2 Friday, October 29, 1982
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Purely Commentary
ADL's Revealing Expose
Suspicions mounted, hatreds and prejudices were fan-
ned, tensions created so many aggravations that the four
months which began with the Israeli movements into
Lebanon, for the expressed purpose of ending the PLO
menace to the Jewish state, are now on the record as the
most depressing experiences in the history of revived
Jewish statehood.
Now the study of the media roles in these events, re-
leased by the Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith as the
inspirer of these revelations, places on the record the
methods that were pursued in the interpretation as well as
presentation of the hour-by-hour occurrences in Lebanon.
News media associates reject the accusations of preju-
dicial approaches and the pursuance of biased viewpoints
contained in the ADL revelations. Much more than mere
denials will be necessary to exonerate the faulty. Prej-
udices were amassed from the very beginning of that tragic
occurrence, especially in the credence that was given to
alleged mass murders, responsibility for which was accre-
dited to Israel. Very little was done to correct such errors.
ADL serves an important purpose in making the mas-
sive and exposing report available. Hopefully, enough
people will become aware of the facts to abandon the hat-
reds for Israel and her government that were generated
during the sad months in Israel and Middle East history.
Hopefully also, there will be recognition of the truth
that Israel's operation led to the end of the suppression of
justice which Lebanon suffered from the PLO's barbaric
domination over that country. Amin Gemayel seems to be
ignoring the aid he had from Israel in attaining power over
his country. That's a price paid out of an aim to be in the
ranks of the Arab League whose leadership still seeks Is-
rael's destruction.
The ADL revelations about television guilt should be
followed with a study of newspapers' role in the era of
Lebanese sufferings. In this field as well, the guilt is certain
to be enormous. The need for truth should compel a total
expose of tactics which encouraged instilled prejudices.
Rejected 'Direct Talks'
and 'The Closet Door'
For at least a quarter-of-a-century, until the PLO
began to plot a grave for Israel, the emphasis on these and
the editorial columns has been on "direct talks" between
Israel and her enemy neighbors. The Arabs kept placing
barriers on the road to peace.
Now the U.S. approach to some sort of solution to the
Middle East hate-infested issues is "direct talks."
It comes a bit late, yet it is a return to the original
proposals and needs for an accord. When Arab potentates
recognize this necessity, the problems will approach solu-
tion.
Meanwhile, there must be an understanding of the
basic needs and of the demands for rational ways of dealing
with a situation that had only warfare as means for tackl-
ing disputes. The New York Times suggests, editorially,
taking pragmatism "out of the closet" when it declared,
during the visit here of Lebanese President Amin Gemayel,
and on the eve of the session President Reagan had with
Arab representatives last Friday:
The main issue in Lebanon is whether its pri-
vate armies can now be formed into an effective
national army serving national purposes. If so,
then the American, French and Italian troops,
perhaps joined by others, could remain for a time
to lend a hand. If not, no international force can
be effective; none will put itself in. the path of
battling warlords, and Israel will never entrust its
fate to the willingness of Americans or Italians to
take casualties.
So what the Lebanese do is vastly more impok-
tant than what they have the courage to say. But
as President Reagan is about to tell King Hassan
of Morocco and his inter-Arab delegation, it is
time for other moderate Arabs to change the
rhetorical environment of the Middle East.
Whoever threatens to withhold economic aid
from Mr. Gemayel if he dares sign a piece of paper
with Israel does not serve the cause of negotia-
tion. And whoever lets hotheads agitate for Is-
rael's expulsion from UN bodies hardly lends cre-
dibility to the Arabs' show of interest in Mr.
Reagan's formula for a West Bank deal.
As an authoritative American official put it yes-
terday, if the Arabs at Fez — so conspicuously led
by Saudi Arabia — meant to signal a desire to
make peace with Israel, why don't they finally
"come out of the closet" and say so?
The new Lebanese confusions also relate to "the closet"
hiding facts and realities. President Gemayel owes his and
his party's successes in Lebanon to Israel's "mission" in his
country, no matter how brutally it may be judged. Yet his
courting of Arab League favors abolishes hopes for mutual
cordiality between Israel and Lebanon, no matter how
much optimism Menahem Begin may retain.
