The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Israeli Politics

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Israel today tried, but apparently failed, to re-open the peace talks with Egypt that have been stalled since January. Defense Minister Ezer Weizman flew to Cairo and spent two hours with President Sadat. An Egyptian spokesman said the stalemate continues until Israel changes its position. Late today ABC News quoted sources close to Sadat as saying he felt "furious" and "deceived" that Weizman had brought no new proposals, and that he felt tricked by the Israelis who wanted to score a public relations point. It was the first direct contact between the two governments since February 1.

Tonight we look at two parts of the evolving Middle East situation: the new political opposition to Prime Minister Begin`s policies inside Israel, with former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Amos Perlmutter, student of Menachem Begin, living in Washington; and with British diplomat Lord Caradon, principal author of U.N. Resolution 242, we examine the current dispute over that key document. Jim?-

JIM LEHRER: Robin, the Weizman trip to Cairo is the end result of a tough ten days for Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, first here in Washington and then back home in Israel. There had been speculation that the result might even be Begin`s ouster from office, but that hasn`t happened. Yesterday the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, gave him a 64-32 vote of confidence. Earlier, his cabinet had backed him by a unanimous vote. The commotion and the votes were triggered by Begin`s less-than successful talks with President Carter last week. The two men disagreed sharply, mainly on Israeli withdrawal from Arab territories as each defined that now famous U.N. Resolution 242 differently. The open conflict with its number one ally had its anti-Begin repercussions back in Israel, as has growing internal second guessing over Israel`s invasion of South Lebanon two weeks ago. Robin?

MacNEIL: Before Menachem Begin, Israel was ruled by a succession of Labor Party governments. Yitzhak Rabin, a soldier for twenty-seven years and hero of the 1967 War, was Prime Minister from 1974-77, when disengagement in the Sinai and on the Golan Heights was negotiated. As a leading Labor Party figure in the Knesset, Mr. Rabin often voices opposition to the policies of Prime Minister Begin`s Likud Party coalition. Mr. Rabin, after Mr. Begin`s difficult talks in Washington, as Jim just said, it looked as though he might be in serious trouble at home, but yesterday the policies were endorsed by a two-to-one majority in the Knesset. Is he firmly in control now?

YITZHAK RABIN: Well, I believe he is, because after all, the issues on which there were differences between the present government of Israel and President Carter was on the issue of the West Bank. And Mr. Begin`s party went to the last elections in Israel with a clear-cut position on this issue; and in a free democratic country when you get the support of most of the voters, you express practically what they wanted to support. Therefore, I believe that on this issue on which he had disagreement with President Carter he got the support from all those who were elected on the same platform as he was.

MacNEIL: Well, we`ll come to the West later in more detail. Did the pressure Mr. Carter and the American government were putting on Mr. Begin to be more flexible hurt him at home or cause Israelis and his political supporters to rally around him more closely? Which effect did it have?

RABIN: I believe that the differences between the national consensus in Israel and the present policies of the U.S. administrations are much more in -- let`s say we agree among ourselves much more between what are the differences between the present government and the administration; therefore, even though there is a great concern in Israel about what has happened in the meeting between Carter and Begin, I believe that those who supported his policies -- and Mr. Begin has never denied what he would stand for -- continue to support him.

MacNEIL: Do you, as a member of the Labor Party and a former Prime Minister in whose hands the situation in the Middle East was for several years, believe his policy is blocking progress towards peace?

RABIN: Well, I can`t prove that more moderate policies that I conducted and former governments conducted brought about real peace, and I believe that still there are basic issues that divide the national consensus in Israel and the positions of the Arab countries, and these are the main reasons why the process of peace has not been continued -has not been continued the way that we want it. There are differences also in Israel, but still the differences which have blocked, for the time being, the road for successful negotiations are mainly between Israel and the Arab countries.

MacNEIL: Has Mr. Begin got a mandate to continue his hard line, to use that phrase?

RABIN:I don`t know what is a hard line. I believe that no one, either in government or in the opposition, is ready to withdraw, even in the context of peace, to the lines that existed before the Six-Day War of 1967.The argument between ourselves, the Israelis, is, should we be ready for territorial compromises on the West Bank? Because when it comes to the Sinai or to the Golan Heights, I don`t believe that there are any differences between the government and the opposition. And again, I can`t claim that when we proposed territorial compromises, but by no means to return to the lines of the fourth of June, `67, we were successful enough to bring about even direct negotiations between ourselves and any one of our neighboring countries.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you; we`ll come back. Jim?

LEHRER: All right, let`s get another view, now from Amos Perlmutter, who is a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, Professor of Political Science at American University here in Washington, close friend and observer of Israel`s leaders, particularly Prime Minister Begin. First, Mr. Perlmutter, are there any signs that Begin`s support within his own Likud coalition is waning in any way?

