Word: beirutization
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...nuclear reactor last month, would be resumed. In fact, some of the F-16s had been flown to Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire for the trip to the Middle East. But then on Friday word reached the White House of the shocking Israeli bombing of Beirut that killed at least 200 and left some 600 wounded (see WORLD). The announcement about resumption of F-16 deliveries was abruptly canceled...
...Administration refused to link the postponement to the Beirut raid. It even refused to admit that there had been any postponement at all. After reading a statement, written at the White House, that "the U.S. deplores this intensified violence" in the Middle East, State Department Spokesman Dean Fischer insisted that no decision on the F-16s had been made, and none would be announced until Tuesday. But that was not the full story. President Reagan had summoned his top foreign policy advisers shortly before 10 that morning to discuss the Beirut raid. The weapons that the U.S. supplies to Israel...
Whether or not Begin had deliberately intended to embarrass the Administration, Reagan and his advisers were clearly not prepared for the Beirut raid. Israeli officials predictably objected when the U.S. delayed delivery of the F-16s* following the attack on the Iraqi reactor. Yet Begin and his Cabinet apparently assumed that the delay was only symbolic and saw no need to pay attention to U.S. concerns about Israeli military actions. They were more interested in demonstrating that there were no strings attached to their use of the F-16s. Indeed, late last week Israel condemned as "unfair" the latest delay...
...this week's story, Beirut Bureau Chief William Stewart flew to Baghdad, while TIME correspondents in Paris, London, Washington and other capitals helped assess world reaction. To learn why and how Isreal struck, the Jerusalem bureau drew on an extensive network of scientific, military and diplomatic sources. Says Bureau Chief David Aikman: "There is something almost cosmic about Isreal's conflict with its neighbors. Where else in the world would the chief of the Air Force quote the Bible in answer to a reporter's question...
...timing, at least, Israel may have been right about the raid. So thinks a senior Western diplomat in Beirut, who feels that the Israelis suspect, correctly, that as the Reagan Administration clarifies its Middle East policy, "it will almost certainly move more in favor of the Arabs. So, if a strike against Iraq were necessary, there would never be a better time." The same diplomat doubts that Israel will soon strike the Syrian missiles in Lebanon. Says he: "Any attempt to remove the missiles will involve Israeli casualties, and the last thing the Israeli Prime Minister needs as the country...