Terrorism Complicates a Mission of Peace

The timing could hardly have been worse--or better, depending upon one's viewpoint. Shortly after Secretary of State Henry Kissinger flew from Washington last week to begin the most crucial Middle East negotiations he has undertaken so far, a small band of seaborne Palestinian commandos in a rubber dinghy landed on the Israeli coast at Tel Aviv. The havoc they caused, in a daring and bloody raid on Israel's biggest city, complicated Kissinger's already difficult chances for bringing about a second-stage disengagement agreement between Israel and Egypt.

The eight fedayeen on the suicidal mission were dropped by a fishing smack, which was later captured by Israeli patrol ships outside Israel's territorial waters. The raiders grounded their boat near a sewage outlet on the edge of Tel Aviv. Unnoticed, they stepped ashore, armed with rapid-fire Kalashnikovs and high-explosive charges.

Terrorist Graffiti. The Palestinians' first targets were some moviegoers emerging from a late-night screening of A Streetcar Named Desire at Tel Aviv's Cinema One theater. Next the fedayeen pitched grenades in the direction of a nearby hall where a wedding reception was in progress. Caught in the attack were the terrified bride and groom, who ran for their lives. As Israeli police returned the fire, the fedayeen ducked into the 28-room Savoy Hotel on Ge'ula Street, where they took hostage a dozen surprised guests. By the tune Israeli paratroopers liberated the four-story building in a carefully coordinated predawn raid, seven of the fedayeen had died, along with eight hostages and three Israeli soldiers. Eleven other persons were wounded (see box).

Al Fatah, the largest Palestinian fedayeen group, claimed responsibility for the attack. That was something of a shock, since Fatah is headed by Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, who is regarded by many Arabs as a relatively moderate Palestinian leader. The raid, Fatah spokesmen explained, was to hamper the peacemaking efforts of the U.S. Secretary of State, who has steadfastly refused to consider undertaking any negotiations with the P.L.O. On the rubber boat that brought the fedayeen ashore in Tel Aviv, Israeli officials found a crudely scrawled English graffito: KISSINGER'S EFFORTS WILL FAIL.

Declining P.L.O. But what really worries the P.L.O. leadership is that Kissinger may well succeed in getting Israel and Egypt to reach a second-stage disengagement agreement in the Sinai. The Palestinians fear that such a deal would not only separate Egypt from the other Arab confrontation powers but also dilute the credibility and momentum that the P.L.O. gained last year from the Arab summit at Rabat and Arafat's appearance at the United Nations. Israeli officials, at least, insist that Arafat's position is declining significantly on the West Bank because Palestinians are beginning to question his power. For the West Bankers, a plausible alternative to Arafat is Jordan's King Hussein, with whom both the Israelis and Kissinger would prefer to deal.

What effect would the Savoy Hotel raid have on Kissinger's latest mission? In part, the answer depended on Israel's reaction to the raid. The terrorist attack was the ninth major foray into Israel by the Palestinians since Qiryat Shemona last April. All together, 62 Israelis have been killed, 170 others have been wounded; almost all were civilians. After previous attacks, the Israeli government reacted with eye-for-eye ferocity, usually with devastating air raids and armored attacks on Palestinian refugee camps or fedayeen outposts in southern Lebanon.

But last week the Israelis did not undertake an instant retaliatory response. "That is exactly what the terrorists want us to do," said an Israeli military spokesman.

"By attacking them, we would be playing right into their hands and pointing up the Palestinian problem."

General Shlomo Gazit, chief of military intelligence, discounted Egyptian support for the fedayeen. "Let's be fair with Cairo radio," Gazit said in an unusual Israeli judgment. "The only statement by Egypt was very moderate."

Still, Premier Yitzhak Rabin promised: "They will be punished"--but he did not say when or how.

The Palestinians obviously feared immediate retaliation. Refugee camps in Lebanon, reported TIME Correspondent Jordan Bonfante, were cleared, children were dismissed from schools. The day after the raid, five Lebanese air force jet trainers flying over Tripoli met an unexpected hail of gunfire from Palestinian gunners in a refugee camp, who had mistaken them for Israeli Phantoms.

