Candidate Perers Meets the Arabs

MIDDLE EAST

His not-so-secret talks stir up a fuss on the eve of Haig's visit

Shimon Peres' El Al 707 jetliner was touching down at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport when the controversy erupted. Israeli television reported that Peres had made a detour during a trip to Western Europe for a "secret" get-together with Morocco's King Hassan, and that he had also met with a Jordanian envoy.* Secret diplomacy with the Arabs may not be new for Israel, but the country is just three months away from elections, and Labor Party Leader Peres is Prime Minister Menachem Begin's principal challenger. Stormed a Begin aide: "Never before has an opposition leader conducted negotiations with a head of state at war with Israel. This opposition no longer values loyalty to the state."

Peres, who holds a comfortable lead over Begin in the polls, dismissed the partisan clamor. Without confirming the reports, he hinted that the meetings had indeed taken place. The purpose: to impress the Arabs that a Labor government would push for Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza. Said Peres: "We must see with whom we can come to terms and with whom we cannot. I don't need anyone's approval for this."

As early as last October, Peres began sending word through intermediaries to King Hussein that all peace-related issues--including the highly sensitive question of Jerusalem--would be negotiable under a Labor government. He especially wanted to sound out the Jordanians on the possibility of a compromise in the West Bank--the so-called Jordanian option--which Hussein has repeatedly rejected. Under the plan, Israel would hand over all but 30% of the area to a joint Jordanian-Palestinian state under Jordan's control. Peres' finding: Jordan might go along, but would not discuss details.

Peres' not-so-secret maneuvering was not without irony. Only three weeks earlier, Abba Eban and other Labor Party members had rebuked former Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan for revealing in his recently published memoirs the substance of talks Dayan held with Arab leaders in 1977. Eban argued that such disclosures jeopardized future Arab-Israeli secret negotiations.

Labor may have had a more compelling reason for coming down hard on the soldier-statesman: Dayan's independent candidacy, likely to be announced this week, might win as many as 15 to 20 of the 120 Knesset seats. That would make him a potent spoiler, able to force coalition terms on either Labor or Likud. It would also put him, for example, in a position to press for his version of Palestinian autonomy. Dead set against territorial compromise with Jordan, he envisions self-rule for West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, but favors maintaining Israeli troops and settlements in the occupied territories. Says Dayan of Labor's Jordanian option: "It's totally unrealistic that Hussein would agree to such an idea."

Indeed, with all the publicity in Israel, Jordan seemed cool to further contacts. When Peres publicly sought to draw Saudi Arabia into negotiations over the future of Jerusalem, he was unceremoniously rebuffed by Riyadh.

The stalled Arab-Israeli peace process is likely to be overshadowed this week by U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig's first official tour of the Middle East. Haig is preoccupied with wider strategic considerations, most notably what he sees as expansionist Soviet moves in the region. He has suggested that he would like to fashion an anti-Soviet consensus among such disparate states as Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia--an ambitious and probably unattainable goal. The recent U.S. decision to sell F-15 fighter parts and missiles to the Saudis and the Administration's reversal of Carter thinking on the future stationing of U.S. peacekeeping troops in the Sinai are calculated to bolster U.S. influence and presence in the area. If Haig is hoping to sell a new image of U.S. reliability, he faces a formidable task, one made more difficult by the divisions in Washington over the making of foreign policy. qed

* TIME has learned that Peres spoke with Crown Prince Hassan, King Hussein's brother and closest political confidant.

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