Begin seeks Labour aid to defuse crisis

Press, 4 May 1981, Page 8

Begin seeks Labour aid to defuse crisis

NZPA-Reuter Jerusalem The Israeli Prime Minister (Mr Menachem Begin) yesterday arranged to confer with the Opposition Labour leader. Shimon Peres, and also brief his Cabinet on the recently escalated crisis with Syria over Lebanon. Political sources said that Mr Begin’s first meeting with Mr Peres on the issue will attempt to give the Government broader support for its efforts to defuse the situation.

Last week. Israel shot down two Syrian helicopters in Central Lebanon, in what officials said was a warning to Syria to halt its attacks on the Christian populations in Zahle and Beirut.

Syria reacted by deploying surface-to-air Sam-6 missiles near Zahle, and Israel called this a deliberate provocation, seriously limiting Israeli air activity over Lebanon. Israeli diplomatic consultations with the United States in the last few days, in an effort to resolve the crisis peacefully, had so far proved unfruitful, according to the Foreign Minister (Mr Yitzhak Shamir). He did not rule out the possibility of war with Syria, telling a television interviewer on Friday: “All possibilities must be taken into account.”

Yesterday, a key member of Mr Begin’s Likud Party said that the tensions need not explode into a full-scale war if Syria co-operated with efforts to calm the situation.

Moshe Arens, a member of the Knesset, who is also chairman of the powerful Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, told Israel Radio that “it takes two to start a war, and Israel is not interested in one.”

Mr Begin, who is also Acting Defence Minister, has had several consultations with the American Ambassador (Mr Samuel Lewis), and Israeli leaders have said that the Americans have been “labouring hard” to bring about a settlement of the conflict but with little success.

While the Israeli High Command and the American State Department confirmed the stationing of the Syrian missiles, Mr Begin has said there was no official confirmation of this. A Government official explained the contradiction by saying that Mr Begin was trying to make it easier for the Syrians to withdraw the missiles without losing face. Israel Television, however, showed film at the week-end of what its military correspondent said was a battery

of the Sam-6 missiles pos tioned near Zahle. Mr Peres also told Isral Television on Friday th* Israel must act to have th Syrian missiles remove from Lebanon, “first throng diplomatic means and ( those fail, through ' oth< means.”

He revealed for the firi time the three elements q the so-called “red whereby Israel had an undel standing with Syria . thithere could be no Syriai military activity beyond sue! a line. Thirty-thousanl Syrian peace-keeping sol diers were introduced intt Lebanon after the 1975-7( civil war.

Syrian ground forces coulj not be deployed beyond i line running parallel to thi Litani River, it could not ust its Air Force in Lebanon, ant it could not bring in anti aircraft missiles, he said. The terms of the undert, standing were general!! maintained until the missilt deployment last Tuesday, h( added.

In Cairo, President Anwal Sadat has strongly con, demned Israel’s intervention in Lebanon and called on thq Arabs to unite “to savq Lebanon” and avert a “catas? trophe” in the Middle East.,