THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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Business Briefs

Liberty Bank Center Opens

Liberty State Bank and Trust Co. has opened its
new operations center and Liberty Bank-Oakland af-
filiate at 801 West Big Beaver, Troy.

Larry L. Guttenberg p.m. Monday and Tuesday.
was elected president of the For information, call the
Mortgage Bankers Associa- hospital's health and life-
tion of Michigan at its an- style program office, 876-
nual convention at Fairlane 2630.
Manor.
* * *
* * *
Roz
and
Sherm Becker
Marilou Seemuth has
joined the Town Center Gal- are conducting evening
lery Staff as a consultant fashion lecture-seminars
specializing in corporate and dinners, complete with
engagements. For an ap- buffet, wine, modeling and
pointment, call Ms. speakers. Groups interested
Seemuth at the gallery, in hosting a seminar should
call the Beckers, 851-8855.
352-9696.
* * *
* *
Audrey
Pearl,
certified
Henry Ford Hospital's
West Bloomfield Center financial planner, is avail-
will offer free introductory able to speak to groups on
sessions for its five-day finance. For details, call Ms.
Smoke Stoppers program 7 Pearl, 353-7670.

Alpha Omega Cites Weller

Dr. Azriel Weller, 90, a retired medical doctor and
dentist who has been a member of Alpha Omega for 46
years, was honored at an Israel Bond luncheon spon-
sored by the dental fraternity recently. Shown are,
from left, Dr. Eric Bilks, who spoke in tribute to the
honoree; Dr. Weller; and Dr. Bruce Sines, who pre-
sented Bonds' Maimonides Award.

High El Al Costs in the U.S.

TEL AVIV (ZINS) — Ex- addition to that, travel
penditures by El Al Israel agents receive approx-
Airlines in the U.S. during imately 15 percent of the
1981-1982 totaled $20 mil- price of the ticket,
lion, according to Haaretz. around $100.
Using as its source an
In other words, it costs El
internal bulletin of El Al, Al for every passenger tic-
the newspaper gives the fol- ket sold some $300 in ex-
lowing details:
penses, apart from the cost
For its U.S. offices El Al of fuel and all other outlays
pays an annual rental of that are involved in the
$1,500,000. The director business of air transport.
general of the airline earns
The newspaper cites for
an annual salary of comparison purposes the
$130,000 and receives a annual salary of the direc-
further $11,600 as a "repre- tor of Swiss Air, who re-
sentation allowance." The ceives $65,000.
For all these reasons, El
director general's flights
cost $8,970 yearly.
Al has to be a losing proposi-
Annual cost of auto- tion despite a 78 percent oc-
cupancy rate on its Trans-
mobiles — $95,000.
El Al sells some 100,000 Atlantic flights.
tickets annually. This
means that the per ticket
The pious of all nations
expenditure is $200. In share in the world to come.

Friday, November 19, 1982 69

im

Timerman's Criticism of Israel Analyzed

By VICTOR M. BIENSTOCK

Jacobo Timerman is a
journalist of fire and convic-
tion who creates con-
troversy wherever he goes.
He has ignited a new con-
troversy with his searing
indictment of the Begin
government in Israel, its
domestic policies, its West
Bank-Gaza plans and its
war in Lebanon.
Timerman believes —
and declares bluntly and
forcefully — that the
Lebanese war was morally
wrong, that the Begin
policies and practices are
destructive of Israeli
democracy, that its West
Bank aspirations are as
harmful to Israelis as to the
Palestinian Arabs, that in-
stead of levelling ghetto
walls they are building new
ones arountl. Israel. He sees
the Palestinian Arabs as to-
day's Zionists but without a
Herzl, entitled to their
state.
Jacobo Timerman, it will
be recalled, was the editor of
the Buenos Aires daily, La
Opinion, who incurred the
wrath of the Argentine rul-
ing junta by publicizing and
criticizing its massive as-
saults on human rights.
Timerman fervently
supports the position
taken last summer by the
three Jewish leaders,
Nahum Goldmann,
Pierre Mendes-France
and Philip Klutznick,
who called for mutual
recognition by Israel and
the Palestine Liberation
Organization on the basis
of self-determination for
both, and an end to the
war in Lebanon.
Others, of course, have
taken similar positions but
Timerman coupled his with
a denunciation of the Begin
government which he com-
pared to that of Peron in
Argentina.
Under Begin, he asserts,

Watered-Down
Oil Developed

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Tel
Aviv University mic-
robiologists have developed
a new biotechnological
product, called emulsan,
that can alter the properties
of oil, rendering oil compat-
ible with water.
The potential applica-
tions ofthis find include fuel
thinning, fuel enhance-
ment, environmental im-
provement and industrial
uses in such fields as cosme
tics, pharmaceutics, tex-
tiles, detergents and clean-
ing products, paints and ag-
riculture.

