BACKGROUND
A Skewed World View
Of Middle East History
:::
The U.S. Pan Am 103 investigation looks
suspiciously like a politically inspired
whitewash.
HELEN DAVIS
Foreign Correspondent
A
s Israel stands on the
threshold of direct,
substantive talks
with its Arab neighbors,
international attention will
inevitably fix on its
"intransigence" and its un-
willingness to evacuate ter-
ritories conquered in the Six-
Day War.
There will be powerful
arguments for Israel to
withdraw to something
resembling the armistice
lines it occupied before June
4, 1967.
Those who favor a land-for-
peace solution insist that
withdrawal from the Golan
Heights is imperative if
Syria and Israel ultimately
are to avoid a cataclysmic
non-conventional war that
will devour their popula-
tions and, in the process,
much of the rest of the re-
gion.
They argue passionately
for the right of the Palestin-
ians to self-determination
and independence in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip,
and an end to Israel's
anachronistic occupation in
a post-colonial world.
They assert that Israel's
continued subjection of 1.8
million unwilling Palestin-
ians is warping its moral
soul, that demography will
eventually force Israel to
abandon its democratic
values, that the presence of a
large hostile population
within its borders will
imperil the character and
security of the Jewish state.
They may be right and it
behooves Israel's leaders to
make a cool, unsentimental
assessment of the wisdom of
hanging on to the territories.
But what if they are
wrong?
The consequences of
capitulating to international
pressure could be
catastrophic. Israel today, as
in each of the past 43 years,
is confronted with life-and-
death choices. •
So far, Israel has resisted
the pressures and demands
of the international com-
munity whose voice, as ar-
ticulated by the United
Nations until last year, was
characterized by cant and
nonsense, with Third World,
Arab world and the Soviet
bloc ambassadors lining up
to adopt a a raft of resolu-
tions declaring the world to
be flat if the need arose.
Today, the international
voice unequivocally ar-
ticulated by the United
States and last week's
declaration from Washing-
ton that culpability for the
destruction of Pan Am
Flight 103 over Lockerbie,
Scotland, could be traced no
further than two relatively
low-level Libyan intel-
ligence officers was a chill-
ing portent.
It is, quite literally, in-
credible that the sophisti-
cated Washington in-
vestigators failed to deter-
mine what the rest of the
world has known for more
than two years — that Iran
paid the Syrian-based Pop-
ular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine-General Com-
mand a fee of some $10 mill-
ion to run the operation and
that its leader, Ahmed
Jibril, subcontracted the job
to Libya after his cover was
blown.
Cynics point out that it
would be embarrassing,
even impolitic, for Washing-
ton to finger Iran and Syria,
two states which hold no
human rights records but
which are important keys to
U.S. designs in the region.
Indeed, they believe, it
would be a shrewd move to
grant them absolution over
Pan Am 103.
Iran, after all, is central to
the business of unlocking
How can Israel
seriously be
expected to simply
withdraw from land
previously used as
a launching pad for
wars against the
Jewish state?
the cell doors that have held
Americans (and other
Westerners) hostage to the
Islamic fundamentalist
Hezbollah radicals in Leb-
anon.
Syria, too, is an important
player in the hostage busi-
ness and it will be instruc-
tive if the coming days and
weeks witness the end of an
affair that has plagued the
West for more than five
years.
Of course, the regime in
Damascus also holds an-
other trump card — in the
Washington-crafted Middle
East peace process. Its
pivotal strategic position
and its military strength in
relation to its Arab
neighbors casts Syria in the
role of potential spoiler. It
could wreck all the hard
work that has been invested
by Secretary of State James
Baker and torpedo the pro-
cess.
Political expedience of
such transparency does not
inspire trust and com-
promise. If Pan Am 103 is to
be the price paid for the
American hostages in Leb-
anon, the question for
Jerusalem is whether
Israel's security is to be the
price paid for a pax Ameri-
cana in the Middle East.
No one in Washington
would seriously demand that
Israel jeopardize its vital
security interests, but they
would — and do — demand
that Israel "give peace a
chance."
Israelis say amen to that.
They do not argue with the
dictum of the late Beatle
John Lennon, but they
would be justified in having
some reservations about
making the next logical leap
in the sequence and "take a
risk for peace."
Israel's width is not much
more than the length of
Manhattan and Israelis
know that, however per-
suasive and beguiling the
advocates of territorial con-
cessions, such a risk could be
fatal.
There is a double flaw in
the double-think about the
subject of Middle East di-
plomacy and peace-making
today.
The first is that Israel's
evacuation of the territories
captured in 1967 holds the
key to Middle East peace
and serenity.
Conveniently forgotten is
that Israel fought three full-
scale wars of survival — in
1948, 1956 and 1967 —
before occupying one inch of
the Golan Heights, the West
Bank or the Gaza Strip.
The second is that "the
Shaded areas show land Israel is expected "to withdraw" from.
core and crux" of the Middle
East's problems consist of
Israel's refusal to allow the
Palestinians to express their
national identity and aspira-
tions in their own homeland.
The fact is that the issue of
Palestinian nationalism did
not exist before 1967, when
Jordan occupied the West
Bank and Egypt ad-
ministered the Gaza Strip.
The word "Palestinian" is
nowhere to be found in
either UN Security Council
resolutions 242 or 338.
The fact, too, is that Pales-
tinian nationalism has
become an emblem of pan-
Arabism rather than a cause
to which the Arab world is
genuinely committed.
Moreover, it is self-evident
that the truly momentous
recent events in the Middle
East — the Iran-Iraq war,
the invasion of Kuwait, the
seizing of hostages in Leb-
anon — had nothing
whatever to do with the
absence of a Palestinian
homeland.
This does not negate the
importance of these issues
today, nor does it
underestimate the relevance
of Israel's occupation and
Palestinian nationalism as
legitimate subjects for the
Arab-Israeli negotiating
table.
They are, however, rel-
evant historical items that
provide essential context for
the upcoming talks and
underline the fact that the
obstacle to a just and
durable peace is not Israel's
occupation of the territories,
its settlement policy or the
failure of the Palestinians to
achieve statehood. The
essential ingredient to a
resolution of the Arab-
Israeli conflict is the unam-
biguous, unqualified
acknowledgment by the
Arab world of Israel's "right
to live in peace within secure
and recognized boundaries
free from threats or acts of
force."
That precise form of words,
coupled with a call for
Israel's withdrawal from
territories, is stipulated and
confirmed by the relevant
UN Security Council resolu-
tions on which Mr. Baker's
peace initiative is predi-
cated. Yet while it is Israel
that has spent 43 years
fighting for its survival and
while it is Israel's security
needs that should logically
be paramount in any
negotiations with its Arab
neighbors, it is the interna-
tional demand for Israel's
evacuation of the territories
that fills the air.
How can Israel seriously
be expected to withdraw
from land which has
previously been used as a
launching pad for persistent
wars of extermination and
which are now regarded by
many as vital to its security
before such an unequivocal
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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