2 Friday, December 10, 1982 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Purely Commentary A Zvi Masliansky Parable to Illustrate Unending Feuds Which Mar Good Will, with Caricaturing as a Continuing Symbol of Spreading Human Bitternesses By Philip Slomovitz Many Lessons and Admonitions Mark Observance of Hanuka Festival Hanuka, symbolized by lights, spells enlightenment. The ideal still obstacled, a festival utilized for merriment, continues as a struggle to attain the goal. The blight in humankind occasioned by the fratricidal in Lebanon compels the unending query: "How long . . . ad motai?" Born in militarism, in the compelling need for warfare to gain the freedoms for which the Maccabees fought more than 18 centuries ago, the craving remains for peace — and the peace is difficult to attain. Instead of peace, President Amin Gemayel of Lebanon now asks for more protective troops and armaments from the United States, France and Italy, and the U.S. apparently is ready to fulfill these requests. Thus the militarism that retains Israelis in unhappy roles. Instead of an appreciation for Israel having ended — certainly reduced and interrupted — the terrorist PLO menace that gripped Lebanon and the Lebanese, Israel is now blamed, by the- very _man who would not have been in power, for fomenting the Moslem-Christian fratricide. This is the price paid for the militarism that had peace as its aim and the peaceseek- ers are paying a miserable price. Was there, is there, a road to peace? It was proposed, but now Gemayel says it won't be in or on the outskirts of Jerusalem because the Holy City thus would be recognized as Israel's capital. Israel pays a heavy price for peace. * * * This commentator is tempted to recollect a parable. It must have been half-a-century ago when he heard the famous Magid, Zvi Masliansky, describe a feud among neighbors: In a shtetl, a conflict arose between the shuster and the shneider, the shoemakers and the tailors. And on the square facing the synagogue there was a battle royal, with fisticuffs and name-calling. A yeshiva bahur, horrified, approached the embat- tlement and asked for "sholem," pleaded for an end to the fighting. Whereupon, both contending forces turned on him, beat him up, and ordered him to mind his own business. It was their battle, not his. This descriptive incident calls to mind the Mas- liansky tale. It is so applicable! Christians fighting Mos- lems, massacres ensuing, and the Israeli dares seek peace! True, that quest for peace is also for Israel. But the ZVI MASLIANSKY penalty is so severe that a so-called civilized society can- not differentiate between the shuster and the shneider and a yeshiva bahur! * * * Thus, the battle continues, and peace is remote. Israel's prime minister foresees an end to the warfare in the entire Middle East and peace for Israel and her neighbors. Would that this could be treated as a possibility and not as a dream, as a hope for realism rather than continuing warfare. The battle is not in the Middle East alone. It is everywhere, and it strikes at the Western Hemisphere. One of the most distressing developments is not only the failure of the media in the democratically-administered portions of the world to tell all the facts, to explain how Israel's position is besmirched, to define the inquiry commission in Jerusalem in proper style. It is also the resort to the type of humiliating portrayal of Jews and Israel that is reminiscent of Nazism, Streicher and his anti-Semitic propaganda. It is the caricaturing that is not only offensive: it stimulates the hatreds one would erase in a civilized age. So deep-rooted are the enmities that have arisen, so bitter the factionalism, that , caricaturing has become a means of spreading venom even in Israel. Thus, in a bylined article from Jerusalem, on the front page of the Nov. 30 Wall Street Journal, Frederick Kempe reported: A Lebanese Christian Phalangist, with blood dripping from his hands and boots, tiptoes into the bedroom, inadvertently waking his slumbering bedmate: Menahem Begin dressed in a woman's nightgown and nightcap. "You don't ask a gentleman where he spent his evening," the soldier tells the Israeli prime minister. e- A shower of blood falls on an umbrella held over the heads of Begin and his defense minister, Ariel Sharon. The umbrells keeps them dry but de- flects the blood onto the insignia of the Israeli army. A blind Begin, with dark glasses and cane, walks away from a black- shrouded Palestinian woman standing by a corpse. On his dark glasses are inscribed the years 1933-1945. The Nazi Holocaust has blinded Begin to the horror of atrocities abetted by Israel. Descriptions of these three political cartoons make them sound like the cruel work of anti-Semites. Actually, however, they represent the output of prominent Israeli cartoonists during the week after the Beirut massacre in September. The slaughter of hundreds of Palestinians by Phalangists prompted a vitriolic outpouring of cartoonists' ink. Much of Israel was reacting in strenuous protest against the massacre and against the Israeli govern- ment's evident complicity — and Israeli cartoonists, as usual, were in the forefront of the protest. In Israel, political cartoonists appear to enjoy unique influence. In their attack on the massacre and the Begin govern- ment's initial refusal to appoint a judicial investigating commission, they were both shaping and reflecting public opinion. "I was so angry," recalls Moshik Gir, the cartoonist at the Labor news- paper, Davar, who put the Phalangist soldier and Begin in the bedroom together. "I personally feel the pain of the people, the fear. That's why I shout, why I scream. That's why I want to change theings with my car- toons." At 32, Gir is the youngest of the prominent Israeli political cartoonists, an elite group of only a dozen or so but still a substantial number in so small a country. They are celebrities, whose drawing styles, politics, names and faces, too, are known to the Israeli public. They also are significant opinion makers, who are wooed and feared by the nation's leaders. "Cartooning in Israel isn't for