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Friday, May 16, 1986
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
THE JEWISH NEWS
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1986 by The Detroit Jewish News (US PS 275-520)
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CANDLELIGHTING AT 8:28 P.M.
VOL. LXXXIX, NO. 12
Trust Meltdown
Almost two weeks after the meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear power,
facility, it seems as if the Soviets are finally realizing the enormity of their
problem. The Russians' difficulty extends beyond containing the power core
at the Number 4 reactor at Chernobyl. That, obviously, has been difficult
enough.
But the other problem has to do with the Soviets' knee-jerk secrecy. For
days, while the world watched in horror and, regrettably, in ignorance, the
Kremlin stonewalled the severity of the problem at Chernobyl. As a cloud of
radioactivity blew first over western Europe and than over the
northwestern United States, the Kremlin issued chipper reports about the
situation in Chernobyl. As the European Community moved to ban
agricultural products from the USSR and eastern Europe, the Soviet
Foreign Ministry carped that the ban was "totally unjustified" and was
"creating an anti-Soviet psychosis."
What the Soviets do not seem to understand is that they are part of a
global community. This misunderstanding may be ingrained in the Russian
character itself, which has long looked upon the outside world with
suspicion.
But these are no longer the days of Peter the Great or Ivan the Terrible
or even Lenin the Wise. And the Chernobyl disaster is not the modern
equivalent of a bitter snowstorm that ruins a season's crop in the Russian
breadbasket.
There are lessons for all of us from the Ukraine. The most obvious is
that with a nation's commitment to nuclear power must also come a nation's
commitment to share its knowledge about the use of such power. Nuclear
fallout does not respect national borders.
But closer to home, all of us — government and individuals, civic
organizations and international conglomerates — must come to grips with
the fact that there is both a planetary and a psychological ecology that rules
our lives. Ultimately, secrecy breeds distrust. At its worst, as Chernobyl has
shown, it can breed ruin. The world can be a safer, more pleasant place if
many of us would drop our fears and prejudices and take the gamble of being
more open. At the very least, it would help the rest of us cope with the
problems we all have in common.
Syrian Sabers
Syria announced two weeks ago that Israel was planning a pre-emptive
strike against her. That announcement opened a well-orchestrated series of
Syrian political and military maneuvers, culminating in the construction of
tank and artillery positions in southern Lebanon.
The new emplacements, within 10 to 15 miles of Israel's northern
border, pose renewed danger to the fragile peace Israel has been
maintaining with its neighbors.
As Israel's most implacable foe, Syria has a long record of thwarting
Middle East peace efforts.
Is an aging, ailing Hafez Assad ready to risk another open war with
Israel in one final effort to achieve his dream of Greater Syria and Arab
immortality? The shrewd Syrian president has made few mistakes in recent
years while keeping the Middle East pot boiling. And he has plenty of
military toys in his arsenal, supplied by troublemakers in Moscow.
From past experience, Assad should remember that playing with
swords is a very dangerous game.
OP-ED
Terrorism Won't Disappear
If U.S. Abandons Israel
BY HYMIE CUTLER
Special to The Jewish News
TV 2's Joe Weaver declared, ". . .
we must remember that the Israelis
drove the Palestinians from their
homeland in the war of 1949 . . . and
the Middle East will have no peace
until the problem of a homeland for
the Palestinians is successfully ad-
dressed" (April 15).
Michael Rubner, Michigan State
University professor of international
relations, told a student rally protest-
ing the American reprisals on Libya,
"There's only one way to deal with
terrorism. Deal with the cause — the
festering problem of Palestinian
homelessness" (Detroit News April
21).
Channel 4's Mort Krim asked,
"Revenge or Solution?," and added,
"Until we begin listening and re-
sponding to the legitimate grievances
. . . the world will not be safe from ter-
rorist fanatics, no matter how many
Arab cities we bomb." (April 18).
June Brown writes, "Arabs hate
us because of our friendship with Is-
rael and the removal of the Palesti-
nian people from the area," and that
"is the reason Arab extremists have
declared terrorist war on America."
(Detroit News April 20). Letters to the
editor in the Free Press and Newsweek
have carried the same theme in recent
weeks.
According to the Near East Re-
port, even Vice President George
Bush accepts the idea that the ter-
rorism threat will only disappear
when the "Palestinians" have a home-
land. In 1984, Bush said that "the an-
swer to terrorism is a solution to the
Palestinian question." Last February,
Bush's. Task Force on Combatting
Terrorism declared that a "coopera-
tive international effort to mitigate
Hymie Cutler is chairperson of the Metro
Detroit Chapter of Americans for a Safe
Israel.
George Bush: The solution is the
Palestinian question?
the sources of grievances" is essential.
There is a nationwide campaign
to explain — and to justify — why
Arabs kill Jews and anybody else they
please, with the accusation that the
"Jews robbed the Palestinians of their
homeland."
That's a lie. Vicious propaganda!
Those "Palestinians" are not
homeless. They have 21 homelands —
all the Arab states that share their
language, history, culture and reli-
gion. That includes thinly-populated
Jordan occupying the 80 percent of
Palestine set aside in 1946 for Arabs.
The Arab "Palestinian" history
goes back only to the 1960s when
Arabs — mainly from Syria, Egypt,
Lebanon and other Arab countries —
first proclaimed themselves a "Pales-
tinian people." Before that, Jews were
known as the "Palestinians." Now the
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