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Tempered Hope
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13I' IN A CAW
ISUALIA Sumo
I
'm hopeful that Israel's Arab neighbors
somehow come to terms with the
Jewish state and its right to exist in
peace. To not have hope is to reject our
4,000-year-old survival instincts as a people.
Despite Egyptian slavery, the Inquisition, the
Russian pogroms, the Holocaust and today's
smoldering anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe, in
the Arab world and, maddeningly, at many U.S.
universities, we've managed not only to survive,
but excel far beyond our percentages in helping make the
world a better place.
But I confess that my hope is cloaked in
mistrust of the Palestinian Authority's so-
called peace overtures. The Palestinian sui-
cide bombing that killed five people and
wounded at least 50 in Tel Aviv just before
Shabbat also had Syria's fingerprints all
over it — and that should surprise no one.
The Palestinian terrorist group Islamic
Jihad boasted responsibility for the bomb-
ROBERT A. ing outside the Stage nightclub. Where is
SKLAR
the group based? Damascus.
Editor
Even Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas seemed rankled by the
attack and its goal of sabotaging the fragile truce he struck
Feb. 8 with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Syria not only harbors terror groups, but also encourages
them to carry out attacks, which endanger Israeli relations
with the Palestinians as well as regional stability. Another
Syrian ally is Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed group commit-
ted to Israel's destruction, which is the leading financier of
Palestinian terror cells like Islamic Jihad.
Terrorists reject an Israel of any size and want a
Palestinian state that includes Israel ... period. Talk of a
truce is nice, but the end result seems always the same:
dead Jews.
Without A Doubt
Hezbollah no doubt had a hand in the nightclub bombing
on Tel Aviv's beachfront promenade.
Sheik Hasan Nasrallah put Hezbollah's "reason for being"
in stark terms in a speech aired on Al Manar TV on Feb.
18. The Washington-based Middle East Media Research
Institute translated and disseminated the invective for all to
read.
"Israel is our enemy," Nasrallah said. "This is an aggres-
sive, illegal and illegitimate entity, which has no future in
our land. Its destiny is manifested in our motto, 'Death to
Israel.'"
That's crystal clear to me.
Nasrallah called the Bush administration an enemy of the
Islamic Nation "because it has always taken a position of
aggression, of occupation and of supporting Israel with
weapons, airplanes, tanks and money as well as political
support and unlimited protection." He blamed the presi-
dent for the Islamic Nation's social ills and branded him
"the greatest plunderer of our treasures — our oil and our
resources."
"Death to America," Nasrallah said.
Israel isn't just fighting the Palestinian people. It's fight-
ing Iran, the greatest threat to Israel's security, and Syria,
notwithstanding the Syrian Accountability Act passed by
the U.S. Congress.
Hezbollah managed to hoodwink the European Union
into believing it's not a terrorist group despite a stable of
12,000 rockets and Palestinian terror support to the tune
of $9 million a year. It pays families of
suicide bombers up to $100,000.
"This organization — the long arm
of the Iranian terrorist regime — has
replaced [Iraq's] Saddam Hussein as
the main external element pro-
moting and financing terrorist
attacks against Israeli citizens," says
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.
The Campus Shame
It's sad to hear about Jewish students supporting anti-Israel
campus activists who, without knowing all the facts, con-
demn Israel's military occupation of the Gaza Strip and
West Bank and who call for U.S. divestment in companies
doing business with Israel. Have these students forgotten
their Israeli brethren who have died or been maimed at the
hands of Arab terrorists? Jewish targets especially include
the young because they represent Isrkl's future.
Anti-Israel propaganda has infiltrated the University of
Wisconsin in Madison, where the Faculty Senate voted to
recommend divestment from companies that sell weapons
to Israel, and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh,
where Jew hating reached a crescendo with the Feb. 14
appearance of black power speaker Malik Zulu Shabazz,
who told Jewish students, "I'm watching you."
Israel also has been excoriated over the past four years in
limited student actions at Wayne State University in
Detroit and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The
universities didn't sanction this anti-Zionism, however;
they also have provided the setting for pro-Israel events.
Nationally, on-campus hatred of Jews sometimes has
been subtle and other times blatant. U.S. Jewry shoulders
the blame for not insisting that our high school and uni-
versity students learn more about anti-Israel propaganda —
not only how to recognize it, but also how to counter it.
We must implore our communal leadership to be even
more vigilant of such propaganda so it stays out of class-
rooms. And we must inspire our youth to be proud advo-
cates for Israel and not be content with knowing so little
about who they as Jews.
We must teach our youth about their peers on the front
lines fighting for Israel, and dying, and patronizing Israeli
cafes and clubs to keep businesses going, and dying.
Only through a balanced education can our youth be
equipped to sort myth from fact on the Middle East and
combat the myriad of "reasons" bubbling up for Jews to
question Israel's plight. Only with stronger support from
the Jewish world will our students feel safe and smart
enough to speak out and exhort against Jew bashing.
We must guarantee students an academic setting that val-
ues truth and respects their heritage. They shouldn't fear
speaking up in class to correct anti-Israel bias. They should
have the confidence to know the organized Jewish commu-
nity will speak up to defend their rights as American Jews.
Meanwhile, our universities must be made to feel they
are being monitored fof integrity. They must feel an obli-
gation to change the climate that allows hatred of Jews to
take root. We, as a community, must demand a correction;
our children are at risk. We must show our outrage!
"I am proud to say that I am a concerned Jewish moth-
er," a JN reader with a daughter at U-M told me.
"I hope we have a proud Jewish community."
I do, too.
It's up to us to protect our students from the deceit of a
hijacked culture that finds justification in the Koran to
murder Jews, who the hijackers see as vermin.
❑
Potthle
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