Favorable Omens for Peace

At measured intervals and with punctuating puffs of acrid rolling smoke, a 21-gun salute from the Egyptian destroyer October Six rippled the waters of Port Said harbor last week. As the guns boomed, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat climbed aboard the 3,500-ton Soviet-built ship, named for the day in 1973 on which Egypt attacked Israeli positions in the occupied Sinai. With Sadat on her bridge, the October Six slipped her lines, gathered speed and at ten knots moved slowly southward into the Suez Canal; symbolic floating gates decorated with pharaonic designs parted to let her through. Another destroyer and three vessels filled with invited guests fell in line for a voyage to Ismailia, 48 miles away. Thus did jubilant Egyptians last week begin a two-day celebration of the reopening of their canal, eight years after it was blocked shut by ships scuttled at the outbreak of the Six-Day War (see box page 26).

Scarcely three hours after Sadat's convoy sailed through, the first five merchant ships--Kuwaiti, Greek, Chinese, Russian and Yugoslav--moved into the waterway that Sadat has melodramatically described as "a hostage for peace." At the Bitter Lakes, they met the first northbound convoy in eight years--two Iranian destroyers along with cargo ships from Japan, Italy, Pakistan and the Sudan. Israel may suffer economically from the reopening of the Suez since, among other things, it will cut heavily into a profitable overland transfer route, from the Red Sea port of Eilat to Ashkelon, that Israel developed after the 1967 canal closing. Nonetheless Foreign Minister Yigal Allon conveyed "heartfelt and most sincere wishes to Egypt that the canal will indeed bear the hoped-for economic fruit." In his speech to the Knesset, Allon emphasized, however, that Israel expected its cargoes to move through too in accordance with the January 1974 disengagement agreement. Although Cairo has hinted that it will allow the passage of nonmilitary Israeli cargoes in non-Israeli ships, Jerusalem was still anxiously awaiting the first test.

Series of Gestures. The reopening of the canal, after 13 months of debris-clearing and demolition by an international salvage team, was a significant event for the merchant fleets of the world as well as for Egypt, which hopes to reap about $450 million a year in canal tolls. More important, it was only one of a series of diplomatic and political gestures that together marked as auspicious a week for peace as the Middle East has witnessed since the end of the October war. Shortly before the canal reopened, Sadat spent two days in Salzburg, Austria, for his first meeting with President Gerald Ford; both sides considered it a profitable exchange of ideas about the next steps toward peace. In a tacit response to Egypt's peaceful intentions in reopening the canal, Israel announced a unilateral thinning-out of its forces in the Sinai. This week Premier Yitzhak Rabin will fly to Washington for his summit meeting with Ford. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who had been considerably downcast at the failure of his diplomatic shuttle efforts in March, was cheered by the week's events. On the flight from Rome back to Washington at the end of Ford's European trip (see story page 9), he told newsmen: "I am not saying there is going to be progress. I am saying the conditions exist under which there could be progress."

To some observers, last week's moves by Egypt and Israel were a more favorable omen for peace than either a renewal of Kissinger's step-by-step talks or a resumption of negotiations at Geneva would be. For one thing, the reopening of the canal and the thinning-out of forces were undertaken by Cairo and Jerusalem without superpower prompting. For another, these acts instantly changed the Middle East mood. "I don't belittle this gesture," Sadat told TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn, referring to the Israeli move. "I consider it a very important act on the part of Israel. This gesture means we start the peace process again, although let us hope it is not simply a tactical move." An Egyptian diplomat observed approvingly that "until we are ready to sign a final peace, we prefer this kind of arrangement to a negotiated, signed, bilateral document. This kind doesn't have to be defended publicly by our government or by other Arab governments."

Time for Land. Although Sadat insisted once more last week that peace in the Middle East depended upon Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Arab territories, Egyptian diplomats indicated that they were in a mood to exchange more time for more land. In other words, Cairo was willing to extend the mandate of the peace-keeping United Nations Emergency Force in Sinai to the extent that Israel was willing to surrender chunks of the Sinai. That "time for land" formula appeared to be equally acceptable to Israel. Jerusalem's approach to Sinai negotiations, after all, has become "a little bit of territory against a little bit of peace," in the popular phrase coined last year by Hebrew University Historian Saul Friedlander.

