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."