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72 Friday, April 14, 1918
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Arab Skill, Jewish Technology in Gaza Wicker Works
By PAUL HIRSCHFIORN
(Special to The Jewish News)
(Editor's note: The au-
thor is public relations
director at the Technion.)
ak
GAZA— Near the low
flame of a Bunsen burner sit
several men, weaving
wicker and bending bamboo
into pieces of furniture in
much the same way as their
forebears did.
In generations past, the
product of this labor was
sold at roadsides, in small
shops, or from the back of
open trucks. Today, with
the help of modern technol-
Pivco, who immigrated
ogy and business methods, to Israel from France
this same hand-made furni- while still a child, was re-
ture is a prized export item. turning from a trip to
The know-how needed to Gaza a few years ago
bring this about has been when he first visualized
provided by Ilan Pivco, a the possibility of a joint
30-year-old graduate of the effort with Gaza resi-
Technion — Israel Institute dents.
of Technology. For more
"The whole thing began
than two years he has set an
during a discussion between
example of Israel-Arab in- myself and a friend. We pas-
dustrial cooperation in the sed many Arabs along the
Gaza Strip; in the future, it road, selling wicker furni-
could serve as a model for
ture. We said. 'their
similar undertakings with techniques are so good, but
our Arab neighbors.
the design is so obviously
lacking.' "
The conversation soon
ended, but the idea re-
mained in Pivco's mind. As
a Technion-trained ar-
chitect, he began to imagine
the possibilities of combin-
ing wicker materials and
traditional handcrafting
with modern industrial
methods and designs.
"Finally, two years ago, I
decided it was worthwhile
to try to do something about
it," he says.
Pivco and his foreman discuss production.
Pivco returned to Gaza.
He talked with several
Arab experts in this field.
He explained his new de-
signs to them. A work-
shop was set up. Pivco
opened his own retail
shop, Gazebo, on Tel Av-
iv's Dizengoff St. And he
began to study the export
possibilities.
In order to make this
family-style business into a
thriving export industry,
new working methods were
needed. While the tradi-
tional ways of making the
furniture were fine in some
ways, in others they were
much too time consuming,
Pivco says. "Some things,
like making a connection
through wrapping with
bamboo, must be done by
hand," he said. "What
machine could do such
beautiful work? But others,
like the bending of the bam-
boo, consume a dispropor-
tionately long amount of
time."
New techniques were de-
veloped. A new production
line was introduced into the
Gaza Strip. Pivco continues
to work at solving other
problems of this budding
industry. For aid in this, he
has turned to other Techn-
ion graduates. And he will
ask the Technion itself for
help.
The result of Pivco's en-
deavor is a strikingly new
st) e of wicker furniture,
cot bining the modern with
the traditional. His designs
an modular, and every-
thi g is "L" shaped. They
car be folded up and easily
tra sported or stored — tak-
ing into account the space
lim Cations of the modern
apa tment.
The Jerusalem visit last
year of Egyptian President
Anwar Sadat set Pivco to
thinking of a bright future
of cooperation with Egypt,
just a short camel ride away
from Gaza. "Since Sadat's
visit, I've thought a lot
about the possibilities of
cooperation," he says. "I feel
I can make a contribution to
industry in Egypt."
One must build around
the traditional skills, rather
than immediately introduc-
ing heavy industry to the
Arab world, he explains.
Workers using traditional methods in Pivco's Gaza
wicker factory.
Catholic Leader Tells Concern for Survival of Jewish, Brothers
(Continued from Page 1)
the Times faced up to the
facts of life and of the past
history of Israel in its heroic
effort to sustain itself in
peace and freedom behind
secure boundaries.
Those influential voices
in the media and more par-
ticularly those at the very
top level of our government
who deplore the so-called
"intransigence" of present
Israeli leadership regarding
its terribly precarious sec-
urity and call upon the
Begin government to give
the West Bank back to
Palestinians are simply not
facing up to a number of
frightening facts — particu-
larly frightening facts to
any Israeli who has had his
country invaded three times
in the last 25 years. These
facts should make it clear to
any reasoning human being
that such a move without
safeguards of great mag-
nitude could not only
jeopardize peace in the Mid-
dle East, but world peace it-
self. The shocking and ut-
terly damaging facts are th-
ese:
• The PLO would obvi-
ously be the new ruling
elite of the Paleslinkn
government of the West
Bank. The PLO is, unfor-
tunately, still deemed by
many governments and
the UN as the authentic
voice of the Palestinians.
Arafat was welcomed to
the UN with a pistol on
his hip by a majority of its
members (not the U.S.,
thank God) who went on
to vote overwhelmingly
to damn Zionism as the
equivalent of racism — a
clear indication of the
vast, worldwide extent of
anti-Semitism.
• The West Bank under
PLO police state domina-
tion, if not total dictator-
ship, would very soon be-
come
a
Soviet-
dominated, Soviet-armed
satellite next door to Is-
rael — not unlike Castro's
Cuba. When tiny Cuba, a
full 90 miles away from
our coaicappeared to be
threatening the giant,
powerful U.S.A. simply
by the presence of Soviet
arms, although there
were no Cuban guerillas
invading our country,
blowing up our buses or
killing our children, we
mounted a major military
solution to the problem.
The West Bank under the
PLO would be the equiva-
lent of a Soviet-dominated
Cuba directly on Israel's
border with no 90-mile buf-
fer zone and no U.S. fleet or
air force standing by to stop
the PLO from continual in-
cursion.
• The PLO was driven
from Jordan by King Hus-
sein after that Soviet-
financed group of skilled
terrorists and murderers at-
tempted to assassinate him
and destroy his govern-
ment. They then retreated
to Lebanon and proceeded to
turn that beautiful country
into a battleground between
Muslims and Christians.
