Ready and Waiting

By Marguerite Johnson

As Habib takes time out, Syria and Israel remain poised to fight

"It's time for us to have a talk, and then maybe he'll be back." So saying, President Reagan last week recalled to Washington his special Middle East envoy, Philip Habib, for consultations about the continuing crisis between Israel and Syria. Habib himself said he was convinced, after three weeks of shuttling between various capitals in the region, that neither side wanted to go to war. The President praised Habib's peace mission as "a tremendously successful, almost miraculous thing" that had succeeded in staving off a military conflict even if no acceptable formula for a resolution had yet been worked out. Habib announced that he would resume his negotiations in the Middle East this week. Said he: "Nobody seems to want to have this thing get completely out of hand. It was also clear to me that the leaders were prepared to listen to us and were prepared to have us play the role of peacemaker."

The Administration continued to keep a tight lid on the substance of Habib's negotiations. They are believed to involve a complex set of trade-offs to persuade Syria to remove the three batteries of Soviet-made SA-6 missiles it deployed in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley after Israel shot down two of its helicopters. Moreover, Habib was believed to be trying to devise a broader peace plan to eliminate the bloodletting that periodically tears at Lebanon's own internal politics. One reason he may have decided to interrupt his shuttle was to give Saudi Arabia time to arrange an Arab initiative to settle the crisis. As a U.S. official put it, "The Syrians don't want to be seen accepting suggestions from the Americans."

The Saudi plan has been previously reported to involve two parts: 1) up to $4 billion in economic aid to Syria, which would bolster the regime of President Hafez Assad and go far to alleviate Syria's isolation in the Arab world; and 2) the addition of Saudi and perhaps Kuwaiti troops to the Arab Deterrent Force, now all Syrian, that entered Lebanon in 1976 under a peace-keeping mandate from the Arab League. The diversification of troops would assuage charges by right-wing Lebanese Christians that the Syrians have become an occupation army.

Still, even though Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin repeated his pledge that Israel was putting no time limit on Habib's diplomatic efforts, there were fears that Israel might take advantage of his absence to attack the contro versial missiles. Instead, just 24 hours after Habib left, Israeli warplanes launched bombing forays against Palestinian positions, followed up with a naval raid that shelled the coast near Damur, south of Beirut, and landed commandos who ambushed guerrilla vehicles. The air strikes, the first in a month, hit Palestinian strongholds and refugee camps in and around the towns of Damur and nearby Naameh. According to Lebanese estimates, some 25 people were killed and at least 100 were wounded.

Reports TIME Beirut Bureau Chief William Stewart, who watched the air attack from the Beirut airport: "The planes, two at a time, appeared suddenly in a cloudless sky. Brilliant flashes of light followed them; it was unclear whether they were caused by Palestinian missiles or were emitted from the planes themselves to attract and deflect missiles."

After the attacks, Begin renewed Israel's charge that Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who signed a merger agreement with Syria last year, had sent men and equipment into Lebanon to aid the Palestinians. According to sources in Beirut, between 400 and 500 Libyan officers --not troops--have arrived in Lebanon over the past two weeks to act as advisers. The Libyans were sent in to instruct Pal estine Liberation Organization commandos of every group except Fatah, the largest, and some left-wing militia groups, in the use of artillery, rocket launchers and other military equipment that Libya has recently funneled through Syria. At a rally in Beirut late last week, Yasser Arafat, chairman of the P.L.O., said that since 1972 there had been Libyan troops among his guerrilla forces in the Mount Hermon area. In the past, Palestinian leaders had denied Libyan involvement. Arafat also said there were Libyan missiles in Lebanon.

For their part, the Israelis have also helped their allies in Lebanon. They sent the Christian Phalangists more than $150 million in financial assistance this year, in addition to artillery, tanks, small arms and ammunition. Last week Jerusalem acknowledged that high Israeli officials had met with Christian leaders in 1979 and agreed to provide assistance in their battle against Syria. Under the terms of the agreement, Israel would not intervene directly in the conflict unless Syria used air power against the Christians. The revelations caused an outcry by the opposition, which charged that the agreement constituted a de facto peace treaty that circumvented requisite Knesset approval. TIME also learned last week that Begin, Moshe Dayan, then Foreign Minister, and Ezer Weizman, then Defense Minister, had met in Israel with Phalangist leaders as early as 1978.

