Israel’s rift with the United States seemed to deepen this weekend, the weekend which, under the Camp David agreements, should have been the occasion of signing a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.
The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem reacted with forceful indignation to accusations attributed to a “high U.S. official” that Israel had been seeking to “mislead” world public opinion by claiming it was ready to sing the U.S. -drafted treaty package. The Ministry spokesman expressed “protest and outrage” at these accusations, adding that they were “wholly without foundation.”
Israeli sources said the Ministry statement was drafted by Premier Menachem Begin and Foreign Min ister Moshe Dayan personally. The sources said the Israeli leadership was particularly incensed by an assertion also attributed to the “high U.S. official” –that Israel’s cabinet communique of Friday was “not worthy of comment.”
This remark was regarded as plumbing unprecedented depths of abusiveness and requiring an immediate and vigorous response. The Premier is likely to respond with equal vigor, and at greater length, when he opens a political debate in the Knesset, probably on Tuesday.
BASIS FOR U.S. PIQUE
The Cabinet communique on Friday asserted that: “The Government of Israel is prepared to sign without delay the draft peace treaty and annexes as formulated on Nov. 11, 1978, with the approval of the U.S. government …” The “high U.S. official’s” irked reaction apparently stemmed from the fact that while Israel was, and is, indeed ready to sign the draft treaty and annexes, it is not prepared to sign an accompanying letter on the arrangements for applying the Palestinian autonomy, including the controversial “target-date” (December 1979) proposed by the U.S. and originally endorsed by the Israel negotiating team in Washington.
That letter was the focus of much of the negotiations towards the end of the Blair House conference and the U.S. was discouraged when Begin and the Cabinet majority overruled Dayan and Defense Minister Ezer Weizman and rejected the “target date.”
The Cabinet communique of Friday, in a deliberately conciliatory gesture designed to keep the door open for further negotiations, noted that “the letter concerning the autonomy arrangements can be clarified and reformulated. “But government sources here said this did not means that Begin had changed his position opposing any specific target date.
POINTS IN THE COMMUNIQUE
The communique, read out by the Premier in front of a battery of newsmen, listed the Egyptian demands conveyed to Israel Wednesday by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, and rejected them. It said:
“During this week we have received through the Secretary of State of the U.S. new demands from Egypt, namely: (a) making the exchange of ambassadors conditional upon the implementation of the autonomy, at least in Gaza. (b) A basic change in Article IV (Security Arrangements) of the peace treaty with intent to bring about a review of the security provisions of the peace treaty after five years. (c) The addition of an interpretive note to Article VI (Priority of Obligations) which negates its content. (d) Inclusion of a date, called a target date, for the implementation of the autonomy in Judaea, Samaria and the Gaza district.
“These demands are inconsistent with the Camp David framework or are not included in it, and change substantially provisions of the peace treaty. Therefore they are unacceptable to Israel and rejected by it. The Government of Israel rejects the attitude and interpretation of the U.S. government with regard to the Egyptian proposal.”
THE SENSE OF RESENTMENT
The last paragraph brought into the open the sense of resentment that had been building up in policy-making circles here ever since Vance flew in last Wednesday with what Israel regards as new and tougher Egyptian demands and proceeded to recommend them for the Israeli Cabinet’s approval.
The Israelis felt this was hardly the correct behavior for an impartial “honest broker.” The least Vance should have done, they said, was to discuss the Egyptian proposals first with the Israeli side, before forming his own opinion in favor of them.
There was a feeling here, moreover, that Vance was presenting the Egyptian demands on an almost take-it-or-leave-it basis, having first gone out of his way to publicly praise President Anwar Sadat for his moderation and proclaim to the world that he had made “good progress” during his three days of talks with the Egyptian leader. On the substance of Egypt’s demands, Israel regarded all of them as an effective “upping of the ante” on the vexed issue of linkage, which has bedevilled the talks almost since their outset.
THE EGYPTIAN DEMANDS
With respect to Article IV, the Egyptians are seeking a specific time-limit for the review of security provisions: five years. The Israeli side claims that this is a transparent attempt to link the Sinai agreement to the progress of the Palestinian autonomy. After five years, the parties are due, under Camp David, to conclude an agreed solution on the “permanent status” of the West Bank and Gaza.
In Article VI, Paragraph 2, Egypt is demanding an “interpretative note” explaining that the words of this provision, “independely of any instrument external to this treaty,” do not come to “contradict the fact that this treaty is concluded in the context of a comprehensive settlement in accordance with the Camp David framework.”
Israel claims that Article VI (2) does indeed come to specifically rule out any linkage to the Camp David framework which deals with the autonomy for the Palestinians. The Israeli negotiators contend that the references in the preamble of the draft treaty to the Camp David framework are acceptable because Article VI (2) effectively denied them operative impact, rendering them only declaratory or exhortative.
THE AMERICAN VIEW
Vance and his team saw these disputed issues in a very different light from the Israelis. They regarded Article IV as basically in need of specificity, omitted in the original drafting. And they said there was no linkage element intended here because Sadat was not insistent on the five-year deadline and would consider any other fixed period.
His concern, they explained to Begin and his aides, was over criticism within Egypt that the treaty’s security provisions would mean a significant diminution of Egypt’s sovereignty over Sinai. He believed in the course of time that some of the arrangements–particularly the United Nations presence–could be dispensed with by mutual agreement. Vance stressed that Article IV provided explicitly that any change in the security arrangements must be made through mutual agreement and so Israel had nothing to fear from fixing a definite review deadline.
On Article VI, Paragraph 5, Vance argued that Egypt could not be expected to publicly renounce its commitments to the Arab world. In practice, he argued, the conclusion of peace with Israel and the institution of peaceful relations would create a dynamic of its own that would effectively reduce the danger of Egypt joining a war against Israel.
On the exchange of ambassadors, the U.S. diplomats maintained that Egypt’s regression on this issue followed Israel’s rejection of the Egyptian demand for “sub-phases” in the Sinai interim withdrawal. Egypt had wanted Israel to declare in advance that it would evacuate specific areas at specific times during the nine-month period earmarked for the interim withdrawal. But, though Weizman tentatively agreed to this in Washington, the Cabinet back home refused. Sadat thereupon “withdrew his part of the bargain,” the U.S. diplomats explained.
Vance said the exchange of ambassadors was regarded in Cairo as a symbolic move to be withheld until there was tangible progress on the West Bank or at least in Gaza. He argued that the major concession on this issue had been made by Sadat back at Camp David when he agreed to have diplomatic relations while Israel still occupied more than half of Sinai, i.e. between the interim and the final withdrawals.
Israel, for its part, argues that the five demands, taken as a whole, would invest the treaty with a measure of “linkage” that is intolerable from Israel’s standpoint, especially when it is borne in mind that progress in implementing the autonomy will be dependent neither on Israel nor on Egypt but on the Palestinians themselves, who thus for have shown no great enthusiasm for it.
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