The Minister and His Mystery Trip

Dayan gets a message from an Arab leader

DAYAN SHUTTLE A MYSTERY, cried London's Daily Telegraph. Le Monde speculated on LES MYSTERIEUX DE-PLACEMENTS DE M. DAYAN. What prompted such puzzled headlines were some sudden and inexplicable changes in the flight plans of Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan. Shortly before he was scheduled to fly from Brussels to New York, Dayan dropped out of sight. He surfaced next day and took an El Al flight from Paris back to Israel, where he conferred briefly with Premier Menachem Begin. In Tel Aviv, Dayan deviated from his schedule once more: instead of taking an El Al flight to New York, he flew to Zurich to catch a Swissair jet.

What was Dayan up to? The second change in plans was for the luxury-loving minister's comfort and convenience. The first one, however, involved an important and secret diplomatic mission. TIME has learned that the reason for Dayan's mysterious disappearance and his unscheduled return to Israel was a rendezvous with Morocco's Hassan II at the King's summer palace in Tangier. Dayan flew to Tangier after disguising himself by taking off his famous black eyepatch and donning dark glasses and a diplomat's Homburg hat. The Moroccan King has met before with other Israeli leaders: his last such secret tete-`a-tete was six months ago, with former Premier Yitzhak Rabin. The Tangier summit was arranged because Hassan had a message for Dayan from King Khalid of Saudi Arabia, the bankroller of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The gist of the message, as conveyed by Hassan:

1) If negotiations break down and the alternative is war, Egypt would have to seek Russian military aid--a prospect that would threaten the moderate regime of President Anwar Sadat.

2) Egypt would consider interim talks as a fallback if Geneva negotiations failed. Syria is against interim agreements. But Saudi Arabia, whose views the Syrians obviously must respect, also favors limited talks to preserve momentum should Geneva not succeed.

3) Arab leaders are gravely concerned about the Begin policy of encouraging new Jewish settlements on occupied territory, particularly the West Bank.

Dayan considered Hassan's message so important that he returned to Israel--to Premier Begin's surprise--for discussions and perhaps fresh instructions. The Foreign Minister spent 80 minutes with Begin and three top aides: Major General Yitzhak Hoki, head of Mossad (Israel's equivalent of the CIA), Brigadier General Ephraim Poran, Begin's intelligence adviser, and Eliahu Ben-Eliassar, director-general of the Premier's office. Dayan discussed the need for alternative diplomatic approaches in case of a Geneva conference impasse. He also urged Begin to tone down all talk of new settlements, including hawkish Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon's grandiose plans to settle 2 million Jews in occupied territory. Dayan, however, flew on to Washington with instructions to pursue the prospects for an overall settlement within the framework of a Geneva conference.

Dayan's visit to Tangier was not his only recent encounter with an Arab head of state. Last month Dayan met Jordan's King Hussein in London, at a safe house jointly arranged by Israeli and Jordanian security agents. Hussein, who had five secret meetings with Rabin and one with former Defense Minister Shimon Peres, repeated a longstanding promise. Israel could have an overall peace treaty with Jordan if it returned all the occupied territory. Hussein said in effect: "I am ready to open a Jordanian embassy in Israel, but you will have to pull out from the West Bank." Hussein also indicated that he was willing to negotiate along the lines of the Israeli formula--a little land for a little peace. In return for an eight-to ten-mile strip along the Jordan River, Jordan would sign a partial agreement. The alternative, he warned, was for Dayan to "go deal with the P.L.O."

In their talks, Dayan stressed Israel's worries about border security. If Jordan once again controlled the West Bank, he insisted, Palestinian guerrillas might easily slip into Israel to carry out terrorist attacks. The gist of Hussein's reply: "You now control the West Bank. You have your army, police and security services. Have you been able to stop the terrorists? I might even do better than you have done." In the end, Dayan proposed a "functional partition" of the West Bank in exchange for a nonbelligerency treaty. Under such an agreement, the Israelis would maintain Jewish settlements on the West Bank and would control border security; the Amman government would have jurisdiction over the internal affairs of the Palestinian Arabs. The King was carefully noncommittal.

Dayan's secret talks have not been limited to Arab leaders. Since becoming Foreign Minister in Begin's government in June, he has held unpublicized discussions with the Shah of Iran, Turkish Premier Sueleyman Demirel and Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai. The meetings were designed to improve Israel's shadowy relations with what the late David Ben-Gurion called its "periphery alliances" on the outskirts of the Arab world. Iran, for example, supplies nearly all of Israel's oil. Turkey, after aloofness following the 1967 Middle East war, has again begun to trade and talk.

Beyond that, the secret meetings were calculated to brighten Dayan's image. He would like to succeed Begin as Premier, but he has not had a secure power base since leaving the Labor Alliance to join the new government. Secret diplomacy can make influential friends as well as intriguing headlines. It can also provoke critics. "Our Foreign Minister," editorialized the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv last week, "has special talents in the sphere of thunderous secrecy. The entire world is always well informed about his timetable. Mr. Dayan creates too much ado about his secrets." Added a second newspaper, Al Hamishmar. "He certainly achieved one aim--to keep the name Dayan in the headlines."

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