A State Department official said here that the Arabs worry that Israel could beat them in a military showdown and made known that it was his opinion that Israel probably could.
Richard H. Sanger, chief public affairs adviser to Assistant Secretary of State George V. Allen, told the Middle East institute that Israel holds the military upper hand because it is more technically advanced than the Arabs, many of whom he described as still living in the “Twelfth Century.”
Mr. Sanger described the Israelis as efficient soldiers able to employ the logistics of modern war. He characterized the Arabs as still thinking in terms of the individual rifleman.
The State Department official said Israel could not be considered a Near Eastern state but was a European state accidentally in the Near East. In order to maintain a high level of living, he said, a small faction of Israelis advocate territorial expansion. But he stressed that this was balanced by other opinion, and said that most Israelis would not tolerate aggression because of world public opinion.
Before Presidential envoy Eric Johnston went to the Near East to promote regional water development, the Arabs felt Israel would reject the scheme and Israel thought the same about the Arabs, Mr. Sanger said. He reported, however, that the Johnston plan received a “remarkable acceptance” from the Arabs and a degree of acceptance from Israel.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
