizing it - as the international community does - as territory under foreign military occupation.

One of the major obstacles to Israeli- Palestinian peace is the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. However, the Clinton Administration, in a reversal of policy from previous U.S. Administrations, has not opposed the expansion of existing settlements and has been ambivalent regarding the large-scale construction of massive housing developments in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.

According to U.S. law, the costs of such additional Jewish development in the occupied territories must be deducted from the $2 billion annual allocation of the controversial $10 billion American loan guarantee to Israel passed in 1992. In October, the United States officially announced to Israel that there would be a $437 million deduction in this year's loan because of settlement construction during fiscal 1993. However, the State Department's Middle East peace-talks coordinator, Dennis Ross, immediately let the Israeli government know that the United States would find a way to restore the full funding. Within a month, Clinton announced the United States would, after all, give Israel an additional $500 million,. ostensibly to pay for the "redeployment" of Israeli troops which are yet to evacuate from any part of the occupied territories.

With the asymmetry of power between the Israelis and Palestinians and the Clinton Administration ruling out any pressure on Israel, one of the few tools that could push the Israeli government to accept Palestinian statehood and to abide by outstanding U.N. Security Council resolutions is the Arab boycott of Israel. As a result, the United States has greatly escalated its pressure against Arab states for an end of the boycott before Israel recognizes Palestinian self-determination or comes into compliance with U.N. resolutions and international law.

The United States, which has success- fully pushed for international sanctions against such Arab states as Libya and Iraq for their violations of U.N. edicts and has maintained a unilateral boycott of Cuba for thirty-three years, opposes any such boycott against its ally, Israel.

In his speech at the September siginng ceremony between Rabin and Arafat, Clinton avoided any mention of human rights or international law, but emphasized the need to end economic pressure against the Israeli occupation.

Meanwhile, the Clinton Administration has launched a vigorous campaign to rescind all the previous U.N. resolutions critical of Isra-61. The Administration hag labeled the resolutions "anachronistic', though the issues addressed in them-human-rights violations, illegal settlements, expulsion of dissidents, development of nuclear weapons, and ongoing military occupation-remain as relevant as ever. As for Washington's attitude toward U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that "acquisition of territory by war [is] inadmissible," an unnamed U.S. official was quoted in the Christian Science Monitor last year as saying, "But international law, as we know, is meaningless unless there are powers who are ready to enforce it."

By far the strongest domestic pressure Rabin receives comes from the Israeli Right, which opposes any territorial compromise. The Israeli peace movement, while supportive of the accords, has been unwilling or unable to mobilize for a complete end of the occupation. Therefore, the only truly effective counterpressure must come from the United States, which provides the military, economic, and diplomatic support for Israeli occupation forces.

Members of the Israeli negotiating team in Washington have privately asked the Clinton Administration openly to push Rabin to compromise further, so as to give him sufficient political cover to make the needed concessions. The Clinton Administration, however, has refused.

Israeli journalist Peretz Kidron observes, "When Rabin has done something which jeopardizes the peace process, such as the expulsion of the Palestinian Muslims or the attacks on Lebanese villages, he knows the United States will protect him from the international outrage. However, if he does something bold to promote peace, the United States is largely silent."

Some apologists for the Clinton Administration claim that pressure from the American Jewish community accounts for the hard-line position taken by the United States. However, according to a recent poll by the American Jewish Congress, a sizable majority of American Jews now supports Palestinian statehood. Similarly, a number of prominent Jews in the Clinton Administration, some of whom have ties to the Israeli peace movement, are chagrined at the President's swing to the right. The man who has emerged as Clinton's primary adviser on the Middle East is Martin Indyk of the National Security Council, former head of the conservative Washington Institute on Near East Policy and an adviser to the former rightwing Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who is openly hostile to the Israeli-PLO accord.

Others see it less as a conscious swing to the right as simple lack of interest. "The United States is reluctant to get into any position of responsibility," observes retired Israeli major general and former Knesset member Matti Peled. "Christopher has delegated responsibility to junior assistants with no power or influence. The United States is happy with the way things are now."

"Palestinian weakness and American callousness have together brought expansionism once again to the center of the Israeli political arena," writes Israeli journalist Haim Baram, noting, "This development is doubly distressing, because the Israeli public is more prepared for real territorial concessions than ever before."

As a result, the fate of the peace process may rest in the United States. "The Israeli Left is the only Left in the world which is pro-republican," notes Kidron. From our own self-interest, we were disturbed to see Clinton win and pursue these kinds of policies. What is more disturbing, however, is that the American peace movement appears to be letting him get away with it."n

Stephen Zunes (Stephen Zunes is director of the Institute for a New Middle East Policy, located on Bainbridge Island, Washington, and a visiting professor of politics and government at the University of Puget Sound)