Bombs and Ugly Rhetoric

The Arab world reacts in anger to "the traitor's treaty"

Even as Israel's Premier Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat flew to the U.S. for the treaty-signing ceremony in Washington, the euphoric glow surrounding Jimmy Carter's diplomatic success was beginning to fade. The dark prospect of an oil crunch loomed in the months ahead. Arab countries quickly vowed to exact their revenge on Egypt for signing what Damascus radio called "the traitor's treaty." Even moderate Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Jordan warned that the treaty was doomed because it did not deal satisfactorily with the Palestinian problem. With considerable understatement, one Administration official last week admitted that "even after we get the peace treaty tied up and signed, our real problems will still lie ahead."

A sample of these difficulties became apparent very quickly, as President Carter dispatched his National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski to Saudi Arabia and Jordan to solicit support for the treaty. He was accompanied by General David Jones, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other officials from the State and Defense departments. As a symbolic expression of his concern, Carter sent along his son Chip, 28.

Brzezinski made precious little headway with the Saudis, even though he emphasized that the U.S. was committed to achieving a comprehensive peace settlement and viewed the Egyptian-Israeli treaty as the "cornerstone" of a wider settlement. The Saudi leaders implied that no "punitive action" would be taken against Egypt, presumably meaning that they would not cooperate in an economic boycott or trim their current aid to Egypt of $1.5 billion a year. But the Saudis flatly refused to endorse the treaty.

Brzezinski got an even frostier reception from Jordan's King Hussein, who later said he resented the American "arm twisting." Hussein quoted Brzezinski as saying "If you go along with the treaty, Congress and American public opinion will be very happy. If not, they won't be." Hussein took this to mean that U.S. aid to Jordan would be affected, and it made him mad. In the scramble for realignment in the face of the impending treaty, Hussein has even reconciled with Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, with whom he has been at bloody odds since 1970.

Both Saudi Arabia and Jordan are reluctant to give even tentative support to the Egyptian-Israeli treaty lest this destroy their maneuverability within the Arab world. More radical Arab states, notably Syria and Iraq, are angry about the treaty because they know that without the full support of Egypt it will be difficult mount a plausible military threat against Israel. Once the treaty is signed, Egypt will almost certainly be expelled from the Arab League. At the very least, the league's headquarters is likely to be moved out of Cairo, probably to Tunisia. After that, radical Arabs will exert pressure on the Saudis to cut their aid to Egypt and on the other oil-producing states to raise the stakes in the petroleum diplomacy game once again. Says a senior Western diplomat: "The irony is that the peace treaty is uniting the Arabs, if only in their determination to wreck it."

Fully aware of this growing enmity, the Carter Administration was busy giving last-minute assurances of support to the Israelis and the Egyptians. Both Israeli Defense Minister Ezer Weizman and Egyptian Defense Minister Kamel Hassan Ali arrived in Washington with impressive shopping lists. As a reward for signing the treaty, Israel is to receive $3 billion in new aid, including $2.2 billion in credits over three years and $800 million in grants to finance the removal of Israeli airfields in the Sinai desert. All this is in addition to the $1.8 billion in annual military and economic aid that Israel gets from the U.S. Last week President Carter approved Weizman's latest arms requests which include 200 M-60 tanks, 800 armored personnel carriers, 200 artillery pieces, 600 Maverick air-to-ground missiles and 600 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. The U.S. also agreed to speed up delivery of 75 F-16 fighter planes; they will reach Israel by 1980 instead of 1983.

As for Egypt, it will receive $1.5 billion in new U.S. military assistance, a figure that will undoubtedly rise if Saudi Arabia decides to cut its aid. Egypt's package of new arms includes five Hawk surface-to-air defense systems, four destroyers, an unspecified number of submarines, tanks and F-4 fighter planes. This is in addition to the $750 million in economic aid and $200 million in food aid that Egypt currently receives from Washington.

These imposing figures are apparently only the beginning of what President Sadat has in mind. After the signing, Sadat plans to stay on in Washington to push for U S acceptance of his $15 billion economic development scheme, which he calls "the Carter Plan." With some justification, the Egyptian President argues that his courageous pursuit of peace has isolated him dangerously in the Middle East Egypt is threatened by radical regimes in Libya and elsewhere. From within, it faces the same kind of Islamic fundamentalist forces that helped topple the Shah of Iran. The solution, Sadat believes, is to wage a gigantic war on his nation s poverty, and the only way to do that is to secure huge amounts of Western aid.

Apart from promising material assistance, the Carter Administration has sought to assure the Israelis that their vital interests will be protected. Extending a five-year commitment made in 1975, the U.S. has pledged to provide Israel with oil for 15 years if the Israelis on their own should be unable to acquire sufficient supplies, either from Egypt or on the world market. Late last week the Administration concluded a bilateral memorandum of agreement with Israel under which the U.S. promises to "consult" with Israel--that is, to give it some sort of support--if Egypt should violate the terms of the peace treaty, and to use its veto if the U.N. Security Council should try to take action against the treaty.

Advance word of these new commitments undoubtedly helped Premier Begin win parliamentary support of the treaty. During a marathon 28 1/2-hour session of the Knesset, the longest on record, Begin once again found himself supported by the opposition Labor Party and bitterly attacked by some members of his right-wing Likud coalition. To help appease the treaty opponents, Begin delivered a hawkish, two-hour speech in which he vowed that "Israel will never return to the lines of June 4, 1967," that Jerusalem "will never again be divided," and that a Palestinian state "will never be established" in the West Bank and Gaza. He also declared, curiously, that autonomy would apply only to the Palestinians as individuals and not to the areas in which they live. This caused Opposition Leader Shimon Peres to ask: "How can you distinguish between a person and his home, or between a farmer and his field?"

In the end, the Knesset supported the peace treaty, 95 to 18. But Begin's tough speech drew an angry reaction from the Egyptians. Said Premier Mustafa Khalil: "His remarks unfortunately have spoiled the atmosphere." In an obvious effort to placate the Saudis, Khalil added that Begin's speech "contradicts the basis of the settlement agreed upon at Camp David." Sadat in his turn emphasized that when the West Bank and Gaza talks begin one month after the treaty signing, the future of East Jerusalem will be very much a part of the discussions.

In an interview broadcast over Egyptian television, President Carter declared that the U.S. was prepared to deal directly with the P.L.O. if only that organization would recognize Israel's right to exist. A P.L.O. spokesman replied, "It's too late for that." A few hours after Begin's departure for the U.S., a bomb went off in the center of Jerusalem, killing a bystander and wounding 14 others. In the ugly rhetoric of revenge that currently dominates much of the Arab world, the spokesman continued, "Sadat is no longer an Arab. In signing the treaty with Israel, he is signing his own death warrant. The people of Egypt will execute him, and the P.L.O. will be at their side."

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