Middle East Here a Stall, There a Slide

The performance, given by a wily veteran of guerrilla warfare, was a tactical masterpiece. Arriving in Washington last week, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir faced heavy pressure from the Reagan Administration to accept a U.S. proposal for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, a plan whose conditions he had publicly reviled at home. Engaging in a shrewd game of stalling and sliding, Shamir, who got his start as a leader in the Jewish underground in pre-1948 Palestine, managed to avoid an open confrontation with his U.S. allies: he neither formally rejected their proposal nor moved an inch closer to it. At the same time he managed to create the general impression that his differences with the U.S. were a mere ripple in an otherwise harmonious friendship. The Reagan Administration too seemed eager to put the best possible light on the meetings. "What I am happy to tell you," said Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy to a congressional committee, "is that we don't have a no from any party. So, so far so good."

That flimsy shred of optimism hardly disguises the fact that the Administration's plan is foundering, and one of the principal reasons for this is Shamir's obdurate opposition to key provisions of the initiative. While neither Israeli nor Arab leaders have officially rejected the proposal, positions on both sides have hardened as the 3 1/2-month-old struggle between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces has escalated in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The plan, as set forth by Secretary of State George Shultz, calls for an international conference on the Middle East, to be held this spring and attended by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Israel and its Arab neighbors. The proposal provides for some degree of self-rule in the occupied territories and sets December 1988 as a deadline for the start of negotiations aimed at reaching a final settlement in which Israel would return occupied lands in exchange for a promise of peace.

In three days of discussions with Shultz and President Reagan, Shamir focused his objections on the international conference, at which he feels Israel would be outnumbered by its adversaries. Shamir repeated his past offer to negotiate directly with Jordan's King Hussein under U.S.-Soviet auspices. By dwelling on the format for negotiations, Shamir deftly diverted the discussion from his far more fundamental objection to the plan: the "land- for-peace" formula that has been at the heart of U.S. peace initiatives since Israel occupied the Arab territories in 1967.

The Reagan Administration insists that its proposal is an indivisible package, carefully balanced to meet competing demands from many sides. "This is not a delicatessen, where you can pick and choose," said a Reagan adviser. While the Administration took pains to maintain a friendly atmosphere -- Shultz even invited Shamir to his home for a breakfast of blueberry pancakes cooked by the Secretary's wife Helena -- strain was evident in President Reagan's statement during the official departure ceremony at the White House. Those who rejected the plan, warned Reagan, would not have to answer to the U.S., but "they'll need to answer to themselves and their people as to why they turned down a realistic and sensible plan to achieve negotiations."