COMBATING INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807680002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 3, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: July 10, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807680002-4
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By C. Robert Zelnick
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE . SITOR
10 July 1985
Combating international terrorism
I T is not purely a function of Western incompetence
that policy responses to international terrorist
incidents occur on an ad hoc basis. While as old as
recorded history, terrorism defies neat categorization.
and there exist no pat formulas for successfully dealing
with each incident.
A terrorist act can be committed by a single fanatical
individual or by a tightly organized movement or group
in the service of a state. The terrorist may be the faithful
agent of his master or he may be off on a frolic of his own.
Friendly powers, even the United States, have subsidized
terrorism. The same Americans who today condemn
Iranian or Lebanese Shiite terror may years ago have
contributed to the Irgun or Stern gang oz more recently,
helped purchase IRA arms or honored an IRA-front
marshal at New York City's St. Patrick's Day parade.
On a given occasion, retaliating against the parent
state or organization may represent an effective response
to terrorist provocation. More often, such responses in-
vite unwanted escalation or are subordinate to more ur-
gent priorities.
What is terrorism? Tel Aviv
University's Jaffee Center for
Strategic Studies - a scholarly
source of material on the subject
- defines it as "any violent activ-
ity conducted by a non-state orga-
nization to attain political objec-
tives." But the center cautions
that the definition must exclude
"incidents that form part of a vio-
lent struggle conducted by rebels
against a foreign army."
The recent TWA hijacking sat-
isfies all terrorism criteria, while
the Shiite car bomb attacks
against the Marine barracks in
Beirut or Israeli military targets in
south Lebanon fall outside the
definition.
The Soviet Union has provided assistance to the Pal-
estine Liberation Organization and other groups resort-
ing to terrorist activity, though for the most part such or-
ganizations maintain their own political agendas.
Libya and Iran have directed a large number of terror-
ist incidents, most involving assassinations of regime op-
ponents residing abroad, and have also supported orga-
nizations engaged in terrorism.
Syria has done the same, the evidence also suggesting
involvement by Damascus in two noteworthy political
murders, the 1982 killing of Lebanese President-elect
Bashir Gemayel and the 1984 Amman slaying of the
moderate PLO leader Fahad Kawasmeh.
Neither American nor Israeli clients have proved im-
mune to the lure of terrorism. Afghanistan's rebels,
Angola's UNITA movement. Lebanon's Christian mili-
tias, and the "contras" of Nicaragua have at times struck
targets unrelated to any foreign presence on their soil. N
honest tale of CIA-backed covert operations could ex-
%de a fair number of violent activities desianed to
achieve political objectives.
suggest no moral equivalency between groups whose
values are rooted in Western concepts of freedom and due
process and those serving totalitarian masters. simply
that when we call piously for a war on terrorism we are in
fact referring only to that form to which Western interests
and institutions are uniquely vulnerable - the relatively
soft target with the big propaganda payoff.
The recently concluded 17-day TWA episode saw no
shortage of theories for dealing with this problem. Some
were prepared at the outset to sacrifice the lives of the
American hostages in order to strike back at an enemy
that has yet to be defined with even reasonable precision.
Others counseled severe after-the-fact retaliation, while
many Israelis and their American admirers urged - with
a smugness belied by experience - that only Israel's
method of treating terrorism as an act of war, to be re-
sponded to in kind, can truly work.
Let us look more closely at Israel's experience with the
PLO, an enemy with a known mailing address and
clearly defined political objective - the establishment of
a Palestinian state.
Some of what Israel did worked. PLO {eaders in Bei-
rut and elsewhere were often successfully singled out for
elimination. Far more important, skillful Israeli propa-
ganda turned the PLO's use of terrorism into its greatest
political liability, disqualifying the organization from di-
rect contact with either Israel or the US.
But in 'tnany ways, Israeli tactics proved unsustain-
able, if not disastrous. The policy of never negotiating
with terrorists, which cost so many civilian lives, eroded
over the years into one-sided prisoner swaps with the
most extreme organizations. Wholesale attacks against
PLO bases in Lebanon produced large numbers of inno-
cent fatalities, blackening Israel's international standing
while having only a marginal effect on PLO activities.
Despite such efforts, the Israelis found it necessary to
conduct the massive Litani sweep operation of 1978 and
the Lebanon invasion of 1982. The former had only tem-
porary effect, the latter destroyed the PLO operational
base in south Lebanon, at a cost most Israelis deem
wildly excessive.
The Palestinian problem, of course, has not gone
away, still begging for the "land for peace" solution to
which rational minds have long been drawn.
What about hitting at those who sponsor terrorism?
Fine in principle, if the. retali-
ation can be performed swiftly,
with precision, and in a way that
does not sacrifice larger interests.
Again, take the TWA incident.
The perpetrators remain a mys-
tery. Amal could be indicted at
least as an accessory after the fact.
But it is in neither the US nor the
Israeli interests to jeopardize the
position of Amal, which is today
the strongest and most moderate
of the Shiite factions and a key to
stability in south Lebanon.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807680002-4
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807680002-4
Retaliating against Syria -
praised by President Reagan for
its role in ending the crisis -
would under the circumstances be
perverse. One wonders too
whether it is in the US interests
for this type of incident to provoke a battlefield test of
US aircraft vs. Soviet missiledefense systems or an esca-
lating cycle of action and retaliation wherein Syrian mili-
tary targets and US travelers abroad are both put at risk.
Absent special circumstances affording a military tar-
get of opportunity, the best ways to improve resistance to
anti-Western terrorism would appear to lie in two areas:
? Prevention - a coordinated international effort to
identify and apprehend international terrorists and to
provide better security for potential targets.
? Minimize the political payoffs for the terrorists, in-
cluding media exposure for their cause.
Leadership in this second area must begin with the
president of the United States. Americans must be made
to realize at the outset of a crisis that America is not held
hostage simply because a planeload of passengers or an
embassy is seized.
Citizens should be told that a carnival of grief and
concern only plays into the hands of the terrorists.
Leading representatives of the mass media should be
invited to the White House on the first day of the crisis,
told that they are an inseparable part of the event itself,
and requested in the national interest to curb their zest
for competitive advantage. Particularly out of bounds
should be any reporting on possible military operations
designed to rescue the hostages. The media should also
be wary of providing a propaganda forum for the terror-
ists and their apologists.
The president himself must set an example of reserve
and discretion. He cannot expect restraint on the part of
the media if he himself uses the occasion to launch a
reelection bid or render tub-thumping oratory before
mesmerized audiences.
Those who resort to terror should know that while tac-
tical negotiations may from time to time be conducted,
fundamental American policy will never sway under
threat of the grenade or the gun.
Terrorism can never be eliminated. With sound man-
agement both before and during crises, its political ef-
fects can be rendered negligible.
C. Robert Zelnick is the ABC News chief corre-
spondent in Tel Aviv.
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/03: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807680002-4