UP FRONT
U.S. Praises Israel For Support
As Middle East Crisis Worsens
The United States is prais-
ing Israel, some foreign
parents are pulling their
children from Israeli schools
and former Iraqi Jews are
recalling their desperate
lives under Saddam Hus-
sein.
These were among the re-
cent developments in the
growing Middle East crisis
triggered by the Iraqi presi-
dent's takeover of neighbor-
ing Kuwait in a dispute over
oil prices.
In Washington earlier this
week, it was reported the
U.S. was so pleased with
Israel's handling so far of
the Persian Gulf crisis that
President Bush sent Israeli
Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir a warmly worded
letter, thanking him for
Israel's supportive stance in
the crisis.
Israel Television said Mr.
Bush's letter, which was a
reply to an earlier letter
from Mr. Shamir, contained
strong reassurances of U.S.
determination to honor and
preserve its commitment to
Israel's security.
The Bush administration
also conveyed its apprecia-
tion of Israel's conduct in a
meeting last week between
Israeli Ambassador Moshe
Arad and John Kelly, assis-
tant secretary of state for
Near Eastern and South
Asian affairs. Barukh
Binah, deputy spokesman at
Israel's Foreign Ministry,
said Mr. Kelly, who had just
returned from a meeting in
Syria with President Hafez
Assad, called in Arad to
"bring Israel up to date with
the talks that America has
with various Middle Eastern
countries." An Israeli offi-
cial familiar with the
meeting said_,Mr. Kelly
"expressed satisfaction"
with the "quiet but power-
ful, low profile" Israel has
maintained during the
crisis. Mr. Kelly praised
Israel for recent statements
supporting "the continua-
tion of King Hussein's rule"
in Jordan, including one by
Defense Minister Moshe
Arens. In addition, the U.S.
official also commended the
Jewish state for its threat to
Iraq that any invasion of
Jordan would "cross a red
line" for Israel, the official
said. -
The official said Israel
agrees with the U.S. logic
that it should stay on the
sidelines because of the
danger of upsetting
"American interests" at a
time when much of the Arab
world has lined up in opposi-
tion to Iraq's annexation of
Kuwait.
The good feelings were fur-
ther expressed by Robert
Kimmitt, undersecretary of
state for political affairs,
who said Secretary of State
James A. Baker was
"looking forward" to
meeting Israeli Foreign
Minister David Levy in
Washington Sept. 6 or 7.
Mr. Bush, meanwhile, had
few kind words for Iraq on
Monday, accusing President
Saddam Hussein of violating
Islamic teaching by holding
foreigners as "hostages."
"You are going against the
age-old Arab tradition of
showing kindness and
hospitality to visitors," Mr.
Bush scolded the Arab
Hussein's
conquest of
Kuwait has
Palestinians and
their supporters in
Israel increasingly
advocating the use
of force as the
best means to
achieve their
political
objectives.
nation in an address to the
Veterans of Foreign Wars.
The president also said the
Iraqis are "going against
their religion" by holding
foreigners captive. "My
message is, release all for-
eigners now, give them the
right to come and go as they
wish," Mr. Bush told the
VFW's annual convention in
Baltimore. Mr. Kimmitt also
said Palestine Liberation
Organization chairman
Yassir Arafat is "clearly on
the wrong side of the terror-
ism issue' , in voting earlier
this month not to condemn
the Iraqi invasion.
In other action, Israel said
it will allow thousands of
Egyptians fleeing Iraq and
Kuwait to cross its territory
on their way home. Mr. Levy
granted the permission
following a personal request
from Egyptian Ambassador
Mohammed Basiouny.
An estimated 1 million
Egyptian laborers and
others were in Iraq and
Kuwait, both major oil pro-
ducing states, when the Ira-
qis invaded Kuwait on Aug.
2.
Meanwhile, some parents
of students attending Israeli
schools have called their
children home.
Despite assurances from
officials of Alexander Muss
High School in Israel as to
the students' safety, 29 out
of 238 students left the
school, including 23 of 114
teenagers from south
Florida, according to the
Miami Jewish Tribune.
However, the students
didn't feel they were in any
danger in Israel. "They are
on a _different mentality
level in Israel," said
Madelyn Trupkin of Planta-
tion, Fla. "Everything is
normal there. We didn't feel
we had anything to worry
about. I wasn't even ner-
vous."
