Thinking Twice About War
On a single day during Passover 1986, most of Israel\’s major dailies ran oddly identical front-page stories describing a secret negotiation, recently collapsed, between Israel and Iraq. Iraq, it was said, had approached Israeli representatives in New York, asking that Jerusalem switch its covert support from Iran to Iraq in the war between them. In return, Iraq would exchange ambassadors with Israel after it won the war. Israel reportedly demanded recognition now, not later, and then ended the contacts abruptly after Washington caught wind of them.