August/September 1997, pg. 97
Middle East History: It Happened in September
U.S. Grants Israel Strategic Partnership and Then Pays For It
By Donald Neff
It was 16 years ago, on Sept. 10, 1981, that the Reagan administration conferred an extraordinary privilege on Israel. It formally announced that the tiny nation of well under four million Jews and the mighty United States had a "strategic relationship."1 On Nov. 30, the United States made the compact official by signing a Memorandum of Understanding on Strategic Cooperation with Israel.2
The rationale for the unique relationship was that Israel would cooperate to counter threats in the Middle East "caused by the Soviet Union or Soviet-controlled forces from outside the region." Since Israel had shown a decade earlier that it could not stand up to Soviet air power in Egypt during the war of attrition, this was not exactly a major gain for the United States.3 But it had great benefits for Israel.
The agreement brought the Jewish state a large array of new claims to U.S. assets and technology and diplomatic prestige. The memorandum created a coordinating council and working groups on weaponry research, military cooperation, maintenance facilities and other areas of so-called "mutual interest," in effect giving Israel American expertise at the working level. In addition, the United States agreed to buy up to $200 million a year of Israeli military products, thus opening the lucrative U.S. arms market to Israel. The irony was that Israel had founded its industry on U.S. technology transferred to Israel as aid or purloined by Israeli spies.4
Not surprisingly, the pact angered Arabs, who charged the United States was directly helping Israeli "aggression and expansionism."5 The Arabs were particularly disturbed by the timing of the announcement. It came barely a month after Crown Prince Fahd bin Abdul Aziz put forward the first comprehensive peace plan ever offered by Saudi Arabia.6
The U.N. General Assembly also criticized the agreement, saying it would "encourage Israel to pursue its aggressive and expansionist policies and practices in the occupied territories" and would have "adverse effects on efforts for the establishment of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East and would threaten the security of the region."7
Despite the enormous prestige and profit the United States had conferred on Israel by adopting it as a strategic partner, Israel then turned around and caused tremendous embarrassment to Washington two weeks later by annexing Syria's Golan Heights.8 Israel's action on Dec. 14 directly defied U.S. policy and came at considerable cost to itself. In a rare show of anger at Israel, the Reagan administration joined in a unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the annexation and calling it "null and void."9 More dramatically, on Dec. 18 Washington unilaterally suspended the Memorandum of Understanding on Strategic Cooperation.
Israel had shown a decade earlier it could not stand up to Soviet air power.
With that action, there also were suspended a series of special privileges enjoyed by Israel. These included halting technical advice to Israeli concerns seeking to sell military equipment to the United States, barring Israel's use of U.S. aid to buy supplies from Israeli rather than American firms, and rescinding permission for third countries to use U.S. aid to buy military equipment from Israeli firms.10
Washington also had strong words for Israel. A State Department spokesman said: "We do not recognize Israel's action, which we consider to be without international legal effect. Their action is inconsistent with both the letter and the spirit of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338."11
Prime Minister Menachem Begin reacted to the U.S. actions with outrage and arrogance. He summoned U.S. Ambassador to Israel Samuel W. Lewis to his Jerusalem home and declared:
"You have no moral right to preach to us about civilian casualties. We have read the history of World War II and we know what happened to civilians when you took action against an enemy. We have also read the history of the Vietnam War and your phrase 'bodycount'....Are we a vassal state? A banana republic? Are we 14-year-old boys, that if they don't behave they have their knuckles smacked?...The people of Israel has lived for 3,700 years without a memorandum of understanding with America and it will continue to live without it for another 3,700 years."12
The ironies of the scene were many, not the least of which was that Begin himself was a notorious schemer more than willing to break agreements and that Lewis was one of America's most pro-Israel ambassadors.13
As a result of such harsh words and emotions, the strategic relationship remained suspended as long as Begin was in power. He finally resigned on Sept. 15, 1983, and on Oct. 10 he was succeeded by Yitzhak Shamir. Nineteen days later Washington resurrected the memorandum of understanding with the signing by President Reagan of top-secret National Security Decision Directive 111. It called for strategic cooperation with Israel against Soviet moves in the region. The policy was opposed by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and the CIA, but it had the strong backing of Secretary of State George Shultz, one of America's most pro-Israel secretaries ever.14
Aid and Access
In return for its cooperation, Israel was given more aid and intimate access to American national security officials and technology. The United States and Israel established a Joint Military Political Group (JMPG) for strategic cooperation. Funding was provided for Israel's Lavi fighter, joint military exercises were scheduled, stockpiling of U.S. military equipment in Israel was authorized, more extensive sharing of intelligence was agreed to, use of Israeli ports to service ships of the U.S. Sixth Fleet was approved, and a unique free trade zone which would give Israel duty-free access to U.S. markets was established.
It was a long and tortuous path from the original strategic partnership and its final confirmation. Among the twists and turns: In 1982, Israel, armed with U.S. weapons, committed another outrage by invading Lebanon, causing untold death and destruction. Other horrors followed the massacre at Sabra and Shatila and the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut with the loss of 63 lives, including one of the CIA's top officials. Israel's refusal to withdraw caused the dispatch of U.S. Marines to Lebanon, where less than a week before the strategic partnership was finalized 241 servicemen were killed by an explosives-laden truck that penetrated the Marine barracks at Beirut airport, one of the worst losses in the corps' history.17
Although Reagan vowed that the Marines would remain, they were withdrawn early the next year. But that did not stop attacks against Americans. On Sept. 20, 1984, further evidence of American vulnerability was provided by the bombing of the American Embassy's new location in East Beirut, with the loss of 24 employees, most of them not Americans. That same year saw the start of long-term kidnappings of Americans by Iranian-funded Lebanese Muslim groups. Anti-Americanism became so bad that in 1985 Washington imposed a travel ban on Americans going to Lebanon, declaring it was too dangerous. By the end of 1988, the American presence in Lebanon was essentially finished except for a handful of embassy personnel, who kept a very low profile.18
While the strategic partnership could not be directly blamed for causing one of America's biggest setbacks in the Middle East U.S. expulsion from Lebanon after having had a major presence there since 1866 it certainly did nothing to prevent it. If anything, the open association with Israel as a "partner" further encouraged Israel's enemies to become America's enemies. The only benefactor of the strategic relationship was Israel. It gained the stature of being a partner of America as well as the profits of additional aid and cooperation that allowed it to continue its occupation of Arab lands in defiance of the rest of the world. |
