A King's Friendly Objections

Washington hears them, and tries to be conciliatory

Jordan's King Hussein came to Washington last week and was treated to a welcome that went well beyond the usual protocol. In the old days, when Hussein was regarded as America's best friend in the Arab world, he would visit the U.S. practically every year. Then came Camp David, Hussein's refusal to join the U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations, and a period of hurt feelings on both sides.

In prolonged taete-a-tetes at the White House and State Department, Hussein repeated his chief objections to Camp David. Palestinian self-determination and Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories must be accepted goals from the start, he insisted. In the end, the sides agreed to disagree, and everybody went to great effort to be conciliatory. Said Jimmy Carter afterward: "We have not tried to change each other's mind."

The Administration did promise, however, to sell Jordan 100 advanced M-60 tanks, each costing $16 million. That plan will surely draw objections from Israel and its friends on Capitol Hill. But the Administration was anxious that the U.S. should resume its place as Jordan's principal arms supplier.

The Administration was also concerned over congressional resistance to a request by Saudi Arabia to purchase additional equipment for its 60 American-built F-15 fighter-bombers. With the new equipment, which includes extra fuel tanks, bomb racks and missiles, the planes would have both the range and ground-attack potential to pose a threat to Israel. For the moment, the Administration was keeping an open mind on the question, while noting that Saudi Arabia's security needs have increased with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Israel has always had more than its share of support .in the U.S. Congress. Lately, however, it has been getting a measure of criticism, particularly over its policy of building new Jewish settlements on the occupied West Bank. Democratic Senator Adlai Stevenson of Illinois offered an amendment to an Israeli aid bill that would have withheld $150 million of the $785 million in economic grants to Israel until Jerusalem imposed a moratorium on new settlements. The measure was defeated 85 to 7. A day before, Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson, the Washington Democrat who has long been one of Israel's best friends in Congress, told the Washington Star that Prime Minister Menachem Begin had lost some American support by "taking an intransigent position" on the settlements.

In Jerusalem, Begin was still clinging to power, though by a fairly narrow strand. During a nine-hour meeting of his Cabinet, he won approval for a $140 million cut in his defense budget of $3.6 billion. By so doing, he averted an all-out clash with, on the one hand, Finance Minister Yigael Hurvitz, who was pressing for a cut of $300 million, and on the other, with Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan, who said that any cut over $80 million could endanger Israel's security. Hurvitz's threatened resignation could have reduced the parliamentary majority of Begin's Likud coalition to just two votes. By week's end Hurvitz, deeply worried about Israel's roaring inflation rate of 133%, was insisting that the additional $160 million in cuts must be taken from other, non-defense items in the current budget. As for General Eitan, he announced an intriguing way to make $20 million: all permanent members of the army would "voluntarily" give up one day's pay per month for the next year.

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