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Theirs vs. Ours: Terrorism

By VVAW

One of Reagan's favorite campaign themes is the presence of terrorists. He seems to keep them under his bed or at least in a closet so that he can trot them out every so often to appropriately terrify the American public.

There were supposed to be the horrible Libyan terrorist prowling the country in order to assassinate Reagan. Well, they didn't do it and now, according to the FBI, they never existed. There are the Iranian terrorists planning to fly a Cessna into an aircraft carrier. And, in case of necessity, there is always Arafat and the dreaded PLO terrorist.

But blanket condemnation of terrorist runs into a problem when confronted with the shady past of Yitzhak Shamir, Israeli Prime Minister and staunch ally of Reagan.

Shamir emigrated to Palestine from Poland in the '30's and joined with former Prime Minister Begin in the underground Zionist Army, the Irgun.

In 1940 the Irgun split, with Abraham Stern forming "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel" (commonly called the Stern Gang). Shamir joined this group and became part of its three-man leadership and operations commander. He was personally responsible for organizing the assassinations of Lord Noyne, British Minister for the Middle East and Count Bernadotte, UN Special Minister in Palestine, and planning the massacre of unarmed Palestinians at Dur Yassin.

One man's terrorist is another's patriot!