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The E-1 Flip-Flop
AN ISRELI
A
Dry Bones IN FRAME
OF MIND
THE HEALING WINDS
OF PEACE ARE
BLOWING MU THE
MIDDLE EAST!
is easy to understand the internal politics that
drove Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to
approve the development of an additional 3,500
housing units in the West Bank settlement of Maale
Adumim. It's a lot harder to understand why the
United States is being so Hippy-floppy about them.
Prospects for a long-range agreement between Israel,
the Arab states and the Palestinians are the best they
have been in nearly five years because of the reduction
in terrorist violence aimed at the Jewish state and the
peed for the Arab leaders to pay attention to their own
internal forces for democracy and economic develop-
ment. But turning optimism into a reality will require
the United States to play a principled role as an honest
broker, not something it can do when it
seems to be acquiescing in what would cer-
tainly be an Israeli violation of the road-map
peace plan that America developed along
with the United Nations, the European Union and
Russia.
Let's be clear. The expansion of the settlements is
going to happen. Israel cannot afford to leave its
`waist" between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem so narrow that
it invites Palestinian terror in the future. It is not going
to surrender east Jerusalem for a Palestinian capital;
expanding Maale Adumim, as this E-1 plan outlines, is
an effective way to assure the city's long-term integrity.
But the timing of the announcement is lousy as far
as international relationships go.
Sharon is committed to getting the 7,000 settlers out
of the Gaza Strip, but he has to keep a Knesset majori-
ty to achieve that this summer. Approving more build-
ing on the West Bank dampens the settler movement
arguments against the Gaza withdrawal without caving
in to the religious right and alienating the secular cen-
trists like Shinui.
But making room for 10,000 or so more Israelis to
join the 30,000 already in Maale Adumim
feels like a lot more than an accommoda-
tion to "natural growth," the vague but
generally accepted formulation for guiding
expansion. And the road map is explicit in
forbidding significant Israeli construction
before a final boundary agreement to
define the new Palestinian state.
American diplomats have given conflict-
ing and confusing statements about where
the Bush administration stands on the
building plans. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice was sharply critical of E-
1 in one interview, then backtracked in the
next to a nebulous request for
"clarification" of the Sharon
action. Palestinian Prime
Minister Ahmed Karia, saying
that more West Bank settlement will ulti-
mately scuttle any opportunity for a con-
tiguous Palestinian state, is correctly
demanding that the United States live up
to its own peace plan by taking a strong
position against the expansion now
President George W. Bush is, happily, a
dedicated friend of Israel, a position that
reflects both his own preference for liberal
democracy and America's 56 years of back-
ing for the Jewish state. But getting a real
agreement between the historic enemies in
the Middle East is going to take both a
firm hand and an effort at objectivity that is currently
lacking.
Granted, the Palestinians have not disarmed the ter-
rorist groups; but they appear to have at least stopped
the worst of the violence for now and are talking with
Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades about how to behave in the future — all of
The Mah Jong Girls
was one. Next question.
in the oldest established permanent floating
I gathered this was something of a sore point
maj game.
among the maj overseers. Still, facts are facts.
I can remember when her game took over
It's what has happened this year that sur-
the living room of our four-flat on Tuxedo,
prised me. Suddenly, with no advance warn-
where the only TV in the house was located.
ing, my wife has taken up the game.
This is not an especially cheery memory.
Sherry has always thrown herself into what-
With nothing else to watch, however, I
ever she pursues. A few years ago it was golf,
observed the game and managed to pick up the
and she was consumed by the game. She
rudiments. On one memorable occasion, when
GEORGE
insisted that I play, too; but I demurred on the
the fourth member of the game was detained, I
basis that there already was enough frustration
even was rushed in as a substitute for one or two CANTOR
Reality
in my life. The maj thing, however, caught me
hands.
Check
unaware.
I did not maj.
Part of it was sentimental. She used a vin-
It has always intrigued me why this tile game,
tage set that belonged to her late mother,
imported from Asia as a fad in the 1920s, has
Madeline Bershad. But part of it was that she just liked
appealed so strongly over the decades to Jewish
the game and its socializing aspects.
women. It has become a universal and unifying bond,
Now once a month, the game takes over the family
wherever there is a Jewish community.
room, where the big screen TV is; and I am relegated
Calls of "two dot, three bam" are more familiar
to the upstairs for the evening.
sounds than the prayer over the Shabbos candles in
And I don't mind a bit. I can hear the calls, the click
many households.
of the tiles, the conversation coming from down the
Several years ago, I interviewed the head of the
stairs. All so familiar.
organization that supervises the game — printing up
It's been a long time since Tuxedo, but maybe not
the annual cards and devising new hands. I asked her
that far.
about the Jewish connection. She denied that there
I
EDIT ORIAL
I
was visiting one of my favorite Web sites the
other day, redhotjazz.com. This is a sound archive
of recordings from the 1920s and early 1930s by
jazz artists, both famous and splendidly obscure.
While looking over the selections by the Original
Memphis Five I discovered a gem tided "Since Ma's
Been Playing Mah Jong." The record was made in
1924.
This I had to hear.
It's an absolutely terrible song with racist references
to Chinese people in the lyrics. (Which were written,
incidentally, by Billy Rose; you know, the guy who
married Fanny Brice, among others.)
But it reminded me how long the game has been
with us.
My mother has been a major maj aficionado since
the early 1950s. She still plays, sometimes three and
four times a week. Roaming across Oakland County,
George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor@thejewishnews.com .
THE COMFORTING
BREEZE OF SELF
DELUSION./
IT'S EITHER
THAT OR
115...
which is far more than Yasser Arafat ever did. Israel's
announced building plans undercut those talks.
If the United States wants to keep a process moving,
it will have to tell the Palestinians, Israel and the rest of
the world just where it stands on the pace and timing
of new West Bank homes. At the moment, it is just
skirting its responsibility. ❑
caT
❑
3/31
2005
27