Focus on Arabs and Islam

A delegation of Arab Americans assembled by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) traveled to Syria in early August in an attempt to free American hostages held in Lebanon. Led by ADC National Chairman James Abourezk, the delegation met with Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, Vice President Abdul Khalim Khaddam and other top Syrian political leaders. Although the Arab Americans sought to enter Lebanon to meet with those holding the Americans, the captors did not respond to their request to do so.

ADC's effort to free the hostages began in the spring and continued through the summer with the collection of signatures on petitions circulated around the country. ADC President Abdeen Jabara said the petitions contained signatures from some "30,000 Arab Americans and Arab Canadians who made a humanitarian appeal for the release of the hostages." The signatures, he said, were given to the Syrian government for transfer to the captors "only after the mission found it too difficult to establish direct communication with the captors." Jabara expressed the appreciation of the Arab Americans for the Syrian government's help in seeking to open "channels of communication between the delegation and elements in Lebanon."

The delegation, which was in Syria from August 9 to 13, included, in addition to Senator Abourezk and Mr. Jabara, Archbishop Joseph Taweel, Metropolitan Philip Saliba, Father John Badeen of Texas, Joseph Rahal of Toronto, ADC Development Director Wafa Nasr, and ADC National Board members Harold Samhat and Dr. William Mansour.

Jabara said that ADC will continue its efforts on behalf of the hostages and a delegation would return to the Middle East "should conditions warrant." Jabara concluded his statement with an admonition:

During our mission to Syria, both southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa valley were subjected to Israeli bombing raids which did not appear to be in response to any particular provocation. Such bombing raids, which continue to wreak death and destruction on dozens of innocent men, women and children, are a grave roadblock to the safe release of the hostages. We would hope that our own government will use its considerable influence to press Israel to halt these attacks.

On another front, ADC is adding a new twist to an old story. For years Israel has pressured the United States and other countries to extradite persons accused of "crimes against humanity" committed during World War II. Now Israel has announced that Major General Amos Yaron is to be its military attache in the United States. Yaron was Israel's military commander in Beirut during the 1982 Israeli occupation, and the Israeli government's Kahan Commission found that he neither told his superiors that a massacre of Palestinians was underway in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps nor tried to stop the Phalange forces that were perpetrating the massacre. The number of dead, many of them women and children, was estimated at between 700 and 2,000.

ADC has asked that the U.S. not allow Yaron to enter the United States. In addition, ADC stated in an August 5 telegram to U.S. Government officials that the U.S. has "an absolute obligation to prosecute Maj. Gen. Yaron for the commission of such grave breaches should he set foot within the U.S. territorial jurisdiction." The telegram noted that the massacre victims were "protected persons" under the Geneva Convention and that Yaron was guilty of "grave breaches" under two articles of the Convention.

"in order to be consistent with the U.S. government's long-standing policy of deporting acknowledged Nazi war criminals," the telegram continued, "the U.S. must not allow an Israeli war criminal officially recognized as such by an Israeli governmental commission to enter our territory and to assume and conduct diplomatic functions."

As was reported in last month's column, the National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) has obtained a new batch of documents from the Justice Department relating to the case of Stephen Bryen, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy. The FBI investigated in 1978 a complaint by former NAAA Executive Director Michael Saba that he heard Bryen offering classified military information to Israeli officials in a Washington restaurant. Bryen left his staff position with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the investigation.After the head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division decided against bringing Bryen before a grand jury, NAAA filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit to obtain documents relating to the investigation.

NAAA received the most recent documents in exchange for an agreement to drop future legal action on the subject. Now NAAA hopes that the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, chaired by Representative John Conyers (D-MI), will hold hearings and possibly shed new light on Bryen's activities. It is urging voters to contact their own Congressmen to request that they ask Conyers to call such hearings.

When it released the Bryen documents on August 12, NAAA urged that the Pentagon revoke the security clearance of Bryen because the newly released material was not available to the Defense Department when Bryen's background was being checked. The Justice Department says it lost hundreds ofpages of documents relating to the Bryen investigation, but under pressure brought by the NAAA suit, the department located them.

Now the ball is in the Pentagon's court, but unless the planned hearing in Conyers' subcommittee bears fruit, it is unlikely that Bryen will be asked to leave his sensitive job.

