The Geopolitics of Israel's Survival: An Exchange of Views

...Though the October war may have sent spirits soaring in Egypt and Syria, it hardly vindicated the fighting capacities of their armies...

...Israel and its neighbors may never achieve more of a detente than Washington and Moscow have at present...

...Not only do I, sitting (now) far away in security and comfort, disagree...

...Certainly Egypt proved that by the Yom Kippur War...

...In addressing that question, I shall not consider Muammar el-Qaddafi's repeated calls for the destruction of the "Zionist State" and similar pronouncements by other Arab leaders issued long before the October War...

...We need new, workable models of diversity in mutuality...

...In any event, security considerations were not what motivated Israel to settle the Golan Heights, expel the Bedouins in the Rafah region, plan for a port south of Gaza, or expand the borders of Jerusalem...

...As for the European Community, I doubt that Americans can change anything at all by underlining the cowardly action of most Western governments to the October War and the attendant oil blackmail...

...Compromise does not mean appeasement unless concessions are wholly one-sided or appear certain to lead to demands for further concessions instead of peace...

...As a high American official said in 1967, "When Nasser closed the Strait of Tiran, he cut our throat from ear to ear...

...We need a more balanced assessment, one that does not overburden the negotiating process with phantom fears...

...If the Israelis refuse to "go quietly" to their doom, the U.S., for purely American strategic considerations, would find it very hard to passively watch the violent destruction by the USSR and its Arab clients of the one reliably and cohesively pro-Western society in the region...

...Hans J. Morgenthau, who once pointed out that our Vietnam disaster resulted in large part from a misuse of the Munich analogy, is now misusing it himself...

...I see no loss of commitment or security in the regrouping of its forces into stronger positions...

...I shall limit myself to the statements of so-called "moderate" Arab spokesmen made since the beginning of last October...

...The gloomy appraisal Hans J. Morgenthau gives of Israel's prospects overrates the Arabs' military might and political influence, and dismisses too lightly the chances for a negotiated peace in the Middle East...

...Michael Novak Michael Novak is a consultant to the Humanities Program of the Rockefeller Foundation and a regular columnist for "Commonweal...

...Ronald Steel Ronald Steel is the author of "Pax Americana" and "Imperialism and Other Heroes...

...For example, in 1956 at least, it was Britain, France and Israel who acted to topple Nasser, and not the Egyptians who tried to eliminate Israel...

...Meir would be in an excellent position of "strength through weakness...

...the outlook is bleak and full of danger...

...Even if they are, the remarkably generous response of the American people to the fuel shortage and their sophisticated refusal to scapegoat Israel suggest that the oil weapon is not nearly as effective as it first appeared to be...

...Nevertheless, something might be gained by clearly and openly reminding Europeans of their historical responsibilities to the Jewish State...

...Moscow, however, has no rational motive for pursuing the first objective, and the second is beyond its means...

...Perhaps the time has come to stop applying the Munich model to radically different situations in other places and periods, such as Vietnam in the 1960s and the Middle East in the 1970s...

...To begin with, Morgenthau makes several crucial interpretations of governmental intentions without offering either evidence or a persuasive rationale...

...Morgenthau argues that this is not enough: that Israel is indefensible within its 1967 frontiers, that international guarantees are worthless, and that the restoration of the "legitimate rights of the Palestinians" would amount to "the destruction of the Jewish State...

...Hans J. Morgenthau's cogent but pessimistic analysis of Israel's predicament corresponds closely to my own...

...True, other forces within their party, the Labor Alignment, were prepared to make very extensive concessions that seemed likely to jeopardize Israel's security...

...This is conceivable, but it is most unlikely, and it is certainly not what the Administration maintained...

...That opportunity will be lost, however, and war will inevitably follow again, if either side proves unwilling to make the necessary, albeit very painful, concessions...

...An effective guarantee of a frontier is tantamount to agreeing to potential military involvement, which, in view of present alignments, would pit the United States against the Soviet Union...

...in a defense budget inflated by salaries rather than weaponry...

...Still, it makes absolutely no sense to talk about large numbers of Palestinians being permitted to return to areas of Israel where they or their families once resided...

...The brilliant Israeli victory in the October war, backed by the staunch diplomacy of the United States, gives Washington and its allies a unique opportunity to achieve these goals-by far the best such opportunity since 1949...

...United States foreign policy is now strongly influenced by the desire to maintain at least the appearance of detente...

...On December 24, the New York Times reported: "Asking rhetorically why the Israelis were unloved in the region, Premier Zaid al-Rifai of Jordan said at the Geneva Peace Conference: 'Could it be that Israel doesn't belong in our environment...

...If one assumes without empirical examination that the Arab-Israeli conflict is nothing more than a dispute over boundaries, it is of course easy to devise a "solution," such as Zbigniew Brzezinski's "A Plan for Peace in the Middle East" (NL, January 7...

...Perhaps that the Soviets will do anything to (a) destroy Israel or (b) control their Arab clients...

...So long as we keep our eyes open, however, it is right to continue the hard work of seeking common grounds for a new kind of relationship...

...There are some signs that Egypt's leaders are prepared to do so...

...At this point we would do best to acknowledge the complexity and uncertainty that exists, and to be wary of anyone who defines too clearly what is possible and desirable...

...At the moment no single group speaks with authority for the Palestinians...

...But does it...

...Such a crucial civic consensus does not exist in the Middle East...

...Paradoxically, although the recent elections have weakened Mrs...

...Nonetheless, we should not overlook the favorable factors that exist and can be worked on by those who desire peace...

...4. U.S...

...Might not Cairo's objective have been to lift the humiliation of Israel's occupation of Egyptian territory-an occupation that had become less a bargaining chip than a semiofficial frontier...

...he is persuaded they will make "the easier choice: to give in to the demands of the oil-producer...

...But no one will be able to force Israel to accept peace terms that it considers suicidal...

...Hans J. Morgenthau has cogently drawn attention to some of the complicated and interconnected factors affecting the geopolitics of Israel's survival...

...certainly none with whom King Hussein is prepared to bargain...

...True, President Nixon committed first the political error of sending Henry Kissinger to Moscow last October to discuss the cease-fire, then the strategic error of acquiescing in it three days too soon and thereby allowing some Egyptian troops to remain on the East Bank of the Suez Canal...

...In the first case we will not and in the third we cannot use pressure...

...There can be little argument with Morgenthau's reading of the new Arab oil weapon, or the "destruction of the belief in Israel's military invincibility," though I would add the tiny caveat that the deflation is not all bad for Israel...

...Morgenthau's closing suggestion that Henry Kissinger may have been as duped in Cairo as Chamberlain was at Munich seems quite gratuitous, creates the most malicious of all possible associations, and is almost certainly misleading...

...that perverted everything the nation was supposed to stand for...

...But this should have been no surprise, remembering what happened in 1948 and recognizing that 1967 was a fluke of sorts (the Israelis could scarcely expect to repeat the absolute control of the skies they enjoyed then from the first hour of battle...

...We do not know yet how serious the USSR's threats of active military intervention were...

...What we have to do is to try to prevent every crisis from turning into a clash of the superpowers...

...Secretary of State has admitted that a return to the 1967 borders would seriously affect Israel's security...

...In the long run, the plucky King may find himself odd man out...

...The primary military aim of the Arabs was "to conquer a part of the territories that Israel conquered in the Six Day War" and thus further their political objective of "breaking the diplomatic deadlock" by making the U.S...

...Much depends on what, under the circumstances, constitutes a reasonable bargain for Israel, and whether that bargain increases or decreases Israeli security compared to earlier times...

...True, Munich shows how tragic the pusillanimity of a great power can be for a dependent and trusting small nation...

...Israel's security ultimately depends not so much on what the causes of the energy crisis are as on what American public opinion takes them to be...

...In both instances a solution may require partial demilitarization, with sizable peacekeeping forces drawn from the two superpowers and committed for a lengthy stay under the overall authority of the Security Council...

...soldiers, merely for the right to purchase arms...

...Indeed, it did not even require an advance commitment from Israel or the United States to accept the entirely false view (cynically recited by the members of the European Community and Japan) that Resolution 242 requires Israeli withdrawal to the Armistice Demarcation Lines of 1949...

...To a significant degree, the Geneva conference involves not only the Middle East but the future of the Soviet-American relationship and, indirectly, America's credibility among its nato allies...

