Dec. 2, 2002

By GREER FAY CASHMAN

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Mega-terrorism and global jihad have changed the rules of the game in the balance of national and international security, said Ephraim Halevy, immediate past head of the Mossad and current chief of the National Security Council, at Monday's opening of the third annual Herzliya Conference.

"A successful terrorist mega-attack would instantly change a long series of rules of conduct and behavior," he said.

Last Thursday's attack on an Arkia plane in Kenya would have constituted such a "terrorist mega-attack" if the missiles had hit their target and would have changed the country's policy on self-defense, Halevy said.

There are a broad range of responses to the threat of mega-terrorism, he said, and Israel has many of the capabilities needed, though it would not be appropriate to make them public.

>b?A mega-terror attack against Israel, like downing a civilian aircraft, would "create an international dynamic that would open options that up to now were unacceptable to public opinion," Halevy said.

Halevy did not spell out the type of action Israel would take, but implied that retaliation would be far harsher than anything that has been done up to now. Even so, he said, "it can be assumed that the international community would understand, accept and internalize the changes in the rules of the game and fields of activity."

With Iranian and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction aimed at Israel, it is in the country's interest that the American operation in Iraq prove successful, he said. There has never been such a synthesis of interests between Israel and the US as there is today, he said.

Israel and Russia also have common interests, he said. Whereas the USSR was the key economic and military supporter of Israel's enemies, today Russia, even though it still provides military aid to Syria and Iraq, has come a long way in fighting global jihad.

As to the Palestinian conflict, Halevy said that the Palestinian voices against the violence and the suicide bombings, "are not the voices of the righteous but the voices of realists," who can see that if the current situation continues, it will imperil Palestinian ambitions.

"The crisis in Palestinian leadership did not happen by itself," he said.

Israel has paid a very high toll in human life, Halevy said, and it will be no source of comfort to those who have lost loved ones that the price paid by the Palestinians will be much greater if they do not put a new responsible, pragmatic, and trustworthy leadership in place.

"The intifada is one of the most salient factors in the collapse of the economy," he said. An unemployment rate of 10.5 percent caused him to recommend setting up an emergency task force of all economic sectors.

Halevy expressed regret that the efficiency and accomplishment of the defense establishment has not been emulated by civilian leaders, even though some of them made the transition from military to civilian leadership.

Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Monday that the world must take concerted action against world terrorist groups and the regimes that support them, and it must also cooperate in fitting civilian aircraft with defensive capabilities.

Because the devices are expensive, Netanyahu said in a CNN interview, "if they are organized, manufactured and distributed by a consortium of countries, you can bring down the cost significantly. Some of it could be passed to the passengers." Netanyahu said this must be done urgently, because "once planes start falling from the sky, we're going to live in a very different world."

News agencies contributed to this report.

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2002