I also think the Israelis really believe that an incremental peace is good for both sides. They want to take one affirmative step for peace. They are very much concerned about world opinion, and if they say they are going to sit tight on conquered territories, they know that they are going to lose face in world opinion, and that is a very, very important element in any nation's policy.

Mr. LONG. I think that Israel has a great stake in keeping a moderate like Sadat in power and getting the Russians out of Egypt, because as long as the Russians are there time is not necessarily on the Israeli side.

OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

Mr. ROSENTHAL. I think that is a very real consideration. They somehow have a feeling that as difficult as all of this is to deal with, with the exception of Jerusalem, they can deal with it somehow. The big problem is what they are going to do with Egypt. They are not, in my judgment, going to give up Sharm al-Shaykh under any condition.

As a matter of fact, another example of their earnestness vis-a-vis Sharm al-Shaykh is that they are building a motel and swimming pool, and they have all kinds of female soldiers living in rugged territory. They are building in here.

I wouldn't have thought they would put anything other than frontline troops in frontline situations. The point I am trying to makeand I guess I didn't make it very well-is that they don't consider this a frontline situation.

They say that the person that holds this holds the whole Gulf of Aqaba and Port Elath. On our maps this is called the Gulf of Aqaba and on their maps this is called the Gulf of Elath.

But they are happy. They have the Gulf of Elath and Jordan has the Gulf of Aqaba. Nobody wants Saudi Arabia.

They know, as Mr. Wolff said, building a road down here is an indispensable thing.

SINAI OIL

Another intriguing thing is that there are oil wells in the Gulf of Suez. There are two big oil deposits that Israel is drilling. Egypt also has an oilfield here. Neither side borders the other. The Egyptian oil well over here has a higher purity and higher value oil, so they are happy they are beating the Israelis over here, but they both have sort of an attitude of leave us alone.

Mr. FULTON. I hoped somebody would say that. What does that contribute to Israeli economy?

Mr. ROSENTHAL. You have to ask my friend the economist.
Mr. LONG. I don't know.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. But they seem to think it is pretty powerful. Not only that, they are buying oil from Saudi Arabia. They are piping that Arab oil up here and transferring it up to Haifa. That is why they say they are not giving this up under any consideration.

Now, the point is, before I come to the canal, we flew over this area and I am sorry I didn't take the Roger's route, because this was a very painful plane ride for me. As a matter of fact another thing here, down here in St. Catherine's Monastery they built an air strip, and they are building a motel. Now, if I were on the verge of negotiating to give up this place, I wouldn't be building a motel down there.

SINAI AND EGYPT

That may sound that it is offensive to do these things, but underneath it all I sensed something. Egypt doesn't really want this land in terms of land. It isn't like Japan needs a place to put more population. The land in and of itself is of no value, but politically it is pride.

Ambassador Bruce told us that half of the problem in Paris is this prideful situation with the North Vietnamese; this little country against this big giant, and they want to be represented as equals.

When you represent a big nation you have to try hard and look at this minister and say, yes, Mr. Minister, and, yes, Mr. Ambassador, and in terms of New York City, you could put them in one of the five boroughs.

So from Egypt's point of view, the land has no value.

Mr. LONG. That is true now, but, of course, we know that with oil developments and with irrigation, in 100 years that could be very valuable land. It is very rich.

If you could ever irrigate it, desert land is very rich.

Mr. FULTON. The point I am making is that don't the economic considerations there, such as oil and this development, enter into it so that really when you talk about the pullback and Israel is willing to do this, isn't the actual fact and the development just exactly contrary? Isn't she in fact sitting tight and intends to?

Mr. ROSENTHAL. The answer to that is "Yes." That is why they are building a motel here and hotel there. This is oil in here.

What I meant to say and still say is that in terms of the urgent mission at the moment, this land doesn't mean anything to Egypt. They have more land than they know what to do with.

I am trying to evaluate the positions of the parties, and Egypt doesn't need this land today. Israel doesn't need this today as land. I believe it needs it in terms of security. This waterway is a hell of an important and useful asset.

SUEZ CANAL

Mr. LONG. The Egyptians feel they need that for security, too. They don't want to open up the Suez and have somebody close it in a few minutes. They will not overlook that fact whether you could close it anyway.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. One plane and a bomb closes the Suez anyway, and that is the end of that ball game.

But Egypt doesn't feel they need the land other than in terms of pride, but they don't want to give up any land.

Israel sees this as an enormous natural boundary. We stood on the canal here somewhere, and I guess the marines could cross that very easily, but they have very sophisticated bunkers and machine guns, and all of that kind of stuff. I wouldn't want to be the one trying to cross that kind of a thing without a massive aerial bombardment preceding me.

They also say in terms of national intergeopolitics, the Russians are anxious to come down to here, into the Indian Ocean, and the

United States is giving up a little something letting the Russians get down into here.

Mr. Wolff and I had disagreements all along the way. I don't see this international Communist threat in terms of a uniform threat throughout the world. But I do see Russia having strong nationalistic interests in getting out to warm waterways.

They are building a naval base at Alexandria and other places.

POSSIBILITY OF WITHDRAWAL

The Israelis are willing as a first step to open up this canal. The generals down here don't want to pull back at all, but under great pressure from Dayan and others, they will pull back. But what Joe Sisco said the other day when I asked him how far does he think the Israelis will pull back, in words of substance he said the longer the cease-fire, the longer the pullback.

It was a very good arrangement. In other words, if Egypt will give them a commitment that they think is reliable for a long-term ceasefire, they will come back further. If not, they are not going to give up this enormous security advantage.

