Terror, and a Frail Hint of Peace

The gray Renault had been parked near the Science Faculty of the University of Paris all night. Its owner, Algerian Playwright Mohammed Boudia, 41, had spent the night with a woman who lived near by. Shortly before noon, Boudia emerged from the apartment house, passed several children playing in the street, and walked up to his automobile. As he stepped inside, a bomb that had been placed under the front seat exploded, killing him instantly. Boudia was suspected of being Black September's European headman and was wanted for questioning by police in two countries in connection with terrorist acts.

Three days later, Colonel Yosef Alon, 44, Israeli air attache in Washington, and his wife Devora attended a diplomatic party in a Washington suburb. Shortly after 1 a.m., the Alons turned into the driveway of their ranch-style home in Somerset, Md. Mrs. Alon got out and walked to the front door. Before her husband could join her, an assailant shot the former fighter pilot five times with a .38-cal. revolver. By the time police arrived, Alon was dead.

While investigators in Paris and Washington have not been able to find any clues about the identities of the killers, Boudia and Alon were widely believed to be the latest victims in the deadly underground war between Israeli agents and Arab guerrillas in cities around the globe. Such incidents by now have become almost commonplace. Similar assassinations this year in Rome, Paris, Nicosia, Beirut, Madrid and London have claimed dozens of lives. Characteristically, the killers left no clues, and police have made no arrests. Indeed, the only clear indications that the two men were in fact the latest casualties in the Arab-Israeli war of terrorism were the pointless manner and the close proximity of the deaths.

FBI agents and Maryland police investigating Alon's death cautiously refused to attribute it to Arab terrorists, but Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was more outspoken. He vowed to "liquidate the terrorists wherever they exist." Using almost identical words, Yasser Arafat, powerful leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, charged in an interview with TIME (see box following page) that a Zionist-American conspiracy had been organized "to follow, kill and liquidate the Palestinians under the pretext of fighting terrorism."

A major retaliation by the Israelis could have a serious effect on prospects for a new, secret peace effort now under way in the Middle East. That peace initiative has been launched by Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba. Despite official statements that Bourguiba's probes had failed, Tunisian Foreign Minister Mohammed Masmoudi revealed to TIME'S Tanya Matthews that secret contacts between Tunisian and Israeli representatives were going on in Geneva.

The Bourguiba plan is based on recognition of all rights in the area: the right of Israel "not to be exterminated and cast into the sea"; the right of the Palestinians "not to be deprived of a homeland"; the right of the Arab peoples "not to be occupied and humiliated." The four-stage plan entails:

1) an opening stage of public probes (already concluded);

2) a secret stage in which private contacts between Tunisia and Israel (currently going on) would attempt to establish a basis for peace talks;

3) a public Bourguiba-Golda Meir summit;

4) another secret stage of hard negotiations, during which the Egyptians and the Palestinians would move into the talks and the Tunisians withdraw.

The hope that the Bourguiba initiative will work is frail. Tunisia has never figured importantly in the Arab world, and it is doubtful whether Bourguiba has the personal prestige among militant Arabs to bring the two sides together. Still, as far as the Israelis are concerned, he is acceptable as a neutral intermediary who brings about talks because he has entree into Arab capitals as well as Israel.

Throughout the week, both sides appeared to be testing the wind with a rash of on-again, off-again statements. Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban declared flatty that Israel was ready to meet Bourguiba anywhere -perhaps later this month. Bourguiba's talk of a return to the 1947 U.N. frontiers was no obstacle, he added. Two days later Mrs. Meir threw cold water on that proposal. Was it a feint -or had the initiative failed? No one could say for sure. But at least both sides were still talking about talking -and that in itself seemed a moderately optimistic conclusion to a week that had opened with yet more terror.

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