MIDDLE EAST: Close, Yet So Far Away

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The linkage issue holds up peace treaty talks once more

Ah, that final 10%. "We have already achieved 90% of our goal [of peace]," declared Egyptian President Anwar Sadat last week. That sounded great, but then he added: "Now we are in a serious crisis, and if we can avoid it in order to achieve the remaining 10%, even by suspending the talks for a while, so be it."

That did not sound promising, considering that nine weeks have passed since the Gamp David accords. But if nothing else, Sadat's good news-bad news comment proved anew, in case any such demonstration was needed, that Middle East peace negotiations are still on a roller coaster of moods ranging from the rhapsodic to the bleak. A few days after Cairo officials had been saying privately that the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel was almost wrapped up, they were hinting that the talks were on the verge of collapse.

The Israelis were also up and down.

After flying home from Washington for Cabinet discussions about the latest version of the treaty, Israeli negotiators announced: "The draft is almost ready." Within days, they too were expressing worries about a new crisis. Discouraged by the weeks of haggling, President Carter worried aloud last week that the peace process might be collapsing over mere "technicalities, legalisms and phrases." Said one U.S. official, exhausted by the endless treaty revisions that have been requested by both sides: "We are close, yet so far away."

The main sticking point, as always, was "linkage"—the relationship between the pending Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and the pursuit of a broader peace that will, among other things, provide autonomy for the Palestinians of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the aftermath of the recent Arab summit conference in Baghdad, which condemned the Sadat peace initiative and the Camp David accords, the Egyptians are more determined than ever to prove to their Arab brethren that they are not selling out the cause by making a separate peace with the Israelis.

The U.S. last week proposed another compromise peace formula. Sadat and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin should exchange letters on what Egypt's First Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs Osama el Baz calls "the chronological parallelism" (euphemism for linkage) between Israel's Sinai withdrawal and preparations for self-rule in the occupied territories. In these letters the two leaders would pledge that 1) talks on autonomy for the West Bank and Gaza would begin within one month of the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, and 2) elections for local governing councils for those territories should take place by the end of 1979. U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance presented the plan to Begin and Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport as the Israelis were preparing to leave for home. Begin was, predictably, unenthusiastic; Dayan surprised his Premier by telling Vance: "If the Egyptians are willing to accept [this proposal], I am ready to accept it."