Euphoria in Algiers, Trouble at the Canal

It was a singularly varied collection of rulers that gathered in Algiers last week in the name of Arab unity. Among the representatives of the 16 nations who assembled for the sixth pan-Arab summit since 1964 were Marxist revolutionaries and Moslem kings, sheiks in flowing robes and guerrillas in commando uniform. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat showed up in a neatly tailored suit of banker's blue; Saudi Arabia's King Feisal wore a richly brown bisht with gold trim. While most of the delegates flew into Algiers' Dar el Beida airport, where they were greeted with 21-gun salutes and an honor guard with turbans and flashing swords, Morocco's King Hassan II arrived aboard the French cruise ship Roussillon, which he had chartered for the occasion. Hassan is understandably loath to fly: his own air force tried unsuccessfully to shoot down his plane last summer as he was returning home from a visit to France.

The three-day summit was surprisingly free of acrimony--except against Israel--in part because three notables were absent. The most radical of Arab leaders, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and Iraq's Ahmed Hassan Bakr, boycotted the conference because they thought it would soften Arab attitudes toward Israel. Jordan's King Hussein stayed home--although he sent a delegation --because he resented the participation of Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat. Concentrating on the three Ps of peace, petroleum and Palestine, the delegates, in the end, were able to wind up the meeting with the most impressive display of Arab unity in a quarter of a century. Among the major decisions:

> Sadat and Syria's President Hafez Assad won an open mandate for moving ahead with plans for Arab representation at a peace conference in Geneva later this month, which will be sponsored by the U.S. and the Soviets. More than that, colleagues who had come to the conference talking about continuing the war with Israel voted instead to continue wartime subsidies to Egypt while Sadat searches for peace.

> Feisal, the principal apostle of a hard line on oil, persuaded the summit to continue the embargo on oil shipments to nations that support Israel. Some subtle variations were voted, however. Rhodesia, South Africa and Portugal were added to the list of embargoed nations, which also includes The Netherlands and the U.S. Japan and the Philippines were spared a further 5% production cut. European nations, except The Netherlands, were promised relief from scheduled cutbacks so long as they continued to maintain a pro-Arab line.

> Arafat, as leader of the multigroup Palestine Liberation Organization, was designated "sole" representative of the Palestinians at the upcoming Geneva conference, despite Jordanian protests. Thus the eventual lineup of Arabs at the peace table will include Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians. The list is bound to irritate both King Hussein and Israeli Premier Golda Meir. "He doesn't represent a country," she said of Arafat last week. "I don't know how you negotiate with somebody who tells you that you are doomed to die."

No previous Arab summit had ever been carried on with such euphoria. After arriving in Algiers, the delegations were whisked 15 miles to the seaside resort of Club des Pins, where each chief of state was housed in a low one-story stone villa. Mornings were spent in intervilla meetings, centering principally around the bungalows of Feisal, Sadat and Assad. Afternoon and evening general sessions took place in a Moorish-modern conference hall called the Palais des Nations. The claque outside the palais soon became a political barometer indicating the recognition and appeal of each representative. The loudest cheers were reserved for Sadat, who clearly had strengthened his position as principal spokesman of the Arab world.

Sadat had flown to Algiers to nail down approval for the peace negotiations that he now believes ought to follow the fighting. "Battle by itself," he said, "cannot constitute a solution of the problem. At the present time, we are on a promising road." There were a few brief, predictable calls for continuing the battle, but mainly the Arab rulers seemed to be savoring a famous victory. Tunisia's President Habib Bourguiba said it was "no longer thinkable to expel a people who have been in a place for 25 years." King Hassan, usually a realist, called the summit "the Arab Renaissance" and rejoiced that "we will pray in Jerusalem and salute the Palestinian flag. We will have victory parades in Cairo and Damascus."

The delegates were also concerned with broadening the Arabs' newly found role of global oil referee, which they have played with such skill that almost the entire world faces an energy crisis. "Our force now has a weight in the international balance," said the summit's host, Algerian President Houari Boumedienne exuberantly. "What we still expect from Europe is a recognition that the Arab nation is not just a reservoir of energy but a great human community of moral value."

