Military

they worked for ten years for our feral gummint in international military exchange programs. This gave them the \"opportunity\" to host many high ranking foreigners at military affairs hither and yon. There were many such \"opportune\" moments for a US officer to learn how to sweat bullet, but two illustrate my argument.

One such event, the 1986 Statue of Liberty celebration, found me schlepping around with an Arab delegation. I wasn\'t surprised when my American counterpart with the Israeli delegation asked to arrange a \"meet and greet\" between our two groups. It was the Arabs who said \"Absolutely not. We do not make nice with our enemies.\" Luck would have it that we ended up with two admirals, an Arab and an Israeli, on board the Chief of Naval Operations \"yacht\" in rather rough waters in NY Harbor. This was a small yacht and the two found themselves on the aft deck with me standing between them. They bumped me aside and shook hands. Sailors everywhere will know that rough seas wash away lots of things and in this case the two officers and their staffs spent a good part of that time in friendly (one hopes) banter over the conditions in particular and sailing in general.

On one other occasion I and three Arab admirals visited a US military facility where an Israeli scientist was doing an exchange. When apprised that they would be hearing a \"brief\" from an Israeli, the admirals balked and strongly objected. I said I would try to change the program but was unsuccessful (and not particularly ardent, anyway). After an amazing display of knowledge about matters of mutual interest to both sides by this scientist, I saw these Arabs shake hands with the Israeli and spend the rest of the time alloted discussing the minute details of their interest.

My point is: it\'s always the Arabs who have been diffident or recalcitrant. They actually see Israelis