"Our efforts to be a broker are dead." With that crisp summary, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, at a meeting of congressional leaders last week, admitted the most notable failure in his extraordinary diplomatic career. Kissinger's inability to get Israel and Egypt to accept a second-stage disengagement agreement in the Sinai cast the Middle East once more into a mood of tension. The collapse of the American peace initiative left a reconvening of the Geneva Conference or another round of war as alternatives to Kissinger's step-by-step approach to bilateral negotiations. What had gone wrong? Who was to blame? What would happen next?
Washington's pique, as President Ford's reaction indicated, was directed mostly at Israel. Kissinger himself was particularly disappointed that the divided and insecure government of Premier Yitzhak Rabin was not bold enough to make more concessions to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who had risked his political reputation in the Arab world by undertaking the bilateral talks. The breakdown of negotiations meant that Jerusalem had lost not only the chance for accommodation in the Sinai but, more important, the opportunity of keeping the whole peacemaking process moving toward the kind of Middle East settlement that Israel has hoped for ever since it was founded.
The irony of Kissinger's failure was that he had come so close to success. The Secretary had spent seven months sounding out both sides and defining areas of discussion and possible agreement. Cairo and Jerusalem both encouraged him to resume his unique diplomatic shuttle, which Kissinger insisted he would not undertake unless there was a reasonable chance of success.
Sadat interpreted the negotiations as primarily involving a second-stage military disentanglement. He wanted major pullbacks of Israeli forces in the Sinai, which would allow Egypt to reopen the Suez Canal. Israel was willing to withdraw from the strategic Giddi and Mitla passes in the Sinai (see map page 14) and also from the Abu Rudeis oilfields, which have been pumping Egyptian oil for Israel since they were captured in the 1967 Six-Day War. In return, however,
Israel demanded a declaration of nonbelligerency from Egypt.
This Sadat refused to give, for two reasons: 1) a declaration of nonbelligerency would mean a formal end to hostilities between the two countries at a time when Israel still occupied large areas of Egyptian territory, a politically unacceptable concession; 2) any declaration of nonbelligerency would split Egypt off from its Arab allies, and Sadat had publicly committed himself to the proposition that there can be no formal peace with Israel unless a settlement is also made with the Syrians and the Palestinians.
Israel was not prepared to make any concessions on the Golan Heights to the Syrians, and it refuses to discuss the future of the West Bank with the hated Palestine Liberation Organization. Kissinger was, however, able to narrow the differences between Egypt and Israel on the Sinai. But the more they were narrowed, the more difficult the process became.