NEWS ANALYSIS : Baker Plans His 1st Visit to Israel : Mideast: The secretary will use IOUs from the war to push for talks between Tel Aviv and its Arab neighbors.

By NORMAN KEMPSTER

March 1, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State James A. Baker III, announcing his first visit to Israel, hopes to jump-start the moribund Arab-Israeli peace process by capitalizing on Washington’s soaring political and military prestige in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War.

After conclusively demonstrating the importance of U.S. military power to Israel and its Arab adversaries, the U.S. government holds important IOUs on both sides of the conflict for the first time in years.

“We have just demonstrated what we had never demonstrated before, a great show of political skill and military power,” one Administration official said. “We stood by our friends, and our military equipment worked.”

As a result, the Bush Administration has decided to concentrate on starting peace talks between Israel and the neighboring Arab states, a shift in tactics from an earlier emphasis on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian residents of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“I don’t think you can make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute without making progress on Israel’s relations with Arab states,” an official said.

That approach is calculated to appeal to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who has long sought state-to-state peace talks with Saudi Arabia, Syria and other Arab nations while refusing even to consider any sort of concessions to the 1.7 million Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait discovered after the Iraqi invasion that they could not defend themselves without substantial American help. Even Israel, which has prided itself on never having to ask for the help of American fighting men, accepted Patriot missiles with their U.S. crews.

“Overall, the fact that the Israelis and the Saudis were dependent on the United States is positive,” the official said.

During the course of the Persian Gulf conflict, Shamir and his associates have become increasingly worried that Washington’s postwar strategy will be aimed at forcing Israel to compromise with the Palestinians who have waged a 39-month uprising against Israeli rule.

However, Administration officials say that the open sympathy for Iraq shown by the Palestinians has made it more difficult for the United States to take up their cause. One official said that the United States continues to believe that Israel will ultimately have to make a land-for-peace deal with the Palestinians but that such negotiations will have to await action on state-to-state talks.

The State Department announced Thursday that Baker will visit Israel as part of a regionwide tour, starting Wednesday, that will also include stops in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Syria and, if the government is re-established there in time, Kuwait. He visited the other countries often between Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait and the Jan. 17 start of Operation Desert Storm, but he has never been in Israel.

Last year, Baker infuriated Israeli officials when he told a congressional committee that the Shamir government did not seem serious about making peace with the Palestinians. At that time, he recited the White House telephone number and said that when Shamir was ready for peace, he should call.

But Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler tried Thursday to paper over that friction.

“The secretary of state has said for the last two years how much he very, very much wants to go to Israel,” she said.

Last week, Shamir predicted that Washington would put new pressure on Israel to make peace with the Palestinians. He vowed that Israel “won’t be deterred and we won’t run away.”

On Thursday, Shamir’s spokesman Avi Pazner said, “We are, of course, delighted he is coming.”

Pazner, apparently unaware that Washington is swinging around to the same view, said Israel wants to focus on its relations with Arab states, not with the Palestinians. “We do not believe that the Palestinian issue is the main source of instability in the Middle East,” Pazner said.

Although Administration officials said Baker is eager to convert the opportunities opened by the victory over Iraq into progress in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Tutwiler said the purpose of his first trip is primarily to listen to the views of others.

Baker got a head start on his consultations when he met in Washington with French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas on Thursday.

After a 1 1/2-hour meeting at the State Department, Dumas told French reporters that Baker seemed optimistic, perhaps, he implied, overly optimistic.

According to a participant in the session, Dumas added, “This is a favorable moment for resolving the issue.”

Elsewhere in the Administration, there was grumbling that Baker may be trying to rush the Arab-Israeli issue, perhaps to reassert his authority after playing a secondary role to the Pentagon during the war.

“There is a sense that State is a little more eager to get out there than the White House and the Defense Department,” one Administration official said.

Times staff writers David Lauter in Washington and Daniel Williams in Jerusalem contributed to this report.