Word: beginnings
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Hanabi Synagogue; it is the main center of worship for Alexandria's 200 or so-member Jewish community, which before the Arab-Israeli wars had numbered 40,000. Emerging from the synagogue, he was met by a throng of cheering Egyptians. To the horror of his security officials, Begin got out of his limousine to shake a few hands. Obviously moved, he later told Sadat: "I saw today the reality of peace...
...bond of unity between Begin and Sadat, who will meet again in Haifa next month, is that both men feel a sense of isolation as they seek to extend the perimeters of peace. Begin's government is mildly worried because a number of influential American Jews have questioned the timing, if not the legality, of the West Bank settlements...
Last week the Israelis were outraged when Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was received in Vienna by Chancellor Bruno Kreisky with a welcome almost befitting a head of state. Israel recalled its ambassador from Vienna, and Begin left no doubt that he felt Kreisky was a Jewish traitor. The Austrian Chancellor said that he and former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, who also joined the talks, had "gained the impression" that the P.L.O. "no longer insisted on the destruction of Israel." Arafat, however, gave no sign that the P.L.O. was backing down on the Middle East peace...
Last month, 59 prominent American Jews sent Premier Menachem Begin an open letter that criticized Israel's policy of setting up new Jewish settlements in densely populated Arab areas of the occupied West Bank. "A policy which requires the expropriation of Arab land unrelated to Israel's security needs," the letter read, "and which presumes to occupy permanently a region populated by 750,-000 Palestinian Arabs, we find morally unacceptable, and perilous for the democratic character of the Jewish state." Among those who signed were Nobel Prizewinning Novelist Saul Bellow, Composer-Conductor Leonard Bernstein, and Jerome B. Wiesner...
...interview with TIME last week, Premier Begin's Adviser on Information, Harry Hurwitz, chided those who signed the letter, saying, "While we take account of the opinion of our friends in the Jewish community, the guiding principles that have to influence the government of Israel are the interests of the people of Israel, their security and safety." The influential Jerusalem Post, however, argued: "Israel should, of course, not determine its policies at the behest of American Jewish leaders. But the considered opinions of American Jewry should be one of the elements in the formulation of policies that must take...