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Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5 SPECIAL EDITION -- TERRORISM -- 26 JUNE 1984 WALL STREET JOURNAL 12 June 1984 Pg. 34 Israeli Inquiry for Benefit of Terrorists, Not Moralists By Eric M. BREINDEL It is now official that two of the four Palestinian Arabs who hijacked a commer- cial bus in Israel in early April were killed after having been taken into custody unin- jured—and not as a consequence of the Israeli army’s successful assault on the hi- ‘ jacked vehicle. This is a matter of special concern to Israeli authorities for reasons generally ignored by the Western press. A month-long inquiry into the incident by outside experts appointed by the Israeli Ministry of Defense was prompted by jour- nalists’. photographs taken during and im- mediately after an elite military com- mando unit stormed the bus and rescued the passengers. The photographs, initially barred from publication by Israeli military censors, ap- pear to show at least one of the hijackers— since identified by members of his own family living in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip—alive and seemingly unharmed after the raid. At the time of the incident Israeli mili- tary spokesmen maintained that two of the hijackers were killed during the assault (as was one Israeli passenger). The other two, authorities insisted, died en route to a hospital of injuries sustained during the commando operation. According to the official inquiry, how- ever, the two Palestinians who survived the military action were taken to a nearby field for immediate interrogation and evi- dently beaten to death. This disclosure, a direct result of Is- rael’s decision to allow newsmen and pho- BALTIMORE SUN tographers to witness the culmination of the hijacking incident, is a source of great distress to Jerusalem. But not because Is- rael may be excoriated for brutality to- ward captured terrorists in the editorial columns of leading dailies in Paris, Lon- don, New York and Washington. The Is- raeli government has far more immediate, and practical, concerns. Israel has long upheld two principles with regard to terrorists and terrorist inci- dents. One principle frequently touted is Jerusalem's adamant and consistent re- fusal to negotiate with terrorists. The second, which is seldom discussed or even noted, is Israel's willingness to al- low terrorists who surrender before and es- pecially during a terrorist operation to be taken alive and remain alive. There is no death penalty in Israel for terrorists. And over time Israeli authori- ties have concluded that unless terrorists are offered an incentive to surrender they are likely to behave like kamikazes and seek to take with them as many of the civilian ‘‘enemy”’ as possible. The number of potential hijackers and saboteurs who surrender in Israel immedi- ately upon detection, events that take place so frequently that they are scarcely deemed worthy of press attention, indi- cates that those who are meant to under- stand Israel’s willingness to spare their lives do indeed grasp that fact. Of course, should Israel again be con- fronted, as it has been once in Lebanon, and as has the U.S., by Shiite Moslem ter- rorists who are willing to give up their 13 June 1984 Professor linked to terrorism jailed A university professor alleged to have been behind much of the guer- rilla violence in Italy in the 1970s today was sentenced to 30 years in jail on murder and other charges at the end of a trial of 71 persons here. commercial. Police, customs and immigration service officials in the United States say they also are trying to increase awareness among their agents of potential terrorists. Border Patrol agents in the Chula Vista Sector, where 43,000 illegal aliens are detained each month, are beginning to interview some of those detainees more ESCAPE ROUTE...Continued have tightened at the Tijuana airport, but that a videotape would give them a record of the 1,000 to 1,500 passengers who use the airport each day. About 40 flights enter and leave the airport daily, 19 of them Toni Negri, a leftist political sci- ence professor at Padua Universi- ty, fled Italy last September after being freed from jail because he was elected to parliament as a dep- Pg. lives in order to ensure a successful opera- tion, this ‘‘incentive” strategy will be of lit- tle help. The reappearances on the interna- tional scene of kamikazelike terrorists is an important development in international terrorism. But European-style terrorists, the Red Brigades in Italy, for example, as well as others, generally have proved to be concerned with remaining alive. They have tended to establish reasonably reli-. able escape routes, to disguise their identi- ties and, when necessary, to endeavor to surrender unharmed. Israel continues to be confronted with terrorists of the old school on a steady basis. Thus the present consternation in Jerusalem turns not only on a deplorable breakdown in discipline but also on anxiety that terrorists and would-be terrorists— rather than, say, the editors of the London Times—understand that what happened in the bus-hijacking case is an aberration. The Israelis nurture no illusion that ter- rorism suddenly will cease someday soon. Thus for now and the foreseeable future it remains important that.those who under- take to commit these murderous ‘“‘politi- cal’’ deeds are aware, if only in the dim recesses of their minds, that even upon detection or capture death is not their in- evitable fate. Israel wants its terrorist ene- mies to know that with surrender their lives wil! be spared as a matter of tactics, not morality. Mr. Breindel is a Washington-based cor- respondent for a Public Broadcasting Ser- vice program. 9 uty of the small Radical Party. He is believed to be in France. The Rome court passed sentenc- es totaling more than 500 years on 55 defendants on charges including subversion, setting up an armed band and illegal possession of weapons. closely than usual, looking for anyone who, in the words of Alari Hliason, chief agent in charge of the Chula Vista Sector, “might fit the role ofa terrorist.” Despite the preparations, police and immigration agents acknowledge that the United States is an easy country to enter. Much of the 1,933-mile border with Mexico is unfenced and easily penetrated. “Obviously, if somebody wants to come into this country and do harm, they could probably do it relatively easily,” Campbell said. “All you can do is the very best based on intelligence reports. You can’t have an informant next to every burglar and nobody I know is standing next to a guy planning to blow up somebody.” Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5 34