Cabinet Decision Under Fire

The Cabinet’s decision to assent to an American initiative aimed at ending the state of belligerency between Israel and its three confrontation neighbors–Egypt, Jordan and Syria–has touched off a storm of protest among both “doves” and “hawks” in the Knesset.

Although a world apart politically, the hard-liners and moderates alike seem to agree that the decision seriously, and perhaps fatally, compromises Israel’s long sought fundamental-objective of a negotiated final peace settlement with the Arab states.

The decision, approved at Sunday’s Cabinet session, provoked Yehuda Ben-Meir of the National Religious Party’s right-wing to demand the immediate dissolution of the Knesset and new elections. David Koren, of the Labor Party’s Rafi wing, demanded that Premier Yitzhak Rabin explain the decision to Labor’s Knesset faction “so I can know if I am for it or against it.”

Moshe Wertman, chairman of the Labor Alignment’s Knesset faction, said the Premier would appear before the faction next Monday, and on Tuesday the Alignment will commence a long-awaited foreign policy debate in which the Cabinet’s decision is certain to be the central issue. Meanwhile the Cabinet decision has come under bitter attack from Likud which submitted an urgent agenda motion for discussion in the Knesset.

The essence of the objections to an initiative whose goal is non-belligerency was stated succinctly today by former Foreign Minister Abba Eban, a leader of the “dovish” faction in the Labor Party. “The Arabs will ask for complete withdrawal and the establishment of a Palestine state in return for end-of-belligerency.” Eban said. “What is left to ask in return for peace except the elimination of Israel itself?” he asked.

ESSENCE OF OBJECTION

Eban and other “doves” have been urging flexibility on territorial questions but insist that Israel stand firm on what they call “the quality of peace.” Israel’s territorial demands have little support in the world but its long-standing demand for full peace agreements is widely supported, so why then is the government now abandoning it? This question was raised by Eban in a discussion with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Likud MK Yedidya Beeri stated bluntly: “This is the latest example of massive erosion in the government’s own position,” he said.

Many Laborites were upset that Rabin had “sprung” the decision on the Cabinet and the party. Ministers and MKs claimed that the Premier’s initial briefing on his visit to Washington last month contained no hint that the Ford Administration was pressing Israel to agree to a new initiative aimed at non-belligerency, especially with respect to Jordan, a sensitive issue within the coalition. Any approaches to Jordan will involve the West Bank territories and the Palestinians.

When the Cabinet’s decision was announced Sunday it was clear that the idea of testing Arab attitudes toward a non-belligerency situation originated with Administration leaders while Rabin was in Washington and that the Premier promised to bring it before the Cabinet.

Government officials and legal experts say there is no difference in law between an end of belligerency and a peace settlement since both would end the state of war. The difference between them therefore is not legal but political and the implication that Israel is retreating from its political demands has aroused the ire that transcends ideological differences in the Knesset.