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Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5 SPECIAL EDITION -- TERRORISM -- 26 JUNE 1984 LOS ANGELES TIMES 24 May 1984 Pg. 1 25 Indicted in Israeli Probe of Jewish Terrorist Group By NORMAN KEMPSTER, Times Staff Writer JERUSALEM—Twenty-five Is- raelis were indicted Wednesday on charges of murder, attempted mur- der, conspiracy to destroy religious shrines and a variety of lesser crimes resulting from a four-year campaign to terrorize and intimi- date Arabs. The ‘national prosecutor's office filed the charges 27 days after police made their first arrests of members of a Jewish underground that oper- ated primarily in the Israeli-occu- pied West Bank of the Jordan River. Six of the suspects were accused of first-degree murder, which car- ries a. maximum penalty of life in prison here. All 25 were charged with belonging to a “terrorist or- ganization,” an offense usually in- voked by Israeli authorities against Arabs belonging to the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Jerusalem magistrate who presided over the indictments re- fused to lift a court order prohibiting publication of the names of the suspects. However, the group is known to include several prominent West Bank settlers and at least a few. high-ranking officers in the Israeli army reserve. . ~Rabbi Moshe Levinger, a leader of the 17-year campaign for Jewish settlement in the once all-Arab ‘West Bank city of Hebron, has been jailed since May 13 b spine with the investigation, It was not known if pi charismatic Levinger is among those formally The Justice Ministry announcement said the suspects ged with committing and conspiring to commit q acts with the aim of inflicting revenge on the Keb: ulation and frightening it.” ithe ca has touched off a bitter debate in Israel. Most @rernment officials and many Jewish settlement Igitlers have condemned the actions of the under- d. But other Israelis, including a deputy Speaker of }: Knesset (Parliament) have argued that Jewish a on Arabs are a proper response to PLO-spon- terrorist assaults on Jews. ‘£:K2 least some of the accused have announced plans to “for the Knesset in the July 23 elections on a ticket ales “The Underground” as a test of public sentiment. ‘fhe technique is reminiscent of one used frequently by the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland. “The murder charges resulted from a submachine-gun and hand-grenade attack last summer on the campus of the Islamic College in Hebron in which three students were killed outright and 33 injured. One of the wounded died later. ~ Other charges included planting bombs in the cars of ree elected mayors of West Bank cities on June 2, . Two of the mayors were maimed, and an Israeli peliceman was blinded while trying to defuse the third bamb. The Maariv newspaper quoted unnamed suspects ag. saying they had intended to attack three other mayors but were unable to do so for a variety of reasons. ‘'rargeting of Shrine and Mosque Potentially the most serious charge is conspiracy to blew up the Dome of the Rock shrine and Al Aqsa MBsque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. The site is considered the third-holiest in Islam, and any attack on itt‘surely would have produced a wave of violence ut Muslim countries. ‘The indictment accuses the suspects of stealing large quantities of arms and explosives from the Israeli army andl storing them at various locations throughout the cppntry. “In the Maariv interview, published just hours before tle indictments were announced, the suspects said they formed the underground because they did not believe tHat the Israeli government was adequately protecting Jewish settlers against Palestinian violence. The sus- pééts also said their activities were similar to the actions ofJewish organizations—including those once led by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and former Prime Mghister Menachem Begin—that employed terrorist tagtics in the fight against the British occupiers of Palestine before: Israel achieved independence. Some supporters of the suspects went even further. ‘Ag-a rally Tuesday, Deputy Knesset Speaker Meir ‘Colien- Avidov said, “We have to tear out the eyes.and watsof the Arabs.” Speakers at the rally complained that the vernment has not taken adequate measures against Arabs who attack Jews,-even though the rally was held one day after an Israeli military court sentenced four young Palestinians to life in prison and four othefs to terms of Between 10 and 25 years for the murder of Aharon Gross, a 19-year-old Israeli religious student. ‘According to Wednesday's indictment, the suspects intended to avenge the ‘of Gross, who was stabbed last summer in the Hebfon marketplace, when they shot up the college in Hebron. Ina speech to the Knesset this week, Shamir assailed the underground as “a small group of people who were tempted into taking this crooked path.” “The Israeli government, and it alone, is responsible for Israel’s security,” Shamir said in rejecting the claim that the underground acted to protect Jewish lives. Approved For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100330001-5