Another Round in the War of Words

The war of tanks and missiles in the Middle East is matched by an equally angry war of words in the belligerent capitals and in New York City, where both sides have traded rhetorical blows at the United Nations. Last week TIME Correspondent Lansing Lamont had separate interviews with Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban and Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed El Zayyat. The questions put by Lamont to both diplomatic spokesmen were identical. The answers were alike only in their intransigence.

How will the cease-fire settlement, when it comes, differ this time from 1967?

Eban: There was no peace settlement in 1967. Egypt, Jordan and Syria were very content to accept a cease-fire proposed by the United Nations Security Council, which saved them from further military defeat. In November 1967 the Security Council adopted Resolution 242, calling for the establishment of permanent peace, which was to include withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967 and the establishment of "secure and recognized" boundaries that were to be agreed on. The deadlock exists because the Egyptians have constantly refused to submit the boundary question to negotiation.

All Israelis who look at this problem today ask themselves this question: "If we had been mad enough to abandon the Golan Heights and Sharm el Sheikh and all the Sinai and the whole West Bank [of the Jordan], would not the massive attack launched October 6 have murdered thousands of our civilians, devastated our population centers and brought us to catastrophe?" I tell you, a massacre more hideous than Auschwitz would have been a real prospect and Israel's survival would be in doubt. To suggest a restoration of the pre-1967 lines is sheer irresponsibility in the light of what's been revealed.

El Zayyat: In 1967 the cease-fire settlement was only a respite in the continuation of tensions. This time, our cease-fire should be the first step to a final settlement and peace.

What would your country's demands or intentions be if the war ends in a stalemate at the 1967 lines?

Eban: The momentum of war may carry our forces beyond the 1967 cease-fire lines in [order to] repel the Arab threat. The Arab states can still set a cease-fire on the basis of the previous ceasefire, then get a peace negotiation on the basis of Security Council Resolution 242. But they will find our attitude on the boundary and security arrangements deeply and traumatically affected by the damage and loss they inflicted on us on the Day of Atonement.

El Zayyat: I prefer intentions, not demands. If the cease-fire comes only at the '67 lines, this would be a regrettable situation. For us, it has already meant six years of political frustration and economic deterioration because of the amount of resources we have put into the war effort. It has been an almost unbearable situation in which we have spent heavily on defense to keep our men in uniform--all the while waiting for something to happen.

What is your country's interpretation of United Nations Resolution 242?

Eban: There is no Israeli "interpretation." Those who first proposed and supported the resolution induced us to accept it by declaring subtly that it did not rule out a boundary negotiation and a boundary agreement. Any other interpretation is a forgery.

That resolution was meant to be negotiated not simply declaimed. In particular, there was to be a negotiation about where the boundaries would be, because it was obvious even then that the old armistice lines gave Israel no security against sudden attack. They virtually committed Israel to a preemptive strategy as the only alternative to being inundated by Arab armies with Soviet weapons in the event of a sudden attack.

El Zayyat: We support the evacuation of all our lands. We insist on it. We got 13 votes for our interpretation last July in the Security Council. It was [America's] idea that "constructive ambiguity," a phrase coined by Mr. Eban and borrowed by Mr. John Scali [U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.], was a good thing. [The U.S. cast a veto against the Arabs at that session.] Our intentions are not to occupy Israeli territory or to drive Israel into the sea. We say this not out of any tender love for Israel but because we understand the political reality. We have no policy for Israel's annihilation.

What's our object? We really want peace--not as an ideological thing to please Washington or Moscow. We want it as a framework in which we can go on developing. But we cannot have peace and occupation. The cease-fire we want must be linked to complete evacuation by Israelis of all Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian lands.

If your forces gain the battlefield momentum, where will they stop?

Eban: I imagine that the Israeli forces will stop at the point that we think is safe against further attack. In this war we'll do what is necessary to repel the attack and ensure our security.

El Zayyat: Our forces will stop when they've liberated the territory of Egypt. Same with Syria. If you're asking if we're going all the way to Tel Aviv, the answer is no.