The Lebanese Christians
responded bravely, but few
Christians elsewhere pro-
tested — indeed, Christians
and supporters of democ-
racy worldwide were dis-
gracefully silent, not unlike
the 1930s when Hitler was
on the march. The PLO
went on to virtually destroy
that country and demolish
the lovely city of Beirut.
Is not the lesson clear?
With the PLO occupying
the entire West Bank,
would not its next victim
be Israel? The New York
Times editorial of March
26th admitted the PLO
might continue its violent
assault on Israel, since
the PLO, to use its own
words, "might not be able
to control all the forces
allied to it." This, of
course, is the under-
statement of the year.
The leadership of the
PLO, which includes
Arafat at the top; has
never controlled those
advocating violence
within its own ranks and,
indeed, has probably en-
couraged them and then
disavowed what they did.
Having gained a foothold
in Lebanon, the PLO made
it a base for assaults into Is-
rael, funded by the Soviet
and armed with Soviet
weaponry. Does not the per-
formance of this group in
Lebanon make it clear as to
what their leaders would do
once safely ensconced on the
West Bank?
Chamberlain's capitula-
tion to Hitler gave him
sanction to attack everyone
of the countries adjoining
Germany; any sanction of a
PLO-governed West Bank
Palestinian enclave would
give Arafat the same right
to violate every Judeo-
Christian and, indeed, Mus-
lim, tenet of human decency
and human rights.
• The most recent mad-
ness of the PLO in killing 33
people and injuring 76 in a
sneak attack upon a public
bus is but one of 14 such
PLO attacks in the past
eight years. Israelis cannot
easily forget the assault in
an El Al passenger terminal
in Athens in 1969, the kil-
lings at Lod Airport in 1972,
the cold-blooded murder of
Israeli athletes at the
Munich Olympic Games,
the killings in 1974 in two
apartment houses and a
school, the murder in a Tel
Aviv hotel and the bombing
in a crowded Jerusalem
square in 1975, the explo-
sion of a booby-trapped
motorcycle on a main
thoroughfare and the explo-
sion of a loaded suitcase at
Ben-Gurion Airport in
1976, and that same year
the hijacking of 104 people
held hostage in Uganda
until Israeli commandos
liberated them.
To speak of establishing a
Palestinian state next door
to Israel to be headed by
such murderers is sheer
madness. The leadership
core of such a government
would be a group of murder-
ers whose major objective
would be the mass assassi-
nation of the Israeli people,
just as Hitler's avowed pur-
pose was the elimination of
all Jews in Europe.
• Every thinking Ameri-
can must be aware of the re-
lentless Soviet pressure in
the Middle East, but too few
Americans appear to realize
that it is our (U.S.) arms and
Israel's guts, to put it
bluntly, that have pre-
vented and continue to pre-
vent a Soviet takeover of the
whole Middle East.
Israel is the one bulwark
against Soviet aggression in
the Middle East, a point too
little emphasized in c 3CUS-
sing U.S.-Israel rel: ions.
All Americans shoe d be
grateful to the bra e Is-
raelis for their resists ice to
the continual inroad ; and
pressures of the Sc viet-
armed and often Sc viet-
directed Arab forces sur-
rounding Israel.
The outrage and dee,) sor-
row of many Americans at
the loss of their sons in Vie-
tnam is not dissimilar to the
anguish and deep grief and
equally poignant outrage of
the Israelis over their chil-
dren's ultimate sacrifice.
Indeed, it is the sons and
daughters of Israel who are
now giving their flesh and
blood to keep the Soviet at
bay, to insure the freedom
and peace and sovereignty
of Israel, and they deserve
the applause of the entire
Free World.
When our government
calls upon Israel to rely
upon the UN for its pro-
tection, it should re-
member this fact: Israel
finds it hard to forget
how it was "protected"
by the UN in 1967. Sud-
denly Egypt ordered the
UN so-called "peace
force" to vacate the Sinai,
and following the UN's
withdrawal, Egypt faced
Israel in the Sinai Desert
with over 1,200 Soviet-
made tanks and accom- -
panying troops, more
tank forces than the
combined tank forces of
Generals Montgomery
and Rommel when they
faced one another at the
historic battle of El Ala-
mein in October 1942.
Although Israel in a
lightning stroke de-
molished those tanks, van-
quished the Egyptian troops
and won the Six-Day War,
the so-called "protection" of
the UN forces is not readily
forgotten.
The Syrian artillery from
the Golan Heights shelling
kibutzim in the Israeli val-
leys below was likewise de-
molished during that Six-
Day War; if the guerilla
forces of the PLO, however,
seized control of the West
Bank hills, Israel's coastal
plain below would simi-
larly be rained with artil-
lery fire and its villages left
wide open to terrorist at-
tacks.
As the Times' March 24th
editorial said, the crux of
the entire problem is: "the
return of captured territory
to all who grant Israel rec-
ognition, genuine security
and real peace." Yet,
neither the Times nor any of
the other influential voices
in the media and in gov-
ernment has suggested any
credible- means of guarante-
eing Israel the necessary
safeguards for the true
peace it so fervently desires
and prays for.
As the minimal first step
toward achieving such a
peace, let all to whom cap-
tured territory is to be re-
turned first recognize Israel
and her right to exist. Then
let the U.S. and others who
truly believe in democracy
and freedom take the neces-
sary stringent military in-
ternational law enforce-
ment steps to insure Israel's
"genuine security" and
"real peace" and Israel will
no longer be intransigent
but will welcome such an
accord.