Israel's Postwar GIoom

...Even pessimists, however, were surprised at how fast the credits Jerusalem accumulated for not retaliating against Baghdad disappeared...

...Damascus left little doubt that its official policy remains the attainment of "strategicparity" with Israel, to be able to go to war alone if other Arab countries refuse to join the fight...

...Certainly ending the fighting before the complete destruction of his military might, they feel, was unfortunate for every country in the region...

...In addition, Israeli employers must pick up their Palestinian employees at the Green Line in the morning and return them in the evening...

...A wealthy Saudi businessman, speaking of American special aid to offset Israel's war damages, complained: "We, in effect, were fighting the war for the Israelis...

...and Western Europe would not last long after the Gulf war was over...

...Israel wants the first step to be the Arabs' cessation of their state of war and/or the end of their boycott...

...Neither has Secretary of State James A. Baker Ill's Middle East shuttle diplomacy been encouraging to Israelis...

...Contrary to initial estimates at the end of the fighting, Israeli commentators figured that far less than the reported three-quarters of Saddam's 4,000 tanks in the south were destroyed, leaving him with more armor than exists in the arsenals of some major NATO partners...

...And given the Arabs' behavior during the Gulf war, few Israelis believe confidence-building can overcome the widespread Arab refusal to recognize not only Israel's existence but its right to exist...

...But the knifings have continued, leading to a tragic vicious circle: New knifings bring new entry restrictions, which cause more unemployment among the Palestinians and make them more receptive to religious and nationalist incitement, which widens the pool of potential assassins, who sooner or later find their way to their victims in Israel...

...The Arabs want Israel to start the process by easing its control over the occupied territories...

...Since last August, for example, there has been alot of talk in the U.S...

...In proposing "confidence-building measures," they further contend, Washington is up against the problem of the chicken or the egg...

...One might think the embarrassing performance of Soviet-made weapons in the Gulf war would have greatly reduced their appeal to old or new buyers...

...Closer to home, the end of the Gulf conflict brought about an almost immediate revival of the intifada in a particularly troubling form...

...Inagloomy article, the military editor of Ha'aretz reports that arms salesmen from the East and the West are already busy in the Middle East markets...

...More disturbing here, though, is the fact that the Gulf war has revealed an Arab hatred for the Jewish State beyond anything Israeli hawks had pictured...

...With each new incident, the pressure grows from hawks to crack down harder on the Palestinians, expel PLO operators and establish new settlements in the occupied territories...

...They fear that besides Washington's announced arms sales to Saudi Arabia, much of the unused equipment shipped in for Desert Storm will be left in the region, with the explanation that the withdrawal of American troops necessitates boosting local military capabilities...

...Clearly it was enough to enable him to put down the Smite rebellion in the south and the Kurds in the north...

...In France, President Mitterrand is under strong pressure from arms manufacturers to abandon his new policy of restricting their sales to the Middle East...

...Although few accept the Soviet claim that the low quality of Iraq's soldiers was the problem, it is contended that most of their arms were not top-of-theline...

...The money was quickly used to pay some arms debts and to buy weapons: additional fighter bombers from the Soviet Union and longer range, more accurate Scud missiles from North Korea...

...From Israel's viewpoint, therefore, its posture during the Gulf war has not improved the odds for peace...

...During the war, roughly 100,000 Palestinian workers from the West Bank and Gaza were prohibited from entering pre-1967 Israel...

...As soon as the shooting in the Gulf stopped, the "Green Line" was reopened —and a waveof knifings by Palestinian religious fanatics started...

...The evident persistence of Western support for the Palestinians after Iraq's defeat has not improved matters...

...Moreover, Moscow is said to be willing to build factories for Soviet licensed arms on a turnkey basis in Pakistan, India and other Asian countries...

...Employment of Palestinians is now permitted only through official labor exchanges, and is limited to those who have passed police checkups...

...There has also been an increase in the use of firearms by terrorists, mainly against Israeli cars traveling on West Bank roads at night...

...Rather, it may soon face the hard choice of spending its limited resources either on maintaining a qualitative arms edge or on absorbing the hundreds of thousands of Soviet immigrants arriving in the country...

...Moscow has begun to offer the latest versions of its military products at prices way, way below those of Western manufacture...

...Almost as soon as the shooting stopped, Washington was courting the Arabs as if they haddonetheU.S.afavorby permitting half-a-million American soldiers to risk their lives defending Saudi Arabia and the oil sheikdoms against Saddam Hussein...

...The effectiveness of such offers should not be underestimated, as some of the new Syrian orders attest...

...The object was to prevent both Iraqisponsored terrorism and acts of revenge against the Palestinians for the Scud attacks...

...Short of a very generous (and unlikely) Arab offer, Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir will not have any difficulty obtaining strong support against taking the moderate-to-major risks that seem required to bring the Arabs to the table...

...and Western Europe about the fact that the New World Order must, first of all, put an end to the insane arms race in the Middle East...

...Thus, while theoretically the postwar situation has created a fresh opportunity for peace talks, in reality the atmosphere on both sides is hardly better than it was before Saddam's defeat...

...The hope for peace is not that the Arabs will change their position," he said...

...AS PEACE HOPES DIM Israel's Postwar Gloom BY ELIAHU SALPETER Tel Aviv While the Iraqi Scuds were still raining down here, both government and opposition politicians were warning that Israel's honeymoon with the U.S...

...Saudi Arabian political scientist Othman Yasin Rawath, quoted from Riyadh, seems to agree...

...Britain has already announced a big arms fair to be held in Dubai next November...

...Western European capitals were again urging Israel to negotiate territorial concessions with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO...

...Israelis are getting tired of tension and bloodshed, yet they are not about to let their guard down in the light of several recent developments...

...But Israelis are not at all sure that the continuation of Saddam's rule is preferable to the possible break-up of Iraq...

...Parallel movement does not appear to be a possibility at the moment...

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

...does not providethe arms, the Western Europeans and the Russians will— without the restrictions imposed on purchasers of American arms...

...In the first six days, seven Israelis were killed on the street and 20 more were wounded...

...Israeli diplomats reportedly are again hearing the argument that if the U.S...

...Israel then tightened existing security measures and added new ones...

...That Washington is openly angry about all this has merely heightened the sense of frustration here...

...But the main cause of increasing gloom in Israel is the sense that Syria is getting ready for the next war...

...Israelis are worried, too, about U.S...

...It agrees that such a development might strengthen Iranian religious extremists opposed to President Hashemi Rafsanjani, who seems to be moving toward greater openness to the outside world...

...By showing the flag in Saudi Arabia, without firing a single shot, the Syrians received over $1 billion from the Saudis (and more is expected from the Gulf Emirates...

...The hope is that the West will put more pressure on Israel...

...Israel shares America's distaste for a Teheran-inspired Shiite regime in southern Iraq...

...This has produced a noticeable hardening of Israeli public opinion, and has prompted some leading doves to declare publicly that they have revised their stand on a Palestinian state...

...Never mind that PLO chief Yasir Arafat had been Saddam's closest ally, and that Palestinians stood on the rooftops cheering the Iraqi missiles streaking overhead on their way to targets in Tel Aviv...

...If the outcome of the negotiations is to be determined before they start, people here are asking, what is there to talk about...

...Even before the final armistice with Iraq has been signed, though, there are strong indications that the chances for arms control are beinglost...

...intentions...

...The willingness of even the so-called moderate Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to negotiate with Israel is still conditioned on its complete withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines...