Community Views
Editor's Notebook
There Are Lessons
To Learn In Israel
The Strong Poison
That's Left Behind
THE REV. JAMES R. LYONS SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
PHIL JACOBS EDITOR
As I write this, I
am sitting in Tel
Aviv, looking out
over the Mediter-
ranean, enjoying
80-degree weath-
er, and reflecting
on a rather in-
credible week.
I am a member
of the Executive Committee of the
National Christian Leadership
Conference for Israel (NCLCI).
David Blewett, who is director of
NCLCI, writes: "NCLCI supports
the democratic State of Israel, re-
gardless of who its prime minis-
ter is." NCLCI
does not base its
support on polit-
ical involve-
ment, higher
authority, supe-
rior "knowledge"
about how Is-
raelis and oth-
ers in the area
should live their
lives, but on
challenging
Christians to
understand
events in Israel,
in particular,
and the region
in general. Thus
we came to Is-
rael to meet re-
ligious leaders,
politicians from a wide spectrum
of views, reporters from major
news-gathering and reporting or-
ganizations, and of course, Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu,
who, because of the sudden ne-
gotiations over Hebron, was not
able to meet with us.
We visited several settlements,
talked with the papal nuncio, an
American counsel, the mayors of
Jerusalem and Bethlehem, rep-
resentatives of interfaith work in
Israel and a wide range of reli-
gious leaders. All of this is to say
that it was a crowded schedule,
but a most rewarding week.
Rather than trying to relate
each meeting, I would like to
share some impressions. I do not
judge people. I do not think I have
the right to "support" particular
positions, political parties or reli-
gious involvements. I do not live
in Israel, am not a citizen of Is-
rael, and, while I feel I am a wel-
comed guest, I am a guest,
nevertheless. That is true of all of
us who live in the States, whether
we are Jews or Christians. Thus
I am not judging what we heard,
but trying to interpret the ideas.
First, we met with three news
reporters. As I listened to them,
I did not detect any bias against
Israel. What we did learn is that
they were hard-working, trying
James Lyons is director of the
Ecumenical Institute.
to do their job, and, generally, ill
prepared for the task. None spoke
either Hebrew or Arabic. None
had gone through a training pe-
riod about the history of the area,
the political parties, the back-
grounds to the conflicts of the
area or the process toward peace.
In other words, while natural-
ly critical of what they heard, they
had little on which to base their
conclusions. "We learn on the job,"
said one of them. It became obvi-
ous to me that it was little won-
der that those of us who have
visited the area often, studied the
history and background, and
have tried to understand events,
have found some of the reporting
lacking. If you don't understand
what the real questions are, you
report the surface events and not
the real actions behind them.
The settlers
seemed to
differentiate
between their Arab
neighbors and
outsiders.
An example of this has- been
the agreement on Hebron. The
basic agreement was ready about
four months ago, but the delay
was due to major disagreements
about the next stages of the re-
deployment of Israeli forces. The
Palestinians wanted guaranteed
dates, while the Israelis insisted
that, since the subject about re-
deployment was open to negotia-
tion, fixed dates would curtail
that discussion. This fact was
openly known in Israel, but giv-
en little or no attention in the
American media.
A second impression was that
the thinking and negotiating pat-
terns of the Western world are
not the thinking and negotiating
methods in the Middle East. One
Israeli, a retired major general,
recounted the time he was meet-
ing an Arab negotiator. He ex-
pressed himself "Knowing that I
knew that he knew that I knew
what he really meant, it still took
two hours to go through the pro-
cedure so that we could begin se-
rious talking." On a number of
occasions, I learned to listen to
what was being said, what wasn't
being said, and somehow tried to
read between the lines. For Amer-
icans, who at times are literalists
about words, the need to
interpret every
nonverbal
movement is
known only to
skilled inter-
preters. In the
Middle East, it
is an art form.
A third fact
emerged while
we were visit-
ing three of the
"settlements"
in Judea and
Samaria. Dur-
ing the course
of the day, we
talked with a
number of indi-
viduals about
their lives and
their concerns
for their Arab neighbors. Not once
did we hear an anti-Arab state-
ment. In a strange way, the set-
tlers seemed to differentiate
between their Arab neighbors
and outsiders who came in for
specific attacks. To meet with
Yoel Tzur, whose wife and son
were killed in a murderous attack
last December, is to listen to him
talk about peace with his neigh-
bors, and his concerns that out-
side forces, including American
television satellites, constantly
seek to drive a wedge between
those living in the area. This gen-
tle gentleman, though saddened,
moved each of us by his dignity,
inner strength and vision for the
future.
