European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 18, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 Olumn Jim Fain the stars and stripes thursday october 18,1990u.s. Should use Aid As leverage on Israel to the despair of Many longtime friends Israel seems caught in a time Warp that threatens to destroy it. The liked governments rejection of a . Team to investigate the tragedy at Al Asa mosque is not an Earth shattering event in itself. Still it was the last thing president Bush needed in his Battle to keep the rest of the world from linking Saddam Hussein a rape of Kuwait to what a happening in israelis occupied territories. Not that the two arc comparable. Saddam seized Kuwait in an act of naked aggression. Israel holds the West Bank and Gaza strip As a result of the six Day War which even most arabs concede was started by Nasser a Egypt. A tiny country that fought three major wars in a generation just for the right to exist has every reason to View its neighbors with suspicion. The world has changed mightily since the yom kippur War however and israelis current leaders insist on living in the past. They re afraid if they concede their peril has lessened have no excuse for refusing to discuss the future of the lands they occupy As prizes of War. But just look around. Israel no longer is threatened by Egypt. Syria is preoccupied elsewhere and has lost its soviet Patron. Jordan is on the Point of collapse. The . Has 250,000 troops poised at the Doorstep of israelis most potent enemy Iraq. The Arab Unity myth is shattered. The soviet Union no longer is making mischief either by arming renegade Arab regimes or through superpower clout As when it deployed airborne divisions to support Syria in 1973 perhaps our closest Brush with nuclear War. There Are other reasons Why this is a prudent time for Israel to reach for a settlement. Until now it has relied for Security on its own Superb army and All out fiscal and weapons support from the United states. The rest of the world could go hang. That has to end one of these Days. The unbalanced Load we re carrying in the persian Gulf especially in combat troops is not a Burden the american people will tolerate indefinitely. Nor should we at a time when we re fighting to stay afloat in a dog eat dog new global Economy. Israel has Good reason for distrusting the ., but some kind of International Security Force is going to be formed and if not under the ., then with the same countries. Israel will have to find ways to get along in such a framework without assuming a . Veto to bail it out. The Post cold War world wherever it May be headed is forming right now before our eyes. The smart thing is to join the process. For Israel the Price probably would have to be the much debated a land for peace Swap. There a no Way an International Agency would override the . Resolutions calling on Israel to give Back the occupied territories. Prime minister Yitzhak Shamir and his liked cohorts refuse even to consider such a heresy. Israel wont join a club where that kind of Deal is on the Agenda and nobody else will join one where it Isnit. As a result Israel is isolated except for the faithful ., which roundly deplores its obstinacy. As its Friend the greatest favor we could bestow would be to Wield our billions in Aid As a Tough love tool to push if we can israelis stubborn leaders toward an International conference on peace in the Middle East. Cox news service Gregory b. Marku polls voter turnout reflect Public s mistrust As election Day approaches the Public mood is foul a make no mistake. A majority of americans believe that the government will do the right thing a Only some of the time or nearly six out of 10 americans agree that a people like me done to have any say about what the government does a and three out of four think that a selected officials in Washington lose touch with the people pretty asked in May which political party is better Able to manage the government Well a plurality of respondents 31 percent chose an option not even off a the pollster neither party. These findings come from the latest times Mirror Survey and other recent Media polls. They show that voters Are angry at elected officials for helping to create and then failing to come to grips with a daunting array of crises a crime the environment education lagging standards of living the savings and loan bailout and a Likely recession. That anger is certain to grow in Light of the governments dereliction of its most Basic responsibility a determining How much tax Money shall be collected and How it shall be spent. President Bush a Public approval rating has already dropped 14 percentage Points in less than two months. A recent new York times lbs news Survey found that Only 11 percent of those polled believed that Congress had made decisions in recent Days based on what is Best for the country. Eleven percent. This disgust with governmental gridlock mingles with a deeper free floating angst that As a nation we Are coming apart at the seams. A majority of americans now say that in general they Are dissatisfied a with the Way things Are going in the United states at this sixty percent think that the country has a gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong a plurality 36 percent think that future generations will be worse off rather than better off or about the same As compared with life today. Political journalists inform us that the results of recent elections in Massachusetts Oklahoma and Washington d.c., Are but the first manifestations of this pervasive a new others including folks with such normally different perspectives As Republican strategist Lance tarrance Liberal columnist Meg Greenfield and Washington Post pollster Richard Morin disagree. What we have they contend is not cynicism not new and not pervasive. Their thesis is that a proper suspicion and irreverence toward politics has always been a feature of the american character there a nothing new about it. Moreover Greenfield argues recent election results indicate not cynicism but optimism an a Sun cynical belief in the possibility of political redemption and renewal through finally they say when compared with the malaise of the late 1970s, the current a a pervasiveness of political distrust is pretty Small Beer. There is Wisdom in All of that but it misses some larger More significant truths. First we have not always Felt so estranged from our government. In the 1950s a indeed up until 1964 a a three of four americans routinely expressed the opinion that they trusted the government to do the right thing a fall of the time or a most of the True the Public a Trust in government faltered in the face of Vietnam and watergate but it recovered substantially during the Reagan years. In any event arguments about whether things Are quite As awful As they were a decade ago Are of scarce Comfort. We also know that there have been significant recent declines in various measures of a political Efficacy a the sense that elected officials care about and Are responsible to the concerns of Ordinary citizens. As recently As the mid-1960s, two out of three americans expressed the View that their government was a run for the Benefit of All the people rather than a run by a few big As recently As 1984, Only 31 percent As opposed to the current 57 percent agreed with the assertion that a people like me done to have any say about what the government finally Greenfield May be Correct that the voters in Massachusetts and Washington Are expressing Faith in the system. What she overlooks though is the near certainty that two out of three eligible voters will decline to show up at All on nov. 6. Turnout in off year elections has fallen by 12 percentage Points in the past two decades despite liberalized registration Laws and increased efforts by both political parties to get out of the vote. Greenfield May choose to see the Glass As one third full but it is two thirds empty a and draining steadily. Somewhere Between 33 percent and Zero percent there exists a Point at which we Are obliged to conclude that the electoral process a and the government it is intended to select a has failed utterly. As a nation we Are on a trajectory that May soon show us precisely where that Point lies. Editors note the writer is a professor of political scion at the University of Michigan and a research scientist at the University a Institute for social research. He wrote this an Cle for United press International. The opinions expressed in the columns and cartoons on this Page represent those of the authors and Are in no Way to be considered As representing the views of the stars and stripes or the United states government
