NNE MINI :R
NETANYAHU WOULD
LAE ME TO 1 -41IE
THE PLEAZIIRE OF

After The WB Election

You'd probably have to confess to hiding under
a rock not to have caught the backlash over the
political mess happening in West Bloomfield.
West Bloomfield politicians hardly invented
mudslinging. What makes this all so painful for
this community is that it not only divides the
Jewish community, it does so viciously.
Our question is, what do we do the day after the
election? It is important for West Bloomfield to get
on with its day-to-day life. There are projects to de-
velop, school days to prepare for and improvements
to be made. West Bloomfield's desirability as a
place for Jews to live as active community mem-
bers and good neighbors cannot be debated.
Clearly, though, there is something wrong.
The "religion card" has surfaced in an angry,
viperous way. No matter what the facts or the
issues are, the venom spewed indicates that this
issue cannot be buried and put away until the
next election comes along.
Because West Bloomfield is such a vital part

of Jewish life, we call on the Jewish Communi-
ty Council, Jewish community leadership, Jew-
ish politicians and the network of West
Bloomfield neighbors to face one another civilly.
The Council, which works on building bridges
between Jews and other ethnic groups, needs to
work with urgency to help heal this existing rift.
West Bloomfield is a model of intergroup re-
lations, where Jews, Chaldeans, blacks, Christ-
ian whites and Asians live pretty much in
harmony. Now, the Jews are tearing one anoth-
er apart. It may be a small minority making the
noise. Still, we need to fix this. Now is an oppor-
tunity for leadership to show itself and take steps
to make sure this bitter dissension doesn't hap-
pen again in West Bloomfield and doesn't sur-
face in other communities as well.
To bury this issue would be improper. Indeed,
we need to keep it out in the open. It needs to be
debated with responsibility, not hysteria and hid-
den agendas.

Letters

Gloom, Doom
Is Unmerited

It was very sad and stressful to
read James Besser's column
("Cheers and Fears") on July 19.
Why rain on Bibi Netanyahu's pa-
rade? Why all the gloom and doom
prophecy about future Israeli-U.S.
relations? Congress was staunch-
ly supportive of Israel even dur-
ing the Bush administration, and
I do not think we have to worry
about it.

Terror In The Park

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Americans have tragically come to grips in re-
cent years with the reality of terrorism — do-
mestic and foreign. Last month, in a horrific
explosion, a TWA New York-to-Paris flight
plunged from the sky, killing 230 people. At press
time, evidence pointed toward a bomb. In At-
lanta, an explosion at Centennial Olympic Park
last Saturday swiftly turned into a blast heard
around the world. A crudely made but deadly
pipe bomb directly killed one person and indi-
rectly another. More than 100 people were
maimed, the city's Olympic festivities perma-
nently chilled.
Both attacks on innocent civilians are obvious-
ly despicable. The only purpose they serve is to
stiffen resolve in the need to combat terrorism.
After Saturday's explosion, President Bill Clin-
ton moved quickly. He summoned a bipartisan
group of congressional leaders to the White House
on Monday. He urged them to renew stalled leg-
islation allowing law enforcement officials to step
up the war against terror. He asked for enhanced
telephone wire-tapping permission, tracers on
explosive chemicals and cooperation among mil-
itary and civilian authorities. The latter two steps
should bring no debate. The first, eavesdropping
on telephone calls, is more complicated.
All three measures, first pushed in the wake
of last year's Oklahoma City bombing, were de-
feated in part by a strange alliance of the pow-

