October 1990, Page 15

Seeing the Light

Middle Eastern Leaders Fear Lobby Control of U.S. Congress

By John B. Anderson

Four senators, led by Connie Mack (R-FL), introduced legislation that would cut off any further dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). One of the constituent elements of the PLO is the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF). It is headed by Abul Abbas, who this spring launched an abortive attack on beaches near Tel Aviv with heavily armed small boats. The senators' grounds are the failure of PLO Chairman Arafat to rid the executive committee of Abbas. Although disavowing any advance knowledge or complicity in the terror tactics of the head of the PLF, Arafat says only the Palestine National Council, the 400-member parliament-in-exile of the proclaimed state of Palestine, has authority to remove Abbas. Abul Abbas is clearly a violent leader of a maverick faction which does not accept the disavowal of terrorism by the umbrella organization, the PLO.

Was This The Time?

Was this the time to break off U.S.-PLO talks of a year-and-a-half duration? Should we have abandoned any further effort to engage the PLO in talks which could lead to Palestinians and Israelis sitting down to settle their dispute, which in more than four decades has resulted in five wars? Just two months before the invasion of Kuwait, I returned from two-and-one-half weeks in the Middle East. As a member of a Peace Mission for a Just Solution in the Middle East, sponosred by PAX World Foundation, I had the opportunity to visit Jordan, Syria and Egypt, before going on to Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza.

From King Hussein of Jordan, President Hafez Al-Assad of Syria and the foreign minister of Egypt, we listened to extended criticisms of U.S. foreign policy. For me, they shed a great deal of light on why so many Palestinians are critical of U.S. intervention in the current Gulf crisis, and why Saudi Arabia and other friendly Arab stattes are so concerned about accepting the U.S. military assistance they feel they need to defend their countries against possible Iraqi aggression.

Interestingly enough, Middle East leaders were more critical, or so it seemed to me, of the U.S. Congress than of either the president or his secretary of state. They are convinced that members of Congress are both ill-informed about what is happening in the Middle East and anti-Arab in their views. My former colleagues would not find it very flattering to discover that they are universally regarded as totally under the control of lobby groups which see only one side of the Arab-Israeli dispute.

A Matter of Survival

Mayor Elias Freij of Bethlehem complained: "For us, peace in the occupied territories is a matter of survival. All our universities have been closed, some even before the intifada, which began 30 months ago. More than 40,000 of our high school graduates have been deprived of any opportunity for higher education.

"Between midnight and 3 am, the Shin Bet [the secret service of the occupying Israeli military authorities] drag our young men out of their houses. Some are simply beaten. Others are detained, often without charge or trial for many months."

He concluded, "We want a demilitarized state of our own, and then eventually a Benelux arrangement or economic union with both Israel and Jordan. I would like to see my grandchildren and those of Shamir playing football together without fear."

Mayor Freij, who has been mayor of Bethlehem for 25 years, is a moderate. He offered a total disclaimer of the use of force and violence, but he warned that events on the West Bank and in Gaza were becoming more explosive with each passing day. I was reminded of what our ambassador in Jordan had told us a few days earlier. We were in a region where if events were not moving in the direction of peace, they would almost inevitably be moving toward war.

A Passionate Cry for Independence

Visits to a refugee camp and a hospital in Gaza provided powerful evidence that the intifada will not be suppressed with rubber bullets, tear gas, curfews and other forms of collective punishment. A girl with a severe head injury, and a young man with a bullet in his knee both assured me they intended to continue the struggle. The cry for independence and freedom is a passionate one.

Talks with Moshe Arens, foreign minister in the last government of Israel, and just named defense minister of Shamir's newly formed rightist government, were highly revealing about likely future Israeli positions. Shamir himself had refused to see us even after several requests were made.

The government of Israel does have legitimate security concerns. Certainly a two-state solution, with an independent state of Palestine existing alongside Israel, would require iron-clad international guarantees. However, the thinking of the new government utterly precludes any arrangement which would provide for a state of Palestine. In Arens' words, "It already exists. It lies in the state of Jordan." Not only does King Hussein reject this proposition, but so does every single Arab leader with whom I met.

The winds of change which toppled regimes and brought democracy to Central and Eastern Europe have not produced similar results in the Middle East. But make no mistake about it, those winds are reaching gale force. Yehoshafat Harkabi, former chief of Israeli military intelligence, has written Israel's Fateful Hour, in which he argues persuasively that it is precisely because of security reasons that negotiations leading to an independent Palestinian state must proceed. The present policy of not negotiating is a dead end. He then cites a former longtime U.S. ambassador to Israel, Samuel Lewis, for the proposition that in the realm of foreign policy a mistake by a great power is merely an episode. However, for a small state of 4 million people like Israel, a mistake is a tragedy.

Those of us who have long cherished and admired an independent state of Israel want to see tragedy averted. That is precisely why a policy based on a continued refusal to negotiate is wrong. It would be wrong for either the U.S. or Israel to assume that stance.

John B. Anderson, a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Illinois for many years, was an independent candidate for president of the United States in 1980. He joined the board of directors of the Council for the National Interest on Sept. 8, 1990.