Lewis Prescott
May 14
Michael Howell has left us in no doubt about his attitude toward reporters. I cannot altogether blame him. Some of my European colleagues have given him a rough time. However, as he has seen fit to exempt Frank Edwards and me from his blanket indictment, I hope he won’t mind too much if I now suggest that much of the hostile press and TV criticism of his part in the Ghaled affair he brought on himself.
In his anxiety to protect his company’s reputation — to say nothing of the reputations of his father, his mother, his grandfather, his sisters, Miss Malandra, and his brothers-in-law — he damaged his own. Under questioning he did himself less than justice. He said either too little or, more often, far too much; and invariably he sounded evasive. When a reporter asked a direct question — ”Mr. Howell, did you know what these arms were going to be used for?” — and received in reply, say, a lecture on the difficulties of dry-battery manufacture, the reasons why the Agence Howell had hired a Palestinian-refugee chemist, and the problems of the Agence Howell’s blocked Syrian assets, he was apt to conclude that Mr. Howell was dissembling. Mr. Howell’s too frequent protestations that what he was trying to do was to give the whole picture, background as well as foreground, didn’t help either. Reporters are inclined to believe that, given the essential facts of a story, plain and unadorned, they are quite capable of drawing the picture for themselves. “Garrulous smokescreen” may be a mixed metaphor, but I can understand the feelings of the man who mixed it.
That said, however, I am prepared to go on record as believing most of Michael Howell’s account of his part in the Ghaled affair. The situation in which he found himself was an appalling one. It is easy to say, as have his critics, that in reacting to it he should have thought less of his own safety and business interests and more of his higher responsibilities, but to do so is to miss the point. With even less knowledge of Ghaled’s plans and intentions than I had at that time, he did what he believed he had to do. To accuse him of irresponsibility is unfair; he did not then know what his responsibilities were. When he eventually did know he assumed them. At no time did he behave stupidly, and in the end he showed courage.
Those who condemn Mr. Howell and question his good faith were never in his shoes and don’t understand what he was up against. They have never met Salah Ghaled.
I did meet him, and it wasn’t an enjoyable experience.
I don’t usually take strong likes or dislikes to the persons I interview. I am not there to defend or prosecute, but to gather information and, hopefully, insights, which I can pass on to others. But Ghaled I actively disliked.
I am not going to quote the whole of my interview with him — a lot that he said was standard guerrilla radio hate stuff — but this edited version contains the essentials. I am also giving, from notes made at the time, accounts of my subsequent conversations with Miss Hammad and Frank Edwards. They have a bearing both on Ghaled’s thought processes and on my estimate at that time of his intentions.
The interview began easily enough with some questions about Ghaled’s early life and career as a guerrilla leader. They were not important, and I already knew the answers, but I don’t like microphones and tape recorders when interviewing; they tend to have an inhibiting effect. When I am obliged to use them, I find that a series of simple, easily answered questions at the beginning helps the subject to forget the microphone and tape. After this preparatory work I went on: “Mr. Ghaled, you seem to have devoted all your adult life to fighting on the Palestinian side in the Arab-Israeli conflict’’
The Arab-Zionist conflict, yes.”
“Most of the fighting, on your part, having been with guerrilla forces.”
“Not all, but most, yes.”
“Even when the armies of the Arab states, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, have not been engaged, you have continued to fight?”
“Yes.”
“Even when there has been peace?”
“There has never been a peace between the Arab states and the Zionists.”
“There have been peaceful periods, surely, prolonged cease-fires when things were peaceable enough for, say, Jordanian farmers to cross the border and sell their produce in Israel?”
He smiled faintly at my innocence. “Certainly there have been such periods. You speak of Jordanian farmers selling produce in so-called Israel. Let me tell you that there was a time when I used to cross the border that way myself. But one in five of the grapefruit that my donkeys carried to market had grenades in them. Peace at any price, Mr. Prescott, was never acceptable to us Palestinians. With or without our allies in the Arab states, we the fedayeen have always fought on.”
“But what do you think you have accomplished by doing so, Mr. Ghaled? To put the question another way, what do you consider has been the main achievement of the guerrilla, the fedayeen movement?”
