Peace in jeopardy
Does Israel seek to provoke a new war with the Arabs? Is its policy to wreck any chance of an American-negotiated Middle Eastern peace settlement? Whether or not Israel's commando strike at an Arab guerrilla training camp in Lebanon, north of Beirut, was designed with no more than its stated objective in mind, we will not know soon, if ever; nor will we know for sure whether the interception by Israeli fighter aircraft of the Boeing 727 of Libyan Airways, and its consequent crash with the loss of seventy lives, was a horrible coincidence; whether it was shot down; or whether it accidentally crashed in bad weather after interception, warning and a request to land. This last explanation is difficult to credit, as is the Israeli claim that similar passenger aircraft have been used for aerial reconnaissance. It is possible that, as a consequence of the Lebanon raid, Israeli security forces were on full alert, anticipating some kind of retaliation, and over-reacted.
What is quite clear is Israel's pride in its deep strike into Lebanon. Technically the exercise seems to have been most expert, with troops landed by sea and taken off by air, and greeted on their return by Minister of Defence Moshe Dayan and Chief of Staff David Elazar. The Israelis claim that by attacking this particular camp they have frustrated nine planned Palestinian terrorist operations including an attack on an Israeli embassy in Europe. Be this as it may, the Lebanese strike certainly will have the triple effect of jeopardising President Nixon's peace efforts; of damaging the prospects of an Arab-Israeli reconciliation held out by King Hussein's recognition that Jordan and Egypt "accept not only the presence of an Israel but of an Israel enclosed behind secure and recognised borders "; and of further weakening President Sadat's internal position vis-à-vis the Egyptian armed forces following the sending of Dr Hafiz Ismail, his Kissinger, to Washington for talks with Nixon. This triple effect was calculable, and must have been calculated, by Israel.
The crash, whether deliberately brought about or not, of the Libyan Airways aircraft, with Egyptian passengers the main casualties, cannot but reinforce the political effects of Israel's strike deep into north Lebanon. As a consequence, war in the Middle East might break out at any time; and the prospects of any peace, other than one imposed by the chief powers, have become as remote as they have ever been. For this, on the facts available, Israel must bear the blame, whether Israeli aircraft actually shot down the Libyan plane, as seems probable, or not; and whether the Israeli action was jittery or was taken, as Mrs Golda Meir claims, after" due consideration."
