THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
30 Friday, January 4, 1985
WOOLF
ROOFING
COMMERCIAL & RESIDENTIAL
24-HOUR EMERGENCY SERVICE
ASK FOR ROY, SCOTT OR SAMMY WOOLF
1 West Bloomfield
18161
I
Southfield
646-2452
W. 13 Mile Rd.
1 682-7336
BERLIN'S
CHILDREN'S SHOPPE
RETIREMENT SALE
5 0 %- 1 5 %
ALL INFANTS, BOYS & GIRLS
CLOTHING THRU SIZE 16
FALL, WINTER & SPRING MERCHANDISE
BERLIN'S
Serving 3 Generations with Personalized Service
INFANTS • BOYS • GIRLS • APPAREL thru size
6385 Orchard Lake at Maple, W. Bloomfield
851-5110
Inside Orchard Mall
visa mastercard
all sales final
• 24 Hour
Answering
Service
• Office Hours:
Tues., Thurs.,
Fri., Sat.
GARY W. DOCKS, D.P.M.
Diplomate, American Board of Podiatric Surgery
Associate, American College of Foot Surgeons
Director of Podiatric Education, North Detroit
General Hospital
is proud to announce to all
my patients currently under
medicare, that
FREE CAB SERVICE
(pick up & delivery)
will be provided to all patients
living within a 2 mile radius of
our office located at:
15300 W. 9 Mile Rd.
Oak Park, MI 48237 •
(2 blks. E. of Greenfield)
for appt. information & transportation, please call:
968-5550
CAPITOL REPORT
WOLF BLITZER
New Arab approach
Strong Israel-U.S. ties no longer considered detrimental
Washington — Iraq's decision
to restore full diplomatic relations
with the United States has tended
to belie a lingering element of the
conventional wisdom of the U.S.
foreign policy establishment in
dealing with the Middle East.
Since the founding of Israel in
1948, there has been a widespread
notion among U.S. specialists on
the Middle East, especially at the
State Department, that too much
public support for Israel auto-
matically undermines U.S. influ-
ence in the Arab world. This has
been a basic theme promoted by
the Arabs themselves in their
dealings with the United States.
The Americans, as a result, al-
most always have sought to care-
fully limit their support for Israel,
afraid of the price which would be
paid by going too far. In the early
years of the state, for example,
this meant an arms embargo
against Israel. Later, there were
severe restrictions in terms of
economic assistance and political
support. An Administration often
wanted Congress to initiate aid
improvement packages for Israel,
hoping to avoid the "blame" in the
Arab world.
At the same time, the United
States always has sought to
actively reach out to friends in the
Arab world, where the United
States also has important eco-
nomic, political and military
interests. Some U.S. Administra-
tions have managed to walk this
delicate tightrope between Israel
and the Arabs better than others.
The upshot of this traditional
approach has been that the
United States should no go too far
in aligning itself with Israel, lest
its Arab friends bolt from the U.S.
camp and its Arab adversaries
move ever more deeply into the
Soviet orbit.
There was always an ever-
present fear that too much Ameri-
can solidarity with Israel woudl
merely create golden oppor-
tunities for the Soviet Union to
exploit in the region.
But now, in the aftermath of
Iraq's decision to resume full ties
with Washington after a 17-year
break, senior Administration offi-
cials made a point of notiang that
this occurred at a time when
U.S.-Israeli relations have never
been better. This excellent rela-
tionship between Washington
and Jerusalem — including the
highly-publicized enhanced
strategic cooperation and in-
creased economic and military
support — did not stop the Iraqis
from moving closer to the United
States.
Clearly, the Iraqis had their
own reasons for seeking an im-
proved relationship with the
United States — irrespective of
America's alliance with Israel.
For one thing, U.S. officials ex-
plained, the Iraqis were no doubt
becoming increasingly concerned
with what the Baghdad regime
regarded as an overly dependent
base on the Soviet Union. It was
time to have decent relations with
the United States as well as the
Kremlin leadership.
Israeli officials were also quick
to point out that Iraq's decision
followed the strong U.S. support
over the past few years expressed
for Israel at the United Nations
and other international forums in
the face of Iraq's continued efforts
to condemn Israel for destroying
the Iraqi nuclear reactor at
Osirak in June 1981. This was
most recently demonstrated in
early November when Iraq again
pressed for condemnation of Israel
at the United Nations.