“It has ensured that the Palestinian cause has been neither lost nor conveniently forgotten.”
“You say the Palestinian cause. I want there to be no misunderstanding. What, in your particular view, is the Palestinian cause?”
“I have no particular view, Mr. Prescott. My view, in that respect, is the same as Yasir Arafat’s or Dr. George Habash’s or Kemal Adwan’s — and Kemal, an Al Fatah man, is on the Central Committee of the PLO. We may disagree about means, but the end, our ultimate aim, is common ground.”
He went on to mention the names of other former colleagues in Al Fatah and the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine with whom he shared this common ground. Had I not seen the bureau files so recently I would never have guessed that these were the men he had been denouncing as “running dogs”. “We ask only for justice,” he concluded proudly.
“Could you be more specific, Mr. Ghaled? What justice?”
“First, the destruction of the Zionist state. Note, please, that I do not ask for destruction of the Jews, only the destruction or dismemberment of the artificially created Zionist state. Second, the return of all Palestinian refugees to their lost lands and possessions. Third, the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state. Nothing less.”
“All or nothing, Mr. Ghaled?”
“Less than all would amount to nothing.”
“But hasn’t the history of the past twenty-three years shown this uncompromising, all-or-nothing demand to be self-defeating?”
There was some trouble over translating the phrase “self-defeating”. I was asked to put the question differently.
“As far as the Palestinian cause is concerned,” I said, “hasn’t the all-or-nothing policy failed? The all that it has achieved has been Israeli unity. The Israeli state that might once have been contained has instead been enlarged. The Palestinian cause may not be forgotten, Mr. Ghaled, but, as you present and define it, do you not think that it may reasonably be considered lost?”
“Considered lost by whom, Mr. Prescott? The United States government?” Jocular.
“I don’t speak for the United States government, Mr. Ghaled. I am merely trying to get your thoughts on the realities of the situation. Do you really believe that the destruction or dismemberment of the State of Israel, even if it were desirable, is any longer possible without a third and final world war?”
“Why should it not be possible, Mr. Prescott?” I could tell by his expression as he went on that there were more jokes on the way. “The West, and particularly the United States, is always expressing its wish to be helpful in resolving what it calls the Middle East conflict. Excellent. We accept. Let the United States send all the ships of its mighty Sixth Fleet to the ports of Haifa, Acre, Tel Aviv-Yafo and Ashdod. Then let them embark their Zionist dependents, all three million of them, and sail away forever. Where to, you ask? I hear that there are plenty of wide-open spaces in Texas and New Mexico that could accommodate these people. Of course, it is possible that the present owners of those spaces may object to three million Zionists taking possession of their lands. Such unreasonable persons will naturally have to be driven out and accommodated elsewhere. But this difficulty can be overcome. I am sure that UNWRA will be glad to build refugee camps for the dispossessed in the Arizona desert.”
Miss Hammad’s translation of this speech was accompanied by snickers.
“I am sure,” I replied, “that Mr. Ghaled’s suggestions would impress and entertain a junior college debating society. However, I am seeking information. I was asking if, as one of those Arabs who fought the Israelis in the ‘48 war and lost, and who has remained on the losing side ever since, Mr. Ghaled may not sometimes have begun to suspect that Israel is here to stay.”
I knew that she didn’t translate the whole of that because of his answer.
“In ‘48 there was no proper unity among the Arab States. If there had been, the Jews would have been driven into the sea.”
I thought of asking him about ‘56 and ‘67 but decided to skip it. He had given me the lead I wanted.
“Then if we may return to the matter of the Palestinian guerrilla movement and its success in keeping the Palestinian cause from becoming lost or forgotten. Has unity between different sections of the movement been a factor in that success?”
He saw at once what I was getting at, of course, and sidestepped.
“The operations of conventional forces and those of commandos are differently conceived, of a different quantity, and hence qualitatively different. Unity of strategic command among allied states fighting a full-scale war is essential. In a commando struggle there must be unity of purpose, of course, but individual leaders may, and should, decide how best to contribute to the advancement of that purpose.”
