U.S. Official’s Comment on PLO Attacks Sets Off Diplomatic Flap

WASHINGTON — One of the State Department’s top Middle East experts has touched off a diplomatic flap by saying Israel’s 1982 bombing of Beirut could be called terrorism and that some Palestinian actions against Israel could be labeled legitimate resistance.

The Israeli Embassy demanded a formal explanation and was told that those are not the U.S. government’s views, embassy spokesman Yossi Gal said.

The controversial comments were made by Gordon S. Brown, director of Arabian Peninsula affairs at the State Department, in an interview with Arab reporters via satellite on the U.S. Information Agency’s “Worldnet” program.

Definition of Terrorism

Attempting to define terrorism in answer to a reporter’s question, Brown said a definition is difficult because there is “a considerable difference” between groups such as the one headed by PLO renegade Abu Nidal--which attacks civilians in neutral countries--and “freedom fighters” like the contras in Nicaragua and the insurgents in Angola led by Jonas Savimbi.

When asked if the United States considered the 1982 Israeli bombing in Beirut to be terrorism, Brown replied, “It’s terrorism to the same degree, I suppose, as Katyusha rockets across the border (into Israel) are.”

Massacre in Munich

But he said those actions were part of continuing Arab-Israeli warfare and that U.S. complaints of Mideast terrorism referred to murders and hijackings.

When asked if that meant that some Palestine Liberation Organization actions were only part of continuing warfare, he replied:

“Some PLO actions, I would suspect, would fall within our definition of legitimate actions of resistance within occupied territories. Others . . . clearly would not, such as the Munich massacre and others.” He was referring to the attack by Palestinian gunmen on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany. Eleven Israelis were killed.

Yasser Arafat’s PLO is sworn to the destruction of Israel, but most countries deal with the organization. The United States has barred recognition of the PLO until it accepts Israel’s right to exist and forswears terrorism.

On Tuesday, Brown said: “I was caught off-guard by a question that I mishandled. It was an effort to say that as long as there is a state of war, violence exists in the area.

“I am prepared to say I made a mistake and let it lie at that.”