The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict

by Mitchell G. Bard, Ph. D.

  * * *

  Mysteries of the Desert

  After the September 1970 hijackings, shocked U.S. congressmen called for immediate and forceful action by the United States and the international community. They insisted on quick adoption of measures aimed at preventing air piracy, punishing the perpetrators, and recognizing the responsibility of nations that harbor them. The same sentiments would be expressed three decades later after September 11.

  * * *

  An Olympic Bloodbath

  Many more terrorist attacks were launched in the early 1970s. At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, the full horror of terrorism was brought into millions of homes around the world as it was happening.

  The German government desperately wanted to put on a great show for the world and do what it could to erase the awful memories of the last Olympics held in the country—the 1936 Berlin games, which Adolf Hitler used as a propaganda tool to promote his image and ideas of Aryan superiority. Instead, those awful memories were not only resurrected, they were made worse by the nightmarish events of September 5, 1972.

  At 4:30 A.M., five Arab terrorists climbed the 6½-foot fence surrounding the Olympic Village. They were met by three more terrorists, who are presumed to have had credentials to enter the village.

  Israelis Killed, More Taken Hostage

  Just before 5:00 A.M., the Arabs knocked on the door of Israeli wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg. When Weinberg opened the door, he realized something was wrong and shouted a warning to his comrades. He and weightlifter Joseph Romano attempted to block the door while other Israelis escaped, but they were killed by the terrorists. The Arabs then succeeded in rounding up nine Israelis to hold as hostages.

  * * *

  Sage Sayings

  Incredibly, they’re going on with it…. It’s almost like having a dance at Dachau.

  —Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times, writing after Olympic officials decided not to cancel or postpone the Olympics

  * * *

  At 9:30 A.M., the terrorists announced that they were Palestinians. They demanded that Israel release 200 Arab prisoners and threatened to kill the athletes unless the terrorists were given safe passage out of Germany. Israel offered to assist the German police and send its own counterterror force to rescue the hostages, but the Germans wouldn’t allow them to help.

  After hours of tense negotiations, the Palestinians, who belonged to a PLO faction called Black September (named for the date of the war with Jordan in 1970), agreed to a plan in which they were to be taken by helicopter to the NATO air base at Firstenfeldbruck. There, they and their hostages would be flown to Cairo.

  The terrorists and their hostages were then taken by bus to the helicopters and flown to the airfield. In the course of the transfer, the Germans discovered that there were not five terrorists but eight, and they didn’t have enough marksmen to carry out the plan to kill the terrorists at the airport.

  A Fiasco

  After the helicopters landed at the airport around 10:30 P.M., the German sharpshooters attempted to kill the terrorists and a bloody firefight ensued. At 11:00 P.M., the media was mistakenly informed that the hostages had been saved, and the news was announced to a relieved Israeli public. Almost an hour later, however, new fighting broke out, and one of the helicopters holding the Israelis was blown up by a terrorist grenade. The remaining hostages in the second helicopter were shot to death by one of the surviving terrorists. Eleven Israeli athletes were murdered.

  Five of the terrorists were killed along with one German policeman, and three were captured. A little over a month later, on October 29, a Lufthansa jet was hijacked by terrorists demanding that the Munich killers be released. After the West German authorities freed the terrorists, the plane was released.

  An Israeli assassination squad was assigned to track down the Palestinian murderers, along with those responsible for planning the Olympic massacre. Eventually, 8 of the 11 men targeted for death were killed. Of the remaining three, one died of natural causes and the other two were assassinated, but it is not known for sure whether they were killed by Israeli agents.

  * * *

  Tut Tut!

