Newspaper Page Text
Reagan reaffirms stand
on ‘regional conflicts’
by Joseph Polakoff
TSl's Washington correspondent
WASHINGTON — President
Reagan has reiterated his policy to
a world audience that the first step
in the Middle East peace process
is direct talks between Israel and
her Arab neighbors, a study of his
address to the United Nations
General Assembly indicates.
Without mentioning Israel and
Arab countries, the president pro
posed in his three-point position
toward “regional conflicts” that
“first, talks between the warring
parties themselves, without which
an end to violence and national
reconciliation are impossible.”
The second point is “discussions
between the United States and the
Soviet Union—not impose solu
tions, but to support peace talks
and eventually eliminate the supply
of arms and the proxy troops from
abroad.”
“And third,” he continued, “if the
talks are successful, joint efforts to
welcome each country back into
the world economy and the com
munity of nations that respect
human rights.”
Point three does not appear to
specifically encompass the Israeli-
Arab dispute but Reagan was dis
cussing all regional conflicts in
cluding the Iraq-Iran war.
“There is nothing new in the
president’s statement,” a Mideast
specialist summarized. “The main
point is that he has made it clear
again that direct talks are primary.”
President Reagan
In conjunction with that factor,
another specialist noted, Reagan
restated that the two superpowers
discuss peace talks but not impose
solutions on Israel or the Arabs, a
hope indicated in the past by both
Moscow and Arab leaders. U.S.-
Soviet “discussions” could mean
an international conference that
would allow the Soviets to partici
pate and the Palestine Liberation
Organization to enter. However,
the administration is cool toward a
conference, indicating it would
approve it only if “all the parties”
wanted it. Israeli Prime Minister
Shimon Peres has agreed to the
conference concept put forward by
Jordan and backed by Egypt but
not before the Soviet Union resumes
diplomatic relations with Israel and
opens the gates for Soviet Jewish
emigration.
A survivors story
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by Margie Olster
UNITED NATIONS (JTA) —
Prime Minister Shimon Peres said
after a meeting with Soviet For
eign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze
here Monday afternoon that they
had discussed “steps to arrive at
full normalization” of relations be
tween Israel and the Soviet Union.
He called their talk “an opening of
the issues.”
Peres said at a briefing for Israeli
correspondents that he and the
foreign minister had discussed three
subjects: relations between their
countries, Soviet Jewry and the
chances of an international confer
ence for Middle East peace. He
said both had promised to “think
about” what the other said and
agreed to continue negotiations
but nothing definite was arranged.
Peres said he told Shevardnadze
that “Jewish history will be richer
if we find a solution to the problem
of Soviet Jewry” and Communist
history would not be the poorer for
it.
Their meeting, in the South
Lounge U.N. headquarters, lasted
an hour and 20 minutes. It had not
been expected to run longer than a
half hour. Present with Peres was
his chief adviser, Nimrod Novick.
Shevardnadze had only a transla
tor with him. He spoke in Russian
and Peres in English.
Peres said he found the Soviet
diplomat to be “open, a thinking
man, not dogmatic” and also hu
morous. Their discussion, he said,
“symbolized the search for steps
toward normalization (of relations)
between Israel and the Soviet
Union.” However, he stressed, all
the problems between th
countries cannot be resolved in the
course of 80 minutes. “But we did
begin a dialogue,” he said.
Peres characterized the talk as
informal and said the fact it was
held meant an opening up of rela
tions. Israel has had no diplomatic
ties with the U.S.S.R. since Mos
cow broke relations during the
1967 Six-Day War. Peres met brief
ly with Shevardnadze at a diplo
matic reception at the U.N. last
year, fn 1984. Israeli Foreign Min
ister Yitzhak Shamir met at the
U.N. with then Soviet Foreign
Minister Andrei Gromyko.
The Peres-Shevardnadze meeting
was not on the agenda of Peres’
current visit to the U.S. and caused
him to postpone his return to Israel
See Relations, page 25.
massacre at Munich
Professor Shaul Ladany lights candle at Hebrew Academy’s celebra
tion of Israel’s 38th year of independence. At left is Martha Sanders and
at right, Colleen Weston.
by Fran Zuspan
Tuesday, the 26th of Elul (Sept.
