Where Israel Draws the Line

NO Israeli government could hand back all the Arab territory captured in 1967 and expect to survive. In a decision reached last week, the Cabinet agreed that Israel should return sizable pieces of territory but at the same time should demand major border rectifications from the Arabs. Maps indicating proposed future borders are now being drawn up by a top-level committee, TIME learned last week, and highly placed sources conjecture that the absolute maximum Israeli withdrawal, as far as Premier Golda Meir's government is concerned, is the following:

SINAI: To the line from El Arish near the Mediterranean to Sharm el Sheikh at the juncture of the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. Israel would insist on a presence at Sharm el Sheikh, where it is developing a sizable community, to protect passage to Eilat. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan will fight for mutual withdrawal of both Israel and Egypt from the banks of the Suez Canal. Should the Israelis consent to a unilateral withdrawal of ten to twelve miles from the canal, however, they may insist on a proviso that if one Egyptian soldier crosses the canal, it would constitute a casus belli.

WEST BANK: Israel would be ready to pull back to pre-1967 lines, following the Allon Plan, which calls for a demilitarized West Bank and a broad string of protective paramilitary Israeli settlements along the Jordan River.

GOLAN HEIGHTS: Israel would be ready to withdraw westward along the heights but would retain the crown itself. Before 1967, Syrian guns on the crown constantly shelled Israeli kibbutzim in the valley below.

JERUSALEM: No compromise. There would be free access to the holy places, but it would remain an Israeli city.

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