Imagine: A Lofty Summit

The peace-treaty negotiations begin

There was a slight sense of deja vu about the scene in the White House East Room last week. Just 26 days earlier, Jimmy Carter had sat there before the cameras and klieg lights, flanked by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin, to announce that the leaders were ready to sign two "framework" agreements that had been hammered out during 13 days of negotiations at Camp David. This time Carter's companions were Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Egypt's newly appointed Defense Minister Kamal Hassan Ali. Their task: to work out the details of a formal peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, thereby ending a state of war that has existed between the two nations since 1948.

The opening ceremony was short (15 minutes) and to the point. Carter welcomed the visiting delegates, called on Jordan's King Hussein and the Palestinians to join the peace process and emphasized that the current talks were merely the first step toward a comprehensive settlement involving Israel and all its Arab neighbors. Dayan, speaking for exactly one minute, declared: "It is our hope and belief that we have reached the stage in which we can finally conclude a peace treaty." In a 2 1/2-rninute reply, Ali restated the determination of his government to achieve an overall settlement and once again urged the other Arabs to join in.

Soon after that, the delegates walked across Pennsylvania Avenue to Blair House and sat down to business. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance served as chairman of the opening sessions. At week's end he left for South Africa, turning over the gavel to Ambassador Alfred ("Roy") Atherton, the President's special emissary in the Middle East. The three partners quickly reached agreement on a mundane but vital procedural issue: instead of breaking up into working groups, each delegation in its entirety would participate in all bilateral or trilateral meetings.

Both the Israelis and Egyptians brought along draft treaties. TIME has learned that the U.S. also has a formal proposal--an eight-page document, spelling out in detail the main issues to be negotiated. The chief areas of discussion: 1) normalization of relations between Israel and Egypt, including the opening of borders, exchange of ambassadors, freedom of navigation through the Suez Canal, tourism and cultural and journalistic exchanges; 2) a timetable for Israeli withdrawals from the Sinai, including the turnover of Israeli settlements and airfields in the Sinai to the Egyptians, and the establishment of demilitarized zones and specified areas for U.N. troops; and 3) future economic relations between the two countries, including trade and possible joint ventures.

The delegates will also discuss the future of the American monitoring mission in the Sinai and the planned U.S. replacement of Israeli airfields in the Sinai with two new bases in Israel's Negev Desert. One possible sticking point in the talks concerns Israeli oil installations in the Sinai. The Israelis may seek compensation for these installations; at the very least, they will ask for a guarantee from Egypt to sell oil to Israel or a promise to set up a joint enterprise for exploring the Sinai oilfields. The Egyptians will seek to avoid any such special arrangements.

Although there was no explicit linkage between the two Camp David frameworks, the Egyptians will insist during the treaty talks that there must be some kind of progress toward an agreement on the future of the West Bank and Gaza. Sadat has tried to avoid the appearance of making a separate peace with the Israelis, although a first-step agreement between Egypt and Israel amounts to just that. The Israelis would be delighted to make such a settlement with Egypt, since that would effectively end any threat of war against Israel for the foreseeable future.

President Carter said last week that he did not believe the West Bank-Gaza issue would be an obstacle to the signing of the Israeli-Egyptian treaty. This is probably true. But the Egyptians nonetheless want the Israelis to make some kind of gesture toward the Palestinians, such as abolishing military government in the occupied territories or accepting the U.S. view that there should be an indefinite moratorium on the building of new Jewish settlements in those areas.

The Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza are dissatisfied with the outcome of Camp David, believing that the Israeli promise of internal self-rule is a poor substitute for their goal, of independence. A minority among them, at least, believe that their spokesmen should not reject the Egyptian-Israeli agreements out of hand. Writing last week in Al Quds, an Arabic newspaper published in Jerusalem, Ramallah Attorney Aziz Shehadeh argued: "Our Arab people are still fascinated by the word no. Is it not time for us to study our case before we quickly answer with a yes or no?"

part from this mild endorsement, Anwar Sadat is still going it alone in the Arab world. Not even such friends as Sudan's President Gaafar Mohamed Nimeiri or Morocco's King Hassan II have endorsed the Camp David accords. There was also no sign that Jordan's King Hussein was preparing to join the peace negotiations. Meanwhile, radical Arabs were calling for a Pan-Arab summit conference from which Sadat would be most pointedly excluded.

None of this seemed to bother him.

In a give-'em-hell speech before a gathering of Egyptian judges, Sadat called his Arab critics a bunch of "Moscow-directed stooges." He scathingly denounced the Syrian shelling of Christian positions in Lebanon as "murder for murder's sake." He said he had hoped to help negotiate a peace treaty for the Syrians and the Palestinians, but had abandoned the idea because "their ingratitude and obscenities have gone beyond all limits." Clearly Sadat intends to press for a peace treaty with Israel as soon as possible, then present it to the other Arab states as a fact of life.

Under the terms of the Camp David accords, Egypt and Israel are committed to completing a peace treaty no later than Dec. 17. Usama el Baz, Egypt's First Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, told TIME: "Within two to three weeks we expect the Washington meeting to produce something close to a final draft. We don't think any further summit negotiations will be needed."

If that proves to be the case, a treaty could be ready for signing by Nov. 19, the first anniversary of Sadat's trip to Jerusalem. But where should the signing take place? Sadat himself proposes Mount Sinai, where the Lord gave the Law to Moses, a prophet revered in both Hebrew and Islamic tradition. The White House tends to like the idea. "Imagine that, a summit on a summit," reflected one Administration official. "What an event that would be."

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