Page 8-The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, October 12, 1989
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Jewish news
An independent Community Newspaper serving as a forum for diverse viewpoints
Tishri 14, 5750 - Sukkot — First Day Candlelighting: Montreal 5:53; Toronto 6:18
Diaspora jews
It has; bc,c,n said that people should not wish too hard for things; wishes some limes come true with unanticipated consequences.
For fifteen years Jews in North America have been in the vanguard of those seeking to persuade the Soviet Union to permit its Jewish citizens to emigrate to Israel. Both.Canada and the United States have been especially effective in pressing the Soviets on this .'issue'.
Under Gorbachev the Soviet Union has finally responded to this persuasion. Although it has not flung its doors open completely, Moscow has now made it much easier for Jews to leave by facilitating the exit visa procedures.
The problem is that a clear majority of those Jews now-clamor^r ing to leave wish to go, not to. Israel, but rather to the United States., The United States has had tO; add more personnel to its Moscow offices in order to process the thousands of applications which Soviet Jews are making to go to America, ?
It has been argued by some, that Soviet Jews have an obligation to go to Israel because for years Israel has been instrumental in secui^-ing their departure. The United States, moreover. Cannot be expected to absorb the 300,000 Soviet Jews who would eventually like.to emigrate. It has also been .sugggested that direct charter flights fronl Moscow to Tel Aviv might encourage Soviet Jews to exercise the Israel option.
There is some truth in all these propositions but the obverse side of the coin must alsp be examined. The Jews of the free world who have lobbied for Soviet Jewish emigration over the years do not have the right to force their brethren to go to Israel. The United States, having pressured the Soviet authorities for so long on this issue, cannot merely stand aside or close the door to poten-tiaf immigrants. A country which has taken in hundreds of thousands of Cuban, Hungarian and Vietnamese immigrants can certainly handle the influx of Soviet Jews anticipated.
Jewish communities in North America must assert, their willingness to assist in the absorption exercises that will be necessary in accommodating the new arrivals from the Soviet Union.
Oneof the dubious pleasures of living so close to the United States is the availability of American television. This isclearly a mixed blessing, as evidenced by that unfortunate ABC sitcom, Chicken Soup,.: .' l ■
Jackie Mason, fresh from his one-man Broadway triumph, has shown himself to be a master stand-up comic. His timing, irreverence and delivery on the stage have made him sui generis in his class.
Alas, Chicken Soup does not permit the talented Masonlo deploy his comedic genius to the best effect. The American network has, in its new show, tried in one fell swoop to resuscitate both the fa-mousradio program of the 1940s, Abie's Irish Rose and the 1970s television series Bridget Loves Bernie. Both of these shows had Jewish men in loye with gentile women. - i
Advance PR for the show indicated that the producers Had gone out of their way to create an ethnic comedy which would offend neither Jew nor gentile. Steve Oney in the New York Times (Sept. 10) says that iiistead of making Mason the stereotype of an aggressive garment deailer peddler, he was nfiade to involve himself in charitable causes. ^ _ ;
The producers have probably succeeded in sanitizing the jjhow, although there are some viewers who may disagree. Howeyer, the critical response of many-Jewish vieVvers is that Chicken Soup is not offensive.
It is merely^embarrassing. . —^
It is not the plot itself which is thrpfoblem. Jackie Mason, the ebjullieht masteiLJof repartee, seems oddly restrained in his new vehicle. The needs of plot and script require the skills of a_oonsum-mate iactor ia-Chickeri Soup. Mason has had few acting roles (Most ' recently in Caddyshack II) but his profile has not been very distinguished.:/
An ABC executive was quoted as saying, "This show won't float in the"middle. It will either be a huge hit or it will utterly sink."
Jackie Maison's Chicken Soiip needs a lifeboat:
.'By ' r SHELDON KIRSHNER
I.sraei's nonnally quiet border with Jordan has been comparatively ten.se of ■' -late;;;-
The usual stillness that prevails along Israel's longest frontier With a neighboring ,A,rab .state' has -been broken on sey eri occasions so tar this year..; ,' ■
A source of concern to Jewish set-■ tiers in the iush Jordan Valley arid the arid Araya region, these incidents have run the gamut from, guerrina infiltrations to ambushes against anny patrols •On March .17. an Israeli .sergeant was killed, arid a Bedouin^ tracker wounded, when infiltrators fired on their jeep just south of the Dead Sea. :
•On March 18, two Israeli soldiers were wounded in aclash with guerrillas near the settlement of Ein YahaV, just north of Eilat.
•On May 2-7, a Jordanian soldier who had crossed the border exchanged fire with an Israeli patrol, wounding two soldiers, before being shot and -killed:
•On Aug. 8, a Jordanian soldier fired on several people on Kibbutz Lo-tan; then held an American woman hostage; He was mowed down by Israeli commandos. ::
•On Sept. 7, several Katyusha rockets ia'ndedin fields in the northern Jordan Valley, causing no damage. Israeli officials described it as the first such attack^ince June oj 1369. ,
•On Sept. 17, Israeli and Jordanian patrols fired at each other near Kibbutz Ashdod Yaacov, during wHieh twb Israelis and one Jordanian were wounded.
•On Sept: 21, two armed Jordanians were captured near Sodom.
^Palestinian infiltrators had been active even before this latest flurry of crbss-horder activity. In May of 1988, the Israeli army foiled an attempt by three Palestinians to infiltrate Kfar, Ruppin, near the banks of the Jordan
.....-River; In this Clash, one guerrilla was
wounded and captured, while two others fled back into Jordan.
