OTHER VIEWS

The Privilege Of Visiting Israel

mr

e have visited Israel many
times. We have been to
summer camp there. We
have studied there. We
lived there as young adults. We have -
been visitors on family trips, on missions
sponsored by the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit missions, on con-
gregational trips and on our Detroit teen
mission. Never before' have we felt as
compelling a pull to be in Israel as we
have felt these past months.
As the latest Palestinian intifada
(uprising) worsened and terrorism
increased within her borders, Israel
was becoming abandoned by tourists.
Even committed Jewish travelers were
heeding the U.S. Department of State
advisory against travel to Israel. How
could we not be there? If a friend were
facing difficult times, we'd be there to
offer support and to be helpful. How
could we not do the same for Israel?
So it was that we boarded a full El
Al flight last month and headed home
to Israel. This was not a tourist visit,
but a focused mission to offer our
services to Detroit's Partnership 2000

region of the Central Galilee. It was
an amazing experience.
We learned what it truly means to
build a community from those who
are building a new infrastructure for
social services in Israel.
One of the most innovative of these
social services institutions is the
Shiffman Home Hospice of the Valley.
Through the generosity of Milton, of
blessed memory, and Lois Shiffman,
this is a pioneering program for Israel,
where hospice care is not well known.
It is difficult to express the awe that
I, a rabbi, felt as I went with the hos-
pice team to visit an Arab patient in
Christian Nazareth. Where else in the
world would you find an Orthodox
Israeli doctor, a Conservative American
rabbi, a Christian nurse and a Jewish
Russian immigrant team leader visiting
a dying Arab Moslem? We stood in her
home facing a Palestinian flag as we
tended to her pain and to her physical
and spiritual needs. All the while, her
family expressed respect and apprecia-
tion for our efforts.
I felt the same respect and apprecia-

tion from the Israeli Arab vol-
to make each cay of life more
unteers who attended a hos-
worthwhile for others, even
pice meeting with Jewish vol-
the dying.
unteers in Nazareth Illit.
These volunteers provide con-
Partnership Innovations
tinuous outreach and respite
to their own community
Another impressive
through the Shiffman Home
Partnership 2000 program is
Hospice.
RABBI
the Say Yom day care program
Many Jewish volunteers
YOSKOWITZ for seniors in Afula.
come from the cities, kibbut-
Community
This half-day program pro-
zim and moshavim (kibbutzim
vides a full range of activities,
Views
with individual ownership) of
including breakfast and lunch.
the Central Galilee. They
There's a beautiful area for
drive long distances at night on unlit
crafts and a comprehensive physical
roads to attend training meetings and
therapy facility, including a therapeutic
to visit dying people. There are more
pool, which is being upgraded through
volunteers than there are assignments;
the generosity of two Detroiters.
but people continue to offer their
Say Yom has a designated protected
time and their services to aid others.
area for those with dementia and
Some of these volunteers shared
Alzheimer's disease. This program lasts
their stories with us and we were
a full day and includes naptime each
moved to tears by their devotion to
afternoon, as well as time outdoors in
the dying. To the volunteers, this
a beautiful enclosed garden.
work "is natural" and "the right thing
On another day, Rachel visited sev-
to do." What models they are! In spite
eral absorption centers and met with
of the situation in their country, these
immigrants from Argentina, Ethiopia,
Israelis live life as they need to and try
Uruguay and the former Soviet

telling him to declare the Saudi idea
"unacceptable" and not worth explor-
ing, that it's a plot to undermine
Israel's standing in Washington.
Taking their advice would be a
major mistake akin to the one made
by then Prime Minister Menachem
Begin in 1982 when he hastily rejected
a peace plan advanced by President
Ronald Reagan. Begin ignored the
counsel of his top two diplomats in
Washington, Moshe Arens and
Binyamin Netanyahu, and pro-Israel
lobbyists who advised him to offer to
discuss the plan with U.S. President
Ronald Reagan and let the Arabs be
the ones to say no — as they eventual-
ly did.
Begin's blunder damaged Israel's
stature, put an unnecessary strain on
U.S.-Israeli relations and led to an
administration attempt, which ultimate-
ly failed, to cut aid to Israel that year.
Sharon so far is keeping his cool.
His strategy is to test Saudi intentions
by asking to meet with Abdullah,
knowing that he will be turned down,
thus allowing the Israeli prime minister
to brand the whole thing as nothing
more than a PR gambit. That would
protect Sharon from having to reveal
that substantively he rejects anything
resembling even the most liberal inter-
pretation of what Abdullah envisions.

Sharon's added advantage is
For all their wealth and
that he also knows the Saudis
influence, the Saudis have
can't deliver the two most
never demonstrated political
important parties — the
courage or interest when it
Palestinians and the Syrians.
comes to making peace with
The Saudis are desperate to
Israel. Two years ago, when
rescue themselves from the dis-
Saudi intervention at Camp
astrous — but largely self-
David and Taba — before
inflicted — political damage
DOUGLAS M. Sharon came to office — gen-
of Sept. 11 and its aftermath.
BLOOMFIELD uinely could have made the
A recent poll showed
difference between peace and
Special
Americans rank the Saudis
war, Abdullah was AWOL.
Commentary
worse than North Korea and
Syria and almost as bad as Iraq when it
Telltale Indicators
comes to supporting terrorism.
It is no secret that Crown Prince
There are a number of signs indicat-
Abdullah is more interested in making
ing that this is a PR gambit, not a
peace with the Americans than the
serious offer:
Israelis — but he understands the
1. Abdullah said he'd been thinking
linkage.
about it for a couple of years, but kept
American officials are very skeptical,
quiet until after New York Times
but don't want to offend the Saudis
columnist Thomas Friedman suggested
because of the royal family's relation-
the Arabs offer Israel full peace for full
ship to the Bush family, because
withdrawal. So far, Abdullah has dis-
Washington wants Riyadh's support for
cussed it with only two people, both
the war against terror generally and
Jews, Friedman and Henry Siegman of
Iraq in particular, and because, who
the Council on Foreign Relations.
knows, it might just spark something
2. Abdullah said he is pained by
useful.
Palestinian suffering and wants to
And let's not forget oil, always the
help them, but delayed offering his
joker in the Mideast deck.
ideas because he disapproves of
That the "plan" is given any serious
Sharon's responses to mounting
consideration at all is more a sign of
Palestinian violence.
the pervasive sense of hopelessness
3. Israeli offers to discuss the pro-
surrounding the Mideast situation
posal directly were rebuffed by the
than any hope attached to the Saudi
Saudis, who would not even commit
initiative.
to meetings after full peace with the

Where's The Beef?

3/8

2002

34

Washin on, D. C.
he first thing you should
know about the new Saudi
peace plan is that it is not
new and not a plan. The
ideas offered by Crown Prince
Abdullah are little more than a rehash
of a 21-year-old idea first floated by
his brother, the present King Fand,
who was then the crown prince.
After being watered down at the
insistence of the Iraqis, Syrians and
Palestinians to omit any reference to
Israel or peace, the 1981 Fand Plan
was promptly forgotten.
The 2002 Abdullah version has more
going for it, starting with the fact that
it debuted in the New York Times. And
the Middle East situation appears so
hopeless that nearly all the parties are
willing to grasp at any straw.
So far, all we've seen are a few bare
bones of the Abdullah "plan," and the
Saudis have been very reluctant to put
any meat on them — something that
leads many to dismiss it as a public
relations gesture.
Which it is.
Even if it is a PR ploy designed to
mend fences with Washington and
cast Israel in a negative light, there is
no reason for Israel to reject it out of
hand. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon should ignore colleagues