Violent Week: The Politics of Death
Even by Middle Eastern standards, it was a week of abnormal tension and turmoil. The carefully engineered truce imposed on that divided nation by Syria had collapsed (see below). Bitter fighting continued between hard-pressed Christian rightists and forces of the National Movement, an amalgam of Moslem leftists and Palestinians led by a gaunt, shambling politician-mystic, Kamal Jumblatt (see page 34), who vowed to fight on until Lebanon's antiquated sectarian political system was reformed.
The civil war grew so intense that Syria came as close to threatening intervention as at any time since the crisis began a year ago. Under severe pressure not only from Damascus but from Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Jumblatt agreed to a ten-day ceasefire, which would allow Parliament to elect a new President in place of Suleiman Franjieh, the stubborn Maronite leader who at week's end was still clinging desperately to office.
In Washington, where he conferred with President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Jordan's King Hussein argued that Syrian military intervention might be the only way to bring peace to Lebanon. Some Western observers were less sanguine. Reason: a direct move by Syria would almost certainly lead to a strong Israeli response--possibly even the occupation of southem Lebanon.
Israel, which has faced more than its share of agony, had new worries at home. Following weeks of tension on the West Bank, there was a violent clash between Israeli and Arab inside the Jewish state itself that left six dead and scores wounded. It was the most serious confrontation between Israeli Jews and their Arab fellow citizens in the nation's history.
No one believed that the seemingly endless crisis in Lebanon would trigger another Middle East war that neither side really wants--although that will remain a worrisome accidental possibility. But if war breaks out, Israel will come armed with an awesome military threat: nuclear bombs. In an exclusive report (see page 39), TIME presents hitherto undisclosed details of Israel's nuclear arsenal.
FREEZE FOR A HOT WAR
For months, with few interruptions, Lebanon had known only the politics of death. Now, said Kamal Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon's leftist National Movement, "the path is open for beginning a political solution." He spoke as he accepted a cease-fire (the 24th in five months) that ended, at least temporarily, one of the bloodiest passages in the country's endless civil war. An estimated 1,500 were killed last week, even as negotiations were going on, in fierce fighting between right-wing Christians and the combined forces of Moslems, leftists and fedayeen. That raised the death total since last April to nearly 13,000.
Considering the deep-rooted passions, no one in Beirut at week's end was predicting with much confidence that this latest pause in the struggle would last for long. But many agreed with what was implicit in Jumblatt's confident assertion: that the Moslems were within sight of their basic goal in the war --overturning the antiquated sectarian system of distributing power that has controlled Lebanon since it gained independence from France in 1946.
The world has become inured to the ravages of civil war; the public mind is numbed by both the casualty figures and the intricacies of these conflicts. Why care especially about Lebanon? Partly because its fate touches on the larger, potentially cataclysmic Middle Eastern conflict. Partly because a change in who rules Lebanon could affect the precarious balance of the entire region. Partly because the savage Lebanese struggle represents a kind of microcosm of the feuds between sects and races in the Middle East, where minorities have long fared poorly--witness the Arabs of Israel, the Jews at various times in almost every Arab state, the Kurds of Iraq.
Lebanon, a compact nation with 17 diverse Christian and Moslem sects, seemed to have found the ideal solution. Everything appeared so neatly and carefully defined. The President was always to be a Maronite Christian, reflecting the fact that the Maronites before independence were the largest sect in Lebanon; the Premier was a Sunni Moslem, the speaker of Parliament a Shia Moslem. But two things were wrong with the system. Once ordained, it could not be changed without bitter quarrels. Moreover, the Christians, thanks to their French connection, held on to a disproportionate share of power.
