US defence of Israel

No prizes will be offered this week to guess what is probably the main preoccupation of Washington and, no doubt, Moscow and certainly the whole Mediterranean world.

Unless there's to be some sudden and startling, you might say historic, change in the relations between the Arab States, it looks as if the only people who'd be going to the Cairo meeting would be Egypt, Israel, a representative of the United States and a representative of the United Nations. In the fortnight or more since President Sadat came blazing into the headlines, the blaze has dimmed and melted, the way a dramatic sunset can end up as a fading line of light on the horizon. 

I think it would be difficult and pointless to blame any one party for this let-down because so many parties are at odds about how to make peace in the Middle East. In fact I don't think it's callous to say the best thing that's come out of President Sadat's initiative is a franker definition of the root differences that must be faced by any conference, whether it's in Cairo or Tripoli or at the United Nations or at Geneva. 

Everybody knows what these painful differences are but the diplomats of most interested countries don't name them out loud for fear of seeming to commit themselves to a firm position that would freeze the possibility of negotiation. Hence, the sure way not to understand the Middle Eastern puzzle is to read nothing but the public statements of the Egyptians, the Israelis, the Americans, the Russians, and whatever the Syrians, Jordanians, Lebanese care to say in public. 

What are these root differences which have been, I think, healthily exposed? First, President Sadat, in his long speech to the Israeli Parliament made painfully clear that Egypt can respect the sovereignty of Israel and her territory only if that territory is reduced to the Israel of ten years ago before the 1967 war. In other and plainer words, he said Israel must withdraw from every inch of the lands she captured then. 

Now Israel won't do this for two reasons – two fears. A fear that if she retreated within her old borders, she'd be back where she started with no guarantee from anybody but Egypt that her territory would not be invaded. And, the other fear of having that territory even more perilously reduced by the imposition of a separate homeland for the Palestinian refugees. Other Arab States – Syria and Lebanon especially – insist on the Palestine homeland. Furthermore Israel will not go to any meeting which seats the Palestine Liberation Organisation because it has come out openly for the destruction of the State of Israel. 

It's unlikely that the Cairo meeting will produce any yielding from these positions – so, at any rate, people feel in Washington. And nothing much can be expected from Geneva unless Israel can get something she deeply desires – something that is not much talked about in Washington – namely a firm guarantee of protection for her nationhood and her territory by one or other of the two superpowers. And that, it seems to me, is the nub of the problem that has not been exposed. And from every action of the Soviet Union in the past few years, not to mention the past few weeks, there does not appear to be the faintest chance that such a guarantee would come from the Russians. And that leaves the Americans. 

Before I come to them, I think I ought to say something about the attitude of Syria and the PLO because while the West has been heaping admiration on President Sadat and imagining his Arab opponents sulking in the background, the fact is that Syria, Lebanon, the PLO and, maybe, Saudi Arabia, are fuming with rage at Mr Sadat's description of them as frivolous and childish and a spokesman for them summed up their common disgust by saying, 'While Sadat may have won the admiration of the West, he has split the Arab world beyond repair' and even the little, but suddenly immensely rich, state of Kuwait had its Minister of State express – and I'm quoting him – 'surprise at Sadat's recent contact with the enemy and deep regret at the far-reaching deterioration of relations among Arab States to which these contacts have given rise.' 

All right, let's admit this split! And, in the face of it, let's make the enormous supposition that the opposition of these other Arab States and their rage would be neutralised by their military weakness, by the fact that only Egypt has the force to remain an active threat to Israel. By the way, there are cynics in the United Nations who say that Mr Sadat went to Jerusalem mainly because he knows that Israel is at the peak of her military power and could, if she chose, destroy Egypt right now. 

However, let's make this enormous supposition that if Egypt and Israel could come to an agreement together, their combined forces could arrest the remaining Arab powers. There would still remain Israel's practical knowledge that Egypt's guarantee of her integrity would not be enough and this is where the ball is thrown to Washington... to Washington's acute embarrassment. 

