The
en Soup

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

(And you
thought Arab
leaders
preferred tehina
and humus?)

hen Hosni Mubarak meets with journalist
Richard Chesnoff, he talks politics and peace
and usually gives a couple of imitations, too.
The Egyptian president loves to do im-
pressions of other Arab leaders, said Mr.
Chesnoff, senior correspondent for U.S. News
and World Report.
"Mubarak is a rough guy,
a soldier, a man who is de-
termined not to go to war
again — he desperately
wants peace," Mr. Chesnoff
said. "But he's also the kind
of guy with whom you can
sit down and shmooze."
Mr. Chesnoff, in town to
speak for the American
Friends of the Hebrew
University's Society of
Founders and Guardians, a
kickoff for the Sept. 18 Sco-
pus Award Gala, has inter-
viewed many of the world's
leaders and covered the
Middle East for the past 30
years.
One of those with whom
he has met most frequently
is King Hussein of Jordan.
"Terribly cautious and
guarded," the king is "one of
the most impressive Arab
leaders today," Mr. Chesnoff
said. "He thinks carefully
through his answers,
though he is sincere."
Mr. Chesnoff conducted

newspaper readers and "addicted to CNN," Arafat is likely to respond, "But did you know
he said. "King Hussein is a real TV buff. Once the Israelis are still shooting Palestinians?"
Years ago the PLO leader was notorious
I went and he had several televisions going
—
for security reasons — for making obscure
at once."
The most challenging to interview is Pales- appointments. "You would sit around in Tu-
tine Liberation Organization leader Yassir nis for days, then the phone would ring at 3
Arafat, said Mr. Chesnoff, who lives in West- a.m.. and you would be told, 'Come downstairs
in 10 minutes.' Then you would
get into one car that would take
you to another car..."
But the last time Mr. Chesnoff
met up with Mr. Arafat, no one
even checked his tape recorder.
- The interview was followed by
lunch. Mr. Chesnoff went upstairs
"where I expected to be served
some typical Middle Eastern dish,
humus and tehina." Instead, he
first caught sight of boiled veg-
etables. "Then I saw a pot of some-
thing — I couldn't tell what it was.
I figured it was some obscure
Palestinian dish."
It was chicken soup.
"It's Arafat's favorite," Mr.
Chesnoff said. "He has it every
day."

Golda Meir always
asked about the
children.

TH E DE TROI T J E WIS H N EWS

Above: Richard Chesnoff

14

Far Left: King Hussein:
Cautious and guarded.

Left: Yassir Arafat: Blame the
Israelis.

one interview at King
Hussein's home, sitting
outside and drinking or-
ange juice. Most recent-
ly, they met at the palace.
Both King Hussein, an
amateur pilot, and Hos-
ni Mubarak, a horse
lover, are voracious

port, Conn., and is the au-
thor of If Israel Lost the
War. "He can be very frus-
trating. He refuses to deal
with questions he does not
like, and makes it clear
that he's annoyed."
When he doesn't want
to answer a question, Mr.

Mr. Chesnoff doubts Mr. Arafat
now or will ever view Israel as
having a legitimate home in the
region — "I've yet to find anyone
(Arab) in the Middle East who has
said he sees historical, philosoph-
ical and intellectual reasons for
Israel to exist." But he does hold
out hope that the most recent
peace initiative, between the PLO
and Israel and Jordan and Israel,
will last.
"I never thought I would live to
see Rabin and Arafat together,"
he said. "This is the first real
chance I've seen to change thing
in the Middle East."
Mr. Chesnoff, who studied at Hebrew Uni-
versity from 1957-1960, also has met with Is-
rael prime ministers since the state was
founded.
He remembers sitting in Golda Meir's
kitchen, where she would bring him tea and
cake and ask about his children. Levi Eshkol
was "a very capable leader with a real Yid-
dishe heart." And David Ben-Gurion was
man of whom everyone was in awe, a straight
shooter who "wanted to sit down and get
things done."
Israel's current prime minister, Yitzhak
Rabin, apparently is no more ebullient in pri

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