To the Editor:
Efraim Karsh’s powerful analysis makes clear that Yasir Arafat lives on in the culture of hatred and violence he fashioned to serve his terrorist war against Israel [“Arafat Lives,” January]. Mahmoud Abbas, his successor, views terror as counterproductive for now, but he has declared that he will not disarm Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and he appears to share Arafat’s goal of replacing Israel with Palestine.
Contrary to what the New York Times and many European capitals insist, the road to peace in the greater Middle East is no more likely now than before to “go through Jerusalem.” They assume that solving the problem of Palestinian statelessness would end conflict in the region and its attendant dangers to the West. But, as Mr. Karsh shows, this is worse than false; it masks a serious misapprehension of the real threat facing us from radical Islam.
By vaulting past Jerusalem to Baghdad, President Bush’s approach to peace in the Middle East comprehends this threat and counters it. If freedom within a confederated democratic structure can be defended in Iraq by the improbable combination of Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, then radical Islam will be seriously weakened in its heartland; suppressed Iranians could be inspired to turn out their fundamentalist rulers. The Palestinians, by contrast, remain captive to their terrorist masters, who are protected for now by the veneer of democratic elections. As Mr. Karsh suggests, Israel will need to keep its defenses strong.
Michael Balch
Iowa City, Iowa
To the Editor:
I agree with the main thesis of Efraim Karsh’s article, but his assumption that Egypt launched the 1973 Yom Kippur war with Israel “against the wishes and advice of the Soviet Union” is mistaken.
Prior to the war, the Soviet Union supplied both Syria and Egypt with SAM-6 anti-aircraft missile systems, modern T-62 tanks, and Sagger anti-tank missiles, all in great profusion. Egypt’s strategy for the war involved crossing the Suez Canal, stopping, and building strong defensive positions—on the classic Soviet model. If the Soviet Union was against war, why did it supply the equipment and the offensive doctrine that made it possible?
Harold Bernard Reisman
Carlsbad, California
Efraim Karsh writes:
It gives me no pleasure to be a Cassandra, and I will gladly concede error should Mahmoud Abbas prove a genuine peacemaker, leading the Palestinians to a lasting reconciliation with their Israeli neighbors. Yet, as is aptly noted by Michael Balch, the euphoria attending the recent lull in the fighting seems largely premature.
The Sharm el-Sheikh summit between Abbas and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was certainly a new beginning. But there have been many new beginnings to this conflict; what is needed is a new end. That depends overwhelmingly on the Palestinian militant groups hanging up their guns or on Abbas making them do so. This was a key condition not only of the “road map” but also of the five agreements Yasir Arafat signed with Israel between 1993 and 2000. So long as this precondition is not met, there will be no end to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. Nor will there develop a functioning Palestinian civil society, let alone a viable state, for the simple reason that all territorial states rely on the rule of law and central control over the means of violence.
Harold Bernard Reisman wonders why the Soviets armed the Arabs to the teeth prior to the 1973 Yom Kippur war if they were opposed to the outbreak of hostilities. The answer is that cheap arms supplies were the only way for the Soviets to compete with the economically superior West for power and influence in the Middle East. But this by no means implied an interest in a regional conflagration. The Soviets were highly skeptical of the Arabs’ fighting capabilities, and feared that a new war would result in yet another catastrophe along the lines of June 1967, one that might hamper the course of détente with the U.S., tarnish the prestige of Soviet weaponry, and drive the Arabs to conclude that the path to regaining their lost territories passed through Washington rather than Moscow.
In the early 1970’s, when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat began threatening Israel with war, the Soviets were greatly alarmed. For over a year they denied Egypt vital arms supplies, thus frustrating its military preparations and forcing Sadat to postpone his campaign. In July 1972 Sadat retaliated by expelling Soviet military personnel from Egypt; the Soviets resumed arms deliveries, though not at the scope or pace Sadat desired, while simultaneously trying to persuade the Arabs of the benefits of a negotiated settlement.
In May 1973, Moscow scored its greatest success by convincing Egypt and Syria to postpone their joint attack—planned for that month—until after the June summit meeting between Secretary-General Leonid Brezhnev and President Richard Nixon. After that meeting, they again tried to fend off the impending conflict by means of a steady stream of public and private warnings. When all these efforts proved unavailing, they made a last-ditch attempt to alert Israel to the imminence of war, taking the unprecedented step of withdrawing their civilian dependents from Egypt and Syria in a massive air- and sea-lift on October 4. Unfortunately, Israeli intelligence failed to read this last in a long series of handwritings on the wall; hostilities broke out two days later.