Meanwhile, it increasingly appeared as if Begin's commitment to the U.S. to give diplomacy a chance had reined in his own restive military establishment from striking against the Syrian missiles. One top official conceded, moreover, that the delay had made it "harder and harder politically for us to do something militarily." What particularly worried the Israeli leaders was not so much the threat the disputed missiles posed to their reconnaissance flights, but the credibility of Israeli military forces in the eyes of the Syrians. After repeatedly asserting that they would knock out the missiles, explained one top U.S. official, the Israelis might feel compelled to act simply to demonstrate that their words could be backed up by deeds.

Begin was still talking tough last week, assailing the Syrian call-up of "tens of thousands of troops" and the "warlike mood" in Damascus. But for all the reasons to attack, he was also aware that his countrymen were in no mood for a war. The crisis, however, had undeniably given a shot of adrenalin to Begin's campaign for re-election on June 30. The political opposition, in fact, has watched with outraged dismay and helplessness as, day after day, Begin co-opted the evening television news with developments concerning the crisis. In midweek, Begin sprang another surprise: a summit meeting this week in the southern Sinai with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

The news startled even the Israeli foreign ministry, and diplomats and politicians in Cairo and Jerusalem reacted with incredulity and in some cases cynicism. Why would Sadat agree to a meeting that could only enhance Begin's chances of reelection? It had been widely assumed that the Egyptian President felt that he had got all he could out of Begin on the critical issue of Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Moreover, Sadat was said to be banking heavily on the election of Labor Party Leader Shimon Peres, who is more flexible toward autonomy for the occupied territories. Some Western diplomats believed that Sadat was merely hedging his bets: having read the Israeli polls, they reasoned, he came to the conclusion that Begin would squeak through to another term. To preserve the appearance of political impartiality, Sadat invited Peres to meet with him a few days after the Begin parley.

But there were some indications that Sadat, fresh from a fence-mending visit to his Arab neighbor to the south, Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiri, might in some way be complementing the work of Habib. Begin insisted that the two main items on the agenda for discussion would be the Lebanese crisis and Soviet expansion in the Middle East, not the stalled autonomy negotiations between Egypt and Israel. Although Egypt has been at odds with Syria since the Camp David accords, Cairo has no desire to see an Arab state pummeled by Israel in another conflict.

Despite the fact that Sadat has said Egypt would stay out of any war between Israel and Syria, it would be embarrassing, both at home and in the Arab world, to make good his promise to stay neutral. Thus it was possible that Sadat would try to seek concessions from Begin on the missile crisis with Syria in return for having agreed to the prestige-boosting summit in the first place. Even if that gambit failed, Sadat might buy some time until Habib could catch his breath and return to the region.

Whatever their differences on Lebanon, Sadat and Begin are expected to work smoothly together on another topic that is likely to come up at their summit: negotiations for a multinational peacekeeping force to monitor the Egyptian-Israeli border in Sinai. The 2,500-man force will likely be composed half of U.S. troops, with contingents from half a dozen other countries making up the balance.

Begin's handling of the crisis, meanwhile, was coming under increasing fire from the opposition. An emergency debate is scheduled in the Knesset this week to deal with both the Israeli agreement with the Lebanese Christians and Begin's alleged disclosures of classified information that could be of value to the enemy. The accusation originally stemmed from his revelation that Israeli aircraft had been unable to launch a planned strike against the Syrian missiles because of bad weather. Last week he reported that Israel had called up "only a few hundred reservists" because of the missile crisis. One other alleged "secret" that Begin betrayed turned out to be something less than authentic. His claim that Soviet advisers were operating with Syrian forces in Lebanon was denied not only by Washington but by his own military officials as well.

Still, Moscow was proclaiming publicly that it was standing staunchly beside its Syrian ally. In a statement released after a meeting in Moscow between Soviet Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev and Jordan's visiting King Hussein the Kremlin stressed its firm support for Syria. Moscow got a mild boost from Hussein, who backed a longstanding Soviet call for an international peace conference on the Middle East, co-chaired by the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The proposal is unacceptable to both the Israelis and the U.S. because it includes the provision that the P.L.O. officially take part in the meeting.

Moscow, Washington, Cairo, Jerusalem--a variety of settings for worried talks last week about the crisis in Lebanon, but nothing had changed the basic situation at the core. The missiles were still there. Syria still insisted that it would keep its SA-6s in the Bekaa Valley to protect its troops, and Israel said they must go. The inflammatory rhetoric flowing from both sides only added to worries that it would take very little provocation to touch off a conflagration. Said a top Israeli military official: "When two armies are ready against each other, it's very dangerous. It's like spilling gasoline and lighting a match."

--By Marguerite Johnson.

Reported by David Aikman/Jerusalem and Gregory Wierzynski/Washington

With reporting by David Aikman/Jerusalem, Gregory Wierzynski/Washington

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