MIDDLE EAST: Israel's New War

Israel last week declared a new war on the Arabs. It will be fought on a "farflung, dangerous and vital front line," Premier Golda Meir grimly told the Knesset, "with all the assiduity and skill of which our people are capable." Thus last week, in the aftermath of the Munich murders, the Israeli government vowed to carry the war of terrorism back to the Arabs—guerrillas and host countries alike—and to strike at times and places of Israel's own choosing.

The Israeli air force had already exacted a savage revenge for the murders, sweeping over Lebanon and Syria in ten raids on suspected guerrilla hideouts including the Syrian village of Al Hammeh and killing around 200 people, most of them civilians. Now, as defense officials explained after the Premier's speech, Israel intends systematically to attack the fedayeen and installations in the countries that harbor them. For instance, Israeli planes may attack not only guerrilla headquarters and training camps if they find them in Syria, Iraq, Libya or Egypt, but facilities belonging to the host country as well. At week's end an Israeli armored force, supported by jets, attacked several villages in southern Lebanon.

Israel may also adopt some of the terrorists' own methods, taking the initiative against guerrilla cells in Europe and elsewhere. It is a form of warfare that is hardly new to Israelis. In the early 1950s, a special commando unit known as "101" carried out bloody raids into Egypt and Jordan. Israeli agents have also been sent abroad to kill Arab intelligence men, kidnap former Nazis such as Adolf Eichmann, and in 1962-63 to assassinate German rocket engineers working for Egypt.

One casualty of the new war may be Israel's longstanding aversion to the death penalty. That policy served the country well when fedayeen crossed over from Jordan or Lebanon; once cornered, they usually surrendered, knowing that the worst that could happen to them would be life imprisonment. Now several members of the Knesset suggested that fedayeen should be sentenced to death, then held indefinitely in case of another Munich. If terrorists killed Jewish hostages, the Arab prisoners would be summarily executed.

Israel's Arab neighbors waited for the offensive with mixed apprehension and truculence. The Palestinian commandos took Mrs. Meir's speech as a challenge and warned that they would fight back; at week's end two Israeli soldiers were killed on the slopes of Mt. Hermon by guerrillas who had infiltrated over the border from Lebanon. Israeli troops also discovered mines laid near the Syrian border and reported they had traced guerrilla tracks back into Syria. In Damascus, the Syrian government openly admitted that it has been urging the fedayeen to action since the Israeli air raids on Syria two weeks ago. Said a government source: "We are even reproaching the commandos for not being more active against Israel."