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The gunboats are ideal for Israel's small navy. Egypt already has 20 Soviet-built gunboats of the Osa and Komar classes; one of the Osas stunned Israel in October 1967 by sinking the destroyer Elath with a Styx missile. After the Six-Day War, Israel ordered a dozen vessels, each with a French hull, German engines and Italian electronics, including the 20-mile surface-to-surface Gabriel missile.
Five of the first seven boats had sailed from Cherbourg before De Gaulle's embargo was totally invoked following Israel's commando raid on the Beirut airport. The Israelis, who are familiar with such situations (see box following page), had no trouble getting the other two. They sailed the pair out of Cherbourg on a trial run, as they had done in the past, carrying a limited fuel supply. Just beyond the territorial limit. Israeli planes appeared overhead and parachuted enough additional fuel for the long run to Haifa.
Corporate Legerdemain. The last five boats, for which Israel had already paid $10 million, involved a more complex operation. For a while after Pompidou's election in June, the Israelis were hopeful that he would end De Gaulle's embargo and release the boats. The new French President not only kept the arms ban in force but actively promoted French rapprochement with the Arabs. There are reports that he is preparing to sell 50 Mirage planes and 200-AMX tanks to Libya; U.S. officials claim that he may even sell 50 Mirages originally destined for Israel to its most irresponsible antagonist, Syria.
Despairing of official assistance from Pompidou, the Israelis went into action and apparently got help from some of his top aides. First, General Limon signed away all rights to the unarmed gunboats, and France returned the $10 million. When the boatbuilder bemoaned his potential loss, according to one account, no less an official than Premier Jacques Chaban-Delmas personally urged him to finish construction, saying: "It will work out." Next, a firm called Starboat & Weil, incorporated in Panama in November and having an Oslo address, offered to buy the boats for offshore-oil exploration. Starboat's incorporator was Ole Martin Siem, 53, much-respected president of Norway's largest shipbuilding firm, the Aker Group. The operating heads of Starboat, however, turned out to be Israelis who had ordered several commercial ships from Siem and had persuaded him to help them. The tall blond officers who showed up in Cherbourg to take over the boats—and who were mistaken by some Frenchmen for Norwegians—were also Israelis. The Oslo address was just that—a post-office box and nothing more. Said Panama's consul general in France, Jorge Royo: "It was a beautiful piece of corporate legerdemain."
Even after the legerdemain was uncovered, the Israeli government continued to insist to all questioners that the speedy, 45-knot boats would be used to service and defend Mediterranean oil rigs. No one took that insistence particularly seriously. "Using these boats to look for oil is like using a Ferrari to haul potatoes," said a French radio commentator.