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12

STATE

FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 1989

OPINION I

"No, that is not the tradition."
Then the sit-down group
says, "Then it must be the
tradition, rabbi, that we sit
down." And the rabbi says,
"No, no, no, that is not the
tradition." And the new rab-
bi says, "But this is terrible;
half of them stand up and half
of them sit down; I can't even
hear myself think?'
And the old rabbi says,
"Yes, my son — that is the
tradition!"
I remember telling that
story in a congregation. My
mother called out from the
back: "But at least they all
say the `Sh'ma Yisrael: and
that, too, is the tradition!' "
We all have our own version
of what the "Sh'ma Yisrael"
is; we also have our dif-
ferences over Israel, but we
have our similarities.
I think we have consensus
in this country over the
following propositions:
1) Israel's continued sur-
vival is essential both to the
United States and to
American Jewry.
2) Israel's survival depends
on remaining militarily
superior to the combined
Arab and Islamic armed
forces.
3) Israel should not per-
manently annex Arab popula-
tion centers for exclusively
religious or expansionist
reasons.
4) Israel should not do what
no other nation in history has
ever done; namely, return
land captured in a defensive
war without assurances that
that land will not be used
against it militarily.
5) I think there is consensus
on the proposition that Israel
should grant all political and
civil rights to those in oc-
cupied territories that are
consistent with Israel's
security. Nobody wants to
close schools; nobody wants to
not hold elections; nobody
wants to censor newspapers;
everybody would like to see
the widest civil and political
rights consistent with Israel's
security, but Israel's security
cannot be determined uni-
laterally. There must be some
bargaining and negotiation.
6) Israel should take
reasonable risks for peace,
but not take unreasonable
risks for peace. How to fill in
those blanks requires an
ability to forsee the future
that none of us who has not
made the commitment to put
our bodies and our children's
bodies on the land in Israel
should dictate.
7) If Israel can be assured
realistically of peace, neither
the Israelis nor the American
Jews have any real concern
about in the form of govern-
ment ultimately adopted by

the Palestinians; the concern
is only a security concern.
Obviously, we would all
prefer a democracy. It's not so
clear the Palestinians would.
A poll was conducted last
year by a Palestinian pro-
fessor at Bir Zeit University,
a Palestinian university — to
see what kind of a state most
Palestinians on the West
Bank and Gaza preferred.
The overwhelming majority
wanted either an Islamic fun-
damentalist state or a state
modeled on Eastern Euro-
pean socialist countries. Only
a minority preferred a
Western-style democracy. But
once Israel is assured peace,
that is not its concern.
When one focuses on these
seven basic points of consen-
sus, I think we are a united
and not a divided community.
We have disagreements about
levels of risk, about who goes
first, about important details.
We all have the right to
criticize our government in
the United States and the
Israeli government. But that
criticism must be contextual;
it must be comaprative; it
must be constructive; it must
be done without any effort to
de-legitimatize, it must not
lend support to the enemies of
Israel.
It must, if possible, be done
internally first. But I can't
tell a fellow Jew or a fellow
supporter of Israel that there
is never a time for public
criticism. I urge you, however,
to think very carefully about
the megaphone that your
Jewishness and your activism
on behalf of Israel takes and
makes into criticisms. ❑

NEWS I

Ministry Fixes
Hotel Rates

Jerusalem (JTA) — The
Ministry of Tourism has
ordered hotels to reduce their
prices and hotel owners are
livid. The price controls and
reductions, approved by the
Knesset Finance Committee
this week, were instituted by
Iburism Minister Gideon Patt
to spur Israel's badly sagging
tourist trade.
According to a recent
survey,lh1 Aviv is the world's
sixth most expensive tourist
destination. Patt said that
because Israel has an exag-
gerated reputation as an ex-
pensive country to visit, his
price changes are basic, "not
cosmetic."
The Likud Party member
finds himself in a running
battle with the Hotel Owners
Association, headed by Eli
Paposhado, who claimed that
the high prices only reflect

