[unclear: Giant] Step Towards Middle East [unclear: ce]

[unclear: When] Israel and Egypt signed their peace [unclear: ement] they transformed the history of [unclear: Middle] East. In military terms alone the [unclear: on's] two most powerful forces have been [unclear: d] from each other as combatants, their [unclear: ty] to neutralize or if need be, deal with [unclear: r] respective enemies enhanced beyond [unclear: sure].

[unclear: Gyria] will have to think ten times more [unclear: re] taking so fateful a step as sending its [unclear: ,ps] southwards beyond the Litani River, [unclear: ill] Iraq and opportunistic Jordan in Sysupport. Soviet expansionism, through [unclear: an] or more local proxy — such as in Et[unclear: na], Libya, South Yemen, Afghanistan Angola — will have to take into account [unclear: e] realistically an Egypt with far greater [unclear: er] of resistance.

[unclear: These] are not the only reasons for the [unclear: er] of the so-called radical Arab States [unclear: e] Israel-Egypt agreement or the bitterof the Soviet Union that sponsors them, they are the most important reasons be[unclear: e] they thwart such dynasitic ambitions [unclear: yria] and Iraq and the egocentric and [unclear: scienceless] imperialism of the Russians.

[unclear: Take] Syria as an example and the subor[unclear: te] PLO under its control. Only the most [unclear: e] have failed to see until now its dynastic [unclear: e] to achieve a "Greater Syria," a type of [unclear: dle] East equivalent to Hitler's "Greatest [unclear: ch]." Its blueprint was to swallow not [unclear: Lebanon], but the territories of Israel, [unclear: ian], the West Bank and Gaza Strip as. And between Western appeasement, services of the PLO as its trojan horse, the panic of King Hussein, the Syrians [unclear: e] not doing so badly.

[unclear: Lebanon's] sovereignty and democracy been overcome, its Christian [unclear: commu-] upon which both were based driven [unclear: he] defensive by a mixture of carefully [unclear: ared] and staged PLO, and so-called 'lef[unclear: subversion] and direct genocidal bom [unclear: Iments] of the civilian population by the [unclear: an] army. All of this was done in the [unclear: e] of Jihad (holy Islmanic war) for home sumption and in that of anti-imperialist [unclear: leftism] for propaganda export. It brou[unclear: the] Syrians as far as the Litani River, [unclear: n] Western acquiescence, or at least non[unclear: rference].

[unclear: el] Stops Expansion

[unclear: t] was Israel itself which had to bring Sydrive southwards to a halt by helping Christians between the Litani and their [unclear: border], and ny its army destroying the [unclear: o] infrastructure in a vast sweep of the [unclear: n]. By doing so it created conditions for stationing of UNIFIL there as the price [unclear: s] army's withdrawal which has not com[unclear: ely] blocked the return of the PLO. It [unclear: ainly] has made it more difficult for the [unclear: ation] of the Syrian instrument of pe[unclear: ation] which, had the Israelis not acted, [unclear: Id] soon have been reinforced by units [unclear: he] Syrian army proper.

[unclear: Nevertheless], the takeover of Lebanon [unclear: ar] as the Litani, the maintenance of an [unclear: n] weakened PLO presence south of it, most recently the injection, under UniNaitons cover of a batallion of so-called [unclear: anese] troops (spiced of course with Sy[unclear: a]-stooge Lebanese "Government"), was" [unclear: onsiderable] Syrian gain. It was enough [unclear: send] Jordan's king into a panic in fear [unclear: t] what the Syrian-PLO combination had [unclear: mpted] unsuccessfully in Jordon in 1970[unclear: old] not be repreated with greater success [unclear: 1979]. On the principle "if you can't beat [unclear: m], join them", Hussein's government pro[unclear: ded] to enter into a series of military and [unclear: er] agreements with Syria, all of this be[unclear: e] the Egypt-Israel Agreement.

[unclear: narchies] Crumble

[unclear: The] "pro-Western and reactionary con[unclear: ative] Jordanian monarch" in Syrian eyes [unclear: w] ceased to be anything of the sort. And [unclear: the] same reasons, the no less pro-Wes[unclear: n] and reactionary Saudi monarchy began [unclear: wobble]. Both of these monarchial regi[unclear: s]. with the examples of Western timidity, [unclear: cliation] and unadulterated weakness be[unclear: e] them in such cases as Angola, Ethiopia, [unclear: d] Afghanistan not to mention the debacle [unclear: tran], began to question the advantages of [unclear: stern] "protection" against an encroaching [unclear: iet] and radical right-wing Arab power. [unclear: is], and certainly not the "Palestine Ques[unclear: n]". led to their rejection of the Israel-EgAgreement and brought their leaders to the Baghdad Conference. The Saudis, however, went to this Conference in a far less definite manner than the Jordanians. They opposed the economic sanctions against Egypi and that country's complete isolation, although they went as far as breaking diplomatic relations.

