OTHER VIEWS

Changing Assumptions

West Bank and Gaza. For four gener-
Washington, D.C.
ations, they've been told that Israeli,
ntil the United States
not Arab, aggression destroyed their
drops two assumptions that
old Palestine. They've been told they
have been discredited by
possess a "right-of-return" superior
Yasser Arafat's Intifada II,
not only to that of the European
its efforts to broker a temporary
Jews who emigrated to Eretz Yisrael
Mideast cease-fire, much less a per-
between 1917 and 1945, but also to
manent peace, are doomed to fail.
that of the Jews who fled to
America — and the rest
Israel from Arab-Islamic
of the world — must junk
countries between 1948 and
the threadbare beliefs that
Arafat's Palestine Liberation
1953.
Arafat spurned former
Organization wants to
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
make peace and that peace
Barak's land-for-peace offer
should rest on a "two-state
of 95 percent of the West
solution," with. Israel inside
Bank and Gaza Strip, and
the pre-1967 "Green Line"
east Jerusalem at Camp
and the new Palestine on
David last summer to keep
virtually all of the West
ERIC L.
faith with "the 1948 Arabs."
Bank and Gaza Strip.
RO ZEN MAN
The PA would not, in their
Giving up those failed
Jewish
name, proclaim the war
assumptions has important
Renaissance
against Israel over. It would
consequences, among them
Media
not drop the refugees'
that the Palestinians require
"right-of-return." Instead,
new leadership and that the
Arafat and the PLO — in tacit col-
new Palestine will have to operate as
laboration with the suicide bombers
part of a federation with Jordan. But
of Hamas and Islamic Jihad —
abandoning discredited theories is
launched the latest violence.
the necessary first step to breaking
our diplomatic repetition-compul-
sion syndrome. The PLO was found-
Arafat No Peace Partner
ed in 1964, three years before Israel
As for the second assumption, pre-
gained the West Bank, Gaza and
1967 Israel amounted geographically
eastern Jerusalem in the Six-Day
to an elongated Massachusetts rarely
War. The Palestine it meant to liber-
more than 12 miles wide along its
ate included Israel inside the Green
populous coastal plain. No minor
Line.
border modifications to the Green
Arafat's core constituency remains
Line could yield the "secure and rec-
"the 1948 Arabs," the much-multi-
ognized" boundaries called for in
plied refugees from Israel's war of
U.N. Security Council Resolution
independence, not the Arabs of the
242, adopted soon after the Six-Day
Eric Rozenman is a journalist whose
War and the keystone of Arab-Israeli
articles on U.S.-Israeli affairs have
diplomacy ever since.
appeared in Policy Review, Middle East
In addition, a West Bank and Gaza
state for the Palestinians would
Quarterly and other publications.

tr

YOUNG ADULTS from page 25

enveloped by a laser light show and
Bedouin drums.
• Basketball and jump rope with
hundreds of children at a summer
camp in the Jezreel Valley.
• Dinner and dancing on the shores
of the Mediterranean in Old Yaffa.

yog

8/10

2001

26

Scott Kaufman of Birmingham is pres-
ident-elect of the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit's Young Adult
Division and national mission co-chair
for the United Jewish Communities. Josh
Opperer of Huntington Woods is president
. chair for the mission.
ofYAD and campazgn

As national leaders of this mission,
we are proud to have led American
Jews to Israel at a time when the
hotels, streets and shops of Israel are
mostly empty. We are especially proud
that the delegation from Detroit
accounted for one-third of the entire
group. But, our pride is tempered by
the fact that we sent 400 fewer people
than we did last summer.
While much of the world has turned
its back, Israel continues to live on.
Israelis still drive to work in the morn-
ing, pick up their children from school
each afternoon and sit at cafes during
the evening. There is no sense of dan-
ger. But the emptiness fosters a perva-
sive depression. Israel is isolated, and