“There have been as many Arab casualties as a result of the guerrilla fighting in Jordan and Lebanon as there were Israeli casualties in the full-scale Six-Day War. More perhaps. You have attributed these Arab losses to betrayals of the Palestinian cause. The Great Betrayal and the Second Betrayal you call them. But isn’t betrayal in this case just another word for disunity?”
“Why play with words, Mr. Prescott? A moment ago you were asking me to speak of reality. That I am ready to do.”
“Very well. Has the Palestinian Action Force so far played a unifying or a disunifying role in the Struggle?”
“As I have already said, we Palestinian militants share a common purpose. Our methods of achieving it may differ. That is all.”
“You agree about the ends but differ about the means. I see. Then may we discuss the merits of some of these means?”
“We may discuss anything.”
“There have been bombs planted in European civilian airliners which have killed many persons who have never been near Israel. There have been attacks on airliners and hijacking which have also led to civilian loss of life.”
“The work of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.”
“So I understand. But do you approve of these means?”
“They would not be my means, but I do not disapprove.”
“You approve of these murders of airline passengers, of innocent bystanders?”
“While we in Palestine fight for justice, no bystander is innocent.”
I could tell by the gusto with which Miss Hammad translated this that she thoroughly approved and thought the statement important.
“How would you describe your favourite means, Mr. Ghaled?”
“My policy is to defeat the enemy closer to home.”
“Are you referring now to the PAF purification campaign?”
“That has been a transitional campaign, a necessary housecleaning carried out in the interests of all in the movement.”
“You have been called an extortionist, Mr. Ghaled. How do you respond to such charges?”
“With contempt and silence. Those persons who make such charges know nothing of my plans.”
“Plans for defeating the enemy closer to home?”
“I have said so.”
“But which enemy, Mr. Ghaled? The Jordanian government, the PLO Central Committee?”
“The PAF has only one enemy, the Zionist state. I have said so repeatedly.”
“And you intend to destroy it?”
“Defeat it.”
“You were once quoted, Mr. Ghaled, as saying that when the British set out to implement the Balfour Declaration in Palestine, they were counting on a miracle. Do you not think that a similar charge might now be made against you?”
“I count on men and high explosives, not miracles.”
“But it is against Israel that the PAF intends to move?”
“It is. I remind you that we are the Palestinian Action Force. Action, Mr. Prescott, is what we intend.”
“When are we likely to see it, Mr. Ghaled?”
“Surely you do not expect me to tell you our plans so that they may be published.”
“Naturally not. But while you said that the methods used by the Popular Front would not be yours, you would not deny that their exploits have a spectacular quality. From your point of view they would be valuable in that they reminded the world of the Palestinian cause. I was wondering if your plans for action are likely to provide similar reminders.”
“I said that we intend to defeat the Zionists, Mr. Prescott. Did that not answer your question?”
At that moment Miss Hammad said that she had to change the tape. I almost told her not to trouble, that I had had enough. I didn’t, because I was fairly sure that we had not been talking for anything like half an hour, and that she was changing the tape simply in order to interrupt a line of questioning and distract me from it.
When the tape had been changed I went on:
“Mr. Ghaled, when you said that the PAF intended to defeat the Zionist state, Israel, I assumed, I think with reason, that you were speaking figuratively. Was I wrong in that assumption?”
“Quite wrong.”
“You would not object to my quoting you on that?”
“Not in the least.”
“I do not ask for precise figures, naturally, but may I know the approximate strength of the PAF?”
“Not at this time.”
“Not even an approximate figure, Mr. Ghaled? Over one thousand men? Under one thousand?” According to Frank Edwards it was probably less than three hundred.
“Not at this time.”
“What about allies?”
“They will come with success.”
“When the defeat of Israel is seen to be imminent?”
“When the manner in which it may be destroyed is seen and understood.”
“I see.”
“Give me a fulcrum and I will move the world. Have you not heard that expression, Mr. Prescott?” He was staring at me earnestly.
“I believe that a lever is necessary as well as a fulcrum.”
“Be in no doubt. We have our lever.” He paused. “Have you ever seen a man’s house and his possessions in it dynamited before his eyes, Mr. Prescott?”
