EDITORIAL
The 'Big Story'
The Ramle story is bittersweet.
There are new roads and sewers, cultural and neighborhood centers,
microcomputers and videocasette recorders in the classrooms. There are
youth clubs, programs to combat drug abuse and delinquency, special
care for the elderly, adult education classes and after-school enrichment
activities. And the list goes on .. .
Seven years and $5 million later, the Detroit Jewish community,
through its participation in Project Renewal and partnership with Ramle,
has helped to tame some of Israel's toughest neighborhoods.
But there are still more tough neighborhoods left in Ramle, where
delinquency and lack of educational and employment opportunities reign.
Detroit's financial commitment to Ramle is ending. It will require
$30 million to extend many of the same programs and services to the
rest of the city, an amount beyond our much-heralded fundraising
capabilities. Fortunately for Ramle, New York City will be its new
partner and continue Detroit's work.
But what about the other Ramles throughout Israel?
The real needs of Israel go beyond the headline-grabbing absorption
of Ethiopian and Soviet Jews. Renewing portions of Israel —
neighborhood by neighborhood — building roads, installing sewers and
providing basic educational opportunities is not glamorous enough to
generate an additional outpouring of funds by Jews in the Diaspora.
It is disconcerting to hear that in community after community, the
ability to raise funds for Israel — and in many cases local Jewish causes
— is tied to whether there is a "big story" in Israel.
This year, there is no Six-Day War. No Operation Moses. The economy
is recovering. The gates have not opened for a new round of Soviet
emigration. There is no "big story" for raising funds.
The story of Ramle is that there are basic needs being unmet
throughout Israel. That is the "big story" communal leaders and
fundraisers must package and sell.
again returned to its old haunts, nullifying whatever military
accomplishments were achieved during the war.
The military effort was conceived by Gen. Ariel Sharon as a grand
plan not only to prevent terrorist raids on northern Israel by ridding
southern Lebanon of the PLO, but to ensure stability in Lebanon by
installing Bashir Gemayel as leader of the country. Those plans went
awry when Gemayel was assassinated; the subsequent Sabra and
Shatilla refugee camp massacres underscored the lack of moral focus
on Israel's part in attempting to orchestrate another country's internal
conflict.
Israelis were divided over the wisdom of initiating a war for the
first time in her history. Diaspora Jews found themselves defending
Israel against an increasingly hostile free world. Critics within the
Israeli government argued that the democratic process was endangered
by a war planned by Sharon and carried out without the full
knowledge of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.
In their excellent book, Israel's Lebanon War, Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud
Ya'ari conclude that it was "a wasteful adventure that drained much of
Israel's inner strength, and cost the army the lives of over 500 of its
finest men in an effort to fulfill a role it was never meant to play."
The painful lesson learned is that Israel's system of checks and
balances was not strong enough to resist Sharon's power. Israelis have
come to recognize the limits of what military force can achieve in
settling political disputes, and to appreciate the moral force of a
citizens' army that is strongest when fighting in support of a national
consensus.
bliLt-
a-pooniva - GALLERY
Lebanon, Five Years Later
The last scene of the award-winning Israeli film, Richochet, depicting
the moral dilemma of war, lingers on an Israeli tank stuck in mud on
the day the troops are pulling out of Lebanon. Try though they may,
the Israeli soldiers cannot get the tank rolling.
It is a fitting image for the conflict known initially as Operation
Peace for Galilee and later simply as the war in Lebanon. It was five
years ago this month that Israel launched a military strike that grew
in size and scope and time as she found herself trapped in the
quagmire known as Lebanon. It took many deaths, many casualties,
and many months before Israel was able to withdraw her troops; some
say she still has not regained her moral stature. And the sad reality is
that the civil war rages on unabated in Lebanon, and the PLO has
LETTERS
Rape Comparison
Is Offensive
In The Jewish News' June 5
edition, Rev. Franklin Littell
wrote an article about Austria's
preoccupation with its image of
today instead of its stains of the
past. He stated the myth that
was created to excuse these peo-
ple from the atrocities of the
Holocaust is that Austria had
been an unwilling victim of
German aggression.
Later he went on to say that
"if Austria was raped, she
welcomed it and enjoyed it!" Of
course I realize that the arti-
cle's point was to portray how
the country is trying to disguise
its culpability. However, as a
socially aware person, a
humanist and a woman, I
6
Friday, June 19, 1987
-
became offended. My point is
became
that any person, namely
women, who is raped does not
welcome it nor enjoy it!
Because I am an idealist, I
am lead to believe that you in-
tended the phrase to be looked
at as rhetoric and not as a blow
against women. Needless to say
I believe that this is improper
usage. This is especially true
since it perpetuates the male
dominated, oppressive society
in which we live.
We need to educate our com-
munity about social awareness
and sensitivity. Making
parallels between a country
and women in this manner on-
ly works against the efforts of
the educated and aware people
of our society. I am confident
that in the future Rev. Littell
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
will be more careful in his
wording.
Karen Schiff
West Bloomfield
Kahane Ejection
A Conspiracy?
Before Jews participate in the
World Jewish Congress elec-
tions for the same, ineffective,
tired parties who boast in worn-
out phrases about Israel being
the "only democracy in the Mid-
dle East," they should recognize
what a farce democracy has
become in Israel.
Again the leftists, secularists,
and Likud-Labor status-quo
parties have tried to deprive
those thousands of citizens of
Israel who voted for Rabbi Meir
Kahane from having represen-
tation in Knesset. Having fail-
ed to stop his election, and
parliamentary maneuvers hav-
ing failed to silence him, they
now try a new ploy .. .
It is a travesty on democracy,
and the purest hypocrisy that
communists, PLO represen-
tatives, and seccessionist Arabs
elected to Knesset, take the
oath of office of supporting
Israel while lying through their
teeth. lb that, the Speaker has
no objection. Yet, when Rabbi
Kahane, in his oath of office,
adds that men are bound by the
Higher Law of the Almighty,
the same principle as in the
American oath of office — "so
help me, God," he is declared
unfit.
For years, the political hacks
of Likud and Labor have plot-
ted with the marxists,
secularists, and PLO-
supporters against Kahane.
They fear for their jobs, and
they fear having to face the
voters of Israel in new elections.
This latest trampling of
democratic principle will give
more fuel to those who wish to
throw these hacks and
hypocrites out of office. Only
then will the Jews of Israel
have truly free elections and a
Knesset which speaks for
Israel's future.
When that happens, then the
Big Lie will be over. Israel will
be, in fact, a functioning
democracy. A vote for Kach is a
vote for a democratic Israel.
Michael Drissman
Farmington Hills