Lonely Days
A sense of isolation
has set in for much of Israel's population.
A week earlier the British Foreign
Secretary, Robin Cook, raucously
warned his Israeli hosts that continued
Jewish settlement, on the West Bank
n the eve of the 50th birth-
and east Jerusalem, was destroying the
day of the Jewish state,
peace
process. Israelis, on the left as
Israelis have seldom felt so
well
as
the right, were offended by his
lonely. No one wants to
theatrical visit to Har Homa, where
come to the party. Vice President Al
Israel plans to build 6,000
Gore is one of the few foreign
Jewish
homes on land cap-
dignitaries who has accepted
Right- wing and
tured
from
Jordan in the
an invitation to the April 30
g demon-
1967
war.
But
Cook, speak-
fiesta. The rest are either
strators confront
stalling or saying "Thanks,
each o ther out- ing for the 15-member
but no thanks."
side Ne tanyahu's European Union, evidently
felt that the message was
Like most Israelis, they are
of ce in
more urgent than the obliga-
in no mood to celebrate. The
Je rus alem.
tions of good manners.
Israeli-Palestinian peace nego-
Significantly, neither his own
tiations are moribund, if not actually
Prime Minister, Tony Blair, nor the
dead. Bill Clinton's plodding envoy,
other European governments have
Dennis Ross, went home this week
repudiated him.
with his tail between his legs. In
Meanwhile in Ramallah, Yassir
Washington, the State Department
Arafat's
unofficial West Bank capital,
spokesman, James Rubin, said the
the premature explosion of a massive
process was "in dire straits." The
car bomb, apparently destined for
Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright,
Jewish west Jerusalem, sounded a
was threatening to wash her hands of
more ominous warning of what the
the whole affair.
ERIC SILVER
Special to The Jewish News
0
real alternative is. On the run-up to
Passover, Jerusalem's huge Malcha
shopping mall was deserted this week.
It is too tempting a target for the next
Hamas suicide squad. Families are
sticking to their local supermarkets to
stock up for the holiday.
Israel's diplomatic isolation is .
almost total. The Americans are exas-
perated at Binyamin Netanyahu's
rejection of their proposal to hand
over 13.1 percent of the West Bank
to the Palestinians as a second inter-
im installment of the Oslo accords,
less than half of what Arafat was
demanding. As television panelist
Tomnrity Lapid asked: "What happens
when Micronesia abandons us?" (In
recent votes in the United Nations
General Assembly, the obscure
Pacific archipelago and the United
States were Israel's only supporters.)
Jordan and Egypt, the only Arab
states to have signed peace treaties
with Israel, have consigned coopera-
tion to the deep freeze.
The irony, as commentators have
Oldest Synagogue
Is Discovered
Jerusalem (JTA) — Israeli archae-
ologists have uncovered remains
of what is believed to be the
world's oldest synagogue.
The remains, which are
believed to date from the first
century BCE, were uncovered
near the West Bank town of
Jericho.
One of the relics discovered by
the team was a u-shaped bench.
The bench, which was apparently
used for ceremonial meals, is the
first physical evidence that such
meals took place before the
destruction of the Second Temple
in 70 CE.
The team was headed by Ehud
Netzer, a professor at the Hebrew
University in Jerusalem.
The remains were excavated
near the site of a Hasmonean-era
winter palace — perhaps the
most famous Hasmonean leader
was Judah Maccabee, whose tri-
umph against the Seleucid king-
dom in the second century BCE
is celebrated in Chanukah.
The previously oldest known
synagogue was in the Golan
Heights, according to Netzer.
That synagogue was built
approximately 50 years later than
this one.
Swiss Delay
Report On Gold
Zurich TA) — An international
4/3
1998
35