Crucial Issues in the Mideast

The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious things; yea, she [Jerusalem] has seen the nations invading her sanctuary … (Lamentations 1:10).

Since King David chose Jerusalem for his royal abode and brought the Ark of the Covenant within its walls, the Holy City has been the focal point of man’s longing for the presence of God. It is ironic that the citadel of holiness has changed hands twenty-five times, has been partly or wholly destroyed eighteen times, and has almost continually served as a battleground for warring nations.

Today Jerusalem, site of many of mankind’s most sacred shrines, is an open city, where Christian, Jew, and Muslim worship in tacit—if not gracious—toleration. Yet to this 1970 pilgrim to the Holy Land, Jerusalem stands as the symbol of a holy yearning for peace and mutual understanding between religio-ethnic cultures that ever seem just beyond grasp. It was abundantly clear to the sixty religion editors and writers on a ten-day tour of the Holy Land last month that our host, the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, wanted us to come away with the impression that Jew and Arab alike are “pursuing normalcy.”

Yet nothing could have been clearer to an observer that—despite sincere and sometimes sacrificial efforts—Israelis and Arabs are drifting irreversibly toward another round of war. And the United States and the Soviet Union are caught in the unbridgeable gap dividing the two. Here in the United States, American foreign policy as it affects Israel is, after Viet Nam, the most discussed topic in diplomatic quarters.

American diplomats would like to pursue an “even-handed” or “hands off” policy. But it is going to be very difficult to avoid even greater involvement. The Middle East is a potential powder keg. Although all-out war had not broken out, several days after our return, Israel and Syria waged the heaviest fighting since the Six Day War of 1967. Meanwhile, President Nixon announced that, while he was not partial to either side in the conflict, he would decide by the end of this month how many more weapons the United States would sell to Israel. In Israel, persons I talked to agreed that American prestige and influence are at an all-time low. Most expect them to deteriorate further.

The roots of the Middle East struggle reach, of course, far into antiquity. Deep-seated enmity between Jews and Arabs has been nurtured by sporadic clashes ever since the Crusades. To the Holy Land pilgrim of 1970, Israel displays a panorama of striking contrasts.

It is, first of all, a land of religious rivalry. In Old Jerusalem, the tourist can see within a few yards of one another pious Jews praying at the Western Wall, Christian pilgrims making the Stations of the Cross along the Via Dolorosa, and Muslims flocking to the Mosque of Omar in response to the shouted call to prayer from a minaret.

Only in Jerusalem could an Australian Christian touch off a major Jewish-Muslim furor by setting fire to a Muslim mosque a few yards from the holiest shrine of Jewry (see News, page 35). The act by Denis Michael Rohan, who has been confined to a Jerusalem mental hospital for an indefinite period, showed the “tragic, latent hostility between the Muslim-Arab world and the Jew,” an Israeli official told me. Our group was allowed to visit neither the Al Aksa Mosque nor the Mosque of Omar, which stands on the traditional site of Solomon’s Temple.

Israel’s population is about three million, small by American standards. About 12 per cent of the people are Arabs, with another million Arabs in the occupied territories. At least 80 per cent of Israel’s 100,000 Christians are Arab. The Christian population roughly divides into three components: Roman Catholics, with three major hierarchies—Maronite, Latin, and Greek; Greek Orthodox; and others, including Copts, Syrians, Anglicans, Protestants, and sect groups. Israel is outwardly very religious: more than 90 per cent of its Jews acknowledge their religion by attending the synagogue on Yom Kippur. Yet secularism is making inroads; a long-time Haifa resident told me that perhaps 80 per cent of Israel’s population is actually “secular” rather than orthodoxly religious in orientation. While there are about 220 kibbutzim (communal living centers) in Israel, only fourteen are avowedly religious in character. “Jews and Christians now face a common enemy in secularism,” observed an Orthodox Jewish lawyer who recently immigrated to Jerusalem from the United States.

Second, Israel is a nation that is waging war and peace at the same time—on different fronts. We saw honest efforts by the Israeli government to bridge the widening gap between Arab and Jew. Although it received only the barest press notice, a group of Orthodox Jews and Muslims met for prayer together shortly after the Al Aksa Mosque fire in an attempt to soothe the ensuing political uproar. Several schools are flourishing in Jerusalem and elsewhere—at least one under Christian auspices—to teach Hebrew to Arabs and Arabic to Jews. A “reconciliation” project that would include a model village for peace is in formative stages.

