Washington's hard line.

• Author: Zunes, Stephen
• Position: U.S. policy toward the Palestinians

Israeli peace activists, Palestinians., and many other observers are beginning to believe that the Clinton Administration's Middle East policy is jeopardizing the peace agreement signed last September by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasir Arafat. The U.S. Government seems to be taking a harder line against the Palestinians than the Israeh government is. For almost two decades, the PLO has made known its willingness to negotiate with Israel for peace. However, when the United States set up the peace talks in 1991, it categorically excluded the PLO from taking part. The result was a dangerous stalemate in the negotiations. The 1993 breakthrough was made possible only when the Israelis - unable to talk directly with their Palestinian counterparts under American auspices - took the initiative to meet secretly with the PLO in a third country. The agreement caught the Clinton Administration by surprise, and only then did Washington offer its reluctant endorsement.

It is striking that the accord signed in September, while unfavorable to the Palestinians in some key respects (see Edward Said, A Palestinian Versailles." The Progressive, December 1993 issue), was far more generous to the Palestinians than a "compromise" proposal offered by the United States less than three months earlier. Palestinian officials described the U.S. proposal as "closer to the Israeli Likud position," referring to the Rabin government's right-wing predecessors.

A growing consensus in Israel holds that a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza is an inevitable outgrowth of the agreement. However, the United States remains adamant in its opposition to Palestinian statehood. Indeed, the Clinton Administration is the first in the United States to imply that the West Bank and Gaza are "disputed" territories, hinting that the Israelis and Palestinians have equal claim to the land, rather than recognizing it - as the international community does - as territory under foreign military occupation.

One of the major obstacles to Israeli- Palestinian peace is the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. However, the Clinton Administration, in a reversal of policy from previous U.S. Administrations, has not opposed the expansion of existing settlements and has been ambivalent regarding the large-scale construction of massive housing developments in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.

According to U.S...