‘Situation Better,’ Israelis Say : Berri Involvement Seen as Buying Time for Accord

Israeli officials breathed a little easier Monday as Nabih Berri, the Lebanese Shia Muslim militia leader, took personal charge of American hostages from the hijacked TWA jetliner and had them transferred from the airplane to an unknown location or locations in Beirut.

The involvement of Berri, who is a Cabinet minister in the Lebanese government, was seen here as ensuring the immediate safety of the hostages and buying more time for some political resolution of the crisis.

While the question of the hostages’ ultimate safety remains problematic, another government source said that “from the point of view of their physical security in the short term, the situation is better.”

Other officials said that developments in the Lebanese capital, where Shia extremists earlier threatened to kill the hostages if Israel does not free more than 700 Shias held in an Israeli prison, virtually eliminated any possibility of a military rescue operation. The options now are “only political and diplomatic,” a senior defense source said.

As the hostage drama continued to unfold in Beirut, Israeli officials repeated that they will consider releasing the 700 Shia Muslim prisoners held in Atlit prison south of Haifa only if they receive a request from a “senior level” of the U.S. government.

The officials added that no such request has been received.

In Washington, President Reagan’s national security adviser, Robert C. McFarlane, said the United States will not ask Israel to free the detainees. “We don’t make concessions,” he told reporters. “We’re not going to make others do so.”

The detainees, who have not been charged with any crime, were mostly captured earlier this year in southern Lebanese villages during Israeli raids meant to discourage attacks on withdrawing Israeli troops.

About 1,200 such prisoners were transferred to Israel in April after the army’s detention camp at Ansar was evacuated as part of the staged withdrawal. Nearly 500 of the prisoners have already been released, and Israeli Police Minister Chaim Bar-Lev stressed Monday in an interview on Israel radio that government plans to release the rest were in the works long before the hijackers made their demand.

However, the Israeli government was stung by sharp domestic criticism late last month when it exchanged 1,150 terrorists for three Israeli prisoners of the Lebanon war. Some critics have even charged that the May prisoner exchange was so lopsided that it encouraged terrorists to hijack the TWA jetliner Friday while on an Athens-Rome flight.

And whether or not the incidents are related, Israeli officials are now under enormous domestic pressure not to be seen as giving in to terrorist demands only one month after the prisoner exchange.

Backlash Feared

On the other hand, they fear an anti-Israeli backlash in American public opinion if they refuse flatly to negotiate and the hijackers kill their hostages. As a result, they have tried to put the decision in Washington’s lap by letting it be known that they would favorably entertain a high-level U. S. request to free the Atlit detainees.

An Israeli official said Monday that the government has been informed that an International Red Cross official might make contact in connection with negotiations under way in Beirut. However, other well-placed officials said no such contact was made and, even if it had been, “We’re not interested in talking to them (the Red Cross).”

With Berri, himself a Shia Muslim, moving increasingly to the center of the hostage drama, the Israelis on Monday saw more chance that some face-saving solution can be found. “It means there is someone to negotiate with,” commented a senior defense source.

Clinton Bailey, an American-born Israeli expert on Shia Muslims, noted that the relatively moderate Berri is battling more radical elements, such as those presumably represented by the hijackers, for influence among Lebanon’s Shia Muslims. “He’s not interested in them winning a victory,” Bailey said.

Berri would presumably like to negotiate the release of the 700 detainees, thus winning respect among Lebanon’s Shias, while at the same time preserving his relatively good connections with the Americans, which would mean freeing the hostages unharmed, Bailey said.

“I would say that Nabih Berri cannot currently allow himself to lend a hand to the killing of the hostages, even those with Jewish names,” said Yossi Olmert, a Middle East expert at Tel Aviv University’s Shiloah Institute.

Even the removal of the hostages from the plane to a new location where they are presumably much harder to rescue brought a strange sense of relief to Israeli security strategists, said Hirsh Goodman, the highly respected military correspondent of the Jerusalem Post.

For one thing, he said in an interview, with the passengers out of “this thin-skinned, fuel-laden aircraft,” there is less chance of some fatal accident in which a hijacker’s bullet could cause the whole jetliner to blow up.

Also, Goodman noted, the prospects of an armed rescue attempt are now so dismal that “it sort of removes the onus of having even to plan a contingency military operation.” While officials here are more hopeful of a peaceful solution, some noted that talks could drag on for a long time.