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The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, October 15, 1987-Page 9
Opinion
Call for peace
r "very enouraging^^ says Meguid
Congress^ove pleases Egypt
■ '-By ■ WOLF BLITZER
WASHINGTON -
Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdul Meguid has warmly welcomed the.latest policy statement issued by the American Jewish Congress supporting the convening of an international peace conference, on the Arab-Israeli conflict (CJN Oct. 1).
He called the AJC statement "a very pleasant surprise" and "very encouraging."
Meguid. who was in the United States to at-tehd.the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, was speaking at a forum sponsored by the Brookings Institute, a prestigious Washington think tank.
For over 90 minutes, he discussed at great length Egypt's policies toward Israel and the peace process. He spoke candidly.and openly before the approximately 100 American and foreign diplomats, .scholars, journalists and Middle East specialists who were in the audience. There were several representatives from the Israeli and Arab embassies in Washington. . A day earlier, he said he had been pleased to read about the AJC decision on the front page of The New York Times. In the statement, the Jewish organization basically endorsed the position of Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and his . Labor Party in favor pf a restricted conference which would quickly lead to direct Arab-Israeli negotiations.
Meguid, an experienced and p>olished diplomat who'had visited Lsrael in July for three days of talks with Peres. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and other ranking Israeli officials, was cautious but hopeful in assessing the prospects for an international conference, He acknowledged the impasse resulting! from the split between Shamir and Peres within the Israeli government.
"We stiU have a long way to go," he said. "But the attitudes taken by Peres, and now by an important mainstream American Jewish organization, were very encouraging.
"While I was in Israel," he said, "I saw that things are moving. I didn't say they are moving fast enough but I am beginning to see an accep- : tance of certain ideas that were taboo a few years" ■ago-"
To back up his point, he recalled thkt, while in Israel, he had read in The Jerusalem Post the text of a speech Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin had earlier delivered in Washington. Rabin^ too, had called for a stepped up effort to promote peace."I was pleased to hear it," Meguid said, "h showed the iirgency of the time factor," ;
He urged patience in trying to bridge existing procedural and substantive differences. "We in Egypt are patient," he said.
He called the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty "one of the main achievements" of the overall peace process. "This peace is there to stay," he said."There is ho way out."
"We know what war means," he said. "Many people in our country have suffered."
He was also encouraged.by the fact that many in the Arab world who originally condemned Egypt's peace policies toward Israer have now concluded that Egypt "was on the right track. They are also looking for peace now."
He describcsd currenit Israeli-Egyptianrela-" tions as "good    . We consider this a normal relationship."
Differences between the two countries remain; he said, but this is by no means unusuaK
Yet he added that the bilateral arrangement between Israel and Egypt was "riot enough." He called on the U.S; to take a more active role in finding a solution to the Palestinian question. • "We hope the U.S. effort willcontinue and bring some results," he said, adding that the exact "ways and: means" should be left to Washington.
"There is a lot of imagination in the administration^" he said, "We wdcome an active role."
While endorsing the principle of direct negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors —\ "after all, we negotiated directly with Israel" — Meguid noted that there was "no way'' that Jordan could embark on such a sti-ategy without first having the "umbrella'' of an international conference.
Meguid repeatedly praised Peres for accepting an international conference as early as September 1986duiing a summit liieeting in Alexandria with Egypdah President Hdsni Mubiarak. At thattime," Peres was still Prime Minister, "we appreciated his response," he said of Peres.
Since then, Meguid continued,"things have been mpving," although "slowly.'_V _ "^ike Peres, Meguid insisted that the international participants at any conference, including . the Soviet Union, should not be authorized to irn-pose a^ettlement'!or agree to any agreement," Instead, he added, Uiey should simply allow the parties to disctiss the issues themselves.
He siaid that the U.S. and Egypt have joined
Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdul Meguid meets Israeli leaders during a recent visit to Jerusalem. [IPPA photo]
Peres in accepting these restrictionson an international conference. "There is a consensus," he
said../,-'
While insisting that he did not want to intervene in domestk Israeli affairs, he noted the spljt inside Israel \'which we regret." He said that Egypt would like to see Israel come up with a "unified position" on the issue.
In this regard, he added. Egypt would welcome a more active U.S. involvement in promotirig the peace process.
Regarding the thorny matter of Palestinian representation at an international conference, Meguid said that only the PLO was authorized "to nominate" appropriate Palestinians. But he added that they should attend as part of a Joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation.
His.carefully phrased remarks left open the possibility that West Bank and Gaza Palestinians who are not formal members of the PLO could
Meguid said diat Egypt was very aware of the frustrations of the Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation. "I hope Mr. Hatem and his friends will not lose patience," he said.
Meguid, while insisting that Egypt's relationship with Israel was "normal," complained about Israel's policies in the West Bank and Gaza. "We condemn that," he said. "I say that very clearly to the Israelis."
