Pausing at the Summit

By Marguerite Johnson

Begin and Sadat can smile, but the missile crisis in Lebanon remains

The event was a kind of diplomatic curiosity, a summit that was more of a side show, hastily arranged and with no momentous agenda.

It was, in fact, a meeting that was called not so much to work out major agreements as to satisfy the needs of each of the celebrated participants. Under a blazing Sinai sun and a deep azure sky, Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt's President Anwar Sadat met last week for their tenth summit since Sadat made his ice-breaking visit to Jerusalem in 1977.

The talks did not last long--only 90 minutes, half an hour less than planned.

And, as anticipated, they produced no ground-breaking agreement, or at least none the two leaders were willing to reveal. But the very fact that the meeting had occurred seemed to be enough to allow each man to walk away pleased, although Begin clearly had more reason to smile. He had got Sadat to agree with him on a key point: that Syria was to blame for the missile crisis in Lebanon. Declared Sadat: "My view is that the Syrian forces should withdraw from Lebanon. [They were] the cause of everything."

Sadat had feared that war between Syria and Israel would scuttle all chances of a comprehensive settlement in the region, and perhaps endanger the Camp David peace accord with Israel as well.

The summit bought time until U.S. Special Envoy Philip Habib could return from consultations in Washington and this week resume his shuttle diplomacy between Middle East capitals.

Begin's motives--at least to many Israeli voters, who go to the polls on June 30 for national elections--seemed more transparently political. The summit reminded the electorate that it was Begin who signed the first peace treaty with an Arab neighbor. As a top aide to the Israeli Prime Minister put it: "The most important thing is to show the world that, in spite of the Lebanon crisis, the Israeli-Egyptian rapprochement continues."

The talks, fittingly, were held at Sharm el Sheikh (renamed Ofira by the Israelis), the port city near the southern tip of the last stretch of the Sinai that is due to revert to Egyptian sovereignty next April. Each leader brought along an entourage: Begin's included Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon; Sadat was aided by Foreign Minister Kamal Hassan Ali.

Like the veteran and skilled performers they are, Begin and Sadat once again put on a public display of warmth and respect that reflected their private views of each other. They talked at the White Elephant, a local restaurant on a sandy strand of beautiful Naama Bay. Relaxed and smiling, the two leaders posed in wicker chairs on the restaurant's windswept veranda like a couple of contented tourists. There was a brief moment when the air of cordiality at the conference was threatened by an angry demonstration of Israeli settlers, who will be forced to leave when the territory returns to Egypt. Sadat later deftly handled the situation by agreeing to hear, although not agree to, the complaints of a small settler delegation.

Although the Lebanon crisis was the main topic at the summit, there were no indications that any course of action had been worked out. At a joint press conference, Begin asserted that he and Sadat had "made important agreements, serious solutions," the nature of which he could not reveal. With curious bombast, he added: "This day, the fourth of June, 1981, will be known as one of the good days in my life, the life of President Sadat and of our peoples."

Sadat succeeded in winning a public commitment from Begin to give Habib "ample time" to settle the crisis over Syria's deployment of antiaircraft missiles in Lebanon. But he failed to persuade Begin to curtail Israel's air and ground assaults against the Palestinians in Lebanon. To the dismay of at least one foreign ministry official in Cairo, the summit gave Begin a well-publicized chance to characterize the Palestine Liberation Army as bloodthirsty terrorists "planning day and night to carry out incursions into our country, to take hostages, and to kill men, women and children." Begin also restated his position that Israel would never again share possession of Jerusalem with the Arabs. Begin's stand was an unsettling reminder of just how far apart the two sides still were. To discuss such matters, President Reagan last week invited Sadat and whoever is the Israeli Prime Minister after the elections to meet with him separately in Washington in August and September, respectively.

Sadat's position in the Arab world was scarcely enhanced last week by the spectacle of an Arab leader on the same platform with an Israeli Prime Minister chastising another Arab head of state. Yet the Egyptian President charged that Syrian President Hafez Assad had created the missile crisis to divert attention from what Sadat described as a "civil war" at home. Sadat sneered that Assad would "not ask for war because it would remove him at once."

