Herzog, Eitan Assail Heroes’ Welcome for Six Israeli Pows

President Chaim Herzog said today that he “absolutely agreed” with former Chief of Staff Gen. Rafael Eitan who severely criticized the heroes’ welcome which greeted the return last Thursday of six Israeli prisoners of war held by the Palestine Liberation Organization in exchange for some 4,600 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners released by Israel.

Eitan, who was Chief of Staff during the war in Lebanon, told the Tiberias Rotary Club yesterday that the six POWs “fell into captivity in a disgraceful way.” He did not rule out court martialing them if the army’s investigation of the circumstances of their capture in September, 1982, found such action was called for.

Herzog, talking to reporters here, said the POWs had surrendered “shamefully . He stressed that the Israel Defense Force had, early on, established “basic criteria” of soldierly conduct. “God forbid that we should fall below those standards,” he warned.

Herzog, a former general in the Israeli army and chief of military intelligence, was an officer in the British army during World War II. He became one of Israel’s leading military affairs commentators and served as its Ambassador to the United Nations prior to his election to the Presidency early this year.

The IDF’s standards were set by Palmach during the War of Independence in 1948, Herzog said. “These standards have brought us safely to where we are today. We must not acquiesce in any reduction of them.” Later, Herzog’s spokesman. Ami Gluska, told reporters the President was not recommending court martials for the six returned prisoners. That is for the military to determine, he said.

Eitan, for his part, implicitly supported the government’s decision to exchange the Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners for six Israelis when he recalled that in the past, too, Israel had agreed to numerically lopsided deals. He said the country was right to rejoice over the return of the six men “but not to go wild.”