Posturing on the Morning After

By William E. Smith

Israel talks tough; Mubarak vows to uphold the peace

"We said we would evacuate the Sinai when certain conditions were met, and we did. Here [on the West Bank] we said we would not withdraw, and indeed we won't."

Israel's stubborn Defense Minister, Ariel Sharon, issued that pledge last week as he spoke at the opening of a new Israeli military outpost in the West Bank Valley of Elah where, according to biblical tradition, Goliath was slain by David. Having returned the final third of the Sinai Peninsula to Egyptian control, the government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin was showing that it had no intention of ever agreeing to a similar withdrawal from the other Arab territories occupied since 1967. "Israel has now reached the red line of its concessions," declared Sharon. Begin, whose government announced last week that six more settlements will be built on the West Bank, and another one on the occupied Golan Heights, described the West Bank as "an empty land."

It is in fact the home of 800,000 Palestinians, and last week a goodly number of them were once more demonstrating against continued Israeli domination. Some threw stones. Others were armed with the very weapon that David had used in his fight against Goliath, the slingshot. At least three Palestinians were killed, and more than 50 were injured in clashes with Israeli troops and police. Half the injuries took place in Nablus, one of four West Bank towns whose elected mayors have been forced from office by Israeli authorities in the past two months. Five secondary schools on the West Bank have been closed indefinitely.

By contrast, only a few bureaucratic mix-ups marred the transfer of power in the Sinai. At the newly established border post at Taba, five miles south of the Israeli town of Eilat, an Egyptian officer politely but firmly explained to the Israeli drivers of 15 vehicles that they could not yet be allowed to go any further. A rubber stamp needed for validating travel documents had not arrived from Cairo, he explained. At the scruffy northern Sinai town of Rafah, which is now divided by the Israeli-Egyptian border fence, matters were also confused. The system that will permit Arab residents to move freely throughout the city was not yet in effect, so the border was temporarily closed.

Perhaps the saddest scene in the Sinai was the ruins of Yamit, the Mediterranean coastal settlement (pop. 2,400 at its 1977 peak) that the Israelis destroyed with bulldozers before leaving. Previously the government had hinted that this was necessary to prevent the Israeli settlers from returning to it or the Egyptians from inheriting a city dangerously close to the Israeli border. Last week, however, some Israelis complained that the matter had been settled by Begin and Sharon without consulting the Cabinet or any ministerial committee. Said a puzzled Israeli general: "We should have left Yamit intact and handed it over to the Palestinian refugees living in the area."

With the withdrawal complete, Begin seemed more optimistic than he had been for weeks. He told his nation that there was "reason to hope that Egypt has left the vicious circle of war against Israel for a very long time." He is convinced that Egypt is prepared to pursue the Palestinian autonomy negotiations as outlined in the Camp David accords. Israel favors this course not only because it involves the U.S. as a full partner but be cause the Camp David agreement says nothing explicit about Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza -- an omission that is a tribute of sorts to Begin's tough bargaining at Camp David. In a letter to Begin two weeks ago, President Reagan reaffirmed Washington's commitment to achieving "full autonomy" for the Palestinians within a "Self-Governing Authority" in the West Bank and Gaza. But even before Secretary of State Alexander Haig became embroiled in the Falkland Islands dispute, the Administration had offered little evidence of a coherent policy toward this most pressing issue in the Middle East.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak did his best to assure Begin that Egypt will live by the terms of the peace treaty. "Peace is the path of the future, and it is our commitment to adhere to the Camp David agreement," he said in an hour-long speech to the People's Assembly on the day after the return of the Sinai. At the same time, Mubarak has left little doubt that he will gradually seek to repair the ties with the Arab world that were broken when his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, signed the treaty with Israel. Mubarak will probably not waste much time on Libya or on Syria, which vowed last week to "foil all attempts to welcome Egypt back into the Arab world." But the improvement of relations with the moderate Arab states has already begun. Last week the Mubarak government announced that citizens of twelve Arab countries will no longer need visas to enter Egypt. Saudi Arabia has lifted its ban against the import of Egyptian publications. The gulf states have expressed their gratitude to Egypt for the arms it has been steadily supplying to help Iraq in its war against Iran.

Two Arab Kings, Hussein of Jordan and Hassan II of Morocco, congratulated Mubarak on the return of the Sinai. They said they would welcome a renewal of the close ties that they formerly enjoyed with Egypt if Mubarak would endorse their position on the Palestinians, which would include a restoration of Arab sovereignty to the remaining occupied territories. But this Mubarak cannot do, since he is committed to the Camp David agreement and, through it, to a less explicit concept of Palestinian autonomy. Thus, while it is possible for Mubarak to improve his ties with the other Arabs, he cannot, for the moment at least, achieve a genuine reconciliation.

-- By William E. Smith.

Reported by David Aikman/ Jerusalem and Robert C. Wurmstedt/Cairo

With reporting by David Aikman/Jerusalem, Robert C. Wurmstedt/Cairo

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