OTHER VIEWS

Living Bridges

E

ver vigilant of the news
from Israel, it does our
hearts good to see the
smiles of Israeli and Michigan
campers together on the cover of
the Detroit Jewish News. The
July 6 feature story has prompted
me to share some additional
perspectives on the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit's Israeli Camper Program.
The program began in 2002
in a defining moment that dem-
onstrated to what measures our
Detroit community will go in
order to support summer camp-
ing experiences and cultural
exchanges with Israel. Due to
conditions in Israel that year, our
Teen Mission was canceled. In
an effort to maintain the bonds
between our Detroit and Israeli
youth, we partnered with the
Fresh Air Society to bring 325
Israeli children to the community
to attend Camp Tamarack. Today,
our Teen Mission program is
Going strong,
going
0 3 with 214 Detroiters
currently in Israel. The Israeli

Camper Program continues as
well because of the meaningful
relationships it creates between
the children at Tamarack, and
between our Israeli campers and
their Detroit host families.
The Israeli Camper Program
represents our largest youth
exchange with our Partnership
2000 Region in the Central
Galilee. Now in its fifth summer,
this program is a mainstay in our
community. American campers
look forward to having Israelis in
their villages, and Detroit families
anticipate hosting these children
year after year. One of our top
priorities at the Federation is to
create living bridges (Gesher
L'Kesher) between Detroiters and
Israelis, and this program accom-
plishes this in ways I could not
have dreamed of five years ago at
the program's inception.
I want to express my gratitude
to a few people who make this
program possible. First is the
Fresh Air Society, under the lead-
ership of Executive Director Jonah

Geller and President
Brian Kepes. Fresh Air
Society has been our
partrier not only in
housing and improv-
ing the Camper
Program each year,
but also in aiding the
recruitment efforts
of our current Teen
Mission (100 of the
215 participants are
Tamarack campers).
I do not believe this
program would be as successful
in any other camp setting.
Secondly, I would like to thank
our hard-working chairmen, Steve
Goodman and Ken Korotkin.
Steve was the Chair of the 2005
program, and he shares the role
with Ken for this summer's pro-
gram. Steve became involved in
the Federation when he first vis-
ited Israel on Federation's Fourth
Miracle Mission. Since then, Steve
has had a thirst for Israel that
cannot be quenched.
Besides his involvement with

the Camper Program,
Steve was a participant
of our Max M. Fisher
Leadership Mission.
He is a member of
our Partnership 2000
Steering Committee
and Federation board,
and he is a newly
elected member of
the Fresh Air Society
board.
Steve's passion
for the program has
elevated it to the model Israeli
camping program in this coun-
try. The place that the Camper
Program holds in Steve's heart
fuels the relentless work that he
does every summer. And, believe
me, the campers feel the same
way about him — they all know
him by name, and they greet him
with a hug each time he visits
them at camp or during one of his
many trips to Israel.
Ken Korotkin is also someone
who became connected with
Israel as a result of this program.

Because of the relationships Ken
and his family formed with the
nine campers they have hosted
the previous summers of the pro-
gram, the Korotkin's visited Israel
for the first time last year, and Ken
will forever be a changed man.
Our Federation is most fortu-
nate to have two such dedicated
volunteers working to give our
Israeli campers the experience of
their lives summer after summer.
As chief executive officer of the
Federation, I have been able to
witness the evolution of the Israeli
Camper Program in the Detroit
community. This program has a
profound impact on the lives of so
many The Camper Program holds
a special place in my heart, and I
want to thank all those who make
it possible.

Israeli pacts with Syria and
Jordan. The Arab world rejoiced
at the prospect of annihilating
Israel; and even the Soviets, eager
to find some means of distract-
ing American attention from
Vietnam, were pleased. Israeli
leaders had no choice but to
determine when and where to
strike preemptively.
And so, suddenly and unex-
pectedly, a regional Near erupted
that the principal combatants
— Israel, Egypt, and Jordan
— neither desired nor antici-
pated. The lesson: Local conflicts
in the Middle East can quickly
spin out of control and spiral into
a regional conflagration.

