BACKGROUND We Specialize In Jewelry & Watch Repair Speck Of Hope Seen In Mideast As Realpolitik Grows Elsewhere Repair HELEN DAVIS Foreign Correspondent C Ref Redesi Reasonat Op° 4 Reasons to Remember I BRUCE WEISS CUSTOM JEWELRY YOU HAVE IT MADE 26325 TWELVE MILE ROAD, SOUTHFIELD, MICHIGAN IN THE MAYFAIR SHOPS AT NORTHWESTERN HIGHWAY 10:00-5:30 MONDAY-SATURDAY, 10:00-8:30 THURSDAY (313) 353-1424 VISA Berries 'n Bon Bons A' - ..• • • Is Back. — Valentine's Day February 14 A Box of Candy Is Dandy But Our Fabulous Confection Tray Will Make "Their" Day! — ALL OCCASION GIFT BASKETS & TRAYS 31805 Middlebelt Rd. Suite 307 Farmington Hills, MI 48018 1.144 Y7 1‘ -- LOCAL & NATIONWIDE DELIVERY 855-'7040 SUGAR FREE & KOSHER UPON REQUEST ' I THE ARTERNITk CORNER Announces THE BUYERS CLUB (The 20% Power Card) See Us For More Details LA MIRAGE MALL 1/4 29555 Northwestern Hwy. 34 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1990 352-0920 J ommunism in Eastern Europe is be- ing unceremoniously buried; no less a revolution has overtaken South Africa, where Nelson Mandela, once considered to be the most dangerous terrorist of all, is being accorded an extraor- dinary degree of respect. In this charged at- mosphere of heightened ex- pectations, amid all the frenetic reform, with hither- to unthinkable thoughts now being given concrete expression, can Israel and its Arab neighbors be persuad- ed to abandon their taboos and embrace the sort of realpolitik that seems to be guiding the world in the last decade of the 20th century? Apparently not. In Israel, all the old feuds persist with biblical intensi- ty: Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir continues to fight off the challenge of Trade Minister Ariel Sharon, while Labor Finance Minister Shimon Peres continues to rebuff the on-again, off-again challenge of Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin. On the Palestinian side, too, PLO leader Yassir Arafat is concerned about the growing threat to his au- thority, not only from the hard-line rejectionists but also from the burgeoning Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement which has taken root in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. And yet . . . and yet, a tiny speck of light is discernible at the end of the tunnel, and this time it might not be the oncoming express train that has derailed so many previous attempts to get the parties around the negotiating table. Despite the apparent impasse — and despite last weekend's murderous attack on Israeli tourists in Egypt — there is growing specula- tion that Shamir may be ready to abandon his pro- cedural inhibitions and allow tripartite talks bet- ween the foreign ministers of the United States, Israel and Egypt to finally get underway in Geneva early next week. The meeting is designed to lay the groundwork for direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians who will hammer out details for elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip aimed at producing Palestinian delegates to negotiate a form of autonomy with Israeli au- thorities. Arafat is painfully aware that elections in the ter- ritories, like those in Jordan late last year, could produce substantial gains for the fundamentalists, a result that would seriously under- mine the PLO's claim to be- ing the "sole, legitimate representative of the Pales- tinian people." He is also known to have accepted Egyptian asser- tions that, in the event of local elections, the absence of a common front in the ter- ritories could lead not only to a damaging political set- back for the PLO but also a bloodbath between rival Palestinian factions. Clear signs that something was underway could be de- tected in last week's feverish activity among Arafat loyal- ists to find common cause with the fundamentalists in the territories, just as Shamir was preparing to Yitzhak Shamir: Fighting challenge. head off yet another leader- ship challenge from Sharon. Whatever the personal predilections of Shamir and Arafat, however, the scope and the pace of de- velopments in the Middle East are more likely to be determined by the unfolding events in the Soviet Union and by the effects of these events on relations between Moscow and Washington. Particularly important is the continuing exodus of Jews from the Soviet Union, now arriving in Israel at an unprecedented rate. The nature of the effect, however, is neither obvious nor predictable. Israelis are interpreting the phenom- enon according to their es- tablished political pre- ferences and are reaching quite different conclusions about its implications. For some, the mass im- migration is pushing back the threat of the "demographic time bomb" (see boxed story) and therefore reducing the need Jr Yassir Arafat: Recognizes threat. to negotiate; for others, the addition of hundreds of thousands of new im- migrants is serving to strengthen Israel's bargain- ing position and should em- bolden its leaders to agree to negotiations. The second point was taken up by former Soviet activist Natan Sharansky in London last week. The large-scale influx of Soviet Jews, he declared, would go a long way toward bolstering Israel's sense of security and making its leaders more amenable to negotiations: "I think that the stronger Israel becomes, the more secure Israelis will feel." he said. "And a feeling of security is what is missing from the Middle East." With flights out of Moscow fully booked through March next year, Sharansky con- servatively estimated that at least a half- million Jews were waiting to emigrate. If Jerusalem and Moscow could agree on direct flights to Israel from a number of Soviet cities, he believed that 500 new immigrants would arrive at Ben- Gurion Airport each day — almost 200,000 a year. That message has not been lost on Arab leaders who are calling on Moscow to refuse to allow direct flights to Israel.