Former Premier Yitzhak Rabin believes the present commonality of needs and interests between Israel and the United States In the Middle East is temporary and urged Israel to utilize it to achieve maximum aid and other advantages from Washington.
Rabin, a leader of the opposition Labor Alignment, cited increasing pressure on the Reagan Administration to pull U.S. forces out of Lebanon. To do this while “saving face,” the U.S. needs the Israeli army to stand fast In south Lebanon. That need underlay the warm welcome and friendly atmosphere which greeted Premier Yitzhak Shamir on his visit to Washington in November, Rabin said.
He maintained that Shamir deluded himself and the nation when he spoke of a “new era” In U.S.-Israeli relationships. The sharp divergence last month over the meeting between Egyptian President Hosui Mubarak and Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat in Cairo showed that basic differences remain between the U.S. and Israel, Rabin said. The U.S. saw the meeting as a positive development while Israel regarded it as a blow to peace prospects in the region.
PREDICTS U.S. TROOPS’ REMOVAL NEXT JUNE
According to Rabin, once the U.S. moves to extricate itself from Lebanon, the transient coalescence of interests with Israel there will dissipate. He predicted that U.S. troops will be removed from Lebanon by next June at the latest.
Rabin therefore urged Israel to utilize the time to implement security arrangements in south Lebanon. He called for “partial, unilateral” implementation of the May 17 agreement with the Beirut government, to be closely coordinated with the Americans and with their determination to disengage from Lebanon.
In that connection, Rabin proposed that Israel set up security arrangements similar to those spelled out in the agreement. These would involve local combat units based on the Shiite Moslem militias, but hopefully including the Lebanese army. Rabin was confident that Israel’s relations with the Shiites would improve once they realized that the Israeli occupation would soon end.
Rabin, however, would divert from the May 17 agreement by assigning a key security role to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) between the Awali and Zaharani rivers. The May 17 accord assigned UNIFIL the peripheral role of patrolling the refugee camps.
Rabin thought the Soviet Union would support an arrangement that would replace Western forces with a UN peacekeeping presence. From Israel’s standpoint, it would end the image of Israel requiring American troops for fight for it or at least, for a cause connected with Israel in Lebanon. This is how the marine role is now perceived in the U.S. and is doing Israel much damage, he said.
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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.
