78 Friday, December 22, 1918

71W DETROIT -JEWISH NEWS

Fracturing the Political Myths of Fertile Crescent

By YITZHAK BEN-AMI

appendage of the "Fertile
"Legitimate Rights." Crescent" was ruled as a
What are they? Who is minor southern province
out of Baghdad, Damascus,
"legitimate?"
To most Third World, or sometimes, Cairo.
As is always the case in
Communist, and variously
shaded Leftists, the an- fiction, facts such as the
swers are simple. The Is- ethnic origins of today's and
raelis, descendants of those yesterday's heterogeneous
ancient Hebrews and Ju- population of Palestine,
daeans now in-gathered be- which totalled about
tween the Jordan and the 300,000 when the first
Mediterranean, are really Zionist settlers arrived in
just another breed of white, the last century, are delib-
erately presented in nebul-
alien colonialists.
The artificial state of Is- ous terms.
Are they the ancient
rael will eventually be ab-
sorbed,.eliminated, ejected Canaanites? Edomites?
or whatever, off and out of Phoenicians? Nabateans (as
the land it now "illegiti- claimed recently by a Jor-
danian ambassador) or,
mately" occupies.
The same fate that be- Heaven forbid, some could
fell the Crusaders, the Ot- actually be descendants of
toman Empire and before the old Hebrews! . . . The de-
that the Romans, Byzan- ception persists.
And at the same time,
tines, Greeks, Persians,
Assyrians, Minoans and the only legitimate de-
Egyptians who occupied scendants of the people
part or all the land over who ever ruled and lived
on that land as a nation,
the millenia!
So, in the council of na- the Israelis of today, are
tions of today, with its self- called "illegitimate" in a
serving "historic" concepts land that should there-
of - legitimacy," the only fore revert to the "Arab
people to he recognized as nation." In one rhetorical
having "legitimate" rights stroke — Baghdad,
to - Palestine" is the "Arab Damascus, Cairo,
nation" by way of that hap- Riyadh, Tripoli — wipe
less clan — the "Palesti- clear the pages of history.
nians." History as taught by History to the United Na-
tions of 1978 is a blank
Baghdad and Damascus ob-
viously accepts as legiti- from the time of Ab-
raham to Arafat.
mate only the Arab con-
quest of Palestine, covering
This fiction, if put today
the period when this tiny
to a vote in the United Na-

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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 history ... 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

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.
• • •
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 tragic 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 to 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
is 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 tit
cannot be fully g-uarantee ,
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 Com-
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 1.912. The uni-
versity gave him an honor-
ary Doctor of Laws degree in
1966.

Barton's Founder Klein Dies

NEW YORK (JTA) —
Stephen Klein, the founder
and board chairman of Bar-
ton's Candy Corp. died Sun-
day at age 71. He was buried
in Israel.
A native of Austria,
where members of his fam-
ily had been candy makers,
Mr. Klein came to this coun-
try as a refugee in 1938, and
with his brothers and other
partners, founded the com-
pany the following year.
The company, which
began as a one-room factory
with door-to-door sales, ex-
panded quickly through the
establishment of retail out-
lets, initially known as Bar-
ton's Bonbonniere. The
company which became a
public corporation in 1960,
now has annual sales of $18

million and serves 3,000
stores throughout the
United States.
Mr. Klein was very
active in Vaad Hatzala
after World War H when
he helped bring to
America 500 rabbis and
scholars and their
families, who fled the
Nazis by way of Shanghai
and Paris.
He founded the Yeshiva
University High School for
Girls in Brooklyn, and also
was a founder and vice
president of Torah
Umesorah. Mr. Klein also
was a founder and officer of
Chinuch Atzmai, Torah
Schools for Israel. He served
for many years as president
of the Jewish Education
Committee.
. „ . „ _ .....