European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 13, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Friday december 13, 1991 the stars and stripes a Page 13commentary William Safire Only direct dealing can bring Mideast peace president Bush can get the states to negotiate directly with is i i i the talks will make Progress. If he we jul f Arr Atni ralral1 Kentana Tho mini Llo. I b. Tue of a a la a if president Bush can get the Arab states to negotiate directly with Israel the talks will make Progress. If he lets Secretary Baker become the middleman carrying messages and finally recommending the settlement a the Quot peace process a a phrase coined by Henry Kissinger nearly two decades ago will fail. So far despite the great debt of survival owed to America by the Arab states Secretary Baker has not been Able to arrange talks other than a a through the . That a because Arab leaders believe that the americans can pressure the israelis to give up the West Bank the Golan Heights and in the end part of Jerusalem. Only when the Light dawns on arabs that the Only Way any territorial Compromise can be achieved is to Stop using . Intervention As a Crutch a and to Deal directly face to face with the nation they cannot defeat or forever ignore a will business begin. Israelis Are ready to Deal with people who Are ready to Deal with them. Apparently the arabs a especially syrians dictator Hafez Assad a Are not ready. That explains the fussing about venue the israelis want Home and Home meetings As befits equals while Arab leaders insist on some far off setting using America As permanent middleman. President Bush is acceding to the arabs wishes. His invitation to Washington presented to Israel As an insulting summons contained language showing that the . Would tilt toward Syria on stripping the High ground of the Golan from Israel s defense. And on the West Bank our meddling middlemen have an opening Deal in mind As a first step toward imposing a grand bargain that american soldiers would be forced to police. In return for Israel giving up the right to live on land that both arabs and israelis claim a a freezing settlements is the phrase a Baker will arrange an end to the Arab Boycott and throw in the sweetener of repealing the . S zionism is racism Resolution. There is no Deal there. It s a dead end. The economic sabotage is unlawful an act of War to be condemned and not treated As a bargaining Chip and the . Resolution is an abomination a moral Burden to the arabs and the old soviet bloc. Israel would be crazy to hand Over the key to its territorial Security for the cessation of a couple of evil deeds. Yet Baker persists in pretending this is a i Well it s a Start Al a i in t it fellas. -4k. A guaranteed non starter is the basis for a serious negotiation. Thus we have been drawn in As a middleman and blocking conduit thereby undermining our goal of encouraging direct talks and our opening intercession is a loser. Is there a Way to get this Back on the track fortunately three pressures Are pushing in the right direction. In Israel the infusion of brainpower from the old soviet Empire and the strength of racial diversity brought by the ethiopian jews offer new Confidence and a renewed sense of Mission to the jewish state. Long term the wave of immigrants is a great economic and diplomatic asset nearly a half million people have been absorbed live under roofs and two thirds have jobs. Short term with 200,000 More expected this year immigration is also a headache in the next elections most unemployed arrivals will vote against the party in Power putting liked under internal pressure to seek peace Progress. In the ., politics also can be a Force for Good sense. Candidate Bush wants a deaf to run on which he cannot get by bullying an isolated Israel moreover in a dose race the difference Between a minuscule support of jewish americans for Goldwater and the much bigger vote for Nixon and Reagan could affect the outcome in key states. Bush will want to claim that he has accomplished the Start of Long sought direct negotiations. In the Arab world if Syria remains Bellicose a joint venture on the Golan can await Assad s successor. But palestinian arabs Are at last eager to attain the autonomy the Plo disdained at Camp David Long ago. Tired of being pawns palestinians will reach for More self determination in association with Jordan and cooperation with Israel than can be found in any Arab dictatorship. A quartet of self ruling palestinian cantons in a Barrier free West Bank is the was to Arab dignity and israeli Security. The world can help by Emba going arms to the area but interference with direct dealing will Only botch the prospects for peace. C Tho new Yolk times Richard Harwoo Dwhite House press corps incestuous by insular Walter Lippmann Patron Saint of the cerebral school of american journalism observed Many years ago that newspaper work is a the last Refuge of the vaguely  there Are no standards for admission to this Refuge no licensing procedures no common ethical mandates or behavioural norms and no common grounds such As malpractice for being cast out into the darkness. In such an atmosphere one would expect misfits and eccentrics con artists drunks doers and other exotic species to Prosper along with the righteous As indeed was often the Case in or. Lippmann s salad years and in mine. But it is no longer so. The Washington journalist of the 1990s is Likely to be a sober and reliable member of the Urban bourgeoisie a responsible Parent who worries about the tuition at Yale who May aspire to membership in the Council on foreign relations and whose personality is suited to the present corporate Era of  find some support for this impression in a recent paper from Stephen Hess of the Brookings institution. It is a sociological Survey of today s White House correspondents a somewhat elite group of about 60  today s regulars May be the brai Niest crop Ever to inhabit the pressroom in the West Wing 95 percent Are College graduates compared with barely 20 percent of other americans. A third of them have advanced degrees. They probably Are More prosperous on the whole than any of their predecessors. But there is a Downside to this portrait intellectual conformity and insularity incompetence in dealing with Many of the substantive issues of governance and a narrow preoccupation with presidential politics. The correspondents attended Good schools but nearly All of their degrees were in either journalism or the Liberal arts. A they Are a or. Hess notes Quot woefully uninterested in economics and the natural  they tend to a see every Issue through a political Lens because they know More about politics than they know about tax policy and other arcane matters. They suffer from an incestuous insularity in both their professional and social lives. They rely on a relatively Small Circle of politicians and technicians for information and  their social lives tend to revolve around friendships within the Liny fraternity of journalists. Their Reading habits Are neither expansive nor particularly broadening. They read the same periodicals a the Washington Post the new York times the Wall Street journal Newsweek sports illustrated and Hobby magazines. Nothing in the Hess Survey suggests much a a serious study a hardly any correspondents Are Consumers of ideological journals either of the left or the right journalism reviews foreign policy magazines or the business  they have an obsessive interest in the political fortunes of presidents. Hess Calls them a poli Licois the obsession is reinforced by their colleagues and sources. It leads them sometimes to confuse burps from the Oval office with the clap of doom or to assume that the coming or going of a John Sununu is an event of historical significance. In their insular preoccupations they can lose perspective. There is a tendency to deify a the presidency Quot and attribute to it Powers that do not exist. There is a further tendency to forget that a president in some respects More resembles the wizard of of than god pulling levers that produce not miracles hut puts of smoke. Cythe Washington Post