An Israeli Blitz v. Arab Summitry

Patrolling in leisurely fashion off the Syrian coast near the port of Tartus last week, the two Israeli reconnaissance jets looked deceptively vulnerable. They were, after all, 125 nautical miles from the nearest Israeli border. But when alert Syrian MiG-21s moved in for the kill, the sitting ducks turned out to be seductive decoys. Israeli Phantoms and Mirages flying cover high overhead in the partly overcast skies pounced on the Syrian planes. In what was by far the biggest air battle in the Middle East since the 1967 Six-Day War, 13 Syrian MIGS were downed and one Israeli Mirage dropped into the sea.

That, at least, is the way the Israelis told it. Syrian authorities insisted that the battle had been touched off when two Israeli Phantoms streaked into Syria from the direction of Lebanon and broke the sound barrier over the inland cities of Horns and Hama. As Syrian planes rose to meet them, the Phantoms headed toward the sea, strafing a Syrian village on the way out. Over the Mediterranean, other Israeli fighters pounced on the Syrian pursuit. In the dogfight that followed, Syria said that it had shot down five Israeli jets and lost eight of its own, two of them falling in Lebanon.

Whether the Israelis merely laid an ambush for the Syrians or were actually probing the Syrian air defense system, their apparent intention was to display once again their superiority in the air. Asked what the Israelis were doing so far from home in the first place, Israeli Air Force Chief Benjamin Peled unconvincingly told correspondents at a Tel Aviv briefing: "We were carrying out a routine sea patrol to see what was going on in the area." More likely, the action was timed to coincide with the conclusion of a summit on Arab unity in Cairo. It was, in short, a kind of Israeli psychological blitz designed to suggest that all Arab talk of future confrontations, united commands and renewed fedayeen action was futile in the face of Israeli military might.

If so, it seemed like another case of overkill. The summit was certainly noteworthy, if only for the fact that Jordan's King Hussein, who for three years has been shunned by most of his Arab brethren, traveled to Cairo to confer with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Syrian President Hafez Assad. But their meeting produced no immediate plans for unified action.

No wonder -considering that neither Egypt nor Syria even had diplomatic relations with Jordan. The little kingdom has been a virtual outcast in Arab ranks ever since September 1970, when Hussein and his army clamped down, with much bloodshed, on the fedayeen operating in his country. The crackdown cost Jordan's King a badly needed subsidy from Libya's Muammar Gaddafi ($20 million annually) and froze Kuwait's substantial contribution ($40 million annually) to Jordan. In August 1971, after the Jordanians threw out the remaining fedayeen forces, neighboring Syria severed diplomatic relations. A year later, Sadat broke relations over Hussein's proposal for the creation of a United Arab Kingdom, a federation of the East and West Banks of the Jordan River. The plan outraged the fedayeen and Sadat could do little else but support them.

Recently, however, Arab options have shrunk all round. Israel has undeniably achieved military and political supremacy. Egypt's maneuvering has been drastically cut by U.S.-Soviet detente. Sadat gambled that the U.S. would make concessions to the Arabs in its Middle East policy when he kicked the Russians out last year. He lost that gamble. Deciding to place emphasis on Arab self-reliance, he traveled to Saudi Arabia late last month to tighten relations with conservative King Feisal, enlist his aid in oil diplomacy, and persuade him to part with sizable financial aid for Egypt. Sadat also began seeking closer relations with Syria and with the oil-rich Gulf states; he visited Damascus and Qatar and met with the ruler of Kuwait in Cairo.

Sadat's main interest at the Cairo summit was not only to bring back together the so-called "confrontation states," but to reactivate the Eastern Front, composed of contingents from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Palestine Liberation Army. The idea, which was strongly supported by Hussein's good friend Feisal, was that the regrouped Arab military presence would, at the least, be an inconvenience to Israel, forcing it to deploy additional troops along its frontiers. For his part, Hussein had every reason to seek a rapprochement with Egypt and Syria and a resumption of Arab subsidies so long as he did not have to permit a return of the fedayeen.

The guerrilla issue was clearly the touchiest item on the agenda in Cairo. Hussein apparently expressed a willingness to let small units of the Palestine Liberation Army be based in Jordan under Jordanian command. But he balked at proposals that massive bands of guerrillas be allowed back in the lines under independent fedayeen command. The King's determined stand stalled the conference. When it ended after three days, Egypt announced that it was resuming diplomatic relations with Jordan, and Syria is expected to follow suit soon. But the communique made no reference to the fedayeen issue or to the Eastern front.

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