Firing for Position and Advantage

Perhaps because it lacked the goading presence of U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the Middle East last week appeared to have regressed to the familiar old no war--no peace stalemate. Day after noisy day on the Golan Heights, Syrian and Israeli gunners fought artillery duels. In Jerusalem, Premier Golda Meir hurled a few verbal shells at both Syria and the Palestinians. In interviews with Time Inc. Editor in Chief Hedley Donovan (see box below and on page 40), both Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Mrs. Meir displayed a measure of perhaps ritualistic truculence.

Most of the crossfire--polemical as well as real--was shot off by both sides in an effort to gain tactical advantages when Kissinger's diplomatic tour de force resumes late this month or early in April. Both Israel and Syria have agreed to attend disengagement talks in Washington; at Syrian insistence, each will meet separately with U.S. officials. Apart from a peremptory Syrian rejection of Israel's first disengagement proposals (which involved P.O.W. exchanges, limited Israeli withdrawal and a possible U.N. buffer zone between the two armies), nothing much has happened to spur the talks forward.

On the Golan Heights, "the Syrians fire sporadically," said one Israeli battalion commander. "We never know when they will begin, and we don't know when they will stop. There is no logic to it." In fact, the logic was to get the Israelis to negotiate seriously. The firing may also have been designed to reassure hawks back in Damascus that President Hafez Assad is truly determined to recover all Syrian land captured by Israel in two wars.

The gun battles had some advantages for Israel as well. Mrs. Meir was able to point to the threat of renewed fighting to convince Defense Minister Moshe Dayan to join the Cabinet (TIME, March 18). Dayan brought other holdouts with him, and a Cabinet crisis ended. By a vote of 62 to 46, with nine abstentions, the Knesset last week gave Mrs. Meir her mandate.

However veiled, telling pressures for continuing the Israeli-Syrian disengagement talks were there. Sadat is believed to be willing to take part in discussions if asked. Assad is undoubtedly aware that the Arab world's most prestigious leader is now breathing over his shoulder. Both the Palestinians and Jordan's King Hussein are also anxious to begin talks, once Syria's are completed. The Palestinians, however, received little hope of accommodation last week from Golda Meir. During the Knesset's debate on her government, Mrs. Meir warned: "Israel rejects the establishment of an additional separate Arab state west of the Jordan." Since Israel's National Religious Party, at least, insists on retaining portions of the West Bank, Mrs. Meir indicated that she plans a national referendum before she signs any peace agreement with Hussein.

There is also pressure on Israel to keep Kissinger's negotiating cycle going. Mrs. Meir admitted that "the Yom Kippur War must leave its mark on our concepts, our actions, our way of life in every sphere." Underscoring her point, the government distributed a booklet, The Fallen and the Missing in the Yom Kippur War, containing the names of all 2,552 Israeli soldiers killed in action in October; the first 350,000 copies printed were quickly gone, and 150,000 more ordered. And in the Knesset, Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir set a price tag of $7.14 billion on the October war. He announced a new budget of $8.44 billion, nearly half of it for defense, and warned that Israel will have to borrow for years to come to cover war costs and maintain its security.

The new government will be under pressure to negotiate not only swiftly but also well. Although Foreign Minister Abba Eban was in Washington last week to discuss disengagement in general as well as U.S. aid, Israel's negotiator will probably be Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. That would please Washington. Says one ranking U.S. official: "Most Israeli leaders will talk to you about that hill or this crossroad. Dayan is the only one who can see the whole landscape of a possible disengagement." Dayan, however, is under severe criticism at home for the lack of preparedness that led to heavy Israeli losses early in the war. Unless he can make a spectacular recovery in the Washington talks he may be forced to resign. If he does, the entire government may fall with him, putting a fresh roadblock in the way of ultimate settlement.

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