Peace and flexibility
Leslie Huckfield, MP
Leslie Huckfield led the recent parliamentary delegation to Israel and had talks with the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary If Europe and the United States reacted to the Vietnam 'babylifts' either with heartrending anguish, arguments about Henry Kissinger's 'secret assurances' or concern about the efficiency of North Vietnamese welfare services, in Israel they saw things differently. Their only debate has centred on how much they must now prepare to stand alone. They have seen American Congressional and widespread public opposition to further intervention, not only in South-East Asia, but also, if the crunch should come, in Europe. If there is another Arab attack, or renewed oil pressure following the assassination of King Feisal, would the world see pictures of President Ford cuddling a Jewish orphan? For it is Henry Kissinger himself who stresses the international linkage of the spider's web of treaties and agreements he has tried to weave. They are all coming apart in his hands. So is his domestic prestige and international reputation. More than ever David feels isolated as he faces the Goliath Arab states all around.
Though at the Yom Kippur truce, Israel had recaptured what she lost on the Golan Heights and had crossed to the west bank of the Canal, she insists on three years' military service for the flower of her youth, and 100 days a year thereafter. Even men of fifty-five may soon have to do thirty-five days. It must be a tribute to a country where everyone knows how many minutes it takes to report to his military unit that life appears to go on as normal. You will find a few young soldiers with sub-machine guns mingling with shoppers or on the beach. If you look carefully among the citrus groves along the Lebanese border you will see the occasional half-track. But still the pavement cafés overflow and tourists flock to the Dead Sea resorts or pile into the cable cars to see how the Zealots held out against the Romans at Massada. The Israel Philharmonic played Tchaikovsky to packed houses in the Frederick Mann Auditorium. But just ask anyone about the breakdown of the 'Kissinger Shuttle' and they'll tell you that 90 per cent thought the government's line had been right.
In the Israeli cabinet they are very much aware that Sadat beat them to the London dailies and the American networks by three hours. With his reasons for the Kissinger breakdown he painted a lurid picture of Israeli intransigence. Yigal Alton told us that Kissinger had asked them to withhold their version, But now they are hard at work, catching up, with cabinet ministers and experienced globetrotters like Abba Eban, jumping on and off planes explaining how flexible Israel really was.
Yitshak Rabin paints a veritable artwork of Sadat's strategy. "By reopening the Suez Canal, extending the mandate of the United Nations troops for another three months, and by returning thirty-nine bodies of our Yom Kippur soldiers, he hopes to wean America away from her sympathy with Israel. So Sadat poses as the man of peace. And even President Ford seems to say that Israel is to blame." Yigal Allon put it another way. "Sadat is a great politician and pragmatist. He is all things to all men. But you read his speeches through in detail, and you'll see he's saying nothing new." Both Rabin and Allon went to great lengths to explain the concessions they were prepared to make, when Sadat sent that curt cable to Kissinger in Jerusalem telling him not to come back. They told us they would have been willing to hand back large parts of Sinai, if only they had something definite in return. They realised that a declaration of non-belligerency was difficult for Sadat without the other Arab States, so they might have accepted a declaration not to use force instead — provided it was for longer than a year. They would probably have surrendered the Gidi and Mitla Passes and the Abu Rodeis oilfield, if Sadat had conceded a demilitarised zone with an early-warning system for both sides. His refusal made Israel conclude that he merely wanted a nearer jumping off point for the next attack.
The real sticking points seem to be that while Israel needs definite "concessions to put to the electorate before handing back territories, Sadat regards them as his anyway, so why should he give anything in return? And Israel must have a guarantee .of more than one year, whatever is offered, because after that she fears that the Arabs could revert to a natural posture of hot or cold war, not continued peace. But in the end, Sadat would not even agree to some of the more peripheral bargaining, over the intensity of the boycott and the propaganda, or more normal tourist relations.
While Yakov Hazan and the Mapam members of the government were prepared to take the risk of offering even more, without receiving substantial ccthcessions from Sadat, in the end they toed the line. Meanwhile, coinciding with the sudden failure of the Kissinger shuttle, others noticed the scarcely-reported presence in Cairo of one Vinogradev, the Soviet co-chairman of the Geneva Conference:Did he put the pressure on Sadat?
Both Prime Minister and Foreign .Secretary were at pains to emphasise their willingness to go to Geneva — though they are not optimistic about progress, made more difficult through competitive Arab outbidding in denunciations of Israel's existence. Many Israelis told me that this is why they feared that Kissinger with his falling star might be tempted to do a deal with the Russians before his eventual arrival in Geneva.
One thing on which he might be able to make progress with the Soviet Union is the establishment of some kind of Palestinian state on the West Bank. Though Israel is willing now to permit more self-government there, there is a fear that a new state — whether under Arafat, Jordan or the United Nations — would overnight become a base for terrorists bristling with Soviet weapons. So Israel takes comfort that Sadat at least still talks peace, and hopes that Henry Kissinger's star will not fall too far.
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