• 42 Friday, August 10, 1984 t7:1:t.:rosomerstttt,aart-r,- Kilemoos.W;rt.tr, - THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS NEWS ezeali6ur Turning the Mideast debate Continued from preceding page One of Metropolitan Detroit's Most Beautiful and Exciting Restaurant-Lounges .1 K a available for your favorite occasion every Sunday (all day) and Saturday from 12 to 5 p.m. • Bar Mitzvah • Shower • Birthday • Bat Mitzvah • Banquet • Sweet 16 • Wedding • Anniversary • Reunion Tfty aux takeout Pa* Tnago, on wag win to putt kame on take. call your host PAT ARCHER: 358-3355 ~~ \ 28875 Franklin Rd. at Northwestern & 12 Mile Southfield, Ml ELX opt 0a/edam rant , • Rated Number One By: Detroit Free Press, Windsor Star, Metropolitan Detroit, Grosse Pointe News and Others lc said refugees were habitual residents who had spent their lifetimes in an area. In the case of the. Arabs, that was changed to define as a refugee any Arab who had lived in Palestine a total of two years. And so 'was born the Palestinian problem. The irony of that, says Pet- ers, is that Arabs who weren't refu- gees were proclaimed so and made the focus of attention while, at the same time, Jewish refugees from Arab countries were ignored. How ignored, says Peters, was clearly demonstrated to her when she called the Center for Middle Eastern Studies of a prestigious American university to ask a question about Jewish refugees of 1948. The re- sponse: "What Jewish refugees?" In fact, 800,000 Jews were forced to flee their homes in Arab counties — in Egypt, Yemen, Syria, North Af- rica. "For every refugee — adult or child — in Syria, Lebanon or elsewhere in the Arab world, there was a Jewish refugee who fled from the Arab country of his birth. For every Arab who moved to neighbor- ing lands, a Jew was forced to flee from a community where he and his ancestors may have lived for 2,000 - years. "At the very least, an equal number of Jews were forced to flee, robbed of all they owned. They went to Israel to live in hovels and camps of . the worst kind." What that means, says Peters, is that what occurred was not a dis- placement but an exchange of popu- lation with between 430,000 and 650,000 Arab's leaving Palestine and going into "compatible areas where they spoke the same language and practiced the same religion" and about 800,000 Jews being expelled from Arab countries and returning to their historic homeland guaranteed them by international commitments. But the cause of the Palestinian problem that still exists today, Peters says, is that Israel absorbed its new population and the Arabs didn't, the Arabs instead choosing to keep them in refugee camps and use them as political pawns in their continuing fight against Israel. "If it wasn't for politics," says Peters,'"the problem of what to do about the Palestinians could have been solved long ago." Noting the massive and successful exchange of Hindus between India and Pakistan and the resettlement of millions of World War II refugees, Peters said, "the number of Arab emigrants in- volved in 1948 was, in truth, a far less important number than those others. It could easily have been handled." But, says peters, "the heart of the matter is not the Palestinian Arab refugees or even Palestine. The Arab leaders believe that by invent- ing an age-old Arab-Palestinian identity at the sacrifice of the well- being and the very lives of the hap- less Arab refugees themselves, they Peters expected to find reasons to be sympathetic to the Palestinians and critical of the Israelis. But the more she learned, the less things were ,coming out the way she expected. can pre-empt Jewish identification with the Holy Land and accomplish politically what they have failed to achieve militarily — the destruction of Israel'. That is the heart of the mat- ter." Peters hopes, though, that if people use their heads and see the facts for what they really are, things in the Middle East might change. "An inversion of history has taken place. The whole situation has been twisted, distorted, turned on its head. I've tried to turn that situation on its head, or really to turn things right side up. The Arabs can't continue to invoke history and moral rights as claims, then deny history if it re- bukes their claim. They can't have it both ways. "Now, we know considerations we didn't know before. That's vital if we want to find the road to a solution. Now we know the facts and don't have to continue this cynical rework- ing of history for political ends. Be- cause, in the end, continuing to do that, benefits nobody — not Arabs, not Jews." New Testament nixed from GOP welcome kit iC Nuestra casa es su casa . . . . (My House Is Your House) 3400 Bagley Ave. (At 23rd Street) Detroit, ML 48216 • Phone 841-3700 OPEN SEVEN DAYS— from 11 a m. to 2:30 a.m. One Of The Nation's Foremost Authentic Mexican Restaurants "Like being at the finest of Mexico City" 414110-rw,lir• • ;.7.#,Ct.,;• Washington (JTA) — The Dallas Host Committee for the Republican National Convention has removed the copies of the New Tes- tament from the welcome kits it planned to give the 5,000 delegates and alter- nates to the convention, which begins Aug. 20. The American Jewish Commit- tee had lodged a protest against plans to distribute the Bibles, an AJCommit- tee representatives said Monday. Hyman Bookbinder, AJ- . gton representative, complained to the White House last week after the organiza tion's Dallas chapter in- , formed the Washington office of plans to include the New Testament as part of various material in the in- formation kits. Bookbinder asked an assistant to President Reagan to inves- tigate. "All this is part of a gen- eral effort for formally Christianize America, and that's not what our found- 'ing lattierr4,3ws.n.tret1 itj3ka country to be," Bookbinder said. Library fun in Southfield The Southfield Public Li- brary summer program will show the movie, Old Yeller Wednesday at 2 p.m. in the Marcotte Room of the li- brary. " This free program is for school-age children. No registration is required.. .