Strains With U.S. Over Hijacking : Israelis Troubled in Aftermath of Crisis

JERUSALEM —  Beneath the glow of what they see as an unexpectedly benign end to the TWA hostage crisis, some Israeli officials are troubled about what they describe as a breakdown in communications with Washington that led to confusion between the two countries while the drama was taking place.

As these officials see it, the communications problems began almost immediately after the June 14 hijacking and peaked with the appearance on U.S. television five days later of an overtired and frustrated Israeli defense minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who said it was time for the Reagan Administration “to make up its mind” about what it wanted of Israel.

While some Israeli and American officials have blamed the news media for allegedly manufacturing a problem between the two allies, interviews with officials who were involved suggest otherwise. The problem arose at least in part because efforts by both governments to communicate with each other through the press backfired into a serious misunderstanding, they said.

By Thursday, the issue seemed to be little more than a faint undertow in a tide of mutual admiration heightened by July 4 festivities. The date marked both U.S. Independence Day and the 9th anniversary of Israel’s celebrated rescue of 105 hostages from a hijacked Air France airbus at the Entebbe airport in Uganda.

Entebbe Recalled

In an Independence Day letter to President Reagan made public here, Prime Minister Shimon Peres said that Israelis joined him in a sigh of relief at the safe return of the TWA hostages, just as nine years earlier “Americans joined us in a sigh of relief on the release” of the Entebbe victims.

“Both incidents testify to the unity of purpose and common resolve of both our countries to stand firm against terrorism,” Peres wrote.

Peres and other top Israeli leaders attended a festive Independence Day reception at the U.S. ambassador’s beachside residence in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv.

On Wednesday, President Reagan wrote Peres, assuring him that “the ties between Israel and the U.S. have been strengthened by the ordeal” of the hijacking and thanked Peres for Israel’s assistance and cooperation.

While Israeli officials agreed that the two countries effectively closed ranks in the end, some warned of the danger of similar incidents occurring in the future and emphasized the need to learn from the mistakes, as well as the successes, of the TWA incident.

“What was missing right from that first Sunday (after the June 14 hijacking) was direct communication,” said Moshe Arens, a minister without portfolio in the national unity government and member of the so-called Inner Cabinet.

Given the nature of the involvement of both governments in the hijacking--the United States because it was an American airplane and American passengers held hostage and Israel because the hijackers demanded freedom for 766 Lebanese prisoners it then held--it was essential that there be “very close coordination and cooperation between the United States and Israel,” Arens said.

“To my mind,” he went on, “that means face-to-face contact at as high a level as possible.”

But it was not until Peres telephoned Secretary of State George P. Shultz a week after the hijacking began that there was personal, high-level contact between the two governments on the hijacking, according to Israeli officials. Before that, communications were handled between Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.

Lewis’ Absence Felt

Some Israeli officials say that the absence of longtime U.S. Ambassador Samuel W. Lewis complicated the situation. Lewis, who developed extraordinary rapport with a wide range of Israeli officials in his eight years as ambassador, left the post in early June. His replacement, Thomas R. Pickering, the former ambassador to El Salvador, has not yet arrived.

Arens, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, said that embassies are not good enough channels in such a crisis. And he suggested that the two nations might want to “institutionalize” some new form of coordinating their activities in a terrorist situation.

He refused to elaborate on how such a system might work, but he did say that it should involve representatives “either sitting in the same room or capable of getting into the same room in short order.”

Signals Through Media

In the absence of direct, high-level contacts, both sides used the press. On Sunday, June 16, the third night of the hijacking drama, Israeli officials were frustrated enough by what they perceived to be a lack of clear direction in Washington that a senior government source called the Jerusalem correspondents of selected major American news organizations with “guidance” about Israel’s position. The source now concedes that the purpose was not to help the media, but to use it as a channel to signal the Reagan Administration.

Israel, according to that Sunday night statement, “will not enter any negotiations, or exchange for the Lebanese detainees held in Israel . . . (but) if the U.S. government will turn at a senior level to the government of Israel, asking for the release of the Lebanese detainees for the hostages, the government of Israel will consider it.”

The statement was meant to signal Israeli flexibility and desire for a clear expression of the Reagan Administration’s wishes. But instead, the call for a public request from the United States was interpreted by some as evidence of an unhelpful Israeli attitude.

On the other side, according to an Israeli source, it was a “grave mistake” for Reagan Administration officials to repeatedly point out to the press that Washington had criticized as wrong Israel’s transfer of the Lebanese prisoners to facilities inside Israel, from the moment it happened in April. These statements were seen as a form of pressure on Israel to release the Lebanese.

Differing Views Remain

Views still differ here about whether Israel was simply misreading Reagan Administration intentions, or whether Washington was, in fact, trying at that point to keep its options open, maintaining a hard line in public while signaling Israel to act unilaterally to satisfy the hijackers. It may have been a bit of both.

In any event, pressure built until Rabin’s appearance on ABC television’s “Nightline” program. That outburst brought a “sharp reaction from the States,” a military source said. But in retrospect, it also appears to have been the turning point in the communications problem.

Peres’ Tone Changes

The interview occurred early Thursday, June 20, Israeli time. The next day, Peres adopted a very different tone in remarks to an Israel radio interviewer and in a speech to a World Zionist Organization group. He praised the Reagan Administration for its stand on terrorism and said that the hijacking had made it more difficult for Israel to release its prisoners because it might give the impression of surrender.

On the evening of June 20, Peres called Shultz to express his “solidarity” with the United States. He expressed sympathy for the hostages and willingness to do whatever possible to help.

On the following weekend, Rabin proposed to release 31 of the Lebanese, in part to show that Israel was serious when it said it intended to free all the detainees, as conditions permitted. It was hoped that action might help break the hostage stalemate.

Divisions in Cabinet

On Sunday, June 23, Peres called Shultz again at 9 a.m. local time (2 a.m. EDT) to inform him that the 31 would be freed. Some ministers were angered by the promise, having believed that there would be no further prisoner releases without specific Cabinet approval. At least two ministers, Arens and former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, opposed the action as appearing to yield to terrorism. But the Cabinet, in effect, approved the release after the fact.

Still later that Sunday, Peres and Rabin met with their respective media advisers, Uri Savir and Nachman Shai, to coordinate their comments for planned appearances on U.S. interview programs, Peres on NBC’s “Meet The Press” and Rabin on CBS’ “Face The Nation.”

“This was a concentrated effort to improve Israel’s image,” a government source said.

‘Anti-Israeli Feelings’

U.S. public opinion polls were showing a clear rise in “anti-Israeli feelings,” this source noted, and “there’s no doubt that we are very sensitive to public opinion in the States.”

Back in Tel Aviv, Rabin spent another hour preparing for his “Face the Nation” appearance, with aides firing questions at him. This time he went on American television well prepared, “unlike the first interview” on “Nightline,” a source familiar with both appearances said.

By the second week of the crisis, Israeli and American officials were in frequent contact, and the communications problem appeared to have been solved.

Among the lessons to be learned from the incident, a foreign policy official here said, is that “it’s not good to communicate by the press.”