“I have seen lots of bad things happen to people’s possessions in war areas, and worse things to the people themselves.”
“I am not talking of war areas, Mr. Prescott, but areas of so-called peace. One night two months ago, in an Arab village near Haifa, a man was sleeping when there was a knock on his door. He went and opened the door. Outside stood his brother whom he had not seen for three years. The brother was one of my men who had crossed the border secretly. He asked for shelter for the night. That is all he asked, a place to sleep, no more. He was refused. The brother, whose house it was, stood in fear of the Zionist police. Trembling, he told his brother to go away, and the brother, understanding his fear, left without crossing the threshold. Sad, was it not?”
“Very.”
“But now what happens? The brother in the house has a duty under the Zionist law to go to the police and report the incident, report that his brother who is with the fedayeen has been there, and is in the area, in order that he may be searched for and captured. This he cannot bring himself to do to one of his own blood, so he commits the offense of remaining silent, But a neighbour has seen and heard what has happened and the neighbour goes to the police. The brother who remained silent is arrested and condemned for harbouring and assisting one of those who fight for freedom. The sentence is that his house shall be destroyed, and he is led out with his wife and children to watch the sentence being carried out. The Zionist soldiers come then and place the dynamite charges. Then, before his eyes and those of his family, everything he possesses is destroyed. What do you think of that proceeding, Mr. Prescott?”
“In some countries I know, Mr. Ghaled, the man would have been shot”
“Better to shoot him than to destroy what makes his life.”
“His wife and children might not agree. Besides, as you pointed out earlier, a state of war exists between Israel and her neighbours. I take it that your man had not crossed the border just to pay a social call.”
“He was a courier, that is all.”
“When was this sentence carried out?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“What was the name of the village?”
“Majd el-Krum. But I mention this incident, Mr. Prescott, not because it is rare or special, but to remind you how Arabs live under the Zionist police dictatorship.” He fumbled inside his sheepskin coat. “I will show you something.” He dragged out a fat tooled-leather wallet and pulled a sheaf of photographs from it.
From the size and the way the edges of the prints were trimmed I could see that they had been made with an old-style black-and-white Polaroid. There were ten or twelve of them in plastic covers. He sorted them through, then thrust the lot into my hands.
“Take them, Mr. Prescott. Look at them.”
For a moment his eagerness reminded me, incongruously, of the lonely man on the long plane flight who wants to share his homesickness with you. “Look, there’s a shot of us all together up at the lake last summer.”
Only these were not family snaps. The top one was a picture of a young woman. Her throat had been cut and she was dead.
She was lying on a patch of bloodstained earth at the base of a concrete wall. The cut in the throat was deep and gaping; you could see the severed ends of the veins and arteries. Her clothing was up over her waist and there were stab wounds in her thighs and belly.
Ghaled said something else and again Miss Hammad interpreted.
“Look well, Mr. Prescott, look well.”
I slid the top print aside and looked at the next. It was of a dead man. He was naked except for a torn shirt, and his genitals had been cut off. The next was of a child of ten or so. I went through the rest of them.
The attitudes of violent death do not vary much. When the cause has been sudden, the rag-doll effect is usual, though muscular spasm can sometimes freeze the limbs in strange ways; when death comes less suddenly the knees and arms are often drawn up together in the fetal position; a human being incinerated by napalm becomes a gray-black clinker effigy of a dwarf boxer with fists up ready to do battle. There were no burn cases among these pictures, however; all the subjects had been cut, stabbed, or hacked to death; you could believe that they had been human beings. One or two of the bodies, those of children, had obviously been rearranged, by or for the photographer, and posed so as to dramatize the death agonies.
In war it is possible, as well as necessary and advisable, to get used to horrors. What I have never been able quite to get used to is the man who chooses to collect and keep pictures of them. Ghaled’s private gallery would have an ostensible propaganda purpose, of course, but the prints had been well thumbed before they had been protected by plastic. The last collection I had seen like it had been carried by a Special Forces lieutenant in Vietnam. He had claimed a propaganda purpose. He had said piously that he kept it to remind him of what he was fighting against. I didn’t believe him. He kept it for kicks. The British policeman in Malaya who treasured a jungle photograph of himself, shotgun in hand with one raised foot resting sportively on the disembowelled body of a Liberation Army Chinese, had been less inhibited. He was grinning proudly in the picture and he had grinned proudly when he had shown it to me.
