Israeli opinion hardens

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33027, 21 September 1972, Page 15

Israeli opinion hardens

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

TEL AVIV, September 20.

Israeli public feeling appeared to be hardening today on the question of tough counter-measures against the Black September guerrilla organisation after the letter-bomb slaying of an Israeli attache at the Embassy in London.

The only official reaction so far to the killing of Dr Ami Shachori, the 40-year-old agricultural attache, was a brief statement by the For-

eign Minister (Mr Abba Eban), who said: “The shedders of innocent blood, their supporters, and those who aid them will meet their just deserts.”

But the unofficial reaction is for sterner action against the Black September and other Arab guerrilla organisations abroad.

Former senior Army officers now on the reserve said in interviews on Israel Radio yesterday that peaceful Arabs and Palestinians abroad should not be harmed. But members of the commando organisations in Europe and elsewhere should be sought out and action taken against them. The officers said they felt that Arab diplomats who supported and aided terror acts abroad should not be permitted to hide behind diplomatic immunity, but should also be unmasked and action taken against them. What this action could be was not specified. The militant Jewish Defence League (J.D.L.) appealed yesterday to Jews throughout the world to join it in an international antiterrorist organisation. The aim, it said, would be to use “eye for an eye tactics” against Arab guerrillas in Europe and the United States.

The league complained that the Israel Government not only opposed tts plans to harass and kidnap Arabs abroad and bring them back to Israel as hostages, but it even arrested one of the league’s members who tried to airfreight a case of arms to the United States for use against Arab diplomats and civilians in the United States.