Yes from Nasser, Dilemma for Israel

THE Middle East war is older than many of the soldiers who fight it; yet in the 22 years since the fighting began over the creation of Israel, neither Israelis, Arabs nor well-meaning outsiders have been able to work out a lasting settlement. Against this discouraging background of aborted peace plans, U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers was given little chance six weeks ago when he proposed still another attempt at negotiations. The new effort was launched as Washington prepared to act on an Israeli request for more jets --a move that threatened to deepen the Middle East's protracted crisis.

Last week Rogers' gamble returned at least a preliminary payoff. In a Cairo speech and in a private note to Washington, Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser responded to the U.S. proposals. Washington had deliberately urged the Israelis to withhold their reply in order to give Nasser, fresh from 19 days of talks with his Soviet patrons in Moscow, time to react to Rogers' offer. To the delight of U.S. officials, Nasser's speech was relatively devoid of anti-American polemics and cautiously favorable. His note was even more accommodating, so much so that it placed the U.S. and Israel under tremendous pressure to reply in kind.

Major Initiative. Nasser himself had supplied some of the impetus for the latest try at peacemaking. Last May Day, in a long speech on Arab struggle against Israel, Egypt's President inserted a warning that the opportunity for a U.S. rapprochement with Arab nations was rapidly fading. The warning worked on the State Department. Rogers persuaded President Nixon that "a major political initiative" ought to be made to get the antagonists "to stop shooting and start talking."

One factor that encouraged Rogers, paradoxically, was the increased Soviet involvement in Egypt. Russia's growing military presence since .last March was a source of U.S. anxiety, to be sure, but the Secretary reasoned that it enhanced Nasser's self-confidence. As Rogers put it: "In all my experience as a lawyer, I have never found anyone who likes to bargain from weakness." Conversely, he figured, the Soviet involvement might force the Israelis to realize that they might not be dealing from a position of strength forever.

On June 19, Rogers' letters went out to Foreign Ministers of Israel, Egypt, Jordan and other interested parties. Within ten days, improved Soviet SA-2 missiles were moved closer to the Suez Canal and began knocking Israeli jets out of the sky. Had the U.S. initiative, the White House wondered, been interpreted as a sign of weakness? President Nixon issued a strong warning about the danger of a potential U.S.-Soviet collision, and pointedly contrasted the aggressive Arabs with the peace-loving Israelis. Rogers cringed at the harsh rhetoric and so, obviously, did the Egyptians. In his speech last week, Nasser specifically protested the Nixon charge and offered to negotiate as proof of his peaceable intentions.

Rogers' proposals grow out of a United Nations Security Council resolution passed five months after the 1967 SixDay War. Resolution No. 242, as the diplomats refer to it, called on the Israelis to withdraw from occupied territories, in exchange for acceptance by the Arab states of Israel's sovereignty within secure and recognized borders. It also called for a "just settlement of the refugee problem."

Prickly Issues. The Rogers plan urges both sides to agree to a cease-fire of at least 90 days. Once the guns are stilled, Swedish diplomat Gunnar V. Jarring will act as an intermediary and seek agreement on such prickly issues as the Israeli-occupied territories and the Arab refugees (see box page 18). In the letters Rogers wrote setting forth his proposals, he urged the parties involved "to move with us to seize this opportunity. If it is lost, we shall all suffer the consequences."

In Moscow, Soviet leaders apparently persuaded Nasser to take Rogers up on his proposals. Between visits to a health spa to treat a circulatory ailment, Nasser spent a good deal of his time conferring with the Russians on his response. Back in Cairo, he chose to reply on the 18th anniversary of the coup that deposed dissolute King Farouk. Sitting down to spare his legs, Nasser was unusually restrained in an address to 1,200 followers packed into a Cairo University hall. In large measure, his object was to prepare his 33.5 million people for a possible shift in policy. The bulk of the speech, salted with salutes to Russia for its aid and to other Arab countries, was greeted with steady applause. Toward the close of his 2-hr. 10-min. address, Nasser finally brought up Rogers' proposals. "In all honesty," he said, "we found nothing new in this." But, he added, "it is an opportunity." The audience, surrounded by signs proclaiming "The struggle will continue whatever the sacrifices" and "Israel must be defeated in the field of psychological warfare," did not applaud.

Cease-Fire. The day before Nasser spoke, Egypt's Foreign Minister, Mahmoud Riad, handed a note to U.S. Diplomat Donald C. Bergus, who heads the "U.S. interests section" of the Spanish embassy in Cairo--an arrangement that allows Washington to maintain diplomats in the Egyptian capital even though Cairo severed relations with the U.S. at the time of the 1967 war. Not only did the Egyptians agree to a limited ceasefire, but they also anticipated to Bergus that it would have to be accompanied by an arms freeze along the canal and a pledge that neither side would use the time to improve its military position. Nasser's note contained a standard Arab demand that Israel return all occupied territories and solve the Arab refugee problem. Missing, however, was the customary insistence on Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories as a precondition for negotiations --something the Israelis have repeatedly said they would reject. Scanning Riad's message in Washington, Rogers noted with diplomatic understatement that he was "greatly encouraged."

Not long afterward, Soviet Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Dobrynin was whisked past newsmen into Rogers' office. During his 20-minute visit, Dobrynin emphasized that Nasser's reply plainly demonstrated Egypt's sincerity.

Another Rogers caller was Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin, who was particularly worried that a limited ceasefire might give Egypt an opportunity to move Russian missiles up to the Suez Canal. In Tel Aviv, Foreign Minister Abba Eban expressed similar concern, arguing that a temporary cease-fire "would be a certificate for the resumption of hostilities on a fixed date. It would be only a phase of war, whereas a permanent cease-fire would be a transition for peace."

Diplomatic Defensive. Such objections indicate the extent to which Nasser's action has put Israel--and the U.S. --on the diplomatic defensive. The U.S. is in something of a fix because it must now coax Israel to the peace table or be branded hypocritical for suggesting negotiations and then failing to deliver its client.

Washington hopes to rely on persuasion, but if that fails, the U.S. might theoretically resort to pressure. One means would be to threaten a cutback in military aid, including replacements for lost Israeli Phantom jets. Another would be to hold down on economic aid, though it is now running at only $55 million a year. A third, highly risky in a U.S. election year, would be a threat to tax the heavy contributions sent to Israel by the U.S. Jewish community (1969 estimate: $250 million). Such moves would drive a wedge between Israel and the U.S., its firmest ally. In fact, some observers speculate that just such a development is the real objective of the Soviet-Egyptian decision to support the Rogers plan.

The Soviets and their Arab allies are not without problems, of course. While Nasser does not have to deliver the Palestinian Arabs to the peace table, he does have to keep their reaction in mind. And the Palestinians, particularly the guerrilla groups, are already on record as opposing any peace settlement short of dismantling Israel.

Tanks in Tripoli. Diplomats view last week's developments as merely the first halting steps on a long, rock-strewn road. The Soviet Union lost no time in confirming that opinion by launching a new military-assistance program in Libya, Nasser's next-door neighbor. Intelligence sources reported last week that Russian freighters have recently docked at Tripoli to unload Soviet tanks and armored cars that have been sold to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's army. The Soviets tried to make light of the move. "If you are going to 'expel' us from Egypt, we must go elsewhere," grinned a Russian diplomat in Washington, referring to a remark by Presidential Adviser Henry Kissinger that Kissinger himself has since termed unfortunate. But the news from Libya did little to reassure the U.S. that Moscow really has peace on its mind in the Middle East.

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