MIDDLE EAST PEACE CAN PRESIDENT NASSER HANDLE THE PALESTINIANS?

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32385, 26 August 1970, Page 12

MIDDLE EAST PEACE CAN PRESIDENT NASSER HANDLE THE PALESTINIANS?

(By

JOHN BULLOCH,

writing to the "Daily Telegraph", London, from Beirut)

(Reprinted by arrangement)

The first halting step towards peace in the Middle East has split the Arab world as it has never been split before. Egypt and Iraq are waging a vitriolic propaganda campaign against each other. Algeria is withdrawing its troops from the battle, Jordan is a nation cut in two, the Libyan Government makes flatly contradictory statements with the sincerity of a Persian carpet-seller, and Syria says one thing and does another. All this has stemmed from the Egyptian and Jordanian acceptance of a 90-day cease-fire, and their agreement to resume indirect contacts with Israel.

If it has done nothing else, the American initiative has at least shown how hollow were the boasts of increasing Arab unity. In fact, the peace plan has done much more. It has shown how weary the main combatants have become, how flexible apparently rigid positions were, and, above all, it has proved that America and Russia were on a collision course in the Middle East. It demonstrated their realisation that only a disengagement could prevent a conflagration. The precarious truce which now exists was forced on their client States by America and Russia. Before President Nasser went to Moscow, he was casting about for a way of rejecting the American initiative which would make it seem that it was Israeli intransigence which prevented peace. On his return, he announced his “unqualified acceptance” of the proposals.

Arm-twisting His speech was the result of prolonged Russian armtwisting, but it led to a new mood in Egypt The ordinary people, sick of shortages, biack-outs, restrictions and constant toll of the fighting, were delighted at their leader's “volte-face.” Over the following weeks, the Egyptian hierarchy, stunned at first by the massive reversal of policy, have come to accept it as the best and easiest way to gain their country’s ends. The Egyptians have never really considered themselves part of the Arab world. So great is their reaction to the bitter criticism they have received, that the time is ripe for them to retire behind their own frontiers. Mr Heikal, Information Minister and leading theoretician of the Government, has been hinting at this. Egypt could easily negotiate a separate peace with Israel, he has implied, which would regain all Egyptian territory, while without Egyptian leadership, manpower or resources, how well would the other Arab countries fare?

Egypt is still the leader of the Arab world, as King Hussein of Jordan astutely underlined in his acceptance of the American plan. By stressing that he was merely following the lead of his “elder brother.” Yet it is in Jordan that the ceasefire is in greatest danger, and in Jordan that the Arab doves will have to prove their sincerity. The Palestine resistance movement fragmented into a dozen groups of varying ideologies and allegiances is united in its determination to frustrate negotiations. At some stage, King Hussein Will have to grasp this nettle. Half A Loaf The King still hopes a final show-down can be avoided, as he told me the other day. He believes that if the talks progress to a stage where there is a real likelihood of the return of the West Bank territory, the refugees in their pitiful tented homes will settle eagerly for that half loaf. Without the refugees the terrorists would lose their power base. If Al Fatah were the only terrorist organisation, this ploy would probably work. Yasser Arafat and his lieutenants are more practical men than many of the other

guerrilla leaders, though they shout as loudly as the rest for a Palestine stretching “from the river to the sea.”

It is others from the small extremist groups who will force the confrontation. A few, very few, will do it out of conviction, but the dangerous men of the terrorist movement are the ones who will consciously and deliberately seek to plunge Jordan into chaos. Here, neighbouring Iraq may play a part.

Iraq has rejected the peace plan, set its face against any form of settlement, and has come close to severing all relations with Egypt. In Jordan, Iraq has 18,000 troops forming the strategic reserve of the Jordanian army, four artillery batteries in position to shell Israel-held territory, and two terrorist organisations which will do its bidding—the “Arab Liberation Front,” which it formed and now controls, and Habash’s “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine," which it finances.

111-sited Batteries The Iraq guns are unlikely to go into action. The Jordanians have seen to it that the batteries are in the most exposed positions possible, the Israelis know exactly where they are and Israeli planes could destroy them in an hour. Nor will the indifferent Iraqi soldiers, who have yet to hear a shot fired in anger, present a threat. The Jordanian 3rd Armoured Brigade will see to that. Apart from such practical inhibitions, the Iraqis have other things to keep them quiet. The agreement reached with Mullah Mustafa Barzani’s Kurdish rebels has yet to be put into effect, and there is constant suspicion and fear in Baghdad about the intentions of Persia, which means that much of the Iraqi army is permanently stationed along the Shatt-el-Arab, between the two countries. So it is the terrorists who will carry out Iraq’s wrecking policies. Already they are beginning to do so. The “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” attacked organisations which support President Nasser in the hope that this would lead to intervention by the Jordanian army. When that failed, they began reporting incidents in which the army interfered with terrorist operations incidents which never happened. Jordan’s other neighbour, Syria, is much less of a threat. The Syrians, too, have officially rejected the ceasefire and a settlement, but their response has been muted.

Syria, more than Iraq, is dependent on Russia for arms and aid, and on Egypt for political backing, but it is

bitterly opposed to Iraq, ’ where a rival faction of the Ba’ath party rules. The Syrian Government is also very conscious that Damascus is just an easy half-hour's drive in a tank from the Israeli lines. Into The Maghreb Algeria, that other vocal critic, “4,000 kilometres from the battlefront,” as Nasser described it, can be allowed to retire into the semi-Arab world of the Maghreb. Iraq, increasingly isolated and with distant China as its only potential ally, can be ignored. It is the Palestinians who have to be bought off or beaten off. Return of the West Bank, where King Hussein has* promised he will allow selfdetermination for the people, . is the key. Given a country to govern, the fiery leaders of the terrorists, the theory goes, will soon be so involved in the internal power struggle that they will have little time or stomach for fighting.

That time is a long way off. Before the Palestinians can pack their meagre possessions and start the trek back to the home many of them have never seen, the hard bargaining has to be done. Officially, President Nasser and King Hussein still insist on complete Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territory, but both realise there will have to be border “adjustments”— a strategic corner here for Israel, a village there for Jordan.

Emotive Jerucalem Jerusalem, as emotive a name as any in the language, is the most difficult problem of all. Mrs Meir has sworn that the Jordanian flag will never again fly over the Holy City. Peace in the Middle East may yet founder on the dome of the rock.

Yet for all the difficulties and divisions, the outlook is brighter now than it has been for many years. The very splits in the Arab world have helped the drive for peace by strengthening President Nasser’s position. He is shown as the one strong man, the only leader who can, and does, deliver. To reach a settlement. President Nasser will have to go back on many of the thousands of words he has spoken since 1967. It will be bitter for him to do so, and could lead to a permanent breaking apart of the Arab States.

The signs are that this time President Nasser is prepared to brave criticism and obloquy in his search for peace. He knows better than most that the people of Egypt, who have borne the brunt of war, are with him in this most difficult battle of his career.