Focus on Issues U.S. Relations with Israel Under Dispute Within Reagan Administration

Lawrence Eagleburger, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, arrived in Israel today as the idyllic relationship that has existed between Israel and the U.S. since last May is being shaken by a dispute within the Reagan Administration as to whether the U.S. should seek closer ties with Israel.

President Reagan, who has always publicly maintained that Israel is a strategic ally of the U.S., appears to be leaning toward the argument of Secretary of State George Shultz that there should be closer strategic cooperation with Israel. Shultz is reportedly supported by Robert McFarlane, the President’s new National Security Adviser who has been described as a strategist.

However, Shultz is being strongly opposed by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger who has the support of CIA director William Casey. The experience of the last two weeks has shown that the Pentagon has been able to succeed as a stumbling block to forging closer U.S.-Israeli ties.

ISSUE HOTLY DEBATED

According to sources here, there were at least two meetings of the National Security Council recently at which the issue was hotly debated in an effort to convince the President. Shultz argued that closer coordination with Israel is needed as the only way to counter Syrian intransigence in Lebanon. Weinberger reiterated his view that this would harm U.S. relations with Arab states.

Shultz appears to be close to the views of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who, after the October 23 terrorist bomb attack on U.S. marine headquarters in Beirut, said coordination between Israel and the U.S. is needed to change the “balance of power” without which, he maintained, Syria and the radical elements in Lebanon will gain domination over that country.

“It is an amazing phenomenon that the Israeli army is sitting 29 kilometers from where Americans are being killed and there seems to be no coordination between our policies at all,” Kissinger said at the time.

Shultz’s predecessor, former Secretary of State Alexander Haig who had his own battles with Weinberger over relations with Israel, has also argued that the most effective way to show the Soviet Union and Syria that “the U.S. means business” is in concert with Israel, the nation which, he said, is most feared by Damascus.

LACK OF COORDINATION POLICY IS WEINBERGER’S

This lack of coordination in Lebanon is a policy initiated by Weinberger and was evident from the time the marines first went into that country and were ordered not to have any contact with Israeli troops.

But its most glaring example came after the terrorist bombing on October 23 when the U.S. refused Israeli offers to provide sophisticated earth-moving equipment to help dig out injured and dead marines from the rubble and to treat the injured marines in Israeli hospitals.

The official U.S. explanation on the hospitals was that it is U.S. military policy to treat wounded military at U.S. military hospitals, even though some of the wounded were taken to a British hospital on Cyprus, There have already been attacks on this in Congress and calls for investigations, particularly since many of the wounded had to wait hours to be taken to military hospitals in West Germany while Israeli medical facilities were close by.

Meanwhile, another issue has come to the fore recently, that of the joint rapid deployment force the U.S. has been secretly organizing with Jordan in order to meet threats to the Arab states on the Persian Gulf. The issue became public when it was revealed that $250,000 has been appropriated this year to organize the force which would include two Jordanian battalions equipped and transported by the U.S.

Weinberger has been a major supporter of the force, as he has been for selling sophisticated arms to Jordan. Now that the issue has become public, it faces rejection by Congress which accepts the Israeli view that the force could be used against Israel.

Shultz reportedly argued in the National Security Council that if closer strategic cooperation was forged with Israel, then the Israelis might drop their objections to the rapid deployment force with Jordan. He also indicated that Israel might be more flexible toward West Bank negotiations.

Before the bomb blast in Beirut, Eagleburger’s mission was seen in part as an effort to revive Reagan’s peace initiative of September 1, 1982 which has been moribund because of Jordan’s refusal to enter into negotiations.

SIGNS THAT BEAR WATCHING

Eagleburger’s visit to Israel may provide clues as to whether stronger ties between the U.S. and Israel are actually being forged. Another sign to watch for is the negotiations now going on in Geneva between the various factions in Lebanon aimed at national reconciliation.

As the Syrians and their allies are pressing the government of President Am in Gemayel to renounce Lebanon’s May 17 agreement with Israel, the U.S. up to now, has been urging Gemayel to stand fast on the agreement.

Weinberger, who, like the Joint Chiefs of Staff, never wanted the marines to go to Lebanon in the first place and would like to see than pulled out as soon as possible, is reportedly urging greater concessions toward Syria. This despite the Administration’s hard line toward Damascus and the belief that the Syrians may have been behind the bomb attack on marine headquarters.