YEAR IN REVIEW 5749 YEAR IN REVIEW

THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY of
Krystallnacht, the night of the
burning glass in Germany in
1938, was marked in
November, as was the 50th
anniversary of the outbreak of
World War II in September.
Several books examining the
war focused on how England
and France were unable to
grasp the serious intentions
of Hitler to provoke a world
war.

.

nual conference in Washington
stunned many Jewish leaders in
its carefully balanced Middle
East equation, calling for com-
promises from Israel as well as
the Arabs. Particularly upset-
ting was Baker's call for
Jerusalem to give up its dreams
of a Greater Israel. Administra-
tion officials were wary of Yitz-
hak Shamir's ability to counter
the PLO's peace initiative, but
the resilient prime minister sur-

prised them. After sponsoring a
hastily arranged Solidarity Con-
ference in Jerusalem of hun-
dreds of Jewish leaders from
around the world, he presented
Washington with a peace plan
calling for elections of Palestin-
ian representatives from the
West Bank and Gaza.
-
The administration endorsed
the plan, but it was undermined
by intra-party squabbling within
Likud this summer. Ariel
Sharon and other right-wingers

forced Shamir to spell out the
specifics of the plan that had
been purposefully left vague.
Their point was to embarrass
the party leader, Shamir, and
scuttle the peace initiative. It
came close, and almost led to
the dissolution of the govern-

A CHINA REVOLUTION for
democratic reform that spread
from students to millions of
fellow citizens ended suddenly
and tragically when the army
fired on the throngs at
Tiananmen Square this
summer.

ment when Labor threatened to
bolt the government. But
Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin
and Finance Minister Shimon
Peres prevailed and Labor main-

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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