News Brief

The Senate Thursday without dissent adopted by voice vote a resolution proclaiming April 6 as a day to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the liberation from the Nazis of the survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp. The House has a similar resolution pending in committee. Sen. Jacob K. Javits (D.NY) introduced the Senate resolution. to separate political developments from immediate military developments. Israel would respect the two disengagement accords and the cease-fires with Jordan and Lebanon provided such respect were mutual. He refused to be drawn on whether the collapse of the talks inevitably increased the threat of war or actual state of military tension in the region, and tended to play down reports of war-readiness on both sides of the disengagement lines, north and south.

ISRAEL’S OFFER EXPLAINED

The drama of the deadlock and collapse of the talks unfolded in Jerusalem over the weekend, but it came as no surprise to policy makers here who since the middle of last week had been making gloomy prognostications. On Thursday night Kissinger flew to Aswan with a new Israeli offer. The Premier today explained it in detail. It called for less than a full declaration of non-belligerency, but instead asked for a commitment to refrain from use of force for a fixed period of time together with some “elements of non-belligerency” such as free tourist traffic and a moderation of the boycott and of hostile propaganda.

For this, Israel offered the Abu Rodeis oil fields and half of the Mitle and Gidi Passes. Israel would retain control of the passes’ eastern ends while United Nations troops would replace Israeli soldiers at their western ends. Egypt, however, rejected this too. It wanted, said Rabin, a purely military accord, not a political accord, as Israel demanded, which would be a first step on the road to peace.

Egypt, he said, refused the “elements of non-belligerency” and refused to agree to a lengthy term, agreeing only to extend the UNEF mandate for a year and then have it renewed by the UN Security Council for a further year. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat rejected, too, Israel’s proposal for mixed patrols of the buffer zone which Israel saw as a meaningful channel of on-going contact between the two sides. Egypt would contemplate only a revival of the mixed armistice commissions under UNEF auspices.

Nor did Egypt accept the territorial demands. It proposed that Israel withdraw to some distance east of the passes and that Egyptian forces would take up positions a similar distance west of them, with the UNEF force in between. It demanded, too, most of the Suez Gulf coastline well past Abu Rodeis, all the way to A-Tur.

EGYPT PROPOSED ONE-SIDED WITHDRAWAL

“They wanted all that we offered in return for ending the state of war–and they were prepared to offer less than even the beginning of the end of the state of war,” Rabin said. The Israel Cabinet saw the Egyptian proposal as “a one-sided withdrawal and not as a step towards peace”–and therefore rejected it.

When Kissinger flew back to Israel on Friday morning, however, he gave a “senior U.S. official” an upbeat briefing on the plane, claiming that while the withdrawal question had not yet been solved there was agreement on other elements of a settlement. The official said that agreement was possible and needed “only one decision from either Israel or Egypt.”

The Secretary sent a similar cable to Rabin from the plane, and officials here midday Friday were buoyed. Once the negotiators had met with Kissinger, however, and heard the Egyptian responses in detail, it became immediately clear that no agreement was in sight and the question was only one of how and when the talks would be broken off.

UNUSUAL SABBATH CABINET MEETING

Rabin convened a Cabinet meeting Friday evening which sat until 10 p.m.–hours beyond the onset of the Sabbath. The leader of the National Religious Party, Minister Yosef Burg, told this reporter he recalled only two previous instances of peacetime Sabbath Cabinet meetings, both under David Ben Gurion. He said that the religious ministers fully backed Rabin’s decision to hold the Sabbath meeting, though they were less comfortable with the decision to meet again with Kissinger after the Cabinet session ended.

“They could have waited till after Shabbat,” Burg said. “But they did not ask our advice….” Burg said he and the other NRP officials drank only soda during the long hours of deliberation while the other ministers refrained from smoking in deference to the Sabbath observers. Saturday night the two teams met again, twice. In the intermission Kissinger is believed to have contacted Sadat in one last-ditch effort to change the situation.

Shortly after 11 p.m. the talks broke up and State Department spokesman Robert Anderson announced their “suspension” to waiting newsmen. “The differences on a number of key issues” had proved irreconcilable, ‘the statement said, noting both sides’ “serious effort to reach a successful outcome.” Kissinger was returning to report to Ford and Congress and would keep “in close touch” with the parties and with the co-chairman of the Geneva conference, the statement added. By then, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy had also announced the breakoff, and Ford’s own carefully balanced announcement arrived soon after.

The Israeli government was slow with its statement–which earned it some criticism from reporters here. Eventually, after 1 a.m. Saturday, a spokesman announced that the talks had been suspended, referring to the two alternative Israeli proposals–the initial non-belligerency for the passes and oil scenario, and the later less-than-non-belligerency for half of the passes and oil scenario–both of which Cairo had rejected. “Israel remains ready as always to persevere in its efforts towards a settlement with Egypt,” the statement said.