Terror Dodges the Law

The aftermath of the Achille Lauro hijacking has again exposed a grim failure of international responsibility in facing up to the universal threat of terrorism. Though the four Palestinians who seized the Italian cruise ship are, for now, in a prison in Sicily, the man the United States accuses of planning the outrage has been allowed by the Italian government to go free. That action has hurt U.S.-Italy relations. More to the point, it has been a major setback to efforts to bring those involved terrorism to justice.

Italy had what it no doubt regarded as compelling reasons of state for deciding to let Mohammed Abbas leave its jurisdiction, as people close to Prime Minister Bettino Craxi candidly acknowledge. Italy did not want to jeopardize its relations with the Arab world by turning Abbas over to the United States for alleged complicity in the hijacking, nor did it even want to hold him for investigation despite what this country cited as strong evidence to justify his detention. Of perhaps even greater weight, Italy feared a surge of Palestinian terrorism if it did not let Abbas get away. Italy calculated that its disagreement with the United States would do little lasting harm. To risk offending the Arab world and the terrorists who operate from it, however, could exact a far heavier cost.

Egypt similarly had potent political reasons for refusing to hold the Palestinians who seized the Achille Lauro and murdered one of its American passengers. President Hosni Mubarak estimated that while he could easily survive the temporary displeasure of the United States if he let the killers go, surviving the wrath of Arab radicals if he did not release them would be far less assured. And so Mubarak, in the blunt characterization of high Reagan Administration officials, lied about his custody of the terrorists until, as he thought, they were safely out of the way. Now Mubarak, responding to an outburst of anti-Americanism in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world, plays the aggrieved party and waxes indignant over the U.S. interception of the plane taking the terrorists from Egypt.

No doubt Egypt and Italy have both calculated correctly. The United States is not going to break relations over the Achille Lauro incident. Neither is it going to send assassins to the two countries to vent its anger. That is not a supposition that could be fairly made about the vengeful friends of the Achille Lauro terrorists. But as experience has repeatedly shown, any country that thinks it can insulate itself and its citizens from future risks by a policy of expedient softness toward terrorists is doomed to be proved wrong. Because terrorism now operates worldwide and is no respecter of flags or citizenship, no country, including those that give haven and support to terrorism, can expect to remain permanently immune from its consequences.

Terrorism will only be stopped when enough nations summon the moral courage to act decisively and in concert against it. As events of the last few days have shown, that is still a long way from being done.