Behind the Headlines Israel’s Strategic Value to the U.S.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) believes that most Americans, including Jews, do not realize the strategic importance of Israel to the national security of the United States.

To remedy this, AIPAC is issuing a series of monographs that will deal with the strategic issue as well as with political and economic topics involved in U.S.-Israel relations. In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Steven Rosen, who is editor of the monographs, said that Thomas Dine, AIPAC’s executive director, wants to bring the organization into the “vanguard” of the policy issues concerning U.S.-Israel relations.

Rosen, who recently joined AIPAC as director of research and information after four years as a senior analyst at the Rand Corporation, wrote the first monograph, recently published, “The Strategic Value of Israel.” In it, he argues for the “prepositioning” of U.S. weapons in Israel in order to protect the Persian Gulf.

If the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on strategic cooperation signed by Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger November 30, 1981 had gone into effect, it would have marked a “watershed” in U.S.-Israeli relations, Rosen told the JTA.

The U.S. suspended the treaty after Israel extended its law into the Golan Heights. Rosen believes the Reagan Administration was ready to restore the MOU last May but was stopped by the Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.

CASE FOR ISRAEL AS THE REALISTIC SITE

The Administration is now considering the establishment of bases for its Rapid Deployment Force and Rosen argues it is necessary to begin pressing the idea of Israel as the only realistic site. He warns that it takes several years to build a base and once it is established it changes the relationship between the U.S. and the host country. If the base is not built in Israel it will also effect the U.S. relationship with Israel “for years to come,” he said.

In the AIPAC monograph, Rosen makes a logical case based on cost and time. He stresses that Israel is located midway between the Persian Gulf and Europe. He points out that it would take 77 days to transport a mechanical division from the U.S. to the Persian Gulf at a cost of $391 million; 27 days from the U.S. base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean at a cost of $138 million; 22 days from the base the U.S. is seeking in Kenya at a cost of $124 million, and 14 days from the base being sought in Somalia at a cost of $76 million. From Israel it would be II days at a cost of $63 million.

CITES OTHER ADVANTAGES

The monograph stresses that Israel has three other advantages — political stability, political reliability since it is part of the free world and that it is an advanced society.

Rosen notes that Oman where the U.S. does have access is in the Persian Gulf, but it is under pressure from the Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia, not to allow a U.S. bases on its territory. Somalia is politically unstable and faces a threat from neighboring Ethiopia. Rosen points out that Egypt has some of the advantages of Israel. But he says that since Egypt invited the Soviets out, it may do the some for the U.S.

Rosen told the JTA that there are many in the Administration who favor such a move. The MOU provided only for medical supplies to be stationed in Israel, but this was considered a first step on an issue that all could agree. Most important of all, Rosen believes President Reagan favors a close alliance with Israel even if he has lost some personal regard for Premier Menachem Begin.

“The President believes in reliable allies.” Rosen said. “Israel is the only country in the Middle East that you can know for sure that it will be with us.” Rosen believes that Congress would support such a move, particularly because of the cost factors involved.

THE ARAB CONNECTION

Rosen rejects the view that while he makes a logical case based on time and money, it is unrealistic to expect the Administration to approve such a move at a time when it is trying to win greater Arab participation in the Mideast negotiations.

He noted that since 1948 every move for increased U.S. relations with Israel, starting with Truman’s recognition of the new State, has been proceeded by warnings that it would result in worsening relations with the Arabs.

“It is probably even the case the U.S. has had more rather than less influence with the Arabs exactly because it also has had (most of the time) influence with Israel too,” he writes in the AIPAC monograph.

“Ironically, Arab opinion already takes it as given that the U.S. is in cahoots with Israel, which Washington supports with considerable economic and military aid. The incremental diplomatic cost of expanded strategic cooperation could, for this very reason, be minimal if the problem were managed intelligently during the transitional period.”

But Rosen warned, in his interview, that Israel will not seek such a mutual agreement now because it feels it was badly treated by the suspension of the MOU. The U.S. will have to make the first overture, Rosen stressed.