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P»«« * THE SOOTHERS ISRAELITE Nov*mb«r 16, 1979
40 winks
A charily collector dozes in the warm midday sun
Jerusalem's Mea Shearim quarter. (Jerusalem Post Photo).
Go blow
your horn
Earthquake felled
walls of Jericho?
by Tom Tugend
Heritage (I <n Angeta)
Modern science, never willing to
leave well enough alone, is now
trying to rewrite the famous Battle
of Jericho, some 2.300 years after
the fact
It wasn’t Joshua's trumpeting
that made the ancient city walls
come tumbling down, according to
a Californian and Israeli scientist,
but probably a strong earthquake
that shook the battlefield at the
same time.
Jericho lies some five miles from
an active fault, which was traced
by Professors Amos. Nur of
Stanford University and Ze’ev
Rechcs of the Wcizmann Institute
of Science in Rehovot after a
magnitude five tremor in April.
Digging back into Biblical,
archaelogical and historical
records, the two geophysicists
deduced that larger quakes,
ranging between magnitude six
and seven, shake the Jericho area
about every 200 years, with one in
July 1927 measured at six and one-
half magnitude.
In a paper presented before the
American Geophysical Union in
Washington, D.C., Prof. Nur
noted that “it is very likely that the
collapse of the walls of Jericho,
under Joshua’s siege, was caused
bv an earthquake similar to the
1927 event.
"Aside from the proximity of the
fault, there is a remarkable
similarity between the description
of river flow cut off and the
damming of the Jordan River by
earthquake induced mudslides
observed during the past
millemum ”
He recalled that the Biblical
account of the battle described the
waters of the Jordan rising up "in a
heap” thus exposing solid ground
for Joshua's army to cross over in
its attack on the city.
The active fault, known as the
Dead Sea Fault, probably marks
the boundary where the African
and Asian continental plates
scrape against each other
The new theory does not sit well
with some Biblical fundamental
ists.
In response. Prof. Nur told a
Los Angeles Times correspondent:
"I just tell them that God works
in many wondrous ways. He
knocked Jericho down indirect
ly—by means of an earthquake."
Frog and scorpion
John Connally’s Mideast ‘plan’
would put the sting on Israel
by Hugh Fitzgerald
Awcate. Can lor hunuail _ .
Seconty Wot Wop oo
A story that circulates in the Middle East—/ should think an Arab fable
brought up-to-date—tells of a Scorpion who comes to a river and asks a Frog
to carry him across. “But you’ll sting me, ”protests the Frog. “Oh. no. / won’t, ’’
says the Scorpion. “I want to gel over to the other side. ” So the Frog undertakes
to ferry him, but when they are only halfway over the Scorpion does sting the
Frog. “Oh, why did you do that when you’d promised? Now Ell die and you’ll
drownr Hisses the Scorpion. "This is the Middle East!"
Quoted in Edmund Wilson’s “The Dead Sea Scrolls”
John Connally’s "plan" for the Middle East, like
the Scorpion’s for the Frog, is both morally
unacceptable and strategically short-sighted. His
definition of “American interests" is identical to the
demands of the petro-Arab lobby. When he insists
that "the oil of the M iddle East will be the hleblood of
Western civilization for decades to come” he shows
that in his energy, as in his foreign, policy, a militant
defeatism prevails.
And his “plan,” far from meeting the Soviet threat,
unwittingly furthers a key Soviet aim, which is to
weaken Israel, our only reliable strategic asset
between Europe and Australia. It is Israel's superb air
force on which the Pentagon relies to provide air cover
for the Sixth Fleet, and which makes Soviet planners
think twice about direct military intervention in the
area. A warning by Israel prevented a Syrian invasion
of Jordan several years ago. Similar considerations
now prevent Syria from completing its occupation of
Lebanon, and provide the Lebanese Christians with
their only security. Israeli intelligence alerted Sadat in
1977 to a coup, and in 1978 warned us of the real
situation in Iran (its warnings went unheeded).
