—Voices from the Sensible Center—

Interpreting the Middle East for North Americans—
Interpreting North America for the Middle East

Current Affairs

2 Israel: Growing Explosiveness—The Israel that the U.S. will be dealing with in the months ahead has never been more volatile—and its volatility can be explained by ethnic rivalries and political tensions which go back many years.

3 West Bank: "Direct" Culpability—Whatever the argument over Israel's "direct" or "indirect" culpability in the Beirut massacre, its direct role in the harassment of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank became a matter of record after Israel's chief of staff took the witness stand and acknowledged that he had ordered his soldiers to do it.

3 Mideast Arms Aid: The Budget—As usual, Egypt and Israel will receive the lion's share of aid budgeted for the Administration's FY 1984 "International Security Assistance" program. The proposed aid levels for these and other Middle East countries can be found in a chart on page five which accompanies our story.

4 Lobby Activities—A number of children and young adults wounded in last summer's war in Lebanon have finally arrived in the U. S. for treatment—after six months of effort by the ADC. As for American Jewish groups, many of them were working hard to spread the word that the report of the Israeli commission on the massacre was evidence of how democratic Israel is. But the groups were more muted about the news that Sharon would not be leaving the cabinet after all.

Regular Features

2 Editorial—The recent killing of a peace activist in Jerusalem has caused a lot of soul-searching in Israel. But it seems to be an inevitable result of the trend since Mr. Begin came to power.

5-6 Facts for Your Files—A Chronology of U.S.-Middle East Relations Upcoming Events

7 Book Review—Sometimes two books on the same subject by two writers with differing perspectives can add up to an informative feast. We thought this was the case with Jacobo Timerman's The Longest War and Michael Jansen's The Battle of Beirut: Why Israel Invaded Lebanon.

8 Personality—Not too many diplomats would envy someone with the job of explaining the "Arab consensus" to Americans and to the rest of the world. But Ambassador Clovis Maksoud has been doing it for a number of years now, and can tell you the exact degree of the consensus from one day to the next.