A NEW DEAL FOR ISRAEL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100250005-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: December 12, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100250005-0
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ARTICLE AP
ON PAGE /?
TIME
12 December 1983
A New Deal for Israel
After a two-year chill, the U.S. warms up to an old friend
Reagan gave away the store
and got-nothing in return,"
said a White House critic of
the Administration's Mid-
dle East policies. At a State Department
dinner for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir, a few guests even joked about rais-
ing the Star of David flag over the White
House to signal the "Israeli victory."
The verbal barbs were aimed
at a new "strategic cooperation"
agreement between the U.S. and
Israel worked out during a three-
day visit to Washington by Sha-
mir and his top aides. Although
the details need to be ironed out in
future meetings between lesser of-
ficials of both nations, the pack-
age of military aid and trade con-
cessions places Israel back in the
forefront of U.S. policy in the
Middle East, at the calculated risk
of upsetting the moderate Arab
states. As such, it was an abrupt
shift in the Administration's Mid-
dle East policy, which had
stressed U.S.. efforts to play an
evenhanded mediator's role.
'The improvement in U.S.-
Israeli relations was engineered
largely by Secretary of State
GeorgeShultz, who has felt person-
ally betrayed by the refusal of Syri-
an President Hafez Assad to carry
out a promise to withdraw troops
from Lebanon after Israel not only
agreed to do so but unilaterally and
prematurely drew back to safer po-
sitioris in southern Lebanon, actu-
ally against U.S. wishes. The agree-
ment is virtually a return to former
Secretary of State Alexander
Haig's "consensus of strategic con-
cerns," in which U.S. and Israeli
military cooperation was seen as
vital to discouraging Soviet intru-
the U.S. Although mostly planned in ad-
vance, the week's activity had an air of ur-
gency. Repeatedly frustrated in its efforts
to solve the Lebanon crisis and the Pales-
tinian dilemma, and with U.S. Marines
still exposed to terrorism, shelling and
sniper fire at the Beirut airport, the Ad-
ministration felt it was time to shake up
the. ingredients in the Middle East mix.
Sion into Middle East politics and, Shamir: "We did not pay for what we got from th
A
i
"
e
mer
cans
more broadly, to keep Western oil
A winner, from the White House to Good Morning, America.
supplies flowing from the Persian
Gulf. Explained one U.S. diplomat: "The Its thin.but persistent hope was that great-
US. can have a Middle East policy with Is- er tragedies 'could be averted and a sem-
rael or one without Israel. For the past 15 blance of stability restored.
months we've had one without Israel. Now ' Some degree of stability was sorely.
we're going back to one with Israel." needed. Forces, events and even leaders
In a second burst of Middle East di- in the Middle East are in a state of in-
plomacy just 22 hours later last week, creasing flux. The Soviet Union has re-
President Reagan met with Lebanon's armed Syria, which defiantly refused to
embattled President Amin .Gemayel, and withdraw from any of the Lebanese terri-
heard the closer U.S.-Israel ties criticized tory from which it has supported Shi'ite
in a personal meeting with Prince Bandar and Druse 'factions fighting Gemayel's
ibn Sultan. Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to Christian-dominated central govern-
ment. More ominously, Assad was report-
ed to be seriously ill. The White, House
heard reports that he had blood cancer,
and suffered partial paralysis after devel-
oping a clot in his left leg. U.S. intelli-
gence sources, however, believed As-
sad hat was recovering and was able to-take
part in some governmental meetings. At
any rate, he walked acrossa bridge in Da-
mascus last week and waved vig-
orously to cheering pedestrians.
Any chance that Assad's control
was waning could be seen as both
.an opportunity and a danger. On
the one hand, his determination
to dominate Lebanon might be
softening, and weaker successors
might be willing to withdraw
troops; on the other, those succes-.
sons might be even more radical
and more difficult to cope with.
Reported --ByEdM&pw oa
by Douglas Brew and Johanna
McGeary1WmhiriZfoa
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/24: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100250005-0