Face-off in the Middle East

...The diplomatic maneuvering that has already begun, however, involves two fundamental questions that far exceed any direct relationship between the Israelis and the Arabs: (1) How will the outcome of the latest war affect the relative positions of the two superpowers in the Middle East...

...In the case of the Israelis, the fact that the attack came on Yom Kippur had special meaning—and not simply because it caught the entire nation observing the most solemn day of the Jewish year, with even the radio and television stations used to alert reservists off the air...

...It required an all-out drive to build up the Armed Forces of Egypt...

...The Soviets' argument is that Israel's refusal to retreat to the pre-1967 lines caused the war and obliged them to go to the Arabs' assistance, detente notwithstanding...

...Then there are less apparent factors, reflecting the cultural traditions and historical experiences of both sides, that must be appreciated if Eliahu Salpeter, our regular Middle East correspondent, is coauthor with Yuval Elizur of Who Rules Israel?, published by Harper & Row...

...4. The Soviets were consulted prior to the attack and gave the Arabs their blessings by promising full support...

...The second option—what could be described as the Saudi approach —entailed a progressive elimination of political, diplomatic and public support for Israel, primarily through the use of the Arab "oil weapon," i.e., the threat to reduce or cut off fuel supplies to Israel's supporters...

...All the Soviets may really want is to lull the Free World into a false sense of security...

...What is more important, quite unlike a "responsible" partner, the Soviet leadership is willing to take considerable gambles in this game...

...It also substantially increased Moscow's and Washington's stakes in the results of the fighting, and in shaping Mideast developments when the shooting stopped...

...There is, so far, no conclusive proof of this...

...There are four basic possibilities that must be examined before any answer can be attempted...

...meanwhile, the surrounding hostile nations, having failed in the fighting despite the advantages of surprise and massive Soviet support, might finally have recognized that they have more to gain by joining Israel at the negotiating table...

...Over the past year or so, Egypt acted as if it had definitely chosen the Saudi course...

...Each of the two alternatives had major global implications...

...Thus the overriding belief is that had Kissinger not acceded so quickly to helping the USSR bail out its allies, Moscow could not have attempted to intimidate Washington as it did after the cease-fire...

...Even for those who still cling tenaciously to the hope of improved superpower relations, the past weeks should at the minimum be a warning that the USSR continues to regard detente as a one-way street...

...So a fervor persists for trying to achieve diplomatically what could not be gained militarily...

...Everyone in this tiny country knows that Israel's Armed Forces were only days away from smashing the Egyptian war machine, and even among so-called local doves there has not been much acceptance of the notion that the Arabs must be allowed to recapture their pride on the battlefield before a Middle East settlement can be reached...

...in particular...

...Admittedly, this does not conclusively settle the issue of whether the Soviet leaders acted as they did despite a genuine desire for detente, or whether they have suddenly disclosed the true face behind their smiles of goodwill toward the West in general and the U.S...

...But Israelis, for all their long-held strong desire to see such talks get under way, have never thought it wise to place their fate in someone else's hands...

...Moscow's line would sound more convincing if it had in fact been forced to "save" the Arabs with massive aid after the war started...

...Rather, the eruption of hostilities while most of the people were attending synagogue services revived memories of the Holocaust...

...One option— what might be termed the Nasserisl approach—called for another military confrontation with Israel "to regain by blood what was taken by blood...

...That brings us to the second fundamental question, the role of the Soviets in the latest hostilities and what it suggests for the future of East-West detente...

...AFTER THE CEASE-FIRE-I Face-off in the Middle East BY Eliahu Salpeter Tel Aviv If the Nobel Peace Prize was still to be awarded this year and the selection committee consisted of Israelis, they would not choose Henry A. Kissinger for the honor...

...This seemed plausible during the first week of battle, when many people thought Moscow was merely resup-plying its clients with arms, spare parts and ammunition, but had not gone beyond that...

...When the opportunity presents itself, the Kremlin obviously feels free to grab local gains at the other side's expense...

...In any event, it was not surprising that Moscow went all out in support of the Egyptians and Syrians: The war signified that the Nas-serist way had prevailed, and that the Arabs had for the moment at least placed their future in the hands of the Soviets...

...In the case of the Arabs, their launching an attack during the month of Ramadan had religious significance, since that is considered an especially auspicious period for a jihad, or holy war...

