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Prepared For Partnership

K, so George W. Bush wasn't the choice of the overwhelming majority
of American Jews or the Jewish News. But he is going to be our president
in a month, and we better figure out how we want to deal with that fact.
We start by saying that we respect the office of the president and
believe that Bush has the capacity to be a leader for the whole nation.
But he can only do that by hewing to the middle ground on which the vast
majority of the country stands and by paying attention to protecting the diversity
of opinions that makes America so intellectually and economically robust.
Bush has said he wants to do a few things exceptionally well rather than spend-
ing the national energy on
myriad foreign and domestic
enterprises. We hope that does-
n't mean concentrating on
Russia and China at the
expense of Israel. It is up to
our Jewish leaders to show him
that would be a mistake.
While the Bush administra-
tion figures to be much less
activist than the Clinton one
in forcing a peace process, we
need to press for upgrading the
strategic ties between Washing-
ton and Jerusalem, and to be
ready to oppose the kind of
arms sales to Arab nations that
the first President Bush
allowed. We should support
the new administration's
efforts, voiced by Secretary of
State-designate Colin Powell
and National Security Adviser
to-be Condoleezza Rice, to
stand strongly against Iraq's
President-Elect Bush speaks with Congressional
Saddam Hus sein.
leaders during a news conference as he stands in
Domestically, the Bush
pont of a portrait of George Washington.
administration will likely never
accede to meaningful new laws
the majority of Jews want on
campaign-finance reform or
gun control. But it may be will-
ing to heed Jewish voices in
crafting legislation on prescrip-
tion-drug coverage for the
elderly or crafting "charitable
choice" programs to be sure
that the faith-based agencies providing the services do not misuse them as recruit-
ing opportunities.
Jewish leadership must stand firm against relaxing the prayer-in-school stan-
dards that the U.S. Supreme Court has set. It must continue to protect women's
rights to meaningful control of their reproductive process. It must contest badly
crafted, broad-scale school voucher programs that would undermine public
schools without providing meaningful gains for all students.
The Bush White House should know that we are prepared to meet it halfway
on its priorities — even if our votes went 80-20 for Al Gore. To do that, we
should begin building ties to the new administration, to let it know that we won't
reflexively oppose initiatives just because they are Bush-sponsored.
We are prepared to fight for the things that we believe in — like appointing
outstanding jurists to the Supreme Court. But we aren't going to go out of our
way to look for a fight. The president-elect says he wants to try working together.
So do we.

Dry Bones

AP PI foto /R ic k Bowmcr

0

American Jewry should
begin building ties to the
new administration.

❑

Related coverage: page 19

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LETTERS

The Big Problem
Is Not Money

I was amazed and appalled to read
the article quoting Stephen Solen-
der, the United Jewish Communi-
ties president, saying that the pre-
sent Jewish/Israeli Arab problems
are caused by American Jews not
giving the Israeli Arab population
enough money ("United Way,"
Dec. 8, page 30) or would, in some
way, be improved by giving them
money.
The Arab world must be laugh-
ing in hysterics if Israel and Ameri-
can Jewry think that they can buy
their way out of this quandary. The
problem isn't money; it is funda-
mentally who has the right to live
on the land.
In his famous commentary on
the Torah, Rashi's very first corn-
. ment is: "When the nations of the
world say to the Jews 'You are ban-
dits, for you conquered the lands

of the seven nations who inhabited
the Land of Canaan,' we will say to
them, 'The whole earth belongs to
God; He created it, and He gave it
to the one found proper in his
eyes. By His wish he gave it to
them, and by His wish he took it
from them and gave it to us."
Our claim to the land of Israel is
based on God's promise to our
forefathers, and our ability to live,
in that land, a life that is pleasing
to God. Nothing else.
The secular Jews' crisis of belief
is that they no longer believe deep
down that they have a claim, a
right, to live in Israel. They feel
guilty, and their own leaders and
schoolbooks tell them that they
stole the land they now live in.
Unless, and until, they confront
and embrace this Rashi, with all
that is behind it, they will lose this
war of wills. Trying to buy off the
Arab population is probably the

LETTERS on page 37

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