On Two Camels at the Same Time

To the young woman Israeli security guard at Ben-Gurion Airport, there was something suspicious about the Dutch tourist who called himself Hugo Muller. After he got off the plane, she separated Muller from the nine other passengers who had arrived in Tel Aviv from Vienna aboard Austrian Airlines Flight 712 and led him to a screened-off room for a baggage check. When Muller obeyed her request and opened the bag he was carrying, explosives inside it killed them both and wounded ten other people. After making inquiries in Europe, Israeli authorities concluded that "Muller" was a courier for Palestinian guerrillas. In Beirut, George Hasbash's militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Quiet Day. Compared with other fedayeen terrorist acts in the past, the Ben-Gurion incident was relatively mild; four years ago in the same terminal, members of the Japanese Red Army, allied with the P.F.L.P., killed 28 people. Nevertheless, last week's explosion was one more bloody link in the Middle East's seemingly endless chain of anguish. Another and more important one is the civil war in Lebanon, where almost 20,000 people have been killed in nearly 14 months of inconclusive fighting. That conflict has reached the point where it is considered a quiet day in Beirut when only 30 people are killed. Among last week's victims: moderate Maronite Leader Raymond Edde, 63, who was wounded by gunmen chasing his car, and Linda Atrash, 55, sister of Leftist Leader Kamal Jumblatt, who was slain when assassins seeking relatives of Jumblatt burst into her apartment.

The war grinds on despite all efforts to stop it. The latest proposal was in some ways the most impractical: before flying back to Paris from a U.S. visit, French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing offered to airlift French troops to act as a peace-keeping force. The proposal was rejected out of hand by Lebanese Moslems and the Palestinians. At least one knowledgeable observer suggested last week that the U.S. might have contributed to the impasse: L. Dean Brown, a special envoy sent by Washington to seek an armistice in Lebanon, told the New York Times that the fighting had probably been prolonged there because the U.S.--fearful of Israel's response--had discouraged Syria from moving in an army large enough to control the warring factions.

Amid such bloodshed and bitterness, there have been a few hopeful signs. Last week both Israel and Syria agreed to extend for another six months the mandate of the United Nations peace-keeping forces on the Golan Heights. The agreement by Jerusalem and Damascus was as much to avoid the consequences of no mandate--the prospect of renewed fighting--as it was a vote of approval for the U.N. troops.

The Middle East in fact is once again in a no-war, no-peace stalemate and is likely to remain so for some time. That situation could be particularly dangerous for the U.S., with its enlarged commitments and interests in the area. So concluded TIME'S Middle East bureau chiefs--Wilton Wynn of Cairo, Karsten Prager of Beirut and Donald Neff of Jerusalem--after comparing notes and impressions on the neutral ground of Athens. Their collective estimate of the situation:

Of all major changes in the Middle East since the 1973 war, none is more crucial--and potentially more dangerous--than the unprecedented and massive commitment by the U.S. to both sides. For Israel, this has meant aid that now exceeds $2 billion annually and access to America's most sophisticated weapons. On both sides in the Middle

East, the degree of American political support is considered greater than at any time since the Jewish state was founded. Paradoxically, this extraordinary pledge to Israel's survival has left that country more dependent on Washington than ever, particularly in view of weekly attacks on Israel in the U.N. or its agencies, in which the U.S. is usually Jerusalem's lone defender.

For the Arabs, the U.S. involvement has been smaller in quantity but surprisingly substantial all the same. American aid to Sadat is now approaching $1 billion a year--including provisions for military supplies--and there is the expectation of more to come. Aid has been tied to an implied American promise to secure a peace settlement; never, as a result, has an Egyptian leader been so dependent on the U.S.

In the current Lebanese crisis, the U.S. is acting as middleman between Syria and Israel, just as it did between Egypt and Israel. While Washington backs Syria's initiative in Lebanon, it has also managed so far to calm Israeli fears regarding the purpose of the Syrian presence there. Although Syrian President Hafez Assad has kept other options open, he has begun to take the first hesitant steps in accepting Sadat's view that only the U.S. can get a settlement for the Arabs.

Lowest Point. Despite some shortcomings, U.S. policy has bolstered Middle East moderates and helped prevent another war. It has also increased American influence throughout the region and, for better or worse, brought Soviet influence to its lowest point in two decades. These achievements have made the U.S. the only nation generally accepted by all sides as the potential Middle East peacemaker. Implicit in Secretary of State Kissinger's commitment to the Middle East is the assumption that massive material and diplomatic support is justified by the expectation that peace can be achieved within a comparatively short time.

Unfortunately, not much progress toward peace has been made in more than 2 1/2 years. Only tiny, easily negotiable slivers of territory in the Sinai and to a lesser extent along the Golan Heights have changed hands. The Geneva Conference remains stalled, and Washington has still not addressed itself to the region's central problem, the Palestinian issue. By trying to ride two camels at the same time, as it were, the U.S. risks the prospect of falling between them. If a new war breaks out, for instance, both Israel and Egypt may demand arms airlifts.

For the short term, barring miscalculation, continued U.S. brokerage is likely to prevent such a war. Along with their internal problems that counsel against renewed fighting, Arabs and Israelis alike know the U.S. is too hamstrung by its presidential election this year to assert the leadership necessary to produce new momentum in lieu of war. But 1977 will be the year of the crunch. Israel is fearful--and the Arabs hopeful--of heavy postelection pressure on Jerusalem to withdraw from occupied territories. Beset by unrest on the West Bank, a faltering economy and a bitterly divided leadership, Israel could find such pressure intolerable. The Rabin government could fall and be replaced by a more hawkish administration that may embark Israel on aggressive and unpredictable action.

Sadat, meanwhile, has staked so much on the U.S. ability to deliver that any failure could destroy both America's new pre-eminence and Sadat as well. Syria's Assad also has to show some pay off in 1977 for his surprisingly moderate policy to date.

In all of this, Arafat's P.L.O. retains a disturbing potential for obstruction, though perhaps less visibly this year because of P.L.O. involvement in Lebanon. If Arafat does not receive the American recognition he seeks, his options will be reduced; there will be a return to violence and terror.

In time, a negotiated Middle East settlement is possible. But in the longer perspective, the basic struggle--whether by diplomacy, peaceful competition or war--will probably continue. Like the accommodations between Moslems and Christian Crusaders many centuries ago or between Moslems and Christians in Lebanon before the civil war, a negotiated settlement between Israelis and Arabs would probably be but an interlude.

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