The World: Middle East: Cease-Fire in the Balance

YOUR hair is too familiar and too tempting a target,” General Haim Bar-Lev gently suggested. So David Ben-Gurion, 84, obediently accepted a beret and pressed it down over his distinctive white mane. That done, Israel’s first Premier and Defense Minister last week followed Chief of Staff Bar-Lev on a tour of Suez Canal fortifications.

Ben-Gurion was impressed but occasionally baffled. Inside one of the intricate bunkers along the Bar-Lev line, he demanded: “What kind of Hebrew word is ‘bunker’?” An escort explained: “We use ‘bunker’ because we have not yet got around to Hebraizing defense terminology. On offense we have no foreign words.” The old lion stopped before a group of soldiers and fixed his eyes on one. “You’re younger than I,” said Ben-Gurion. “Perhaps you can tell me when there will be peace.” “I?” responded the soldier. “Who knows? It depends on the Arabs.” Replied Ben-Gurion: “And on us.”

The nations that hold the key to peace—Israel, Egypt and Jordan—are still far from harmony as their second 90-day cease-fire expires this week. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and his advisers were to meet early in the week to decide whether or not to extend the truce formally, and if so, for how long. Meanwhile, Sadat’s soldiers have been training with rubber dinghies along the canal, in clear sight of the Israelis, and air raid drills were staged in Cairo. The Israelis also went out of their way to show that they are prepared for any eventuality. “Don’t fear and don’t panic if the Egyptians start the fighting again,” Premier Golda Meir told the nation. “We are ready for them.”

Neither side seemed to want the guns to sound again after six months of silence. But so far neither has engaged wholeheartedly in peace negotiations under the aegis of U.N. Mediator Gunnar Jarring. Jarring this week will submit a progress report on his talks to Secretary-General U Thant, who will then report to the Security Council. Thant is expected to suggest that there has been enough movement to warrant a continuation of the ceasefire. He is also likely to propose that the Big Four—the U.S., Soviet Union, Britain and France —issue a similar call for extension of the ceasefire. The U.S. will do this, but no more. Washington feels that the Arabs have deliberately been holding back in hopes that the Big Four would eventually be forced to enter the picture and put pressure on Israel. “They must understand,” said a State Department official, “that they have got to negotiate seriously.”