- Ann•Nompop.

2 Friday, June 13, 1980

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Purely Commentary

Spate of Assassinations:
Condemnation Only for Israel

Assassinations and brutalities are not uncommon,
anywhere. They have occurred in this country. They are
rampant in disputes among Arab potentates and dip-
lomats. When they occur they cause sadness and regrets.
The UN Security Council has no role in their consideration.
It's another story when Israel is involved. The Israel
government and army had no guilt in the West Bank bomb-
ings. But it was another means of inciting to hatred for
Israel and to call for condemnations.
Interestingly, countries like Norway, whose chief UN
delegate delivered an impassioned address in Israel's be-
half to an interviewing group, voted to condemn Israel.
Every time they speak of the need to assure Israel's sover-
eignty they avow also that PLO must be recognized. In
other words, compliment Israel while giving comfort and
weapons to those who would destroy her. That's how the
sentiments of Norway's UN chief delegate Ole Algard are
to be judged. That's how they all act at the UN, and it is
fortunate there is an American public opinion and an
American Jewry to preyent this great nation from being a
party to the indecencies at the UN.
That's how it works. When there is a crime, and what
happened on the West Bank was a tragedy, Israel as a
nation becomes a target. Such is the justice pursued by the
great powers.

The KKK and Nazi Cohorts
and the Civil Liberties Role

Once again the American Civil Liberties Union is in
the act, asking for the right to speak and also to act for the
KKK and their newly-found pals in the Nazi ranks.
In the request for the right to parade in Detroit, the
KKK-Nazi clique has ACLU support.
It is not only to speak and to have the right to share in
freedom of expressing their views that the bigots lay claim
to the civil rights privileges. It is also to demand to have the
freedom to act. Then comes the troublesome result of hav-
ing granted- privileges to groups responsible for in-
humanities.
Increased vigilance is needed in treating the bigoted
elements. They are gaining ground. A KKK candidate for
the Democratic nomination to Congress won nomination in
the San Diego, Calif., area. The KKK arrogance is becom-
ing a real challenge to decent Americans. The menace must
not be ignored and the ACLU defense of the disruptive
elements in American society hardly merits endorsement.

Senseless New Forms of Terrorism
Must Not Be Tolerated in Israel

If it is true that Meir Kahane and his cohorts had
plotted to blow up the Al Aksa Mosque next to the Western
Wall (Kotel Maaravi — Wailing Wall) while the holy
shrine of the Moslems was filled with Moslem worshippers
on a Friday afternoon, then even the most severe punish-
ment for such intentions would not be sufficient.
Anything approaching inhumanities and religious in-
tolerance that could lead to fanaticism fighting fanaticism
must be averted.
There is no room in a civilized society for genocidal
threats based on religious or any other grounds.
Humans must adhere to a principle of striving to reach
accord through negotiations, in normal ways. It is true that
Arab extremists have defied such principles and have
encouraged attacks on innocent people, on children and
defenseless women. While fire is sometimes fought with
fire, it is not the Jewish way of creating peaceful roads for
cooperative living.
There is too much at stake, in the peace process, to
permit extremism to dominate.
This is not a turning of the other cheek and one of
submission without retaliating. It is a choice between
furthering brutalities and attempting to encourage a striv-
ing for common sense among people who must learn to live
together in peace. While the latter spells appeasement, the
former leads to warfare. A stage has been reached when a
measure of appeasement is a necessity. Resort to it is tragic,
but bloodshed is even more agonizing.

Vengeance Is Arrogated to the Lord,
Yet Man Endows Himself
With Such Privileges

"Terror for terror," retaliation for injuries, "limb for
limb," became the motto of an extreme group in Israel
whose acts are embarrassing to the Jewish state, deeply
upsetting to Jews everywhere, irritating in the diplomatic
sphere.
There is expectation that world public opinion will
condemn bomb throwing when the terrorist act takes lives
or mames people. Now a fanatic element lays claim to the
theory that "the enemy" doesn't understand anything else,
that a life for a life is essential to the desert mentality, that
only retaliation will exact the proper vengeance.
It is impossible, therefore, in such a context to forget

The Spate of Crimes and the Bigoted Judgment That
Emanates from the UN ... A Challenge to the Vatican
From the Lebanese Leader Who Has Only Israel's Help

the Shakesperean, the defiance of Shylock in "The Mer-
chant of Venice," who shouted his angry reply to his perse-
cutors:
If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?
Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should
his sufferage be by Christian example? Why re-
venge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute,
and it shall go hard but I will better the instruc-
tion.
Hayyim Nahman Bialik, the Hebrew laureate of the
Zionist movement and of the era of libertarian aspirations
for Jewish redemption, wrote in his poem "The City of
Slaughter" (Be-Or ha-Haregah"):
No root of hatred, not a blade of vengeance .. .
What will they? Why stretch out their hands to
Me?
Has none a fist? And where's a thunderbolt
To take revenge for all the generations,
To blast the world and tear the heavens assunder
And wreck the universe, My throne of glory.
In the current instance of terror, the bombing attacks
.on West Bank Arab mayors, there are many admonitions
from our sages: the Apocrypha (Ben Sira, 10:6) basic prin-
ciple asserts: "Requite not evil to your neighbor for any
wrong."
A Talmud Sanhedrin warning also merits quotation. It
declares: "Who takes vengeance destroys his own house."
It is this latter that is of urgent concern in a time of
danger caused by resort to violence, to the bomb-throwing
that is not the Jewish way of fighting for justice, for the
right to live and to strive for peace.
What occurred is sad. It is also criminal. The way to
deal with the enemy is not by resorting to his inhuman
ways. The guilty, if apprehended, will be punished. Those
who advocate the Hebron-type of retaliation are being re-
pudiated. The lessons must be properly learned for the sake
of the peace of this generation and the generations to come
in a free and humanitarian Israel.

