Down to the Last 2%

Israel, Egypt and the U.S. begin peace treaty talks

In the blue-gray uniform of Egypt's supreme commander, President Anwar Sadat last week commemorated the fifth anniversary of the October War with an impressive military review in the desert west of the Suez Canal. A bagpipe band skirled It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary, as MiG-21 fighters screamed overhead, and 10,000 Egyptian troops--accompanied by a stunning array of military hardware--paraded under a blistering sun. It was one of modern Egypt's most imposing military displays. Nonetheless, the message was that Anwar Sadat was ready to wage peace, not war--albeit from a position of strength.

Sadat is wholeheartedly committed to the negotiations that are scheduled to begin in Washington this Thursday. In fulfillment of the Camp David pledges, Israeli and Egyptian delegations will convene for talks that could lead to a full-fledged peace treaty between the two adversaries by the end of the year. In fact, all sides were hopeful that negotiations would be completed in time to sign the treaty on Nov. 19, the first anniversary of Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem. Some Israeli officials claim now that 98% of the issues to be discussed have already been resolved. Sadat, praising President Carter as a leader "who changed the face of history from bitterness to love and from war to peace," invited his Camp David host to attend the treaty signing. The President immediately accepted, although one of the matters still to be decided is where the event will take place.

Indeed, it was Washington that had to resolve the basic issue of where and when the talks would be held. Egypt had proposed Ismailia, the town on the Suez Canal where Sadat met with Israeli Premier Menachem Begin last December; Israel wanted at least some of the talks to be held on its soil and suggested the Negev capital of Beersheba. Carter finally proposed Washington as a compromise. Shortly after the Camp David summit ended, the Egyptians suggested that talks might begin on Oct. 11--which is the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Remembering that Egypt had started the 1973 war on Yom Kippur, the Israelis refused. Washington tactfully proposed Oct. 12.

The Israeli delegation will be headed by Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, while the Egyptian delegation will be led by Lieut. General Kamal Hassan Ali, Sadat's newly appointed Defense Minister. Meeting at Blair House, across the street from the White House, the participants will divide into working groups to hammer out military and diplomatic procedures.

The agenda, defined by the Camp David accords, will deal with points related to the normalization of relations between the two countries. For the Egyptians, the major problem is the schedule of Israeli military withdrawal from the Sinai. In addition, the exact parameters of demilitarized zones and the stationing of U.N. peacekeeping troops will have to be settled. So will the status of U.S. monitoring stations that have been operating in the Sinai since the interim accord of 1975.

The Israelis will seek to pin Egypt down on the exact nature of peace: that is, when ambassadors will be exchanged, what kind of commercial relations will be opened, and who will be permitted to use a new highway that will cross Israel and link the Sinai to Jordan. Finally, there is the question of where the treaty will be signed. Israel will opt for Jerusalem, Egypt for either Mount Sinai (Sadat's sentimental favorite) or Cairo. Failing agreement--and judging from obvious precedent--the site could turn out to be Washington.

The volatile issue of the West Bank and Gaza Strip will be played down in order not to hold up the treaty. Nonetheless, the Egyptian team will try to get as much linkage as possible between its Sinai deal and the future status of these occupied territories. The Egyptians expect the Israelis to make some unilateral gestures on the West Bank to parallel the Sinai talks. For one thing, they want the Israelis to dismantle their military government at about the time that an Israeli-Egyptian peace pact is signed. Another gesture could be the release of a sizable number of Palestinian political prisoners.

So far Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Gaza have denounced 'the Camp David accords as a sellout; Jordan's King Hussein has resisted all efforts to bring him into the peace process. In a recent secret meeting with a leading Israeli official, TIME has learned, Hussein again refused to join the negotiations. He complained that the Israelis had not left him any options that would make it possible for him to participate. Offering to give "all the guarantees you need that the West Bank will never become a Palestine Liberation Organization state," the King pleaded with the Israelis, "Let me handle my Palestinians."

Nonetheless, Washington is continuing its efforts to bring in both the Palestinians and Hussein. Ambassador-at-Large Alfred Atherton last week explained the Camp David proposals to a select group of West Bank and Gaza leaders; meanwhile, State Department officials drew up responses to a list of two dozen questions posed by Hussein about the agreements. The King was particularly concerned about the future of predominantly Arab east Jerusalem, whether Jewish settlers would participate in the self-governing authority for the West Bank, and the issue of who would exercise sovereignty over the area after the transition period ends.

Washington will probably ease its pressure on Hussein. As one leading Egyptian diplomat puts it, "We need to give Hussein a little time." Once Israeli military rule is abolished in the occupied territories, it is more likely that Hussein could be persuaded to join in the effort to develop Palestinian self-government.

On a state visit to Moscow last week, Syrian President Hafez Assad joined Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev in a communique denouncing the "separate Camp David deal" as a "collusion arranged behind the back of the Arab nations," which would make an overall Middle East settlement "significantly more difficult." Both Assad and Brezhnev also demanded the resumption of a Geneva conference, under joint U.S. and U.S.S.R. sponsorship, which would work out a settlement based on unconditional Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territories.

Despite the rancor hurled at him by Arab radicals, Sadat was acting as if peace had already been achieved. Last week he told Egypt's People's Assembly that his government was initiating "a new society to achieve prosperity and relieve the suffering of the masses." In a drastic change of government, he replaced 21 of his 32 ministers, bringing in 19 men who had not previously served at Cabinet level. The most surprising change was the removal of General Mohammed Abdel Ghany Gamassy as War Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and General Mohammed Aly Fahmy as Chief of Staff. Both men, who were regarded as Sadat loyalists in the past, will continue as his military advisers. Moustafa Khalil, who lately has served as Secretary-General of the Arab Socialist Union, was named Premier to replace Manduh Salem. In a rueful commentary on the fact that his last three Foreign Ministers had resigned at crucial moments in the peace process, Sadat decided not to appoint anyone to that post. Officials in Jerusalem worried about the sudden downgrading of Gamassy, who is highly respected by many ranking Israelis. Yet the fact that Sadat was able to undertake the shuffle without alienating his army was encouraging evidence that Egypt's man of peace was still very much in charge. -

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