Israel's New Mood

...One could only wonder at the mental gyrations of the Indian delegate at the Council table who complained that "the policy of retaliation of Israel is impermissible " (The quixotic gentleman never referred to the "Middle East," calling the area "West Asia ") To understand the mood of Israel today, one must see the arguments in context A cease-fire line has been agreed to by both sides, yet, Israeli officials point out, Egypt has broken it many times??the most reckless incident being the sinking of the Elath with the loss of many fives Cairo then proceeded to gloat over this warlike act Far from trying to pass it off as a mistake by a local commander, the press and radio in Egypt and other Arab countries puffed it up as a great victory Nasser even ordered a special medal struck in honor of the event, to pm on the men responsible for it The episode provided a brief psychological lift for Egypt Arab editorialists close to the seat of power were able to proclaim that Egypt was good at war, and that this demonstrated its ability to use the mod-era weapons supplied by the Soviet Union And the incident was followed by a kind of tngger-happiness The next day rifle shooting broke out across the southern waters of the Suez Canal, to which the Israelis responded??blowing up the Egyptian oil refineries...

...Just what would peace mean to those most eager for it??the people...

...Mohamed Awad El-Kony of the United Arab Republic declared that Israeli forces were guilty of the "most violent and barbaric act" against his country since the "aggression" in June Nikolai T Fedorenko of the Soviet Union backed up his Egyptian friend Israel's Gideon Rafael called the sinking of the ship a "deliberate act of military escalation " Arthur Goldberg of the United States decried "all violations," noting that the exchanges now sounded like a tired re-run of an old, familiar movie Yet the Council drama was fascinating for what was not being said Since the Israelis went it alone last June, with no other nation lifting a finger to help them, Israel can be expected to act promptly, energetically and decisively whenever it feels the Arabs have seriously violated the cease-fire...

...Now with the war finished," he went on, "I know I can live without worry Of course we should not give these hills back to them??unless they will agree to make a real peace with us And I don't mean only to sit down and talk at the negotiating table in the UN, but here with us as neighbors...

...I think that everybody felt closing the Strait was reason enough to start the war, rather than have to wait for the first bullet ". Then, of course, Moshe Dayan, hero of the 1956 Sinai campaign, was invited by Prime Mimster Levi Eshkol's government to become Defense Minister and Israel did not wait for the first bullet The Six Days War gave rise to speculation that Israel had a "secret weapon," because of the lethal accuracy of its pilots I don't know about that secret, but I do know that??as Ben-Gunon has suggested??Israel has had one potent and enviable weapon since Bible times a stiff-necked people with faith in survival...

...During the six weeks of negotiations at the Hotel des Roses, the Israeli and Egyptian diplomats became quite friendly When Abdul Moneim Mustafa, the chief Egyptian political adviser, fell ill, Walter Eytan, head of the Israeli delegation, sat at his bedside and comforted him Later, when the Egyptians and Israelis concluded their agreements, Dr Bunche gave a party for which a special planeload of delicacies was flown in from Cairo The armistice agreements never turned into peace treaties because the Arabs, demanding concessions, subsequently refused to negotiate with the Israelis or even grant that Israel existed...

...Shuly, 28, a sabra from Haifa, and one of the few Jewish cowboys in the world, recently explained how he feels about peace Shuly is the herdsman at kibbutz Gonen, where he takes care of 200 beef cattle and the new calves Before he became herdsman, Gon-en's shepherd, Asaf Filler, was killed in 1958 by Syrian smpers as he went into a revine to bring out some strayed cows Last April, Shuly himself was nearly killed when the Syrians, from gun emplacements on hills above the kibbutz shot him in the head while he was on the way to repair a fence He was rescued and taken by helicopter to Haifa tor surgery "In Haifa, where I grew up," Shuly told me, "I met many Arabs who lived in the same building as my family, until the 1948 war I was a child and we all played together I can speak Arabic I feel that if there were peace between us here, it would be better for all, because there would be more grazing in the hills, and we could take out more cows Instead of 200 beef cows, we could take 300, maybe, and earn more money for the kibbutz m that way...

