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Dry Bones

Editorials are posted and archved on JNOnline. corn.

THE MISTIAN
INFIDELS AND THE
JEWISH 0065 ARE
UNITING AGAINST US!

Editorial

Election Magnet

he shifts in the Israeli
political landscape are
huge, but what it por-
tends on Israel's two main
fronts, security and society, is
less clear. Like New Orleans, it's
much easier to document the
devastation than to figure out
what will rise in its place.
What is pretty clear though,
even with almost four months to
elections, is that it is Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's new
Kadimah (Forward!) party's
election to lose. Sharon's popu-
larity is high and support, and
party members, are coming
from both the right and left.
Likud is devastated and mov-
ing backward. The defections to
Kadimah have forced a rallying
around Benjamin Netanyahu,
who precious few would like to
see return as prime minister.
(Israeli voters are more unfor-
giving than Detroit voters.) The
new Likud looks a lot like the
old Likud's right wing that
opposed territorial disengage-
ment and most recent diplomat-
ic efforts. That looks likely to

T

lead to some serious electoral
shrinkage.
Labor is clearly in transition,
with new vigor coming from the
Amir Peretz-led insurgents,
shaking off its old guard and
sparking elections by choosing
to leave the de facto unity gov-
ernment to re-form as an oppo-
sition party hungry to lead. Like
Kadimah, Labor is moving for-
ward, but voters are unlikely to
turn to Peretz, a man with pre-
cious little military or interna-
tional diplomatic experience and
no track record with the United
States.
Kadimah has been successful
in positioning itself as a centrist
party, the sweet spot in Israel's,
and most countries', political
landscape. Kadimah's dual slo-
gans,"Israel wants Kadima [to
move ahead]" and "Sharon is a
strong leader to peace" poll
highly. Support for Sharon's Gaza
disengagement remains high
and many Israelis share the feel-
ing that if the Palestinians can't
deliver either security or peace,
that shouldn't prevent Israel

from moving forward on both
fronts.
Sharon has brought more than
a dozen Likud luminaries with
him as well as Labor's Dalia Itzik
and Haim Ramon, not to men-
tion Shimon Peres, who left
Labor (or did Labor leave him?).
In fact, there are so many
" names" in Kadimah, that keep-
ing everyone happy while com-
piling the party list and doling
out ministry seats will be a real
challenge.
The Detroit Jewish News and
the vast majority of American
Jews generally find themselves
in the Israeli political center..
Many who never thought they
would become Sharon support-.
ers have been defecting to him
for years. Peretz's focus on bleed-
ing issues like poverty and edu-
cation resonate strongly in our
community, which so strongly_
supports Jewish Federation pro-
grams, Israeli universities and
others that address these con-
cerns..
But the domestic issues also
add weight to Sharon's argument

THIS YEAR THEY'RE

HAVING CHRISTMAS
EVE AND THE FIRST
NIGHT OF CHANUKAH

www.drybonesblog.Hogspot.com

for not waiting until the
Palestinians are willing and able
to resolve the conflict because of
Israel's need to build Israeli soci-
ety and Galilee and Negev com-
munities.
As we kindle our Chanukah
lights this coming week, affirm-
ing our centuries-old resolve as
a people, let our essential and
central unity as Jews frame our
actions and interactions during
a volatile pre-election period,

and during what promises to be
hard-fought and heartfelt politi-
cal battles in the coming year. As
we express our differences, let us
stand steadfast against those
who \-vould deny us our God-
given and national rights to live,
• worship and develop in
peace.

sell. And the key words
celebrity blather or
are: stop dumbing it
stories about the lat-
down.
est video game.
Don't bring in man-
Richard Pryor's obit-
agers
from East Jabork
uary took up three-
to
put
out a paper for a
quarters of a page in
Detroit
readership.
the Sunday paper.
Newspapers
are not
George
C
a
ntor
Eugene McCarthy,
made
up
of
inter-
Colum
nist
who actually
changeable parts. They
changed American
are
woven
into the fabric of a
history, got a paragraph obit.
specific place, and it takes years
Minorities don't want to be
to learn the warp and the woof.
pandered to. They know that
Yet editors who know the territo-
they're being patronized when
ry are shunted aside in favor of
stories with little intrinsic merit
corporate gypsies.
find their way onto the front
Be true to your heritage. When
page because they feature a tar-
get minority. Those readers want I joined the Free Press in the
1960s, its slogan was, "You see
news, just like everyone else.
the friendly Free Press every-
People buy newspapers
where." Some old-timers still
because they are not television
refer to it as "the Friendly"
or the Internet. They want sto-
Through all sorts of changes it
ries that show a shaping intelli-
has never lost that identity.
gence behind them and give
At the same time, the other
them perspective. They want
slogan was, "If you read the
memorable writing. Sure, they
News, you know." It was the
like pretty pictures and little
paper of record, the grown-up
charts. But it's the words that

newspaper with a conservative
outlook. That has largely been
squandered in adopting a copy-
cat format. If people like the Free
Press, they'll buy the Free Press
and not a watered down version
of it. The identity transplant was
a horrible blunder and the
biggest thing the News must
overcome to survive.
In some ways, both papers are
better than they were 40 years
ago. More attra c tive. More
diverse newsrooms. I'm especial-
ly pleased to see so many Jewish
writers in visible places. For
many years, it was lonely out
there.
I love newspapers. My day
doesn't start until I read one. I
just wish they'd remember why
more people used to love them,
too. E

E-mail letters to the editor of no
more than 150 words to:
letters@Dthejewishnews.com .

Reality Check

A Nose For News

n all the years I have spent
in journalism, I can't ever
recall seeing people on daily
newspapers so nervous about
the future.
With good reason. Younger
people aren't reading and long-
time readers now are subscrib-
ing to the Heavenly Herald.
Knight-Ridder, a chain that
has a reputation for quality jour-
nalism, is under stockholder
pressure to sell its newspaper
holdings. Staffers at the Detroit
News are worried about what
happens when it gives up the
Sunday edition next year. Even
the most prestigious papers are
announcing cutbacks in the
newsroom.
Some of this was inevitable, a
result of changing technology
and demographics. But newspa-
pers could have done more to
stave it off. The simple fact is

I

they have lost track of who their
readers are and want they want.
They do not want commen-
tary presented as news. Papers
used to try to keep opinion out
of the news and to clearly label
analysis and commentary. They
don't even make the effort any-
more, and readers know the dif-
ference between news and a
political agenda.
They do not want the worst-
case scenario presented as the
one most likely to occur, as with
avian flu stories. Suburban read-
ers don't want to be told repeat-
edly that they are a pack of
racists and that the suburbs are
no safer than the city when it
comes to crime. That's politically
correct nonsense and the cost in
credibility is far too high.
Readers want news. They don't
want mawkish sports columns
on page one. They don't want

George Cantor's e-mail address is

gcantor614@aol.com .

December 22 • 2005

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