JANUARY 1993 PUBLISHED BY AMERICANS FOR A SAFE ISRAEL foreign benefactor, the United States, can it be trusted to ARE THE ARABS RELIABLE keep its word to a country upon which it has repeatedly waged war? PARTNERS FOR PEACE? If the Egypt-Israel treaty is the peace agreement Herbert Zweibon that is to be regarded as the precedent for treaties between Israel and the other Arabs, can it be expected that Syrian, Three recent developments raise disturbing new Jordanian, or PLO promises to respect the stationing of questions about the wisdom of Israel signing peace international forces will be discarded a few years later, as treaties with Arab dictators. Egypt is now doing? The Israeli daily Hadashot reports that United The "land for peace" concept is rooted in the Nations investigators have documented numerous Syr- reliability of Arab promises. Israel is the only party that is ian violations of the 1974 Syrian-Israeli disengagement being pressed to make physical concessions, that is, the agreement: Syrian commando units have been sta- surrender of vital territory. The Arabs are expected to make tioned in the town of Kuneitra, near the Syrian-Israel verbal concessions, in the form of promises to be peaceful. border; a battalion of eighteen 122-mm. cannons is For Israel to tie its future to such promises, the Arab world located, illegally, within 20 kilometers of the Israeli bor- would have to be able to point to a solid record of promises der; and 21 ground-to-air missiles (along with eight made and promises kept. missile launchers) have been placed, illegally, within 25 Unfortunately, the Arabs can do no such thing. kilometers of the border with Israel. Their record of adhering to international agreements is a The Los Angeles Times, quoting an investiga- joke. They can offer Israel no reliable evidence that they tion by the U.S. General Accounting Office, reports that will abide by whatever they sign. And that, ultimately, must Jordan transferred U.S. military technology and intelli- be the decisive factor for Israeli policymakers.◊ gence information (which had been given to the U.S. by Israel) to Iraq in late 1990, long after the Jordanians had Herbert Zweibon is chairman of Americans For A promised the U.S. that they would observe the interna- Safe Israel. tional embargo against Saddam Hussein. Finally, the Israeli daily Ha'aretz has revealed that the Egyptian government is quietly pressuring Israel and the U.S. to agree to the removal of United Nations forces that are stationed along the Israel-Egypt border. They were stationed there as part of the 1979 peace treaty, to provide protection for Israel from a surprise IN THIS ISSUE: Egyptian attack. Should Israel stake its survival on treaties signed Another Disappointed Dove ...5 with such regimes? If Syria refuses to abide by the treaty it already Syrian Drug Trafficking ...6 has with Israel, what guarantee is there that it will be more faithful to a second treaty with Israel? Thinking About the Golan ...7 If Jordan will not even keep its word to its primary WHY DEMILITARIZATION CAN'T WORK ...See Page 3 FROM THE EDITOR KUDOS TO THE DARK SHADOWS U. OF NEW HAVEN In February 1993, the University of New Haven OVER EUROPE (Connecticut) intends, in association with the Biotechni- The steely jackboot of fascism is marching across cal Institute in Tel Aviv, to open an extension program in Europe once again. In Germany, Italy, Hungary, and the Israeli city of Elkana, in Samaria. Many American elsewhere, synagogues have been defaced, Jewish universtities have branches or programs in Israel, but cemetaries have been vandalized, and Jews have been the University of New Haven appears to be the first to beaten. Less than fifty years after the Holocaust, neo- establish a division beyond the 1967 borders. Naturally, Nazis are paving the road to the next Auschwitz. One of the University's administrators have pledged that Arabs the editors of a leading U.S. Jewish newspaper got a little as well as Jews will be eligible for admission to the taste of all this during his recent visit to Germany, when he Elkana branch, just as Arabs and Jews are eligible for was pounced upon and roughed up by a Nazi gang. admission to all Israeli universities. Reflecting on the experience in his weekly column, the But that's not good enough for some Israeli editor expressed his longing for Israeli military action extremists, like the Peace Now movement, which has against the Germans. Israel, in other words, is still the 911 appealed to the Israeli government to block the Univer- for Jews everywhere. When the former Soviet Union was sity of New Haven from proceeding. What could be the wracked by ethnic strife, when Yugoslavia crumbled, grounds for objecting to this project? Peace Now spokes- when civil strife tore apart Albania, the Jews in those lands man Amiram Goldblum says the problem is that Arab went to the one place they could call home--Israel. Gov- students might not be admitted to the Elkana university, ernments may come and go, but a concept like Zionism is and therefore the school will be guilty of "apartheid." eternal. There must always be a sovereign Jewish How he can possibly know, in advance, who will be homeland--with enough room, enough military strength, admitted, is unclear. But it is a reminder of the ironic fact and enough independence to withstand all challenges to that it is Peace Now, not the residents of Elkana, that its sacred mission of absorbing Jewish refugees from the favors apartheid. Goldblum and his cohorts want to four corners of the globe.