THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
2 Friday; July. 3, 190
Purely Commentary
Israel's 'Taking Law
Into Its Own Hands'
and Matter of 'Security'
A Wall Street Journal follow-up editorial to the one in
which it commended Israel's bombing of Iraq's nuclear
reactor is entitled "Mushy-Mindedness." This editorial
analyzed the French position, discussed the American atti-
tude and commented on the attitudes by nations and their
agencies "most directly involved in policing the spread of
nuclear weapons," and asks, "is it any wonder that Israel
should decide to take its own security into its own hands?"
With the IAEA (International Atomic Energy
Agency), the U.S. State Department and the like
not stopping the spread of nuclear weapons but
providing protective coloration for it, there is no
reason to expect the Israelis to desist from using
the means they have in their hands to knock out
the Iraqi bomb. At the UN and elsewhere, we are
now engaged in a fatuous debate about the moral-
ity of the Israeli decision, which is like a debate
over the morality of night following day.
Of course the world would be a better place if
Israel were not flying fighter-bomber strikes at its
neighbors; the Israeli raid is indeed a disturbing
symptom of gathering instability in the Middle
East and elsewhere. But if we do not want small
nations like Israel to take desperate gambles in
pursuit of their own security, the alternative is
buildling a more stable world by the efforts of the
democracies in general and the U.S. in particular.
Our feckless efforts at an anti-proliferation pol-
icy are merely one aspect of the irresolution we
have displayed since Vietnam. One of the great
sources of instability today is the triumph of
mushy-mindedness so evident in the apology for
the Iraqi bomb program.
In consideration of this approach to the issue that has
become so vital as a matter of international debate, the
attitude of U.S. Senator John Glenn of Ohio must be taken
into consideration. Senator Glenn has taken the lead in the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee to condemn Israel by
stating that "Israel took the law into its own hands." He
called it vigilante violence. Judging the first portion of his
attack, all who know the situation as it has existed in the
Middle East for 33 years have a right to say, "of course,"
otherwise, who would come to Israel's assistance militar-
ily? Is it contemptible vigilantism for a nation that is
treated with hypocrisy in the world organization (UN) to
defend herself?
There is much more sense to the Wall Street Journal's
definition of the crisis than the Ohio Senator's bias.
Let it be stated, incidentally, that U.S. Senator Alan
Cranston of California is displaying lots of courage in his
consistent defense of Israel and his condemnation of the
Iraqi role as a nation that pursues war against Israel. Let
this statement by Cranston serve as the American way of
saying "Justice to Israel":
Israel, because of its small size and vulnerabil-
ity,-has historically looked upon the pre-emptive
first strike as essential to its security and survival.
Israelis have repeatedly used that tactic in their
military operations when faced with looming
The Ticklish Issue of Israel 'Taking the Law Into
Its OWn Hands' and Israel's Duty to Take Action for
Self-Protection ... Saudi Domination a Universal Threat
threats by forces pledged to their destruction.
This was well-known to our government and to
others. The Israeli strike against the Iraqi nuclear
facilities should not have come as any big sur-
prise.
I have been warning about the dangerous de-
velopment of Iraqi nuclear facilities. So long as
Iraq pursued its nuclear ambitions and so long as
the U.S. government was unable, or unwilling, to
persuade France and Italy to halt their transfer-
ence of nuclear technology and materials to Iraq,
it was inevitable that this type of action would
take place.
Thus I am willing neither to condemn nor con-
done a defensive action by Israel that was virtu-
ally certain to occur, if it was not inevitable, due to
the situation in the Middle East.
But this is only the latest, though perhaps the
most dramatic and ominous, sign of the dangers
that uncontrolled nuclear proliferation presents
to U.S. security and to world peace.
What happens next? There will probably be a
second nuclear test by India. There will probably
be a first bomb test by Pakistan, a dictatorship
and another Moslem nation hostile to Israel.
