Creating Facts' In the Desert

Bounded by the Mediterranean and Red seas and the gulfs of Aqaba and Suez, the Sinai peninsula is a generally desolate stretch of sand dunes and granite mountains that is twice the size of Maryland. The desert is more hospitable to scorpions and camels than to men. Apart from Bedouins who wander the dunes and camp in the scattered oases, and soldiers who cautiously patrol old battlefields, Sinai's inhabitants hug the coastlines. Yet for all the peninsula's vast emptiness and apparent lack of natural wealth, Israel appears to be determined to hold on to a third of the 24,000-sq.-mi. area, which it captured in 1967. One reason is strategic. Another is economic: there may not be much in the desert in the way of resources, but offshore there is oil.

Israel has constructed a series of settlements, military installations and other major projects that form an arcing line from the Rafah salient on the Mediterranean to El Tur on the Gulf of Suez. The line (see map) looks suspiciously like a national boundary.

At the northern end of the line, TIME Jerusalem Bureau Chief Donald Neff reports from the scene, are 17 Israeli settlements, dominated by the major village of Yamit. Established only 15 months ago, Yamit is a bustling community of 850 inhabitants who commute to jobs in Israel proper, and construction is under way on housing for hundreds more. Central Sinai, east of the Giddi and Mitla passes, is a natural battlefield and ideal tank country. So far, Israel and Egypt have fought three wars there in only 20 years. Israel intends to hold this area with military installations. At Bir Gifgafa, 15 miles north of the Giddi Pass, is a giant forward base containing tank-repair shops and jet-fighter strips that could be relinquished. But closer to Israel, newer and more sophisticated airbases have been or are being built. Etzion, near Eilat, and Etam, about 30 miles south of Rafah, are already operational. A third base between them is still under construction.

At the southern end of the peninsula, the deserted Arab fishing village of El Tur is being actively exploited for what have proved to be rich oil reserves. Despite a public declaration from Washington last week that such activity is illegal, Israel is determinedly searching for oil to replace what it lost a year ago when the Abu Rudeis fields to the north were handed back to Egypt. Exploration has already led to conflicts, since other oil teams under Egyptian contracts are also working there. Israeli naval crews last fall shot at equipment owned by Amoco to keep that American company from working in the Gulf of Suez just off El Tur. Then in December, Israel set up its own costly offshore drilling rig, manned mainly by American roughnecks. Two weeks ago the Israelis began sinking another hole on the shore at El Tur, slant-drilling into the waters whose ownership it disputes.

The new installations have a look of permanency about them. A ten-inch water line is being laid to El Tur from Sharm el Sheikh, and the 60-mile highway connecting the two towns is being widened. Israel is obviously not spending millions on such facilities in order to turn them over to Egypt. As the Israelis see it, the arguments for keeping such a large chunk of Sinai are logical. If Rafah were returned, Egyptian troops would have direct access to Gaza, which would put them close to the heartland of Israel. Similarly, Israel is determined to hold Sharm el Sheikh in order to prevent another Egyptian blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba and the Israeli port of Eilat.

Israelis acknowledge that they are father into occupied territory in a permanent way than U.S. and Arab observers had anticipated. They are creating what officials in Jerusalem call "facts." Those facts--new settlements, new roads, expanded exploitation of natural resources--do not, in the Israeli view at least, make peace impossible.

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