Military

DATE=03/28/01

TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

TITLE=MELVIN FRIEDLANDER, PART TWO

NUMBER=3-109

BYLINE=TOM CROSBY

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

INTERNET=

/// EDITORS: This interview is available in Dalet under SOD/English News Now Interviews in the folder for today or yesterday ///

HOST: Netanya has been the scene of other violence over the years. We have been talking with Melvin Friedlander, the author of "Conviction and Credence: U.S. Policymaking in the Middle East." For many years, he briefed officials in the U-S government and military about developments in the Middle East. He recalled a time 21 years ago when he and his family were in Netanya enjoying a day at the beach, when suddenly there was a moment of great and totally unexpected fear:

MR. FRIEDLANDER: We were taking a break -- I was on official government business, but we were taking a break~--~and went swimming in Netanya. It's a beautiful location, beautiful sea, and quiet. And everybody was in the water, and my children were playing in the sand. At that time~-- that was 1981 -- so the youngest would have been -- let's see, he's 32 today, so he would have been maybe 11 years old, and the next oldest child would have been 13 -- and they were playing in the sand, and all of a sudden the loudspeaker announced something, bring everybody back in. Everybody came out of the water. A bomb team went to look at a package which was literally six feet from where they were located. They took the package, cradled the package, took it out to the sea, exploded it. It was a bomb. Everybody clapped. They went back in the water. We didn't. But they went back in the water, and went on as business as usual. Of course, we didn't. And there was a helicopter whirring around overhead, looking for whoever put that bomb in the package about six feet from our kids.

MR. CROSBY: In what you're saying, it seems that very little has changed in 21 years.

MR. FRIEDLANDER: Well, it hasn't. It's only gotten worse. It's gotten worse, because that was an unlikely event in Netanya. Netanya is about a 30-minute ride north of Tel Aviv. And a beautiful location. Europeans used to vacation there all the time.

MR. CROSBY: Why do you suppose, though, that Netanya, of late, has become more of a target?

MR. FRIEDLANDER: Well, it's on the Mediterranean. It is supposedly not in the line of struggle. It's not a capital city. But because it housed a lot of Europeans, it's meant to make a point. And that is that no one is safe.

HOST: That's Melvin Friedlander who from 1969 to 1978 consulted with officials of the Pentagon and National Security Council here in Washington on Middle Eastern affairs. He was talking with News Now's Tom Crosby.

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