The New York Times · New York, New York · 28 October 1991

CP-1991-034

Israel’s Anxiety

One Goal Seems to Be to Avoid Blame For a Failure of Madrid Conference

By CLYDE HABERMAN, Special to The New York Times

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Transcribed from the clipping

JERUSALEM, Oct. 27 — The most cynical assessment is that Israel’s primary goal at the Madrid peace talks this week is to avoid having to absorb the blame should the conference fall apart. Across the political spectrum, many Israelis suspect that that is probably the most realistic view as well .

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir certainly suggests that potential finger-pointing against his country looms large for him. “We have to take into consideration everything,” he acknowledged when the subject arose in an interview the other day.

More than any other event in recent years, save the Iraqi Scud missiles that fell on Israelis during the Persian Gulf War, the Middle East peace process has tapped Israel’s ample reservoir of anxiety about what comes next.

Those worries are especially keen on the political right, which includes not only the Shamir Government but also, if the experts are correct, an expanding segment of the Israeli electorate. These people see Madrid as a trap, an opportunity for Arabs and a United States Administration perceived as increasingly hostile to gang up on Israel and wrest territory from it.

The argument, expressed by Cabinet ministers and Parliament members close to Mr. Shamir, is that the true goal is to force Israel back to its pre-1967 borders. That means no West Bank, no Golan Heights, no Gaza Strip, no East Jerusalem and, from this viewpoint, no secure borders and no real peace. So the doubters say it is best for the country that the talks collapse.

If they had had their druthers, they would not have taken part in the first place, and the only question for them now is how to slip out of Madrid without getting pummeled later by the United States for being obstructionists.

“I am not enthusiastic about the Madrid conference,” Uzi Landau, a right-wing lawmaker who is one of the Israeli delegates, confessed on the state-owned radio over the weekend. Yoel Marcus, a columnist for the newspaper Haaretz, wrote dourly on Friday that “on the eve of the Madrid conference the Israeli public is divided into two groups: skeptics and pessimists.”

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