et and I don't want our soldiers
to be killed. I want what's good
for us."
"The Palestinians are a mur-
derous people, an uncultured peo-
ple," added Motti Balelti, a
salesman from Bnei Brak. "I'm
against the peace process because
it's dangerous; we're giving guns
to terrorists, and in the end
they're going to want Tel Aviv
and Haifa.
"But there's a good side to it,
too — we're getting rid of Gaza
"I'd rather live
apart from the
Palestinians.
Who needs them?
They're like a stone
around our necks."
Mot Balelti
and Jericho. It'll save bloodshed;
we'll have fewer victims. I prefer
to give away the territories. I'd
rather live apart from the Pales-
tinians. Who needs them?
They're like a stone around our
necks."
The idea of breaking down the
walls between Israel and the
Arabs, of eventually having open
borders and tourism so that the
two peoples could get to know
each other, doesn't hold much at-
traction. Israelis are not mad to
visit Damascus or Amman. For
the most part, they see Arabs as
a people beneath them.
"The Palestinians have vio-
lence in their blood. And they've
never ruled, they've always been
ruled over," said Rami Shapiro,
a retired businessman in Haifa.
"We have plenty of Israeli
Arabs right here inside the Green
Line, and we're not exactly hos-
pitable to them," said Jenny
Haspel, a clerk from Holon.
If Israelis are looking to
widen their horizons, they go
to the more advanced countries
in Western Europe and North
America. The Arab world is
seen as a step down from Israel,
so why reach out to it?
With the exception of a few
pockets here and there, Jews and
Arabs live segregated lives with-
in Israel's borders. There's no rea-
son to think that Israelis are
interested in integrating with
Arabs beyond those borders.
"I think we'll have trade with
the Arabs, but friends we'll nev-
er be," said Ms. Haspel. "rm for
the peace process because a peo-
ple without a country will never
stop fighting. Maybe if we give
them something we'll have qui-
et. As for the Cairo ceremony, it
didn't fill me with emotion, but it
did give me an expectation. I
would like to turn on the radio
one morning and instead of hear-
ing that this one was stabbed and
that one was killed, I'd like to
hear that the biggest news of the
day was the weather."
I have another cousin who's
not as vehemently anti-Arab as
Maya, but who also doesn't have
a good word to say about them.
On the weekend after the Cairo
festivities, she showed me around
her little town outside of Haifa,
explaining how before the 1948
War of Independence, local Arabs
used to kill Jews in the area, and
the Jews would kill the Arabs in
revenge, until the war ended and
a Jewish town replaced the Arab
village that had been there be-
fore.
My cousin can't stand
peaceniks, and she's skeptical as
can be about the Gaza-Jericho ac-
cord. Still, she's ready to give it a
chance. "Something has to
change," she said. "We can't go on
this way." LI
Observers
In Hebron
Jerusalem (JTA) — A full con-
tingent of international observers
arrived in the West Bank town of
Hebron this week, but on their
first day of monitoring duties they
found themselves caught in clash-
es between Palestinian protest-
ers and Israeli soldiers.
The unarmed 114-member ob-
server force, recruited from Nor-
way, Denmark and Italy, arrived
in Hebron in a convoy led by the
Israel Defense Force. They were
accompanied by a busload of
members of the foreign news me-
dia.
Shortly after the observers ar-
rived, Palestinians protesting the
presence of Jewish settlers in He-
bron and nearby Kiryat Arba be-
gan throwing stones at Israeli
soldiers.
The soldiers responded by fir-
ing tear gas into the crowd.
The observers, caught in the
confrontation, soon found them-
selves choking on the tear gas.
"I guess we'll have to get used
to carrying onions around with
us," an Italian member of the ob-
server force later said on Israel
Radio, referring to a means to
counter the effects of the gas.
The presence of observers,
known officially as the Tempo-
rary International Presence in
Hebron, was agreed to by Israel
and the Palestine Liberation Or-
ganization in late March follow-
ing the Feb. 25 slaying of at least
29 Palestinians at a Hebron
mosque by an Israeli settler.
The agreement on the pres-
ence of an international team of
observers had paved the way for
the resumption of Israeli-PLO ne-
gotiations, which the Palestini-
ans had suspended immediately
after the Hebron massacre.
It was 1944.
You had just
graduated fran
Central High.
The world was
your oyster.
Too bad you
couldn't eat
shellfish.
CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL /DETROIT-50TH REUNION
Buffet & Dinner Dance • $45 per person
Troy Marriott • Sunday, May 29, 1994 7:30 pm
(313) 661-6934 or (313)' 851-1525
MINI VAN MADNESS
1994
PLYMOUTH
VOYACTEK
SHUMAIII
CHRYSLER (
114:
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a)
sales, jnc•)
Plymouth
Corner of Pontiac Trail & S. Commerce Rds.
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6% use tax and plates. No option to purchase at termination. $250 disposition lee. Vehicles shown may have additional optional equipment. Plus lax, title, plates, destination. includes rebate. Requires $2.000 down payment. Security deposit
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