12 Friday, March 9, 1984 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Did Arafat Sanction Killing of PLO Moderate? By VICTOR BIENSTOCK MIAMI — Did Yasir Arafat sanction the assas- sination of Dr. Issam Sar- tawi, his close associate and the leading Palestinian ad- vocate of peace with Israel? Sartawi was gunned down last April in Lisbon, Portugal where he was pre- senting the Palestine Lib- eration Organization at a meeting of the Socialist In- ternational. Abu Nidal, the Syrian- backed terrorist leader and foe of Arafat, boasted of re- sponsibility for the slaying but according to Flora Lewis, chief - European correspondent of the New York Times who knew Sar- tawi well and had followed his activities in Paris, "Mohammed Labadi, Mr. Arafat's renegade ex- spokesman who went over to the PLO rebels, later said that Mr. Arafat had given the green light for the mur- der. "More important," she added in a column deal- ing with the recent dis- closure of secret Reagan Administration contacts with Arafat, "Dr. Sar- tawi's friend, the former Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, sus- pected the same." Kreisky was the first European leader to give Arafat welcome and recog- nition and he shepherded the terrorist chieftain in his first contacts with the Socialist International and the European community. Sartawi had joined in 1982 with three interna- tionally prominent Jews — Philip M. Klutznick, former Secretary of Commerce; Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, and Pierre Mendes-France, former Prime Minister of France — in an appeal to Israel to lift the siege of Be- irut to facilitate negotia- tions with the PLO leading to an Arab-Israeli settle- ment on the basis of full na- tional recognition for both sides. Sartawi, apparently, was BRUNO KREISKY YASIR ARAFAT the prime mover in bringing about the recently dis- closed, secretly held talks between a Reagan Ad- ministration intermediary and Arafat. The talks stretched out over nine months until Arafat broke them off after the Israeli in- vasion of Lebanon in June 1982. Sartawi was con- vinced that an agreement had been reached in these talks but that "Washington had set it aside so that Israel could destroy the PLO" in Beirut, he told Ms. Lewis. The disclosure of the 1981-1982 talks was made by Bernard Gwertzman of the New York Times who revealed that they had been Conducted with so much secrecy that no reports had been made on them to the White House. The initiative for the talks, the reporter said, came from Arafat and the decision to undertake them was made by Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr., who imposed the strict secrecy rule. Haig was quoted as say- ing that he had informed President Reagan orally of the planned talks during a meeting in California. He reportedly told his staff that the President had approved. He ruled out written memos to the White House to avoid embarrassing leaks. The talks were conducted by John Edwin Mroz, a Middle East specialist for- merly attached to the Inter- national Peace Academy but currently president of the Institute for East-West Security Studies, which he founded. Former Assistant Secretary of State Harold Saunders is a member of the institute board. His contact was Nicholas Veliotes, then Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and presently Ambassador to Egypt. Between August 1981 and June 1982, Gwertzman reported, Mroz had some 50 meetings with Arafat for a total of about 400 hours. No reports were sent to the White House on the talks and National Security Ad- viser George V. Allen says he was not informed of the talks. Arafat broke off the talks after the Israeli in- vasion of Lebanon but Secretary of State George P. Shultz authorized Mroz in September 1982 to make one more at- tempt to see Arafat and persuade him to accept the American conditions for recognition. Arafat, then in Tunis after his eviction from Beirut, re- fused to receive the American intermediary. In the final round of talks in Beirut before the Israeli attack, Mroz reportedly ad- vised Washington that he felt Arafat and his aides were inclined toward a pos- itive response but that it was far from certain that they could get a favorable decision from the PLO lead- ership around the world. The Reagan Administra- tion's talks with Arafat did not represent any departure from policy or practice. Previous administrations have tried in informal talks with the PLO leader to per- suade him to accept the American terms for recog- nition of his organization. None were as extensive as the recent discussions and none were any more prod- uctive. At various stages and in varying forms, The United States has contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization over the past 20 years. In most instances, the initiative for the talks came from Arafat or his associates. Arafat has fre- quently made use of private American citizens, includ- KING HUSSEIN ing a prominent Quaker, to carry proposals to the State Department offering talks to seek a peaceful solution of the Palestine problem. All efforts foundered sooner or • later on Arafat's unwillingness or inability to meet the prime condition for the negotiations: recogni- tion of Israel's right to live and acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 242. Arafat began reaching out for American contacts as far back as 1973. Accord- ing to Henry A. Kissinger, then the Secretary of State, Arafat's proposal then was based on two premises: "Is- rael is here to stay" and Jor- dan should be the home of the Palestinian state. As Kissinger interpreted Arafat's message, Arafat was proposing to accept Is- rael and overthrow King Hussein. Kissinger reported in his massive "Years of Up- heaval" that he found this untenable, but when some months later Arafat ap- proached him