Israel After 'Eight Good Years'

...The knowledge that Israel would not interfere with that crucial overland supply route was of immense strategic value to Iraq (which was also given assurance, via Washington, that Jerusalem would not object if an alternative oil pipeline were built parallel to the same route to compensate for the tankers blocked by Iran at the Strait of Hormuz...

...They cite, in particular, Mikhail S. Gorbachev's perestroïka, the Soviet decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and, of course, Iran's acceptance of the UN call for an end to the war with Iraq...

...Some have even suggested that Israel should have sold arms to Iraq indirectly...

...On the other hand, it is noted, Moscow clearly wants to use the Afghan withdrawal for improving ties with Washington and therein lies a counterbalancing opportunity: An effort could be made to nudge Gorbachev toward a position less opposed to the thrust of U.S.-Israeli policy in the Middle East...

...Iraq and Iran will each feel obliged to keep considerable forces in reserve against a possible renewal of aggression by the other side, the experts agree...

...The main concern at the moment, therefore, is Iraq's huge military machine, acquired and tested during the eight years of fighting with Iran...

...Not until hundreds of Defense Force troops were killed and wounded did Israel give up, its prestige damaged...

...It has lost almost 1 per cent of its population in casualties...

...Eliahu Salpeter, a regular NL contributor, is a correspondent for Ha'aretz...

...In fact, government officials retort, Israel was neutral through most of the eight-year struggle in a very vital way...

...They realized, and even admitted, that the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's expansionism was more dangerous, politically and ideologically, than Israel's existence in their midst...

...Of special worry to Israel is Iraq's repeated use of chemical weapons not only against Iranian troops but against civilians as well...

...Even if known domestic pressures compel Baghdad to demobilize more than half of its divisions, that would still represent a formidable addition to Syria's forces (nine or 10 divisions, with 4,000 tanks and 600 war planes) on Israel's eastern front...

...Perestroika touches on Israel's interests in several ways...

...Only after seeing the country and the conditions offered, said the Cabinet, should they be allowed to decide whether they want to continue on to the United States...

...This requires improving the quality and quantity of its armaments...

...It is pragmatic and will notwanttoget involved in a new war...

...Former refusenik leaders who have chosen to live in Israel point out, too, that the promises of glasnost and perestroika could further relieve Moscow of the pressure it has felt from the Jewish emigration: Many of the more assimilated Jews may be enticed to participate in the "new beginning" of Soviet restructuring, while a relaxed official attitude toward Jewish religious practice and culture could persuade others that it is possible to retain their identity in the Soviet Union...

...The main arguments for the sales, though, were political and ideological: The dominant school of thought saw (and still sees) Khomeini's rule as a transitory phase, and believed that the basic community of interests between the two countries, both threatened by the Arabs, would reassert itself soon after the death of the Ayatollah...

...The Israeli government, claiming the "dropout problem" is at least in part a result of hostile Soviet indoctrination, and decrying the abuse of the Israeli visas that enable Jews to leave the Soviet Union in the first place, early this summer decided that all emigrants should first come to Israel (via Bucharest...

...It would have been wiser to take advantage of Iraq's predicament to establish unofficial links with Baghdad, and thereby neutralize its deep-seated hostility toward the Jewish State...

...The basic question here, naturally, is how the end of the Gulf conflict will affect the Middle East in general and the Arab-Israeli balance of power in particular...

...Israeli arms manufacturers certainly wanted to keep a foothold in Iran...

...Implementation of the scheme is doubtful...

...What is more, say the experts, Iran's inability to win the war against Iraq has lifted the fear of an expanding Khomeinite revolution from the Middle East...

...Nor can the improved training of the Iraqi troops, reflected in numerous battles during the last year of the war, be ignored...

...In these circumstances, military experts observe, Israel must present an unequivocal and credible deterrent to any Arab use of chemical weapons or missile attacks against its civilian population...

...Jerusalem also hopes that, just as the Soviet mission has been given complete freedom to meet anyone in this country, its own mission will be permitted to have direct and positive contacts with the Jewish community in the USSR...

...Oneof Israel's fears," Defense Minister Yitzchak Rabin said recently, "is that Arab leaders will mistakenly believe that the lack of an international response to the use of rockets and gas affords a legitimization of sorts to employ them" against Israel...

...The hundreds of millions of dollars saved did help the national unity government—when it was guided by Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Finance Minister Moshe Nissim— stop the runaway inflation and drag Israel back from the very brink of economic disaster...

...A parallel Israeli consular mission arrived in Moscow July 28, raising hopes—despiteSoviet Foreign Ministry declarations to the contrary—that the first steps are slowly being taken toward the restoration of diplomatic relations broken by the Kremlin in 1967 during the Six-Day War...

...The IranIraq War enabled Israel to cut back on military expenses...

...As far as Israel is concerned, though, an immediate problem remains: Iran is unlikely to give up its strong support of the Shi'ite extremists in South Lebanon...

...In the case of Afghanistan, the concern is that the Israeli government has not paid sufficient attention to the ramifications of the Soviet pullout...

...Israelshould realize that it is doomed to a protracted arms race which has a momentum of its own," Reserve General Aharon Levran of Tel Aviv University's Strategic Studies Center has declared...

