Israel's Growing Gloom

IN the tense days before the Six-Day War erupted, the 2,700,000 people of Israel were concerned but confident. When the war ended with a swift and resounding victory, their morale soared. But last week, on the third anniversary of the war, their mood was souring into one of gloom and uncertainty, and they were beginning to wonder whether they had really won a war, or merely the opening skirmish of a war. Frontier terrorism, constant clashes on the Suez Canal and anxiety about Soviet intentions have created a profound political and psychological malaise.

Events surrounding the anniversary week only deepened the gloom. In two skillful ambushes along the canal, 120 Egyptian commandos killed 13 Israeli soldiers. It was scant comfort that Israeli jets replied with six days of intensive bombing, including one 14-hour dawn-to-dusk raid, or that they shot down three Egyptian planes to bring their kills since 1967 to 101 (v. losses of nine). Near the Jordan border, Arab guerrillas fired Soviet-supplied, 220-mm. Katyusha rockets into the dusty town of Beisan on three occasions, killing three ten-year-old girls and wounding 36 people, mostly children. For the first time since 1948, rockets fell on Tiberias, a resort on the Sea of Galilee, killing two and wounding four.

The mounting casualties have had a stunning effect on Israel, which considers itself a big family and mourns every loss. Last month the losses were the highest for any month since 1967--43 soldiers and 18 civilians killed and 105 soldiers and 31 civilians wounded. In the kibbutzim along the northern and eastern borders, Israelis spend more and more time underground. "A couple of years ago, a shelter was where you ran to," said Yitzhak Carmel, a farmer on a settlement near Jordan. "Now it often seems to be the place you live in." At the Maoz Chaim kibbutz, 150 children have been sleeping underground for two years. Many of the shelters have become elaborate installations, complete with lights, water, chemical toilets and good ventilation.

No Choice. If the shelters speak eloquently of a protracted war of stalemate, so do the politicians. On a hill in Jerusalem, Premier Golda Meir spoke last week at ceremonies dedicating olive trees to each of 181 soldiers killed during the 1967 battle that wrested old Jerusalem from Jordan. "We have already paid the highest price there is for peace," she said, but she offered littie hope that real peace might be in reach.

Once again Mrs. Meir was giving voice to the feeling of ein breira--no other choice. None, that is, but to fight and bleed. Most of her countrymen echo that attitude. A minority, but an influential and articulate minority, increasingly wonders whether Mrs. Meir and her Cabinet are being intransigent, particularly on the issue of the territories won from Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Perhaps the most savage criticism came in the form of a satirical revue called Queen of the Bathtub, which included a skit in which Mrs. Meir muses to herself about how she is always right. The production, which closed after 20 performances in Tel Aviv because of picketing by veterans' groups, heckling and government pressure, offered another sketch that had Defense Minister Moshe Dayan telling soldiers: "I am a man of my word. If I promise you blood and tears, you shall have blood and tears." Dayan, who saw the play, called it "toilet humor" and added: "The Egyptians would have loved it."

Despite the stress of unending war, Israel's economy is buoyant, though the peak of the country's boom has passed. Television sales were off one-third in the first quarter of 1970, but that might have been because the market was nearly saturated, with 250,000 sets in Israeli homes. Auto sales are currently down one-third, but there was a buying spree late last year in anticipation of new taxes. Higher income taxes and increased compulsory savings have reduced buying power by more than one-quarter this year and have caused some grumbling, but most Israelis grudgingly acknowledge the need for sizable taxes if the nation is to buy weapons.

Ready to Go Up. The place where the Israeli government is most anxious to spend its tax revenue, of course, is the U.S. Richard Nixon, who told visiting students at the White House last week that the Middle East is "ready to go up" again, is still pondering Israel's request for 25 Phantom jets and 100 Skyhawks to offset the Soviet MIGs and SA3 missiles in Egypt. In March Nixon turned down such a request, but pressure is mounting for him to reply to the. Russian challenge by reversing his decision. Two separate studies on the question are being conducted--one by the National Security Council staff and the other by a committee of Cabinet under secretaries chaired by White House National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. The general feeling in Washington is that Israel will be getting some jets, but the main problem is in what manner and with what explanation. One highly placed State Department official suggested with a grin that the U.S. offer to replace Israeli planes lost in combat--based on Egypt's wildly inflated claims of jets shot down.

One factor in Nixon's eventual decision will be growing pressure from Congress. Last week 85 Representatives petitioned him to grant Israel's request for the planes. In addition, 76 Senators, spanning the ideological spectrum from Barry Goldwater to George McGovern, urged Secretary of State Rogers to sell Israel the planes and pressed for a meeting with him for "a full exchange of views" on the subject. The Senators said that the Middle East situation was "deteriorating," and they pointed out that the earlier U.S. decision not to sell planes to Israel "has failed to induce the Soviet Union to exercise reciprocal restraint with respect to the arming of the United Arab Republic and the other Arab states."

Some of the senatorial hawks for Israel are doves on Viet Nam, but they maintain that there is no inconsistency in their position. They argue that Israel would be purchasing planes while South Viet Nam expects U.S. jets gratis; that Israel is a democracy while South Viet Nam is a military regime; that no American lives are involved in the Middle East; and that the Russian menace there is the most direct faced by the U.S. since the Cuban missile crisis. Some of these distinctions are obviously shaky, and double hawks among the signers question the rationale for the argument. "The reason for the disparity," says Goldwater acidly, "may be that I don't know of one single South Vietnamese voter in this country."

Straight Talk. While Israel fretted over Nixon's failure to act, the Arabs, buoyed by the Russian presence, marked the third anniversary of the war as though they had won it. Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser observed the occasion with prayers for the dead at Cairo's Sayida Zaynab mosque. The fedayeen, who have been more active on three of Israel's four borders since the war than the Arab armies, announced formation of a unified command under Al-Fatah Leader Yasser Arafat to coordinate all guerrilla activities against Israel.

Taking note of the increased Arab cockiness, Israel's Army Chief of Staff Haim Bar-Lev indulged in some straight talk in an anniversary interview. "Our policy is no longer based on retaliation," he told military correspondents, "but on continuous military activity, countering war with war." He did not foresee all-out war in the future, he said, "but if there are drastic actions we are ready." He noted, for example, that "theoretically, the Egyptians could get a plane or two through to Tel Aviv." But, added Bar-Lev without a trace of a smile, "their problem would be what would happen afterward." Clearly, despite their growing gloom over Russia's part in the hostility, Israelis are confident that they can still handle the Egyptians. The Egyptian air force, goes a current joke in Israel, never leaves the ground until the Israeli radio, reporting a raid, announces that "all our planes returned safely."

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