18 Friday, December 22; 1918 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Fracturing the Political Myths of Fertile Crescent By YITZHAK BEN-AMI "Legitimate Rights." What are they? Who is "legitimate?" To most Third World, Communist, and variously shaded Leftists, the an- swers are simple. The Is- raelis, descendants of those ancient Hebrews and Ju- daeans now in-gathered be- tween the Jordan and the Mediterranean, are really just another breed of white, alien colonialists. The artificial state of Is- rael will eventually be ab- sorbed, eliminated, ejected or whatever, off and out of the land it now "illegiti- mately" occupies. The same fate that be- fell the Crusaders, the Ot- toman Empire and before that the Romans, Byzan- tines, Greeks, Persians, Assyrians, Minoans and Egyptians who occupied part or all the land over the millenia! So, in the council of na- tions of today, with its self- serving "historic" concepts of "legitimacy," the only people to be recognized as having "legitimate" rights to "Palestine" is the "Arab nation" by way of that hap- less clan — the "Palesti- nians." History as taught by Baghdad and Damascus ob viously accepts as legiti- mate only the Arab con- quest of Palestine, covering the period when this tiny r appendage of the "Fertile Crescent" was ruled as a minor southern province out of Baghdad, Damascus, or sometimes, Cairo. As is always the case in fiction, facts such as the ethnic origins of today's and yesterday's heterogeneous population of Palestine, which totalled about 300,000 when the first Zionist settlers arrived in the last century, are delib- erately presented in nebul- ous terms. Are they the ancient Canaanites? Edomites? Phoenicians? Nabateans (as claimed recently by a Jor- danian ambassador) or, Heaven forbid, some could actually be descendants of the old Hebrews! . . . The de- ception persists. And at the same time, the only legitimate de- scendants of the people who ever ruled and lived on that land as a nation, the Israelis of today, are called "illegitimate" in a land that should there- fore revert to the "Arab nation." In one rhetorical stroke — Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, Riyadh, Tripoli — wipe clear the pages of history. History to the United Na- tions of 1978 is a blank from the time of Ab- raham to Arafat. This fiction, if put today to a vote in the United Na- 1 To: The Jewish News 1 75 1 5 W. 9 Mile Rd. Suite 865 Southfield, Mich. 48075 WE'VE JUST from Paste in old label TO: NAME L Please Allow Two Weeks state on the West Bank. There is unsettled a ques- tion of the border between them, the final compromise between two peoples who will have to live side by side for a very long time. They may even one day merge economically and other- wise. Meanwhile, the "King- dom (eventually Republic?) of Palestine" is a fact. What is befogging the issue is the usual Mediterranean flights of imagination. * * * YITZHAK BEN-AMI tions, will be ruled as reality. And in reality— the generation of Palestinian refugees, rotting and multi- plying in camps, rejected by the "Arab nation," poisoned with this version of history, — will live on in years of bloodshed and suffering. The Eastern Bank of the Jordan was to be part of the Jewish Homeland, as de- lineated in the Balfour Dec- laration (1917), the League of Nations Mandate and ac- tually welcomed then (1919) by King Feisal, the father of the "Arab nation." The fiction of the "Jorda- nian Hashemite Kingdom" is an elaborate one, even for the East, a small monument to the vanishing Hashemite dynasty of Hejaz, per- petuated in only this one small piece of land. Jordan, torn away from Mandated Palestine in 1921 by Churchill and the British Colonial Office, elevated in 1946 by Whitehall to Kingdom, was thus defined by Time magazine (April, 1956): "A country that has little or no excuse for existence. A chunk torn from the desert, it has no geographical un- ity, national identity or political Ilistory . . . It was created by the British for the British." Constituted formally in 1947 — it is neither Hashemite nor Jordanian nor Nabatean. This misbegotten entity could be the answer to a tragic development fostered by artificially instigated events; possibly the answer to a 60-year conflict: the conflict between the legiti- mate heirs of the land, the land between the desert and the Eastern Mediterranean, and heterogeneous sedi- ments of people of various ethnic and religious back- grounds, of waves of invad- ing armies, tribes and cul- tures that lapped for cen- turies over the southern end of the Fertile Crescent. During the past 30 years, in the lands from Mesopotamia, through the Nile down to Yemen, there took place a migra- tion of peoples, an ex- change of populations. Similar historic events occurred time and again, especially in the last 100 years — world-wide. About 580,000 "Arabs" and 850,000 Jews changed domiciles in 1948 to 1953. Two states emerged. A Palestinian state on the East Bank and an Israeli The "Israeli Liability" emerges appropriately, from Foggy Bottom. It states that Israel is a political and military lia- bility for the U.S. and the West. If a magic wand would only sweep Israel away, the U.S. and the West would enjoy peace, bliss, military support and cheap oil, all coming forth from a unified, powerful "Arab nation," lined up in support of Western Civilization. This fiction borders on the visions experienced by partakers of hal- lucinogens. In fact, if not for Israel, the "Arab nation" with its tremendous petroleum wealth on one side and tens of millions of destitute peasants and city slum dwellers on the other, would have been torn apart by now by its components. Small-scale previews have been presented to the world.. There were the Iraqi/Syrian