Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XVII, Near East, 1961–1962

221. Telegram From the Embassy in Syria to the Department of State⁰

Damascus, March 24, 1962, 5 p.m.

601. Embtel 600.¹ Rome for Rood. Paris for SHAPE/L. From study of chronology set down in reference telegram, outline of tactics and strategy of current SARG policy toward Israel seem take shape:

Primary problem is to distinguish between SARG’s ostensible objectives and its real objectives. Ostensible objective of its note of March 22² is induce UN to compel Israel to comply with partition and refugee resolutions, on pain of expulsion. Some Arab officials here, like Saudi Ambassador, naively profess to believe that, since Israel failed live up to conditions of its admission to UN, Secretary General should take routine police action of barring Israeli representatives from further meetings. Others speculate GA vote would be required.

We believe, however, Prime Minister Dawalibi and most high-level SARG officials too realistic even to dream of so unlikely a prospect as Israel’s being expelled. In fact Cabinet Secretary General Mahayiri cited for us cases of states that have defied UN resolutions with impunity— notably UAR in its Suez Canal policy.

Is then SARG’s belligerent stance of irrevocable opposition to Israeli diversion a propaganda tactic to counter Cairo’s charges that imperialism dominates Syria? If so, SARG policy is bankrupt before it starts; it will be only matter of time before Israel begins pumping and SARG stands, like Qasim before Kuwait, stripped of pretense to a sound foreign policy.

In Embassy’s view, however, SARG policy toward Israel has more substance than Qasim’s toward Kuwait and consequently holds more danger for Middle East peace.

We believe sequence of events cited in reference telegram bears out our suspicion, stated in Embtel 583,³ that SARG does not want to consider Lake Tiberias incidents reasonably and in isolation—that instead their purpose and strategy is to focus all their efforts on Jordan waters and somehow to secure indefinite postponement of Israeli diversion and resultant “strengthening of the enemy.”

In this connection, we take Dawalibi’s bald statement of March 22 (Embtel 593)⁴ that he wants USG to take public position against unilateral Israel diversion as corroboration of second thesis presented Embtel 583—that USG is prime target of present SARG foreign policy campaign.

Embassy sees this campaign as two-pronged. On one hand, by private statements and judicious placement of news stories, SARG is suggesting that penalty for US inflexibility on Jordan waters would be destruction US position in Middle East, advancement of Soviet causes therein, and risk of Arab-Israeli war.

On other hand, by taking issue to UN on “legal” grounds, SARG probably seeking provide USG with face-saving means for modifying its Palestine policy. We understand SARG’s March 22 note was conceived by Dawalibi and drafted by Syria’s reputedly pro-Soviet expert on law and UN, Salah Tarazi. We suspect they hope US will espouse their case, not because US is enchanted with its legal precision, but because it offers least embarrassing alternative to Middle East chaos.

While we are first to sense disingenuousness of SARG’s artifices and strategy, we are nevertheless genuinely concerned on two major counts:

(A) As we foresee next SC episode, all too likely that a draft resolution unpalatable—however unreasonably—to Arabs will be vetoed by Soviets. Net result would be that substantive situation would find itself unchanged except with Soviets popular heroes and US in doghouse.

(B) We can not dismiss risk of collision of greater than incident proportions. Department has already commented that Kursi raid apparently failed in its objective of intimidating SARG. Jerusalem’s 179⁵ has reported marked confidence of Syrian COS. In subjecting USG to concentrated pressure tactics, we think SARG willing to carry its tactics to such extremes that assumption SARG merely bluffing could be highly risky.

Knight

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 683.84A/3–2462. Secret; Niact; Limit Distribution. Also sent to USUN and repeated to Amman, Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Jidda, London, Paris, Rome, Tel Aviv, and Moscow.
1. Dated March 24. (Ibid.)
2. The Syrian Government delivered copies of its lengthy note, which described in detail Israel’s transgressions against Syria, to representatives of the Arab states and Security Council member states in Damascus on March 22. The Embassy transmitted a translation of the note to the Department of State in telegram 597 from Damascus, March 23. (Ibid., 683.84A/3–2362)
3. Dated March 20. (Ibid., 684A.85322/3–2062)
4. Dated March 22. (Ibid., 683.84A/3–2262)
5. Dated March 23. (Ibid., 683.84A/3–2362)