Beginning the Search for Peace

After four wars and 25 years of hostility, Israel and its Arab neighbors gathered in Geneva last week to search together for a path to peace. It was the first time foreign ministers of the warring countries had ever sat down face to face--and they promptly got into a squabble that delayed for 45 minutes the opening of their conference at the United Nations' Palais des Nations. The problem was the seating arrangements.

Israel had expected the positioning of the six participants to be alphabetical, which meant that its logical place would be between Egypt and Jordan. Instead, after seven tables were drawn up in a circle in the muraled Council Chamber of the palace, Israel found itself seated between Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim and the empty seats reserved for the boycotting Syrians. Perhaps symbolically, however, the controversy was quickly settled by putting the Russian delegation next to Israel. That picayune beginning to the historic conference solved, the meeting proceeded smoothly to opening speeches that for the most part eloquently expressed the world's hope for peace.

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger quoted an Arabic expression -"Illi fat mat" (the past is dead)--and recommended that negotiators be guided by it during the days of difficult bargaining ahead. Said Kissinger: "The great tragedies of history occur not when right confronts wrong, but when two rights face each other. We are challenged by emotions so deeply felt that the tragic march from cataclysm to cataclysm sometimes seems preordained. Yet our presence here today is a symbol of rejection of this fatalistic view".

In their speeches during the initial two-day meeting, the hostile neighbors for the most part swallowed their bitterness and demonstrated an equal zeal for Kissinger's call to "overcome old myths with new hope." One reason for the rhetorical moderation was that there was a dreadful prospect staring at the conferees. If they failed to achieve peace, as Egypt's Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy pointed out, "the chances of repeating such a historical gathering will be very remote indeed."

Kissinger, in the week leading to Geneva, continued a whirlwind Middle East search for conciliation that left even his Arab hosts breathless. From conferences in Cairo with President Anwar Sadat, Kissinger flew on to Saudi Arabia for his second meeting in five weeks with King Feisal on the question of Arab oil for the U.S. From there his blue and white jet flew on to Damascus for the first visit in two decades of a U.S. Secretary of State to Syria. Kissinger had a cordial meeting with President Hafez Assad, but their conversations ended in a diplomatic impasse. Assad refused to join Jordan and Egypt in a united front of Arab combatants at the talks until Israel promised to return occupied land.

Middle Sinai. In Israel, Kissinger passed on to Premier Golda Meir the assertion by Assad that the Israeli P.O.W.s held by Syria (estimated in Jerusalem as 102 men) were being well treated. The Israelis were reassured by Kissinger that the U.S. will not force them to relinquish captured territory. Kissinger did, however, get across the message that it would be helpful if they were willing to negotiate the point. Israel also understood that it has veto power over any other delegations to be seated at the conference table. Thus the Israelis can oppose recognition of a separate Palestinian delegation led by Fedayeen Leader Yasser Arafat, unless it is part of the Jordanian contingent. The Israelis object to Arafat because they accuse him of guiding terrorists like those who carried out last week's attack in Rome (see following story).

Despite Kissinger's reassurances, the Israelis seemed doubtful that the Geneva meeting would accomplish anything substantive. They indicated that they were willing to pull back their forces from both banks of the Suez to the Mitla and Gidi passes in middle Sinai. In return, as Transportation Minister Shimon Peres said, "We want some guarantee that territorial concessions will bring about policy changes." One change that Israel will demand is full recognition by the Arabs. Israelis and the Arabs both are convinced, however, that a full peace agreement cannot be reached until the emotional issues of Jerusalem and the status of the Palestinians are settled. That is not likely to occur soon. Thus pessimistic Israeli negotiators anticipate that after disengagement is achieved the Middle East will return to a shaky state of "no war, no peace," with the armies in the Sinai out of range of one another but with nothing else resolved.

Egypt has an optimistic view of coming events. TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn was told by Cairo officials that Sadat expects major agreements to come out of the talks. The Egyptians say they are willing to have demilitarized zones set up in the Sinai with buffers manned by U.N. forces between the opposing armies. Egypt also is prepared to grant Israel full use of the Suez Canal once it is dredged and reopened. The Egyptians also made a remarkable but unsubstantiated claim that the U.S. had committed itself to the defense of Israel during the October war. Said a high Egyptian official: "As to security, the Israelis already have a guarantee. Kissinger has made us understand that, if our armies had started to cross the frontier into Israel, the U.S. would have used force to stop us. It seems to me that's enough guarantee for Israel, and frankly, that's all right with us."

Arriving in Geneva last week for the conference, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy expressed the hope of many of the conferees when he said that "the world rightly expects the conference will not lose time in producing tangible results." He was certainly right, but how much of the hope will be realized and how soon remained to be seen.

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