POW Swap Sparks Israeli Political Furor : Likud Bloc Seeks Pardon for Jews Who Killed West Bank Arabs

JERUSALEM —  The release of more than 1,000 convicted Arab terrorists in exchange for three Israeli prisoners of war developed into a political crisis here Tuesday as members of the coalition government debated whether Jews convicted of similar crimes should also be freed.

Leaders of the right-wing Likud bloc in the national unity government tentatively agreed on a resolution calling for the pardon of members of the Jewish Underground terrorist group now serving jail sentences for killing Arabs in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan River. It could not be determined how many people are serving such sentences.

Meanwhile, the Labor alignment’s leaders, led by Prime Minister Shimon Peres, voted against seeking dismissal of charges against 27 other Jewish Underground members now being tried for killing West Bank Arabs.

However, apparently reflecting mounting and widespread public apprehension over the release Monday of the Arab terrorists, the Labor alignment leaders declined to go beyond saying that they oppose any interference in the trials. They did not take a position on whether the defendants should be pardoned if convicted.

Members of both Likud and Labor belong to the Cabinet under an arrangement that calls for rotating the prime minister’s office and other key ministries between the parties. But if differences over the prisoner exchange are not resolved, the agreement would be endangered.

While the political crisis broadened, opponents of the prisoner exchange, which included releasing more than 100 Palestinians convicted of murder into Israel and its occupied territories, began demonstrating against the government’s action, sometimes violently.

In the overwhelmingly Arab West Bank city of Hebron, where small groups of Jewish settlers have frequently battled Arabs, bands of Israelis attacked demonstrators celebrating the release of the prisoners.

Shouting “clear out the Arabs,” Rabbi Moshe Levinger, leader of the settlers in Hebron, fired a semiautomatic rifle in the air and led a mob that broke car windows and blocked a major Hebron road. Army troops finally restored order.

city and the home of many of the released Arabs, Jewish settlers blocked streets with burning trash and tires.

A loud but peaceful demonstration of several hundred people was held outside the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, to protest the exchange. The crowd heard Knesset member Eliezer Waldman charge the government with “yielding to the blackmail of terrorism.”

This charge was taken seriously by the government, which expressed concern that terrorists might take the agreement as a sign that they can ultimately get away with attacking Israel if they can capture hostages for later exchanges similar to the one Monday.

Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin told reporters Tuesday that such attempts will not be tolerated.

“I want to say that if the terrorist organizations think that in this way they will achieve their goals, I, at least, will propose to the government . . . that if a citizen or soldier is kidnaped in an effort to negotiate for the release of murderers, then all those who were freed in exchanges until now be arrested,” he said.

Rabin also defended the lopsided trade as carrying out the “supreme responsibility” of the government to do everything possible to obtain the return of all its troops.

But his warning to terrorist groups was not enough to satisfy leaders of the 45,000 Jewish settlers who have moved into the land that Israel captured in the 1967 and 1973 Israeli-Arab wars.

Eli Akem Haetzni, a key member of the Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea and Samaria, as Israel calls the occupied West Bank, said vigilante action is possible against any of the freed Arabs who resume terrorism.

“We are collecting the names, addresses and pictures of the murderers who are now among us in order to publish them in our settlements and also in the whole land of Israel . . . in order to defend ourselves,” he said.

If it were not enough that the government is facing internal discord, it also has a diplomatic incident on its hands.

In Tokyo, Japanese Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe criticized the release of Kozo Okamoto, a 37-year-old Japanese convicted in the 1972 massacre of tourists at the Lod Airport near Tel Aviv.