...Nevertheless, would-be emigrants have reacted fiercely, fearing that a stay in Israel would rob them of their refugee status in the eyes of American law and thus make their entry into theU.S...

...There was one bright spot...

...Past history has shown that in a war against the Jewish State arms from Arab countries not directly engaged in hostilities easily find their way to those that are...

...Some specialists are concerned that the nuances of new situations are therefore going unappreciated, and unexploited...

...in the Shah's era it was an important industrial and military market...

...Rather, Lebanon virtually disintegrated and the South, the region closest to the Jewish state, came under Iranian-directed extreme Shi'ite control...

...On the one hand, the Kremlin will be removing a major source of friction with Moslems, and with the Arabs in particular, which could lead to closer cooperation...

...Amid the stress of the war it had become closely allied with Egypt and Jordan—the one living in official, the other in de facto peace with Israel...

...The prospect that when Defense Minister Ariel Sharon held out to Prime Minister Menachem Begin proved completely false: No Christian-led pro-Israel regime in Beirut signed a peace treaty...

...Iran will similarly need several years to recover from the losses in human life and materiel that it suffered before it can launchanothermilitaryadventure...

...The Soviet consular mission that came here almost a year ago is now practically a permanent part of the diplomatic landscape...

...Up to that point the critics' picture is widely accepted...

...The Arabs were not merely split—with Syria and Libya backing Iran and the others busy supporting Iraq...

...Moreover, the end of the Iran-Iraq War has come close on the heels of Saudi Arabia's purchasing longrange ground-to-ground missiles from Communist China, and signing a multibillion dollar arms deal with Britain that will put more missiles and ultramodern attack aircraft in its hands...

...Iraq currently has roughly 54 divisions in the field, including some 5,000 tanks and about 600 war planes...

...True, the PLO was uprooted, but its (temporarily) chastened head, Yasir Arafat, gained a renewed entree to King Hussein and Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak...

...Since 1987 there has been a steady increase in the number of exit permits granted to Soviet Jews (although the figures are still considerably below their peak under Leonid I. Brezhnev), but the proportion of emigrants who change course en route to Israel, flying from the reception center in Vienna to New York instead of Tel Aviv, has lately reached 85-90 per cent...

...At the same time, some of the newly arrived refuseniks say they recently conducted a clandestine "census estimate" and found that there are still about 3.5 million Jews in the USSR, not 1.8 million as the official Moscow statistics maintain...

...Amatzia Baram, Haifa University specialist on Iraq: "It will take a year or two for the dust to settle, and there are good reasons for Iraq to avoid major policy changes...

...In the critics' view, the normalization of relations with a country having a religious Moslem regime was entirely out of the question: The Iran of the Shah was gone, never to return, and Israel should have adapted itself to the new realities...

...Israel went to war against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon, spent a fortune there, and wasted three years that should have been devoted to training the military and upgrading its hardware...

...It lost another 2 per cent in wounded and PO Ws who will return, when they return, mentally maimed because the Iranians treated them like the Syrians treated our prisoners in 1973, but for a much longer time...

...The critics paint a dismal picture...

...very difficult...

...Iraq's main lifeline during the war ran from Jordan's port of Aqaba, next door to Eilat, through the Arava Highway, along the eastern side of the IsraeliJordanian border...

...How did Israel squander the eight good years...

...Critics of the Likud Party and its leader, Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir, have reviewed their fierce attack against an intransigence that they charge is the main reason Israel failed to derive any lasting benefit from the "eight good years" presented by the Gulf conflict...

...Iraq ceased to be the center of the Rejectionist Front, and most Arabs accepted the right of Jordan and the Palestinians to reach some accommodation with Israel...

...Most important today for Israel, of course, is the impending winding down of the Iran-Iraq War...

...If so, the progress of glasnost and perestroïka could encourage greater demands than expected both for emigration and for full religious and cultural freedom, with significant implications for Israeli-Soviet and U.S.-Soviet relations...

...Nevertheless, many add, in the long—and possibly not too long—run, a Middle East where the battle-test ed Iraqi Army is not tied down fighting Iran will be a more dangerous place for Israel, making it imperative to find some accommodation before then with the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world...

...The danger is not imminent, however, says Dr...

...on the contrary, Teheran might decide to make South Lebanon a showcase abroad for its revolution...

...Israel After 'Eight Good Years' By Eliahu Salpeter Tel Aviv Preoccupation with election rhetoric, with the ongoing Intifada, and with the implications of King Hussein's "exit" from the West Bank and Gaza has largely deflected attention here from international developments that may be equally important to Israel's future...

...Much more controversial is their treatment of the matter of arms sales to Iran, and with justification: The charge that Israel acted out of purely mercenary considerations is unfair...

...Worst of all, far from eradicating the PLO's influence in the West Bank and Gaza, the sense of frustration among the Palestinians in the occupied territories may have been the key factor in bringing about the Intifada...

...This does not mean the Iranian regime is on the verge of crumbling, but it will probably pass from the " Leninist phase" of exporting revolution to the "Stalinist phase" of trying to build the Moslem revolution in one country...