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- WORLD, Page 34A Patriot in Beijing?
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- When the U.S. gave Patriot missile batteries to Israel to
- combat the Iraqi Scuds raining down on civilians during the gulf
- war, Washington forbade Jerusalem to export the technology. Now
- a U.S. intelligence report suggests that Israel may have
- supplied China with secrets of the Patriot. Israeli officials
- deny the charge, but the controversy has roiled relations with
- the U.S., already strained by American dethat the Shamir
- government stop building settlements in the occupied territories
- exchange for $10 billion in loan guarantees. The Wall Street
- Journal fueled the controversy by reporting that Israel is also
- suspected of having exported antitank missiles to South Africa
- as well as cluster bombs to Ethiopia and Chile.
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- "This is complete nonsense, absolute lies," Prime Minister
- Yitzhak Shamir declared last week to the Israeli newspaper
- Yediot Aharonoth. Dore Gold of the Jaffee Center for Strategic
- Studies at Tel Aviv University voiced a suspicion common in
- Israel: "What we're witnessing is a kind of psychological
- warfare between allies, particularly because Washington faced
- a very embarrassing moment after its failure to grab the Scud
- ship." But questions will linger because Israel has sold enough
- military technology to China in the past to make the latest
- charges seem plausible.
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