Israel on the Road to Geneva

...They are saying that even if Israel pulled back to its 1967 boundaries, the Arabs are not ready to reconcile themselves to normal relations with the Jewish State...

...From the Right and Left of the ruling trio, however, and from opponents within their own Labor party, other positions began to emerge...

...True, Rabin, Defense Minister Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Yigal Allon maintained, publicly and privately, that they preferred a step-by-step procedure with Egypt to a gathering where Israel would have to face Egypt and Syria (and possibly Jordan) at the same time, and have to deal in addition with the thorny issue of Palestinian representation...

...In any event, as an experienced diplomat like the Secretary of State must surely have been aware, the deadlock that occurred certainly did not merit his apocalyptic visions, not to mention his immoderate statements...

...Eventually, each party would get less than 100 per cent and give less than 100 per cent...

...Even the Soviet Union, the main champion of the conference, as well as its co-chairman, began to talk about completing "thorough preparations" before the meeting...

...His comments may have been as much a part of an ongoing effort to pressure Jerusalem as a reflection of the personal pique of a magician whose rabbit had refused to materialize at the critical moment...

...The "re-evaluation" of America's Mideast policy, initiated after Kissinger's return to Washington, was also legitimate: The United States had to re-examine whether its step-by-step approach remained viable...

...Meanwhile, Rabin's internal critics, led by former Foreign Minister Abba Eban and former Defense Minister Moshe Dayan (both of whom, in Kissinger's reported opinion, would have been more flexible negotiators than their successors) publicly questioned the idea of a separate arrangement with Cairo...

...The roots of this mood are of course to be found in the shock experienced during the first days of the Yom Kippur War...

...Israel, he said, should go to Geneva ready to reach full agreements with Egypt, Syria and Jordan...

...There is, unfortunately, nothing particularly new in this observation, and, with some optimism, one might go so far as to claim that Kissinger's efforts in March actually succeeded in bringing about a small convergence between Cairo's and Jerusalem's stands...

...He declared, as he had earlier, that in the long run it was unrealistic to try to detach Egypt from Syria...

...The significance of the Soviet offer to guarantee Israel's 1967 borders, made by Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko at a Moscow dinner honoring the visiting Syrian Vice President, is not lightly shrugged off by Israelis...

...Nor could talk about the inevitability of the Geneva conference as a bogey to frighten Israel serve to make the Arabs particularly interested in pre-empting the Geneva confrontation with a mutually acceptable agreement...

...Indeed, the impression is wide-spread in Israel that both Sadat and Kissinger acted as they did because of developments not in the Mideast, but in Cambodia and Vietnam...

...The way the Israelis see it, Sadat's refusal to make any move that publicly indicated he was embarking upon the long road toward peace proved he was not yet ready to accept Israel's existence...

...One effect of these tactics should have been predictable: Prime Minister Rabin considered himself obliged to stick rigidly to his positions, and he received support not only from the hawks but also from many middle-of-the-road Israelis who believed Kissinger was being unfair to their country...

...Eban outlined a 12-point draft for a peace plan to be taken to Geneva...

...Apparently believing Congressional refusals in Indochina would sooner-or-later be matched by an erosion of backing for Israel, the Egyptian President saw no need to budge from his original terms...

...Israel's period of renewed independence is still too short, and the stakes are too high, for its citizens to sit back and calmly, objectively weigh the dangers they face against the military, political and economic assets they hold...

...Suspending discussions on the delivery of weapons already promised (including F-15 fighters and the Lance ground-to-ground missiles), at the same time that Hawk missile deals were being signed with Jordan, was hardly the best way to encourage Arab conciliation...

...All this is within the limits of the diplomatic and political game...

...One can-and some critics of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin do-make a fairly convincing case that Israel mishandled the diplomatic and public relations aspects of the Kissinger mission...

...In sum, consciously or unconsciously, many Israelis feel there is a certain air of unreality about the present peace debate, particularly since any chances of success are contingent upon the Arab world's willingness to compromise...

...Clearly, Dayan hoped in this way to avoid negotiating any withdrawals from the West Bank in the near future...

...Unlike Americans, Germans or Frenchmen, Israelis read what Arab leaders have to say in their own countries, and there the talk is still of the 1947 "Partition Plan frontiers," along with, at best, a temporary tolerance while Israel is being pushed to collapse from within...

...approach, a number of them voiced support for an overall settlement...

...But Israelis felt, and still strongly feel, that the Secretary's continued accusations against Israel in his off-the-record briefings to Congress, to newsmen and to Jewish leaders-and the decisions deriving from those accusations-were definitely unwarranted...

...Less predictable-in fact, probably something of a surprise to Washington-was Egypt's and Syria's lack of enthusiasm for a headlong rush to Geneva, despite their official pronouncements to the contrary...

...The Right saw Geneva as an opportunity to show the world the Arabs were still scheming to annihilate Israel...

...But these arguments tend to obscure a fundamental point: Yasir Arafat may talk of a "secular Palestine" to replace Israel, and Sadat may speak of "ending the war now, leaving the establishment of peace to the next generation," but to the Israelis both men are saying the same thing...

