TERRORIST TALK
QUESTION: when is a terrorist not a terrorist? Answer: when he is a member of the PLO. Having made one of her charac- teristically sweeping statements to the effect that her Government will never have anything to do with anyone who has anything to with terrorism, Mrs Thatcher now has some awkward explaining to do. Even though the two PLO members who will meet the Foreign Secretary have apparently disavowed violence and recog- nised, Israel's right to exist, we wonder if their relationship to the real Palestinian terrorists is so very different from that of a `moderate' member of Sinn Fein to the murderers of the IRA. The moral is not necessarily that the Foreign Secretary should not speak to the PLO. It is hard to imagine any lasting peace settlement in the Middle East which does not involve the PLO, and the moment is propitious pre- cisely because Israel has chastened the PLO men of violence in the Lebanon. The moral is rather that Mrs Thatcher should avoid such sweeping statements.
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