Middle East: The End of the U.S. Embargo

Israel will get its planes, but Begin is unrepentant

The issue had bedeviled U.S.-Israeli relations for ten weeks, and when it was finally settled the announcement came as something of an anticlimax. Having registered its displeasure over the Israeli bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor and a subsequent attack on Beirut that killed 300 people, the Reagan Administration last week released 16 U.S.-built jet fighters for shipment to Israel. The U.S. had ordered the embargo to determine whether Prime Minister Menachem Begin's government had committed a "substantial violation" of an agreement with...

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