The Israeli scene

Sentenced for life

Paul Callan

The military court room at Sarafand, sixteen kilometres out of Tel Aviv, has the modest looks of an English village hall. Take down the blue and white Israeli flag, with its defiant Star of David in the middle, and Sussex Women's Institute would feel at home; a dress rehearsal for lolanthe would fit.

Here in the midst of its militaristic playpen, Israel dispenses a markedly individual brand of justice — mild signs of inherent judgements from a terrible, wrathful Jehovah of yesteryear.

This week these grey sheds witnessed the life sentencing of Therese Halase and Rima Tannous, two Arab girls who took part in the hi-jacking of a Belgian Sabena airliner from Vienna to Lod Airport on May 8.

The unhappy Japanese survivor of the Lod Airport massacre, deprived of his ritualistic suicide, was tried and sentenced here. The judge from that scenario — now so casual in his bright yellow shirt outside his blue slacks — is sitting with the public, like some actor watching someone else play his favourite role.

The girls, barely older than the frisky mini-soldiers outside, sit glumly in the noticeably rough-cut dock. Two military '.policewomen sit behind them — one has

heavy, Sephardic features which she occasionally relieves by smiling piercingly at her friends in court; the other is bored and beautiful and her little Israeli army hat perches like some absurd cake on top of her head.

The questions start casually to the round-shouldered Rima Tannous. She speaks in Arabic, melodious, a language of fits and starts, and the mama-doll timbre of her voice gives an added menace to some of hr replies.

"I went to the rear of the plane and Shemin( (another hi-jacker) was there with a grenade. She told me to hold it in my hand, Hold it tight!"

She describes the grenade with a neat, circular motion. The hands are feminine, the nails unpainted; the knuckles are thick.

The .interpreter — they say he is the best Arabic speaker in Israel — looks strangely like a holidaymaker: shortsleeved, open-necked white shirt; he frequently puts his hands on his hips while listening. His thickish lips change alarmingly as he darts between Arabic and Hebrew.

There is a brief, semantic spat between him and the president of the court (a Maudling-looking character flanked by an expressionless officer on one side and a beaky lady major on the other).

"Did, you enlarge on what she has just said?" demands the Maudling one. They hassle on in machine-gun Hebrew. The

, sign that it is all over is a curt, mutual Lnod. It is just that the interpreter has a palticularly poetic turn of Arabic phrase.

It is now the turn of Israel's chief military prosecutor, Sgan-Aluf David Yisraeli — taller than the average Israeli, with the ironic profile of a youthful shah of Persia. He presses Rima for personal details. The mongoose is at work.

"What is your education?"

"I have no learning."

It sounds pathetic, heightened by the continuous English translation from a lady who sounds like a Jewish Jessie Matthews and who acts out the whole routine.

" How old are you?"

" I don't know. Probably about eighteen or nineteen."

Quite suddenly, in the light of this innocuous questioning, Sgan-Aluf Yisraeli darts in.

"Have you heard of Ysar Arafat?" Rima's eyes flick to the right to where her counsel is hunched. Her hands move away from their rigidly clasped position. The question is repeated and she eventually admits to having heard of Arafat. Yes, she even believed he was either the, or a, commander of Al Fatah (it is said gutturally, in one hoarse utterance — AlFatack).

Rima is now sensing the danger from this tall Jew in his olive green uniform with its single line of campaign ribbon.

He has embarked on a lethal downward flight-path of questioning: the dis integration of her claims (that she had been recruited into Al Fatah by means of rape, drugs, abduction, even brute force) has started. He is bent on proving she is not the hapless dupe she claims to be. The questions follow in quick succession and Rima is visibly suffering.

Her hands flutter frantically around as if describing an imploring, eliptical circle.

She is starting to lose her self-composure and the younger of the eight photographers have removed their lens covers.

Sgan-Aluf Yisraeli has been waiting for this precise moment: he pounces. If, as she had claimed, she had been ' kidnapped ' from Amman to Syria by Al Fatah, how was it she maintained regular sexual relations with one of her abductors?

Rima erupts into tears, her left hand flies to her mouth in a gesture of self comfort. Her lawyer stands, but is ignored. In a squeaking voice she replies that her lover had ' merely ' been the driver who took her to Syria. No — he did not rape her. The tears lace her face.

"My sexual life is my own business — my own business," she shouts. In even tones the president of the court assures her lawyer that they are not here to cause her distress. These are questions that must be asked. The photographers, hunched together in a preying semi-circle, have captured the tears and the brief spark of drama and look bored again.

Rima's interrogator resumes, a shade gentler of tone. "But did you not think that this man [the driver] was responsible for the fact that you were held in Damascus for seven months as you claim?"

More tears, but the photographers do not move this time.

"I hated the Fatah men," she blurts. The interpreter is spitting the words out.

"But I was hungry. I wanted to eat. I was hungry. I wanted dresses." It sounds sad and ludicrous in translation. Did she want the Court to believe that she slept with the Al Fatah men for the little money they gave her? "I wanted clothes."

It is a halting reply, defeated. The lady major on the bench, pristine in her ironed army blouse, purses her lips.

Rima seems unaware that her frantic claims of innocence, her air of injury, is damaging. Her co-defendant Therese — a sour-faced girl who is the sharper of the two — realises this and occasionally glances in unspoken condemnation at her.

The implausibility of it all becomes tedious — yes, she did wear an Al Fatah beret, but it didn't mean she was a member of the organisation; oh yes, she was convinced that the whole flight from Vienna and the heavy girdle she had worn (surprise, surprise, it contained grenades) was part of some vague smuggling plan.

It is becoming sticky and tiresome, but the tedium is broken by the arrival of two fine-looking girl cadet soldiers in their short, pale grey skirts. From high up on the press bench two Israeli reporters are enjoying what must be a knicker show.

"I think it is time for a break," the president announces casually, and we all troop out to drink Macabee Beer (' Brewed in Nazareth ') and eat pitta and tehina in the Sheckem tent — a sort of Israeli Naafi.

Sgan-Aluf Yisraeli crushes Balkan Sobranie mixture into his newish pipe which he looks too young to smoke.

The defence lawyers have left their gowns inside and one is wearing silly, checked trousers.

Shortly an army girl summons everyone inside. Rima has combed her black, wavy hair and someone has used cologne.

We all have the heavy red dust of Sarafand on our shoes, It clings, tenacious, like Jewish determination.