I EDITORIAL

Coming Around

Media coverage of the riots in the West Bank and Gaza has
taken a more measured tone in recent weeks. To borrow a
phrase, evenhandedness has made a limited return to American
television and newspapers.
Are we finally entering the age of enlightenment? Past ex-
perience would indicate this is hardly the case. Still, now that
more than three months have passed since the onset of the
uprising, and Israel's friends and allies have had time to com-
plain and respond with Israel's side of the story, a more balanc-
ed picture of the Arab-Israeli conflict — complete with historical
perspective — is now reaching the average American reader and
viewer.
Americans have a short attention span and favor instant
solutions to complex problems: That thinking has led the
United States down some merry foreign relations paths in-
cluding, perhaps, Secretary of State George Shultz's recent
junkets to the Middle East.
If throwing rocks at Israeli troops in front of TV cameras
will keep the Palestinians in the limelight, then the Palesti-
nians will continue to throw rocks. While the United States has
greater leverage with Israel than with the Arabs, a just peace
requires not just pulling that lever to achieve a quick fix, but
responsible concessions on the part of the Arabs, beginning with
recognizing Israel's legitimacy.

Hanging Tough

"Do they want us to go back to a situation which would in-
evitably invite another such attempt [at destruction]?" asked
Shamir.
From a public relations point of view the Israeli leader
would be far better off by simply endorsing the Shultz plan for
Mideast negotiations — whether or not he agreed with its
details — and wait for Jordan, the PLO and Syria to reject it.
After all, why should Israel appear to the world as an obstacle
to peace? But to Shamir it is a matter of principle, and he
believes that Israel "cannot afford to give up on principles that
to a great extent can determine our fate and our future."
An equal voice in the Israeli government believes with mat-
ching fervor that Israel's fate and future will be jeopardized if
she does not seize this opportunity to find a path to peace. Such
a peace, they say, must solve the demographic nightmare that
haunts Israel of an Arab majority in a Jewish state. The solu-
tion, they say, is to give up the role of occupier without jeopard-
izing Israeli security.
What remains to be seen, though, as Israel continues this
critical debate amongst her citizenry is the amount of erosion of
goodwill and support in America — in Congress and even
among American Jews — in the face of Shamir's hang-tough re-
jection of the notion of trading land for peace.

it MEN
QUIET
SO FAR!

These are critical days for the state of Israel, and one senses
that the decisions regarding her stand on peace negotiations
that are now made — or not made — will determine her course
for many years.
Whether or not one agrees with the policies of Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who is now in the U.S. for meetings
with the Administration and with American Jewish leaders, one
must recognize the truth of his central message: that the root of
the Mideast problem is not the occupied territories, but rather
the refusal of the Arab states to recognize and accept a
sovereign Jewish state in the Middle East.
As Shamir noted in his address to the 3,000 delegates of the
UJA Young Leadership conference on Monday evening, when the
Arabs attempted to destroy Israel in 1948 and 1967, they con-
trolled the disputed territories. The reason they went to war
then, and why they continue to seek an end to the Jewish state,
is their conviction that all of Israel is "Palestine?'

RESIDE- TIAL
RTE1S

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4 sikvig—cire.
LETTERS

Righting Wrongs
Of Pollard Case

Much to its credit, The
Jewish News has continued to
keep its readership informed
on developments in the
Pollard case, most recently in
a perceptive article (March 4)
by David Holzel. Anyone
following this case may
wonder if the punishment
meted out is fair. Jonathan
Pollard received the same
punishment, life imprison-
ment, that Israeli courts mete
out to terrorists convicted of
murdering innocent civilians.
Nazi war criminals, convicted
of heinous crimes, received

6

FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 1988

lighter prison sentences than
the Pollards have received.
What makes all this difficult
to fathom is that neither had
any intention to harm the
United States.

Why then, one may ask,
have American-Jewish
organizations been reluctant
to help? Whatever the answer
is, it needs to include a
reference to the role of fear,
fear that by helping the
Pollards one is either condon-
ing disloyalty or tainting
one's loyalty to this country.
If fear prevents an individual
from acting morally, can one
say that the person is truly
free?

Also bothersome is the role
played by the Israeli govern-
ment. Its agents, Eitan and
Sella, received illegally ob-
tained information from the
Pollards. Whom did they pass
this information to? Why did
not the agents' supervisors
stop what was going on and
try to obtain this valuable in-
formation through legal
channels? In time, such an ap-
proach would have succeeded
an corrected an imbalance in
the exchange of confidential
information between the
United States and Israel. For
the Israeli government to
label what happened as a
"rogue operation" is
irresponsible.

Now, we have what appears
to be a new 'spectacle un-
folding. Just as Eitan and
Sella sought to advance their
careers by exploiting Pollard's
naivety, U.S. prosecutor
Joseph diGenova is seeking to
help his career by finding
evidence of a Jewish con-
spiracy to aid Israel illegally.
What the Israeli govern-
ment needs to do, is to admit
its culpability in this matter
and to formally request the
U.S. government to grant a
pardon to the Pollards. In this
way, it can begin to earn the
respect of those who care.

A bar mitzvah twinning ar-
ticle last week left the impres-
sion that the Lifshitz family
is still awaiting permission to
leave the Soviet Union .. .
About three weeks ago, we
were informed that Michael
and Valentine Lifshitz, their
son Daniel and Valentine's
mother, Bella Mikhailovitch,
had received their freedom
from .the USSR several
months ago, and are now liv-
ing in New Jersey .. .

Irving Warshawsky
West Bloomfield

Samuel D. Semp
Ritual Director,
Cong. Beth Shalom

Lifshitz Family
In New Jersey