Only One Way to End It

To be a foreign male in Lebanon these days is to be a hostage-in-waiting. There is no safety in nationality, although right now Americans and Germans are the preferred victims. The more than 23 hostages known to be held by Lebanese terrorists come from nine nations--among them South Korea and Ireland, countries whose connections with the political concerns of their captors seem so remote as to be non-existent. Scores, perhaps hundreds of foreign men remain in Lebanon, most of them apparently married to Lebanese. These are people who have resisted all urgings of their governments to get out, and even the latest wave of hostage-taking isn’t likely to change their minds.

The White House alluded to this potential for self-victimization in its statement on the latest seizure of Americans, this time from the faculty of Beirut University College. Official impatience with those who willingly risk becoming hostages in the savage anarchy of Lebanon is understandable. That same White House comment, though, also contained the usual tough remarks about never cutting any deals with terrorists to win the safe return of hostages. That, as the whole world has known since the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran was exposed last November, is nonsense.

The unhappy and humiliating truth is that the United States now stands in the ranks of other countries--among them France, West Germany and even Israel--that have sometimes ignored principle to win the release of their citizens from terrorist captivity. To meet the ransom demanded by terrorists is, of course, to make further hostage-taking inevitable. The arms deal with Iran won freedom for two Americans, both of whom subsequently condemned the unwisdom of paying off terrorists. As proof of their point, five more Americans have since been seized by pro-Iranian Lebanese forces. When will it all end? When the United States and every other country finally and irrevocably shows that there will in fact be no deals with terrorists, no matter what may be threatened or done.