Christian refusal to accept basic reforms in the system was the underlying cause of the latest violence. But the most recent focus of Moslem anger was Suleiman Franjieh, the white-haired, crusty mountain man from Zgharta who has been Lebanon's President for 5 1/2 years and is due to leave office on Sept. 23. Moslems with good reason consider the narrow-minded Franjieh the pre-eminent example of Christian misrule in Lebanon; Jumblatt threatened to wage war to the end unless Franjieh left office before his time. To back up their demands, the Lebanese Left two weeks ago leveled their artillery on the presidential palace at Baabda (TIME, April 5) and blasted Franjieh out of it in an attempt to bombard him from office. Last week Lebanon's President was operating out of a village hall near Jounieh, a Christian town located north of Beirut.
Lebanese Christian leaders soon joined Jumblatt in accepting the ten-day ceasefire. During this hiatus, Lebanon's Parliament is expected to meet in Beirut (for the first time in a month) to elect a new President and to accept Franjieh's resignation (if and when it is tendered). At week's end two prominent candidates were Maronite Christians with reputations as moderates: Raymond Edde, 62, head of the centrist National Bloc Party, and Elias Sarkis, 51, president of Lebanon's Central Bank, who narrowly lost out to Franjieh in 1970.
Despite the almost universal feeling that it was high time for Franjieh to step down, there was no guarantee that he would do so. Edde warned that Lebanon might face the prospect of having two claimants to the presidency, a situation that would surely lead to a renewal of fighting. As it was, the first two days of the freeze were fitfully observed; police said that 92 people were killed and 85 wounded in sniping incidents during the first 24 hours. There were also reports of tank battles in the mountain country, and some Christians were again calling for Syrian intervention.
If the fighting resumes in earnest, Jumblatt's National Movement troops, who are backed by many Palestinian groups, will undoubtedly resume their assault on the remaining Christian strongholds in Lebanon. Last week Moslem and leftist forces managed to consolidate new battle lines in the capital. Much of the fighting took place in the downtown hotel district, where the leftists followed up a victory at the shattered Holiday Inn (TIME, April 5) by driving Christian militiamen out of the nearby Hilton and Normandy hotels. The battle for the unfinished Hilton was bloody: the Phalangist defenders died amid still-packed crates of furniture and rolls of carpeting that were waiting to be laid when the civil war began.
The Christians fought their way out of the hotel district; few surrendered, knowing that at this stage of the war neither side was taking many prisoners. The retreating troops fell back into Beirut's port district, a warren of narrow streets and alleys, and thus a far more difficult battleground than the hotel sector. The other major Christian stronghold remained the Ashrafieh quarter, not far from Martyrs' Square and the old commercial district of Beirut. Between Ashrafieh and the Moslem lines, cars were routinely stopped and searched by either side and travelers switched between Moslem and Christian taxicabs. Lebanese dubbed the crossing "the Mandelbaum Gate"--referring to the post that separated East and West Jerusalem when the city was split between Jordanian and Israeli rule.
Surrounding the Mandelbaum Gate, reported TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn last week, is a no man's land of 200 yds. in which not even cats or dogs dare to walk. On either side of the checkpoints are sandbagged bunkers and fortified houses. Their windows have been cemented up, except for small slots for weapons. Oil drums are set out to mark the perimeters of either side. Before the latest cease-fire took effect, the pop-pop-pop of gunfire erupted steadily from both sides.
One reason for the increase in casualties was that both sides were now using heavy artillery in a war that had previously been limited to automatic rifles, machine guns, rockets and mortars. Despite the chaos in Beirut, most of the city's telephone system was still working. Gunners took advantage of that fact to check on their accuracy. After firing off a round, artillerymen would dial a number known to be in the target area and ask where the shell had landed.
To drive the Christians out of their strongholds, the Moslems last week also imposed a tight cordon sanitaire around Christian areas. All cars were stopped and fuel and food confiscated. Even a Maronite nun, braving the shellfire to shop for her convent, had her groceries taken away at the Mandelbaum Gate. As it was, food prices had been soaring for weeks. Bananas cost three times as much in the Christian quarters of the city as in Moslem stores.
