Sharansky Faces ‘Reality of Free World’

A year after being freed by Soviet authorities and arriving in Israel to a hero’s welcome, former dissident Natan Sharansky says that one of his biggest problems is retaining the spiritual freedom he clung to so tenaciously for nine years in Soviet prisons and prison camps.

“I’ve had to face new reality, the reality of the Free World, which means that you have the problems of choices, the problems of making your own decisions,” Sharansky said in an anniversary interview. “You have the problem of a big variety of views . . . and everybody wants you to become part of them.”

If the challenge in the Soviet Union was conquering the fear of punishment, he said, “here it’s a problem not to be afraid to say no to people who are nice to you. . . . Soon you can understand that if you try not to upset anybody, you will be simply, absolutely not free.”

The 39-year-old activist, who has formally changed his name from Anatoly Shcharansky, said he still has trouble trying to concentrate on “what’s really important.”

“After some months of freedom,” he said, “I understood that it can happen that I’ll be less concentrated on the main problems of life in this free world than I was in the prison.”

His celebrity status and the intense politicization of issues are entwined with what may be the most controversial activity he has been involved in since coming to Israel--his examination of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Sharansky said he is convinced that Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip are blocked from exercising some of their human rights. But he said his efforts to address the problem have been frustrated by what he sees as Arab attempts to use him “for a public relations campaign for the PLO”--the Palestine Liberation Organization.

More Cautious

He spoke of a journalist friend who “is quite freely meeting with the people with whom I can never meet because immediately I will start helping our enemies simply by the meeting.

“And that’s what really upsets me,” he said. “The fact that Israel is in a constant state of war with world terror makes it much more complicated. In the West, we can have some theoretical discussions, (but) for the people here there is almost no place for pure theoretical discussions. Everything has very practical application. And whether you want to or not, you have to take it into account--especially when, unfortunately, so much attention is drawn to you and so much weight is given to (your) every word and such far-going conclusions are made. So all this makes me act more cautiously.”

Sharansky was clearly shaken last November when news leaked out that he had met with Faisal Husseini, a prominent pro-PLO activist from East Jerusalem, and Israeli rightists raised strong objections. The meeting was arranged by a third man in order to enlist Sharansky’s help in the case of a Palestinian journalist arrested by the Israeli authorities and threatened with deportation without trial.

Afterward, Sharansky took out newspaper advertisements to say he had been duped into attending a meeting he would never have agreed to had he known Husseini was identified with the PLO. He called the PLO a “scourge” and an “organization of cutthroats” whose supporters “have placed themselves beyond the pale of civilized society.”

Upsetting Experience

The incident led to charges by Palestinians and even some Israeli leftists that Sharansky had compromised his standing because of the harsh language used in his advertisement and that he had closed his eyes to the alleged violation of the Arab journalist’s human rights.

Husseini called a press conference to say he was saddened “to see such a great man suddenly turned small.” He charged that Sharansky’s actions proved that Israel had “corrupted” him.

In his interview, Sharansky said: “What was the most upsetting experience from this was that I saw how dangerous it is here to make any amateurish attempts. It’s not even Husseini who upset me. I gave him an opportunity, and he used it.”

Sharansky said that while he had met with Palestinians here on two other occasions before last November, he has not had any more such meetings since the Husseini episode.

Journalist a PLO Conduit

Still, he did follow up on the case of Akhram Haniye, the Arab journalist who was finally expelled late last year.

“Some very high Israeli officials agreed to talk with me, to show me some documents, and so it was very interesting,” he said.

He did not elaborate, but the Israeli authorities contended that even though Haniye was not directly involved in any terrorist activity, he acted as an important PLO conduit in the occupied territories.

Sharansky said he has continued to discuss the conflict with Israelis from different walks of life.

‘Has to Be Resolved’

“I definitely cannot say that I know a lot,” he said, “but I know that there are some rights which (the Palestinians) don’t have, or which they cannot use. For example, Palestinians don’t vote in any state elections.”

