Behind the Headlines Israel and the Global Tensions

A number of government officials believe that Israel’s political situation has never been so good. Although the international community faces increasing tension in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Israel’s political moves seem to be successful, according to these officials.

Against the backdrop of global turbulence which preoccupies the superpowers, their respective allies and many other smaller countries, the Israeli-Egyptian axis seems an island of tranquility.

This depiction may reflect a certain sense of wishful thinking rather than a sober evaluation of the relations between Cairo and Jerusalem. But it does express, nevertheless, the authentic feeling here that serious international developments are taking place which have no connection with Israel or its conflict with the Arab world.

MAIN PROBLEMS OF MIDEAST

This proves, some Israeli officials say, the validity of Israel’s long-held, often-voiced contention that the main problems of the Middle East do not stem from the Israeli-Arab conflict, but are a result of the rivalry between the superpowers which exploit the Israeli-Arab dispute to faster their global rivalry.

The manifestation of Soviet purposes, reflected in the invasion of Afghanistan and in their deployment along the borders of Iran, supports Israel’s view that the crux of the Middle East conflict is not the Palestinian problem but rather Soviet aggression and intrigues.

According to this thesis, Western public opinion, realizing the dangerous significance of the radicalism and religious fanaticism of the “Islamic revival,” will now become convinced of Israel’s argument that the difficulties in resolving the Palestinian problem are not the real obstacle to establishing a stable arrangement in the region.

On the contrary, say these officials, the threats and fears that Westerners feel in the face of the “Islamic revolution” will convince them that the establishment of a Palestinian state would mean the destruction of the State of Israel.

QUESTIONABLE REALISM

That, in brief, is the optimistic assessment current in some government circles here. One may, however, question the realism of some of those observations. Statements recently made by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and by one of the State Department’s senior representatives in Tel Aviv, reflected a clear tendency to see a linkage between U.S. resistance to Soviet expansionism and a solution of the Palestinian problem.

According to this logic, the ability of Washington to check Soviet aggression in the Middle East by establishing a front of moderate Arab states under Western patronage, depends to a large extent on Israel’s readiness to satisfy Egyptian expectations regarding the West Bank, and Saudi Arabian sensitivities regarding Jerusalem.

Israel, therefore, is likely to face increasing pressure both from the U.S. and from Egypt to be flexible in interpreting — and implementing — the Camp David Palestinian autonomy in an administrative council which would have only limited authority to rule the daily life of the inhabitants of Judaea, Samaria and Gaza, Egypt seeks to endow the council with wide powers and responsibilities, including legislative and juridical roles.

In Israel’s view, Egypt’s long-term goal is to enable the autonomous authority to declare itself, after the five-year interim period, as the constituent assembly of an independent Palestinian state. Officials in Jerusalem totally reject what they call the artificial linkage that the U.S. has created between its prospects of tackling Russian expansionism and the solving of the Palestinian problem.

RESISTING MISGUIDED U.S. POLICY

In private conversations, Cabinet members and high-ranking officials in the Prime Minister’s Office stress that Israel does not intend to be the victim of a misguided American policy. These sources even make comparisons between the British pro-Arab decisions in the 1940s and what they see as the present American tendency to sacrifice Israel’s vital interests in order to improve the prospects of defending oil sources in the Middle East.

Premier Menachem Begin himself has vowed publicly of late, in clear references to American public statements, that Israel will not let itself be “sacrificed to a policy of appeasement.” His aides argue that American decisiveness in protecting Western oil interests in the region does not depend in any way on me extent of Israel’s flexibility on the Palestinian problem.

The Americans, after all, allowed the Shah to fall without any connection to the future of the West Bank. And the Kremlin’s decision to occupy Afghanistan was similarly taken without reference to the Israeli-Egyptian controversy on the powers and the responsibilities of the self-governing authority to be established on the West Bank and Gaza. The Begin government is critical and skeptical of America’s claims that the autonomy talks are somehow linked to the broader strategic tensions.

But some officials here take the skepticism a step further, and argue that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was actually not a bad thing, from Israel’s self-interest viewpoint because it forces the U.S. to become much more energetic and credible in the defense of its interests in this area.

The Afghan crisis, moreover, and the Iranian crisis before it, are resulting in a polarization within the Arab world, say these Israeli analysts, into moderates and radicals. This is happening without reference to the deadlock over the Palestinian question, and the U.S., despite its theorizing, cannot afford to let the Palestinian issue stand in the way of its urgent need to shape new and closer relations with the Arab moderates.