Israel Rejects U.S. Plea to Free Captives, Seeks Swap

Arguing that to act alone would mean surrender to terrorist demands, Israel rejected a plea made Tuesday by President Bush for all hostage holders to liberate their captives.

At the same time, officials announced that Israel is still trying to arrange a prisoner swap between Israel and Shiite Muslim extremists, and aides to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir mentioned the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United States as possible intermediaries.

The hazy diplomatic hints came amid the dramatic buildup of a multinational crisis spurred by the abduction of Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid, a Shiite clergyman, and two of his associates by Israeli commandos last week. Israel said Obeid, a leader of the militant Hezbollah movement, and the other two will be used as bait for an exchange of captives held by the pro-Iranian extremist group.

Followers of Hezbollah responded to the seizing of Obeid by purportedly executing an American captive, U.S. Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, and new threats were made on the lives of other hostages, horrifying foreign governments.

On Tuesday, President Bush repeated a call for freedom of hostages, asking for “all parties who hold hostages in the Middle East to release them forthwith.”

In Jerusalem, a Foreign Ministry statement responded by saying Israel “welcomed” Bush’s desire to “bring about a reversal of the cycle of violence” but added that Israel “has decided not to respond to threats and not to surrender to all kinds of ultimatums (from the terrorists).”

In Beirut, Israel’s adversaries also appeared unmoved by Israel’s insistence on trading prisoners and by Bush’s appeal. “The only acceptable thing to us is that Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid and his two colleagues be released,” said a statement from Hezbollah, or Party of God, which is believed to hold a number of foreign hostages.

Although Israel had initially planned to use Obeid and his colleagues as chips to bargain for three lost Israeli soldiers, Israeli officials raised the possibility that other foreign hostages might be released in a deal.

In comments to reporters, Prime Minister Shamir fell back on the raid’s original reason. “The only purpose of our operation was to free our captured soldiers,” he said. “If, at the same time, we manage to set free other hostages, we will be happy. There is a common interest and a communal goal with the United States.”

Shamir said Israel will contact “all factors” involved in the crisis. He did not elaborate.

His spokesman, Avi Pazner, said Shamir was referring to help from Washington or organizations such as the Red Cross to retrieve Israeli prisoners. And Pazner added that Israel is sticking to its offer to exchange not only Obeid but also scores of Shiite prisoners held in southern Lebanon for the captive Israelis.

U.S. Envoy Involved

U.S. Ambassador William Brown met with Israeli officials Tuesday, but there was no word of the content of their talks.

Israel has been on the defensive since it revealed the abduction of Obeid. The move was criticized by countries friendly to Israel, including the United States, which contended that it aggravated regional tensions.

On Tuesday, Israeli officials and the domestic media showed signs of increasing distress over the censure from Washington.

“We ask that this act of terrorism (against Higgins) not be allowed to drive a wedge between the United States and Israel,” said Alon Liel, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry. Such an event would be “granting our enemies major victories,” he added.

Israeli commentators attacked Washington’s implicit equation of Israel with terrorist groups that both countries are trying to fight.

Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, commented: “Instead of standing courageously and openly beside Israel in its tough and unrelenting war against kidnapers and murderers, the United States is cringing and mumbling and creating the impression it would just as soon throw us onto the same heap as the West’s worst enemies.”

Despite the difficulties, Israeli Foreign Ministry officials put the best light possible on the explosive situation. They asserted that information picked up from Obeid and the other captives would disrupt Hezbollah and make it harder for the group to launch attacks on Israel through southern Lebanon.

Interrogation might also lead to a means of pinpointing the location of hostages held by the group. Finally, the seizing of Obeid would send a message to Israel’s enemies that nowhere are they safe, Israeli officials said.

Confession Reported

Israel claimed that since his capture, Obeid has already confessed to a wide range of violent activities. Among them were the kidnaping of Higgins, the imprisonment of two Israeli soldiers on patrol in southern Lebanon and the planning of attacks on an Israeli-controlled buffer zone inside Lebanon.

The optimistic outlook fell short of overcoming the growing sensation that Israel had bungled the plan to get its captive soldiers back from Lebanon.

Yediot Aharonot, while stopping short of criticizing the action, said Israel may have to open new avenues of approach, perhaps through Iran, which sponsors Hezbollah.

“Pressure on the Shiites through their Iranian patrons is likely to bring more promising results. There is a greater chance because the Iranians need arms and technological aid from the West,” the paper said.

The center-left Haaretz newspaper questioned the need for Israel to have loudly publicized such a delicate operation as the capture of Obeid.

“All the nice slogans that one must never give in to terrorism have not caught on now that Israel has embarked on an operation whose aim was to deal with terrorists,” the paper said.

Newspapers reported that Israel’s 12-member Inner Cabinet approved the commando operation with only one opposing vote. The naysayer, Moshe Shahal of the center-left Labor Party, warned that seizing a Muslim clergyman might provoke devout Shiites to take unpredictable action.

Domestic political knives also were being drawn. Officials in the Foreign Ministry, which is headed by Moshe Arens of the rightist Likud Party, were whispering that it was Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a member of Labor, who publicized the Obeid seizure against customary rules of discretion.

Likud, which is headed by Shamir, shares government with Labor in an uneasy coalition. The government as a whole has been under steady pressure to find a way to retrieve soldiers presumed captured in Lebanon, and there was speculation that Rabin’s stature could suffer if the Obeid incident produces nothing but increased misery for hostages and tension with the United States.