Israel Uses Increased US Aid to Prepare 1992 Attack on Syria

By Dr. Israel Shahak

In the Middle East since 1948, nothing has caused so much loss of human life as the series of major wars fought between states. Israel initiated at least three of these wars in 1956, 1967 and 1982. This is why an important element in forecasting Middle Eastern events involves detection of Israeli preparations to launch "preemptive" war. By following the Hebrew press, such detection is perfectly feasible well in advance of the outbreak of actual fighting.

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon was predicted quite openly in the Hebrew press months before Israeli tanks actually rolled across the Lebanese border on June 5, 1982. By then, warning had been sounded in many press articles. In one, "The War Is Inevitable, " Ha'aretz, March 26, 1982, Yoel Markus wrote: "Behind the official excuse of `we shall not tolerate shelling or terrorist actions' lies a strategy which holds that the PLO must be physically annihilated. Not only its fingers and hands in the West Bank must be amputated, but its heart and head in Beirut also must be dealt with."

Markus articulates opinions within the Israeli Jewish upper class about what measures Israel must adopt in the future.

The Inevitability of War

It is therefore noteworthy that on June 14, 199 1, Markus expressed essentially the same opinion about the inevitability of war as he had nine years earlier. In an article entitled "Prepare the Shelters," he restated in Ha'aretz the general Israeli assessment that the US initiated "peace process" will lead nowhere. After agreeing with Shamir's statement that "the Arabs have remained the same Arabs," he points out that "Syria, which confronts us on all our northern borders, " has emerged as the strongest Arab military power. Next, Markus attacks US President George Bush, blaming him for "wanting no more than a show" in the form of an international conference.

"Either the US realizes that no rapid change is going to occur in this region," Markus writes, "with the effect of reducing the prospect of war by this realization, or it has already lost its patience with the extremism of both sides, to the point of abandoning the process, and thus causing a stalemate.

"Since ... the second alternative seems more likely, our security system must now assume that the countdown toward war has already begun," Markus writes. "My conclusion is that the public would be well advised to start readying the shelters right now."

Warnings about the inevitability of the next Middle East war began before the publication of Markus' article. Earlier warnings were sounded on May 22 by military correspondent Ron Ben Yishay of Yediot Ahronot, who has a reputation for being close to army commanders, and on May 23 in Ha'aretz by Yossi Sarid of the Ratz party.

Ben Yishay leaves no doubt that the Israeli army considers a war within the next two years a necessity, is, confident of victory, but is uncertain about its cost in casualties.

"The countdown toward war has already begun."

Army thinking about the war "takes the form of a bet, " Ben Yishay writes. "If we win the next war on a grand scale, the bet will be won. If we win ... only with much bloodshed and tribulation, the bet will be lost."

As for the Baker directed US "political process," the army believes "the Israeli government will obstruct it enough to ensure its ultimate failure. " This will not happen quickly, however.

"These efforts will continue for some time, absorbing the attention of the region's politicians, and temporarily delaying the war's outbreak," Ben Yishay writes.

He reports that under its new chief of staff, Ehud Barak, the Israeli army presently is sacrificing all nonessentials in order to enhance its offensive power. During the next few months its striking power may even suffer temporarily as a result of its reportedly painful reorganization.

"In two years' time, when the prospect of a full-scale war becomes imminent, the wounds inflicted by the reorganization will already be healed," Ben Yishay predicts. "The Israeli army will then be equipped with new and more sophisticated weaponry, and its overall power will be enhanced by the unprecedented effects of its modernization. "

It is likely that Ben Yishay's talk about "two years' time" is deliberate misinformation, though the rest of his report rings true.

The Optimal Time for an Attack

The politically optimal moment for an Israeli attack is during the campaign runup to the November 1992 US elections. Since rain, which can begin as early as October, could obstruct rapid Israeli troop movements, the optimal timing for an attack would seem to be between June and September 1992.

