Terrorism Analysts Dispute Veto of Arafat Visa : U.S. and Israeli Experts Say International Violence by PLO Is Down Sharply

Secretary of State George P. Shultz’s veto of a visa for PLO chief Yasser Arafat is coming under increasing criticism from both U.S. and Israeli terrorism analysts, who contend that international Palestinian terrorism is in fact in marked decline.

They also charge that the vast majority of incidents have been carried out not by the Palestine Liberation Organization mainstream but by splinter groups that also are Arafat’s adversaries.

Conclusions reached in a new report by a widely respected Israeli think tank, Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, challenge several bases for the Shultz decision. Only 10 people were victims of international Palestinian terrorism in 1987, it says, compared to 643 in 1986.

Among the 10 victims, there was only one death. The lower figure for international incidents has remained near the same level in 1988, the author added in an interview.

Another change, it reports, is that the incidents are no longer “spectacular and indiscriminate.” The number of attacks decreased from 80 in 1986 to 13 in 1987; the total is also low so far this year.

In a trend that has carried through this year, “none of the Palestinian attacks recorded in 1987 resembled, in tactics or outcome, the dramatic operations that shocked world opinion time and time again in past years,” writes author Anat Kurz in the think tank’s annual survey on low-intensity warfare.

The report adds that by late 1988, Fatah, the largest PLO faction and the only one personally led by Arafat, “had still by and large refrained from carrying out attacks that might have provoked further blows to its international standing or broadened the gap between the PLO and moderate Arab states.”

More important to the Shultz decision than the numbers, however, is the issue of who perpetrated the incidents.

Since the so-called Cairo declaration in 1985, when Arafat first renounced terrorism outside Israel and the occupied territories, most of the attacks have been carried out by renegade groups such as that headed by Abu Nidal, according to Israeli and U.S. experts.

“PLO terrorism is now very low,” said Robert Kupperman, a terrorism specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “There still is some of it, but most of the incidents attributed to Palestinians are associated with fringe groups that are not with the PLO.”

Kupperman characterized Shultz’s denial of a visa for Arafat to speak at the United Nations in New York based on the terrorism argument as “a very poor rationalization.”

L. Paul Bremer III, ambassador at large for the State Department’s counterterrorism office, countered: “One of the striking things about the reaction to the decision is that nobody in the Arab world or among the Europeans or at the U.N. denied that Arafat is responsible for terrorism.’

“It is true as a general proposition that terrorism in the Middle East has declined in 1988. But that doesn’t detract from the basis of the secretary’s decision, that elements loyal to the PLO were involved in terrorism, some of which affected Americans.

“You’re geting into an argument over how much terrorism is acceptable, and that’s not a proposition we can entertain,” Bremer said.

The Shultz decision was based on international terrorism carried out since Arafat’s Cairo declaration, which was spurred by widespread condemnation of the takeover of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in October, 1985. The ocean liner was seized by a faction led by Abul Abbas, the Syrian-born leader of the Palestine Liberation Front and an Arafat ally. American Leon Klinghoffer, who was confined to a wheelchair, was killed and his body thrown overboard during the hijacking incident.

In announcing the decision on Arafat’s visa, the State Department cited two PLO groups that have been active since 1985: Force 17 and Col. Hawari, the nom de guerre of Abdullah Abdul-Hamid Labib. Both have traditionally been under the control of Fatah.

Again, however, terrorism specialists are critical of the conclusions.

Perhaps ironically, Force 17 provided protection for American diplomats in Beirut between 1975 and 1982, when the PLO was forced to evacuate Lebanon, several analysts pointed out. Force 17’s main responsibility has always been to provide personal protection for PLO officials.

Even State Department officials acknowledge that Force 17 guaranteed the safety of the American Embassy and U.S. nationals during an emergency evacuation from Lebanon in 1977. A thinly disguised best-selling novel published in the United States last year, “Agents of Innocence,” by Washington Post reporter David Ignatius, outlined the unofficial relationship.

A still-unreleased State Department white paper claims that Force 17 “undertakes operations overt and covert against individuals and countries which are perceived to be enemies by the Fatah leadership.” It cites 15 attacks since 1985.

When pressed, a counterterrorism official conceded that none of the incidents involved Americans. All but two attacks occurred in Israel and the occupied territories or against Syrian and rival Palestinian groups.

A second white paper was released in October on Col. Hawari, who once headed Fatah’s security and intelligence branch. It claims that his group was responsible for the 1986 bombing aboard TWA Flight 840 between Rome and Athens in which four Americans were killed. A little-known Palestinian guerrilla group called the Arab Revolutionary Cells had claimed responsibility for the blast.

Col. Hawari has been particularly close to Arafat because he has protected him several times from assassination attempts.

But Israeli terrorism specialists contend that Palestinian splinter groups, specifically that headed by Abu Nidal and a second group headed by another PLO defector, were in fact responsible for that incident.

Reagan Administration officials believe that Col. Hawari was motivated by Israel’s 1985 air raid on PLO headquarters in Tunis. “He was convinced that the U.S. supported the attack,” according to one source. The raid killed at least 67 Palestinians and Tunisians.

However, other U.S. sources said the intelligence community often found it difficult to track the lines behind the attackers and the planners. The same operatives have often worked for different groups.

The confusion over TWA Flight 840 was evident last month when Oliver B. Revell, the FBI’s executive assistant director of investigation, told a group of airline security specialists that yet a third group, the renegade Arab Organization of May 15, had carried out the bombing. May 15 has been outside the PLO umbrella for a decade.

An FBI spokesman said Friday that the bureau was not contradicting the State Department. He said operatives from one group had moved to another, even though the two groups’ politics are the opposite of one another.

Some analysts suggested that Shultz ignored recent terrorism trends. “I truly believe there was a visceral feeling in Shultz on this issue that predates the new data,” said a congressional foreign policy specialist.

“He’s not making a clinical judgment about whether Arafat’s hands are dirty. Although he’s been pragmatic and even cold-blooded on other issues, on this one he’s taking a moral stand on foreign policy.”

But in an appearance recorded for the television program “John McLaughlin’s One on One,” scheduled to air this weekend, Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.), a strong supporter of Israel, cautioned of the consequences: “I support the secretary’s position. But I think that if we’re going to exclude Arafat on grounds that he’s engaged in terrorism, then we ought to be prepared to apply that criteria to other representatives whose countries and movements are at least as deeply involved in these activities as Mr. Arafat.”