"It is secure as always,"
said JoAnn Goldberger, the
school's director of admis-
sions. "There is no cause for
alarm."
No mass panic was re-
ported among foreign
students in other Israeli
programs. Only 10 such
students of a record 1,100
enrolled in this year's one-
year or academic
preparatory programs at
Hebrew University in
Jerusalem have returned
home and about five of 240
at Tel Aviv University have
done so.
In New York, four
students enrolled in the
World Zionist Organiza-
tion's yearlong Otzma vol-
unteer program decided to
pull out, but 56 left for Israel
last week to study and work
in kibbutzim, army camps
and development towns.
Hussein's conquest of
Kuwait has Palestinians
and their supporters in
Israel increasingly ad-
vocating the use of force as
the best means to achieve
their political objectives.
"Without force, it will be
impossible to impose peace
on Israel," said Dr. Shukri
Abed, a researcher at the
Truman Institute of the
Hebrew University in Jer-
sulem. "I believe that our
world is Machiavellian, and
without the element of force,
one cannot form normal re-
lations between countries."
Support for the Iraqi
leader, in fact, is widespread
among Israel's Arab popula-
tion, not to mention the 1.5
million Palestinians in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Egyptians who had been working in Kuwait arrive in Nueiba in the
northern Sinai on their way home.
Even as they demand their
right to be issued gas masks
along with the Jewish
population, Israel's Arab
community sees no con-
tradiction in its support for
the Iraqi aggressor, despite
Hussein's threat to destroy
"half of Israel" with
chemical weapons, if it at-
tacks Iraq.
"We are part of the Arab
nation. It is our right to be
concerned over every Arab,
just as it is the right of every
Jew to be concerned over
every Jew in the world,"
said Abd-el Wahab
Darousha, Knesset member
and head of the left-wing
Arab Democratic Party to
which Dr. Abed belongs.
Although Israeli Arabs
admit Hussein used brutal
measures to seize Kuwait,
they support what they de-
scribe as the "unification" of
Kuwait with Iraq.
The Jewish public may
have misread trends in the
Arab community, according
to Professor Yehoshua
Porat, one of the Hebrew
University's top Middle East
experts.
In an article in the
respected daily Ha'aretz this
week, Mr. Porat claimed the
goal of the Palestinian
struggle is not independence
but the destruction of Israel
and the restoration of
Palestine as an Arab entity.
According to Mr. Porat,
that explains why Palestin-
ians are willing to be caught
in a total war between Israel
and Iraq, "as long as Israel
is destroyed."
Meanwhile, Jacob Paniri,
37, of Miami Beach, Fla.,
who escaped Iraq with his
family at age 18, recalled
that "Living in Iraq was like
living in hell because (Hus-
sein) killed our people. He
hanged the Jewish people in
the streets — most of them
were 18- and 19-year-old
kids.
"Hussein was new in
power and wanted to show
he had power. Killing the
Jews was how he showed
this," Mr. Paniri told the
Broward Jewish World. "He
chose the Jews because look
at their history — the Jews
hit the Arabs in 1967 and
Hussein wanted revenge.
The first week of his rule he
put 600 of us in jail and then
on trial. It was like a mini-
Holocaust."
Mr. Paniri said his
childhood was one huge fear
of death. "You never knew if
you would be hanged. You
didn't know if you would be
allowed to go to school in the
morning. We were not
allowed to have phones or
get letters. If you were a
Jew, you weren't allowed to
leave the city."
The Iraqi native said his
greatest fear was seeing the
Iraqi officials randomly ap-
pear at Jewish houses and
accuse the Jews of being
spies for Israel — then hang-
ing them for their alleged
crime. "We were like
chickens in a cage wonder-
ing when it would be our
turn to get our heads cut
off."
His worst experience was
the day his best_friend, an
Arab, saw one of these hang-
ings and told the young
Paniri he was happy to see
the Jews killed. "(My friend)
liked to see the Jews hanged
on the streets because he
wanted to see the blood of his
enemy. That made me feel
dead inside."
Compiled by Richard Pearl
from Jewish News news and
wire services.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
5