Timely Warnings Against Israeli Reliance on Technological ‘Fixes’ for the Security Disaster Loss of the Golan Would Entail

(Washington, D.C.): When President Clinton meets on Sunday with one of the world’s
most
odious despots, Hafez Assad of Syria, he will be speaking to the people of Israel as much as to
the only man who counts, for the moment at least, in terms of Syrian public opinion. For even as
Mr. Clinton promises myriad political, economic and military concessions if only Assad will
agree to accept Israel’s surrender of the strategic Golan Heights, the President will be
promising Israel much the same, and more, to make that surrender appear less suicidal for the
Jewish State than it actually is.

Fortunately, the props have just been pulled out from under the centerpiece of
President
Clinton’s scam aimed at the people of Israel — what Dr. Aaron Lerner, the Director of Israel’s
Independent Media Review & Analysis organization, calls “Gizmos for Golan”: the array of
military and intelligence hardware and capabilities that the Clinton-Gore Administration and
the Barak government claim will assure Israeli security as well as, if not better than, the
deployment of Israel Defense Forces troops on the Golan Heights, whose presence there has
made the Israeli-Syrian border one of the most peaceable in the entire Middle East since
1973.

IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis), 24 March
2000

U.S. Deathblow To “Gizmos For Golan” At Eve Of Clinton Assad
Meeting

By Aaron Lerner

The news that the U.S. opted to keep Israel in the dark about a critical problem in the Patriot
missiles and then opted not to share any replacement missiles with the Jewish State is the last in
a series of recent developments that undermines “gizmos for the Golan.”

Israel Radio reported today that the U.S. opted to use the available supply of functioning
Patriot
missiles to replace its own defective missiles and that none are available for Israel.

The defect causes the communication systems of missiles that are kept on high alert status to
fail.
The communications system links the missile with the guiding ground station.

Lt. Gen. Paul Kern, a senior Army acquisitions officer, said Thursday that the US did not tell
Israel or the other countries that operate U.S.-made Patriot missile batteries about the problem
until they were already completing the replacement of the American missile batteries.

According to Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, the defect is particularly
problematic for Israel, since, like the United States, it tends to keep more of its Patriot launchers
on full alert.

Other recent developments:

• The U.S. government made it clear to Israel this week that if it does withdraw from the
  Golan that the American supply of “gizmos for the Golan” would be conditional on issues not
  relating to the withdrawal. For the time being, the American concern is Israeli arms sales to
  China, but with the precedent set that America reserves the right to use the supply of
  American-made gizmos to press Israel on other matters, there is no telling how this heavy “stick”
  will be
  used to promote American interest in the future.
• The recent U.S. sale of the most advanced F-16 jet in the world to the United Arab
  Emirates (more advanced than the jets even the U.S. Air Force can afford) serves as a reminder
  that petrodollars are more important than American promises of a “gizmo edge” for Israel.
• Last week Prime Minister Barak was advised by his military experts that there are no
  gizmos available today that can replace the observation post on Mount Hermon and that the
  initial estimate is that it would take a billion dollars and five years to develop such a gizmo and
  bring into operations.
• With “gizmos for the Golan” a critical element in Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s
  justification of withdrawal from the Golan as a “calculated risk” these recent developments may
  very well be watershed events.