The Israelis were reassured at the summit that if they did go to war with Syria, they would not have to worry about the Egyptian army. Said Sadat: "We have pledged together that the October war will be the last war."

Under Israel's strict election laws, pictures of Begin getting a little help from his friend Sadat cannot be shown on television during the four-week campaign. But no such limitations confronted an election-campaign movie team from Begin's Likud coalition; it filmed the proceedings to get material for a five-minute prime-time election commercial. To avoid any appearance that he was taking sides in the Israeli election, Sadat had invited opposition Labor Party Leader Shimon Peres to visit him at a later date. But a Begin aide said with glee, "It's clear Sadat is voting for us."

The summit occurred the very week that the Israeli election campaign got under way--just as Likud edged ahead of Labor in one poll, 34% to 33%, after trailing, 14% to 44%, in January. To counter the summit as best it could, the Labor Party scheduled a Knesset debate on Begin's recently revealed 1978 commitment, taken without parliamentary consent, to commit Israel's air force to help Lebanon's right-wing Christians in the event of attack by Syrian airpower. The debate grew so heated at one point that Labor Opposition Member Michael Harish jumped from his seat and yelled at Begin, "You are lying to the Knesset!"

In the uproar, Harish finally retracted the word lying but continued to charge that Begin had not told the full truth about Israel's agreement with the Christians.

Meanwhile, Israeli aircraft and seaborne forces again attacked Palestinian positions up and down the coast of Lebanon. The intensive raids had started the week before, and prompted two visits to Begin's office over the weekend by U.S. Ambassador Samuel Lewis. The Ambassador passed along complaints from the State Department that Israel's actions were endangering Habib's mediation efforts. In a CBS interview, Begin responded that he had explained to Habib "an unaccountable number of times" that Israel intended to continue its "preventive operations against the P.L.O. terrorists."

There were indications that an Arab-initiated solution for the missile confrontation was still being zealously pursued. Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam made a quick trip to Saudi Arabia carrying a message from Assad to King Khalid. It was the third such exchange in the past two weeks about the specifics of an arrangement to persuade the Syrians to remove their missiles in return for some modification of the Israelis' reconnaissance flights over Lebanon. To sweeten the deal, the Saudis are reported to have already delivered $1 billion of a $4 billion economic and financial package to Damascus. Additionally, the Saudis are believed to have agreed to work with the Jordanians and the Iraqis to end the support that these two nations have been giving the fanatical Muslim Brotherhood, which is seeking to overthrow Assad's regime. One possible indication of the growing importance of the Saudis in working out an agreement is that Habib's first port of call will be the capital city of Riyadh.

The very fact that Assad had not yet backed down in the face of the Israeli threats and the Habib peace mission enhanced his standing with the Arab states, which were rallying to his support against Israel. The Arabs were still concerned about Syria's ties to the Soviet Union, which supplied the SA-6 missiles that were the cause of contention. At their summit meeting, Sadat said that he and Begin had a "full understanding," in the words of the Prime Minister, about the dangers of the Soviets' getting a firmer foothold in the Middle East.

I f there was no evidence that the Soviets were supplying the Syrians with new weapons during the confrontation, there was clear proof last week that they were giving them to the Palestinians in Lebanon. The Libyans were acting as middlemen in the deal; in the past three weeks they have sent in some 52 trucks loaded with Soviet-made rocket launchers, 130-mm artillery pieces and four-barrel, radar-controlled antiaircraft guns. In addition, about a month ago, Libyan Strongman Muammar Gaddafi gave the Palestinians $75 million as a gift.

At week's end, as Habib prepared to resume his shuttle, Arab League foreign ministers from Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were gathering at Beiteddin, southeast of Beirut. Lebanon's President Elias Sarkis was expected to submit a series of proposals aimed at restoring stability to his shattered land. The way out was yet to be found, but the fact that diplomacy had for five straight weeks averted a military conflict raised hopes that a lasting solution was at least conceivable.

-- By Marguerite Johnson.

Reported by David Aikman/Sharm el Sheikh and Nathaniel Harrison/Cairo

With reporting by David Aikman/Sharm el Sheikh, Nathaniel Harrison/Cairo

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