Premier Menachem Begin’s advisor on anti-terrorist activities predicted today that Israel will have to fight Arab terrorism for another hundred years and contended that Lebanon will be a major front.
The Premier’s aide, Rafael Eitan, who is not related to Chief of Staff Gen. Rafael Eitan, offered his views in a Voice of Israel Radio interview. He said that however long the Israeli army would have to remain in Lebanon, it would be engaged in combat against terrorist acts. The war is over formally but in practice it still goes on, he said.
He said Israel would have to apply the military and intelligence measures that eradicated terrorism from the Gaza Strip 13 years ago. According to Eitan, Israel’s defenses against terrorism within its own border are the most efficient in the world. He dismissed the grenade attack that injured 12 bus-riders in the heart of Tel Aviv Saturday night as an “exceptional case” and was confident the perpetrators would be caught soon. (Related story, P. 4.)
Eitan expressed concern over the vulnerability of Jewish institutions overseas to terrorist attack. But he considers Lebanon Israel’s biggest problem.
“One cannot solve in one war all the problems of terror,” he said. “One could not have foreseen the murder of Bashir Gemayel who was Israel’s hope for a stable regime in Lebanon.” President-elect Gemayel was killed last September 14. He was replaced by his brother, Amin Gemayel who is currently President of Lebanon.
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