Prime Time Terror

...on the Golan Heights, several sabotage incidents have been attributed to a hostile Druse organization...

...If it were stationed in the Mediterranean region it could, theoretically at least, have mounted a lightning strike against the plane when it first touched down in Algeria...

...On other Mideast terror fronts, the underground war between Syria and Jordan and their respective surrogates seems to be heating up, with bombings and assassinations in the Arab world and Europe...

...Whether as a result of the Rabin flare-up or not, within a few days-by Day 10 of the crisis-officials of the two countries finally got their act together...

...I expect the United States to do the same...

...Israel, justifiably, is awaiting a formal, high-level request before making a decision...

...The Shiites want to prevent the return of the hated PLO to a position of power in Lebanon...

...the Shiite warlord, "Justice Minister" Nabih Berri, leering uneasily into the cameras...

...It was "the most terrible moment" of the ordeal, said one of the women from Flight 847...

...A temporary news blackout and high-level consultations early in the game could have prevented many of the problems that arose between the allies...

...fresh men were brought in to relieve the hijackers...

...The fighting around the camps triggered an angry reaction in many parts of the Arab world, including efforts to convene an Arab League summit to condemn Amal...

...If the United States took some action and asked us for assistance-that would be one thing...

...Then they tried to knock him out with the butt of a pistol-they kept hitting him over the head but he was very strong and they couldn't knock him out...

...In this respect the media barons in the U.S...

...These were not the teenage suicide commandos who drive truck bombs into army posts and embassies, knowing they will go straight to the Gates of Paradise for their glorious acts of martyrdom...

...indeed it may be part of the problem in that it sends the wrong message to terrorists...

...In fact, recent reports from the area indicate that many of the car bombers are aligned with secular, pro-Syrian terror groups...

...It is important to keep these things in mind, not to let them fade into the amnesic haze brought on by next week's horrors, the next hijacking or bombing or famine or massacre or war...

...They were looking for Jews or Israelis," another passenger said...

...Look at the behavior of your television crews...

...is pinning all its hopes on little Israel to rescue her...

...A cat and mouse game is being played between the United States and Israel," Gideon Samet wrote in the prestigious and, by Israeli standards, rather stuffy center-left Ha'aretz newspaper...

...It is deterred by Algeria, which blocked U.S...

...One of those selected turned to his fellow passengers as the terrorists led him away...

...Oddly enough-or not really so odd when you consider the menacing undercurrents of the Mideast-preventing a PLO return is also a goal shared by Syria and Israel...

...Since then, Washington has been wracked by the nightmare of weakness in its battle against terror...

...Thus the April 20 attempts to land more than twenty al-Fatah terrorists on an Israeli beach...

...It signals a naive, spineless America, an America that dwells in an atmosphere of appeasement, helpless when confronted by the hooded face of an unknown enemy...

...A small part of the snarl was due to plain bad luck: The most trusted and informed American in Israel, U.S...

...access to the plane...

...He not only deflected attention away from the camps, but also gave the media a "good guy" image to play off the nasties holding the plane...

...Don't forget us," he said...

...it fears the hijackers' leader, a minister in the Gemayel government...

...The U.S...

...Having been burned in the past, they're reluctant to take action now...

...On the operational level, Washington's Delta Force counter-terror outfit simply wasn't close enough to the action...

...the faces of weary, frightened Americans speaking to reporters, choosing their words carefully, surrounded by grinning thugs...

...The crisis was winding to a close...

...Thirty-one Shiites were released from the Israeli jail at Atlit-government spokesmen insisted that the release had nothing to do with the terrorists' demands, a transparent piece of nonsense-and within a week the Savior From Damascus would step in and the hostages would be winging their way home...

...The United States does not know what to do with itself," wrote the center-right daily Yediot Aharonot on June 18, four days after the hijack...

...Ambassador Sam Lewis, had just wound up a lengthy tour of duty, leaving matters in the hands of his relatively inexperienced second-in-command...

...the plane was kept moving to thwart any quick, early rescue attempt...

...and all those talking heads on our television sets, spewing out an endless stream of "expert" advice...

...I've never shrugged off my shoulders the need to make a decision as a prime minister and now as a defense minister, facing terror acts against Israelis...

...Yet the TWA hijacking served another important purpose, directed toward the Arab, not the Western, world...

...Look," he testily replied Jo the questioner, "let's not play games...

...first critical hours and days of the crisis...

...America's weakness, in the Ha'aretz writer's view, an opinion echoed elsewhere in Israel during the crisis, stems from the Iranian hostage debacle...

