Official Says Autonomy Can Be Israel’s Bargaining Chip in Process of Returning Sinai to Egypt

A government official said today that autonomy must begin to function on the West Bank and Gaza Strip before the final phase of Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai is completed late next year. Dr. Chaim Kubersky, Director General of the Interior Ministry, told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee that this was necessary because once the entire Sinai peninsula is returned to Egypt, Israel will be left without bargaining chips.

Kubersky, who has been involved in the autonomy talks with Egypt, addressed the committee as Israel prepared to hand back Area Five, the largest portion of Sinai, to the Egyptians this Friday. He noted that in the autonomy talks, the Egyptians did not raise the issue of Jewish settlements on the West Bank because they take for granted that the Sinai solution will eventually be applied to that territory.

Israel agreed to remove all Jewish settlements from Sinai under terms of the peace treaty with Egypt. According to Kubersky, Cairo is convinced that the West Bank settlements also will have to be abandoned. The problem, he said, is that while Israel is carrying out its part of the peace agreement, it will “soon be left without any cards in the game.”

After the Israeli pull-back to the El Arish-Ras Mohammed line at the end of this week, Egypt will be in possession of two-thirds of the peninsula. Israel will retain only 19,400 square kilometers.

Defense Minister Ezer Weizman flew to Cairo today to make the final arrangements for the pull-back He was greeted at the airport by the Egyptian Defense Minister, Kamal Hassan Ali. Weizman told Ali that everything was ready for the hand-over to Egypt of the main Israeli base in Sinai at-Refidim which will revert to its Egyptian name of Bir Gafgafa.

The Israeli defense chief’s latest visit to the Egyptian capital is intended in part to ease the tension that has developed between Israel and Egypt because of the deadlock in the autonomy talks. Weizman was accompanied by his wife as well as by his personal aide, Lt. Col. Han Tehila and Gen. Abraham Tamir, head of the planning, with President Anwar Sadat during his two-day stay in Cairo although no such meeting has been announced as yet.

Before leaving Israel this morning, Weizman noted that for the first time Israel and Egypt will force each other in Sinai without a United Nations force between them in the buffer zone. “I truly hope that we shall live together a good life. The way of life in this buffer zone and along the new deployment lines on the El Arish-Ras Mohammed axis, will be the subject of my talks in Cairo,” he said.

REDEPLOYMENT OF TROOPS, WITHDRAWAL FROM AREAS

Under the terms of the peace treaty, Egypt will be permitted four border units along the new line with light arms and wheeled vehicles. They will be permitted one mechanized infantry division between the Suez Canal and the new buffer zone. It will include one armored brigade of 230 tanks and 480 armored personnel carries of all types, 126 artillery pieces and seven anti-aircraft battalions. This force will total 22,000 men.

Israel is giving up areas of vital strategic importance as well as the oilfields, returned to Egypt last month, which experts believe could have made Israel self-sufficient in petroleum within 1-3 years. Israel has also given up the town of El Arish with its airfield and thriving fishing industry which it did much to develop.

It is relinquishing this Friday not only Refidim and its airfield but the Jabel Libneh airstrip, the Bir Thaidao military comp, the Um Khashiba early warning station and command control and communications systems. Israel is also withdrawing from strategic points that dominate the Gulf of Suez and the approaches to the Gulf of Eilat; the roads leading to the strategic Mitle and Gidi passes; telephone lines, pipelines and cables.

Civilian installations to be turned over to the Egyptians include infirmaries and schools that were attended by 400 Bedouin children. Israeli circles expressed hope that the Bedouins, monks, peasants and laborers who had lived and worked side by side with them since 1967 will serve as a bridge of peace and mutual understanding in the new situation.

Meanwhile, Premier Menachem Begin told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee that Israel’s Embassy and Ambassador Eliahu Ben-Elissar’s residence in Egypt will be located in the Cairo Hilton until a suitable site is found for both. A special Israeli location-search committee that is still in Cairo was unable to immediately find a proper site for the Embassy and the Ambassador’s residence. Ben-Elissar, himself, said today that he would have been prepared to stay in a tent on the Nile just to make certain that the Embassy will be opened on schedule. There was mounting criticism here, however, over locating the Embassy in a hotel which implied that the establishment of Israel’s legation in Cairo was only a transient event.