Suez Canal

Egypt's anti-climax

Maurice Samuelson

The reopening of the Suez Canal is one of the more significant anti-climaxes of our time. To find anything romantic about it, commentators • have had to delve into the past. Conceived as the child of eager imperialism, it is now a pathetic monument to the follies of the twentieth century.

Egypt is viewing the event as the climax of a military victory. On the anniversary of the Six Day War it helps to expunge the shame of that traumatic "setback." But its capture from a handful of fasting Israelis, seems even less impressive when it is remembered that the Canal is no wider than a football pitch. And what a strange victory it was. After the initial shock, the Israelis captured the vast bulge of land from Ismailia to Suez pointing at the heart of Cairo.

Anyone who toured the Suez battlefield in the days after the ceasefire will never forget the extraordinary spectacle of the Egyptian Third Army, cut off from its rear, being supplied across the canal by courtesy of the Israelis.

Looking more like convicts than soldiers, gangs of unarmed Egyptians wearily humped heavy tins of food and water up the sheer brown slopes of the Barley Line embankment. From the leafy shade of the former Egyptian bank, they were watched by machine-gun toting Israelis lolling back in basket chairs. Like the Moses story in modern dress with the roles reversed.

A year and a half later, the Israelis have withdrawn to the Sinai foot-hills. Gone, too, are the rubble causeways with which they blocked the Canal in order to supply the troops in "Africa." But it will take centuries to erase the ruins inflicted on the landscape by Nasser's war of attrition of 1969 and 1970.

To cover up some of the more gaping holes, the Egyptians have erected advertising hoardings along the banks, to be seen by the eyes of the world if it ever comes back. Judging by the shipping industry's initial disinterest the war ruins themselves may yet be the Canal's main attraction.

To Egypt's misfortune, the world has learned to do without what Lord Avon nineteen years ago termed Britain's "Jugular." Hence the somewhat low toll rates which Egypt announced last week.

In the midst of her poverty, though, Egypt cannot afford to lose forever what had once been a lucrative earner of foreign currency. The chairman of the Suez Canal Authority said he expects the first year's takings to be $450 million. It had also become a matter of deep national prestige to open it under purely Egyptian auspices. One of the mistakes of Israel immediately after the Six-Day War was to expect a say in how the Canal should be reopened. Nasser, whose brightest hour had

been the Canal's nationalisation in July 1956, could not possibly allow the Israelis a say, even though they demanded nothing more than the right of navigation denied them since 1948, a. right frequently upheld by the United Nations.

The Israelis had their own grievances, of course. Claiming the rights of belligerency, Egypt had closed the Canal not only to Israeli flagships but to any other nation's vessels carrying cargoes to and from Israeli ports. Even foodstuffs were banned as likely to strengthen Israel's war potential. When she still held all of Sinai, Egypt also blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba,

Israel's Suez by-pass and her vital sea lane to . the Persian oil fields. The wars of 1956 and 1967 were an inevitable result.

How different it all is today. Israel's domina

tion of Sinai helps to guarantee freedom of navigation in and out of Eilat. Whereas the rest of the world has had only eight years to learn to do without Suez, she has had twenty-eight years. It is now no longer of concern to her, except as a matter of political principle. That is why,when she disengaged her forces from Suez early last year, she moderated her traditionald demand for full navigation rights in a reopened canal. As a first step, Sadat agreed only that Israeli cargoes — not ships — would be allowed through without hindrance.

It is by no means certain that he will be as good as his word. In the abortive talks earlier this year, he and his aides attempted to link the reopening of Suez to a further Israeli withdrawal. When nobody took any notice, he climbed down, announced June 5 as the reopening date, but began hinting that Israeli cargoes would only be let through if the Israelis behaved to his satisfaction.

Israel, though, is less interested in using the Canal than in the fact that it is once more the scene of non-military activity. But she has dropped her naive belief that this alone could rule out another surprise onslaught by Egypt. Only for explicit guarantees of non-belligerency would she surrender the strategic Mitla and Jidi passes, She has less compunction about giving up the Abu Rodeis oil field on Sinai's south-east coast, despite its economic value.

Israeli Premier Rabin will no doubt renew this offer when he sees President Ford in Washington next week. The American leader will, in turn, have already passed on the views of Egypt's President Sadat, whom he was meeting in Salzburg this week. Ford will discover that both Middle East leaders are open to a further settlement but that their policies have hardened because of domestic pressures.

Egypt needs to maintain the momentum of 1973 by retrieving more land from Israel. The Jewish state badly needs an assured period of tranquillity on its southern frontier to grapple with its economic crisis. Both, therefore, would prefer a further bilateral deal rather than a resumption of the Geneva conference, for which the Soviet Union and the Syrians have been _pressing. Despite the recent meeting between Dr Kissinger and Mr Gromyko, there is little likelihood of a full-scale Geneva conference in the foreseeable future.

In Israel, though, there is a growing scepticism about the value of another interim agreement with Egypt. Former Foreign Minister Abba Eban has been urging Mr Rabin and his team to press for a full-scale peace conference. Israel, he believes, would then have a rare opportunity to tackle, once and for all, the basic issues of the Palestinian conflict. The cautious Mr Rabin is unlikely to heed his advice. Yet even if he did, a Geneva conference would be bedevilled, and perhaps wrecked, by Arab rivalries.

For the time being, the alternative is for a return to something like the situation which followed the Suez war of 1956. Israel gained a measure of security enabling her to expand her economy and population. Despairing of early victory, the Arab world lapsed into familiar fratricide. By Middle East standards, even that is a kind of stability.

The only difference is that, unlike the post 1956. situation, the Arabs now know the taste' of military success. The first Yom Kippur attack may well beget another.

Maurice Samuelson was formerly editor of the Jewish Observer and Middle East Review