Timing absolutely perfect for attack into Lebanon

By BRUCE INGORSOLL, Chicago Sun-Times

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THE ISRAELIS, ever the opportunists in diplomacy and war, could not have timed their blitz against Palestinian forces in southern Lebanon any better.

The government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the invasion at a time when the Arab world was preoccupied with the Iraqi-Iranian war and the specter of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini spreading his fundamentalist Moslem revolution throughout the Persian Gulf region.

At the same time, the leaders of the industrialized West were tending to economic matters at the Versailles summit in Paris.

The Israelis, in calculating the risks of launching their offensive against the military strongholds of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, undoubtedly considered which nations might come to the PLO’s rescue and concluded that few, if any, would. Twenty months of war with Iran have left Iraq militarily exhausted and humiliated.

The Iraqi regime of President Saddam Hussein is facing the external threat of an Iranian invasion and the internal threat of a bloody coup. Hussein is in no position to help out the PLO. THE LEADERS of Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf states, meanwhile, are trembling in fear of a renascent Iran. The PLO’s present plight is of secondary concern to them.

Having propped up the war-weakened Iraqi economy with more than $20 billion in aid, they now fear that Khomeini may stir up the discontent of Shiite Moslems in their midst. Khomeini has long talked of exporting his Shiite Islamic revolution to Sunni-dominated states. Of the Arab nations, Egypt may be the No.

1 military power, but despite strains in its relationship with Israel, it is not about to give up on the Camp David peace process. President Hosni Mubarak already has said he will not send troops to Lebanon. That leaves Syria, the nation most closely aligned with the PLO.

How this transcription was made

Read from the scan by a machine looking at the image of the page, not by optical character recognition and not by a person.

Context added by this archive

Date check: The section flag reads “World” with “D” at the right and, beneath it, “Asbury Park Press / Fri., June 11, 1982” — matches both `date` and `pub`. Standing refers at the left read “Religion 2 / Classified 4”.

Cite this clipping

"Timing absolutely perfect for attack into Lebanon," Asbury Park Press, 11 June 1982, p. D. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1982-051. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1982-051