What security guarantees would your country insist on in any cease-fire settlement?

Eban: If you're talking about guarantees in a peace settlement, let's eliminate some illusions. The major powers [including the U.S.] apparently don't intend to commit their forces to the Middle East. The U.N. is an arena for waging conflicts, not an instrument for solving them. It cannot "guarantee" anybody's security or take a single step without Arab consent. Israel's guarantee must be its own strength as well as secure boundaries that permit her to absorb an attack without being destroyed.

El Zayyat: We'll accept the authority and guarantees of the Security Council. We'll consider any guarantees in which your government, for example, would have a say or a role.

In retrospect, was Israel's decision not to make a pre-emptive strike but to absorb the first punishing blow from Egyptian and Syrian forces the right one?

Eban: This was a responsible decision by our Cabinet. History will decide. In the short term, the decision not to launch a pre-emptive strike was very costly in human life and in acute tactical disadvantages. In the longer view, we have left no doubt about Egyptian and Syrian responsibility for shattering the ceasefire. This may be important for Israel's position in the international community.

El Zayyat: We did not strike first. Israel had begun an imperial task on its own--attacking our cities with impunity, going through the corridors of the Suez Gulf unopposed, raiding Lebanese territory. We had to make it less easy for Israel to launch these excursions into Lebanon, Syria and Egypt at will.

Why is there so much distrust between the Arabs and the Israelis?

Eban: First, when the Arabs speak to their own people, their leaders say frankly that if they got us back to the 1967 lines, this would be the first stage, to be followed by the decisive blow to the head and heart. Second, no man in his right senses believes that if the massive thrust of Egyptian and Syrian tanks on October 6 were to have succeeded in its objects, they would have come to a halt on the sand near the '67 boundaries, stepped on the brakes with a loud, victorious screech and said, "Here we stop." What nonsense! The very massiveness of the forces engaged proves that in October 1973 they decided on a total assault on Israel.

El Zayyat: The Israelis have taken it on themselves to be the spokesmen for all the world, including the Arabs. There's a suspicion that Israel is an expansionist regime bent on annexing all the Arab area. Israel's repeated expansions, including Jerusalem [the Israelis among other things, now claim the city as their capital and have built high-rise housing projects for Jewish immigrants in the Arab sections], and its refusal to withdraw from the occupied lands enhance this image.

Egypt and Israel are both Semitic nations, both inhabit the same small area of the world and face similar geographic and sociological problems. Why can't the enmity be resolved?

Eban: The word Semitic is only a linguistic definition--nothing else. Hebrew and Arabic have a Semitic structure. But we are neighbors, and of course the conflict can be resolved. When Egypt decides to negotiate, I shall begin to believe that it has come to terms with Israel's statehood. Until then, I shall believe the opposite--and so will all Israelis.

El Zayyat: We have nothing against the Israelis as Semites or as Jews. What we have against the rulers of Israel is their aggressive and colonialist policy. Israel has never tried to gain acceptance of its presence in the area, only to impose itself through arms and conquest. The idea that you can speak only from the mouth of a gun has always been Israel's idea, inherited perhaps from the Europe of the 1930s.

What change is needed in attitudes before Israel and the Arab nations live in peace?

Eban: Our neighbors must first of all change their attitude on the principle of negotiation and listen carefully to our views and anxieties on the boundary question and on the nature of the peace. Only when they negotiate will Israel's view of their intentions begin to change. It is negotiation that creates confidence; it is not confidence that creates negotiation.

El Zayyat: The Israeli attitude has been to assume that they were invincible and that we were meek and weak. They pictured Egyptians as people who would never fight. The fighting spirit of the American colonies came about because you refused the serenity of living under the British Crown. Well, we don't like the serenity--Mr. Eban's word--of being occupied. The argument that this occupied territory serves as a protective buffer for Israel--that was the argument of Hitler. What we're asking for is very simple: that our territorial integrity and the rights of the Palestinians be respected. These two elements are the sine qua non conditions for peace in the Middle East.

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