Dry

Opinion

ISRAEL AT WAR
Bones
We' STRING THEORY

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Editorial

Give With Thought

.

I

- by standing strong as Americans
srael is cleaning out a
and as Jews. And we do the same
Hezbollah hornet's nest
when we support organizations
in Lebanon and is getting
and institutions aiding Israelis at
stung. Much of what we see on
this critical time of challenge and
our television and computer
uncertainty.
screens is infuriating, frustrat-
. The largest national effort is
ing and heartbreaking. How do
the Israel Crisis Fund of United
we ease the pain? By opening
Jewish Communities, the umbrel-
our mouths, our hearts and our
la agency for North American
checkbooks.
federations. Its main project is
We take action and feel so
to move kids out of harm's way
deeply not just because of our
and into camps in central and
support and identification with
southern Israel so they don't have
Israel and the Israeli people,
to face the trauma of dodging
but also because we understand
bombs and living in shelters.
Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran
The project also aids elderly and
and Syria better than most. We
infirm folks who can't escape so
value freedom and love life and
easily and community service
understand.we are in a battle
agencies in the center and south
with well-armed movements
that are facing huge demands
that do not. We understand this
from displaced northerners.
battle is about something more
The Jewish Federation of
profound and existential than the
Metropolitan
Detroit has sent
border disputes that have seemed
an
emergency
grant of nearly
to characterize the Arab-Israeli
$1
million
primarily
to assist its
conflict. Just as Jews have for mil-
Partnership 2000 region of the
lennia, it looks like we are once
again standing on the fault line of Central Galilee send kids south
to safety and make bomb shelters
an impending cataclysm.
It is imperative, both politically livable for those who remain:
Federation's Israel Emergency
and morally, that our voices are
Campaign deserves widespread
heard. We strengthen Israel and
support, but Detroit Jews also
ourselves, and we can save lives

give to other worthy groups pro-
viding critically needed services.
These are just a few:
• The American Jewish
Committee has raised more than
$1 million specifically to pro-
vide resources like firSt-aid kits,
children's toys and baby supplies
to those living in bomb shelters.
Three solidarity vans visit Jewish,
Druze and Arab communities
bringing. aid and comfort.
• The Jewish National Fund's
Operation Security Blanket
organizes camps for kids, while
buying emergency equipment for
firefighters battling blazes set off
by Katyusha rockets and building
secure roads for travel near the
Lebanon and Gaza borders.
• The Friends of the Israel
Defense Forces has raised almost
$4 million to provide soldiers
fighting on two fronts with care
packages and facilities. The intent •
is to bolster support, build morale,
provide respite and help maintain
communication among soldiers
and their families and friends.
• Magen David Adom's ambu-
lances, blood services and
trained rescue personnel are in
great demand. The American Red

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www.drybonesblog.com

Magen David for Israel has raised
more than $1 million to provide
emergency services to all Israelis,
while facing danger traveling in
areas under attack.
• Israeli hospitals in the north
like Rambam in Haifa and
Migdal HaEmek in the Central
Galilee are working under espe-
cially demanding conditions,
while Hadassah and Shaare
Zedek in Jerusalem, the Tel Aviv
Medical Center and others take
in patients who can be evacuated,
not to mention treating soldiers
and other casualties.
Our community is blessed

with Jewish organizations that
work the year round — and we
encourage them with our annual
donations to meet and exceed
our expectations for ongoing
humanitarian efforts delivered as
efficiently as possible. But dur-
ing this time of crisis in Israel,
we must also give extra dollars
to organizations that meet the
immediate human needs of those
on the frontlines.

Israel's back with
their proposed
divestment plan,
from which they
recently backed off.
Sympathy for.
Israel is distinctly
lacking on the non-
Jewish left. Instead,
it is identified as
the oppressor, just
as much of a ter-
rorist. regime as
Hezbollah and Hamas — only
with better weapons. That is no
misunderstanding but. part of
an engrained system of political
belief.
The fastest way out of Iraq
for the United States is a clear-
cut and indisputable Israeli
victory in Lebanon and Gaza.
Not only destruction of the ter-
rorists' weaponry but of their

will to fight. That's what is most
important.
The world will wail and
cry in anguish and make
speeches about dead babies. But
-Hezbollah has made it clear that
it sought a total war, and in a
total war innocent people die.
It was their choice and to them
fall the consequences. They
must be destroyed, and their
destruction will be liberating.
Anything less, anything that
leaves them with even the shred
of a claim that they fought
mighty Israel to a standstill
would be a disaster.
You will hear speaker after
speaker echo those thoughts on
Fox. Look elsewhere for the gib-
berish. Li

❑

See "How To Help" on page 31.

E-mail letters of no more than.150

words to: letters@thejewishnews.com.

Reality Check

Israel's Media Friends

M

y guess is that most
members of this
community are not
regular viewers of cable-TV's
Fox News Channel.
Except when Israel is at war.
Fox is unapologetically con-
servative in its viewpoint and a
little bit of Bill O'Reilly can go a
long, long way.
But I don't know many people
have remarked to me in the last
few weeks how sickened they
are over the tone of coverage on
CNN and the major networks,
and that they intend to rely
on Fox for the duration of the
conflict.
There is very little context in
most of the other reporting. The
fact that Hezbollah deliberately
sets up its military presence
amid the civilian population
is glossed over or ignored. The

implication is that Israel delib-
erately targets the most help-
less and vulnerable people in
Lebanon.
But why is this a surprise?
How many times do you need to
get hit over the head before you
figure out who our friends are?
The vast majority of Jewish-
Americans would describe their
politics as liberal. Their stands
on most issues are diametrically
opposed to those of Fox or the
Bush administration.
In fact, many Jewish organi-
zations were preparing a vigor-
ous slam at the president for
his veto of federal funding for
embryonic stem cell research.
But then the war began and
they decided to keep mum.
Bush should be called to
account for that veto. I certainly
don't agree with it and other

groups who believe
in reason over dogma
should criticize him
severely. But it simply
underlines the bind
in which liberals who
love Israel find them-
selves.
They seem to believe
it is just an unfortu-
nate accident, a ter-
rible misunderstand-
ing that leads liberal
editorial pages and columnists,
both locally and nationally, to
say nasty things about Israel.
They know that Christian
Evangelicals are some of Israel's
strongest supporters, and act
as if they can't stand being
in the same room with them.
They much prefer the genteel
Presbyterians, who turned
around and stuck the knife in

iN

George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com .

August 10 • 2006

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