Deputy Premier Yigal Allon declared yesterday that the surrender of scores of Palestinian terrorists fearing execution in Jordan was not just a passing episode but “a demonstration that the only democratic, humane country in the Middle East is Israel.” In the showdown between the terrorists and the Jordanian Army, he said, Arab states that had most vigorously waved the flag of the Palestinians failed to provide anything more than lip service, but Israel provided shelter. When the escaping terrorists crossed the river with hands raised and were not shot, all the Arab propaganda about bloodthirsty Israelis was swept away, he went on. “All of a sudden,” he said, “the truth was revealed.” Allon added that the Israeli policy toward the surrendering guerrillas was an expression of the country’s disdain for capital punishment, even for terrorism. But he pointed out that the captured guerrillas, while they should be held under good conditions, should not be treated “as free men yet.”
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