Retaliating with Multiple Terror

Another senseless round of terror and counterterror shook the Middle East last week. It began last Tuesday morning when salvos of 3.5-in. rockets crashed into buildings that housed offices of the Palestine Liberation Organization in downtown Beirut. The main P.L.O. headquarters for Lebanon, on the wide, busy boulevard called the Corniche Mazraa, was wrecked, as was the P.L.O. research center near the Rue Sadat. The office responsible for coordinating al-Fatah's covert terrorist activities inside Israel narrowly escaped heavy damage when the four rockets that had obviously been aimed at it landed instead on a nearby empty apartment. The rockets, which had been mounted inside boxes fastened to the tops of autos parked near the P.L.O. headquarters, amazingly killed no P.L.O. officials, although five Palestinians were wounded.

God's Wrath. Lebanese police and the P.L.O. immediately blamed Israel, while rumors floated that an Israeli counterterrorist organization called the Wrath of God Squad, purportedly attached to the office of Premier Yitzhak Rabin, was responsible. Although Israeli officials denied both the existence of the squad and the participation of any military units in the attack, they did not issue a similar denial on behalf of Israel's civilian intelligence agencies.

Whether or not the Israelis were responsible for the attack, the fedayeen quickly acted. The day after the Beirut raid, a young man in a cinema in Tel Aviv tossed homemade hand grenades into the audience. Three people--including the terrorist--were killed and nearly 60 injured. In Beirut, P.L.O. Leader Yasser Arafat declared: "We have retaliated for the Beirut attack." However, some neutral observers questioned whether the attack was retaliatory. They doubt that the P.L.O. could so quickly organize the operation. Credit for the attack was claimed by George Habash's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group opposed to Arafat's more moderate policies.

Israel in turn wasted no time in retaliating. The next afternoon four Israeli air force Phantoms strafed and bombed three P.L.O. camps on the outskirts of Beirut. One person was killed and ten injured; six of the casualties were civilians.

After the Beirut bombing, Yasser Abed Rabbo, a pro-Arafat P.L.O. leader, declared: "We shall teach the enemy that its crimes will not go unpunished." To back these tough words, the guerrillas rocketed two towns in Israel Thursday night. Although no casualties were reported, Israel retaliated once again and bombarded the Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh. The Israelis also intercepted a band of Fatah guerillas soon after it had infiltrated from Lebanon. Four Arab terrorists and one Israeli policeman were killed in the gun battle.

Meanwhile, on the diplomatic front, Israel was shocked by a statement by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy, who said in Cairo that peace in the region would require Israel "not to increase the number of its immigrants for the next 50 years." The Israelis, whose country was founded as a homeland for Jews from all over the world, were furious. Snapped one Israeli official: "Pure chutzpah! I say go to hell!" Fahmy's demand seems to indicate a hardening of Egypt's position. If so, that will mean a setback for the U.S. Middle East peace strategy, which is based on step-by-step negotiations in which an Egyptian-Israeli dialogue must play a central role.

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