Chinese Arms
Bought by Iraq

WASHINGTON — China
has become Iraq's largest
supplier of arms, according
to Newsweek magazine,
and Iraq purchases 25 per-
cent of China's arms ex-
ports. -
The magazine said
Chinese arms, based on
Russian weapons, fit well
into Iraq's Soviet-supplied
arsenal.

"Israel has lost many of its
democratic qualities in the
last few years and particu-
larly since the Lebanon in-
vasion." He condemns the
"new concessions to in-
tolerant religious groups"
and complains that "finan- -
cial speculation takes the
place of productive invest-
ment."
He offers a whole
catalogue of charges includ-
ing one that government di-
verts funds from legitimate
purposes to establish
enterprises in the occupied
territories.
"The dynamics of these
policies will undoubtedly
alter the character of Is-
rael," he warns. "The
society will become more
closed, more intolerant,
more fundamentalist.
When such conditions,
which are contrary to
both the letter and spirit
of the country's charter,
are being introduced by a
partisan coalition gov-
ernment, we are face to
face with anti-
democracy.
"The government actions
are dictatorial actions even
though the dictatorship is
that of the majority; they
are the expression of a to-
talitarian ideology."
Timerman condemns the
annexation of the occupied
territories as meaning "the
conditioning of Israel to a
state of permanent conflict
in the Middle East and
enhancing its character as a
militarized nation."
Begin and Defense Minis-
ter Ariel Sharon, he
charges, -have misled the Is-
raeli people and lied to the
world. The Begin govern-
ment, he says, is "trying to
change Israeli society to fit
the needs of the Lebanon
invasion." He further ac-
cuses Begin of conductng
toward the Diaspora Jews
an "elaborate and fine-
tuned process of blackmail,
of preying on their sense of
guilt about Israel."
But the Begin regime is
not Timerman's only
target; he is bitter about
the role of European
states and statesmen and
of the Arab states which
have consistently misled
the Palestinian Arabs
and encouraged them in
the suicidal policy of
seeking the destruction
of Israel.
The Palestine Arabs have
been misled and betrayed
ever since the Mufti of
Jerusalem aligned them
with Hitler in the dark days
of World War II, Timerman
says. "All those who ap-
proached the Palestinians
betrayed them. The demo-
cratic political leaders of
Western Europe betrayed
them when they induced the
PLO to feel that it and they
formed part of the same in-
stitutional constellation
without warning the PLO
that the idea of a secular
Palestinian Arab state in
which Jews- would be a
minority was simply a
dream, that history does not
go back to such a point.
"When the Western
Europeans heard the PLO

talk of a 'Zionist entity: 0
they did not respond with an
explanation of the meaning
and power of Israel," he ex-
plains. "They did not warn-
the PLO against dreaming
of the liquidation of a state
whose power these politi-
cians knew only too well.

"They allowed the PLO to
avoid the issue with ambi-
valent insinuations that not
even the good will with
which some of us in Israel
heard them could convince
us that the PLO would ac-
cept anything less tha.n the
destruction of our country."
The Arab states are
equally guilty of betray-
ing the Palestinians,
Timerman asserts, by
giving them a sense of
power and security. The
huge sums of money the
Arab states gave the PLO
"inspired the belief that
the Palestinians had un-
limited opportunities to
acquire, weapons and
ammunition. The PLO
brought joy to the arms
industry but none of their
friends explained that
with respect to the other
requirements of a mod-
ern war, they were back
in the Middle Ages — that
Israel had reached a de-
gree of military sophisti-
cation never before seen
in the Middle East."
Timerman blames the
Begin government for con-
tributing to the deceptive

r

picture of PLO military
strength and of encouraging
the Palestinians to believe
that the dropouts, neurotics
and "maladjusted im-
biciles'_ of the PLO added up
to a revolutionary van-
guard.
Why, he asks, should they
consider their relative dis-
advantage "if more than one
. United States scholar con-
sidered it a privilege to re-
view the world situation
with Arafat, if Indira
Gandhi received Arafat in
India with pomp? Why not
believe in the value of the
terrorist strategy if Arafat
could address the United
Nations like a chief of state,
a resplendent gun at his
waist?"
Anyone who has had to
live under a fascist regime
or who has studied the in-
sidious manner in which
facscism can take root in a
country will understand
Timerman's fears that Is-
raeli democracy is slowly
being whittled away, even
though they might not
agree with the journalist's
diagnosis.
Timerman is a conscien-
tious journalist; he has had
ample experience of fascism
and fascist methods in
Argentina to support his
demand for a hearing. He
may be over-sensitive to the
situation but his criticism
should not be dismissed sol-
ely on the basis that in poli-
tics he belongs to the Left.

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