If the Soviets in 1967 wanted to
divert America's attention from
Vietnam, the Iranians — Syria's
current sponsors — want to
divert American attention from
their nuclear-arms program. And
once again Israel must decide
when to strike back and against
whom.
Back in 1966, Israel recoiled
from attacking Syria and instead
raided Jordan, inadvertently
setting off a concatenation of
events culminating in war. Israel
is once again refraining from an
entanglement with Hezbollah's
Syrian sponsors, perhaps because
it fears a clash with Iran. And
just as Israel's failure to punish
the patron of terror in 1967 ulti-
mately triggered a far greater cri-
sis, so too today, by hesitating to
retaliate against Syria, Israel risks
turning what began as a border
skirmish into a potentially more
devastating confrontation. Israel
may hammer Lebanon into sub-

Robert Aronson is CEO of the Jewish

Federation of Metropolitan Detroit in

Bloomfield Township.

Why Israel Should Bomb Syria

Jerusalem

early 40 years ago,
Israel and the Arab
world fought a war
that altered the course of Middle
Eastern history. Now, as the
region teeters on the brink of a
new and potentially more vio-
lent cataclysm, it is important to
revisit the lessons of the Six Day
War, a conflict that few Middle
Eastern countries wanted and
none foresaw.
By 1967, 10 years after the
Sinai Campaign, the Arab-Israeli
dispute had settled into an
uneasy status quo. The radical
Egyptian regime of Gamal Abdel
Nasser still proclaimed its com-
mitment to liberating Palestine
and throwing the Jews into the
sea, as did its conservative rivals
in Jordan and Saudi Arabia; but
none of these states made any
attempt to renew hostilities. On
the contrary, Egypt remained
quiescent behind the U.N. peace-
keeping forces deployed in Sinai,
Gaza and the Straits of Tiran

against Israel in
since 1957. Jordan
1965 and rapidly
maintained secret con-
escalated its attacks.
tacts with the Israelis.
Finally, at the end of
Israel, for its part, had
1966, Israeli officials
long learned to ignore
felt compelled to
bellicose Arab rhetoric
retaliate. But, fear-
and to seek backdoor
ing the repercus-
channels to even the
sions of attacking
most vituperative Arab
Michael
Soviet-backed Syria,
rulers. As late as April
B. Oren
they decided to
1967, officials at Israel's
Special
strike
at an Al Fatah
foreign ministry were
Commentary
strongholdin the
speculating whether
Jordanian-controlled
Nasser might be a via-
West Bank.
ble partner for a peace process.
The raid unfortunately led
But one Arab state did not
to a firelight between IDF
want peace. Syria, then as now
and Jordanian troops and to
under the rule of the belligerent
Jordanian claims that Nasser
Baath Party, wanted war. Having
had not done enough to protect
tried and failed in 1964 to divert
the Jordan River before it crossed the West Bank Palestinians.
the Israeli border — IDF jets and Desperate to restore his reputa-
tion, Nasser exploited a spurious
artillery blasted the dams — the
Soviet report of Israeli war plans
Syrians began supporting a
little-known Palestinian guerrilla to evict U.N. peacekeepers. He
closed the Straits of Tiran to
group called Al Fatah under the
Israeli shipping, concentrated
leadership of Yasser Arafat. Using
100,000 of his troops along the
Lebanon as its principal base,
Israeli border and forged anti-
Al Fatah commenced operations

At The Core
The lesson is especially pertinent
to the current crisis. Then, as
now, the Syrians have goaded a
terrorist organization, Hezbollah,
to launch raids against Israel
from Lebanon. Then, as now, the
rapid rise of terrorist attacks has
forced Israel to mount reprisals.

Oren on page 40

July 20 • 2006

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