Israel welcomed the release Sunday of two more Western hostages from captivity in Lebanon and stood by its offer to enter negotiations for a prisoner swap.
But Israel is insisting that such a deal must include either the release of seven Israelis missing in Lebanon or a full accounting of what happened to them.
Officials here have rejected suggestions that Israel unilaterally release some of the Lebanese Shi’ites it and allied forces are holding in prison for security offenses.
They are pointing out that Syria and Iran have the clout to effect the release of all Western hostages without Israel’s contribution to the complicated procedure, and that the United States now has a good enough working relationship with both these countries to persuade them to do so.
The Israelis are pointing to the speedy release Sunday of Jerome Leyraud as ample proof that Syria and Iran have the power to release all hostages held in Lebanon.
Leyraud, a French medical worker, was seized Aug. 8 after the release of British hostage John McCarthy, by kidnappers who threatened to kill him if another Westerner were freed. He had been held by a previously unheard-of group calling itself the Organization for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights.
The other hostage released Sunday was Edward Tracy, a native of Vermont, described variously as a writer, bookseller and adventurer. He had been a captive of the so-called Revolutionary Justice Organization, a pro-Iranian group.
BUSH URGES RELEASE OF ‘INNOCENTS’
McCarthy, a British journalist, was held for five years by Islamic Jihad, which also swears allegiance to the Shi’ite regime in Iran.
He was released as an emissary bearing a letter from the hostage-takers to U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, which he delivered personally Sunday at an air strip in Lyneham, England. The letter is believed to spell out Islamic Jihad’s stipulations for freeing the remaining hostages.
There are now at least 10 Western hostages still believed held in Lebanon, including Americans, Britons and Germans.
Perez de Cuellar spoke last week of the need for all parties, including Israel, to release their hostages.
And in Washington, President Bush remarked over the weekend that Israel should now be willing to release the “innocents” it holds for so-called political purposes.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday vigorously rejected any comparison between Lebanese prisoners Israel is holding for security offenses and hostages held by terrorist groups.
“Hostages are innocent people yanked off the streets,” he said in an appearance on the ABC News television program “This Week With David Brinkley.”
The Lebanese prisoners, on the other hand, are people who were captured trying to infiltrate into Israel, whom Israel is willing to exchange for the seven Israeli soldiers believed held in Lebanon, he said.
Netanyahu admitted that Israel did indeed seize Sheik Abdul Karim Obeid in July 1989 to use as leverage to get its soldiers back. However, he stressed Obeid was not an innocent cleric, but the “godfather of the mafia that takes hostages.”
“If we release Sheik Obeid, I believe it would kill any possibility of a deal that includes Western hostages,” he said.
UNILATERAL RELEASE REJECTED
He also rejected British Prime Minister John Major’s call last week for Israel to unilaterally release Lebanese prisoners as a goodwill gesture.
Netanyahu said that Israel had, in fact, released 40 Lebanese Shi’ite prisoners in such a gesture nine months ago, and that nothing had happened as a result.
Here in Israel, Uri Lubrani, the Defense Ministry’s coordinator of affairs in Lebanon, expressed disappointment with the increased world pressure on Israel to release prisoners it holds.
He emphasized that until Israel is provided with proof of where the Israelis are being held, and details of their state of health, there is nobody who could persuade Israel to take part in any prisoner exchange.
He and other Israeli officials urged Bush to use the “new world order” he proclaimed after the Persian Gulf War to persuade Syria and Iraq to get the hostages released.
Both Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Arens pointed out that the Shi’ite groups holding the hostages operate on Syrian-controlled territory in Lebanon, and that Iran controls and finances the terrorists.
“It is within the capacity of the United States to now tell these governments it’s over, it’s a different world, a new world order,” Netanyahu said on the NBC program “Meet the Press.”
Arens, appearing on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation,” said, “There is an indication that the Syrian and Iranian governments want to mend their fences with the Western world and with the United States in particular.
“It has been demonstrated that when these countries wanted, they could bring about the release of hostages, whether they were Frenchmen, British, U.S. or Israeli.”
ISRAELI FAMILIES ARE HOPEFUL
Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, appearing on the same CBS program, warned against any U.S. pressure on Israel to release its prisoners.
“We cannot permit innocent Americans to be put in the middle of every dispute between Middle East nations and Israel,” he said.
Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman Danny Naveh said Israel is appealing to all countries, including Iran and Syria, and all organizations holding Western hostages and Israeli prisoners, to release their captives or show evidence about them. Such evidence would enable the start of negotiations for the release of all those held in Israel, he underscored.
There are seven Israelis missing in Lebanon, and several of them are feared dead. One of them is Sgt. Samir Assad, a Druse captured by Syrian troops eight years ago during the Lebanon war.
But his family, which lives in the Israeli Druse village of Beit Jann, said Sunday that they do not accept the terrorists’ claim that he was killed during an Israeli air force raid on Lebanon seven years ago. They are convinced he is alive and hope he will be included in any exchange.
Nothing has been heard about Zacharia Baumel, Yehuda Katz and Avi Feldman, who disappeared in a tank battle during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
Yona Baumel, father of the Brooklyn-raised young man who made aliyah and joined the Israel Defense Force, called on the Israeli government not to release Palestinian and Shi’ite detainees until signs of life are received concerning the Israelis held captive.
In addition, Israel is seeking Rachamim Alsheikh and the English-born Yossi Fink, or word about what happened to them. It is believed they were captured by the Shi’ite fundamentalist Hezbollah, or Party of God, during a 1986 raid.
An air force navigator, Ron Arad, who was shot down in 1986, is also believed to be in the hands of Hezbollah, and is thought to have the best chance of the seven of being alive.
(JTA correspondent David Friedman in Washington contributed to this report.)
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