...If and when the Arabs' oil cut-off becomes a sufficiently clear and present danger to those whom it is choking, the one reliable bet the victims can make as they move to strike back "with every means" is that the Soviets will be proceeding rapidly toward a dignified exit...

...But after the war of Yom Kippur, Israel's military superiority is, alas, contestable...

...The real "worst case" hypothesis is even more disastrous than the Munich he describes: In the absence of any settlement, a new war breaks out...

...government must be deeply involved in the process of reaching n Mideast settlement...

...Since then, omens have appeared all over that more than shame is growing, that the Arabs may yet be hoist by that same empty oil barrel with which they have been endeavoring to roll over everybody else...

...Everything depends on the nature of the guarantee and the political context in which it evolves...

...Should he fail, those extremists will be vindicated and may well gain the upper hand, posing dangers for Israel far greater than any presented by today's Egypt...

...Alan's sources, adequately labeled, tell him Moscow is hardly eager for more military brinksmanship at the cost of scuttling the "import of Western knowhow and credits," and increasing the Arab "drain on Russian resources" (Cairo alone already owes Moscow nearly $6 billion) -thereby deepening the Kremlin's failure so far to boost the Russian living standard "even to the level of East Germany and Spain...

...alone guaranteed Israel open passage through the Strait of Tiran...

...Paradoxically, the Palestinian problem is more of an Arab problem than an Israeli one...

...The reason for that provision is that in 1967 Egypt broke the agreement it had made with Israel through the good offices of the United States in 1957, when Israel withdrew from the Sinai in exchange for promises that peace would be made in due course, that the Suez Canal and the Strait of Tiran would be open to Israel shipping, and that Egypt would fulfill its legal obligation to prevent guerrilla attacks on Israel from its territories...

...Over the coming months, this issue will have to be squarely faced...

...As in the 1930s, we do not wish to hear of such things...

...If they sense the peril and stop short in time, they will emerge with their skins and with measurable but limited tactical gains...

...If any withdrawal from the occupied territories would put Israel in mortal danger, if no international guarantees can be trusted, if no agreement on a return of Palestinian refugees to the West Bank is conceivable, if negotiations are futile and compromise is perilous, then there is no alternative to perpetual war-and with it the destruction of everything that Morgenthau, and those of us who take exception to his analysis, would seek to preserve...

...Could it be that it is a stranger in our homeland?' " On November 22, 1973, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia declared in an interview with the Beirut daily Al-Anwar: "We cannot abandon the Arab character of Jerusalem...

...It is ironic that the United States, which had no part in the tragic events leading to the founding of Israel, has for so long been its chief, and is now its sole, protector...

...a strong Israel with the kind of settlement that is currently being discussed (not the one Morgenthau describes) will, in reality, be more secure than the Israel that existed from 1967-73...

...In the longer run, Israel's security rests on reconciliation with its neighbors...

...In the absence of a tide of anger against them in the United States, that right does not appear to be endangered...

...as Morgenthau notes, this "would mean the destruction of the Jewish State...

...This may not be an ideal solution, but at least it is a feasible one...

...This, in turn, raises the question of what role the European Community and the nato alliance ought to play in Israel's defense...

...Who knows whether it was really serious this time or merely bluffing again, as it has so often in the past...

...All the Soviets would have to do is increase the range of their missiles...

...In this context, his Munich analogy seems by no means out of place...

...They are not without their fears...

...To be sure, the country is wary of foreign entanglements after Vietnam...

...firm recognition of territorial realities in Europe, but proxy subversion of such realities in the Middle East...

...Just as in the case of Czechoslovakia then, so in the case of Israel now, the vital question must be faced: How trustworthy are the other side's declarations of intent...

...to show so incontestable a military superiority that the Arab world would be forced to reconcile itself to the inevitable, and accept Israel in its midst...

...True, they turned out not to be helpless...

...It is not the theory of guarantees that deserves suspicion, but the political context in which they are applied...

...The orthodox foreign office view hardly does justice to the Arabs' burning conviction that the Balfour Declaration and all that flowed from it was a crime against their rights...

...There will always be one group in this country deeply and actively concerned about the security of the Jewish State...

...it happens in our dealings with every military dictatorship that we have to tolerate...

...In fact, the fourth round was something of a failure for the Arabs...

...Meir and her closest advisers have given several indications since then that they do not mean to proceed from that point and to reward Sadat and Hafez al-Assad by giving them on a silver platter that which they could not achieve in their bloody attack of October 6. After all, the war concluded with the Israeli Army about 20 miles from Damascus and some 40 miles from Cairo...

...Stanley Hoffmann Stanley Hoffmann is a professor of government at Harvard University...

...The assertions are, first, that Israel would have inflicted a "complete defeat" (whatever that means) upon the Arabs on four different occasions had it not been blocked by the Soviets, in collusion with the Americans...

...But I can detect no public sign as yet of a change in the basic American Mideast policy laid down in the fall of 1968...

...Thus far, there have been no signs of this...

...Finally, Morgenthau at one point speaks of Israel as a "widely unpopular nation," and at another observes that many countries do not have diplomatic relations with it...

...The Arab air arm [was] outmatched on both fronts, and Egypt's troops resembled a herd of extras bunched together at the back of a Hollywood set...

...He notes with approval that "the aim of a succession of Israeli governments has been...

...Maybe Sadat is lying...

...but it also suggests that a nation willing to fight can greatly affect the behavior and attitudes of great powers...

...Although always impressed and usually persuaded by Hans J. Morgenthau's arguments, I am troubled by his analysis of the geopolitics of Israel's survival...

...His case is based on a number of assertions that would be hard to document, and I think he reaches an unwarrantedly pessimistic conclusion...

...The essence of "the package deal" of Resolution 242 is that there need be no Israeli withdrawals from the cease-fire lines until the parties reach a full peace agreement...

...As it turned out, the dovish campaign platform drawn up by the Committee was rejected by the voters and, in what was a major swing by Israeli standards, the electorate gave a significant increment of seats to Menahem Begjn's opposition Likud bloc, which had advocated a much tougher foreign policy...

...Yet it could be reasonably argued that until recently there was no more widely popular small nation in the world than Israel, and most governments did recognize it...

...When all is said and done, of course, Morgenthau may still be right...

...effort to build on such factors contains, as Morgenthau reminds us, a temptation to self-delusion...

...Even if Washington stared down Moscow again, the outcome would be huge Israeli casualties and a forced settlement much harsher for Israel than the one now being negotiated...

...support it needs to survive...

...The result will probably be either a small coalition between the Labor Alignment and the National Religious party, which ran on a platform every bit as tough as Likud's, or, conceivably, a government of national unity, including both the Labor Alignment and Likud...

...Israel yielded, Moshe Dayan explained to his countrymen, because the shells that its soldiers were firing in the afternoon were not in its possession in the morning...

...This seems unlikely, one reason being that Israel continues to deny the national existence of the Palestinians...

...Elsewhere, however, attitudes could perhaps be changed...

...is in the process of establishing a semblance of peace at the expense of Israel-a task one would have expected Moscow to be attempting, against Washington's resistance...

...we are ill-prepared to absorb their reality...

...in domestic political fecklessness that has sired a cretin voluntary army...

...Yet American intellectuals must once again turn their minds to war, geopolitics and international confrontation...

...He tells us, for instance, "The Arabs now feel that since the Israelis were successfully taken on once, they could be still more successfully taken on again...

...Another wall can be built for them to weep against...

...had backed the Israeli call for the troops of both sides to return to the positions along the Canal that they held on October 5 -thus enabling serious peace negotiations to begin with the status quo ante restored...

...Although disquieting rumors emanate from high places in Washington, there is as yet no reason to suppose that our government, or the governments of Europe and Japan, are blind to this super-obvious fact...

...it can only exacerbate the cleavages already undermining the Atlantic Community...

...policy has always aimed at a negotiated peace in the Middle East, and I daresay that if at any time in the last decade the United States could have persuaded the Egyptians to sit down at a conference table with the Israelis, there would have been great rejoicing in the Jewish State...

...Despite their alleged "proven worthlessness," incidentally, international guarantees worked reasonably well in Berlin and Vienna, and they have held at Korea's 38th parallel long enough to reassure many Israelis...

...The United States refused to consider a cease-fire in 1973 without a binding "decision" of the Security Council requiring the Arab states to meet with Israel to negotiate a peace in accordance with the principles and provisions of Resolution 242...

