Special JTA Analysis Diplomatic Flurries in the Mideast

The understandings between Washington and Jerusalem on approaches to an interim agreement for opening the Suez Canal, and between Moscow and Cairo, with its announced emphasis on a political solution to the Middle East impasse as a whole and without mention of the Suez phase, signify a postponement of the crucial decisions for change.

What is now being envisioned are diplomatic journeys deliberately routed to diverging roads leading to nowhere. The purpose of indecision in the guise of discussion is to allow the major powers time to structure their strategy for President Nixon’s visit to Moscow in May. For, as has been since the Soviets first moved militarily into Egypt, the fateful decisions on the Middle East’s future ultimately rest with Washington and Moscow. These decisions, in turn, depend on solutions to other problems of global concern.

Secretary of State William P. Rogers hinted about some such diplomatic pantomime pending the summit meeting when he spoke Feb. 3 of his support for both the “close proximity” talks under American initiative (to which Israel has now agreed and Egypt opposes because its demand for a precondition of Israel’s withdrawal is absent) and to the “full settlement” mission under Ambassador Jarring (to whose formula of Feb. 8, 1971 Egypt and the Soviet are agreeable and the State Department had accepted and has never rejected but which Israel opposes precisely because it does contain the withdrawal precondition.)

OVERTURES TO EGYPT CONTINUE

The Secretary’s view that both projects can be conducted simultaneously, in the judgement of some observers, is a signal to Cairo that our attentions to Egypt continue. Rogers also spoke of President Sadat’s internal problems, indicating these must be at least shelved before Sadat can safely turn his face again toward Washington. This would indicate the Secretary is leaving it to Sadat to determine if, and how he will discuss the Suez issue.

Sadat’s visit to Moscow ostensibly was to obtain more arms to compensate for the recent American deliveries and technological support to Israel. Actually, it would appear, he went there to pledge adherence to continued Soviet influence in Egypt to offset the growth of the “opposition.” In return, the Kremlin perhaps will delay moves to dispose of him for his hostility to pro-Soviet elements in Egypt and the Sudan. Thus whether Sadat remains in power rests mainly on Moscow but Washington also has considerable sway.

The supposition that the Washington-Jerusalem understanding insures continuation of the now 19-month-old cease-fire along the Suez until after our national elections in Nov. is inadmissible. Soviet tactics to bolster its hegemony in the Middle East and what Sadat may do in desperation to keep control cannot yet be pin-pointed. If this assessment is correct, it appears to the advantage of both the US and Israel to assist Sadat until the Kremlin design for Egypt is visible.

MIDEAST OIL IS A FACTOR

The surprising flattery of Israel, certain of its American critics that it has triumphed over the State Department, the Soviet Union and Sadat in agreeing to engage in indirect talks on the Suez is too gross to merit serious consideration. What seems to be primarily attempted here is to help fuel the envy and anger of those disgruntled diehards that feel once again the White House has deprived the State Department of its rightful authority and also those who regard a Soviet-American detente essential regardless of what this may do to Israel.

To say Israel put the Moscow-Cairo alliance in disarray is suffocatingly generous. Closer to the genuine causes of the cooling in the alliance may be found in the Kremlin’s appraisal of Sadat’s reliability as an ally and the consequences of the Indo-Pakistan crisis. Basic probably to President Nixon’s decision to bolster Israel is his reported view that it is essential to block a Soviet power play in the Middle East similar to its activity in the Indo-Pakistan crisis. That this is an election year also is, of course, an inescapable factor.

For all their desires to gain the affection and hence the bulk of the economic advantages in the Arab states, West European foreign offices, including the French, understand that Israel stands as the only effective land barrier to Soviet penetration to the Persian Gulf and the oil riches of Araby. The humanitarianism implicit in Israel’s survival, of which so much is made in speeches, weighs little on the international political scales as history has so often proved.

As a British Embassy officer summed it up for the JTA the other day: Europe’s oil needs for at least the rest of this decade spell a “minus” for Israel; that the Soviet is getting deeper into the Middle East is a “plus.” Israel’s kith and kin in the West and the political element in that factor is another “plus.” That second “plus” is especially something that some Israelis must come to understand better, too, and with good temper.