text: JERUSALEM, Feb. 23— The Israeli Parliament took up the question today of intimidation of Western journalists by Palestinian and Syrian terrorists in Beirut and Damascus.
  
  Two prominent Israeli politicians, Eliahu Ben-Elissar, chairman of Parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, and Yehuda Ben-Meir, Deputy Foreign Minister and a leader of the National Religious Party, denounced what Mr. Ben-Elissar called ''a long chain of acts of terror, intimidation and blackmail that has led to the state of near-terror in which Western journalists live and work in Lebanon and Syria, and because of which Israel is presented in the Western media in a twisted and distorted fashion.''
  
  Mr. Ben-Meir, speaking for the Government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, said it was ''time to break the conspiracy of silence and tell the truth about the systematic attacks by Syria and the P.L.O. against the media and against freedom of speech using murder, threats, kidnapping and terror.''
  
  The Deputy Foreign Minister went on to quote at length from an article on the subject by John Kifner, Beirut correspondent of The New York Times, which was published by The Times on Monday. Charges Are Repeated
  
  Mr. Ben-Elissar, however, repeated charges made last week by his close associate, Zev Chafets, director of the Government Press Office, that The Times had acted improperly in deleting, from an earlier interview with Mr. Chafets, criticisms of The Times itself for failing to report the detention last summer of five American correspondents in Lebanon. The group of reporters included Mr. Kifner and another Times correspondent.
  
  Mr. Ben-Elissar asserted that ''they were given a sheet of paper to write a last message to their loved ones.'' One of the Times correspondents said this was not true.
  
  Mr. Ben-Elissar scoffed at a statement by Craig R. Whitney, deputy foreign editor of The Times, that ''it is the policy of The Times to report difficulties encountered by its correspondents in pursuit of stories only when the difficulties themselves become news, and we did not consider this such a case, then or now.''
  
  Mr. Ben-Elissar said that on at least two occasions, The Times had reported on difficulties encountered by foreign correspondents in Israel. He did not say what incidents he had in mind.
  
  Over the objections of Communist legislators, Parliament voted to refer the matter to the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee for further discussion. This was a way of removing it from the floor and avoiding a full debate. The Communists wanted it removed from the agenda entirely.
summary: The Israeli Parliament took up the question today of intimidation of Western journalists by Palestinian and Syrian terrorists in Beirut and Damascus.   Two prominent Israeli politicians, Eliahu Ben-Elissar, chairman of Parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, and Yehuda Ben-Meir, Deputy Foreign Minister and a leader of the National Religious Party, denounced what Mr. Ben-Elissar called ''a long chain of acts of terror, intimidation and blackmail that has led to the state of near-terror in which Western journalists live and work in Lebanon and Syria, and because of which Israel is presented in the Western media in a twisted and distorted fashion.''   Mr. Ben-Meir, speaking for the Government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, said it was ''time to break the conspiracy of silence and tell the truth about the systematic attacks by Syria and the P.L.O. against the media and against freedom of speech using murder, threats, kidnapping and terror.''