I read this in an academic article, one not sympathetic to Israel, by Professor Emerita at Boston University Irene Gendzier based on her book, Dying to Forget Oil, Power, Palestine, and the Foundations of U.S. Policy in the Middle East:
Michael Assaf, adviser to Ben-Gurion, had an acute sense of its long-term implications for Israeli-U.S. relations, and more generally for those of Israel and the West. What he wrote in an editorial in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz in 1951 was to prove prophetic. Assaf reviewed the precarious situation of Arab regimes in the face of nationalist movements, both secular and religious, concluding that the states in question were weak militarily. In this context, he considered the impact of Israel's strengthening, which he described as "a rather convenient way for the Western Powers to keep a balance of political forces in the Middle East. According to this supposition Israel has been assigned the role of a kind of watchdog." In that capacity, if the "Western powers will at some time prefer, for one reason or another, to shut their eyes, Israel can be relied upon to punish properly one or several of its neighboring states whose lack of manners towards the West has gone beyond permissible limits."47
Footnote 47 reads:
47 "The Harlot from the Cities Overseas and We — Thoughts on the Eve of [Jewish] New Year 5712," Op-ed article, Ha'aretz, September 30, 1951, cited in Moshe Machover, "Israelis and Palestinians: Conflict and Resolution," Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust Annual Lecture, November 30, 2006, pp. 13-14.
I looked it up.
It is not on pages 13-14.
An article with that title is found on page 2.
It is written, however, not by Assaf but by Gershom Schocken, the owner and publisher of Haaretz at the time. Since the 30th was the eve of Rosh Hashana but a Sunday, I checked the previous Friday and the following (Friday being the weekend edition) but not Assaf.
And yes, the passage appears so:
משום כך חיזוק מסוים של
ישראל הוא דרך נוחה למדי בשביל
מעצמות המערב כדי לשמור על איזון
כוחות פוליטי במזרח התיכון. לפי סב-
רה זו נועד לישראל תפקיד של מעין
כלב-שמירח. אין לחשוש שהיא תפעיל
מדיניות תוקפנית כלפי מדינות ערב,
אם דבר זה יעמוד בניגוד ברור לרצונן
של אמריקה ובריסניה, אך אם מעצמות
המערב יעדיפו פעם, מטעם זה או אחר,
לעצום עין' אפשר יהיה לסמוך על כך,
שישראל תהיה מסוגלת להעניש ?ראוי
אחת או כמה מהמדינות השכנות שלה,
אה גבולות המותר. שחוסר הנימוס שלהן לגבי
^