Bomber’s Slaying Helps Shin Bet Regain Luster at Home

The Shin Bet isn’t claiming responsibility for it, but the assassination of Palestinian bomber Yehiya Ayash is the first break in weeks for Israel’s secret service, whose agents failed to protect Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin from an assassin in November.

“It’s a shame that Yitzhak didn’t live to see this day,” the prime minister’s widow, Leah Rabin, was quoted as saying of Ayash’s death. Her comments reflected the sense of satisfaction expressed by many Israelis after the news broke that one of their most feared and hated enemies had apparently fallen victim to their once revered but recently maligned General Security Services, or Shin Bet.

Ayash’s assassination was the sort of pinpoint, complex operation on which Israel’s security services have built their reputation in the Jewish state’s decades-long struggle against Palestinian attacks on civilian and military targets. It will do much to refurbish the Shin Bet’s image, badly damaged by Rabin’s death at the hands of a Jewish right-wing fanatic, Israeli commentators said.

The Shin Bet is still reeling from a state commission of inquiry’s decision to put six of its officers, including the head of the service, on notice for their potential culpability through negligence in Rabin’s death. Ayash’s slaying came as the committee nears the end of its investigation.

“[Ayash] was target No. 1--not only for the security services, but for the whole state of Israel,” said Amnon Abromovitz, a commentator on security affairs for state-run Israel Television. Ayash’s assassination “creates a new public atmosphere toward the Shin Bet, which is very important while they are facing the commission of inquiry,” Abromovitz said.

“It won’t change the outcome, but the committee can’t ignore the fact that the Shin Bet carried this out while they are under a very heavy inquiry.”

Ayash, known as “The Engineer” for his skill at assembling bombs used in a string of Palestinian suicide attacks on Israelis, died Friday when a cellular phone he was using exploded. Israel has neither claimed responsibility for the killing nor denied involvement in it, but the news first broke on Israel Radio. Both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, the militant Islamic movement to which Ayash belonged, blamed Israel for the killing.

During its regular weekly Cabinet meeting Saturday, the Palestinian Authority formally condemned Israel for the assassination and said that the killing violated the Israeli-PLO peace accord and Palestinian sovereignty.

At a rally Sunday in Dura, a West Bank town, Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat hailed Ayash as a martyr.

“We have made the peace of the brave. We are committed to it. We ask the other side not to violate this peace, [not] to enter Palestinian territory in Gaza and kill and assassinate the struggler, the martyr, Yehiya Ayash,” Arafat said.

Palestinians observed a general strike Sunday as part of a three-day formal mourning period for Ayash. But the Palestinian Authority has declared neither a suspension of contacts with Israel nor a delay or cancellation of the upcoming Palestinian elections.

The Palestinian Authority announced that it is forming an investigative committee, headed by security chief Mohammed Dahlan and including Hamas leaders, to examine the circumstances of Ayash’s death. The Palestinians on Sunday said they already have arrested five Palestinians suspected of working with Israel to carry out the plot.

Hamas spokesmen declared an end to their informal moratorium on attacking Israelis and urged the Palestinian Authority to return whatever weapons it has confiscated from Hamas members in recent months.

“This incident will have a very negative impact. The period of calm has been completely blown up,” Hamas spokesman Jamil Hamami said. “This killing left the Palestinian street frustrated and with a lack of confidence in the political process.”

But Israeli political leaders brushed aside suggestions that the timing of the assassination--coming two weeks before the scheduled Jan. 20 Palestinian elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and at a time when militant Islamists are refraining from attacks--was questionable.

“There’s no need to consider political timing in regard to killing murderers,” said Hagai Merom, chairman of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

“When it comes to the struggle against terrorism and the crystallization of a chance to kill such an engineer, who was one of the most lethal and terrible things that Israel suffered through in the past few years . . . there’s not a question of timing for such a thing,” Merom said.

Israel took precautions after the killing, sealing off the West Bank and Gaza Strip from Israel, forbidding Israelis who do not live there to travel in the territories and putting its forces on a higher state of alert. The Israelis also suspended joint security patrols with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But an Israeli specialist on terrorism and counterterrorism, Yonah Alexander, said that he has no doubt that Hamas or Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group, will seek revenge for Ayash’s death.

“It is not a question of if [a retaliation attack] is going to happen, but when and where it is going to happen,” he told Israel Radio on Sunday.

But Alexander, a guest lecturer at Tel Aviv University, said that the likelihood of retaliation should never deter Israel.

“It is critical to uphold the principle expressed by President [Ronald] Reagan,” he said. “ ‘You can run but you cannot hide.’ . . . It is important to send a message to the terrorists that they are going to be held accountable . . . even if 1,000 Yehiya Ayashes will follow in his footsteps.”