Herzog: Syria is at the Center of a Sinister Plot in the Middle East

“A very sinister design is unravelling itself in the Middle East which we dare not ignore” and “at the center of this development is Syria,” Chaim Herzog, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, warned here last week in an address before the World Affairs Council.

The Israeli envoy described in detail what he saw as the various threads of a massive Syrian conspiracy, backed by the Soviet Union, that is aimed not only at the dismemberment of Israel but the destruction of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, notwithstanding the recent rapprochement between Damascus and Amman. According to Herzog, the Syrians regard all of former Mandatory Palestine–encompassing the states of Israel and Jordan–as provinces of “southern Syria.”

He also claimed that the Syrians are on the way to accomplishing the take-over of Lebanon, that they are using the Palestinians as “pawns” in their plot and mat the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is being made subordinate to the Syrian controlled terrorist group, A-Saiqa.

Herzog referred to the recent civil strife in Lebanon, and to earlier bloody warfare which pitted Arab against Arab and Moslem against Christian in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Sudan as evidence that the Arab world is wracked by internecine strife and that the Palestinian issue is simply an artificial cause aimed at misleading world opinion.

CRUX OF THE PROBLEM

Herzog cited the fact that the conclusion of the interim agreement between Israel and Egypt which is little more than a disengagement of forces and far removed from non-belligerence, let alone a formal peace settlement, has resulted in the isolation of Egypt within the Arab world, except for Sudan and Saudi Arabia which support the Egyptian move in a “half-hearted way.”

“This,” Herzog said, “only goes to highlight the fact that at the root of the Middle East problem lies not any specific issue, such as that of the Palestinians or of territory, important though these may be. At the root of the problem lies the unwillingness of the Arab states to recognize Jewish national sovereignty in Israel–the right of Israel to exist, I cannot emphasize too often that herein lies the crux of the problem. Only when this problem has been solved will a meaningful advance toward peace in the area be possible,” Herzog said.

He said that the “violent reaction and the isolation of Egypt” in the Arab world following the interim agreement with Israel “has in fact created a built-in deterrent against any further advance by an Arab country toward peace with Israel. This is the terrifying lesson which we have to learn from the Arab world of the interim agreement with Egypt. It would appear to put a temporary halt at least to the process of step-by-step agreements and could conceivably require a new approach for a more all-embracing peace agreement in negotiations which may have to encompass more than one Arab country,” Herzog said.

The Israeli Ambassador described Syria as the “intransigent extreme element in the Middle East.” He contended that “The Syrians, as part of their overall design, are gradually taking over complete control of the PLO. A-Saiqa, the Syrian action of the PLO, has grown during the Lebanese civil war …and is threatening the primacy of AI Fatah, Yasir Arafat’s group. The leader of Saiqa. Zuheir Muhsein, is reputed to be the candidate of the Syrians and the Russians to replace Yasir Arafat, who is considered by them to be weak and ineffective.”