During the 1970s and early 1980s, the rapid spread in Iran and elsewhere of the most fanatical varieties of Islamic fundamentalism, with their goal of toppling secular governments and replacing them with theocracies modeled after Iran’s, made the Middle East even more unpredictable, giving the Soviets new opportunities to exploit the instability there. In a region whose oil exports were essential to the West, Soviet meddling was something the United States could not tolerate, and all our presidents since World War II, including me, felt an obligation to help reduce the instability and bring about peace.
I’ve believed many things in my life, but no conviction I’ve ever held has been stronger than my belief that the United States must ensure the survival of Israel.
The Holocaust, I believe, left America with a moral responsibility to ensure that what had happened to the Jews under Hitler never happens again. We must not let it happen again. The civilized world owes a debt to the people who were the greatest victims of Hitler’s madness.
My dedication to the preservation of Israel was as strong when I left the White House as when I arrived there, even though this tiny ally, with whom we share democracy and many other values, was a source of great concern for me while I was president.
My introduction to the high emotions that surround almost everything to do with the Middle East occurred during my first few weeks in Washington. During its final months, the Carter administration had made a tentative decision, but had not yet announced it, to sell Saudi Arabia several airborne warning and control (AWACS) aircraft—flying radar stations that can spot incoming aircraft and missiles and direct the launching of defensive or offensive missiles. Even before inauguration day, Jewish groups in America began pressing me to cancel the sale. When I got to the White House, I ordered a complete review of the proposed sale and decided to go ahead with it because I was told the planes would not materially change the balance of power in the Arab-Israeli conflict. I thought the Arab world would regard it as a gesture showing that we desired to be evenhanded in the Middle East.
Even though Saudi Arabia had opposed the Camp David accords, I thought it was important to strengthen ties with this relatively moderate Arab country, not only because its oil exports were essential to our economy, but because, like Israel, it wanted to resist Soviet expansionism in the region. In some ways, our interests in the Middle East and those of Saudi Arabia coincided. Its oilfields were among the richest in the world, coveted by the Communist world and by neighboring Iran, but protected by a relatively small Saudi military establishment.
The Saudis needed the friendship and, if necessary, the help of a great power in defending their oilfields. We wanted to keep the Soviets out of the region as well as prevent the radical, anti-American Iranian revolution from spreading to Saudi Arabia, with all the implications that could have for our economy. To put it simply, I didn’t want Saudi Arabia to become another Iran. Therefore, although I knew we’d never abandon our pledge to ensure the survival of Israel, I believed we ought to pursue a course that convinced the moderate Arabs that we could play fair and that the United States was a credible ally.
Following the previous administration’s decision to look on while the shah of Iran was removed from power, I also wanted to send a signal to our allies and to Moscow that the United States supported its friends and intended to exert an influence in the Middle East not just limited to our support of Israel. Moreover, I thought that strengthening ties to moderate Arab nations might help us in the long run to resolve some of the great problems of the Middle East. If we were ever going to be able to bring the warring parties together and negotiate a peace, we had to convince the Arabs that we could be fair. In 1981, the projected AWACS sale became a symbol to moderate Arab countries of our fairness and the strength of our commitment to them. Unfortunately, to Israel and some of its supporters in Congress, the great AWACS battle became, for reasons with no foundation in reality, the symbol of what they perceived as a betrayal of Israel by the United States. They chose to take on the administration over the AWACS sale and created a donnybrook in Congress that I believed we could not afford to lose. I believed it was a battle that had to be won to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East. I also knew that if we lost on AWACS, it might undermine our ability to persuade Congress to approve our domestic programs and the rearmament of the Pentagon.
The battle began to heat up just a few days after I moved into the White House, when I started getting calls and visits from the leaders of American Jewish organizations and their supporters in Congress, voicing opposition to the projected sale. By the middle of April, while I was recuperating from the shooting at the Hilton, I was receiving so much flak on the AWACS issue that it was taking up almost as much time as the economic recovery program. One night during April I wrote in my diary:
I’m disturbed by the reaction and the opposition of so many groups [to my support of the AWACS sale]. First of all it must be plain to them, they’ve never had a better friend of Israel in the W.H. than they have now. We are striving to bring stability to the Middle East and reduce the threat of a Soviet move in that direction. The basis for such stability must be peace between Israel and the Arab nations. The Saudis are a key to this. If they can follow the course of Egypt the rest might fall in place. The AWACS won’t be theirs until 1985. In the meantime, much can be accomplished toward furthering the Camp David format.
We have assured the Israelis we will do whatever is needed to see that any help to the Arab states does not change the balance of power between them and the Arabs.
At the time the AWACS battle was heating up in Congress, so were hostilities in the Middle East. Israel was becoming increasingly concerned over hit-and-run attacks across its borders by PLO terrorists based in Lebanon. And Syrian forces, which had entered Lebanon in 1976 as a part of an Arab “peacekeeping” force and never left, were fighting in central Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley with the Phalange, a Christian militia. After Syria started installing Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles in Lebanon, we began hearing reports from Israel that it was weighing the possibility of invading southern Lebanon to attack PLO and Syrian installations it regarded as hostile to northern Israel.
