2 Friday, November 25, 1983
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Purely Commentary
Hanuka Lights as Aspirations for a Lasting
Brightness for Mankind, Even If Such Hopes
Commence With Realities Bathed in Dreams
By Philip
Slomovitz
The Craving for Hanuka Light in World of Darkness
They'll be all over -- The Hanuka lights. Wherever there are Jews, they will be in
evidence, and Jews are internationally residenced, even if their communities are declin-
ing.
•
There is so much darkness everywhere that mankind must crave for a bit of light, for
I reduction in suspicions and in hatreds. The two are intermixed.
. While the Hanuka source is steeped in militarism — how else is one to approach the
VIaccabean spirit? — there are the spiritual values, the defense of religious liberties, the
auman right to worship as one pleases which was at the root of the Maccabees' struggles,
hat should be given priority in judging events and peoples. Because such judgment is so
everely tested in this era of human struggles, Hanuka becomes a matter of evaluating
he ongoing dispute that is between human and human, with the inhumanities threaten-
ng whatever has been attained in acquiring a modicum of civilized relationships bet-
ween peoples.
These thoughts are compelling in accounting for the confrontations peoples have
among themselves and in international relationships. There is such a lack of trust. The
very agency that was created for the making of peace — the United Nations — is in itself
a battleground. East was to have met West on that platform, yet the UN is mainly a
source of hate-inspiring quests for power and domination.
Israel's and Jewry's roles are relevant to such thinking. A small territory redeemed
as an oasis for the rights of Jews who choose it to master their own destiny is constantly
under attack and when neighbors appear ready to be cooperative, they are forced by fears
to be warmongering. -
Why can't responsible people sit together, peacefully, to discuss their differences
amicably, to have one aim: to resolve disputes and in the process to allow each other the
right to life and limb?
The travails of the United States add to the emphases created by the world's agonies
of the present Hanuka period on a calendar that is marred by inhumanities, not for Jewry
alone, but for all mankind. Even the issue so aggravated and magnified under the name
"Palestinians" could be resolved if neighborliness were invited. But power politics,
hatreds, suspicions, much more of antagonistic character stand in the way.
The reason for mulling over such challenges is that even when there are oppor-
tunities to ease matters, to encourage amities, there are the all-too-frequent resorts to
blaming Israel and to disrupting the American-Israel friendships, to undermine the
peaceful intentions that are in evidence only among the minorities.
The U.S. does not fare well in these tragic times. Israel, and therefore world Jewry,
are frequent targets because even the fratricide, the horror of the mass murders in
Lebanon, have not left lessons of common sense.
These are all dreams compiled, so far not easily attainable. By the sparks coming
froth lit Menoras, it is well to take the miseries into account out of an unabandoned hope
that there will be a shining light stemming from human aspirations that will in the
course of time bring sense to mankind and glory rooted in peace on a global basis.
These are the dreams that are necessary if a nearly 2,000-year-old festival is to be
observed with hope and unabandoned joy.
The lights of Hanuka must always spell hope — the kind that anticipates that
mankind will be truly civilized. Therefore, the proposal and anticipation that in welcom-
ing a holiday it be with hope rather than despair.
Let the lights be lit with cheer, so that they may inspire humanity to labor for an
emergence from darkness. Such hopes, at least, may cause the lights to last, even if they
are, Hanuka-wise, traditionally limited to eight days and nights. May they multiply -into
lasting brightness!
U.S. Mideast Policy Being Tugged in Two Directions
By VICTOR BIENSTOCK
MIAMI — If the reports
being leaked with such fre-
quency by high-ranking
sources in Washington are
- o be credited, Israel, which
he Reagan Administration
as treated like a naughty
hild, will soon be
mothered in embraces
vhich may prove almost as
incomfortable as the Ad-
ministration's previous
scoldings and censure.
The shift in Washington
.s not due to any sudden
iutburst of affection and
admiration for the Jewish
state but to a belated and
unhappy realization that
Washington's confused and
erratic policies in the Mid'
dle East have reduced the
U.S. to a muscle-bound
giant unable to exercise
power and authority and
that without friends in the
Arab world, the U.S. badly
needs Israel.
