Israel Says Syrian Missile Shifts Won’t Deter It From Flying Lebanon Missions

Syria and Israel accused each other Friday of deliberately escalating tensions arising from Israeli reconnaissance flights and Syrian missiles in Lebanon.

Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Syria’s purpose was to spoil Israel’s chances for making peace with Jordan. Syria’s state media claimed Israel was trying to sabotage Syria’s peacemaking efforts among warring Lebanese groups.

The latest exchanges in the five-week-old war of words followed Prime Minister Shimon Peres’ disclosure on Thursday that Syria had sent mobile SAM-6 and SAM-8 missiles back into eastern Lebanon.

Rabin said Israel would continue intelligence-gathering flights over Palestinian and Lebanese guerrilla bases in Syrian-occupied eastern Lebanon despite the presence of the missiles.

Noncommittal on Actions

Asked if Israel would take action against the missiles, Rabin told reporters, “Israel will reserve to itself the way, means and time to cope with this problem.”

Israel radio quoted unnamed military sources as saying that Israel would not tolerate any restrictions on its surveillance flights over Lebanon.

Israel television reported that Israeli planes were photographing with special video lenses from beyond the 15- to 18-mile range of the SAM-6 and SAM-8 missiles. The television showed footage taken by Israeli planes of tank movements in Lebanon and said the pictures were shot from a distance of up to 27 miles.

Syrian President Hafez Assad’s government sent a message to U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar saying Syria is determined to safeguard its 25,000 troops in Lebanon and blaming Israel for raising the level of tensions.

‘Saber Rattling’

“Israel is preparing for an aggression against Syria and is resorting to saber rattling to undermine the agreement Syria sponsored among Lebanon’s warring militias to end the Lebanese strife,” the official Syrian newspaper Tishrin said in an editorial.

Rabin declined to say if Israel contemplated any specific military action but stressed that the crisis with Syria was restricted to Lebanon. He said there was quiet along the U.N.-policed frontier between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981.

“I am not going to speak on what Israel will do to bring about the solution to the problem that Syrians presented to us, and I stress, in Lebanon,” Rabin said.

Rabin suggested Syria wants to keep tensions high and that the aim of its policy is to keep Jordan’s King Hussein from making a separate peace with Israel as Egypt did in 1979.

In Touch With U.S.

He said Israel is keeping in close touch with the United States and had “discussed the meaning” of developments. Israeli government officials had indicated that the United States is attempting to defuse the situation through diplomatic channels.

On Nov. 19, Israeli warplanes operating over Lebanon shot down two Syrian MIG-23 interceptors inside Syrian territory. Syria responded by deploying high-altitude SAM-2 anti-aircraft missiles on its border and sending mobile SAM-6 and SAM-8 batteries into Lebanon.

The missiles in Lebanon were returned to Syrian soil following U.S. diplomatic efforts. Then, according to Israel, the Syrians rolled them back into Lebanon to menace Israeli surveillance flights.

Syria made no comment on Israel’s report that the missiles had been moved back into Lebanon.

But the Damascus government’s note to the United Nations said Israeli flights in Lebanon posed a direct threat to Syrian troops and that Syria was prepared to “exercise its legal right to self-defense.”

13 Raids This Year

Israel has carried out 13 air raids on guerrilla bases in Syrian-occupied areas of Lebanon this year.

The last missile crisis between the two Mideast adversaries developed in April, 1981, when Israeli planes came to the defense of embattled Lebanese Christians and shot down two Syrian helicopters carrying troops. Syria responded by sending missiles into east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley in an effort to inhibit Israeli flights.

Israel repeatedly warned Syria it would destroy the missiles if they were not moved and in June, 1982, 19 SAM-6 batteries were destroyed during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.

Israel has issued no ultimatums in the current crisis. Rabin spoke Friday of the need to react “coolly.”

“It seems the best policy is a policy of status quo: nobody will move, nobody starts moving,” Peres said.