Jerusalem's answer on the West Bank further dims peace prospects
After almost two months of standing in the wings, the Middle East is back on the diplomatic stage again. When he visits Jerusalem this week for Israel's 30th anniversary celebrations, Vice President Walter Mondale will talk with Israeli leaders about how to get the stalled peace negotiations moving once more. After that, he plans to fly on to Alexandria for a meeting with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
Depending on how Mondale fares, Washington hopes to arrange a July meeting in Europe, probably in London, between Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and his Egyptian counterpart, Mohammed Ibrahim Kamel. Also attending: U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Following that, Vance might soon find himself flying to the Middle East for the fifth time since he took office 17 months ago.
What triggered much of this latest activity was Israel's response to two questions that the Carter Administration put to Dayan during a Washington visit two months ago. The U.S. pointedly asked Dayan to clarify Jerusalem's position on the captured Arab territory in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip: Would Israel be willing to declare that at the end of five years the final status of these areas would be resolved? And how might this resolution take place?
The government of Premier Menachem Begin took its time in arriving at its answers. When it finally did so last week, it was almost a year to the day after the ailing Polish-born guerrilla fighter and political mystic came to power and seven months following Sadat's "sacred mission" to Jerusalem. But the passage of time had not changed attitudes. The Israeli government's response was only a crisp observation that five years after a peace agreement Israel would be willing to negotiate "the nature of future relations" between itself and the West Bank. With that virtual nonanswer, the Begin government signaled once more that it was determined to hold on to the West Bank and Gaza at any price, even at the cost of foreclosing the best opportunity Israel has had to make peace with its Arab neighbors since its founding 30 years ago.
That was bad news for practically everybody; even within Israel it was widely criticized. Two of Begin's 19 Cabinet colleagues abstained from the Knesset vote, and a third, Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, stormed out of the meeting shouting and cursing. The decision, in his view, "will lead us all to another round of wars. I will go and prepare the army for the next war." The Labor opposition was also sharply critical. "What is the point of giving an answer that nobody will accept?" demanded Opposition Leader Shimon Peres. "Who needs a decision that by its very nature is a neither-nor reply?" Added former Premier Yitzhak Rabin: "It is ridiculous that the three main Cabinet members cannot agree on a decision like this."