Mirages in the Desert

When France announced three years ago that it planned to sell 114 Mirage jet fighters to Libya, the French Premier of the moment, Jacques Cha-ban-Delmas, assured the Israelis that the planes would never be used against them. If the Libyans transferred a single Mirage to Egyptian control, he declared, "we shall put an embargo on the planes that have not yet been supplied." Those assurances have been regularly renewed.

On Easter Sunday, Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban summoned French Ambassador Francis Hure from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to present him with what Eban called "documentary evidence" that 18 of the 70 Mirages that France has so far delivered to Libya had been flown to Egypt. Eban said later that he had supplied the French with the number of the planes, the dates of their transfer, their present location, as well as proof that ground installations for controlling the Mirages in flight have been put up at the Egyptian airbase at Almaza, east of Cairo.

Angry Retort. A few hectic hours later, the Quai d'Orsay dismissed the charge, insisting that Eban had failed to furnish "any document or any proof." The Israelis angrily retorted that Eban had given Hure "exact, precise, detailed and well-founded information," and awaited a formal reply. At week's end the French had yet to make any further comment.

In a sense, neither side was profoundly concerned about the facts of the matter. The French policy of distinguishing between a Mirage deal with Egypt and one with Libya is by now a bit spurious. The two countries are scheduled to merge Sept. 1, and a major aim of the newly created state will be to strengthen Arab unity against Israel. The Israelis, for their part, fully expected that some of the planes would wind up in Egyptian hands. Moreover, they have no reason to be particularly upset by the news, since the highly trained Israeli air force, which has about 450 jet fighters, including 110 U.S. Phantoms and 50 Mirages of its own, is patently superior to Egypt's lackluster low-profile air force.

What was at stake, said Eban last week, was "the integrity of assurances" given repeatedly by the French. Israel clearly hopes that France can be forced to put pressure on Libya to halt any transfer of planes to Egypt --thereby embarrassing Paris' relations with the Arab states. The Israelis believe that their relations with the Common Market nations have been adversely affected by France's strongly pro-Arab policies. Thus they would dearly love to discredit the French just before a new round of Common Market discussions on EEC relations with Israel begins.

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