Juicy Carrot, No Stick

We're not at all sure if the Administration is really interested anymore in pursuing its declared goals of seeing the West Bank returned to Arab sovereignty, and the removal of all foreign forces—including the Israeli—from Lebanon (see following story). But even if these official goals are, indeed, still actual goals for the Administration, we doubt that any progress towards achieving them is going to take place during the current visit of Israeli leaders to Washington. At most, we expect to see one more example of the special "carrot-and-stick" policy which Washington reserves for its dealings with Israel, and which has never, to our recollection, achieved anything.

In this made-for-Israel version, Washington does not promise Israel the carrot on condition that it will refrain from certain actions conflicting with U.S. interests. That would be applying "pressure"—a dirty word in the U.S.-Israel political lexicon. Instead, the U.S. gives Israel the carrot first, and then hopes that Israel will feel grateful enough to be cooperative. But once it has the carrot, Israel seldom does. This annoys Washington, but Washington never seems to learn from it. By the time the moment comes once again to decide whether or not Israel deserves to be given more cluster bombs or whatever, Washington has regained its naive optimism and goes through the same scenario.

From the Reagan-Shamir meetings is sure to emerge a U.S. commitment to provide more aid of various kinds to Israel. If Israel, in return, commits itself to negotiating the terms of its complete withdrawal from the West Bank, we will eat this paper on the steps of the Israeli Embassy.