VIEWPOINT

Could a settlement last?

GEORGE GALE

Ceasefires are forced compromises. No bel- ligerent would accept a ceasefire if he thought that victory was easily to be had.

The acceptance by Egypt and Israel of the American diplomatic initiative, and the Russian compliance with that initiative, est- ablish that these four principals in the Middle East dispute have concluded as far as each is concerned that it is unlikely to emerge victorious. Assuming for the moment that a lasting settlement is reached along

the lines indicated by the ceasefire terms— that is, along the lines, however interpreted, of the 1967 UN resolution—the structure of the compromise, or deal, is not difficult to discern. It is a matter of seeing the wood and not the trees. It is most easily seen by asking, who wins? and who loses?

Each principal can, and will, put the best possible gloss upon any eventual settlement or in the event of collapsed negotiations seek to avoid blame. Assuming a settlement, each principal will claim it was for the best; and indeed this claim in itself could well be true for all four principals if it be also assumed, as legitimately it might, that peace in the area is for the best. Nevertheless, a peaceful set- tlement is unlikely to leave the situation after the fighting as it was before; and therefore even if it is better for all that peace be brought about, some will have sacrificed more than others to accept that peace.

What, then, has forced the compromise? Obviously the Soviet Union has put pressure on Egypt, and the United States on Israel, to agree to the ceasefire. Why should the super-powers have thus behaved?

To start where the initiative itself started, with the United States: why the Rogers plan in the first place? The supreme object of American Middle Eastern policy can only be the avoidance of a direct conflict with the Soviet Union. This is true everywhere, not merely in the Middle East. It has been, how- ever, in the Middle East that of late a situat- ion has been developing which could, con- ceivably, have led to direct conflict. The Soviet Union's need to prop up Egyptian defence forces with Russian arms sufficiently advanced to require Russian men was pro- ducing an Israeli demand for American arms sophisticated enough to deal with these Russian arms and men. The minute, but suf- ficient, Israeli nuclear capacity must also have appeared, in the eyes of the contin- gency planners in Washington, as an appal- ling threat to the nuclear stalemate should Israel feel its continuing existence to be in peril. Fearful of an arms race which could escalate into a new war which itself could become either general or nuclear, or both, the United States decided to call Halt. The Soviet Union agreed, for the supreme object of its policy, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere, is a mirror-image of American policy: the avoidance of direct conflict. The contingency planners in the Kremlin must have feared, like their counter- parts in the State Department, that the Middle East situation could get out of hand.

They want to keep it in hand, in their and the Americans' hands, that is. Moreover, the Russians can feel well content with the situation in the Middle East. In 1956, when Khnishchev threatened to use his missiles, the Soviet Union had no place in the Med- iterranean, and across to the Gulf and on into the Indian Ocean the Russians were largely strangers. The withdrawal of Ameri- can aid for the Aswan project, and Nasser's consequent nationalisation of the Canal and the Anglo-French-Israeli adventure rendered worse than useless by the United States, pre- sented the Soviet Union not only with a welcome diversion from the demonstration of the ugly necessities of its imperialist posi- tion in Hungary but also with the opportun- ity to buy its way into the Middle East in a very big way.

The Aswan Dam completion ceremonies are now taking place. Egypt is a Russian dependency. Russian ships are in the Medi- terranean in considerable strength, and in Aden and Somaliland and across to the Indian Ocean there is a very real Russian presence which any further British with- drawal from the Gulf will not lessen. Rus- sia, in other words, has been doing extremely nicely in the Middle East since 1956, and the only blot on her copybook diplomacy was the Egyptian defeat at the hands of Israel in 1967: a defeat which Russia can have no desire to see repeated, nor any expectation to see reversed. Russia, like America, wishes to remain a master and not become a subject of the Middle Eastern situation.

