A Growing Sense of Betrayal

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

Israel's deceptions threaten to undermine U.S. credibility

How do you deal with an ally you cannot trust? In the eyes of many in the Reagan Administration, that is the central dilemma confronting U.S. Middle East policy in the wake of the Beirut massacre. Teeth gritted, State Department and White House officials acknowledge that they must go on negotiating with the Israeli government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, if only because any overt U.S. pressure would prompt disaffected Israelis to rally around him, making him even more defiant. But U.S. officials, despite their best diplomatic efforts, cannot hide a deep sense of betrayal. Put crudely, they now believe the Begin government has lied to them--repeatedly, deliberately, and in ways that tricked a gullible Washington into undermining America's own credibility.

In June the Israelis said their invasion of Lebanon was aimed only at clearing Palestine Liberation Organization guerrillas out of a 40-kilometer-deep zone along Israel's borders; as it turned out, the army pushed deep into Lebanon and laid siege to Beirut. Next Israel pledged not to occupy West Beirut if U.S. Special Envoy Philip Habib could arrange an evacuation of the P.L.O. fighters holed up there; after the assassination of Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel, the Israelis went into West Beirut on the pretext of preventing disorder. Finally, Americans charged that Ambassador to Washington Moshe Arens assured them on Begin's behalf that the Israelis would seize only "a few" strategic points in West Beirut. Instead, they took over the whole Muslim section of the city and then arranged for Christian militiamen to enter Palestinian refugee camps, with bloodcurdling consequences.

A trusting attitude toward all these Israeli assurances began with Ronald Reagan. The President has been slow to educate himself in even the basics of Middle East policy. One aide recalls that Reagan recently examined a map of the area, measured the distance between points in Israel and Lebanon with his fingers according to the mileage scale, and exclaimed, "Gosh, they really are close!" Lacking a firm understanding of Middle East politics and history, the President maintained the instinctive sympathy toward Israel that he has displayed throughout his political career, and his aides swallowed their growing doubts.

By so doing, they probably lost whatever chance Washington might have had to prevent the massacre, though doubtless that chance would have been extremely slim at best. Although the U.S. denounced the Israeli occupation of West Beirut, the President undercut the force of the protest. Campaigning in New Jersey, Reagan offhandedly commented, "I'm sure what led them to move in was an attack by some leftist militia forces." Says one U.S. foreign policy analyst: "Begin is always watching to see if Reagan will go soft. And he will always choose to believe those Reagan statements over a diplomatic message."

Much worse, the U.S. earlier had ventured to guarantee the safety of the Palestinians in the refugee camps after a P.L.O. evacuation of West Beirut. The reason: Washington believed assurances from Jerusalem that there would be no Israeli occupation. Indeed, the U.S. led a pullout from Beirut of American Marines and French and Italian troops who had been sent to oversee the P.L.O. evacuation, though these were the only forces that could have backed up the guarantee of the Palestinians' safety. Some U.S. officials now feel that was a mistake. Says one: "We did pull our troops out too soon, and we feel a sense of grief and responsibility."

The U.S. guarantee of the Palestinians' safety was certainly a decision that came back to haunt Washington last week. The exact form in which the guarantee was extended is a matter of considerable dispute. P.L.O. Representative Jamal Sourani told TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn that the P.L.O. had received the assurance "in writing from Habib." In an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat asserted, "I have in hand a document" containing the guarantee; he said he had received it as a condition for agreeing to pull the P.L.O. fighters out of Beirut. In a speech in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, Arafat charged, "I was tricked."

U.S. officials insist that there was no such document. But they concede that Habib did give the P.L.O. oral promises through Lebanese intermediaries that the Palestinians would be safe. The reason, according to one senior White House aide: "We had guarantees from the Israelis, which we believed were adequate." When P.L.O. officials charge that the U.S. must share some responsibility for not preventing the massacre, another official admits: "Quite candidly, they have a case."

The consequence last week was a black mood in Washington. Reagan is described by aides as still "very, very pro-Israel" but deeply disillusioned with its present government. Some of his lieutenants go much further. Storms one, invoking privately a name still publicly taboo in Washington: "Begin is like Nixon. He just keeps going too far; he refuses to listen; he is self-righteous. You cannot conduct business with him."

In the next breath, however, this official and others concede that at least for the moment the U.S. has no alternative but to conduct business with Begin. Though it is hardly a secret that Washington would be delighted to see the Israelis replace the Begin government with a new one, policymakers stress that the U.S. dare not even appear to be trying to engineer such an outcome. As one official puts it: "The only thing that can save Begin [from the vociferous critics in his own country] is to let him claim the U.S. is trying to break down his government." Says Vice President George Bush: "We must avoid looking like we are intervening" in Israeli politics.