Israeli officials are nonetheless worried about polarization of forces. This was painfully acute at a luncheon in Nazareth, where the city’s mayor, Moussa Kteily, and Bishop Joseph Raya, head of Greek Catholic (Melkite) Christians in the Galilee District, tangled over whether 33,000 Arab citizens in Nazareth (practically the entire population) are accorded full rights of citizenship. “I see fire inside Galilee … from one end to the other,” charged the bishop, citing what he called “indiscriminate punishment” of Arabs because of terrorist bombings.

The mayor and the Jewish consulate-general of Israel insisted to the religious newsmen that the general picture is “peaceful collaboration.” Perhaps both statements contain truth: Israeli policy has a soft sell and a hard sell. The soft side is to interfere as little as possible in the day-to-day administration of occupied areas. Bridges are kept open across the Jordan River, allowing workers and produce to flow between Israel and King Hussein’s Jordan. “See how you can come and go freely, any-where,” several guides pointedly told us. We were aware of Israeli troops in copious numbers at strategic points throughout our tour, but they were unobtrusive. None of our group was interrogated at any of the roadblocks through which we had to pass; we heard no gunfire, saw no incidents of violence.

But there is the hard line of Israeli policy—intended to discourage subversion. The two main weapons are blowing up the houses of those guilty of terrorist acts—and those thought to be their accomplices—and deporting “undesirables” whose political views are considered incompatible with Israeli policy. Nobody knows for sure how many dwellings in occupied Arab areas have been blown up (Israeli military spokesmen prefer to say “demolished”) since the war of June, 1967. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan says 516; Arab leaders claim 7,500. The practice is defended by Israeli military authorities as having been practiced by the British during the Palestine mandate prior to 1948 as an effective deterrent to terrorism (Israel does not impose capital punishment). At this juncture however, civil rights and individual justice collide with Israel’s twin watchwords: security and patriotism.

Meanwhile, life in Israel does approximate normalcy—within the heartland. Some 90 per cent of terrorist activities occur near the borders. Life is near normal if war at the borders is assumed to be a way of life. As a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said: “The borders here are less safe than the United States’, but the cities are more safe.”

“If the Arabs realize Israel is a very strong state and can’t be conquered,” said Mrs. Yael Verod, head of Israel’s Middle East Division of Foreign Affairs, “then they will realize that to wage war is useless.” But so far, the Arab states have not “realized” this. Israel finds itself, to cite a third major contrast, as a nationalistic heartland in an increasingly internationalized region.

The existence and sovereignty of Israel are not even debated by most Israelis today. More than one Jew told me: “The security of Israel cannot be negotiated.” Blustered the head of an Orthodox-related kibbutz near the Sea of Galilee: “The place for every Jew eventually is in this country.” And Moshe Kol, minister of tourism, said: “We think Jerusalem should have the right to continue to be the capital of the new united Jewish state.… We want to negotiate, but first of all they have to be ready to talk to us.”

Almost no Israeli disagrees with the government policy that there must be a negotiated peace with the Arabs before there can be any withdrawal from occupied lands. Arab nations insist there can be no movement toward a settlement until the Israelis withdraw from the Arab territories they occupied in 1967. Both sides seem to be digging in for a long war of attrition.

The price of secure boundaries—if, indeed, they can be made secure—is high. About 20 per cent ($571 million) of Israel’s Gross National Product is spent on defense, or some 40 per cent of its current budget. “That’s our life insurance to keep alive,” declared Michael Pragai, ecclesiastical-affairs director.

Israel is a proud little nation, spurred by Zionism and the flush of success in the amazing six-day conflict. The people are identity conscious, patriotic to the hilt. The memory of Auschwitz doesn’t die easily. The Jewish people firmly believe that Israel is the essential land of refuge. To destroy Israel is to repeat the holocaust. I was struck by the fervor of some ad-libbed verses to the civil-rights song, “We Shall Overcome,” sung by a crowd of young Israelis in a Jerusalem nightclub: “Moshe Dayan will lead us to Cairo, will lead us to Cairo,” they sang. And then: “Moshe Dayan will lead us to Moscow … someday … Israel must stay forever free.”

Encapsuled in the Hatikvah, the Jewish national anthem, are the words:

So long as still within our breasts

The Jewish heart beats true,

So long as still towards the East,

To Zion, looks the Jew,

So long our hopes are not yet lost—

Two thousand years we cherished them—

To live in freedom in the land

Of Zion and Jerusalem.

Yet the Arab living within Israeli territory also has a wistful, if less articulate, dream. As our tour members walked through the ancient city of Acre, which Napoleon Bonaparte was unable to conquer, an Arab youth wheeled his bicycle through the muddy street. Recognizing us as American tourists, he spouted out the few words of English he knew. “To be or not to be,” he said proudly.

That is the question Arab and Jew are asking themselves—and each other.

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