ON MY MIND / By A.M. ROSENTHAL Gifts for Israel April 28, 1998 @1998 The New York Times In Israel's 50th anniversary, its friends can give the country certain gifts of importance. They can recognize Israel's achievements and take joy from them. And they can accept without denial or flinching the fact that after a half-century Israel's neighbors still want it dead. So far, Israel has not received many gifts from my crowd -- journalists. Much of the magazine, newspaper and TV coverage and assessment of Israel -- not all, but too much -- has ranged from delightedly doleful to dolefully despairing. Israel's economic, societal and scientific successes have been mentioned. But not often is it pointed out that they were attained in the face of decades of hatred and attack from Arab nations and movements. The contrary -- almost always Israel's problems are now being presented if they are entirely self-inflicted. Arabs are presented as if they are always simply reacting to Israeli refusal to accept their reasonable demands that the Jews just clear out of more territory because it does not really belong to them. American public support for Israel rises and for Yasir Arafat declines. But U.S. and European journalism is increasingly sympathetic to the Palestinians and unpleasant about Israel. To each his own vision. To my eyes, and to those of the majority of Americans, Israel is one of history's soaring proclamations of mankind's worth to itself and its Creator. These days it is not said much anymore, which is a pity, but Israel did indeed begin with nothing much more than sand, hope and belief. And yes, 50 years later it is indeed the Mideast's only democracy, a growing center of science, technology, art, music. Israel is not a dirge -- but a country; how happy the thought. And I find emotion entirely permissible about Israel's ability to maintain life and progress though its neighbors have imposed an absence of peace for a half-century. But about dangers to Israeli survival, cool is best. And stepping back coolly we see the realities. One is that Israel may work out agreement with Palestinians -- if they want it enough to agree to conditions that will give Israel security of borders and the end of terrorism. The agreement would bring respite that could grow into a peace of some years. But another reality is that agreement on Palestine would not bring permanent peace. Ask ourselves, would Mideast rulers, the worker-merchant "street" and religious and intellectual establishments accept an Israel forever growing in skills and strength -- or in their dreams and desires want Israel extinguished, and work toward the day? Run them through the mind: Syria, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the gulf sheikdoms, the Sudan, Algeria, Iraq, Iran. The hatred against Israel these countries receive, accept and pass on as heritage and religious obligation -- would it vanish with an independent Palestine or would it continue in them, and in Palestine too? If Iran and Iraq develop chemical, nuclear and biological weapons, will they strike against Israel? Would other Arabs extend sympathy to Israel -- or dance on rooftops and scream their passion to kill Jews? Would the West take the risk of world war to rescue Israel? We know the answers. Permanent peace in the Mideast will not come until sufficient Arab peoples replace dictatorship -- fundamentalist, religious, military or terrorist -- with democratic religious and political freedoms. Then perhaps the Muslim governments will end the feuds among themselves that are the central cause of Mideast wars. Then perhaps they will even try to end the hatred of Israeli existence that infests the Mideast with the threat of war against Israel. Freedom may happen in the Mideast, as in so many other places. But it will come slowly, fitfully. Meantime, will Israel stand strong at arms, maintaining military power not for victory over another country but for defense? Will the U.S. remain a friend or become a harassment? Will some foreign and Israeli Jews push their religious and political hostility against Israeli governments so long and hard that they sap Israel's strength, will power and self-belief, as Israel awaits Arab conversion to democracy? From friends of Israel, cool questions in themselves are gifts to Israel -- and to one another.