Focus on Arabs and Islam

The National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) announced August 5 that it had obtained additional investigative documents under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit filed in 1980 that raise questions concerning the granting of a high-level security clearance to Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy Stephen Bryen. Among other things, the documents indicate that each of the members of the original investigative team recommended the empanelling of a grand jury to investigate fully charges first brought against Mr. Bryen by Arab-American Activist Michael Saba, who told authorities he had personally heard Bryen offer classified military information to Israeli officials. [Michael Saba's The Armageddon Network, a book describing the Bryen incident and subsequent investigations of high-level espionage and the stealing of U.S. technology secrets and markets for Israel is available from the American Educational Trust at $7.95 per copy or two copies for the list price of $9.95.].

NAAA scheduled a 10:30 a.m. news conference August 12, in the Murrow Room of the National Press Building in Washington, D.C. to release its findings in full. Copies of the documents may be obtained from NAAA's national headquarters in Washington, D.C. by calling (202) 467-4800. NAAA officials said Representative John Conyers (D-MI) [See below and Update on Congress on page 6 for more information about Conyers and his long-standing support of minority rights.] has expressed interest in holding hearings on the Bryen case, and urged concerned Americans to contact their Representatives in Congress to urge them to support Rep. Conyers and to push for a complete airing of the questions surrounding Mr. Bryen's security clearance.

Elections by both the National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) top the developments of the past month. At the conclusion of its recent convention in Washington, D.C., NAAA's board of directors elected a new slate of officers headed by Peter S. Tanous, the new president of NAAA. The association's other officers include: Adeeb G. Sadd, Executive Vice President; Jean Abinader, Vice President; Albert Phillips, Vice President; Louay Sharif, Vice President; W. Robert Courey, Secretary; and Thomas S. Abraham, Treasurer. Each of NAAA's officers serves a one-year term.

Meanwhile, ADC recently announced the election of Abdeen Jabara, a prominent Detroit-based civil-rights lawyer, as the organization's new president. The position was formerly held by ADC's national chairman, James G. Abourezk, who will continue as national chairman. Jabara, who has been a member of ADC's Executive Board since the organization's inception in 1980 and who has served as the board's vice chairman for the past year, is scheduled to assume his duties as president in late September.

On July 16, the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Criminal Justice heard several ADC witnesses, among others, describe in detail the climate of "Arab bashing" in which attacks against Arab Americans have taken place. In a packed, day-long hearing before the House criminal justice subcommittee, over a dozen witnesses testified that Arab Americans continue to be objects of stereotyping and targets of attack. Rep. John Conyers, Jr., a long-time supporter of Arab-American rights, is chairman of the subcommittee.

The hearing was the result of ongoing efforts by ADC and other Arab-American groups to bring the issue of anti-Arab discrimination and Violence into the political debate in the U.S. Earlier in the year, for example, Arab Americans for the first time were given an opportunity to voice their concerns and fears before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Despite this slowly growing attention, many Arab Americans are skeptical about the vigor with which the government is willing to pursue and publicize cases of Jewish extremist terror. Arab-American suspicions were further raised in early June when it was reported that the FBI had dropped its investigation into the murder of Alex Odeh, ADC Southern California regional director, in his office last October. Conyers himself said one reason for the House subcommittee hearing was to "bring the FBI into the real world of catching criminals and murderers." At the hearing, however, the FBI told the panel that there were several Jewish extremist suspects and that the Odeh case had top priority among domestic terrorism cases.

Alex Odeh's widow, Norma, summed up the frustrations of many Arab Americans when she told the subcommittee that "while our government apprehends terrorists halfway across the world, it seems helpless in the face of domestic terrorism directed against Arab Americans."

ADC continued its consumer boycott against Haagen Dazs ice cream, initiated after its chairman, Rueben Mattus, was quoted in a Village Voice, article as saying of the Jewish Defense League (JDL): "If they needed money, I gave it." ADC sent several letters asking Mattus to renounce the JDL to the Pillsbury corporation, owner of Haagen Dazs. In response, Pillsbury executives attempted to play down Mattus' role at Haagen Dazs and minimize Mattus' involvement with the JDL, stating that he had made a "modest contribution eight or nine years ago" to JDL Founder Meir Kahane.

