In Dayan’s View: Settlement Prospects Better with Egypt Than with Jordan

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan believes that the ouster of Soviet military personnel has increased chances of an interim Egypt-Israel agreement and that there is more chance of a partial settlement with Egypt than with Jordan.

Gen. Dayan expressed those views on a Friday evening television interview in which he also said he hoped for an interim accord with Egypt “in the coming period.” Relative to Egypt, he declared, the problems were largely military. He expressed the view that the Egyptians had refrained from launching fresh attacks out of their own military calculations and were less likely to do so with the Soviet military presence removed.

He said his opinion was that the Soviet ouster was a “de-Sovietization” of the Middle East rather than a “de-Sovietization” of Egypt. If this was true, he added, the Soviets had initially undertaken the aerial protection of Egypt and had now “reneged” on that undertaking, “a very important development” for Israel.

(Meanwhile it was reported in London yesterday that the Soviet Union, while also preserving a “strained official cordiality” to Egypt, was stepping up a war of nerves against Egyptian President Sadat. In a commentary on the Arab world, Novosti, the Soviet news agency, paid glowing tribute to the late President Nasser, “the glorious son of the Egyptian people” but failed to mention Sadat once.

(Another report in London was that a high-ranking correspondent of Pravda, the Soviet Communist Party newspaper, had arrived in Beirut, with apparent instructions to brief local editors with unusual frankness” about the “true feelings” of the Russians. The correspondent reportedly told the editors that the Soviets were “very angry” and that “mindful of their massive investment in Egypt, did not intend to take Sadat’s ingratitude lying down.” He reportedly told the editors that while the Soviet leaders did not go in for Central Intelligence Agency-style coups to topple rulers “who had gone astray,” he was understood to have hinted that the Soviets had “other means at their disposal.”)

Gen. Dayan, it was recalled, was the first to propose in 1970 an interim agreement with Egypt to reopen the Suez Canal, which was then taken up by the Nixon Administration but fell apart because the Egyptians insisted that their soldiers had to have the right to move across the Suez Canal to the East bank as the Israelis made at least a partial withdrawal.

He contended that chances of an interim accord with Jordan were lessened by various non-military complications. He said “I find it hard to see how we can reach an agreement with the Government of Jordan on these complicated questions. In this situation,” he asserted, “only one government can operate there — the Government of Israel.” That statement in effect was an explanation and justification for the policies Gen. Dayan has been developing in the occupied areas during the past five years and for holding out the prospect of their continued development in the future.

Gen. Dayan also rejected charges by his critics that his policies and his reluctance to see the return of the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan would endanger the Jewish character of Israel. He argued that the Arabs had no desire to assimilate with the Jews.