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Eban Says Guerrilla War Against Israel Poses Unprecedented Problem

November 18, 1966
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Israel is still seeking a way to cope with Arab guerrilla warfare which will end such raids against Israel without creating the threat of major warfare, Israel’s Foreign Minister, Abba Eban said today in a television interview from Jerusalem broadcast here.

He said that the Arab view was that small guerrilla forces could achieve political results far more effective than confrontations between regular military forces in which Syria or Jordan “would come off badly.” He said this belief was a source of special danger because “the technical answer” to such tactics “has not yet been found.”

In an interview with the London Guardian correspondent in Jerusalem, Mr. Eban called Syria the “chief instigator” of guerrilla attacks on Israel in recent months. He said Israeli strategy begins with an effort to make its territory as “impenetrable” as possible to incursions while exercising maximum restraint, but that, as a last “and reluctant” resort, Israel would undertake “active deterrence.”

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