PURELY COMMENTARY

Freedom Front: Diaspora To The Rescue

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor Emeritus

I

srael's very serious problems, im-
posed by the enemy that is now
rallying additional support, keep
causing tensions that demand amassed
defensive means. It is a continuation of
an aggravated struggle that began even
before Israel's statehood. It is difficult
to become accustomed to, yet it
demands unified action by all Jews
everywhere.
This menace is dastardly enough.
There is no need for an internal Israeli
disease splitting Jewish ranks.
Israel is a political factor in the
world. With Jewry as a totality it is also
a religious community. One element in
that faithful sphere has now attained
a political means of dictating to the en-
tire country and its population such
religious dogmas that threaten the
unification so vitally needed for defense,
security and self-respect. It has reach-
ed so serious a stage that Jews outside
Israel, the Diaspora, have found
themselves compelled to express opi-
nions on matters left to the Jewish
state. Diaspora leadership, never fully
wishing to attempt influencing Israeli
actions, now finds itself duty bound to
tell the threateners of divisiveness that
forcing restrictive rules upon Israel will
be viewed as menacing to the entire
Jewish people and will not be tolerated.
"Freedom Front" (Hofesh) has
therefore developed as a new force in
Jewish life, the liberal forces in world
Jewry joining with the Israelis who re-
ject extreme religious domination to
prevent a calamity that could become
a political cancer for Israel.
Let it be understood that not all
religious affiliates are guilty of the
disease that has as its aim domination
in the Israel government. There are Or-
thodox elements that do not condone
the political blackmail of those who now
threaten the unity of the People Israel.
But when the rebbe himself will not set-
tle in Israel, preferring to await the ar-
rival of the Messiah, preaches from
Brooklyn to followers in Israel to vote
for the Agudat Yisrael in the Israeli
elections, he indicates a role that can
be judged only as divisiveness.
Because "Freedom Front" unifies
the seekers of amity and Ahdut in
Israel, participation in it of Jewish

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Vol. XCIV No. 14

2

December 2, 1988

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1988

leaders worldwide is a happy sign that
Diaspora counts, that in a time of crisis
Diaspora comes to the rescue. This is
how it should be.

RCA To The Rescue:
An Orthodox Blessing

I

n the dispute that has arisen
under the title "Who Is A Jew,"
there should be no generalizing
about Orthodoxy leadership. Just
because the rebbe has chosen to enter
Israeli politics and to appeal to Israel's
ultra-Orthodox constituents to vote for
Agudat Israel — a movement I never en-
couraged — does not mean that Or-
thodoxy should be aligned on a total
basis with extremism. There is an Or-
thodoxy that is tolerant and even
liberal.
The Rabbinical Council of America,
the moderate factor in Orthodoxy, has
urged the removal of the issue from the
political policies of Israel.
In a statement cabled to Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir, the RCA
leaders emphasized that it was acting
"to preserve the unity and support of
the American Jewish community with
and for Israel."
The Orthodox leadership that is of
consequence thereby came to the rescue
for all Jews and for Israel with this
action.
The RCA action provides a sense of
relief, after the negative militancy that
was assumed by Chabad and their
associates. There is an Orthodoxy that
is liberal and shares in the courage of
preserving Jewish principles.
There are many guides to be
respected in Orthodox ranks. Em-
manuel Rackman, Norman Lamm, Yit-
zhak Greenberg and the leaders in the
RCA will now gain support and an ad-
miring fellowship in defense of common
sense in all Jewish relationships,
especially Israel. More power to such
pragmatism.

