Middle East End of a Peace Initiative

More than any other Arab leader apart from the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, King Hussein of Jordan has worked for a negotiated settlement of the explosive Arab-Israeli conflict. Last week, drained after months of unsuccessful efforts to enlist Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, into the peace process, Hussein announced that he had reached "an end to another chapter in the search for peace."

Hussein made the announcement in an emotional 3 1/2-hour speech over Jordanian television, addressed to 1.3 million Palestinians in the Israeli- occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as to his own 2.8 million subjects. The King thus broke off a year-old partnership with Arafat in which the two Arab leaders had sought ways to resolve the Palestinian problem through negotiations with Israel. Said the weary Hussein: "Yes, brothers and sisters, we have gone through a grueling year of intensive effort and faced a host of obstacles, in many instances exceeding the limits of our endurance."

As recently as Jan. 25, the King said, he had secured a new concession from the Reagan Administration. The U.S. had agreed to allow the P.L.O. to take part in an international peace conference if the organization agreed to three conditions: endorse United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338, implicitly recognizing Israel's right to exist; be prepared to negotiate with Israel; and renounce terrorism. But Arafat, fearful of creating still another split within his fractured organization, refused to accept the resolutions. Accordingly, an angry Hussein, who thought he had previously reached an agreement with Arafat, announced that he was unable to continue to work with the P.L.O. leaders "until such time as their word becomes their bond, characterized by commitment, credibility and constancy." The sympathies of West Bank Palestinians were torn, as always, between Hussein and the P.L.O. Some hoped, as did the Israelis, that Hussein might attempt another initiative in league with the local leadership of the occupied territories. But Hussein gave every indication last week that he would still abide by the Arab states' Rabat resolution of 1974, recognizing the P.L.O. as "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."

Even as Hussein was delivering the speech that ended his peace overture, more fighting was going on 100 miles to the northwest. Early last week a Lebanese Muslim fundamentalist group called the Islamic Resistance Front, which is dominated by the Shi'ite Hizballah (Party of God), attacked a small Israeli convoy in southern Lebanon and kidnaped two wounded Israeli soldiers. Within hours, some 1,200 Israeli troops pounded across the border in their biggest operation since their army withdrew from southern Lebanon last June. The mission: not only to find and rescue the two missing Israelis, but to root out guerrilla bases used for staging attacks inside the border security zone and against northern Israel. During the raid, at least 15 Lebanese and two Israeli servicemen were killed. At week's end, the Israelis began to withdraw troops, following reports that the captured soldiers were not in the area. One of them may have been executed.