What Lester Wolff said in terms of giving them more materiel, if they pull back and they know the Egyptians have to get a token force over on this side, whether it be blue coats or red coats or green coats— call them what you will-they want to be able to recapture this if anyone starts putting battalions or divisions across here.

They are willing to make what they consider an enormous military concession to have an incremental first step to peace.

My view is that if they do this, we won't see a movement for a long period of time. They don't want this to be considered as a first step toward total withdrawal. The Egyptians do. That is a big stumbling block.

PEACE PROSPECTS

I am not as encouraged as others, but I am more encouraged than I was before I went there. Yet we heard from the American Government before we went there that if this isn't settled quickly there will be World War III and if this isn't settled quickly the major powers are going to be involved there.

I don't see that. These people don't want the major powers in there. They know that the United States and Russia are not going to get into war over this situation.

The interesting thing is that the Russians are not opposite the canal where any Israeli troops are. The Russians are manning the SAM sites, but the Russians are in a situation other than operating airplanes and in getting into a confrontation with the Israelis.

So the sum and substance of this report is that this peace effort, this peace accumulation, is going to take a great deal longer than we have thought. It is going to take a long period of years, but it is going to be a good peace if you achieve it that way. A quick onrushing peace results in not a durable but rather a fragile peace.

I was impressed after seeing the security considerations that the best way to achieve this kind of a peace is not to quickly force these

parties to a table and into an agreement that neither one of them have confidence in.

That is the sense of my report, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Rosenthal. That was a wide-ranging and impressive summary of the problems.

Now, we have one other witness before the subcommittee, Mr. Halpern who has very patiently been waiting.

Are there any questions of Mr. Rosenthal?

VISITS ARE ESSENTIAL

Mr. FULTON. I want to compliment Mr. Rosenthal. I thought his report was interesting and very rewarding to hear.

As a matter of fact, because we know these men who are appearing as Congressmen after their recent trips, we speak as if it is having been seen through our own eyes and made some judgments, because we know their kind of judgment.

Thank you very much for coming.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. The point I would like to make in this is that you do get a different perspective when you actually see a place more on the ground and a little less in the air. This sounds trite after what we have heard, but if we could only get more of our members to go and see things. It was a mistake for us not to have gone to Egypt. I think perhaps we should have canceled Paris. We were interested in drugs and so forth, which is a great concern back in our own communities, as members of this committee well know, but I think it would have been useful for us to have done that and maybe lucky enough to have had a conversation with Sadat. Mr. Long's conversation with Sadat opened a new insight.

Mr. HALPERN. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to commend my very distinguished colleague from New York and my own county of Queens on his superb presentation this afternoon. It was extremely refreshing. His observations and assessment were very enlightening and worthwhile.

I wish to extend my very sincere compliments.

Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Rosenthal.

The final witness for the subcommittee will be Mr. Halpern.

STATEMENT OF HON. SEYMOUR HALPERN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mr. HALPERN. Mr. Chairman, I certainly want to commend you for calling this meeting for the purpose of us giving our observations on our visits to the Middle East.

I limited my visit to Israel with the exception of a brief stopover in Lebanon.

I listened to the reports given today, but regretfully was called away and missed a good portion of the testimonies of Mr. Wolff and Mr. Rosenthal. The portion of Mr. Rosenthal's that I heard was reflected in my previous comments. Consequently, some of the views that I had planned to express have been covered. It would be just redundant to go into those aspects of it.

I would like to, though, if I may, address myself at this particular time to the diplomatic scene as I observed it. The strategic and the security aspects were commented upon by Mr. Rosenthal and in the earlier part of Mr. Wolff's observations.

I realize also how significant and meaningful Mr. Long's contributions have been to this subcommittee. I regret that I wasn't here to listen to his testimony.

VISIT TO ISRAEL

I visited Israel during the period April 20-22, 1971. I met at considerable length with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, and Foreign Minister Abba Eban. This afforded a first-hand opportunity to assess the Israeli diplomatic and strategic views just before the visit to the region by Secretary of State William P. Rogers.

I took advantage of my personal meetings to inform the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister and some of the other Israeli officials of the change in the subcommittee stewardship. You might like to know, Mr. Chairman, that there was a very fine acceptance of your chairmanship. They have great hope that this subcommittee will get the revitalization that it should have. They were very pleased to know that their good friend, Jim Fulton, is the ranking minority member. They spoke most glowingly about both of you.

I thought I would convey that expression.
Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you very much.
Mr. FULTON. We appreciate pats on the back.
Mr. HALPERN. Well, you certainly have it.

I also talked to other people including Israeli Government officials. intelligence officers, military spokesmen, members of the Knesset, and many typical Israeli citizens.

The visit served as an ideal opportunity to develop first-hand background on the thinking, attitudes, and aspirations of the Government and people of Israel in relation to the current efforts for peace in the Middle East and to ascertain what Israel seeks from the United States in order to assure stability and a lasting peace in the area.

SOVIET INVOLVEMENT

I returned from Israel deeply disturbed that, at a time when our Secretary of State was seeking agreement of the various parties, the Russians were mocking our goodwill by introducing new military units and escalating the buildup of sophisticated weapons systems in the Middle East. I refer to the deployment of the most advanced Soviet missiles, the SAM-6, and the dispatch of top flight Soviet air squadrons in the new MIG-23's which can outfly the Phantom jets that we sold to Israel.

While our State Department is devising proposals for manipulating Israeli withdrawal without a real Arab peace settlement, the Soviet Union is putting dangerous new weapons systems and new Soviet military units into the area of dispute. In order to deter aggression, Israel appeals to the United States to move quickly by providing Israel with additional sophisticated weaponry and the means of financing such procurement. They also ask for an immediate $200 million defense support grant to accentuate our intentions.