A description of a future Israeli strike against Baghdad? In fact, it’s already happened. In October 1973, Israel hit Damascus hard to avenge Frog-7 missile attacks by Syria against kibbutzim and farms in the Upper Galilee. (Most Israelis had been evacuated and there were few casualties.) Seventeen years later, with Israel facing two waves of missiles from an Arab enemy, a strike against Iraq seems likely at some point. But it will be a quid pro quo response to Baghdad’s raids, which at the weekend have caused just a handful of injuries, or a far more deadly escalation of the war?
For the moment, political realities took precedence over military concerns. Weighing the possible consequences of an attack against Iraq on the fragile U.S.-led coalition, Israel refrained from an immediate response. On Saturday, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to say what his country was planning. “We have said from the start that if attacked, we’ll respond,” he said. He added: “I think on the nature, the timing, the forces used, the targets chosen…we prefer to keep Saddam guessing.”
Given Israel’s penchant for effective, merciless retaliation, the Iraqi ruler has plenty to worry about. In October 1985, six days after Palestinian gunmen killed three Israeli civilians aboard a yacht moored in Larnaca, Cyprus, Israel struck back with vengeance. A squadron of F-15 fighter-bombers, refueling in midair, traveled 3,000 miles across the Mediterranean to Tunis and back. Evading radar, the jets unleashed a six-minute blitz of bombs and rockets on the headquarters of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The raid destroyed three PLO buildings–and killed dozens of Palestinian and Tunisian men, women and children.
More recent Israeli reprisals, aimed at PLO guerrillas in southern Lebanon, have been no less deadly. In January 1990, responding to attacks on Israeli soldiers by the radical Hizbullah faction, Israeli warplanes destroyed two bases near Sidon, killing and wounding dozens. With Saddam zeroing in on Tel Aviv, Israel may contemplate scrambling its jets again. But with American missiles and planes already filling the Iraqi skies, and the anti-Iraqi alliance hanging in the balance, it could decide that sitting on the sidelines for now is the wisest policy.
