Prisoners of Zion
In Israel the trial has just begun of 25 alleged terrorists, which is already causing alarm throughout the country. It is the climax of a chain of events that began when two Arab mayors on the occupied West Bank were blown up in their cars in 1980. Next
Palestinian students at a West Bank university were gunned down by masked men. Finally Israeli secret service agents discovered bombs underneath five Jerusalem buses timed to explode at the height of the rush-hour. When the suspects were arrested, they turned out to be respectable devout Jews: the leading defendants even had a personal friend in the cabinet. There had also been plans for the most spectacular operation -to blow up the Dome of the Rock - Islam's most sacred shrine in Jerusalem.
Who are the terrorists - the so-called 'Jewish Underground'? Why did it take Israel's crack Shin Beth - their MI5 - over four years to break the case? Tom Mangold reports. Producer TIM SHAWCROSS Editor PETER IBBOTSON