He said there is “no doubt that this problem has to be resolved,” but added that it is the result of “the history of the struggle for the creation of the state of Israel, for defending it from destruction,” and that the only answer is political negotiations between Arabs and Jews.

Sharansky said that because of the demands of journalists, colleagues still in the Soviet Union, and his three-month-old daughter, Rachel, he is having trouble spending as much time as he should on a book that is scheduled to be completed this spring.

“At least between (journalists) and myself I can put a secretary or someone,” he quipped. “Between me and (my) daughter, I cannot put a secretary.”

Family Is Priority

When he was in the Soviet Union, Sharansky said, he used to dream of all the books he would read once he was free and in the West. But “this year I think I read less books than during any other year of my life. . . . I didn’t see one film during this year.”

He said he has several priorities. He and his wife, Avital, want to “build our family; we have one child, and we hope for a big family.” Aside from that, “the most important issue is how I can really effectively help my brothers in the Soviet Union, whose fate concerns me. And the more (Soviet leader Mikhail S.) Gorbachev is successful in his campaign, the more I’m concerned.”

Sharansky has warned repeatedly in public appearances that the West should not be fooled by the Soviet leader’s policy of glasnost, or openness. He said he believes this is nothing but a ploy to win political concessions from Washington.

Stream of Offers

Another priority, he said, is determining “what is the best way of using my experience in the Soviet Union for the new life, and what, really, are the conclusions of this experience.

“Now when I’m writing a book, I’m coming back to these experiences all the time,” he said, “and it’s not such (an easy) thing to write conclusions. The experience isn’t black and white.”

He also faces the choice of a personal career. He said that, for the moment at least, he has eliminated consideration of politics. Of the stream of offers he receives, he said: “I understand that the majority of them are made simply because of my name, because of my previous experience, which very often has nothing to do with what is proposed. And I want to deal with things which I really understand. If I will go to something, (it will be) because I do see opportunities to use my experience and not because people see opportunities to use my name.”

Sharansky conceded that since arriving in Israel, he has spent far more time on the issue of Soviet Jewry than on broader human rights matters. This, he said, is “because that’s the issue on which I feel myself ‘professional,’ if you can call it professional.”

Drop-Out Phenomenon

He said the level of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union “is a very important indication of the general situation of human rights” as well as a barometer of East-West relations.

Another indication of how he sees the problem of Soviet Jewry in a broader human rights framework is his disagreement with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir over the so-called drop-out phenomenon--emigres who leave the Soviet Union on an Israeli visa but then go instead to the United States or some other country.

Shamir plans, in the course of a 10-day visit to the United States starting next week, to urge the Reagan Administration and American Jewish leaders to refuse refugee status to Soviet Jewish emigres as a way to force them to come to Israel.

Sharansky said he is personally convinced “that the best place for a Jew to live is Israel,” but he argued that the emphasis should be on pressing the Soviet Union to open the doors for greater emigration rather than pressing the United States to bar Soviet Jewish refugees.

Not Plagued by Depression

Once they are out, Sharansky added, other methods should be used to show Soviet Jews the advantages of life in Israel.

He said he has not been plagued with the same problems of depression that other Soviet emigres often mention, if only because he is still so overwhelmed.

He said he saw videotapes of his arrival in Israel for the first time earlier this week, and it was only then that “I understood that I really don’t remember how it was--that I see it like in the cinema. And I could understand again under what shock I was.”

The shock and the sense of “victory--that everything was justified, that it was kadai, or worth it--I think . . . this feeling saved me from any depression.”

Compared with that, he said, the problems of trying to keep his inner balance and independence as a celebrity in Israel are not so bad.

“If you want to be free and if you are ready to struggle for freedom, you can be free in the camp, in exile, or in the free world,” he said. “And to the contrary, you can be a slave everywhere.”