Israel: No Strategic Asset

By Andrew I. Killgore

Lawyers have a phrase for it. Caveat emptor. "Let the buyer beware." The two-word Latin phrase captures the skepticism of Americans about the exaggerated claims, or "pitch," made by advertisers.

But we seem to suspend our ingrained tendency to disbelieve when it comes to claims that Israel is our strategic ally in the Middle East. Over the last four years, President Reagan, Secretary of State George Shultz, other top U.S. political leaders, as well as nationally read pro-Israel journalists, all have assured us of Israel's strategic value. Israel is so strong militarily that it will help us keep the Russians out of the Middle East, it is asserted.

This is supposed to be worth the expected $3 to $4 billion in direct gifts from the U.S. taxpayer to Israel this fiscal year. A bargain, the pitch goes, and a lot less than it costs the U.S. to provide security in Western Europe through NATO. This so-called bargain plays well with many U.S. citizens, who distrust the Soviet Union to begin with and who tend to view the Israeli army as a little David always triumphant over an Arab Goliath. And, as a whole, Americans generally believe what their leaders tell them. In this case our leaders say we're really getting our money's worth.

But if the pitch proves false, if this is a "strategic scam," and if the American people catch on, there could be hell to pay one day.

In the 1967 war, Israel struck the Egyptian air force by surprise, destroying it on the ground in a brilliant Pearl Harbor-type attack. The war effectively was over. Israel marched into the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. It was a spectacular military victory for Israel.

But for the U.S. the fallout was costly. During the fighting, Arab leaders became convinced that American planes, not those of Israel, had attacked Egypt. This belief, coupled with U.S. support for Israel, led to the expulsion of U.S. diplomats from Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Libya, the Sudan and Algeria. The U. S. not only was blinded diplomatically, but direct American subsidies to support Israeli expansionism started rising dramatically.

In October, 1973, Syria and Egypt caught Israel by surprise, attacking territory Israel had seized and held since 1967. Israel suffered 3,000 dead, many times that number wounded, and heavy losses of aircraft and tanks. Israel was saved from defeat only by a giant American military "air bridge" from U.S. forces in Europe. Overconfidence in its military strength caught Israel unprepared and its lack of strategic depth (in territory and numbers) was dramatically highlighted. Israel eventually claimed an uncertain victory.

"U.S. taxpayer gifts may climb to more than $4 billion this fiscal year, amounting to perhaps $1,500 to each Jewish Israeli."

But U.S. forces in Europe were denuded of equipment. Extra billions of dollars from the American taxpayer were required to support an increasingly shaky Israeli economy. Arab resentment over favoritism towards Israel grew. A pattern was emerging: Israeli "victories" were being won at ever increasing cost to the United States.

Israel's 1982 war against Lebanon was more of the same—only worse. Another military "victory" was claimed by Israel but at a terrible cost to the U.S., Lebanon, and this time to Israel itself. Perhaps 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinians have died, as have some 600 Israelis, and almost 300 American marines and diplomats. U. S. embassies in the Middle East came under virtual seige.

U.S. taxpayer gifts may climb to more than $4 billion this fiscal year, amounting to perhaps $1,500 to each Jewish Israeli. Although unstated in the U.S. media, we are paying for Israel's aggression against Lebanon.

Out of Lebanon comes a seriously disturbing note for those expecting Israel to keep the Russians out of the Middle East. U.S. military experts have found a high degree of ineptitude in Israel's military performance in Lebanon. Battle reports. confirmed by Israeli military officials, show that nearly 20 percent, or 750, of Israel's 3,800 casualties were self-inflicted. According to the U.S. experts, these losses were due to poor leadership, communications and discipline. A high-ranking U.S. Defense Department administrator offered an interpretation: He said propaganda, not ineptitude, had finally caught up with the Israeli military, because "they were never all that good to start with." Equally astonishing—given the Israeli army's giant-killer reputation—is the fact that poorly trained Syrian irregulars destroyed or captured more than 150 Israeli tanks in Lebanon. These revelations appeared on the front page of The Washington Times of August 27, 1984.

