Israel Concerned with U.S. Policy Moves on the Mideast

Recent developments in the United States policy thinking on the Middle East in general and the Palestinian issue in particular preoccupied the Cabinet meeting yesterday. The concerned Ministers, while unanimously passing a tough resolution rejecting reported U.S. efforts to woo the Palestine Liberation Organization into the peace negotiations, decided not to issue any public statement expressing the Cabinet’s concern.

However, Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan was instructed to transmit the resolution privately to the Carter Administration through its Ambassador in Washington, Ephraim Evron, who is due to meet with President Carter this week for lunch.

Officials said the resolution’s wording was heavily influenced by Premier Menachem Begin who, though still convalescing at his residence, kept in close touch with weekend political developments. It was Begin, too, who urged his colleagues not to publish their resolution at this stage–apparently in order to ward off an open confrontation with the U.S.

REACTION TO U.S. INDICATIONS

After the session, Cabinet Secretary Arye Noor referred only obliquely to the Cabinet resolution. He reiterated Israel’s position that “the murderous organization called the PLO” would “never be a partner” in negotiations with Israel.

Deputy Premier Yigael Yadin, who chaired the session, said the resolution echoed the government’s known positions and was intended as “a reaction” to the indications “in certain circles in the U.S. Administration” that the U.S. would seek a change in United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 and or other means to woo the PLO to the negotiating table.

Another part of the Cabinet’s decision was a reiteration of Israel’s rejection of the substitution of the United Nations. Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO) force for the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), an arrangement worked out by the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The ministers confirmed earlier decisions that Israeli forces in Sinai would not cooperate with UNTSO officers.

(In practice, UNEF has already ceased functioning in Sinai and it’s units are beginning to be withdrawn. UNTSO officers are manning road checkpoints, but only the Egyptians are cooperating with them while Israeli units have orders to ignore them.)

In a related development, Moshe Arens, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, “appealed to the U.S. Congress to review recent moves by the Carter Administration which he said were harmful to Israel. In a cable to Sen. Frank Church (D. Idaho), chairman of the Senate foreign Relations Committee, and Rep. Clement Zablocki (D. Wisc.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Arens listed the harmful moves as the pending supply of U.S. tanks to Jordan, American contacts with the PLO and the U.S. Soviet agreement on replacing UNEF with UNTSO.

DAYAN U.S. VISIT OFF TILL SEPTEMBER

Meanwhile, there were reports yesterday that Dayan would only be going to Washington in September to discuss the present nadir in relations between the two countries. Last Sunday, Dayan was reported going to Washington last week but on Monday it was announced that his trip had been postponed for one week. Dayan and his Egyptian counterpart, Foreign Minister Boutros Ghali have been invited by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to discuss the UNTSO issue, but Dayan and his American hosts are expected to take the opportunity to review the broad spectrum of relations between the two countries.

Dayan, meanwhile, is due to confer during the week with Ghali who arrived in Israel yesterday as a member of Egypt’s delegation to the autonomy talks. The two officials will discuss the course of normalization between their two countries. Ghali and Interior Minister Yosef Burg, who is heading the Israeli delegation, met privately last night to work out a schedule for the two days of talks.

Despite the heavy atmosphere of dispute between Israel and the U.S. and Israel and Egypt hanging over the autonomy talks, observers here do not expect an open crisis in this round. Israel last week bitterly criticized James Leonard, the U.S. envoy to the talks, for suggesting, upon instructions from Washington, that the self-governing authority (administrative council) on the West Bank and Gaza Strip under the autonomy plan should have legislative, judicial and executive power and that the elections to set up the authority should be held under international supervision. (Related story P.3.)

ISSUE OF NORMALIZING RELATIONS

Regarding the issue of normalizing relations between Egypt and Israel, there have been increasing expressions of uneasiness in political and commercial circles here in Israel at the slow pace of the normalization. Hundreds of applications by Israelis for visas to Egypt are still being held up in Cairo and to date only a couple of dozen non-official visas have been granted.

Chaim Herzog, Israel’s former Ambassador to the UN, has written in the press recently warning the Israel government and U.S. Jewish leaders, too, not to “fall over themselves” in an undignified quest for normal relations — if the Egyptians time and again demonstrate reluctance and coolness.

Herzog noted that, with the exception of Egypt’s Ambassador to Washington, Ashraf Ghorbal Egyptian diplomats abroad still treat their Israeli counterparts with coldness or even hostility.