Opinion

Greenberg's View

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Editorial

Arising From A
Political Coma

T

he next government of
Israel will owe its corn-
position to the man in
the coma just as it responds to
an Israeli nation that is ready to
break out of its own coma.
For decades, Israel had sub-
sumed its domestic agenda to its
security agenda and subsumed
its security agenda to the intran-
sigence and rejectionism of the
Palestinians and the Arab world.
Israel said it didn't have the
financial or political resources
to meet the social needs of its
citizens because it was too busy
meeting their security needs.
Likewise, Israel said it was
locked into its security needs
because it didn't have a reli-
able partner for peace; and any
consolidation of forces or settle-
ments would be seen as weak-
ness in negotiations.
This meant that Israel
remained in its own type of
coma, not able to move freely
until a medical breakthrough, a
peace partner, came to its rescue.

It is true that Israel wasn't
stagnant during this time,
absorbing more than a million
immigrants and making the con-
struction crane the national bird;
but poverty also grew as did
emigration, dissatisfaction, frus-
tration and fear. Money, lives and
political capital were spent on
maintaining a holding pattern.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
cut through all that with his
plan for unilateral disengage-
ment from the Gaza Strip, telling
Israelis that to be masters of
their own fate, they shouldn't
be masters over Palestinians.
Sharon would do what he always
did, establish facts on the ground
to create the security borders
Israel would need until whatever
time their neighbors could pro-
duce peace. This meant a wall
and strategic strikes as well as
the previously unthinkable stra-
tegic withdrawals.
Kadima's dramatic rise from
zero to 29 seats, and the Likud's
dramatic drop from 37 to 12

seats clearly
showed the
change in atti-
tudes. While
Likud leader
Benjamin
Netanyahu's
call for "reci-
procity" was
eminently reasonable in the
midst of peace negotiations,
with the rise of Hamas and the
unwillingness or inability of
Palestinians to deliver, it was
understood that such a policy
gave others a veto power over
Israeli progress.
But just as telling was the
ability of Labor to hold steady.
In maintaining Labor's 19 seats,
candidate Amir Peretz shrewdly
put social issues at the top of
the agenda. Recognizing that
Kadima provided a security
answer that Labor could support
and couldn't outpoll, they gave
a vote for Labor meaning and
articulated Israeli discomfort
with its growing gap between

rich and poor.
Nowhere was this as evident as
the rise of the Pensioner's Party,
which put the care of Israel's
senior citizens front and center.
The new party won seven seats
without even taking a position
on peace and security issues.
The record low turnout, only
about 63 percent of the elec-
torate, can be chalked up to
apathy, but just as likely can be
explained by a consensus on
security policy and a satisfaction
that things are moving in the
right direction.
The fissures in Israeli society
are still there, and the fears that
looking inward poses even more
threat to Israeli society than
focusing outward may be true.

A vocal and active minority
oppose further withdrawals; no
one is certain what approach will
work, especially with the rise of
Hamas. The religious-secular
divide hasn't gone away; improv-
ing education, providing jobs
and cutting poverty remain a
real challenge.
But Israel seems poised to
confront its future. Shaking off a
coma and rehabilitating oneself
can be a slow process. But Israel
is on the move forward —
and that suits most Israelis just
fine.

❑

E-mail letters of no more than 150

words to:

letters@thejewishnews.corn.

Reality Check

Bordering On Disorder

A

merican immigration
laws are not always
fair. Jews know that as
well as any group.
When the laws were redrawn in
the 1920s with the direct intent of
keeping us out, it doomed many
of our people to the Holocaust.
The U.S. government would not
change the law even after the Nazi
design was well known.
But we also know from the
experience of Israel that a nation's
borders must be secure. While
it has caught all kinds of flak
for building the security barrier,
terrorist attacks are a fraction of
what they once were.
Thankfully, we are not being
directly threatened by terrorists
on our southern border, and the
immigrants crossing illegally
are not faced with extermina-
tion camps. But to say that these
immigrants "only" want a better

life ignores the economic fact that
this is gained at the expense of
people who are here legally.
Michigan has one of the high-
est unemployment rates in the
country. It also has, according to
recent figures, about 100,000 ille-
gal immigrants.
So the often repeated statement
that the illegals "do the work that
Americans won't do" strikes me
as absurd. Of course Americans
would do it, given the right incen-
tives. But as long as illegal work-
ers keep driving wage rates down
there is no compelling reason for
the unemployed to give up the
government benefits they have.
So the public loses both ways.
Their taxes go to support the
unemployed, while the illegal
immigrants (whom their sup-
porters now choose to refer to as
"undocumented': as if they had
simply misplaced their papers or

something) usually pay
no income tax.
I really don't
understand how any
Democrat, the party
of labor, can vote an
amnesty for illegal
immigrants who are
working here. And
Republican business
interests who drool
over this supply of
dirt-cheap labor are just as
repugnant.
The question really comes
down to this: Does the United
States have a right to secure and
regulate its borders?
According to more radical ele-
ments within the Chicano orga-
nizations, the answer is no. Since
the land in these border states
was "stolen:' in their view, in the
Mexican War, those Mexicans
who seek better economic con-

ditions have every
right to cross the
border without
interference.
That's why
you saw all those
Mexican flags in
demonstrations
that were sup-
posed to be about
rights in America
— California, Texas,
Arizona and New Mexico are still
considered part of the greater
Mexican nation.
It doesn't help that Mexico
continues to give voting privi-
leges to legal immigrants to the
U.S. That only fosters an ongoing
sense of ambivalence towards the
country they actually reside in.
The vast majority of people
reading these words are the
children and grandchildren of
immigrants. My own grandpar-

ents came here in the great flood
of Jewish immigration during
the first decade of the 20th cen-
tury. This has nothing to do with
forgetting the fact that we are a
nation of immigrants.
In fact, both political par-
ties underestimate the anger
that immigrants, including the
Hispanics who got here playing
by the rules, feel towards illegals.
Their wages are being driven
downward, too.
The North American Free
Trade Agreement and globaliza-
tion were supposed to mean that
people from less-prosperous
nations would be able to make a
living wage in their homelands.
The flood of illegals seems to
indicate that idea isn't working.
The next reasonable step might
be to find out why.

❑

George Cantor's e-mail address is

gcantor614@aol.com.

April 6 • 2006

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