The Middle East: Shifting Into Neutral

FOR more than two decades, the U.S. has in large measure served as Israel's benefactor, a role that the Soviet Union has more recently assumed in behalf of the Arab states. Initially the U.S. position was dictated less by strict geopolitical considerations than by moral impulse--a desire somehow to compensate the Jewish people for the horrors of World War II. Politics, too, played a part, especially among Democratic Presidents who needed the urban Jewish vote. The long-term U.S. role is in the midst of a transformation, however, and the Israelis are plainly alarmed.

In Jerusalem, Premier Golda Meir spoke angrily last week of the "erosion" of U.S. policy and accused Washington of "appeasement"; one Israeli paper went so far as to call it "Mu-nichism." Secretary of State William Rogers replied that the U.S. was merely being "evenhanded." Added Rogers: "We have to conduct our foreign policy in a way that we think is best for our national interests." The statement seemed unexceptional, but it convinced some Israelis that substantial U.S. investments in Arab oil and commerce were behind the shift toward neutrality.

Coolness to Israel. What started the furor was the disclosure of an eleven-point U.S. plan for peace between Israel and Jordan. The proposals were worked up for submission to the Big Four--the U.S., the Soviet Union, Britain and France--in the wake of the suspension of talks on the Middle East between Washington and Moscow. Though Rogers and several other State Department officials spent 2 1/2 hours in Washington conferring with Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban only 30 hours before the plan was submitted to the other members of the Big Four, they made no mention of what was in it. In fact, when Eban specifically asked, the Americans were evasive. The U.S. program, which would be subject to negotiation between Jordan and Israel, includes three major proposals:

1) The withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from the West Bank of the Jordan River and the return to frontiers approximating those that existed before the 1967 Israeli-Arab war.

2) Israeli-Jordanian agreement on control of Jerusalem and its holy places.

3) A choice for Palestinian Arab refugees of repatriation or compensation by the Israeli government.

Israeli diplomats claim that the U.S. has also drawn up secret supplementary proposals that go even further. The U.S., they say, would give the Gaza Strip to Jordan in return for "territorial changes" that would tidy up the old border created after the 1948-49 war.

A case can be made that the U.S. plan is indeed evenhanded. It offers Israel a way to unload the West Bank, which it cannot keep without making a fourth of its population Arab. It also provides what may well be the only moral (if not necessarily realistic) solution to the tragic dilemma of the displaced Palestinians by allowing them to choose between compensation or repatriation. Yet the plan appeared to irritate almost everyone concerned. Moscow dismissed it as an attempt "to disunite the Arab countries." Egypt's President Nasser said that no matter what the plan proposed, "American imperialistic policy is [still] behind Israel." The Israelis argued that the U.S. was giving the Arabs most of what they demanded without any commitment from them to enter peace talks.

Strong Language. The U.S. plan, in any case, created a government crisis. Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin was summoned home from Washington for a special Cabinet meeting. Deputy Premier Yigal Allon, in an interview with TIME Correspondent Marlin Levin, rejected the proposals in unusually strong language. The U.S. Jewish community was anguished by the deepest rift between the U.S. and Israel since Washington forced Israeli withdrawal from Arab territory seized during the 1956 Suez crisis. Leaders of 14 Jewish organizations called on Rogers, and a heated two-hour meeting ensued. They counterpointed another group--including Chase Manhattan Bank President David Rockefeller and other businessmen with substantial Middle East interests--that had been closeted earlier last month with Richard Nixon. Rockefeller was fresh from a meeting with Nasser, and he and the others warned of the dangers that a one-sided Middle East policy could cause. Washington, in fact, may not be altogether unhappy over the ferocity of Israel's objections. The louder the complaints, the more evenhanded the policy may appear to suspicious Arabs.

Some Israeli officials conceded last week that perhaps they have been misjudging U.S. policy for months. The shift, after all, has not been that sudden. Because Mrs. Meir was warmly welcomed when she visited the U.S. three months ago, Israel's public, basking in the glow, paid little attention to the fact that she returned from Washington virtually emptyhanded, or to Ambassador Rabin's warnings that relations were deteriorating. The only major assistance that the U.S. has given Israel during the Nixon Administration--50 Phantom jets--was originally approved during the Johnson Administration. Nothing more has been forthcoming; another 25 Phantoms requested by Israel's Premier have not been delivered.

Does Rogers really believe that the U.S. can force Israel to accept the proposed terms? Probably not; the Israelis insist that they will never accept an "imposed solution." Moreover, the Russians have engineered a 180DEG shift and announced that they would not accept the feature of the U.S. plan that would probably be most acceptable to the Israelis--Israeli-Arab negotiations, by means of a mediator who would carry one side's proposals to the other.

Broker's Role. Basically, the U.S. is trying to regain leverage for itself among the Arab states--an attempt the British and French have been making in order to diminish Soviet influence. Thus, when the Israelis described the U.S. moves as appeasement, Rogers objected to the word. "It suggests that the Arabs are enemies of the U.S.," he said. "Of course that isn't true."

One reason for the U.S. effort is obviously commercial, but equally important is the desire to restore normal relations with the Arabs without going back on the U.S. pledge to guarantee Israel's sovereignty. The effort is beginning to bear some fruit. Mauritania recently renewed diplomatic relations, which were ruptured during the 1967 war, and other states may follow suit. By shifting from the role of benefactor to broker, the U.S. hopes--and the hope is slender--that it may be able to restore peace to an area where warfare has become the daily routine. Last week, for instance, amid all the diplomatic harangues, Israel's military was having another busy time.

The air force mounted its largest assault since the 1967 war. For more than eight hours, jets roared over Suez, shooting up artillery emplacements and setting fires at Egypt's Suez refineries. The principal targets were surface-to-air missile sites, and the destruction of SAM sites was a warning to Egypt not to press too hard. It was also an indication that, for the time being, Israel would rather maintain the uncertain status quo than agree to any peace formula that would diminish its security.

While the U.S. and Israel were quarreling, so were the Arab states during their summit at Morocco's Rabat Hilton. The divisive agenda item was an Egyptian proposal that the other twelve members of the conference assist Egypt and Jordan by playing a greater part in the war against Israel. "I want to know whether you want to participate in the battle or not," Nasser demanded at the final working session. "I ask you please to tell me whether you want to fight." Earlier Egypt's Defense Minister, General Mohammed Fawzi, had unveiled a "mobilization plan" proposing that:

1) the oil-rich Arab states--Libya, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait--substantially increase the $356 million yearly subsidy that they already pay Egypt, Jordan and Yasser Arafat's guerrillas, and

2) the less wealthy nations increase troop contributions.

The proposal caused consternation. Saudi Arabia, citing heavy defense costs, objected to the higher subsidy. So did Kuwait, claiming recession troubles. In one exchange, Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who had gained power in a recent coup, urged Algeria to dispatch more men to Egypt. "It's all very well for you to tell us to send our armies to the front line," retorted Algeria's President Houari Boumedienne. "You can't do that yourself. Most of your officers are in jail." The Arab leaders finally approved the mobilization plan, but with nothing approaching unanimity. The vote was 9 to 4, with Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Saudi Arabia opposed and Kuwait abstaining.

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