"Wrong Signal, Wrong Time"

Jerusalem's answer on the West Bank further dims peace prospects

After almost two months of standing in the wings, the Middle East is back on the diplomatic stage again. When he visits Jerusalem this week for Israel's 30th anniversary celebrations, Vice President Walter Mondale will talk with Israeli leaders about how to get the stalled peace negotiations moving once more. After that, he plans to fly on to Alexandria for a meeting with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

Depending on how Mondale fares, Washington hopes to arrange a July meeting in Europe, probably in London, between Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and his Egyptian counterpart, Mohammed Ibrahim Kamel. Also attending: U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Following that, Vance might soon find himself flying to the Middle East for the fifth time since he took office 17 months ago.

What triggered much of this latest activity was Israel's response to two questions that the Carter Administration put to Dayan during a Washington visit two months ago. The U.S. pointedly asked Dayan to clarify Jerusalem's position on the captured Arab territory in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip: Would Israel be willing to declare that at the end of five years the final status of these areas would be resolved? And how might this resolution take place?

The government of Premier Menachem Begin took its time in arriving at its answers. When it finally did so last week, it was almost a year to the day after the ailing Polish-born guerrilla fighter and political mystic came to power and seven months following Sadat's "sacred mission" to Jerusalem. But the passage of time had not changed attitudes. The Israeli government's response was only a crisp observation that five years after a peace agreement Israel would be willing to negotiate "the nature of future relations" between itself and the West Bank. With that virtual nonanswer, the Begin government signaled once more that it was determined to hold on to the West Bank and Gaza at any price, even at the cost of foreclosing the best opportunity Israel has had to make peace with its Arab neighbors since its founding 30 years ago.

That was bad news for practically everybody; even within Israel it was widely criticized. Two of Begin's 19 Cabinet colleagues abstained from the Knesset vote, and a third, Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, stormed out of the meeting shouting and cursing. The decision, in his view, "will lead us all to another round of wars. I will go and prepare the army for the next war." The Labor opposition was also sharply critical. "What is the point of giving an answer that nobody will accept?" demanded Opposition Leader Shimon Peres. "Who needs a decision that by its very nature is a neither-nor reply?" Added former Premier Yitzhak Rabin: "It is ridiculous that the three main Cabinet members cannot agree on a decision like this."

The Jerusalem Post blasted the regime's response as "irrelevant" and "neither a yes, nor a no, nor even a maybe" --although, in fact, it confirmed Begin's continued unwillingness to give up any part of what he regards as the historic land of Israel. The mass-circulation daily Ha'aretz noted: "If even members of the Israeli Cabinet voted against the reply, one can hardly expect the Israeli answer to be welcomed enthusiastically in Cairo." Ma'ariv, the afternoon daily, was equally foreboding. "It may be possible to gain a few weeks' breathing space," said the paper. "But it will not be possible to ease American pressure or improve relations with Washington, which are at a distressingly low level." On the same theme, Post Columnist Meir Mer-hav predicted: "There will be a gradual disengagement, not between us and the Arabs, but between the U.S. and Israel. Formerly open doors will become closed, listening ears will turn deaf, and warm sympathy will become icy scrutiny."

Indeed, the U.S. response was chilly. While the State Department, after a three-day pause, merely expressed "regret" that Israel had not been more forthcoming, Washington's mood was spelled out more bluntly by one of Israel's leading champions, New York's Republican Senator Jacob Javits. On the Senate floor, Javits said unhappily that the Begin government's answer was "a disappointment," a petulant declaration that is "the wrong signal, at the wrong time, and argues with the wrong party ... I hope this is not Israel's last word."

Israel, Javits added, must "come forward with a more precise statement of its views as to the permanent status of the West Bank and Gaza." Otherwise, he said, the U.S. might be driven to try to impose its own peace plan on the Israelis and Arabs alike.

