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Vision At The ADL

s the national hunt presses on to hire a
professional director for Michigan's
regional fight against anti-Semitism, we
urge filling the post quickly.
To our chagrin, anti-Semitism is not dead in
Michigan, as evidenced by the anti-Semitic slurs
_hurled at Hillel Day School of
Metropolitan Detroit basketball players
by opposing players in an off-campus
varsity game last year.
We appreciate Fran Gross' efforts in handling
routine matters as interim chief, but the Anti-
Defamation League/Michigan Region is important
enough to be served by a non-interim executive
director empowered to create a 21st-century vision
for the evolving agency.
The local ADL office in Bloomfield Township

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shouldn't have to seek out the Chicago ADL office
whenever a complicated legal case arises — or for-
sake the chance to initiate organized outreach, as in
the wake of the Hillel Day School incident. That
incident should have led to ADL-coordinated
school programs to help enlighten gentiles with lim-
ited or no exposure to Jews.
The local ADL office also needs to be
more proactive in engaging and educating
metro Detroit's Arab American community,
the second largest in the nation, about Jewish causes
and concerns, especially as they relate to battling ter-
rorism.
Despite business, 'civic and political success,
Jews continue to face hidden and overt discrimi-
nation. Keeping "church and state" separated will
never drop off the ADL agenda. And the ADL

EDITO RIAL

Staying The Course

he period of officially sanctioned
Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens
appears to be coming to an end.
The number of incidents counted by
the Israeli army — -shootings, bombings, grenade
attacks and stabbings — has dropped to about 11 a
day. That is still outrageous but better than the 18-
incidents-a-day pace of just a few weeks earlier.
To some extent, Palestinian Authority leader Yasser
Arafat's recent calls for ending the violence and his
threats to arrest terrorist leaders have helped slow the
intifizda's most violent elements. More credit, howev-
er, goes to the determined, forceful actions of Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in ordering Israel
Defense Forces (IDF) incursions across the Green
Line to hunt down the terrorist leaders against whom
Arafat would not act.
Soon the challenge to Israel and to its
allies in the United States and the rest of
the world may be-in managing a process
aimed at restoring some sort of peace to
the region, which necessarily includes efforts to
rebuild trust between Israel and the Palestinians.
Fortunately, all sides have nominally agreed to the
process first outlined by the panel of former U.S.
Sen. George Mitchell and later refined by a group
headed by former Central Intelligence Agency direc-
tor George Tenet. The Mitchell-Tenet process is a
perfectly reasonable blueprint for both sides.
The real danger now is that war-weary Israelis and
their American allies, distracted by this nation's own
war on terror, may concede too much too soon,
looking for a short-term end to violence rather than
a long-term durable peace.
In the curious logic of the Arab world, the
Palestinians will want concessions for stopping the
intifada that they began deliberately on Sept. 29, 2000.
They will try to gloss over the fact that concessions
beyond the generous offers of the Camp David and
Taba talks would be rewarding the use of terror that

has led to the deaths of nearly 200 Israelis
and 700 Palestinians.
Some analysts say that Israel must make
sure not to undermine Arafat because he is
the only Palestinian leader with wide sup-
port. By this logic, Arafat must be given
something — more territory, more relaxation
of security measures, more U.S. economic
aid — so that he can claim a victory that
will persuade internal factions to rally behind
him.

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Moment Of Truth

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But it is now clear that the only real deter-
rent to future Palestinian violence will not
lie in unfullfilled promises by Arafat to
arrest leaders of Hamas and
Islamic Jihad while his own
Fatah forces continue to stock-
pile arms. Rather, it must come
from a general Palestinian recognition that
Israel will strike back forcefully should the
violence resume.
The Palestinians must comprehend that
the price of an intifada is a decimated
economy and roadblocks that profoundly
upset everyday life. They must learn that
world opinion is against terrorism and,
therefore, against their willingness to toler-
ate its use against Israel's civilian population.
Nobody wants to prolong the hardships for the
Palestinians. In the long run, a flourishing and
peaceful Palestinian state is one of the best guaran-
tees of Mideast stability. And rebuilding what has
been shattered — including Israel's willingness to
open its borders to 120,000 Palestinian workers —
is a totally appropriate goal. But it is not a goal that
will be achieved by backing off too far or too fast.
We hope that in the next few months, Sharon will

EDITORIAL

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pursuit of anti-Israel canards that originate in the
United States is unending.
Skeptics argue that what little discrimination
Jewish Detroiters face today can be handled by the
local Jewish Community Council or American
Jewish Committee. Over the years, those agencies
have collaborated with the ADL in fighting preju-
dice and injustice, but they simply aren't staffed
— or trained — to monitor, analyze and respond
to the travails we sadly still suffer on a regular basis
as a minority ethnic group.
It has been more than a year since the local
ADL office has had dynamic, steady leadership at
the top — and that's too long. We hope the ADL's
national leadership in New York City recognizes
the need to step up search efforts for an executive
director and fill this void soon. 7

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prove as skillful in managing an armistice as he has
been in 'combating the intifada. He will need help
from American Jews who love Israel. They must
continue to urge the Bush administration to stay the
course of fighting terrorism. And they should not
hesitate to point out how effectively Israel has
shown the way with its policy of zero tolerance.
Eleven incidents a day is still 11 too many. But at
last, Arafat seems to be moving in the right direc-
tion. When the IDF count gets to no incidents for a
week, we'll know for sure. 71

1/4
2002

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