More than 1000 members and guests attended the Fifth National Covention of the El Bireh Palestine Society, whose American members trace their roots to the Muslim town of El Bireh north of Jerusalem. Speakers at the August 15 to 17 meeting in Dearborn, Michigan included former Illinois Congressman Paul Findley, author of They Dare To Speak Out, Master of Ceremonies Rafeek Farah, President of the El Bireh Michigan chapter which hosted the event; El Bireh Society President Hasan Hasan; Film Producer Tito Howard; Dr. James Zogby of the Arab American Institute; Hasan Abdul Rahman of the Palestine Liberation Organization Information Office in Washington, D.C.; Dr. Hatern Husseini representing Al Fatah, Reyad Mansour representing the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP); Fouad Rafeddi representing the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); Osama Siblani, editor of Sada al Watan, a Detroit Arabic language newspaper; Nasir Arouri, former president of the Arab American University Graduates (AAUG); and Sheikh Muhammad Musa of the Dearborn Mosque.

New officers elected included President: Izzedin Naser; Vice President. Ahmad Attalla; Executive Secretary: Fouad Rafeddi; Treasurer: Wasfi Bahur; Recording Secretary: Ziad Sarsur; and Secretary of Education: Rafeek Farah.

The group adopted a resolution naming the PLO as "sole and legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people, awarded scholarships for study at West Bank colleges to West Bank students, and provided a grant to the secondary school in El Bireh to purchase instructional equipment. The El Bireh Palestine Society's next national convention will be held August 16 to 18, 1987, in New York City.

—By Anthony B. Toth

Focus on Jews and Israel

In a recent series of articles on the "special" U.S.-Israeli relationship which appeared in the Washington Post, journalist Charles Babcock quotes Richard Straus, a former lobbyist from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) saying "this relationship is so close that Israel is almost like a 51st state." Babcock adds that some pro-Israeli activists believe statehood would actually be a disadvantage because Israel would then have only two senators instead of the bloc of more than 50 senators who support it now.

What does the future bode for the "special relationship?" AIPAC executive director Tom Dine thinks the two nations will be drawn together even more closely. And he hopes that Israel will formally become one of America's "equal partners," like the NATO allies. But there is at least one American Jewish leader apprehensive about the future of U.S.-Israeli relations. Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, a professor of religion at Dartmouth College and an Honorary President of the American Jewish Congress, believes Americans could become less supportive of Israel and of American Jews' staunch defense of the Jewish state, if Ariel Sharon or Meir Kahane were ever elected prime minister.

Writing in Present Tense, a quarterly magazine published by the American Jewish Committee, Hertzberg argues that Jews "do not yet know the limits of the new flexible American consensus." This "new consensus" on cultural pluralism has made it possible for ethnic minorities to express sentimental attachment to their "home country" without being subject to accusations of dual loyalty. But Hertzberg warns that "it is against nature and reason to presume that there are no limits" to the consensus.

While Hertzberg and most other American Jews are terrified even thinking about Meir Kahane one day becoming Israel's prime minister, both the U.S. State Department and the Israeli Knesset are trying hard to strip Kahane of his American citizenship. Last October, the State Department issued him a Certificate of Loss of Nationality, It claimed that by assuming a seat in the Knesset, the leader of the right-wing extremist Kach party had voluntarily performed an expatriating act indicating he wished to abandon his U.S. citizenship.

Kahane is appealing the decision. According to Jerusalem Post correspondent Wolf Blitzer, Kahane told the National Press Club last September that if he gave up his citizenship, the State Department "would place great obstacles in (his) path" when he applied for a visa to enter the United States for lecture tours. The lectures in the U.S., of course, are Kahane's principal vehicle for raising funds.

The U.S. recognizes the legal status of "dual nationality," defined as the "simultaneous possession of two citizenships." Some U.S. citizens are also citizens of Israel, Greece, Canada, Italy and other countries. It is extremely difficult for the State Department to deprive an individual of American nationality, even if he or she assumes office in a foreign country or serves in that country's armed forces (although the U.S. does "encourage its citizens to do what is legally possible to avoid military service" in foreign armies). The burden of proof is on the State Department to prove that the dual citizen in question intended to give up his or her American nationality.

Moshe Arens, former Israeli Defense Minister and Ambassador to the U.S., voluntarily relinquished his American citizenship. So did Yehuda Ben-Meir of the National Religious Party. Marcia Friedman, an American feminist who immigrated to Israel and became a Knesset member representing the Citizens Rights Party, did not. The State Department tried unsuccessfully to remove her citizenship in 1982.

There have been very few cases in which the U.S. has stripped Americans of their citizenship against their will. One State Department lawyer told Blitzer that if the Department is defeated in its battle against Kahane, it would probably not be successful with anyone else. Even if Kahane wins, however, anti-Kahane forces in the U.S. and Israel need not despair. A law requiring all Knesset members to give up their non-Israeli citizenship is now being considered in Israel's parliament. If Kahane is unable to enter the U.S. to solicit donations from his friends here, Kach and Kahaneism will no doubt suffer a serious blow.

—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.