Unequal Sentences for "Terror"

By David C. Walsh

Question: When is a terrorist not a terrorist, and when is an act of terror not an act of terror? Answer: When an Israeli citizen attempts to detonate an explosive device in the visitor's gallery of the US Capitol building.

On October 18, 1983, Israel Rubinowitz was arrested by US Capitol police after he began shouting in Hebrew from the Capitol building's visitor's gallery directly above the floor, and then attempted to detonate electronically several bottles of flammable liquid strapped around his waist. Capitol police officers who subdued him discovered that in addition to flammable liquid, the bottles contained gunpowder, metal, glass, and rock fragments. Had Rubinowitz succeeded in detonating the device, Capitol police estimated, he would have created a fireball 10 feet in diameter and killed or injured anyone nearby. Police declined to estimate how much physical damage the device would have caused to the Capitol building.

Two months later, in December 1983, Rubinowitz pleaded guilty to one count of "threats...to damage property." He was fined $500, and received a six-month prison sentence, which was suspended, and five years' unsupervised probation. He then was deported to Israel. There was no press coverage of Rubinowitz's sentencing nor of his quiet exit from the United States.

Contrast Rubinowitz's treatment with that accorded an American citizen, "Trim" Bissell, who was accused of a similar crime. In late June of this year, the media widely reported the capture of Bissell, heir to a vacuum cleaner fortune and a 1960s anti-Vietnam war activist. Bissell was tried and sentenced to two years in prison for placing what local police termed an "unregistered destructive device" at the University of Washington's ROTC building in 1970.

For the 17 years between his commission of the crime and his arrest, while living a fearful life "on the lam," Bissell had avoided any further trouble with the law. It might therefore be said that Bissell had already paid a penalty for his crime, and demonstrated that he was no longer a threat to a society that had long since put the divisive Vietnam war behind it. But his sentence was considerably more severe than that meted out to Rubinowitz.

Much has been written concerning Israel's awesome ability to suppress information in the United States it considers negative or embarrassing to itself. Newspaper editors who "spike" stories for fear of the "anti-Semite" label, politicians who ignore Israeli misbehavior to help assure themselves re-election, and textbook publishers who display great fondness for and interest in four million Israelis but little of either for 150 million Arabs—all play an important role in skewing American views.

In fact, one FBI agent inadvertently showed the degree to which ordinary Americans perceive Israel and Israelis as eternal "good guys," and hence incapable of doing wrong. Asked if the Rubinowitz incident had been placed in the FBI file on "domestic terrorism," the agent responded that Rubinowitz's was not a terrorist act. When asked if an attempt to damage the US Capitol building and maim or kill visitors did not constitute an act of terrorism, the agent replied that it did not, since the FBI had determined that the bomb was inoperable. (Capitol police, however, refuted this claim by taking the bomb to Fort Belvoir in Virginia and actually igniting it.) According to FBI Washington field office spokesman Gary Shepard, the FBI did not notify the press about the incident because it had determined that Rubinowitz's act was not "terrorist" in nature.

There is little doubt, however, that if the "Capitol bomber" had been a Muslim or an Arab of any nationality, or even an American like Bissell, his attempt to bomb the US Capitol, as well as his arrest, conviction, and sentencing, would have been page one news over an extended period. The Congressional Record would have been weighty with oratory about "Middle Eastern terrorism lapping at our shores." Instead the Congressional Record did not indicate even parenthetically that anyone had attempted to detonate a bomb in the visitor's gallery. Nor were "terrorism experts" Joseph Churba, Michael Ledeen, Claire Sterling, or Benjamin Netanyahu asked to comment about Rubinowitz, as they might have been had the bomber been an Arab or an Iranian.

In the case of Israeli citizen Rubinowitz, however, Congressman reacted according to an eternal verity of American political life: "Don't criticize anything involving Israel unless you're prepared to take on its entire well-heeled American establishment at re-election time." The Washington Post covered the incident with two paragraphs. When recently asked about the short shrift given to the story, the Post's star investigative reporter and assistant managing editor, Bob Woodward, said he couldn't remember much about Rubinowitz's attempt to blow up the Capitol building. Newsweek magazine gave the Rubinowitz story one sentence. The rest of the country heard little or nothing about it. Clearly American lawmakers, and the press corps which covers them, would rather risk having the Capitol dome itself crash down on their heads than face the consequences of embarrassing the country that, with their combined acquiescence, has become the "teflon state" of the Middle East.

David C. Walsh is a Washington, DC-based journalist specializing in Middle East Affairs.