THE JEWISH NEWS

OP-ED

`Deglamorizing' Israel:
New Pastime For Jews

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EZEKIEL LEIKIN

Special to The Jewish. News

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c 1986 by The Detroit Jewish News (US PS 275-520)

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CANDLELIGHTING AT 8:46 P.M.'

VOL. LXXXIX, NO. 21

Hussein Over Arafat

It's still too early to tell what effect King Hussein's decision to close
down PLO offices in Jordan will have on the Arab-Israel equation.
Certainly, the short-term effect is to put Yassir Arafat on the run again
and isolate him even further within the Arab world. •
Mideast observers believe that King Hussein is taking a long-range
gamble in seeking to gain the allegiance of Palestinians on the West
Bank for himself or at least help develop a new Palestinian leadership
that does not follow Arafat. The Jordanian king wants to launch a
five-year development plan for the West Bank that would provide
improved housing and education at a cost of between $150 and $240
million a year. He plans to ask the U.S. for most of the money.
The Palestinians appear to be split. Their pragmatic affiliations —
passports, bank accounts, jobs, families — are linked to Jordan. But their
emotional affiliations have been with the PLO, which symbolizes their
identity. Now they are being asked to choose between these two loyalties.
Perhaps they will-come to realize that their allegiance over the years to
Arafat has brought them nothing but pain and hardship. Thanks to
Arafat, the word Palestinian has become synonomous with the word
-
"terrorist."
So the Palestinians really have but one choice: to follow Hussein
along a difficult road — but the only road that could lead toward peace.

.

Review Security Provisions

An explosive device discovered on the grounds of the Jewish
Community Center in West Bloomfield caused no damage to life or
property, but must lead to a review by all of our Jewish institutions of the
precautions they take to maximize security for their users.
While West Etloomfield police and federal investigators believe those
responsible for the placement of the device were not motivated by
anti-Semitism, and that the incident parallels another pipe-bomb incident
at a non-Jewish residence in West Bloomfield, many Jews are wondering
what steps, if any, are being taken to assure their well being while using
Jewish facilities.
For its part, the JCC has temporarily added to its security patrols,
and staff members — many who are already trained in safety measures
— are looking a bit longer and harder for suspicious people or items. A
series of procedures are carried out before the building closes to minimize
the likelihood of overnight intruders.
These ongoing and special procedures have allowed the JCC to retain
the confidence of its users who, despite the incident, visit the facility and
send their children there.
The Jewish Community Council this week re-issued guidelines on
building protection and safety to all local Jewish institutions. The events
of this past week must serve as a catalyst for these institutions to
re-examine security procedures and provisions.

4

Friday, July 18, 1986

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

t has become the vogue to
"psychoanalyze" Israel, to
scrutinize its spiritual and social
values, indeed to plumb the depths
of its very being. As a newsmaker,
Israel has been placed under a
microscope, which purports to show
that it is suffering from a malaise
characterized by ethical deficiencies,
political and economic instabilities,
internal friction and a debilitating
disorientation.
The media's role in Israel is not
one to inspire confidence. Thus, its
reports on the 1982 Lebanon cam-
paign have been replete with distor-
tions of fact, gross exaggerations and
a general thrust tinged with uncon-
cealed bias.
Customarily, when hostilities
end, the bloated corps of reporters
and correspondents depart; yet the
probing continued. The media people
have now been replaced by a motley
assortment of scribes, academics and
pundits who found Israel a fertile
ground for fictional and pseudo-
scientific dissertations — all focus-
ing on Israel's pressing, unresolved
issues. The "new scrutinizers are
mostly Jews with various ideological
hang-ups and their collective diag-
noses are invariably grim.
One wonders what happened to
the unwritten agreement entered
into by responsible segments of the
Jewish community and adhered to
for a number of years, namely to
keep criticism of Israel within the
family, to refrain from providing
grist for the Arab propaganda
machine? What happened to the
self-assumed injunction "tell it not

Ezekiel Leikin, writer and lecturer, is
executive vice president of Metro Detroit
District, Zionist Organization of
America.

in Gat . . . lest the daughters of the
Philistines rejoice."
There seems to be "open season"
on Israel ; an orchestrated campaign
to "deglamorize" the Jewish State, to
magnify its imperfections, to profile
it — ostensibly as it is — warts and

all. Another salvo- is directed at the
World Zionist Organization (WZO).
In a wide-ranging expose in The
Jewish News, the bureaucratic
structure and "outdated" practices of
the WZO have been scrutinized and
criticized with a callous disregard for

What happened to the
unwritten agreement . .
to keep criticism of Israel
within the family?

its notable contributions and impres-
sive achievements.
In the past 30 years, the WZO
has trained 10,000 teachers and
youth leaders, send 4,000 Israeli
educators to teach in Jewish schools
in 24 different countries, provided
books and teaching guides for
350,000 pupils in Jewish schools, or-
ganized educational courses in Israel
for 120,000 young people and
teachers from overseas, arranged
seminars and study-missions in Is-
rael for over 40,000 community
leaders, media-people, academics and
Christian clergy.
Above all, it helped resettle
1,700,000 immigrants from 122
countries throughout the world. Not
a bad record for an overly maligned
"bureaucracy."
Of course, there have been in-
stances of gross inefficiency, partisan
favoritism in appoiritments and er-
rors in policy and direction. The
series dealing with the WZO (May
23-June 27) seems to imply that the

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