MIDDLE EAST: MOSCOW'S PEACE OFFENSIVE

IN the wake of the latest flare-up in the Middle East, occasioned by the Arab terrorist attack on an El Al plane in Athens and Israel's reprisal raid on Beirut airport, the Soviet Union last week stepped up its latest diplomatic offensive. Its aim: a four-power agreement among the U.S., Russia, Britain and France on a peace package to offer to the Middle East's antagonists.

Behind the Soviet plan is concern that the region's deadly round of raid and retaliation could draw the U.S. and Russia into a showdown that neither wants. The Russians also want to protect their Arab clients from another military defeat, and have artfully shaped their proposal to tempt--and perhaps confuse--the U.S. as it changes administrations. For the first time, the Soviets do not peremptorily demand that Israel withdraw from its occupied territories before negotiations begin, as the Arabs have always insisted. Instead, the Soviets propose a package that would include Israeli withdrawal--to what lines the Soviets do not clearly say--along with declarations by Arab states of nonbelligerency. The Russians support guaranteed use of the Strait of Tiran by Israel, but leave open the question of the Suez canal, loosely tying it to the beginning of at least a partial settlement of the Arab-refugees problem.

Sitting Tight. By the very vagueness of the proposals, which left loopholes for negotiation, the Russian initiative aroused interest--and conflicting evaluations--among officials of the outgoing Johnson Administration. They are drafting a reply to the Soviet note for Lyndon Johnson, asking for clarification and suggesting further exchanges. So far, the U.S. envisages any big-power agreement not as a deal to be "imposed" but merely as a set of proposals that U.N. Special Representative Gunnar Jarring could present to Arabs and Israelis. He resumes his go-between role this month after five weeks at his regular post as Sweden's ambassador to Moscow. In any case, even a decision on four-power discussion, let alone its possible outcome, will be left to the incoming Nixon government.

Israeli diplomats perceive an ominous threat in the very idea of a settlement "imposed" by the big powers. Should it happen, it would serve to make permanent and legitimate the Russian presence in the Middle East. And they are convinced that it would be achieved at the expense of their own hard-won security. In Washington and the U.N., they launched a vigorous counteroffensive against what they called a "Munich" settlement.

The Israelis insist that declarations of Arab nonbelligerency have not protected them in the past. Neither did the Security Council's guarantee of free passage in the Strait of Tiran when Israel withdrew after the 1956 Suez campaign; the U.N. did not prevent Egypt from blockading the Strait just before the June War. Therefore withdrawal from the occupied territories in exchange for such concessions from the Arabs is unacceptable to the Israelis. What they want is more time. By simply sitting tight since the Six-Day War, the Israelis argue, they have induced the Arabs to hold indirect talks through Jarring. By holding longer, they hope to wrest from the Arab states the bilateral peace treaties they want.

As the latest diplomatic battle took shape, the Israelis appeared to have made significant gains in their brief for the Beirut raid. A second wave of evaluation and editorial comment in the U.S. and abroad recognized that the U.N., in condemning Israel alone, had not been quite fair. Pope Paul VI told the head of a visiting Jewish delegation that his message of sympathy to Lebanon had been "misinterpreted" as deploring only one side of the violence. But in assessing the reaction, Israel did not reckon with another factor--Charles de Gaulle. He regards Lebanon, a French mandate until World War II, as France's particular protege in the Middle East. He is also working closely with Moscow for a four-power approach, which would remind the world that France is a power of sorts, and would enhance French influence in the Arab world.

As much as anything else, De Gaulle took offense at the symbolism he perceived in the Beirut airport attack. "The fact that French helicopters were used to destroy French Caravelles is altogether unacceptable," he told his Cabinet, reportedly adding: "They could at least have used American Sikorskys." Angered at Israel's "unspeakable and unacceptable" behavior, De Gaulle went further than the simple resolution of censure voted in the U.N. He decreed a total embargo on all shipments of French arms to Israel.

Everything Except Aircraft. De Gaulle's embargo was in turn blasted as "a one-sided and indefensible act," by Premier Levi Eshkol, who called a Cabinet meeting for this week to consider an appropriate response. Still, some Israelis found a silver lining. The embargo makes more palatable to voters the $2.3 billion "war budget to prevent war" that Finance Minister Zeev Sha-ref presented to the Knesset last week. And it will likely produce millions of dollars in new funds from Jews around the world.

A substantial amount may well come from France, where Israel enjoys vast popular support despite De Gaulle. The French President decreed the ban without consulting either Prime Minister Couve de Murville or Foreign Minister Michel Debre. Predictably, it raised a roar of political and editorial protest, especially so since De Gaulle has sold a dozen Mirage 3s to Lebanon and is dickering to sell 54 more to Iraq. Every major non-Communist paper in France denounced the ban on arms to Israel. In reply, De Gaulle harshly raised, through Information Minister Joel Le Theule, an old European phobia over Jewish influence in the press: "It is remarkable how Israeli influence could make itself felt in circles close to the information media." Le Monde rightly rejected the charge as "insulting."

The embargo is unlikely to have much practical impact on Israel, despite that country's heavy investment in French arms, amounting to nearly $600 million over the past decade. Ever since De Gaulle stopped delivery of 50 Mirage fighters as a sign of his displeasure during the Six-Day War, Israel has been prudently making other arrangements. To compensate for the embargoed aircraft Israel has ordered from the U.S. 50 F-4 Phantoms, scheduled for delivery late this year.

Considering France's earlier embargo on jets as a warning, Israel stepped up its own armaments production and is now self-sufficient in virtually everything except aircraft.* Israel Military Industries is a $100 million business that makes everything from air force .rockets to the army's 155-mm. artillery. It also exports to 50 countries, including France, a good customer for Israeli ammunition and jet fuel drop-tanks and one on which Israel has no intention of imposing a counter-embargo. The search for self-sufficiency has given Israel a high level of technological expertise. "If Israel wanted to make its own jets," says IMI Director-General Itzhak Ironi, "it now has the technology and industrial capacity to do so within the next two or three years."

* There was a stir last week when NBC reported that the Israelis are adding the atomic bomb to their already formidable arsenal of weaponry. Israel promptly denied the report, and U.S. intelligence and atomic experts confirmed that there is no hard evidence as yet to indicate that Israel is producing any nuclear weapons. Israel does have its own nuclear reactor, built with French aid, and the technological capability to produce a bomb whenever it chooses, probably within two years after the political decision to join the nuclear club is taken. Last week Israel reiterated its long-standing promise not to be the first nation to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.

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