Middle East: Let's Do a Deal

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As negotiations proceeded fitfully last week, the deadly sport of Hide the Hostage began to resemble a sophisticated version of the children's game Operator. Each party to the negotiations, whether dealing openly or behind the scenes, relayed its demands to Javier Perez de Cuellar. The U.N. Secretary- General transmitted each message to a third party, who in turn cried, "Operator!" requesting that the communication be repeated, clarified or amplified. Perez de Cuellar then went back to the first party, bearing new details, fresh analysis and cajoling reassurances.

While all this had the promising feel of an end game, the negotiations proceeded at a frustratingly slow pace, and no one could tell if a settlement was days or weeks away -- or possibly stalemated altogether. With so many circuits buzzing at once, there was ample room for misunderstanding, misinterpretation and plain old mischief. Was the tally of Western hostages 11 or 10 (is British journalist Alec Collett dead?) or nine (is Italian businessman Alberto Molinari dead as well?)? The estimated number of Arabs imprisoned in Europe fluctuated between 19 and 23. One day, the 9,000 or so Palestinians detained in Israel in connection with the nearly four-year-old intifadeh were not a factor; the next, they were added to the equation, and their numbers were inflated to 18,000 to boot.

Despite the conflicting signals, the outlines of a deal began to emerge. The pivotal player was Israel, which insisted on a strict accounting of the whereabouts of seven missing servicemen but promised to be "very flexible" about the terms for trading its Arab prisoners in southern Lebanon that would in turn spring the release of the Western captives. Jerusalem offered a two- step plan. In phase one, Israel would release about 50 Shi'ites after receiving a full report on its soldiers, verifiable by either videotape or international observers. The second stage would see the release of the remaining Shi'ite detainees (is the total 375, as Israel maintains, or more than 400, as others claim?), including the south Lebanon spiritual leader Sheik Abdul Karim Obeid. In exchange, Israel would retrieve its surviving soldiers and the remains of the rest. Israeli officials offered on Saturday to allow the Red Cross to visit Sheik Obeid if it is also given access to Israelis in Arab custody.

Since neither the Bush Administration nor any European government wants to be perceived as bargaining with kidnappers, they made no overt demand about the timing of the Western hostages' release. But plainly the West expects its captives to be freed during one of those two phases.

While the contours of the deal seemed clear, the mechanics posed nettlesome questions. Among the most vexing was a condition contained in the letter former British hostage John McCarthy brought to Perez de Cuellar from Islamic Jihad, a fundamentalist Shi'ite faction, operating under the banner of the pro-Iranian Hizballah, that holds several Westerners. It called for "the release of our freedom fighters from prisons in occupied Palestine and Europe." To whom that referred was anybody's guess -- and for whom Islamic Jihad presumed to speak was no more apparent. Was this a bargaining point or an implacable demand?