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August 05, 1983 - Image 14

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1983-08-05

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

14 Friday, August 5, 1983

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Two Books' Differing Views of PLO Murderer's Murder

By JOSEPH COHEN

NEW ORLEANS — The
cops and robbers are long
since gone; the cowboys and
Indians are of yesteryear.
True, the Force rides herd in
space, but even so, that is
not where the real action is.
To look at the rash of re-

cent novels, led by John Le
Carre's "The Little Drum-
mer Girl," one would have
to conclude that the most
gripping conflict before us
today is the one between
Arab terrorists and the Is-
raeli intelligence agents,
with Beirut serving as the

nerve center of a combat
zone that extends outward
to all the capitals of the
Western World.
In this arena, fact and, fic-
tion, history and fantasy are
easily mixed. Yesterday's
hijacking is transformed
into next year's best seller;

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tomorrow's fictional projec-
tion anticipates next
month's assassination. The
most melancholy feature of
all this real and imagined
intrigue is that as much if
not more actual blood flows
outside the novels as flows
inside them.
Given the parallels, it is
not unreasonable to ex-
pect a true account, that
is, a factual history as
opposed to a historical
romance, of Arab-Israeli
intrigue, to read like a
novel, to be equally as
fast-paced and engross-
ing.
That is precisely the case
with Michael Bar-Zohar's
and Eitan Haber's "The
Quest for the Red Prince"
(Morrow), which describes
the efforts, finally suc-
cessful, by Mossad, the Is-
raeli intelligence organiza-
tion, to locate and execute
for his murderous felonies
the PLO's chief planner for
the terrorist unit Black Sep-
tember, the Al Fatah group
responsible for the mas-
sacre of the Israeli athletes
at the Olympic Games in
Munich in 1972 and other
well documented assassina-
tions, hijackings, bombings,
kidnappings and assorted
killings.
At a time when, four
months after publication,
Le Carre's "Little Drummer
Girl" is at the top of the best
seller lists and likely to re-
main there indefinitely,
with its pro-PLO sym-
pathies, it is good to have a
counterview put forward
since the garnering of pub-
lic opinion is an objective of
both books, though one is
fiction and the other is fact.
Curiously, both have sub-
stantially the same "plot,"
the tracking down by Israeli
intelligence of the leading
Palestinian terrorist.
Though Le Carre's fic-
tional Khalia appears not
to have been based liter-
ally on Ali Hassan
Salameh, code-named
the Red Prince, the simi-
larity of their methods of
operation, their elusive-
ness, their commitment
to the destruction of Is-
rael, and their absolute
dedication to the PLO
cause makes their twin
presence a coincidental
irony of unusual propor-
tions.
Hopefully, many of the
readers of Le Carre's "heart
of darkness" novel — as
James Wolcott, writing the
New York Review of Books
(April 14, 1983), described
"The Little Drummer Girl,"
likening it to "a meditative
adventure saga in:the tradi-
tion of Joseph Conrad," with
one character named
Joseph and another Kurtz
— will also read "The Quest
for the Red Prince" and if
swayed by Le Carre' will
re-orient their thinking
with respect to the PLO's
proclivity for terrorism.
Though Le Carre holds no
brief for terrorism as such,
he seems readily predis-
posed to condoning the ac-
tions of the PLO. These ac-
tions unequivocally war-
rant condemnation, as

Michael Bar-Zohar and
Eitan Haber make clear,
having apparently been
given access to Mossad's
files.
The authors are both Is-
raelis, the former being an
historian of Mossad and a
present member of the
Knesset, the latter well
known as co-author of a
book on Entebbe. It is not
surprising that their stance
is avowedly pro-Israeli.
That stance, inciden-
tally, was strongly
criticized by James M.
Markham in the New
York Times Book Review
Magazine (July 10). Fol-
lowing a now all too
familiar anti-Israeli
media bias, Markham
argues that once the
Black September organ-
ization ceased its ter-
rorist activities in 1973,
All Hassan Salameh be-
came a pro-U.S. CIA con-
tact, subsequently com-
mitted to protecting
Americans and Ameri-
can interests in Beirut.
What Markham ignores
and, I fear, many of Le Car-
re's readers will also, is the
simple fact that Palestinian .
terrorists initiated the kil-

ling.
retribution. However de-
plorable the violent death of
any human being. Ali Has-
Would Markham excuse
Lady Macbeth? I doubt it. It
was Ali Hassan Salameh
who chose to live by the
bomb, and so he died by it.
Reading "The Quest for
the Red Prince" has an-
swered a question I have
pondered for a long time.
There is a small sapling
planted on the Tulane Uni-
versity campus in front of a
patio adjacent to the law
school. At the base of this
young tree there is a bronze
plaque which reads, "In
Memory of David Berger
`66 from his Israeli Coun-
trymen and the Jewish Wel-
fare Federation of New Or-
leans, April 12, 1973."
David Berger, after
graduating from Tulane,
went to Israel where he
worked hard to qualify
for a place on the Israeli
Olympic wrestling team.
He died in Munich at the
hands of Salameh.
Passing David Berger's
of his death would ever be
brought to justice. He was,
in a method well-known to
him, on Jan. 22, 1979.

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