Middle East: Does Land Still Buy Security?

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

& In heresy there may be hope. Views have been voiced lately in Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization that hard-liners on both sides damn as horrifying heresy. Those views have, of course, been officially repudiated. Even so, the mere fact that they could be uttered, out loud, indicates some potential cracks in official stone walls.

Heretic No. 1 is Bassam Abu Sharif, an adviser to P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat. In an interview televised in Britain, Abu Sharif hinted that a Palestinian state might not have to include every last bit of the West Bank; the implication was that Israel might keep part of that occupied territory. The P.L.O. disavowed any such idea, and Abu Sharif reportedly offered to resign. Still, his words pointed to unconventional thinking within the P.L.O.

Heretics Nos. 2 and 3 are high-ranking Israelis. Speaking in Washington, Health Minister Ehud Olmert, a confidant of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, proclaimed Israel to be ready for negotiations with Syria that could include even "the territorial demands of the Syrians." At a farewell news conference in Tel Aviv, Dan Shomron, who retires in April as Israel's Chief of Staff, remarked cryptically that as part of a possible "political agreement ((that)) involves demilitarizations, arms limitations" and other items, "one can speak about risk vs. territory."

Israeli right-wingers had no doubt that both were hinting at a long- unmentionable idea: giving up part or all of the Golan Heights. Syrian artillery firing from that barren plateau once kept northern Israel under intermittent bombardment. Israel seized the heights during the Six Day War and ever since has insisted that retaining the territory is essential to its security. Jerusalem actually annexed the area in 1981.

Shamir said he was "not happy with Olmert" and added that in any negotiation "we shall say we do not agree to withdraw" from the Golan. The small rightist Tehiya party threatened to quit the government coalition if the idea of withdrawing was so much as discussed in the Cabinet. Housing Minister Ariel Sharon spoke of building enough apartments in the heights to balloon the area's Jewish population from 11,000 to 31,000. (About 15,000 non-Jews, mostly Druze, also live there.)

Israel nonetheless can expect renewed argument from Washington. President Bush and his advisers hope to start a movement toward Middle Eastern peace with an Israeli-Syrian negotiation. Their view is that the heights should be ( returned to Syrian sovereignty and civil administration, but that the area should be demilitarized, patrolled by American troops or an international force.

The U.S. agrees that Israel cannot let Syrian tanks and artillery move back into the heights. But otherwise officials argue that possession of territory no longer contributes much to security in a missile-armed age. As the gulf war proved, one serious threat to Israel apart from ground attack is assault by missiles that can whiz right over a buffer zone. Israel, says a Bush adviser, needs "political security as opposed to garrison security," and political security would be achieved by a peace treaty with Syria. The same argument theoretically would apply to the West Bank, but security is only one reason for Israel's refusal to let go of that land; an equally important one is the strong religious attachment many Jews feel toward the biblical Judea and Samaria.

Some Israeli military planners contend that the Golan and West Bank have become more, not less, essential to security. Without early-warning devices there, they assert, warheads could hit Israel before the civilian population could be warned to head for shelter. Even so, some military men speculate that if Israel kept its early-warning devices and troops in numbers sufficient to thwart a surprise Syrian attack, it could withdraw partially, keeping only a slice of territory running 15.5 miles east from the pre-1967 border.

That may be what Olmert had in mind in an interview with TIME. He insisted that, far from wanting to give up the Golan, he thought Israel should try to negotiate a Syrian relinquishment of its claim. But he added, "I don't want to say what is the fallback position." On the subject of talks, he noted that while Syria, with Iraq out of the picture, has become Israel's most dangerous enemy, its leaders "might now change their position" as a result of participation in the gulf war. "So let's test them. Let's sit at the table willing to negotiate anything."

His view is a long way from prevailing in Jerusalem -- let alone Damascus, which in any talks is likely to insist on recognition of its effectual control of Lebanon as well as return of the Golan Heights. But the voices of Olmert and like-minded thinkers are unlikely to be drowned out, because they have logic on their side.

With reporting by Mary McC. Fernandez/New York and Robert Slater/Jerusalem