Focus on Arabs and Islam

Bishara Bahbah, executive director of the Washington-based United Palestinian Appeal (UPA), had worked late on the evening of June 16. He was the last to leave the fourth-floor offices of UPA just after 7 p.m. About a halfhour later a fire broke out in the UPA offices and a man was seen running from the building. By the time District of Columbia firefighters were able to put out the blaze it had gutted the offices and destroyed files, computer equipment and mailing lists of contributors, the lifeblood of the charitable organization. Bahbah estimates that the fire caused between $60,000 and $100,000 in damage, not counting the lists, on which no price tag can be placed.

The police department's arson squad arrested D.C. resident Andre Francis Richardson, 24, on June 20 in connection with the UPA fire. A police department news release stated that Richardson had been fired by the janitorial firm that serviced the building in which UPA was housed. The department also stated that the suspect was arrested at his home "after a brief foot chase" as a result of "an ongoing investigation."

The UPA is a tax-exempt charitable organization which helps Palestinians on the West Bank and in other areas. The group describes itself as "modeled after the United Jewish Appeal." Last year it disbursed nearly half a million dollars to health service and community development projects. In addition, UPA provided over $200,000 in grants and scholarships to assist needy Palestinian students and to fund research.

Two weeks after the fire, amidst boxes of files and publications in his temporary offices, Bahbah vowed to continue UPA's work despite this serious setback. "We plan to keep going on," he said. "But we can't do it alone. We need help to continue our work."

The National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) honored two members of Congress and a prominent businessman during its National Convention June 22-24 in Washington, D.C. NAAA's second annual Arab-American Friendship Award went to Ali Ghandour, chairman of Alia, the Royal Jordanian Airline, for his work in promoting "friendship between the United States, Jordan, and other Arab countries." Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) was given the Distinguished American in Public Service Award, in part for his "integrity on issues of importance not only to Arab Americans but to all Americans." NAAA presented its Distinguished Arab American Award to Rep. Nick Joe Rahall (D-WV), a Lebanese-American who has represented West Virginia's 4th District since 1976 and is the senior member of the state's House delegation.

Meanwhile, as much of Washington begins its summer slowdown, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) continues its effort to melt the resistance of Haagen Dazs chairman Rueben Mattus. In last month's column we reported that Mattus had told a writer for the Village Voice that he had contributed money to the Jewish Defense League, an extremist organization which boasts of terror attacks against foreign diplomats, Arab Americans, and Christian churches and sects it believes are proselytizing Jews. After this revelation, ADC sent letters to Mattus requesting that he repudiate the JDL's violent activities. Mattus refused, and now ADC is stepping up its efforts. About 250 Arab-American grocers in the Chicago area have given notice to Mattus and Haagen Dazs that they will refrain from carrying the ice cream until ADC's request is honored. According to ADC, Canadian Arabs have also joined the consumer protest. And the word from ADC is that very soon it will release more details about Mattus' financial activities. Stay tuned.

Anthony B. Toth, of Arlington, Virginia, is a freelance writer specializing in US relations with the Middle East

Focus on Israel and Jews

When the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) announced last spring that it would not actively lobby against President Reagan's proposal to sell $354 million in arms to Saudi Arabia, Mideast observers assumed that AIPAC was gearing up for a full-scale attack against the Administration's plans to transfer five AWACS planes to the Saudis.

However, not only did AIPAC fail to mount the predicted attack, it did not even appeal to its friends in Congress to try to delay the planes' delivery!

Whatever happened to the organization widely regarded, by friends and foes alike, not only as the most powerful lobby for a foreign country but perhaps one of the three or four most effective lobbies of any description on Capitol Hill.

AIPAC probably realized, as one congressional source told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, that Congress "has no appetite" for a battle against the AWACS, since it "is an arms sale that has already gone through." (The sale was approved in 1981, in the face of fierce opposition by AIPAC and most pro-Israel Members of Congress.)

The Lobby also probably wanted to avoid alienating Congress and, more importantly, the American people. If the sale had been cancelled, the U.S. would have been forced to return the $3.2 billion the Saudis have already deposited towards the planes. This, after all, is the age of Gramm-Rudmana time when Congress is obsessed with the Government's massive budget deficit. It is also a time of unprecedented cooperation between the U.S. and Israel, and the last thing AIPAC wants to do is arouse the ire of two of Israel's biggest American boosters, President Reagan and Secretary of State Shultz.

AIPAC most likely knew exactly what it was doing by not attempting to block the AWACS delivery. That did not mean, however, that the lobby had nothing to say about the sale. The Near East Report (NER), a newsletter published by AIPAC, claimed in a June 20 editorial that the Saudis do not deserve the planes. The NER accused Saudi Arabia of threatening economic sanctions against Jordan if it negotiates with Israel, of continuing to subsidize the "terrorist" PLO, of pushing Lebanon to abrogate its 1983 peace agreement with Israel, and of providing Syria with money to purchase Soviet arms.

The NER, however, did not denounce President Reagan for certifying to Congress that Saudi Arabia has contributed to the Mideast peace process. Instead, the newsletter took an uncharacteristically soft line, saying merely that it is "hard to understand" how the President could claim that "significant progress" (towards peace in the Middle East) has been accomplished with the substantial assistance of Saudi Arabia."

Throughout the same period the American Jewish community seemed to be less concerned about the AWACS planes for Saudi Arabia than about violent religious-secular confrontations taking place in Israel. Ultra-orthodox Jews had defaced more than 100 bus shelters as a protest against "lewd" advertisements in the shelters—posters of women in bathing suits and "cavorting" with men. Secular militants had responded by destroying Bibles and prayer shawls in a Tel Aviv yeshiva and by daubing swastikas on Tel Aviv's largest synagogue.

The Washington Jewish Week said it was "horrified" at the "open warfare between Jew and Jew" and argued that "religious terrorism perpetrated by Jews is threatening to do more damage to the Israeli polity than the most determined Arab terrorists ever have."

While Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres positioned himself in the middle between the religious and secular extremists, the Jewish Week appeared to be more sympathetic to the secular Jews. Its June 26 editorial said that extremists on both sides should be punished and called upon the Israeli government to end its passive role vis-a-vis those religious Jews who do not support the legitimacy of the State. (The newspaper was referring to groups such as Neturei Karta, which believe the Jews had no right to establish a "man-made" state, but should have "waited for the Messiah to redeem them.")

Tension between Orthodox and Reform Jews in the U.S. is also rising. The role of women in Jewish society is an issue here in the U.S. as well as Israel. On June 17, the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) announced that it was withdrawing from the chaplaincy commission which endorses rabbis to serve as military chaplains to Jews. The RCA was angry that the Reform Central Conference of American Rabbis had unilaterally endorsed a woman rabbi, Julie Schwartz, to serve as an active-duty chaplain. RCA President Rabbi Louis Bernstein said Orthodox Jews "will not recognize a woman rabbi."

—Andrea Barron

Andrea Barron, a PhD Candidate in International Relations at the American University in Washington, D.C., is active in Washington Area Jews for an Israeli-Palestinian Peace and writes frequently about the Middle East.