No to the P.L.O.

A black September?

All the omens suggest that September will be a difficult--and possibly decisive--month for the Israelis and the Arabs.

Amid dimming hopes that Geneva peace talks can resume this year, the Israelis made it official last week that they would not negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization under any circumstances. A few days later, as representatives of the 21 member nations of the Arab League gathered in Cairo, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister, Prince Saud al Faisal, insisted that his country will back every effort to set up a Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza. The Arab states, he said, will push for a United Nations resolution--which almost certainly will pass--condemning Israel's "expansionist" policy of creating new Jewish settlements on the West Bank. The hardening stance on both sides does not bode well for President Carter's talks later this month with foreign ministers of the Arab states and Israel when they arrive for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly.

In a special summer session, the Knesset passed by an overwhelming vote (92 to 4) a resolution categorically repudiating the P.L.O. as a "discussion partner for the state of Israel in any Middle East peace negotiations." As a bit of parliamentary sleight of hand, the resolution was proposed by the Democratic Movement for Change so that the Labor Party could back it without seeming to support Premier Menachem Begin's ruling Likud coalition. A similarly worded Likud resolution had earlier been defeated by the D.M.C. and Labor opposition. The political maneuvering, however, hardly obscured the fact that there is a solid consensus in Israel against any dealings with the P.L.O.

The Arabs got the message, and did not like it. Said a high-ranking Egyptian official after the Knesset vote: "The Israelis have thrown down the gauntlet to President Carter. The Israelis don't believe, he means to change American policy. Carter will have to make it crystal-clear how America really feels about war and peace, Arabs and Jews. Begin is talking tough. We think Carter will answer in kind."

Carter's diplomatic problem will not be made easier by a surprise plan drawn up by Israeli Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon, who has a reputation as a superhawk, for establishing massive new settlements on the West Bank. The plan, details of which were leaked last week to the daily Ma'ariv, calls for 30 new settlements and three urban centers in the western half of the occupied territory, cutting off the main Arab population centers from Israel. Speaking last week at the tenth anniversary of the settlement of Merom Golan on the Golan Heights, Sharon elaborated on that theme, declaring that Israel should settle 2 million Jews in territories extending from the Golan to Sharm el Sheikh at the southern tip of Sinai over the next 20 years.

Coming out shortly before Moshe Dayan was to visit Washington with what officials called the "draft text of a new peace treaty," the leaked Sharon plan in the beginning had caused some embarrassment in the foreign ministry. But Sharon later indicated that he had cleared his plan with Begin and it was just a question of time before it would be carried out. Whether or not the program is officially adopted by the government, a recent poll showed 82% of Israeli voters favoring some kind of settlement in the occupied territories.

Moreover, Israeli citizens and their leaders are growing increasingly militant as they read Arab statements that seem to them intransigent. Aharon Yariv, the dovish former Information Minister in Yitzhak Rabin's last Labor government, warned last week that if U.S. peace efforts fail, "war becomes a definite possibility." Returning from a state visit to Rumania, Premier Begin defiantly noted that his government includes three generals who led Israeli armies to victory in previous wars. Said he: "We shall be ready to defend ourselves."

Meanwhile, the Arab League gathered in Cairo over the weekend for its first high-level meeting in six months. Chief topic on the agenda: the Palestinians. Prince Saud, who was the chairman of the meeting, declared that the Arabs would adopt "a plan of action" against the Israelis' move to create new settlements on the occupied West Bank and Gaza which he characterized as "criminal measures and a flagrant challenge endangering peace in the region." The meeting was expected to communicate to Carter the Arab message--no Palestinians, no settlement.

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