After speaking with a JDL co-founder and looking at other sources, ADC discovered that in 1972 Mattus gave some $25,000 to Kahane for the creation of a JDL training school in Jerusalem. The school, which closed after one summer of operation, provided training for JDL leaders and cadres sent to college campuses in the U.S. According to the ADC, Mattus and four other strong supporters of the JDL raised between $250,000 and $300,000 for the school.

ADC's boycott began on June 7 with Arab Americans distributing leaflets outside Haagen Dazs stores in several cities, including Washington, Chicago, Detroit and San Francisco. In Los Angeles, Arab-American protesters were assaulted and threatened on June 21. An Arab American was assaulted in Washington on June 7 while he was distributing leaflets.

The consumer protest has been widely covered in the media and has received support in many parts of the United States and Canada. But to see how much more lively and widespread debate on the issue of Jewish terrorism is in Israel than in the United States, one need only read the most recent ADC Times newsletter. It reports that Yoav Karny, the New York correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, stopped eating Haagen Dazs ten months ago in protest over the Mattus-JDL link.

—By Anthony B. Toth

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

Focus on Israel and Jews

Israel has been unjustly accused of being a major arms supplier to South Africa, according to a recent report issued by the B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation and edited by Rabbi Stanley Ringler. The rabbi said the report was published to counter "the insidious propaganda about Zionism and ... the alleged South African-Israeli alliance" being circulated on American college campuses. (Hillel is a Jewish student organization that has branches on most campuses with sizeable Jewish populations.)

The B'nai B'rith report points out that both the Congressional Research Service and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute have said that Western nations, particularly France, have provided the Pretoria regime with the most arms. Moreover, according to a United Nations Security Council document, the U.S., Britain, France, West Germany and the Netherlands—not Israel—are the major nations that have helped South Africa develop a nuclear program.

Robert Whitehill, a Washington attorney, told readers of the Washington Jewish Weeklast month that Israel was not the only Middle East country trading with South Africa. "Despite their pretensions of boycotting the apartheid regime in Pretoria, both Iraq and Iran have recently entered strategic barter arrangements with the Republic of South Africa, the net value of which totals nearly two billion dollars," he wrote, quoting European trade and finance publications. "Only one state in the Middle East has been criticized for dealing with the Pretoria regime," he continued. "That state is Israel."

While some U.S. Jewish publications have been busy trying to minimize Israel's trade relations with South Africa, a number of prominent Israelis are angry that their government has not been more vociferous in condemning apartheid. Victor Shem-Tov, a Member of the Knesset representing the leftwing Mapam party, says that Israel should "take a loud and courageous lead in denouncing the racist regime" instead of just following in the footsteps of the Western European states. And former Israeli Ambassador and Foreign Minister Abba Eban, himself born in South Africa, criticized Israeli businessmen (like former Finance Minister Yoram Aridor) for investing in the Black "homelands" which help sustain the apartheid system.

South Africa is on the minds of American as well as Israeli political leaders. But the Americans, especially presidential hopefuls like Senator Gary Hart (D-CO) and Vice-President George Bush, are probably thinking more about the upcoming 1988 presidential election.

Hart visited Israel for the first time in July to solidify his "pro-Israel credentials" and to get a first-hand look at the Israeli military machine he so much admires. M.J. Rosenberg, Editor of the AIPAC publication The Near East Report, knew that Hart had what he described as a "100 percent voting record" on Israel. But Rosenberg was worried that the Senator did not really feel for Israel and just supported it as a "strategic asset" to the United States. However, after spending five days traveling with Hart in Israel, Rosenberg reports he is convinced that like New York Governor Mario Cuomo, Congressman Jack Kemp (R-NY) and Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE)—all possible contenders for their parties' presidential nomination in 1988—Hart too really cares about Israel.

—By 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.