The terrorist assault on a synagogue in Vienna last Saturday which left two people dead and 18 wounded was apparently part of a carefully planned plot to hit Jewish installations in Western Europe, according to a report here this week.
The West German daily, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, reported that Al Fatah, the military strike force of the Palestine Liberation Organization, decided two weeks ago to step up its attacks against Jewish targets in Europe. The newspaper cited unnamed Arab diplomats in Bonn as the source for its report.
According to the paper, the decision by Al Fatah was taken Aug. 14 at a “special” meeting which was attended by PLO chief Yasir Arafat. His deputy, Abu Jihad, who heads the PLO’s military branch, was assigned to contact European terrorist organizations in West Germany, Spain, Italy and Turkey.
The newspaper said that the decision to proceed with terrorist actions in West Europe with the active help of local terrorist groups was largely influenced by the PLO’s view that European public opinion and European governments are now “psychologically ready” to tolerate attacks against Jews and supporters of Israel.
The Allgemeine Zeitung said the information supplied by the Arab diplomats was received guardedly and that the information had actually been available last week, but was not published. But the attack on the synagogue in Vienna gave the information credibility. No explanation was available as to what motivated the Arab diplomats to leak the information.
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.
