Begin threatens to bomb Syrian missiles

Press, 12 May 1981, Page 9

Begin threatens to bomb Syrian missiles

NZPA-Reuter Tel Aviv The Prime Minister (Mr Menachem Begin) said yesterday Israel's Air Force would attack Syrian missiles in Lebanon unless an American peace mediator got them removed. Mr Begin told a conference of his ruling Likud Party that he would order the Air Force to attack the missile bases “if the mission headed by the United States special envoy, Philip Habib, fails to convince Syria to withdraw its deadly missiles from Lebanon.”

He was speaking after Israeli newspapers compared the situation in the Lebanon missile crisis with the run-up to the six-day June war of 1967.

Although Mr Begin's office immediately denied it, the "Jerusalem Post” and other newspapers said that he had made the comparison in a letter to President Ronald Reagan.

But the idea still struck foreboding into foreign diplomats and others who recalled the days preceding the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

In 1967, as now, Israeli leaders were saying that diplomacy should be given a chance to settle the dispute of the day, in that case an Egyptian blockade of Israel’s

vital waterway through the Straits of Tiran. The then Defence Minister, Moshe Dayan, gave a press conference to say that peaceful methods would be given a chance. Forty-eight hours later, on June 5. 1967, the Egyptian Air Force had been destroyed by a lightning Israel air attack. Now Israeli commentators are talking about a lightning attack to remove the Syrian missiles stationed in Lebanon after Israeli jets destroyed two Syrian helicopters last week. In his warning, Mr Begin got thunderous applause when he said: “It is a well known fact that when the Israeli Air Force goes after a target, it does not miss.”

An Israeli Radio commentator, Shimon Ayalon, described the problem posed for Israel by the missiles and said: “The threat to Israel may be removed by what has been described as a surgical military operation — that is. a fast strike to remove the missile bases.”

Mr Begin and his Ministers say they have agreed to hold off any action while Mr Habib, who was due in Israel today after talks in Damascus and Beirut, tries to find a peaceful solution. Some Israeli press reports have said the Syrian SAM 6

missiles threaten Israeli air space. According to the authoritative reference book, ‘‘Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft.” these missiles have a maximum range radius of possibly 60km against aircraft at high altitude.

If this were correct, missiles in Lebanon's Zahle area might just be able to hit high-flying aircraft over the very northern tip of Israel.

But Israeli officials make it clear that their main concern is the effect the missiles might have on inhibiting Israeli air strikes against Palestinian guerrilla bases in Lebanon. Israel has always insisted on freedom of Lebanese skies for this purpose. In the past three years 15 Syrian aircraft, which tried to interfere w’ith Israeli aircraft over Lebanon, have been shot down, each time without significant Syrian retaliation.

Mr Habib had long discussions yesterday with the Syrian President (Mr Hafez Assad) in Damascus, but found Syrian leaders uncompromising during his two-day stay.

Western diplomatic sources said he was likely to find Mr Begin, who faces elections next month, equally intransigent. Mr- Habib, a former Under-Secretary of State for oliti al affair* Md fter

political affairs, sai . ai er his talks with President Assad that the situation in the region was tense.