Javits also rapped Sadat for not following up his peace initiative with much more than "public rhetoric," and he urged the Egyptian to take a more active role in the negotiations. Yet all that certain U.S. Jewish organizations and "spokesmen" seemed to notice were the Senator's comments on Israeli policy. Some organizations, like the American Jewish Committee, backed Javits and described him as "a very, very good friend of Israel." Other groups had much different feelings. The American Jewish Congress, which tends to shoot from the hip and almost automatically supports Israel's position in any Middle East argument, criticized Javits for climbing aboard the "Let's-put-more-pressure-on-Israel bandwagon." Richard Cohen, a New York spokesman of that organization, declared: "We believe that the life-and-death decisions involving Israel's security can only be made by the people who will have to pay with their lives for those decisions." National Director Bonnie Pechter of the radical Jewish Defense League angrily denounced the Senator as "a Jew who has forgotten he's Jewish."

While the groups that attacked Javits professed to reflect the dews of U.S. Jewry, many prominent American Jews sharply disagreed. Connecticut's Senator Abraham Ribicoff, a staunch supporter of Israel who drew much heat from the Israeli lobby when he backed the Administration's sale of warplanes to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, was "in complete agreement" with Javits on Israeli withdrawal from Arab lands. Los Angeles Rabbi Allen Freehling, president of the Southern California division of the American Jewish Congress, took issue with the position of his group's national leadership. "I refuse to go along with the philosophy that you don't criticize Israel in public," he said. "I think Javits' statement is an articulation of a frustration on the part of many Jews and non-Jews that peace is slipping by. Knee-jerk reaction to criticize anyone who criticizes Israel is being a bit irresponsible."

Adds a prominent American Jew who has held posts in four Administrations: "Javits absolutely reflects thoughtful Jewish opinion and the feelings of Americans friendly to Israel. The Israeli response was an evasion; it suggested a real lack of readiness to find an answer."

Perhaps the biggest loser in last week's Israeli Cabinet decision was Anwar Sadat. Jerusalem's decision will increase the pressure he has been getting from several quarters to renounce his peace initiative in the interest of restoring Arab unity. Among the friends who are pressing him to change course is Jordan's King Hussein, who has urged him to acknowledge publicly that his peace effort has failed. Sadat has refused. Among his foes is his own ambassador to Lisbon, former General Saadeddin Shazli, who was fired from his post last week after savagely denouncing Sadat. Shazli has disliked Sadat ever since Sadat removed him as Chief of Staff shortly after the 1973 October War, and he appears to see himself as available to charge home from exile if asked to replace a faltering Sadat.

The Egyptian President's reaction to the Israeli vote was publicly mild. "If the peace initiative should fail," he said, "it will not be the end of the world. There will be a new approach." Privately, he has taken comfort from the amount of opposition in Israel to Begin's stand, particularly Weizman's strong reaction. Sadat has threatened in the past to let the Sinai disengagement agreement lapse in October, when it comes up for renewal, if the impasse has not been broken by then. But what he really hopes is that the U.S. will become what he calls a "full partner" in the negotiations. Translation: he wants the U.S. to come up with its own peace plan, judging that it would be closer to Egypt's position than to Israel's and would not be easy for the Israelis to dismiss out of hand.

Despite its disappointment with the Israeli decision, Washington is not inclined to try to press any peace proposals of its own. Indeed, while Washington has some ideas ready, no "U.S. plan" exists at present. Instead, the Carter Administration maneuvered to keep peace prospects alive by getting Sadat to formulate his own West Bank proposal, either alone or with King Hussein. This would counter Jerusalem's complaint that nobody else has come up with a concrete proposal for the West Bank, and it would get the two sides talking again. Later on it could pave the way for the U.S. to propose a compromise formula without appearing to be trying to impose a solution. Last week the effort appeared to be working: U.S. Ambassador to Cairo Hermann Eilts was invited to Sadat's vacation villa at Alexandria to hear the outlines of a proposal to return the West Bank to Jordan and Gaza to Egypt.

Washington observers feel that the next few weeks may prove crucial in determining whether the Sadat initiative can be rescued and Sadat can survive politically. For the second year in a row, an international financial consortium made up of the U.S., Saudi Arabia, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and several European countries has agreed to a multibillion-dollar aid package covering Egypt's foreign-currency needs. Though that will allow Sadat to import enough wheat to keep his people fed, they still hunger for the peace-borne prosperity he has led them to expect. Says one White House official: "If we can't get the negotiations process restarted now, Sadat may have to take a walk. If that happens, it may take another ten or 15 years before we get another important Arab leader who is willing to go as far as he has." That is a fact that Israelis, as well as their supporters in the U.S.. should ponder.

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