1) Why are these Palestinian commandos even living in Lebanon--did they once live somewhere else? In examining the pre-1948 territorial situation, one makes the vital realization that these commandos are rocketing the very areas in which Palestinians once lived and were uprooted after the May 15, 1948, U.N. creation of the state of Israel and the ensuing 1948 war.

2) Would such a terrorist problem even exist if the creation of the state of Israel had not forcefully displaced 700,000 Palestinians from their homes--and if the Israelis had not conquered approximately 25,000 square miles of territory (an area over three times the size of Israel itself) in the 1967 war and hence caused over 150,000 West Bank refugees to become twice-displaced as they, along with an additional 100,000 West Bank residents, fled across the Jordan? Would this commando problem exist if the Palestinians had been granted an independent state or entity to compensate for their uprooting that was a result of this foreign occupation of their lands?

3) Are there not similar, emotion-laden narratives depicting accounts of terrorist action where Israel played the role of the massacrist and the Palestinians were the innocent victims?

To make the significant point that terrorist warfare has been initiated by Israeli as well as Arab parties, one might recall the major atrocity committed by Israeli terrorists of the Irgun when these Zionists massacred nearly all of the defenseless inhabitants (254 men, women and children) of the Palestinian Arab village of Deir Yassin on April, 19, 1948, or one of the many other atrocities committed by Jews against the scores of other Palestinian villages in the first Palestine War in 1948.

Or one might recall the fright of innocent southern Lebanese villagers during the Israeli incursion into Lebanese Arqub area, a four-day attack in February and March 1972. That Israeli retaliation to fedayeen raids brought the largest military operations to date against Lebanese villages--which caused even the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution condemning Israel. Again, heavy civilian Lebanese casualties were sustained the following June when the Israelis staged air attacks on Lebanese villages following a renewal of fedayeen activity.

Or what of the helplessness of southern Lebanese villagers during Israel's recent massive invasion into Lebanon when Israel used U.S.-supplied CBU-72 "cluster bombs" during their military operations which wantonly killed, mutilated and maimed thousands of civilian men, women and children? (These were devastating antipersonnel bombs used against Palestinian guerilla forces and Palestinian refugee camps--the use of which was a distinct Israeli violation of the secret 1976 agreement with the U.S. to use such weapons only in wars comparable in scale to the 1967 or 1973 wars and only against Arab armies.)

From this perspective, then, one realizes that there have been helpless victims on both sides who have paid the price for the aggressive action and policies adopted by the responsible governmental or organizational parties. As Feldstein sympathizes with helpless kibbutzniks who have been the occasional targets of Palestinians who are incensed by a hard-line and expansionist Israeli government policy, so too have defenseless Palestinian refugee camp dwellers and southern Lebanese villagers been the victims of Israeli terrorist action and military incursions initiated in retaliation to PLO commando action.

The message is simple: The Palestinians are not just "PLO lunatics," but are embittered refugees who have resorted to terrorist warfare out of mounting frustration. Although it might seem not only brutal but futile for the Palestinians to resort to terrorist action directed toward helpless Israeli kibbutzniks, one must realize that many Palestinian commandos have sadly concluded that 30 years of international neglect have made such terrorist action necessary to cry out their cause.

Attempts at settling the Palestinian problem through conventional Arab armies in four fruitless wars and through international forums such as the U.N. and talks in Geneva have not solved the Palestinian refugee diaspora. The 1967 Arab defeat was the final blow that showed these embittered Palestinians that conventional Arab warfare was not an effective means by which to promote their cause, and that they must resort to independent commando action to make that cause audible.

One cannot doubt that Palestinian terrorism has taken many Israeli lives, but one must also realize the desperateness of the Palestinians. After 30 years, it has become evident to the Palestinians that the Arab states as well as the international community will settle for peace at the cost of the Palestinian cause. This reality has been shown by Israeli violations of international U.N. law concerning settlement policy in occupied territories and recognition of the Palestinians' right to return to their homeland (U.N. Resolutions 3236, 3237, 3376, 3375, 3379 of 1974-76); actions by the Arab League subordinating the Palestinian cause to Arab state interest; a dismissed Geneva Conference; and U.N.-, Rogers-, Sadat-initiated moves contrary to PLO objectives.

No one can applaud the 1970 hijackings by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the 1972 Munich incident, or the recent Fatah terrorist action, but one must try to understand what harsh realities have motivated some PLO groups to take such a course. Thirty years of refugee life and four fruitless wars have made the Palestinians feel they must cry out louder with more audible means to make their cause heard, and to exert pressure that will guarantee that any future-settlement will consider the Palestinian population as a primary factor to reckon with.

Historian Arnold Toynbee recognizes the international neglect that has nurtured a sense of desperateness among the Palestinians and has caused them to resort to such extreme means:

The Palestinian Arabs have an understandable vendetta against the Israelis, but they also have a grievance against all the rest of us. Half a century of massive indifference to their wrongs has had the same exasperating effect on them as a century of similar treatment has had on the black citizens of the United States....

Today the Palestinian faces the human stone wall, and it is no wonder if, after beating his head against it in vain, he seizes a stick of gelignite and blows up himself, the wall, and his unresponsive fellow human beings on the far side. What else is he, or anyone of us, to do?

In summarizing, then, we see that terrorism exists on both sides--one could go into the entire history of such Israeli terrorist organizations as the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Group that have collaborated with the official armed forces of the Jewish Agency (Haganah and Palmuch) and committed atrocities in which many innocent Palestinian civilian lives have been taken. The same military and psychological tolls that Feldstein describes as being suffered by kibbutzniks have also been endured on the Arab side where Palestinian refugees and southern Lebanese villages have instead been the victims. Similarly, the same sort of defensive psychological mechanisms have enabled the courageous, homeless Palestinians and war-stricken Lebanese to withstand such perpetual agony. Just as Iraelis try to forget the danger by placing their fate in God's will, so do victimized Arabs sing and pray to Allah.