On 5 March, Arab terrorists landed on the Tel Aviv beach and attacked the Savoy hotel, capturing parts of the building and holding hostages. The terrorists were assaulted by the IDF, most of them were killed and a number captured. But 7 hostages lost their lives. A day later, the vessel that brought the terrorists to the point where they transferred to rubber boats was seized by the Israeli navy. In his statement, which was a reply to motions for the Knesset agenda, Mr. Peres notes the timing of the attack on the eve of the Kissinger shuttle. Text:
Mr. Speaker, Members of the Knesset.
The murderous attack on the "Savoy" hotel raises a number of questions:
(1) Who dispatched the terrorists.
(2) Where they came from.
(3) The method they adopted.
(4) Their choice of time.
(5) The aim they set themselves.
(1) There is no doubt that the terrorists were despatched by the Fatah organization. After the Yom Kippur War, this organization set up a special reconnaissance and intelligence unit, subordinated directly to Abu Jihad, who heads the Fatah's military arm. A "Naval arm" unit was also set up, linked operationally to the Fatah's reconnaissance and intelligence unit.
This had put paid to the legend which the Fatah has been trying to foster, especially among American visitors, regarding its ostensibly moderate attitude. Actually, there is no contradiction between Arafat's address at the Q.N. on 13 November 1974, and the bullets sprayed by his emissaries on the Tel Aviv sea shore. The moment this organization's verbal legerdemain is set aside, its two principal characteristics are immediately discernible:
A) This is not an organization aspiring - politically - for the Palestinian's self-determination, but an organization striving to terminate - physically, too - the Jewish people's self-determination.
B) This is not an organization operating to rules containing a moral aspect of sorts, but an organization which received tens of millions of dollars annually from the Arab states in order to murder Jews - women, children, civilians -anywhere, indiscriminately. These are the salon-terrorists, the ugliest ever to have flourished against the background of a political conflict.
(2) Insofar as concerns their mustering and departure points, a distinction must be made between the places chosen for their training (the naval arm underwent training - including diving instruction - in Egypt, Libya, Algeria and Syria) and the path of their progress towards perpetration of the crime: The group commenced its training, as a team, in mid-January this year, at the Fatah training base at Duma (ten kilometres east of Damascus), and at the end of the month it was transferred to a training base of the naval arm in Latakiye, where it trained for about a fortnight, being transferred in mid-February to a Fatah base in southern Lebanon, where instructions in the art of bargaining for human lives was completed. It was from there, too, that the group embarked in two rubber dinghies towards the Fatah-owned sailing boat, which - in turn - had set out from Beirut.
The group's cover story - in the event they were caught - was that they had ostensibly set out from Port Said. If they were not caught, the propaganda tale was to have been that they had come from the Israel-held territories. These lies were designed to create the following impressions:
A) That the Fatah had a deep hold in the territories. This has assumed major importance for the organization nowadays, since Arafat's prestige is on the decline in Judea and Samaria and in Gaza. The populace realizes that he is a gun-toting gambler, playing with the fate of tens of thousands of Arabs, who are tired of paying the price of the extremism of the Mufti, Shukeiry and their successor.
B) Should this lie fail to succeed - the alternative is to channel Israel's ire, and the world's attention, towards Egypt, which displayed preliminary readiness for a settlement. And to the Arab outlook concerning a strange peace, namely, peace without peaceful relations, the Fatah has now also added the formula of negotiations attended by terrorism.
C) There was here also an attempt to blur the part played by Syria, and especially by Lebanon, for in Lebanon there exist nowadays three types of administration: The Fatah rule, overt and almost exclusive, in the region between Mount Hermon and the Hasbani River. Lebanese rule in certain centres of Beirut and in various regions elsewhere in the country. Joint rule - a state-within-a-state - by Lebanon and the Fatah in other regions.
D) Implementation of the operation bore no resemblance to its planning. The group was to have split in two, and operate as two separate units. Instead, they commenced firing in every direction as soon as they landed, and entrenched themselves in the first building to have attracted their attention. And even after they overpowered the hostages and threatened to blow themselves up together with the hostages, a further change appeared to have occurred in their plan: They placed the explosive charges only in the room where the hostages were assembled, a room in which no terrorists stayed or were found, and murdered their fellow humans in the ultimate hope of saving their own selves.
Their requests to fetch ambassadors of foreign countries, among them such as are not at all represented in Israel, were designed to gain time and increase the propaganda effect, in the hope that Israel would surrender to their characteristic extortionism.
E) The timing of the operation was clearly aimed to coincide with the arrival and stay in the region of the U.S. Secretary of State, Dr. Kissinger. These organizations become panic-stricken the moment they sensed that there might be the faintest hope of settling the region's weighty problems by non-violent means.
F) The targets they had set themselves are now obvious:
To kill Jews and non-Jews, to enhance Arafat's prestige in the eyes of his supporters ranging from Gaddafi to Assad and in the eyes of his coalition partners (from Habash to Hawatme), to incriminate Egypt in this issue, to cover their tracks in the north and create the impression of a 'Fatah' infrastructure in the administered territories, to disrupt the tour of the Secretary of State, and dictate political moves to those who are party to the negotiations, contrary to their stand.
I will not go into Israel's reactions-neither those in the past nor those required in the future. I will only say that a programme has been drawn up for an intensification of security measures at sea and on land, which for obvious reasons I shall not discuss here and this of course refers only to one aspect of the reaction.
As in previous operations, under similar circumstances, here, too, profound individual tragedies are involved, innocent men, women and young people were slain, and an I.D.F. unit operated with distinction and daring, displaying outstanding efficiency, and an all-out attempt to save the lives of the hostages, even at the risk of the rescuers' lives. Two of our men who stormed the hotel - a retired commander in the I.D.F. and a courageous son of Kfar Yeheskel -did in fact pay for this effort with their lives.
Our heart goes out to the bereaved families, and our admiration goes out to those who withstood this grave test. It is only fitting that I should mention the calm and disciplined behaviour of most of the residents of the neighbourhood, and the self-control shown by the hostages, hints of which we learned from the touching story of Kochava Levy.
Members, of the Knesset, to the extent that serious conclusions should be drawn political and otherwise - from this operation, these are not especially of a verbal nature. Considerable sections among the leaders of terrorism and warfare in the Arab world have been seized with a great imaginary excitement, as though time were acting in their favour. The contest between the Jewish nation and considerations of time, and the temptation of time, is not new to our people. It began when we emerged from bondage to salvation. In this contest it was not the long drawn-out period of time that defeated the Jewish people but instead, the Jewish people, small and for the most part isolated, were victorious over time.
In distress, in pain, but with rare ability - we vanquished murder and the murderers. This time also at our disposal is the army deliberation, to strike at those who are eager for our extermination.