Israel and U.S. at the Crossroads: Territorial Security or Big Power Guarantees

Israeli officials have always maintained that differences in approach were the main cause of their periodic disputes with Washington over Middle East policy. They held that these differences, though serious, did not really matter in the long run because Israel and the United States are both committed to the basic goal of a peaceful Middle East free from foreign domination, with a strong, secure, sovereign Israeli state in its midst. But Washington’s attitude on the territorial nature of a Mideast peace settlement reflects more than a different approach to the problem. It touches the fundamental question of what constitutes security. In the words of Secretary of State William P. Rogers this week, “We don’t think geography is essential for security…In large measure, a political arrangement, an agreement understood by the parties and a willingness by the parties to maintain them, are an equal consideration.” Unless Rogers, the top American foreign policy officer after the President, does not speak for the government, the U.S. is firmly committed to a position diametrically opposed to Israel’s Israel is convinced that not only peace but its very survival, depends on its permanent retention of certain territories and geographical strongpoints it secured during the Six-Day war. Israel has been begging for years for a formal peace treaty with its Arab neighbors. But apparently it has little faith in any treaty that is not backed up by an Israeli military presence in such strategic sites as the Golan Heights, Sharm el-Sheikh, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and at least some parts of the West Bank and the Sinai Peninsula.

Premier Golda Meir drew Israel’s “peace map” in a surprising interview she granted Louis Heren of the London Times, published last Saturday. Some observers said it was “an act of desperation” to place Israel’s minimum bargaining position on the forum of world opinion. They noted that only several weeks earlier she had refused bluntly to draw any “maps” for Newsweek magazine’s senior editor Arnaud de Borchgrave. The State Department acknowledges that it has been aware for some time of the territorial position suggested by Mrs. Meir in the London Times interview. Secretary Rogers apparently decided that the time had come to state publicly the U.S. position that doubtlessly was conveyed to Jerusalem through diplomatic channels. Rogers and other American officials are growing impatient with Israel’s failure to grasp the fact–as they see it–that geography is obsolete in an age of rockets, missiles, jets and sophisticated electronic weaponry. They believe that a firm will to peace by both sides, backed up by iron-clad treaties and sharp surveillance by the United Nations, the Big Powers–or both–are the best guarantees of security in an admitedly imperfect world.

ISRAEL’S FEAR NOT PARANOIC; INTERNATIONAL GUARANTEES HAVE FALLEN APART BEFORE

The U.S. believes there is sincerity on the Egyptian side and in Jerusalem too, if only the Israelis would face reality. The Israelis do not consider their fears paranoic. They look with profound distrust on international guarantees which they accepted in 1957 only to see them fall apart ten years later. They refuse to believe that the Big Powers may have learned from past mistakes. All of this puts Israel and the U.S. on sharply diverging courses. The Israelis still have hopes that they can get the American ship of state to come about. They suspect that the course charted by Rogers may not be the one entirely favored by his commander-in-chief, Nixon. They believe the State Department is overly influenced by its “Arabist” faction for whom Israel was a bete noire even before it came into existence. But the “Arabists” have been frustrated before, by the administration, by friendly Congressmen, by pressures from the influential American Jewish community which a recent Gallup Poll placed at nearly 100 percent pro-Israel. Time is short, however. The Suez cease-fire has expired and though it remains in de facto force, shooting can start any time. The Jarring talks, which Israel accepted only reluctantly last summer are stalled. A new war on the Suez would wreck them. The Middle East would be thrown back to the dangerous state it was in seven months ago when a confrontation between Israel and Soviet forces deployed in Egypt seemed imminent. Secretary Rogers doubtlessly had this in mind when he warned at his Tuesday press conference, “If we don’t make a settlement now, we’ll be laying the seeds for a future war…A dangerous situation could develop that could lead to World War III.” This view leads to the conclusion that should there be a regression in the Middle East, the onus clearly would be on Israel.

But a comparison of the pre-June 5, 1967 map with the present one seems to make a strong case for Israel’s reliance on geography for security. On the old map, Jordanian forces were within ten miles of Israel’s Mediterranean coast and could, theoretically, shell Tel Aviv and Lydda Airport. Syria, on the Golan Heights, dominated the Huleh Valley with its guns. Egypt, in occupation of the Gaza Strip, pointed a spear at Tel Aviv only a few score miles to the north across the flat coastal plain. And East Jerusalem in Jordanian hands, surrounded Israel’s capital with a semi-circle of hostile territory. A settlement based on such a map, with only “insubstantial” border changes, as suggested by both Secretary Rogers and President Nixon, would not last long, Israel says. It argues that the Arabs are still committed to destroy the Jewish State and that “indefensible” borders would tempt them to try again. The American rebuttal in essence is that security is a state of mind. It lies in trusting, not in tactical geographical advantages which, in an age of electronic warfare, may only be temporary. The next few weeks may tell whether Israel has indeed become a nation that can put its trust only in guns.