Terror in Two Cities

MIDDLE EAST

It was dusk as an El Al Boeing 720 taxied out for takeoff from Zurich's Kloten airport, carrying 17 passengers, a crew of eleven and 27.5 tons of highly inflammable fuel. Suddenly, from a cream-colored Volkswagen parked near a hangar, four young Arabs rushed forward. At a distance of 80 yards, two opened fire with automatic rifles; the others hurled a package of dynamite, which failed to explode, and incendiary grenades, which went off short of the huge Israeli airliner.

As 50 or more bullets stitched the aircraft's front fuselage, Pilot Trainee Yoram Peres doubled up with three bullets in his abdomen (he was later reported recovering). Copilot Moshe Heichel was hit in the hand. Over the plane's loudspeaker, passengers heard Captain Israel Ganot order, "Everybody down on the floor. Don't move. Keep quiet. God is with us." One who did not obey was Mordechai Rahamim, 22, an ex-paratrooper whom El Al preferred to call an armed passenger but who was evidently a hired security agent. Holding a .22-caliber Beretta automatic, he jumped from an emergency exit and ran toward the attackers, firing as he went.

Plea in Question. Already on the spot were the airport's unarmed Swiss firemen, alerted by the tower, which spotted smoke from the grenades. One terrorist threw away his gun, and a fireman took a second gun away from another. Plunging toward the milling group, Rahamim fired three shots at close range, killing one of the Arabs, Abdel Moshen Hassan, a 32-year-old Jordanian. The police then took into custody his three companions, including one woman, a 22-year-old schoolteacher named Amena Dahbor. All three claimed to be Palestinian.

Swiss police said later that the four had arrived ten days before, and had destroyed their passports, evidently to shield Arab governments from blame. They will face a battery of charges in Swiss courts. As for Rahamim, who was also arrested, his expected plea of self-defense will turn on whether or not the slain terrorist was disarmed before he was shot--a point the Swiss were still investigating.

In contrast to what happened on the occasion of previous attacks on El Al--a skyjacking over the Mediterranean last July and an automatic-rifle assault in Athens in December--the international community this time was prompt in its protest. United Nations Secretary General U Thant described the attack as "criminal and dastardly." Britain, France, the Vatican and the U.S. issued condemnations. Washington also promised to raise the subject of protection of commercial aircraft at a council meeting this week of the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal.

One reason for the diplomatic denunciations was to head off any massive Israeli retaliation, such as the commando raid on Beirut airport last December. In Israel itself, government leaders reiterated their longstanding policy of holding Arab governments responsible for terrorist attacks, and thereby subject to reprisal. As Defense Minister Moshe Dayan put it, "We shall hit them where it hurts most."

Doubt Dispelled. Yet the Zurich attack presented Israel with an acute dilemma: where to lay the blame. The terrorists had trained for the assault in Jordan, departed from Damascus and touched down briefly in Beirut on their way to Switzerland. Moreover, the Marxist-lining and faction-ridden Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which claimed "full responsibility" for the raid, would like nothing better than for Israel to attack or bomb Damascus. Syria once jailed P.F.L.P.'s leader, a Palestinian doctor named George Habash who now makes his headquarters in Amman. The Front also staged the Athens attack on El Al, which from its point of view was a double success. The subsequent reprisal raid on Beirut cost Tel Aviv heavily in world opinion and brought about French President Charles de Gaulle's embargo on arms shipments to Israel.

If there was any doubt that Israel would nonetheless retaliate, it was dispelled later in the week by another terrorist attack in Jerusalem, for which P.F.L.P. also claimed responsibility. Some 200 pre-Sabbath shoppers were crowded into a downtown supermarket, where a tin filled with ten pounds of dynamite had been placed against a pillar. In the explosion, two youths were killed, and nine other shoppers were injured. Viet Cong-style, the terrorists had planted another bomb in a biscuit tin and timed it to go off as rescue workers gathered. It was safely defused, but few Israelis any longer doubted that there would be a reprisal.

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