Mideast Economic Sparks
SALPETER, ELIAHU
SITTING ON A POWDER KEG Mideast Economic Sparks BY ELIAHU SALPETER Tel Aviv Side events that briefly divert attention here from larger worries seem never to be in short supply, ut late (hey have...
...But what gives their actions a particularly dangerous dimension in Israeli eyes is the fact that extreme discontent is not limited to people from distant rural areas suddenly confronting a display of great opulence...
...In two recent extremely violent speeches, he has declared his intention to go to war with Israel not solely to recapture the Golan Heights, but to "make them the center of Syria rather than a border province...
...The inability of those heading the main component of the Likud bloc to run their own convention is surely sufficient evidence that they are unfit to govern the country, Labor's activists argue, and the public at large will recognize it as such...
...Further, the drop in oil revenues experienced by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait has forced them to reduce their grants to Damascus from $ 1.6 billion in 1984 to $700 million in 1985...
...Many are housed in tents instead ol'barEuahuSalpeter, aregularNLcontrib-utor...
...As for the Herat convention, it broke up in total chaos and fist fights when members of the faction led by Foreign Minister and party Chairman Yitzchak Shamir came under attack from supporters of his rivals, Housing Minister David Levy and Industry Minister Ariel Sharon...
...Nor would it be the first time an Arab country in crisis acted irrationally...
...It is perhaps not surprising in these circumstances that the security units directed their violence against the luxurious tourist hotels and fancy cars, which represent a level of wealth they can never hope to approach...
...The new wrinkle in all this is Assad's sudden muscle-flexing...
...Several scenarios have been put forward: Israel's deterrence may erode in Assad's eyes, encouraging him to try a repeat of Sadat's 1973 surprise attack...
...But to justify their size, Assad must make it appear that a war with Israel is imminent...
...But the predominant assumption here is that an Israeli-Syrian confrontation will replace the Palestinian issue as the focus of attention in the Middle East...
...Whether or not he actually believes it, Assad has presented the unrest as stemming from opposition to Egypt's peace with Israel...
...The riots, it is felt, seemed to him an opportunity to take a swipe at Egypt's President that could not be missed...
...And if he is really preparing an attack on Israel in the near future, why has he thrown away the element of surprise...
...Economic conditions in Cairo, an unbelievably overcrowded city of more than 10 million with an infrastructure built for 2 million, have turned the place into a huge powder keg...
...Considering the conditions they face back home, one might have expected them to welcome spending another year in a prestigious city...
...It is not by any means less real...
...Their black bat-tledress looks crumpled compared with the crisp uniforms of the Regular Army...
...This time, though, Egyptians from President Hosni Mubarak down to ordinary citizens expressed shock and anger, because the incident was clearly more a challenge to the government's authority than to Israeli-Egyptian relations...
...And the influence of its generals, Israelis note with uneasiness, has grown accordingly...
...The GNP has declined, too, withatwo-year drought badly hurting agricultural production...
...Yet illogical as it may seem, troops assigned to internal duty are not treated as well as Regular Army recruits trained for front-line combat...
...Meanwhile, freedom of speech and the legalization of opposition parties has opened the floodgates for violent antigovernment propaganda—including that of religious extremists, whose slogans were clearly heard among the shouts of the rioters...
...Indeed, Mubarak is already paying the price for two virtues: telling the people the truth more than is customary in Arab countries, and continuing the democratization process begun by the late President Anwar Sadat...
...The connection is more obvious in the case of Egypt...
...Some observers suspect thata 10-year cycleof Middle East peace efforts has come to an end...
...Slogans have a way of escalating, however, and this would not be the first time an Arab country went to war to distract the people's attention from economic troubles...
...Millions of unemployed and underemployed subsist only thanks to heavily subsidized basic necessities...
...Israel, on its part, may have a few surprises in store for Assad...
