ABSTRACT
The Israeli-Egyptian peace and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon have, in their ensemble, brought the encounter between the Jewish state and Syria to a new level of mutual risk. The Egyptians’ concept of peace may differ from Israel’s, but though this is occasionally a source of some tension between Egypt and Israel, the former’s abdication from the Arab war coalition against the latter seems complete. Having challenged Egypt’s decision to follow this course as vehemently as Syria has, she was left with no alternative but to continue to carry the anti-Israel banner practically alone. During 1976–81 there was a brief moment in which a rare convergence of interests between Syria and Israel over Lebanon and the PLO seemed to point the way towards something amounting to a détente. Yet the nature of the tacit understanding was such that it also contained the germs of a large-scale collision. When this occurred in June 1982, tensions between these adversaries peaked. Moreover, Syria’s partial yet quite spectacular defeat led to a frantic Syrian effort to offset Israel’s visible superiority through a combination of assiduous diplomacy and a much accelerated process of force construction. The upshot was a new level of tension and danger, not only to Syria and Israel, but increasingly to the entire Middle East and, quite conceivably, to the whole world.
