Another Week of Rhetoric and War Jitters

The Middle East was going through a spell of war jitters last week, another period of tension of the kind that has afflicted it since last spring. The basic reason was the absence of any fresh movement toward a peace settlement, and the reluctance of the principals to negotiate boldly toward achieving that end. The symptoms were a spate of new incidents of border righting between the Israelis and the fedayeen and a disturbing rise in the reckless rhetoric of war.

Terrorist Bomb. The Israelis were back attacking Lebanon last week, this time destroying houses in the village of Majdal al Zoun and taking Lebanese prisoners back to Israel with them. Hours later, the fedayeen retaliated by staging a rocket and grenade attack on an Israeli border kibbutz in eastern Galilee. At week's end, a terrorist bomb exploded in a police car in downtown Jerusalem, wounding 13 people.

Both Israeli and Arab leaders were despondent about a prevailing sense that both sides might be drifting toward war. A week ago, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy had declared in Cairo that peace in the Middle East would require Israel "not to increase the number of its immigrants for the next 50 years" (TIME, Dec. 23). The limited-immigration question has been an issue since the 1920s but it has rarely been mentioned as a formal Arab demand since 1948. Some observers believe that Fahmy's comment was directed not only at Israel as a bargaining device but also at the Soviet Union and the U.S. The Arab nations were notably annoyed by Moscow's supposed agreement to allow increased emigration of Soviet Jews in return for U.S. trade concessions, (see THE NATION). One Israeli diplomat professed to be encouraged by Fahmy's remark. "At least Fahmy thinks Israel will be here 50 years from now," he quipped.

In an interview with Iranian Publisher Farhad Massoudi, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat described the current Middle East situation as "a time bomb that, unless defused, would explode." Sadat also said that he still has hope for negotiations, stressing that the momentum that began with the disengagement agreements last January and May must somehow be revived--either through U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's proposed step-by-step negotiations or through a Geneva conference, which the Soviet Union favors.

Sadat is steering an extremely careful course between the two superpowers. He knows that Kissinger would like to attempt another round of personal negotiations, which, it is hoped, would result in a further Israeli withdrawal in the Sinai. The Egyptian President also knows, however, that Soviet Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev, who will visit Cairo in mid-January, will emphasize the need for an early resumption of the Geneva conference, through which the Soviets might recoup some of the Middle East influence they lost last year when Sadat turned to the West for support and Kissinger scored his disengagement successes. Moreover, Sadat knows he must not move too quickly lest he seem to be abandoning Syria, his principal ally in the October war. For his part, Syrian President Hafez Assad, whose forces have already been resupplied by the Soviets, believes he has a better chance of getting a satisfactory peace settlement for his country through a Geneva conference than through bilateral negotiations with Israel.

The Israelis are also apprehensive about the apparent drift toward war, though they still seem unprepared to make any concessions that might lead to meaningful negotiations. Foreign Minister Yigal Allon left the impression in a recent trip to Washington that on the eve of the Sadat-Brezhnev meeting in Cairo, the Israelis see little point in making a firm commitment for a further withdrawal either in Sinai or on the Golan.

Tactical Reasons. Premier Yitzhak Rabin apparently believes that Egypt, in return for the arms that the Soviets will undoubtedly agree to provide it, will join Moscow and Damascus in a demand for a resumption of the Geneva conference with the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Rabin expects the Arabs to call for total Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories and for the establishment of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza.

In the past, the Israelis have insisted on Arab declarations of nonbelligerence, formal agreements on an end of the economic boycott, the opening of the Suez Canal (see following story) and the beginning of trade relations as the price of further Israeli withdrawal. For tactical reasons, Rabin has now set his sights much lower. He will not agree to give up the Abu Rudeis oilfields, which now provide Israel with 50% of its petroleum needs, or the Giddi and Mitla passes in the Sinai without substantial Egyptian concessions. But for a renewal of the terms of disengagement between Israel and Egypt, he says he is prepared to withdraw Israel's forces as much as 30 miles farther back into Sinai, though the two passes would remain in Israeli control. "Otherwise," says a Rabin aide, "we will retain nothing of importance to bargain with in the next stage."

More Tanks. While Rabin was saying that he was prepared to meet Sadat "any time and anyplace" for peace talks, Israel was also preparing to fight. Ever since the October war it has been frantically restocking its arsenals, replenishing its fuel reservoirs and rebuilding its lines; at present, for instance, it has 100 more planes and 330 more tanks than it had at the start of the October war. Two of the country's most distinguished retired generals--Israel Tal, its top armor strategist, and Ariel ("Arik") Sharon, the brilliant, sharp-tongued tactician who led his division across the Suez Canal in October 1973--have returned to semiactive status. Sharon reportedly has been given a command in the "northern sector," meaning the Golan Heights, where he presumably would direct any battles against the Syrians, who according to Israeli sources have violated the disengagement agreement by placing more tanks and heavy-artillery batteries in the limited-forces zone than the agreement permits.

Another sign of rising tension is chilling talk about nuclear capabilities. Early this month Israel's President, Biophysicist Ephraim Katzir, offhandedly told a group of visiting British journalists that Israel "has a nuclear potential." When asked if this was not a matter for concern, he replied glibly: "Why should it worry us? Let the world worry about it." Premier Rabin subsequently declared, with disturbing ambiguity, that while Israel would not be the first Middle East nation to use nuclear weapons, neither could it afford to be the second. If the Arabs should use missiles against Israeli cities, he added, Israel "has the capability to inflict ten times as much --if not more--damage to their centers of population."

Interpreted literally, the angry rhetoric would suggest that the Arabs and the Israelis were once again on a collision course. According to the latest poll of the Institute of Applied Social Research, 69% of the Israeli public believe that war will happen--though not necessarily right away. U.S. diplomats argue that any collision is probably several months away, and that the real danger will come in the spring, by which time the snows will be melting in the Golan Heights, the Soviet Union may well have begun a military resupply to Egypt, and the mandate for U.N. troops on the Golan and Sinai cease-fire lines will be running out. The best hope for heading off war still lies in a further round of bilateral negotiations leading to another step in the process of phased withdrawal. Since all parties recognize that the U.S. has to be the catalyst in such negotiations, the big question is why Washington has adopted such a kid-glove approach in urging Jerusalem to take a more meaningful first step in that direction.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.