Egypt Concerned That Syria May Gain From Beirut Hostage Role

In Egypt as elsewhere, the Beirut hostage crisis dominated newspaper headlines over the last few weeks. But Egyptian press coverage has been different in one striking respect.

Reports published in the United States have generally credited Syrian President Hafez Assad with helping resolve the crisis. But Egypt’s state-run newspapers have portrayed the hostage affair as a cruel and cynical plot conceived and cleverly manipulated by the Damascus regime to wriggle out of its isolation and reap important political benefits at a crucial time in the Mideast peace process.

“The plot was masterminded by Syria and given full Syrian support,” the semiofficial newspaper Al Ahram charged in an editorial the day after the 39 American hostages were released. It did so, the newspaper continued, “to distract world . . . public opinion on the large-scale plot” to wipe out the Palestine Liberation Organization presence in Lebanon through its sponsorship of attacks by the Shia Muslim Amal militia on Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut.

Diverting Attention

Noting that those attacks, condemned by virtually the entire Arab world, have thrust Syria into a position of extreme isolation, the newspaper Al Akhbar said that the hijacking gave Syria “a chance to divert attention from the massacres which it plotted and which Amal executed against the Palestinian refugees.”

Western diplomats in Cairo viewed these accusations as part of the propaganda war that Cairo and Damascus have been waging on and off since 1979, when Egypt made its separate peace with Israel. Privately, even a senior Egyptian official conceded that that there is no “direct evidence” linking Damascus to the hijacking.

However, the editorials were also meant to make the point that, in the Egyptian view, Assad stepped into the crisis out of calculated self-interest--not humanitarian concern--and that he should not be trusted by the United States.

“The reaction you see in the Egyptian press reflects their concern that Assad’s help in freeing the hostages may lead to a shift in the American attitude toward Syria and, by implication, the peace process,” said one Western diplomat.

Message to Moderates

“Syria has traditionally been a hard-liner in the Middle East,” said Ashraf A. Ghorbal, a former Egyptian ambassador to the United States. “If you move closer to Syria now, what kind of message do you think this is going to send to the moderate Arabs?”

Sensitive to these concerns, Washington has made it plain that it doesn’t regard Assad’s help in the hostage crisis as a turning point in its relations with the pro-Soviet Syrians. Secretary of State George P. Shultz said it is too soon to tell if the Damascus regime’s intervention on behalf of the hostages augurs a shift in its position toward peace talks, and a State Department spokesman said there are no immediate plans to remove Syria from the U.S. list of countries that support terrorism.

A week earlier, when the hijack drama was in progress with no solution in sight, there were fears here that it might turn into another Iranian hostage crisis that would drag on interminably and paralyze the peace process. Now that it’s over, Egyptian officials say they want the United States to seize the initiative and push the peace process ahead as quickly as possible.

In their view, the agreement reached last February by Jordan’s King Hussein and PLO leader Yasser Arafat to form a joint delegation for preliminary talks with the United States represents a golden opportunity to finally bring the Palestinians into the peace process--an opportunity that won’t last long.

“In the Middle East, if things don’t move forwards, they move backwards,” said former Ambassador Ghorbal. “Now is the time to move forward, before the opportunity is lost.”

But recent Egyptian editorials also reflect another fear, that any U.S. retaliation for the TWA hostage incidentwould only provoke more terrorist attacks and further radicalize Lebanon’s militant Shia Muslims.

This gives Arab moderates the jitters because many pro-U.S. governments, from Egypt to the Persian Gulf, are themselves feeling increasingly threatened by the spread of Islamic fundamentalism.

Although fundamentalism is regarded as the main threat to the moderate, secular regimes of the Mideast, other factors are also seen as working against them. The oil glut has reduced the spending power--and has therefore influenced--one of the most important Arab moderates, Saudi Arabia. At the same time, the influence of radical regimes appears to be on the rise. Libya and Iran have just concluded a pact to oppose Iraq in its lengthy war with the Tehran government, while Syria has used the hostage crisis to fortify its position in Lebanon and win at least de facto U.S. recognition of its major role there.

Time Running Out

Against this backdrop, Egyptian officials fear that time is running out for the peace process. In Israel, under the pact that set up the present national unity government, the top leadership post will pass in October, 1986, from Prime Minister Shimon Peres, head of the Labor alignment, to Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, leader of the Likud bloc, who Egypt regards as less likely to compromise in the interests of a peace settlement.

“This was supposed to be the year of opportunity for the peace process,” one Egyptian official said. “But we are already into the second half of the year and where are we?

“Among the Arabs, Hussein and Arafat have both moved positively towards peace but are in danger of being left out on a limb,” he continued. “In Israel, Peres needs help too.”

The Beirut hostage crisis was a “pointed if tragic reminder of the danger and disruptive force of Iranian-inspired, militant fundamentalists,” a Western diplomat said. “For the Egyptians and the Jordanians, the main concern now is that the peace process won’t go anywhere this year and that the spread of reactionary beliefs--fundamentalism on the one side and the Likud’s vision of a united Judea and Samaria on the other--will make it much harder to achieve later,” he added.

In this view, a confrontational U.S. approach towards Mideast terrorism could be damaging. “Now is the time for dialogue, not counter strikes,” one Egyptian official said. “To the U.S., we say, ‘Don’t talk tough. Talk peace.’ ”