Word: mitla
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...results of recent talks in Bonn between Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin (TIME, July 21). Egypt had hoped this latest in a long series of Sinai discussions would produce an agreement under which Israeli troops would withdraw to the eastern edge of the strategic Mitla and Giddi passes. Instead, Rabin asked for further "clarifications" from Cairo...
Rabin's don't-push-me attitude is obviously bolstered by Israel's national mood. Recent polls indicate that 60% of Israelis want to hold on to the Mitla and Giddi passes. Last week some of the 20,000 people at a rally sponsored by the right-wing opposition Likud Bloc stoned the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv to protest American pressure on Israel to make concessions. They carried signs with anti-Kissinger statements. Read one: "Dr. K.-we shall not win you another peace prize with our blood...
...biggest problem outstanding, as Rabin and Kissinger met at week's end at Schloss Gymnich, a guesthouse outside Bonn where Rabin had been installed by his West German hosts, was control of the Sinai passes. Egypt has insisted all along that Israel must completely withdraw from the Mitla and Giddi passes (see map), the most strategic points on the peninsula. Israel has similarly insisted, for internal politics as much as for anything else, that its defense requires a military presence in the passes. Jerusalem suggested a partial pullout and electronic surveillance on either side, a proposal Sadat rejected...
...chief obstacle to solving the deadlock remained the status of the Mitla and Giddi passes in the Sinai. The passes are the only viable routes through the Sinai mountains for armies moving either toward the Suez Canal or away from it toward the Israeli border. Israel, which controls the passes, has offered to pull back to their eastern end, where it maintains electronic listening equipment to monitor Egyptian troop movements. Egypt's Sadat, on the other hand, demands that Israel pull out of both passes completely. He has threatened not to renew the mandate of the United Nations peace...
...other mountain peaks in the Sinai would serve just as well as monitoring stations, and Israel could successfully halt an Egyptian attack even if it had to give up the passes. But the Israeli General Staff wants to keep the passes. Guiding newsmen on a tour of Giddi and Mitla last week, Colonel Simcha Maoz of the General Staff pointed out that any Egyptian armor allowed through the passes could outflank the mammoth Israeli base at Bir Gafgafa, 15 miles to the north...