THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS When Will Mike Wallace Give Israel a Break? Near Last Report Listen to Mike Wallace, the CBS correspondent, on Syria. "There are Syrians still alive today who can remember when there was no Jordan, no Lebanon, surely no Israel. Those states are 20th century cre- ations, carved out of a once-vast area here in the eastern Mediterranean that historians call Greater Syria." That was Wallace on the Jan. 8 edition of "60 Min- utes." Wallace, of course, was wrong. Modern Syria is as much a 20th Century creation as Jordan. Leba- non, and Israel — they all won independence in the 1940's. As to ancient Syria, it did exist thousands of years ago. However, it does not predate ancient Israel — which, as every child knows, existed as a Jewish state 1,000 years before the birth of Christ. But there is no need to re- cite ancient history to rebut Wallace's falsehoods. The question is: why is Mike Wallace so obsessed with Is- rael that he is led to defend even the Syrians? What is it about Israel — or about Mike Wallace — that has brought him to the point where he will provide free public relations services to Hafez Assad's Syria — one of the great human rights violators on the planet? That sounds like a rough indictment. But look at the record. In 1975 Mike Wallace did a "60 Minutes" segment on the condition of Jews in Syria. Wallace concluded his report with the news that "today, life for Syria's Jews is better than it was in years past." This ridiculous statement about the terrified and terrorized Jewish com- munity in Syria caused a sensation. In fact, Wal- lace felt compelled to do a second segment on Sy- rian Jews, one in which he tried to back away from his earlier pro- Syrian report. But Wallace didn't learn much from that episode. In his Jan. 8 report, he mouths Syrian propaganda as if he were a member of the Ba'ath party's young lead- ership group. Wallace on Lebanon: "One thing Syria wants in Lebanon is a government more representative of all the peoples of that country, like the Lebanese Druze, a small Moslem sect who live in the Shouf Mountains above Beirut." Of course, that is what they want, Mike. Syria is well-known for its commitment to equal representation for minorities. (However,. that does not apply to Syria itself Right-Wing Dutch Leader Resigns Township Post AMSTERDAM (JTA) — One of the two municipal councillors of the new town- ship of "Almere," some 20 kilometers east of Amster- dam, publicly resigned last week as a member of the council from the right-wing Centrum Party. The man, Bernard Fresco, is a baptized Jew and in his televised resignation called himself "a Christian Jew." Fresco, who had also been a member of the Centrum Party executive and repor- tedly had a good chance of being nominated as a can- didate for Parliament from the party, said that only now had his eyes been opened to the Fascist and Racialist characteristics of his party. He said he would however, retain his seat in the Municipal council as an individual member. Fresco, who is a homeopath by profession, spent some time in Israel several years ago as a Christian missionary. The Centrum Party is largely a one-issue party, which op- posed the large-scale presence in Holland of hun- dreds of thousands of Turks and Moroccans and Surinamese. In the municipal elections of Almere some months ago, it received almot 10 percent of the votes and was there- fore entitled to two Seats. The installation of these two Centrum Party mem- bers, including Fresco just a month ago, was the scene of disturbances by oppon ats of the party. which is a dictatorship run by the tiny group that sur- rounds Hafez Assad.) Wallace on Israel: "Noth- ing affronts Syrian dignity and pride more than the fact that Israel has Syrian land, the Golan Heights, and the Syrians want it back." That's right, Mike. But how did the Israelis get "Syrian land?" Was it in an Israeli war of aggression or did Is- rael capture the Golan Heights after Syria at- tacked Israel from the Heights in 1967? Wallace on Syria's go- als: "So what does Syria want? ... What they want, above all, now from Washington, they say, is more attention to even- handedness — as sym- pathetic a hearing for Sy- rian views as Washington now gives to Israel. Only on that basis, says Damascus, can real pro- gress toward real peace be made here in the Mid- dle East." Wallace almost moves his listener to empathy with and sympathy for the Sy- rians. After all, why shouldn't they get the same treatment from Washing- ton that Israel does? Listen hard, Mike. The reason the United States supports Is- rael is (1) because Israel is a democracy and (2) because Israel is a consistent Ameri- can ally. Syria, on the other hand, is a repressive police state that is allied with the Soviet Union. You might as well ask why America gives more favorable treatment to Australia than it gives to Albania. So what is Wallace's prob- lem? Is he ignorant of Mid- dle East reality or is it something more convoluted than that? After all, Mike Wallace is Jewish. Does he feel that he has to bend over backwards to prove that he is no secret Zionist? If that is what concerns him, he can relax. No one thinks of him as a Zionist or even as a reporter who is sym- pathetic to Jewish people. No one will ever accuse him of any form of identification with Israel. He's off the hook. 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