2
Friday, January 11, 1985
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
PURELY COMMENTARY
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Testing the lexicon:
`Etzlehnu' may affect
fate of Sharon libel claim
A Hebrew word, Etzlehnu — Aleph,
Tzadik, Lamed, Nun, Vav — has become a
vital factor in the libel suit . instituted by
Ariel Sharon against Time magazine. The
claim is that this word, which appears in
the commission report on the Lebanese
massacre of Moslems by Christians, has
been misused in Time's report in which
Sharon was portrayed as having
encouraged the instigation of the mas-
sacre.
AP correspondent John Doyle prop-
erly introduced the actual dispute over the
word etzlehnu with this explanation:
Laurie Kuslansky, a linguist
who has worked as an interpreter
for the Federal Bureau of Investi-
gation, Secret Service and various
state and federal courts, testified
in federal court here today (Jan. 2)
that a fluent modern Hebrew
speaker would not interpret Sha-
ron's testimony before an Israeli
commission investigating the mas-
sacre to mean he had discussed re-
venge with Christian Lebanese.
Luskansky's interpretation of
the Hebrew word etzlehnu came
during a resumption of the civil
trial. Both Sharon and Time rested
their cases Dec. 20, and the trial
was recessed for the holidays.
Sharon used the word etzlehnu
in testimony before the Kahan
Commission, which investigated
the September 1982 massacre of
hundreds of Palestinians by
Israeli-allied Phalangist
militiamen during Israel's siege of
West Beirut.
Sharon said the word was im-
properly translated into English to
say that revenge was discussed
"among us" during a condolence
call he made on the family of
Lebanese President Amin
Gemayel.
The Gemayels controlled the
Phalangist militia.
Sharon said a better transla-
tion would be "in our place," which
refers to discussions he had with
other Israeli officials.
"There is a culturally based
connotation that a native speaker
would be sensitive to," said Kus-
lansky, an American with under-
graduate and graduate degrees in
linguistics.
She said the connotation of
"domestic, national, family or fam-
ilial affiliation" could only be in-
terpreted as meaning between Is-
raelis, not Arabs or Lebanese.
"It's 'an 'us' versus 'them' type
of `us,' Kuslansky said. "I think it's
very clear. I think the problem is
that it (etzlehnu) doesn't have the
same ambiguity -in Hebrew as it
does in English."
Several lexicons, etymologically con-
cepted, appear to confirm this view — that
the word under dispute means "between
us" in the Jewish sense of the term. It is not
referred to anywhere as implying in-
volvement by others outside the im-
mediate sphere' under consideration.
Thus, the lexicon is being tested on a
par with Time's correspondents who
covered the Beirut problems. It is to the
credit of the AP correspondent that the
etzlehnu aspect is properly explained in-
volving two spheres of thought and action.
Ben-Gurion
Montor
Original Zionist principle
contra philanthropy
reviewed by think tank
Israel Diaspora Institute, the Tel Aviv
University think tank that involves lead-
ing world Jewish personalities for a review
of Israel's economic problems and the com-
pulsion to find solutions vitally needed for
that nation's security, revives the basic
principle of the Zionist ideal.
At the very outset, Zionism was in-
tended to draw upon world Jewry's partici-
pation in the upbuilding of Eretz Yisrael,
its settlement leading to Redemption, on
the basis of an economic involvement. It
ruled out philanthropy.
Ideally, the appeals for involvements
in Zionism were with an emphasis to de-
nigrate philanthropy. Tzedakah was not
the chief purpose of a movement aimed at
the people's redemption.
As a matter of fact, the idea of selling
bonds to help in Israel's upbuilding — this
time in post-Palestine designations in sup-
port of the reborn State of Israel — was by
literally defaming tzedakah while calling
for constructive tasks.
That was the vision of David Ben-
Gurion. It was the philosophy of Henry
Montor who supervised the creation of the
Israel Bonds movement.
What will be .the reaction to the call
issued by the Israel Diaspora Institute for
the consideration of this original Zionist
ideal? As in the past, the Jewish people
again is put to the test by the denigration of
the philanthropic and the emphasis on the
creative investment principle.
When anti-Israel
`Devil' quotes Talmud
for his venom
Psalm 85:12
Truth shall spout forth from the
earth.
Emet (Emet m'eretz titzmakh).
When Shakespeare admonished that
"the devil quoth Scripture for his purpose,"
it could not have occurred to him that he
might also include Talmud in his corollary.
Shakespeare preceded an antagonist of Is-
rael by centuries and left it to the an-
tagonist to resort to a banalization as
means of spreading what many call venom.
George Ball did it. The former_Assis-
tant U.S. Secretary of State pursues it as a
policy to be among Israel's severest critics
and in that process he has caused many
agonies. He poses as a realist and most of
the time his animus emerges. His animos-
ity is never hidden.
He practiced it a couple of weeks ago in
a New York Times Op-Ed Page article in
which he assumed to know the Talmud.