By voluntarily pulling back their forces in the Sinai, the Israelis hoped to counter the propaganda advantages that Sadat gained by reopening the canal. They took out from the limited-forces zone half the 7,000 men and 30 tanks allowed under the disengagement agreement, and withdrew artillery and missiles from canal range. To dramatize the move, Defense Minister Shimon Peres last week took foreign newsmen on a tour of the desert, where they observed the withdrawal of one sandchurning platoon of ten tanks.*

The thinning-out was the result of Rabin's request to the Cabinet and his military advisers for ideas on how Israel should respond to the canal's reopening. One proposal was the Israeli forces might pull back four miles, ceding the abandoned territory to the U.N. buffer force. An objection to that idea was that the cost of new defenses further back would be at least $50 million, above and beyond the $250 million that Israel has spent on its present positions. In the end, however, Rabin rejected it mainly because such a move would radically alter the disengagement agreement itself, which he considered unwise politically. Since Israel was already contemplating a thinout if its Sinai forces in order to cut defense expenditures, Rabin decided to gain some political advantage from the move. The announcement was rushed off to Austria by way of the American embassy in Tel Aviv. It reached Schloss Klessheim, the U.S. quarters for the two-day Salzburg meeting, as Ford was hosting a luncheon there for Sadat that ranged from trout `a la meuniere and spinach en branches to butter pecan ice cream ring with chocolate sauce. Both Presidents expressed immediate pleasure at the news.

The Israeli military withdrawal will unquestionably affect the welcome that Rabin gets in Washington. The Administration insists that it is still carrying on the reassessment of Middle East policy ordered by Ford after the Kissinger shuttle. Rabin will not be bringing any new Israeli proposals for negotiations; he is primarily interested in Ford's impressions of his Salzburg summit with Sadat.

From the preliminary accounts they received last week, Israeli diplomats indicated Sadat had sounded flexible enough to make feasible another attempt at negotiations. They were disturbed, however, by his insistence in Salzburg and again at the canal ceremonies that Sinai negotiations be linked to talks with Syria about the Golan Heights. Jerusalem has steadfastly resisted such a linkage on the ground that it would complicate a difficult negotiating process. Rabin in Washington, moreover, is likely to face new pressures for Israel to surrender the Abu Rudeis oilfields and the Sinai passes in return for an extended second-stage agreement. This was a central issue on which the earlier Kissinger talks broke down. Sadat went to Salzburg with much the same general goal that Rabin has in visiting the U.S. Ford pleased the Egyptian President by reiterating Washington's endorsement of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which call for Israeli withdrawal from Arab territory in exchange for secure borders. Ford also promised to press Congress for economic aid to Egypt; indirectly, he admitted that the recent resolution signed by 76 Senators in firm support of massive U.S. military aid for Israel was not a very helpful step since it limited his maneuvering room with the Congress. Nonetheless Sadat found Ford to be "honest, straightforward and projecting the correct image of America." Besides, one member of Sadat's Salzburg party pointed out, if Washington suddenly became too pro-Egypt, it would alienate Israel. In such a case, the U.S. would be of as little help to Egypt in moving toward peace as the Soviets currently are. With no diplomatic links to Jerusalem, Moscow is unable to do much mediating; worse, the Soviets recently signed a massive military-aid agreement with Libya that Egyptians took as a direct slap at them.

Last week's events strengthened both Sadat and Rabin at home. The Israeli premier solidified his support even more by asking General Ariel ("Arik") Sharon, Israel's hero of the October war, to be his personal adviser. The move guaranteed increased support for Rabin from right-wing Israelis who adore the superhawk Sharon and who have long worried that the Premier is a waffling dove. The general's charisma will also blunt the appeal of Rabin critics like former Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. Since Sharon becomes a civil servant who by law cannot openly criticize the government, Rabin has also neatly stilled the voice of a maverick politician who once called him both "naive" and "childish" for indicating willingness to trade Abu Rudeis and the Sinai passes for a peace agreement with Sadat.

Spreading Moderation. The spirit of moderation in the Middle East seems to be spreading. Syria, in a surprise move, recently extended for six months the mandate of another U.N. peace force on the Golan Heights. Some observers saw the move as part of a Damascus plan to shift troops from the Golan to the Iraqi border because of a continuing dispute between Syria and Iraq over the sharing of Euphrates River water. Last week Syria unexpectedly deferred that confrontation by promising to release more Euphrates water for Iraq from behind the new, slowly filling Tabqa Dam. Syrian President Hafez Assad also scheduled a visit to Jordan to discuss a joint military command with King Hussein. The idea has been proposed in the past and abandoned; the latest move was more significant as a demonstration of Syria's willingness to improve even further its relations with the beleaguered Hussein, who was isolated by other Arab leaders for opposing claims by the Palestine Liberation Organization to speak for all Palestinians.

* Asked whether U.N. observers would be allowed to verify the withdrawal, Peres explained that this was unnecessary since both Egypt and Israel receive daily reconnaissance photos of the area from "a third country." He meant, of course, the U.S., which supplies both sides with satellite pictures. These are so accurate that American photo analysts occasionally send a tweaking note to Jerusalem, pointing out poorly camouflaged positions.

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