approximate an arid, overcrowded
Delaware, impoverished and unsta-
ble, especially if separated from a
necessarily more hair-trigger Israel
squeezed back inside the old
armistice lines. This new Palestine
could neither absorb large numbers
of refugees nor satisfy the expecta-
tions of Palestinian Arab nationalism.
If the PLO won't make peace and
the "twos-state solution" of the Oslo
Accords can't work, what next? First,
the United States and Israel should
support the emergence of a real
Palestinian partner. Arafat — who
fought King Hussein for control of
Jordan in the bloody Black
September of 1970, who subsequent-
ly ordered the murder of U.S.
Ambassador Cleo Noel in Sudan,
who helped precipitate Lebanon's
civil war, implored Egypt to oust
Anwar Sadat for making peace with
Israel and still cheerleads for Saddam
Hussein — never qualified.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon, facing an odd combination
of rising Israeli fury and resignation,
must decapitate not only Hamas and
Islamic Jihad, but also especially the
PA/PLO — without sparking a gen-
eral Arab-Israeli war. The continuing
assassinations of Palestinian terror
planners, including those with ties to
Arafat, is one part of a larger option.
Of the several billion dollars of
American and European aid given to
the PA in recent years, virtually none
of it has reached refugees living
under Arafat's control. But the chair-
man's secret police and security forces
have multiplied, their leaders driving
Mercedes Benzes, building villas and
leeching off local commerce.
Likewise, Arafat suppresses —
often brutally, sometimes fatally —

grassroots Palestinian efforts at
nation building, at erecting an inde-
pendent judiciary, legislature and
press.
The Palestinians know and resent
this. Arab countries have promised
much but delivered little to the PA
because they know it too, and rhetori-
cal solidarity notwithstanding, general-
ly keep their wallets in their pockets.

Israelis feel alone.
Each of us has the opportunity to
meet the challenge Golda Meir pre-
sented 53 years ago. By the simple
act of visiting Israel — sitting by the
pool in Tel Aviv, going to a spa in
the Negev, enjoying Shabbat in
we can uplift Israel
Jerusalem
when she needs it most. And this act
of solidarity comes with little sacri-
fice ... you'll have a wonderful vaca-
tion, just like we did.
Both of us wish to thank the 150
people who joined us in Israel this
past July, and also to acknowledge
the unwavering and dynamic leaders
of the Detroit delegation: David
Kreis and Brad "Bubba" Urdan.

If you possibly can, please take your
next holiday in Israel. The prosperity
of Israel is in our hands. E

The Jordan Option

Creating conditions for the emer-
gence of a real Palestinian partner
will include U.S. carrot-and-stick
diplomacy that delegitimizes and
defunds "Arafat, Inc." while directly
supporting Palestinian institutions
stifled by PLO corruption and intim-
idation.
Step two requires understanding
what land-for-peace involves demo-
graphically and geographically to
arrive at a stable Jewish Israel and
Arab Palestine.
Israel includes five million Jews
and more than 1.2 million Arab citi-
zens who increasingly identify as
Palestinian Arabs. The Palestinians of
the Gaza Strip, West Bank and east-
ern Jerusalem total nearly 3 million.
Hundreds of thousands more live in
U.N.-supported refugee quarters of
Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. And of
Jordan's more than 4 million people,
roughly two-thirds are of Palestinian
background.
Simply put, Palestinian Arab
nationalism represents a population
and claims too large to be satisfied
by Israeli concessions in the West
Bank and Gaza — but not too large
to be met within the boundaries of
British Mandatory Palestine.
Great Britain's League of Nations'

The Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit, in con-
junction with the Jewish
Community Council and with
sponsorship from the Jewish
News, is taking reservations for
the national IsraelNOW
Solidarity Mission, Sept. 9-14.
The cost is $999 per person. For
information, call the Federation's
Israel and Overseas Department,
(248) 642-4260, ext. 141.