AMOS PERLMUTTER: Well, it was expected that the DASH Party, the Democratic Party for Change, there`ll be certain abstentions. In fact, I predicted yesterday seven abstentions; I understand there are nine abstentions.

LEHRER: That`s in this confidence vote yesterday.

PERLMUTTER: Yes. But otherwise the Likud Party actually is a coalition of a very strict sect called the Heirut Party, which I doubt there`ll be any dissension`s there; and then sort of a bourgeois, weak liberal party that is not very powerful and will probably go along with the Likud; and then the DASH Party, it is a no party, it`s a protest movement that was created in 1977 and helped, among others, to bring the defeat of the Labor Party. Some people in Israel call it Labor B, because many of its members espouse many ideas not very far from Prime Minister Rabin`s himself.

LEHRER: What`s your feeling of what happened? As you know, when Begin left here over the weekend there were all kinds of reports that he was in really serious trouble back home, there was talk that he might resign or might be thrown out of office, and then suddenly there`s this majority vote. What`s your feeling of what happened?

PERLMUTTER: Well, I wholeheartedly agree with Prime Minister Rabin. Mr. Begin is an honest man; in his platform -- Mr. Rabin reminded me recently - - in the platform that he ran in the election of `77, he said exactly what he said to the President in July, exactly what he said to the President now. What is curious to me is, why did the President give him the red carpet treatment and there were no disagreements...

LEHRER: In July.

PERLMUTTER: In July, at the exact position that he has made now. Maybe the President was hoping that he`ll be able to mollify or modify Begin, but I`ve said there`s only one person that modified and mollified Begin; he`s a Jew. His name was David Ben-Gurion, and Israel doesn`t have a David Ben-Gurion to mollify or modify Begin. And I`m quite convinced that Mr. Begin knew more or less what`s coming when he arrived here, and knew that he has this support behind him. At least, his own parliamentary support.

LEHRER: Is your feeling, then, that the position that Menachem Begin is holding -- in his talks with President Carter, as you say, that he had in July and reiterated again last week, his basic position -- that in fact is a position that`s supported by the majority of people in Israel?

PERLMUTTER: No, I think that a distinction must be made concerning his attitude toward the West Bank. There is no consensus behind Begin`s concept of the retainment or the non-withdrawal from the West Bank, or no compromises -- on that there is no national consensus. There is national consensus on what Mr. Rabin has discussed concerning withdrawal if and when under conditions of lasting peace, et cetera. So there is a difference between Menachem Begin and the national consensus when it comes to the West Bank, or what he calls Judea and Samaria.

LEHRER: What`s your feeling about whether or not the tough attitude that President Carter apparently took last week helped or hurt Begin back home?

PERLMUTTER: I don`t think that it hurt him. I don`t know whether it helped him, it didn`t hurt him. I must say also something significant: when Prime Minister Rabin came here in March 1977, it is for me to say, not for him to say, the administration`s treatment of Mr. Rabin, who was a moderate man representing the consensus of Israel, was not as elegant as the previous administration was. In fact, Mr. Rabin must have been surprised by the President`s Palestinian homeland statement, and he must have been surprised also by this failure of the coordination policy. So I don`t think the President of the United States was very elegant with Mr. Rabin when he was here, and I don`t see that there is a more reasonable man than Mr. Rabin in Israel in terms of general consensus.

LEHRER: I`ve got a hunch Robin`s going to ask Mr. Rabin about that. Robin?

MacNEIL: Yes, I might just do that. Do you have a reaction to that?

RABIN: Well, I believe that under the present administration of the United States there is a change of policy vis-...-vis the policies that were conducted by previous administrations.

MacNEIL: Can you spell that out in very simple terms that we can understand? How has it changed? What was it, and what is it now, as you see it?

RABIN: I believe that in the past, when it comes to the Palestinian problem, there was no phrase like "Palestinian homeland." All the terms in the past were made to bring about peace negotiations between Jordan and Israel, and the understanding on the part of the administrations that, one, there should be prior consultations and coordination with Israel before any attempt to form an operative policy. And second, there was an attempt, except in the case of 1969, when the so-called Rogers plan came into being, not to introduce a blueprint of an American solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict rather than to bring the parties to negotiate together between themselves and to create the required environment and atmosphere that such negotiations, either directly or indirectly, will produce the attainable results.

MacNEIL: On the consensus that there is in Israel at the moment, if there is -- despite the platform Mr. Begin ran on, which you pointed out -- if there is a consensus in the country that there should be a slightly more moderate position on withdrawal from the West Bank than Mr. Begin espouses at the moment, why is that not reflected now, with all the pressures? In other words, if they see the chance of a peace negotiation continuing or peace being snatched away, why would not some of the members of parliament shift and want to accept that moderation? I`m not putting this very well; do you see my point?

