MIDDLE EAST: Israel Loses a Round

"This is anti-Israel festival week," groaned one foreign ministry official in Jerusalem. To a large extent, he was right. At the United Nations last week, Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization won a stunning diplomatic victory that came as a sharp defeat for the increasingly isolated and friendless Israelis. In effect, the Security Council virtually recognized the P.L.O. as the government in exile of a potential state equal in international standing to Israel. Over the violent protestations of U.S. Ambassador Daniel P. Moynihan, the Security Council voted 9 to 3 (with three abstentions) to invite representatives of the P.L.O. to participate in a formal council debate on "Israeli aggression" against Lebanon, with the same rights that are granted member nations of the United Nations.

Bizarre Drama. The Palestinian diplomatic coup was the climax of a bizarre week-long drama of Arab and Israeli face-saving, double-talking, bluff-calling and epithet-hurling. It began when the Security Council, after frantic three-day consultations, accepted a Syrian demand that renewal of the mandate for the U.N. forces on the Golan Heights be linked to a proposal for a full-scale Security Council debate on the Middle East. Representatives of the P.L.O., who gained permanent observer status in the General Assembly last year but had never been included in Security Council proceedings before, were to be invited to participate in this debate, scheduled to begin on Jan. 12. The mandate renewal, which was to expire four hours before the agreement was reached, was accepted with relief by all parties.

The invitation to the P.L.O. was another matter. It was interpreted by many not only as a victory for Arab hard-liners (and for Syria in particular) but as a serious diplomatic defeat for Israel, the U.S. and even Egypt, which had bilaterally negotiated a Sinai accord earlier this year without gaining any concessions for the Palestinians.

The reaction of Israel was swift, blunt and angry. Jerusalem was particularly annoyed at what it saw as a betrayal by Washington; Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the Israelis felt, should have ordered Moynihan to veto the mandate resolution rather than permit greater international recognition of the P.L.O. After a six-hour emergency session on Monday, Premier Yitzhak Rabin's Cabinet decided to boycott next month's U.N. debate. It also approved a proposal to establish four new settlements on the Golan Heights within the next two weeks—a move that will make any future territorial negotiations with Syria considerably more difficult. The Cabinet issued a stern warning that "Israel will deem Syria responsible for any murderous activity perpetrated by terrorists coming from Syrian territory." In response, Palestine commando leaders in Lebanon threatened stepped-up activity against Israel. From Damascus came reports that Syria would not stand idly by while Israel built new settlements on the Golan Heights.