• 28 Friday, July 20, 1984 , THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS ANALYSIS Never again? Who now remembers Afghanistan? BY RABBI IRVING GREENBERG Special to The Jewish News T y T l T y T y T y 1 lb. Bag. Plain or Peanut 9r, EVERYDAY Weald G-'cBeauty4idscWitILc cFlair STORE HOURS: DAILY 10-9 LOCATED AT ORCHARD LAKE SUNDAY 12-6 AT 14 MILE ROADS IN THE ORCHARD PLACE SHOPPING CENTER HOTLINE: 855-0033 THE ONLY CANDIDATE ENDORSED BY OAKLAND COUNTY PROSECUTOR L. BROOKS PATTERSON AND U.S. ATTORNEY LEONARD R. GILMAN MAKE HIM YOUR JUDGE 48TH DISTRICT COURT SOSN IC FOR DISTRICT JUDGE Those who study the Holocaust are continually tormented by the record of apathy in the rest of the world during this debauch of evil. Recently there was great turmoil when the Goldberg Commission sought to assess responsibil- ity for American Jewish failures to respond. But re- membering the past is not an end in itself. And re- membering in order to scapegoat the past is a form of pathology. In the Biblical tradition, we remember in order that behavior be changed. "You shall not torment_ the stranger for you know the life of a stranger; you were stran- gers in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 23, 9) In June, the press carried reports that the boycott and suspension of cultural offices and exchanges be- tween the United States and Ruhia initiated by President Carter in protest of the Soviet invasion of Af- ghanistan are about to be removed by President Re- agan. In an election year, the Reagan administration wishes to soften its image of being excessively hardline on Russia. There is constant media criticism of the poor state of U.S.-Russian rela- tions. There is no profit — indeed, there is real politi- cal cost — in maintaining pressure on the USSR on the Afghan issue. - But is the situation in Af- ghanistan better? On the contrary, in an attempt to crush the stubborn guerilla resistance, the USSR is waging a ruthless war against civilians. Two Rus- sian deserters testified in London last month that Russian soldiers are or- dered to kill Afghan vil- lagers in cold blood. At a press conference, they said: "An officer decides to have a village, searched ... What usually happend is we found a cartridge or a bullet. The officers said: 'This is a ban- dit village. It must be de- stroyed' . . . The men and the young men are usually shot right where they are. And the women, what they do is try to kill them with grenades ..." (The New York Times, June 28, 1984). Dr. Claude Malurec, di- rector of Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors With- out Borders), an organiza- tion sending medical teams to conflict areas all over the world, spoke at Harvard. His organization has equip- ped and operated twelve hospitals in Afghanistan, four of which have been bombed and destroyed by the Soviets. According to Malurec, rather than gain- ing control by seeking na- tive support in villages and towns, the Soviets are at- temping to take over Af- ghanistan by terrorizing its people. Tactics include: pil- laging and buying villages, executing inhabitants and, increasingly, heavy air strikes. About 2.5 million Afghans have fled to Pakis- tan and several hundred thousand to Iran. Dr. Malurec stressed that the lack of news reports is the key to Soviet strategy: "International public opin- ion would never accept such enormities if it were kept in- formed daily on develop- ments," said Malurec. The American public should be rallying to the Af- ghan cause. Instead, the exhaustion of media inter- est (the story is almost five years old), the pressure for good news with Russia and the dovish tendencies of the public are leading to an abandonment of the Af- ghans. Of what significance can some increased cultural contacts with Russia be when bought at the price of indifference to quasi- genocide in Afghanistan? When Hitler was consid- ering his destruction of the Jews, some underlings ob- jected that the Nazis could not get away with it. Hitler • argued that once the assault was made, people would soon tire of the subject and accept the deed. He is repu- ted to have backed his argument by referring to the Turkish massacre of the Armenians in World War I which had long since been overlooked. He is reputed to have said: "Who now re- , members the Armenians?" The silence and short mem- ory of the world about that massacre encouraged the U.S. lecture circuit profitable for Israelis . Jerusalem (ZINS) — Is- raeli luminaries are com- manding large fees on the American lecture circuit, according to a report by Marc Segal in the Jerusalem Post. Prominent Israelis such as former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and former President Yitzhak Navon are receiving $10,000 for each appearance, Segal re- ports. Knesset member and former Foreign Minister Abba Eban commands a fee of about $8,000, while Simcha Dinitz, who has served as Israel's, ambas- sador to the U.S., gets about $1,500 .44* for each appearance. , murderous plot to destroy Jewry. In light of its memory, of the Holocaust, the Jewish community should be dou- bly sensitive to any brush- ing of the Afghanistan story under the rug for the sake of 'politics as usual.' Jews are known to be more suppor- tive of detente than the av- erage American voter. Even if other Americans forget, Jews should signal the Re- agan Administration that detente attitudes should not lead to moral apathy to the fate of the Afghans. A criti- cal test of Jewish morality in our time is that our suf- fering sensitize us more to the oppression of others. Jews should know that just as upholding constitu- tional rights for minorities is good for Jewish rights too, so does taking moral re- sponsibility for others in- crease protection for Jews. Hillel's summary of the Torah should be updated as a good moral guide for those who preserve the memory of the Holocaust: "What was hateful to you, do not allow to be done to others." Copyright 1984, the National Jewish Resource Center. Strikes hit Israel media Tel Aviv (JTA) — Israeli printers ended a 24-hour strike at noon Monday after newspaper publishers agreed to resume negotia- tions on their wage de- mands. The strike pre- vented most dailies from publishing. The workers are asking for pay increases similar to those recently granted to journalists and office em- ployees. They also fear the loss of jobs from the intro- duction of new technology that will eliminate typeset- ters and replace them with unskilled or semi-skilled workers. • A wildcat strike by televi- sion technicians last week cast doubt over coverage of the 1984 Olympic Games which begin in Los Angeles at the end of this month. The strikers say they acted on a secret report that the state-owned Broadcast Authority was back- tracking on an earlier agreement for special over- time pay to technicians in- volved in the Olympic coverage. The time dif- ference b etween California and Israel will require them to work all night to receive the satellite transmissions and prepare the material for daytime. showing.