Prize and Provocation

Even as the negotiations for a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel appeared to flounder in Washington, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee last week announced in Oslo that this year's award would go jointly to Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin. Few Western observers would quarrel with the selection of Sadat, whose courageous mission to Jerusalem last November had set the stage for the tumultuous peace drive that followed. But in its attempt at even-handedness in naming Begin to share the honor and the $173,700 in prize money, the committee (see box) made a questionable choice in timing if not in judgment.

Just in case the Nobel Committee should be accused of being precipitate--peace, after all, is not quite at hand--it issued a citation reminding the world that its new laureates still had a long road to travel in their search for brotherhood. The purpose of the awards, said the committee, was "not only to honor actions already performed in the service of peace, but also to encourage further efforts to work out practical solutions." Both the winners had awaited the announcement with mounting excitement, and both pronounced themselves delighted.

Unfortunately, the Nobel Committee's tuning this year was little short of ludicrous. For, only two days before the awards were announced, Begin's government had taken an action that threatened to destroy the negotiations on which the prizes were based. A draft peace treaty had just been tentatively approved, though both the Egyptians and the Israelis had requested some changes. Then, in a bizarre and even provocative gesture, the Israeli government announced that it was launching a $20 million program to "thicken," or beef up, five Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. The move was calculated by Begin and his colleagues to warn the Carter Administration that it must behave more circumspectly in its conduct of the peace negotiations, and the message got through. U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance quickly rebuked the Begin government, saying that the U.S. considered the Israeli action "a very serious matter" and was "deeply disturbed" by it.

On one level, the Israeli decision to expand the controversial settlements was an effort to appease the right-wing zealots in Jerusalem's ruling Likud coalition, who believe that Begin gave away too much at Camp David. By announcing that the settlements would be enlarged, Begin was trying to strengthen his position in the coalition and ensure that his own party would eventually approve the peace treaty by a wide margin.

But clearly the latest Israeli action was also an effort to chastise the Carter Administration for the visit last week of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Harold Saunders to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Saunders' purpose had been to assure Jordan's King Hussein that U.S. policy in the Middle East had not changed: Washington still believed that Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank is illegal. The U.S. hoped to convince Hussein that the time had come for him to join the peace process and to strengthen Sadat's position in the negotiations, increasing the chances of an eventual settlement between Israel and its other Arab neighbors.

As the Israelis saw it, the Saunders mission was a high-pressure effort to lure Jordan and the Palestinians into the negotiations by publicly siding with the Arab interpretation of the Camp David accords. Israeli officials sharply criticized Saunders for endorsing Arab sovereignty over the West Bank and East Jerusalem, though this has been American policy for more than a decade. Most of all, the Israelis seemed to resent the timing of the Saunders trip, coming as it did while the Washington peace talks were in progress and while Begin was busy preparing his people and his parliament to support a settlement.

The emotional Israelis have unfairly regarded Saunders as "pro-Arab" ever since he gave Senate testimony three years ago in which he cited "the legitimate interests" of the Palestinians. Suddenly last week the veteran diplomat became a handy scapegoat. In a stormy session with

Israeli officials, he was treated in what one U.S. official called a "very rude" manner. In a statement defending Saunders, Vance said he "deplored the personal attacks" and retained "utmost confidence in him."

The Carter Administration fully realized that the whole subject of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza still clouded U.S.-Israeli relations. In fact, the only real controversy that emerged from Camp David was over how long the Israelis had agreed to refrain from building more settlements. Carter said that the moratorium was supposed to last for five years; Begin later claimed that he had agreed to suspend the settlement-building program for only the expected three-month period of Egyptian-Israeli negotiations.

What Washington did not anticipate was that the Israelis would violate the spirit, if not the letter, of Camp David by announcing plans to thicken their settlements while the Washington talks were still going on. Indeed, the move came as Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Defense Minister Ezer Weizman were returning to Washington at midweek to resume negotiations with Egypt and the U.S. Moreover, in a startling statement that was calculated to antagonize not only Carter but every leader in the Arab world, Begin proposed that his own office, as well as that of his Foreign Minister, should be moved from Government Hill in West Jerusalem to predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, which the Israelis have held since the 1967 war, thus reaffirming Israel's intention of retaining the entire city as its capital. Said a Begin aide: "The Carter Administration was looking for trouble by sending Saunders here. They've really got it now."

