The bandits' week
Notwithstanding the reports of dissension in their ranks, the Palestinian guerrillas have had quite a week. They have blown up many millions of pounds' worth of international airline property with impun- ity. They have made a mockery of their immediate enen;ties, King Hussein's army. They have absorbed the attention of The world's press and the world's govern- ments, to the almost complete exclusion of every other topic. And although they may have to settle for rather less in the way of guerrillas held by the Israelis than they had originally hoped for, the likeli- hood is that they will obtain the release of their gun-moll heroine from Ealing police station and six assorted desperadoes from the 9ols of Switzerland and West Ger- many. Even the protestations of old- fashioned champions of international law have worn a little threadbare against the repeated appearance of hostages on the television screens to tell the world that their captors have hearts of gold and a just cause: By contrast the world's governments and institutions have cut a poor and at times even a risible figure. The common negotiating front Of the United States, Britain, Switzerland, West Germany and Israel has been almost broken by the eagerness of the Germans to make their own terms, and then by the general indig- nation at the unilateral decision of the Israelis to equip themselves with hostages of their own—an indignation which was a little reminiscent of the sense of outrage felt in Britain and France at the trucu- lence of President Benes of Czechoslovakia in September and October 1938. The air- line pilots' international trades union met and fumed. U Thant called upon all gov- ernments to hand over hijackers to an international tribunal, blithely disregard- ing the fact that a government like that of Jordan is in no position to hand over the hijackers on its territory even if it wanted to. (Will the West German government— not of course a member of the UN— hand over the three Hungarians who have brought a Rumanian plane to their terri- tory?) Now pressure seems to be mounting for the German, Swiss and British govern- ments to agree to a separate deal involv- ing the exchange of the seven named guerrillas whom they hold against their nationals still detained in Amman, leav- ing the Israeli hostages, and those of dual American and Israeli nationality, to fend for themselves. Such a deal would no doubt be justified by reference to the 'irresponsibility' of the Israeli government in arresting west bank Arabs. It would. nevertheless, be an act of craven appease- ment which would be most likely to drive the Israeli government in desperation to take reprisals which might well push Jordan finally over the edge into full- scale civil war. And all this to avert what looks like a fairly remote threat to the lives of the remaining non-Jewish hostages.
Fortunately good could still come out of this thoroughly depressing saga, para- doxically precisely because it has focused the attention of the world upon the claims of the Palestinian guerrillas. Since the end- ing of the seven day war it has become fashionable to blame the absence of a Middle East settlement upon Israeli in- transigence. And indubitably the Israelis have been intransigent. While Jordan has been prepared to trade recognition of the state of Israel for recovery of the occupied territories, and Egypt has been edging gradually towards a similar posture, Israel has repeatedly insisted that while some of the occupied territories might be negotiable against firm guarantees for her security, others, and in particular the city of Jerusalem. are not. But what has been overlooked is that Israel has really had no choice.
Israel has had no choice because her security is most directly threatened by a group which is even more intransigent— the Palestinian guerrillas. The guerrillas are not interested in the recovery of land for settlement on the west bank of the Jordan. They had that before the seven- day war, and they used it purely as the base for their raiding operations on Israel. They lay claim to the whole of what they call Palestine, and they have never been remotely interested in anything less. Unable to evict the state of Israel for themselves, they expect the inter- national community to do so for them. When the international community de- _ dines to help, they resort to the hijacking of innocent civilians.
Thus there can be no peace in the Middle East unless and until either the guerrilla movement or the state of Israel is broken up. Since it is too late now to reverse the decision to allow the Jews of the diaspora to recreate a national state at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. the only way forward must in the end in- volve the destruction and dispersal of the guerrilla movement.
Up to now this has always been too much to hope for. Shaky Middle Eastern governments such as those of Jordan and the Lebanon have not dared to move against well-armed irregulars who are looked upon as heroes by many of the younger generation and sustained by gov- ernments beyond their borders in Syria and Iraq. But in the past week, there have been the first faint stirrings of unease in Baghdad and Damascus about the desir- ability of the guerrillas as allies, signs of accumulating public exasperation at the disruption and senseless bloodshed caused by the guerrillas in Jordan and the Leb- anon, and the healthy discovery that the accumulation of hostages is a game which can be played on both sides of the cease- fire lines.
It is much too early to talk of the isola- tion of the guerrillas. The dawning of an awareness that the existence of the Pales- tinian movement promises nothing but misery for the populations among which it dwells will take time. But it may not be too optimistic to hope that the events of the past week may eventually be seen to have marked a beginning.
Meanwhile, whether or not the hapless airline passengers still stranded in Amman are safely repatriated, fresh thought will have to be given to how the menace of banditry in the air is to be tackled. It is the sheerest wishful thinking to imagine that anything tangible will be achieved through the United Nations. Unless air- lines and governments are to settle for the payment of ransom in whatever form it may be demanded, they will have to settle for preventive action and accept the risks involved. Pre-flight inspection of passen- gers and luggage will have to be improved. But it will never be foolproof. and at many of the world's airports in under- developed countries, at which inter- national flights will still need to call, it will never be very effective at all. El Al has possibly demonstrated that hijackers can be overcome by armed security guards travelling on international flights. Airlines which follow El Al's example may occa- sionally suffer disasters: but then so may those which hope for the best and refrain from trying conclusions with hijackers, as Swissair has cause to remember. No form of. travel in this age of speed is entirely safe. Even if one aircraft a year were destroyed as a result of gun-battles be- tween security guards and hijackers air travel would still be infinitely safer than travel by road, while the likelihood of arriving at one's chosen destination, which at present seems to be rapidly diminishing, would be restored.
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