...At the same time, it may have been part of a Soviet-Egyptian collusion that is directly relevant to the issue of detente...

...The burden of evidence is heaviest here...

...It was on Yom Kippur that the Nazis perpetrated some of their worst atrocities against the defenseless Jewish populations under their occupation—including the notorious Babi Yar massacre, where tens of thousands of Jewish men, women and children were compelled to dig their own mass graves before they were mowed down by machine-guns...

...one is to understand some of the stands that are likely to be taken during the months ahead...

...All existing evidence points in the opposite direction, and Moscow has not even tried to convince anybody that it made such an effort...

...But given the evidence that major arms shipments by sea and air were initiated well before the outbreak of hostilities, there is reason to suspect widescale Soviet participation in the very planning of the Arab attack...

...just as they fight for themselves, they want to negotiate for themselves...

...Nor is he looked upon here as having exhibited the wisdom of a Solomon when he was hastily summoned to the Kremlin by Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev to arrange a superpower cease-fire in the Yom Kippur War...

...Indeed, it is now apparent that Moscow started its massive aid operation well in advance of the hostilities...

...In Israel's view, the explosions of the latest Middle East war should be heard in the West, especially in the United States, as an alarm bell signaling that Moscow's intentions in its campaign of detente are not to be entirely trusted...

...For while the Soviet logistic machine may be efficient enough to activate a huge airlift to a non-Warsaw-Pact country in three or four days, the ships that began arriving in Syrian ports within the first week of the war had to have been loaded and sent off long before the first shot was fired along the Suez Canal or on the Golan Heights...

...2. The Soviets tried to restrain the Arabs from attacking...

...The jihad aspect of the war was seen as confirmine suspicions that the Arabs, once again, were seeking not merely political objectives in the normal sense of the word, but the annihilation of the Jewish State and the elimination of the Jewish people from their midst...

...Syria and the other potential Arab participants in a new round of fighting...

...In addressing the first question, it is necessary to consider the two alternatives debated by the Arabs as they sought to devise a strategy for bringing about an Israeli retreat beyond the "secure" and "mutually agreed upon" boundaries envisioned in the November 1967 UN Security Council resolution...

...yet it should be recalled that after the Six Day War it was clearly established that false Soviet information to Nasser about an "imminent Israeli attack on Syria" set in motion the chain of events leading to Egypt's closing the Gulf of Eilath and massing armor on the frontiers —compelling Israel to strike out against the threat of gradual strangulation...

...To take the Saudi route, on the other hand, they would have to win friends and gain influence in the West, which meant openly turning away from the Kremlin both politically and ideologically...

...The experience of being forced by the United States to let a relief column come to the aid of the encircled Egyptian III Corps on the Suez east bank, without being permitted to demand in return elementary adherence by the Arabs to the Geneva Convention rules concerning prisoners of war, has raised serious doubts about Paragraph 3. And it has heightened the frustration and uncertainty that today mark the Israeli mood...

...The one positive and new element in the U.S.-USSR cease-fire resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council, of course, is Paragraph 3, calling for immediate discussions between the antagonists...

...2) What did the Soviets' behavior during the crisis reveal about the true nature of East-West detente...

...To go the Nasserist way, the Arabs would have to throw in their lot completely with the Soviet Union, since it could be assumed that the United States would not supply them with enough arms to defeat Israel...

...Today it may be in the Middle East, tomorrow in Latin America, or Europe...

...1. Soviet initiatives were responsible for the Arab decision to strike...

...This may have been part of a very clever dissimulation maneuver by President Anwar el-Sadat that successfully took by surprise not only Israel and the West but possibly Saudi Arabia's King Faisal as well...

...Consequently, they insist, the best way to eliminate such threats to the progress of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union is to bring Israel to heel...

...3. The Soviets saw that the Egyptians and Syrians were dead set on going to war and decided to join the bandwagon, lest they lose their position in the Arab world...

...Ultimately, according to this plan, Washington would be forced to pressure Tel Aviv into accepting a settlement on something near the Arab terms...

...This reaction was more than a conditioned reflex...

...There can be no doubt, though, that Moscow is using Washington's eagerness for detente as an instrument for bringing American pressure to bear on Israel...

...The Israeli leadership will have to take this widespread feeling into account in deciding upon the maximum territorial and other concessions it can make in exchange for a formal peace agreement with adversaries who have not demonstrated that their essential goal has changed...