30), will mark the 14th anniversary
of the slaughter of 11 Israeli ath
letes at the Munich Olympics, ac
cording to the Jewish calendar.
On Sept. 5, 1972, a group of
Arab terrorists broke into the Is
raeli compound of the Olympic
Village, killing two and taking nine
hostages. Despite negotiations and
a failed rescue attempt by German
authorities, each of the hostages
was eventually killed by their cap-
tors. The massive international
media presence attracted by the
Olympics provided the world with
intensive, high-impact exposure to
the horrors of terrorism, perhaps
more dramatically than ever before.
Shaul Ladany remembers the
massacre with special clarity, be
cause he was there. A professor in
the Department of Industrial En
gineering and Management at
Ben-Gurion University in Beer
Sheva, Israel, Shaul is an interna
tional champion in race walking,
an Olympic competition category,
and as such was a member of the
Israeli Olympic team competing at
Munich. He is currently in Atlanta
on sabbatical leave, doing research
at Emory University, after spend
ing last year at Georgia Tech.
When asked about Munich, Shaul
began by saying that he was first a
survivor of the Holocaust. Born in
1936 in Yugoslavia, he remembers
his house being bombed on April
6, 1941—the day Gerpiany invaded
that country. He survived half a
year in Bergen-Belsen, as well as
life in the Budapest ghetto to which
his family fled. Since settling in
Israel, he has lived through four
wars: the Sinai Campaign of 1956,
the Six-Day War, the War of Attri
tion, and the Yom Kippur War.
He said luck has played a part in
his survival: When he was 5 years
old and his house was hit by a
bomb, he was in the relative safety
of his basement. At Munich, he
was in the Israeli Compound of the
Olympic Village, which consisted
of a row of five attached duplex
apartments. The terrorists attacked
in apartments Nos. 1 and 3, while
he and five others were in apartment
No. 2.
He and the others were asleep
and continued sleeping for an hour
after the attack, attributing the
noise to a party in a nearby build
ing. He was awakened by a room
mate who saw the body of one of
the Israeli coaches being thrown
out of apartment No. 1. He thought
the informant was joking! It took
him a while to realize the severity
of the situation: Going to the door
of his cottage, he saw unarmed
Olympic Village guards talking to
an Arab, trying to persuade him to
let Red Cross workers in to help
the wounded in the cause of simple
humanity. The Arab refused, say
ing that Jews are not human.
Closing the door, Shaul went
upstairs and asked the others, now
fully awake and dressed, what had
happened. He remembers one point
ing to building No. 1 and saying
“the stain there is from the blood of
‘Moony’ Weinberg” (a coach). The
athletes in No. 2 decided to leave
by the rear ground floor entrance
and did so calmly. Shaul was the
last to leave, first contacting the
chief of the Israeli mission and
Israeli journalists.
Asked about the rescue attempt,
he said that the Germans did not
want to try it in the Olympic Vil
lage, under the scrutiny of the news
media, but that they fully acknow
ledged their responsiblity. The
German authorities agreed to the
Arab demand that they be allowed
to leave Germany with the Israeli
hostages, to go to an Arab country.
The German plan was to ambush
the terrorists enroute. The plan
failed, largely because of inexpe
rience and lack of leadership, and
all the hostages were killed. Shaul
feels that the Germans really tried
and that their failure was not due
to intent. He noted that German
volunteers helped and that one of
them was killed. His comment on
the media's handling of the situa
tion: often inaccurate.
An ironic footnote to the story
centers on the terrorist group re
sponsible for the massacre: Black
September. In September 1970,
King Hussein’s army expelled the
PLO from Jordan, killing about
1,500 Palestinians in the process.
To escape the slaughter, approxi
mately 2,000 members of the PLO
crossed into Israel, thus facing
imprisonment but saving their lives.
According to Shaul, Muammar
Qadaffi promised money to the
Munich terrorists, three of whom
survived. They were later released
from German prisons in response
to the demands of airplane hijackers
and were greeted as heroes in Libya.
He added, however, that none of
those involved in the Munich attack
is alive today.
See Munich, page 25.
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