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Eldorado Extravaganza!

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36 Month
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$49989

GARY ROSENBLATT

Spring Convertible
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•36 mo. closed end lease. 12,000 miles per year. 15 0 per mile over. First payment, security deposit of S525, plates and
4% use tax due at inception. MSRP is S34,086. To get total payments, multiply by 36. Customer can, but has no
obligation to purchase vehicle at lease end.

suburban Olds-

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40

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 1992

Menachem Begin,
At The End

30400 Telegraph Road
Suite 134
Bingham Farms, MI 48010

(313) 642.5575

DAILY 10-5:30
THURS. 10-7
SAT. 10-3

Menachem Be-
gin eulogized
this week as
a peacemaker,
didn't get good
press when he
was alive, pax-
IIK;
•
ticularly
during
the two decades when he was
the largely ignored opposition
leader of Herut in a country
ruled by the Labor Party.
Speaking in Baltimore on
behalf of the Zionist Organ-
ization of America in the
spring of 1975, Mr. Begin
delivered a reasoned ap-
proach as to why he believed
Israel should not give up
land for the promise of
international guarantees.
But the headline in the
Morning Sun the next day
was: "Ex-Israeli Terrorist
Asks For Weapons."
The shadow of Mr. Begin's
pre-statehood leadership of
the Irgun was always with
him. Following his mentor,
Zev Jabotinsky, Mr. Begin
was militantly opposed to
foreign occupation of
Palestine and to the main-
stream Zionist approach of
diplomacy. The Irgun.
favored "using all possible
means" to achieve
statehood, including
violence.
That's why, on first
meeting him, I was surpris-
ed by his courteous, courtly
manner. It was impossible to
picture this frail, impeccably
polite man as a terrorist.
But Menachem Begin was
a larger-than-life figure in
Jewish history and a blend
of contradictions. Though
not Orthodox, he espoused
the biblical command to re-
tain the land of Israel; for all
of his soft-spokeness, he was
a fiery orator and was once
banned from the Knessef for
his outbursts; a Polish Jew
himself, he won the con-
fidence, and votes, of disen-
franchised Sephardim; con-
sidered Israel's most mili-
tant, uncompromising prime
minister, he made peace
with Egypt, giving up most
of the land conquered in the
1967 war.
Mr. Begin was a proud Jew
for whom the Holocaust was
the seminal event of his life.
He saw his role as not only
the protector of the state of
Israel but of the pride and
dignity of the Jewish people,
as well.
I heard him speak many
times, in lectures and press

conferences. Several occa-
sions stand out in my
memory because they
revealed inner qualities of a
very private man.
At a White House press
conference in 1978, Mr.
Begin was asked his re-
sponse to whatever demand
of the day was being re-
quired of him by the Carter
administration. The prime
minister seized the oppor-
tunity to launch into a
lengthy, detailed description
of how a famous rabbi dur-
in g the Middle Ages
wavered before rejecting
demands from the king that
he convert. The rabbi died a
broken man because he had
given the impression,
however briefly, that he had
considered abandoning his
faith, Mr. Begin said.
He told the press corps
that, in order to avoid the
rabbi's error, he wanted to
make it clear that he was re-
jecting the U.S. proposal

History may be kind
to him, citing his
Nobel Peace Prize,
but it is important
to remember how
vilified Mr. Begin
was throughout his
lifetime.

immediately, lest people
assume mistakenly that he
was giving it serious con-
sideration.
It was quite a perfor-
mance, this leader of the,
Jewish state lecturing
American journalists on
Jewish history and faith.
Mr. Begin was a man un-:
concerned about world opi-
nion. Right or wrong, he
acted out of conviction, often
citing the tragedy of the
Holocaust and the need for
Jews to defend themselves,
regardless of what others
think.
When, in 1981, he sent
Israeli planes to destroy a
nuclear reactor being built
in Iraq, he withstood world
criticism — including the
anger of the White House —
and declared, "there will not
be another holocaust in the
history of the Jewish people.
Never again. Never again.
We will defend our people
with all the means at our
disposal. We will not allow
our enemies to develop
weapons of mass destruction
that can be turned against
us."
In the wake of the Gulf