Looking Beyond the Mideast Peace

...But it is to say that since no war with its small neighbor can be a life-or-death struggle, Egypt's first priority is to improve its disastrous economic situation, which is actually worse than Israel's...

...Israelis could help, of course, improve Egypt's intensive agriculture...

...This combination of rapid population growth and inadequate resources confronts Egypt with three critical challenges: rapid industrialization...

...Israeli economists also point out that peace is unlikely to improve the efficiency of the nation's administration and service industries...

...To begin with, now that Iran's new rulers insist they will never renew oil supplies to the Jewish State, there is the matter of returning Sinai oil wells potentially capable of supplying up to half of Israel's needs...

...But peace with Egypt alone—while Syria, Iraq and the more distant Arab Rejectionists intensify their Soviet supported threats and war preparations—would not allow Israel to significantly reduce military expenditures...

...These high expectations are the most dangerous aspects of President Sadat's political position —whether a treaty is signed or not...

...Furthermore, Washington's original timidity in urging Riyadh to support Sadat's peace moves has resulted in the Saudis taking an increasingly hostile attitude toward the Israel-Egypt talks...

...Housing is similarly inadequate, and so is surface transportation...

...Moreover, civilian settlements would have to be transplanted from the Sinai to the Negev as well, and the Israeli economy would have to pay the extra cost of oil imports to replace the petroleum lost from the Sinai and the Red Sea...

...would lift an immense burden from Israel's shoulders...

...and Egypt, in turn, could continue supplying Sinai oil to Israel...

...on a grant and/or long-term basis, it would certainly have to bear part of the burden itself...

...The potential for economic cooperation between Israel and Egypt appears rather limited, too...

...and although Jerusalem hopes to obtain most of this sum from the U.S...

...For the Egyptians, precisely the reverse is true: They look to a formal cessation of hostilities for its potential economic and social benefits...

...Peace would make more money and technology available for expanding agriculture, but the most successful agricultural programs could not be expected to offset the consequences of wild population growth, let alone improve the farmer-to-land ratio...

...And that is unlikely: Should it prove possible to cut back on defense spending after all, the savings would not be enough to begin coping with the nation's dire requirements...

...Israel would have to give up the Sinai Peninsula, a tangible military asset, for a document that could be renounced much more easily than the enormous buffer zone could be reoc-cupied...

...It is not difficult to discern why the proposed agreement causes anxiety here...

...In terms of the peace agreement, doubts about U.S...

...Still, for the average Israeli, the economic drawbacks—or benefits—of peace are of secondary importance...

...determination were inspired by the situation surrounding the two airfields in the Sinai that Israel would be quitting, Eitam and Etzion...

...But more important, Washington's performance in the Iranian crisis has further undermined confidence in America's ability, or willingness, to come to the aid of its allies in the Middle East...

...Considered the most modern and best equipped outside nato, they provide essential backup protection of the sea lanes from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean and adjacent areas...

...With one-third of the budget going to defense, for example, a pact embracing all the surrounding nations Eliahu Salpeter, a regular NL contributor, is a correspondent for Ha'aretz, one of Israel's leading newspapers...

...Relocation of just the Sinai airfields and other bases to the Negev would cost an estimated $2-3 billion...

...In Cairo and Alexandria, for example, the sewage and water networks, power lines and telephone systems are all in an advanced state of collapse from being overloaded...

...In addition, the treaty's autonomy plan would require handing to the Arabs—although the Rejectionist states and the PLO continue to deny Israel's right to exist—a major portion of the responsibility for internal security on the West Bank and on the Gaza Strip...

...Indeed, breaking out of the depressing economic vortex was the chief impetus behind Sadat's initiative...

...Egypt's main trouble is a high birth rate...

...True, it would contribute meaningfully toward progress in these areas...

...Recent events in Teheran have added to Israel's uneasiness...

...For Egypt's huge urban, industrial and in-frastructural problems will take many years to solve, even if the necessary funds become available...

...Compounding Egypt's problem of overpopulation is a dearth of natural resources...

...But otherwise, there is not a great deal Israel could buy from Egypt, and it would be unreasonable to expect Egypt to replace its U.S...

...But the most important immediate benefit of a settlement would be the normalization of political relations between the Middle East's two most advanced countries...

...and relieving urban crowding...

...and Saudi financed imports of American and Western European goods with Israeli imports...

...Security is the critical matter—so that even the possibility of trade and economic agreements with Egypt are regarded in light of how much they would contribute to strengthening the legal and political props of a settlement...

...Food imports and food subsidies—now mostly financed by outside sources—would have to be continued well into the for-seeable future...

...obtaining huge sums of foreign money for both investment and to meet immediate needs...

...As for Saudi Arabia, which has both the cash for, and a vital interest in, Egypt's socio-economic conditions, it has always shown more readiness to finance Cairo's war preparations than its domestic needs...

...Also, joint tourist ventures to attract Western visitors seem a promising notion...

...nor is there much chance that the United States or Western Europe will fill the gap...

...failure to obtain at least temporary rights to these bases after an Israeli withdrawal represents, in Jerusalem's eyes, a major setback to Western interests in the region...

...Not all the "problems" raised here by the proposed peace involve military security, however...

...While the discovery of oil in the Gulf of Suez dramatically transformed Egypt from an energy importer to an exporter, the new petroleum deposits are not sufficiently spectacular to compensate for the absence of major quantities of other raw materials...

...THE PROBLEMS FOR EGYPT AND ISRAEL Looking Beyond the Mideast Peace by eliahu salpeter ANWAR SADAT Tel Avrv With everybody's eyes focused on Washington's attempts to resolve the disputes over the draft Mideast peace treaty, relatively little attention has been paid to the psychological climate in the countries directly involved...

...The average Egyptian believes the advent of peace will release huge sums from defense, and thereby make possible the quick amelioration of such problems—along with a significant increase in the purchasing power of his meager income...

...Exactly the opposite could happen: A pact with one Arab country could remove the psychological restraints that have so far tempered the materialistic quest...

...Since only small stretches of the vast desert can be slowly added to the narrow strip of arable land along the Nile River, food production and farm-related jobs cannot keep pace with the needs of the ever increasing population...

...Nor will it induce Israelis to give up their relentless push for higher consumption levels, unaccompanied by higher productivity...

...This has left the Egyptian President wondering whether a treaty may not cost him the hundreds of millions of dollars he already receives from Riyadh...

...Yet a great many Israelis associate the word "peace" with the word "problem" rather than "opportunity," a fact Prime Minister Menachem Begin cannot afford to ignore...

...This is not to say that President Sadat and the Egyptian population do not care about the cost in human life and suffering of another war...

...some concern the economic implications of the arrangement...

...On the contrary, it is very possible that if an agreement were reached, Israel's spending would immediately climb...

...In sum, then, the signing of a peace treaty by Cairo and Jerusalem would not wipe out Israel's overall security concerns, or solve Egypt's economic difficulties...

...And a great many financially distressed Egyptians link "peace" with "economic cure-all," a fact President Anwar Sadat must certainly find unsettling...