Dear Editor
Dear Editor Kudos It is always profitable to read The New Leader, but really, 1 was wallowing in pleasure all the way through the Christmas Book Issue (December 5, 1977). I am a retired librarian...
...and (2) safeguarding the national rights of the Palestinian people...
...Unless, of course, Sadat is prepared to settle for a "national rights" formula and refers, now, to a Palestinian (Arab) state for bargaining purposes...
...But a comment by Sadat on Issues and A nswers last July 31 suggests that the current talks with Israel are not at the heart of, say, the Egyptian-Libyan question...
...Lome Michaels and his crew of writers never possessed true comic insight, making the show best when it was satirizing TV itself...
...SNL has had it...
...Congratulations, too, on being included in the Reader's Guide...
...Apparently the Egyptian people and the Army have had enough of sending their solidiers to die in Sinai...
...By the way, please tell John Simon that his review of Caught in the Web of Words made one of his readers a permanent James Murray fan (although I happen to possess The Century Dictionary and rejoice in it...
...both qualities are instead intertwined and integrated to make a most pleasing whole, and I look forward to your contributors' presentations as much as to their thoughts...
...Once Sadat enters normal peaceful relations with Israel, he will be free to lend his good offices to assist Jordan in achieving peace with Israel...
...If it were, the talks could not be taking place and the Middle East would still be caught in the frozen situation represented by the name Geneva, with any moves by Sadat to break the ice barred by the "veto" of Syria, the Soviet Union and the PLO...
...It would, however, be a concession if it withdrew while still a belligerent against Egypt...
...And as between Egypt and Israel, symmetry is represented by mutual pledges to live in peace—in consequence of which Israel would withdraw from territory it held as a belligerent: that is to say, Sinai...
...Sadat is likely to conclude, if he has not already done so, that whatever the reason for Egypt's going to war against Israel in 1948 and maintaining a state of war to the present, there is no longer any bona fide reason to continue this belligerency...
...1924 immigration quotas, was linked with Palestine—100 immigrants a year being allowed from the two...
...the rush to link it with "real" or "separate" reflects the appalling lack of precision in reporting or analyzing the Arab-Israeli conflict) he seems unwilling to cut all ties to conventional thought and concludes by viewing Sadat as a prisoner of pan-Arabism, rather than as an Egyptian leader...
...I hope one day to join their ranks...
...Santa Monica, CaL Hank Harding...
...Symmetry is present in diplomatic negotiations when each of the parties to a dispute is recognized as having the identical rights, responsibilities and obligations...
...Whether or not Washington, Moscow, the United Nations, and a host of correspondents and commentators are willing to let the correctness of the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations be proved is a question one can only hope will be answered affirmatively...
...The proper Israeli response was given: acceptance of negotiations...
...It is not "the Arab camp" nor "Arab demands" that are at the core of the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations...
...Atlanta, Georgia Sheldon Zipkin Mideast Peace Last February 28, the Presidents of Egypt, Syria and the Sudan signed a declaration in Khartoum that set forth the following principles as the basis for "a just and durable peace" in the Middle East: (1) Total withdrawal from all Arab territories occupied (by Israel) in 1967...
...Sadat remarked that not only the Arab people but the whole world would benefit if Colonel Qadafi were "thrown out...
...And it is in the Israel-Jordan talks that the question of the "national rights" of the Palestinian Arabs will be settled, for the issue shall be determined when these two states agree on their boundaries...
...This remark may be important in a far wider context-understanding Begin's approach to his negotiations with Sadat...
...With one possible, and not insignificant, difference: As reiterated by President Sadat just before President Carter's arrival for brief talks at Aswan, the Egyptian position calls for a Palestinian state, not merely the protection of Palestinian (Arab) national rights...
...And the precipitous decline of Saturday Night Live, once an exciting show, is eminently deserving of his full reflection...
...Sadat can fail only if he overplays his hand and seeks an asymmetrical agreement with Israel...
...The discussion between the Egyptian and Israeli governments involve talks by two nation-states seeking to resolve the differences that have placed them in a state of war for 30 years, and symmetry requires that Egypt, not the Arabs, gain a measure of satisfaction from the talks, together with Israel...
...the new twist to Middle East diplomacy must not lead away from Geneva...
