38
Friday, March 22, 1985
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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In The Mayfair Shops
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Why Does The Media Fall
For The Arab Charade?
BY VICTOR BIENSTOCK
Special to The Jewish News
After most of a lifetime work-
ing in the media, I am prepared
to admit that they have certain
practices, usages and customs
that defy logic and comprehen-
sion. One of these is the
mysterious process that deter-
mines who and what is newswor-
thy and who is to get the limited
amount of space open of time
available.
Every editor has a list of
names in his head of men and
women whose actions he be-
lieves automatically make news.
But some of the names remain
on the editor's list long after
their bearers have lost power
and credibility. These faded per-
sonalities hope to use the media
to regain the power and prestige
they no longer command. They
are phantoms in a world of reali-
ty, and the "news" they create
is low-grade fiction.
In recent weeks, the news-
papers have been awash with
details of a new agreement bet-
ween King Hussein of Jordan
and Yasir Arafat, the head of a
rump section of the Palestine
Liberation Organization. These
worthies tell reporters — and we
thereupon rush to relay the
news tothe world — that their
agreement opens the way for
negotiations with Israel.
If Hussein has any claim to
fame, it is as a survivor. He has
managed to cling to his throne
and survive some of the most
colossal mistakes any ruler has
ever made, including the
egregious error of entering the
Six-Day War against Israel in
1967 after Egypt had already
been de-cisively defeated.
His bankrupt kingdom has
been kept afloat by subsidies
from Britain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq
and the United States. On at
least one occasion his throne
was saved for him when Israeli
forces barred would-be Syrian
invaders. He no longer com-
mands credibility except with
the credulous.
The scraggly-bearded Arafat
was for some 15 years the big,
bad wolf of the Middle East,
thriving on substantial financial
and political support and
unlimited arms supplies from
the Soviet Union as well as enor-
mous subsidies — "protection"
money — paid by the deferential
rulers of the Arab states to en-
sure that he did not topple their
precarious regimes. He never
had even the pretense of
credibility.
Arafat's days of glory ended
ingloriously in Beirut in 1982
when U.S. Marines escorted him
and his surviving followers from
the battlefield to a wandering
exile. He is still useful to the
Arab rulers as a symbol and an
excuse for their continued
hostility to Israel. He is useful,
too, to the media for whom he is
always available for a story on
a slow news day.
The Hussein-Arafat charade
repeats itself with monotonous
regularity like a long-running
Middle East soap opera. The
pattern never seems to change.
First of all comes the
"suspense" of the negotiations.
Then Hussein proclaims solemn-
ly that Arafat has, at long last,
agreed to recognize the right of
the State of Israel to exist and
is ready to negotiate peace. The
terms of the agreement, describ-
ed as the basis for negotiations,
never really change despite
alterations in phraseology.They
always require Israel to give up
practically everything except its
name.
Then, one of Arafat's hen-
chmen denies that the PLO has
accepted the key United Na-
tions Resolution 242. And then,
as he did again in the current
revival of the Mideast road
show, Arafat himself refuses to
state directly that he had agreed
to the resolutions and complains
that reporters' questions on this
score are an "interrogation."
And to prove that he is still a
tough, dangerous guy, and not
The Arafat-Hussein
peace negotiations
fantasy has changed
little over the years,
repeating itself with
monotonous
regularity.
a paper tiger, he boasts that his
PLO guerrillas are carrying out
attacks on the Israeli forces in
southern Lebanon.
The Hussein-Arafat shad-
ow-boxing exhibition was a lit-
tle different this time. Israel's
Prime Minister, Shimon Peres,
took up the challenge and pro-
posed a meeting with Hussein.
Israel, he said, was prepared to
negotiate with Hussein and the
Palestinians (but not the PLO)
without preconditions. Hussein
has never agreed to negotiate
unless Israel would accept his
terms in advance. It is a safe bet
that the Peres invitation will
never be accepted.
Encouraged by the reaction to
the Hussein-Arafat agreement,
President Hosni Mubarak of
Egypt, a godfather of the pact,
warmly encouraged by Hussein,
went even further and proposed
that the U.S. talk directly with
the Jordanians and Pal-
estinians, who might include
PLO members.
We never learn. We — the
media, that is — fell for the old
act once again just as though we
hadn't witnessed this
melodrama a half-dozen times
before. We devote columns to
what Hussein might and pro-
bably didn't tell Arafat. Our col-
umnists speculate that this