Almost the only diploma-
tic success this Administra-
tion has had to show in
three years was the
Israeli-Lebanese agree-
ment of last May for the
withdrawal of Israeli forces
from Lebanon and eventual
regularization of relations
between the two neighbor
states. Administration
spokesmen compared this
accomplishment with Pres-
ident Carter's at Camp
David which established
peace between Israel and
Egypt.
But when this agree-
ment stuck in the craw of
President Hafez al-
Assad, the Syrian dic-
tator, and became an obs-
tacle to agreement
among Lebanon's war-
• ng factions, Washing-
on was ready to let the
Iremayel regime emascu-
ate the agreement in the
/lope of placating the Sy-
and
rians
saving
Gemayel.
There has been a certain
obtuseness in the State De-
partment command posts
hich resulted in a serious
n Isreading of the signs in
e Middle East and the op-
talk of taking his soldiers
out of Lebanon and per-
mit the creation of a na-
tional government there.
So Washington is now of-
fering Israel an agreement
on limited stategic coopera-
tion, the promise of more
arms on better terms and
other welcome conditions. A
new phase in American-
Israeli relations may be
opening up. The Israelis,
however, have every reason
to be cautious, if not skepti-
cal.
There is still a strong
element in the Administra-
VICTOR BIENSTOCK
tion that holds all the woes
timistic belief, for example, of the Middle East to be due
that if the Israelis would to Soviet intrigue and Is-
leave Lebanon, the Syrians raeli rapacity and impor-
would follow suit. Secretary tant elements still believe
of State George P. Shultz be- the correct course is to ap-
lieved this. Syrian obduracy pease the Arab states on the
has now, apparently, con- Palestinian issue. They
vinced him otherwise.
argue this even thbugh such
It took Shultz and his ad- an ardent advocate of the
visers a long time to realize Palestinian cause as Prof.
that Assad would not aban- Edward Said of Princeton, a
don his dream of incorporat- close friend and supporter of
ing Lebanon into a Greater Yasir Arafat, concedes that
Syria and that he did not the Arab world has lost in-
want the Americans to suc- terest in the Palestinian
ceed in putting the question and that the Arab
Lebanese Humpty-Dumpty leaders are too involved in
together again. And Shultz, their own affairs.
who believed he had an un-
And there are those like
derstanding of some sort Defense Secretary Caspar
with Assad, now feels be- Weinberger who believe the
trayed by the Syrian.
U.S. must involve the Arab
In consequence, Wash-
states in making the Middle
ington now holds the East a bastion against
belief that in Lebanon Soviet expansionism.
where the weakness and in- Weinberger, who has been
decisiveness of American infinitely troublesome to Is-
policy were so pointedly re-
rael, doesn't believe the
vealed, a strong Israeli pre-
U.S. should rely on Israel
sence must be maintained alone in the Middle East to
to convince the Syrians that combat Soviet influence. To
Lebanon will not fall to the contrary, he wants the
them by default. After hav-
U.S. to distance itself from
ing exerted intense pres-
Israel so as not to give the
sure on Israel to agree to
Arabs the feeling that they
withdraw from Lebanon,
have only the Soviet Union
Washington currently is in-
to turn to.
sistent that Israel not give
Weinberger is the prin-
up a single foot of occupied
Lebanese territory and cipal advocate of a
make clear its intention to policy of supplying
American arms to the
hold its ground.
Only after he is con-
vinced that he cannot
wait the Israelis out,
Washington believes,
will Assad be ready to
Arab states and is most
responsible for the con-
cept of a Jordanian
"strike force" armed and
equipped by the U.S. to
handle crisis conditions
in the Persian Gulf and
elsewhere in the Mideast.
Aharon Yariv, former head
of Israeli military intelli-
gence. The report points out
that Israel has lost its ad-
vantage over the Arabs in
the superiority of its
weapons but maintains a
favorable military position
overall because of the "hu-
man factor."
