Israel heading for early elections 8
School prayer issue loses in U.S. Senate 10
Jerusalem: a city divided by U.S. foreign policy 12
Kids dress up for Purim 16
:
E JEWISH NEWS
THIS . ISSUE 40c
SERVING DETROIT'S METROPOLITAN JEWISH COMMUNITY
MARCH 23, 1984
Hussein's rebuff to negotiations
Costs Reagan the Stinger sale
Washington — President Reagan,
bowing to Congressional opposition,
withdrew Wednesday his offer to sell
1,613 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to
Jordan and 1,200 to Saudi Arabia.
A State Department spokesman
said the decision was made after an
assessment of the "legislative situa-
tion."
Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) had
gathered 55 Senators' signatures on a
letter to Reagan, oppos,ing the sale,
after King Hussein last week rejected
any peace negotiations with Israel
under U.S. auspices.
A Middle East expert in Washing-
ton said that the Reagan Administra-
tion had called the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
Tuesday evening, offering to drop the
sale of the Stinger missiles in ex-
change for an end to the Congressional
move to transfer the U.S. Embassy in
Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
AIPAC reportedly refused, firmly
believing that it could win on both is-
sues in Congress.
The observer said that the Ad-
ministration ultimately agreed to drop
the sales of Stinger shoulder-fired
missiles, and to delete the limited
number of Stinger missiles slated for
the proposed Middle East strike force
the Reagan Administration wants to
establish in Jordan. AIPAC remains
opposed to the establishment of a
strike force in Jordan.
Secretary of State George Shultz
told a State Department press confer-
ence on Tuesday that the U.S. is com-
mitted to the importance of security
for Jordan and our other friends in the
region." He said, We will continue to
work with Congress in every way we
can to find the means of helping Jor-
dan make itself as secure as possible in
the region."
Shultz also rejected Hussein's
Mideast peace push?
`Wait till next. year'
A White House briefing this week
underscored U.S. frustrations
BY GARY ROSENBLATT
Editor
Washington — The Reagan Ad-
. ministration, though disappointed at
King Hussein's strong rebuff of its
Mideast pease proposals, will send a
delegation to Jordan next week "to re-
sume the process" — but Washington
holds out little hope of success before
the Presidential elections in Novem-
ber. It will be next year before we can
exert the pressure and leverage it will
take" to get the peace process on track,
a senior Ae,ninistration official told a
group of about a hundred Jewish and
Christian leaders at the White House
this week.
The day-long session, on back-
ground only and not for attribution,
was billed as the first joint Jewish-
Christian briefing held by the Ad-
ministration. It included a number of
well-known evangelists and ministers
from around the country as well as a
cross-section of the organized national
Jewish community, from Hadassah to
a representative of the Belzer
Hasidim. The common theme ex-
pressed by the Christian and Jewish
leaders was strong support for Israel
and a concern that U.S. policy does not
sufficiently reflect that support.
The session on the Mideast broke
no new ground but underscored the
Administration's frustration in deal-
ing with Arab leaders who, in the
words of one senior national security
affairs official, are not exactly giants
of courage." The official asserted in his
presentation to the group that
President Reagan's September 1982
peace proposal is still a valid formula
— exchanging Israeli-held territory
for Arab peace pledges.
We must do what we can to re-
spond favorably to Arab requests
without ever endangering Israeli se-
curity," he said. But he did not counter
a member of the audience's assertion
that King Hussein is "a coward" and
that the U.S. is still being "taken in"
Continued on Page 11
Hussein: a rebuff
to Reagan.
statement that the Arabs cannot ac-
cept the U.S. as a peace-maker in the
Middle East as long as Washington is
considered a close ally of Israel.
It has to be clear to everybody
that we care about stability, peace and-
security in the region and we are pre-
pared to help and we have expended a
lot of energy to help," Shultz said.
"But primarily, it is up to the par-
ties in the region to find their way to
security, peace and for that matter,
better quality of life goals that
everyone seeks."
Shultz stressed this point saying,
You have to get out of this notion that
every time things don't go just to
everybody's satisfaction in the Middle
East, it's the fault of the U.S. or it's up
to the U.S. to do something about it."
Arab League Secretary General
Chedli Klibi warned President Rea-
gan in a letter published in Paris that
"the total support" given to Israel by
the U.S. "will reach a limit beyond
which the Arab political position
toward the United States would un-
doubtedly change deeply and signific-
antly."
On Monday, Queen Noor of Jor-
dan charged that the United States, by
its continued support and financial aid
to Israel, encourages a continuation of
what she said was Israel's abuse of
human rights of the Palestinians in
the West Bank and Gaza.
"It is time that you see that your
generous aid grants are being used in
the service of extremism and denial of
a people's fundamental human and
political rights," she said in an address
to a luncheon sponsored by the World
Affairs Council of Washington.
It is time that you wield your
influence in a more even-handed
manner on both sides of the Arab-
Israeli divide. It is time you reaffirmed
to yourselves, and to both Arabs and
Israelis, that you will neither tolerate
nor finance the abuse of human rights,
even if the abuses are perpetuated by a
Continued on Page 6
Holocaust commission differs
on Jewish responsibility
New York (JTA) — A report to the
American Jewish Commission on the
Holocaust, chaired by Arthur
Goldberg, concludes that American
Jewish organiza-
tions were faulty
in their efforts to
save the victims of
the Holocaust be-
cause the organ-
izations were not
united.
The author of
the report, Prof.
Seymour Finger,
of the graduate
Arthur Goldberg
school of the City
University of New York and the corn-
mission's director of research, said
Wednesday, "The American Jewish
organizations had relatively little
power (during the Holocaust in
Europe), but they did try to save the
Jews. They tried, but they were ham-
pered by a lack of unity. There was not
a sustained, unified effort on the part
of Jewish organizations."
„Finger, and Rabbi Moshe Sherer,
president of Agudat Israel of America
and a member of the commission, also
said that the story in Wednesday's
New York Times on the report was "in-
correct" mainly because it failed to
Continued on Page 3