The fact is that Israel's wars are prohibitively expensive to the U.S. taxpayer, that a high cost in American blood is now being exacted, and the Israeli military is of doubtful quality. In spite of this, an insistent claim is asserted by the Israel lobby and its apologists that Israel proved its worth in 1970.

That "proof" was long ago and far away, remote enough in time and place to inhibit careful examination—which is why it fits so conveniently into the lobby's purposes. The place was Jordan, the time September, 1970. Black September, it is called.

The PLO and the Jordanian army were fighting each other in Amman. Israeli intelligence claimed Syria had invaded with a massive tank force to help the Palestinians. The fighting was touch and go in Amman and the Syrians had to be stopped. Or so it seemed at the time, given the grand scale of what Syria allegedly was doing. (The U.S. could not verify Israel's claim because satellite coverage did not exist.)

Would Israel intercept the Syrian tanks with its air force, the U.S. asked Yitzhak Rabin, then Israel's Ambassador to Washington? No, was the answer from Israel, the army and the air force would both be required. The U.S. thought this unnecessary, and King Hussein would not permit it. The top U.S. intelligence officer in Jordan at that time has said privately that Hussein was convinced the Israeli army would never leave once it was in Jordan. The Jordanian army eventually gained the upper hand in Amman, and the Syrians—to the questionable extent they had actually invaded—pulled back under harassment from Jordanian planes. Israel did nothing.

"Remembering that "strategic" relates to armed conflict and war, there is no persuasive argument that Israel can help us in the Middle East."

But when Rabin, now Israel's Defense Minister, later prepared his memoirs, the facts of this incident were transmuted into myth. Rabin wrote: "The President (Nixon) will never forget Israel's role in preventing the deterioration in Jordan and blocking the attempt to overthrow the regime there. He (Nixon) said the United States is fortunate in having an ally like Israel in the Middle East. These events will be taken into account in all future developments." Rabin said he was told by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that these were Mr. Nixon's actual words. But this representation of a Nixon fervently grateful for Israel's help diverges greatly from what the former President told TV interviewer David Frost: "There's nothing the Israelis would like to have done more than to roll on those heights with their aircraft ... and their tanks. They would have demolished the Syrians and gone right on to Damascus, which they would have wanted to do." These were Nixon's recorded words.

Both these quotes are from Seymour Hersh's book, The Price of Power. The Nixon taped by Frost sounds hardly grateful, but instead rather suspicious. Nor is there any acknowledgement, as claimed by Rabin, that Israel was actually helpful in the Black September crisis.

Nevertheless, this murky non-event is constantly cited by Israel and the Israel lobby as "proof' that Israel came through to help a United States in need. In fact, Israel was of no help, and seemed concerned to exploit developments to its own advantage, rather than to help the U.S.

Geographically, and in terms of population, Israel is small. It lacks adequate supplies of oil and natural resources. Important waterways, such as the Suez Canal, it has not. Its economy and finances are sickly. Its society is seriously divided along religious/secular and European/Oriental lines. It is notoriously insensitive to U.S. needs for Arab friendship. It wheels and deals in American domestic politics to such an extent that the Congress and even the President seem helpless to resist Israel's demands. Not requests, demands.

Is Israel, then, a strategic ally? Is the U.S. getting a real bargain in the Israeli connection? Remembering that "strategic" relates to armed conflict and war, there is no persuasive argument that Israel can help us in the Middle East. Rather, as the actual history of its wars demonstrates, it can only suck us into no-win situations such as that in Lebanon today.

The so-called bargain is a costly and dangerous trap, as a close look proves. Americans instinctively distrust the sales pitch. Caveat emptor has been only temporarily suspended, not forgotten. And when Americans discover fraud, they often get angry. When they do discover the truth, will they be lenient with those who misled them?

Andrew I. Killgore, former U.S. Ambassador to Qatar, retired after 32 years in the Foreign Service. He now is a political/ economic consultant in Washington, D.C., and is president of the American Educational Trust.