A Troubled First Anniversary

One year after Camp David: "Bombing is not a policy "

The ceremony at the White House was meant to be a kind of revival meeting --a rekindling of the spirit of Camp David that led to the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement one year ago. But even as Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Egyptian Vice President Hoshi Mubarak lavished praise on President Carter for his role in forging the historic accord, a potential new obstacle to the glacial peace process arose. With exquisitely bad timing, the Cabinet of Premier Menachem Begin chose the eve of the agreement's first birthday to rescind a twelve-year prohibition against land acquisitions by Israeli citizens in the West Bank and Gaza.

The change in policy, said one Carter Administration specialist in Middle East affairs, "only reinforces the arguments of those who say the Israelis are not serious about the whole autonomy process."

Both Egypt and the U.S. issued sharp public criticisms of the Cabinet decision.

Speaking on the White House lawn, Mubarak denounced the policy change as a "rash" attempt to "usurp the rights of Palestinian people in their country and on their land." A day later, State Department Spokesman Hodding Carter lambasted the Israeli policy as "contrary to the spirit and intent" of the Camp David accord.

The latest flap added to a summer of strained U.S.-Israeli relations. Washington is annoyed by Israel's policy of beefing up civilian settlements in the occupied territories and by its air and artillery attacks--using U.S. equipment--on Palestinian bases in southern Lebanon. At week's end, Palestinian sources in Beirut claimed that Israel had launched an armored strike into southern Lebanon in retaliation for a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem that killed two Israelis and wounded 42 others. The Israeli high command denied that it had mounted any such attack. Despite the forced resignation of U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, the Israelis fear that Washington is secretly planning to establish informal relations with Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (see following story). The U.S.-Israeli tensions exploded at a dinner party given by Israeli Ambassador Ephriam Evron for Defense Minister Ezer Weizman two days before the White House anniversary festivities. Harold Saunders, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, was preparing to leave the party when an Israeli journalist asked him to clarify his earlier comment that the U.S. was contributing $4.8 billion to underwrite the Israeli-Egyptian rapprochement, but neither country seemed willing to inform the U.S. of their plans for policing the transfer of the Sinai from Israel to Egypt. "Is that friendship?" Saunders had asked, a bit sarcastically.

Listening to this exchange was Weizman, who suddenly accused Washington of making Israel "the villain in the Middle East" by criticizing its attacks on purported P.L.O. targets in southern Lebanon. Those raids, Weizman claimed, had produced a three-week respite in P.L.O. attacks. Snapped Saunders: "Bombing is not a policy."

The rebuke infuriated Weizman.

"Don't tell me how to do anything," he shouted, as Ambassador Evron tried to calm him down. "You are soft, you have demonstrated weakness all over the world. You lost Ethiopia, you lost Angola, you lost Iran." When Saunders said, "I'm very sorry that you don't understand American policy," Weizman retorted, "You don't have a policy at all."

After accounts of the quarrel appeared in the press, Saunders and Weizman were all smiles at a press conference at which Secretary of State Cyrus Vance announced a compromise plan for monitoring the further withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Sinai. According to the plan, U.S. intelligence planes and up to 200 civilian technicians will help Israeli and Egyptian units police the phased turnover of the vast desert area, which is supposed to be complete by 1982.

That agreement eliminated one obstacle to further progress in the Israeli-Egyptian negotiations. Nonetheless, it did not dispel Washington's worries that the lifting of the ban on private land purchases was another step toward Israel's "creeping annexation" of the West Bank and Gaza, a policy certain ultimately to undermine negotiations on autonomy for those areas. Israeli officials had a ready explanation for lifting the prohibition. As Cabinet Secretary Aryeh Naor put it: "Up to now, discrimination existed against Jews and Israelis. They could buy land all over the world, but not in Judea, Samaria and Gaza." This rationalization has a hollow ring. In fact, the restriction on private land purchases in the occupied territories was originally imposed by Jerusalem in order to channel Jewish pioneers toward Israel's quasi-military settlements on government-owned property, particularly in sensitive forward areas like the Jordan valley. Within its boundaries, only citizens of countries with which Israel is at war are banned from purchasing land within Israel's borders. In practice, though, a Cairo businessman would have little chance to purchase a farm in Galilee. Reason: the government has deliberately retained title to 90% of Israel's acreage.

Actually the lifting of the ban on private Israeli acquisitions may not have much immediate impact on patterns of land ownership in the West Bank. Few Arab landholders are likely to sell their plots. Technically, Arab residents of the West Bank are still Jordanian citizens; they are thus subject to a Jordanian law that decrees the death penalty for any Arab who sells his land to an Israeli.

Some Egyptian officials speculated that the Cabinet move was aimed primarily at shoring up Begin's domestic political position. Last week, at a special session of the Knesset, the opposition Labor Party subjected Begin's shaky coalition government to a fierce attack, blaming the Premier for the present 80% inflation rate (up 40% in five years), a doubling of overall foreign debt since 1974 to $13 billion and inept handling of the peace talks. Begin and his coalition allies easily bent back a resolution condemning the government for "failing to function properly" by a 48 to 26 vote.

Meanwhile, Begin's health continues to be a stormy political issue in Israel.

A TIME report (Sept. 24, 1979) that doctors had recommended Begin severely restrict his workday was assailed by the Premier's office as "totally unfounded," and an apology was demanded. Begin made a rare television appearance during which he stated his doctors were "amazed" at his progress following his recent stroke.

Said Begin: "Thank God I have fully recovered." He had read "many imaginary stories" in his long life, Begin said, but never one like TIME'S. (TIME based its story on information from sources who had direct knowledge of Begin's health and daily activities. TIME is thoroughly rechecking all aspects of the story.) One unquestionable fact: Begin was fit and vigorous as he defended himself last week.

Begin's partner in peace, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, has no intention of breaking off the negotiations, even though some of his close advisers have suggested that if Israel's possessiveness toward the West Bank and Gaza continues, Egypt should "reassess" its strategy.

One subject that might be reviewed: the exchange of ambassadors with Israel scheduled for February. Dayan hinted last week that it might take Carter's "guiding hand" to break the deadlock on the future of the occupied territory. The President startled his aides by suggesting, "If an apparently insurmountable obstacle should be confronted in the negotiating process, then I would be deeply committed to becoming personally involved again." It may be only a matter of time before all concerned are back in the Maryland mountains, trying to recapture that Camp David spirit.

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