In an effort to head off a new threat to Middle East peace, I asked our country’s extraordinary diplomatic troubleshooter, Philip Habib, to come out of retirement and undertake a special mission to Syria, Lebanon, and Israel to see if he could negotiate an agreement that would keep the peace. All through 1981, he worked to avert war in Lebanon, while Palestinian terrorists continued their sporadic forays into Israel, more Soviet-built Syrian missiles were installed within range of key targets in northern Israel, and Israeli commandos engaged their enemies across the border.
In the late spring of that year, Saudi Arabia agreed to help Habib mediate the dispute on the Syrian and PLO side, giving us hope that war could be averted. A miracle worker who never ceased to amaze me, Habib then negotiated a cease-fire that held intermittently through most of the year despite an eruption of anti-Israeli fervor in the Arab world in early June, after the Israelis, flying U.S.—made planes, bombed a nuclear reactor that was under construction in Iraq.
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who informed us of the attack only after the fact, said that Israel had acted because of information it had received that the Iraqi plant was to be used to produce fissionable material for nuclear weapons for use against Israel. He said that a French shipment of “hot” uranium had been scheduled to arrive soon and that if he had waited longer, he could not have ordered the bombing because the resultant radiation would have drifted over Baghdad, Iraq’s capital.
“I can understand his fear but feel he took the wrong option,” I wrote in the diary June 9, 1981.
He should have told us and the French. We could have done something to remove the threat. However, we are not turning on Israel. That would be an invitation for the Arabs to attack. It’s time to raise h—1 world wide for a settlement of the Middle East problem. What has happened
is the result of fear and suspicion on both sides. We need a real push for a solid peace. . . .
Under the law I have no choice but to ask Congress to investigate and see if there has been a violation of the law regarding use of American-produced planes for offensive purposes. Frankly, if Congress should decide that, I’ll grant a Presidential waiver. Iraq is technically still at war with Israel and I believe they were preparing to build an atom bomb.
Technically, Israel had violated an agreement with us not to use U.S.—made weapons for offensive purposes, and some cabinet members wanted me to lean hard on Israel because it had broken this pledge. We sent a note to the Israeli government criticizing the raid, and delayed shipment of several additional military aircraft as a show of our displeasure; but I sympathized with Begin’s motivations and privately believed we should give him the benefit of the doubt. I had no doubt that the Iraqis were trying to develop a nuclear weapon.
Nevertheless, in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, the raid ignited an uproar and poured additional fuel on the AWACS bonfire. Pointing out that Israel’s planes had trespassed in Saudi airspace en route to Iraq, the Saudis sent word to me that the raid was evidence that Israel posed a threat to all Arab countries and additional proof that they needed the AWACS planes, so that they could be forewarned of an Israeli air raid.
In Congress, the AWACS controversy simmered all summer long before coming to a boil in early fall. According to the rules, the sale of the aircraft could be blocked by a majority vote in both houses of Congress. Israel’s supporters already had the votes in the House. The principal battleground would be the Senate, where our party had a slim majority but Israel also had many friends.
Prime Minister Begin arrived in Washington in early September, not long after Congress had passed the tax cuts that were pivotal to our economic recovery program, and suddenly no legislative issue occupied Washington more than the proposed AWACS sale. After a formal arrival ceremony on the South Lawn, Begin and I adjourned to the Oval Office for a get-acquainted chat. I told him I wanted the two of us to be on a first-name basis. Later, we met with our advisors in the Cabinet Room and Begin, as I expected, urged us not to go ahead with sale of the airplanes. At Camp David, he said, Israel had gone more than halfway to meet the Arabs on the road to peace. In exchange for Egypt’s agreement that Israel had the right to exist (a concession for which Anwar Sadat had been excommunicated from the Arab League), he had agreed to return the Sinai peninsula—captured by Israel in the 1967 war—to Egypt in April 1982, and to grant autonomy to more than one million Palestinians who were living in the Gaza Strip and on the West Bank of the Jordan River, territory Israel had also captured during the war.
Now, Begin argued, Israel was owed everything the United States could possibly do to preserve its security. I understood his concerns. Israel was a small country virtually surrounded by enemies: It was under pressure from the international community to abide by United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which called upon Israel to withdraw from all the territories it had claimed after the 1967 war, including the West Bank. Without the West Bank, Israel was so narrow in places that a cannon shot could be fired all the way across the country.
Begin told me he was fearful of anything that might change the balance of power in the Middle East. But I told him our military people were convinced that the AWACS planes would not materially alter the balance. I repeatedly emphasized that the United States was committed to ensuring Israel’s survival and would do nothing to diminish its position of military superiority over the Arabs. I also tried to explain why we needed the participation of moderate Arab countries other than Egypt in efforts to achieve a lasting and secure peace in the Middle East. Writing that night in my diary about my meeting with Begin, I said:
I told him how strongly we felt it [the AWACS sale] could help bring the Saudis into the peace making process. I assured him we (Israel and US) were allies. That the partnership benefited us as much as it did Israel and that we would not let a risk to Israel to be created. While he didn’t give up his objection, he mellowed. By the time the meetings and the state dinner ended, he said this was the warmest reception he’d ever had from a President of the United States. I think we’re off to a good start in the difficult business of peace in the Middle East. My own feeling is that it should come through bilateral agreements just as it did with Egypt. That’s why we want to start with Saudi Arabia.
