Land For Peace

When statesmen everywhere are talking peace, Libya's Muammar el Kadafi sent a message to the United Nations General Assembly in New York that called for Israel to be relocated in Europe. His rationale was that creation of Israel was "a revenge against Nazism" and the responsibility of Europeans. This is an old, oft-refuted argument. Mr. Kadafi, trying to attract attention, is odd-man-out of Arab politics, shadowed by the luster of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak who recognizes Israel and keeps peace with it. But what's wrong with the argument should not be forgotten:(1)

Paris. -- Secretary of State James Baker's problem in trying to make peace between Israel and the Arabs lies in the wish of each side still to win, by means of the peace settlement, the war they did not finish in 1948.This is what the diplomatic struggle is fundamentally about. The war goes on as what fashionably is described as ''low-intensity conflict.'' The Palestinians raid Israel from outside bases and conduct a rock-throwing insurrection in the occupied territories. The Israelis punish and jail Palestinians inside Israel and attack their installations in Lebanon and elsewhere.

The suspension of Secretary of State James A. Baker III's shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East upon the death of his mother allows a look at what he has achieved. His effort has been noble, but the Middle East will not reform itself just because Mr. Baker arrived on the scene. It is the same Middle East that thwarted such peacemakers as Henry Kissinger and Jimmy Carter.Yes, everyone wants a peace conference, but . . . but Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, our very good friends for whom the United States sacrificed its young, will not attend; but Israel insists that a conference not have United Nations auspices and Syria insists that it must; but the U.S. and Israel boycott the PLO while the Palestinians with whom Mr. Baker talks insist on its role; but Israel starts new settlements which can only provoke Arab negativism; but the U.S. says that Israel should trade land for peace, which senior Israeli leaders refuse.

Hopes of the world greet the ceremonial opening of the Middle East peace conference today at the Royal Palace in Madrid. That is an awesome load for the delegates to bear. The last such conference convened under United Nations auspices in Geneva in 1973, with Egypt, Jordan and Israel present. It lasted one day and never reconvened. This conference has a stately schedule of speeches and rebuttals over three days. The world's hope must be that this rhetorical phase does not paralyze the subsequent talks, as statements of position by Middle Eastern disputants so often do.Both the Palestinian delegation and Israeli government ministers have talked in refreshingly similar language about the possibility of negotiating Palestinian autonomy on the West Bank and Gaza, while maintaining Israeli security control, before addressing the issue of permanent status.

Hopes for progress in Middle East peace negotiations were marginally strengthened by the party leadership struggles in Israel, preparing for the June 23 election. Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who returns to the leadership of the opposition Labor Party, favors the negotiations and the concept of swapping land for peace. He has said that, in power, he would put a stop to settlement-building on the West Bank.Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who remains at the helm of Likud, is his old seemingly intransigent self.

Syria holds the key to Arab peace with Israel. If Syria traded peace for Golan, the rug would be pulled out from those who wish to continue war. Secretary of State Warren Christopher's Middle East shuttle diplomacy is seeking no less than that.While using the same Middle East adviser, Dennis Ross, that his predecessor James A. Baker III brought to the State Department, Mr. Christopher has shunned Mr. Baker's studied detachment. He is not merely bringing the parties together and seeking influence behind the scenes, he is aggressively and publicly involved and putting U.S. proposals forward.

The talks between Israel and Palestinians that will resume in Washington at the end of the month have been strengthened by Israel's acceptance of the PLO links of the negotiators. Pretenses are dropped. Seven of the 14 members of the Palestinian delegation have been taken onto the PLO committee that directs the delegation.This strengthens not the PLO hold on the delegation but the delegates' influence on the PLO. And according to accounts coming out of the Middle East, the new arrangement may make the delegates tougher on the Jerusalem issue than the PLO was prepared to be.A second coming-to-grips with reality was sounded when Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin spoke of settlers in the occupied territories as impediments to security rather than as the first line of defense.

UNITED NATIONS -- In a last-ditch effort to bring peace to the former Yugoslavia before the brutal Balkan winter sets in, European foreign ministers will propose a new, wide-ranging settlement that covers Croatia as well as Bosnia-Herzegovina, European officials said yesterday.The plan, to be presented to the warring parties when they meet in Luxembourg tomorrow, would require the Serbs to offer the Bosnian Muslims a little more land in addition to what the Serbs agreed to give up in exchange for peace last summer.

THE ELECTION Prime Minister Shimon Peres is expected to call for May 28 will introduce a constitutional innovation in Israel -- a cross between the presidential system and Israel's pure parliamentary tradition. In addition to voting for national party lists and thus creating a proportional vote for the Knesset, or parliament, Israelis will vote for an individual to be prime minister. This is a first.The effect already has been to push quarreling parties into coalitions that more closely resemble our two-party system.

IF THE PEACE PROCESS in the Middle East stops, the terrorists wion. If Israel and Syria never swap land for peace, the terrorists win. If Palestinian autonomy is frozen as is, the terrorists win.If failure of the PLO to progress toward statehood brings its downfall, the terrorists win. If Israelis are provoked to vote in on May 29 a government that will end the peace process, the terrorists win.At first blush, it may be tempting to blame the nine-day rampage...