Middle East: Within Reach?

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Hopes for a breakthrough

All sides cautioned that an agreement was far from imminent. Still, there was a distinct sense last week that a breakthrough in the negotiations for Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon might be in the making. Said a high U.S. official in the Middle East: "It's within reach, but the Israeli Cabinet will have to make some tough decisions." That guardedly optimistic assessment of the trilateral U.S.-Lebanese-Israeli talks was the most hopeful sign yet that U.S. Special Envoy Philip Habib has made progress in bringing the two sides closer together. Late last week Habib flew to Cairo to brief the Egyptian government on the outline of a tentative plan. He then went on to Jerusalem for discussions with Israeli officials before returning to the U.S. for consultations.

American officials said that reports early last week that Israel had agreed to the plan and then reneged were not true. "We have made great headway with the Lebanese," said a State Department aide in Washington, "but Israel has not yet agreed." The U.S., however, has made clear to Israel that it considers the Lebanese positions worked out with Habib "reasonable." The essential terms of Habib's proposal:

— Normalization of relations between Israel and Lebanon will be negotiated some months after a full troop withdrawal. This would give Lebanon time to work out terms that would not be rejected by other Arab states, which provide sorely needed export markets for Lebanese goods.

— Border zone security would be handled by joint Lebanese-Israeli inspection teams. The Israeli participants would be garrisoned in Israel rather than in Lebanon, as Israel had proposed. The U.S. backs the Lebanese position that Israeli security does not require the presence of Israeli troops on Lebanese soil. Lebanon probably would not object to a 28-mile zone north of the Israeli border that has been demanded by Israel.

— The border itself would be patrolled by the regular Lebanese army. The militia of Major Saad Haddad, Israel's Lebanese surrogate in the border area for the past six years, would be disbanded. Haddad would be "treated honorably" and given military retirement or a diplomatic post.

— UNIFIL, the United Nations peacekeeping force that now polices the border, would be moved north to assist the Lebanese army in guarding the Palestinian refugee camps at Sidon and Tyre. There is an urgent need for more protection for the Palestinians. Authorities report an increasing number of kidnapings and murders of Palestinians believed to be the work of Phalangist militiamen, and there are widespread fears that the stage is being set for another massacre like that at the Beirut camps last September.