Editorials are posted and archived on JN Online: www.detroitjewishnews.com Justice, Blind And Dumb wo weeks ago, there was good reason to cele- brate decisions by the highest courts in the United States and Israel. The decisions, curb- ing respectively executive actions on the detention of enemy combatants" and on the routing of the West Bank security barrier, showed how, even in wartime, democracy provides a system of checks and balances that makes for a better government and a better soci- ety. Last week, however, another judicial body, the International Court of Justice in the Hague, proved only that justice can often be blind in all the worst ways. Responding to the request of the United Nations for an advisory opinion that could support a call for sanctions against Israel, the court issued a ruling so riddled with mistakes of judgment, ignorance of history and political interpretation of the law that it could make a first-year law student cringe. The court decided, for example, that the West Bank barrier Israel is building to slow the pace of ter- rorist attacks illegally "impedes the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination." The court failed to grasp what most of the world has understood for more than half a century: that any right of self-determination has to emerge from politi- cal negotiations among Israel, the Arab states and the Palestinians. The Arab countries that rejected the British partition of the region and made war on Israel effectively forfeited any legal or moral claim to any "right of self-determination." The court also decided incorrectly that Israel is an "occupying power" in the West Bank and is violating the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbid such a power from transferring its civilians into the territory it occupies. That might have been a correct view if the Arab states had agreed to respect the Green Line in 1948; it is plain wrong when the land in question is contested territory to which Israel " Dry Bones WHEN YOU SAVE "GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS", CRAZED TERRORISTS FOR NEIGHBORS .„.‘tr. THAT... EXCEPle has a historic claim that is far stronger than anything the nomadic Arab tribes could assert. The court tried hard to close its eyes to the unrelenting Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians both inside the Green Line and on the West Bank that has been going on since September 2000 when Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat choose the intifada rather than the plan for peace that had been worked out at Camp David. Fourteen of the court's 15 justices — an American was the sole dissenter — concluded that Israel's right to defend its civil- ians in the manner it deemed most effective has less force than this imaginary right of the Palestinians to attack them. The ruling will now form the basis for further mischief, primarily at the United Nations where the Arab states will push for economic and othei sanctions against Israel because of its alleged "illegal" con- struction of the security barrier. And the United States veto of those proposed sanctions would be used in the Muslim world to create fur- ther enmity toward the Western world at a time when reconciliation is vital. The International Court of Justice had an interest- ing opportunity in the case to play a leadership role by adopting a balanced view of the Middle East con- flict. It could, for example, have followed the logic of Israel's highest court in finding that some portions of EDIT ORIAL WHAT A "GOOD FENCE" MAKES is... SAFER STREETS, SCHOOLS, SHOPS, AND BUS RIDES! the barrier were needlessly intrusive, but also that the Green Line was not a boundary that secures peace for either side. Instead it marched in ideological lockstep to a dumb ruling that the rest of the world should, on its merits, simply ignore. ❑ The Data On Intermarriage Newton, Mass. ince the National Jewish Population Survey confirmed the continuing high rate of inter- marriage, it's been quiet on the "outreach" vs. "in-reach" front. The Jewish In-Marriage Initiative is slowly becoming active. No new money has been added to the paltry funding the Jewish community devotes to outreach to the intermarried. As policy advocates search for support for- their positions among a dearth of social science, Sylvia Barack Fishman's new study, "Double or Nothing? Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage," takes on inordinate significance. . Fishman's main conclusions are based on a very S Edmund C. Case is president and publisher of InterfaithFamily.corn. His e-mail address is edc@interfaithfamily.com limited sample: interviews of 43 mixed-mar- Taking Issue ried couples who said they were raising all My main concern is Fishman's assertion that of their children as Jews and four focus the vast majority of mixed-married families groups each with perhaps eight children of who say they are raising their children as intermarried parents. Jews "incorporate Christian holiday festiv- Any qualitative study raises interpretative ities" into their lives, which makes them issues. Which of the participants' behaviors "religiously syncretic" — combining and understandings does the observer Judaism and Christianity — such that EDMUND choose to emphasize, or even mention? Jewish identity is not transmitted to their C. CASE Although Fishman says that the personal children, even though they say that these Special stories of her subjects, along with her analy- festivities have no religious significance to Commentary them. sis, "now become texts themselves for a broader discussion," only glimpses and This central conclusion is not supported excerpts, not the underlying interview tran- by the research itself, is inconsistent with other scripts, are available for interpretation by others. available evidence and provides a wholly inade- "Double or Nothing" is replete with comments quate basis for the very dangerous policies it will suggesting that Fishman is not a neutral observer. At be used to justify. one point, she even implies that outreach advocates Twice, Fishman suggests that the participation are "Christianizing." CASE on page 26 7/16 2004 25