The Israeli Assessment

To the guerrillas' disadvantage, the bleak, rocky West Bank, where they target most of their operations, does not provide good cover, and the Israelis are a formidably efficient enemy. They claim to have killed or captured 2,650 fedayeen and tend to dismiss them as amateurs. "We cannot dignify them with the name guerrilla or commando," says an Israeli officer. "The Arabs who cross over show no daring. In that respect, they are nowhere near Viet Cong standards." The Israelis do respect Arafat, however. Their intelligence network has twice reported him on Israeli soil, and twice he escaped a dragnet. "Anyone who can do that has to be pretty shrewd," admits an Israeli intelligence officer grudgingly.

The newest Israeli countermeasure is an electronic barrier that stretches about 40 miles along the Jordan River Valley. The fence is a smaller version of the one that former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara once envisioned putting up in Viet Nam below the DMZ to prevent North Vietnamese infiltration. It consists of an outer line of 8-ft.-high barbed wire and an inner, 5-ft.-high line 10 yds. away. The space between is laced with mines. At irregular intervals along the fence are strung electronic sensing devices, which raise an alarm in adjacent guard posts when an infiltrator tries to cross. The guards in turn alert nearby army units, equipped to react quickly with helicopters and powerful searchlights.

There are signs that Israel's traditional response to commando activity, a retaliation raid in massive force, only serves to steel the will of the fedayeen and win them new allies among the Jordanian people. Last March, an armored column of more than 1,000 Israeli men punched across the Jordan River to destroy a guerrilla base at Karamah. They succeeded, but Karamah became the fedayeen Alamo. In the furious battle, as El Fatah recounts it, one youth strapped a bundle of TNT around his waist and jumped on an Israeli tank, blowing himself up with it. From the surrounding hills, the regular Jordanian army poured a withering fire on Israeli troops, who had to fight their way home, taking high casualties. Jordan's King Hussein went on television after the battle ended and declared, in words that have since been taken up as a rousing slogan throughout the Arab countries, "I think we may reach a position where we are all fedayeen."