THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, May 18, 1984
NEWS
Former PM blames Israel
for the problems of Lebanon
The Members, Officers and Board of Trustees
of Temple Israel
Extend Congratulations
to Past President
BERNARD E. LINDEN
BY HENRY SREBRNIK
Special to The Jewish News
Salim A. Hoss, prime
minister of Lebanon during
the war-torn years of 1976-
1980, and since April 30 the
minister of education, labor
social affairs in the new
tional unity cabinet, told
an audience at the Univer-
sity of Michigan on Monday
evening that Lebanon's
crisis arises out of its system
of political sectarianism
and that its main current
problem is the continuing
Israeli presence in the
southern part of the coun-
try.
Hoss was in Ann Arbor at
the invitation of Lebanon
Indivisible, an ad hoc com-
mittee of Americans and
Lebanese formed in 1983 by
Hussein Jamal Eddin, a
civil engineer in Ann Arbor.
The group, which is corn-
mitted to the development
of a broad-based program
• leading towards reconstitu-
tion of the Lebanese state,
plans a major conference in
Washington in the near fu-
ture to advance its goals.
Hoss told his enthusiastic
audience that Lebanon had
historically been identified
with a political system dis-
tinct in the Arab world, in-
.
cluding a functioning par-
liamentary system and
religious plurality. Univer-
sal sufferage, freedom of
thought and freedom of the
press all existed.
There was also an un-
- paralleled degree of free-
dom in the economy, said
the former prime minister,
who holds a doctorate in
economics from Indiana
University and was a pro-
fessor at the American Uni-
versity of Beirut until 1967.
There was freedom of
foreign trade, few restric-
tions on foreign exchange or
imports and low tariffs and
taxes. "This was Lebanon's
greatest asset," he felt. "It
was a haven for men and
capital after 1948, following
the Palestine catastrophe."
Three problems, however,
served to undermine all of
this and led to the present
crisis: the almost complete
lack of political accountabil-
ity in the system, the lack of
political resilience and the
absence of equal opportu-
;=
—nay.
lir
Hoss pointed out that
party life had never thrived
in Lebanon because tradi-
tional family influence bor-
dering on political
feudalism had been too
powerful to be dislodged.
"The stars of the political
scene in 1943," the year of
independence from France,
"are still stars now. The
same men led the people
through the 1958 civil war,
the 1969 crisis with the PLO
and finally today's devas-
tating crisis. It is largely the
same group of people or
their kin and descendents.
In other democracies, such
disasters would have
shoved them out of the
scene. So it is a dubious
democracy."
Lebanon also had no
built-in system of checks
and balances. Unlike West-
Though he
characterized the
Israelis as
aggressors, Hoss
refused to apply
the same term to
either the Syrians
or the PLO.
ern democracies, where re-
medies were found for
crises, in Lebanon emerging
problems were left un-
checked, festering and
growing into crises. The
problem, Hoss asserted, was
rooted in Lebanon's system
of political confessionalism,
which was built into the
civil service, the army, the
justice system and govern-
ment itself. He called this
sectarianism "the most de-
bilitating challenge to
democracy."
Since the important
offices in the jolitical sys-
tem are allocated to mem-
bers of the various main
religious groupings, "re-
gardless of your worth, you
may stand no chance of
reaching particular posts."
Cabinet seats, for instance,
were shared among six or
seven of the country's 17
religious groups according
to a rigid formula. Not sur-
prisingly, he explained,
those left out suffered from
disenchantment, frustra-
tion and low morale, and be-
came radicalized.
The fragility of the
Christian-dominated
Lebanese army was another
consequence. Certainly, the
underdeveloped and under-
privileged areas didn't
share in Beirut's dynamic
and glittering life.
If the problem of Lebanon
is deeply rooted in its very
structure, outside forces,
acting as catalysts, have
heightened these tensions.
Hoss placed particular
blame on Israel, whose oc-
cupation of the south might
lead to the irreversible de-
struction of Lebanon's in-
tegrity. The liberation of
this territory, to prevent its
resources and water from
becoming integrated into
the Israeli economy, is now
the prime objective, Hoss
said. He accused recent
Lebanese governments of
not doing enough. "But the
people of the south are fight-
ing magnificently, even
without the support of the
government."
Though he characterized
the Israelis as aggressors,
Hoss refused to apply the
same term to either the Sy-
rians or the PLO. The Sy-
rians, he insisted, were in-
vited into Lebanon origi-
nally, and were financed by
the Arab League. As for the
Palestinians, "they were
driven out of their homes in
Palestine. If they had a
homeland again, they
wouldn't stay in Lebanon
one minute."
Hoss, a Sunni Moslem,
felt the new unity cabinet is
a manifestation of the new
determination to try and re-
solve Lebanon's domestic
problems through a fairer
power-sharing formula. As
for the international as-
pects, he said he hoped that
American policy, which he
characterized as a complete
failure at present, would be
rehashed and reconsidered
after the November elec-
tions.
In a statement to The
Jewish News at a reception
following his speech, Hoss
remarked that if American
Jews disapprove of the Is-
raeli occupation of the
south, "there's a lot they can
do about it. The Jewish
lobby in the U.S. is the
strongest."
On Retiring as President of the
College of Jewish Studies
of the Metropolitan Detroit Federation
of Reform Synagogues
and Join in Inviting the Community
to a Dinner in His Honor
Wed., May 23, at 6:00 P.M.
at
Temple Israel in West Bloomfield
Guest Speaker: Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler
President, Union of American Hebrew Congregations
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Status decline
Jerusalem — Despite
notable achievements in Is-
raeli chemical research and
industry over the past half-
century, the future of
chemistry in Israel faces a
number of difficulties and
problems, former President
Ephraim Katzir, himself a
chemist, warned during the
50th anniversary meeting
of the Israel Chemical
Society, held last month
under the auspices of the
Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.
Prof. Katzir said that "the
number of students in Israel
studying chemistry is de-
creasing" and that "the
status of the study of
chemistry in the eyes of the
public is Unfortunately de-
teriorating."
Jewish officers
New York — Twenty-
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this spring's graduates from
the five U.S. service
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