The Third Way

"Hada Mussa Dayan!" (That is Moshe Dayan!) is a cry heard frequently these days in Arab territories occupied by Israel. As Defense Minister, Dayan is responsible for the military government of the territories and he devotes nearly half his time to the task. Last week he was in Gaza supervising a search for terrorists. The week before, he dropped into Bethlehem to listen to the complaints of 50 Arab notables. Mostly, they wanted more electricity and water and better hospitals. But one elder with a somewhat larger subject on his mind asked for the return of Arab property lost in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. "My friend," said Dayan, "I am a busy man and have no time to listen to history. I am here to help you with the problems of today."

Muted Views. Such problems are also uppermost in the minds of the 600,000 West Bank Arabs who have been under Israeli occupation since 1967. Following the Six-Day War, these Arabs split mainly into two groups: those who sympathized with the fedayeen, and those who saw their future tied to Jordan and King Hussein. Since Hussein's troops put down the fedayeen last fall, both views have been muted; the fedayeen were discredited because they proved to be impotent, and the king lost support because of the ruthlessness with which his men treated the Palestinians. That left the way open for a third view that neatly coincides with Dayan's own -that the most practical course for the Arabs living in the occupied territories lies in cooperation with Israel.

So far the most notable Arab spokesman for that point of view is Sheik Mohammed Ali Ja'bari, 67, a former minister in the Jordanian government and Hebron's mayor since 1940. Ja'bari led the movement for the union of the West Bank with Jordan after Palestine was partitioned in 1948. Militant Arabs, however, also recall that he greeted the Israeli army at Hebron in 1967 (he later explained in a letter to Hussein that he was trying to forestall Israeli vengeance). Since then, Ja'bari has become a favorite of Dayan, who calls him "The Wise One" and welcomed him to Tel Aviv when the Sheik paid an official call two weeks ago. Ja'bari, the first West Bank official to make such a visit, was the guest of Tel Aviv Mayor Yehoshua Rabinowitz.

Ultimate Goal. The mayor's attitude of cooperation has already brought practical benefits to the West Bank. The Israelis allowed Ja'bari to organize a meeting last month of 23 mayors and village headmen to draw up an appeal against a call by Lebanon for an Arab League boycott of West Bank fruits, vegetables and manufactured goods on the grounds that Israeli goods are mixed with the Arab products. The meeting was the first such gathering in four years of occupation, and the group was under strict orders not to discuss politics; they agreed to send a delegation to the Arab League.

Ja'bari would now like to hold another meeting of West Bank leaders at which politics would be on the agenda, and Dayan has offered no objections. So far, however, Ja'bari has been unable to gather a quorum. Some Arabs are still reluctant, and the guerrillas have invoked their own ban on political discussion and warned West Bank leaders against becoming involved. Whether the fedayeen could carry out such threats is debatable, but the warning apparently served its purpose.

Ja'bari's ultimate goal is an end to Israeli military occupation. In an interview with TIME Correspondent Marlin Levin he proposed that the occupation be followed by "self-determination," both for the West Bank and for the Israeli-held Arab sector of Jerusalem, which Hussein hopes to make the subject of a United Nations Security Council debate this fall. Ja'bari wants U.N. supervision of the territories for five years, after which "the people would determine their status." That might take the form of local Arab autonomy, with foreign affairs and defense left in Israel's hand. Ja'bari's ideas hardly coincide with those of the Israeli government, which strongly opposes any U.N. presence. But at least it provides a reasonable rallying point for the emerging moderate leadership among West Bank Arabs.

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