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SOUTHFIELD
A FAMILY AFFAIR
Gulf War Boosts
Democracy In Israel
ARTHUR J. MAGIDA
Special to The Jewish News
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36
FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1991
he Gulf war was good
for Israel's political
institutions, according
to polls in Israeli Democracy,
a quarterly published by the
Israeli Democracy Institute
and distributed as a supple-
ment to the Jerusalem Post's
international edition.
Polls taken in December
and mid-February — after
30 Iraqi missiles landed in
Israel — revealed that the
war had triggered an across-
the-board increase in
Israelis' trust in their in-
stitutions. In December, in-
stitutions had the trust of 32
percent of Israelis. About six
weeks later, this had climb-
ed to 55 percent.
Institutions that had the
biggest increases in their
trust-level were the police
(73 percent in December, 79
percent in February), the
central government (34 per-
cent to 67 percent),
municipal governments (39
percent to 55 percent) and
the Knesset (32 percent to 53
percent).
The survey also revealed
that the war enhanced
Israelis' democratic values.
More Israelis opposed strong
government, restrictions on
democracy and disagreed
that Israel is too democratic.
Pollsters Ephraim
Yuchtman-Ya'ar and
Yochanan Peres, both pro-
fessors at Tel Aviv Univer-
sity, concluded that "when,
in the face of domestic strife,
the rules of the democratic
game seem ineffective to a
majority of the public, the
demand for a strong leader
and restrictions on democ-
racy grows . . . (But an ex-
ternal threat) strengthens
national participation and
unity."
Should Yom Hashoah
Be Abolished?
"Not to have a day in the
Jewish calender that gives a
collective voice to the Sho-ah
(the Holocaust)," said
Michael Berenbaum, "would
be a religious obscenity and
a psychological impossibili-
ty."
Mr. Berenbaum, project
director of the United States
Holocaust Memorial Muse-
um now being built in Wash-
ington, was reacting to a
column by Ze'ev Chafets in
the Israeli news magazine,
Jerusalem Report, that urg-
ed Israel to abolish Yom
Hashoah, Israel's annual
day of commemoration for
the victims of the Holocaust.
In his column, Mr. Chafets
chafed at "the obligatory
public morbidity of Holo-
caust Day." He was par-
ticularly annoyed at
government orders to close
restaurants, clubs, coffee
houses and movie theaters
on the eve of Yom Hashoah,
and then to impose a
"Orwellian stricture"
against "a- festive at-
mosphere" when they re-
opened the next day.
"No one," wrote Mr.
Chafets, "least of all bu-
reaucrats in Jerusalem, ful-
ly comprehends the message
of the Holocaust . . . It is
time to put an en,d to
government-mandated
mourning and to permit the
Holocaust to recede. Each of
Ze'ev Chafets:
Anti-Yom Hashoah.
us will remember in his or
her own way; none of us, in
truth, has any choice."
Battlin'
Headlines
Israel Looking To
A Hopeful Period
Israel's New, Tough
Security Measures
TWo headlines that recently
appeared on the same page
in the Intermountain Jewish
News.