  Just as there are Muslims willing to engage in violence for their religion, Israel has its share of Jewish fanatics. So far, most of them have confined themselves to hateful rhetoric, but the heinous crimes committed by Baruch Goldstein, who murdered Muslim worshipers in Hebron; Yigal Amir, who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin; and a militant settler organization that engaged in vigilante attacks on Arabs indicated to many Israelis that their society is growing dangerously polarized, and shockingly revealed that some Jews were prepared to go to any length to defend or perpetuate their interpretation of God’s will. The danger of Jews fighting Jews has grown more serious as a result of a segment of the population’s vitriolic opposition to the disengagement plan.

  * * *

  Redemption at Entebbe

  Although the Mossad did have success in tracking down the Munich killers, it was not something that could be publicized. Most of what the public witnessed was the seeming inability of Israel and other countries to prevent spectacular terrorist attacks. Then Israel struck back in a spectacular way of its own.

  On June 27, 1976, four terrorists commandeered an Air France plane and forced it to land in Uganda. The French crew and all non-Jewish passengers were freed, but 105 Jews were kept as hostages. The hijackers gave Israel 48 hours to release 53 convicted terrorists (actually, only 40 were in Israel; the rest were in 4 other countries) or they would execute their captives.

  Although Israel had maintained a strict policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists, the government believed that it had no choice but to consider the demands—at least to provide the military with time to develop an option. The talks succeeded in convincing the terrorists to extend the deadline. Meanwhile, a plan was devised to rescue the hostages, and a full-scale rehearsal was held for the defense minister. Prime Minister Rabin agreed with the minister’s recommendation to attempt a rescue.

  At 1:20 P.M. on July 3, two Boeing 707s and four huge C-130 Hercules planes carrying an elite counterterror squad left Israel for the nearly eight-hour flight to Africa. The first Hercules carried the rescue force, led by Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu. It also held two Jeeps and a black Mercedes that was identical to Ugandan dictator Idi Amin’s car. Two Hercules planes carried reinforcements and troops assigned to carry out special operations—one of which was to destroy Amin’s fleet of Soviet MiG fighter planes. The fourth Hercules was to evacuate the hostages. One 707 was equipped as a hospital and flew to Nairobi, Kenya; the other was used as a forward command post.

  The Hercules transports landed at the Ugandan airfield where the hostages were being kept in an airline terminal. The Mercedes drove toward the terminal as if it were Amin coming for a visit. Then, in a lightning attack, the soldiers rushed the terminal and freed the hostages. Within less than an hour, all the planes were on their way home. All the terrorists and three of the hostages were killed in the firefight. Netanyahu was also killed; he was shot as he led the hostages toward the safety of the aircraft. One elderly Israeli woman who had been sick and was taken to a Ugandan hospital before the rescue operation was later murdered by Ugandan soldiers.

  The spectacular success of the operation boosted Israel’s image internationally as a country that would do what was necessary to protect its citizens and fight terrorism. The performance of the troops also helped ease the memory of the October 1973 Yom Kippur War.

  The PLO Gets Political

  In 1974, the PLO made a conscious decision to alter its focus from the purely terrorist to one that would include political elements, necessary for any meaningful dialog. This created more unhappiness among some followers who felt that the PLO, although striking blows, was not truly finding its mark. This led to the creation of yet another splinter group, called the Rejectionist Front.

  * * *

  Sage Sayings

  I have come bearing a
n olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.

  —Yasser Arafat speaking at the United Nations in November 1974

  * * *

  Arafat deftly manipulated the organization from one perceived by the (Western) public as barbaric into one slowly being considered a movement with legitimate claims. This new tack was aided by the all-important recognition of the PLO by the United Nations, which gave the organization a foothold into the international body’s deliberations. Jordan’s claims to represent the Palestinians were then permanently undercut by the Arab League’s declaration at the Rabat Conference that the PLO was the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. This also enhanced the PLO’s standing as a political movement.

  While Arafat adopted an increasingly high-profile diplomatic pose, the PLO continued to employ terror against Israel, primarily from its new base in southern Lebanon. The escalating violence provoked repeated Israeli counterattacks in an effort to prevent the Palestinians from threatening Israelis in the north, but these were unsuccessful. Finally, in June 1982, Israel mounted a full-scale assault that escalated into the Lebanon war (see Chapter 19).

