Premier Menachem Begin says that Israel will honor its peace treaty commitment to withdraw from Sinai by the April 25 deadline. But his remarks, in interviews published in Maariv and Yediot Achronot today, appeared to be less than an unqualified assurance that the withdrawal would take place on schedule.
According to the interviews, Begin spoke of “certain problems” which have arisen with Egypt. He said “there will be no problem” if they can be resolved satisfactorily by April 25. He added, however, “If we do not achieve full satisfaction, we shall have to consider the situation.”
This morning, Begin received a delegation of the “young guard” of his Herut faction who presented him with a petition calling on the government to consider delaying the withdrawal. The petition was signed by about 750 of the 900 delegates to the Herut “young guard” convention yesterday at which Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and Deputy Premier David Levy delivered hard-line speeches hinting at a delay unless alleged Egyptian treaty violations are rectified.
A delegation spokesman said later that Begin had promised the group that he would raise the withdrawal issue at next Sunday’s Cabinet meeting. He reminded them, however, that there was a binding Knesset decision approving the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt which requires Israel to be out of Sinai by April 25. He also reportedly told the Herut militants that Israel’s complaints against Egypt, while serious, should not be exaggerated.
The Premier’s newspaper interviews were far more moderate than the speeches by Shamir, Sharon and Levy. Begin said he had not read the remarks by those ministers and that “no such decision” (to delay the withdrawal) has been taken by the Cabinet.
HARDLINE VIEWS ADVANCED
Shamir told the Herut convention yesterday that the Camp David accords must “obligate all sides if they are to retain any validity.” Sharon vowed that Israel would not make the slightest concessions with regard to the peace treaty violations attributed to Egypt. Levy declared, “If the withdrawal has to be postponed, then let it be postponed.”
Other Herut MKs took an even harder line. Yosef Rom, a member of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, who visited the Yamit region of northern Sinai yesterday, told members of the movement to stop the withdrawal that he had “recommended to the government that it delay the withdrawal for a month” because of Egypt’s behavior. He was warmly applauded. MK Yigal Cohen-Orgad, meanwhile, is trying to rally a caucus of Likud MKs who oppose the peace treaty to pressure the government to consider a postponement. But another Likud MK, Ehud Olmert, told reporters today that this caucus represented a small fraction of the Likud Knesset faction. The majority, he said, firmly believed that the political damage Israel would suffer if it delayed its pull-out from Sinai would for outweigh any benefits. Some observers here have expressed anxiety over the anti-withdrawal “momentum” gathering force among rightwing politicians not previously sympathetic to the Gush Emunim militants attempting to block withdrawal. They said intense American diplomatic involvement would be required to settle matters between Egypt and Israel and were fairly confident that it would be forthcoming and would succeed.
U.S. CONCERNED OVER DEVELOPMENTS
One ranking American diplomat Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian Affairs Nicholas Veliotes, arrived here yesterday and has already held meetings with Begin and other top level ministers. Deputy Secretary of State Walter Stoessel, the senior State Department official after Secretary of State Alexander Haig, is due here tomorrow and will meet with Begin on Thursday.
The dispatch of both men to the Middle East within a few days of each other indicated the Reagan Administration’s serious concern that the Sinai withdrawal be carried out smoothly and on schedule and that Israel refrain from any military action against Palestinian bases in Lebanon. There have been unconfirmed reports that Haig himself may come to the region next week if necessary to keep the peace process from de-railing.
LIST OF COMPLAINTS AGAINST EGYPT
Veliotes, who visited Cairo before coming to Jerusalem, was reportedly given a long list of Israel’s complaints against Egypt when he met with Begin. These include: President Hosni Mubarak’s refusal to visit Jerusalem which caused his scheduled trip to Israel last month to be shelved; allegations that Egypt has deployed more troops than allowed under the peace treaty in the areas of Sinai it already controls; and charges that Egypt is drawing closer to the Palestine Liberation Organization and is helping the PLO smuggle arms from Sinai into the Gaza Strip.
Israel has also taken offense to the omission of any reference to the Camp David accords and the autonomy negotiations in the speech delivered in Kuwait over the weekend by Ismet Abdel-Meguid, head of the Egyptian delegation to the non-aligned conference there.
Israelis concede that most of these complaints are of long standing and have been made before. But officials here say that by “ignoring” Israel’s protests, the Egyptians have created an atmosphere of suspicion and uncertainty which Israel wants dispelled before it quits Sinai on April 25.
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