All of this propaganda stagecraft, however, on the part of the Baghdad participants provided for the thinnest of smokescreens for the weaknesses the Egypt-Israel Agreement had exposed. This new military balance, disadvantageous to the Soviet-sponsored bloc, naturally produced its counter-measures. Most prominent of these was the "peace and agreement" in engendered between the traditional Ba'athist enemies of Syria and Iraq. Both had apparently decided to sink their separate and conflicting dynastic ambitions, at least temporarily to gang-up against Egypt and Israel.

To the Iraqis in particular, whose ambitions to dominate the "northern crescent" have been traditionally no less than those of the Syrians, here was a heaven sent opportunity. Under the banner of "unity" with Syria, and their common anti-Western, "anti-imperialist" and anti-Israel slogans, here was the opportunity to station a sizeable military force on Syrian, and perhaps Lebanese, territory, to use thier oil wealth to penetrate the Syrian economy, and at the same time to do their not less traditional enemy the Egyptians in the eye.

The Palestians Lose Out

The Palestinians, as they have always been, are of course the victims of this radical Arab Middle East farce. As usual, the PLO has been the first to mislead them, making it possible by their subserviance to the Syrians and Iraqis to conceal the egocentric power-play of both fascist states behind the skirts of the "Palestinian Revolution" and its "betrayal" at the hands of the Egyptians and Americans.

For good measure, Arafat has rushed to embrace Khomeini in Iran to receive his fanatical, medieval Islamic blessing. And, after all, the new Iranian Moslem murderer had reasons to be grateful for the guns, the training of his cadres in Palestinian camps, and all the anti-Western, anti-Christian and Anti-Israel propaganda with which the Iraqis, Syrians and PLO gave his cadres support. After all, all of these techniques had been successfully employed before in and against Lebanon.

In contrast, the Egyptians - under Sadat's skillful and perceptive leadership - have been the most realistic, not only in terms of their own interests but also in those of the Palestinian Arabs. Nasser had been the inventor of the Syrian, Iraqi and PLO model. He, too, had made his bid earlier to expand Egyptian power and secure leadership of the Arab world by his use, and abuse, of the "Palestinian Question." This, too, had been this rallying call, as had been his participation in the wars against Israel. He, too, had fallen into the trap of "using" the Russians only to find that they were using him, and destroying Egypt's independence and economy in the process.

Sadat, by 1973, had forgotten more of this than the Syrians, Iraqis and their servant the PLO will ever learn. Defeats by the Isrzelis and dependence upon the Soviets had brought Egypt to the brink of ruin and social revolution. Above all else, Sadat's historic journey to Jerusalem HUBS a demonstration that he had learned a great deal from the sad and bitter history of Egypt between 1955 and 1973. Instead of expansion, dynastic ambition had cost Egypt Sinai and terrible impoverishment, not to mention the tens of thousands of lives, givern wastefully in the name of the "Palestine Revolution."

Sadat Works for Egypt

Hence, notwithstanding ail the names the readers of Syrian. Iraq. Libya and South Yemen are today calling him, and the absurd and cynical accusations of "betrayal". President Sadat has understandably placed Egypt's interests first in his priorities. He had responsibly interpreted these interests to be inwards, to the upbuilding and economic development of his own country, and not outwards — as blue-printed by Nasser's book "The Philosophy of the Revolution" - towards the establishment of some mythical Pharaonic Empire, and the "solution" of some mythical Palestinian Question. For that Question, as presented by the participants of the Baghdad Conference, and their leftist hangers-on abroad, is indeed mythical. They know it, the Palestinians themselves know it, the Egyptians know it, but they, alone, of all the Arabs, have had the courage to acknowledge its mythology;

In essence, the Egypt-Israel Agreement accepts the geo-political reality of Israels's sovereignty and independence and its consequent and indispensible requirement of secure and defensible boundaries; it also accepts the geo-political reality that a Palestinian State on the West Bank and Gaza Strip would - at least for the next five years endanger Israel's sovereignty and defensibility.

Under such circumstances, the options for the Palestinians of this odd 2,300 square miles are either "autonomy", protected from Syria, Iraq and the PLO by the Israeli army, or partition of the West Bank territory between Israel and Jordan, with its populated Arab areas going to the latter. The remainder, vital to Israel's defence, and almost empty of population would be included within Israel's final borders.

