OTHER VIEWS

The Root Of Terrorism

Philadelphia
minor celebrity. He had been a runner
t is widely assumed that poverty
on the Palestinian national team, com-
is a prime factor in motivating
peting in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He
Palestinian Arabs to become ter-
married just three months ago, and his
rorists — that material depriva-
wife is two months' pregnant." In
tion makes young Arabs feel desper- ,
other words, he had every logical rea-
ate, which leads them to terrorism.
son to live peacefully and quietly. Yet
This theory is the reasoning behind
he picked up a gun and went out to
the nearly $1 billion the
murder innocent Israelis.
United States has given to
The Palestinian Arabs
the Palestinian Arabs since
know that if they made
1994, and the even larger
peace with Israel, their econ-
amounts that the European
omy would improve dramat-
Union has given them. These
ically, as would their materi-
governments claim that if
al lives. Yet, they continue to
young Arabs have jobs, they
wage war against Israel
would have something to
because the problem is not
lose by becoming terrorists,
the economy. The problem
so they would have a strong
is their ideology of hatred
MORTON A.
incentive to maintain nor-
for Jews and refusal to
KLEIN
mal, peaceful lives.
accept the existence of a
Special
In fact, however, many of
Jewish state in their midst.
Commentary
the leading Palestinian Arab
An editorial in the Jerusalem
terrorists — including some
Post once pointed out that
suicide bombers — are university grad-
"there is no reason to believe that
uates, are married and have good jobs.
money would ... persuade Palestinians
Consider one example from many:
to co-exist with Israel ... not all prob-
Muhammad Abu Jamous, who was
lems can be solved with money ...
part of a terror squad that murdered
Americans are particularly aware of the
four Israelis in Gaza on Jan. 9.
limitations of financial aid in resolving
According to the New York Times, Abu
social and political problems.
Jamous was "a member of the
Palestinian navy [and] something of a

I

Ideology, Not Money

Morton A. Klein is national president of

the Zionist Organization of America. His
e-mail address is email@zoa.org

NELSON from page 33

though only one now serves the small
community that remains from the once
thriving city.
The oldest synagogue, now a histor-
ical Argentinean landmark, is only
opened once a year for Simchat Torah.
There is a Jewish museum and a semi-
nario (seminary) where teachers are
trained and where young students
come to study five times a week. I was
fortunate to meet with the leaders of a
small community that remains. They
gave me a tour of the synagogue and
cemetery, which record the lives of the
founders of this unusual town.
It was a community that was both
secular and proudly Jewish. Yiddish was
cherished and passed on to the next
generation in each household. But all of
this is rapidly disappearing as a mass
exodus is occurring.
My first encounter with Argentina was
in 1968, when it was an exciting, vibrant
and very comfortable middle-class con-
servative community. There was the sem-
inario and Congregation Bet-El, which

2/15

2002

34

"Throwing staggering amounts of gov-
ernment and private funds at inner-city
slums, the drug problem and affirma-

was young, informal and stimulating.
Spending five days with Rabbi Marshall
Meyer gave me ample opportunity to
enjoy the excitement of the community
and the elegance of the city.
Though I will admit that there was
whispering about the desaparicidos —
the young adults who spoke out against
the generals who controlled the country
and then quietly disappeared forever.
In 1996, two years after the bombing
of the Jewish Community Welfare
Board, I revisited the city with a group
of Detroiters traveling to Jewish sites in
Argentina and Brazil. There were
changes evident — the raw vestige of
the damaged building seemed almost
symbolic as I look back.
The police didn't want us to stop as a
group and offer a prayer on behalf of
those killed during the bombing. They
shooed us along and asked us not to
loiter there, but we didn't move until
we had said Kaddish. There were
demonstrators on the main square —
labor unionists unhappy with the work
opportunities.

tive action for minorities had done lit-
tle to ameliorate intractable problems.
"It is even less likely that the Arab-
Israeli conflict can be reduced to
materialist terms. The intolerance in
the Arab world for Israel's existence
does not stem from economic hard-
ship. It is mostly religiously and
nationalistically inspired."
Khalid M. Amayreh, a Palestinian
Arab journalist, has written: "Several
studies have shown that a substantial
majority of Islamists [Muslim funda-
mentalists] and their supporters come
from the middle and upper socio-eco-
nomic strata ... The claim that 'Islamic
terrorism in Israel, as elsewhere, is the
product of poverty, backwardness and
ignorance' is simply nonsense."
The historical record clearly demon-
strates that Arab extremist ideology,
rather than poverty, is at the core of the
Arab Jewish conflict. During the 1920s
and 1930s, for example, Jewish immi-
gration to Palestine brought the country
a variety of economic improvements,
including new jobs for many Arabs, yet
there was mass Palestinian Arab violence
against Jews in 1920, 1921, 1929 and
throughout 1936-1939.
Nor were the Arab wars against
Israel (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973)
fought for economic reasons. Nor was
the constant Palestinian Arab terrorism
against Israel during the 1950s, 1960s,
1970s, 1980s and 1990s motivated by
economic troubles. Whether in good

economic times or bad, the Arabs
remained committed to murdering
Jews and seeking Israel's destruction.

The Well-To-Do

The ranks of the current Palestinian
Arab terrorist groups have been filled by
a generation of radical young Arab
nationalists, many of them university-
educated (Israel built six universities and
16 other institutions of higher education
in Judea-Samaria-Gaza) and relatively
well to do. They organized mass violence
for ideological, not economic, reasons.
As the late Professor Amos
Perlmutter once pointed out, the lead-
ership of the Hamas terrorist move-
ment, which supplies the majority of
suicide bombers, is made up of mod-
ern middle- and upper-middle class
professionals, of journalists, lawyers,
engineers and doctors."
Indeed, news accounts of the 400
Hamas leaders who were temporarily
deported to Lebanon in 1992-93
described the deportees as well-edu-
cated professionals.
Building factories or hospitals will
not put an end to hatred of Israel.
Devoted to ideologies of extreme Arab
nationalism or extremist Islam, the
Palestinian Arabs reject the concept of
a sovereign non-Muslim state in the
Muslim Middle East. Giving them
American taxpayers' dollars won't
change that. ❑

Israel Bound

Today, the Jewish Agency is launch-
ing an emergency program to enable
Jews to leave. Abraham Kaul, director
of the Argentinean Zionist
Organization, says, "Jewish self-help
is no longer an option. It is better for
a Jew to look for a new life in Israel."
And those who are not going to
Israel will go to any country that will
offer them a future — Spain, Canada,
Mexico, Italy or even Poland, where
their grandparents left from.
The World Council of
Conservative-Masorti Synagogues has
begun major campaign requesting
donations for a Special Fund of
Argentine Jewry. It is an effort we
must respond to. Checks made out to
the World Council must indicate that
they are for the Special Fund of
Argentine Jewry and should go to 155
Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010.
Living in a land that offers us oppor-
tunity, security and freedom, it is diffi-
cult to know what our fellow Jews are
experiencing. I was given an opportunity
to show solidarity; that's why I went. L

Rabbi Nelson, in Moises Ville, at the
corner of Herz!. Street and State of
Israel Street on Jan. 28.