Israel Threat to an Uneasy Peace

By William E. Smith

Even as Israel's quarrelsome leaders worked out the details of an unprecedented agreement that brings Yitzhak Shamir to power as Prime Minister this week, the country was suddenly caught up in a looming military crisis. After Israeli air and naval forces attacked Palestinian positions near the Lebanese coastal city of Sidon in retaliation for a terrorist attack near Jerusalem's Western Wall, an Israeli pilot was captured by the Shi'ite Amal militia. At week's end, as Israeli troop strength was beefed up on the Lebanese border, the fragile national unity government in Jerusalem hastily closed ranks and angrily demanded the captive flyer's return. "We must remain alert," declared Shamir. "There must be no wavering."

Two pilots on board an Israeli F-4 Phantom fighter were forced to parachute when the jet was hit by an antiaircraft missile during the assault on bases of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Four people on the ground were killed and twelve were wounded in the attack, the 13th on guerrilla positions in Lebanon this year. But it was the first time since November 1983 that an Israeli plane had been destroyed by enemy fire. One pilot hid in the brush for an hour, activating an electronic device that enabled a rescue helicopter to determine his position. Despite heavy gunfire and difficult terrain, a Cobra helicopter gunship plucked the stranded pilot to safety and flew him 40 miles to the Israeli side of the border.

The second flyer was not so lucky. He was captured almost immediately by an Amal militiaman, Rafiq Ibrahim, 19. "I jumped out of the bush and ordered him to stick his hands up," Ibrahim later reported. "He raised only one arm, so I shouted at him and gestured by my M-16 rifle for him to raise his other hand. His right arm was broken." Amal officials, who have quietly aided Israel by harassing Palestinian fighters in southern Lebanon, were at first reluctant to admit to the capture, lest it lead to an Israeli rescue operation. They later said the pilot had been taken to Beirut.

Israeli authorities quickly warned Amal against turning the pilot over to Syrian forces in Lebanon. Amal Leader Nabih Berri, who had helped arrange the release of the 39 TWA hostages in June 1985, was expected to use the captured pilot as a bargaining chip in his efforts to free some 250 Lebanese and Palestinian guerrillas believed held in a jail near the border by the Israeli- backed South Lebanon Army. In Tel Aviv, the Israeli army's chief spokesman, Brigadier General Ephraim Lapid, delcared, "We will not rest until we have recovered the missing man." The events in Lebanon almost overshadowed the bloody terrorist attack in Jerusalem scarcely one day earlier. Some 300 young recruits of the army's Givati Brigade had just been sworn in at Judaism's holiest site, the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall, in the Old City. As the ceremony ended, the soldiers marched through the nearby Dung Gate, one of the eight portals of the walled city, to a parking lot where they were to board buses for the trip back to the barracks. At about 8:15 p.m., two assailants quietly got out of a car and, from a ramp overlooking the parking lot, hurled two hand grenades down on the soldiers and their families. Amid screams and shattering glass, the 46-year- old father of one soldier was killed, and 69 were injured. Five Palestinian organizations claimed responsibility for the attack, including P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat's Al Fatah.

The terrorist explosion and the military action in Lebanon undoubtedly played a part in settling the last-minute quarrel between the partners in Israel's national unity government. According to their rotation plan, Labor Party Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Shamir, head of the Likud bloc, were scheduled to switch jobs last Tuesday. Indeed, Peres, who has led the country for the past 25 months, had submitted his resignation the previous week to President Chaim Herzog, and Shamir was poised to be sworn in for the next 25 months, until new elections scheduled for November 1988. At the last moment, however, a dispute broke out that threatened to topple the coalition government.

At the center of the crisis was Yitzhak Moda'i, a volatile Likud leader whom Peres had forced to resign as Justice Minister last July. Moda'i had attacked Peres, saying the Prime Minister is "as untutored about law as he is about economics." But last week Shamir decided he wanted Moda'i in his Cabinet. Peres balked. As the new Foreign Minister, Peres was determined that he should be permitted to name a close aide as the new Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. This time Shamir balked.

At week's end, with more perilous matters facing the country, Peres and Shamir agreed that Moda'i would rejoin the Cabinet but only as a Minister Without Portfolio. Shamir conceded to Peres the power to nominate the new U.S. Ambassador, but reserved for himself the right of veto. To be sure, a new fracas could break out at any time within the fragile ruling coalition. But for the moment, the way was cleared at last for the rotation to take place this week.

With reporting by Scott MacLeod/Cairo and Robert Slater/Jerusalem