◊ prevent Jews, and only Jews, from living anywhere in Judea and Samaria. If that's not apartheid, what is? Israel desperately needs projects like the New WHY CHRISTIANS Haven-Elkana university. It needs foreign investment, and it especially needs more institutions of higher edu- ARE LEAVING ISRAEL cation to service new immigrants who cannot gain entry Arab propagandists periodically attempt to whip to Israel's overcrowded existing universities. One can up anti-Israel sentiment abroad by claiming that Arab only hope that American friends of Israel will make it Christian emigration from Israel is due to "Israeli persecu- clear to the University of New Haven and its president, tion." That lie has now been decisively refuted by Father Lawrence Denardis, how much they appreciate its ac- ◊ Georges Abou-Khazen, a parish priest in Bethlehem. tions. Writing in the November-December issue of the Italian- language journal Terra Santa, published by the Francis- can church, Father Abou-Khazen declared that the emi- gration of Arab Christians is the result of a campaign by Outpost local Moslems to "Islamicize" the region. Huge sums contributed by Moslem countries have been used to is published by purchase stores in Jerusalem's "Christian Quarter." Mos- Americans For a Safe Israel lems have paid "astronomical" amounts of money to buy 147 East 76 St. Christian homes in Bethlehem. Father Abou-Khazen New York, NY 10021 cited a family in his own parish that preferred to sell to (212) 628-9400 fellow-Christians; within days, local Moslems torched the home. Two Christian shops in Jerusalem were firebombed Editor: Ruth King for the same reason. Has the Moslem intimidation cam- Editorial Board: Erich Isaac, Rael Jean Isaac, paign succeeded? After Father Abou-Khazen's article Herbert Zweibon. Outpost is distributed free of was quoted in the Israeli press, he announced that he was charge to members of Americans For a Safe Israel. not the author and had "no idea" how his name got on the Annual membership: $50. article. Evidently he doesn't want to become the next victim of the Moslem hit squads.◊ Outpost - 2 - January 1993 Turkey into the arms of Germany, agreed. Events changed DEMILITARIZATION national priorities: demilitarization became an obstacle and, for political motives, was terminated in 1936. HAS NEVER WORKED Also in 1923, the Allies and Turkey agreed to demilitarize the frontier between Turkey, Greece and Bernard Smith Bulgaria, to ensure security for Turkey while giving Greece land in western Thrace. That demilitarization lasted 15 Over the years, diplomats, military men, and years, until the Balkan Entente, including Greece and academics have offered their versions of Israel's path to Turkey, allowed the zone to be remilitarized as part of an peace with the Arab countries: surrendering Judea, effort to secure Bulgarian friendship and eliminate the Samaria and Gaza--and lately, parts of the Golan. threat of Bulgarian irredentism. Since the ceding of these geostrategic areas (Furthermore, it is inconceivable that any demili- would seriously endanger Israel's security and very sur- tarized frontier would have prevented the occupation of vival, proponents of retreat need to explain how such a Greece by German and Bulgarian forces in 1941.) vulnerable Israel can protect itself. Enter the concept of Demilitarization's most conspicuous failure as a demilitarization: Israel, they say, will be safe as long as it guarantor of a nation's security occured in 1936, when the cannot be attacked from what would become Arab terri- German Army entered the Rhineland, which had been tory. demilitarized only 17 years before. In 1919, the French Despite its superficial appeal, demilitarization had wanted the Rhineland detached from Germany and has, in fact, been a miserable failure throughout the past made into a buffer state to ensure their security. In century. Although this fact does not seem to deter its addition, they called for its lengthy occupation. But at advocates, it should cause Israelis to demand that the Versailles, the French were forced to accept only a advocates of demilitarization come to grips with one demilitarized zone and Great Power guarantees, which simple, cruel fact: demilitarized territory has always been proved worthless.