Israelis Support U.S., Cite Kadafi Instability

JERUSALEM — Top Israeli officials on Tuesday endorsed the U.S. air strike against Libya and indirectly criticized the Western nations that failed to take a strong pro-Washington stand.

But they stressed that Israel had played no role in the action and that it had not even been warned by its closest ally.

Intelligence analysts here said that while the immediate Libyan response may be to order retaliatory terrorist attacks against American targets, the threat would have been more serious if the Reagan Administration had failed to act. And they predicted that, in the long run, the U.S. attack will help destabilize the regime of Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.

Touring the northern city of Nazareth on Tuesday, Prime Minister Shimon Peres defended the American action against a sharp condemnation by the Communist Arab mayor of that city.

U.S. Called Terrorist

Mayor Tewfik Zayyad, who is also a member of the the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, called the United States “the number one terrorist country.”

“What do you expect?” replied Peres. “If the Libyan government sends orders to murder U.S. soldiers in Berlin, in cold blood, in the middle of the night, by government order, what do you want the United States to do--to say ‘Praise be to God’ or to take measures of self-defense?”

Earlier, Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir expressed his support in a statement released by his spokesman.

“Mr. Shamir stressed that international terrorism could not succeed unless it enjoyed assistance by states,” the spokesman related. “Therefore, whoever wishes to free the world of this scourge must first of all strike at such countries which assist terror, initiate and stand behind it.”

Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin called America’s raid “a determined and daring action.”

In what was seen here as an indirect reproach to those Western European countries that criticized the raid, Rabin added: “As a matter of principle I believe that every country that believes that something has to be done against international terrorism, in coordination with the democratic free world, should come and say that it is a justified action.”

Intelligence analysts, who spoke on condition that they not be identified, said that “many thousands” of terrorists from many nations of the world are trained at “more than 20” special bases in Libya. And to the extent that the American raid damaged those bases, they said, it could “dampen their enthusiasm for a while.”

One analyst predicted that Kadafi’s immediate response will “certainly” be to “send orders to his supporters, allies in the terror organizations to react.” However, he added, “letting Kadafi go on would have more repercussions, more serious results than what would happen now.”

Negative Effect Seen

“In the long run,” added another senior analyst, the U.S. attack “will have a negative effect on Kadafi’s stability and the regime, because it will make it much more difficult to Kadafi to sustain the nation, the economic viability of the nation.”

This analyst said the Libyan leader faces opposition “basically among high ranking officers in the army,” and that the attack may encourage even more active internal disaffection.

Mark Heller, deputy director of Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center of Strategic Studies, took a slightly different view of Kadafi’s likely response to the U.S. attack.

“If I try to extrapolate on the basis of his record, I would say that the chances are that he will probably lay low for a while,” Heller commented. “Contrary to the image he has of being crazy and wild, a lot of his behavior is pretty calculated. Particularly, he knows when he runs up against determined opposition or superior force . . . to pull back in time.”