NEW CHOICES IN THE MIDDLE EAST

DESPITE a winter of unremitting violence in the Middle East, it seemed last week that both the Israelis and the Arab fedayeen commandos were mounting spring offensives of strike and counterstrike. Israeli jets pounded guerrilla bases in Syria and Jordan. Fedayeen bombs exploded in Jerusalem and Lydda. Yet the two events that may affect the area's future more than the violence had to do with changes in leadership. In Israel, the sudden death by heart attack of Premier Levi Eshkol (see box following page) opened the possibility of a struggle for succession. In Syria, a forced change in government may help close ranks against Israel in the Arab world.

Active Self-Defense. At Eshkol's last Cabinet meeting, the Israeli government decided on a new policy to deal with the fedayeen: "active self-defense." as Foreign Minister Abba Eban put it, or waging war directly on the commandos, without regard to their host countries. If that amounted to recognition of the commandos as an independent force, it also assured them of a more harrowing existence. Hardly had the decision been announced when Israeli ground troops attacked a Jordanian police station suspected of being a jumping-off point for fedayeen raids. One Israeli soldier was wounded in an hour-long battle, which ended after Israel's jets were called in to bomb the Arab positions.

For the first time since the Six-Day War, Israeli jets attacked in Syria. More than a dozen planes bombed and strafed two fedayeen camps, one of them on the outskirts of Damascus. As usual, the roar of rockets was followed by a war of words; the Israelis claimed that as many as 80 fedayeen were killed and two Syrian MIG-17s shot down. The Syrians claimed to have downed three Israeli jets, and the fedayeen claimed that the attack had wounded only two guerrillas, while killing five civilians in a nearby washing-machine plant (the Syrians reported 15 dead).

The foray, however, had an unexpected side effect in bringing to a head a feud within the Syrian government. In what amounted to yet another upheaval in Syria, Lieut. General Hafiz Assad, the Defense Minister, posted troops around government ministries and television studios in a show of strength against Chief of State Dr. Noureddine al Atassi and Baathist Party Boss Salah Jaid. If Assad makes his power play stick, one result could well be an end to Syria's quarrels with the rival Baath party in Iraq, and its isolation in the Arab world, which could lead to a more active role against Israel.

The guerrillas also stepped up their war, as weather improved. The fedayeen planted a package of explosives outside the British consulate in Jerusalem, presumably in response to reports that Britain intends to sell tanks to Israel, reports that London declines to confirm or deny. Another bomb went off in the marketplace of Lydda, wounding an Arab grocer. In Jordan, fedayeen leaders took to moving from camp to camp, fearing assassination by Israeli infiltrators. King Hussein temporarily closed down Amman airport, and Egypt's Nasser declared a state of emergency.

Psalm Readings. Israel, however, was overnight less preoccupied with external anger than with internal sorrow. Only a few of Premier Levi Eshkol's closest associates knew that he had suffered a heart attack last month and offered to resign. Persuaded to stay on, he relinquished much of his detailed, day-to-day work to Deputy Premier Yigal Allon. On the day before his death, Eshkol seemed unusually ebullient for a convalescent, a fact that troubled Allon, who recalled that his own father had been in especially high spirits just before he died. Eshkol scheduled a ministerial committee meeting for the next day, but in midmorning the Voice of Israel suddenly switched from advertising jingles to funeral music and Psalm readings and announced his death.

Conscious of the need for continuity of leadership, the Cabinet named Allon to carry on while a successor is chosen to head the government until Israel's general elections next October. To fill that largely caretaker role, party leaders offered the top job to the one person around whom all Israeli politicians could rally: strongwilled, grandmotherly ex-Foreign Minister Golda Meir.

In effect, the premiership was hers for the asking, but she delayed her decision until at least after Eshkol's funeral. Now 70, she is in less than robust health. "The people of Israel," editorialized the daily Ha'aretz, "have the right to expect that the helm be given to a younger person, whose power of action will not be restricted by age or health." That widely held feeling would not ultimately affect the choice. With the disciplined ranks of the labor party behind the leadership's choice, the decision, as Mrs. Meir once put it, "will not be made in the streets."

Biblical Predecessors. If she accepts, the Russian-born onetime Milwaukee schoolteacher will be the third woman to rule Israel and the territory that was ancient Judah (after two Biblical predecessors, Jezebel's daughter Athaliah and Queen Alexandra). A longtime aide to Premier David Ben-Gurion, who once called her "the only man in my Cabinet" because she firmly backed his hard-lining policies toward the Arabs, she served as Labor Minister, and later as Foreign Minister for ten years. In 1966, she retired from the government, but until last summer remained Secretary General of the Israel Labor Party.

Mrs. Meir's supporters want her to take the interim premiership to head off a showdown between two younger contenders, whose rivalry might otherwise divide the government and country between now and October. They are Allon, 50, the favorite of the party establishment, and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, 53, whose immense popularity with the grass roots is not shared by the party brass. Something of a lone wolf, Dayan is not one either to seek or accept advice, and is considered unpredictable and undisciplined by the staunch conservatives of the Labor Party machine. A pragmatist who operates largely on intuition, Dayan as Premier would make his own decisions as head of a Cabinet of technocrats. By contrast, Allon would likely lead a Cabinet of political leaders. Though he lacks Dayan's flair, Allon is a supreme organization man and meticulous planner. As Premier, he would also make one major innovation in Israel's decision-making machinery: a National Security Council, following the U.S. model.

Last week Dayan let it be known that he would support Mrs. Meir for the premiership but would oppose any other candidate, whether Allon or such dark-horse possibilities as Secretary-General of the Labor Party Pinhas Sapir or Foreign Minister Abba Eban. The decision was prudent on Dayan's part, since he would stand little chance of winning a party fight with Mrs. Meir.

Nonetheless, Dayan's patience might well give Allon a substantial lead. As Premier, Mrs. Meir could be expected to advance the fortunes of Allon, her own favorite for the permanent premiership. In other matters, she would likely govern, as did Eshkol, by consensus politics, and make virtually no change in Israel's policies toward the Arabs. She had still to give her final decision at week's end, but after a lifetime in Israeli politics, she could be only too well aware that a "no" would open the way to a damaging intraparty dispute at a time when Israel needs most of all to present a united front to its enemies.

Jerusalem Earth. If any reminder of Israel's siege mentality were needed, it was provided in the tight security surrounding Eshkol's state funeral. The Premier had wanted to be buried at Degania B, a kibbutz he helped to found near the Jordanian border. The Cabinet decided for security reasons to bury him instead on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, named for the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, who is buried there. For the funeral, reservists were called up and extra police posted in Arab sections of the city. After a service in the Knesset plaza, the procession moved quickly to the graveside, where the coffin was hurriedly lowered into a stone-lined grave. Acting Premier Allon stood beside Eshkol's widow, Miriam, while Dayan stood at the edge of the crowd and Mrs. Meir, teary-eyed and pale, was lost amid the throng. An army detail placed slabs of marble on top of the coffin and then poured baskets of Jerusalem earth into the grave.

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