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.