The only thing that might have marred the unity of the summit-- and may still--is the role to be played by the Palestinians in the peace negotiations. Arafat, wearing his familiar fatigues and kaffiyeh, came to Algiers directly from conferences in Moscow. There he was pressured into accepting, as "a minimal" position, the 1947 United Nations resolution that was to divide Palestine into Arab and Jewish sectors. Ensconced in a villa flying the red, green and black Palestinian flag, Arafat grandly passed out Cuban cigars that he had been given in the Kremlin. But he did not, as some delegates had anticipated, announce the formation of a Palestinian government in exile.

Summit Leverage. One reason he did not is that there is growing division among Palestinians themselves over peace talks. Such left-wing fedayeen groups as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine are far from ready to compromise with Israel in any way. As if to demonstrate the schism, three Palestinians who called themselves the Arab Nationalist Youth for the Liberation of Palestine last week skyjacked a KLM 747 enroute from Amsterdam to Tokyo with 247 passengers aboard. They made vague demands for lessened Dutch support of Israel and for the release of Arab guerrillas imprisoned on Cyprus. The terrorists then ordered the plane flown from Damascus to Nicosia, Tripoli and Malta before they finally let the passengers go and then gave themselves and the plane up in the little oil sheikdom of Dubai on the Persian Gulf. Significantly, the principal reason for the skyjackers' lack of success was that Arab airports would not give them permission to land for fuel or food.

Once the conference ended, Sadat flew back to Cairo, hoping to use the summit's leverage on the Egyptian-Israeli cease-fire talks at Kilometer 101 on the Cairo-Suez road. Indignantly, Sadat complained of Israeli "elusiveness."

In the three weeks since U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had outlined the subjects of the talks, the two sides have actually worked out almost every element of his proposed agreement. The exception, a key one, is disengagment of forces. Neither side insists any longer on defining the ambiguous question of withdrawal to the nebulous Oct. 22 cease-fire lines. Instead, the Egyptians have been demanding that Israel withdraw its forces from the west bank of the Suez Canal to a position in Sinai 20 miles or more from the east bank of the canal, and there keep only "normal sized forces." United Nations forces would be interposed between the Israeli and Egyptian troops alongside the canal.

Israel was amenable to withdrawal from the west bank, largely because its troops there are in a somewhat precarious and exposed position. Indeed, some observers suggested last week that the Israelis had built a causeway across the canal at Deversoir north of Great Bitter Lake not so much to reinforce its units in case of fighting, but to evacuate them back to the east bank if it became necessary. But in return for pulling back --and then only about ten miles from the canal--Israel insisted that Egypt thin out its east-bank forces, removing the armor and leaving only a small symbolic force of infantry.

By week's end the two sides were still a long way from resolving their differences--so much so that the talks were indefinitely recessed. More ominously, Egyptian and Israeli forces started up a 25-minute firefight with mortars and machine guns, about a mile from the Kilometer 101 U.N. base. Other fights were reported all up and down the west bank of the canal. Observers suggested that Egypt had started the fighting as a kind of small-scale war of attrition aimed at forcing Israel to disengage. Pointedly, Egyptian officers confirmed that since the cease-fire took effect, their front-line forces had been completely resupplied. Yet neither side seriously tried to escalate the shooting. The clear impression was that both wanted to avoid renewed fighting in order to get on with the business of Geneva. Nevertheless, there remained the definite danger of a misstep.

Second Trip. Henry Kissinger was aware that U.S. chances for easing its oil shortage, not to mention his own prestige as a peacemaker, rest on a successful beginning of negotiations in Geneva. Last week Kissinger was preparing for a second trip in as many months to the Middle East. The Secretary of State will visit Cairo, Amman and Damascus--if the Syrians agree to receive him--as well as Tel Aviv and then Geneva.

To the Israelis, Kissinger will probably point out that the time has come to test Arab intentions by pulling back in Sinai. He may perhaps warn the Arabs that the present oil policy heavily improves the Soviet position in the Middle East and runs the risk of losing U.S. support for such touchy issues as a Palestinian homeland and possible internationalization of Jerusalem. In view of the new spirit of unity created in Algiers last week, his arguments will have to be very convincing to have any effect.

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