Special Interview Syria Has the Potential to Engage in a War with Israel

The Syrian army is now stronger than it was last year, before Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and at almost twice its strength compared to what it was at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in which Syria was a participant. It now has more than 3,600 Soviet-made tanks, compared with 2,000 at the time of the Yom Kippur War, and more than 600 MIG fighter planes, compared with 300 in 1973.

Furthermore, the new defense budget of Syria has been increased this year to $2.4 billion, 54 percent of its national budget. The number of Soviet advisors in Syria has been rising steadily, jumping from 2,500 advisors last year to 4,500 at present.

These details were given to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency during a special interview with Naphtali Lavie, Israel’s Consul General in New York.

HARD TO JUDGE SYRIA’S MOTIVES

“The Syrians now have the potential to engage in a new war with Israel,” he said. “Common sense says that they should not get involved in a new war, since they lost all their wars with Israel so far. But it is hard to judge their motives, mainly because they act not only on behalf of their interests or the Arab world but they clearly served other interests, those of the Soviet Union.”

According to Lavie, who served for many years in the Israel’s Defense Ministry as an aide to Defense Ministers, including the late Moshe Dayan, the Syrians are trying to “torpedo” the accord reached between Israel and Lebanon on the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon,” through threats and psychological warfare, as they did before the Six-Day War.”

Syria, the Israeli official pointed out, “has various interests in Lebanon that are not connected with the current presence of Israeli forces there.” He noted that Syria never recognized Lebanon as a state and does not have any diplomatic representation in that country. “The Syrians were occupying Lebanon for the last seven years. It is hard for them to accept the fact that it’s time for them to leave Lebanon,” Lavie said.

He said Israel is closely watching Syria. “Their threats are not new, we have been living with them for the last 35 years, but we are keeping alert to meet any eventuality,” Lavie stated.

ISRAEL’S IMAGE IN THE U.S. IS IMPROVING

He said, in response to a question, that Israel’s image in the United States, which was tamished as a result of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and further damaged after the massacre of Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila camps near Beirut last September by Christian militiamen, is showing an improvement.

The basis for the change in the American public opinion, Lavie claimed, is threefold. First, the conclusions by the Israeli commission to investigate the massacre re-established Israel’s credibility among the American people and the media. Lavie noted, in this regard, that while the commission investigated the tragedy and recommended action against top government and Israel Defense Force officials, the Lebanese government has still to investigate and punish the murderers.

Second, Lavie continued, the Arab rejection of the Reagan peace initiative shows that “all the talk about Israel being an obstacle to peace in the Mideast is baseless. The Americans have realized that they erred in their attempt to achieve an Arab consensus regarding a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

Anyone who knows the Arab world “would have known that the Arabs can achieve only one kind of consensus: destructive and extreme. The experience shows that an agreement between Israel and the Arabs can be reached through separate negotiations with each Arab country, as Israel did with Egypt,” Lavie said.

The third reason for Israel’s improved image in the U.S., he noted is the agreement reached between Israel and Lebanon through the mediation of Secretary of State George Shultz. “Even the Israeli opposition parties are claiming that Israel made too many concessions in order to achieve the accord with Lebanon,” he said. “But it proved to the world and to American public opinion that Israel is ready to make sacrifices for peace, as it did when it returned the Sinai desert to Egypt.”