Inevitably, some of the combatants as well as armed civilians stopped fighting long enough to loot houses and shops in the battle areas. Troop commanders prevented them whenever they could; one officer of the Independent Nasserite militia, which was fighting alongside Jumblatt's men, caught four looters ripping off a shop and beat them up singlehanded. "Other people are fighting and dying," he screamed, fists swinging, "and these bastards are stealing!"
Some fighters shook down neutrals for financial "contributions." Near the Mandelbaum Gate, TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn and TIME'S Abu Said Abu Rish were stopped by four young men in ragged civvies but brandishing submachine guns. Cabled Wynn: "They got into the car and took the wheel. They drove us to a quiet place where no one could see and we could 'talk.' They examined our documents sternly and wondered out loud if we wouldn't like to contribute to their 'cause.' Naturally we were eager to contribute. I shoved $35 in Lebanese currency into the nearest outstretched hand and they let us go."
Until recently, the U.S. has played a limited role in the Lebanese crisis. America's diplomatic clout has of necessity been limited. Because of the U.S. relationship with Israel, there was no prospect of discussing truce plans with the Palestinians, who are not only key participants in the struggle but also a central issue as far as the Lebanese Christians are concerned; they resented the fact that the 320,000 Palestinians living in Lebanon had so much power. Beyond that, Washington has not had its top representative in Beirut since January: Ambassador G. McMurtrie Godley is on sick leave recovering from a throat cancer operation. But last week the State Department summoned L. Dean Brown, 55, a highly regarded Arabist, out of retirement to troubleshoot in the beleaguered city.
Brown, who retired last year from the Foreign Service to become director of Washington's privately run Middle East Institute, was ambassador to Amman in 1970 when Palestinian fedayeen went to war with the army of King Hussein. As the newly arrived envoy in Amman, he strapped a pearl-handled pistol to his waist, rode to the palace in an armored personnel carrier and presented his credentials to the King. Brown flew into Beirut last week unarmed and with instructions from Secretary of State Kissinger to make contact with Jumblatt and Franjieh and offer the good offices of the U.S. as mediator. State Department spokesmen carefully explained that Brown was not authorized to deal with Arafat or any other Palestinian leader. Nonetheless, it was not beyond the realm of possibility that informal contacts might be made.
Although Brown conferred with a wide range of Christian and Moslem leaders (including President Franjieh), the man principally responsible for arranging the freeze was Syrian President Hafez Assad. He was greatly embarrassed by the collapse of the January 23 cease-fire arranged by his Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam. Assad's government launched a diplomatic offensive to get Jumblatt's forces to stop fighting.
Calling attention to their own forces based along the border, the Syrians hinted at intervention. They also cut off Jumblatt's supply line: at one point he complained that the Syrians were denying him 4,000 guns and 7 million rounds of ammunition that had been donated by the Egyptian government and confiscated when they reached Damascus en route to Beirut. Finally, Assad persuaded Arafat to put pressure on Jumblatt to accept another ceasefire. The persuasions contained an implicit warning that if the war continued the Lebanese-based Palestinians might lose Syrian support and supplies.
The diplomatic moves and countermoves produced some strange alliances --some new, some old. For the past two years Arafat has been at ideological odds with Dr. George Habash, the militantly Marxist head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. But both Habash and Arafat are supporters of Jumblatt, and both felt threatened by Syria's strategy. Last week the two men appeared benevolently in public together at a Beirut rally.
Although Assad regained some lost prestige by arranging the freeze, his credibility as claimant to leadership of the Arab world suffered when the Pax Syriana collapsed. For one thing, it appeared that Damascus had far less sway over the Lebanese Moslems, leftists and Palestinians than it had claimed. For another, Syria's frantic efforts to gain another cease-fire were backed primarily by Jordan's King Hussein and Saudi Arabia's King Khalid, two conservative monarchs who are anathema to radical Arabs. The U.S. also endorsed Syria's peace efforts, as did Moscow, although the Russians played no perceptible role in the crisis. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who was in Western Europe shopping for arms, strengthened his slightly tarnished credentials as a champion of the Moslem Arab cause by sending supplies to Jumblatt.