But thanks in part to a consis-
tent U.S. stance on the issue, the
Iraqis have met with increasingly
less international support since
the matter first arose in 1981.
Only the United States and Israel,
to be sure, actually have voted
against the Iraqi proposal every
year. In 1983, 11 mostly-Western
countries abstained during the
role call in the General Assembly.
But in early November of this
year, when the resolution was
again raised, 33 countries
abstained, a significant increase.
Israel's new U.N. Ambassador,
Benjamin Netanyahu, took the of-
The Arabs, in
seeking improved ties
with Washington, are
increasingly
ignoring the
U.S.-Israeli
relationship.
fensive in-ridiculing the Iraqi mo-
tion against Israel when he spoke
before the Generaly Assembly.
"This is a regime, let us re-
member, which has recently and
repeatedly employed chemical
warfare — a kind of weaponry
strictly outlawed by a treaty to
which Iraq is a signatory," he de-
clared.
Thus, what the Iraqi restora-
tion of ties with the United States
demonstrated, an Israeli official
in Washington commented, is
that the United States can, after
all, maintain very strong rela-
tions with Israel and still simul-
taneously improve its standing in
the Arab world. This flies in the
face of the so-called conventional
wisdom.
It was also underlined a dozen
years ago when Egypt kicked the
Soviet Union out of the country
and began to warm up to Wash-
ington., And it was reinforced in
November by Iraq's move.
In short, Israeli and U.S. offi-
cials agreed, the Arab states, in-
cluding some of the most radical,
are coming to realize that the
American-Israeli connection is
iron-clad, that there is virtually
no realistic hope of driving a
wedge between the two.
At a time of serious division
within the Arab world and a
marked reduction in the influence
of Arab oil, this has forced some
revised thinking among the
Arabs vis-a-vis the United States
and its Israeli connection.
The Arabs, in seeking improved
ties with Washington, are in-
creasingly ignoring the U.S.-
Israeli relationship in order to
promote their own commercial,
political and military interests.
They have been forced to swallow
the U.S. attachment to Israel.
The. same is true with many
other American firms. The U.S.
law barring compliance with
Arab boycott demands has cer-
tainly been an effective instru-
ment in helping to create this
reality. Many West European and
Japanese companies can still eas-
ily be intimidated by Arab
threats, but not so much the
Americans.
There is also a greater sensitiv-
ity in Washington to the myriad
problems in the Middle East hav-
ing nothing really to do with the
Arab-Israeli conflict. "The
Americans finally are recognizing
that a solution of the Arab-Israel
conflict will not solve all the pob-
lems in the region," said Jacques
Torczyner, an influential member
of the Executive of the World
Zionist Organizatio in New York.
All of which has tended to ease
the pressures on Israel. This has
been evident not only in Washing-
ton but also at the United Nations
where both Israel and the United
States have benefited.
"The decline of Arab oil and fi-
nancial power creates a wealth of
opportunities not only to recap-
ture all that was lost — we are
close to that already but to
strengthen our international
position in countries where we
had no presence, or a minimal
one, before," Netanyahu said. He
also cited the split within the PLO
and its loss of an independent ter-
ritorial base in Lebanon.
There have been positive spil-
lover effects on U.S. attitudes
toward Israel as well as those of
many other countries — some of
whom were quite hostile only a
few years ago.
"None of the opportunities
opened by the decline of Arab oil,
the collapse of the PLO, and the
shift in America's policy have
come about because we sat idly
by," Netanyahu continued. "They
required grim perseverence in the
first case, resolute action in the
second, and innovative diplomacy
in the third. Above all, they re-
quired a steady, confident gaze at
the world around us as it really
is."
NEWS
Berlin student
activists fined
Bonn (JTA) — Stefan Heicking,
a 22-year-old West Berlin stu-
dent, has been given a one-year
suspended sentence for establish-
ing a neo-Nazi organization called
"German Labor Youths." Four of
his associates aged 21 to 28, were
each fined 1,500 Marks ($500) for
membership in the group.
Meanwhile, the West Berlin
branch of the Green party an-
nounced Monday that it would
dismiss several of its members
who are believed to be neo-Nazi
activists. Neo-nazi activities are
forbidden in West Berlin by order
of the allied occupying powers.