Israel Trying to Curb Missile Sales to Arabs

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, reflecting growing concern over what Israel perceives as a qualitatively new strategic threat, said Tuesday that the government is making efforts to prevent certain powers from supplying long-range missiles to Syria and other Arab nations.

Addressing a Zionist Organization of America convention, Shamir described the missile threat as “a matter of great concern for us.” He added, “We must find and develop the means to meet the new challenge.”

Shamir did not go into specifics, but it is believed that China is a principal target of the anti-missile campaign.

Earlier this year, Beijing supplied Saudi Arabia with CSS-2 ground-to-ground missiles capable of striking targets more than 2,000 miles away. And last month there were reports that Syria was discussing with China the purchase of newer and more accurate M-9 missiles with a range of at least 400 miles.

Although Israel has no diplomatic relations with China, the two countries reportedly have developed a network of unofficial contacts and dealings that could be used by Jerusalem as leverage against Chinese arms sales to the Arabs. Ironically, Israel has in recent years reportedly sold China military equipment and know-how valued at $1 billion.

Seen as Weapon Against Iran

Saudi Arabia’s new CSS-2 missiles are intended not as a weapon against Israel but to counter a threat from Iran, officials say. And a “senior defense source” was quoted Tuesday by Israel Radio as saying that even if Syria concludes a deal for the M-9s, they could not be operational for at least two years.

Nonetheless Israel was concerned enough about the Saudi missiles last March to sound what many perceived as a warning that it might launch a preemptive strike against the missile sites. And concern over the latest reports of M-9s for Syria caused enough of a stir here that the Israeli chief of staff, Gen. Dan Shomron, and other officers have given public assurances that such weapons would not be decisive in any new Middle East war.

Still, the missiles do constitute an unprecedented threat to Israeli population centers, and the issue surfaces at a time when Iraq has already used medium-range ground-to-ground missiles with chemical warheads in its war against Iran.

A warplane can carry a load of bombs far more destructive than a missile, but Israel’s air defenses are considered exceptionally well qualified to counter any enemy aircraft. It is not nearly as prepared to stop a missile attack.

“A surface-to-surface missile enables a country like Saudi Arabia to send bombs to Israeli territory, or in fact to any point within Israel’s territory, by pressing a button,” the army intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Amnon Shahak, said in a radio interview last month.

Evasion Capability

“Even if they are not very precise bombs, they are bombs that within a very short time, the minute they are launched, arrive at their destinations--and they generally know how to evade defense systems that planes must pass through,” he added.

The Middle East missile threat was a primary topic of conversation during last week’s visit to Washington by Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

President Reagan said in a statement that the proliferation of missiles and chemical weapon capabilities “could change the military situation (in the region), making any future war far more costly, difficult to control and dangerous.”

Israel and the United States signed an agreement during the visit for joint development of a new Arrow anti-missile missile. Washington is to put up 80% and Israel 20% of an initial $130 million for a three-year effort to develop the technology for destroying incoming missiles.

Shomron told a Haifa University audience two weeks ago that Israel is developing tools capable of changing the course of attacking missiles after they are launched.