...Even more dubious is Morgenthau's statement that the Soviet Union "has clearly indicated its resolve not to allow the Arabs to lose another war, and in fact seems willing to risk using nuclear weapons to assure this...

...What is being felt-the sharp rise in the price of petroleum-came about chiefly at the insistence of the Shah of Iran, who is making no demands on Israel...

...After more than 25 years, it is not for us to judge the wisdom of this location for a new homeland, any more than it is wise to challenge the immense territorial changes wrought during and after World War II...

...It is difficult for us to face the facts of raw power, military balances, the disciplines and risks of military action...

...Three situations must be distinguished: a war the Israelis are losing, a war the Israelis are winning, and a nonwar situation such as peace negotiations during an effective cease-fire...

...For the United States, isolated from nearly all its traditional friends on this matter, should not be expected to bear indefinitely the burden of being the Jewish State's lone defender...

...That may have been the aim, yet it is a disturbing notion that armed force and only armed force of a crippling magnitude can keep the Jewish State alive, now and forever...

...The Six Day War was probably as "complete" a defeat as one can imagine under these circumstances...

...Some Israelis are also beginning to suggest, despite the conventional wisdom, that a military pull-back to the pre-1967 borders might enhance their country's security, especially if coupled with a reasonably reliable demilitarization in the Sinai...

...The unknown factor, I think, is not what civilized men will do but what the Arab potentates will do...

...Rich in non sequiturs beyond belief, the book is a boastful chronicle of unending bungle, fiasco and cold feet, of which a few samples ought to suffice: Sadat recalls how Nasser's plans to spirit an anti-British Egyptian general out to the Nazis fizzled once when the general's getaway car broke down, and again when his getaway airplane collided with a post on takeoff and crashed...

...Thus a reconsideration of my position in the light of recent events and of the comments my article has elicited leads me to the same conclusion: The present policy of the United States endangers the survival of Israel...

...or (b) that "the legitimate rights of the Palestinians" are reconcilable with "the legitimate rights of Israel...

...on whether Americans lay the blame for their energy problems at Israel's feet...

...She could simply note that if she gave in to such pressure, her government would inevitably fall, and whoever was exerting the pressure would then be faced with the possibility of having to deal with Begin...

...None of them is a significant oil exporter...

...But I cannot allow it to distract me from the fact that just as for Czechoslovakia in 1938, so for Israel in 1974, the crucial point is whether the real issue being confronted is the location of borders or the existence of the state...

...Marshall observed ("Egypt's Two-Week Military Myth," NL, November 12, 1973): "Aside from the ability to use the new hardware [supplied by the Soviet Union], most newspaper dispatches about the Arab armies' allegedly vast improvement since 1967 were pure bunkum...

...Twenty years of Israeli strategy, he notes, have been outflanked by events...

...When the Soviet Union offers the glittering dream of a Holy War to destroy Israel, even men like Jordan's King Hussein and Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia, who genuinely believe in peace with Israel, cannot refuse to join in the jihad...

...Second, the American people's sense of internationalism must be revived by the country's intellectual leadership...

...In addition, the spectre of another Munich makes a poor historical analogy because?unlike Czechoslovakia in 1938, 1948 and 1968-Israel has demonstrated the will and the courage to fight for its existence as an independent, democratic nation...

...But I do not agree that such pressure will be "virtually irresistible...

...What can be done regarding (b), to reconcile the Palestinians and the Israelis...

...In any case, an attempt by the Alignment doves to enforce their rejected platform would cause the coalition partners to withdraw and the government to fall...

...Unless devices of ethnic perception, reward and mutuality are solidly developed, ways of life fail to mesh and profound antagonisms seek political equivalents...

...will not tolerate for long, particularly if Japan and Western Europe move to develop independent relations with the producer nations...

...The unpleasant question he raises in conclusion is whether Israel's survival may come to depend upon the fickle sufferance of its Arab neighbors...

...For instance, as the Soviet Union lends moral and military encouragement to "liberation" forces in the Arab world, it displays its own double-standard: opposition to revanchism in Europe, but support of it in the Middle East...

...This has not prevented the superpowers from behaving as though each expected the other to exist forever, and to compromise some of their differences...

...I have to disagree with Morgenthau on certain minor points...

...Until last October, Israel proceeded on the assumption that its military superiority was incontestable...

...The important thing is not what some Arab leaders might view as their ultimate goal...

...Great Britain, France, the U.S., and other governments should make it equally plain that they recognize and will fulfill their ultimate moral and political responsibility for the existence of Israel-which came into being relying on the premises of the international community, under whose protection the modern Jewish National Home in Palestine was originally established...

...and one must conclude that Israel stands almost entirely alone...

...military alert made them retrace their steps...

...There ought to be opportunities in the immediate future for putting Sadat's intentions to the test...

...Somehow, we must find in the Middle East (as in Ireland, Southeast Asia, and many other parts of the world) political devices more sensitive to, and better able to mediate, the ethnic and cultural diversity that so deeply characterizes human experience...

...Hans J. Morgenthau's analysis seems to me correct only in part...

...On October 19, Mohammed Hassanein Heikal, editor of Al-Ahram and a mouthpiece for the regime, wrote: "The matter does not relate to the liberation of the Arab territories which were occupied since June 5, 1967, but strikes further and deeper against the future of Israel...

...I am not quite sure what Morgenthau means to prove by his opening contention...

...Besides threatening Israel and exploiting the world's oil consumers, the Saudis may well decide to help neighboring Arabs challenge Egyptian leadership in the area...

...As former Secretary of State William Rogers once remarked, Arab willingness to publicly negotiate with Israel is what has been lacking for 25 years...

...Morgenthau indicates that the first of these two elements may now have appeared on the scene...

...Any intelligent answer, I believe, must take into consideration the extent to which guarantees of Israel's existence can realistically be more widely shared in the future than they now are...

...Admittedly, there is a risk in accepting the Egyptians' word that they no longer want to destroy Israel, as Morgenthau properly warns...

...And he is right to invoke the much abused metaphor of Munich...

...Now, the fact of the matter is that, had Benes refused to be coerced and made a defiant stand, Munich would probably have been psychologically impossible and Czechoslovakia's allies, in their own interest, would soon have had to reverse their self-defeating policy...

...Nonetheless, I would take issue with the four consequences of the October War that he cites, and then adapts as his premises...

...At least one can argue that Israel would be as well protected by demilitarized zones on its borders, the reopening of the Suez Canal and return of Egyptian civilians, and some sort of international guarantee, as by thinly defended areas that pose a constant provocation...

...I am well aware that matters are too far advanced for good will alone to make much difference...

...I think it is more reasonable to argue that Moscow has decided, on the contrary, not to allow another Middle East war to occur even if this entails issuing a diktat to the Arab governments involving their backing down on several of the issues in dispute, including what is meant by restoring the legitimate rights of the Palestinians...

...But the Israelis are not asking for an infusion of U.S...

...Peter Grose Peter Grose, a former Mideast correspondent, is a member of the New York "Times" editorial board...

...Under the circumstances, Washington will probably return to some variant of the Rogers Plan, though this will require great pressure on Israel and will provoke a bitter political conflict in the U.S...

...Is this true...

...Just as essential to national survival as military might is a common perception among neighbors of their mutual benefit from peaceful coexistence-a perception that Israel has had considerable success in nurturing among the Palestinians living in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and now must strive for with Egypt...

...Though a major change in the policies of the Arab states is the most critical element, adjustments in Israeli policy are also important...

...In the end everything depends, as Morgenthau notes, upon the willingness of the Arab states to accept Israel's existence...

...As for Morgenthau's genuflections before Arab oil as the invincible weapon, he manages to miss the point of the history lesson he himself gives the reader, namely, that oil embargoes make nations go to war...

...President Nixon's escalation of the crisis to the nuclear threshold was a function of America's inability to wage a serious conventional war against a major opponent...

...As for the border question, Israel is indefensible not only within its 1967 frontiers but also within its 1973 frontiers, and it would be equally indefensible if it stretched from Tripoli to Beirut...

...Such a settlement would probably separate Egypt (and Jordan) from the Palestinians and Saudi Arabia, leaving the thorny issues of Jerusalem and the refugees for later...

...Morgenthau loads too many dice to arrive at his interpretation of Israel's security prospects...

...An enormous challenge in political creativity, therefore, confronts both Israel and neighboring Arab states...

