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March 15, 1991 - Image 7

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1991-03-15

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

OPINION

Territory For Peace?
Remember Tel Fahar

AMY J. MEHLER

Staff Writer

T

2

er-ritory for peace. It
never ceases to enrage
me.
President George Bush
thinks Israel should trade
territory it seized during
Arab-Israeli wars for peace
and secure borders. He told
America so last Wednesday
night.
"The time has come to put
an end to the Arab-Israeli
conflict," Mr. Bush said
before a live, televised joint
session of Congress. "By
now, it should be plain to all
parties that peacemaking in
the Middle East requires
compromise." Plain to whom
I thought? Did we just
witness the same war? Did
compromise stop U.S. and
coalition forces from razing
Baghdad? Did it liberate
Kuwait?
Negotiation didn't work
for the United States. Why
should it work for the state
of Israel.
By now it should be plain
to all parties that the
majority of Arabs don't
respect compromise. Most
regard it as a sign of
weakness. What they do
understand and respect is
force.
This was why the Palestin-
ians rallied behind Saddam
Hussein. He promised to be
their savior, to champion
their cause before the world.
Yet, these are the same
people the world would like
Israel to give its territory to.
Israel may find it difficult to
erase the sinister images of
Palestinians rejoicing from
their rooftops as scores of
scud missiles smashed into
Israeli homes and frightened
to death Jewish men and
women.
Israelis may have a prob-
lem returning land stained
with the blood of sons and
daughters who lost their
lives while defending its
borders.
This week, Israeli officials
took U.S. Secretary of State
James Baker —in Israel for
the first time — on a
helicopter ride for the best
aerial view of Israel.
I hope he's taken to Tel
Fahar, a memorial of one of
Israel's bloodiest battles in
the Golan Heights.
I was there a little over
two months ago, and the
images I saw remain with
me today. I was overcome

with emotion as I walked
through the remains of shell-
ridden tanks and crumbling,
overgrown underground
bunkers. Tears for the loss of
men — young and old, officer
and private — who fell while
protecting Israel from
Syrian attack during the Six
Day War, and pride for the
two flags — one blue and
white, and one green and
yellow, (Golani colors) —
embedded deep within the
soil, flying tall and strong
against harsh winter winds
that rattled surrounding
trees and bushes. Will we
take down their memorial
plaque and put it away in
some museum as a token of

Israel may find it
difficult to erase
the sinister images
of Palestinians
rejoicing from their
rooftops as scores
of scud missiles
smashed into
Israeli homes and
frightened to death
almost 20 Jewish
men and women.

once was? What will we say
to the families of these fallen
soldiers? Thank you for
recapturing the land of our
forefathers, but for the sake
of world opinion and the con-
tinued support of the United
States, we're giving it all
back.
Should we change the
name of the Golani Brigade,
one of Israel's Defense
Forces most illustrious in-
fantry units — a unit whose
name was derived from the
capture of the Golan.
How easy it is for Mr. Bush
and the rest of the world to
decide Israel's fate. Because
that's what trading territory
for peace ultimately means.
Giving back this and other
strategically, not to mention
biblically, Jewish land
leaves Israel vulnerable to a
people who I believe will
only use it as a front from
which they will take over
the rest of Israel.
Why does Mr. Bush think
that the Arab world is any
less a threat to Israel now
that Saddam Hussein's war
machine is temporarily
defeated?
Why do you suppose Israel
refrained from retaliating —
a decision completely un-

precedented in Israel's his-
tory — when her people were
subject to deadly attack
night after night?
It wasn't for lack of a
battle plan. The world now
knows that Israel planned to
retaliate with a large air and
land incursion into Western
Iraq. Israel's plan to wipe
out Iraq's missile launchers
was only stymied and
ultimately abandoned be-
cause the Bush Administra-
tion pressed Israel to stay
out of the war.
And why did Mr. Bush do
that? Because he knew as
well as Israel, that
America's tenuous hold over
the Arab Coalition could
splinter apart at the first
sign of Israeli intervention.
Saddam Hussein would have
succeeded in turning his ag-
gression against Kuwait
into a Jihad, a holy war.
Under the best of cir-
cumstances, Israel exists in
a constant state of military
alert. This last episode was
just more acute.
Israel lives like this be-
cause she is surrounded by
hostile Arab nations who are
prohibited by Islam from
entering into any kind of
permanent peace treaty with
the infidel. Islam cannot log-
ically nor psychologically
accept that Jews, considered

Names of the men of the Golani Brigade who lost their lives at Tel Fahar.

a subservient if protected
class, should have
sovereignty in a land once
controlled by Islam.
What Mr. Bush wants will
place Israel in further
jeopardy. Israel has already
returned Sinai, which it cap-
tured from Egypt, as part of
the Israeli-Egyptian peace
treaty of 1979.
Now the world would like
to see Israel give back the
West Bank, Gaza and the
Golan Heights. Would the
world ask any other country
to give back land it won in
war? Wars it didn't even in-
stigate.

I suggest that Jordan,
Saudi Arabia or any other
members of the Arab coali-
tion, find a solution for their
own people. But the truth is,
they don't want the Palesti-
nians either. They and the
PLO have created this situa-
tion. The Palestinians are
kept in refugee camps on
purpose, as a whip to lash
Israel with.
So how about Peace for
Peace instead? If such a
thing is truly possible, it can
only be achieved once the
Palestinians are home
within their own borders,
and outside of Israel's. ❑

Can Jews And Blacks
Ever Be Friends Again?

PHIL JACOBS

Managing Editor

L

ast Wednesday, a re-
ception marked the
opening of "Blacks and
Jews: The American Experi-
ence" at the Outer Gallery of
Wayne State University's
Community Arts Building.

The exhibit itself was
wonderful and absolutely
worth a visit, especially for
younger adults, high school
students and even young
children. Consisting largely
of photographs, articles and
other historical information,
the exhibit kicked off what
will be a month of activities
that will range from dia-
logues to discussions of the
disease Lupus, to a black-
Jewish seder.

If you check the exhibit,
you'll see that the most stirr-
ing and significant times

during the black-Jewish ex-
perience involved Dr. Mar-
tin Luther King, Jr.
There for all to see was a
1972 black newspaper edito-
rial entitled "Black and
Jewish Ties." The editorial
said that "neither the black
nor Jewish minorities in this
country have progressed to
the point where either
should feel safe to desert the
other."
Then there's an excerpt
from a Dr. King speech
before the Rabbinical
Assembly where he calls for
a secure Israel.
I look at these well-done
placards telling of times of
tumult and togetherness
between blacks and Jews.
My eyes lose focus and my
mind drifts to October 1985
when I got the chance to
hear Nation of Islam leader
Rev. Louis Farrakhan tell a
packed Morgan State Uni-
versity auditorium in

Baltimore that Hitler was a
great man and that Judaism
was now a gutter religion.
What bothered me more
than the statement was the
standing, screaming hall of
middle to upper middle class
students, fists in the air and
smiles on their faces. The
scene would be repeated a
couple of weeks later in a
grander scale at New York's
Madison Square Garden.
Then I think of a speech I
heard a rabbi give about lov-
ing people as brothers and
sisters. At his lunch table
that same day, he talked
about the shvartzes (blacks)
ruining the neighborhood.
The volume of a
microphone and a speech
from a Jewish communal
leader pierces my day dream
and brings me back to the
present. There is talk of a
need to support one another,
there of senseless
Continued on Page 10

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

7

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