A Protest to the Vatican
From Hadad the Lebanese

When Pope John Paul II ascended his apostolic throne,
it was hoped that a new relationship would be eFtablished
with him by Israel, that he would extend a hand of friend-
ship to the Jewish state and would contribute towards the
peace-making, especially in view of the acceptance of peace
obligations by Egypt as the first Arab state to end warfare
with Israel.
With friendly contacts already made with the Vatican
by American Jewish Committee spokesmen and other
organizational representatives, hope remains that comfort
to Israel may yet come from Vatican City. The precedents
have not been altogether cordial. Pope Paul VI visited
Israel and was guided through the Holy City by the then
President Zalman Shazar of Israel. Not once during that
entire visit did the Holy Father mention Israel by name.
Yet, hope for better developments is never abandoned.'
The Vatican had given encouragement by its failure to
condemn him to the terrorist Hilarion Capucchi who was a
weapons emissary for the PLO in its campaign to destroy
Israel. This surely is not to the credit of the great Catholic
leadership.
The views of a Catholic, the chief defender of the
Lebanese Christian community, have something to say on
the subject.
Major Saad Haddad, the commander of the Christian
militia forces in Lebanon, was interviewed by Ray Errol
Fox, who has done research on conditions in that country,
and his impressions were presented in a New York Times
Op-Ed Page article. Haddad expressed his resentment over
the Syrian armored intrusion into Lebanon.
The interviewer rejects the view that Haddad is "a wild
man." Arab journalists have called Haddad a traitor to the
Lebanese cause. He was called "an Israeli-sponsored thug"
by Sean Whelan, the Irish charge d'affairs in Beirut.
Fox points out that Haddad — he heard Haddad re-
ferred to as "a rightist rebel renegade — "is not fighting
Israel's battles, he is fighting his own and his people's for
survival, then for freedom, on their land."
At this point, Fox quotes Haddad's protest against the
Vatican indifference to his people's plight. Quoting Fox's
NYTimes Op-Ed article:
"I think all of the Christian world knows what is
going on. But it is too involved in its own mate-
rialist problems. No more, human values. Reli-
gion, it is only by name now. We have been born a
Christian, so we say we are Christian. Even my
Pope dciesn't help. He is supposed to tell all the
Christians of the world to wake up, their brothers
in Christianity are in danger of being extermi-
nated and they have to help. By saying a few
words he can change the picture. I wrote to the
Pope and never got an answer. He is supposed to
be our spiritual father on the ground, and each
father is supposed to protect his son, even if he is
wrong. How come we are right and he is not sup-
porting us?

By Philip
Slomovitz

"The terrorists are getting volunteers from
Iran, Libya, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, from all the
Communist countries, to fight for them. What
prevents the Christians from sending funds or
coming as volunteers. to help us? We feel left out
from all the world except by Israel. We are fortu-
nate that we found Israel on our border to help us.
Israel understood our problem, that we are a
minority threatened with extermination, and ex-
tended its hand to us. They ask for nothing, and
for whatever they give, I am thankful. I have no
right telling them I need this and this. But I have a
right to ask my brother in Christianity."
He asked why America always backs the wrong
side: "I can't understand — Americans are fight-
ing their friends and supporting their enemies -
They say we have to support the legitima-
authority in Beirut. But there is no legitimate.
authority anymore. How come they are support-
ing something illegitimate?
"In your country, when something was wrong,
you changed the President. How come you are
supporting the wrong man here? You should sup-
port the people who can't be Communists. Why,
when we are fighting Communists are you fight-
ing against us? We love you. The Communists say
you support us, so they must kill us. They don't
know all the pressure we are getting from the
Americans, that our hands are tied because of the
Americans. But we cannot change. We are pre-
pared to die. But if the free world would open its
eyes, if we could make you see that Lebanon is the
gate to the Middle East, and if you lose Lebanon
you have fought to close the gate in your own
faces . . . if you could finally see the reason for a
free Lebanon . ."
He began talking about the future. About his
plans for his country. I asked if he really believed
he could rid Lebanon of the Syrians and PLO. He
practically whispered: It can be done." Then,
stronger: "If there is good will, nothing is im-
possible. All our lives are based on the hope. A
good hope."
It is in no sense surprising that Haddad should be
condemned, that his Moslem antagonists should resort to
insults and name calling. The fact remains that Israelis
have helped the Christians in Lebanon and were alone in
their support of an oppressed group of libertarians.
Of importance, of course, in the Fox article is the ap-
peal to the Vatican, the expression of resentment that the
Pope should have been silent to the plight of Catholics in
Lebanon.
Therefore, the Jewish expression of concern over Vati-
can silence has a counterpart in the ranks of Catholics in
Lebanon.
There have been indications of an increasing accord in
communications between the Vatican and Jewry. There
also has been silence. This increases rather than di-
minishes concern over the Vatican position on oppression.
Perhaps the Haddad statement will serve as an awakening.

Final Section Is Completed
at Beth Hatefutsoth Museum

The seventh and final section of Beth Hatefutsoth
— the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora — was recently
completed at the museum in Tel Aviv. The chronos-
phere shows on its domed ceiling a 25-minute history
of the migrations of the Jewish people during the
2,500 years of the Diaspora. There are separate sound-
tracks for the performance in Hebrew and English.
The popular Beth Hatefutsoth has now been open two
years.