Although I felt that our relationship had gotten off to a good start and that I had Begin’s confidence that we would do whatever it took to ensure the safety of Israel, I learned that almost immediately after he left the White House, Begin went to Capitol Hill and began lobbying very hard against me, the administration, and the AWACS sale—after he had told me he wouldn’t do that.
I didn’t like having representatives of a foreign country—any foreign country—trying to interfere in what I regarded as our domestic political process and the setting of our foreign policy. I told the State Department to let Begin know that I didn’t like it and that he was jeopardizing the close relationship of our countries unless he backed off. Privately, I felt he’d broken his word and I was angry about it. Late the following month, we won the AWACS battle when the Senate narrowly defeated a measure that would have blocked the sale, and we achieved our goal of sending a signal to moderate Arabs that we could be evenhanded—even though Israel, in a message apparently dictated by Begin, denounced the administration for anti-Semitism and betrayal.
During the preceding weeks, I had experienced one of the toughest battles of my eight years in Washington. Israel had very strong friends in Congress. With the exception of two or three votes on our tax and spending cut legislation, I spent more time in one-on-one meetings and on the telephone attempting to win on this measure than on any other. We had begun the month more than twenty votes behind in the Senate; we finally won by a margin of fifty-two to forty-eight.
That was just the first of many problems I’d have involving the Middle East.
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AFTER THE TRAGIC ASSASSINATION of Anwar Sadat in October 1981, the future of the Middle East became even murkier, while the clouds of war that had hung over Lebanon began to grow darker with each day. Vice-President Hosni Mubarak succeeded Sadat as president of Egypt, inheriting the same situation that had confronted his predecessor: serious domestic economic problems, Egypt’s isolation from the Arab world because of the Camp David agreement and its acceptance of Israel’s right to exist, and the increasing political ferment in Egypt of fundamentalist Muslims. Mubarak knew firsthand what the pursuit of Sadat’s policies had meant for his mentor: He had been sitting near Sadat when Sadat was assassinated. By no means was it certain that he would find it prudent to continue on the same course as Sadat. It seemed possible that he might renounce the Camp David accords once Egypt had reclaimed the Sinai, then rejoin the Arab League, perhaps even reestablish the close ties with the Soviet Union that had prevailed under Sadat’s predecessor, Gamal Abdel Nasser.
There was also a strong possibility that Menachem Begin, who was understandably skeptical and uncertain about the new leadership in Cairo and worried by a growing PLO military buildup in Lebanon, would decide that Israel’s security was best served by reneging on the Camp David accords and going to war again with the Arabs.
Why were these events, occurring thousands of miles from our shores, important to Americans? Under Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Union was eager to exploit any opportunity to expand its influence and supplant the United States as the dominant superpower in this oil-rich and strategically important part of the world. The Middle East was one of those remote but important stages of the world where, during the late twentieth century, a miscalculation or mis-judgment could lead to World War III.
We had an irreversible commitment to the survival and territorial integrity of Israel. And, as the leader of the Free World, America had a special responsibility to attempt to end the killings and settle the disputes between peoples whom we regard
ed as mutual friends and allies.
As a friend of both Israel and the moderate Arab states, I felt the United States had a duty to do this—in fact, we were the only nation in a position to serve as middle man in the quest for peace to this troubled region. Virtually all of the key players, except the Palestinian extremists and radical Muslim fundamentalists, were looking to the United States to help find a solution to the problems. Now we had to press ahead and achieve one.
Through the winter and spring of 1981-82, the cease-fire in Lebanon negotiated by Philip Habib remained in effect despite great pressures: sporadic terrorist attacks against Israel by Palestinians; the delivery of more Soviet-made rockets, artillery, and other weapons to Syrian and PLO forces in Lebanon; repeated Israeli strikes on Palestinians in Lebanon; and a general unraveling of law and order in and around Beirut among Syrian, Christian, and Muslim militias, all of whom claimed the right to control Lebanon.
Syria claimed that its ancestral right to the Holy Land preceded that of the biblical Hebrews, and that Lebanon had no right to exist because it was created by France, its former colonial ruler. Syria’s long-term goal was to make Lebanon a de facto colony and strip Christians of any political power there.
In December, the seething tensions in the Middle East were exacerbated when Israel announced that it had annexed the strategically important Golan Heights, which it had taken from Syria during the 1967 war; this was a violation of UN Resolution 242. Meanwhile, Israel’s continuing establishment of settlements in the occupied territories, in defiance of the resolution as well as of world opinion, poured more fuel onto the fire.
An American Life Page 43