...This was not realistic either, responded Eban...

...Yet of greater importance, perhaps, is the fact that the Soviets seemed to step up their propaganda vis-a-vis Israel after they failed to induce Yasir Arafat to moderate his stand on Geneva...

...But first, he now insisted, Israel should work out a big "halfway deal" with Sadat: much broader retreats from Sinai than envisaged during the Kissinger mission in exchange for extended de facto nonbelligerency...

...Senators, reaffirming their support of Israel, could prove more important to moving the situation off center in the Middle East than was generally recognized when it was issued...

...At the same time, Arab military plans are being coordinated once more, Jordan is being brought into line to reactivate the "eastern front," and Arab Chiefs of Staff are exchanging visits at an accelerated pace...

...Generally, people agree that the Soviets want to encourage those in Israel who favor going to Geneva...

...It may be symptomatic that any utterance, positive or negative, by a second-ranking Western politician about the Israeli-Arab dispute is accorded front-page coverage, whereas an achievement like the Weizmann Institute's development of a new strain of wheat that doubles the net flour yield (and may revolutionize mankind's fight against famine) receives relatively brief page-three treatment in the press...

...Although most of the other speakers tended to support the "Rabin-Kissinger...

...AN AIR OF UNREALITY Israel on the Road to Geneva BY ELIAHU SALPETER Tel Avtv One does not need specially sensitive antennae to feel the incipient mood of entrapment in Israel these days-recent hopeful signs abroad and even close to home notwithstanding...

...Nevertheless, going beyond such matters, people here sense they are becoming victims simultaneously of America's defeat in Southeast Asia, Henry Kissinger's bruised ego and geometrically expanding Arab wealth and influence...

...Kissinger, on the other hand, obviously required a major diplomatic triumph to offset the fall of Phnom Penh and Saigon...

...This critique reopened, for the first time since the Yom Kippur War, an institutionalized debate inside the ruling Labor Alignment about the nation's foreign policy options...

...Neither was the stress on Israel having to come up with some new ideas likely to convince the Egyptians that they, too, should contribute to ending the deadlock...

...But its current resurgence stems primarily from the stormy closing phase of Kissinger's abortive second attempt at Mideast shuttle-diplomacy last March, and from the consequent shifts in the Ford Administration's support of Jerusalem's policies...

...A political committee session called originally by those wanting to "discipline" Eban turned out to be an open, straightforward affair: Rabin and Allon defended the Cabinet line...

...Stretching the rules a bit, one might say the same of Kissinger's initial remarks to newsmen in his entourage, who were given to understand that Sadat was quite forthcoming while the Rabin government was not flexible enough...

...Thus, for all the peace talk in Washington and Moscow, and all the political soul-searching in Israel, from here the situation often continues to appear uncannily reminiscent of May 1967 and September 1973...

...In a sense, this is unavoidable: No discussion of future prospects can take place without an assessment of present problems, and Kissinger believes the Israelis were wrong to reject the comparatively minor concessions Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat was willing to make in exchange for their with-drawing from the strategically important Gidi and Mitla passes and returning the Abu Rudeis oil fields in the Sinai...

...The USSR, obviously, will not hesitate to play an extremist Arab tune rather than risk losing its hold on this pipe...

...thus unilateral concessions to him would have been unreasonably dangerous...

...Some of this may be the Israelis' own fault, particularly the failure to react quickly and energetically enough to the deteriorating domestic economic situation, or to the Arabs' stepped-up economic warfare and propaganda campaigns in the West...

...Eliahu Salpeter is a member of the editorial board of Ha'aretz, one of Israel's leading newspapers...

...In this regard, it should be noted that the May 21 letter sent to President Ford by 76 U.S...

...Soon it would become evident that neither side was ready to concede everything its opponent wanted, and then the genuine bargaining would begin...

...According to his scenario, Israel would (and should) ask for peace with all the trimmings-diplomatic relations, economic ties, cultural contacts, the whole thing-while the Arabs would (at least) ask for full Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and recognition of the "national rights of the Palestinians...

...Least of all, though, could Kissinger have foreseen the reaction in Israel to the possibility of reconvening the Geneva conference...

...the Left considered it a chance to demonstrate the opposite...

...General Dayan's reservations were the more limited...

...But there is more suspicion than trust of the Kremlin's motives...

...As he sees it, the intangible movement away from war by Egypt would have been worth the price and the risk...

...The idea of a peace plan has also become a major subject of discussion in the press and among political groups throughout the country, extending to questions about the meaning of the somewhat less anti-Israel profile Moscow has recently presented...

...and Left-of-center Mapam party members of the coalition Cabinet urged flexibility...

...But, Eban contended, the chances for agreement are infinitely better when the final goals are known in advance than when-as with the Kissinger method-each side suspects the next step will be to its disadvantage...

...Israelis who have had an opportunity to speak with the Secretary of State lately swear their efforts to avoid recriminations have been of no avail: The conversations always come back to responsibility for the failure, and Kissinger again and again puts the onus on Israel...