During the tense week, King Hussein sought assurances in Washington that the U.S. would restrain the Israelis if Syrian military intervention in Lebanon proved necessary as a last resort. The U.S. made no commitments, in part because relations between Washington and Jerusalem are once again slightly strained. Although Ambassador to the United Nations William Scranton vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli repression on the West Bank (TIME, April 5), Israel was still furious over the cool tenor of Scranton's maiden speech, in which he described the occupation of East Jerusalem as "interim and provisional."
The Ford Administration, meanwhile, was annoyed with Israel for attempting to block a U.S. proposal to sell six C-130 cargo planes to Sadat for $65 million. Despite U.S. denials, Israel sees the move as a first step in further armament sales to Egypt and has encouraged pro-Israel Congressmen to oppose it. The lobbying efforts so angered Ford that last week he declared his opposition to an extra $500 million in arms appropriations for Israel.
Both Israel and the U.S. now face the problem of how to deal with a new ingredient in the Middle East morass: a Lebanon that is not the Lebanon of old. It seemed certain last week that the Moslem leftists were on the verge of forcing the country to abandon the old sectarian political system, either by accepting reform or by facing the muzzles of 25,000 AK-47s. As King Hussein observed in Washington, it is no longer "a question of changing a President in Lebanon, but of changing a regime and its shape."
The shape of that emerging new regime presents potential dangers for peace in the Middle East. A Lebanon in which Moslems have a predominant influence in politics may gradually evolve into an Arab socialist state, and perhaps into a confrontation power as well. (Lebanon remained neutral during the last three Arab-Israeli wars.) Israel may have to worry much more about its 49-mile-long border with Lebanon. The establishment of Moslem rule in Lebanon may be a notable triumph for the Palestinians. The fedayeen initially tried to stay out of the political strife, later tried to police it, and finally were forced to join what seems to be the winning side. They can be expected to demand a few rewards from their leftist friends, even though they already constitute a state-within-a-state inside Lebanon.
What happens next in Lebanon will obviously complicate an already complicated Middle East peace situation. Even if full-scale war does not happen, the threat of a new war of attrition from the combined forces of Syria, Jordan and a strongly anti-Zionist Lebanon has suddenly become real, if still distant. Such a possibility was already obvious last week even as the guns of Lebanon went quiet for the moment.
THE MYSTIC WHO GOES TO WAR
In the mountain resort Aley, Leftist Leader Kamal Jumblatt one day last week sat in his temporary headquarters, directing the siege of the nearby Christian stronghold of Kahale. Suddenly, a mortar shell whistled through the air and exploded 50 yds. away with an ear-splitting blast. Aides jumped to their feet; one suggested running for cover. "Shells like that don't do much damage," said Jumblatt calmly. He remained unruffled when an assistant rushed in to tell him that the explosion had damaged his black Mercedes. Replied he coolly: "We shouldn't park our cars over on that side of the street."
Kamal Jumblatt, 58, may have been one of the few men in shattered Lebanon who could summon up such reserves of serenity. He was also, for the moment, the nation's most powerful political figure, as leader of the disparate leftist coalition known as the National Movement, whose forces until the ceasefire were locked in battle with Christian militiamen. More than any other Lebanese leader, Jumblatt was responsible for the collapse of Syrian President Hafez Assad's plan to end the civil war through a Pax Syriana. Jumblatt's reason: such a settlement would only perpetuate the sectarian bitterness dividing the nation.
"We want to westernize this country as a secular, democratic state," Jumblatt told TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn. "We can no longer be segregated as Druzes or Sunni Moslems or Maronites. This system makes this country look like a zoo full of different kinds of animals. It's really undignified to be part of it."
There is a certain irony in that statement, since Jumblatt first came to power as the hereditary feudal chieftain of Lebanon's 300,000 Druzes, an esoteric branch of Islam that emerged in the 11th century. Other curious paradoxes mark his career. He is both a dedicated socialist and a millionaire. Despite his fidelity to Druze beliefs, he was educated at Roman Catholic schools, and studied law and philosophy at the Sorbonne. He knew and was deeply influenced by Jesuit Theologian-Anthropologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, quotes Thomas Aquinas frequently, and is respected as an authority on the mysticism of St. John of the Cross. He is also a practitioner of yoga and a published poet to boot.
Jumblatt is widely regarded as the "Mr. Clean" of Lebanon's tainted politics and a longtime influential kingmaker. The founder of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party, he backed Camille Chamoun for the presidency in a bloodless coup in 1952. Jumblatt soon turned on his protege for failing to enact economic and social reforms; in 1958 he was among the leaders of an anti-Chamoun uprising that disintegrated after U.S. Marines landed on Lebanon's beaches to restore order. Jumblatt has generally taken a strong socialist and pro-Palestinian line. Although he is nobody's man by any means, Jumblatt is admired in Moscow: he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1973 and the Order of Lenin in 1974.
In his campaign for secularization, Jumblatt sees the Maronite Christians as the principal enemies. He complains that "they want to dominate the country. Instead of displaying the great values of Christianity--love, charity, justice--they act like the petty old Christian sects of the Byzantine era, who quarreled about the sex of angels or whether Christ was of one or two natures and executed those who lost the argument." At the same time, he points to his home region as an example of how the country's religions can live together. In the mountainous Chouf, where in more peaceful times he ruled from the picturesque town of Mukhtara, are Druze villages, Maronite villages and mixed Druze-Maronite villages, all of which still enjoy a relatively tranquil life despite the civil war.
The National Movement that Jumblatt heads also cuts across sectarian lines. It includes his own Progressive Socialists, as well as Communists, several groups of Nasserites and followers of the new renegade "Lebanese Arab Army." It also has the backing of the leftist Syrian Popular Party, headed by Inam Raad, a Christian, and including a sizable number of other Christians.
Despite Jumblatt's acceptance of the ten-day "freeze," he clearly intends to carry on his struggle against the obsolete sectarian political system that led to the civil war. "A false compromise is a bad compromise," he told Correspondent Wynn. "Somebody must win, and somebody must lose. We must go ahead to a real evolution of the country."
A TRAGEDY IN GALILEE
It was the bloodiest week ever in relations between the Arabs and Jews of Israel. In twelve hours of confrontation, six Israeli Arabs were shot dead, scores suffered gunshot wounds and 288 were arrested. Stones hurled by enraged Arabs injured 38 policemen. The clash between Israeli fellow citizens in the Galilee area was uglier and more violent than the recent troubles on the Israeli-occupied West Bank (TIME, March 29); in fact, only two Arabs have been killed and a few wounded on the West Bank since February. At week's end, Israeli Arabs and Jews alike were desperately trying to assess how the violence would affect what had long been regarded by Jerusalem as the special relationship between the two communities (see following story).
Tension began mounting at the beginning of February, when the Israeli Cabinet announced plans to expropriate 1,500 acres of Arab-owned land and 1,000 acres of Jewish-owned land in northern Galilee for a new housing project. The government pledged that landowners would be compensated in cash or new land and that 1,200 apartments in the new settlement would be reserved for Arab families.
The Arabs strongly opposed the project. They doubted that they would ever move into new apartments, since Israel's history offers almost no examples of Arabs being welcomed into Jewish communities. Many Arabs suspected that the real motive of the multimillion-dollar project was to encourage Jewish settlement in Galilee. The area is now 48% Arab; since the Arabs have a birth rate twice that of Israeli Jews, they will soon become a majority. That fact has disturbing political implications for the Jews of the region, who have long urged the government to encourage Jewish settlement.
In a show of opposition to the expropriation plan, Tawfiq Zayad, the Communist mayor of Nazareth, called for a one-day general strike in Galilee for last week. The government tried hard to prevent it; some Arabs charge that workers were threatened with loss of their jobs if they failed to show up for work. Jerusalem claimed that fewer than half the 107 Arab villages participated in the strike. But in at least a dozen communities, police and soldiers battled with angry Arabs; three of them were killed in Sakhnin and one each in Araba, Kfar Kanna and Tira.