In the minds of Reagan's diplomatic planners, these considerations rule out use of the most obvious U.S. lever on Begin's government: a reduction or suspension of U.S. military and economic aid to Israel. The counterargument, of course, is that continued generous U.S. aid to Israel underwrites the very Begin policies that Washington so furiously opposes.

The Administration's line, laid down by Reagan himself, will be to avoid public polemics but press both publicly and privately for a withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon as a prelude to a broader Middle East peace settlement. In following that line, the Administration faces great difficulties. Officials had hoped to launch two-track negotiations: 1) talks about a pullout of Israeli and Syrian forces from Lebanon; 2) separate negotiations on the basis of Reagan's Sept. 1 plan for Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and eventual federation of those areas with Jordan. That hope is gone, and Habib will find himself conducting very different two-track talks: separate but coordinated negotiations with Israel and Syria for withdrawal of their troops from Lebanon. Habib began these talks over the weekend by conferring with Israeli officials in Jerusalem.

The Administration's hope is that even if the Begin government survives revulsion over the massacre in Israel, the U.S. and the world at large will force the Prime Minister to moderate his obstinate policies. "In a gruesome way," says a U.S. diplomat, "the massacre may do more to soften up Begin than anything we can do." Already Begin seems to have lost many of his staunch supporters in the U.S. and is coming under scathing attack. In the press, New York Times Columnist William Safire, until last week a Begin stalwart, called the massacre "a tragedy that was also a defeat for the Israeli army" and urged "an immediate pullback from West Beirut." Washington Post Columnist Joseph Kraft, long a defender of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, wrote last week that "that policy ... has now ended in disaster" and asserted: "In conscience, Prime Minister Menachem Begin ought to resign."

In Congress, Democratic Senator Alan Cranston of California, accurately describing himself as one of the most longstanding and strongest of Israel's many supporters in the legislature, held a press conference to release the text of a four-page personal letter he had sent to Begin. Said Cranston to the Israeli Prime Minister: "It increasingly appears that you and [Israeli Defense Minister Ariel] Sharon have substituted naked military force for a balanced foreign policy." The House last week passed a bill providing a bit less than $2.2 billion in U.S. economic and military aid to Israel during fiscal 1983, which starts Oct. 1, or about $300 million less than Reagan had asked for.

The American Jewish community is now split by sickening doubts. Norman Podhoretz, editor of the monthly Commentary, wrote defensively last week that "when Christians murdered Muslims for having murdered Christians, the world immediately began denouncing the Jews who were, at the very worst, indirectly involved." Leaders of major U.S. Jewish organizations pleaded over and over again last week that Israel not be hastily judged guilty of complicity in the massacre. Even so, they went further in dissociating themselves from Begin's policies than they ever had before. Three of the largest organizations, B'nai B'rith, the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress, all formally called for exactly the independent Israeli investigation into the massacre that Begin initially refused to permit. Said Maynard Wishner, president of the American Jewish Committee: "Every step must be taken by every party involved, directly or indirectly, including Israel, to determine how this tragedy occurred and by whom these crimes were perpetrated."

Among individual American Jews, a debate that already had been open and anguished is now sometimes turning angry as well, as was illustrated last week by a scene in New York City's diamond center. A businessman climbing off a bus on his way to work told TIME Correspondent Peter Stoler: "The PL.O. must be destroyed." American critics of Begin, he implied, were ashamed of their own Jewishness. That provoked a passerby to shout an obscenity. Begin's initial refusal to allow an independent investigation of the massacre, charged the second man, "makes it look as if Israel is either unforgivably arrogant or has something to hide."

In Connecticut, a middle-aged Jewish lawyer spoke up during a discussion of the Middle East between Democratic Senatorial Candidate Toby Moffett and 200 students and faculty members of the University of Bridgeport. In a shaky but deep voice, he called out, "I believe there has been genocide committed in the name of Israel, a country I have defended in every way imaginable all my life. As an American I think we should cut off the arms and monetary benefits." The audience first listened in hushed silence, then burst into applause as the lawyer strode out of the room.

What effect, if any, all this may have on Israeli government policy cannot be predicted. U.S. officials cling to the hope that the horror may yet prod all sides in the Middle East to some new accommodation. But already it seems clear that the Begin government has lost the trust of the U.S. Administration, and at the moment has lost the trust of the U.S. people as well. Rebuilding this trust is an urgent task--and a necessity. -- By George J. Church. Reported by Johanna McGeary and John F. Stacks/Washington

With reporting by Johanna McGeary, John F. Stacks

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