ATER 25 years of open or undercover warfare, neither Israel nor the Arab states can find much pride or glory any longer in the killing. But Israel last week carried aggression to new heights. Over the occupied Sinai peninsula, Israeli Phantoms scrambled to intercept an unarmed Libyan Arab Airlines Boeing 727 jet that was bound for Cairo and almost certainly had lost its way. The Israelis shot it down, killing 105 of the 111 people on board.
The attack on the airliner, which happened only twelve hours after a daring Israeli raid on Palestinian refugee camps in northern Lebanon, was a new sign that the Middle East is trapped in a siege mentality. Apparently, the conflicting parties are not capable of moving toward peace under present conditions. As it happened, last week's Israeli actions occurred at a time when Egypt and the U.S., after a long period of coolness, were again taking a tentative step toward talks and reconciliation.
The step consisted of a visit to Washington by Hafez Ismail, 57, President Anwar Sadat's national security adviser, who is commonly described as Cairo's Henry Kissinger. Egypt lately has shown unaccustomed signs of willingness to discuss peace, if not to agree to specific terms. After visits to Moscow and London, Ismail sought, and was quickly granted the opportunity to become an American President's first direct Egyptian contact since relations between Washington and Cairo were severed in 1967. Ismail's visit suggested that Egypt is aware that the road to peace with Israel runs through Washington rather than Moscow. But Israel's attack on the Libyan airliner clearly neutralized much of the trip's value. Nonetheless, Secretary of State William Rogers telephoned Ismail, who was in London when the plane was hit, to persuade him that the disaster had made his visit that much more imperative.
The Sinai incident was an unpardonable breach—if not of international law, since Israel claimed that its pilots had followed established procedures before finally opening fire on the plane —at least of international decency. The only crime of the captain—a French pilot named Jacques Bourges, 42, on contract to Libyan Arab Airlines—was that he mistakenly overflew air space claimed by Israel. Even Israel's friends abroad were shocked by the assault on the unarmed passenger plane. President Nixon sent pointed messages of sympathy to Libya and Egypt, whose citizens accounted for most of those killed in the crash. Other Western nations, including France and Britain, made formal protests to Israel. They also mounted additional guards over Israeli embassies as well as Israeli aircraft landing at their airports.