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Demanding Accountability
T
he undeclared war th.,1: has gripped the
Mideast since late September is no longer
a distant crisis. On Monday, its deadly
tentacles reached all the way to Oak Park.
On behalf of Detroit Jewry, we join the
Alex Saltsman family in mourning the
stoning death of his infant great-grandson,
Yehuda Shoham.
And we join the Zionist Organization of America
in urging the Bush administration to offer a reward
for information leading to the capture of the
Palestinian Arab rock throwers who killed the
Israeli-American child.
The U.S. government offers rewards for the cap-
ture of terrorists who harm Americans around the
world. But there's no official consensus on whether
rock throwing is a violent act; we contend that
young Yehuda's death proves it is.
For 8 1/2 months, we've worried about how the lat-
est intifada (Palestinian uprising) has threatened
Israel's security and ravaged its economy.
We prayed for the 200 Detroiters on the unity
mission to Israel in January, the 50 teenagers and
staff on the March of the Living 'Detroit-Poland
Teen Unity Experience in April and the 50
Michigan college sLudents on the Birthright Israel
trip in May.
Many Detroit natives are living in Israel, having
made aliyah since statehood 53 years ago; many of
us have gone to the region with family or for busi-
ness despite U.S. State Department warnings on
travel there.
We've read about rock throwers and suicide
bombers, about gunfire and air strikes, as the death
toll has relentlessly climbed.
But no Detroiter is known to be
among the almost 600 deaths caused by
the bloodshed ... until now.
EDITO DIAL
Related coverage: page 22
Dry Bones
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Infants Legacy
Now, with the gutless attac k
on the car carrying Yehuda
Shoham, born just 5 1 /2 months ago, we
agonize that so many innocent people,
on both sides, have had to die as the
fragile peace process crumbled.
Yehuda was the only child of Benny
Shoham and his wife, Bat-Sheva, Alex's
granddaughter. The boy's memory will
live on as a reminder of the ultimate
sacrifice his parents made on behalf of
the Jewish homeland.
Yehuda sustained a grave injury when
rocks hurled at a car he was riding in
with his parents on June 5 north of
HIS
Ramallah in the West Bank crashed
through the front window; one struck
him in the head.
The family was heading to their
home in Shilo after a condolence call in
Ra'anana. The boy was in a rear car
seat, next to his mother, when
Palestinian Arabs, lurking by the road-
side, unleashed the rock attack, accord-
ing to news reports. Neither parent was
hurt. At graveside, when most vulnera-
ble to their emotions, they nonetheless reaffirmed
their faith in God.
The stoning spurred Israeli settlers to go on a ram-
page near a Palestinian Arab village in the West
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Bank; they set on fire at least three buildings. The
rampage was little consolation for Yehuda Shoham's
mispochah (family) in Shilo, Oak Park and Los
Angeles.
We pray his death is not in vain. ❑
Keeping Promises
T
he Bush administration is playing a diplo-
matically safe, but politically unacceptable
game over a package of aid to help Israel
meet its vastly increas.rfd military costs.
The aid, $800 million in two installments, was
promised a year ago, near the end of the
Clinton administration and too late for the
Congress to act on it. At the time, it was
offered in recognition of the need to sup-
port the new security cost Israel faced after
its principled withdrawal from southern Lebanon
and to help with missile defense. With a launching
of the latest Palestinian intifada last September, the
need for the help has become more urgent.
For the next several years at a minimum, the IDF
(Israel Defense Force) will have to operate in a
much higher state of readiness than had seemed
likely when the aid was first offered. Israel is already
in the process of stripping its budget of a raft of
nondefense costs — in infrastructure improvement,
education and other social services — to shift
money to military operations that have already
taken place or may prove necessary.
Without the money that Washington
promised, Israel will be forced to further
cannibalize its domestic spending either to
respond directly to continued Palestinian attacks or
to build facilities like the suggested defense zones on
its West Bank borders.
President George W. Bush has paid lip service to the
need for the money, but he did not include it in the
budget request to Congress. White House and State
Department officials say they don't want to risk offend-
ing the Arab world by being seen as too pro-Israel,
which could undercut their ability to help moderate a
EDIT ORIAL
Related coverage: page 24
meaningful cease-fire and the "confidence-building
measures" urged by the Mitchell Commission.
It's okay to worry about Arab opinion, but it
should also be appropriate to worry about Israeli
opinion. Israelis remember the first President Bush
and his willingness to freeze promised loan guaran-
tees for housing construction unless settlement .
building stopped.
America has a long and proud history of fulfilling
its commitments to the Jewish state. Reneging is not
going to make Palestinian officials — the only Arab
voices that really count now — any more or less
likely to trust Washington. The only real effect will
be to force Israel to further cannibalize its resources
at a time when its economy is being ravaged by the
collapse of two major sectors, tourism and the high-
tech industry.
The first installment, $450 million, is already
overdue. It's time it was paid. ❑
6/15
2001
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