No Palestinian State

What has to be understood is that no Israel-Egypt Agreement could have been possible on the basis of Palestinian Statehood because the Israelis would never agree to it. Nothing less than the military defeat of Israel and its destruction could bring such a thing about.

This, of course, is the diabolical dream and blue-print of the PLO, shared for their own interests by Syria and Iraq. It is a dream no longer shared by the Egyptians and their enemies of today cannot forgive them for it. This dream is unrealistic not only for military reasons or for reasons of Egypt's own legitimate self-interests. The 2,3000 square miles of West Bank and Gaza Strip territory do not contain sufficient economic, political, military or ethnic viability to constitute an independent, sovereign state. Those who call for its establishment are either the knaves who seek to use the Palestinians, or the ignorant for whom political slogans, as distinct from serious study, are enough.

The core of Palestinian Arab ethnic, economic, political and military viability exists in the form of an already independent and so vereign state of Jordan which territorially occupies 35,000 square miles, or 80% of historic Palestine. As such, its citizens are Palestinian Arabs, notwithstanding their title as Jordanians, and not less than those of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That the Hashemites were not originally Palestinians does not alter this fact; if they were to be overthrown or expelled it would only embellish it.

The West Bank and Gaza Strip Palestinian Arabs have therefore a choice either of full independence and sovereignty on the east bank of the River Jordan, or the autonomy offered to them where they are by the Ebypt-Israel Agreement. In other words they are fortunate to have such a choice of autonomy or statehood. What the Agreement does not give them, in fact, what the geo-political reality of Israel itself and the West Bank and Gaza strip themselves does not offer them, is a second Palestinian State between Jordan, which exists as the first, and Israel.

Israel's Offer to the Palestinian

In fact Israel's offer of autonomy to the Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, upon which its agreement with Egypt is based, is indeed generous, Israel's claim to these two small areas is stronger, in international law as well as in political history, than any other. Yet it is prepared to give autonomy on this very territory which the PLO, aided by other Arab States, seeks to capture and use as a military base to destrou all of Israel.

Paradoxically, as autonomous population, democratically electing its own executive organs-and protected by Israeli military power stationed in unpopualted locations - the Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza Strip will have immeasurably more freedom and security, not to mention economic and educational advancement, than any alternative to autonomy. In any case, nothing but a successful war against Israel will give them any such alternative for the Israelis will not retreat from the West Bank to nine miles from the Mediterranean Sea.

The Israeli Mandate

This is the most the Egyptians, or anyone else, could obtain from the Israelis for the Palestinians and more than rightly so. It should not be forgotten so easily that the original undertaking to the Jews, made in 1919 by Britain and the other victorious Allied Powers of World War One, and agreed to by the Arab delegation led by Feisal, was that Jewish independence and sovereignty would be restored in the whole of Palestine's 45,000 square miles.

In 1946, the Jews lost 35,000 of them when Britain, unilaterally, established Jordan. The West Bank and Gaza Strip are part of the remaining 10,000 square miles, or 20% of the country. It is little wonder that the Jews of Israel are today unwilling to reduce this 20% further by relinquishing another 2,000 square miles to facilitate the establishment of a Palestinian enclave (fictitiously entitled a "state") from which war would be launched aimed at its total destruction. That the Jordanians occupied this area between 1949 and 1967 (without setting up a separate "state" upon it, and without its inhabitants demanding one), is hardly a reason why the Israelies should hand it over. Nor is the defunct UN Partition decision of 1949 which was never implemented, because of the Arab war against it.

At any rate, taking the long view - that is since 1919 the Palestinian Arabs have not done too badly. Statehood on 80% of Palestine, and autonomy for the overflow on the Jewish part of the remaining 20%, could be considered more than generous in a country that should have totally belonged to the Jews. That they have gained so much has been due not to their own efforts at "national liberation" but as a Western imperial country. If any people has the historic right to complain of injustice, it is indeed the Jews. It is against this background that the morality of the Egypt-Israel Agreement should be measured and not that of the shrill noises and rapacious ambitions of Syria, Iraq and the PLO.

As to the Golan Heights, this is indeed another matter. The Syrians, as all aggressors, can hardly expect the Israelis to restore the area to them as an artillery platform from which to bombard their civilian villages in the Jordan Valley below. Here, the historical reference is no more complicated than the redrawing of frontiers for reasons of simple security, as they were all over a Europe that suffered the ravages of Nazi aggressions and conquests. The return of all of Sinai to the Egyptians is no precedent, however the sacrafice, as Israel has still sufficient, even if less, defensible depth in its Negev region. No such depth exists in the case of the Golan Heights, as well as the West Bank. In any case as the Syrians refuse to negotiate peace with Israel at any price they must take the logical consequences.