RABIN: Well, after all, the problem, since President Sadat visited Jerusalem, in the talks between Israel and Egypt is that President Sadat tries to do on one hand to negotiate a detailed, specific peace treaty with Israel and at the same time to represent the other Arab countries while they deny him the right to do so. Therefore, the whole issue today is on something which is related not to the bilateral relations between Egypt and Israel; it is about issues that are related to the relations of Israel and other Arab countries that anyhow openly they said Sadat has no right to represent that. Therefore the whole concept of Sadat`s negotiation tactics to deal at the same time on two different issues, Egypt-Israel problems, and the other Arab countries and Israel problems, I don`t believe are tactics that can work very well.

MacNEIL: That would only lead towards an Egyptian-Israeli separate peace settlement, would it not -- the logic of what you`re saying? The other tactic won`t work...

RABIN: I believe that since President Sadat is alone in his position and his readiness to make peace with Israel, and he expressed it in the obvious way of coming over to Jerusalem -- none of the other Arab leaders joined him or joined the Cairo peace conference that he called for -we have to deal with the one that is ready to negotiate with us.

MacNEIL: Mr. Perlmutter, do you see that if Israeli public opinion sees a chance for peace in the wider context, with Mr. Sadat having to carry his credibility with the rest of the Arabs with him, if they see that receding because of Mr. Begin`s position on the West Bank, that there might be a change in the Israeli position and it might force Mr. Begin to soften his?

PERLMUTTER: Well, if they see that this is the case, it`s possible, but they may not see the case in terms of -- at least, that`s my interpretation -- of two perceptions. One, there`s a perception of an American pressure. In the input of an Israeli consensus you have to put American pressure concept as part of it. And second, the concept of a Palestinian homeland or a Palestinian state in and by itself is where the consensus of Israel is against, more or less. And therefore, the issue will not be as clear to the public that Mr. Begin is so different from both the concept of a Palestinian state and the American pressure, and thus maybe that it will not be the case. When you ask the question, Would you make peace, if there`ll be real peace with the Arabs, will Israel be willing to give up? Yes. But if the question would be asked, Would you accept a Palestinian state if there`ll be peace with the Arabs, I think the numbers will not be the same. The question is, how do you ask the question?

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Let`s move on. Jim?

LEHRER: Yes, let`s focus specifically now on U.N. Resolution 242, an eleven-year-old document that has suddenly popped up as a major sticking point, particularly between the United States and Israel. The U.N. Security Council passed it as an instrument for settling the 1967 Middle East war. I won`t read it all, but the exact language is important in three instances. First, the line which calls for "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict." Another, which calls for the right of every state in the area to "...live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." Finally, the statement which affirms the necessity "for achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem."

Each of those statements apparently has different meanings to different parties now in 1978. But what did they mean to the man who wrote them in 1967? Well, that man was Lord Caradon, who was then Britain`s permanent representative to the United Nations, now a senior fellow at Princeton University. He`s with Robin in New York. Robin?

MacNEIL: Lord Caradon, on the point of whether 242 requires Israel to withdraw from the West Bank as well as from other territories occupied in the `67 war, Mr. Begin says it does not, the U.S. government says it does. Which is right?

Lord CARADON: Well, I think it`s fair to say that everyone at that time, in `67, everyone said that it did. And no one thought otherwise. There`s one very important clause which was not quoted just now, which started out in the preamble of the resolution to speak of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war. This was the basis of the whole resolution. Therefore the withdrawal from the territories occupied-- it`s a matter of fact whether they were occupied; and certainly the West Bank was occupied -- was not a matter in dispute. We met together -- the Americans, the Russians, the French and ourselves -- for several months after the `67 resolution was passed; no one of us ever had the slightest doubt that we were talking about the same thing. And the Arabs thought the same, and the Israelis thought the same. And indeed, I`ve had frequent conversations in Israel and in Jerusalem and elsewhere since those days; only in the last month or two has there been any suggestion -- I was very astonished to see it -- that the resolution did not cover the West Bank. It didn`t enter anyone`s head, and I think it must have been fairer, I must say, to say that they had never agreed with the resolution at all, than to say that it didn`t mean what it obviously said. I would like to make that perfectly clear, there was never any doubt in anyone`s mind for a decade that this was what it meant. But I would just add this, if I may, that I do think it`s far more important to be considering what we do now than what we said eleven years ago.

MacNEIL: Well, we will consider that in a moment. I`d just like to ask you this: Eugene Rostow, a former Undersecretary of State, has a different interpretation, saying that Mr. Begin is entitled to his; that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip territories are still disputed territories and still under a part of the original Palestinian mandate which is still viable, and that Jordan secured its current claim to the West Bank also by force of arms, because it occupied that area during the Israeli war of independence. What do you say to that interpretation?

