2 Friday, June 24, 1983 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Purely Commentary Sensationalizing the News Does Not Contribute to Goodwill or to Strengthening the Israel-U.S. Friendship as Assurance of Amity in the M.E. By Philip Slomovitz When Sensationalized Articles Fan Hatred and Undermine Multi-National Friendships A Knight-Ridder syndicated article from Jerusalem quoted the complaints that are still being heard as judgments of the manner in which the media have distorted news about Israel during the tragic months of the struggle against the PLO in Lebanon. But only a few days preceding the publication of that revealing report, a James McCartney analysis of American aid for Israel caused serious concern among Jewish readers. It was again the sensationalizing of the issues on the front page of the Detroit Free Press that resulted in resentment. If the U.S. is such a sinner that it provides Israel with so much help, the authors of the flag-waving reports surely should have consulted members of Congress, and cer- tainly the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Charles Percy, who has Palestinian Myths: Multiple Fables That Add to Unnecessary Hatreds an important role in negating White House and State Department recommendations that foreign aid for Israel be reduced. Percy and his associates felt differently and voted to increase financial provisions for Israel. Congress followed policies of aiding the forces that are strongest in checking Soviet intrusions into the Middle East. There are many more reasons for assuring Israel's role as the only true democracy in that part of the war-troubled world, and merely to give notoriety to figures that are now flaunted by anti-Semitic forces is not contributing to goodwill and to amity among nations. It is the sensationalizing that is disconcerting. It is a sad commentary on the communicating arts in American society and is most regrettable. munities expanded by leaps and bounds during those years: 90 percent in Jerusalem, 134 percent in Jaffa and 216 percent in Haifa. It is a fair assumption, too, that British statis- Jews paraded in Boston to demonstrate in support of an tics of the time are an underestimation, since ideal which is in reality a portion of a massive myth. They many Arabs are known to have crossed the bor- flaunted loyalty to Judaism and interpreted it as an obliga- ders without going through immigration for- tion to be on the side of a claimed persecutee of their fellow malities. The Palestinians' roots in their "native Jews in Israel. That's how the myth developed and the soil," then, are far more shallow than is commonly boast of heraldry, by claimed supporters of an underdog, understood — and their debt to Zionism much greater. served to mudddy already polluted waters. It often becomes cause for anger to be compelled con- Until a few decades ago, in other words, no stantly to point to the mythical that is resorted to as a duty Palestinian national consciousness emerged be- to play heroes in a campaign which in the long run is cause the territory lacked a unique Arab histori- harmful to Israel and the Jewish people. cal culture, and because many, if not most, of the It is doubly unfortunate that Arabs do not cooperate in residents lived there only briefly. The weak at- the craving for peace that would end the Palestinian prob- tachment of the people to the place was demon- lem — hopefully with a workable solution. An Arab hand- strated during the Israeli War of Independence, shake with a Jew at a round table for discussions of realities when half a million Arabs swiftly abandoned could, as it must, end the horror of hatreds in the Middle their homes at the behest of their invading East. In the process of such solution-seeking, facts must be brothers. A deeply rooted peasantry does not eas- established and recognized. ily give up its land. What is this myth labeled Palestine and personified by As for the- "Palestinian-nationalism" that is Palestinians? An eminent historian and student of Middle currently much heralded, it developed strictly in East situations, Dr. Moshe Decter, writing extensively in reaction to the presence of an independent, equal, the New Leader, presents the facts about the legend labeled sovereign Jewish community — something all Palestine. Truth cannot -be stifled when the background is Arabs, except perhaps the Egyptians, persist in regarding as . an unacceptable alien excrescence fully traced. Dr. Decter provides these facts: in their midst. This was confirmed with stunning Consider the popular notion that a place called Palestine was the ancestral home of the candor by the head of the Palestinian Liberation Arabs who now live on the West Bank of the Jor- Organization's military operations department, dan River. The truth is that neither in fact nor Zuhair Muhsin, who told the Dutch newspaper Trouw on March 3, 1977: according to the statutes of international law has Palestine ever been a country, let alone an Arab ". . there are no differences between Jorda- country. nians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese . . . We It was only after the British came upon the are one people. Only for political reasons do we scene in 1918 that the name Palestine was resur- carefully underline our Palestinian identity. For rected. But the Arabs never held exclusive domin- it is of national interest for the Arabs to encourage the existence of the Palestinians against ion over the whole area so designated by Whitehall; they never created a self-contained na- Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palesti- tional unit or any form of separate political or nian entity is there only for tactical reasons. The social identity there; they were not autonomous at establishment of a Palestinian state is a new any time; in short, a Palestinian Arab nation expedient to continue the fight against Zionism never existed. and for Arab unity." It is far from clear, moreover, that the present Indeed, it is very pitiful that instead of taking into Arab population in Israel and the West Bank is at account the important human factors, the contributions all indigenous. Prior to the British assumption of toward human needs, in Israel and elsewhere, time must be the League of Nations mandate over the territory spent, valuable newsprint devoted, to shattering lies, to in 1921, the wretchedness and poverty of life in appealing for exposure of myths resorted to in fanning Palestine had been driving. the Arabs away in hatreds. Since this becomes a compulsion, here are the facts droves. about myths. Let them sink in. The trend was