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the Southern Israelite
The Weekly Newspaper For Southern Jewry • Since 1925
Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, May 16,1986
U.S. rolls out red carpet
for Shcharansky’s visit
by Joseph Polakoff
TSl’s Washington correspondent
WASHINGTON—In the hal
lowed rotunda at the Capitol and
in the Oval Office of the White
House, Natan (Anatoly) Shcha-
ransky received a world hero’s wel
come from the Congress and the
president for his courageous fight
for human rights in the Soviet
Union.
Only three foreigners have been
previously honored by the Con
gress at the rotunda. It gave the
accolade in 1824 to the Marquis de
Lafayette, the French supporter of
the American Revolution; and in
1939 to King George VI and Queen
Elizabeth. No living American has
been greeted there by the Con
gress. It has honored American
heroes at joint sessions of House
and Senate in the House chamber,
the office of the Historian of Con
gress told The Southern Israelite.
Later in the afternoon, Presi
dent Reagan welcomed Shcharan-
sky to the White House where they
were joined by leaders of his
administration.
In contrast to the public acclaim
at the rotunda, photographers and
reporters were not invited to the
Oval Office. White House spokes
man Larry Speakes said the ad
ministration was continuing to
practice “quiet diplomacy” to
advance human rights.
Shcharansky’s Washington visit
was preceded by a tumultuous wel
come by hundreds of thousands in
New York May 11 for the annual
demonstration of Solidarity for
Soviet Jewry. He also met with
Jewish communal leaders, and was
to attend an observance here of
Israel’s Independence Day and
make a National Press Club speech.
Shcharansky was also to receive
special gold medals at a joint meet
ing of congressional leaders for
him and his wife, Avital, ordered
struck for them by Congress.
“Unreal, isn’t it,” said Ernest
Shalowitz, a prominent Washing
ton Zionist, who arrived early at
the rotunda. “I never thought I’d
live to see this day,” said a graying
woman, who wouldn’t reveal her
name because “there are many,
many here who feel the same way.”
“This is a symbol of how we
value Shcharansky and other peo
ple in the Soviet Union who want
to emigrate,” said Rep. Larry Smith
(D-Fla.), a congressional leader
for Soviet Jewry. To thunderous
applause from the crowded rotunda
and in view of 32 television came
ras for worldwide showing, leaders
of the Republican and Democratic
parties of both Houses arrived
under the Capitol’s dome with the
diminutive Jewish dissident, who
had defied the Kremlin’s might to
speak out for freedom in his native
land and who spent nine years in
Soviet prison before he was allowed
to emigrate to Israel and rejoin his
wife in Jerusalem last February. In
the third month of pregnancy, Avi
tal did not accompany her hus
band on his celebrated trip to thank
America for its help to them, Soviet
Jewry and others seeking freedom
in the Soviet Union. But every
speaker at the rotunda remembered
her with respect and affection for
her tireless efforts in behalf of her
husband and Soviet Jewry.
In introducing Shcharansky and
seven congressional leaders with
him, Rep. Sidney Yates (D-Ill.),
dean of the 38 Jewish members of
the House and Senate, included
Avital in his remarks, saying “and
Mrs. Shcharansky in absentia.”
The crowd heartily applauded, re
peating applause whenever her
name was mentioned. She is re
garded as the 20th century Rachel,
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Shcharansky celebrates freedom.
who had cried out, “Give me child
ren or I die.”
Yates pointed out that the
“indomitable Avital” in her eight-
year struggle for Anatoly’s release
visited every congressional caucus
to help free him. “The fact that he
is here is as much her victory as it is
See Shcharansky, page 20.
TAie Gutting edge
PLO’s D.C. office center of controversy
by Edwin Black
Despite efforts to close the
Palestine Liberation Organization’s
Washington D.C. liaison bureau,
its director Hasan Rahman reports
the office is still active and func
tioning as a direct liaison with Ya-
sir Arafat. “They (Congress) can’t
shut us down,” asserts Rahman.
“Only the Department of Justice
can.”
