YEAR N REVIEW 5748 YEAR IN REVIEW
capitals to plead his cause, he also had to shuttle
between the Prime Minister's office and the Foreign
Ministry in Jerusalem because Shamir and Peres
no longer spoke to each other.
Hussein's Bold Move
SUPREME COURT TROUBLES beset President Reagan first when he appointed conservative Robert Bork,
who withdrew when it became apparent he would not be confirmed by the Senate, and then Douglas
Ginsburg (left), who was forced to withdraw when it became known that he had smoked marijuana in the
1960s. Reagan's third nominee, Anthony Kennedy (shown here with Reagan), won swift approval.
SEN. DANIEL INOUYE
(D-Hawaii) was forced to
withdraw his sponsorship of a
refugee aid bill to help North
African Jews in France after it
was criticized by the State
Department and others. The
Sephardic Jews are not
classified as refugees by
either France or the
United States.
BLACK-JEWISH RELATIONS were tense this year, often revolving
around Jesse Jackson and his campaign. In Chicago, where the
late Mayor Harold Washington is shown visiting a Jewish
neighborhood following a graffiti espisode, black-Jewish tension
increased to the point that leaders of the two communities met and
issued a statement callling for an end to anti-Semitic acts.
Peres spent much of the year drumming up sup-
port for his own peace plan which, like Shultz's,
hinged on Israel negotiating with a joint
Palestinian-Jordanian delegation.
But his diplomatic and political aspirations ap-
peared to be dashed this summer when Jordan's
King Hussein, in a dramatic announcement,
severed his kingdom's 40-year link with the West
Bank. Hussein said he was breaking Jordan's legal
and administrative ties with the Israeli-occupied
territory and ending the unity between the West
Bank and the east bank of the Jordan River — his
own Hashemite kingdom.
Besides severely damaging the delicate for-
mulas devised by both Peres and Shultz, both of
which were predicated on a Jordanian-Palestinian
partnership, Hussein's bold move presented a direct
challenge to Yassir Arafat and the PLO. While the
monarch acknowledged that the PLO was the "sole
legitimate representative of the Palestinian people"
and supported its call for an independent Palesti-
nian state, many Mideast analysts felt Hussein was
trying to outflank his long-time enemy, Arafat.
Hussein's motive appeared to be, as usual, sur-
vival. He is clearly troubled by Israel's inability to
solve the intifada, and worried about 850,000
restive Palestinians calling for their own homeland.
His reasoning may well be to allow the PLO to come
in and demonstrate how disorganized they are —
incapable of serving the Palestinians politically or
economically.
According to this gamble, once the West Bank
inhabitants realize that they are stateless and
poorer, living under Israeli rule and denied access
to visit relatives in Jordan, they will call for Hus-
sein to return as their champion and the PLO will
be forced to oblige.
The Next Move Is The PLO's
ISSUES
BRITAIN'S CHIEF RABBI,
Immanuel Jakobovits, became
a member of the House of
Lords in February. He thus
became the first Chief Rabbi
of Britain to be ennobled since
Jews were allowed to resettle
in England in 1656.
Pressure is building, then, on the PLO to take
up the challenge. Its leaders will be meeting in the
coming weeks to decide whether or not to declare
their organization a government-in-exile, and there
have been reports that it even may consider
recognizing Israel in return for a Palestinian state
on the West Bank and Gaza.
Such speculation calls to mind the words of Ab-
ba Eban, who once said that the Palestinians have
never lost a chance to miss an opportunity. But
there is growing concern in Israel that if the PLO
does call Jerusalem's bluff — an admittedly big "if '
— the Israelis will be at a loss to respond positive-
ly while the United States would jump at the op-
portunity to talk to the PLO. No major political par-
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