By claiming that Egypt and Israel are in complete agreement on the principle of a total Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai peninsula, President Sadat has confirmed, though indirectly, the correctness of the charge that he is in effect prepared to make a separate deal with Tel Aviv. He doubtless continues to deny that this is so and can quote passage after passage from his all too numerous speeches and interviews in his support. But he protests in vain. For he could not have claimed a complete agreement on Israeli withdrawal “from Egyptian territory all the way to the international border” unless he had discussed this matter independently of other issues with Mr. Begin. And while he is still pressing the right of the Palestinian people to determine their own future which must by definition include the right to establish a state of their own on the West Bank of the Jordan and the Gaza strip if they so desire, he is willing, on his own statement, to wait for “a few years”. In other words, he is for all practical purposes prepared to go along with Mr. Begin’s proposal for self-rule for the Palestinians for the time-being which is really all that matters.
President Sadat will in all probability insist that Mr. Begin must modify his proposal substantially to acknowledge that the Palestinian people will not be compelled to choose between Israeli and Jordanian citizenship – this is the position under the Israeli peace proposals as they stand – and reduce the transition period inconsiderably. But, as far as he is concerned, this issue is certainly negotiable and it is no longer certain that it has been his principal preoccupation in the discussions with the Israeli Prime Minister or that it will be his ministers’ primary concern in the forthcoming negotiations with their Israeli counterparts in Cairo and Jerusalem. On the contrary, Egyptian sources have been quoted as having said that issues relating to the “Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai will be worked out in detail” by military specialists at the Cairo meeting.
But while in view of the myth of Arab nationalism President Sadat cannot understandably admit the truth, he is trying above all to salvage his own country’s future. And there is nothing wrong with it. Egypt’s well-being is a big enough cause for its President. The new strategy does involve, as President Assad of Syria has been quick to point out, repudiation of the struggle which the Arabs have waged against Israel for the last 30 years. But what has been the result of that struggle? That, too, would not have mattered if there was any prospect of military victory in the foreseeable future. There is, however, no such prospect. Israeli forces could have decimated Egypt’s third army and moved up to Cairo in 1973 if they had so desired. President Assad knows that the military balance has tilted further in favour of Israel since he now talks of the Geneva conference as if he was always enthusiastic about it and as if it was bound to ensure progress towards a comprehensive settlement. This is just not the case. In reality he must know that the only alternative to President Sadat’s new strategy is continued deadlock and mounting frustrations – on the Arab side.