The Waiting Game

MIDDLE EAST

Egyptian cannon fired again last week, this time in welcome to one of the Arabs' staunchest friends, Josip Broz Tito. When the Yugoslav President's plane arrived in Cairo, Gamal Abdel Nasser warmly embraced his 75-year-old visitor. Then, after reviewing the Egyptian honor guard, the two leaders drove off to Nasser's presidential palace for three days of talk about war and peace.

According to his own advance billing, Tito brought with him a set of proposals for peace. As worked out in Yugoslavia, a proper compromise would require Israel to withdraw from the Arab territories it now occupies, while the Arab nations would declare an end to belligerency with Israel, thus in effect recognizing Israel's right to exist as a nation. Though the Suez Canal and Gulf of Aqaba would revert to Egyptian control, Israeli ships would be guaranteed free passage.

The Map of 1967. Whether either side was yet ready for that sort of agreement was doubtful indeed. Feeling the economic squeeze of his losses of $750,000 in tolls each day that the Suez Canal remains closed, Nasser has, to be sure, been talking more moderately. He has suggested that he might be ready to bring the Yemen war to an end, and he has hinted that he would like to restore diplomatic ties with the U.S. But to accept Israel as Tito proposed still seems to be too bitter a pill for defeated Arabs to swallow. Obviously even Tito had his doubts that Nasser would take the medicine; as an alternative to ending the "state of war" by frank Arab concession, Tito suggested that the U.N., or Russia, the U.S.,

Britain and France, could guarantee Israel's security in the future.

Whatever Nasser thought of that idea, Israel would surely reject it out of hand. Once more last week, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan scoffed at the notion of withdrawal from the "new territories" Israel now holds. "There is no going back to the 1948 borders," said Dayan. "We must not allow other countries acting in their own interests to force us to return to the old situation. We need to consider the reality of 1967 and the map of 1967."

Measured Toughness. In its victorious position of strength, Israel in fact is increasingly convinced that a quick settlement with the Arabs is not in Israeli interest. The way Israeli leaders see it, if the Arabs live with the fact of defeat for a while, in the process they may be forced to learn the arts of coexistence whether they like it or not. There is no question that the waiting game in the Middle East pinches Arab sandals badly--and it bothers the Israelis hardly at all.

As Israel's determination to dig into conquered Arabia and stay becomes clearer each week, the first tentative signs of Arab resistance are being brusquely dealt with. Last week, in the Old City of Jerusalem, a one-day protest strike by Arabs brought commerce and transportation to a complete halt. Israel responded with a little psychological warfare, as policemen painted warning symbols on the shutters of shops belonging to striking Arabs, arrested two prominent Jordanians as the ringleaders and summarily sentenced them to three months in prison. Elsewhere too, the Israelis are responding with measured toughness to any hint of trouble. In Bethlehem, 40 suspected members of El Fatah, the. Syrian-trained terrorist organization, were arrested as they met in a cafe. And throughout the new terri tories, Israeli soldiers continued their house-to-house search for arms. If so much as a pistol is found under a mattress, the soldiers clear out the inhabitants and coolly dynamite the offending house to smithereens.

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