I MEDIA MONITOR I YOU'RE COVERED With Our New T-Shirt! Needed, Says Wiesel: A Mideast Miracle ARTHUR J. MAGIDA Special to The Jewish News B ack from a trip to Israel, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel admitted in a New York Times' op-ed piece last week that he has no idea how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian situation reasonably and equitably. "If there is a realistic solu- tion to the problem," writes Wiesel, "I do not know it." Suggestions by "right-wing Israeli fanatics" to "transfer" all Palestinians to Jordans are "a disgrace," he wrote. And some Israeli liberals, he said, "are ready to give up all the territories immediately. To whom?',' Although Wiesel cautioned against Israel negotiating with the PLO as long as it remains a terrorist organiza- tion, he asked, "If the PLO is not an interlocuter, who could be?" Yet of this impasse, he cau- tioned, "one must not lose hope!' "Somehow," a solution will be found that is acceptable to both sides, said Wiesel, as he thought of the "Arab children whom I watched walking to school — and of the young Jewish soldiers with their tormented gaze. How long will joy be denied to all of them?" "More than ever," he wrote wistfully, "I would like to believe in miracles!' Subscribe Today To The Jewish News And Receive Our New T-Shirt With Our Compliments! Do Palestinians Have Respect For Israel? From the West Bank to West Bloomfield — and all points in between — The Jewish News covers your world. And now with our new T-shirt, we cover our new subscribers, too. It's durable, comfortable, easy to care for and attractive. And it comes in an array of adult and children's sizes. But most important, your new subscription will mean 52 information- packed weeks of The Jewish News, plus our special supplements, delivered every Friday to your mailbox. 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CHILD SMALL L 14 STATE J FRIDAY, JULY 8, 1988 Immediately below Wiesel's opinion piece in the Times, the paper's iconoclastic col- umnist Anthony Lewis wrote that the answer to the Mid- east situation had just surfac- ed in a statement from Yasir Arafat's "close adviser," Bassam Abu Sharif, that resonated with a "tone of mutuality and respect." Palestinians, wrote Abu Sharif, want "lasting peace and security for themselves and Israelis because no one can build his own future on the ruins of another's." , Abu Sharif's assertion that there is "no way for any dispute to be settled without direct talks between the par- ties to that dispute," said Lewis, meets "straightfor- wardly, without any fencing about, the long-held Israeli view that a peace settlement must be reached by direct negotiations!' The statement first appeared as part of a PLO pamphlet circulated June 7 at the Arab summit in Algiers. Excerpts were subsequently published on the Times' op-ed page under Abu Sharifs by- line. To Lewis, the Abu Sharif statement represents "the most explicit and articulate endorsement so far by the Palestinian mainstream of a two-state solution: A Palestin- ian state living in peace alongside Israel!' But Lewis was dubious about Israel's reaction to the PLO's alleged about-face. As Palestinian sentiment for "negotiations and com- promise" has been growing in recent years, said Lewis, Israel has been turning away from "its old eagerness to talk without conditions." "The Abu Sharif paper," concluded Lewis, "makes irresistibly clear that there are Palestinians who are ready to deal . . . To spurn them now would be a gift to the rejectionists." Are Israel Bonds Funding Intifada? Israel Bonds officials say they are unaware of such fiscal sleight-of-hand, but U.S. News & World Report states that the PLO has been using Israel Bonds purchased in the U.S. to funnel money into the West Bank and Gaza to fuel the Palestinian uprising. In a recent "Washing- ton Whispers" column, USN&WR reported that a PLO front man in the U.S. buys Israel bonds in the U.S. with funds provided by backers of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The bonds, which are "less likely to arouse suspicion than large amounts of cash," are then taken to Israel, where they are converted into currency which is subsequently smuggled into the disputed territories. The PLO uses this subter- fuge, according to the news magazine, to get around Jerusalem's recent move to limit amounts of cash that may be received from abroad. U.S. News based its report on "intelligence sources in Washington!' The magazine also reported that "extremist religious sects" that do not recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a state are using their "finan- cial network" to funnel funds to Palestinians.