Egypt’s Premier Mustapha Khalil, Israel’s Interior Minister Yosef Burg and America’s special Middle East envoy Robert. Strauss will meet next week in London to try to break the deadlock in the negotiations on the Palestinian autonomy plan provided by the Camp David agreements and give a new boost to the Israeli-Egyptian peace process.
The optimism, and even euphoria, which marked the signing of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty last March, have been seriously eroded by six months of hard bargaining on the autonomy issue with no visible progress in sight. Many diplomats involved in the negotiations believe that the autonomy plan is the main stumbling block to a better Israeli-Egyptian understanding and that a solution on this issue would mark the beginning of a new era.
The first public Israeli-Egyptian debate ever to be held at ministerial level — a joint appearance by Israel’s Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Egypt’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Butros Ghali before the Council of Europe, which comprises the representatives of 21 West European countries, in Strasbourg, France, last week — showed that the split between Cairo and Jerusalem is deeper and wider than it had appeared to be.
The two Foreign Ministers revealed that Israel’s and Egypt’s views on the peace process, the aims to be pursued, the tactics to be used, and even their interpretations of the Camp David agreements are diametrically opposed. They agreed on only two points: their determination to implement the Camp David agreements and to rule out any recourse to war. On everything else, they were in total disagreement.
DIFFERENCES ON BASIC APPROACH
Ghali told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the differences between the two countries “are as serious and fundamental as those which existed at the beginning of the (Israeli-Egyptian) negotiations.” Other Egyptian diplomats said privately that in their view current differences “are for more serious than what they were a year ago,” in September 1978 when the Camp David negotiations started. “Then,” the Egyptians said, “we still had illusions. Now we have none.”
The Ghali-Dayan “duel” in Strasbourg revealed some of these differences. The fundamental problem is the view which each of the countries, Israel and Egypt, takes of the agreements themselves. For Egypt, what matters is “the spirit of the treaty which should take precedence over the letter.” For Israel, as Dayan repeated several times, “an agreement is an agreement. If you (Egypt) did not like it, you should not have signed it.”
This difference in basic approach is most evident on the Palestinian autonomy issue. Egypt, as Ghali made it crystal clear, sees the agreements as providing for “Palestinian self-determination” with all that this implies. Israel, Dayan made just as clear, intends to stick to the agreements paragraph which only provides that the Palestinians will have a voice in deciding their own future.
“Nowhere in the agreements are the words self-determination written.” Dayan said. “Had Egypt wanted something else than what we signed, it should have held out for more and refused to sign the final treaty.”
TACTICAL DIFFERENCES OUTLINED
But besides the differences on this basic approach, the two countries also differ on tactics, rhythm and speed of the negotiations.
Egypt wants to obtain the Palestine Liberation Organization’s agreement to a Palestinian participation in the talks even if the PLO itself remains absent in a first, and what Cairo considers, a preliminary phase. The Egyptians believe that no Palestinian leader will accept to join the negotiations without at least tacit PLO approval, and the Egyptians want the talks to succeed rapidly.
The Egyptian desire for “fast action” was stressed time and time again by Ghali. He went as far as to warn that in case of failure “we shall have to seek a solution elsewhere: either through an international conference specially convened for this purpose or by having to return to the UN Security Council.”
For Israel, there is no rush. “President (Anwar) Sadat himself said that the Palestinians can join the talks at a later date, even in three years from now,” Dayan retorted. Egyptian diplomats explained later that Cairo increasingly feels its isolation within the Arab world. The Egyptians accused Israel of “wanting to isolate us so as to deal with a weak and docile partner.”
On the actual interpretations of the Camp David agreement, the two countries are also in complete disagreement. Israel, Dayan stressed, feels authorized by the agreements to re-enter the territories from which it will withdraw as a result at the autonomy talks “should it feel threatened or should the PLO manage to establish a foothold there.” Egypt’s interpretation is that any Israeli withdrawal is final.
“In no circumstances would Israeli troops be allowed to re-enter the territories from which they will have been withdrawn,” Ghali said. “Israel will not even have a right of pursuit and will have to stop at the border between its frontiers and the newly liberated territories.”
According to the Egyptians, the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty “shows that our (Arab) interpretation of Security Council Resolution 242 is the right one: withdrawal from (all) the occupied territories.” Egypt also believes that the treaty “spirit” demands certain Israeli unilateral concessions, such as halting new settlements, no acquisition of Arab-owned land and a general amnesty for all Arab political prisoners detained in Israel.
Israel, Dayan replied, will implement the Camp David agreements to the letter, but added: “Nowhere in the documents are these demands mentioned. It is up to us to decide what gesture we want to make and which we want to turn down. Gestures are free willing and not a question of obligations.”
THE ULTIMATE AIM
The basic difference between the two countries, the root of most of the problems with which they have to cope, is the ultimate aim they pursue. Israel believes that a bilateral treaty has been signed with Egypt and favors a comprehensive peace for the area based on similar terms, namely, negotiations with each of its neighbors followed by separate peace agreements.
Egypt; on the other hand, sees the peace treaty with Israel as the first step of a vast and comprehensive peace plan in which Israel will ultimately have to negotiate with all its Arab neighbors on the basis of the Camp David agreements.
Ghali barely hinted in his statements before the Council of Europe that what Egypt really wants is peace with Israel, return of its lost territories and reacceptance by the other Arab states. Even today, six months after the signing of the peace treaty, Egypt does not consider it as a bilateral agreement but continues to view it as part of a larger Middle East peace plan. Everything else ensues from this starting point.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
