2 Friday, April 1, 1983
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Purely Commentary
Israel's President Herzog:
A Respected Name Glorified
Perhaps it was to be anticipated: that Chaim Herzog
would be the national choice to be Israel's sixth President.
Highly cultured, a man who had an important military role
in his nation's defense, an author and lecturer with charm
that has inspired admiration, Dr. Herzog has gained a
position of merited leadership in the Jewish state and in
world Jewry.
His opponent for the
high rank in Israel was
similarly a person with
many qualities as a learned
person and one of distinc-
tion. But his candidacy was
that of a novice in Israeli
political spheres. He was
beaten for the Israeli
Presidency by an opponent
who had acquired fame as
an activist and was there-
CHAIM HERZOG
fore undoubtedly the selec-
tee who was judged above political preferences. In world
Jewish ranks he is judged as a dignitary who reached out to
them with messages that were vital in their time, as the
distinguished Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, as
the messenger for the United Jewish Appeal and the Israel
Bond Organization, when his voice was needed, and as the
perfect interpreter of Jewish needs when the calls to action
needed a powerful voice.
It was as interpreter of Israel's military role and as
author of books dealing with the Israeli defensive experi-
ences that he rose to great height in the literary world. His
definitive writings about his nation and its government
were judged among the most illuminating, especially in
times of stress.
President-Elect Chaim Herzog has admirers in many
scores of Jewish communities throughout the world. Tens
of thousands heard his messages from Israel. Equally as
many listened to his defensive speeches in the United Na-
tions. A powerful Jewish voice will now speak as President
of Israel. It is not a dominating role, but it is highly re-
spected, and Chaim Herzog brings to it prestige and the
admiration and respect of world Jewry.
The respect held for President-Elect Herzog gained
credibility immediately after his election, in a close vote
that acknowledged his popularity more than the inter-
preted reaction as a "rebuff to Prime Minister Menahem
Begin," when Herzog spoke of his approaching role as a
bridge-builder. As Israel's President he will be called upon
to help fortify the bridges between Israelis and Arabs, be-
tween Israel and the Diaspora, between Israel and the
United States. His excellently-performed previous careers
as a diplomat representing his nation in the United Na-
tions and as his Foreign Ministry's spokesman, qualify him
for such performances.
Benefactors of Refugees,
and an Important Area Where
Such Benefits Are Missing
Israel's President-Elect Symbolizes Spiritual-Cultural
Values of Jewish Statehood and the Democratic Manner in
Which a Free Country Selects Its Respected Leadership
We believe the Palestinians deserve a home-
land.
We also believe the best Palestinian home-
land is the one they already have.
It will be recalled that Jewish victims of Nazism had a
tough time securing relief, that all doors were closed to
them, that the Jewish appeals and those of the Eretz Yis-
rael Yishuv, the Jewish Palestinian authorities, were voi-
ded by the locks that were imposed on what was then
British-ruled Palestine, thus voiding efforts to welcome the
survivors to the Jewish National Home. –
Will the facts provided by the Jordan Is Palestine
Committee inspire an honorable response from the Arabs?
It can't even get honorable mention in the U.S. State De-
partment.
Exposing 'Moderate' Bluff:
Moynihan Explores Attempts
to Scuttle Jerusalem
Lots of wool is pulled
over the eyes of the curi-
ously naive in matters re-
lating to the Middle East,
Israel and Jerusalem.
An element in Wash-
ington, involving the execu-
tive, legislative and mili-
tary functions, often at-
tempts to instruct Israel on
matters concerning her se-
curity by offering advice
that there is moderation in
some areas. Often it relates
to Jerusalem. U.S. Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
DANIEL MOYNIHAN
calls the bluff of such contenders.
Having just returned from New Delhi, where he se-
cured the complete text of the final declaration of the non-
aligned summit meeting, Senator Moynihan exposes the
intentions of the Arab forces and their allies on the
Jerusalem issue. With reference to Israel as "the Zionist
entity," and several to Jerusalem are thus exposed by him
in a letter to the New York Times:
The references to Israel (or, rather, to the "Is-
raeli entity" or the "Zionist entity") were venom-
ous and lying, as usual. But they did not go much
beyond previous declarations. Thus, the draft
passage on Jerusalem read:
"Jerusalem is part of the occupied Palesti-
nian territory and Israel should withdraw com-
pletely and unconditionally from it and restore it
to Arab sovereignty."
While surely this can be read as a wildly pro-
vocative statement, when pressed on the point,
nonaligned nations' representatives have typi-
cally said that by Jerusalem they really only mean
East Jerusalem, which is to say the Old City, or,
indeed, the Arab section of it. Hence the signifi-
cance of the revised, final text:
"West Jerusalem is part of the occupied
Palestinian territory and Israel should withdraw
completely and unconditionally from it and re-
store it to Arab sovereignty."
Now there can be no evading the proposition.
The nonaligned have declared that the whole of
Jerusalem — the Israeli Parliament and Govern-
ment buildings, the Holocaust memorial, the
whole of the new city — does not belong to Israel.