Given sufficient American and Russian determination, sufficient conviction that in a ceasefire and a settlement their own best interests lie, there is no reason to suppose that they will not in the end be able to drag their Israeli and Egyptian dependencies, kicking and squealing, to the conference table. And in such an event, one can see great advantages for Egypt and Israel in a settle- ment. Egypt can have no desire for a further humiliating defeat; Israel has already too much Arab land for comfort and can pre- sumably have no desire for more. What Israel requires is an end to the condition of hostility as well as an end to hostilities. How- ever confident Israel's chiefs may be in their ability to win short, swift wars, they can have no confidence in their ability to survive a long war of attrition: nor can they confi- dently count on an indefinite American obli- gation to sustain Israel come what may, if such sustenance required, say, American ground troops. Israel wants peace and recog- nition. Such would be victory.

Egypt wants peace, too; and if an assured peace could scarce be counted as a victory, that is too bad. Egypt, after, all, is used to

defeat, and can certainly have no desire to engage in another trial of arms with Israel.

In any case, since whatever Egyptian-Israeli peace settlement might be negotiated under the Soviet-American deal would involve a considerable surrender by Israel of occupied

Egyptian territory, a settlement could be construed as a kind of success. The eco-

nomic and social advantages to Egypt of a settlement, the liberation of the people and the economy from the burden of a per- manently hostile stance, would be very

great: and, in particular, the long-awaited blessings flowing from the Aswan High Dam could, in a secure peace, be seen actually arriving into the hands of the fellaheen. There would be little prestige in all this; but prestige seldom follows military defeat.

The deal, therefore, strikes me thus. The United States gives, in that the Russian presence in the Middle East is secured; but gains, in that Israel's place is assured and the risk of general war lessened; Israel wins recognition and a degree of security. The Soviet Union wins its place in the Middle East, and benefits also from the reduced risk of general war and a direct confrontation with the United States; Egypt gives its recog- nition of Israel, loses some prestige, but gains the same degree of security as Israel.

On balance, Russia and Israel are up, the United States and Egypt are down; but since Russia and Egypt are paired with each other, and the United States and Israel, a very reasonable balance has been achieved. That is, a deal can be struck, to the general benefit.

There is one catch to all this. The Palesti- nians lose out. There is nothing for them in any Israel-Egypt deal, nothing for them in

any convenient arrangements or deals made between Washington and Moscow. And it

may well be that the reason why the Rogers plan has made the headway it has is that the four principals are anxious to effect some sort of settlement before the emergence of the Palestinians as a fully-fledged and indis-

pensable fifth principal can no longer be

ignored. No deal which ignores a major factor is likely to last. The question, there- fore, in assessing the present deal's chances of success, is, how important are the Pales- tinians?

My own conviction, having over the years seen a fair amount of them and the Egyptians and a lot more of the Israelis, is that they are important and will become more important; and that therefore the present Rogers deal may well have come too late for it to last very long. Short-run deals are, of course, better than no deals at all— and if, as I suppose, the catalyst has been itself the emergence of the Palestinian move- ment, then the Rogers deal, or any other similar, was bound to come too late to last. Unless the bland assumption is made that the Palestinians will wither away, no deal which does not include them will last, nor will the conditions of peace exist in the Middle East.

What makes sense, were it not for present sensibilities, is a new Palestinian state made up of Israel and Jordan; and something like this, indeed, is what I believe will eventually emerge, as the younger generation of Israelis relinquish the Jewish- ness of their posture and seek a necessary and sensible reconciliation with their fellow Semites. But before any new, secular, tolerant, secure Palestine, enclosing in it the invaluable Holy Places of Jews and Christians and Moslems, emerges, there will be more years of blood and sweat and tears. If the Rogers settlement reduces the blood- shed, if it allows a year or two for sweat and tears without the blood, then it will have done some good. It may be, too, that if in some settlement sufficient security is afforded to Israel that it ceases to fear Egypt and Syria, then the Israelis, no longer in danger of their lives and property, may come to see the many advantages that would flow to one and all from a just settlement and reconciliation between them and the Palestinians they have wronged.