Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 34, No. 24, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 12, 1980 Page: 4 of 20
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TEXAS JEWISH POST THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1980 POSTORIAL PAGE
postoricil
Target Date For Autonomy Was Not Realistic
Common Market Stand and Oil
There seems'to be no stopping the West Europeans in
their disastrous effort to take some type of initiative on
the Arab-Israeli dispute. The very strong possibility
that such an initiative will wreck any chance for success
for the autonomy talks now going on between Israel,
Egypt and the United States is not being considered by
the Europeans. Nor do they seem to realize that the
Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty has made it very unlikely
that there will be another Arab-Israeli war in the near
future, since Egypt was always the major military
power among Israel's enemies.
Of course under United States pressure, the
European Economic Community [EEC], led by France,
Britain and West Germany, has apparently changed
plans to amend United Nations Security Council
Resolution 242.
But the Europeans are set on doing something,
probably giving diplomatic recognition to the Palestine
Liberation Organization and its leader, Yasir Arafat.
The Europeans conveniently ignore that the PLO
continues to advocate terrorism. Its largest member
organization, El Fatah, Arafat’s own group, has
recently rejected all peace efforts, including any
initiative the EEC might make. It continues to call for
the destruction of the State of Israel.
The reason is simple. The West Europeans believe
that, by voicing support for Palestinian “self-determina-
tion,” despite silence on the quest of other national
groups for statehood, they can assure a steady flow of
oil from the Arab states. This is the same type of
appeasement that West Europe displayed in the 1930s.
These countries have not learned yet that the best way
to prevent Arab oil blackmail is a strong united West,
the United States, Europe and Japan acting together.
i ■ ■ J
BYALONBEN-MEIR
Was May 26th a realistic
target date for achieving an
agreement on Palestinian
autonomy? Would any fu-
ture date bring about an
agreement on the Palestin-
ain question? The answers
to these two questions are
clear enough to anyone
without political illusions:
no, not under the present
circumstances, nor without
the direct participation of
the Palestinian people. The
messengers of peace, those
who expected a break-
through in the negotiations,
must have based their
expectations on false
premises, and the cynics,
those who are disappointed
with the outcome of the
negotiations, find it conven-
ient to place the onus of
failure on Israel’s leader-
ship. Israel’s intransigence,
the latter argue, stalemated
the negotiations, and only
Israel’s concessions on sev-
eral key issues can revitalize
the negotiations and bring
them to a successful conclu-
sion.
The failure to find any
common ground on five
problems ostensibly con-
tributed to the collapse of
the negotiations: 1) the issue
of Israel’s right to establish
settlements in Judaea-Sa-
maria and the Gaza District;
2) disagreement over the
powers to be exercised by
the governing council; the
question of access to end the
distribution of water in
Judaea-Samaria and the
Gaza District; 4) the rights
of the Arab residents of East
Jerusalem to vote in council
elections and 5) Israel’s
demand that it retain full
jurisdiction over military
and security matters during
the five-year transitioned
period. Israel’s critics would
like us to believe that had
Israel shown any flexibility
on these issues, Palestinian
autonomy would have been
established, and peace
would have been immiment.
Unfortunately, many of Is-
rael’s friends have also come
to accept this oversimplifica-
tion, and very few seem to
understand that although all
of these controversial issues
are somewhat important in
determining the scope of
Palestinian autonomy, none
of them were or are pivotal
to the success or the failure
of the negotiations. It should
be remembered that the
American - Egyptian-Israeli
negotiations have sought to
determine the future of a
fourth party which has not
empowered them to act on
its behalf; it has not
accepted the Camp David
accords on which the nego-
tiations are presumably bas-
ed; it has not recognized the
existence of Israel, without
which there can be no
agreement; it has rejected
the autonomy plan out of
hand, notwithstanding the
plan’s Palestinian dimen-
sions and implications; and
finally, it has remained
determined to “liberate” all
of Palestine as a pre- ,
requisite for peace.
I believe that all the
parties to the negotiations
have traded on each other’s
precarious situations to im-
prove their own positions.
The Carter Administration
is desperate for an agree-
ment that will enhance its
image in the eyes of the
American public in an
election year. Moreover, an
agreement would presum-
ably also please the Saudis,
who have considerable polit-
ical clout in Washington.
The Egyptians, who prob-
ably could not care less
about the Palestinians, must
continue — at least for
inter-Arab consumption —
to rally behind the Palestin-
ian cause. Finally, the
Israelis, who are damned if
they do and damned if they
don’t, have agreed to nego-
tiate the fate of the
Palestinians, that party over
which neither the Egyp-
tians, nor the Americans,
nor the Israelis themselves
have any real control.
The most unfortunate
aspect about the Middle
East conflict is that it has
never been full understood,
even by the governments
directly involved. The Camp
David accords clearly called
for Jordanian and Palestin-
ian representatives to par-
ticipate in the negotiations.
Although Jordan’s partici-
MEDIA SPOTLIGHT
[monitor "Princess" Brings Saudis Undesirable Results
and elegant features of the
Saudi culture itself.”
It is almost as if Meg
Greenfield would have Mark
Tain’s Connecticut Yankee
apologize to medieval King
Arthur for his society’s
cultural and technological
advances.
Despite the mea culpas
issued by the British
foreign ministry following
“Death of a Princess,” the
most probing examination of
Saudi life comes in a
five-part London Tones ser-
ies by Timothy Sisley.