In the fourth place, both Is-
raelis and Palestinians spoke of
the need to develop mutual trust.
As one Israeli said, "They don't
trust us, and we don't trust
them." This lack of trust leads to
fear on all sides. That fear grows
out of great pain. I found myself
being unable to judge or to choose
sides about the validity of the
pain or the mistrust. As I listened
to a number of individuals, I
found each was also beyond seek-
ing justifications for past actions
and was truly trying to under-
stand the other. That is the path
toward developing mutual trust.
With trust, fear is lessened, and
the ability to work together be-
comes possible. ❑
There's a sad-
ness that can't
be expressed
sometimes. It's
something that
numbs you in
your tracks,
something that
comes when
you aren't ex-
sities that were depended upon
by a neighborhood were gone.
You see, the big stores
weren't coming into the back
streets of inner-city America.
They rarely do. So, who is it
that is going to offer some sort
of commercial civility to the in-
ner city? A grocery store or par-
ty store, which has become
more often than not — be it in
New York, Detroit, Los Ange-
les or anywhere — a place of re-
tail transactions and, now,
wholesale killings. Children lose
their parents; spouses lose their
loved ones.
You know, that no matter
how "dramatic" the killing, life
as it is just goes on. And neigh-
borhoods lose some sort of con-
tact with -the
"outside" world.
Because, more and
more frequently,
for those customers
who shop at these
corner stores, the
only contact they
have with the "out-
siders," or store
owners, is on the
other side of a bulletproof parti-
tion or metal bars.
Steve's mistake, I guess, is
that he came around to the oth-
er side of the partition.
It's an American tragedy. It's
far-reaching as well. That a
thief, a drug junkie, a murder-
er can ruin the lives of a family
and take away occupational as
well as retail opportunities for
neighbors is difficult to under-
stand. After all, most of us know
little or no fear in running into
the grocery store out here in the
suburbs. Thank goodness for
that.
But remember the inner city.
Remember my friend whose fa-
ther's store was destroyed. He
told me a story that I haven't
been able to get out of mind
since I first heard it in the late
1960s. He told me his father
went back down to inspect the
damage and see if there was
anything he could save. When
he arrived, there were still loot-
ers wandering around what
was left, taking what they could
find.
My friend's dad was so en-
raged that he looked for and
found some packages of ground
meat that had not been
touched. He put rat poison in
the meat and rewrapped the
packages.
That picture scares me as
much as the killings with guns.
I think about the TV reports
of Steve's family reacting to his
death.
It's too bad that a business-
man — be he African-Ameri-
pecting it.
No, this week's column isn't
about a subject necessarily Jew-
ish. I reacted very strongly to
the killing of a man named
Steven, an Armenian who
owned the Starkist Party Store
in Detroit.
Another dream, another
killing. One that gets thrown on
the garbage heap of day-to-day
life in America.
I returned re-
cently from a trip
to Baltimore
where the lead
headlines on the
front pages were
about the cold-
blooded killing of
a Korean gro-
cery-store owner
in the inner city. In Baltimore,
it is the Korean community that
establishes stores in the inner
city, risking their lives.
Certainly, the Detroit store
owner's wife and three children
and other family members wor-
ried each day when he went to
work. It was, and is, a difficult
way to earn a living. When
Steve came home each evening,
his family members were prob-
ably relieved. A good day at
work has its own, new defini-
tion.
The Baltimore media report-
ed about the Korean man's be-
lief in the American dream.
They also talked about what
seemed like a conspiracy of
killing going on against the Ko-
reans.
I remember my friends, the
Bergs, from the 1960s. Mr.
Berg, my friend's dad, owned a
corner grocery store in the in-
ner city.- He went into an area
where nobody else would go. He
brought a variety of products
into the store, including meats
and poultry,. fish and fruits and
veggies. He extended credit to
almost everyone. He was a fix-
ture in the neighborhood for
years, employing community
members, knowing his cus-
tomers pretty much on a first-
name basis.
Then came the rage of the ri-
ots following the assassination
of Dr. Martin Luther King. I re-
member the day my friend
couldn't deliver the afternoon
paper on the route we split. His
father's store had been looted
and burned. The display cases
that once held foods and neces- POISON page 31
Another
dream,
another
killing.
29