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When Porath telephoned in the government's statement to a holiday skeleton staff at Israel Radio, journalists refused for an hour to believe that the startling report was genuine. Only when Radio Staffer Emmanuel Halperin, Begin's nephew, confirmed the facts with the Prime Minister himself, did the station put the reports on the air.
The Israeli reaction was, naturally enough, pride in their military accomplishment. But there was not the same spontaneous celebration in the streets, for example, that greeted the July 1976 pinpoint Israeli commando raid on Uganda's Entebbe airfield. One reason was that as international criticism started to pour in, many Israelis sensed an impending isolation. Said Eli Ben-Hamo, 26, a Jerusalem café owner: "It was necessary. It had to be done. But I'm worried. We're doing it to ourselves. For years the world didn't much like us. Nowadays we're giving them reason not to."
Others had fewer doubts. Said one Israeli official: "I think something positive has happened to world welfare in the same way that we made a major impact on the hijacking situation at Entebbe. Today nobody gives in to hijacking blackmail. When the criticism has subsided, people will realize that you can't allow every small country, particularly like Iraq, to own the atom bomb." Said Miriam Hefetz, 29, a government secretary: "We're doing the dirty work for the rest of the world. We have nothing to be ashamed of. Somebody had to stop Iraq."
Outside Israel—and even inside the country—there was an immediate suspicion that the raid and its timing had more to do with Israel's June 30 national election than with impending nuclear threats from the Iraqis. The six-month campaign between Begin's ruling Likud coalition and the opposition Labor Party of Shimon Peres was one of the most strained in the country's history. Owing in part to Begin's tough stance on the Syrian missiles in Lebanon, his party had moved ahead, 38% to 33%, in a poll conducted before the raid. The Likud had trailed in January, 14% to 44%. In London, diplomats guessed that the Iraqi raid was designed to boost Begin's election chances and to deliver a message to the Syrians about their SA-6 missiles, which the Israelis have threatened to destroy. Seethed one British Cabinet member: "It is a measure of Begin's fanaticism, personal ambition and total disregard of the truth that he was prepared to risk the peace of the Middle East, and even world peace, to achieve his ends." Skepticism increased when IAEA Director-General Eklund agreed with the Iraqis' claim that they had not been trying to make a weapon with their reactor. Even if the Iraqis had tried, said Eklund, they would need ten years to build one. U.S. estimates of the time that the Iraqis would need vary from two to ten years. Much would depend on how blatantly the Iraqis were willing to violate their peaceful commitment under the nonproliferation treaty, and the vigilance of the