Dayan gets a message from an Arab leader
DAYAN SHUTTLE A MYSTERY, cried London's Daily Telegraph. Le Monde speculated on LES MYSTÉRIEUX DÉ-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 téte-à-téte 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.