A Question of Judgment

Unable to halt the rising incidents of terrorism against its citizens but determined as always to respond in kind, Israel has sent its bombers on a 3,000-mile journey to destroy a Palestine Liberation Organization headquarters in far-off Tunisia. As a military operation it was an impressive effort, but as an exercise of sound political judgment it was yet another botch. An attack on the territory of a country with which Israel has no basic quarrel serves only to diminish Israel’s international stature. That is a loss without compensating gain, for there is no reason to expect that the raid will interrupt the fearful cycle of violence that has already cost both Israelis and Arabs so much while settling so little.

The raid was represented as retaliation for the murder last week of three Israelis aboard a yacht in Cyprus. Israeli officials say they know that the Cyprus killers were part of something called Force 17, which is linked directly to Yasser Arafat, chairman of the PLO. Maybe they are right. Maybe, too, it was simply the explosive frustration brought on by increasing terrorist attacks that provided the real propellant to action. Unlike the gunman or bomb-thrower in Israel or the West Bank who commits his act and then disappears, the PLO in Tunisia had a known address. Whether it was the right address for the message Israel felt compelled to deliver is something else.

Some in Israel argue that going after the PLO in distant Tunisia was politically preferable to going after the PLO in next-door Jordan, as such cabinet hawks as Gen. Ariel Sharon have proposed. The post-raid statement by Prime Minister Shimon Peres, in effect praising Jordan for keeping the PLO there under control, was intriguing in this respect. What it suggests is that the Tunisia raid was prompted as much as anything else by the internal politics of the divided Israeli government, that ultimately it was an effort to pacify the hard-liners who were demanding action without destroying Peres’ commitment to try to talk peace with Jordan. In that case the raid became action for its own sake, a politically expedient rather than a politically effective thing to do.

So action has been taken, though at a cost--to both Israel and its closest ally--that has yet to be totaled. The United States has few enough loyal friends in the Arab world. Tunisia is one of them, and now Tunisia’s territory has been attacked and Tunisians have been killed with American-supplied planes. That is going to take some explaining, and not to Tunisia alone.

Meanwhile, undoubtedly, the next round of violence is already being planned. Israel has shown that it can go a long way to reach its enemies. What it has been unable to show is that it can control its enemies closer to home.