‘There is increasing pessi-
mism in Saudi Arabia over
whether the ruling estab-
lishment can survive,” Sis-
ley reported. ‘The seeds of
disintegration have been
sown.”
Sisley pointed to corrup-
tion among key members of
the royal family. As a result,
he claimed, “the respect
commanded by the sons of
King Abdul Aziz is waning.”
Attempts to create a demo-
cratizing appointed consul-
tative council, a majlis al
shum, have failed.
In an accompanying edi-
torial, The Times assured
BY LEONARD J. DAVIS
Having drawn so much
attention to itself in its
protests over “Death of a
Princess,” Saudi Arabia now
finds itself in the not-too-
surprising and not-too-desi-
rous media spotlight. Sever-
al journalists have recently
completed penetrating
examinations of Saudi rule,
society and armed forces.
William Tuohy of The Los
Angeles Times discovered
Saudi Arabia to be not only
one of the richest countries
in the world, but also “one of
the most vulnerable.” He
explored the competition
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between the two Saudi
armed forces — the army
and the national guard —
and found that they compete
for “manpower and for a
strategic role within the
national concept of defense.”
These two armed bodies,
along with the police, were
sent to lift the seige of
Mecca’s mosque last year.
‘Their lack of coordination
was a national embarrass-
ment,” Tuohy wrote.
“Though the Bedouins
make colorful guardsmen at
ceremonial occasions, with
the bandoliers, rakish head-
dresses, daggers and
chrome-plated rifels,” Tuohy
continued, “they do not take
readily to driving tanks or
flying supersonic jets ...
Saudi officers may be
fearless individually but
they have rarely worked as
a national team.”
Saudi “vulnerability,” de-
fined as “exposure to danger
and susceptibility to acci-
dent and change and uncon-
trollable forces,” was Meg
Greenfield’s reaction to her
recent tour of Saudi Arabia.
Greenfield, the editorial
page editor of The Washing-
ton Post, reported that she
found a pervasive feeling of
vulnerability and “super-
sensitivity” in the kingdom.
‘The ‘Death of a Princess’
was just part of it,” she
wrote. Saudis, she said, are
also sensitive to western
articles depicting weakness
and corruption and des-
potism in the Arabian
peninsula.
‘These people, feeling
threatened and besieged,
perceive ... that the broad-
casting of the danger in-
creases the danger and that
the perception of weakness
or trouble can make it
worse, ” Greenfield wrote.
She also reported on her
reception in the conserva-
tive kingdom as a woman.
‘This is a public world
without women___You will
see no woman in the
restaurant, in the govern-
ment office building ...”
Nevertheless, she felt that
“the Saudis went above and
beyond the call of duty in
being brave and gracious
about the fact of our
womanhood.”
Accepting her accident of
birth and praising Saudi
tolerance of it, Greenfield
went on to aplogize for the
products of the West she
found in the desert country,
products which were “espec-
ially tacky in realtion to the
pation is not essential,
Palestinian participation
does remain crucial. Israel
should not enter the nego-
tiations on Palestinian au-
tonomy without Palestinian
representation. To strike a
deal with the Egyptians
about the fate of Judaea-
Samaria *and the Gaza
District without the advice
and consent of the Palestin-
ians would be nothing less
than an exercise in futility.
Yet the Palestinian leader-
ship refuses to participate in
any discussions except on
which
terms which no Israeli
government in its right mind
could accept. If the auton-
omy talks are failing, it is
the Palestinian leadership,
not Israel or Egypt, who
must bear the blame. If the
Palestinians want self-de-
termination, they must also
be willing to negotiate to
that end without precondi-
tions. Israel has been willing
to do so, and until the
Palestinians show them-
selves ready to do the same,
Israel must refuse all future
negotiations on the Palestin-
ian problem. With the
passing of May 26, the old
rules no longer apply.
Negotiations on behalf of the
Palestinians, demonstrably,
have been a sterile exercise.
It is now high time for the
Palestinian leadership to
abandon their illusions that
somehow their Arab friends,
or Arab oil, or the super-
powers, or continued terror-
ism, or some combination of
these, will eliminate Israel
and hand Palestine over to
l
I
I
I
them. While they will not
get everything they want,
some of what they seek,
I
they can get by compromise
and negotiation, and the
autonomy talks represent an
unprecedented opportunity
to begin the process. And
until the Palestinians be-
come part of the process, I
Israel has little good reason ■
to continue with the auton-
omy talks.
the Saudis of their good
intentions. It did not wish to
sow “doubts in the West
about Saudi Arabia’s stabil-
ity.” The paper reminded
the Saudis that censorship
and xenophobia are respon-
sible for a large portion of
the “rumors and innuen-
does.”
Saudi phobias and sensi-
tivities notwithstanding,
with the West so resolute in
trading modern arms for oil,
examination of Saudi Ara-
bia’s stability is certainly in
order.
I
I
THE MARGIN between
that which men naturally do
and that which they can do is
so great that a system which
urges men on to action and
develops individual
enterprise and initiative is ,
preferable, in spite of the !
wastes that necessarily,
attend their process.
Brandeis.
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Wisch, J. A. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 34, No. 24, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 12, 1980, newspaper, June 12, 1980; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth753055/m1/4/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .