Begin's Brash Blitz

By George Russell

Israel extends its law to the Golan Heights

The move was organized with all the boldness, secrecy and speed of an Israeli commando raid--and it had the same kind of impact. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, still recovering from a three-week-old hip fracture, suddenly emerged from his hospital bed early last week to appear in a wheelchair in the Knesset. There he brusquely announced that his government would make into law what Israel has long accomplished in fact: the takeover of the strategic Golan Heights, 444 sq. mi. of rocky terrain captured from Syria during the Six-Day War of 1967. Said Begin: "We are talking about our very lives and our future, and the welfare of this nation."

After more than six hours of raucous debate, Begin got what he wanted. By a 63-to-21 vote, the Knesset agreed to extend "the law, jurisdiction and administration of the state" to the heights area, which has been treated for 14 years by Israel as occupied foreign territory under military rule. Israel's move fell short of outright annexation, but only in the narrowest legal sense.

Begin's initiative prompted immediate criticism from astonished governments abroad. French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson declared himself "dumbfounded" and charged that the move violated the 1907 Hague Convention that demands respect for local law in occupied territories--an implicit affirmation that sovereignty cannot be transferred in such cases "except in the event of insurmountable difficulties." In his strongest foreign policy statement to date, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak called the move "a blow to the peace efforts" in the Middle East.

Perhaps the angriest reaction came from Israel's main ally, the U.S. At week's end, the State Department declared that in retribution it was suspending the U.S.-Israeli agreement on strategic cooperation signed in Washington just three weeks previously. Technical talks scheduled for January to spell out practical details of the agreement will not take place.

Israel's unilateral action, Washington charged, was contrary to United Nations Resolution 242--calling for Israel to return captured territory in exchange for peace and secure and recognized borders--"on which the Camp David accords and all Middle East peace negotiations have been based."

Begin, however, had anticipated the American reaction in his pugnacious Knesset speech: "We consciously decided not to ask [the U.S.], since we had no doubt that our American friends would tell us no, and with all due respect, we could not take this no into account."

The immediate effect of Begin's action was to throw new sparks at the Middle East powder keg. So far as the Syrian government was concerned, Begin's action added a permanent dimension to the humiliation of losing the heights in the first place. Syria responded by declaring that Israel's move amounted to an "act of war." As if to give real meaning to that charge, Begin sent additional Israeli tanks rumbling into the heights area, which is separated from the Syrians by a neutral zone occupied by a 1,250-man United Nations peace-keeping force.

In just one day, Begin had rammed through a legislative measure that normally would have required at least three days of deliberation. He had opportunistically decided to use events in Poland, which preoccupied Washington, as a cloak for his action, in much the same way that in 1956 the Hungarian crisis offered Israel a convenient distraction when it joined Britain and France in an attempt to seize the Suez Canal. Indeed, Begin's legislative blitzkrieg came less than a day after Secretary of State Alexander Haig had been forced to cancel a seven-nation tour that included a brief visit to Tel Aviv, in order to attend to the Polish crisis.

The difference with Suez was that in 1956 the U.S., which had not been consuited, brought pressure to bear on the aggressors to give up their territorial spoils. This time around, it looked as if nothing similar could be achieved. The U.S. joined in a unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution that declared the Israeli action to be "null and void" and demanded that Begin's government rescind its legislation. The resolution was not expected to have any effect, but the Council will take up the matter again no later than Jan. 5, at which time a Syrian push for more definite sanctions is likely. Most observers feel that the U.S. is unlikely to support such specific measures.

There is no denying the strategic importance of the Golan Heights to Israel or, for that matter, to Syria (see map). Rising to 7,297 ft. above sea level, the heights overlook the fertile Galilee Valley, one of the country's principal breadbaskets. On the Syrian side, they merge into a level plateau--ideal tank country--that stretches 50 miles to Damascus. In 1967 the Syrians used the heights to rain fire on the Israelis at the onset of the Six-Day War. Since Jerusalem's military occupation of the heights, some 6,000 Israelis in 31 settlements have joined the 13,000 Arabs still living there.

Israeli extremists have argued for years that the heights should be annexed. A bill to do so was initiated more than a year ago by firebrand Knesset Member Geula Cohen. But in December 1980, Begin's Cabinet voted 15 to 2 against promoting the measure for fear of adverse world reaction. After the Prime Minister's cliffhanging election victory of last June, however, the Cabinet's mood began to change in a hawkish direction. Golan annexation had been one of the planks in Begin's election campaign, and, to fashion his two-seat majority in the 120-seat Knesset, Begin included in his coalition right-wing and religious nationalist elements that could be expected to lobby strongly for such action. Begin was finally provoked, or so he told the Knesset, by external factors. One was Begin's feeling that U.S. Special Envoy Philip Habib had failed to make further progress in defusing the seven-month armed stalemate between Israel and Syria over the presence of Syrian SA-6 missiles in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. Another was the failure of last month's Arab League summit in Fez, Morocco, at which Syria led the hard-line attack on the eight-point Middle East peace plan proposed by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Fahd.

Begin claimed to quote closed-door remarks made at the meeting by Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam, who urged his brother Arabs to "wait 100 years or more, until Israel is weakened" and then destroy the country completely. Israeli action was intended to make Syria think differently. Said a Begin aide: "Begin thought that we must convince the Syrians that time was not necessarily on their side."

The Israeli Prime Minister apparently pondered all those factors two weeks ago, as he lay in an eighth-floor ward of Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital. On Dec. 10, he secretly ordered Attorney General Yitzhak Zamir to prepare the Golan Heights legislation. When word came that Haig would visit Israel, any notion of presenting the bill was temporarily shelved. But when Haig suddenly canceled, the opportunity once again loomed.

The night before his Knesset appearance, according to a close aide, Begin hardly slept. In the small hours he telephoned Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and asked him to come to the hospital at 8 a.m. Half an hour before that meeting, Begin also called Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, asking him to attend. "Has something happened?" Sharon asked. Said Begin: "No, but something is going to happen today."

The trio hastily agreed that a parliamentary coup was possible. One tactical advantage they saw was that Opposition Leader Shimon Peres and his predecessor as Labor Party leader, Yitzhak Rabin, were both out of the country. Begin decided to leave the hospital and called a full Cabinet meeting at his home at noon. As a precaution, however, he decided to disarm potential opponents by summoning a seven-member mini-Cabinet, composed of the heads of his coalition parties, to meet 90 minutes earlier. When the full Cabinet finally assembled, all members--with the exception of Energy Minister Yitzhak Berman--supported Begin.

Haig learned of Begin's thunderbolt on his way home from Europe and angrily ordered the State Department to issue a protest. Back in Washington, he made the message doubly clear by calling Israeli Ambassador Ephraim Evron on the carpet for an hour and a quarter and declaring that he considered the action a personal betrayal. Even more vocal was Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who on ABC's Good Morning America said :he move was "provocative and destabilizing and must be changed." On the other hand, President Reagan seemed to downplay the action at a Thursday press conference, where he merely "deplored" the Israeli move.

In Western Europe, governments also seemed to be striving in their reaction for a balance between outrage and moderation. Though France's Cheysson declared that the Golan Heights legislation "cannot be justified on either juridical or political grounds," he added that the move would not affect French participation in the multilateral peace-keeping force that will oversee the Sinai Peninsula after Israel returns the remainder of that territory to Egypt in April 1982. The same attitude was taken by Cheysson's British counterpart, Lord Carrington.

The impending return of the Sinai also weighed heavily on Egypt's Mubarak. Government-controlled newspapers in Cairo excoriated Begin's action. But, as most analysts see it, Mubarak's fledgling regime could not survive a failure to regain the Sinai. Thus, Egyptian and Israeli negotiating teams will resume their talks on Jan. 10 concerning the second phase of the Camp David agreement, involving the basis of autonomy for Palestinian residents of the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Mubarak still intends to go ahead with a planned visit to Israel next February.

Clearly, Begin's gambit was as shrewd in its timing as it was reckless in its conception. None of the Arab nations, including Syria, is in a position to threaten Israel militarily. Nor did any country that supports Israel wish to do anything that might forestall the return of the Sinai, the most visible sign that life still remains in the Camp David process. But in tightening Israel's grip on the Golan Heights, the unpredictable Begin had once again flouted world opinion and undermined the already slim chances for a lasting peace in the Middle East.

--By George Russell. Reported by David Aikman/Jerusalem and William Stewart/Beirut

With reporting by DAVID AIKMAN, William Stewart

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