The Worries of April

Springtime tourists in Egypt who had expected to take the two-hour flight from Cairo to Aswan for a glimpse of the High Dam are having to alter plans. The Egyptian government has announced that for a month or so, Aswan flights are being scrubbed. The cancellation is not difficult to understand. Soviet freighters and air force transports have been ferrying military supplies to Egypt, including jet fighters, sophisticated anti-aircraft guns, and additional SA-2 and SA3 missiles similar to those that already ring the dam and line the Suez Canal's west bank. The suspension of flights will enable technicians to install some of this armament without observation by curious eyes.

The Soviet shipments are a sign of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's frustration over the stalemated negotiations between his country and Israel. They also increase the worry on all sides that time is running out for Middle East diplomacy and that fighting between Egypt and Israel may break out again. The Egyptians have been on record for eight weeks as going along with Swedish Mediator Gunnar Jarring's effort to extract commitments by both sides (basically Egypt would recognize Israel and agree to a binding peace; Israel would commit itself to withdrawal from all occupied territory). Jerusalem, on the other hand, has steadfastly refused to agree to full withdrawal.

National Responsibility. Two weeks ago, Sadat elaborated on his position by offering as a first step a plan for reopening the Suez Canal--now clogged by silt and disabled ships--after nearly four years of inactivity. Under the Sadat plan, Israeli troops would pull back from their Bar-Lev Line on the canal bank to a line in the vicinity of El Arish, a sleepy Sinai town 50 miles from Israel's 1967 border. Egyptian troops would cross the canal to take up positions and "assume national responsibility." After repairs, the canal would be open to the world's ships, including those flying the blue six-pointed Star of David.

Risk of War. Sadat has called April "the conclusive month in which all positions will be made clear." Meanwhile, he is waging a persistent diplomatic offensive. Egyptian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad has been hopping from Paris to Athens, Teheran and Moscow--and other Egyptians have traveled as far as Djakarta--seeking support for an Egyptian campaign to force Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory. United Nations talks under Jarring's aegis are stalemated. As an alternative, Egypt is considering a request for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council in which it could propose a measure condemning Israel for not returning territory taken by force. Editor Hassanein Heikal, in his weekly column in Cairo's semiofficial Al Ahram last week, declared that "the international stage is ready for a conclusive movement by us, a decisive stand at the political level."

The Egyptian diplomatic initiative has put Israel on the defensive. Israel has long been unhappy over the Jarring talks, complaining that Jarring has become more a participant than an overseer. "We've ended up negotiating with Jarring and not with the Egyptians," complained an Israeli official last week. Israel would like Jarring to contract what Foreign Minister Abba Eban described as "diplomatic amnesia," whereby he would forget everything that has happened so far in the talks and start new, direct negotiations between Israel and Egypt.

Israeli Positions. Last week in Jerusalem, 3,000 delegates to a convention of Israel's governing Labor Party rejected Sadat's Suez proposals. They cheered a resolution calling for eventual postwar borders that would include much of the captured territory that Israel holds. The delegates rejected Washington's proposals that Israel retain only "insubstantial" portions. In the convention keynote address, Premier Golda Meir opposed pressure on Israel to agree to reopening the Suez "within the framework of an enforced political solution inspired by Egypt and the Soviet Union." Israel is, however, willing to enter talks on Suez independent of any discussions about occupied territories. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said that between the alternatives of total withdrawal and fighting, "we must accept the risk of the renewal of war." At that, Mrs. Meir led the round of applause from the delegates.

Israel's definition of secure borders increasingly irritates Washington as well as Cairo. Mrs. Meir is aware of this. "We are very sorry," she told the Labor Party delegates, "that we are engaged in an argument which may well grow bitter." Indeed it may. If Egypt is able to summon an emergency Security Council meeting, the U.S. could be faced with an uncomfortable dilemma. As Israel's protector and last remaining major friend, the U.S. would probably veto any censure of Israel that called for a return of all captured territory. Yet this would in effect mean vetoing a policy similar to the "insubstantial changes" position of Secretary of State William Rogers.

Communist Humbuggery. The dispute between the U.S. and Israel is growing bitter in other ways. Last week at Yale University, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman J. William Fulbright delivered a severe criticism of Israel's intransigence. By constantly reminding Washington about Soviet aid to Egypt, said Fulbright, Israel was resorting to "Communist-baiting humbuggery" in an attempt to "manipulate U.S. Middle East policy." The U.S., Fulbright went on, is "highly susceptible" to hints of Communist danger, "rather like a drug addict--and the world is full of ideological pushers."

For once, Fulbright's views pretty well coincided with those of the State Department.

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