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feedhg the Teg Hiihgry
In recognition of the 4,000 families,
businesses and congregations who
contributed to Yad Ezra this year,
we thank you.
Because of your support and commitment
to helping those less fortunate,
Yad Ezra is able to
provide healthy kosher food packages for
2,500 needy Jewish individuals in our
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tOivcoout
I personally feel that certain ele-
ments of the Muslim and Arab
American communities have used this
outpouring of understanding, that has
been urged and indeed followed since
Sept 11, to press the Palestinian cause,
which I think is totally unrelated...
There is still too much excuse-making„
saying Sept. 11 is because of the occu-
pation of the lands the Arabs claim. I
think that is absurd.
(Aetteft to ihecooet."
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39
What of the effort to distinguish
between the terrorism of Osama bin
Laden and attacks against Israel?
George W. Bush has been clear on
that, and some in the secretary of
state's office have been less clear, and
other voices in our society have been
ambivalent. Everyone is entitled to
their own opinion, but any time you
have any group who says that terror-
ism is awful "but," any time you add
the but, you are excusing what hap-
pened. There is no good motive, there
is no just cause, to act as a terrorist
against innocent civilians...
You've written about the anti-
Semitism that is behind some of the
arguments against Israel.
There is more at work here than
geopolitics. There is more than You
are sitting on our land, get off and
everything will be fine.' What is at
work here is Jewish hatred, anti-Jewish
sentiment, and that has to be
addressed. You can't assume that just
because we help establish a Palestinian
state, and some sort of temporary pre-
peace between those two parties, that
everyone is going to live in harmony.
There is an ancient hatred here that is
very much at play. You still hear very
disturbing comments — mostly
among the Arab nations and their offi-
cial press, but also from Arab
American groups in this country —
that express vehement comments
against Israel and anti-Jewish senti-
ment. You can't gloss that over.
What of the threat of Islamic
extremism?
We don't want to deal with it
because we are so absorbed now in
embracing Arab Americans because of
our fear they will be unfairly persecut-
ed for what happened on Sept 11. We
lose sight of the fact that there are
some very dangerous hate messages
coming out of certain segments of that
community.
We can't lose sight of — and this
always gets me in trouble — that these
were Islamic extremists who attacked
America on Sept. 11, they weren't ran-
dom terrorists. They were Islamic
extremists and you have to deal with
Islamic extremism to get to the root of
this terrorism. Osama bin Laden was-
n't acting in his own name, or some
type of financial or territorial greed.
He was motivated by this dangerous
brand of Islamic extremism, that there
are good indications has branches in
this country.
As we reach out to the mainstream
Arab American community ... as we
are embracing them and making sure
they are protected you can't lose sight
that there is a segment, let's assume it
is narrow, that is still very, very dan-
gerous.
How do you walk that line?
Not very well, obviously [he laughs].
There are two separate messages, and
one doesn't affect the other ... The
Muslim American groups feels that
any criticsm of any segment is a criti-
cism of all, but I don't know how you
get away from criticizing the segment
that supported the folks that carried
out the attacks on Sept. 11. Many of
them came from that radical segment
of the community and there are still
schools and mosques in this country
that are preaching hate and the
byproduct of that you can see in New
York City today...
What do you see as the most useful
role the United States can play?
The U.S. should enter the situation
very, very cautiously, given what hap-
pened a year ago. I think Bill Clinton
made every effort to make peace and
invested a lot of personal capital,
failed, and the result was more vio-
lence, not less violence.
I don't know that the conditions
have changed so much to make a new
effort worthwhile. I think it is good
that the U.S. is trying to broker a
cease-fire, but peace has to come from
the Israelis and Palestinians. There is
no way the United States can force
peace. I think this is what some of our
Arab allies in this war against terror-
ism expect from us, and I worry about
the consequences when that doesn't
happen.
I think we have no business trying
to pressure Israel to accept a peace deal
that is not in its best interest, that
leaves its defenses less certain, just to
appease nations that are uncertain
friends.
Nolan Finley's columns and editorials
can be read on www.detnews.com