...All our fences on the hills are broken from the war I need some new ones to keep the cows from wandering too far away But there is a feeling of great calm now When we go up, we don't need rifles or the soldiers When I take the herd to the hills to graze I can leave them there, in security, and return to do other work in the kibbutz We have much to do here, to build the village, and it frees me for this " After the Security Council debate on last month's cease-fire violations ended with the unanimous resolution demanding that both sides "cease immediately" all military activity and cooperate with the UN truce supervisors in the area, I asked a leading Israeli diplomat if, realistically, he believed there could again be direct negotiations with the Arabs He answered firmly, "Yes " "If they realize," he added, "as they must do, that they have a choice between keeping the present cease-fire lines, or changing them by choosing peace When they realize that choice before them, they will choose peace...

...AFTER THE CEASE-FIRE VIOLATIONS Israel's New Mood By Gertrude Samuels Just after the Six Days War ended m June, I asked David Ben-Gunon, now 81, "What is the chief lesson of the war''" We were sitting in the second-floor, bookhned study of his modest house in Tel Aviv A few hours earlier he had returned from a flight over Sinai "The lesson of this war," Ben-Gunon answered, "and I think it is a lesson of the entire history of the Jewish people, is that quahtv is better than quantity In the Torah, Moses said to his people You are few among nations, and therefore you must be as am segula I can't give you an exact translation, but mainly it means You must be better than other people We have had three wars?­the War of Independence m 1948, the Sinai War of 1956, and now this war Each time it has been the same The Egyptian soldier doesn't know why he must give up his life, why he must die m the desert, but every Jew knows what he is fighting for For survival And we won all three wars because of the quality of our people " Those words came to mind again last month when Israel reacted to Egypt's wanton sinking of the destroyer Elath with Soviet missiles Gertrude Samuels, a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine, has visited Israel a score of times, most recently during the June war by destroying most of Egypt's oil-refinery capacity Through some odd mental transposition I seemed to be hearing them m the Security Council chamber, blotting out the talky talk of the business-suited ambassadors sitting around the elegant horseshoe table...

...As Gideon Rafael puts it, the whole point of the fragile cease-fire is "reciprocity...

...This means that neither side shoots, but it has to be neither side??the cease-fire must be observed mutually Israeli officials both here and in Jerusalem are quick to stress, however, that reciprocity without negotiations, without frank face-to-face talks between the combatants, can only multiply the frustrations responsible for warlike incidents...

...This new mood contrasts sharply with the prevailing situation inside Israel during the two weeks preceding the outbreak of hostilities on June 5 Tension began building in the country following Cairo's announcement that it was blocking the straits of Tiran, and it was heightened by the concentration of the Egyptian Army in Sinai??but the government seemed hesistant about any response As 26-year-old Micha Karmi, mayor of kibbutz Gonen at the Syrian border, later recalled "We felt anger that it was taking so long We were impatient with the politicians Nothing concrete was happening...

...Nor are such talks without precedent Back m 1949, after the fighting with Egypt ended, negotiators for both sides met on the neutral Greek Island of Rhodes to discuss armistice agreements Dr Ralph Bunche, now Secretary-General U Thant's right-hand man, was then the United Nations mediator And an extraordinary facet of those talks was the congenial atmosphere in which they began...

...But by now, not everything depends on the Arabs' attitude alone An uncomfortable aspect of the UN doings is the role of the Soviet Union Since it serves Russia's global interests to try to dominate the Middle East, the Soviet Union takes the extremist position, supplying the arms to Egypt and joining with the Arabs m representing Israel as an aggressor This characterization has been rejected by the UN The Russian resolution on Israel failed to get a majority in June in the Security Council, and failed m July in the General Assembly Thus the world organization has refused to label Israel the aggressor...