How the six Arabs died is still disputed. Minister of Police Shlomo Hillel insists that shots were fired in self-defense. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, replying to angry criticism in the Knesset the day after the shootings, argued that force had been necessary "to assure the well-being of the public." He accused the Rakah (Communist) Party and the Communist Youth Union of breaking into schools, beating up teachers and driving away pupils who wanted to study rather than strike. Merchants who wanted to keep their shops open were intimidated; roads were blocked, security forces assaulted. Thundered Rabin: "No state can acquiesce to such breaches of order."
Arabs angrily challenge the government version of what happened. Cabled TIME Jerusalem Bureau Chief Donald Neff, who visited Sakhnin the day after the shootings: "The villagers claim that the night before the planned strike, about 300 soldiers drove into Sakhnin, firing rifles and machine guns into the air and then into houses. The townsmen insist that they set up roadblocks to keep the soldiers out of the village; when soldiers tried to enter homes, the villagers pelted them with stones. In response the government clamped curfews on Sakhnin and two neighboring communities, the first time that curfews had ever been imposed within Israeli Arab villages.
"Many of Sakhnin's residents did not know about the sudden curfew, the Arabs claim. Thus early in the morning, when a woman left her house, she was shot without warning. When a neighbor rushed to help her, he was shot dead. Then, according to the villagers, two others were killed.
"Bullet pock marks on the outside and inside of houses along Sakhnin's main street, broken windows, battered cars and splotches of dried blood on the roadway grimly testify to the shootings of the previous day. But there was no way to verify the villagers' version of what triggered the tragedy. The government has stuck to its story that the villagers were attacked only after they had stoned the soldiers and blocked roadways with flaming tires. Probably the truth lies somewhere in between."
Jerusalem's tough action in Galilee last week was denounced by many Israelis. The Communists, as could be expected, called for a no-confidence vote in the Knesset (it was overwhelmingly defeated) and screamed that the government was "a regime of murderers." Tel Aviv's independent daily Ma'ariv called the violence the "blackest day in the history of relations between Jews and Arabs in the state of Israel." Although the government probably overreacted in Galilee, it faces a continuing dilemma: it must be able to respond effectively when troops are harassed by Israel's own citizens; at the same time it must avoid actions that could permanently alienate the growing Arab community.
ARE THEY SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS?
"When I am in Tel Aviv, they call me an Arab. When I am in Nablus [on the West Bank], they call me an Israeli."
So said the late Abdul Aziz Zuabi, Israel's onetime Deputy Minister of Health, in summing up the identity crisis that faces the largest minority living in the Jewish state. The one million Arabs of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank who suddenly found themselves under Israeli rule after the Six-Day War have no question about their identity; they are Palestinians. But for the Arabs living within Israel's pre-1967 borders as Israeli citizens--a community that has grown from 150,000 in 1948 to nearly half a million today--there has been a continual tug of loyalties that exploded last week in the Galilee riots.
For years, officials in Israel proudly pointed to the Arab community as an example of how two peoples can live together in harmony. That the Arabs remained loyal to Israel even during four Middle East wars was cited as proof that they were generally satisfied with their lot. As citizens of the state, the Israeli Arabs have the right to vote, own land, run their own schools and join labor unions. In the past 28 years, their illiteracy rate has plunged from over 80% to 15%, and their living standard has risen dramatically as the government brought paved roads, electricity, running water, technology and communications to once impoverished villages. Today the Israeli Arabs enjoy a standard of living that is not only considerably above that of the average Egyptian or Syrian but also higher than that of Israel's Oriental Jews.