I handed his photographs back to Ghaled.
“Well, Mr. Prescott?”
“Well what, Mr. Ghaled? I’ve seen pictures like that before. What are those dead bodies supposed to prove?”
“Those were Arab villagers murdered and mutilated by Zionist forces.”
“You say so, Mr. Ghaled. I say that they could equally well be Arab villagers killed by other Arabs, or Israeli villagers killed by the fedayeen. Where were the pictures taken? When were they taken? On one occasion or several? Who was the photographer or was there more than one? Of what value are these photographs as evidence?”
“These photographs were taken on my orders and under my supervision after a raid, a typical raid, by Druse commando traitors of the Zionist army, on a refugee village in Jordan.”
“In this typical raid were no bullets used?”
“What do you mean?”
“None of the wounds shown in those photographs was made by a bullet. For a commando raid that seems odd.”
“They do not waste bullets on helpless women and children and crippled men.”
“I must accept what you say, of course.” In fact, all I would have accepted from him after that was his claim to have supervised the taking of the pictures; but there was no point in pursuing the argument. I wanted no more of him, and it seemed a good moment to bring the interview to an end.
“One or two final questions, Mr. Ghaled. Does the fact that so many of your Palestinian colleagues, your fellow leaders in the guerrilla movement, profoundly disagree with your views and policies ever cause you to question them yourself?”
“Naturally. Self-examination and self-criticism are always necessary. As for disagreement, I would remind you that many of Lenin’s closest colleagues profoundly disagreed with him. But who in the end was proved right?”
“You see yourself as the Lenin of the Palestinian revolutionary guerrilla movement?”
“I see myself as the Ghaled of the Palestinian Action Force.”
“And time in the end will no doubt prove you right. I see. Thank you, Mr. Ghaled. You have been most patient and helpful.”
When Miss Hammad had translated that she looked at me questioningly.
“That’s all,” I said.
“Interview between Salah Ghaled and Lewis Prescott concluded,” she said and switched off the recorders. While she packed them up again Ghaled took the bottle of arrack and refilled the glasses.
He seemed pleased with the way the interview had gone and lit up a fresh cigar with the air of a man who has just concluded a successful deal. If he had spoken enough English he would probably have fished for some expression of satisfaction on my part.
He took the two tape cassettes which Miss Hammad handed him and one of the recorders. While she showed him how to operate it, I sipped the arrack and wondered how I was going to get back to Beirut The prospect of being driven down that mountain road in the darkness by Miss Hammad was not attractive.
I need not have worried. After the ceremonial leave-taking and the scramble back down to the Volkswagen, she explained the position. There was no question of our driving back to Beirut right away. During the hours of darkness nobody was allowed through the military roadblocks. We would have to wait at the chalet until it was light.
There I had a Scotch to take away the taste of the arrack, and Miss Hammad began to question me about my “impressions” of Ghaled.
I had expected that and was ready for her.
“Frankly,” I said, “I was disappointed.”
“Disappointed!”
“You’re a Journalist, Melanie. You should know that there’s no story in what he gave me.”
“No story!” She was amazed.
“Melanie, forget your own interest in the man and your sympathy with the cause. Look at it professionally. Ghaled moved out of the mainstream of the Palestinian movement when he formed the PAF and denounced the PLO and Al Fatah. The Popular Front people have brushed him off. He’s little more than a gangster now and he has sense enough left to realize it. So he’s trying to talk his way back in with this crackpot stuff about destroying Israel single-handedly.”
“That is not what he said.” She was indignant now. “He said ‘defeat’, not ‘destroy’, and he did not say ‘single-handed’. You are seriously underestimating him.”
I shook my head. “A punchy has-been still kidding himself that he’s in line for a championship bout. That’s all I see.”
“That is a ridiculous comparison!”