The Defense Secretary is
angered by Israeli opposi-
tion to the provision of
American arms to the Arab
states and, most recently, to
the success of efforts by Is-
raeli supporters in Congress
to eliminate budget provi-
sions for the Jordanian
The Israelis would be
force. He can be expected to unlikely to agree to the
fight vigorously in the Ad- provision of American
ministration councils to arms to any Arab state
condition the promised new that has not
support for Israel to Israeli made peace with Israel
acquiescence to the arming and which might, despite
of the Arab states.
the conditions of sale, use
How difficult this could be
for the Israelis is indicated
in the latest annual report
of the Jaffee Center for
Strategic Studies, an Israeli
think-tank directed by Gen.
those weapons against
the Jewish state. The
arms issue, therefore, is
likely to be a continuing
focus of American-Israeli
friction.
The defeat of Yasir
Arafat, head of the Pales-
tine Liberation Organiza-
tion, at the hands of
Syrian-backed PLO dissi-
dents, has led to speculation
in Washington of talks in-
volving King Hussein of
Jordan within the Camp
David framework on the
Reagan plan for settlement
of the Palestinian issue.
The Israelis decisively re-
jected the Reagan proposals
when they were first made
in September 1982 and
there has been no softening
in their opposition since
then. If Washington per-
sists in this direction, that
could well be another cause
of friction in the new rela-
tionship the Reagan Ad-
ministration seeks with Is-
rael.
Palestinian Future 'After Arafat'
The New York Times on
Nov. 17 published the fol-
lowing editorial, entitled
"After Arafat":
"Already crippled by Is-
rael, Yasir Arafat has been
finished off by Syria. What
General Sharon could not
complete in the face of
America's protest, Presi-
dent Assad has now com-
pleted, apparently over
Soviet protest. The final
blow to the only indepen-
dent organization of Pales-
tine Arabs has been deli-
vered by other Arabs.
"Mr. Arafat, having lived
by Soviet arms, has been
crushed by Soviet arms.
Long sustained by oil
money from the gulf, he has
succumbed to superior force
bought by oil money from
the gulf.
"Such is the bizarre end-
ing of a movement that, for
all its daring, never found a
political vision.
"Who defeated Mr.
Arafat? Israel, America,
Egypt, the Soviet Union,
Jordan, Lebanon, Syria,
Libya, Saudi Arabia — all
had a hand. Above all, he
defeated himself. Even if
he now escapes the
Tripoli trap as he es-
caped the Beirut seige
last year, he departs
empty-handed.
"In 15 years, Mr. Arafat's
fighters failed to gain a
single inch of land in the re-
gion once called Palestine.
And now they have lost
their last foothold even in
any contiguous area. If the
PLO regroups, it will be
bound over to Syria. And
four million Palestinians
remain dispersed and state-
less; hundreds of thousands
languish in pathetic camps,
outcasts even in Arab
societies.
"Nor will Mr. Arafat find
martyrdom in defeat. The
terror by which he made
himself known the world
over was cruelly random.
The political goals that he
finally professed were in-
coherent or implausible. He
was unwilling or unable to
relieve his people's
homelessness by stages, or
to use his great prestige to
teach them coexistence with
Israel. He departs without
having glimpsed the prom-
ised land, or pointed a way.
"What then does Mr.
Arafat's strange and violent
passage prove? That the
plight of the Palestinians is
not a central concern of the
Arab world, not even a
humanitarian concern. The
outrage expressed over the
murder of innocent Palesti-
nians in Sabra and Shatila,
when Israel could be partly
blamed, has found no echo
now that Syria sponsors as-
saults on Palestinians in
camps called Beddawi and
Nahr al Bared.
"Mr. Arafat's defeat
also proves that, oratory
aside, there's no such
thing as 'the Arab na-
tion.' It is 22 nations,
waging wars among
themselves for reasons
that have little to do with
Palestine.
"Wise Palestinians, espe-
cially the million-plus in
the West Bank and Gaza,
will finally take charge of
their own fate. Wise Israelis
will encourage them, let
them practice their own
politics, find their own lead-
ers and produce their own
ideas for living in peace
with Jordan and Israel. And
wise, Americans, having
seen cynical Arabs wreck a
destructive Palestinian
movement, will lend a hand
in bringing a constructive
one to life."