again through King Hassan of Morocco, with the identical proposal, he sent Gen. Ver- non Walters, deputy head of the Central Intelligence Agency, to meet with Arafat's envoy. Nothing came of the meeting and there was no follow-up. Now that King Hussein and Yasir Arafat are again talking, seeking an agree- ment that would permit Hussein to speak for the Palestinians in negotia- tions with Israel and the United States, both Hussein and the Americans would do well to remember Kissing- er's reaction to Arafat's ap- proach. "I considered King Hussein a valued friend of the United States and a principal hope for dip- lomatic progress in the region," he wrote in "Years of Upheaval." "Our aim should be to strengthen his position, not to encourage a group that avowed its determi- nation to overthrow him in its very first communi- cation with us. "A Palestinian state run by the PLO was certain to be irredentist. Even should it change its professed aims, it would not likely remain HENRY KISSINGER moderate for long; its many extremist factions would see to that. Its Soviet ties, too, would lead it in the di- rection of becoming a radi- cal state like Libya or South Yemen. Palestinian "Any structure on the West Bank had every incentive to turn on Jordan — of only to gain a secure base for later oper- ations against Israel and to avoid the provisions of a peace accord that would in- evitably demilitarize the West Bank. "The PLO's hints of possi- ble co-existence with Is- rael," Kissinger warned, "were contrary to the 1964 Palestinian National Cove- nant, the founding docu- ment of the organization; PLO policy at its most mod- erate called for a mixed Moslem - Jewish - Christian secular state in Palestine - a euphemism for the disman- tlement of Israel. Of all the Arabs, the Palestinians had the bitterest grievance against the Jewish state. "Even should Israel re- turn to the 1967 borders on the West Bank and re- linquish the Old City of Jerusalem — and there were few who- thought this in the realm of possi- bility — the Palestinians would covet the ter- ritories to which their very name connected them. To them a West Bank mini-state could be only an interim step toward their final aims." Gen. Walters' talks with the PLO in Rabat, Kis- singer reported, "made clear in any event that the 1967 borders were consid- ered only the first phase; a PLO nation would be ideologically committed to the dismantling of the Jewish state." JPS Publishes Soloveitchik's rHalakhic Man' PHILADELPHIA — "Halakhic Man," by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, re- cently issued by the Jewish Publication Society, is a pioneering work which pre- sents a full and mature phi- losophy of Halakhic living according to Talmudic law. In this acclaimed essay, originally published in He- brew in 1944 and now pre- sented in English transla- tion in its entirety for the first time, the author in- cludes a brilliant exposition of Jewish spirituality and religion. This unique work, the most famous of Rabbi Sol- oveitchik's statements, is already recognized as a modern spiritual and reli- gious classic. At the time he wrote "Halakhic Man," Rabbi Sol- oveitchik set out what was then considered a revolu- tionary concept — that con- temporary developments in psychology and philosophy have direct relevance to the Orthodox viewpoint. Today, these once disturbing ideas are recognized and accepted by leading scholars of Jewish theology. The author brings pro- found erudition and orig- inal thinking to his task. He has been described as "one of the foremost in- terpreters of Orthodoxy in the U.S., a leading practitioner of Jewish philosophy and theology. He is, above all, a rationalist who studies life and tradition with powerful intellectual analysis and is intent on total clarity." In this work, Rabbi Sol- oveitchik first describes two types of human tempera- ment, which combine to form Halakhic man. His "cognitive man" seeks to uncover the secrets of the world and solve the prob- lems of existence by scienti- fically and intellectually remqving all traces of mys- tery, so that all is fixed and ordered. "Religious man," on the other hand, emphasizes the mystery of existence. To him, the very idea of law- fulness is itself the deepest of mysteries. "Halakhic man" com- bines these two per- sonalities, becoming an in- dividual who achieves both self-realization and a mean- ingful relationship with God. His instrument is God-given: the Torah and the Talmudic tradition that courses through Jewish his- tory to our own day. Halakhic man focuses both dimensions of his personal- ity on the categories and is- sues of the Talmud in his search for answers and di- rections in dealing with the problems of contemporary life. Many diverse elements, including religious psy- chology and phenomenology, are bound together by the force of Soloveitchik's highly personal vision. His intellectual sophisti- cation is evident on every page as he touches upon issues fundamental to religious life. And, in a manner that has become a hallmark to genera- tions of his students, "Halakhic Man" abounds with glowing anecdotes from his dis- tinguished family history as well as with many beautiful portions that approach the ecstatic. These vital ideas are ex- pressed in a complex and al- lusive style which draws upon the full resources of the Hebrew language. The faithful translation, echo- ing the spirit of the original Hebrew, is by Lawrence Kaplan, a recognized in- terpreter of Soloveitchik. Here, for the English- speaking world, is a sig- nificant work of our time, exploring the inner world of the Talmudist, Halakhic Man, in terms drawn from Western culture. For over 40 years, Rabbi Soloveitchik has taught Talmud at Yeshiva Univer- sity in New York and has been spiritual leader of the Boston rabbinical commu- nity.