Israel has been extremely cautious in apportioning blame for Thursday night’s bus hijack near Ashkelon. Despite intensive press speculation here blaming Syria for the terror attack, senior government policymakers and officials have studiously avoided pointing a finger of accusation publicly at Syria for this particular deed.
Defense Minister Moshe Arens set the tone in a television appearance last night. He spoke of previous tensions along the Israel-Syria line in Lebanon, caused by Palestinian terrorist groups working from behind Syrian lines. He noted that Israel has recently responded by shelling terrorist camps behind the Syrian lines — and since then, he said, the situation had become calmer.
He warned that Israel would not passively suffer attacks of this kind in the future, either. He did not, however, link Thursday’s attack to the Syrians directly. He said Israel thought the El Fatah was responsible for it, but there was no conclusive evidence yet.
After the weekly Cabinet meeting today, at which Arens and Chief of Staff Gen. Moshe Levy reported on the attack, Cabinet spokesman Dan Meridor also pointedly declined to be drawn by reporters into outrightly condemning Syria for the action. He indicated that Premier Yitzhak Shamir was being similarly cautious.
Shamir and other policymakers have commented over recent days on the wave of Soviet and Syrian “warnings” to Israel not to launch aggression against Syria, asserting that no such aggression is contemplated here and thus these “warnings” are unfounded. Israeli sources say the Soviet-Syrian effort to accentuate tensions is apparently linked closely to the ongoing instability in Damascus surrounding President Hafez Assad’s uncertain state of health.
They say it would be “to play into Syria’s hands” for Israel too to whip up tension by tough rhetorical statements — especially since there apparently is no firm evidence connecting the bus attack to Syrian-backed terrorist groups, apart from the belated claim of responsibility by George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
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