...Specifically, we should remember the removal of those, as the media rather delicately put it, "with Jewish-sounding names...

...Praising Assad for help in the fight against terrorism is like praising a rabid dog for keeping cats out of the neighborhood...

...America's military pride had already been trampled in the Iranian desert in an embarrassing operation...

...After the passports had been collected, "I heard them calling those passengers one by one: 'You, come here...

...The Israeli media began to run stories about the negative impact of the hostage crisis on U.S...

...This total lie was swallowed by many people, although anything more than a cursory glance at a few facts available early in the affair would have indicated something of the degree of Amal's involvement...

...Less than a week into the affair, the view from Jerusalem, expressed in numerous "background" comments and journalistic fulminations, was that the White House was tacitly encouraging the American media to put "unofficial" pressure on Israel to release the 700 prisoners...

...Unless the terror war moves to North Carolina, there's not much sense in stationing Delta Force at Fort Bragg...

...At the end, they stuck a pistol behind Robert Dean Stethem's right ear and blew him into oblivion...

...In contrast, the Americans seemed to be making all the wrong moves during the...

...Suddenly every illiterate Shiite carrying an assault rifle is appearing on the news all over the world...

...Our future depends on it...

...If there is a request on the part of the United States [for the release of the Shiites as part of a deal to free the TWA hostages] please come out and say it....The problem is an American problem...

...The hostages are Americans...

...After all, the tactlessness of Rabin's statements did not detract from their truth: The hostages were Americans and they were flying under the protection of the U.S...

...The Iranians, writes Schiff, "are investing funds in extremist groups among both the Shiites and the Palestinians, with the motto that all Moslems must organize for the great war against Israel...

...The American government has avoided requesting the release of the Shiite prisoners in order not to look as though it's capitulating to terrorism...

...Berri pulled a neat switch here...

...Indeed, warning signs of a new terrorist offensive are appearing all over Lebanon...

...You should not be surprised that Americans are still thought of as innocents abroad," an Israeli security official who served in Lebanon told me...

...We have no choice...

...In a war you impose censorship, which in this case would deny the enemy propaganda outlets...

...The logical place is Israel...

...But some significant details of the story are perhaps already fading from memory, some of the specifics may already have been forgotten...

...The popular view in southern Lebanon has long been that the young kamikazes are more fired up on drugs than religious fervor when they make their last drive, and that pledges of substantial Syrian-provided financial reward to their families are a strong factor in convincing them to commit suicide...

...The commentator pinned the Israeli loss of a "capacity to operate" on the results of the Lebanon war, which he compared to an "enormous rescue operation" in which the army was sent in to "free an entire country from the hands of PLO hijackers...

...Arafat, for his part, and despite all the sound and fury about diplomatic initiatives, cannot allow his control of a dwindling PLO to be further diminished by the dramatic terror acts of others-to remain a player among Arab warlords, Arafat must keep his terror options open...

...interests in the Arab world...

...They run around searching for a story...

...Our future depends on it.ave no choice...

...Jimmy Dell Palmer, the hostage with the bad heart released midway through the crisis, laid his finger right on the pulse of terrorism when he told a radio reporter in London that "the Shiites have achieved their goal...

...You come here!' . . . They pushed them off the plane...

...There was also the report from several sources identifying the two hijackers as former bodyguards of-guess who...

...flag...

...The contour of the story is, of course, still familiar: the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 by Shiite terrorists, the demand that Israel release 700 of their comrades, the threats to kill the hostages, the quick deterioration in relations between Washington and Jerusalem and the subsequent patch-up job...

...will overcome its weakness and will do 'something...

...They hand out more money than many poor Arabs get from a year's work...

...Anger and confusion-was this any way for an ally to act?-began to mount...

...television media, transformed little Nabih Berri and the Shiites into major players on the international stage, proving again to terrorists and potential terrorists everywhere that the disgraceful rapaciousness of ratings-hungry television executives and sycophantic TV reporters will guarantee that, at minimum, the messages of terrorism's often sick and twisted causes will gain worldwide attention if a dramatic incident is arranged, media access furnished, and sufficient "color" provided...

...Prisoners captured in the operation told of being personally briefed by Abu Jihad, one of Arafat's top aides, who ordered them to kill as many people as possible...

...but that is just wishful thinking about restoring America's capacity to use its strength...

...In a long and distinguished career in the Israeli army and government, Entebbe is said to be the event Rabin is most proud of-and it was his pride and reputation as one of the tough heroes of Entebbe that was severely battered when, less than a month before the TWA hijacking, he released more than a thousand convicted terrorists in exchange for three soldiers held by a splinter faction of the PLO...

