MIDDLE EAST: Israel Loses a Round

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Official Status. Publicly the Egyptians had to do something to refurbish their image as champions of Arab solidarity. To one-up their Syrian rivals, the Egyptian delegation at the U.N. called for an immediate emergency meeting of the Security Council last Wednesday to discuss "Israeli aggression" against Lebanon—with P.L.O. participation. The P.L.O. then forced the issue of their official status at the U.N. by refusing to participate under Procedural Rule 39, which would allow them to participate rather amorphously as "persons who can supply information" useful to the council. Instead, they asked to be admitted under Rule 37, which governs "member states," thus precipitating last Thursday's watershed vote.

The Syrians, however, trumpeted the Security Council vote as a major victory for their aggressive strategy—and as a major setback for the Egyptian policy of seeking peace on the installment plan with Israel. "Syria has realized an important political achievement for the Palestinian cause," proclaimed the Damascus newspaper Al Thawra. "The Security Council's resolution was a defeat for the step-by-step diplomacy and the policy of bilateral and partial solutions." Syrian Defense Minister Major-General Moustafa Tlas also gratuitously sneered at the Egyptian-Israeli accord on the Sinai. "The Egyptian administration regained a few kilometers of land," he said, "where troops armed with rifles only can enter. But the Egyptian army cannot take up positions in the strategic Sinai passes because American spies and experts will be stationed there."

To some Israeli hawks, the U.S. vote on the mandate was evidence that Washington is changing its policy of aloofness toward the P.L.O. The State Department firmly denies there is any such shift, but there has been some indication of at least willingness to rethink the issue. Last month then Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Harold

Saunders submitted a document to the House Committee on International Relations that stressed the importance of the Palestinian question as "the heart of the conflict" in the Middle East. The Saunders paper raised the possibility of negotiations between Israel and the P.L.O. on the future of a Palestinian state if the P.L.O. would renounce terrorism and recognize Israel's right to exist.

Half Loaf. The Saunders testimony, even as it profoundly disturbed Israelis, profoundly intrigued Palestinian moderates, including Yasser Arafat. According to some reports, he is ready to accept a "half a loaf solution to the Middle East problem—a state on the West Bank and in Gaza, instead of all Palestine. Although they are still a distinctly minority voice, at least five dovish ministers in the Israeli Cabinet have called for a new policy under which Israel would announce its willingness to negotiate with any group of Palestinians that would recognize Israel, renounce the use of terrorism against it, and accept the Security Council's resolutions on the Middle East. Proponents of this policy argue that it would help Israel regain some support in world opinion.