...Unfortunately, on the basis of its past record, there is more reason to expect Cairo to start and lose another war than to recognize its common interest with Israel and the U.S...

...would continue to rely on its Israeli and Iranian allies to offset Soviet penetration and disruptive Arab forces...

...Until that test supports the thesis of genuine peaceful intentions, one can only draw one's conclusions from the evidence at hand...

...A Gallup Poll published in late December shows that support for Israel, far from falling, has risen slightly over its level of a couple of years ago...

...American behavior in Geneva will be watched closely by both Moscow and the members of nato...

...if the evacuation of occupied areas by Israel means the presence of Egyptian and Syrian troops on the 1967 borders...

...it is what they think they can realistically attain and, even more, what they regard as their minimum legitimate demands...

...What is certain, though, is that Israeli military superiority alone can never assure peace...

...The New York Times of January 19 reported that according to American officials there are two schools of thought explaining Egyptian policy: One holds that Sadat was playing an "elaborate con game" at Aswan...

...furthermore, he seems to feel that, as a consequence, the second element somehow will follow unavoidably...

...That is to say, we will never pressure Israel into defeat...

...We in English-speaking countries, in particular, have been rather insular and aloof regarding societies unlike our own...

...Finally, on January 6 of this year, a New York Times dispatch from Beirut disclosed: "A Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister, Abdel Halim Khaddam, is said to have threatened to resign if President Hafez al-Assad asked him to represent Syria at the Arab-Israeli peace negotiations in Geneva...

...Of course, it is impossible to divine their intentions with certainty...

...it is only in the second case that we can and will...

...Permitting Israel to "finish the job" in 1956, 1967 or 1973 would not have paved the way to reconciliation, but rather sowed the seeds of even more intense Arab bitterness...

...In return, Israel is offered recognition by its Arab neighbors and an international guarantee of its borders...

...Along with photographs of long lines of cars waiting to buy small quantities of gasoline, newspapers carry reports that the boycott has sprung several major leaks and that oil companies have record stocks on hand...

...He is therefore likely to accept a powerful Israel, with more limited ambitions, as part of an American-based alliance...

...I would conclude by maintaining that a golden opportunity now exists at Geneva to overcome the past mistakes and injustices of both sides and to reach a binding peace based on compromise, not appeasement...

...pressure on Israel will be interpreted as yielding to oil blackmail and rising Soviet military power...

...Indeed, were the doves now to pressure for General Dayan's resignation from the Ministry of Defense, it is conceivable that he, together with some half-dozen followers, would leave the Labor Alignment altogether, creating the possibilitiy of a Likud-National Religious party-Dayan group coalition government...

...Nasser] preferred the danger of war to backing down...

...Second, moreover, the great powers are already involved to some extent in the Middle East...

...The fact is that all settlements of international disputes, except those imposed by the victor on the vanquished, are based on compromise...

...First, the U.S...

...However, by its massive shipments of sophisticated weaponry (for hard cash), its lavish and planned resupply efforts throughout the entire war, and its provocative use of the Soviet Navy for the first time, Moscow indicated that its version of detente did not preclude a high-risk policy in the Middle East, intended to undermine Washington's position there and in Europe...

...In general, I find the intentions of the various actors in the Mideast drama much more clouded than Morgenthau does, and I therefore believe that any appraisal at this point must be far more tentative and balanced than his is...

...the other maintains that he was "serious about exploring the possibility of a permanent peace...

...When asked about the Soviets' reaction to the latest developments in the region, Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin is reported to have said: "We keep silent, watch and laugh...

...Israel may be wise not to thoroughly trust Anwar el-Sadat and even to have some reservations about Henry Kissinger, but it knows that sharp bargaining is an ancient Middle East tradition in which it must participate...

...If this were the case, the Arab states would have agreed long ago to a conference in Geneva, Rhodes...

...they must think that I myself drew Neville Chamberlain's ghost on the cover of the issue featuring the piece...

...When we say 'occupied territories,' we Arabs know what we mean -we mean Palestine" (italics in original, H.J.M...

...Nor is the oil weapon certain to deprive Israel of the U.S...

...Still in the grip of the same syndrome, orthodox opinion in many foreign ministries today holds that the Arab grievance against Israel could be satisfied by a return of the territories lost in the 1967 war...

...After all, we and the British withdrew from Libya and the Persian Gulf recently, and the insanity of Suez occurred less than 20 years ago...

...This happened at Munich, Yalta and, most recently, Paris...

...Nonetheless, the Syrian Army was badly beaten, and only Soviet intervention saved the Egyptian Army from a defeat as ruinous as the one it suffered in 1967...

...it could easily happen again in the Middle East...

...Ambassador to the United Nations from 1969-71, is President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations...

...From the point of view of American, nato and Japanese interests-and those of Jordan, Lebanon, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the smaller states of the Persian Gulf as well-any deviation from such a position would be madness, inviting precisely the terrible moral and political crisis Morgenthau foresees...

...But if the reputed Arab genius for guile does not extend beyond the tip ot the Arab nose on this occasion, then they are lost...

...With regard to oil, one thing has become clearer since Morgenthau wrote: The fourfold price rise instituted by the Persian Gulf countries is doing far more damage than the embargo-a measure that is not enforced even by all the Arabs, and whose impact is diffused by the oil companies...

...This brings me back to Morgenthau's opening assumption...

...What Arab leader would welcome the Soviets except to balance against Israel...

...I do not agree that it is "an undisputed historic fact" that the Mideast conflicts of the past all had to do with the presence of Jewish settlers and "the existence of a Jewish state," or that "four times the Arabs tried to eliminate Israel by war...

...military alert...

...The tripartite plan proposed by the U.S.-moving back to the 1967 frontiers with modifications, international supervision of Arab holy places, agreement on the Palestinian refugees-Is one way they are willing to negotiate...

...On October 4, 1973, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Akhbar quoted President Anwar el-Sadat as saying that a basic tenet of his government's policy is "to restore Palestine to the Palestinians...

...Nor is there any geopolitical principle that requires them to sacrifice their vital national interests in behalf of Soviet imperialism...

...Yet it would be foolhardy of Moscow to assume that Washington would not stand behind its word...

...Especially if it were put in treaty form, I can envisage an American guarantee of Israel boundaries that might not amount to eternal safety but would still provide great short-term benefit by sustaining Israeli security during the difficult period of search for a more enduring Mideast settlement...

...Whoever scoffs at guarantees should remember that Israel's survival is already dependent on a de facto American assurance, expressed through weapons deliveries and financial aid...

...Morgenthau asserts, without revealing his sources, that the USSR "seems willing to risk nuclear weapons" to save the Arabs from another defeat...

...And, since regrettably nations do not always act in accordance with the dictates of logic, there is of course no guarantee that the nightmare will not materialize...

...Indeed, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat announced in February 1971 that he was prepared to do so, and he now appears to be commencing the process in Geneva...

...Their principal national interests do not conflict...

...But precisely because the Mideast situation is so complex, unstable, indeterminate, and hence possessed of possibilities as well as pitfalls, it is essential that historical evidence be used accurately to illumine present dilemmas and difficulties...

...policy-which he carries to fateful conclusions, as if there would be no opportunity for checking and correcting along the way...

...No country is secure in today's world: Security lies in the reduction of danger rather than in the retention of occupied territory...

...In an interview held in Peking for American television last November 12, Henry Kissinger explained: "We have not yet given any particular guarantees...

...A decade ago that was an accepted axiom of American foreign policy...

...In my judgment, none of these will be lost by taking the chance to find out if this time it might be possible to negotiate a real peace...

...The second assertion-that the Arabs desire the obliteration of the Jewish State-may be theoretically true, but it is politically irrelevant...

...But the destruction of Israel by the changing processes of world politics is not inevitable, or even likely...

...and (2) statesmen of the Edvard Benes type, prepared to be coerced into surrendering to the "inevitable," however reluctantly, and confining themselves to moral appeals and expressions of outrage...

...Quite to the contrary, it but poses the question in a new context...

...Their grievances and the indignities of their lives have been husbanded to perpetuate the most potent source of chauvinism and revanchism...

...The same is true for Egypt...

...Ithiel deSola Pool Ithiel deSola Pool is a professor of political science at MIT...

...On December 30, in a speech reported briefly and exclusively in the Wall Street Journal, the King told pilgrims at Mecca: "The Jews have no connection to Jerusalem and have no sacraments there...

