Israel's Homegrown Terrorists

By Paul Findley

With the end of the period of mourning for the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the shady side of life in Israel received some needed sunlight.

News reports provide clear evidence of both Jewish Israeli terrorism and Jewish Israeli duplicity, character flaws the media in the past has seemed always to find endemic among Arabs and Muslims but almost never present among Jewish Israelis.

The new generation in Israel seems dumbfounded that a Jew could commit such a terrible act. Over network TV a young Israeli woman, probably in her early twenties, lamented, "I never believed it could happen here in Israel. Maybe in America, but never here." She pondered the awful reality that a Jewish Israeli, Yigal Amir—a law student of all things—had taken the law into his own hands and shot the prime minister.

The killing of a prominent political leader by a Jewish conspiracy may have no parallel in American political life since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, clearly was the main actor in a deadly conspiracy. The murders of other prominent American leaders—like the Kennedy brothers, John F. and Robert F., and Martin Luther King, Jr.—continue to carry the odor of conspiracy, but facts remain unclear.

Amir was not alone. He was a part of a team. The awful deed was the work of a conspiracy. After the assassination it has become increasingly clear that the assault on Rabin was not the independent, isolated act of a deranged, psychotic man, although that had been the immediate assessment of Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu and most of the media.

The police search of Amir's home turned up an arsenal, NBC television reports, that "would make any terrorist group proud."

A flip of the television dial and the words "Jewish terrorists" are heard on the Public Broadcasting Service's network NewsHour to describe Israelis charged with being implicated in the assassination.

The young woman and her friends agonized over what had exploded the image of Israel as a center of tolerance, democracy, decency and high ideals. "How could a Jew murder another Jew?" asked a college student.

On the same broadcast came a shocking revelation of another flaw in the Israeli character, duplicity on a grand scale, the unlawful and harmful sellout to the world's largest and most powerful Communist regime of the highest security interests of the U.S. government.

Israel violated a solemn agreement with the U.S. government.

NBC reported fully documented evidence that the government of Israel had sold to the People's Republic of China the most closely guarded secrets of fighter aircraft technology for an estimated price of $5 billion. The Chinese regime plans to use the technology in producing more than 200 fighters beginning in the near future. Intelligence experts say the technology will put China's fighter aircraft on a par with the latest and most advanced U.S. fighters. One feature of the technology enables fighter aircraft to evade most radar.

Intelligence experts are not sure how much China paid Israel for the technology. One expert said the fee is very significant, probably $5 billion and perhaps twice that much. The transfer began about 10 years ago when the Lavi, a project of enormous cost to the U.S. taxpayer, was finally scrapped.

An Extravagant Waste

The Lavi project is one of the most extravagant and wasteful deals the U.S. government carried out with Israel. The aircraft had no value whatever to U.S. defense needs and was built strictly for Israeli purposes, but the U.S. Treasury financed 90 percent of its total $1.5 billion price tag.

Israel turned the U.S. $1.5 billion boondoggle into a bonanza of at least $5 billion for its own coffers, and in the process bit hard the American hand that has been feeding Israel so generously for 40 years. The stolen technology will give China a decided edge over nearby Russia. It will also complicate America's long-standing mission to protect the security of South Korea and Japan.

Confronted recently about the secret and unlawful sale to China, the late Prime Minister Rabin answered limply: "I believe we can explain that."

Even though Yitzhak Shamir, leader of the Likud party, was prime minister when the duplicity began, Rabin could hardly claim innocence. He served Shamir as defense minister while the technology transfer was underway. As former chief of staff of Israeli military services and thoroughly experienced in Israel's intelligence activity, Rabin would almost certainly have been aware of the project.

In selling the technology to China, Israel violated a solemn agreement with the U.S. government. The United States gave the secret technology to Israel during its costly and ill-fated plan to produce a new fighter named the Lavi. It was donated under severe restrictions. The technology could be used only on the Lavi project and under no circumstances transferred to another government.

Midway in the ill-fated Lavi project, U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall offered an amendment to eliminate $250 million in funding, arguing that U.S. financing made no sense. If successful, the Lavi would be a direct competitor to the U.S. aircraft industry and take jobs from American workers. Rahall received the support of 39 other congressmen but that constituted less than ten percent of those voting. In a telling demonstration of the efficiency of the U.S. lobby for Israeli interests, those who voted for the Rahall amendment were thoroughly hassled by pro-Israel constituents.

The Lavi affair is not the first time Israel has sold secret U.S. technology to a potentially unfriendly power. Shamir transferred secret data to the Soviet Union that naval intelligence employee Jonathan Pollard, Israel's paid spy, had stolen from U.S. Defense Department files. Shamir made the transfer in an attempt to persuade the Soviet Union to release more Soviet Jews to Israel.

When Pollard was caught red-handed and put in jail, the state of Israel claimed it was a "rogue operation," unknown to officials at the cabinet level. Investigation showed that defense, military and other senior officials were fully informed. Pollard had two official Israeli handlers, and although promising full cooperation in the prosecution of the case, the Israeli government refused to order the extradition of either handler. Both were subsequently promoted—not punished. The Israeli government provided $200,000 toward legal costs encountered by Pollard and his wife.

The post-assassination drama in Israel is still unfolding and may produce a strong tide of support for conciliation with the Palestinians. Opinion polls show a 20 percent increase in support for the peace process.

This may reflect in part the stinging charges levelled against the Likud Party led by Netanyahu by Rabin's widow, Leah. Mrs. Rabin placed heavy blame for her husband's death on the Likud leader for failing to stop his followers from charging Rabin with being a "murderer," "traitor," and "Nazi." She said his harsh attacks had created an atmosphere conducive to violence.

When Netanyahu, along with colleagues, arrived at funeral rites to offer condolences, Mrs. Rabin said she found it very difficult to receive her husband's harsh critic with the customary handshake.

Perhaps the assassination, awful as it was, will spur the peace process. My estimate is that Israelis are now more hostile to Jewish settlements in the occupied territories than ever before.

Winston Churchill once warned that a new Stone Age may be ushered in on the "gleaming wings of science." Perhaps senseless barbarity will spur the delivery of justice in the Mideast.

Former Rep. Paul Findley (R-IL) is chairman of the Council for the National Interest.