Caught in the Middle

"Look, what do you expect Israel to do? . . . The problem is an American problem. The hostages are American."

Not entirely. As Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who made that statement on ABC's Nightline last week, was well aware, the TWA hostage crisis was an Israeli problem as well. As captor of the 776 mostly Shi'ite Lebanese detainees whose release was demanded by the hijackers of TWA Flight 847, Israel seemed to hold the key to freedom for the 40 captured Americans in Beirut. If Jerusalem refused to assist its most powerful ally, it ran the risk of alienating U.S. public opinion. Yet by cooperating in a trade, Israel would violate its longstanding rule against dealing with terrorists, even though it had announced its intention to release the captives before the hijacking occurred.

The dilemma was complicated by the fact that only last month the government of Prime Minister Shimon Peres provoked a national uproar with a perceived departure from that principle. To secure the release of three Israeli soldiers who had been captured and held by Palestinians during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Jerusalem granted freedom to 1,150 mostly Palestinian prisoners, including 167 convicted terrorists. Though the trade was not a hostage deal, some critics charged that the inclusion of terrorists damaged the credibility of Israel's insistence that it would not bargain with enemies who attack civilians. Amid widespread feeling that another such swap would completely undermine the no-deal rule, some 50,000 Israelis staged an angry protest march in downtown Tel Aviv. Some carried signs urging Peres not to free the detainees under any circumstances. Jerusalem is also enmeshed in a controversy over the legality under which the Shi'ite detainees were brought to Israel. Many nations, including the U.S., contend that Israel violated Article 49 of the Geneva Convention of 1949, which prohibits "forcible transfers . . . from occupied territory" of civilian prisoners. Israeli officials retort that the same article allows for the transfer of civilians outside occupied zones if "for material reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement." Whether or not Jerusalem can make a case for meeting that condition, the convention stipulates that detainees must be returned to their homes "as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased." Israel would seem to have acknowledged that that has happened: some 500 of the 1,200 prisoners it brought across the border were released before the hostage crisis.

The growing delicacy of the issue provoked some testiness in both Washington and Jerusalem. The White House was particularly irked at Israel's initial offer to consider releasing the captives if Reagan made such a request. "That was a very dumb signal," said one Administration official. "It confirmed what the Arabs have already begun to think about the Israelis since the prisoner exchange," he added, referring to the perception of lowered resolve in Jerusalem created by last month's one-sided deal. For his part, Rabin at one point publicly complained of Washington's "unofficial pressure designed to make us volunteer" to release the prisoners. Israel was evidently prepared to make concessions, as it demonstrated Sunday by announcing the release of Lebanese prisoners, but only if such moves could be justified as part of a standing policy and not the result of pressure from the U.S., the Arabs or anyone else.