To call for an increased American military
presence in the Middle East, as Connally does, and to
simultaneously demand that we weaken our already
existing military asset in the area, is at least
paradoxical. Should Israel be squeezed back into the
1949 armistice lines (which even Sadat called
“ridiculous in the eyes of any man who looks at the
world map”) her ability to help us would be severly
diminished, for she would be kept busy defending
herself. ,
It is clear that the Soviet Union understands
perfectly the strategic importance of Israel. The
Soviets have spent over three-fourths of their total
military and economic aid on Israel’s most implacable
enemies, supplying them,not only with Katyushas and
Kalashnikovs, but also with tanks and planes and
missiles so advanced that none of its Warsaw Pact
allies has yet acquired them. She encouraged the
Arabs in 1967 and actively supported prepafations for
the 1973 war, maintaining Soviet advisers at Syrian
military headquarters and on the Golan during that
war.
Indeed, the Soviet Union assiduously courts, trains,
and promotes the PLO. undoubtedly because she
intends to use the PLO, in fact is already using it, as a
surrogate force. Such aid and active involvement by
the Soviets goes far beyond what is necessary to prove
itself the champion of the Arabs. Obviously Soviet
strategists appreciate -as Connally does not—Israel's
ability to interdict Soviet air and sea power in the
eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and Suez.
Connally’s suggested bases in Oman and Sinai
could only supplement, never replace, the essential
military power of Israel. Such bases, furthermore,
would depend not only on American politics but also
on their continued acceptance by inherently unstable
or fickle regimes. Connally should remember how
unceremoniously Khaddaffy sent all the Americans
packing from our SAC base in Libya when King Idris
was deposed; or what happened to our listening posts
in Ethiopia when the Dergue replaced Emperor
Selassie; how even pro-Western King Hassan thought
it prudent to close American bases in Morocco, or
what happened just a few months ago to our bases in
Iran. And he can guess the fate of our bases in T ur key.
As British writer Patrick Cosgrave has observed,
"the fundamental consideration in Middle Eastern
politics is the centrality of Israeli power to the security
of the West.” For opposing the Soviets with a force
possessing the necessary mobility, technological
sophistication, and strength, there is no substitute for
Israel.
Security of our oil supply from the Gulf also
depends on the stability of the local regimes. The press
that once wrote rapturously of “modem, bustling,
stable” Iran now extols Saudi Arabia as a steady
friend of the West. But such meticulous Arabists as
Kelly in England and Hottinger in Switzerland have
written convincingly in recent months about the
extreme fragility of the Saudi regime. Connally would
do well to compare their observations with the gush of
petro-Arab propaganda. An Israel reduced to
indefensible borders may please these regimes, but
will not make their family despotisms any more stable
or secure.
No doubt Saudi Arabia would like us to help
weaken Israel so that the Arabs could look forward to
a repeat performance of 1948, or 1967. or 1973. this
time with the desired results. Despite soothing words,
most Arabs have not abandoned the aim of
eliminating Israel from what they regard as one
homogeneous “Arab Nation" stretching from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf (or even beyond, if
the ethnic Arabs of Iran begin to demand “the
legitimate rights of the Khuzistanian people”).
In this scheme of things, none of the many non-
Arabs or non-Muslim peoples (Christians. Jews,
Kurds, Copts, Druse, Berbers, Sudanese blacks.
Chaldeans, etc.) would have equal rights with the
Muslim Arabs, or any degree of autonomy, much less
a state of their own. Yet the Saudis and other Arabs
claim that America must weaken Israel while assuring
their own security.
But the United States cannot afford this petro-
Arab view of “American interests.” If Israel were
further diminished, our task in securing the region
would become infinitely harder and impossibly more
expensive. The Arabs must realize that the menace to
them, and to us, is Soviet imperialism. They will have
to learn to live with an Israel that can defend itself, and
help us, not exist on sufferance and “guarantees.”
There is nothing the Soviets would welcome more
than a PLO State and a debilitated Israel.
Connally, however, seems to endorse the idea of a
PLO state (the PLO has endorsed him). Perhaps he
accepts the specious argument that “they’ll be so busy
building a nation they won't have time for anything
else.” He may believe that a PLO state would "pacify”
the entire Middle East, rather than become a terrorist
dagger pointed in turn at Israel. Jordan. Saudi
Arabia. Khaddaffy, Khomeini, and Castro have not
exactly been kept so busy setting up Departments of
Sanitation or revoking liquor licenses that they
haven’t had time to devastate American interests.
If there is one thing worse than immoral
Realpoliiik. it is self-defeating immoral Rralpolilik.
Connally’s “plan” would help the Arab scorpion sting
the Israeli frog; and the frog, and the scorpion, and we
would all drown. His "plan” is, as the French say,
worse than a crime. It is a blunder.