Now Comes the Hard Part

Sadat leaves and Begin arrives to talk about the settlement

For more than an hour, the two men sat under a magnolia tree in the Rose Garden and talked. Yellow legal pad in lap, Jimmy Carter did more listening than speaking. They met again that afternoon with their advisers present, then by themselves the next morning. The meetings, as Press Secretary Jody Powell observed, were "very warm," and at the state dinner held that night in his guest's honor, Carter himself jokingly alluded to the admiration he felt for his visitor. "I'm thankful one man is not running against me," the President said. "How would you like to run against Anwar Sadat?"

Thus, as expected, the Egyptian President's meetings with Carter in Washington last week proceeded amicably, though the two leaders appeared not to have settled on a strategy to resolve the problem at hand: how to revive the moribund Egyptian-Israeli negotiations on granting autonomy to the 1.2 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Concerned that the May 26 goal for the autonomy talks, as set by the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, was fast approaching, Carter last month had invited both Sadat and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin to confer with him separately in Washington.

Sadat told Carter that he was prepared to try to ease Israeli fears about military security by working out an arrangement to demilitarize the West Bank and Gaza during a five-year transition period. He suggested that joint Egyptian-Israeli patrols or international forces could keep order. Sadat urged Carter to put pressure on Begin to stop planting settlements in occupied territory on the West Bank. The settlement program, he said, "generates hatred and friction."

When Begin arrives this week to talk with Carter, he is expected to demand, as steadfastly as always, that his country keep its military forces in the occupied lands during the transition period. He also plans to defend, as always, the settlement program: "This is not only our right, but it is our duty to settle. This is an integral part of our national security, and we must settle." To strengthen Begin's hand, the Israeli Cabinet instructed the Premier to discuss only those proposals contained in the Camp David accords, thus technically ruling out any negotiation of the settlement policies. Begin's basic argument is that Israel must protect itself against attack, and it was reinforced last week when Palestinian terrorists struck a kibbutz along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

About the best the Administration can hope for from Carter's talks with Sadat and Begin is that the three leaders will agree to instruct their negotiators --Sol Linowitz of the U.S., Interior Minister Yosef Burg of Israel and Premier Mustafa Khalil of Egypt--to convene in Washington for a final round of intensive negotiating. The May 26 date could readily be waived if substantial progress is being made. But if these tripartite talks turn out to be unsuccessful, White House officials are unenthusiastic about calling another Camp David summit meeting and thus putting the President on the spot to provide a settlement. In this election year, no one in the White House wants to go up to the Catoctin Mountains for some presidential diplomacy unless a round of happy handshakes is promised as the finale.

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