Focus on Jews and Israel

By Andrea Barron

Jonathan Jay Pollard, the former US navy intelligence analyst who admitted selling Israel top secret US intelligence information, will go to prison a sad and bitter man. Pollard told Jerusalem Post correspondent Wolf Blitzer that he is "heartbroken" over Israel's failure to come to his defense, and angry with American Jews for refusing to even acknowledge his existence.

Pollard, sentenced last month to life imprisonment, said American Jews "lack the moral fortitude which has characterized our people's concern for one another down through the ages. We've never been a people to shy away from our responsibility to brethren who have been in danger."

But American Jews have not really ignored Pollard; they have, in fact, gone out of their way to criticize him. Pollard has been blamed for straining the US-Israel relationship and for reviving the old "dual loyalty" question: can Jews be loyal Americans and, at the same time, be deeply involved with and supportive of Israel?

Judging from his public statements, it is unlikely that Pollard ever grappled with this issue; the reportedly brilliant analyst with the photographic memory made a clear choice—it was Israel over America.

Pollard felt the US wrongfully withheld important intelligence information from Israel, and he decided to remedy this shortcoming. The information Israel received from Pollard included detailed descriptions of the PLO's headquarters in Tunisia, (which Israel apparently utilized in its October, 1985 bombing of those offices) as well as satellite pictures showing where Iraq and Syria produce their chemical weapons.

Pollard had considered immigrating to Israel, and at some point in the future Israel might request that he be deported to Israel. "We owe him," a member of Israel's "inner cabinet" reportedly said. However, US officials have argued against deportation or early parole for Pollard. They cite his photographic memory and his belief that, since the US and Israel share the same interests, he therefore did nothing wrong.

After watching Anne Henderson-Pollard's tearful recounting of the affair on the CBS program "Sixty Minutes," some Israelis formed a "Citizens for Pollard" committee. Within a week after the Pollards were sentenced, the committee placed newspaper advertisements in Israeli papers which read, in part, "the citizens of Israel should give encouragement and support to the Pollards. They need it and deserve it."

Few American Jews, however, are likely to come to Pollard's defense—at least in public. Pollard has been an enormous embarrassment to them. His sale, and Israel's purchase, of top secret US documents undermines the assertion made by most American Jews that US and Israeli interests are one and the same.

Pollard's actions, wrote Michael Berenbaum, former executive director of the Greater Washington Jewish Community Council, "could have compromised the American-Israeli relationship and brought into question the integrity of all who love Israel passionately and serve America with dedication...." Berenbaum issued a warning to potential Pollard supporters. "Friends of Israel," he wrote in a letter to the Washington Jewish Week, "would be ill-advised to presume that Israel's current status as a 'teflon country' will endure forever."

Jewish leaders were so upset about the Pollard affair that 65 of them traveled to Jerusalem last month to make known their concerns. Morris B. Abram, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, called Pollard's spying "a serious crime," and said he was worried about the "public perception of the official treatment accorded Col. (Aviem) Sella and Rafael Eitan." (Sella and Eitan, Pollard's two chief Israeli "handlers," were both promoted after Pollard's espionage activities were revealed.)

However, Hebrew University professor Shlomo Avineri, a member of the Labor Party and a prominent Israeli intellectual, was far from sympathetic to the concerns of American Jews. In a "Letter to an American Friend," published in the Jerusalem Post, Avineri said that the Americans "must still be in galut (diaspora) if they are so up in arms over the activities of one Jewish spy. For all its achievements and progress," he wrote, "America...may not be your Promised Land."

By suggesting that American Jews can only be truly free in the state of Israel, Avineri contends that the real problem is not the spying activities of Pollard but the "diaspora mentality" of American Jews.

Andrea Barron, a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at American University in Washington, DC, writes frequently on Middle East issues. She is active in Washington Area Jews for an Israeli-Palestinian Peace (WAJIPP) and New Jewish Agenda (NJA).

Focus on Arabs and Islam

By Samir El-Sayed

AAI Conference Addressed by Robert Dole, Jesse Jackson

On March 13-14 in Washington, DC, delegates from 26 states participated in the Arab American Institute's (AAI) third annual national leadership conference, entitled "A Strategy to Win: An American Agenda for Election 1988." AAI's goal is to increase Arab-American participation in the 1988 elections, and at the conference political leaders and activists led workshops on how to conduct voter registration drives, how to bring Arab-American issues to state political party conventions and platforms, and how to become involved in national political campaigns.