...It would help, too, if America stationed its counter-terror troops where they are needed...

...might be shamed into borrowing a page from the Israeli book and forming an editors' committee that would exercise voluntary censorship...

...In many ways Flight 847 represents a perfect case of air piracy: Athens Airport was used because of its lax security and proximity to Beirut...

...Israelis were, by and large, dismayed by the American double-dealing...

...In a war you pay the tragic price today with the certainty that tomorrow will be better...

...But it was at the diplomatic level that the Americans seemed to exceed all natural bounds of incompetence, while in Jerusalem bewildered Israeli officials tried to make sense of U.S...

...It reminded her of the selections at Auschwitz...

...Jerusalem tried to calm the situation by instructing its diplomats in the U.S...

...The images, too, are probably still fresh: the pictures of the Boeing 727 stranded on the runway at Beirut International...

...There was, for example, the hijackers' original demand that four suspected terrorists held in Spain and Greece be released immediately...

...The United States government has to make up its mind: What do they want to do...

...The Israeli navy intercepted the ship and sank it...

...none other than the minister of justice himself, Nabih Berri...

...Conservative American experts and past government leaders (Kissinger, as usual) expressed their belief that the U.S...

...Letters of mutual support were exchanged, and Israeli officials kindly floated the suggestion that the American wavering was due to the confusion of "mid-level personnel...

...I watched as they kicked him in the head, then they kicked him in the face and kneecaps and kept kicking him until they had broken all his ribs...

...Schiff reports that the Syrians have arranged meetings for the Iranians with extremist Shiite and Palestinian groups in Lebanon, that links between pro-Syrian Palestinians and Shiites are becoming stronger, and that Yasir Arafat is desperately trying to get his al-Fatah men back into the country...

...Although there are conflicting opinions about whether Syria had a hand in initiating the hijacking, it certainly could have stopped it sooner...

...This approach will ultimately hurt America more than Israel...

...A sophisticated, superbly coordinated show of massive force would put a very clear message across: Strike at us once and we will go to the ends of the earth to destroy you...

...His body was dumped on the tarmac at Beirut...

...They dragged him out of his seat, tied his hands and then beat him up," sixteen-year-old Ruth Henderson told reporters in Algiers and London...

...He was six feet tall...

...Next time-and there most certainly will be a next time-we must be ready to strike hard and fast...

...This is a situation without precedent in the close friendship between Israel and the U.S...

...to turn down all interview requests for the time being...

...Specifically, we should remember the way a small band of professional killers brought the government of the United States of America to its knees for a few days, temporarily drove a wedge between Washington and its firmest Mideast ally, and turned an all-toowilling world media into the bootlicking lackey of international terrorism...

...Ironically, one of the biggest Arab killers of them all, Hafez Assad of Syria, won much American praise for his "constructive and helpful" role in freeing the hostages...

...and then the hostages were scattered through a tightly guarded area, effectively ending any chance for a rescue...

...So the world media, allied with Shiite terror, provided a public relations platform that beamed messages to the Western world...

...Once again, America was appearing paralyzed by indecision, and to make matters worse it was slipping into a cowardly and half-hearted attempt to shift some of the responsibility...

...If the United States is serious about stopping terrorism it should go past the rhetoric of a "war on terror" and actually, legally, make a formal declaration of war...

...There are lessons to be absorbed from the murder of Robert Dean Stethem and from the echo of Nazism implicit in the selection of the "Jews," lessons to be learned about the nature of Mideast conflicts, about the use and abuse (and non-use) of American power, including the technological power of the communications industry, and about our options for the future...

...women and children and the elderly were removed from the plane-holding these types of hostages has very negative PR value...

...Of course the terrorists are going to prolong the crisis-they are absolutely delighted by all the publicity...

...It stems from the special circumstances surrounding the hijacking, but there is also a confluence of frustration between two countries which, over the course of several years, have lost their capacity for deterrence...

...Viewed, however, in relation to the terrorists and their unwitting accomplices, a news blackout was the last thing they wanted...

...intentions...

...Berri was portrayed as a sort of white-hatted Lebanese cowboy riding to the rescue of unfortunate Americans held hostage by mysterious extremists...

...Whether it was Berri's Amal or one of the dozens of sicko groups operating out of the slums of Beirut that actually pulled off the hijacking, it's clear that Berri cynically manipulated the situation and then, when the hostages departed for Damascus, went back to the pressing business at hand-slaughtering the Palestinians...

...Shiite and other terrorists train in "Terror Academies" in the Syrian-held Lebanese Bekaa Valley, and although the schools are controlled and funded by Iranians working out of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, the area is completely under the thumb of Syrian Intelligence...

