The Reagan Administration, frustrated by its failure to get Syria to even talk about withdrawing its forces from Lebanon and to persuade Jordan to join the Middle East peace talks based on President Reagan’s Sept. 1, 1982 initiative, came out of the closet last week in its relations with Israel and publicly announced that the two countries were allies.
This was how many here viewed the announcement by Reagan and Israeli Premier Yitzhak Shamir following their White House meeting Nov. 29, of the creation of a joint U.S.-Israeli political-military group as well as several economic benefits for Israel.
The Administration made it no secret that the new closer ties with Israel were aimed at sending a message. It was a message to Syria and the Soviet Union, an Administration official said. “And frankly to those that are listening in the region,” he added.
“It is not a message of threat of a military axis against the Arabs, ” the official stressed. “But we are both very concerned about the great buildup of Soviet weapons in Syria.”
Another part of the message came two days later, after Reagan met with Lebanese President Amin Gemayel and reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the May 17 Lebanese-Israeli agreement for Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon. The President rejected Gemayel’s request for changes in the agreement to appease Syrian-backed groups in Lebanon.
An official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which has been pressing for U.S.-Israeli strategic cooperation for the past 18 months, said that the agreement would also convince the Syrians that their aggression in Lebanon will not succeed and convince the various factions in Lebanon that the Syrians will not give them control of Lebanon “on a silver platter.”
This new approach of close public strategic cooperation between the U.S. and Israel was opposed by the Arabists in the State Department, by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and others in the Defense Department on the grounds that such an open alliance would endanger U.S. relations with the Arab countries. An AIPAC official noted that up to now the policy seemed to be to “work with anyone but Jews.”
ARAB WARNINGS
The day after Reagan and Shamir made their announcement, Prince Bandar, the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Washington, brought Reagan a letter from King Fahd and told reporters that “Israel is a strategic liability to America.”
Clovis Maksoud, the Arab League representative here, was quoted as saying, the Arabs will have to make “a painful reassessment of Arab-U.S. relations” and they could no longer consider the U.S. as “a mediator or a broker.” King Hussein of Jordan, in an interview in Amman with American reporters, said he found the agreement “totally dismaying.”
However, a senior Administration official told reporters last week he “senses less anxiety” among the Arabs then when the U.S. and Israel signed the aborted Memorandum of Understanding on strategic cooperation in 1981.
U.S. officials also emphasized that Shamir was told that the U.S. has to have friends in the Arab world. They gave as examples, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt and explained that from time to time it is necessary to supply them with arms. Also stressed by the Administration was that both Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz repeatedly told Shamir that Israel’s policy of establishing settlements on the West Bank is an obstacle to the peace process.
An Administration official said the Israelis made no secret that they will not change this policy. Shamir himself told the National Press Club Wednesday that Israel has never given a commitment not to build villages and cities in Judaea and Samaria.
The Administration official made a telling point on this subject. “The Israeli position is only going to be changed by the arrival at the negotiating table of another Arab” such as Hussein, he said. While Shamir did not confirm this, he did stress at the National Press Club, that “We are committed to negotiate about the political future of the political status of these territories of Samaria, Judaea and Gaza and we are faithful to this commitment.” He added that he believes once negotiations resume and if they are not interrupted again “we will be successful.”
NO EUPHORIA IN ISRAEL
Last week’s events have not left Israel or its supporters in the U.S. in a state of euphoria. According to the agreement outlined by Reagan, combined planning, joint exercises and stockpiling U.S. equipment in Israel are among the subjects to be considered by the joint group which will have its first meeting in January in Washington.
Thomas Dine, AIPAC’s Executive Director, said last week that the Reagan-Shamir meeting was an “important step forward” but it produced “a bottle half full.” Whether the results will be “durable” depends on whether the agreements reached are implemented, he said. But he warned that the actual implementation will be left to some officials “who oppose any visible dealings with Israel.”
Another AIPAC official noted that the incident after the terrorist bombing of the U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut in which the U.S, refused to send wounded to nearby Israeli hospitals has convinced many in the Administration that this policy of refusing visible alliances with Israel hurts the U.S.
AIPAC officials stress that they have been told that Reagan is determined to see this new alliance carried through. The next few months will be critical as the groundwork is begun.
REAL TEST AHEAD
The Administration admitted last week that strategic cooperation with Israel was necessary because it was in the interests of the U.S., in addition to whatever benefits Israel receives from it. “If we are supported by the United States it is because by our existence, by our activities in the Middle East we are supporting also American interests,” Shamir told the National Press Club.
But if there is no movement in Lebanon, if the Syrians continue to refuse to leave, if Gemayel makes no gains toward national reconciliation, will the Administration then scrap the long term benefits of strategic cooperation because there are no immediate short term results? This is the real test of last week’s White House announcement.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