...Surely Sadat realizes the necessity for symmetry in diplomatic negotiations, as compared to the asymmetry of propaganda pronouncements...
...His constituency is not made up of Libya, Syria, Iraq, or Saudi Arabia—who, no matter the outcome, are hardly likely to accept Sadat as a pan-Arab leader for several reasons, including such factors as temperament, politics and finances...
...These two points remain at the core of what Hans J. Morgenthau—in the first of the four articles presented under the overall title "Middle East Maneuvers" (NL, December 19, 1977)—calls, without elaboration, "Sadat's policies...
...Further, he is likely to decide that the Palestinian problem is properly to be resolved by the inhabitants of the area called Palestine under the British mandate (embracing Trans-Jordan, which, for purposes of the U.S...
...The constituency that Sadat must satisfy—and it is odd how this fundamental point escapes observers in the democracies—is the Egyptian people in general and the Army in particular...
...The fact is that the current process of direct negotiations between Egypt and Israel is pursuant to the September 1975 Sinai accord, binding the two countries to resolve the "conflict between them and in the Middle East" peacefully, and declaring that they "are determined to reach a final and just peace settlement by means of negotiations called for by Security Council resolution 338, this Agreement being a significant step towards that end...
...Curiously, although Morgenthau seems to recognize that the logical consequence of the Sadat mission to Jerusalem is a peace pact between Egypt and Israel (the word peace, like the word pregnant, requires no adjectives...
...1 thought this ought be called to the attention of New Leader readers because all four commentators on the Middle East in your December 19 issue seem agreed that Sadat's initiative "requires concessions," and thus have accepted one of the three points repeated continuously during the televised coverage of the mission to Jerusalem—the other two points being: Egypt and Israel must not make separate peace...
...Bronx, N. Y. David R. Zukerman Saturday Night I'd like Marvin Kitman to know that someone appreciates his getting serious for a change ("Saturday Night Dead," NL, December 19, 1977...
...In that context, as President Sadat has said, it would not be a concession for Israel to quit Sinai...
...Symmetry is not likely to be achieved if the radical Arabs who continue to seek Israel's destruction, and moderate Arabs who continue to refuse to deal directly with Israel, are permitted to judge "the correctness of Sadat's policies," in Morgenthau's phrase...
...But I think Kitman is wasting his gray matter...
...I am a retired librarian whose education stopped on entry into the profession (my specialties were cataloguing and reference), so it was like opening a door and looking over fascinating new territory...
...The magazine has remained relevant to all of these activities, as well as provided untold enjoyment...
...Third-party diplomats, and TV and print analysts, have apparently failed to understand that Egypt and Israel are now playing quite a new game, otherwise their analyses would not be couched in paraphrases of propaganda employed up to the Jerusalem mission focusing on the need of Israeli concessions for peace...
...Since 1967, for example, Israel has been called on to relinquish land in exchange for peace...
...For if the diplomatic (and editorial) efforts that have failed to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict have one thing in common, it is "asymmetry...
...Should Israel make "concessions" to Sadat if his position is essentially unchanged, perhaps has even hardened, since February 28, merely on the basis of his willingness to go to Jerusalem...
...This formula implies that only the Arabs may grant peace—and, therefore, only the Arabs can be at war...
...Now that it has exhausted that subject, about the only thing it has left is tiresome bad taste...
...The New Leader is one of the few publications that never compromises on style or substance...
...Hartville, Ohio Elizabeth Fogle In the four year that I have subscribed to The New Leader, I have been an anthropologist, an economist and now a law student...
...Not only is its cast, as Kitman points out, suffering from a bad case of ennervation, but the show has run out of things to say...
...Sadat's mission to Jerusalem was certainly dramatic, but it was no concession on his part for he was honoring a commitment he had already made...
...Prime Minister Menahem Begin, appearing last month on Face (he Nation, said, in response to a question about Jewish settlements on the West Bank, "There will be symmetric justice...
...Indeed, the world community, represented by the United Nations, has effectively granted the Arabs the status of unilateral belligerency with all those resolutions condemning Israel for, essentially, doing no more than exercising its belligerent rights against states waging war upon it...
Vol. 61 • January 1978 • No. 2
