Who's in Charge Here?

After Count Bernadotte was murdered, the government of Israel gave the impression that it would seriously try to break up organized terrorism. It passed a drastic anti-terrorist decree, forced the illegal Irgun into the regular Israeli army and clapped 187 members of the Stern gang, which boasted of killing Bernadotte, into the Jaffa jail. Last week it was quite apparent that the Israeli government's bark was no match for the Stern gang's bite.

The Sternist prisoners at Jaffa made their own rules, ripped bars from the windows and tore down the steel doors connecting their cells. Guards, who feared that the prisoners might still have hidden arms, thoughtfully left their own guns outside before entering the cell block.

Outside the jail last week, a crowd of prisoners' relatives waited for the semiweekly visiting hour. Prison authorities, in retaliation for the beating of one of the guards, refused to admit the visitors. That was enough for the imprisoned Sternists. They pushed their straw mattresses out of the high open windows; when the bedding covered the barbed wire flanking the prison walls, the prisoners bailed out into the arms of their waiting mothers, wives & children.

Cold Beer. The Sternists threw open the door of the jail, disarmed the guards, directed traffic in the square where a great crowd had gathered. Some prisoners strolled off to the beach for a swim. Others relaxed with prison guards over coffee in a nearby cafe. Few showed any disposition to escape from the city. "If we left the jail for good," explained one Sternist, "it would only mean that we would have to go underground again."

Police and government officials were bewildered. When a group of correspondents asked permission to visit the jail, they were told: "The police cannot take responsibility for your safety." The correspondents walked the six blocks to the jail, through throngs of police and MPs, without being challenged.

Outside the open prison door they found a fat Sternist with thin red hair, lazily cracking fried watermelon seeds between his teeth. When a prison warden barred their entrance, the journalists appealed to the Sternist. He ushered them in and rounded up some fellow prisoners for a press conference. Prison guards fretfully pleaded that this was against regulations. Some prisoners crossed the square and returned with bottles of cold beer for their friends; they used the handle of the jail door as a bottle opener.

A Little Fraternizing. Nobody knew how many Sternists had escaped. Complained one prison official: "It is impossible to count them now because they won't stay in one place. But they have promised to give us a count tonight." A Sternist spokesman thought more than half had returned to the jail; he expected more to come back "if they can get through the police lines." It was only a protest demonstration, not a jailbreak, he explained. "We have just been out doing a little fraternization with the MPs."

During the night, while the Sternists slept, units of the Israeli army ringed the jail with armored cars at ten-yard intervals. A loudspeaker in the courtyard summoned the prisoners to come out in groups of five and submit to search. As they surrendered, they were bundled off under heavy guard to the high-walled prison fortress of Acre. At the last count, 20 to 40 prisoners were still missing. Said a bemused government spokesman: "They probably went home to see their families and will be back in a few days."

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