EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK

Perhaps The Rightists Were Right?

Heart-Dropping
Atlanta
The Left responded by disagreeing
n the next two months, we may
with the basic thesis of the Likud, that
finally get to see who was right:
the Palestinians, and their gun-toting
Yitzhak Shamir or Yitzhak Rabin,
terrorist turned gun-toting diplomat,
Likud or Labor, right or left.
Yasser Arafat, would not drop their
In 1993, the 1993 Oslo Accords —
maximalist demands on Jerusalem and
and its inference that Palestinian state-
refugees.
hood was indeed an option --
The Rabin/Peres/Beilin
brought to the fore the long-
braintrust believed that
standing difference in world
once the Palestinians had
views and negotiating strate-
something real — some-
gies between the Israeli politi-
thing extremely tangible —
cal Right and Left.
to lose, they would be more
The Right opposed any
inclined to drop their
negotiations that provided the
demand for east Jerusalem
Palestinians with even a glim-
in favor of achieving a sov-
mer of hope for statehood not
ereign chunk of the
only out of deep ideological
JA COB
Promised Land.
conviction, but also because it
SCH
REIBER
Oslo was designed to pro-
believed such talks would prove
Con tr ibuting
vide Arafat and the Palestini-
fruitless. The Palestinians, it
Editor
ans — who after 25 years of
reasoned, would never give up
armed struggle had nothing
their demands for the "right of
to show but poverty and empty slogans
return" for millions of "refugees" or to
— with territory, autonomy and a heavy
sovereignty over east Jerusalem. So why
dose of hope that statehood was just
begin a process that is doomed to failure
within reach. Surely that would help
from the outset? Why set Israel up once
soften Palestinian positions on Jerusalem
again to be blamed by the international
and refugees — and lead to a workable
community once the talks stalled?
peace
agreement.
And worst of all, why go down the
So went the theory.
slippery slope of Oslo, which includes
Bur when the Camp David summit
ceding land to the Palestinians and
ended with Yasser Arafat rejecting
allowing them to build an armed force,
Israel's most far-reaching proposal to
if you know the process will ultimately
— let's say it straight — divide
explode over the issue of Jerusalem?
Jerusalem, my heart dropped. After
years of hoping, if not totally believ-
Jacob Schreiber is editor of the
ing, that the Left was right, the reality
Atlanta Jewish Times, sister publica-
set in that the maximalist positions of
tion of the Detroit - Jewish News. His e-
the Palestinians on Jerusalem may
mail address is
actually be non-negotiable.
j s ch reib er@ adj ewishtimes. co m
Perhaps Arafat, for all his bluster,

does not have the authority, or guts, to
relinquish the Holy Sites of Islam
without permission from the greater
Muslim world. Perhaps Arafat doesn't
want to go down in history as the
Arab who sold to the Jews control
'over the site where Mohammed
ascended to heaven.
Perhaps we Jews, who have always
believed that the Palestinian religious
and national claims to Jerusalem were
weak and dubious, need to realize that
no matter what we think, the Pales-
tinians, Saudi Arabians, Moroccans,
Jordanians, etc., are damn serious
about sovereignty over east Jerusalem
— over al-Aksa, the Dome of the
Rock, the Temple Mount.
I hope not. Because that would
doom the peace process as we know it
today.

ment and Jewish Life (COEJL) and _
other Jewish activist organizations are
more secular than Jewish. I disagree.
On the surface, it seems that work-
ing for a cause, like environmentalism,
is not the work of our religion. I think
that is because we sometimes get so
wrapped up in preserving Judaism, we
forget the reasons for doing so. What
is it that we should be preserving —
ritual and observance for its own sake,
or doing what we were chosen to do
— acting to save the world?
The several SEMCOEJL (South-
east Michigan Coalition on the
Environment and Jewish Life) events
that I attended were not secular.
One event was a Tu b'Shevat seder
and the other was a Shabbat dinner
and discussion. Some of the activi-

We had the most incredible time.
Actually being in Israel, experiencing
it and learning from an inside perspec-
tive, is so much different from just
hearing speeches in this country.
You might not think that 10 days is
a very long time to get the full impact
of the country. But it is amazing how
much was gained in such a short time,
particularly since the trip was so well
planned. We came home with a much
different perspective and appreciation
of the country.
Meeting [United Jewish Commu-
nities Chairman] Charles Bronfman
at a reception that he hosted and
being able to personally speak with
him for a short time was an experi-
ence that we certainly never would
have expected. He was truly interest-

I

ties, I suppose, may not include a
religious observance, but it is not an
environmental group; it is a Jewish
environmental group.
No one reading the cover story's
interview with Catherine Greener
could doubt that her activism is
strongly connected to her Judaism.
Maida Genser
Royal Oak

Israel Trip
Was Incredible

We would like to thank everyone
everywhere who made the Project
Birthright trip a reality ("Tri-Trippin'
A Great Success," July 21, page 34).

Nothing More
In reportedly agreeing to hand over
some Arab areas of east Jerusalem, create
some forms of dual municipal control,
give Arafat a presidential office in the
Old City, build a bridge linking Pales-
tinian-ruled areas to Muslim holy sites
in the Old City and guaranteeing unim-
peded access to these shrines, Ehud
Barak gave up all, and perhaps more
than, he possibly could.
This is it. There is no more. The
Israeli electorate and the Jewish people
will not give up control of the Temple
Mount. Period.
Many Western observers dismiss
the religious/national angle, in favor of
arguing that Arafat is just being Arafat
— and holding out for more. And
why not? He already got nearly 95

percent of the Territories when most
never believed he'd get more than 65
percent. Why not when officials from
groups like. Peace Now make state-
ments like, it took Israelis years to get
used to the idea of a Palestinian state,
and thus, it'll take them a little while
longer to get used to the notion of
shared control of the Old City.
Maybe this is what continues to spur
on Arafat. He always did believe our
claims to Jerusalem, to all of Israel, were
unfounded — so sooner or later we'd
buckle and fold. History, many Pales-
tinians and Arabs believe, ultimately
favors an Islamic world that outnumbers
its Jewish counterparts by about 800
million people.
These scenarios flashed through my
mind upon the breakup of negotia-
tions at Camp David. They are scary.
They are depressing.
But then Palestinian negotiators
rushed back to the table and said a
deal was still possible. Then the Pales-
tinian Authority arrested Abdel-Aziz
Rantissi, a senior Hamas leader, for
incitement. Could the savvy among
the Palestinian leadership have talked
sense into their aging leader and told
him when to know that enough is
enough? That he's done an incredible
job of negotiating and should be wary
of overplaying his hand and dying
empty-handed — as did Hafiz al-
Assad?
Perhaps all that I suggested about
Muslim intractability on sovereignty
over Jerusalem and the Old City is
just gibberish.
I hope so. It's just that recent devel-
opments keep getting in the way. ❑

ed in our thoughts. -
We particularly want to thank
Miriam Starkman [executive director
of Hillel of Metro Detroit] and all her
crew. They were .awesome. Also, the
community should know that, thanks
to Miriam's resourcefulness; our group
from Michigan was able to experience
some things [in Israel] our counter-
parts from other states did not. We
don't know how she did it, but we're
glad she did.
Matthew Siporin
Jennifer Tuohey
Emily Bean
Farmington Hills

LETTERS on page 38

