Word: raid
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Arab with a particular right to feel outraged was Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who was "totally astonished" by the news of the raid. Well he might have been; Sadat had held a highly publicized summit meeting with Begin in the Sinai only three days before the raid, and received no hint that trouble might lie ahead...
Even though the U.S. had no more warning of the attack than anyone else (a fact that should cause deep concern among U.S. intelligence experts), the Tammuz raid endangered American credibility with moderate Arab regimes, which still see a U.S. hand behind any Israeli military adventure. The attack rendered far more difficult the simultaneous Reagan Administration bid to support Israel, cultivate Arab friendships and further the 1978 Camp David peace accord. The assault also imperiled the Lebanese peacemaking mission of U.S. Envoy Philip Habib, who returned to the Middle East last week after a 12-day absence. Habib had seemed...
...sortie rankled European governments as well. Most ruffled were the French, who supplied the Iraqis with the reactor, who lost a technician as the only reported casualty of the raid and whose newly elected Socialist President, François Mitterrand, had declared his willingness to strengthen ties with Israel. Said French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson: "I am saddened. This government has a great deal of sympathy for Israel, but we don't think such action serves the cause of peace in the area." In her typically blunt fashion, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher summed up the view of many others: "Armed...
...raid was a stinging setback...
...Minister: "If the Arabs see the U.S. failing to check Israel, failing to improve Arab self-defense, failing to solve the Palestinian problem, what are they going to do? They will have no alternative but to turn to the Soviet Union." The Soviet news agency, TASS, called the Israeli raid an "act of gangsterism" and accused Washington of being a direct accomplice...