From the narrowest of political perspectives, that was probably true. But, while Washington fumed, Anwar Sadat was playing it fairly cool publicly. Though he had pressed the Carter Administration to do everything it could to help him secure the open support of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, Sadat chose to interpret the latest dispute as mainly an argument between Washington and Jerusalem over the timing of the Saunders mission. He was not anxious to break off negotiations, as he had done during the talks in Jerusalem last January. But on Friday the Egyptian government announced it would call its two top negotiators home from Washington for a weekend of consultations.

Alarmed that the Egyptian decision could bring the negotiations to a halt, President Carter reached Sadat that evening. Next morning, Carter related at a campaign rally for New York Governor Hugh Carey, Sadat sent word that he would let the negotiators stay in Washington. Carter acknowledged that there had been "trouble in recent hours" over the Israeli settlement issue. But once again the President had skillfully stepped in at a crucial moment and saved the talks.

As Sadat expected, his Arab enemies vere quick to interpret Israel's latest actions as further proof that Begin intends never to give up either the West Bank or East Jerusalem. Ever since the beginning of his peace efforts last year, Sadat has been dangerously isolated from the Arab world. He was relieved last week when the Sudan became the first Arab state to endorse Camp David, and he also took satisfaction from an editorial in a Saudi Arabian paper, the daily Okaz, declaring that Camp David represented "an important stage in Arab history and should be recognized as an established fact."

Yet, far more important than this modest support were the signs of growing cohesion among the Arab states that oppose Sadat. As a prelude to this week's Arab summit in Baghdad called by Iraq to counter the Camp David accords, Syrian President Hafez Assad flew to the Iraqi capital for a reconciliation with President Ahmed Hassan Bakr. Syria and Iraq have been enemies for years, largely because their governments are run by feuding branches of the Baath (resurrection) party, a pan-Arab movement founded some 40 years ago. Iraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council holds the hard-line view that the U.S. lacks the will or the power to put enough pressure on Israel to restore Arab rights in the occupied territories. Therefore, the Iraqis reason, the Arabs must do the job themselves. With Egypt committed to a peace agreement with Israel, the Iraqis invited the Syrians to join in forming a united front to create a plausible new military threat to Israel. Thus, last week, the two Arab Presidents signed a "charter for joint national action," thereby ending their long quarrel.

The aim of the charter is to build up a military bloc on Israel's northeastern border that would be strong enough to worry the Israelis into making concessions, but not threatening enough to provoke an Israeli pre-emptive strike. Iraq is the Arab world's second largest oil producer (after Saudi Arabia) and has a large, Soviet-supplied army. It would like to station some of its forces in Syrian territory opposite the Israeli border, but after their years of quarreling with the Iraqis, the Syrians are reluctant to accept such an arrangement. According to Iraqi sources, the new agreement will merely permit Iraqi troops to move into Syria "whenever they are needed."

Sadat has long since abandoned hope of convincing the Syrians, not to mention the Iraqis, that he is bargaining earnestly in behalf of the other Arab states. But he is still trying to persuade moderate Arab states that an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty would be merely the first step toward a comprehensive settlement. To make it easier for the Israelis, he is prepared to allow this point to be made in the preamble to the treaty rather than in the agreement itself. So far, however, the Israelis seem to want no part of it.

The Washington talks are also bogged down on technical details. Last week, for example, oil experts and economists from both delegations began discussions on how to resolve compensation claims and marketing procedures for Sinai oil. The Israelis are asking for more than $100 million to cover past capital investments in the oilfields, and want to be given privileged status as a Sinai oil customer in the years to come. The Egyptians are demanding $2 billion in compensation for the oil that Israel pumped out during eleven years of occupation. They will sell Sinai oil to the Israelis in the future, say the Egyptians, but not at a discount.

Even if the latest hurdles can be overcome, the end of negotiations seemed further away than it had only a week earlier. The Carter Administration had all but abandoned any hope of holding the signing ceremony by Nov. 19, the first anniversary of Sadat's journey to Jerusalem. At week's end an aide to Menachem Begin predicted that the big event would take place in early December. If so, it could be held just before or after Dec. 10, the day when the Nobel Peace Prizes are to be presented to the recipients in Oslo.

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