YEAR IN REVIEW 5747 YEAR IN REVIEW

MORDECHAI VANUNU, accused of giving state secrets about Israel's alleged nuclear weapons
arsenal to a London newspaper, is being tried in Israel. He claims he was kidnapped by Israeli
Religious News Service
authorities.

KLAUS BARBIE, the Butcher of Lyon, was convicted in July of crimes against humanity for his

role as a Gestapo chief in Lyon, France. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Religious News Service

American and Israeli Jewish leaders staged
a fierce public debate that called into question
the very nature of the Israel-Diaspora relation-
ship. Shlomo Avineri, a distinguished Israeli
scholar, triggered the controversy when he
charged that American Jewish leaders ex-
hibited a "galut" (Diaspora) mentality in their
reaction to the Pollard case. He accused them
of "cringing" for fear of charges of dual loyal-
ty, thereby belying "the conventional wisdom
of American Jewry feeling free, secure and un-
molested in an open, pluralistic society."
Theodore Mann, president of the American
Jewish Congress, responded that the Jewish
reaction in the U.S. "emanates from anger at
Israelis, and not from fear for their own securi-
ty."
And there was discord between Jerusalem
and Washington at the highest levels, with the
Administration particularly angered over
Israel's seemingly cavalier attitude in pro-
moting the two men responsible for Pollard's
spying.
Just last week, William Safire, the New York
Times columnist, wrote that "throughout the
United States government, the cause of Israel
has suffered a steep decline in the last year?'
And the reason, according to Safire, is "the
festering Pollard case" — a case which he said
"is far from over" because a fearful Jerusalem
continues to protect prominent former Israeli
officials involved in a "wall of secrecy."
There were other issues and events that
tested the U.S:Israel relationship this year, and
unlike past rifts, they did not focus on occupied
land or Palestinians or peace talks. Instead,
they dealt with secret negotiations to sell
Israeli arms to Iran, and a very public debate
over whether or not to go ahead with produc-
tion of a super-sophisticated Israeli fighting
plane, the Lavi, heavily financed by
Washington.
Israel's role in the Iran-contra scandal has
not come under sharp focus to date, though
there are still fears that it may. Jerusalem in-
sists that its role was that of a faithful friend
and ally to the U.S., supplying $12 million of
U.S. arms to Iran "in response to an American
request." The Jewish state was not linked to
diverting funds to the contras during the Con-
gressional hearings in Washington.
Washington's increasingly strong pressure in
opposition to the Lavi — on the grounds that
it was simply too costly to produce — finally
resulted in the Israeli cabinet's painful and nar-
row (12-11) decision to scrap the plane.
The psychological dimensions of the debate

There was discord between
Jerusalem and Washington at
the highest levels, with the
Administration particularly
angered over Israel's
seemingly cavalier attitude.