TWO Palestinians from highly-respected families who were educated at British universities were each jailed for 20 years yesterday for their part in a bomb attack which shattered the Israeli embassy and a car-bomb explosion outside a Jewish organisation in north London in July 1994.
Mr Justice Garland said Jawad Botmeh (28) and Samar Alami (31) were involved in what he called "two grave terrorist attacks" which caused many millions of pounds in damage and could have caused death or serious injury.
Alami quietly shook her head as sentence was passed. Botmeh showed no emotion.
After hearing mitigation pleas by Mr Michael Mansfield QC, counsel for the defendants, who, were convicted last week, the judge told them: "I have to pass sentences for what you did - not your motives, however powerful the emotions, frustrations, sense of injustice or anger which might have given rise to them."
Mr Mansfield described the case as a true exception". He had 44 letters of references and pleas for clemency for Botmeh and Alami, including one from Dr Hanan Ashrawi, a former PLO spokeswoman and now Palestinian minister for higher education.
He read an extract from a letter from Mr Derek Cooper, a former second in command of the Life Guards, pleading for "clemency and mercy". He described how he had been one of the last British officers to leave Jaffa - the Botmeh family village - in 1948, "with terrified and displaced Palestinians clinging to our vehicles".
In a clear reference to the IRA, Mr Mansfield said the two Palestinians were not part of an organised or continuing campaign. The targets were intended to be "symbolic".
The case had to be seen in a wider context, Mr Mansfield said. Moreover, those who played the most significant role, notably the woman who placed the bomb, had not been traced.
The judge conceded there was "some attempt to reduce the risk of loss of life". He said there had been a great deal of evidence about the history of Palestine, the Zionist movement, the abandonment of Britain's mandate and the formation of the state of Israel during the trial.
But, he said, it was neither the function of the jury nor his to take sides "in this tragic conflict of extreme bitterness". He was concerned with two car-bombs in London.
Mr Moshe Raviv the Israeli ambassador, said in a statement that he and his staff, some of whom were injured in the bombing, were satisfied justice had been done. "Terrorists must know that nothing can or will be achieved by acts of terror and that, in the end, they will be bought to justice," he said.