Israel's New War

Israel last week declared a new war on the Arabs. It will be fought on a "farflung, dangerous and vital front line," Premier Golda Meir grimly told the Knesset, "with all the assiduity and skill of which our people are capable." Thus last week, in the aftermath of the Munich murders, the Israeli government vowed to carry the war of terrorism back to the Arabs--guerrillas and host countries alike--and to strike at times and places of Israel's own choosing.

The Israeli air force had already exacted a savage revenge for the murders, sweeping over Lebanon and Syria in ten raids on suspected guerrilla hideouts including the Syrian village of Al Hammeh and killing around 200 people, most of them civilians. Now, as defense officials explained after the Premier's speech, Israel intends systematically to attack the fedayeen and installations in the countries that harbor them. For instance, Israeli planes may attack not only guerrilla headquarters and training camps if they find them in Syria, Iraq, Libya or Egypt, but facilities belonging to the host country as well. At week's end an Israeli armored force, supported by jets, attacked several villages in southern Lebanon.

Israel may also adopt some of the terrorists' own methods, taking the initiative against guerrilla cells in Europe and elsewhere. It is a form of warfare that is hardly new to Israelis. In the early 1950s, a special commando unit known as "101" carried out bloody raids into Egypt and Jordan. Israeli agents have also been sent abroad to kill Arab intelligence men, kidnap former Nazis such as Adolf Eichmann, and in 1962-63 to assassinate German rocket engineers working for Egypt.

One casualty of the new war may be Israel's longstanding aversion to the death penalty. That policy served the country well when fedayeen crossed over from Jordan or Lebanon; once cornered, they usually surrendered, knowing that the worst that could happen to them would be life imprisonment. Now several members of the Knesset suggested that fedayeen should be sentenced to death, then held indefinitely in case of another Munich. If terrorists killed Jewish hostages, the Arab prisoners would be summarily executed.

Israel's Arab neighbors waited for the offensive with mixed apprehension and truculence. The Palestinian commandos took Mrs. Meir's speech as a challenge and warned that they would fight back; at week's end two Israeli soldiers were killed on the slopes of Mt. Hermon by guerrillas who had infiltrated over the border from Lebanon. Israeli troops also discovered mines laid near the Syrian border and reported they had traced guerrilla tracks back into Syria. In Damascus, the Syrian government openly admitted that it has been urging the fedayeen to action since the Israeli air raids on Syria two weeks ago. Said a government source: "We are even reproaching the commandos for not being more active against Israel."

Innocent Lives. At the United Nations, Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim promised to put terrorism "and other forms of violence, which endanger or take innocent human lives or jeopardize fundamental freedoms" on the agenda of the General Assembly when it convenes this week. That hardly promises to solve the problem. When the Munich murders and Israel's reprisal raids came before the Security Council last week, the resulting resolution was so one-sided--condemning military action without mentioning terrorism--that U.S. Representative George Bush exercised the U.S.'s second veto in history against it.* Israelis welcomed that veto as a "historic" gesture of support; Arabs condemned the U.S. action as sanctioning more Israeli bombing raids.

The new fury on both sides dimmed what had been the brightest hope for peace in the Middle East since 1967. In July Egypt's President Anwar Sadat expelled his army's Soviet advisers, in effect ending any hope of retaking by force the territory that Israel has occupied since 1967. In turn, Israel made a secret peace proposal (TIME, Sept. 11), offering to give back more than two-thirds of the Sinai peninsula. Munich changed all that, silencing doves on both sides, at least for the time being --though Egyptian diplomats said privately that Cairo was still interested in a negotiated solution, and Israel has not yet made any reprisal raids on Egypt.

Still, any mood of accommodation on Egypt's part is not likely to survive an Israeli offensive against its neighbors, or even against the fedayeen, who remain popular in Cairo. Similarly, Arab terrorism will only increase the determination of Israeli hard-liners to hold onto the captured territories. Thus the new war will only entrench the territorial status quo, while deepening bitterness on all sides.

*On March 17, 1970, the U.S. and Britain both vetoed a resolution calling for the isolation of Rhodesia and condemning Britain for not using force against Rhodesia's white government.

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