‘Israel set to wipe out Arab armies’

Press, 27 October 1977, Page 8

‘Israel set to wipe out Arab armies’

NZPA-Reuter Washington The “Washington Post” said in a front-page report yesterday that Israel was preparing to fight a war of annihilation against the Egyptian and Syrian armies if the Carter Administration’s new Middle East peace effort failed. It said the Israeli Defence Minister (Mr Ezer Waizman) and other Israeli officials had told visiting Americans that Israeli strategy in any new war would be to destroy the two main Arab armies so quickly and completely that the Arabs would not present a military threat to Israel for the next 10 years. This strategy had basic-

ally been set before the election victory of the Israeli Prime Minister (Mr Menachem Begin) in May, but United States political analysts felt that Mr Begin’s Government had put its own stamp on Israel’s war strategy since coming to power, the newspaper said. “Refinements in planning since May reportedly emphasise the use of the great military depth to crush Arab armies before the United States can intervene to bring about a cease-fire, as the Nixon Administration did in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war,” it said. A rapid victory would free Israel from having to

depend on the United States for the kind of huge re-supply airlift that triggered the Arab oil countries’ embargo of 1973, the newspaper said. The flow of arms’ supplies under the Ford Administration and Carter Administration has virtually eliminated any immediate need for that kind of airlift. “With United States approval, Israel has stockpiled enough weapons, ammunition, and fuel to fight a three-front conventional war for 30 days before needing fresh supplies from the United States, American experts estimate,” the “Washington Post” said.