Shock, Terror--and Slender Hopes

Shortly after dawn one day last week, three Arab terrorists, dressed in khakis, blue windbreakers and gym shoes, crept into the sleeping Israeli village of Qiryat Shemona (pop. 17,000) near the Lebanese border. Armed with bazookas, grenades and submachine guns, they shot their way up to the top of a four-story apartment building, firing indiscriminately into one apartment after the other. As sirens sounded and townspeople scurried for shelter, Israeli troops rushed to the scene. When the shooting stopped four hours later, 18 Israeli men, women and children--as well as the three terrorists--lay dead. At least 15 others were wounded.

The raid was the worst that Israel had suffered since the 1972 massacre at Lod Airport in which three Japanese terrorists killed 27 people and wounded 80. More ominously, it threatened to touch off another violent round of reprisals and counterreprisals in the Middle East. Within 48 hours, in fact, Israeli army units carried out retaliatory raids on six Lebanese villages across the border from Qiryat Shemona. They blew up houses and installations that they claimed had been used by terrorist organizations and took about ten suspected terrorists as prisoners. The Israelis said there were no casualties, but a Lebanese official claimed that a woman and her 10-year-old daughter had been killed.

Credit for the attack on Qiryat Shemona was claimed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command--a small, radical and secretive offshoot of George Habash's P.F.L.P. Threatening "more revolutionary suicide missions" inside Israel, a spokesman for the Command told a news conference in Beirut that "this campaign is aimed at blocking an Arab-Israeli peace settlement." In spite of the potentially appalling consequences, the raid was applauded in much of the Arab world. The Palestine Liberation Organization, headed by Yasser Arafat, praised the action for carrying the battle to "the enemy."

In Israel, cries for revenge rang out.

Premier Golda Meir, in her speech of resignation to the Knesset, warned the government of Lebanon that "we regard it and its people who collaborated with the terrorists as responsible for these murders." After Israel's retaliatory raids,

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan issued an even stiffer warning. He said: "If the Lebanese government allows terrorist headquarters to enjoy their freedom in Beirut and at night they cross into Israel, I think a good part of Lebanon will be destroyed and deserted." Lebanese Premier Takieddin Solh denied that his country was responsible. Mrs. Meir's government also came under fire from some Israeli newspapers, which charged that inadequate security arrangements had allowed the commandos to carry out their raid. At funeral services for the dead, Mrs. Meir's personal representative, Minister of Police Shlomo Hillel, was drowned out by catcalls from angry mourners crying: "Where were the police yesterday? We want security!"

Hot Syrian Front. Along the Golan Heights, meanwhile, Syrian and Israeli forces fought bitterly. For the fifth straight week, they kept up a drumfire of tank, rocket and artillery across the trenches and bunkers in the shadows of snow-covered Mount Hermon. For the first time since the October war, Israel twice brought its warplanes into action, which may have been a mistake. In the first raid one of its Phantom fighter-bombers crashed in flames just inside the Lebanese border; two crewmen were captured. Israel claimed that the plane had crashed because of "technical fault." Syria and Lebanon said--more plausibly--that it had been shot down by a Soviet-supplied SA-6 missile.

Since the battles of attrition on the Golan Heights began, there was always the danger that the fighting could get out of hand, particularly if Syria should provoke an Israeli counteroffensive. In fact, at week's end, a commentator on Syria's government controlled television ominously declared: "We now consider ourselves at war with Israel!" Yet most Middle East observers believe that Syrian President Hafez Assad is firing for political rather than military effect--both to still his own hawks, who have been unhappy ever since the ceasefire, and to pressure Israel and, indirectly, the U.S. into a quick disengagement agreement.

Diplomacy on Two Fronts. Assad faces a difficult internal balancing act between hardliners and moderates in his government. He must also steer between the Russians, who are his principal source of arms and economic aid, and Washington, which is his best hope for getting the Israeli concessions he needs to stay in power. With that in mind, no doubt, Assad flew to Moscow to line up new armaments and assure the Russians of a continued voice in the moves toward disengagement.

Last week also a high-level Syrian delegation arrived in Washington to begin disengagement talks with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Before sitting down to hear the proposals presented by Syria's Brigadier General Hikmat Shihabi, Kissinger and President Nixon met with Algerian President Houari Boumedienne, an increasingly influential voice in the Arab world.

Precise details of the separate proposals made by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan three weeks ago and by Shihabi last week are still secret, but the basic positions are known. The Syrians want the return of the entire Golan Heights area. Initially, however, they might be satisfied with an Israeli withdrawal to a position three miles beyond the pre-October cease-fire line. This would mean the return to Syrian control of Quneitra--which, when it was captured in 1967, was the largest city in the Golan Heights. Beyond that, Damascus wants a commitment and a deadline for total Israeli withdrawal from the Heights.

The Israelis would probably agree to return Quneitra as part of a demilitarized zone on the Heights. They are unwilling, however, to give up the three commanding tels (hills) outside Quneitra, which Syria wants but which Israel considers strategically important. The Israelis also insist that parts of the Heights that give a commanding view and field of fire over settlements in the Hula Valley must be an integral segment of Israel's "secure frontiers."

Washington has consistently taken the view that the fighting on the Golan Heights was merely designed to keep up the pressure for disengagement. But State Department officials feared last week that the negotiations could "sputter and break" as a result of Israel's political disunity. In a closed briefing for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kissinger seemed more pessimistic on prospects for an early settlement than he was before the Meir government's fall. Still, he has not yet canceled his fifth round of shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, scheduled for later this month. And with good reason--his latest trip may be more necessary than ever to put his grand design for a peace settlement back together.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.