joking around," explains Kariel Gardosh, the father of the modern Israeli cartoon. "The cartoon in Israel is an impor- tant expression of opinion, a political statement, like an editorial." The cartoon is more powerful than the editorial. The Chinese are always quoted with "a picture (substitute) speaks more loudly than a thousand words." How unfortunate that this powerful instrument should be used to spread hatred rather than to illuminate? That's how the hopes for good will are shadowed by the prejudices. It's the democratic legacy, therefore the need for enlightenment, for erasing misunderstandings, for aban- donment of the bitterness that stems from the factionalism in an age in which suspicion breeds hate, and peace is never more than on the brink. Nevertheless, the quest forpea— ceis as endless as the lighting of the Hanuka candles. They remain inextinguishable. And the craving for peace is endless. Both are equally symbolic in a militarized age when Jews assemble to perpetuate a happy occasion. It is as such that Hanuka will be observed this year, as through the ages: in a spirit of thankful- ness and in a happy mood. All with a craving for peace. Sister Carol's Article in the Michigan Catholic Defends Israel's Record in Administered Areas Taking exception to only reinforced the innuen- statements villifying Israel, does in Schoenher's article." in an article in the Michi- Defending Israel's gan Catholic Oct. 15 by humanitarian treatment of Veronica Schoenherr, Sis- the Arabs in territories ad- ter (Dr.) Carol Rittner, ministered since the 1967 R.S.M., calls the newspaper Six-Day War, Sister Carol to task for not providing an stated: answer to villifications and "Since 1967, it has been for accompanying the ac- the declared policy of the cusatory article with a state of Israel that both the questionable photo. military and the civilian Sister Carol, in her reply, administrators of those ter- published in the Michigan ritories must abide by the Catholic Nov. 26 under the - humanitarian provisions of title "Criticism of Israel the Hague Declaration and `Spurious,' " presents mas- the 1949 Geneva Conven- sive facts in refutation of ac- tion. DR. CAROL RITTNER cusations often heard in at- "Likewise, since 1967, all tacks on Israel. when it decided to publish the norms and principles of The article in question Schoenherr's article. First, natural justice observed as was written by Veronica it should have provided an a matter of course in Israel - Schoenherr, a Chicago pub- opportunity in the same itself are observed in the lic school teacher, and was issue for another point of occupied areas adminis- headlined "Palestinians See view. tered by the Israelis." Selves as Israel's Blacks." It Turning to accusations "Second, it should have appeared in the Michigan captioned accurately the reagarding suppression of Catholic on Oct. 15. photo placed with the arti- academic rights for Arabs, In her criticism of the cle. Failing to mention in Sister Carol wrote in her editorial judgment of the the photo caption that the Michigan Catholic article: Michigan Catholic, Sister Palestinians 'killed during "In regard to education, Carol stated: the massacre at the two Schoenherr implies that the qin my opinion there are Palestinian refugee camps Israelis 'closed the univer- two things the Michigan near Beirut' were murdered sity' (Berzeit, sic) Palesti- Catholic should have done by Christian Phalangists nians can attend, limit 'the subjects (Palestinians) can take at the university,' `fired the best and most qualified teachers' in Pales- tinian schools, and lowered `the budget' for (a West Bank) city 'so that the schools have fallen into dis- repair.' "The fact is that there are three universities on the West Bank (Bir Zeit, Al Najah National University, Bethlehem University), one college (the Center for Is- lamic Studies), and three other post-secondary educa- tional institutions (Al Arubah Agricultural School, Hebron; Kadouri Agricultural School, Tul- karem; and Hebron Polytechnic Institution). "All of these schools were established after 1967, some of them are supported financially by the Israeli government, and all of them operate under the same principles of academic free- dom as apply to institutions within the state of Israel it- self. "The entire educational network, kindergarten through university, oper- ates in line with the pre- 1967 versions of the tradi- tional Arab (Jordanian and Egyptian) system. Neither the military nor the civilian administrators of the territories have inter- fered with the prevailing organization or cur- riculum, except in one re- spect: anti-Semitic racism and anti-Israeli slanders have been eliminated from the textbooks. "Since 1967, the total number of classrooms in the territories has grown 72 percent — from 6,148 in 1967-1968 to more than 10,600 in 1981-1982. The total number of teachers, fewer than two dozen of whom are Israelis, has grown 82 percent, to more than 12,000 in 1981-1982. "More females are edu- cated, and more modern educational facilities and services than ever before are available to the people on the West Bank and in the Gaza district." Sister Carol also disputed censorship accusations: "Schoenherr writes that `all publications' are cen- sored, 'thereby stifling a really free press.' The only restriction placed on news- papers, including the Israeli Hebrew press, is to submit military news to censorship and to refrain from lan- guage which clearly incites to hatred and violence. "According to James M. Wall, editor of The Chris- tian Century (Oct. 6, 1982, p. 971), 'Eat* week the Cen- tury office receives an English language news- paper published in Jerusalem by Palestinians and sent through Israel's postal system. It contains harsh and sometimes vio- lent attacks on Israeli policies. I know of no com- parable newspaper in any Arab state in the Middle East.' " Last week's Purely Com- mentary item on "The Luther Commemorative Stamp" identified Dr. William Brickman, profes- sor emeritus at the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania, as a non-Jew. Dr. Brickman is an Orthodox Jew, with family ties in Detroit.