“I don’t think so. Destroy, defeat the Zionist state? Don’t tell me you can take that seriously.”
“Indeed I can, and I do.”
“All that nonsense about fulcrums and levers?”
“It is not nonsense!”
“Sorry, Melanie, I think it is.”
“That is because you do not know what is planned.”
“And you do?”
“I know a little, yes.”
That was the first thing I had wanted to find out. I went on needling her.
“Plans for defeating Israel are easy to make. The Arabs have made quite a few. Carrying them out, though, doesn’t seem to be so easy. The combined forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan couldn’t do it. I can’t see your Mr. Ghaled improving on their efforts.”
“He will.”
“What with? Bombs in grapefruit?”
“You were not so contemptuous of bombs when they were planted in airliners by the Popular Front.”
“No. But what did that little campaign achieve against Israel? Did it stop the tourists going to Israel by air with their travellers’ checks? It did not. More tourists than ever went. When your Mr. Ghaled’s friends shot up the Israeli buses taking tourists into the occupied territories, did they stop the buses running? At no time.”
“It will be a different story when Salah has finished.”
That was the second piece of information she gave me.
I shrugged “So what? A few unfortunate tourists are killed. Okay, the tourist trade is important to the Israeli economy, but it’s not that important. A slight letup in the dollar flow isn’t going to destroy Israel.”
“Who can tell what it might lead to?” She was becoming angry now. I didn’t think I would get any more out of her, but after a moment she went on. “You said ‘destroy’ again. The word Salah used was ‘defeat’. You see now why he insisted on tape recordings.”
“Destroy, defeat? What’s the difference? He used both words.”
“But in different contexts. Where Israel is concerned the distinction is important. If it cannot be destroyed from without it must be defeated from within,”
“Sorry, I don’t get it.”
“You said yourself that Israeli unity has been an Arab achievement.”
“That was part of a loaded question I was asking. Israeli unity is a product of many things — religion, faith, history, the drama of the Ingathering, the toughness of the sabras, the dedication of the aliyah immigrants, common purpose, self-respect — all the ingredients of high national morale are there. The presence of Goliath and the continued success of David against him are only parts of the story.”
“They are the parts that count most. Without the pressure on it from the outside the Israeli state would have fallen to pieces. Even now, with Goliath, as you call it, still at the gate, they are torn by hate and dissension.”
“Dissension is part of democratic government.”
“But not hatreds such as theirs. The Ashkenazim hate the Sephardim, and both are hated by the Oriental Jews, the underprivileged proletariat. The Aduk hate the Ostjuden and the Taymanim hate those of Mea Shearim and their like who are Jewish anti-Zionists. The sabras hate everyone, even themselves.”
“You mean Ghaled is counting on Israel becoming politically unstable and falling apart? Because if so…”
“Who can say,” she challenged, “what will happen when, for the first time, David’s boasts are proved empty, when it is Goliath who has the sling and the simple bag of stones, when the Israelis have to taste defeat?”
“I’d say they’d close ranks and make damn sure it didn’t happen again.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. Defeat does strange things to those without experience of it.”
“Israel isn’t going to be defeated by pinpricks.”
“One pinprick will collapse a balloon, especially if the pressure inside is high.”
“And if Ghaled had the right fulcrum he could move the earth, I know. Let’s skip it, Melanie.” I yawned. I didn’t want her to realize how much of the cat she had let out of the bag, so I didn’t leave it there. “One thing I forgot,” I went on, stifling the yawn. “How do you spell the name of that village Ghaled mentioned, the one near Haifa? Majd el something, wasn’t it?”
“Majd el-Kram.” She spelled it out. “But I thought you said that there was no story.”
“I don’t think there is, not for me anyway, but the tapes will be transcribed. We may as well have it right.”
I had another drink and slept for a couple of hours in a spare room. She got me back to Beirut in time for a late breakfast. When I had showered and changed I went to the bureau office.
Frank Edwards was there and expectant.
“How did it go, Lew?”
I told him about the setup of the meeting and gave him my two tape cassettes.