On Dec. 24, 1987, an Israeli patrol captured a healvily-armed band of guerrillas around Kibbutz Maoz Haim, not far from Kfar Ruppin.
These border violations have come as a surprise, if not as a shock, to Israeli settlers, government ministers and senior army officers because they had all biit stopped in the wake of the 1970-71 civil war in Jordan.
. Befbre King Hussein's Arab Legion cracked down_on the Palestinian guerrilla movement arid destroyed its base ' in Jordan, the PLO had set up camps throughout, the country and had launched numerous raids on Israel; ,
These assaults, taking the form of infiltrations across the narrow Jordan River and rocket firings, peaked in / 1968, 1969 and 1970, at a time when the Israeli army was fighting an increasingly costly war of attrition along the, Suez Canal in the Sinai Peninsula;
t]ieir: frequency ^and ferocity dwarfed those which had taken place ia the :1950s., y ' , .Israel reacted by staging reprisals, and this retaliatory policy, which was <>ftenr:; deplored and condemned by Western countries, placed the usually sensible and cautious King Hussein in a quandary.
He knew that acquiescing to Palestinian military operations^against Israel from Jordanian territory would provoke a fierce Israeli response. The Israelis had warned him many. times that he was taking great risks by tolerating the guerrillas. But King
Jordan's King Hussein...heeding Israel's warnings.
Hu-ssein effectively ignored the warnings because of the guerrillas' immense popularity in the Arab world. He did not want to be out of step with Arab views on that issue.
By hewing to, the Arab consensus, King Hussein increased his stature in the. Arab world — but exposed his desert kingdom to Israel's wrath; The economie;price of Jordan's, fidelity to-pan-Arab policy was high, as Israeli forces took harsh measures against the Palestinians: Jordanian farms in the Jordan Valley which lay astride PLO bases, as well as towns harboring the guerrillas, were hit hard.
King Hussein took action against the PLG^-when it finally dawned on him that the Palestinians were .subverting
. his riation. Despite a half-hearted Syrian invasion of northern Jordan, \vhich
-was repelled by a combination of Jordanian air power and Israeli and U.S. threats, King Hussein clamped down on the Palestinians.
0 Occupied tjy Israel
J Dead Sea
JORDAN
Israeli army clashed With guerrillas near Eih Yahav.
By driving the PLC out of Jordan,, two-thirds of whose population consists of Palestinians, K:ing:pussein brought a measure of stability and tranquility to his Country;. Israel breathed a sigh of relief, glad that he had purged the
PLO..-V; — '^
Burned by his brush with Palestinian radicalism, King Hussein has kept the Palestinians at bay for almost the piaist two decades, not permitting them tQ use Jordan as a launching pad for raids on Israel. In the meantime, the PLO established itself in Lebanon. Since 1971, Jordan's vigilance has paid off, but the border cannot be sealed off completely.
'Realizing that no border is totally impenetrable, Israel has reacted eautious-lyio the spate of recent incidents along the Jordanian frontier, which extends from die Sea of Galileo the Red Sea.
Israel has tightened security i but has not retaliated; And Israeli leaders have given King Hussein the benefit of the doubt. Conunenting on the Aug. S incident, Israel's chief of
staff, Gen. Dan Shomron, said: "The Jordanian government is doing its utmost to close the border, to block it. But sometimes something could haippen." Asked to respond to the Sept. 7 incident, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said: "The Jordanian authorities mast prevent incidents like this becau.se it is their responsi-"bility. We do hot think that Jordan's policy to keep peace on our border has changed..."
Israel's defence minister, Yitzhak Rabin, has been less diplomatic. On the day SharnirspokevRabin attributed^the increa.se in attacks from Jordan to jthe reopening of the PLO's offices in Am-; man. As Rabin put it: "Jordan cannot act against infiltration, orpretend to act ^ against infiltration, and also openits territory to the activity of the PLO."
Clearly, Jordan — Which is basically weak and underdeveloped —ha.s no interest in provoking Israel, its power-. ful neighbor.
Jordan hds serious economic problemsV Last April, during nationwide riots, eight Jordanians protesting price increases were killed by security forces — prompting King Hussein to replace the prime minister. This harbinger of internal instability is reason enough for King Hussein not to provoke Israel needlessly. , ■'■ :■'^
In any case, Jordan has distanced itself from the Palestinian cause, though not disengaiged itself from it, by severing legal and administrative ties with the West Bank. King Hussein did this on July 31, 1988. ;
It's far from certain thatPLO chieftain Yasser Arafat, who has improved hismercurial relations with King Hussein, would even attempt ta reestablish a military base in Jordan. He is fully aware that King Husseih, who is in Canada this week on a state visit, would.not tolerate it for a minute.
The Palestinian infiltrators who've crossed into Israel from Jordan: par-ticularly in the.past six months, appear' to be anti-Arafat rebels who owe their allegiance to Palestinians such asSaed ' Musa (who planned the, 1983-revolt against Arafat) iand Mohammed Abbas (who masterminded the 1985 Achille: Lauro affair)
' As for the Jordanian soldier who intruded on Kibbutz Lotan on Aug. 8, he appears to have been somewhat, deranged, a loose canon.
Last week, after weeks of apparent indecision, Jordan reinforced its presence along the Jordan and Yar-muk Riveis and in the sensitive triangle where the borders of Israel, Jordan and Syria meet. The Jordanians also cleared.long stretches of the Jordan River bank of thick reeds which have provided cover for the guerrillas. <
King Hussein, who is generally prudent, has finally realized that it's in Jordan's national interest to maintain the peace along its border with Israel.