Despite these material gains, Israel's Arabs remain, in certain respects, second-class citizens. Although there is no official apartheid, the Jewish and Arab communities seldom mix. The majority of Arabs live in 107 villages (most in Galilee) in which there are no Jews --and until 1966, these communities were under military rule. There are relatively few Arabs in top government jobs or in the military--partly for security reasons and partly to spare them a crisis of conscience during war. Although they comprise 13% of Israel's population, Arabs hold only six of the Knesset's 120 seats and constitute only 3% of the students at Israel's universities.
The frustrations bred by a sense of inequality remained dormant within the Arab community until Israel's 1967 military victory, which brought the Gaza Strip and the West Bank under Jerusalem's rule. The 19-year isolation of Israel's Arabs from the rest of the Middle East suddenly ended. Israeli Arabs were shocked to find that they spoke, dressed and reacted differently than did their Palestinian cousins in the occupied territories. They encountered militant, anti-Israeli West Bankers, who denounced them for being more Israeli than Arab. At the same time, the Israeli Jew looked upon his Arab fellow citizen with increasing suspicion. When sabotage or terrorist incidents occurred, for instance, the Israeli Arab had to submit to humiliating searches by military police.
Politically, the Israeli Arabs are divided. Some faithfully follow, their apolitical clan sheiks, who are primarily concerned about keeping their villages prosperous and cohesive. Others are strong supporters of Jordan's King Hussein. Since active supporters of the Palestine Liberation Organization are barred from campaigning in Israeli elections, most Arabs with a sense of grievance vote for the Rakah (Communist) Party, which has four members in the Knesset; two are Jews. Lately there has been talk among the Arabs about trying to focus voting strength to increase their membership in parliament to twelve--a powerful bloc in Israel's fragmented politics. Last December the voters of Nazareth (pop. 40,000), Israel's largest Arab city, elected Tawfiq Zayad, a Communist, as their mayor.
A particular concern of the government is the mood of young Israeli Arabs, who are far more likely than their elders to identify with the anti-Zionist cause of the Palestinians. Having grown up in the Jewish state, many of these Arab youths speak fluent Hebrew, know the customs of the country and can easily be mistaken for Jews. If sufficient numbers of them were to join the terrorists--a realistic possibility should the causes of Arab unrest continue--Israel might well find itself combatting a war on its home front as well as a threat on its frontiers.
HOW ISRAEL GOT THE BOMB
SPECIAL REPORT
For years there has been widespread speculation about Israel's nuclear potential--speculation that has now been confirmed. At a briefing for a group of American space experts in Washington recently, an official of the Central Intelligence Agency estimated that Israel had between ten and 20 nuclear weapons "available for use." In fact, TIME has learned, Israel possesses a nuclear arsenal of 13 atomic bombs, assembled, stored and ready to be dropped on enemy forces from specially equipped Kfir and Phantom fighters or Jericho missiles. These weapons have a 20-kiloton yield, roughly as powerful as those that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Israel has thus joined a nuclear club that includes, of course, the U.S. and Soviet Union, both of which have so much megatonnage that it is difficult to measure. France and Britain have several hundred nuclear warheads; India and China are estimated to be in Israel's class as fledgling atomic powers.
Israel's 13 bombs, TIME has also learned, were hastily assembled at a secret underground tunnel during a 78-hr, period at the start of the 1973 October War. At that time, the Egyptians had repulsed the first Israeli counterattacks along the Suez Canal, causing heavy casualties, and Israeli forces on the Golan Heights were retreating in the face of a massive Syrian tank assault. At 10 p.m. on Oct. 8, the Israeli Commander on the northern front. Major General Yitzhak Hoffi, told his superior: "I am not sure that we can hold out much longer." After midnight. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan solemnly warned Premier Golda Meir: "This is the end of the third temple."* Mrs. Meir thereupon gave Dayan permission to activate Israel's Doomsday weapons. As each bomb was assembled, it was rushed off to waiting air force units. Before any triggers were set, however, the battle on both fronts turned in Israel's favor. The 13 bombs were sent to desert arsenals, where they remain today, still ready for use.