“Most of it’s there,” I said. “There’s one thing I’d like to check if it’s possible here. There was an incident in Israel about three weeks ago in a village called Majd el-Krum near Haifa. An Arab was sentenced for not informing the police about a visit from his brother who was a member of the PAF. Is that sort of thing reported in the Israeli press?”
“Sometimes. We get the Israeli papers by mail via Cyprus. Three weeks ago you say?”
“About then.”
He found the item to the English language Jerusalem Post.
“Here we are. The case was heard in the Haifa District Court. The man Ali gave the brother a drink of water and them turned him away.”
“The Israelis blew up his house for that?”
“What do you mean, blew up his house? He was sentenced to three months in jail and then the judge suspended the sentence. Ali left the court amid the cheers of friends from his village.”
“What about the PAF man?”
“He was caught. In fact, it was he who told the police that he had been to see his brother Ali. Charmimg fellow. He’ll be up for trial soon. The judge won’t suspend his sentence.”
“What’ll he get?”
“Eight to ten years. He was caught armed, you see.” He picked up the tapes. I'll have these transcribed for you right away.”
“No hurry, Frank,” I said. “I’m not filing any story yet on Ghaled.”
“No story?”
“Yet. You wanted to know what he’s up to. You’ll read some of it to the transcript, but I can sum up. He’s out to defeat the State of Israel. No less.”
“They all are, to a manner of speaking.”
“He means it literally. I quote: 'Give me a fulcrum and I will move the world.' Well, he claims to have found a fulcrum. Incidentally, he told me that the Israelis blew up that man Ali’s house. He probably thought that I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, trouble to check. Stupid of him, and a bit odd, because he didn’t strike me as a stupid man, at least not stupid in that way. Very close-mouthed. Lots of cute double-talk about M's plans. I got more out of La Hammad afterwards.”
“What sort of thing?”
I told him.
“What did you make of it?”
“I don’t think she knows as much as she thinks she knows,” I said. “All that stuff about internal pressures in Israel, pricked balloons, and disintegration through factional hatreds are her personal fantasies. I’m inclined to believe that Ghaled has a definite plan of action involving a terrorist attack on some tourist centre inside Israel. By 'defeat’ all I think he means is that the location and nature of the place or installation attacked would make prompt Israeli armed countermeasures difficult or impossible. My guess is that this fulcrum he babbles about is simply the vulnerability of innocent bystanders — visitors, tourists — about whom he is openly callous. ‘While we in Palestine fight for justice, no bystander is innocent’. He enjoyed saying that. What he’s after, I think, is political mileage. If — a very big if — he could show that the PAF was capable of striking with impunity inside Israel, Cairo would have to take him seriously again, wouldn’t they?”
He nodded. “Something showy, well inside Israel, yes. That would certainly give him a leg up. If he could get away with it — and that, as you say, is a big if — without being squashed like a bedbug.” He grinned. “It’s just occurred to me why he told you that phony story about the Majd el-Krum case.”
“Why?”
“Because he wanted to impress upon you the fact that there are PAF men operating in the Haifa area.”
“But why lie about it?”
“If he’d told you the true story about the Israeli judge suspending sentence, would you have bothered to check the story? Wouldn’t you have forgotten about it?”
“Probably. But why does he want to draw my attention to the Haifa area?”
“I’d say because that’s where the operation he’s planned will not take place. He wanted to put you off the scent.”
“Sounds farfetched to me.”
“Maybe, but that’s the way these birds’ minds work. Lew, I think you’re wrong about this. I think you ought to file some sort of story now. In personal interview PAF leader Salah Ghaled threatens new guerrilla strikes in Israel. Something like that. Portrait of a terrorist. What makes such men tick?”
“Do what Hammad wants, in fact? Give her hero the needed boost?”
“I don’t imagine that she’d consider what you’d write about him a boost.”
“To her I compared him with a punchy fighter who’s still kidding himself that he can make the big time. I think I was right. If — big if again — he delivers what he promises, or even attempts to do so, there’ll be a story. Until then, as far as I am concerned, he’s a waste of time — just a lot of talk.”
I was wrong, of course; inexcusably wrong, moreover, because I had allowed my personal dislike of Ghaled to influence my judgment.