...Although technically their battle is an internal Herut affair, it has been seized upon by Labor Party radicals trying to convince Prime Minister Shimon Peres not to hand over his office to Shamir in accordance with the agreement that established the present National Unity Cabinet...
...The survival of the Mubarak regime has therefore become increasingly dependent upon the Regular Army...
...Or he may try a minor land grab in the Golan Heights, hoping to hold the territory until international intervention freezes the lines to his advantage...
...He wants Syria itself, exclusive of the other Arab nations, to have a military capacity equal to or exceeding that of the Jewish State...
...A Nasserist outfit calling itself the Egyptian Revolution, directed by Abu Nidal and financed by Libya, has taken credit for both murders...
...The military expenditures, the analysts point out, have become a convenient explanation for the economic crisis...
...Analysts here attribute his timing to twomainfactors.The first is the rioting in Cairo...
...The policy has involved huge arms purchases from the Soviet Union, plus some smaller ones from Western suppliers...
...Rioting by military security forces in the capital, for example, started following rumors among the soldiers—who are conscripts from poor rural areas—that their service would be extended to four years...
...In other words, he also plans to occupy northern Israel, west of the Golan Heights...
...Lurking in the background, moreover, is the collapse of King Hussein's attempts to get Jordanian-Israeli peace talks under way with PLO Chief Yasir Arafat's tacit approval by convincing him to accept UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338...
...The second, more important factor cited is Syria's serious economic predicament...
...Significantly, too, the unsettling news from both countries is rooted in economic realities...
...Washington may maneuver to revive the notion of negotiations and thereby stave off hostilities for a year or two, they say, particularly if Syria is not yet fully persuaded that its Armed Forces are indeed equal to Israel's...
...Syria owes the Soviet Union $12 billion, of which $10 billion is for arms, and it owes Iran over $1 billion for oil...
...The overall result is a general shortage of everyday necessities, a flourishing black market, and increasingly loud grumbling...
...The economic aspect of present heightened Syrian-Israeli tensions is less evident...
...There are not many good tidings to report to the people of Egypt these days...
...In rational terms, Syria's situation should reduce the chance of any fighting...
...For several years, President Hafez al-Assad has publicly sought to achieve an "independent balance of forces" with Israel...
...But beyond the Cairo incident and the Herut convention, Israelis are concerned about ominous developments in Egypt and Syria...
...On the other hand, nobody will bet what might happen if the situation worsens and another riot erupts...
...SITTING ON A POWDER KEG Mideast Economic Sparks BY ELIAHU SALPETER Tel Aviv Side events that briefly divert attention here from larger worries seem never to be in short supply, ut late (hey have included the tumultuous Herat Party convention in Tel Aviv and the assassination of an Israeli diplomat's wife in Cairo...
...It is, in a sense, an encouraging sign that during the days of rioting the have-nots of Cairo resisted joining the burning and pillaging by the security forces...
...This creates a vicious circle: Billions of dollars of American aid money have to be spent on subsidies, rather than development projects that could provide employment and enable the masses to pay the real prices of food, housing, electricity, transportation, and the like...
...racks, and their food and pay are inferior...
...Its objective is to put Syria in a position to settle its differences with Israel by force...
...Each man is seeking the leadership mantle former Prime Minister Me-nachem Begin wore prior to his withdrawal from politics three years ago...
...is a correspondent for Ha'aretz...
...Or it may simply be ready to respond to any Syrian thrust with an all-out counterattack against Damascus...
...Besides ringing alarm bells, the speeches have raised a couple of questions : Since Assad is not the type of Arab dictator who is prone to empty bellicosity, why is he making his threats now...
...Mismanagement and enormous military expenditures have combined to create, among other problems, grave budget deficits and severe foreign currency shortages...
...He has urged the Egyptians to rise up against Mubarak and join Syria against the common enemy...
...Foreign currency reserves are down to what is barely enough to cover two weeks' worth of imports...
...Her death was the second one suffered by Israeli Embassy personnel in Egypt during the past year...
Vol. 69 • March 1986 • No. 5