CARADON: I think there are various legalistic excuses which could be put forward for different attitudes. All I`m saying is this: that I had the business of working with all concerned, including the Americans and the Russians at that time, and I just tell you, since you ask me, that there was no doubt about it; nor has there been any doubt for ten years. Therefore, certainly let`s look at other possibilities, let`s take into account what can be done, what should be done. It is the future that matters. And the wording of a document eleven years old is not vital. But if I`m asked the question, I`m bound to say that there was never doubt, never any doubt in the minds of anyone concerned, including, I must say, including of the representatives of the Israeli government with whom I have often discussed the matter.

MacNEIL: Finally, the 242 as it stands, as Jim just read out, does not mention the Palestinians, it mentions merely refugees. Given that, and the dispute over which territories, can it be used as a basis of a peace negotiation now, or does it need to be clarified in some formal way?

CARADON: I think that we have to advance from what we said eleven years ago and consider the situation we have to deal with now. There are two points that I have been anxious to make; I`m glad to make them now: that we didn`t say there should be a withdrawal to the `67 line; we did not put the "the" in, we did not say all the territories, deliberately. I happen to know those boundaries as well as any living man. They`re bad boundaries; they`re just where the troops happened to be at a cease-fire line twenty years before, just where they happened to be sitting. The Arab legion was sitting across the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and therefore there had to be a detour right up to 1967. So we knew -we all knew -- that the boundaries of `67 were not drawn as permanent frontiers, they were a cease-fire line of a couple of decades earlier. So we deliberately did not say -- I`m glad to be able to say that - we did not say that the `67 boundaries must be forever. We thought there should be a boundary commission to hear both sides and to deal with the thing in a sensible manner.

Secondly -- but this is your point, and this is the other point I`m just anxious to make -- at that time we all assumed -- Russians, Americans, everyone in the U.N. assumed -- that the return of the territories would be to Jordan. No one thought otherwise. The Arabs said so; all the Arabs thought that. It was subsequent to `67 that the Palestinians have made their case and their claim for a homeland of their own. It`s subsequent. It was not before `67. And therefore we were dealing with the situation as we had it at that moment when we assumed that the territory would revert, when it was released, to Jordan. And that`s why we didn`t refer to the Palestinian cause, because it didn`t, at that moment, arise. Subsequently it has arisen, the Palestinians -- three and a half million of them -- have put forward their claim to have a homeland, a small one, but one of their own.

MacNEIL: I see. Mr. Rabin, do you agree with Lord Caradon`s interpretation of 242?

RABIN: When we talk about Resolution 242, we have either to take it or to leave it. If we can`t use it, totally against Israel. When we talk about the borders, we refer to Resolution 242. But in Resolution 242, as Lord Caradon just said, there was no mentioning of Palestine or the Palestinians. The talk was about agreement, peace agreements, between Israel and each one of our neighboring Arab countries. Second, as Lord Caradon said, no one then interpreted --well, except the Arabs and the Russians, but I wouldn`t say that it was Britain or the United States and Israel -- that the meaning of the resolution is total withdrawal to the lines that existed before the Six Day War. As it was said, they were armistice lines. I happened to be a member of our team to negotiate the first armistice agreement in 1949, and then the Arab countries stressed that these lines would be only for military purposes and they did not construe any prejudice to the political lines once permanent peace will be achieved. Therefore, Israel has got all the right to claim that in transition toward peace, we`ll negotiate and agree about lines that can serve as defensible boundaries to Israel and they cannot be identical to the lines that existed before the Six Day War.

On the question of the interpretation of Resolution 242 vis-...-vis the three fronts on which there was a war in `67, I must admit that in the past most of the Israeli governments interpreted it as they are applicable, not total withdrawal, but applicable to all three fronts.

MacNEIL: Finally, Mr. Perlmutter, do you, knowing Mr. Begin as you do, feel that this ultimately is negotiable, that it is in his heart, finally, when the Egyptians, if they did respond, to accept some withdrawal from the West Bank, or is his view of the ancient lands of Samaria and Judea so adamant and strict that he would never consider that?

PERLMUTTER: Well, you have to look carefully at the Begin plan; the Begin plan calls for Palestinian self-rule, but it doesn`t call for Israeli military withdrawal, and it calls for reconsideration of self-rule in five years from now. So I don`t think that Begin is that adamant, in the sense that at least there is an opening there for the Palestinian self-rule . As you know very well, the right-wing opposition was very upset with Begin, and the 200 members of the 600 members of the Central Executive Committee of Heirut voted against him and Mr. Katz, the militant member of his informal cabinet, had to resign. In fact, some members of the Heirut Party called the self-rule thing, a Palestinian home...

MacNEIL: Mr. Perlmutter, I very much regret that is the end of our time this evening. Thank you very much. Thank you, Lord Caradon, Mr. Rabin. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That`s all for tonight. Jim Lehrer and I will be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.