How Israel Sees Reagan

...The Jordanian Option implies a willingness to hand back to Jordan those parts of the West Bank that are not considered vital for the security of Israel, instead of providing autonomy for the entire West Bank and Gaza...

...Whether Reagan was aware of it or not, this sounded pretty close to an endorsement of the "Jordanian Option" favored by Israel's Opposition Labor Party, now widely expected to return to power in the 1981 elections...

...Nor should one regret, they said, that the incoming Administration will need time to make its own assessment of the situation before becoming active in Middle East policy...

...He supported a united Jerusalem as Israel's capital...

...This will provide Jersualem with a welcome respite from the notion that its concessions alone would unfreeze the deadlocked Palestine autonomy talks...

...Moreover, continued these theorists who could be heard around the Prime Minister's office, since the Reagan Administration will be more "nationalistic," it is likely to have a clearer understanding of Israel's attachment to the West Bank...

...Reagan, they noted, was more unequivocally critical of the PLO than President Carter...

...Both Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat are awaiting Washington's next move, or at least a clear indication of which way President Reagan will move: He could try to revitalize the Camp David process, or he could abandon that approach and concentrate on bringing King Hussein into the talks...

...Indulging in a larger than usual dose of wishful thinking, many hardliners in the ruling Likud group (and to the Right of it) not only took at face value the pre-election rhetoric of the Republican candidate and his authorized or self-appointed spokesmen, but jumped to a number of questionable conclusions...

...Whatever the eventual case, the expectation is that once settled in the White House, the New President will reissue invitations to Begin and Sadat...

...Israeli newspapers also began to report on what some called "the Saudi connection" of many of Ronald Reagan's close advisers...

...The PLO spokesmen in Beirut and Damascus were particularly critical of the President-elect after he reaffirmed that he considered the PLO a terrorist organization, and not representative of or representing the Palestine refugees...

...The overoptimistic in Israel, meanwhile, quickly received their first shock when the final results of the Congressional elections arrived...

...And he took a tougher stand than the outgoing Administration visa-vis Soviet expansionism...

...All this, contended the hardliners, added up to sufficient proof that the new man in the White House will properly appreciate Israel's strategic value for America, stop asking it to give in to the Arabs, and even resume the honeymoon the two countries enjoyed in the early '70s-beginning with Israel's intervention to save Jordan from a Syrian invasion and lasting until the Yom Kippur War...

...they were to have held a summit conference with President Carter last month, had he been re-elected...

...Prime Minister Begin, though presumably more inclined toward Carter, managed to maintain a neutral stance publicly...

...Reagan's Republicans were a different group, largely unknown or certainly without personal connections here...

...For all practical purposes, of course, the autonomy talks are suspended...

...Soon, people in the Prime Minister's office and the Foreign Ministry realized that what was about to occur was not simply a switch from Democrats to Republicans of the kind Israeli politicians and diplomats were familiar with from the Nixon-Ford days...

...It is not clear either whether the President will decide on his Middle East policy before seeing Sadat and Begin, or whether he will use those meetings to help formulate his strategy...

...Knowledgeable Israelis, for example, did not need his controversial comments during a post-election visit to the Soviet Union to recognize the implications of having Illinois' pro-PLO Senator Charles Percy take over at Foreign Relations...

...Worst of all, the Republican majority in the Senate meant the replacement of friendly Democratic chairmen at the Foreign Relations, Appropriations and Armed Services Committees...

...It is unclear whether Reagan will pursue the tripartite summit, or opt for separate meetings with the two leaders...

...As the names William Simon, George P. Schultz and Casper Weinberger appeared daily on the front pages, the Bechtel Corporation became a household word in Israeli political circles...

...And this unpleasant discovery was underscored by reports from Washington indicating that most of the American Jewish leaders, including those associated with the Republican Party, did not have much better contacts with the Reagan regulars and the new Conservatives...

...He said that settlement on the West Bank was not contrary to international law...

...NO CLEAR READING How Israel Sees Reagan BY ELIAHU SALPETER Tel Aviv Anyone overhearing the initial reactions of some of Prime Minister Menachem Begin's faithful to Ronald Reagan's victory could be forgiven for thinking the American elections were virtually a referendum on Palestinian self determination, and the majority had just voted against it...

...If President Carter was, in Arab eyes, submitting to "Zionist and Jewish pressure groups," Reagan was an avowed and convinced Zionist with whom, at best, relations would get worse before they got better...

...Not surprisingly, the high Israeli expectations from Reagan stood in sharp contrast to the concern voiced in Arab countries, where his campaign pronouncements had been taken even more literally than in Jerusalem...

...The latter belief is directly linked to the view that Israel is bound to fare better with a first- than a second-term President, who does not have to worry about the next election...

...To top off Begin's embarrassment, the President-elect declared his interest in meeting King Hussein soon after the Inauguration, because of the great importance he attaches to Jordan's participation in future steps toward a solution of the Israeli-Arab dispute...

...But the explanation backfired a few days later, as Reagan held a one-hour meeting with West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt...

...Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who unofficially resumed his shuttle diplomacy early this month during what was billed as a fact-finding mission, seemed to imply the latter...

...In the meantime, even the Israelis who initially were euphoric about Reagan's victory have adopted what more closely resembles a wait-and-see attitude toward the next White House occupant...

...Had Carter been re-elected, so this reasoning goes, there would have been increasing pressure on Israel to negotiate with the PLO and agree to withdraw from the West Bank...

...For the conservative Republicans who swept into office with the new President defeated numerous Democrats who were old and trusted supporters of the Jewish State...

...The Labor Party is convinced that the limited autonomy Begin is willing to grant would not satisfy the most moderate Palestinians, and that a broader autonomy which might be acceptable would provide merely a brief stop on the way to an independent Palestinian state, endangering Israel's survival...

...Most cabinet members who had participated in direct dealings with President Carter and his Administration, however, did not share this simplistic picture of the impending Republican reign...

...Begin's spokesmen explained to the Israeli public that Reagan did not want to create the impression of being engaged in foreign policy matters while President Carter remained in charge of the White House...

...On this Kissinger-although he said he was more optimistic about a Middle East solution than he had been before his travels-was carefully evasive...

...Eliahu Salpeter, a regular NL contributor, is a correspondent for Ha'aretz...

...They tended to be torn between hopes for a closer ideological identity with Reagan and a preference for the devil one knows that is typical of officials who worked together for years...

...The effect of this situation was strikingly brought home when the President-elect decided not to meet with Begin during a private visit the Prime Minister made to New York, despite hectic (though strongly denied) efforts to arrange such a meeting...

...The influence of the men in these positions on Washington's ultimate Middle East policy and, more directly, on the allocation of economic and military assistance, is incalculable...