And what about Libya? No one can ex-
pect Israel to stand idly
by if Libya, the most
unstable, terroristic
nation of all, develops a
nuclear capability.
Nuclear and con-
ventional arms prolif-
eration in the Middle
East creates a hair-
trigger situation in
which U.S. interests in
the stability and secu-
rity of the area are con-
stantly threatened, as
are the stability and se-
curity of Israel, our
only stable ally and the
only democracy in that
section of the world.
ALAN CRANSTON
A Warning of Impending Saudi
Threat of Monetary Domination
A frightening threat of Saudi Arabia's domination of
the International Monetary Fund is contained in a reveal-
ing New York Times Op-Ed Page article by Rand H. Fish-
bein, doctoral candidate in international relations at Johns
Hopkins University,
Writing under the headline of "The Saudis' Monetary
Fund Power," Mr. Fishbein points out that the dozens of
representatives to the International Monetary Fund as-
sented to Saudi Arabia's lending the sum of $4.9 billion to
the IMF. The major factors in the transaction and the
control now gained by the Saudis are defined by the author
of this expose as follows:
What makes this loan controversial is that the
Saudis, in exchange for their petrodollars, are
now able to exert greater influence over the oper-
By Philip
Slomovitz
ation of the world's most important financial in-
stitution.
As a lender of last resort, the International
Monetary Fund is responsible for helping ailing
member countries correct distortions in their
balance of payments that result from financial
shocks. One major cause of these shocks has been
the high price of imported oil and the actions of
the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Coun-
tries and its most influential member, Saudi
Arabia.
How odd it is that now the tiger will help play
host to the lamb.
Under the terms of the agreement, the loan is to
be considered as a formal increase in the size of
Saudi Arabia's overall quota, or membership
subscription in the fund. The voting power of a
nation is based upon the full amount of its quota.
weighed according to a set formula. So large is
this single injection of capital into the fund that
out of 141 member states, Saudi Arabia will move
from 13th to sixth in voting power. Only the
United States, Britain; West Germany, France and
Japan will exert a greater influence over the
fund's activities. Yet, as a direct consequence of
the loan, the United States will lose a fractional
portion of its voting power (but retain a veto on
major actions).
What is more important, the magnitude of the
Saudis' total contribution entitled them to a per-
manent seat on the executive board, which runs
the fund's day-to-day operations and decides
which countries will get financial assistance.
An explanatory note in the Fishbein article merits
special attention. He points out that in September 1980
Jacques de Larosiere, managing director of the Interna-
tional Monetary Fund, was told by the Saudis and Kuwait
that:
Pending a decision by the International Mone-
tary Fund to allow the PLO to be given observer
status at its annual meeting, they (the Saudis)
would no longer consider extending further loans
to the organization. Then late last March the
Saudis apparently reversed themselves. Despite
United States objections to granting observer
status to the PLO, and repeated denials by Mr. de
Larosiere that the issue was part of the
negotiated agreement, one cannot help but won-
der what suddenly prompted the Saudis into an
apparent change of heart. After all, recent history
has shown that Saudi ambitions are not easily
discouraged.
So far as I know, not a cry has been raised over
the relative decline of United States power in an
organization that it helped to create and in which
it has such a large financial stake.
Does the power assumption by the Saudis in the world
monetary structure serve as a warning to this nation? Is it a
warning in the AWACS and PLO threats to peace and
decency? Perhaps the 54 Senators and 224 members of the
House of Representatives will be able to enroll many more
of their associates in Congress as an indication that even to
oil and monetary controls there are restrictions when
human values are at stake.
AIPAC Report Defends Israeli Air Strike at Osirak
(Continued from Page 1)
tion agreement with Brazil,
and has been stockpiling
raw natural uranium from
mines in Portugal, Brazil,
Niger and Somalia. One
uranium industry source
estimated the size of these
purchases to be as high as
200 tons. All of this can be
placed in the reactor to pro-
duce plutonium.
