PERSPECTIVES ON ISRAEL : Rabin Acted for National Survival : The Palestinian deportees are no innocents--they’re members of sect devoted to Israel’s destruction.

Abraham Lincoln once remarked that “no proper government ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.” He was referring to the need to preserve the Union at all costs, and achieve a durable peace. The same sentiment could well be expressed by Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel, in explaining the deportation of 415 Islamic extremists. As leader of the Middle East’s only democracy, Rabin must abide by the laws of his land. Yet those laws cannot shelter a movement that strives to undermine them--indeed to destroy the state upon which they rest, and to evict its Jewish population. These were the goals of the 415 Muslim extremists whom Israel has undertaken to deport.

The deportees are active members of the Islamic organization called Hamas. Like Lebanon’s Hezbollah or Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas rejects all forms of secularism and Western-style democracy. Instead, it calls for the re-creation of the medieval Islamic state, which would then renew the quest for religious expansion. Jihad, or holy war, is thus the means through which Hamas and other radical groups seek to fulfill God’s will for the world. Muslim fundamentalists have consequently posed a threat to every government in the Middle East, from Morocco to Egypt, Jordan to Kuwait. All of these governments have resorted to acts of repression far more severe than anything ever employed by Israel. Yet Israel, to a much greater extent than its neighbors, is threatened by Islamic extremism.

Islam accords a second-class status to Christians and Jews and forbids a Muslim to live under their sovereignty. The ban particularly applies to areas within the traditional heartland of Islam. Israel, a Jewish state, is situated in such an area. It furthermore encompasses Jerusalem, the third-holiest city in Islam. To a fundamentalist, Israel is an aberration of the truth, an abomination. To make peace with it, even one based on territorial compromise, would be a violation of God’s word--a sin punishable by death.

Death was the sentence passed on Nissim Toledano, the Israeli policeman kidnaped last week by Hamas gunmen who brutally murdered him. Death might also have been fate of hundreds of civilians, targets of two car bombs recently found--fortunately in time--in Israeli neighborhoods. But not only Israelis have to face the prospect of Hamas terrorism. Hundreds of Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza have been executed by Hamas. These assassinations, like that of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, were perpetrated against any who defied Islamic law as defined by the fundamentalists; against any who sought peace with Israel. Thus, the Palestinian representatives to the peace talks in Washington are also prime targets for Hamas. Only days after discovering Toledano’s body, Israeli police foiled a plot by Islamic Jihad, parent organization of Hamas, to shoot Faisal Husseini, a chief adviser to the Palestinian delegation. Though Palestinian supporters of the negotiations have publicly condemned the deportation order, secretly they can only be relieved.

For Israel, the Hamas threat had become intolerable. Unanswered, the Toledano murder, along with attacks that killed five Israeli soldiers in one week, might have resulted in vigilante action against innocent Arabs. It would certainly have stopped the peace process in its tracks. Despite all the risks involved to Israel’s democratic system, as well as to its image abroad, the dangers were too great to ignore.

The overwhelming majority of Israelis, from all parts of the political spectrum, support the government’s action. The requirements of Israeli law, which grant the deportees the right to appeal to the Supreme Court, were met. The spirit of democracy was preserved.

During the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was compelled to restrict press reports that he believed endangered the higher goals of peace and Union. Yet few would doubt Lincoln’s commitment to democracy. That confidence should now be shown to Yitzhak Rabin, who has done more for peace than any Middle East leader since Sadat, and has strived to achieve autonomy for the Palestinians. The prime minister of Israel confronts the same question that Lincoln once asked of himself: “Whether any government not too strong for its people can be strong enough to guarantee its existence in great emergencies.”