...Nonetheless, it should be borne in mind that the imposition of a Munich "settlement" requires the existence of two essential elements: (1) statesmen of the Neville Chamberlain-Edouard Daladier type, prepared to coerce friends or allies into committing strategic suicide for the benefit of adversaries-In order to postpone, even if only very temporarily, a confrontation with those same adversaries...

...One may approve or disapprove of that policy, but I find it impossible to deny its likely consequences...

...It must have been a belated recognition of this unintended effect of the oil weapon -of its working to the benefit of the United States?that made Sheik Yamani and his fellow oil ministers beat a thinly camouflaged retreat on Christmas day...

...But they are powerless-except for terrorism, the weapon of the weak?and the Mideast states as well as the superpowers prefer to see their nationalism repressed...

...The problem with Morgenthau's analysis is his delineation of three points -he attributes them to a "new" U.S...

...The recent history of the Left, meanwhile, has had the grievous effect of reinvigorating traditional American moralism...

...The outcome of Israel's recent elections, moreover, has left little doubt that the Israeli electorate is angry with the governing Labor Alignment, not so much because of errors made at the outbreak of the Yom Kip-pur War, but because it seemed too pliant when confronted with Henry Kissinger's ultimatum last October 22...

...What I want to stress is that the fundamental problem is symbolic: We do not even have at present an image or a structure to offer as a positive political goal...

...But Israel's survival does not depend on what Anwar el-Sadat says or what Kissinger believes...

...That strategy had indeed been military: "to show so incontestable a military superiority that the Arab world would be forced to reconcile itself to the inevitable and accept Israel in its midst...

...Alan, however, even in mid-December, is stressing not the inevitability of impotent surrender, but the "deep sense of shame" in Britain and much of Europe over the "groveling" and the "blackmail...

...This is another proof, in addition to those in my original article, that guarantees are illusory substitutes for defensible borders...

...When the Israelis, with some initial difficulty, were warding off a two-front surprise attack, we matched and outmatched the Soviet airlift of weapons to the Arabs...

...A Mideast Munich without an Israeli Benes is not likely...

...in 1957, it was the United States, not the United Nations, which forced Israel to pull back from Sinai, and the U.S...

...Crash programs" in basic matters of interethnie understanding are required...

...The alternative is a piecemeal settlement that aims at resolving the territorial issues first, decides the demilitarization of the Sinai and the Golan Heights, clearly establishes that any Egyptian or Syrian violation -a la May 1967-would be a casus belli, and provides Israel with recognition and guarantees...

...many thoughtful Israelis whom I have known and respected over the years recognize this error in post-1967 policy and have been working with increasing success to correct it...

...Morgenthau again grossly overstates the case when he dismisses guarantees, as such, because of their "proven worthlessness...

...Does Morgenthau believe that such a Machiavelli, even if allied with King Faisal of metropolitan Mecca and the whirling Muammar el-Qaddafi, is going to outwit Henry Kissinger, Henry Jackson, Joseph Sisco, Golda Meir, and Moshe Dayan, to say nothing of Kakuei Tanaka and the burghers of Amsterdam...

...It has long seemed to me a basic, though generally overlooked, aspect of Israel's status in the world that its coming-into-being was made necessary by European crimes and traumas, and that civilized Europe must therefore share the responsibility for guaranteeing its survival...

...For all these reasons, my conclusion is less pessimistic than Morgenthau's...

...King Faisal, it is well known, fears Soviet influence in the Mideast, revolutionary movements in the peninsula (where Iran is engaged in counterinsurgency), the Leftist regime of South Yemen, and the emergence of new Qaddafis...

...Lausanne, or New York, to reach the peace agreement called for by UN Security Council Resolution 242 of November 22...

...It is always difficult to bring oneself to disagree with Hans J. Morgenthau...

...We must think harder, and more inventively, about cultural diversity...

...Of course, in a geopolitical crisis so immediate and grave, I do not mean to merely commend a program in "understanding...

...An opportunity may be at hand to prevent another generation of war in the Middle East...

...But I have come reluctantly to the conclusion that on this occasion his argument is too one-sided and rhetorical...

...To be sure, if the "restoration of the legitimate rights of the Palestinians" means the return of Israel's most passionate enemies to Israeli territory...

...In some quarters one used to observe a swagger and militaristic overconfidence?Let's occupy Damascus...

...Value judgments aside, there is merit in Senator Henry Jackson's similar observation last spring that Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia "have served to inhibit and contain those irresponsible and radical elements in certain Arab states . . . who, were they free to do so, would pose a grave threat to our principal sources of petroleum," and that "the Saudis understand . . . Israel and Iran play a vital stabilizing role...

...This will occur only if the United States loses its nerve and fails to employ the overwhelming advantages it possesses, and will continue to possess, in its conduct of foreign policy...

...Iam reluctant to venture a disagreement with Hans J. Morgenthau, for in a lifetime of commenting on international affairs he has almost always been right...

...If the United States and the Soviet Union had not intervened, the Egyptian Army would have suffered a worse defeat than it did in 1967, and the Israelis could have gone on to Cairo...

...Dankwart A. Rustow Dankwart A. Rustow, a former Vice President of the Middle East Studies Association, is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York...

...By the same token, what has blocked peace since 1967 has not been Israeli "intransigence" or "arrogance," but Egypt's refusal-Save for the week of deception before October 6-to accept any feasible direct or indirect procedure for implementing Resolution 242...

...The main concerns raised by Morgenthau are, however, very real...

...That dream will not fade from the realm of practical politics unless Israel, the United States and many other nations make it plain they will insist on fulfillment of the Security Council's October 22, 1973, command that the Arabs agree to peace negotiations with Israel, because their continuing to claim a right to annihilate it is a threat to world order...

...Then, in a new departure, the Arab summit at Algiers last November did not rule out a Geneva conference, as the Khartoum summit had in 1967...

...The Wailing Wall is a structure they weep against, and they have no historic right to it...

...and if all international guarantees are deemed worthless, Israel's fate would resemble Czechoslovakia's after Munich...

...Thus, although I find it hard to differ with my good friend Hans J. Morgenthau, with whom I have so often agreed in the past, he does not seem to exercise his usual historical rigor in his article assessing "The Geopolitics of Israel's Survival" (NL, December 24, 1973...

...Let me explain...

...The inner contradiction of the Secretary's statement is obvious...

...And in the last analysis, the strength of Israel has little to do with territorial boundaries and much to do with the skill of its fighting men, the courage of its people, and its friendship with the United States...

...Hans J. Morgenthau Hans J. Morgenthau, one of the country's most highly regarded international-affairs analysts and a frequent contributor to these pages, is Leonard Davis Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York...

...I believe Rabin's assessment of the 1973 war is also sound...

...Israel is surely in the midst of a crisis, in some ways the gravest of its history, but this is one of those occasions when it is well to remember that the Chinese character for "crisis" denotes both "danger" and "opportunity...

...Even prior to Israel's parliamentary elections, there was no conclusive evidence for believing that the governing trio in Jerusalem (Golda Meir-Moshe Dayan-Israel Galili) had any intention of following in the pitiful footsteps of Czechoslovakia's prewar president...

...But if he is, the Israelis will never be able to trust any Egyptian leader and there will never be peace in the Middle East...

...This is especially true in the Middle East, where the Soviet Union, it should be noted, has assumed the role of silently approving the frantic U.S...

...policy toward the Middle East have been mercilessly exposed by Hans J. Morgenthau's lucid and faultlessly logical analysis...

...Khaddam was quoted today by Lebanon's leading paper, Al-Nahar, as saying, 'I do not want my son to be told tomorrow that his father sat at the same table as the Zionists to negotiate peace with them.' " The clear implication of these utterances is that the existence of the Jewish State, not its frontiers, is the real issue in the Middle East...

...it only wants security...

...1. Unlike Morgenthau, I take the position that Israel remains militarily invincible...

...efforts...

...The survival of Israel surely depends, as Morgenthau maintains, on the defeat of the Soviet Union's bold attempt to gain control of the space and the oil of the great arc extending from Morocco to Iran...

...Admittedly, our negotiatory effort may fail because of Egypt's ideological antipathy toward Israel...

...As for international guarantees, they may well be worthless given the lesson of 1967...

...Yet there is a risk in permitting an endless series of wars, too...

...Of course, if you prefer that, then go ahead and press," she might well say...

...Andrew M. Greeley Andrew M. Greeley is Director of the Center for the Study of American Pluralism at the University of Chicago...

