Correspondents' Correspondence Pressuring Israel

...Failing this, Janata could well find itself giving way in a few years to an altogether different power configuration...

...And while on "background" others in the Administration tended to repeat Carter's peace sentiments, they did so only when asked...

...Labor agitation—long suppressed under the emergency—is also on the rise, and here in Bombay the red flags and strident cries of demonstrators are back...

...Launched as a grab-bag opposition to Congress, the coalition began to show its seams in the weeks before the June 10 state elections...

...Namboodiri-pad (leader of the world's first elected Communist government, in the state of Kerala in 1957 and '59) recently pointed out, the country's Left and "democratic" forces could gradually rally to form a new party...

...Nothing specific was spelled out, but it was implied that the Arabs would have to agree to security arrangements the Israelis could accept...

...What steps...

...Consequently, for the last four months, everyone from workers to middle-class intellectuals has been willing to allow the government some breathing room...

...To a question about why a policy statement sure to produce controversy was issued three weeks before the newly elected leader of a friendly state was to arrive, the reply was because Begin and Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan have said that Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank is to be excluded from any peace talks...

...In addition, before President Carter announced at his June 30 press conference that there would be no further Administration comments on a Middle East settlement until Begin's visit, a high U.S...

...Indeed, a blow-up appeared to be in the wind when on July 6 the President, moving to balance his Administration's tougher stand toward Israel, told a group of Jewish leaders what the U.S...

...But what had changed was U.S...

...State Department officials became very defensive when questioned about the Middle East...

...Gandhi's emergency (a move requiring the assent of at least half of the assemblies), and the election on August 12 of a Janata-backed president (the head of state, who must sign every closely-contested bill before it becomes law, is chosen by an electoral college that includes all state legislators...

...But instead of seriously attempting to deal with India's troubles, Janata has spent much of its time setting up commissions of enquiry into the various excesses of the emergency—for example, Sanjay Gandhi's small-car project...

...Yet the theme had been somewhat muted of late in his official pronouncements...

...In elections for 10 of India's 22 state assemblies, the ruling party captured eight of the legislatures, piling up huge majorities throughout the Hindi-speaking North...

...Following protests in major cities over their continued incarceration, Home Minister Singh recently announced he was prepared to free them if they were willing to give up violence...

...Janata pledged to free all detainees, regardless of ideology, but it is now dragging its feet...

...Gandhi's "young Turks...

...Others, however, pointing to the years they have already spent behind bars (in some cases without trial) are demanding their release with no strings attached...

...Nandini Satpathy, former chief minister of Orissa, was placed on the Janata ticket despite the public appeals of Jayaprakash Narayan, the party's spiritual head, to vote against her...

...It thus not only consolidated the power it won by defeating Indira Gandhi's Congress party in March's national voting, but significantly furthered two particular goals: the dismantling of constitutional amendments passed during Mrs...

...would demand of the Arabs.—Marvin Kalb Janata's Shaky Future Bombay—Prime Minister Morarji R. Desai's Janata government passed its first major test with flying colors last month...

...And a third bone of contention was the fact that Mrs...

...For the coalition's all-too-familiar assortment of ideologies—from the Fabianism of its Socialists to the farm-based conservatism of Singh's Bhartiya Lok Dal—is sadly reminiscent of the Congress of 1947, eu-phorically greeted as the party that brought independence to India...

...In this regard, they might profit from the experience of their predecessors...

...Whatever the case, though, together with the policy declaration it made clear that the Administration was in fact getting tougher on the Israelis—becoming quite specific about what is expected of them, while seeming to dilute what is expected of the Arabs...

...Yet instead of gathering up the fruits of its decision, the Administration that same day ran in the direction of confrontation: Apparently disturbed by Congressional and Israeli criticism charging they had adopted a less than even-handed approach to the Middle East conflict, top White House and State Department officials issued a very strong policy statement warning that Israel would face stiff U.S...

...Their voices rose in righteous indignation, as though a change in pitch changed the essence of what they were saying...

...officials quite exercised...

...The policy statement, for example, ticked off what Israel had to do: withdraw from the occupied territory on all "three" fronts—the Sinai, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (the last two have become a hyphenated concept in American policy...

...Of the few thousand political prisoners remaining in jail, the majority are Naxalites, Maoist revolutionaries who launched an armed uprising in West Bengal nearly a decade ago...

...Political attention here, therefore, is currently focused on Janata's attempt to cope with the unseemly squabbles that have marred its first months in office.?Darrvl D'Monte...

...And though Janata has pledged to end the scarcity of consumer items, there is still a shortage of cooking oil, and importers still ignore government pleas and the needs of Indians by selling goods abroad for big profits when world prices rise rather than shipping them home...

...official was said to have told a newsman that if Begin is going to insist on making the West Bank a nonnegoti-able area, then maybe he had better not come to the United States...

...Nevertheless, all is not smooth sailing for Janata, for internal dissension is already surfacing...

...Merely consider the difference between former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy and President Carter's explicit call for a Palestinian homeland, Arab compensation and an Israeli pull-back to roughly the 1967 boundaries...

...There is no documentation for this claim, but it got U.S...

...Pressuring Israel Washington—On Monday, June 27, the Carter Administration confirmed a weekend story that it had approved the sale of $115 million worth of arms to Israel—an action obviously designed to ease the way toward the climactic July 19 meeting between the President and the new Israeli Prime Minister, Men-ahem Begin...

...Congress, of course, split in 1969 and currently appears to be on its last legs...

...Today Janata is being hailed as having led the country in the second freedom struggle...

...True, this President, like his predecessors, talked about peace...

...But the lessons of the past should make it clear that a party brought together to oust an enemy must move beyond the makeshift stage if it is to offer coherent, effective leadership on the broad range of domestic and international issues...

...Another flareup occurred when powerful Uttar Pradesh boss Charan Singh, who has been given the crucial home minister portfolio in Desai's Cabinet, resigned as party observer for his state's elections because the national leadership rejected some of his proposed candidates...

...A portion of the Naxalites complied...

...Yet troublesome as the situation in its own back yard is, Janata faces more pressing national problems...

...The great majority of these, it is true, were inherited from Congress...

...The release of political prisoners is yet another sore spot...

...one member even won a seat in the West Bengali Legislature...

...The statement, in turn, got Israel and its supporters even more exercised...

...The threat might have been intended to reach the Prime Minister's ears, or it might merely have been an idle, careless one...

...In exchange, the Arabs would have to "take steps toward the normalization of relations with Israel...

...policy—despite the insistence that everything was still based on 1967 Security Council Resolution 242...

...One dispute erupted when, contrary to its promises, Janata supported as legislative candidates several defectors from Congress—in a few cases even choosing them over aspirants who had suffered for resisting the emergency...

...resistance should it exclude a West Bank withdrawal from upcoming Geneva peace negotiations...

...As E.M.S...

...In the months ahead, Janata leaders will no doubt become increasingly aware that a mandate from the people is not in itself enough to assure progress or stability...

...Such a coalition would contain India's three Communist groups, plus members of the Socialist party and perhaps some defectors from Janata who previously were Mrs...

...It did not...

...Meanwhile, inflation gnaws insistently at the vitals of society (prices went up 12 per cent in the last fiscal year...