  Americans Meet the Terrorists in Lebanon

  When Israel forced the PLO out of Lebanon, U.S. troops entered as peacekeepers and soon found themselves targets of the competing factions. Muslim radicals were particularly incensed by what they viewed as imperialist intervention in their affairs and the fact that the Americans were clearly siding with the Israelis in the conflict with the Palestinians and, to a lesser extent, the Christians in the Lebanese civil strife.

  The principal opposition to the Americans came from Hizbollah, a radical Shiite group dedicated to increasing its political power in Lebanon and opposing Israel and the Middle East peace negotiations. The group is closely allied with Iran, which has used the terrorists to fight a proxy war against the United States and Israel. During the three years that American troops were in Lebanon, Hizbollah kidnapped and murdered a number of Americans. Their most heinous attacks were in April 1983, when a truck-bomb exploded in front of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 63 employees and in October 1983, when a truck-bomb crashed into the lobby of the U.S. Marines headquarters in Beirut, killing 241 soldiers and wounding 81. The second attack prompted President Reagan to withdraw the U.S. “peacekeepers.”

  Although Hizbollah claimed that it was only interested in driving the Americans out of Lebanon, the group continued to mount terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens even after the last American marines departed in February 1984:

  April 1984. A restaurant near a U.S. Air Force base in Spain was bombed, killing 18 servicemen and wounding 83 people.

  September 1984. A suicide bomb attack on the U.S. embassy in east Beirut killed 23 people and injured 21.

  December 1984. Terrorists hijacked a Kuwait Airlines plane and demanded the release from Kuwaiti jails of members of a group of Shiite extremists serving sentences for attacks on French and American targets on Kuwaiti territory. The terrorists forced the pilot to fly to Tehran where the terrorists murdered two American passengers.

  June 1985. A TWA flight was hijacked, and the pilot was forced to fly to Beirut. Terrorists asked for the release of its comrades held in Israeli and South Lebanese prisons. The plane was held for 17 days, during which 1 of the hostages, Robert Stethem, a U.S. Navy diver, was murdered.

  September 1986. Hizbollah kidnapped Frank Reed, director of the American University in Beirut, whom they accused of being “a CIA agent.” He was released 44 months later. Three days after Reed’s abduction, Joseph Cicippio, the acting comptroller at the university, was kidnapped. He was released five years later.

  October 1986. Hizbollah kidnapped Edward A. Tracy, an American citizen in Beirut. He was released five years later.

  February 1988. Colonel William Higgins, the American chief of the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization, was abducted by Hizbollah. The kidnapers demanded the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon and the release of all Palestinian and Lebanese held prisoners in Israel. The U.S. government refused to answer the request. Hizbollah later claimed they killed Higgins.

  By the end of the 1980s, few Americans dared travel to Lebanon. Hizbollah’s direct attacks on Americans ended after the murder of Higgins. None of the perpetrators of these crimes were ever brought to justice.

  Peace Goes Overboard

  The PLO may have been evicted from Lebanon, but that didn’t stop it from perpetrating terrorist outrages elsewhere. Perhaps in an attempt to reconcile with these dissenters, Yasser Arafat decided to provide support for the hijacking of a major cruise ship.

  On October 7, 1985, one of the PLO’s factions, the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), seized the civilian cruise liner Achille Lauro and took the entire ship hostage. The hijackers demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Egyptian president Mubarak persuaded the hijackers to surrender, but not before they shot to death a wheelchair-bound Jewish passenger from the United States named Leon Klinghoffer and dumped his body overboard.