...The current civic ethos of Europe apparently does not call forth Churchillian responses to such challenges...

...and if nations acted only on the basis of realpolitik, we could anticipate the emergence of a new Mideast coalition binding Egypt, Israel and the United States...

...Only if Israel should insist on expanding to an unacceptable degree beyond its 1967 boundaries might its existence once more be called into question...

...Still, American diplomacy won a fundamentally important compensation...

...Well they might, for the U.S...

...Certainly, the parley comes at a time when old premises and established patterns of alignment and outlook are changing rapidly...

...Despite their military dependence on the Soviets, the Arabs are extremely wary of them...

...The military disengagement agreements between Egypt and Israel, constructed by the master composer of ambiguous consents, Henry Kissinger, do not answer the question at issue, upon which one's assessment of the situation in the Middle East must hinge...

...There is no reason to suppose that they would fare better in another round, even should they begin the fight closer to the heart of Israel, and they might do much worse...

...Jerusalem is sacred to Islam and Christianity, and the Jews have no holy places there...

...Morgenthau asks us to accept as undebatable the newspaper accounts that the Yom Kippur War revealed the Arabs to be doughty soldiers...

...But it surely will not succeed unless we are willing to become a vital party in the situation and can inspire the confidence that our guarantees are trustworthy...

...The existence of one large ethnic group in the midst of another always gives rise to misunderstanding, conflict and uncertainty...

...Intellectually, however, they are attracted by the Munich analogy in a negative way: They want to prove that what happened to Czechoslovakia in 1938-39 is not going to happen to Israel today...

...To be sure, this will pose formidable difficulties when the time comes to negotiate with Syria and Joidan...

...For the past quarter-century we have been told that the Soviets want to destroy us, and some prominent Americans have said that we ought to destroy the USSR first...

...second, that history suggests both international guarantees and military force are useful, particularly in conjunction, but neither can ever be completely reliable and the one has failed as often as the other...

...What could possibly be wrong with that...

...The current U.S...

...This argument is based on the desirability of shorter supply lines, given Israel's limited manpower and dependence on high-technology weaponry...

...Ultimately, therefore, I remain puzzled by Mor-genthau's conclusions...

...Moreover, the security of the United States is affected by ideological jihads across frontiers even in remote areas...

...It is on this second point, implicitly suggested rather than explicitly stated in his article, that I would take issue with him...

...The reasons are many and disquieting, rooted in the Vietnam experience and its still-shunned, bitter truths...

...The issue for the Free World will become Survival, which is the highest imperative, even morally...

...It seems to rest on unsupported assertions and to arrive at questionable conclusions...

...As the then Israeli Chief-of-Staff, Yitzhak Rabin, pointed out: "There is a difference between concentrating forces in order to get into a war and making a move that, while it might end up in war, is not aimed at war but at something else...

...In short, the interaction over the years has been much more complicated than Morgenthau indicates...

...The real problem, therefore, is no longer the existence of the Jewish State but its frontiers...

...But a settlement embodying such provisions is as unlikely as the ideal solution sought by a succession of Israeli governments -I.e., Arab reconciliation to the inevitable military superiority of Israel...

...It is by no means certain (a) that Arab leaders accept the inevitability of a Jewish state in their midst...

...The great powers may well be satisfied with a system of hostile states expending their resources on foreign arms...

...Whether it is called Palestine or Jordan or something else is immaterial, but that it should be one nation, under a responsible leadership, is crucial...

...The need to avoid "a clash of the superpowers" renders the guarantee ineffective...

...Consequently, Mrs...

...The present price gouging by the Persian Gulf ministates may play hell with the economies of Japan and Europe-who until recently seemed to enjoy playing games themselves with the American dollar-but it is not likely to hurt the United States very much...

...Versailles was as disastrous for the democracies as Munich...

...Convinced that the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Israel are variously trapped, he casually cancels the option that the victims of this embargo have to "fight with every means...

...Israel enters the current negotiations with serious disadvantages and it faces wrenching dilemmas...

...True, a peace-keeping force at the 1967 borders would not be able to protect Israel from Soviet missiles...

...Add the other three ingredients Morgenthau mentions-Soviet arms, the Arab oil weapon, and American "even-handedness...

...2. The USSR has been threatening direct military intervention since the first Suez war in 1956...

...Like the U.S., the USSR respects the compulsions of Survival, as it has shown in Cuba and Berlin, no less than we have in Budapest, Prague and wherever else the Soviet system felt threatened enough to justify taking the maximum risk...

...Just as the Arab defeat in 1948-49 triggered a wave of coups in Syria and Egypt and political assassinations in Jordan and Iraq, so too could festering resentments over a ragtag disposition of the Palestinian case generate a wave of violent revolutions against existing Arab regimes...

...The U.S...

...That might actually be enhanced by the removal of the primary casus belli...

...For our role in the Mideast to be effective, it is essential that both sides acquire a stake in their relations with the U.S...

...But human fallability being what it is...

...Whatever in fact happened, it should by now be apparent that the line between "little" wars and nuclear wars is vanishing...

...The Soviets, especially, preach the doctrine that peace requires the acceptance of inviolable frontiers...

...Hans J. Morgenthau's seemingly logical statement is built upon a premise so facile, and to my mind so wrong, that it throws his whole apocalyptic vision out of kilter...

...For the moment, however, it is noteworthy that a large part of the Israeli populace is prepared to make substantial withdrawals from the Sinai, and thus start on the path to peaceful coexistence with Egypt...

...On the other hand, Israel has already achieved its aim of obliging at least its immediate neighborss-Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and probably Syria-to "accept Israel" in their midst, in other words, to recognize its sovereign existence and negotiate a peace agreement with it...

...For the Palestinians, the most tragic victims of the conflict, such a plan offers little...

...At the outset, for example, Morgenthau maintains that the Arabs were three times "saved from complete defeat" by "outside intervention," which has thwarted the Israeli aim of forcing "the Arab world...

...In the United States, our ignorance of Arab cultures is virtually total...

...To assume that the Arabs will never give up their desire to annihilate the Jewish State is like assuming that relations between the U.S...

...and, second, that the Arabs are dedicated to the complete destruction of Israel...

...For Japan and Western Europe have naturally been hit hardest by the hike, with the result that the relatively independent U.S...

...As part of the first assertion we are told that the USSR "seems willing" to use nuclear weapons to prevent an Arab defeat and actually planned to put such weapons into Egypt, until foiled by the U.S...

...Only the Arab moderates can change these policies and attitudes for the better, but their influence is not likely to grow at a time when Arab euphoria feeds upon evidence of Western weakness...

...Israel's survival is no longer to be taken for granted...

...Stated more crudely than he would choose, his assumption seems to be that Israel was never stronger than on the day before Yom Kippur 1973, and any "retreat" from that position-In all its aspects-would simply invite the beginning of the end...

...It is not clear that a settlement on this basis, or along the lines of Security Council Resolution 242, would prejudice the Israelis' security...

...Furthermore, American governments will always have greater cause for aiding Israel than the influence of the Jewish community here...

...Libya's Muammar el-Qaddafi, the most radical Arab leader of all, refused to support the war or participate in the subsequent oil boycott against the West because Sadat has thrown in his lot with the conservative and West-leaning King Faisal...

...On the one hand, it is not clear to me how "the Arab world," stretching from Iraq to Morocco and comprising some 100 million people, could be "completely" defeated by a nation of less than 3 million...

...During the October War, the United States and the Soviet Union were standing eyeball-to-eyeball and this time, unlike the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, the U.S...

...He is generally so humane, sensible, informed, and intelligent that it almost seems perverse to take an opposing position...

...A Carthaginian peace does not make for neighborly relations...

...They started with two enormous advantages: An almost complete surprise attack, and new weapons for which the other side, having never seen them, had no immediate response...

...Most of the respondents are more fascinated by my Munich analogy than I was when I wrote my article or am now...

...In my judgment, he misleads the reader by underestimating the positive side of the present situation...

...it is important to also consider some of the less likely possibilities that could yet provide one of the surprises of history...

...How could he know this...

...compel the Israelis to withdraw from the occupied territories...

...Richard A. Falk Richard A. Falk is Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice at Princeton University...

...Czechoslovakia, which never had the means of self-defense against Nazi Germany that Israel has against the Arabs, was lost because Neville Chamberlain believed Adolf Hitler's lies...

