The Mideast Impasse

...most oflsrael's generals do not, nor, we are told, do her Foreign Minister or her Minister of Defense...

...It is not clear whether Israel's reluctance to make the statement arises out of a fear for Israel's safety or out of other considerations...

...But when Sadat withdrew his delegation, the cynic relaxed...

...And why should Israel talk to Sadat about the West Bank...

...Instead of restoring confidence in the federal government, as he had promised during his campaign, President Carter appears to be adding still another chapter to our experience with civic disillusion...

...We simply cannot afford, either on substantive grounds, or, for that matter, on public relations grounds, to ignore the chance— however small—that the process that began last November contains the seed of peace...

...These things cause him to refrain from the contemptuous dismissal of Egypt's president as a theatrical charlatan...

...His original policy, in effect, was to negotiate an agreement that would not bring peace until many years had passed...

...It is not about whether an Israel that is eight miles wide at its narrowest is safer than an Israel that is twelve or even twenty miles wide at its narrowest...

...Up to this point, Israel has not been prepared to make such a statement...

...Begin to power...

...Israel is intransigent...

...For the time being, the discussion goes nowhere, because it is not about the central issue...

...He cannot believe the President of the United States when Mr...

...In so doing, it has parted company with all earlier administrations, and with Israel as well...

...It is, therefore, likely that the war-making capability of the West Bank can, for all practical purposes, be drastically curtailed...

...to the ad lib character of the President's initial references to a Palestinian entity, homeland, or whatever...

...In their view, when labor and management sit down to bargain, management is entitled to know beforehand that if its offer is accepted, the union members will return to their jobs...

...It is up to the government to explain why the land no longer serves, if that be the case, and, more important still, what specific arrangements can substitute for the security the land was thought to nrovide...

...No, look at Sadat's excessive concern for a few square miles of Sinai sand, the map, the Holocaust, look anywhere and you will find, again and again, always, everywhere: we stand alone in a world of ill-wishers...

...Then how can the debate proceed...

...Yet it is the cynic's voice that now carries the day...

...the same dictionary defines the cynic as a person disposed to rail or find fault, one disposed to deny and sneer at the sincerity and goodness of human motives and actions...

...So, survivalists always, we learned how to live even there...

...We are entitled to be skeptical...

...It would be no small thing to create a situation in which neither Egypt nor Jordan would want war and in which the West Bank, whatever it wanted, could not make war...

...If, therefore, there is to be a change in the disposition of the Israeli electorate, it is up to the Israeli government to show why and how an established wisdom should now be overturned...

...But Israel's leaders have not said that, and it is not likely that they believe that...

...Grist for the cynic's mill...

...He seeks only a pledge, not a pact...

...It is about the risks of trying to hang on to the West Bank as compared to the risks of relinquishing the West Bank...

...But this shift in American perspective is not inherently an anti-Israel shift, not unless one is prepared to ignore the substantial body of Israeli opinion which has long held the same view, not unless one is prepared to ignore the American insistence that there be no autonomous Palestinian state on the West Bank, not unless one is prepared to ignore the distinction between the PLO and the Palestinians, not unless one is prepared to ignore the obvious possibility that people committed to the same benign ends will have divergent analyses of the nature of the problem they face...

...The Labor government—especially Mrs...

...There is not a Jew alive who is not alert to the possibility, always, of anti-Semitism...

...From the podium of the Knesset, Sadat restated every traditional Arab demand...

...The question of American intentions, in short, cannot be decided on the basis of the change of perspective towards the Palestinians...

...But that is not reason enough to turn away from it...

...What does the cynic say about President Sadat...

...In the view of some observers, this means that Jordan is asserting prior conditions to what should be open negotiations...

...He must demonstrate to the rest of the Arab world that he has paid attention to their interests as well...

...In the meantime, whatever the reasoning of the Israeli government, it is clear that many Israelis are deeply persuaded that Israel's security does, indeed, depend on retention of the West Bank...

...The way the problem is here stated is essentially the way it is perceived by Israeli policy-makers, the only open question being whether or not, in their view, security is the only relevant issue...

...But the cynic once again goes beyond the facts...

...Briefly, in November and December, that knowledge was questioned...

...According to that scheme, Israel would have been expected to make tangible present concessions in return for intangible present promises regarding future behavior...

...He is relieved to have his darkest suspicions confirmed...

...What guarantees can there be that the PLO will not come to control the area, what assurances that a demilitarization of the territory will be honored, what tangible arrangements that can serve as a substitute, or even an improvement on, the security that retention of the land provides...

...The skeptic takes a different view...

...It has defined the Palestinian question as the central issue of the conflict...

...But Israel has thus far named no set of security arrangements which it would accept as a substitute for the land of the West Bank...