The one guarantee that really would shake the Arab world and the Soviet world too, would be a treaty guaranteed from the United States to go to the defence of Israel if she were attacked. The large, pro-Israel faction in the United States – which is not, by the way, automatically the same as the body of American Jews or as any such imagined collective as the Jewish vote – this faction has for a long time pretended to believe that such an American guarantee already exists. Well the very awkward fact, which presidents and secretaries of state through seven administrations have covered up with resounding moral statements, the awkward fact is that no such guarantee exists. 

Eleven minutes after Israel proclaimed herself a nation on 14 May 1948, President Truman handed out a press release that the United States gave de facto recognition to what was then the provisional government of Israel. He did it – and he's very tart about this in his memoir – he did it to the surprise and chagrin of a pro-Arab block in the state department. And his comment on them was typical: 'The difficulty,' he wrote, 'with many career officials in this government is that they regard themselves as the men who really make policy and run the government. They look upon the elected officials as just temporary occupants. I wanted to make it plain that the President of the United States, and not the second or third echelon in the state department, is responsible for making foreign policy. And, furthermore, that no one in any department can sabotage the president's policy.' 

Well, after that, Mr Truman pronounced what six other presidents have reiterated, that the United States regards the State of Israel and her territorial sovereignty as essential to peace in the Middle East and that the United States is committed to upholding them. This, however, is a moral commitment. It's not a legal promise and if Mr Truman were president today, I'm pretty sure he would have done a good deal of consulting with the second and third echelons on the Middle Eastern desk of the state department before taking any more cavalier position in Israel's defence. 

Mr Carter, indeed, must have been relieved a fortnight ago that the initiative came from Mr Sadat. In the end, after almost 30 years of moral support, the United States is being tacitly challenged to convert her moral position into a defence treaty. No wonder Washington has been wary and non-committal during the moves of the past two weeks. If this were 1950, I believe a defence treaty would be forthcoming with much brave rhetoric in the Senate. 

But this is 1977 and after two undeclared wars, after the long ordeal of Korea and the longer nightmare of Vietnam, I doubt that a majority of Americans would want to give a cast-iron promise to defend the state of Israel against all attackers. Certainly the Congress, after several wars in which it had no say, has reacted very powerfully to reassert its constitutional power to declare war or not to declare war. And the Senate, especially, is more alert than it has ever been to Article 2 of the constitution which says: 'The president shall have power by and with the advice and consent of the Senate to make treaties provided two-thirds of the senators present concur.' 

It's doubtful, to say the least, that the Senate just now would give a two-thirds majority to any defence treaty with Israel and, when state department officials are questioned about the firmness of America's guarantees to Israel, they tend to get fussy and irritated. 'Everybody knows', they say, 'that the United States has pledged down the decades to uphold the integrity of the state of Israel, always to uphold, with eloquence and sincerity, never to defend with hardware.' 

So, Washington, knowing the day may come when Israel throws herself on the mercies of America – as Czechoslovakia and Poland did on the mercies of Britain – Washington is eager to throw the ball back to Mr Sadat and Mr Begin and hope that they can make something for themselves out of Mr Sadat's initiative. 

But the point to make just now is that Mr Carter could not, like Mr Neville Chamberlain, simply tell his people, 'I regret to say that we are at war'. Mr Sadat can take his people into war without consultation. Mr Carter can not and even if he could commit the American people to the defence of Israel, he would be shattering the Geneva conference, before it met, by flinging down a gauntlet to the Americans' co-chairman, the Soviet Union. This is, I think, why Washington is uncharacteristically long on discussion and short on rhetoric these days.

This transcript was typed from a recording of the original BBC broadcast (© BBC) and not copied from an original script. Because of the risk of mishearing, the BBC cannot vouch for its complete accuracy.

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