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MAMAS AND PATAH
GANGS ARE KILLING-
EACH OTHER HERE
IN GAZA ...

Ea:lariat

Moments Worth Recognizing

W

hen local religious leaders at
odds over world events join
together to speak out against
hatred, there's reason to have hope about
the future of multicultural harmony, at
least on some levels.
No matter who the sponsors are or how
the forums are billed, interfaith political
events inevitably underline the divide
more than mirroring any agreement in
Metro Detroit. It's just how things are
here. The slightest goodwill initiatives
among Jews, Christians and Muslims
seem to get pushed aside in the avalanche
of dissent arising from public debates
about the Middle East. The Jewish com-
munity, buoyed by supportive Christians
and Muslims, repeatedly has to go on the
defensive for Israel in its war against ter-
ror-mongers who basically have hijacked
Islam.
When Muslims turn out at the
Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington
Hills to join a diverse chorus of leaders
condemning Iran's hosting of a Holocaust
denial conference or Jews visit the former
site of a mosque in Detroit to echo an
inter-religious denouncement of vandal-
ism at Muslim holy sites, there's real reso-
nance. It's dialogue of the highest caliber
going on at the moment. While it's easy

to point out things that are lacking, we
should recognize and applaud what is tak-
ing place while working for more.
Imams, ministers and rabbis as well
as lay and professional leaders view
world affairs in general, and the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict in particular, through
sharply different lenses. But that doesn't
mean these local representatives can't set
aside those differences, knowing full well
they must return to them later in search
of resolution, to do what is right when it
comes to guarding human dignity from
the clutches of outrage, revisionism and
violence.
It was heartening when Eide Alawan,
representing the Council of Islamic
Organizations of Michigan, stood tall at
an Interfaith Partners press conference
on Dec. 18 to apologize to Holocaust sur-
vivors for Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's befuddling claim that the
Holocaust never happened and his rants
against Zionism.
And it was gratifying when Rabbi
Joshua Bennett of Temple Israel in West
Bloomfield reinforced at an Interfaith
Partners press conference on Jan. 25 that
recent acts of vandalism at local mosques
and Muslim-owned businesses really were
attacks against people of all faiths, not just

Muslims.
In both examples,
the message is clear:
Neither desecration of
sacred sites or books
nor changing the his-
torical record will be
tolerated by people of
good conscience and
who embrace moral
clarity.
Dawud Walid, execu-
tive director of the
Council on American-
Islamic Relations
(CAIR), was willing to
have his name singled
out in the Interfaith
Partners statement on
behalf of the Michigan Roundtable for
Diversity and Inclusion. CAIR is a prob-
lematic group that demands our close
attention, but we shouldn't simply dismiss
his public statement that: We are trying
to do our part by standing up for justice
and improving our relationship with our
Jewish brethren."
Given the tenor of our troubled times,
the Jewish community must never look
strictly surface level at moments of inter-
faith harmony. By extension, they fit into a

WE'RE STILL
LAUNCHING
ROCKETS INTO '
ISRAEL AREN'T

WEI

TV

DryBonesBlog.corn

bigger picture, and we should understand
it that way. An instance of connection can-
not obscure how radical believers in Islam
approach the Jewish condition. But the
connection forged across religious lines
in spite of serious and deep political dif-
ferences perhaps means more than we are
sometimes willing to admit or accept. LI

E-mail letters of no more than 150 words to:
letters@thejewishnews.com .

Reality Check

The Price Of Failure

F

or more than 30 years,
our national leaders
have been assuring
us that they had learned and
absorbed "the lesson of Vietnam."
It's apparent, however, that
they haven't, because the lesson
was this: A democracy will not
support an extended war with
limited goals and a vague defini-
tion of victory.
Not that this is any sudden
illuminating flash. It has been
that way throughout our history.
Every war, from the Revolution
on, has been opposed by a siz-
able number of Americans.
The shorter ones — Mexican,
Spanish-American, World War I
(at least, our involvement in it),
Kuwait — were over before the
opposition could manifest itself
effectively. But others had mas-
sive resistance; threats of seces-
sion in the War of 1812, draft

riots in the Civil War, huge peace
in Heaven. It's about
marches in the Vietnam War.
the pro-Israel stance
World War II was, in fact, an
of America's evangeli-
exception, because it was total
cal churches and the
war and the threat was imme-
"Teluctance of so many
diate. But the goals were clear,
liberal Jewish organiza-
too: unconditional defeat of the
tions to embrace that
enemy. So the growing opposi-
support.
tion to this mess in Iraq is firmly
Neither message
within the American tradition.
was one his audience
I thought of that while listen-
was particularly eager
ing to author Zev Chafets speak
to hear and Zev knew
at Temple Beth El a few weeks
that. But he delivered
ago. Chafets continues to support them anyhow.
the war in Iraq because he feels
I agreed with much of what he
the consequences of failure are
had to say. Still I kept thinking
too great. Unlike Vietnam, which
there was another lesson that
was, in his words, "an easy war to President Bush and his advis-
oppose;' Iraq has enormous con-
ers failed to understand. When
sequences for our own security.
given the choice between tyranny
Zev, with whom I have shared
and freedom, people will always
meals and drink — mostly drink choose freedom. But when the
— on a few occasions in Israel,
choice is between tyranny and
was speaking primarily about
chaos, freedom loses. People will
his new book, A Marriage Made
go for tyranny.

Their critical
series of mistakes
— inadequate
numbers of troops
at the outset, failure
to bring in the Iraqi
army leadership,
failure to wipe out
the insurgent base
at Fallujah and
the Shiite militias
— have resulted in
chaos. To hold out
any hope that democracy can be
restored anytime soon to a place
that has become a resort for
killers is to surrender to wishful
thinking.
But there are greater ques-
tions concerning our withdrawal.
The Sunni nations, led by Saudi
Arabia, will not tolerate an
expansionist Shiite Iran or the
slaughter of fellow Sunnis in
Iraq. Will this result in a war that

will engulf the entire region?
Will it also embolden
Hezbollah and Hamas to keep
the pressure turned up high on
Israel? And where will a regional
war leave Israel?
In the worst case scenario, will
a nuclear Iran run by fanatics
decide to send missiles to Tel
Aviv or smuggle such a device
into the United States?
It is not the war's beginnings
that matter now, except for those
whose only wish is to discredit
Bush. How it ends is vital, how-
ever, and for much greater stakes
than who gets to govern this
country in 2008. El

George Cantor's e-mail address is

gcantor614@aoLcom.

February 8 • 2007

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