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HELEN DAVIS
erusalem — While the
occupied West Bank
and Gaza Strip may be
-periodically convulsed by
violence, Israel has never en-
joyed such a prolonged
absence of external military
threat as now.
It has a formal peace trea-
ty with Egypt in the south
and a de facto peace with Jor-
dan in the east. Lebanon has
not been counted among the
Arab belligerents since 1948,
while Palestinian na-
tionalists and Islamic fun-
damentalists have failed to
penetrate the border either by
land or by sea.
Only Syria, perched on
Israel's northern border, re-
mains openly aggressive,
although its failure to achieve
"strategic parity" — the abili-
ty to confront Israel on its
own — has persuaded Israeli
strategists that it does not, for
the moment, pose a serious
threat.
Indeed, military analysts in
Jerusalem are confident that,
given the present military
balance of power, Israel would
be capable of defeating any
combination of hostile Arab
forces.
Their confidence is based on
twin pillars — both in-
disputable, but neither im-
mutable: First, Egypt and
Jordan, two of the key con-
frontation states, have remov-
ed themselves from the war
coalition; second, the Arab
world, preoccupied by the
Gulf War and fearful of an
Iranian victory, is deeply
divided.
With the Arab world thus
split between Iran (Syria and
Libya) and Iraq (Jordan,
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait), any significant col-
laboration between these
former battlefield allies is ex-
tremely unlikely as long as
the Gulf War persists.
Last week, however, Israeli
Defense Minister Yitzhak
Rabin, rudely shattered the
complacency when he warned
senior Israeli officers that
Israel could be engaged in a
war within the next few
years.
The seven-year-old Gulf
War would not end "next
week," he told the officers at
Israel's Staff and Command
College, but it would be over
within two or three years.
After that Israel could expect
an end to the current calm
and it must be prepared for
any eventuality.
j
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FRIDAY, NOV. 13, 1987
Yitzhak Rabin Hears
Distant War Drums
Israel Correspondent
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Rabin: Cold statistics
The Defense Minister
might have been sounding
the war drums prematurely,
but the cold statistics show
that Israel does indeed have
little room for complacency.
In raw numbers, Israel has
always been faced with an
overwhelming disadvantage
in both men and materiel.
And in the wake of the Gulf
War this imbalance will be
dramatically increased.
Iraq, which has par-
ticipated in every war against
Israel, has greatly enlarged
the size of its standing army
since the start of its war with
Iran in September 1980 from
12 divisions to 40, represen-
ting a staggering one million
men under arms.
Even if Iraq were to halve
the size of its army when
hostilities cease, Israeli
analysts estimate that it
would still be capable of
dispatching an expeditionary
force of at least six battle-
hardened divisions to Israel's
eastern front.
In addition, Iraq now has
some 742 combat aircraft and
5,000 tanks — more than any
other army in the region (by
way of comparison, Germany
had a total of 3,000 tanks at
its disposal when it con-
quered France during the Se-
cond World War).
And Iraq is not alone. Since
the last major Arab-Israeli
conflict in 1973, the armies of
Israel's immediate neighbors
— Syria, Jordan and Egypt —
have undergone a massive
expansion.
They have increased their
combined tank force by 60 per
cent (from 4,500 to 7,300) and
their fleet of fighter aircraft
by 100 per cent (from 950 to
1,900).
Compounding the dif-
Continued on Page 86