Lever on Lebanon

For a moment last week Golda Meir was no longer the drill-sergeant Premier of Israel but simply a woman bereaved. Accompanied by President Zalman Shazar, Mrs. Meir attended funeral services in Jerusalem for 20 Jews who were among the 47 people killed on Feb. 21 when a sabotaged Swissair jet exploded and crashed while flying from Zurich to Tel Aviv. As she spoke of Israel's doleful familiarity with "the phenomenon of the common grave," Mrs. Meir buried her face in her hands and wept. Then she dried her tears and in a firm voice urged: "Let us turn the sorrow and rage into a mighty force, real and moral. Let our anguish cry out to the world, and our rage be a lever for action to eliminate the possibility of such acts."

Hurried Calls. As the week progressed, Israel's lever of rage pivoted to the north and west. In a statement directed at the Beirut government to the north, Israel protested that Arab guerrillas based in Lebanon had carried out two dozen acts of violence in a recent two-week period. Unless the terrorism and incursions were stopped, warned the Israelis, Lebanon would suffer. To emphasize the point, an Israeli patrol crossed the border, blew up five abandoned houses, and warned Lebanese villagers in Arabic that worse would follow if guerrilla raids continued. Beirut protested that most of the incidents had involved the destruction of minor objectives like power lines or culverts, and accused the Israelis of overreacting. Nevertheless, no one in the Middle East takes Israeli threats lightly. Beirut's airraid warning system was brushed off and tested, and hurried calls were put through to Fedayeen Leader Yasser Arafat in Amman. Arafat's guerrillas temporarily ceased most activities and quietly pulled back from a number of advance positions close to the border between the two countries.

To the west, though bitter artillery duels across the Suez Canal continued, the war of attrition between Egypt and Israel appeared to have eased slightly. Both sides continued jet attacks, but the planes hit only scattered military targets. In a dogfight over the northern Nile delta, Israeli pilots claimed two MIG-21s downed with cannon fire--the 73rd and 74th kills of Egyptian planes since the Six-Day War.

Internal Embarrassment. Only last week, nearly a month after the Swissair crash and the bombing of another jet operated by Austrian Airlines, mail and passenger service into Israel aboard 16 airlines returned to normal. For an embarrassing two-day period, even Israel's internal airline Arkia refused to handle mail for security reasons.

Despite the restoration of full service, nervous passengers seemed to be trying new routes. European planes arrived in Tel Aviv with only ten to 20 passengers aboard. El Al, which normally flies only 50% full at this time of year, was booked 77%. Said a spokesman for Israel's national airline: "We never had a better February." Apparently travelers figure that security will be tightest on the country's own planes and ticket themselves accordingly.

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