Brutal Realities:
Preventing
Scapegoating

eace hopes are pronounced.
With peace remote, neighbor-
liness is dreamed of and it is
constantly undermined. This is the
desperation of our time. The sensation
revealed in Algeria under the headline
of a Palestinian state keeps adding to
the menace that lurks under a long
time provocation aimed at the destruc-
tion of Israel, and even in some Jewish
quarters there is the misdirected belief
that talking with the PLO has become
a necessity spelling into a command.
Therefore the need to unmask the
fanning of a mirage, the demand that
facts be known.
It is of the utmost urgency that the
imbedded threat to Israel's very ex-
istence be recognized in the Arafat-
produced proclamation. The very root of

p

it is the ultimate of its aim to seek a
death blow at Jewish statehood.
Jews and Israel have been
scapegoats long enough in the Middle
East political games. There should be
an end to it. Therefore the deep ap-
preciation to those who get at the root
of developing threats to Israel and to
Jewry in that process, the debt of
gratitude to searchers for truth and the
dissemination of it.
We have an immediate "Thank
You" to A.M. Rosenthal for his New
York Times Nov. 17 Op-Ed Page frank
statements revealing the true aims in
the continuing Arab declarations and
the threats to Israel in the unchanged
PLO policies.
In his blunt statement, "The Cynics
of Algiers," Rosenthal indicated the
double talk called self-determination,
the undeniable intention to destroy the
Jewishly existent, the adherence to
resolutions equating Zionism with
racism.
It is especially his introduction to
his column that reveals the evil inten-
tions. It is important that the introduc-
tory in his accusatory should be known:
I hereby declare that I am
the rightful owner of the house
in which you live. I have created
a new corporation to take it
over. Take notice that I intend to
establish the headquarters in
your living room.
You are a usurper, a squatter,
totally vile. I have sworn a holy
oath to drive you and your
children from the house. I sum-
mon you to a court at which my
rights and the new corporation
will be recognized by you and
all. However, if you attend, I will
consider agreeing that you are
entitled to live somewhere on
the grounds, maybe in the yard.
Meantime, to persuade you to
hurry up, I will throw more and
more rocks at you through your
windows.
Be grateful.
•
That is a political translation
of the deal the Palestine Libera-
tion Organization is now offer-
ing the Israelis.
Meeting in Algiers, the PLO
announced the creation of a
new Palestinian state on ter-
ritory Israel happens to con-
sider hers by right of interna-
tional law, statehood, religion or
the conquest and outster of in-
vading Arab armies.
The PLO did not specify the
boundaries of the new state but
did announce that its capital
would be in Jerusalem. It im-
plied that at an international
conference it might accept an
ambigious U.N. resolution
recognizing Israel's right to con-
sider herself among the living.
But at the same time the
PLO made it clear that it still
embraced the UN resolutions
condemning Israel, including
the international piece of anti-

George Will: Peace as war tactic.

Semitism that equates Zionism,
the philosophic root of the
Israeli state, with racism. It did
not even consider renouncing or
even changing the PLO charter
that calls for war to the death
against Israel.
This is the realism that negates the
trickery in Arab-Israel intentions, and
it must be studied in all its realism.
The Jewish community especially
must not be misled by confusions and
distortions. If and when Arab leaders
wish to recognize and adhere to Israel's
reality as a sovereign nation, they must
state it and must begin by erasing,
totally abandoning venemous U.N.
resolutions. They must sit with Jews to
plan proper neighborliness, without
rock-throwing. What is flagged now is
a mere addition to more violence and
destruction. Let there be realism built
on amity that will be recorded not by
double talk but by genuinely human
decisions.
Rosenthal is not alone as an impor-
tant member of the media who exposes
the charading of the U.N. resolutions
while claiming to be endorsing peace.
Even U.N. Resolution 242 is being
paraded falsely, yet there are Jews who
are misled into believing there is a
breakthrough for peace and that
Arafat's hand should be grasped.
George Will has joined in exposing
the trickery inherent in the Arafat pro-
clamation when he wrote in his syn-
dicated column:
The PLO has long been
divided about how to pursue li-
quidation of Israel. One faction
has simply favored terrorism
leading to war. But so-called
moderates argued for violence
supplemented by diplomacy.
They say force will only work
after Israel has been shrunk to
indefensible borders.
This two-stage, two-state
solution was affirmed in Algiers.
It is peace as a tactic of war.
What flummoxed wishful-
thinking Westerners was the
PLO's dusty semi-approval of
Continued on Page 44