ISRAEL NEVER likes to be in a spat with the United States, but it's in a sticky one right now.
 How can Israel insist that its security concerns be taken seriously if it so blithely ignores Taiwan's? |
For $250 million, China is poised to buy Israel's airborne early warning radar system, Phalcon, installed on a Russian-made cargo plane. If they like what they get, the Chinese intend to buy up to seven more of the AWACS-style aircraft, so Israel is looking at a potential total sale of $2 billion. This would provide a major lift for Israel Aircraft Industries, a state-owned defense contractor badly in need of revenue from international sales. It would also mark a big step forward in Israel's relationship with China. The United States was told about the deal when the contract was signed in 1996. It didn't object then, but it is loudly objecting now. In Jerusalem last week, US Defense Secretary William Cohen publicly pressed Israel to cancel the sale. President Clinton raised the issue again during Barak's brief visit to Washington on Tuesday.
Phalcon stands for Phased Array L-band Conformal; it is an airborne radar system for long-range battle surveillance. According to Defense Week, it "can give a simultaneous view of aerial targets in a 360-degree sweep up to 250 miles away." The administration fears that if Beijing's hostility toward Taiwan leads to fighting in the Taiwan Strait, Phalcon will give the Chinese a lethal advantage. China is growing more belligerent toward its neighbor, and Washington is justifiably uneasy about a sale that would put the island at greater risk.
Of course, if the administration really wanted to deter China from menacing Taiwan, it would drop its policy of "strategic ambiguity" and make clear that if Taiwan is attacked, the United States will defend it. Or it would approve Taiwan's request to purchase four guided-missile destroyers equipped with Aegis radar. These US-built warships would go a long way toward neutralizing the threat from the ballistic missiles China has aimed across the Strait, and from the long-range cruise missiles it is rapidly developing.
The Israelis know better than to say so, but it takes real chutzpah for the Clinton administration to lecture others about supplying arms to China.
It was on Bill Clinton's watch, after all, and often with his approval, that US contractors helped China upgrade the accuracy of its nuclear weapons. For example, at the request of Loral Space & Communications — whose chairman happened to be a lavish donor to the Democratic Party — the White House relaxed export controls on guidance systems with direct applicability to Chinese strategic missiles. When it was discovered in 1996 that Chinese spies had stolen nuclear design secrets from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the administration kept silent. Perhaps that was because gobs of money from the Chinese government were being funneled into the Clinton-Gore reelection campaign.
Nevertheless, it is fair to ask: Why does Israel want to strengthen the world's most powerful totalitarian dictatorship?
Some of Israel's supporters answer: Hey, if Israel doesn't sell China the equipment it wants, some other country will. And it's true, China was prepared to buy the Argus airborne early warning system from Great Britain if it hadn't made a deal for Israel's Phalcon.
But a business-as-usual mindset is a luxury Israel cannot afford. China is not exactly an ally of the Jewish state; over the years it has proliferated weapons of mass destruction to some of Israel's worst enemies — Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya. No nation should be more alarmed by China's promiscuous willingness to do business with outlaw regimes than Israel. Yet rather than push to restrict China's access to state-of-the-art military hardware, Israel pushes to expand it.
Meanwhile, if China deserves less from Israel, Taiwan deserves more. Taiwan is a small democracy threatened by a large, undemocratic neighbor. That is a situation with which Israelis should instinctively sympathize. How can Jerusalem insist that its security concerns be taken seriously if it so blithely ignores Taiwan's?
Israel's 20-year history of arming the Chinese is a blot on its reputation. A nation built on the ashes of the Holocaust ought to hold itself to a higher standard. China is governed by thugs. The ruling party has committed savage violence against millions of innocent victims. Does Israel think it enhances its own reputation by making common cause with such a regime?
Israelis have no greater moral asset than their status as an oasis of enlightenment and liberty in a desert of autocracy and intolerance. That is why they are so admired by so many. If they are willing to sacrifice that asset just to make a profit, they will have lost something worth a lot more than $250 million.
Correction: My piece on the flap over a display at a South Boston bar lamented that "virtually no one has mentioned the First Amendment." The Boston Phoenix, in a March 10 editorial, said: "The display is also constitutionally protected speech — protected not just by the First Amendment . . . but also by the free-speech clause of the Massachusetts Constitution." Civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate also defended the bar owner's First Amendment rights in a column in the Globe on March 25.
Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.
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