"According to [Defense Minister Moshe] Arens and Barak," Ben Yishay writes, the present modernization of the Israeli army involves improvements in both strategic and tactical military intelligence, a better advance warning system against missile strikes and, in particular, "strengthening the ground forces by equipping them with more sophisticated weapons systems than the ones in current use. " The last point presages aggressive army plans for the next war. The army estimates that the cost of such systems poses no particular problem, since "US military aid will continue at least at its present, and perhaps even at a higher level."

The words "present level" refer to the enormously increased US military aid in US fiscal year 1991. Since 1979 to 1982, when it received huge amounts of US aid to "compensate" for its withdrawal from Sinai, the Israeli army has never had so much money as it has now. It is by no means irrelevant that much of the money obtained in 1979-1982 was used to prepare the army for the invasion of Lebanon. In all seriousness, then Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan justified Israel's invasion of Lebanon on the grounds that "since we built such a magnificent instrument, we had to use it. " History may repeat itself in this respect.

In pursuing the same subject, Yossi Sarid compared the present situation to the one existing just prior to October 1973. The essence of the comparison is rejectionism: then of Golda Meir's government, now of Shamir's.

"Why do we see things clearly only after the event, when it is too late to reverse what already has happened?" Sarid writes. "Shamir now behaves exactly as did Golda Meir then."

Sarid regards the next war as inevitable, and he concludes his article as follows: "After the next big war we will kick out Shamir, Arens and Sharon, nor will we forgive Peres and Rabin; just as we then kicked out Golda [Meir], Dayan and Galili, and will never forgive any of them. But shall we ever forgive ourselves?"

Sarid has for years been a member of the Knesset Committee for Foreign and Security Affairs, and of various of its "sensitive" subcommittees. He has good relations with the heads of the Israeli army and of intelligence. As a man privy to all such information, Sarid has reached the conclusion that the Israeli government wants war.

An all-out war against Syria in 1992, such as Israeli commentators are predicting, however, may not be like the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, when hostilities against Syria were limited to Lebanese territory. Other leading Israeli press commentators still may not dare mention the possibility of Israel losing a war, but they warn of impending Israeli casualties, in the obvious intention of preventing war's outbreak while there still is time. An example is Yitzhak Berman's article entitled "The Value of 30 Kilometers" in Ha'aretz of May 7, 1991. Berman, a senior Likud politician, was minister of energy in Begin's government until 1982, when he resigned in protest against the invasion of Lebanon. Although he has not been politically active since then, he can be assumed to have access to good sources of information. That makes noteworthy his conclusions:

"As long as Israel is determined not to compromise over the Golan Heights, all negotiations with Syria are pointless. This means that as long as Israel is irrevocably determined to keep the Golan Heights forever, war with Syria is unavoidable....

"Given the enormous quantities of modern weaponry which Syria already possesses, " Berman writes, and since Israel can expect to destroy "many, " but not all, Syrian missed launchers, "this is going to be a war on a scale heretofore unknown to us.

Nor does he stop at that point.

"The retardation of Israel in achieving economic independence and its inability to absorb [Jewish] immigration cannot but be attributed to the destructive impact of the past Israeli wars," Berman writes. "A further war, fought under the conditions of the 1990s, can on the basis of all precedents only be in at least one respect even more devastating than the previous ones, to the point of turning into national calamity.

"Such a war can be expected to immeasurably increase the numbers of citizens despairing over ever resolving the conflict. Such citizens can only conclude that Israel is not a country in which to raise their children. "

By standards of what can be published in the mainstream Hebrew press, this amounts to an extraordinarily forceful warning. Yet, significantly, so far no one has dared challenge Berman.

Another commentator who doubts whether the outcome of the next war will be beneficial for Israel is Reuven Padatzur, the military correspondent of Haaretz who made a name for himself as a merciless critic of the Israeli army and intelligence services. He also regards an Israeli attack on Syria as already decided, and now in preparation.

