SPECIAL REPORT
THE NEW EXODUS
Will Israel Be Ready
For Glasnost's Gifts?
The effect on Israel of the revolution in the Soviet
empire is pro found and dramatiq including the
economy, politics, aliyah and prospects for
Mideast peace
J
erusalem — Haor
Street has seen better
days. But it is a long
time since the gracious old
stone building at No. 2,
tucked in behind Jerusa-
lem's Central Bus Station,
has bustled with so much
raw, urgent energy.
This agglomeration of
cold, high-ceilinged, sparsely
furnished rooms is home to
the Soviet Jewry Zionist
Forum. And these days the
rooms echo the voices of So-
viet immigrants who are
helping their newly arrived
landsmen; or countrymen,
find jobs and homes as well
as deal with the minutiae of
absorption.
Upstairs, almost lost
among the intense young
people and word processors
is a bantam of a man who
could have had almost any-
thing he wanted if he had
opted to play the system.
But Natan Sharansky
spurned the siren calls of Is-
rael's politicians — left,
right and center — and
chose instead to direct his
considerable talents and -
energies to the cause of So-
viet immigrants.
Sharansky was glasnost's
first gift to Israel, the be-
ginning of a cornucopia that
could ultimately bring hun-
dreds of thousands — per-
haps millions — of im-
migrants to Israel, trans-
form the country's diplo-
matic standing and pro-
foundly affect its economic,
military and political condi-
tion.
Outside the old East Eu-
ropean bloc, Israel will
probably be more dramati-
cally affected by the revolu-
tion shaking the Soviet em-
pire than any other country.
The change wrought by
Soviet leader Mikhail Gor-
bachev could produce a mul-
28
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1990
ety from the Arab world
tend to indicate that aca-
demic analysts and political
leaders on the Arab side
share the general consensus
of their Israeli counterparts:
That glasnost, at least in its
Middle Eastern manifesta-
tion, is working to the ad-
vantage of the Jewish state.
"If Israel succeeds in ab-
sorbing a million Soviet
Jews, then that will be it,"
says Professor Moshe
Sharon, a Middle East
historian at the Hebrew Un-
iversity. "The Arabs will
have lost the game."
HELEN DAVIS
Foreign Correspondent
Dizzying Changes
Artwork by Kevin Kreneck of the Roanoke Times & World-News. Copyright° 1990, Kevin Kreneck. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.
titude of blessings for the
Jewish state in addition to
mass immigration from the
Soviet Union. There is also
the prospect of full diplo-
matic relations with
Moscow and its erstwhile
satellites, economic ties with
a region once closed to Isra-
el, and a new military reality
in the Middle East.
Diplomatically, events in
Eastern Europe have induc-
ed a state of euphoria in the
rickety old Foreign Ministry
buildings in Jerusalem,
where staffers are now toil-
ing around the clock to pre-
pare for official visits by a
succession of Eastern bloc
delegations and dignitaries
who seem determined to
make up for lost time.
In addition, signs of anxi-
At the moment, Israel
seems unsure of how to react
to this deluge of answered
prayers. So much is happen-
ing so quickly that even the
most savvy of Israel's
analysts are scrambling to
keep up.
"It is a whirlwind," says
one Israeli commentator.
"Everything is swirling, ev-
erything is changing. But
we are still waiting for the
other shoe to fall."
One concern is that with
the Soviet Union presenting
less of a threat to the free
world and the Mideast, Isra-
el's strategic alliance with
the United States may be
devalued.
To prepare Israel for
change, a group of senior
academics met with defense
and foreign affairs officials
in January for a brainstorm-
ing session at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem.
The result was depressing.
The general consensus
was that Israel and the
Middle East would be
"marginalized" by the
superpowers, "left to stew in
our own juice," according to