...Prior to the election, the Meir-Dayan-Galili trio was increasingly being rebuffed by the "ultra-doves" within the party, who, under Pinhas Sapir, had gained control of the Central Committee...

...Meir's party, they may end up strengthening her personal position, both internally and in terms of international negotiations...

...Egypt was able to hold out long enough to persuade Saudi Arabia to employ the oil weapon, creating a situation that the U.S...

...In short, were Egypt to act rationally, we would have good reason to hope for important forward steps toward a stable settlement in the Middle East...

...None of these countries gains by an increase in the Soviet presence...

...In this respect, the Yom Kippur War has, as Morgenthau says, "destroyed the foundations of Israel's foreign policy...

...and, thanks to the oil crisis and the virtuosity of the Secretary of State, that is already the case...

...Hans J. Morgenthau is right that the United States is "the country least susceptible to oil blackmail" and "the only one able to exert . . . pressure on Israel...

...In Europe, particularly today, peace depends on the fact that national chauvinism and territorial revanchism are almost universally regarded as intolerable...

...is making considerable inroads into their export markets and the dollar is staging a corresponding comeback on the money exchanges...

...In his disquieting but realistic analysis, Hans J. Morgenthau warns us of the most probable scenario in the Middle East...

...Cultural clashes are among the most difficult for rational men to comprehend, blind as we are to the primordial, to the tacit, and to the preconscious shapes of sensibility, imagination, and intelligence itself...

...Morgenthau is right to worry that the definition of Palestinian rights is fraught with danger, but certainly it does not follow that they should be denied any rights or national identity at all...

...For the moment, however, let us assume that (a) is certain...

...I share their hope...

...This striking contradiction, in a period of supposed detente, deserves unremitting advertisement until such time as it may cease...

...Indeed, both Anwar el-Sadat and King Faisal welcome U.S...

...Until recently, in fact, "conference," "Geneva," "negotiations," and "peace" were forbidden words...

...The relevant point here, though, is that should she find herself being pressured unduly by Kissinger or anyone else, Mrs...

...As for the actual choices in the Middle East today, they are not examined in Mor-genthau's article...

...and all are discommoded in various ways by the accretion of power to Saudi Arabia and the other new plutocrats of the Persian Gulf, who could use their billions to build up a major military force...

...Anwar el-Sadat and others have made it abundantly clear that they are anticipating, at most, the signing of an agreement amounting to not much more than a prolonged and somewhat glorified armistice, with no diplomatic relations, no open frontiers, and most certainly no neighborly bonds of a cultural or economic nature...

...But they were willing to go that far only in the context of a total and genuine peace-the kind of peace for which no Arab ruler, with the possible exception of King Hussein, has revealed the slightest readiness...

...Noam Chomsky Noam Chomsky is Ferrari P. Ward Professor of Modern Languages and Linguistics at MIT, and the author of a forthcoming book on the Middle East...

...First, "some sort of agreement on the Palestinian refugees...

...They lead to the implied conclusions that any negotiations would be futile, and that retreat from its current frontiers would place Israel in "mortal danger...

...However, I would assume that if the peace negotiations succeed, there will be a very serious problem, especially for Israel, of how its security can be assured under conditions when the final borders will certainly be different from the cease-fire lines, and when withdrawals are involved as Security Council Resolution 242 provides...

...Yet we can (and in late October did) compel Israel to sacrifice part of a victory...

...What Israel requires is an unmilitarized, politically stable West Bank and Gaza Strip...

...Indeed, the growing awareness among Israelis that the Arab Palestinians can no longer be ignored is one of the most hopeful recent trends in Israel...

...Henry Kissinger, it will be recalled, said the alert was ordered to dissuade Moscow from sending troops to Egypt to police the cease-fire...

...Hal Lehrman Hal Lehrman, a veteran Mideast and North Africa correspondent, is the author of "Israel: The Beginning and Tomorrow...

...Indeed, an Iranian diplomatic source recently explained that "without Israeli power in the Middle East the Shah feels that the Arabs would be difficult to control and the Russians would very much gain an upper hand in the entire area...

...These were grievous mistakes that could have been mitigated during the military disengagement talks if the U.S...

...Second, "international supervision for the Arab [sic] Holy Places in Jerusalem" (he means, of course, the Moslem and Christian Holy Places...

...As for the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, these could be satisfied by means other than the destruction of the Jewish State...

...Neville Chamberlain and his colleagues, blind to life's tragic element, thought Hitler was interested solely in Germany's prosperity and in conquering Austria and the Sudetenland...

...President, strongly committed to nourishing democratic values around the world, might stand with Israel for the same reason that he would abandon the Thieu regime...

...At that point the question of guarantees will arise and we have to then ask the question, what sort of guarantees—unilateral, several countries, and so forth...

...I don't know what Morgenthau's reservations are, but Prime Minister Golda Meir herself has repeatedly proposed that the Jerusalem Holy Places be placed under the "exclusive" control of their respective religious communities...

...and the USSR must remain forever on the verge of ideological total war...

...Meanwhile, a strong and menacing Israel is useful to the Soviets because it gives them a leverage among the Arabs they would not otherwise have...

...Some Zionists to the contrary, Israel is essentially a colony of Europeans wedged into the Middle East and established principally to enable many of the Jews who escaped the terrors and mass-murders of the Holocaust to live in safety...

...Moreover, not only from Israel's point of view, but from that of Egypt, Jordan and especially the Palestinians, all the negotiable options look pretty bad...

...To be sure, the latter will require a strong Israel-but a strong Israel without a settlement is, in the long run, a doomed Israel, if not an Israel whose survival will doom the world...

...The Arabs cannot reasonably expect these conditions to be repeated in the future either...

...Europeans might be made to realize that the basic conditions of their own peace and security must also be applied to the Middle East...

...Sadat himself, after 10 years of "alert," missed the opening act of the coup against Farouk altogether, having taken his kids to the movies the night the whistle blew...

...The errors of judgment befogging the new course of U.S...

...3. It is not at all clear that the Arabs are capable of maintaining an effective oil boycott without massive "leakage...

...The Nixon Administration evidently came to Israel's rescue in part because of its conviction that the United States must not desert an ally-the same reason it insisted on sustaining General Nguyen Van Thieu...

...Undue U.S...

...Since 1967 Israel has been overextended, militarily, geographically, politically, economically, even ideologically...

...Forced imposition of a settlement would be ugly in many ways, but not necessarily unstable in the short run...

...And that is not the sort of settlement now being proposed by either side, or the great powers, in the Middle East...

...It seems highly unlikely that the Arabs, who do not appear to be able to agree on how to act in the present, have such a unified or clear sense about the significance of the 1973 war for the future...

...Finally-morgenthau's first point-the withdrawal to the 1967 borders, with minor modifications...

...Yet is it not also possible that had the Israeli government been willing to negotiate a settlement-perhaps along the lines of the ill-fated Rogers Plan-the Egyptians would not have launched the October War...

...Morgenthau states quite correctly that had the October War started at the 1967 frontiers, Israel would have been in mortal danger...

...Neither, though, could it protect an Israel six times its present size...

...There are no sure things in international politics, least of all in the Middle East...

...For if Israel is to survive-If Palestinian is to lie down with Israeli in the peace of which Isaiah dreamed-It will have to be a political state more profoundly equipped to accommodate cultural differences than any we envision today...

...This increase, in turn, has been made possible by the skyrocketing demand for energy in the non-Communist industrial world and the formation of an effective oligopoly by the oil-exporting countries, two developments that would have occurred even if Israel had never existed...

...blinked first": Washington peremptorily pressured Israel to stop fighting once Moscow signaled that its Arab clients, in danger of defeat, were going to be protected, even at the risk of a possible confrontation of the two superpowers...

...and much about Israel?beyond its "Americanized" modernity-has escaped us...

...Those who try to negotiate a detente or an alliance with untrustworthy regimes often convince themselves of the merits of those with whom they are obliged to do business...

...Meir and her associates have regained considerable freedom of action vis-a-vis their own Central Committee...

...Israel does not want the Sinai...

...Paul Seabury Paul Seabury is a professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley...

...Surely this is not an accurate characterization of the 1956 war, and in 1967 the situation was more complex...

...Not that the latter have presented any reasonable basis for reconciliation, and neither have the Arab states...

...Eugene V. Rostow Eugene V. Rostow, Sterling Professor of Law and Public Affairs at Yale University, was Undersecretary of State from 1967-69 and chairman of the Control Group in charge of handling the 1967 Mideast crisis...

