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ZOA wants Carter administration to ‘stand lirm’
Editor:
After weeks of speculation,
which resulted in considerable
tension in Israel and pronounced
anxiety within the American
Jewish community. President
Carter broke his silence when he
stated on Aug. 12, 1979: “I am
against any creation of a separate
Palestinian State.” This came at
the eleventh hour just as the
American Jewish community had
decided to mobilize its full strength
in making clear to the
Administration that the flirtation
that appears to be in progress,
which would give the PLO
respectability, was an unaccept
able alternative.
Within 48 hours of the
President’s new assurances, a
sensational news story revealed
that Andrew Young, America's
Ambassador to the United
Nations, had already conducted
face-to-face meetings with the
PLO representative at the U.N.
On the heels of this revelation it
is now confirmed that a second
American diplomat, U.S.
Ambassador Milton Wolf, in
Austria, had also met with the
PLO over a month ago.
Andrew Young has “resigned."
After explanations and denials, he
admitted meeting with a
representative of the terrorist
Palestinian organization
Although Young insisted that this
action was unilateral and without
sanction or knowledge of the
Administration, it fits precisely
into the pattern of developing
American policy which has
concerned the ZOA for some time.
Andrew Young is a good public
servant. He represented our nation
during many difficult circum
stances. He led the American
Black community, as it struggled
side by side with the Jewish
community to achieve equality and
civil rights for all people. This
struggle has not been completed
and the interests of the United
States demand that all Americans
work together in solidarity to
achieve justice for all people and in
all lands.
The motivating factor which
prompted Young’s action is
unresolved. Yet, as The New York
Times pointed out (Aug. 16, 1979),
“It should be kept clear that he was
not sacrificed to the demands of
Israel or American Jews. Mr.
Young, knowing that his
government was passing messages
indirectly to the Palestine
Liberation Organization, decided
at a diplomatically delicate
moment to meet directly with the
PLO at the United Nations. It was
not protocol, but vital policy that
Mr. Young betrayed.”
While we commend the
President’s reaffirmation of
American policy, we cannot
prematurely overlook the events
that preceded the state of concern
that had reached dangerous
proportions. If we refer back to the
days when President Carter first
spoke about “Palestinian rights”
and the Administration carried on
what we believe was a campaign of
intimidation against Israel in the
negotiating period leading to
Camp David, the combination of
events since that time in context
with other developments is very
disturbing.
To exacerbate the situation, Mr.
Carter made a statement relative to
the Palestinians and the Civil
Rights Movement, which led to
confused interpretation. This was
sufficient to arouse considerable
support from the pro-Arab
elements, including the President
of the American-Arab Relations
Committee, M.T. Mehdi, who
attempted to rationalize
Palestinian terrorism in a letter to
The New York Times. He
degraded the memory of the
beloved Martin Luther King by the
suggestion that the civil rights
leader and Yasir Arafat, the
terrorist, shared views that were
philosophically in agreement.
1 am also disturbed by what I
have observed to be a trend in
White House tactics. It seems that
Mr. Carter makes statements
critical of Israel, which create a
negative reaction among Israel’s
friends but which are never
clarified by the President. Instead,
his spokesperson, usually Vice
President Mondale, is given the
assignment of placating American
Jews—after the fact. Hence, while
the original statement stands,
others in the Carter Administra
tion proceed to soothe the wounds.
However, the original statement
is usually widely reported in the
media and even if an effort is
actually made to issue a
“clarification," it does not receive
the same attention. The original
statement, therefore, has the more
lasting effect on public opinion.
It is important to recall that the
United States has insisted that its
role in the Middle East
negotiations is that of impartial
arbitrator. We have been told, time
and again, that Mr. Carter planned
to be objective and saw America’s
role as helping the parties
involved, Egypt and Israel, should
there be problems in the
negotiating process.
The scenario of American policy
is troubling. As it continues to
unfold, it confirms the warnings
we, the Zionist Organization of
America, have given for many
months. In spite of denials, the
trend of the Carter Administration
continues in the direction of
seeking accommodation with the
Palestine Liberation Organiza
tion.
It is our obligation to make clear
to the White House and to
Congress that present American
policy is not acceptable to the
American Jewish community, nor
is the appeasement of PLO
terrorists acceptable to the
American people!
I urge every friend of Israel to
make his voice heart in
Washington now—immediately!
Because Administration policy is
vulnerable to change, we must urge
our Government to stand firm.
Zionism, a movement for peace,
is anxious for the Peace Treaty
between Israel and Egypt to
succeed. Hopefully, the
Administration will avoid bringing
into the process elements which
will be destructive and
counterproductive.
Ivan J. Novick
President, Zionist
Organization of America
Perceptions, misconceptions
Editor:
The central problem of the
autonomy talks now underway is
the perception of the PLO as a
political entity. Since the Six Day
War in 1967 OPEC has risen as a
powerful political and economic
body which largely reflects
Muslim/Arabic political views.
