Will the Working Paper Work?

If it does, it's no labor of love for the principals involved

"The conversation with President Carter was brutal. The President accused Israel of putting obstacles in the way of reaching a peace treaty. He warned, if you do not reach an agreement with us, you will remain isolated throughout the world. My response was, I prefer a split in relations between Israel and the U.S. rather than a Palestinian state. I was not too polite in my response to the President. "

That was Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan's version last week of his late-night discussion in New York City with President Carter and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance about a new Geneva peace conference (TIME, Oct. 17). Dayan gave his harsh account of the talks--Washington insisted they were "direct," perhaps even "blunt," but far from "brutal"--during a Knesset debate on the working paper on Geneva that he and the American leaders had accepted. The Foreign Minister was defending himself against opposition charges that he had knuckled under to Washington's pressure by tacitly accepting a Palestine Liberation Organization presence at Geneva. As proof to the contrary, he read out an official text of the hitherto secret agreement. Dayan's disclosures about his conversa tions with Carter and Vance indicated that the U.S.-Israeli relationship was still badly strained. In addition, there was more than a reasonable doubt that Arab leaders, who are now studying the working paper, could accept it as a formula for getting the peace conference under way.

According to Dayan, the working paper contained six points. The two sides agreed that:

P: "The Arab parties at Geneva will be represented by a unified Arab delegation which will include Palestinian Arabs. After the opening sessions, the conference will be split into working groups.

P: "The working groups for the negotiation and conclusion of peace treaties will be formed as follows: a) Egypt-Israel, b) Jordan-Israel, c) Syria-Israel, d) Lebanon-Israel. All the parties agree that Lebanon may join the conference when it so requests.

P: "The West Bank and Gaza issues will be discussed in a working group to consist of Israel, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Arabs.

P: "The solution of the problem of the Arab refugees and of the Jewish refugees will be discussed in accordance with terms to be agreed upon.

P: "The agreed basis for the negotiations at the Geneva peace conference on the Middle East is U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 [which classify the Palestinian presence in any negotiations as a refugee problem].

P: "All the initial terms of reference of the Geneva peace conference remain in force, except as may be agreed on by the parties."

Almost as intriguing as what the working paper included was what it did not include. Immediately after the Dayan-Carter talks, U.S. officials had hinted that Jerusalem was willing to accept a vague formula by which low-level P.L.O. members or supporters might be included among the Palestinians at Geneva and that Israel would not check their credentials too carefully. In his statement to the Knesset, Dayan said flatly that "we have a full agreement with the U.S. that no P.L.O. people will become members of the U.A.D. If one of the Palestinians should rise and say 'I represent the P.L.O.,' he would have to leave at once as this stands in [contradiction] to the agreement."

Dayan went on to say that the only Palestinians he would accept at Geneva would be representatives of Arabs who live on the West Bank or in Gaza. Washington denied that there was any clear-cut agreement on the Palestinian issue, if only because no one so far can agree on who is and who is not a P.L.O. member.

The essential disagreement on the Palestinian issue could easily derail further talks. From their meetings with Carter and Vance, the leading Arab foreign ministers thought that a formula had been found to get the P.L.O. into Geneva, if only through the back door. Said Egypt's Ismail Fahmy last week: "The P.L.O. will be represented in the reconvened Geneva on equal footing with others in the conference. This should be known to the Israelis. When Moshe Dayan says that he does not agree to sit with the P.L.O. at Geneva, he is only making excuses for not going to the conference."

Washington clearly still had a lot of diplomatic footwork ahead on the Palestinian puzzle, and some of it would have to be more deft than its zigging and zagging of recent days. Although divided on many other matters (see box), P.L.O. leaders are united on two points: 1) that they alone will determine who represents the Palestinians and 2) that the question of a Palestinian state must be discussed at Geneva. Seeking support for his position, P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat spent five hours last week with Hafez Assad and emerged to report that the Syrian President was still in favor of "self-determination, repatriation and an establishment of an independent state."

Carter does not favor an "independent state," despite his statements about the need for a Palestinian homeland. "I never advocated an independent Palestine state," the President said last week. Privately, many Arab moderates agree with his Administration policy that any Palestinian entity set up by Geneva would have to be confederated in some way with Jordan.

At week's end Israeli spokesmen were expressing confidence that Arab leaders would speedily approve the working paper and start preparing for Geneva. A more likely prospect is that the Arabs will demand some further revisions of their own in the formula, which Carter and Vance will then have to renegotiate in more wrestling matches with Dayan. Nor did the Israelis help matters by opening up another Jewish settlement last week on the West Bank, at Kfar Ruth, and authorizing the establishment of six more Israeli army bases inside the occupied West Bank area.

Arabs regard the proliferation of Israeli settlements as proof that Israel will never surrender the West Bank and is not much interested in going to Geneva anyway. Inadvertently, Israel's Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren may have provided further support for that view. "Geneva is like the next world," he said. "It is a beautiful place to be, but you try everything you can not to go there too soon."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.