ISRAEL: Staunch Friends At Arms Length

In the past seven years Washington has supported Israel with a staggering $6.9 billion worth of weapons, and this year, depending on the Congress, the total could rise by as much as $1.5 billion. In return for this largesse, Israel has provided U.S. military chiefs and arms makers with a unique opportunity: a battlefield laboratory, as it were, where advanced weapons and electronic systems have been tested in four Middle East wars. “We have learned more from the Israelis about Soviet equipment,” admits a ranking U.S. Air Force general, “than we learned in Viet Nam.”

This unique relationship has suddenly begun to show strains. For one thing, the U.S. has decided to reduce massive military aid to Israel, hoping thereby to press Jerusalem into productive peace negotiations with the Arabs. Beyond that, Washington is also convinced that Israel now has more sophisticated equipment than it really needs.

That approach coincides with a subtle campaign of criticism against Israel by some U.S. arms manufacturers who once were among its staunchest friends. The American companies, restive under export restrictions imposed at home, are resentful of competition from Israel’s burgeoning arms industry. In the past few weeks, operating on tips, several columnists and trade publications have accused the Israelis of stealing U.S. technology and “reinventing” it in made-in-Israel weapons.

Moreover, they charge that Israel is selling this modified equipment to third nations, including certain countries with which U.S. companies are barred by law from doing business. One case was the purchase by Honduras last year of eight French-built Mystère fighters, which the Israelis had equipped with U.S. jet engines. A more serious complaint comes from Raytheon Co., which accuses the Israelis of scavenging an air-to-air missile called Shafrir out of Raytheon’s Sidewinder—specifically, by stealing Sidewinder’s infra-red guidance system —and then selling it to Chile.

In an interview with TIME’s Donald Neff and David Halevy in Tel Aviv last week, Defense Minister Shimon Peres insisted that Israel’s arms practices were entirely proper. The Mystère sale to Honduras was an honest mistake, he claimed. Israel had paid cash for the engines, the planes were obsolete, and no one expected the U.S. to protest such a sale. The Shafrir, he explained, was developed and used in combat three years before Israel saw its first Sidewinder. “The only American piece of equipment in the Shafrir is a small battery that you can buy on the open market. Had we known it would cause problems, we would have used our own.” In any case, the Israelis argue —and U.S. experts agree—that the Shafrir is actually a better weapon than the Sidewinder, principally because it uses a bigger warhead and a longer-burning propellant charge.

Deadly Bastard. Arms for export have rapidly become a mainstay of the Israeli economy. Sales abroad have jumped from $38 million in 1970 to $340 million last year (v. $12 billion U.S. sales), and now represent 45% of Israel’s arms output; this year the total is expected to reach $450 million. Israel deals with at least 16 client nations, including South Africa, Taiwan, Kenya and Greece, whose purchases range from the small but efficient Uzi submachine gun and Galil assault rifle (based on the Soviet AK-47 rifle) to the battle-tested Gabriel surface-to-surface missile. Exports may climb far higher if the Israelis market, at $4.2 million a copy, their new Kfir C-2 fighter, a deadly bastard sired from a French Mirage airframe and a U.S. General Electric J-79 engine.

Israel argues that it needs a large defense industry because of its difficult Middle East position. “There is a strategy of the many and a strategy of the few,” Defense Minister Peres told TIME. “During the Yom Kippur War we repaired 100 tanks in a matter of 24 hours; otherwise, we would have had to have 200 tanks. The few [i.e., Israel] must have better recycling than the many [the Arabs] because the many can buy a lot of equipment to put in their stores.” Following this theory, Israel hopes to persuade Washington to amend the terms of a new $100 million contract for U.S. M-60 tanks. Israel would prefer cash to M-60s and use it to build its own battletank, the Merkava (chariot).

More controversial is an Israeli bid to buy 250 F-16 fighters from the U.S. Israel wants to purchase 50 of the General Dynamics combat jets directly and assemble the remaining 200 at home. This would create an Israeli export market for F-16s that would compete directly with another consortium: in selling the F-16 to NATO nations in 1975, the U.S. assured them they could share in third-nation sales.

Captive Soviets. Obviously, Israel wants to broaden its armaments capacity not only for self-defense but because it needs the money; the nation devotes a full 35% of its $13.6 billion budget to military spending. With so much new equipment on hand Israel has plenty of obsolete goods, and it is prepared to sell to virtually any non-Arab nation that can pay its bills. “What’s wrong with that?” an Israeli official asks. “If we don’t make the sale, England or France or the Soviet Union will. Look what happened in Peru; the U.S. didn’t want to sell, and the Russians came in and picked up all the orders.”

What irritates the Israelis most is the insinuation that their arms agreements with the U.S. are a one-way affair. Actually, in addition to providing life-and-death combat tests for equipment, Israel has given the Pentagon—intact —the Soviet MiG-21, Sukhoi Su-7 and Su-11 jet planes, as well as advanced versions of Soviet surface-to-air missiles, Soviet tanks, antiaircraft guns, antitank weapons and armored personnel carriers. Admits a U.S. Air Force officer: “The Israelis, in fact, have provided us with a captive Soviet air force.”

More than that, Middle East wars have allowed the U.S. to study Soviet battle tactics. In the first week of the October War, Egyptian forces under Soviet guidance threw up the first complete missile air-defense system ever used in combat; 78 Israeli jets were destroyed before the system was pierced. On the ground, rocket launchers and Sagger missiles carried by Arab infantrymen knocked out 850 Israeli tanks. “I must say,” Peres comments sarcastically, “that nobody ever complained that we were giving Soviet technology to America without permission.”