...Then, last November, Anwar Sadat, for reasons of his own, laid down a pipe from the swamp to the fresh and flowing waters of peace...

...In an effort to provide at least some initial assurance, both Sadat and Carter have assured Israel that they do not insist on, in fact do not wish, an autonomous Palestinian state...

...The most widespread criticism of Menachem Begin among American Jews is that he—and Israel—have been ineffective in presenting Israel's case...

...The skeptic questions what those limits are...

...If and when the negotiations are actively resumed, they will surely focus precisely on those arrangements, and it is the arrangements that are finally agreed to that will have to be sold to the Israeli electorate...

...For there will be time enough for blame after the hope for peace has disappeared, been smothered...

...For if they are not about that, they are about an arrangement which Jordan is not prepared to accept...

...What cannot be completely controlled, not by any arrangement that anyone has thought to propose, is the use of the West Bank as a staging ground for terrorist attacks on Israel...

...The current effort to assign blame for the lack of progress in the negotiations is a snare and a diversion...

...He homes in on the motives...

...This group clearly outnumbers by a very wide margin a smaller group who, for religious or historical reasons, are ready to risk the security of the State, if it comes to that, rather than to repartition it...

...It reflects a destructively distorted perspective, an inability to credit and adjust to dramatic shifts in the Middle East reality, an insistence on business as usual that could easily destroy an unprecedented and promising opportunity...

...Carter...

...The skeptic listens carefully to Sadat's expressed opposition to an autonomous Palestinian state on the West Bank, and to Sadat's acceptance of the principle that any change in status on the West Bank should be introduced gradually...

...In short, the current impasse is not about the things it is most often thought to be about by Israel's defenders in America...

...It is possible, of course, that in the considered judgment of Israel's leaders there are no such arrangements, that only the land offers adequate assurance of security...

...to the proposed sale of warplanes to the Saudis, and the linking of a long-standing commitment to sell Israel more planes to that controversial Saudi proposal...

...Jordan has not entered the peace talks for several reasons, among which the most important is that it requires prior assurance that the talks will, if successful, lead to substantial Israeli withdrawal...

...Israel is rigid...

...But supposition is not enough, and even though the risk can never be entirely eliminated, some tougher and clearer proposals will have to start being examined...

...The Carter administration has introduced one fundamental and far-reaching change in America's approach to the Middle East...

...For the fact is that the issues, for the first time in three decades, are not about propaganda and public relations...

...here and there, the Israelis still score a modest victory, but the tide of the battle now runs in Arab favor...

...In the cynic's view, the Sadat initiative was hokum...

...Israeli doctrine is, as pre-Carter American doctrine had been, that Egypt is the key to the Arab-Israel conflict...

...The cynic knows: oil, and anti-Semitism...

...He need only point to the Administration's early and gratuitous courting of the Syrians, the PLO, the Russians...

...But it may not be enough for Israel to live free of the threat of war if that freedom can be had only at the expense of increased terrorism...

...Of late, however, the propaganda initiative has shifted in favor of the Arabs...

...Galili—hammered steadily at the security benefits the West Bank provided Israel and at the threats that withdrawal from it would present...

...For many Israelis, Israel's security and its retention of the West Bank thus became axiomatically synonymous...

...The most that Israel has said is that the issue of sovereignty can be discussed again five years after some sort of interim agreement for the West Bank is reached...

...The skeptic questions the reliability of a negotiating partner who is capable of the kind of petulance Sadat has shown...

...The more embracing—and intriguing— answer is that since Israel has all along denied that Jordanian sovereignty over the West Bank from 1948 to 1967 had any legal standing, there is no basis for Israel's present insistence that Jordan and only Jordan is a proper partner for talks on the future of the West Bank...

...Third, Sadat has indicated that he is prepared to acknowledge the legitimacy of Israel's security concerns and, within certain limits, to be responsive to them...

...No, look at Sadat's restatement of Egypt's maximalist demands in Jerusalem, look at America's readiness to defer to the Saudis, look at the reluctance of other Arabs to enter the peace process...

...The skeptic who honestly questions those intentions awaits an answer to the one critical question: if Israel is to give up its claim to the West Bank, how will its security be protected...

...The skeptic wonders why a Sadat who has publicly insisted that Israel must give back every inch but has privately assured the Americans and the Israelis that he will accept minor border rectification is not challenged to make public his private assurances...

...Sadat, too, was a fraud...

...And nothing we alone could do reclaimed that swamp...

...Inhaling the cleaner air, we feel pain...

...One would suppose that the United States would insist that the Saudis cease forthwith their subsidy to the PLO, one would suppose that Israelis would work alongside Jordanian intelligence teams to provide the information that is an essential form of defense against terrorism, one would suppose that Israel's retaliatory capacity would serve as a major inhibitor of terrorism...

