United States Foreign Relations Middle East

Following is the text of the Friday letter from Secretary of State George P. Shultz to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, as published in photocopy form Sunday by the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot: I set forth below the understanding which I am convinced is necessary to achieve the prompt opening of negotiations on a comprehensive peace. This statement of understandings emerges from discussions held with you and other regional leaders.

Former President Clinton urged support for Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's peacekeeping efforts in the Middle East during an appearance Saturday night. "I think some of the negative publicity about Colin Powell's trip has been wrong," Clinton told reporters at a fund-raiser for Latino college students. "No matter how long they fight or how many people die, in the end if there's going to be peace there has to be security and normal relations with neighbors," Clinton said.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir on Sunday refused to budge in his opposition to key elements of Secretary of State George P. Shultz's peace initiative, but Shultz vowed to continue his shuttle diplomacy even if his only remaining hope is to leave a "constructive and positive" Middle East picture for the next Administration.

President Bush huddled with his top security advisors at Camp David on Saturday to thrash out what to do about the Mideast maelstrom amid a growing perception that the crisis now boils down to the very existence of Israel alongside a Palestinian state--and finding one last formula to make that work. The summit in the tranquillity of the Maryland woods--attended by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, CIA Director George J.

Key details began to emerge Monday of the separate, and in some ways competing, American and French plans for a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah--and they help explain why it is taking so long to stop the fighting. The French plan goes much further toward accommodating the interests of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia operating in southern Lebanon, than does the American plan.

President Reagan's White House staff, rekindling the rancor of the 1980 election campaign, denounced former President Jimmy Carter on Friday for criticizing Administration policy in a speech in Cairo. "We are deeply disappointed by his comments," White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said. "If he wants to be helpful in the area of foreign affairs, he might want to forgo criticism of U.S. leaders while he's on foreign soil."

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declared "war" on the latest U.S. Middle East peace plan Wednesday as Palestinian unrest on the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip entered its fourth month with three more Arabs reported killed by army gunfire. Speaking at a meeting of the parliamentary faction of his rightist Likud Bloc five days after the American initiative was formally presented here by Secretary of State George P.

Moments after their final meeting with Secretary of State James A. Baker III, when the Palestinians at last pledged to go to talks in Madrid with Israel over the fate of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, negotiator Hanan Ashrawi murmured to a reporter, "What else could we do? We had no choice."

Secretary of State George P. Shultz met separately Monday with the leaders of Israel's divided coalition government, inviting them to help him "put flesh on the bones" of his Middle East peace initiative. A senior State Department official said Shultz told the Israelis that their doubts about certain aspects of the proposal could be resolved when the remaining details are filled in.

Syria's foreign minister, a scowl of indignation on his face Friday, held up a picture of a 32-year-old Yitzhak Shamir. "He kills peace mediators," charged the minister, Farouk Shareh, summoning up a lifetime of vitriol. Shareh's performance was the climax of a morning of intense hostility between the Syrian and Israeli representatives to the Madrid peace talks.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell left on a high-stakes mission to the Middle East late Sunday after firmly pressing Israel both publicly and in a call to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw "now" from Palestinian-governed cities. Sharon "understands clearly," and President Bush's call for a pullout "will not be ignored," Powell predicted. "I know that [Sharon] is trying to move the operation forward as quickly as possible.

President Bush's decision to send Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to the Middle East last week has inspired both loud praise and quiet gloating. Most analysts welcome the initiative. But critics see it as a tacit admission that Bush's initial decision to disengage from the region was a mistake. That's a common reflex in Washington--and a destructive one. When a politician changes position, the capital's general assumption is that there are only two possible explanations.

President Bush, showing his exasperation as Israeli tanks continued to roll through the West Bank, demanded Saturday that Israel withdraw "without delay" from the Palestinian cities it has occupied in several days of outright war. "I don't expect them to ignore [me]," he said. "I expect them to heed the call." After aiming those sharp words at the Israelis during a news conference here, Bush followed up with a 20-minute phone call to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

To avoid the fatal flaw of the Camp David peace process under President Clinton, the Bush administration is mapping a strategy to bring in the Arab world as a junior partner in Washington's new diplomatic gamble in the Middle East, U.S. officials said Friday. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will reach out to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordan's King Abdullah II and other Arab leaders in stops before he travels to Israel later next week, U.S.

On a bloody day of fierce fighting, the diplomatic isolation of Yasser Arafat was broken Friday when the United States' special Mideast envoy walked past Israeli tanks and into the Palestinian Authority president's besieged headquarters here. Despite President Bush's appeal for a halt to the bloodshed, Israel accelerated its massive offensive in the West Bank, entering yet another Palestinian town. More than two dozen Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed.

President Bush is under growing pressure to do something--almost anything--to defuse the intense hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians, which flared anew Sunday with two more suicide bombings and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's solemn pronouncement that his country is in "a war over our home." Unlike the many world leaders who weighed in on the mounting crisis, Bush was silent Sunday.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher on Tuesday described Yasser Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization chairman, as "the indispensable figure" in the Middle East peace process, but the Clinton Administration ruled out pressing Israel to meet Arafat's conditions for resuming negotiations.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright heads to the Middle East this week for meetings that could set the tone for U.S. involvement in the troubled region for the rest of the Clinton administration, and possibly years longer. Israel and the Palestinians--negotiating without direct U.S. involvement for the first time in almost four years--are closing in on an interim peace agreement that probably will be signed shortly after Albright arrives.

Calling on allies in Europe and the Arab world to help, the United States on Monday engaged in intense diplomacy with Israel and the Palestinians in a bid to reduce bloodshed and generate momentum for a peace proposal to be debated this week at an Arab League summit. The Bush administration quietly tried to win Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's approval for Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to attend the summit in Beirut, which begins Wednesday.

It's crunch time in the Middle East. In the next few days and weeks, each of the major players in the Arab-Israeli conflict must make difficult decisions that will determine whether peace is actually possible. Three new variables in the Middle East equation--a pivotal Arab League summit this week to debate a new peace plan, the stunning increase in bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians, and U.S.