Israel May Use ‘counter-terror’ Measures Against Infiltrators, Bar-lev Says

The Chief of Staff of Israel’s armed forces indicated here yesterday that Israel may employ “counter-terrorist” measures to combat the incursions of Arab marauders against its territory. Addressing the nation over Kol Israel Radio, Maj. Gen. Chaim Bar-Lev said that Israel has other means in its possession to fight El Fatah besides the conventional methods used hitherto.” He warned, however, that the struggle against terrorists and saboteurs will not be easy and that counter-terrorist methods do not offer “a magic formula to solve the problem.”

Gen. Bar-Lev spoke of using mine fields and electrified fences to stop the infiltration by marauder Mines and fences are reported to be already in place along some stretches of the Israel-Jordan demarcation line. Amman asserted yesterday that three Jordanian soldiers had been killed when their vehicle struck a mine said to have been laid by Israelis on Jordanian territory south of the Dead Sea. The question of combating terrorism with the same methods used by terrorists has been debated in the Cabinet and among the Israeli public. It has apparently found increasing favor since the large-scale military operation against Arab terrorist bases in Jordan on March 21 which had only limited success and resulted in a censure of Israel by the U.N. Security Council.

Labor Minister Yigal Allon told a Labor Party meeting in Haifa today that Israel cannot consider a return to the old armistice borders that existed before last June’s war. Gen. Allon said that the Arabs are incapable of waging conventional war against Israel and that terrorist activities remain their only weapon. Israel has no alternative but to fight it. even if it means crossing the border, he declared. Referring to the political consequences of such a policy, particularly as they might effect King Hussein, of Jordan, the Labor Minister said Israel has no special interest in bringing about Hussein’s downfall, but when security is involved, “nothing can prevent us from doing what we think is essential even if it endangers Hussein’s throne.”

(El Fatah saboteurs and terrorists “in many ways now call the tune in the Middle East crisis” and King Hussein’s days would be numbered if he attempted to contain them, the London Daily Mall reported in a dispatch from Amman today. According to the paper, the Israelis no longer look on Hussein as “the one moderate voice in a babble of Arab extremism. The activities of El Fatah have converted Hussein into Israel’s public enemy No. one.” The paper took a dim view of Hussein’s future. “His position seems impossible even by Arab standards,” the dispatch said.)