The crux of the matter
Mr Sadat is not the only one who feels disappointed and depressed at the outcome of this week's Israeli-Egyptian talks. The Egyptian President's own extraordinary bravery has certainly so far received little reward. The real concessions since contacts began between Israel and Egypt have come from the Egyptian side. The greatest concession of all was the first: by agreeing to talks, by visiting Jerusalem, Mr Sadat accorded to Israel a de facto recognition of incalculable importance. Little as yet has been made of that gift, and the optimism which so many felt — or willed — before Christmas may soon turn into cynicism and despair.
If this happens, there can be little doubt where the blame will lie: it will be with the Israeli Government and political classes. It is easy to understand the roots of the Israeli attitude. The Israeli state was instituted and then preserved not by compromise and concession, but by force, by courage and skill, and that unique stubbornness which has preserVed the Jewish people across the eras. It might have seemed, moreover, that the Israeli-Egyptian meetings marked a triumph of guileful Israeli diplomacy. An unhoped-for breakthrough had been made. At best a general peace would be achieved, at worst Egypt would be isolated and the Arab front broken. This is another example of the surprising unreflectiveness which has marked Israeli policy. It has long been clear to outside observers that there was no final victory which Israel could win, whatever resources, material and moral, she possessed. Sooner or later Israel would have to settle with her Arab neighbours, and it was clearly in her interests/ to settle sooner on favourable terms, rather than later: that should have been the lesson of the 1973 war and its grave early reverses.
Israel's aims are simple enough: she wants recognition and security. These aims are closer to realisation today than ever. The Egyptian Government is not alone in having wearied of the 'ultra' Arab and Palestinian line which holds that Israel must be destroyed and replaced by a Palestinian state; more and more Arabs, privately more than publicly, recognise that the Jewish state is here to stay.
The mirror image of the Arab `rejectionise line conies from the Zionist fanatics who claim that all the lands presently occupied by Israel — and perhaps more — are part of her historic inheritance, never to be surrendered, and that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people, that there can never be a Palestinian state, That is the attitude which must be renounced by Mr Begin if there is to be any real hope in the New Year and the years to come. Withdrawal from some or most of the occupied territories is a question on which Israel has shown flexibility. The key question, the crux as Mr Sadat rightly said, is the future of the Palestinians.
There is little logic in Israeli hostility to a Palestinian state, whatever its emotional background. The original forgotten partition of Mandated Palestine provided for two states, one Jewish, the other Arab or Palestinian. Israeli 'rejectionism' is a product of thirty years on the defensive, of four bitter wars, of resentment at Palestinian terrorism (though terrorist violence was not absent at the birth of Israel). It has become more and more an Israeli orthodoxy that a Palestinian state would represent an unacceptable threat to Israel's security. To an objective observer it is difficult to see how a small Palestine, with insignificant armed forces, as part of a general settlement, could be a graver threat than the continued hostility of the Arab world in arms.
Mr Dayan has called Egypt's proposals on the Palestinian question 'totally unacceptable'. In fact it is his attitude which is unacceptable: to the Palestinians, to the Arabs, to world opinion as a whole a phrase which may be scorned by Israel if it means the 'third world' at the United Nations but becomes vital if it means the United States and the western democracies. Realism as well as justice demand that Israel should face the question of withdrawal from the West Bank and of Palestinian statehood. This could be the greatest Israeli victory of all, the mark of her maturity.
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