The nation is not a nation but an "entity," and has
no capital.
Hopefully, Senator Moynihan will be taken seriously.
He knows the situation as a student of Middle East affairs.
He touches upon an issue that is of great concern to the
United States as much as to Israel. He exposes a bluff and
calls for judging the advice on "moderation" on the merits of
the spreading venom..
His advice is especially applicable to an element in
Jewry that is ready to collapse under pressure to believe
that an olive branch is offered either in Damascus and
Cairo, or in New Delhi. Let the bluffs be judged on their
merits, with Moynihan as a guide to the naively perplexed.
A Jordan Is Palestine Committee merits attention
from all who are concerned that the Middle East stop being
a powder keg and that genuine peace be the aim there.
This committee has been compelled to resort to paid
advertising to prove its point: that Jordan IS Palestine, the
overwhelming majority of its population being Palesti-
nians.
This committee renders another service, proving that
while refugees have been aided in serious efforts to resolve
their problems of homelessness, Arabs have failed to accord
such treatment for those who are labeled Arab refugees.
The Jordan Is Palestine Committee statement with regard
to refugees provides these facts:
Two million Palestinians already have a
homeland in Palestine.
There is a nation in the Middle East which
occupies almost 77 percent of the original Pales-
tine Mandate. A nation which automatically con-
fers full citizenship on Palestinians, regardless of
where they now live.
This nation is Jordan.
Three-fourth4 of Jordan's government ap-
The Devastating-Factor
pointments, including nine Cabinet posts, are
in the Reform Rabbinical
held by Palestinians. Half of Jordan's Prime
Patrilineal Decision
Ministers since 1950 have been Palestinian. A
majority of Jordan's army is Palestinian. Palesti-
Controversy over the patrilineal descent decision
nians have invigorated Jordan's economy and
readied by the Central Conference of American Rabbis at
control 70 percent of its businesses. The New York
their 94th annual convention in Los Angeles was not unex-
Times has called Jordan's capital "the greatest
pected. It was a revolutionary step, and it has a definite
Palestinian city in the world."
relation to similar controversies related to intermarriage
More than two-thirds of Jordan's people —
and the most provocative problem involving the serious
nearly two million citizens — are Palestinian. And
losses sustained by Jewry from defections, assimilation,
with a population density of less than 61 per
abandonment of faith, demobilization of the family ties
square mile, it has ample room for all of those who
which lead to escapism from Judaism.
choose ,to live among. their own people in their
Acceptance of the patrilineal motivation as a means of
own homeland.
retaining the Jewish offspring in intermarriage makes the
By Philip
Slomovitz
Reform rabbinate propagators of a revolutionary step
which is in itself a defection from traditional loyalties.
It defects from Halakha. It creates a problem for the
traditionalists. It arouses anger as well as opposition in
Israel.
Rabbi Moses C. Weiler, speaking in opposition to such
a move at the Los Angeles convention of the Reform rabbis,
made an important point:
The Resolution will- result in a situation
whereby persons recognized as Jews by the Re-
form Movement in America would not be recog-
nized as Jews by the state of Israel.
The opposition to the patrilineal move will have to
recognize one basic fact: that in the process of yielding to
mixed-marriages, many families already accept the non-
Jewish entrants into Jewish family circles. There is a
pleading for conversions and when there is no response to
such a solution, the non-Jewish entrants are accepted.
There is hardly an evidence of "sitting Shiva" over a child's
mixed-marriage, a practice that seems abandoned out of
despair over the consequences of such expressions of denial
of children's resort to mixed-marriages without conditions
of conversions.
What had occurred at - the Reform convention was a
very sad move in an effort to assure retention of young Jews
in Jewish ranks. It is the result of an assimilatory trend in
which mixed-marriage is the most devastating factor.
Inflaming Bias
U.S Marines have always been tough, and they will
always be the pride of this nation. That does not mean that
they should be misled by their commanders into embracing
prejudice. They did just that in the relations with Israel,
and the guilty are not the Marines but their chiefs who
undertook to play a political game with letters condemning
the Israeli military.
The guilt also is in the U.S. Department of Defense
whose Secretary, Caspar Weinberger, was quick to offer a
medal to a Marine who waved a pistol at an Israeli tank
commander in Beirut. It was a hasty act which may have
led to the Marine commander's injudicious letter, and the
subsequent Weinberger comment that the letter at issue
"speaks for itself."
The New York Times, rejecting such policies, aptly
titled its editorial, "Peace Keepers Astray," which de-
clared:
"In no American diplomacy should generals
speak for themselves. With no foreign army, let
alone a friendly one, should field disputes flare in
this fashion. In no strategy worthy of the name
should emotion be squandered on such
trivialities."
Many declarations often do "speak for themselves," but
certainly not such as the statements in question which
have fanned suspicions and harmed friendship with this
country's most dependable friend in the Middle East.
Marines, if they have the right to speak, should be the first
to reject such tactics.
Jewish Presence in Jerusalem
This Magen David on a Jerusalem wall dates back
to Turkish times.