  Mubarak allowed the PLF leader, Mohammed Abbas, and the other terrorists to fly to their headquarters in Tunisia. Ronald Reagan sent U.S. warplanes to intercept the flight, however, and forced it to land at a U.S.–Italian air base in Sicily. The United States and Italy fought over jurisdiction in the case, but the Italians refused to extradite any of the men. Inexplicably, Abbas was allowed to go to Yugoslavia. An Italian court convicted 11 of 15 hijackers; Abbas and another terrorist were tried in absentia and found guilty. Abbas was sentenced to life in prison.

  * * *

  Mysteries of the Desert

  Abbas spent most of the years after the hijacking in Tunisia before moving to the Gaza Strip in April 1996, after the Palestinian Authority took control of the area as part of the peace agreement with Israel. Abbas said he was sorry for the hijacking, but the daughters of Leon Klinghoffer said that Abbas had been convicted of murder and should serve his sentence. Abbas was captured by U.S. forces in a raid in Iraq on April 15, 2003. He died on March 9, 2004, at the age of 56 in U.S. custody in Iraq.

  * * *

  Pan Am 103

  While Palestinian and Lebanese terrorists grabbed most of the headlines, a number of other terrorist groups were active with the backing of several Middle Eastern states, most notably Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Libya also was a sponsor of terrorist attacks as Muammar Qaddafi sought to win support in the Arab world as a champion of the Palestinian cause.

  In April 1986, after the United States determined that Libya had directed the terrorist bombing of a West Berlin discotheque that killed one American and injured 200 others, it launched a raid on a series of Libyan targets, including President Qaddafi’s home. This was widely viewed as an assassination attempt. Qaddafi escaped, but his infant daughter was killed and two of his other children were wounded.

  On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 departing from Frankfurt to New York was blown up in mid-air, killing all 259 passengers and another 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland. Two Libyan agents were found responsible for planting a sophisticated suitcase bomb onboard the plane, and arrest warrants were issued for Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima and Abdel Baset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi.

  It took seven years of pressure to get Libya to hand over the suspects to stand trial. A series of UN sanctions were imposed against Libya, including the freezing of assets, but they had no effect. Finally, in 1998, pressure from the Arab League and mediation by UN secretary general Kofi Annan and Nelson Mandela persuaded Qaddafi to hand over the two suspects, but only if their trial was held in a neutral country and presided over by a Scottish judge. Al-Megrahi and Fahima were finally extradited and tried in the Netherlands. Megrahi was found guilty in 2001 and jailed for life; Fahima was acquitted because of a lack of evidence of his involvement. After the extradition, UN sanctions against Libya were suspended, but not lifted.

  Finally, in August 2003, the Libyan government notified t
he UN Security Council that it accepted responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, confirmed that it would compensate the families of the victims (a total of up to $2.7 billion or $10 million for each victim), and renounced terrorism. The Security Council then voted to permanently lift sanctions.

  The PLO Goes Legit, Sort Of

  The Palestinians, meanwhile, had long ago abandoned attacks on airliners and were now trying to pursue their objectives by other means. By 1988, Arafat had taken the diplomatic road one step further when he not only announced the right of the state of Israel to exist but also renounced PLO terrorism, thereby fulfilling U.S. conditions for establishing a U.S.–PLO dialogue for the first time. The perceived commitment to these ideals caused Israel to finally agree to serious talks with the PLO. On September 9, 1993, in letters to Israeli prime minister Rabin and Norwegian foreign minister Holst, PLO Chairman Arafat committed the PLO to cease all violence and terrorism.

  * * *

  Ask the Sphinx

  Two groups under the PLO umbrella, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Hawatmeh faction (DFLP-H), suspended their participation in the PLO after Arafat made his commitment to end terror and continued their campaign of violence.

  * * *

  Despite Arafat’s pledges, the violence continued throughout the end of the decade, with more than 100 Israelis being killed and 1,000 injured in terrorist attacks. After the failure of the Camp David summit in 2000, the level of violence escalated exponentially, and over the next 4 years more than 1,000 Israelis were killed and more than 7,000 were injured in shootings, ambushes, suicide bombings, and other terrorist attacks.