Regiopolitics: Toward a U.S. Policy on the Palestine Problem

Unlike the Carter Administration (with the Brookings Report), the new Administration has not come into office with any known general policy framework of its own for the settlement of the Palestine problem and the Arab-Israeli conflict. In addition to the priority accorded by President Reagan to the domestic economy, the fact that the Israeli elections were to be held on June 30 served to purchase additional time. Nonetheless, the emerging indicators of what the new Administration's policy might be give cause for concern to some observers of the Middle East scene.

Secretary of State Alexander Haig's delaying tactics in going out to the Middle East rather than face the problem of which Middle East leaders-and in what sequence-to invite to an unprepared Washington were astute. His trip will have provided him with a privileged tourist's insights into the attitudes of key countries he was visiting for the first time as the principal guest. But the predominantly geopolitical lens through which he views the Middle East (along with the rest of the world) can only heighten concern. Without as yet having scrutinized the contents of the Middle East box (including, inter alia, the Palestine problem and the Arab-Israeli conflict), Mr. Haig proposes to wrap it in a "strategic consensus" between the Israelis and the Arabs in the face of the U.S.S.R.