Visits, and Voices of Hope

Cairo and Jerusalem have often been on the same diplomatic wave length, but the words emanating from the two capitals have usually been bellicose or scornful. Last week their moods meshed again but, for a change, the tone was optimistic. Israeli leaders praised Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for the way he has switched home-front priorities from war planning to such economic goals as the reopening of the Suez Canal this spring. "If this tendency grows," promised a key Israeli Cabinet minister, "we will concede a lot, although we will not be squeezed."

In Cairo, Egyptian leaders who in December had damned Israeli proposals for further disengagement in Sinai were having kinder thoughts in January. They surmised that Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Yigal Allon had initially put together an unacceptable package in order to mollify Israeli hawks and were now ready for serious bargaining. "The time is ripe for continued diplomatic efforts to bring peace to the area," said Egyptian Information Minister Ahmad Kamal Abul-Magd. "Cairo is keeping all bridges open."

Bird Calls. After the warlike words that have ricocheted through the Middle East in recent months, such hopeful statements were like bird calls on a battlefield. The optimism was underscored last week by an unusual series of high-level conferences in the area. Soviet Party Leader Leonid Brezhnev may have canceled his Middle Eastern trip for real or diplomatic reasons of health (see story page 35), but he was scarcely missed. The Shah of Iran, intent on reinforcing Arab ties, flew to Amman for two days with Jordan's King Hussein and on to Cairo for five more days with President Sadat.

Syria's President Hafez Assad and Lebanon's President Suleiman Franjieh met briefly in the Lebanese town of Chtoura, a honeymoon resort that is the local equivalent of Niagara Falls. The setting was significant: though their discussions concerned the situation with Israel, the meeting was the first formal summit between leaders of the two often contentious neighbors since 1947. Franjieh reportedly refused to allow Syrian troops inside his country short of an all-out Israeli assault, and agreed only to "military coordination" with Damascus. Even Israeli diplomats decided that the meeting had temporarily lessened tension along the northern border.

Raise Funds. Saudi Arabia's King Faisal, a key figure in Middle East peace moves (TIME MAN OF THE YEAR, Jan. 6), was also scheduled to visit Damascus, Amman and probably also Cairo this week. In advance of his trip, the Saudi state radio announced a $756 million contract with the U.S. in which the King will buy 60 U.S. jets. The deal presumably would reinforce U.S.-Saudi relations, which are essential for peacemaking in the area. Israeli Foreign Minister Allon flew off once more to the U.S., ostensibly to raise funds for Israel, but mainly to check with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger about ways to turn all this hopeful talk into specific action.

About the only other thing that the Middle East needed in the way of peripatetics was another series of shuttle-diplomacy flights by Kissinger, similar to those that paved the way for disengagements last year in Sinai and on the Golan Heights. Despite Arab anger at the Secretary's much-publicized statement that the U.S. would not absolutely rule out the use of military force against the oil producers (see following story), such a visit, perhaps early in February, seems increasingly plausible.

Brezhnev's decision to postpone his Cairo trip improved peace prospects, since it left the way clear for more Kissinger-style bilateral negotiations before a resumption of the Geneva Conference. Even though Cairo and Jerusalem are seemingly closer in their views on the topics for the next stage of negotiations, it will take delicate diplomacy by the Secretary to bring them together. Israeli Premier Rabin last week, in an interview with the Paris daily Le Figaro, announced that he was willing to return the strategic Mitla and Giddi passes in Sinai to Egypt--in return for a peace treaty. Israel has also indicated that if alternative oil supplies can be guaranteed by the U.S., it will hand back the Abu Rudeis oilfields along the Gulf of Suez. Egypt, for its part, shows new willingness to sign a longer-term cease-fire--providing such an agreement might lead to a final peace treaty--and to allow nonmilitary Israeli cargoes to pass through the Suez Canal aboard non-Israeli ships after the canal reopens in the spring.

Even if snags between Egypt and Israel can be worked out, however, Kissinger has still found no solution for the most serious obstacle to successful second-stage disengagement talks. The Sinai negotiations are inextricably tied to similar discussions over the Golan Heights. For the sake of Arab unity, Sadat cannot afford to get too far ahead of Syria, and the Israeli-Syria situation still seems hopelessly bogged down. Israel demands guarantees of border security, along with political recognition from Damascus, before it will hand back any more of the Golan Heights. Assad, so far, is unwilling to recognize Israel. Unless the Israelis pull back farther on the Golan, moreover, he is unlikely to accede to another six-month renewal of the United Nations peace-keeping force that is separating the belligerents on the Heights when the present U.N. mandate expires in May. Israel already regrets giving back the provincial capital Quneitra in the first round of negotiations and is resisting the six-or seven-kilometer pullback that the U.S. has trial-ballooned as a second stage.

Bombing Villages. Another trouble spot is the Lebanese-Israeli border. Palestinian guerrillas have frequently crossed it to attack Israel, while Israeli forces have retaliated by bombing, shelling and raiding Lebanese villages that they claim have provided the Palestinians with shelter. In the past year, more than 100 Lebanese civilians have been killed or wounded while 58 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian guerrillas. Israeli Defense Minister Shimon Peres last week accused Lebanon of letting more Palestinians enter the country from Syria armed with Soviet-built antitank and antiaircraft missiles.

Despite Iran's growing eminence as a military power in the Middle East, the Israelis were not disturbed by the Shah's tour, even though he joined Hussein in demanding the return of East Jerusalem to Arab control. "We know the Shah," explained one Israeli government spokesman. "We do not pay attention to what he says but what he does, and what he does has given us no cause for alarm." Actually the Shah was trying to improve Iran's relations with the Arabs, who worry about his military domination of the Persian Gulf and are unhappy about his continuing border battles with Iraq, a staunch ally of Syria. In both Amman and Cairo, the Shah offered aid to his hosts. With U.S. approval, he presented Hussein with a squadron of F-5A fighters being phased out of the Iranian air force for newer U.S. jets. In Cairo, the Shah's experts worked out final details of a massive billion-dollar Iranian investment in Egyptian petrochemicals which will provide sorely needed fertilizer for both domestic use and export as well as plastics and synthetic fibers.

For Egypt the Iranian financial aid was particularly welcome. The country is badly battered economically; one of the principal reasons why the Egyptians would have welcomed Brezhnev would have been the chance to renegotiate Soviet debts. The total is a closely guarded secret in Cairo, but it has been estimated to range as high as $7 billion. Cairo is anxious for a Sinai settlement because it will generate Suez Canal revenues of at least $390 million a year and also provide a badly needed 36.5 million bbl. of oil annually if the Israelis return Abu Rudeis.

Pressure for economic improvement is mounting; left-wing Cairo university students demonstrated again last week for better conditions, and some workers joined them. Sadat has ordered extra supplies of wheat, meat and cotton cloth to be distributed, but even that is not enough. "The real problem," one leftist intellectual Cairene told TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn last week, "is the deterioration of the economy. These troubles are not plots masterminded by some Marxist. The real generalissimo is hunger." That is one generalissimo who could be defeated by a Middle East peace--but who would surely win if the area returned to war.

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