Potpourri of Problems

Q Hi. This time I'd sorta like to get an update on a little bit of everything

A Sorry, Humphrey, but if you don't mind I have a few small skeletons in my closet which I'd rather not

Q You know what I mean, for heaven's sake. In the Middle East! There are so many things happening there! And it's so hard to keep track of where everything stands

A Or falls?

Q Ha, ha. So let's start with the shift of Moshe Arens to Israel and how that's going to set a new friendlier tone in U.S.-Israel relations and

A Humph, you sure have a knack for asking just the right question

Q Thanks

A —to spoil my whole day. Let's see now, Arens went back to Israel from Washington to take over as Defense Minister from Sharon, who kept bad mouthing the U.S. government. So within a few hours, according to Radio Israel, Arens tells his colleagues that U.S. Defense Secretary Weinberger is suspect because he once had business connections in Arab countries, and that more than 20 State Department officials who have served as ambassadors in the Arab world are working to tilt U.S. policy towards the Arabs. In other words he attacks the integrity not only of U.S. cabinet members but of career officials in our foreign service. This is better?

Q Yes, but

A Next!

Q Okay, but gee whiz, calm down. Er—how about Lebanon? Hasn't it begun to look as though Israel really will withdraw?

A Not so that you'd notice it. But in any case, it may come down to what you mean by "withdrawal." Even if the Israelis eventually did withdraw all their troops, it's pretty clear that they wouldn't do this without, at the very least, arranging for a sort of Israeli protectorate over south Lebanon through proxies, with Israeli military patrols permitted to cross into South Lebanon on a regular basis. That would hardly be a "withdrawal" in my book.

Q Yeah, but if the Lebanese government thought this amounted to a withdrawal and accepted

A You were asking my opinion, Humph. I'm not saying the Lebanese government would give the same answer. That government is in a desperate situation, and might well agree to a cosmetic deal that would allow it to claim Israeli troops had withdrawn, even if, on a de facto basis, it was relinquishing some of its sovereignty to Israel. The Lebanese are under occupation, and can't dictate the terms to Israel; they can only hope to save face. Only Israel's super patron, the United States, could make the Israelis really get out of Lebanon, if it tried hard enough. But we don't seem willing to go that far. Next.

Q No, wait a minute. Is it such a big deal to let Major Haddad control a little bit of

A Hold it right there. Major Haddad, who you know is dependent on Israel for all of his weapons and other supplies, now claims a fief, with Israel's blessing, measuring about 27 miles by 27 miles. This may not sound a lot to a guy who was brought up in the wide open spaces of Montana

Q Make that New Jersey

A —but it comes close to being 20 percent of the entire area of Lebanon. This is the region that Israel has been saying it wants to have as a "security zone." It's 27 times as large as the three-by-nine mile enclave that Major Haddad had been running for the Israelis since their first invasion of Lebanon in 1978. That was when Israel inserted the wedge. The world seemed to accept it. Now, here we are nearly five years later, with the wedge having been shoved in much deeper. Will the world accept it this time? I'm afraid so. Next!

Q What's going to happen to Reagan's plan for the West Bank?

A I would guess that it's just about dead.

Q What!

A The only reason I used the words "just about" is that I'm an optimist

A I heard that—but if you knew me better you wouldn't think that was the dumbest thing you ever heard. I'm not a pessimist, Humph, just a realist. The Reagan plan never had much chance of succeeding from the beginning. Its failure to provide for the Palestinians what the Israelis have long had—a state of their own—was certain to make it very tough to sell to the Arabs, and as we see, it has been. But in any case, even the very watered-down version of self-determination which it offers the Palestinians, with sovereignty going to Jordan, was certain to be impossible—not just difficult, but impossible—to sell to Begin and company with rational arguments about the "benefits of peace." On the other hand, if the Administration had planned to argue its case along the lines that it made no sense for the U.S. to provide any economic or military aid to a country which used this aid to sabotage what the U.S. considered to be in its national interest—and then cut at least some of it off, to show it wasn't kidding—the Reagan plan might have had a chance of getting somewhere. But it didn't happen, and it now seems virtually sure that it never will. So Begin, whose popularity appears to be higher than ever according to Israeli polls, will go right on building settlements and propagating Israel's claim to eternal sovereignty over the West Bank. End of Reagan plan.

Q But what if King Hussein enters the negotiations and

A Humphrey, weren't you listening? It takes two to tango! Next?

Q I can't stand any more pessimism—uh, I mean realism. Let's talk about the other problems next time.

A Chicken! Bye now.