He reports how the army "holds war exercises, for instance, for the rapid occupation of the region extending from the Golan Heights to Damascus itself. In the maneuvers, Israeli forces generally meet with great success. Reality is different, however, and the price of a victory in a war fought against the Syrians according to the `Six-Day War model' may prove to be unbearable for Israel. "

As shown by this quote from his article "The Curse of Victory, " Ha'aretz, June 7, Padatzur is skeptical of the army's ability to win such a war easily. His skepticism rests on "the decrepit state of Israeli defense policy, the roots of which lie deep in the fertile soil of the victory in the Six-Day War.

"It seems that the heirs of the generals who basked in the glory of the SixDay War have not freed themselves from its destructive influence, " Padatzur opines. "No matter how much they deny it, the Israeli army brass of 1991 would give an thing to experience the glory of June 1967 again."

More Predictions and Warnings

Many more predictions and warnings by other commentators could be quoted. Gideon Samet, writing under the headline "Take Note: We Were Warned, " in Ha'aretz of July 1, reports predictions of war by three more prominent figures. "One of the three was (Israeli army spokesman] Nathan Shay," Samet writes. He reports that Shay stated: "We now have one and a half to two years of respite. If not by Iraq, we may be attacked by Iran or Syria. All Arab states are buying quantities of weapons to fight us .... We should also prepare the rear for war. The Israeli military is reducing all expenditures in order to prepare the army and especially the air force for the next war, if it breaks out" (Maariv, June 25).

The second person referred to by Samet was Shay's boss, Israel's chief of staff. "At a party held by special forces veterans a week ago, he said that Israel was approaching a watershed, which would decide whether we take the route of diplomacy, or begin the countdown to the next confrontation, Samet wrote.

The last of the three leaders predicting war was the prime minister in person. Samet writes: "In an interview in Yediot Ahronot (June 28), Dan Shilon, relying on remarks of the army's spokesman, asked Shamir if Syria was moving in the direction of peace or war. Shamir answered that Syrian policy has been the same for many years. Shilon then asked: `How can the threat be reduced.' To which the prime minister replied: `I don't believe that a state's policy can be changed by way of external influence only, unless those external elements bring about a drastic change in the country's military posture by way of a war. Israel cannot overcome Syrian hostility in the usual ways.'

"Even a fool or a deaf mute can understand the implications of his remarks. In the view of the prime minister, the only way to shift the Syrians' position is by teaching them a lesson by going to war against them. Being an experienced interviewer, Shilon immediately asked if the prime minister was hinting that Israel should go to war against Syria in order to change the status quo. Pay heed to his response. `No, I am not saying that. But if someone did want Israel to do something about Syrian hostility against [Israel], it is likely that he would propose a war against Syria. I myself do not support such a move."

Samet's conclusion: "Maybe I am stretching it, but when it comes to war, it is permitted. We know this only too well: wars come to us at least once a decade no matter what or why.... The prime minister doesn't waste his words. When he says, `It is possible that someone wants Israel to decide,' he is speaking about something concrete. Of course, he must distance himself from such ideas, but not before allowing us to understand by his own admission that he, Shamir, does not believe in the possibility of changing the Syrian stand save by way of the cannon.. . . I am simply marking the moment at which I was warned ... that a new war is in danger of breaking out. I don't know how others will respond. Just want to thank those concerned for giving me fair warning."

If such warnings are ignored, as were the similarly plentiful warnings of the invasion of Lebanon, the outbreak of the next war may be regarded as inevitable. If, on the other hand, the interim is used to warn the public in the US and Europe that Israel is preparing a "preemptive," meaning aggressive, war, and that anything that strengthens Israel (for example the $10 billion in loan guarantees) can only make the coming war more horrendous, the next Middle East war can still be averted. If, however, Israel is appeased and strengthened during that time, or if time is wasted in debating diplomatic subtleties, the next war will, indeed, become inevitable.

Dr. Israel Shahak, a Holocaust survivor and retired professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is chairman of the Israeli League of Human and Civil Rights. His monthly translations From the Hebrew Press are available to Washington Report readers for $25 a year.