- 4 Friday, July 13, 1984 . • 1 I . • • THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS THE JEWISH NEWS Serving Detroit's Metropolitan Jewish Community with distinction for four decades. Editorial and Sales offices at 17515 West Nine Mile Road, Suite 865, Southfield, Michigan 48075-4901 TELEPHONE 424-8833 OFFICE STAFF: Marlene Miller Dharlene Norris Phyllis Tyner Pauline Weiss Ellen Wolfe PUBLISHER: Charles A. Buerger EDITOR EMERITUS: Philip Slomovitz EDITOR: Gary Rosenblatt BUSINESS MANAGER: Carmi M. Slomovitz ART DIRECTOR: Kim Muller-Thym NEWS EDITOR: Alan Hitsky LOCAL NEWS EDITOR: Heidi Press EDITORIAL ASSISTANT4Tedd Schneider LOCAL COLUMNIST: Danny Raskin PRODUCTION: Dohald Cheshure ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES: Cathy Ciccone Drew Lieberwitz Curtis Deloye Rick Nesse! Ralph Orme Danny Raskin Seymour Schwartz, • © 1984 by The Detroit Jewish News (US PS 275-520) Second Class postage paid at Southfield, Michigan and additional mailing offices. Subscription SIB a year. VOL. LXXXV, NO. 20 CANDLELIGHTING AT 8:50 P.M. Campaign questions Two welcome statements this week issued by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People underscored how silent other prominent organizations have been in not speaking out against the anti-Semitic racism preached by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. The first NAACP statement criticized Farrakhan's remarks and rejected "all forms of racism and anti-Semitism." The second called for closer ties between blacks and Jews. But where are the other voices? Why only silence from church and religious groups who should be speaking out in the strongest terms? As the Democratic Party moves towards its convention, one can look back and see the fatal flaw in the media and among politicians and responsible organizations in not criticizing Rev. Jesse Jackson for a campaign that tolerated the very elements of racism and bigotry he said he opposed. There was a degree of reverse discrimination as the media and others tolerated from Jackson, the first major black candidate, what it would not have stood from a white candidate. But the lesson of a democracy still holds. What is necessary is to speak out against any threat to principles of freedom and dignity, no matter whether their source is black or white. Political omen The framers of the platform to be presented at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco this month have spelled out an augury for justice by defeating a Jesse Jackson-proposed resolution to endorse the establishment of a Palestinian state bordering Israel. The overwhelming vote against such a prejudicial proposal will surely be judged as an omen that the major political parties will renew the national assurances of a continuing American-Israel friendship. The cooperation between the two democracies has become national policy and both the Republican and Democratic leaderships already appear bent upOn strengthening the principled accord between Israel and the United States. .Anti-Israelism has been evidenced among the very small parties, especially those influenced by the type of ultra-leftism which stems from pro-Russian sentiments. In such extremism, the anti-Israel attitudes which develop into anti-Jewish propaganda are difficult to understand. Yet, even in their minuten e ss numerically, they are the result of a pro-Arabism that seldom benefits the Arabs and only promotes human discord. It certainly does not contribute to the quest for peace. The predominantly principled ideological American decisiveness is for a strengthened accord with Israel. The Democratic policy-makers are paving the way, and the Republicans are certain to follow in retaining this ideal. That's one of the many ways of erasing bigotry. A basic fact to remember, always to be considered seriously, is that the American-Israel friendship is a bipartisan policy, that it finds emphasis in the platforms of both political parties, the sentiment in support of it is overwhelming. Therefore, any obstacle to it approaches a destructive attitude in foreign dealings with a major American policy and must be treated in that • fashion. Analytical criticism of Jackson overdue from media, politicians BY VICTOR M. BIENSTOCK Special to The Jewish News A forthright challenge of Jesse Jackson's credentials as the advocate of civil and humanitarian rights and his credibility as spokesman for the nation's underprivileged and victims of bias and discrimination is long overdue. The time has come, too, for the Reagan Administration, which does have a tendency of its own to ignore laws with which it is not in sym- pathy, to remember the Logan Act which an indignant Congress enacted nearly 200 years ago to make it illegal for private citizens such as Jackson to usurp the role of govern- ment in negotiations with foreign states. The press, hyper-sensitive on the race issue, has treated Jesse Jackson with kid gloves. Editors, apparently fearful that forthright criticism of Jackson would expose them to charges of racism, have carefully limited themselves to a questioning of his methods, not his motives. His political opponents have been afraid to counterattack him for the same reasons. And so Jesse Jackson has been permitted to get away with murder. His color, which he flaunts, has been the shield protecting him from the condemnation which his tactics and methods would otherwise have eli- cited. Now the time has come when this self-proclakned Messiah must be reconized for What he is: an arrogant, slick, thoroughly opportunistic oper- ator whose chutzpah in pursuit of his objective — the advancement of Jesse Jackson — is unparalleled. If in the process of the advancement of Jesse Jackson there are some collateral gains for the blacks of America, so much the better, but they will be purely incidental byproducts. Politics, the hackneyed old truism has it, makes strange bedfel- lows and Jesse Jackson has deliber- ately chosen to share his bed with the most unseemly assortment one could • :■ .• I J.; ever expect to find in the company of a crusader for social justice, the role Jackon claims. Who are they? There is Yassir Arafat, the Palestinian terrorist chieftain; President Hafez al-Assad of Syria, who thought nothing of massacring 20,000 dissidents and razing an entire city; there is Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator and fountainhead of Worldwide terrorism, and there is Fidel Castro, the Kremlin's surro- gate in Latin America and Africa. Jackson has let himself be used by each of this sorry group to bolster his image in the eyes of the world. He has made it possible for some of them to score notable diplomatic and pub- lic relations triumphs. It requires a certain amount of moral insensitivity to embrace an Arafat or an Assad, but the Jackson who has declaimed so passionately about the injustices he says the Is- raelis have heaped on the Palesti- nian Arabs does not seem to have been disturbed by Arafat's murder of Israeli men, women or children or by . Assad's wholesale killing of the people of Hama. On the domestic front, few of the recognized leaders of the black com- munity are to be found among Jesse Jackson's close associates although some find the fall-out from Jackson's charismatic appeal politically ad- vantageous. Few speak out against him; there is, understandably, a re- luctance on the part of blacks to speak out publicly against another black leader and expose themselves to charges of racial disloyalty. Many speak in his defense in the belief that the attacks against him are racially motivated and must be rejected. It is hard to believe that a man who is dedicated to brotherly love, equality and justice to the extent Jackson claims to be could tolerate for a single minute association with Continued on Page 6