PEGE. I PLUS A special program for older adults with memory impairments Israel's Other Rio Arab votes could prove decisive NECHEMIA MEYERS Special to The Jewish News Jerusalem Regent Plus, located in Regent Street of West Bloomfield, is a customized program for older adults with memory or cognitive impairments. We offer the type of care you want for your family member in a safe, secure and comfort- able environment. As the emphasis is on personalized care and attention, Regent Plus has been designed to accommodate only 14 residents. Specialized activities and programs will ensure that everyone will continue to enjoy the highest quality of living possible. we encourage people to bring their own familiar and treasured belonging, including their own furniture. Having the possessions you have lived with for many years helps to make everyone feel more at ease. Our emphasis is on care. Our goal is to maintain each person's dignity. tr - 4 REGFIT PLUS gen/ ofred ofciOesi Woo4e/c1 at 4460 Orchard Lake Road 248-683-1010 • Are you battling with your child over food? • Is your child sneaking food? • Is your child gaining too much weight? • Do weight problems run in your family? cc1/10 Center for Childhood Weight Management 3/12 1999 : Let the professional staff of The Center for Childhood Weight Management help you and your child. For more information about classes and locations, call: (248) 661-6625 ea thy Kids Are Happy Kids" 26 Detroit Jewish News here will be hell to pay if either Barak or Mordechai beat Netanyahu thanks to Arab votes. And this is a distinct possibility. To be sure, no major political party has ever declared that a would-be prime minister must be chosen by a "Jewish majority." But that is the view of many right-wingers, and should the winner of the forthcoming elections emerge victo- rious thanks to gaining the united sup- port of Arab voters, who make up some 12% of the electorate, the right- wingers will not remain silent. The situation has been further aggravated by the fact that the Arabs are becoming increasingly assertive, even going so far as to demand that Israel cease being a Jewish state, that it be a state of all its citizens instead. This would mean, among other things, repealing the Law of Return, which allows any and every Jew the right to settle in Israel. That is precisely the desire of Knesset Member Azmi Bashara, head of the Balad Party. "As long as the state is defined as Jewish," Dr. Bashara stated at a recent party rally, "an Arab is automatically a second- class citizen, while a Jew who arrives here from Brooklyn is immediately granted full rights." Even more controversial was what Bashara had to say about the Hezbollah, Israel's mortal enemy. He defined it as "an Arab nationalist movement fighting bravely against the Israeli occupation." The broadcasts of Radio 2000, an independent Arab station in Nazareth, also throw light on the attitudes of Israeli Arabs or, as most of them now prefer to call themselves, Palestinians resident in Israel. For example, when Israelis were mourning the death of King Hussein, Radio 2000 carried on as usual. Moyan Halabi, manager of the station, said that his listeners "did- n't feel sorry about the death of a man who had murdered 25,000 Palestinians during the Black September period." And while other citizens of this country were celebrating Israel's Independence Day last year, Moyan and divisive. and his colleagues were broadcasting programs that highlighted "the tragedy of the Palestinian people, for whom the 1948 war was a disaster." Bashara is pleased with the station, but regrets that it is only heard in the Central Galilee. He wants to establish both a national Arab radio station and a national Arab university as steps towards cultural autonomy for his peo- ple. In all probability he will eventually call for political autonomy as well. A number of prominent Likud Party leaders would like to close down the Nazareth station and to ban the participation of the Balad Party in the forthcoming elections, but so far Prime Minister Netanyahu has not joined the chorus. He argues that while Bashara's remarks are very serious, "they express the views of only an extremist minority among Israeli Arabs, most of whom remain loyal to the state." However, Netanyahu may sing a different tune if it looks like the votes of Israeli Arabs are likely to give the premiership to Ehud Barak or Yitzhak Mordechai. II 0 0 _0 An Arab woman has been named Miss Israel for the first time in the nation's history Rana Raslan, a 21-year-old Israeli Arab from Haifa was crowned in Tel Aviv Tuesday, March 9. "I am total- ly Israeli, and I do not think about whether I am an Arab or a Jew," she said. "They wanted a beauty queen, not apolitical queen." A clay earlier, Abed el-Rahman Zouabi, 68, became the first Arab justice on the Israeli Supreme Court.