Presidential aspirants Rev. Jesse Jackson and Sen. Robert Dole (R-KS) also addressed the conference. Jackson said the Reagan administration's Middle East policy, which relied on military force, was "fatally flawed." He called for an international conference on the Arab-Israeli dispute which would respect "the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including a sovereign state."

ADC Protests Israeli Attache, Anti-Arab Discrimination

Abdeen Jabara, Executive Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), sent a letter on behalf of the ADC to Secretary of State George Shultz, asking that the US withdraw recognition of Major General Amos Yaron as Military Attache to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC.

After the massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in September, 1982, an official Israeli commission of inquiry found that because the massacre took place while Yaron was in command of the area, he was indirectly responsible for it. Although the commission stated that Israeli soldiers did not directly participate in the massacre, Yaron was subsequently stripped of his command.

In his letter to Shultz, Jabara noted that the US had previously denied accreditation to foreign officials who had been involved in gross violations of human rights. For example, ADC's letter states, in February 1977 the US refused a visa to Uruguayan Military Attache-designate Major Nino Gauazzo on the grounds that he had been implicated in the torture of prisoners in Uruguayan jails.

On February 24 the Supreme Court heard separate arguments from ADC and other groups on the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which barred discrimination against individuals based on race. While courts have ruled that Blacks, Hispanics, and even Whites are protected by the Civil Rights Act, lawyers from the ADC contended that Arab-Americans are also entitled to coverage under the statue. In its amicus curiae ("Friend of the Court") brief, ADC supported Majid Al-Khazraji, a sociology professor denied tenure in 1978 by St. Francis College in Lorreta, Pennsylvania.

PHRC Mailgram Campaign

In mid-February the Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) began a mailgram campaign asking Congressmen, the State Department, and the White House to appropriate humanitarian funds for Palestinians in refugee camps south of Beirut who have been under siege for four months by Amal militiamen. Don Wagner, PHRC's Executive Director, expressed the hope that humanitarian action by the US will "present a different face of American foreign policy in the Middle East." In just under one month, PHRC's campaign generated over 1,000 mailgrams.

NAAA Active on Iran-Israel-Contra Scandal

The National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) continues to inform Congress and the media about both the Iran-Israel-Contra scandal and the role pro-Israel partisans such as Michael Ledeen played in creating the scandal and in masking Israel's key role in investigating it. In addition, on March 11 NAAA testified before the House Foreign Affairs' Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East on the administration's proposed 1988 fiscal year foreign aid program. At these hearings, NAAA requested that Lebanon receive special humanitarian aid, and that Lebanon's foreign military debt of roughly $104 million be forgiven. NAAA also asked for an increase in US foreign aid to Jordan, Tunisia, and the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Owing to restrictions placed on foreign aid by Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, foreign aid to Arab recipients has been cut by an average of 40 percent.

Pakistanis Lobby for Closer US-Pakistan Relations

Two US organizations have been working hard to solidify US-Pakistani relations by lobbying on Capitol Hill. On March 5, the New York-based Pakistan Forum of the USA, a Muslim organization, and the Friends of Pakistan Committee met informally with a number of Congressmen from the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs. After the Subcommittee held hearings, members of both organizations joined 2,000 Pakistanis outside the Rayburn House Office Building to support the current US aid proposal to Pakistan. The group's representative noted Pakistan's strategic importance to the US and expressed their support for close US-Pakistani relations. In addition, Zaka Pirzada, chairman of the Washington-based Friends of Pakistan Committee, met with White House Associate Director of Public Relations Rudy Deserra and Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-NY) to express concern over reports that the Reagan Administration had considered lowering aid to Pakistan in fiscal year 1988.

Both organizations will hold a dinner on April 4th to honor Rep. Charles Wilson (D-TX) for his support of Pakistan. The Society of American-Pakistani Professionals will also sponsor a dinner in April for Rep. Walter Jones (D-NC).

Samir El-Sayed is Promotion Director for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.