Did Israel's nuclear capability play a part in the U.S. global military alert of Oct. 25, 1973? According to TIME'S sources, the Israelis were convinced that the Russians had learned of the newly acquired nuclear potential, possibly through a Soviet Cosmos spy satellite over the Middle East. What is certain is that on Oct. 13, the Russians dispatched nuclear warheads from Nikolaev--the naval base at Odessa--to Alexandria, to be fitted on Russian Scud missiles already based in Egypt. The U.S., in turn, detected the Soviet warheads as the ship carrying them passed through the Bosphorous on Oct. 15 and issued a warning to Moscow by means of a world military alert.
TIME'S sources further believe that the U.S. learned about the bombs as a result of a reconnaissance sweep of the Middle East by a spy plane. Some high officials in Washington insist that the U.S. had no knowledge of the bombs and deny that they were a factor in the alert. The plane was spotted by Israeli air defenses and two Phantom jets scrambled to intercept it. "I have it on my radar," the Israeli pilot radioed. "It is an [SR-71] American Blackbird." Back to him came a direct order from a high-ranking Israeli Air Force commander: "Down at." The SR-71, flying effortlessly at 85,000 ft., easily outclimbed and outdistanced the Israelis and returned to its base with significant readings.
The origins of the nuclear bomb project date back to Israel's birth. Atomic scientists were encouraged by Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first President and a chemist of international repute. Israeli nuclear experts produced low-grade uranium from phosphate in the Negev and developed an efficient technique for producing heavy water. In 1953, Israel, in exchange for these processes, was allowed to study France's nuclear program and participate in its Sahara tests. Four years later, France gave Israel its first nuclear reactor. Later, the French also helped with the design of Israel's Dimona Atomic Research Community in the Negev. which Premier David Ben-Gurion called nothing but a "textile factory."
The Dimona nuclear reactor went into operation in 1964. Meanwhile, an intense secret debate had begun within Israel about whether the government should also build a separation plant to produce the fissionable material necessary for an Abomb. Ben-Gurion and Shimon Peres, then Deputy Defense Minister and currently Israel's Defense Minister, favored doing so. Others, including Mrs. Meir and Yigal Allon, now Israel's Foreign Minister, initially opposed the project. So did Ben-Gurion's successor as Premier, Levi Eshkol. The Israeli equivalent of the U.S. National Security Council vetoed the separation-plant project in early 1968. Shortly afterward, Eshkol discovered that Dayan --in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War --had secretly ordered the start of construction on an S.P. Eshkol and his advisers felt that they could only rubber-stamp a project already under way.
Dayan believes that a nuclear capability is essential to Israel. "Israel has no choice," he recently told TIME Correspondent Marlin Levin. "With our manpower we cannot physically, financially or economically go on acquiring more and more tanks and more and more planes. Before long you will have all of us maintaining and oiling the tanks."
Some Western intelligence experts believe that Israel conducted an underground nuclear test in the Negev in 1963, and that preparation of nuclear material for assembly into A-bombs began soon thereafter. The S.P. was completed in 1969, but Israel did not immediately begin manufacturing bombs. Instead, Israeli scientists concentrated on developing new methods for shortening the time necessary to produce nuclear weapons.
The Dimona research facility and the separation plant are protected not only by Israeli troops but by highly sophisticated electronic systems and radar screens that operate around the clock. All aircraft--including Israeli military planes--are barred from flying over the areas where the nuclear plants are located. During the Six-Day War, in fact, an Israeli Mirage III--either out of control or with its communications gear in operative--inadvertently flew over Dimona. Israeli defenders shot it down with a ground-to-air missile. In 1973 a Libyan airliner flying from Benghazi to Cairo lost its way because of a navigational error and flew toward a forbidden area. Israeli fighters tried to turn it back. Then, for security reasons, they shot it down, causing the death of 108 of the 113 people aboard.
* A symbolic reference to the state of Israel. The first two temples were destroyed by invading Babylonians around 586 B.C. and by the Romans in A.D. 70
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