reversed, ironically enough, by Some Facts That Refugees the subsequent positive effects of extensive Jewish settlement and development. As Jewish Themselves Should Take agricultural, industrial, technological, and com- Seriously Into Account mercial enterprises thrived — despite all the re- Perpetuating tragedies have unfortunate roots. Israel strictions imposed by the British authorities, as is in mourning over 500 dead and thousands injured in the well as a surrounding environment of great hard- Lebanon war. Arabs suffered tens of thousands of casual- ship and hostility — the country's economic ab- ties in a decade of internecine strife. There are roots that sorptive capacity rapidly increased. Starting in are ignored and backgrounds that are either misun- 1922, poor Arabs streamed in from drought- derstood or distorted. stricken Syria, from the Sinai, from Iraq, Trans- Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt. Much of the strife stems from accusations that Israel caused a refugee problem, and under the guise of Pales- The benefits the migrants reaped in terms of tinianism a war is waged against Israel. health care, income, housing, education, literacy, While using the refugee problem as means of continu- trade union protection and political and human ing strife, Arabs failed to come to the assistance of their rights vastly exceeded the standards of any Arab kinfolk. state. Not surprisingly, therefore, between the A movement that functions under the term Jordan is two World Wars, the Arab population of Palestine Arab Palestine has undertaken to present the facts. In one rose by 75 percent — apart from natural increase of a series of advertisements aimed at arousing attention to and from the decline in infant mortality that fol- the basic facts in a muddied issue, this movement called lowed the Jews' revolutionary introduction of attention to the following: modern medical care. The growth rate for the same period in Egypt, that most fecund of Arab One nation has given Palestinian refugees states, was 25 percent. By 1948, there were fully more aid than Bahrain, Egypt, Algeria, Syria, twice as many Arabs in Palestine as there had Oman, Iraq, and Yemen combined . . . that nation been in 1917. is Israel. More telling still, between 1922-1947 the ex- Of all the Arab nations who say they care pansion registered in Palestinian areas where about the Palestinian refugees, few put their there was no Jewish development was relatively money where their mouths are. small (though even here it significantly outstrip- From 1950 through 1979, for example, Egypt ped the figures for Arab countries): 42 percent in gave a total of $5.5 million to UNRWA to aid Pales- Nablus, 40 percent in Jenin, 32 percent in tinian refugees. Syria gave $2.7 million. Iraq gave Bethlehem. In Jewish cities, the Arab corn- $1.3 million. Oman and Bahrain gave less than half a million between them. Algeria and Yemen gave nothing. One Middle East. nation has given nearly $10 million — more than all of them combined. That nation is Israel. In one year alone, 1976-1977, Israel gave an additional $42.2 million directly to the refugees themselves. All but one of these Arab nations refuse Palestinians citizenship. Most, like Saudi Arabia, import workers from as far away as South Korea _ rather than hire more Palestinians to fill their labor shortages. Yet, there is one Moslem country where Palestinians are at home. Where they are granted automatic citizenship. Where Palesti- nians make up two-thirds of the population, hold three-quarters of the government posts, and run 70 percent of the businesses. This country is Jordan. Culturally, linguisti- cally, religiously, demographically, geograph- ically and historically, Jordan - is a Palestinian Arab nation in - every respect. Moreover, cupies 77 percent of the original Palestine Man- date. Jordan is the homeland for the 600,000 Pales- tinians kept homeless for 35 years by their Arab brothers. Such figures speak louder than the words of hate that accompany the actions of those who have mobilized for Israel's destruction. Why haven't the Arab states come to the aid of their less fortunate? Why the perpetuation of antagonisms when negotiations, cooperation, decent neighborliness, the human spark, could lead to an end to warfare? What is quoted here is a mere fragment of a painfully agonized situation. But it is at least an element in the effort to plead for knowing the roots of troubles that are costly in lives to Jews as well as to Arabs. A committee of academicians, chaired by Prof. Daniel Elazar, proposed a plan for action in the Samaria-Judea- Gaza dispute. Workable or not, practical or chimerical, there was a tragic note appended to that approach to friend- ship: appended to it was a comment that Arabs were not responding to it. Indeed, there should have been even greater emphasis for such an effort in Jewish consideration as well. The movement toward peace is all-too-slow. Affirmative Action and Two Communities William Raspberry, popular columnist whose com- ments on Israel and the Arabs occasionally clash with Jewish reactions, had an important postscript to this Commentator's views on affirmative action, expressed last week. Taking into account differences of opinion in the black and Jewish communities, Raspberry gave an account of liberalism in Jewish ranks which provided the balances needed in elections in several cities where blacks were successful mayoral candidates, and he preceded to state that the friendship between the two groups is not irrecon- cilable. He accepted differing affirmative action views as facts while affirming the friendship between the two com- munities, stating: The black leadership finds it frustrating that Jews, focusing on their own recent history, seem incapable of distinguishing between numbers as a limit to participation and numbers as a guaran- tee of participation. From the black leadership point of view, recruitment and testing reforms may constitute an appealing recipe, but the proof of the pudding is in results: in numbers. It may be that the two positions are funda- mentally irreconcilable. But it does not follow that blacks and Jews are irreconcilable enemies. Indeed, the recent election returns, though little - remarked upon, suggest just the opposite. If it were otherwise, every claim to fair play and com- mon decency would be negated. Adherence to the basic American ideals is especially applicable to the Jewish ex- perience which has been tested by time and by the agonies of human bigotries. That is why there is a sadness whenever blacks align with Israel's enemies. (T=