Behind the Headlines Differences at Highest Levels Pose Query; Who Runs U.S. Foreign Policy

Results of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance’s two bouts in the Senate and House on the anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 465 of March I appear to be on these lines: Notwithstanding President Carter’s disavowal on March 3 of the U.S. vote for it and his expressions that his policy has not changed towards Israel, Vance’s testimony tended to conform to all aspects of the resolution and the entire matter ended there.

Despite Carter’s statements that Jerusalem is an “undivided city,” Vance repeatedly told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee on successive days last week that East Jerusalem is “occupied territory” and even referred to the Rogers Plan of 1969 that called on Israel to withdraw from “occupied” territories. Although no Security Council resolution that asserts. “Palestinian and Arab lands” has been previously approved by the U.S., Vance dismissed this vital language change as “demographic description” and “merely descriptive language.”

While the Security Council’s record shows the U.S. approving the resolution and the U.S. comment saying that “dismantling” of the settlements “including East Jerusalem” is “impractical” (Carter said “dismantling” is “improper and impractical”), Vance rejected suggestions that a U.S. statement be placed in the UN files — the President’s own words of March 3 and his list of “principles” the following week — to set the record straight. Later, a specialist was asked, why not? “It would irritate the Arabs,” was the answer.

DISAVOWAL BASED ON TIMING, NOT CONTENT

In expressing concern about the resolution’s impact on the autonomy talks, Carter had said the resolution violated key aspects of his policy toward Israel, particularly on Jerusalem. Vance simply testified that the President’s disavowal resulted from concern that the Egyptian-Israeli autonomy talks would be impaired. Vance’s testimony corroborated earlier State Department responses that the resolution was unsuitable “at this time” — meaning, apparently, the timing, not the content, ‘was the basis for the disavowal.

Resolution 465 does not mention Resolutions 242 and 338 that underpin the Camp David accords and speaks of “East Jerusalem” as “occupied,” But Vance defended it in all its aspects although in both Houses of Congress it was emphasized the new resolution, if carried out, destroys the earlier resolutions and the basis for the autonomy talks.

These differences in outlook and attempts at justification of policy at the highest levels in the U.S. government have made many wonder who makes policy and speaks for it. Since Vance refused to make available to the Senate and the House any documentation of what led up to the March I vote, the situation remains unclear as to the U.S. position.

Such confusion apparently caused Sen. Jack Danforth (R.Mo.) to exclaim that the Administration is indulging in “gross hypocrisy,” while Rep. Millicent Fenwick (R.NJ) exclaimed that “it is very hard to say our policy is unchanged and vote for so many things that represent change.” Sen. George McGovern (D.SD), who has angered friends of Israel by his overture to the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Vance that the U.S. should have abstained or vetoed the resolution because of the harm it was doing.

When UN Ambassador Donald McHenry, who cast the U.S. vote in the Security Council, was discussing the resolution the morning after the President repudiated it, he said the “settlement” in Hebron was the cause for the U.S. support of the Security Council action. But Vance, near the end of his testimony in the House, seemed to have doubts about the importance of the Hebron situation in relation to the resolution.

Rep. Jonathan Bingham (D.NY) told him: “You are remarkably insensitive at times to the feelings of Israelis, particularly regarding Hebron.” Bingham noted the return of Jewish families “was not a settlement in the normal sense but Jews moving back to their houses” from which Jews were driven in the “pogrom of 1928.” Vance replied that the matter “is not clear in my own mind with respect to Hebron. It remains to be seen how that can be clarified.”

In supporting the resolution’s aspects and U.S. policy calling settlements “illegal” and “an obstacle to peace,” Administration spokesmen and their allies in Congress and the media have used Israelis and American Jews who have spoken out against settlements. Typical was the remark to Vance by Rep. Joel Pritchard (R.Wash.), who said: “We should say the settlements are counter-productive and that many in Israel and Jews in this country agree.”