TIME: Desert Storm - The War in the Persian Gulf/TIME: Desert Storm - The War in the Persian Gulf.iso/time3_04/cm040028.t01

Text File | 1991-06-27 | 8.9 KB | 204 lines

DATE: FEB. 21,  1991     05:31  REPORT:
TO: SPL
FOR:
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BUREAU: JERUSALEM
BY: ROBERT SLATER (JH)
IN:
SLUG: WAR NARRATIVE

 Some Israelis have a hard time saying it publicly. Some
don't. But all of them are united in the hope that Saddam
Hussein won't be around much longer. Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir just smiles knowingly when asked if he
wants George Bush to finish off Saddam. Of course he
does, but then he reminds a reporter that "We're not part
of the war." Defense Minister Moshe Arens, far less
reluctant to say what is on his mind, noted in an Israel
Radio interview this week: "I would not bet that Saddam
Hussein will remain the President of Iraq after the end
of war."

 Shamir and others were rooting for George Bush to knock
down the Soviet peace plan and begin the ground war. The
Prime Minister told a delegation from the World
Federation of Sephardic Jews this week that Israel
counted on the US to "show foresight" with respect to the
Soviet peace plan. Shamir's meaning: Washington should
not let Saddam survive.

 Soon thereafter President Bush cabled Shamir, promising
Israel that the United States would not "compromise with
Saddam.." according to sources in the Prime Minister's
Office. Bush also wrote that the United States rejected
the Soviet peace initiative. There was much satisfaction
in Jerusalem with the President's message.

 Senior Israeli officials acknowledge that Bush has
supplied Israel with details of the Soviet peace
initiative, but they say Israel has not been informed of
the four-day timetable which the President may have
demanded of Saddam Hussein.

 Meanwhile, the Israeli policy of not retaliating for
Iraqi missile attacks remains in force. A public opinion
poll released this week showed that 80 percent of the
country supports such restraint. The poll was conducted
between February 11 and 14 by the Israel Institute of
Applied Social Science in Jerualem after 13 missile
attacks had occurred.

 Summing up Israel's frustration in not getting involved
was Shamir in his talk to the Sephardic Jews:
"Unfortunately, we are not part of the coalition and we
suffer from the fact that we have no active role in our
defense." Then he added wistfully: "If the war goes on,
perhaps we will find a way to associate Israel" in the
American-led coalition against Saddam.

 Until now Shamir has been able to count on the
overwhelming majority of his cabinet for the restraint
policy. However, there was a slight dent Thursday when
Housing Minister Ariel Sharon expressed the strongest
public opposition to the policy thus far. "If the United
States is not able to remove the missile threat, Israel
should do it," he said on Israel Television.

 There is a growing feeling within the cabinet that if
Israel is attacked by chemical weapons it will have no
choice but to respond militarily to Iraq. The cabinet's
growing militancy came as relations between Washington
and Jerusalem went through some rough sailing this week.

 Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was forced to send an
unusual letter of apology to Bush earlier this week,
hoping to soothe the President's anger over the major
diplomatic flap created by Israel's Ambassador to
Washington, Zalman Shoval. Shamir hoped that apology
would assure that Washington would still be in a mood to
pay Israel back for its no-retaliation policy. The
payback would come, Israel hopes, in the form of enhanced
political and financial support.

 What touched off the Bush Administration's furor was an
interview Shoval gave to Reuters in which the Ambassador
complained that Washington was giving Israel the
"run-around" on its request for $400 million in
American-backed housing loan guarantees for Soviet Jewish
immigrant housing. The Bush Administration's response to
the Shoval interview was exceptionally sharp. At first
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker summoned Shoval to
his office and protested his remarks. Next President Bush
fired off an angry cable to Shamir.

 The core of the Israeli-American dispute was whether
Israel had supplied Washington with all the information
sought by Baker in his October 2 letter to Foreign
Minister David Levy regarding plans to settle Soviet Jews
in the occupied territories. Israel said that it had; the
United States said it had not.