Arab countries, both on their own
and through OPEC, have
“legitimized" the PLO as a
political entity representing the
Palestinian people. This is
confusing to Western observers for
several reasons. First OPEC has
no political standing to confer
representation on any group. It is
almost like the U.N. designating
the Baader Meinoff gang to
represent German interests in the
Bundestag.
Second, many of the Arab
countries claiming to champion
the PLO cause do so knowing that
they did nothing to create a
Palestinian state from 1948 to 1967
and they don’t want refugees in
their countries now for fear that
they (the Palestinian refugees)
would destabilize the sensitive
political situation that exists in
most Arab countries. They need
only recall King Hussein’s
problems with the PLO in Jordan
in the late 1960s.
Third, almost none of the Arab
countries understand the
phenomenon of grassroots
participation in representative
government. Elections, if and
when held in Arab countries, are
held to ratify current political
leaders and not to select between
meaningful alternatives. In other
words the designation of the PLO
by Arab leaders is the latter’s
preference which may or ma*' not
be the preference of the Palestinian
people who have never had the
opportunity or means of formally
expressing their choice.
There is currently no political
alternative to the PLO; it tolerates
no opposition. Israel would dearly
love to nurture a representative
political alternative among West
Bank Arabs. This is unlikely
because current residents have
nothing to lose by letting the PLO
fight their battle and as a matter of
pride they would not want to
appear as lackeys of Israel. And
finally even if they did have
political ambitions, they would
find it hazardous to proclaim
opposition to the PLO given
assassinations carried out against
Gaza opposition.
The problem for Israel is to
negate the PLO as a political
alternative. Israel is winning the
military conflict with the PLO but
is making no headway in world
opinion. It all sounds disturbingly
familiar in describing our
experience in Vietnam Perhaps
the West Bank is becoming Israel's
Vietnam.
I feel that too little attention has
been paid to the political
connotations of the PLO and that
this is fast becoming a pivotal
issue. There is an increasing sense
of urgency on this issue and it will
not go away by itself. The better we
understand this issue the better we
can deal with it individually and as
a community in preventing the
further erosion of needed U.S.
support for Israel.
Richard E. Lapin
Scapegoat again?
Editor:
Once again we witnessed a
thoroughly untimely demonstra
tion of the lingering inferiority
complex that appears to overcome
Jewish leaders when confronted by
black leaders with outrageous
charges.
Ted Mann's unmanly eagerness
to mollify Jesse Jackson on the
MacNeil/Lehrer show Thursday
evening, Aug. 16, was to me
embarrassing and ineffectual. So
overcome by his desire to win
Jackson’s favor that he twice failed
to properly reply to the black
leaders charge, to wit: “The Jews
had no right to spy upon Andy.”
Surely Mr. Mann should be aware
that Israeli intelligence tailed the
PLO representative and not Mr.
Young. Mr. Young’s appearance
at the same place and
approximately at the same time is
his problem, not the problem of
Israeli intelligence. Moreover, Mr
Young’s original version was false,
his report to Mr. Vance was
misleading and not until
confronted by Mr. Yehuda Blum.
Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N*,
at Mr. Blum's initiative, did
Andrew Young tell it like it was.
In the face of these undisputed
facts, why must the President olK
American Jewish organizations
cater to the-jpbvious one-sidedness
of a Jesse Jackson? A leader of our
community should be decently
aggressive, adamantly forthright
and persistently and insistently the
champion of Israel and of his
people. To recite the litany of our
cooperation with the blacks in the
long civil rights struggle, in a
confrontation with a national
black leader who knows well the
record, is an exercise in futility and
an exposition of weakness.
The truth is that Andrew Young
failed in his task of representing
the American people in its entirety,
not just one segment. To equate
our democracy, imperfect as it may
be, with Castro, Nkomo,
Khomeini and the PLO is sheer
nonsense. To call Khomeini a
saint (a despotic murderer would
be closer to the mark), Cuban
mercenaries a stabilizing force in
Africa, Nkomo a democratic
influence, the PLO freedom
fighters, and his own country a
prison house for 1 political
dissidents, is evidence of an
incurable blindness to the realities
and facts of life.
His failure is being obfuscated
by all the national black leaders
(with the possible exception of the
great Bayard Rustin) and by Mr
Young himself. To make the Jews
the scapegoat for his failure is a
time-worn technique of
demagogues. The veritable
barrage of abuse directed against
us tmust be fought courageously
and boldly, we must be forthright
in taking our stand and we must
not degrade our position and
ourselves with thinly veiled
apologetic appeals to our record of
support for civil rights. The face we
show to demagogues must be
adamant and defiant.
R. M Travis
P«fe 5 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE August 24, 1979