erful conservative National Rifle Association and
liberal American Civil Liberties Union. This time
around, both groups should limit their opposi-
tion, recognizing that in an ugly world, extra-
ordinary steps must be taken.
Yet, as Jews, we always have some trepida-
tion when the government seeks to intrude into
our private lives. The powers that be should not
have carte blanche in such matters. As history
shows, authority will eventually be abused. Jews
also are intimately aware of terrorism's devas-
tating impact. We urge the support of the pres-
ident's initiatives, albeit with some caveats.
There is fear that the FBI and other agencies
want increased power for general crime-fighting
efforts rather than those against terrorism. The
government must offer a detailed plan as to the
oversight of such activities before it can receive
our wholehearted endorsement. And Mr. Clin-
ton, a master politician, should tread carefully
along the fine line that separates leadership from
political posturing.
Fighting terrorism is extremely difficult no
matter what the resources allotted to it. Such
horrible acts will occur again. The only adequate
response is to make the actions of the perpetra-
tors more difficult and their punishment more
long-lasting. That the battle must be joined is
clear to all. That it must not be at the expense of
fundamental freedoms is equally evident.

6355360 @ECIMAIL . COM .

What
Do You
I Think?"

"After last Saturday's violence,
should the Olympics be held in the
United States again?"

To respond: "So, What Do You Think?"
27676 Franklin Road, Southfield, MI 48034

Binyamin Netanyahu:
Give Bibi a chance.

The president and the over-
whelming majority of senators
and congressmen respect the Is-
raeli citizen's right to vote for the
political party he chooses. It is the
American Jewish liberals who are
overwhelmed with grief, and they
have the most difficult time ac-
cepting the election results. I am
worried about what damage
Jewish liberals will do to the de-
mocratically elected Israeli gov-
ernment.
We had a semi-prayer in Eu-
rope, "May God save you from gen-
tile hands and Jewish heads." As
an Auschwitz survivor, I cannot
erase from my subconscious the
unthinkable; another Holocaust
could happen again in the future.
Therefore, in my opinion, all Jews
all over the world must uncondi-
tionally support Israel's Labor or
Likud parties morally and finan-
cially.
No Jew has the right to inter-
fere in Israel's foreign and defense
policies. They are not asking us to
fight and die for them, and we
have to accept their decisions
bringing the Likud to power and
electing Binyamin Netanyahu as
prime minister of Israel.

David Kahan
Troy

Candidacy
And Bigotry

James D. Besser's article "Buck-
ing Convention: Will a Jewish
Candidate Ever Lead the Party?"
in the July 12, 1996, Detroit Jew-
ish News raises a number of in-
teresting points. Instructive were
the concerns of Johns Hopkins
University political scientist Ben-
jamin Ginsberg about the direc-
tion of the Christian Coalition,
whose tendencies "toward bitter
and religiously motivated poli-
tics" contain seeds of intolerance
and bigotry.
This is no surprise given the
views of the Coalition's founder
and president, televangelist Mar-
ion "Pat" Robertson.
What should be of concern
on the local level is the fact that
Oakland County Prosecutor
Richard Thompson has become
the bellhop of the Christian
Coalition. Thompson has enlist-
ed the Coalition's kulturkampf
against modernism, secular hu-
manism and all that might be
characterized as "the other."
Thompson's campaign theme of
"saving Oakland County from
turning into another Detroit" is
a coded reference designed to ap-
peal to white voters' anxieties
about black crime. Thompson's
campaign slogan of being "our
prosecutor" panders to an "us ver-
sus them" world view.
During two trials of Dr.
Kevorkian this spring before
Oakland Circuit Judges Jessica
Cooper and David Breck, the
Christian Coalition issued a
steady barrage of news releases
attacking the two trial judges and
defending Thompson.
In a June 5, 1996, fund-raising
letter for Thompson from Chris-
tian Coalitionists, Thompson was
portrayed as standing strong
"against lunatics and deviants
like Jack Kevorkian and Jeffrey
[sic] Fieger." In the letter, Thomp-
son's stand was portrayed as be-
ing based on what Thompson
"feels is the good and right thing
to do." In contrast, Dr. Kevorkian
was demonized as "nothing more
than a deviant."
As pointed out by Justice Louis
Brandeis, "Sunlight is the best of
disinfectants." The fact that Dick
Thompson has sold his soul to the

CANDIDACY page 28