...Heavy casualties were sustained in that three-year operation and Israel today is a country traumatized by its still-fresh wounds...

...he had dark hair and a dark mustache, a strong young man who enjoyed his work as a Navy diver...

...How much danger would we face now if the United States and Israel had mounted a commando raid on the TWA jet on the second day of the hijacking, with the simultaneous bombing of selected targets in Beirut, the terror training camps in the Bekaa Valley, the Iranian embassy in Damascus, and terror bases in Libya and South Yemen...

...and in Egypt there are numerous reports of a new upsurge in Islamic fundamentalism...

...For weeks prior to the hijacking, Berri's Amal militia and its allies had been slaughtering Palestinians in the refugee camps around Beirut...

...Tying a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree is not part of the solution...

...The country has the most experience in dealing with terrorism, it is technologically advanced and strategically located...

...car bombings and ambushes continue to plague the Israelis in their narrow security zone on the Israel-Lebanon border...

...Viewed in relation to the Washington-Jerusalem diplomatic axis, the TWA episode demonstrated the need for better emergency communication channels and procedures...

...The left-wing Al Hamishmar newspaper reported that the "current trend" in Jerusalem was toward "maximal coordination" with Washington...

...I've never tried to avoid responsibility...

...All four men are or were known members of Amal...

...This is the man who ordered the assassination of Lebanese President Amin Gemayel's brother and Druse leader Walid Jumblat's father when they got in his way, who ordered the murder of at least ten thousand citizens in the Syrian city of Hama when the Moslem Brotherhood began to chafe under his dictatorial and corrupt rule, who has imprisoned and tortured untold thousands of Syrians, and who- in an event little noticed during the TWA affair-welcomed an Iranian delegation that had just signed a pact with Libya pledging to terrorize "moderate" Arab countries, annihilate Israel, and strike at U.S...

...What can be done about threats like this, about terrorism that emanates from no one central source...

...Nothing moves in or out without Syrian approval...

...Specifically, we should remember Robert Dean Stethem, 23, of Maryland...

...Rabin was prime minister during the dramatic rescue of the Air France passengers at Entebbe...

...public opinion regarding the Jewish state...

...It's first and foremost their decision...

...Kuwaiti newspapers, in a view coinciding with the opinions of some experts in Israel, charged outright that Amal commissioned the hijacking to divert attention from its massacre of Palestinians in the camps...

...Micah Morrison is The American Spectator's Israel correspondent...

...But to shirk all responsibility and to quiver through and through in hiding while uttering a silent prayer to Israel to bear the entire burden of rescuing the Americans-this is going too far...

...Yet the base treatment of Israel can hardly be laid at the doorstep of the American Embassy in Tel Aviv-it was Washington that for the first ten days of the crisis led Jerusalem through a crossfire of mixed signals and ambiguous statements...

...The hijackers made all the right moves...

...Rabin was hurt by the storm of criticism over the swap...

...Terrorism has already declared war on democracy, and in this most unusual of wars the democratic nations are going to have to use some pretty tough tactics to fight back...

...The "official" Israeli response to American waffling came in some characteristically blunt comments by Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin in an interview with ABC...

...Much was said in the closing days of the hostage crisis about the special relationship between the United States and Israel, but terrorism drove a wedge between the two allies once and it could do so again...

...Some things in Lebanon never change...

...They were caught on board an airline which carries the United States flag...

...and it is wary of an operation against the hijackers...

...Boy, did they get it...

...They wanted publicity...

...How much terrorism would there be if the major media institutions agreed to give terrorist incidents only, say, a one-minute spot against a black background on the nightly news, and agreed to bury the story back on page five in a somber, black-bordered box...

...a young man was murdered, just to show that the boys meant business...

...The American hostages in Tehran who returned the day President Reagan was sworn in (they were freed in exchange for the release of Iranian deposits in American banks) returned as a symbol of the government's failure to rescue them through different means...

...He was wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt and light blue cotton trousers on the last day of his life...

...The answer lies in action, intelligent and forceful action...

...The world media, and particularly the U.S...

...The Israeli press reported that Rabin's remarks "astonished" Secretary Shultz and "angered" President Reagan, but the substance if not the style of delivery was welcomed in Jerusalem...

...They got it...

...There are things we should remember...

...The old soldier wasn't about to be lured into appearing weak again...

...Without question, the hijackers of Flight 847 were professionals...

...Various terrorist groups are organizing in preparation for future action on a broad scale," cautioned the respected and well-informed military commentator Ze'ev Schiff in Ha'aretz...