...In the 1950s and '60s the internationalism of the American public was sufficiently strong to make our commitments credible throughout the world...

...This might prevent war, but it is hardly a just or satisfactory peace for the peoples of this troubled region...

...The cause of its current unpopularity, and the breaking off of relations in so many instances, is its occupation for six years of substantial pieces of its neighbors' territories, and the consequent worldwide diplomatic offensive against it by those neighbors...

...As S.L.A...

...In acknowledging Israel's right to exist by entering into negotiations, Sadat has further estranged himself from the Arab extremists...

...The Arabs, no longer able to evade the issue by rhetoric, must come up with concrete proposals for the Palestinian problem...

...Yet there is a significant difference between a commitment to "bury" the adversary physically if possible, and a residual rivalry and dislike in the context of resignation to coexistence...

...Under an international agreement, for example, some refugees could be allowed to return to most of a demilitarized West Bank and others could be absorbed by adjacent Arab states...

...So does the survival of nato, the independence of Europe, and therefore the basic security of the United States...

...In Europe, millions of refugees who were forced by the upheavals of war to leave their homelands were long ago assimilated by other countries and now lead useful lives...

...Morgenthau is unnecessarily worried about the possibility of Soviet nuclear reaction...

...Today, two prerequisites in particular have to be met lor our credibility to be sustained...

...Morgenthau goes on to argue that Israel was "indefensible" within its 1967 borders, that international guarantees are "worthless" and that "the restoration of the legitimate rights of the Palestinians" is incompatible with Israel's survival...

...Uri Ra'anan Uri Ra'anan is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy...

...To these rather sweeping contentions I would respond, first, that the former frontiers were quite successfully defended in 1967, but with modern weaponry no frontiers are likely to be invulnerable in the future...

...Perhaps the Israelis will for once recognize that peace rather than recurrent war is in their own interest...

...The key to success in this effort, I believe, is a series of peace treaties between Israel and its neighbors stipulating that Israel will withdraw to recognized boundaries, on the condition that no troops be permitted between the Suez Canal and the new boundaries, in whatever part of the West Bank may be conceded to Jordan, or in whatever part of the Golan Heights area may be returned to Syria...

...As Henry Kissinger is reported to have told the Egyptian journalist Mohammed Hassanein Heikal, the United States as a superpower cannot let Soviet arms defeat American arms anywhere in the world-and this has nothing to do per se with Israelis or Arabs...

...Michael Mandelbaum Michael Mandelbaum, a teaching fellow at Harvard University, is writing a dissertation on nuclear strategy and diplomacy...

...and if they collapse, the conclusions he draws from them must be called into question...

...would be faced with a new Cuban missile crisis (far more serious than the psychodrama of last October 24...

...In the Middle East, the Arab states have callously prevented similar victims from resettling...

...closer to the mark, I think, is Ray Alan's report in the same issue ("Muddling Through") that "Egyptian military chiefs were, in fact, panicking [and] two generals had offered to resign" just before the Soviet-invented cease-fire saved the whole campaign from total Israeli encirclement...

...This startling declaration strikes me as incorrect and, hence, irresponsible...

...Once it recovered from the initial failure to anticipate the Arab attack, its Armed Forces beat the living daylights out of the Arabs...

...I have no basis for evaluating Morgenthau's extraordinary statement that "the intelligence at the disposal of our government provides evidence that the Russians either had placed nuclear arms in Egypt or were in the process of doing so when the U.S...

...whatever Cairo gets from Moscow it would rather get from Washington...

...Accordingly, its decision to integrate the occupied territories received a quasi-formal endorsement in the August 1973 program of the Labor party...

...The Arabs, explaining that all other remedies had failed, attack Israeli cities with missiles, and the USSR warns Israel against retaliating...

...She, at least, does not seem to be concerned about a possible loss of security on that score...

...If Europeans persist in ignoring their obligations in the Middle East, they might also be reminded of their reliance on American support and guarantees for their own security...

...In this event, the U.S...

...As soon as Israel sits down at the negotiating table, as it is now doing in Geneva, our leverage disappears...

...and third, that the "legitimate rights of the Palestinians," which remain to be defined, might be, but need not be, incompatible with the existence of Israel...

...Hans J. Morgenthau imputes so much power and wisdom to the Arab side, one wonders whether he has ever read Anwar el-Sadat's 1957 magnum opus, Revolt on the Nile, wherein the Colonel unwittingly demonstrates that the 1952 "Free Officers' " uprising against King Farouk succeeded only because the regime was even more incompetent than the revolutionaries, who started conspiring during World War II...

...Granted, it must have defensible borders...

...to reconcile itself to the inevitable and accept Israel in its midst...

...Now there is a chance, however small, for a settlement that avoids the pitfalls of both...

...Here Sinai could prove a less intractable stumbling block than Golan...

...It will be some time before we can fully gauge just how severe the oil shortage is, how long it will last, and what political impact it will have...

...influence in the Middle East as a counter to the USSR...

...Yet it was followed six years later by another war that, even had it not been stopped when it was by a cease-fire, would almost certainly have proved no more decisive in the long run...

...It may be recalled that when the Saigon government protested against the "deal" being arranged for it by Kissinger in Paris, leaving more than 150,000 North Vietnamese regulars ensconced on South Vietnamese soil, he retorted that South Vietnam could not hope to achieve at the peace table what it had failed to gain in war...

...If we and our allies are firm, the framework of Resolution 242 is strong enough to bring about total demilitarization of the territories in dispute, which should be the first item on the Geneva agenda...

...Thus a special vote of gratitude is due individuals like Morgenthau who sound the alarm against naivete...

...Nations often seek objectives beyond their reach, to which they are dedicated only rhetorically...

...Indeed, any number of people could devise any number of solutions if the initial assumption holds...

...Yet no frontiers can provide absolute security, as the fourth Arab-Israeli war showed, in large part because of the aims and adventurism of a Soviet Union that has become a permanent factor in Middle East politics...

...The dangers Hans J. Morgenthau sees are real...

...Since Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the smaller Arab states of the area are even more interested than Israel in keeping the Egyptian Armed Forces on the Western side of the Suez Canal, the oil embargo should be lifted once it becomes clear we will insist on a peace that requires Israeli withdrawal to secure and recognized boundaries from a completely demilitarized Sinai, pursuant to a long timetable whose stages are defined not merely by the passage of time, but by definite political steps as well: the end of the economic blockade of Israel, the establishment of normal political, economic, and diplomatic relations, and the like...

...At our insistence Israel agreed, however reluctantly, to a cease-fire and peace talks-just when its Army, having driven the Syrians from Golan, was about to crush the Egyptians at Suez...

...Hans J. Morgenthau helps put these little speeches into a large and firm context...

...And it would be well to recall what Jan Masaryk, the Czech Foreign Minister on the eve of the Communist takeover, once said: "In a world where there is no security for the small nation, there can be no security for the large nation...

...It is part of a steady increase in the price of crude oil that the producing nations have forced since 1970 and that would have continued without the October war, albeit not so rapidly...

...Assimilation," "modern rationality" and the secular state have never been equal to the task...

...And no less an authority than the U.S...

...1967...

...and in a military bureaucracy that rewards acquiescence rather than ability...

...If the Arabs proved they can fight, they did not prove that they can win, or for that matter, keep from losing without great-power assistance...

...Perhaps (though this seems less likely) the Arab side will agree to conditions that safeguard Israel's security, such as a two-key doubly-inspected demilitarization of Sinai and Golan...

...It has become fashionable in some circles to say, "Of course, I take for granted Israel's right to survival," but then to get down to the real animus: "Israel has become too militarist, too hawkish...

...It would enable Egypt and Saudi Arabia to revert to the role they prefer as American client states, while Israel would remain the major military force in the region, with substantial arms production and advanced industrial development...

...My guess is that any negotiated settlement involving Egypt and having the formal backing of the U.S., USSR and UN would offer Israel more security than it has ever before had...

...as well will find itself subject to ever-growing dangers...

...Israel understandably wants to retain Golan, yet what if its withdrawal is the key to a settlement...

...If ideology were not the powerful force that it is...

...Another U.S...

...Alvin Z. Rubinstein Alvin Z. Rubinstein is a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania...

...Unless it becomes so again, not only Israel but the U.S...

...it is supported by only the most conjectural assertions...