Last year, Prof. Albert
Wohlstetter, one of Ameri-
ca's most eminent
authorities on nuclear pro-
liferation and disarma-
ment, warned, in "National
Security in the 1980s: From
Weakness to Strength:"
"The highly enriched
uranium which the French
announced they will sell
and deliver to Iraq has only
the remotest application in
the civilian economy of Iraq,
but such concentrated fis-
sile material is the most im-
portant and hardest to pro-
duce component of nuclear
weapons and can be quickly
incorporated in a weapons
assembly. Highly enriched
uranium ' makes feasible
weapons of the simplest de-
sign — the gun as distinct
from the implosion-type es-
sential for plutonium."
Even French nuclear ex-
perts have expressed con-
cern over Osirak. Francis
Perrin, the former high
commissioner for Atomic
Energy and the president of
the European Society of
Atomic Energy, warned in
August 1980 that "the nu-
clear cooperation treaty be-
tween France and Iraq
could lead to the develop-
ment of a nuclear weapon."
(London Times, Aug. 6,
1980)
Just two weeks ago, three
officials of the French Na-
tional Center for Scientific
Research released a 32-page
report which warned that
"the high-flux Osirak reac-
tor, capable of significant
and efficient radiation
levels, is well suited for pro-
ducing plutonium with a
potential for the production
of explosives."
Before deciding on the
air strike, did Israel
exhaust all possible dip-
lomatic means to stop the
Iraqi atom bomb pro-
gram?
In 1976, not long after the
French-Iraqi deal became
public, Shimon Peres, then
Defense Minister in the Is-
rael government headed by
Yitzhak Rabin, made a spe-
cial trip to Paris to persuade
the Giscard government to
change its policy. In the past
two years, Prime Minister
Begin undertook a secret
diplomatic campaign,
through personal letters
and emissaries to the heads
of European governments,
to persuade- them to cut off
support of the project.
France and Italy refused.
Only the Netherlands re-
sponded positively.
Last year, Israel sent
representatives to Europe
and the U.S. to try to inter-
est the press and mass
media in Iraq's program;
very few evinced any inter-
est. Israel has for years been
raising the issue at every
available world forum.
Israel waited until after
the French elections to see if
there would be a change of
policy. The declarations of
President Mitterrand and
Foreign Minister Cheysson
that they intend to fulfill
their nuclear contract with
Iraq shattered any such
hope.
Wasn't Israel's strike
precipitous?
Sources close to the U.S.
nuclear industry have said
'that the $100-million Iraqi
reactor was to be loaded
with uranium fuel and to be minorities have been
in operation in less than a hounded and persecuted.
month. The 25 pounds of Saddam Hussein and a few
uranium fuel that was to be members of his family rule
imminently loaded is the country, as a result of a
weapons-grade, and capable series of purges that
of producing plutonium for brought violent ends to
bombs. The best plutonium scores of his former col-
for bombs is produced in the laborators. Fifty-thousand
first three months; the innocent men, women and
Iraqis could easily have children — members of the
shut down the reactor and Shi'ite Muslim majority —
secretly removed the were rounded up and
plutonium. The enriched dumped on the desert bor-
uranium was at the site. der with Iran a few yea'
Once the technology was in ago, and left to die there.
Opponents of the regime
place, Iraq could have
bought the fuel elsewhere, have been hunted across in-
even in the unlikely even- ternational borders, and
tuality that France would murdered in cities like
have ceased to supply it in Paris and London.
Most Arab nations view
the future.
Saddam Hussein with fear
Is Iraq a force for peace and suspicion. To them he is
and stability in the Mid- known as the "Butcher of
dle East?
Baghdad."
Iraq is a brutally oppres-
His record of violations of
sive tyranny, in which human rights is one of the
Kurds, Jews and other
(Continued on Page 64)
ethnic and religious