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As a military operation, the raid was a singular success. As a diplomatic and political maneuver, it was a dubious proposition, since it came at a time when the U.S., in cooperation with Jordan and Egypt, had been attempting to keep King Hussein's fragile peace initiative alive. The raid took the Tunisian government of President Habib Bourguiba, 82, a longtime friend of the U.S., by surprise. When Tunisians first heard explosions from Hammam al-Shatt, many thought that a raid was being carried out by Libya, with which Tunisia had broken diplomatic relations a few days earlier. But on the beach at Hammam al- Shatt, there was no such confusion. Said one young Palestinian survivor: "We could see the Israeli markings. The planes peeled off just above us. It was terrifying."
Tunisians were enraged by the long-distance attack. Newspapers published dozens of photographs of dismembered bodies, and the government-owned daily La Presse described the raid as "the blind barbaric terrorism of the Israeli state." But what really angered Bourguiba was the Reagan Administration's enthusiastic endorsement of the Israeli action, which White House Spokesman Larry Speakes described as a "legitimate response" to "terrorist attacks." President Reagan declared that Israel and other nations have the right to strike back "if they can pick out the people responsible." He added that he had "great faith in Israel's intelligence capabilities" on that score.
The Administration's approval of the raid shocked moderate Arab states. At the United Nations, the Security Council condemned the Israeli raid by a vote of 14 to 0, with the U.S. abstaining. Tunisian Foreign Minister Beji Caid Essebsi called the attack an act of "state terrorism" aimed at sabotaging Middle East peace efforts. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who had returned to Cairo only the previous day after what he had regarded as a successful trip to Washington, denounced the raid as a "horrible criminal operation" that posed "a major blow to peace efforts." Argued Mubarak: "If we counter terror with terror, we are going to have an endless chain of terrorist operations." Mubarak's prediction appeared to have been borne out by the news from Beirut that an Islamic fundamentalist group had announced that it intended to "execute" an American hostage, U.S. Embassy Political Officer William Buckley, in retaliation for the Israeli raid (see following story).
Egypt suspended negotiations with Israel over the status of Taba, the sliver of beachfront in the Sinai that is claimed by both countries. In Tunis, Bourguiba called in U.S. Ambassador Peter Sebastian and told him of his "profound regret and great astonishment" at the Administration's response. Summing up the reaction by moderate Arabs, one senior Western ^ diplomat in Cairo declared, "The raid is going to leave scars, a lot more than were caused by the attack on the Iraqi reactor."