U.s., Israel Said to Differ on Tactics but Not Substance of Middle East Settlement

Despite its interest in participating in Four Power talks that it hopes may help promote a Mideast settlement, the United States has not changed its basic policy on the principles of peace, an authoritative diplomatic source said yesterday. The differences that have emerged between Washington and Jerusalem on resolving the Arab-Israel conflict which have emerged during Foreign Minister Abba Eban’s visit here have been largely “tactical,” it was reported. The U.S. and Israel continue to maintain that a settlement must be “contractual” and that peace must be durable, that it must involve “secure and recognized boundaries” and that there must be an “integral package settlement” based on the Nov. 22, 1967 Security Council resolution.

While the U.S. Government was intent upon proceeding along the Big Four avenue of diplomacy–a procedure that Mr. Eban nought unsuccessfully to persuade it to jettison–its basic approach on the guidelines involved in laying the foundation for peace has not changed with the advent of the Nixon Administration, the source said. And while the U.S. did not concur with the Israeli view that a Big Four approach “is wrong”, it did not at this juncture share the French view that the Four Power approach should be “institutionalised.” Washington intends to reserve judgment on the potential value and direction of the Four Power talks instead of ruling them out entirely.

It was believed here that President Nixon has somewhat softened his stand on major power guarantees of a peace settlement. Mr. Eban was said to have indicated to him that introduction of the U.S. and the Soviet Union into the Mideast picture could possibly lead to a confrontation–a situation that the Nixon Administration has been anxious to avoid. The U.S. was said today to be “more cautious” and “more skeptical” on the Big Four guarantees question than it was a few weeks ago when Mr. Nixon said they were “an absolute essential” of any settlement.

Mr. Eban was said to believe that the best method of maintaining a harmonious relationship with the U.S. on the Mideast problem was to deal with it at this time in the “abstract” rather than to offer a detailed view–on the question of boundaries, for example–of what it wants. Hence no “maps” were discussed in Washington. Israel, in any case, could not present Mr. Nixon or Secretary of State William P. Rogers with its “territorial conclusions” because, in the absence of Arab willingness to negotiate, they “do not exist.” They have not yet been formulated by the Israeli Government.

The Nixon Administration has been made aware that Israel will not submit to any Four Power solution or decision that deviates from Jerusalem’s hard and fast insistence that peace must be reached on a treaty basis by the parties to the conflict themselves and cannot be imposed from the outside. Israel’s attitude toward Four Power talks will be “cautiously vigilant” because it holds that two of the parties–France and the Soviet Union–continue to demonstrate hostility and a lack of understanding of Israel’s security needs. If the U.S., France, Britain and the Soviet Union reach a common policy on a settlement on the ambassadorial level in talks at the United Nations, Israel believes, the Big Four would then move the discussions up to a higher diplomatic level–an escalation that Jerusalem would regard as “dangerous.”

Mr. Eban gained the impression that Mr. Nixon no longer believed in the “omnipotence” of the Great Powers. The President and his advisers were said to be skeptical that any or all of them could impose “anything” against the will of the Arabs and Israel.

Mr. Eban reportedly believes that the U.S. and England were reluctant at this stage to take the Big Power talks out of the framework of heads of delegations at the UN and prefers instead to continue consultations at the bilateral and quadrilateral levels simultaneously–all the while keeping them away from the glare of publicity. The real question for Israel was whether, when Big Four talks get underway, the U.S. will remain a “firm anchor” in them or whether its initiatives will be “thrown” into the “pool”.

A new element in the Mideast situation is the initiative of Secretary-General U Thant’s special representative, Dr. Gunnar V. Jarring, in preparing a list of nearly a dozen questions which he is submitting to all the concerned governments. Mr. Eban was asked in Washington to answer them “fully and substantively” and intends to do so upon his return home this week. The questionnaire asked the Arab states whether and how they propose to make peace with Israel, to abandon belligerency and to respect its right to secure and recognized boundaries as called for in the Security Council resolution. Whatever boundaries the U.S. will ultimately approve for Israel and her neighbors, it certainly does not share the annexationist sentiments on the occupied territories of the “Greater Israel Movement.” Mr. Eban learned definitely in Washington. Secretary of State Rogers has denied the existence of a so-called “Rogers Plan” given wide publicity last week that called for a settlement based on the defunct 1949 armistice lines, with some frontier adjustments.