Editorials are posted and archived
on JN Online:
www.detroitjewishnews.com
Dry Bones
Peres, Posturing
S
himon Peres has made Ariel Sharon an offer
that the Israeli prime minister can — and
should — refuse.
Peres, seeking political advantage as Sharon has lost
his Knesset majority, offered to have the Labor Party
join the Likud coalition and to support Sharon's plan
to withdraw from the Gala settlements — if certain
conditions are met. All Peres said he wanted was to
have Sharon negotiate with the Palestinians on the
terms for the Gala evacuation, to set the timetable for
the move now and to work out the future of the West
Bank.
It makes you wonder where Peres has been for the
last four.years during which the Palestinians have been
so busy proving that they are, under Yasser
Arafat, totally unable to bargain in any good
faith.
No problem, Peres says, just bargain with
the Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei instead
of with Arafat, as if that were a viable alternative
instead of a prescription for frustration and failure.
Qurei seems to be a decent man, but he has absolutely
no separate political standing or power and anything
he accepts Arafat can overturn in a moment. It is sim-
ply foolish to believe that he could make any binding
commitments about either Gaza or the West Bank.
So far, Sharon seems to have been able to stick to a
workable plan first for reducing the violence and then
for getting the 7,500 settlers out of Gaza.
The targeted killings of the leaders of Hamas and
Islamic Jihad, the construction of a security barrier
around the most volatile parts of the
West Bank and the enforced isolation
of Arafat in Ramallah has clearly low-
ered the terrorist threats inside the
Green Line. It has been more than six
weeks since Palestinian attackers killed
any Israeli civilians and three months
since the last major suicide bombing.
It's not that Hamas and the other ter-
ror groups aren't still trying to carry out
major attacks — but rather that good
intelligence and effective barriers are
stopping them.
At the same time, Sharon has appar-
ently convinced a majority
of Israelis that getting out of
Gaza is a good thing. He
does not have the unani-
mous backing of his own party, and
the parties that most back the settlers
have left the Likud coalition. But the
momentum is now with Sharon and
he is not likely to face a no-confidence
Knesset vote that would topple his
administration until much later this
year when the budget is to be decided.
For now, he doesn't need what Peres
is offering and he certainly doesn't need
it with the sort of conditions that Peres
has said he would demand. Sharon
should just say "no." ❑
EDIT ORIAL
L WROTE 1 -1-1A-c,
ISRAaS PIR114€
MINIS- 16R WAS
ISRACCS PRIME
MINISTER
AND 1 R6gRe SON.„Leou'RE JUST
To Ti-16 DICTATOR NoT cur our To B6
OF SYRIA ,6■
SYRI Ns DIM*
INSTEAD of
AS SYRIA'S
PRCSIDENT?
-
'
.
JOUPWALIs -r.
CAI.CED JUDEA
AND SAMARIA
JuDA AND
SAMAR IA.:
Homosexuality And Tradition
Chicago
imagine learning that because of how you were
born, God hates you.
So writes the director of an organization that
claims to serve the spiritual needs of Jewish gay
men. As I read these words, I thought to myself:
This is a new low in pro-gay propaganda, asserting
as fact two propositions that are very questionable.
First, all males who are sexually mature have the
potential for same-sex activity; it is not uncommon
for adolescent boys to "fool around" together.
Certain circumstances (incarceration, inebriation,
for example) may lead to.homosexual activity in
men who ordinarily would never experience same-
sex activity. But nobody is "born homosexual." All
research indications are that male homosexuality is
only partially genetic.
Secondly, it is both false and offensive to say that
God hates anybody. For no better purpose than to
appeal to those who sympathize with the under-
I
"
Louis A. Berman is a retired psychology professor at the
University of Illinois at Chicago. The native Detroiter
earned a BA degree at Wayne State University and a doc-
torate at the University of Michigan. He is the author of
"The Puzzle: Exploring the Evolutionary Puzzle of Male
Homosexuality" (Godot Press, 2003). His e-mail address is
Louisberman@aol.com
activity. At all times and in all places (even
dog, a gay spokesman who declares that
today), men who are married (or wish they
"God hates homosexuals" displays a colossal
were) sometimes have sex with other men
ignorance of the concept of the God of
— incidental sex — simply because it is
Israel and doesn't mind offending sincere
less troublesome, more convenient, more
believers.
novel and more available at the moment.
I wonder if this gay spokesman is familiar
In biblical days, the Canaanites seem to
with the theme of Leviticus as a whole? For
have practiced some sort of ritualistic
example, verse 19 says, "Thou shalt not
same-sex activity. In the Bible, this is pejo-
hate thy brother in thine heart ... but thou
LOUIS A.
ratively
labeled "temple prostitution."
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"?
BERMAN
It
seems
to me that what Leviticus calls
Probably the God who commanded corn-
Special
abhorrent
are
.temple prostitution and inci-
passion for the poor, and the stranger, for
Commentary
dental same-sex activity.
the deaf and the blind, would also ask for
What about gay men, who cannot enjoy
compassion for those who were unable to
the kind of love that the Song of Songs describes so
find joy in giving one's w ife her "conjugal rights."
rapturously? In a small way, they are like the deaf
This line of reasoning, I believe, is altogether
and the blind, whom God asks us to treat with
consistent with the Leviticus 18:22 declaration that
compassion. That leaves many questions about
to "lie with a man as one lies with a woman" is
homosexuality unanswered (What about lesbians?
to'evah: abhorrent.
What about gay marriage? Can homosexuality be
Let me explain why I believe that 18:22 has little
prevented, or reversed?)
to do with what today we call gay men.
But at least we have a right to believe that
Our concept of "a gay man" is one who is sexual-
Leviticus 18:22 was not directed at gay men and
ly attracted to men exclusively and can find no
that the' God who commanded "Love thy neighbor
pleasure in the kind of sexual pleasure that is
as thyself" included men and women of whatever
enjoyed by a man and his wife. Let us call gay men
sexual orientation.
habitual homosexuals.
But that accounts for only one kind of same-sex
_
Tig
7/ 2
2004
21