The Israel Embassy has demanded a formal explanation of a State Department official’s statement that both Israel and the PLO are guilty of terrorist acts.
Those comments were made by Gordon Brown, director of Arabian Peninsula Affairs at the State Department, in the course of an interview via satellite with Arab reporters. The interview was broadcast on “Worldnet”, a program of the U.S. Information Service (USIA).
Asked if the U.S. considered Israel’s bombing of Beirut in 1982 a terrorist act, Brown replied, “It’s terrorism to the same degree I suppose as Katyusha rockets across the (Israeli) border are. “He added that such actions were part of the unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict and that American complaints of terrorism in the Middle East were aimed at murders and hijackings.
Asked if he meant some PLO acts were also part of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Brown said, “Some PLO actions I would suspect would fall within our definition of legitimate actions of resistance within occupied territories, other clearly would not, such as the Munich massacre and others.” The Israeli Olympic team was massacre and others.” the Israeli Olympic team was massacred by Palestinian terrorists in Munich in 1972.
A State Department spokesman said the views expressed by Brown were his own and did not reflect U.S. policy. He called the episode a “tempest in a teapot.”
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