The new Reagan approach, urging "direct negotia-
Revealing ADL Analyses of Tragedies of Lebanese
Situation May Well Serve to Prevent Any Future
Prejudicial Treatments of Major World Events
tions," which could mean Arabs at last sitting with Israelis
for diplomatic deliberations sans obstructions, could pave a
better and more realistic road for decency in statesman-
ship.
On Menahem Begin ..
An Historian's Judgment
Many aspects of history writing will be in evidence
when the record of Israel's role in the tragic Lebanese
experience is chronicled. Important personalities will be
judged and venom and hatred will be examined and studied
by historians as well as psychiatrists.
Perhaps the latter will have as important a role as the
historian. There will be occasion to study anew the reac-
tions of the media, politicians and the common folk and the
attitudes toward the leaderships of Israel and Lebanon and
those in Western countries and the United Nations.
Chief among the issues to be analyzed will be the
Begin-dominated, and therefore the personality of Israel's
prime minister will predominate.
That's where and when the eminent Jewish leader will
be microscoped and the objective student will have an
opportunity to learn how people can hate and how an em-
battled nation's status has caused so many to make a
Jewish leader the object of hate.
But the student of current history will also learn that
the embattled people does not abandon its leader; and also
that Jewish viewers from the outside also know how both to
protect a person maligned even before there is evidence
fully to judge him, and why the concerned will not join in
stabbing an entire people in the back when it is in distress
over its efforts to assure security on all of the nation's
borders.
University of Michigan History Professor Arthur P.
Mendel had an important message for the concerned in this
history incident. He stated it in a letter published by the
New York Times under the heading "The Credit and
Gratitude Due Menahem Begin," in which he stated:
When passions cool, Prime Minister
Menahem Begin will receive the credit and
gratitude due him.
The world will recall that it was he who in-
itiated the negotiations that led to Camp David
and sacrificed for it the oil, air bases, mountain
passes and "strategic depth" that the Labor Party
deemed indispensable for Israel's security.
Now, in Lebanon, he has achieved security for
Israel's northern border, as he has with Egypt on
the southern border. Israelis can return to the
northern towns and rural settlers can let their
bomb shelters rot.
Simultaneously, he liberated Lebanon from
the PLO's Mafia-style domination and gave the
Lebanese an opportunity to reunite their country.
Along the way, Begin has also dealt the, Soviet
Union its most humiliating defeat in recent his-
tory by crushing its Syrian and PLO clients.
Most significant, however, is the Lebanese
campaign's contribution to the settlement of the
West Bank issue. Having acknowledged at Camp
David the "legitimate rights" of the Palestinians
and proposed a five-year autonomy plan as an
incubation period for those rights, he has now
eliminated the main obstacle to their full realiza-
tion: the PLO.
For as long as the PLO was accepted as the
sole representative of the Palestinians and as long
as its composition made it impossible for Yasir
Arafat — even if he were so inclined — to accept
the existence of Israel, the overwhelming major-
, ity of Israelis and all relevant Israeli political par-
ties considered it insane to turn over any territory
to the Palestinians.
But the PLO is now dead. Neither the Pope's
obscene rendezvous with Arafat nor the incanta-
tions of the United Nations can revive it.
And notwithstanding the last hurrah
sounded at Fez, recent remarks by King Hussein
as well as the optimism surrounding the Reagan
plan already point toward the "Jordanian op-
tion"; it is far more likely now that Hussein will
follow Sadat's example and negotiate with Israel
the compromise that most Israelis and Palesti-
nians (in contrast to the PLO) have long wanted.
As a matter of historical and demographic
fact, Jordan is the Palestinian state. Therefore, an
Israeli-Palestinian settlement need not result in a
new independent state — an outcome that would
frighten the Jordanian Hashemites even more
than it does the Israelis. (Reagan's advisers wisely
had all that clearly in mind when they excluded
from "Palestinian rights" the establishment of a
separate state.)
