Middle East Balancing Act

...As time for reporting back to President Ephraim Katzir began to run out, though, the two proceedings were conducted concurrently and plain weariness contributed about as much as party politics to the decision to cease further attempts at finding ways to keep Abba Eban the foreign minister and Pinhas Sapir the finance minister in the new Cabinet...

...By the sheer force of his stamina, he evidently wore down more than one member of the Jerusalem negotiating team...

...For in truth most Israelis are not enthusiastic about either the disengagement terms with Syria or the composition of their new government...

...Lately there have even been some separatist stirrings in the Gaza Strip, the stretch of seacoast less than 50 miles long and 10 miles wide that before 1967 was occupied by Egypt...

...The other crucial foreign policy test facing the Rabin regime is the expansion of Israel's political, economic and military relations with the United States...

...Since the Arabs are using the enormous oil revenues pouring into their coffers to buy ever more expensive and sophisticated armaments...

...This peculiar development does not thrill Mapai, representing some 65 per cent of the party...

...Israel has long maintained that the extent of territorial concessions on its part must depend on the kind of settlement the Arabs are prepared to reach: nonbelligerence only...

...Despite the fact that Rabin's Cabinet has a more dovish composition than did Mrs...

...While Henry Kissinger's direct efforts during his long Mideast stay were confined to the Syrian agreement, indirectly he was responsible not only for the delays in but for the final completion of Rabin's coalition negotiations...

...All this at a time when President Nixon is engaged in a major effort to recapture some, if not most, of the influence the U.S...

...or full peace, as is normal between nations after war has ended...

...Add to that Rabin's one-vote majority in the Knesset, and it is not difficult to see why, even assuming he displays the most consummate political skill, his Premiership will be a tightrope act in which the protective net underneath may prove to be a very vital piece of equipment...

...He won his nomination for Prime Minister by a thin 54-46 per cent majority over Peres, who is second to ex-Defense Minister Moshe Day-an in the Rafi faction of the Labor party...

...In contrast, the West Bank?or at least important parts of it, like Jericho and Hebron????is regarded as the very core of the Jewish homeland not only by Israeli nationalists, but by the religious political parties and, indeed, most of the Orthodox...

...Jews...

...Only one stage remains after the separation of forces: a final settlement in which Israel pulls back to the frontiers agreed upon in a peace treaty...

...Meir's, no one here thinks it could survive the internal tensions that would arise if it were forced to decide upon substantive territorial concessions to Jordan or the Palestinians...

...Yet if tranquility prevails, it will create both the necessity and the opportunity to begin considering future steps toward a permanent settlement with the Arabs, and to undertake domestic and social reforms that have previously had to be delayed...

...The parallel may be drawn even further: Only time can tell whether the disengagement with Syria or the new government will succeed, and in both cases the outcome may depend on Rabin's ability to use the time at his disposal to accomplish the urgent tasks at hand...

...One minority wants a return to the Hashemite Kingdom...

...Angered by this, Eban refused to join Rabin's Cabinet...

...The independence desired by the vast majority ranges from total autonomy to a form of self-government that has political links with Jordan or economic links with Israel, or both...

...Beyond that, however, nothing seems to be generally accepted????not even the question of when Israeli rule should come to an end...

...To stop runaway inflation at home and bankruptcy abroad, domestic consumption will have to be cut most drastically in the very near future...

...might lead to better things in the future...

...For personal reasons...

...this time, it was apparent the decision to strike back in full force to silence the enemy guns would be made much more quickly...

...In no small measure thanks to Kissinger, therefore, Israel got a much less colorful and less impressive Cabinet than expected, but also a far younger and more varied one...

...To mollify Allon, who was his commander in the 1948 War of Independence, Rabin offered him the Ministry of Foreign Affairs????without insisting that he at least turn over the primarily honorific Deputy Premiership to outgoing Foreign Minister Eban...

...An almost unlimited number of geographical, political and legal arrangements can be devised on paper, from all-out reannexation by Jordan of whatever West Bank territories are ceded under a peace agreement, to the establishment of an independent Arab State of Palestine alongside Israel, to the formation of an Israeli-Palestinian Federation...

...Cairo, in turn, has significant bargaining chips to offer in the sequence of exchanges????A special arrangement over Sharm-el-Sheik, provision for the continued sale of oil from the Abu Rodeis off-shore wells, transshipment rights for Israel in the Suez Canal, etc...

...While the other questions are of deep concern only to the Israelis and Arabs immediately affected by them...

...The American Secretary of State engaged Israel's leaders in a war of endurance...

...say some Gaza leaders, over 400,000 people live there????more than the population of several new members of the United Nations...

...THE PROBLEMS FACING RABIN Middle East Balancing jA^Ct BY EUAHU SALPETER Tel Aviv The connection between the Israeli-Syrian disengagement agreement and the formation of Yitzhak Rabin's new government is more than superficial, as is the similarity between the public's reactions to the two developments...

...Another minority, composed mostly of the younger generation, supports the traditional position of the terrorist organizations in refusing to accept the existence of Israel and demanding Arab rule over the entire area of Palestine...

...Nonetheless, it is also widely doubted that the new government will be able to persist for long in its predecessor's policy of refusing to recognize the separate national identity of the Palestinians...