 Baker was particularly annoyed after reading a
Washington Post interview last week with left-wing
Knesset members Dedi Zucker and Haim Oron who mentioned a
Housing Ministry plan to build 12,000 new homes in the
occupied Arab lands. They also noted that 2,500 Soviet
Jews were already living there.

 Shamir's letter of apology appeared to have done the
trick: Secretary of State James Baker phoned Foreign
Minister David Levy Thursday to say that he had just
signed the $400 million loan agreement.

 Despite Iraqi peace feelers, missiles kept falling on
Israel this week. On Saturday evening, after four quiet
days, Iraq fired off two missiles, both with conventional
warheads, at Israel without causing casualties. One
missile landed in the Negev desert, the first time that
an Iraqi missile has landed in southern Israel; the
second missile fell in an open area. (military censorship
prohibits us from being more specific)

 Then on Monday evening Iraqi fired another missile at
Israel, again causing no damage. This one, the 36th to
have been fired against Israel in 16 attacks since
January 18, landed in central Israel. Air Force Commander
Avihu Ben-Nun disclosed that Patriot defense missiles had
intercepted Scud missiles in both the Saturday and Monday
attacks.

 Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Levy continued to stir
personal controversies. Shamir and Levy disagree on
whether Israel should pursue peace initiatives now or
wait until after the war. Levy wants Israel to deal with
post-war peace issues now; Shamir prefers to hold off.
This week Levy publicly accused Shamir's office of trying
to "blacken his name" and working "behind his back."

 As if to substantiate part of Levy's accusations Shamir
lashed out in veiled terms at the Foreign Minister's
insistence on trying to move the peace process forward
even before the Gulf war ends. In a speech to the Board
of Governors of the Jewish Agency on Sunday Shamir said:
"Who can tell what the Middle East and the Gulf region
will look like after the war? What kind of Iraq will
there be? What will be the fate of Jordan? What will
Syria's role be in this war...and it's position after the
war? What will be the fate of the Arab governments, which
are experiencing the trauma of a war between Arab
countries.

 "I therefore submit that we should concentrate first on
achieving the objectives of the Gulf war. Then,
hopefully, we will be able to embark on the road to
negotiations and peace, in a better climate." Only hours
earlier Shamir's office had issued an astonishing public
statement asserting that there were no differences
between Shamir and Levy.

 Addressing the Knesset Wednesday, Levy said that Israel
had to do what it could to find Palestinian residents of
the occupied territories with whom to talk peace, even it
meant talking to those who cheered Saddam's firing
missiles at Israel. Said Levy: "I shall talk to the
Palestinians who stood in glee on their rooftops, if they
are the only ones I can find....It is my belief that a
complacent do- nothing policy is a recipe for diplomatic
damage."

 Looking ahead to the post-war scene, former Defense
Minister Yitzhak Rabin issued a stern warning to his
countrymen regarding the Syrian threat. Rabin, now a
Labor party Knesset member, asserted in a talk to the
Labor Knesset faction Monday, that Syria's arsenal of
non-conventional weapons was more dangerous than Iraq's,
especially if Israel did not enjoy the benefit of
American satellite data on missile launchings, as it had
during the Gulf war.

 Rabin rejected the idea that the Israel Defense Force's
deterrent capability had been diminished because of the
government's restraint policy. "In a war between us and
Arab states," he said, "the other side knows that we
possess a deterrent. They take seriously our past
reminders that any Arab attack on our civilian population
could lead to the destruction of Baghdad or Damascus."

 He urged that Israel not be complacent toward Syria. "We
possess no effective answer to the missiles now in the
hands of Arab states. We will probably never enjoy a
situation similar to the one we have today, where thanks
to our understanding with the U.S., their satellite
system gives us 5 and 1/2 minutes warning of a Scud
launching."

 If Rabin was talking of heading off the next war, some
Israeli leaders were still worried that this one wasn't
over yet. Tel Aviv Mayor Shlomo Lahat said Monday that
for his city the worst part of the Gulf was still in the
future. "There will be chemical warheads. I have no doubt
in my mind....We must prepared ourselves."

ENDIT