...Obviously, Israel's security cannot be adequately assured merely by the assertion of Jordanian control over the West Bank...

...We dare not be cynical...

...Sadat...

...It is likely that any reasonable demand that Israel might have for the protection of its safety upon a substantial withdrawal from the West Bank would be accepted and endorsed by both Egypt and the United States, as well, ultimately, as Jordan...

...From the Egyptian perspective, Israel's answer to that question is the critical element in the current phase of the peace process...

...The skeptic acknowledges that Sadat has already said more than anyone dreamed, a short year ago, an Egyptian leader would ever say...

...Presumably, it is the other considerations that are the more important, since, if safety alone were at issue, the clause in the statement that ties Israeli withdrawal to the development of satisfactory security arrangements should be sufficient...

...Accordingly, one of the few new developments in recent weeks has been the promise of extended conversations between Egypt and Israel regarding the West Bank...

...And when, for example, the cynic hears a United States Senator such as Lowell Weicker denounce the President and denounce the Director of the National Security Council, Zbigniew Brzezinski, on the grounds that "when national leaders ran into difficulties they find it convenient to blame their problems on the Jews and we know the results," he cheers enthusiastically...

...Which gives rise to the question of why Jordan has not entered the peace talks, and why Israel should be prepared to talk to Sadat about the West Bank...

...Begin is afraid—as he has reason to be— that once Israel declares its readiness in principle to withdraw from the bulk of the West Bank, President Carter—or his successor—will steadily whittle away at Israel's security demands, claiming each time Israel objects that she is intransigent...

...Stated most simply, President Sadat's position is that he cannot, whether for political or for ideological reasons, negotiate a wholly separate peace with the Israelis...

...Instead of searching each new development for that which might serve as a foundation for forward movement, instead of accepting Shimon Peres' invitation to use the Sadat initiative as an occasion for radically rethinking the entire Arab-Israel conflict, we resort to the familiar—and futile—slogans that have served us so well in the past...

...The current impasse is not about the things it is most often thought to be about by Israel's defenders in America...

...What is at stake in the Middle East just now is not even the good opinion of the world...

...That is the question that was put to Mr...

...Our lungs have become accustomed to the dank air of tension...

...For most ofthat period, the Israelis, aided and abetted by the American Jewish community—and still more by the facts of the dispute—have had the upper hand in the war of words...

...At the same time, it is possible that Mr...

...a skeptic, says the dictionary, is one who maintains a doubting attitude with respect to a particular statement...

...First, by virtue of the trip to Israel itself, Sadat acknowledged that his map of the Middle East now has room for Israel...

...Investment of our principal energies in enthusiastic restatement of time-honored and time-worn arguments, even when the restatement is convincing, even when the arguments have merit, is not constructive investment...

...Given such a statement, it is likely that Sadat would then be willing to proceed with a separate agreement with Israel...

...In order to be consistent in his interpretation, the cynic cannot permit himself to believe the spokespeople of this administration when they assert that the American commitment to the State of Israel is unshakable, or that the American intention in the current situation is to defend Israel's safety and welfare...

...Meir and Mr...

...In the Jordanian view, however, the invitation to participate in peace talks that do not have as their explicit goal the withdrawal they seek is an invitation to participate in a charade...

...Technically, therefore, that is what the argument comes down to, if it is really an argument about security alone...

...He hears three new elements in Sadat's presentation...

...It is not enough to say that land is less important than peace, not to people who deeply believe that without land there is no security, hence only the peace of the graveyard...

...Carter says that America has no higher priority in the Middle East than Israel's security...

...While the hope is with us still, why should American Jews move beyond healthy doubt and into strident disbelief...

...That, and not an abstract and sterile debate over the wisdom of one analysis rather than another or over the purity or impurity of motive is what the argument should be about...

...Within that general framework, he has indicated his willingness to accept from Israel a statement of principle, a present announcement of Israel's future intention to relinquish its claim to the West Bank if appropriate security guarantees can be agreed upon...

...Who profits then by newspaper ads denouncing President Sadat, emphasizing his erstwhile Nazi sympathies and his current alleged intransigence...

...The impasse in the negotiations is about one thing...

...Obviously, this represents a major change in Egyptian policy, a change which other Arab states apparently regard as significant, as does Israel...

...Second, Sadat has explicitly modified his earlier statement that full normalization of relations between Israel and Egypt will have to wait for a generation after a peace agreement has been reached...

...Further, Israel will have to accept that, in the final analysis, there are no perfect guarantees—any more than retention of the West Bank is a perfect guarantee, whether against war or against terrorism...

...The central issue, again and again, is whether there is anything at all that will do as well as the land is alleged to do for Israel's security...

...The impasse, therefore, is not about whether Sadat can be trusted, or about why Hussein does not join the talks, or about Brzezinski's feelings towards Jews...

...For thirty years now, we have been bogged down in a stinking, rotten swamp...

...That is, Jordan feels entitled to demand that the negotiations be about the conditions that Israel requires for withdrawal...

...The issues, for the first time in three decades, are not about propaganda and public relations...

...But the Jewish cynic converts the possible into the probable, and that is a sickness, that is History not as a resource but as a trap...

...Accordingly, vast efforts are invested in "proving" that it is not the Israelis, but others, who are responsible for the current impasse...

...Does it profit Israel...

...The Carter administration has come to be widely perceived as a major American disappointment...

...And the reason it should be about that is that if there are guarantees and assurances and arrangements that will serve, and we never get to hear them because we have been quarreling about other things, we shall have made a terrible mistake...

...Very extensive additional guarantees and assurances are required, such as demilitarization and inspection...

...Accordingly, we are talking, presumably, about a West Bank that would be linked to Jordan...

...And if the still small voice of peace is drowned out by a chorus of blame, everyone—the blameless and the blameworthy alike—will suffer...

...the cynic prefers his enemies as Evil rather than merely as wrong...

...Shall we celebrate the fact mat our hysteria offends even our staunchest supporters...

...What is at stake is peace, and whether it can ever be achieved...

...The temptation to attribute this shift to the increased sophistication of the Arabs, or to their increased expenditures on propaganda, or to President Sadat's genius at public relations, or to a latent bias in the American media, is substantial, and many American Jews have succumbed to that temptation...

...The impasse...

...As, from all reports, the Israeli leadership does, the more so since it has finally accepted that Sadat will not go the route of a separate peace...

...And if the debate, in this country as well as in Israel, could come to be about that problem, rather than about all the diverse actings out of sundry other issues, we, and the cause of peace, would be better served...

...The most serious danger we now face is that appropriate skepticism will degenerate into malignant cynicism, and that the cynics'stance will prove a self-fulfilling prophecy...

...Begin during their recent trips to Washington, and that is the question they have promised to put before the Israeli cabinet in the weeks ahead...

...There is argument about this, there is argument about that, but about one thing there should be no argument: we can stay in the swamp—its stench is, after all, familiar—and close off the pipe, or we can let its waters enter our lives...

...This is a view which has only recently been pressed on the Israelis, and which they have now, apparently, accepted...

...These things cause him to take Sadat very, very seriously...

...And if the answer is that there are no guarantees, no assurances, no arrangements, then the proposal falls...

...to the warmth shown Sadat and the coldness shown Begin...

...For thirty years, the cynic has known that no Arab leader can be trusted...

...The issue is not whether one side or the other is more effective in stating its case...

...Very few people are competent to judge the nature of the terrorist risk that Israel would face under the circumstances of formal peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt, together with substantial Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank...

...Is there not enough that is genuinely troublesome in the Carter policies without the wild accusations of a Lowell Weicker...

...It does not matter that such long-standing friends of Israel as Daniel Patrick Moynihan or Jacob Javits rise to distinguish between the administration's motive and its method, to assure the audience that the leaders of the Carter administration are men of "transparent honor...

...Dayan and to Mr...

...Israel is inflexible...

...It is about Israel's intentions on the West Bank...

...This view long antedates the accession of Likud and Mr...

...Even the most even-tempered, the most credulous observer is troubled by these peculiar episodes...

...There is argument that it can be closed off at any time...

...But the skeptic will not accept the cynic's conclusion that because Sadat has shown that he is not interested in a separate treaty between Israel and Egypt at this time, Sadat is not interested in peace at all...

...American Jews have been among his more severe critics, but they are hardly alone, and the specific criticisms of the Carter policies and practices on the Middle East are surely fueled, in some measure, by the growing sense that this president is fair game for everyone...

...Without such a statement, he is not...

...Whatever else may be said about that, it is at the least a discrete problem...

...The limited answer is that Sadat does not seek a prolonged conversation about the West Bank...

...There is argument how wide a pipe it was...

...Must we applaud those who pander to our basest instincts, who seek to exploit our legitimate fears for their political profit...

...But now Sadat has emphasized, again and again, his commitment to a genuine and total peace immediately upon the agreement to a treaty—a proposal which might mean, depending on the details of the agreement, a set of mutual and reciprocal concessions...

...No, look at Sadat's petulant withdrawal of his delegation from Jerusalem, look at America's abandonment of its historic commitment to Israel, look at the PLO's continuing murderousness...