Americans for a Safe Israel panel denounces accords
Date: May 26, 1994
Publication: Jewish Journal
Author: Suzanna Spiro

BEFORE A STANDING ROOM ONLY crowd at Temple Beth Sholom in Miami Beach, speakers at a program by Americans For A Safe Israel (AFSI) denounced the peach process between Israel and Arab nations and asserted opposition to the return of territory held by Israel.

"Far from being a burden or a curse, the disputed territories, certainly the West Bank and the Golan Heights, are essential to the survival of the state of Israel," said Frank Gaffney, Jr., a former assistant secretary of defense.

Gaffney, director of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. also noted that these territories contain 70 percent of Israel' s water resources. "If you don't have water, that has strategic implications." Dr. Rael Jean Isaac, author of two books and various articles on Israel, told the crowd the world could learn how Arab countries might honor peace treaties with Israel by paying more attention to Egypt, which she said has not lived up Camp David Accords.

Isaac's findings brought sounds of indignation from the audience. The treaty, she said, included a "cultural agreement which was to change the `demonization' of Israel" by the Egyptians. Today, however, "Only Iran competes with Egypt in the dissemination of anti-Semitic propaganda."

She mentioned news stories that state Jews are responsible for the spread of AIDS, and are guilty of bombing the World Trade Center but have made it look like Arabs did it. In one article, an Egyptian tour guide "wrote of the unbearable odor given off by Israeli tourists."

"Egypt's hostility toward Israel has not changed," Isaac said.

Israel pretends that all is well with the treaty, Isaac said, but the Arabs know the truth, and that creates a credibility problem. "The Arabs learned that Israel was just interested in pieces of paper. The Israeli leaders don't expect you to do what you promise to...And the PLO makes the Egyptians look good."

What American Jews can do now, Isaac said, was to "stop celebrating what is happening as a peace process, urge our government not to underwrite the PLO, and support those in Israel trying to stop the step-by-step dismemberment of Israel, especially the settlers."

Speaking as "a non-Jew, non-Arab, non-Moslem," Dr. Walid Phares, professor of international relations at Florida Atlantic University and president of the World Lebanese Organization, decried the "all-out war Islamic fundamentalists are waging against all minorities in the Middle East."

Israel is the first target, he claimed, and the one with which we are most familiar. But he went on to describe the "slaughters we don' t hear about, of minorities struggling for self-determination." He mentioned the Lebanese Christians, Copts, Kurds, Assyrians and Sudanese Christians.

"I know Mr. Arafat," declared Phares. "Lebanon signed 103 cease fires with him in five years."

"My call is to include the other players, the other victims in the Middle East," he said.

Dr. Irving Moskowitz, who writes a weekly column on Jewish affairs which appears in various newspapers, talked about the "very serious threat to your future, your children's future and your grandchildren' s future.

"What you're hearing tonight is a warning that, if you don't heed, ...history will deal with us very harshly....Anyone in Israel who talks about the withdrawal from the Golan Heights is endangering Israeli security. The government was elected on a platform [different from what] they're carrying on today. You can't lie and stretch the truth on the security of Israel."

Bernice "Bunny" Horowitz is a founder of AFSI's one-year-old south Florida chapter, and its current president. The group has about 150 members, she said. Horowitz was reached for comment after the program, and after a new round of violence in the disputed territories. "I think it's going to get worse," she said. "And I'm deeply, deeply troubled and sad."

Suzanna Spiro, Americans for a Safe Israel panel denounces accords. , Jewish Journal, 05-26-1994, pp PG.