The U.S. reacted with quick expressions of support and sympathy for Israelis. President Ford at his press conference described the raid as "the wrong way to try and resolve the difficult problems in the Middle East." In Wales, where he had stopped off at Cardiff for ceremonies honoring British Foreign Secretary James Callaghan's longtime parliamentary service to the city, Kissinger deplored "a random and senseless act which reminds us once more of the tragic dimensions of this conflict." It underlined, he added, "the importance of making progress toward peace."

Rebuffed by Sadat. Kissinger, after stopping in Brussels to consult on Cyprus with Greek Foreign Minister Dimitrios Bitsios, flew to Aswan, 400 miles south of Cairo, and met Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Then Kissinger resumed his familiar shuttle diplomacy from Damascus to Jerusalem and back to Aswan. Before he left Washington, some diplomats rated his chances for success at no better than fifty-fifty.

At week's end, it was unclear how much the fedayeen raid had compromised the negotiating position of Sadat, who is eager for further peace moves but worries that making a separate deal with Israel would seemingly isolate him from the Syrians and the Palestinians. Syrian President Hafez Assad and the P.L.O. have both been putting pressure on Sadat to maintain a unified Arab front, which lately has shown some signs of strain. Two weeks ago the Palestinians publicly announced that they were sending a delegation of second-ranking P.L.O. executives to Cairo to discuss the Kissinger negotiations with Sadat. In a sharp rebuff, Sadat said that he would discuss such matters only with the P.L.O. leadership (meaning Arafat); the delegation never arrived. In what was apparently the result of a bald attempt to embarrass Sadat, the rubber dinghy used by the fedayeen at Tel Aviv last week carried a marking, "Egyptian Army Seamen," and its lone survivor at first insisted that he had set out from Port Said. (He later admitted that the party embarked from Lebanon.) Sadat must be cautious at a time when much of the Arab world is applauding the "heroism" of the fedayeen foray on Tel Aviv.

The raid also affected Israeli Premier Rabin's room for maneuvering. Intentionally or not, the Palestinians by their attack refocused the Israelis' concern for security. If Rabin appears willing to give away too much, he will be sharply attacked by hawks within his own Labor Party and by the opposition. Ironically, Rabin's sharpest critic in the Knesset, Likud Bloc Leader Menachem Begin, had a curious tie to the Savoy Hotel. Begin used the hotel as a hideout in the days before Israeli independence, when he battled the British as leader of the Jewish terrorist organization Irgun Zvai Leumi.

Kissinger's major problem is to define and possibly extend the perimeters of agreement. At this point, Sadat cannot agree to a formal declaration of nonbelligerency, which Israel demands in return for withdrawing from the Mitla and Giddi passes and surrendering the Abu Rudeis oilfields in the Sinai desert. But the Israeli government is prepared to make less extensive territorial withdrawals in exchange for symbolic tokens of Egypt's peaceful intentions, like its allowing Israeli cargoes to pass through the reopened Suez Canal. One sticking point is Israel's insistence that any further disengagement deal be spelled out in a specific document; Sadat may be reluctant to sign for fear of criticism he might get from other Arab powers. Another problem is that Israel, which has expensively fortified its present positions on the Sinai, would be reluctant to withdraw to interim lines that it might have to build up and then abandon after third-stage disengagement talks.

Bleak Alternative. Kissinger must also worry about the future of the U.N. peacekeeping and observer forces on both the Sinai and the Golan Heights, although this is not his main concern. Israel complains that the forces are ineffective. It also objects to the present requirement that the mandate must be renewed every six months, which automatically creates negotiating crises. Rabin's government would prefer a change in the U.N. mandate to make the Security Council ultimately responsible for terminating the observer forces; among other things, this would allow the U.S. to veto any proposal for withdrawing troops.

For both Sadat and Rabin, however, success for the Kissinger talks should appear far more attractive than the alternative. If Kissinger fails, the odds are high that the two nations will drift into another war of attrition, similar to the one that racked the Suez Canal area in 1969 and 1970. Horrible as the casualties of last week's raid on Tel Aviv were, they are insignificant compared with the casualties that would have been likely to result from such a war--if the Palestinian act of desperation had succeeded.

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