This resort to such means of spreading dis-
like for Israel was challenged in a letter
published in the NYTimes on Dec. 30 in
which Joseph Dargo of Brookline, Mass.,
wrote:
George Ball criticizes Secre-
tary of State Shultz for using Israel
("a small, insecure, beleaguered
country surrounded by enemies")
as a model for the United States ("a
huge nation living in secure bor-
ders" on how to respond to ter-
rorist attacks. And Mr. Ball, once
again, strongly attacks Israel's pol-
icy in Beirut during the Lebanon
war in 1982.
What I find most disturbing,
however, is Mr. Ball's gratuitous
quotation of one sentence of Tal-
mud. He cautions Mr. Shultz
against adopting "as national pol-
icy the Talmudic injunction, 'If one
comes to kill you, make haste and
kill him first.' " Such a quotation,
lifted totally out of context and
doubtless rifled from from some
handy desk-book reference, dis-
plays nothing more than Mr. Ball's
profound ignorance of Talmudic
sources.
What Mr. Ball fails to report is
that the preservation of all life is a
central commandment of Jewish
law and the overriding principle
against which the proposition he
cites should be understood. Thus
one who preserves the life of a
single human being is deemed to
have saved the entire world (Mis-
hnah, Sanhedrin 4:5). A Jew has an
affirmative obligation to preserve
the lives of others and a cognate
duty to preserve his own. Surely,
as a lawyer, Mr. Ball will recall that
our own criminal law recognizes
self-preservation as an absolute
defense to a capital charge.
The Talmud is a work of vast
scope, profound depth and practi-
cal wisdom, all of which are clearly
irrelevant to Mr. Ball's tendentious
purposes. Selective quotation, par-
ticularly by a very amateur Tal-
mudist, should be done with great
caution, a caution that Mr. Ball
frequently abandons in matters
concerning the Jewish state.
So — "the devil (George Ball) quoth
the Talmud for his purpose."
Israel and South Africa:
Ambassador Netanyahu
sets the record straight
So multiple are the accusations hurled
at Israel, and they are so repetitious, that
.even when refutations become annoying —
and those resorting to them need to over-
come the tension — they must be offered
for the public record.
Israel U.N. Ambassador Benjamin
Netanyahu rendered a special service for
the public record with a speech at the Gen-
eral Assembly of the United Nations in
which he set the record straight on Israel's
attitude towards South Africa, the rela-
tionships between the two nations, the
charges leveled at Israel on that score by
Arabs, the antagonisms created on that
score in the ranks of the blacks in the
United States.
The enmities fanned in the black
ranks become a matter of special concern
and Netanyahu's clarification in that re-
gard is of the utmost importance. At the
same time, it becomes vital to indicate that
slavery continued into the 1960s in some
Arab lands. It should also be known that
Arabs do more business with South Africa
than Israel does.
The basic Netanyahu expose becomes
a matter of importance in the interest of
good relations between blacks and Jews at
a time when the former are demonstrating,
as they should, against apartheid. It is
Benjamin Netariyahu:
Countering innuendos.
when they fail to learn that Jews also op-
pose such discrimination that the problem
calling for a clean record emerges. There-
fore, on the many scores, the Netanyahu
U.N. speech of Nov. 26 is so very impor-
tant. Several of the important points he
struck follow:
Let it first be said that Israel
categorically condemns racism in
all its forms, including apartheid.
We are a people which has suffered
more from racism — murderous
racism — than any other. This is
why the founder of modern
Zionism, Theodor Herzl, wrote that
after liberating the Jews from the
evil of racism he - would strive to
liberate the oppressed blacks. This
is also why the state that was
founded in his vision, Israel, has
repeatedly expressed its revulsion
for apartheid and its opposition to it
both in world forums such as this
one and directly to the government
of South Africa. We agree with the
thought that has already been ex-
pressed by a number of represen-
tatives here, namely, that direct
communication of our position is
the most effective means to bring
about a change in South African
racial policies.
But let it also be noted that
those leading the pack against us
include the Soviet Union and cer-
tain Arab states. Now, whatever
the internationalist rhetoric of the
Soviet Union, it is a country whose
regime brutally suppresses the
language, culture and slightest ex-
pression of nationalist aspirations
of its many minorities. This is not
apartheid perhaps, but it is the sup-
pression of one people by another,
the subjugation of all the non-
Russians by the Russians
throughout the Soviet empire.
And what about the Arab
countries that incessantly pro-
claim their lack of racism? I believe
their record is worth examining as
well. Who was it that first began
the extensive slave trade in black
Africa, leading to untold suffering
and deaths over centuries? And
what shall we say of those Arab
countries that well into this cent-
ury and, indeed — according to the
Anti-Slavery Society of London —
within recent decades practiced
slavery? Saudi Arabia, for exam-
ple, deigned to abolish slavery of-
ficially only in 1962. There are re-
ports that to this very day — in the
interior of the Arabian peninsula
— slavery or something very much
like it continues to exist.
Continued on Page 12