...And when Rabin's initial efforts to put together a government coalition broke down, it was equally apparent that now there could be no repetition of last fall's interminable haggling with the National Religious party...

...And in Israel, if tranquility along the borders prevails, the demands of the lower income groups will certainly be voiced no less loudly than they were before the Yom Kippur War...

...In other words, they will be waiting in the wings for the opportune moment to stage a comeback...

...Furthermore, it is generally assumed that none of the three departed leaders????day-an, Sapir and Eban?has the slightest intention of permanently retiring from political life...

...The vast, practically empty expanse of the Sinai Peninsula would permit Israel to carry out a withdrawal in several substantial stages...

...Israel's dependence on American materiel and support will steadily increase in the coming years...

...Rabin's path will not be strewn with roses in his own party, either...

...The general feeling, however, seems to be that each was long overdue and that the alternatives?renewed hostilities with the Arabs and new elections at home????would be even more undesirable...

...The trouble is that, in practice, any approach must reconcile three emotionally charged and at times seemingly incompatible issues: 1. For the Israelis, the location of the borders with Syria and Egypt are political matters to be determined by security considerations alone...

...3. The most highly charged issue of all is, of course, Jerusalem...

...Moslems and Christians lay equal claim to the Holy City...

...A government that proposed to give up all or nearly all of the West Bank would find it very hard to survive a vote of confidence in the Knesset...

...As a result, practically all the key ministries are in the hands of Labor's two minority factions, and Rabin himself is also looked upon as leaning toward Achdut Ha'avoda...

...The Jordanian situation is more flexible, yet it is also more complicated...

...At first, the long hours spent with him ????And in Cabinet consultations between sessions????made Rabin and his defense minister-designate, Shimon Peres, repeatedly postpone the meetings on the formation of the new government...

...When the first sporadic incidents occurred on the Golan Heights after the October 1973 cease-fire, Israeli leaders vowed there would be no repetition of the 1969-70 war of attrition conducted by Egypt...

...The step-by-step approach might work in the Egyptian context...

...2. Most of the 750.000 West Bank Arabs appear to agree on one point: They would rather not be ruled by the Israelis...

...But Kissinger has encouraged the reverse procedure: some Israeli retreat from the post-1967 borders in exchange for some Arab move toward normalization, without setting the final targets in advance...

...recognized coexistence without diplomatic or even economic relations...

...Accordingly, the delicate question of the borderline between "unofficial ally" and de facto satellite will inevitably be sharpened, as indicated by the reported linkage between Jerusalem's "flexibility" in the Kissinger talks on disengagement with Syria and Washington's promises of long-term, large-scale military assistance...

...on the Moslem side, the chances of compromise????such as extraterritorial status for the Holy Places, special Arab sovereignty over the shrines of Islam, and the like????Are very slim because of the unyielding stance of King Feisal of oil-rich Saudi Arabia...

...Vis-a-vis the various Arab factions, Rabin will have to decide whether to continue with the policy of "a piece of land for a piece of paper"????i.e., the step-by-step approach????or to go back to the principle that the substance of the peace must be agreed upon before the parties can decide on practical measures...

...The list of domestic problems confronting any Israeli government is too long to enumerate here...

...This obliged him to offer Peres the Defense portfolio that former Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon, leader of the Achdut Ha'avo-da faction, has long desired...

...After all...

...lost to the Soviets in the Middle East during the previous two decades...

...The overwhelming majority of Israelis, moreover, cannot conceive of giving up Jerusalem...

...Few democratic governments anywhere, let alone one as narrowly based as Rabin's, dare present the voters with such belt-tightening measures...

...Outgoing Prime Minister Golda Meir, in her May 30 farewell speech presenting the separa-tion-of-forces accord for Knesset ratification, made clear her desire ?having lived through those terrible hours, days and nights" of the Yom Kippur War????to leave office with the guns silenced on both the northern and southern front...

...On the other hand, everyone recognized too that new elections would most likely be just as inconclusive as the balloting last December 31, and could even put the Labor party onto the benches of the opposition for the first time since Israel became a state...

...The pact was approved by an impressive 76-36 majority, but this reflected little more popular support than the 61 votes Rabin received four days later upon presenting his Cabinet to the 120-member Knesset...

...In the coming weeks and months, much of Israel's attention will inevitably be focused on the Egyptian and Syrian separation lines, for there is great concern here about how well they will stand up under the pressures that may accumulate...

...ex-Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir, the "kingmaker" of the Labor party and boss of its dominant Mapai machine, decided to accept the chairmanship of the Jewish Agency, the top executive body of the World Zionist Movement...

...Thus the public accepted both the separation of forces and the Rabin government as necessary stopgaps that Eliahu Salpeter, our regular Middle East correspondent, is a member of the editorial board of Ha'aretz, one of Israel's leading newspapers...

...Then, the constant heavy artillery bombardments that took a daily toll of killed and wounded were countered with political maneuvers...

...In the economic sphere alone, inflation is running at a 35 per cent rate, net foreign indebtedness this year is expected to increase by $1.5 billion (as against $400 million in 1973) and the nation's foreign currency reserves are sharply declining...

...On the Syrian front, though, there is neither enough territory left nor does Damascus have the concessions to offer that would make a phased solution feasible...