Officially known as the Pales
tine Information Office, the PLO’s
Washington bureau, housed near
Dupont Circle, has been headed
by Rahman for the past 12 years.
Although Rahman is the PLO’s
man in Washington, he is techni
cally a salaried employee of the
Arab League. Officially, says
Rahman, his office “is registered
with the Department of Justice (as
a foreign agent) to disseminate
information on the Palestinian ques
tion, and improve understanding
of the Palestinian point of view.”
And indeed, Rahman presents sev
eral dozen lectures annually to var
ious church, campus and pro-Arab
groups.
But the office’s more important
function is as liaison directly with
Yasir Arafat’s office staff in Tunis.
“1 tell him (Arafat) the direction
U.S. policy is moving, the mood in
the United States and accurate
readings of American foreign pol
icy,” explains Rahman. Via stand
ard telex, a facsimile machine, and
telephones, Rahman, during a
period of special activity, will
communicate with Arafat daily, but
in any event “on a regular basis, as
regular as necessary.”
Frequently, it is difficult to con
tact Arafat personally because of
Arafat’s scheduled travels and
security measures. Messages are
then relayed back and forth via “a
staff of 20 or 30 people working in
his office (in Tunis) who stay in
touch with him (Arafat),” says
Rahman.
Equally if not more important
than mood assessments is passing
messages between the State De
partment and Arafat in the ongo
ing peace process. “I am never con
tacted directly (by the State De
partment),” explains Rahman, “but
there are people who go between...
the Egyptians, the Saudis, the Tun
isians, sometimes diplomats,
sometimes also individuals. All of
them are used. I speak to them fre
quently. And then they convey our
point of view to the American
Yasir Arafat
administration.”
1 his procedure may appear cir
cuitous, but Rahman declares that
if the State Department needed to
pass an immediate message to Yas-
sir A.rafat through Rahman, “They
would just use an Arab ambassa
dor and or one of their friends." He
asserts, “There is only a ban on
officials of the White House or the
State Department (contacting the
PLO). But other agencies or the
Congress are not prohibited.”
Rahman adds that if anyone “from
the Justice Department wanted to
contact me, they would do it direct
ly...or I could use somebody from
the Congress.”
The existence of this direct link
to Yasir Arafat has become the
focal point of a government con
troversy, intensified since the
administration’s declared war on
terrorism. A bilateral collage of
senators and congressmen have
asked the administration to close
the Washington office, and its sis
ter bureau in New York accredited
to the United Nations. Prominent
in the movement are conservative
Republicans Jack Kemp and Jerem
iah Denton.
Key administration leaders are
slowly becoming persuaded by the
Kemp-Denton point of view. But
the government still clings to a
schizophrenic definition of the
organization that has hampered
the very anti-terrorist moves the
president himself has advocated.
Central is the government’s refusal
to clearly label the PLO a terrorist
organization.
One can see this approach in
operation by contacting the State
Department, the Justice Depart
ment or even the FBI and asking if
they consider the PLO a terrorist
organization? Monosyllabic an
swers such as “yes” and “no” are
strictly forbidden. Instead, a
standard equivocal formulation is
used. At State, a spokesman care
fully explained, “We view the PLO
as an umbrella organization. Under
this umbrella there are elements,
organizations, and individuals
which advocate and carry out acts
of terrorism.” Asked if he could
answer in a yes or no, the spokes
man replied, “The only answer is
the complete answer.”
Hasan Rahman avers that his
office is primarily “a force for val
uable information” and has nothing
to do with what he termed “mil
itary operations.” For instance, says
Rahman, “we have no contact
whatsoever with the PLA (the Pal
estine Liberation Army).” As for
acknowledged terrorists such as
George Habash who have main
tained power on the PLO execu
tive committee, Rahman declares,
“The PLO is not a membership
organization. No one has a card
saying you are a member. All
Palestinians are members and they
vote for their representatives to be
on the executive committee. Yes
George Habash was on the execu
tive. But when you have elections
See Controversy, page 4.
