Mary Appelman

By George F. Smalley

In 1974, when the PLO first indicated it would consider a compromise with Israel by settling for a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish one, a small group of prominent Israelis strongly urged their government to welcome this development as an opening for dialogue between the two sides. When this advice was rejected, the Israeli moderates decided to promote Israel-PLO dialogue themselves by establishing the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace.

About this same time, Mary Appelman in Downers Grove, Illinois was working in a modest way to help Americans understand that chances for peace in the Middle East would be enhanced by simultaneous recognition between Israel and the PLO. But after learning what the Israeli moderates were doing, Mrs. Appelman became convinced that her goals could be pursued more effectively if more Americans realized that there were distinguished Israelis who wanted their government to talk peace directly with the PLO. So in 1981, with the help of others, Mrs. Appelman launched the Israeli Council's "sister" organization in the U.S.: The America-Israel Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, AICIPP (pronounced aye-kip).

"Our aim is to try to focus American attention on the existence in Israel of a peace movement that advocates negotiations with the PLO and mutual recognition between Israel and a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza," explains Mrs. Appelman, chairman of the group.

PLO Wants Peace, Say Israelis

Probably the most successful AICIPP-sponsored activities have been the U.S. speaking tours by Major General Mattityahu Peled (ret.), founder of the Israeli Council in 1975. General Peled, who last year was elected to the Israeli Knesset, has traveled to the U. S. four times in the last two and a half years to tell Americans that PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and other PLO members he and his colleagues—Yaakov Arnon, Uri Avnery, Arie Lova Eliav and others—have met do indeed want peace with Israel. In the view of these Israeli doves, a Palestinian state co-existing with Israel is the way to achieve peace and a more secure Israel.

Recently, AICIPP welcomed Egypt's call for a meeting between the U.S. and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. Mrs. Appelman criticizes the Reagan Administration for refusing to host such a meeting until the PLO recognizes Israel:

"I don't think it's reasonable (for the U.S.) to ask the PLO to unilaterally recognize Israel. Any recognition has to be a mutual one."

But with no paid staff to help get this message out, Mrs. Appelman has to rely on volunteers and her own large reservoir of energy. She concedes that sometimes AICIPP's quarterly newsletter, Voices for Peace, is late in getting to its several hundred members. AICIPP also distributes The Other Israel, the newsletter of the Israeli Council.

Mrs. Appelman sees the work of AICIPP as being "supplementary" to that of older, peace-oriented organizations, such as the American Friends Service Committee. However, she is not discouraged by AICIPP's small size, preferring instead to focus on some public opinion polls that show a majority of Americans support AICIPP's view that a Palestinian state alongside Israel should be created as long as it does not pose a security threat to the Jewish state.

And what about the reaction of mainstream American Jews to AICIPP: "Some think we are naive," Mrs. Appelman says. "But there is increasing concern among Jews about Israel's settlements in the West Bank, and an increasing wish that Israel would take an initiative to test the Palestinian willingness to make peace."

Mrs. Appelman's first exposure to the Middle East came as a child when her father, a foreign service officer, took the family to Lebanon and Morocco. In 1940, at the age of 14, she was brought back to the U.S., and in 1945 she graduated from Vassar College.

Fighting Other Causes in the 60s

Throughout the 60's and early 70's Mrs. Appelman was busy raising her own family. During part of this time she fought for new, fair-housing laws in Chicago, and became active in the protests against the Vietnam war. Mrs. Appelman did not pay more than casual attention to the Mideast until the horrors of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and the 1975 civil war in Lebanon reawakened her interest.

In 1976, she volunteered with the World Without War Council in Chicago and participated in a dialogue group which issued a statement calling for mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO. Mrs. Appelman first met General Peled in the fall of 1977, and it was his influence that led her to launch AICIPP four years later.

A constant in Mary Appelman's life has been her compassion for the oppressed and her determination to fight for just causes. Or, as she puts it, "I sympathize with underdogs."

Mrs. Appelman hopes that in the future Arab American and Jewish American organizations that support the concept of mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO will work together to make it a reality.

George F. Smalley is managing editor of The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.