Middle East Stirring Up Rumors of War

"We have no intention of attacking Syria, and Syria has no chance of defeating Israel." So said Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres last week, for the moment allaying fears that Israel might be on the verge of making a pre- emptive strike against its strongest Arab neighbor. Almost simultaneously, Syria's Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam declared that the Damascus government of President Hafez Assad "is not seeking aggression," though he added that Syria would "respond with all the potential it possesses" if attacked. Those statements were intended to put to rest, at least temporarily, a flurry of war talk that has rocked the region for the past fortnight. But they hardly resolved the mounting problems between two traditional adversaries. Concluded Middle East Expert William Quandt of the Brookings Institution: "Both Israel and Syria have got it in their minds that they will fight another major war, and both are very seriously planning for that day."

The latest crisis was sparked by fresh allegations that Syria may have played a role in recent terrorist attacks in Europe and the Mediterranean, even though in the past the Assad government has consistently deplored such assaults against civilians. The charges, pressed by the Israelis but confirmed in some particulars by some Western intelligence agencies, link Syria with the recent attempt by a Jordanian-born Palestinian to plant a bomb aboard a London-Tel Aviv El Al flight with 360 passengers aboard. Evidence also surfaced that could tie the Syrians to a West Berlin explosion that destroyed the German-Arab Friendship Society, and possibly to a subsequent blast at La Belle discotheque in the same city. The nightclub bombing, which killed a U.S. soldier and a Turkish woman and wounded another 230 people, was one of the terrorist outrages that Ronald Reagan blamed on Libya and cited as justification for the April 15 U.S. raids on Libyan targets. It is conceivable that both Syria and Libya were involved in the discotheque bombing, since some Arab terrorist organizations have links with both countries.

Even more than the attacks in West Berlin, the close call at London's Heathrow Airport, where an alert Israeli security agent found an explosive device in the luggage of a terrorist's unsuspecting Irish girlfriend, raised questions about the war risks the Damascus regime may be willing to undertake --and about Assad's motives. Had the plane been destroyed, with hundreds of casualties, the tragedy would almost certainly have led to some kind of Israeli military response.

The latest allegations came at a time of mounting unrest between Israel and Syria. In recent weeks the Syrians have been building new tank and artillery emplacements in southern Lebanon. As Peres put it, Syrian forces have been steadily "creeping" toward Israel's northern border. Only last week Syrian- backed Lebanese guerrillas fired two Katyusha rockets across the border, wounding an Israeli and two of his children in Upper Galilee. Israel's costly 1982 war in Lebanon was supposed to have stopped such attacks.