Middle East
Sir: Lest the interim agreement between Israel and Egypt (or more accurately. between Israel and the United States, and between Egypt and the United States) lull us into a state of euphoric relaxation, let us remind ourselves that there has been not one iota of change in the central fact of the Middle East conflict, i.e. Israel wants to co-exist with the Arabs, but the Arabs, including Egypt, do not want Israel to exist at all. To claim, as the Arabs now find it expedient to do, and as many (including some Israelis and friends of Israel) wish to believe, that Israel's returning to the 1967 borders and "restoring of the rights of the Palestinians" would bring peace. is to forget that the Arabs first attacked Israel to annihilate her in 1947-48, when there was not one displaced Palestinian nor, of course, 1967 borders. The Arabs. ever since the rise of the Mufti of Jerusalem with Nazi help in the 'thirties, have been remarkably consistent and unanimous, in deed and in word, in their efforts to destroy the Jews of Israel. To dismiss as rhetoric their repeated and insistent declarations of this intent today is reminiscent of the way mein Kampf used to be dismissed in the 'thirties. The difference between Arab 'moderates' and 'radicals' is not in the definition of their goals but in the choice of tactics. The former prefer continuous 'armed struggle', while, the latter are willing to try political and economic. blackmail as well. Private aasurances of peaceful intentions to visiting Western dignitaries notwithstanding, the overriding fact is that all arab leaders have endorsed the PLO as the sole representatives of the 'Palestinian people'. And the PLO programme for Palestine (not the translated versions but the Arabic original) is the closest thing to Hitler's 'final solution' extant. (Among other niceties it promulgates exile for all Jews who arrived after 1917 and their offspring.) Obviously, Arafat has in mind a state as secular as Saudi Arabia, Jordan. Kuwait et at where no Jew may set foot, or as democratic as Syria, Egypt, Iraq et al. where Jews have been persecuted and 'pogromed' for centuries.
With few exceptions, the Western response to the Arab war against the Jews has been one of appeasement. Since 1973, in the face of the oil threat, it has deteriorated into outright capitulation. Instead of blocking the aggressor, who has brought forty years of war to the area and military destruction (surely an easier task than would have been blocking Hitler in 1938) the West has Chosen to sacrifice, piecemeal, the intended victim, in the hope that the beast's appetite would be assuaged before the final gulp. If the West cannot, aS we are told, afford to resist the oil blackmail, why indeed should the Arabs stop at Sinai? Why should they not demand Tel Aviv?
The only thing missing from Dr Kissinger's return from the Middle East was an umbrella, a piece of paper waved in the air and a declaration about "peace in our time."
H. A. Segal 22 Fairholme Gardens, London' NI3
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