Whose Nerves Are Stronger?

"Right now there is psychological warfare," said a ranking Israeli official. "And only the side with the stronger nerves will manage." By late last week, the Carter Administration was more pessimistic about the outcome of the Washington peace talks between Egypt and Israel than it had been since negotiations began more than a month ago. At the White House, according to one Administration official, there was now "a sort of gnawing concern" that the talks might actually fail. In Cairo, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat gloomily remarked that he would not be astonished to see the negotiations break down.

That discouraging prospect was all the more frustrating to the U.S. since most of the outstanding issues had been settled. Indeed, according to an Israeli estimate, the draft peace treaty was "75% to 80%" complete. The two sides had reached agreement on such crucial issues as the end of the 30-year state of war and the establishment of relations, the exchange of ambassadors, the location of boundaries, the placement of troops and the role of United Nations forces, and Israeli navigation rights in the Gulf of Suez. Egypt and Israel had also reached a meeting of minds on the future of two Israeli-built airbases in Sinai and the number and size of Egyptian fortifications in the desert peninsula.

The main obstacle is finding the right language for the thorniest problem of all: the "linkage" between the treaty and further negotiations toward a wider peace between Israel and its other Arab neighbors. In the opinion of U.S. diplomats, the negotiators have actually had an agreement on a linkage formula for at least two weeks, but things seem to come unstuck when the delegations return home to seek the approval of their governments. Two weeks ago, for example, Israeli Premier Menachem Begin, who was on a visit to the U.S. and Canada, sent Defense Minister Ezer Weizman back to Jerusalem to secure the Cabinet's acceptance of a compromise proposal.

To Weizman's chagrin, the Cabinet rejected the proposal because the linkage between the Israeli-Egyptian treaty and broader peace negotiations was too strong. The document called for the two nations to begin practical negotiations on Palestinian self-government within a month of the treaty's signing. Six months later, general elections were to be held on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that would set up a functioning Palestinian administrative council.

After the cabinet's vote, one senior official said: "It will be most difficult for even Begin himself to convince us to make more concessions." Some Middle East observers wondered whether Begin was in full control of his Cabinet; others speculated that he might privately welcome some of his colleagues' truculence. At week's end, after summoning his chief Washington negotiators to Toronto for consultations, Begin made plans to fly home to discuss the state of the negotiations with his parliament.

Nobody was angrier about the Israeli Cabinet's latest action than Jimmy Carter. In his Kansas City news conference late last week, the President declared with accuracy: "There has never been any doubt in my mind, nor President Sadat's, nor Premier Begin's, that one of the premises for the Camp David negotiations was a comprehensive peace settlement." In fact, the President continued, Begin himself had said that he did not seek merely a separate peace treaty. But when the latest draft of the tentative agreement was referred to the governments back home, said Carter, "sometimes the work that has been done is partially undone."

The linkage is particularly important to Sadat, who is still trying to convince the moderate Arab states, and especially Saudi Arabia, that he is not selling out the Arab cause but is working for an overall settlement. Sadat has been disappointed that the Saudis, whose economic support is crucial to Egypt, have not publicly endorsed the Camp David accords. In truth they have been giving him some behind-the-scenes help. At a pan-Arab summit conference in Baghdad, which was convened by Iraq to counter the peace initiative, Saudi Crown Prince Fahd told the other delegates: "An attack on Sadat or Egypt will be considered an attack on Saudi Arabia." He went along with a pro forma condemnation of Camp David, but fought off efforts to impose economic sanctions against Egypt.

A second issue holding up the Washington negotiations concerns Sinai oil. With unrest spreading in Iran, which supplies 40% of Israel's oil, Jerusalem wants to make sure it has an ironclad agreement to buy Sinai oil from Egypt. It also wants the Neptune Oil Co., a U.S. firm that currently has an Israeli contract to pump oil in the Sinai, to continue to do so. Egypt has refused to deal with Neptune, arguing that the company is working the Sinai fields illegally. Complicating these negotiations is the fact that they are tied to simultaneous bargaining over Israeli troop withdrawal from the Sinai.

U.S. negotiators are somewhat annoyed at Israeli attempts to delay any agreement on the treaty until the U.S. has formally agreed to pay the full cost of the withdrawal, including replacement of the two big Sinai airfields. "This issue has nothing to do with the Israeli negotiations with Egypt," complained an American involved in the talks. "We didn't ask them to build those two Sinai airfields or put in all that sophisticated intelligence equipment. They may balk, but they'd better realize that there's not much receptivity in the U.S. to the idea of our footing the bill for their total withdrawal."

On balance, it seemed likely that the Egyptians and the Israelis would be able to resolve their remaining differences in time to sign the treaty by Dec. 17, the deadline agreed upon at Camp David. When agreement is reached, the principals are expected to celebrate the historic occasion by staging twin ceremonies in Cairo and Jerusalem. In the meantime, however, the worrisome final business of linkage must somehow be settled.

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