But he also noted that Egypt was cooperating with Israel"in some important fields." He also said that there are many official visits between Israel and Egypt.
The agreerneni to send the Taba border dispute to binding international arbitration, he said, was an jmpprtiant step in improving the Israeli-Egyptian relationship. He said that Egypt Was still ready "for an oiit-of-court settlement, if possible."
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be named by the PLO to join a Jordanian team.
Meguid, in response to a qiiestion, said he had recently held a 2'/2 hour discussion with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat in Addis Ababa. He said he enjoyed Arafat's "company." adding that the Palestinians "have a cause and it must be heard and they must be helped."
But he added:"We have differences with the
PLO." ■
Meguid, who repeatedly endorsed UN Resolu-'tion 242 and 338, said he had a very good and frank discussion with 12 West Bank and Gaza Palestinians during his visit to Israel in July. One of them, Hatem Abu Ghazala from Gaza, was in the Brookings audience.
During the question and answer session, Abu Ghazala stood and made a brief statement appealing for movement'in the peace process. "There is a need to talk to opponents," Abu Ghiazala said.
Is new unburnt offering ^^cleaner
By
ELLEN GOODMAN
BOSTON-
When the folks at RJR Nabisco emerged from their bunkers last week to announce yet another breakthrough product, I felt a perverse rush of admiration. How dp they keep doing it?
The health community has been slogging through the trenches in the war against smoking, chipping away at the number of addicts, backing therii into a small, socially unacceptable corral, and out comes RJR with a secret offensive weapon. It's the industry's Battle of the Bulge: the " smokeless'' cigarette.
The product that they are developing is, they, say, a cigarettejhat uses but does not burn tobacco. It's a cigarette that produces no ash and little sidestream smoke. In short, this product is supposedly "safer," although that word is never exhaled by a tobacco man. To say the word "safer'' would imply that regular cigarettes were unsafe. They call it, instead,"the world's cleanest cigarette."
The announcement Is a response to the success of the passive smokmg movement, which has sent smokers into a social purdah. If these new pacifiers do save some beds from burn-uig and some non-smokersMungs from deteriorating, itVaiHo the good. But I suspect that we're actually faihaling a lethal sidestream of false health promises to the smokers.
The history of tobacco's safety claims is hardly reassuring. The cigarette itself was marketed at the turn of the century as a healthy, "safer"
alternative to chewing tobacco, which.spread germs through .spittirig. In the- 1930s.: ads for Camels and Philip Morris boasted that their smoke was less irritating, i.e.. "safer." In the 1950s, after the first major cancer scare, the industry developed filtered cigarettes with slogans like "just what'the doctor ordered." It turned out that one of the things the doctor ordered was asbestos in the Kent micronite filter. '
Today, manufacturers push the notion of low tar, in an attempt to convince people their brand is "safer." And to come full circle, young people are again ingesting tobacco like Skoal in the misguided belief that it's less dangerous than inhaling. All in all, the "safety" record of the tobacco industry now leads to some 350,000 deaths a year.
So what of this new unburnt offering to the public anxiety? Greg Connolly, director of die Massachusetts Office of Non-Smoking and Health, likes to call it "the little Webber grill." We know that this grill piroduces carbon monoxide and nicotine. We know Uiat it contains charcoal, a small amount of tobacco and something mysteriously called a "flavor capsule." Essentially, you suck hot air through that capsule.
Is Uiat safer? I mean, "cleaner?" The carbon monoxide and the nicotine are bad enough for the heart. But the real mystery is in the "flavor capsule."        •.. ■.
The flavor in a cigarette comes from the tar in the tobacco. As you take the tar out, you have to substitute someUiing. In a cigarette with as little tobacco as these, the flavor packet is a bundle
of additives. But what they are, how dangerous, or how dangerous when burned with other additives is anybody's guess because tobacco is a uniquely unregiilated product. It is exempt from control by the Food and Drug Administration, exempt from the Consumer Product Safety Agency. ,
"Can you imagine a food company marketing a new ice cream, saying that it has no calories, no fat, but not telling you what's in it?" asks Beth Whelan of the American Council of Science and Health. "They can put anything they want to in a cigarette."
Scott Ball in of the American Heart Association adds, ironically: "If diere were no tobacco in the product at all, die FDA would be required to regulate it." Indeed the FDA kept a tobacco-less cigarette called Flavor from die market.
There is a bill now before Congress diat would give die government audiority to regulate die additives if not die tobacco itself. A label listing the ingredients in a cigarette — smoke or smokeless — might be spookier diari any warnings.
The average addicted smoker would give anything for a safe cigarette. The tobacco industry has given the addict a promise. Hang on for a while, we have one coming.
If it Is safe, or rather clean, let it be tested and regulated. If not, I would like to offer a name for the new smokeless cigarette. If this is the tobacco industry's last stand, let's call them Custers.
Copyright Washington Post Writers Group
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