As for the fury and anguish over the Sabra
and Shatila atrocities, the Israeli judicial commis-
By Philip
Slomovitz
sion will announce its findings, and any Israelis, if
such there be, found guilty of incompetence or
worse will be punished.
By then, the explosion of accusations against
the Israeli defense forces and the whole state of
Israel will be seen for what it is — an orgy of
frenzied anti-Semitism long repressed by the
shame of the Holocaust and now released by an
opportunity to transmute, through delusional
fantasy, the Holocaust victim into a perpetrator of
"genocide."
What will also be seen for what it is is the no
less pathological Israeli and Diaspora zeal to em-
brace those accusations — a revival of the age-old
joy of anguish, a maudlin delight in guilt. Ever
since the Roman crucifixion of Jesus, Jews have
been accused of the crimes of others, but seldom
before have they so fervently welcomed and even
intensified the accusations.
Sadly, though, the Christian world feels much
more comfortable with the self-flagellating Jews
than with the self-assured. If these masochistic
convulsions go on a little longer, even the likes of
George Ball may forgive Israel its survival.
This is not necessarily Gospel. The many who have
chosen Begin for a scapegoat can't be expected to approve.
But history will know how to judge — not necessarily Begin
but the conditions which caused him to be so hated. In the
long run, with the UN and the Western Powers to remain a
source of poison-spreading, it will be the Jewish people as
well as Israel that is really the target.
Testing Common Sense
Common horse sense is a necessity, even if it is often
too difficult to attain.
Here is something to think about:
The United Jewish Appeal's public relations depart-
ment became excited over a statement made on ABC televi-
sion by Frank Reynolds on Yom Kippur night. Reynolds
could have spoken with a bit of compassion regarding the
developing tragedies and the miseries suffered by Israel.
Instead, he chose to draw a line between an old Jewry and a
new Israel — as if the basic ethical Jewish codes were really
destroyed in the Israel of this day. Here is the portion in the
Reynolds comment under consideration:
In the face of worldwide criticism, Israelis
have not banded together to repel attacks, by, as
Begin does, waving the flag of anti-Semitism. No,
they have come together to deplore what has been
done in their name Out of this nightmarethere is
coming not a new Israel, but the old one, demand-
ing a return, in practice, to those ancient values
that make a people righteous, not merely self-
righteous.
And that is why Washington, even as it strug-
gles and haggles with Jerusalem, is more than
ever determined not to break faith with the people
of Israel who have shown us again they will not
break faith with themselves.
The pity is the contradictory, which becomes confus-
ing, in this undoubtedly well-meant comment. Reynolds
also chose to pass judgment, which could be interpreted as
the old-fashioned differentiation between good Jews and
bad Jews. That's why he also passes judgment on those who
are or will be judging Menahem Begin. It's not the best or
most acceptable message for media on the holiest day on the
Jewish calendar.
Reynolds is not the one to be blamed. It is the failure of
the Jewish media, a UJA public relations man who distrib-
uted the Reynolds text, to be accounted for. Why such ex-
citement over it? What's the joy over the questioning of the
new as contrasted with the old? Was the old always fully
respected? Did the pre-Lebanese Israeli experiences get
even a modicum of kind treatment from the same sources
that now acclaim the new — and should it be considered
an escape from guilt? Jewish public relations also has a bit I
to learn.
KLM and Israel
Out of an aim to emphasize the services both provided
and desired, KLM, the Dutch airline, eliminates Israel
from its display advertising, while listing many of the Arab 1
and African airports.
Swiss Air had a similar malady, and Israel thus is
victimized in the tourist sphere.
It is the price paid in the effort made to isolate Israel:
the state being omitted from maps on display at the World
Fair in Knoxville, Tenn. — a result of Saudi Arabian influ-
ence and financial domination — and wherever the Arab
control is evidenced. Now it is in the airlines again.
It's an aggravating price to pay for failure to attain
peace. It adds to the distress which is suffered from a great
prejudice and an even greater hatred.
Would that peace could be anticipated to end such
miseries.