border clashes; Egyptian/Libyan warfare; the conflicts of Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania; Yemen (South and North) and Saudi Arabia and Egypt and . . . . Israel's military strength' and potential in the East- West confrontations is ig- nored deliberately, if not al- together maliciously. So are Israel's contributions in sci- ence, military intelligence, captured weaponry and so forth. The reality of a possible military vacuum, stretch- ing along the southern arc of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, from the Urals Co Sakhalin, is camouflaged with as- tronomic figures, repre- senting military aid and sales to oil-rich states. A realistic evaluation of the military potential of these countries, now or in the future, torn by social upheaval, may prevent a repeat occurrence of a recent history, when bil- lions 'of dollars of equip- ment and invaluable manpower went down the drain in the Vietnam quagmire. There is very little for the Western world to rely upon, between young Israel and modern Japan. The projec- tion of an "Israeli liability" has a junior illegitimate offspring — it is the concept that the U.S. support for Is- rael is "domestic policy" while actually Israel is a military liability for the country. The fact that this concept contrary to the views of such "domestic politicians" as Maj. Gen. George J. Keegan, Adm. E.R. Zum- walt Jr., Maj. Gen. D.A. Thompson (all retired) or Dr. Josef Churba (formerly of USAF Intelligence) is ig- nored. One shudders to think of the military "strength" the West will draw from the "Arab nation," in case of a non-nuclear confrontation in the Middle East. Or how the West would fare if the PLO will rule those slivers of land, Samaria and Judea. The Jews of the 20th Century, Israelis and those in the Diaspora, continue to live in a world of fantasy. Although cen- turies of helplessness when confronted with massacres should have taught them better means of survival, the Jews still put their trust in "human- ity." A scenario, for instance, of non-nuclear warfare in the Mediterranean, involv- ing the super powers, di- rectly or by proxy, and which may mortally affect Israel — is resolved in the fantasy of most American Jews and some Israelis — by the Marines landing in Ashdod and Haifa. Little has been learned by a great many. The present Israeli gov- ernment is attempting to build a safe future. While it cannot be fully guaranteed, at least it has as its cor- nerstone and ancient sage, Rabbi Hillel's "Im Ein Ani Li Mi Li" (If not unto myself, who?). Consequently, peace treaties, guarantees, open borders, all are important, but remain only trimmings! They key to safety is within the Israeli state, its strength, its ability to per- ceive the prerequisites for survival, and then think, act, manage to keep its in- dependence like other small states do. On Nov. 2, 1917, the British Government issued the Balfour Declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations, pledg- ing support for the estab- lishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. The Allied governments were parties to the antecedent negotia- tions and approved the dec- laration. So did some of the principal leaders of the Arab national movement. Past AJCommittee Leader Louis Caplan Is Dead at 92 NEW YORK — Louis Caplan, president of the American Jewish Commit- tee in 1961-62, died Tues- day at age 92 in Pittsburgh, where he resided. A lawyer and leader of the Pittsburgh Jewish Corn- munity, Mr. Caplan was a member of the AJCommit- tee since 1939 and served on its board of directors after having been persident. He was an honorary life member of the board of trus- tees of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion since 1969, having served on the board for the 20 years previous to that. He was president of the Pittsburgh United Jewish Federation in 1956-58. Awards established in his honor included the Louis Caplan Human Re- lations Award given an- nually to a high school student for contributions toward human under- standing, the Louis Cap- lan Distinguished Lec- tures in Jewish Law series at the University of Pittsburgh and the AJ- Committee's Louis Cap- lan Center of Group Iden- tity and Mental Health. Born in Oil City, Pa., he was left an orphan at age 6 when his parents were kil- led in a flood. He was placed in a Hebrew orphanage in Pittsburgh for 10 years. After two years of high school he entered the Uni- versity of Pittsburgh Law School in 1909 and received his degree in 1912. The uni- versity gave him an honor- ary Doctor of Laws degree in 1966. Barton's Founder Klein Dies NEW YORK (JTA) — million and serves 3,000 Stephen Klein, the founder stores throughout the and board chairman of Bar- United States. ton's Candy Corp. died Sun- Mr. Klein was ver--7.. day at age 71. He was buried active in Vaad Hata. in Israel. after World War II A native of Austria, he helped bring to where members of his fam- America 500 rabbis and ily had been candy makers, scholars and their Mr. Klein came to this coup- families, who fled the try as a refugee in 1938, and Nazis by way of Shanghai with his brothers and other and Paris.. partners, founded the corn- He founded the Yeshiva pany the following year. University High School for The company, which Girls in Brooklyn, and also began as a one-room factory was a founder and vice with door-to-door sales, ex- president of Torah panded quickly through the Umesorah. Mr. Klein also establishment of retail out- was a founder and officer of lets, initially known as Bar- Chinuch Atzmai, Torah ton's Bonbonniere. The Schools for Israel. He served company which became a for many years as president public corporation in 1960, of the Jewish Education now has annual sales of $18 Committee.