A Crucial Test For Old Friends

FOR years, the Middle East crisis has centered on emnity between distrustful rivals. Last week it focused on a deep uneasiness, even a distrust, between two close and intimate allies. The dispute involved an issue that Israel deemed vital to her security; the continued buildup of Soviet missilery in the 32-mile-wide cease-fire zone on the Egyptian side of the Suez Canal. For its part, the U.S. would have preferred to overlook the missile buildup in an effort to get the peace negotiations moving under the direction of U.N. Special Representative Gunnar Jarring. The Israelis, who say that the Soviets and Egyptians have used the cease-fire to improve their military situation, refused to accept the American viewpoint.

The Israelis were deeply apprehensive that the U.S.'s search for peace in the Middle East would endanger their hard-won security. In Jerusalem last week, crowds gathered in the streets for a rally protesting U.S. inaction. "State Department errors cost Israeli blood!" cried Menahem Begin, who led his hawkish Gahal Party out of the coalition government of Premier Golda Meir over Israel's decision to begin negotiations. Senior Israeli Cabinet ministers reminded American visitors that Israel had accepted the cease-fire only after the U.S. gave its guarantee that no military buildup would be tolerated in the standstill zones on either side of the canal. The Israelis were also stung by the initial U.S. reluctance to accept the evidence of Israeli intelligence (TIME, Aug. 24). "Have we done all that we have done in the past three years, holding the canal and taking casualties, in order to be treated like half-wits?" demanded a member of Golda Meir's government.

It was Moshe Dayan, Israel's Defense Minister, who galvanized the government into a hard stand. Dayan, who earlier had considered resigning, boycotted a meeting of Israel's Cabinet to demonstrate his anger over the missile issue. After five days of debate, the Cabinet swung behind Dayan's view that Israel's U.N. ambassador, Yosef Tekoah, who had been recalled to Jerusalem for conferences, should not return to New York to resume meetings with Jarring until the missile question was settled. Appearing on television, Dayan praised the Cabinet's decision, thereby indicating his intention of remaining in the government. At the same time, however, he raised the specter of resumed fighting around the Suez Canal. "Israel should not be a partner to an agreement that is constantly being violated by the other side," said Dayan. "If we can reach an agreement, fine. If not and we have to continue the war, we are capable of doing so."

Rectify the Situation. Faced with Israel's determination, the U.S. finally admitted that cease-fire violations had taken place on the Egyptian side of the canal, and called upon the Egyptians and Russians to "rectify" the situation. On the basis of photos taken from the Samos satellite and U-2 planes, U.S. intelligence experts counted at least six batteries of six missiles each that had been moved into the truce zone after the cease-fire took effect. These weapons, along with twelve batteries of 72 missiles that were hastily shifted into the zone just before the truce took effect, created a threat to Israeli planes passing over the area and even flying above their own lines in Sinai.

The U.S. found itself in a quandary that reflected the complicated background of the ceasefire. In setting up the standstill, the U.S. asked for--and got--the promise of the Soviet Union that it would not allow the Egyptians to engage in a military buildup along the canal. On the strength of Moscow's promise, President Nixon relayed his reassurances to Mrs. Meir. Because of other sensitive diplomatic undertakings such as the SALT talks, the U.S. at first resisted publicly challenging the Soviet Union's word.

Low-Key Warning. Meeting at San Clemente with Secretary of State Rogers, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Joseph J. Sisco, and CIA Director Richard Helms, President Nixon probed for the meaning behind the Egyptian missile movements since the start of the ceasefire. The additional missiles might be meant only to give the Arabs a stronger bargaining handle in their discussions with Gunnar Jarring. But the U.S. assumption is that the Egyptians and their Russian advisers sought to obtain under the flag of truce what they had never been able to accomplish while Israeli planes were flying overhead--an effective defense of Egyptian territory. The best way to neutralize such a defense was to make sure that fighting did not break out again. Toward that end, the San Clemente group decided on only a low-key diplomatic warning to the Soviets and Egyptians in order to let the Jarring talks continue.

Ambassador Jacob Beam in Moscow and U.S. Representative Donald C. Bergus in Cairo called at their respective foreign ministries with proof of the truce violations and a U.S. demand that the buildups stop. Egypt denied the charges. The Russians merely agreed to study the U.S. allegations. But at the same time, Russian freighters continued to arrive in Egyptian harbors. They delivered more arms for Egypt, including 203-mm. artillery, the largest conventional weapon in the Russian inventory. It would be ideally suited for bombarding Israel's Bar-Lev Line on the canal's east bank.

Throne at Stake. The best hope for peace remained the fear of a new and costlier outbreak of fighting. Also, reputations and perhaps political lives were at stake. Mrs. Meir could blame the U.S. if the cease-fire failed, but at the same time she had agreed, despite strong protests from opposition leaders in the Cabinet, to go along with the truce. Arab reputations were at stake too. Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser and Jordan's King Hussein provoked widespread Arab criticism last month when they accepted the ceasefire. A collapse of negotiations would represent a grievous embarrassment, particularly since the Palestinian guerrilla movement has opposed the truce from the start.

Nasser is powerful enough to survive such an embarrassment; Hussein probably is not. The Jordanian king badly needs a diplomatic success to save his throne. Last week he survived yet another assassination attempt, the second against him in the past three months. According to a palace report, he was riding in a convoy of seven Land Rovers on his way to Amman airport to meet Daughter Alia, 14, when the attackers struck from ambush. Hussein was uninjured, but the Jordanian army responded to the attack by shelling guerrilla camps around Amman. Fedayeen leaders complained that Hussein had staged the incident as a pretext for attacking them, but foreign diplomats accepted the palace's version. In any event, the incident provoked another round of fighting in Jordan between army and guerrillas. At least 14 people were reported killed in three days of clashes.

Whether the cease-fire will survive for its full 90 days--and what happens after that--will become clearer next week. Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban plans to be in New York for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. He will use the visit to see Jarring and state Israel's position. Mrs. Meir, who was scheduled to visit President Nixon in October, has also moved up her visit and will come to the U.S. in mid-September. If the U.S. is unable to force the Egyptians and Soviets to remove the missiles from the cease-fire zone, she at least can use the missile buildups as grounds for obtaining more war planes for Israel.

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