ملف:NYT - Camp David Or Bust 1981-11-08.jpg

 النص الكامل

JERUSALEM FOUR years since Anwar el-Sadat journeyed to Jerusalem, Israelis are having difficulty recalling the exhilaration of that time. The joy has faded into apprehension. The peace process the Egyptian leader initiated - still the region's solitary structure of accord - seems a flimsy shelter of sanity, requiring zealous and passionate protection.

Israel, soon to play its last card of concession under the treaty with Egypt by completing its withdrawal from Sinai, is frantically defending that vulnerable peace. After the assassination of President Sadat, after Senate approval of the AWACS sale to Saudi Arabia, after the Reagan Administration's approving noises about Saudi Crown Prince Fahd's peace plan - which demands five Israeli compromises but offers no explicit Arab guarantees in return - the threshold of alarm here has fallen to a dangerous low. The Government of Menachem Begin points an angry finger at every utterance that fails to fit the intricate provisions of the Camp David accords, while Israelis inside and outside the Government mutter darkly about reconsidering the Sinai withdrawal, mandated for April.

Black and frantic moods tend to rise quickly in this region and then pass. But they can do damage. If anxious impulse replaces calculation in this crucial period, conflicts are waiting to flare.

In southern Lebanon, the Palestine Liberation Organization has used the American-arranged cease-fire in effect since July to double its deployment of heavy artillery and rocket launchers, the Israelis say. In eastern Lebanon, Syrian antiaircraft missiles remain in place, despite Prime Minister Begin's threat to destroy them. Mr. Begin has been stung by domestic criticism for having, in effect, acquiesced in their deployment, which he did under an American promise to work diplomatically for their removal. New Crackdown on the West Bank

In the occupied West Bank, disorder has bubbled up after months of calm. Widespread student demonstrations last week provoked a harsh response: Defense Minister Ariel Sharon closed down Bir Zeit University, the main Palestinian university in the West Bank and a bastion of pro-P.L.O. activism.

In occupied Sinai, well-armed Jewish settlers have taken up positions in abandoned motel rooms and apartments to oppose the return of the land to Egypt. Their resistance reflects apprehension which reaches into the Israeli Cabinet about Egypt's future commitment to peace.

In Cairo, the new Government of President Hosni Mubarak is still consolidating power against the Moslem fundamentalists and secular opponents of the treaty with Israel. Whatever the internal dynamics of Egyptian politics, Mr. Mubarak's task would be complicated by strident Israeli behavior in Lebanon or the West Bank.

The post-Sadat uncertainty has prompted Britain, France and other Common Market countries to consider contributing troops to a Sinai peacekeeping force, which is to take up stations in March. Since the West Europeans have been cool on Camp David, Israel has tried to portray such participation as an endorsement of the accords. But the Common Market favors broadening the negotiations and has asserted that the Palestine Liberation Organization has a right to be associated with any talks.

When Lord Carrington, the British Foreign Secretary and current president of the Common Market Council of Ministers, reiterated these views on a visit to Riyadh last week - and praised the Saudi peace plan as a sound basis for steps forward - he drew strong rebukes from both Washington and Jerusalem. Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. told American Jewish leaders he had advised Lord Carrington to cool it and be more circumspect with his adjectival pronouncements. Prime Minister Begin branded as intolerable Lord Carrington's statement to the Saudis that British troops would be sent to Sinai only on the basis of seeing the return of Arab territory to the Arabs. Mr. Begin warned that he might not accept peace-keepers from countries that criticized Camp David. American officials in Washington disclosed that they had persuaded the Common Market not to issue a statement tying agreement to send troops to the need for a comprehensive settlement recognizing Palestinian rights. European participation in the force looked uncertain.

The problem for the Europeans, and Arab moderates, is that the framework hammered out at Camp David during 12 grueling days in September 1978 treated the Palestinian question only tangentially. It basically deferred the issue, prescribing limited and temporary self-administration for the 1.2 million Arab inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Even this goal has not been reached, the talks stalled because Egypt wants more powers for the Palestinians than Israel has been willing to grant. 'Autonomy' Was Begin's Word

The idea was to establish autonomy, within an envelope of continued Israeli occupation, for a transitional period of five years, after which a more permanent solution was to be implemented as the result of negotiations among Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the elected representatives of the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians. A peace treaty between Israel and Jordan was to be signed during the transition period.

But as King Hussein told President Reagan in Washington last week, Jordan still rejects the Camp David framework. Demanding total Israeli withdrawal from East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Jordan has boycotted the Egyptian-Israeli-American talks on Palestinian autonomy, which enter a new round in Cairo this week.

Few people remember that autonomy was originally Menachem Begin's idea. It was his way of giving lip service to the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, as stated in the Camp David accords, without jeopardizing continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

In this light, Israel's jittery devotion to Camp David can be understood as a fervent desire to maintain a buffer between peace with Egypt on the one hand, and the contentious Palestinian issue on the other. Although some Israeli right-wingers see Camp David as having planted a dangerous seed of Palestinian independence, Mr. Begin's negotiators are interpreting the framework so that it limits and postpones the development of Palestinian power in the occupied territories. Fahd Once Promised More

Therefore, any American interest in proposals outside the framework, such as Saudi Arabia's ideas, provoke acute anxiety here. The Saudi plan was put forth in August as an explicit alternative to Camp David just after President Reagan had reaffirmed the United States commitment to the accords during President Sadat's visit to Washington. Israeli specialists on Saudi affairs also saw the plan - a collection of previously made Arab demands for a Palestinian state, the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel and Israeli withdrawal from all territories captured in the 1967 war including East Jerusalem - as an effort by Riyadh to clarify its position to other Arabs who had grown suspicious of Saudi cooperation with the United States in reducing tensions in Lebanon.

The key innovation was left vague, deliberately so, Israeli analysts believe. Prince Fahd, who in a May 1980 interview had pledged to bring other Arabs to the negotiating table with Israel, stopped far short of that in his eight-point plan, proposing only a confirmation of the right of the states to live in peace.

The Israelis noted wryly that Saudi Arabia has never regarded Israel as a state, preferring to call it the Zionist entity. We think it is a kind of a trick, a gimmick, one Israeli official said, to let Westerners imagine that the clause means coexistence with Israel, and to allow Arab radicals to feel confident that it does not.

As Reagan Administration officials have pointed out, however, it is not a contradiction of Camp David to explore the prospect of Arab flexiblity. Even if Camp David's provisions on Palestinian self-administration are fulfilled, such exploration of the Arab position will become essential when the transition period ends, and Israel will again face the issue it has been trying to defer.