Opinion
OTHER VIEWS
Jews, Muslims Try To Break Down Barriers
ews are enemies of the Muslims."
"You think you are special and
hate other religions"
"You control America."
"You stole Palestin'
We've all read statements like these, and
worse. But I'd guess that few Metro Detroit
Jews have heard them in person, in con-
versations with Muslims.
Dialogue is one way to try to dispel
prejudices and misconceptions. On May
21, I joined a group of some 25 Jews and
Muslims in an attempt to do just that.
We were a group of local Jews brought
together by the American Jewish
Committee in the West Bloomfield home
of AJC Area Director Sharona Shapiro.
The Muslims were journalists from
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Pakistan and the Philippines,
on a U.S. tour sponsored by the Honolulu-
based East-West Center. They were joined
by local Muslim journalists and others
organized by the Michigan-based Muslim
Observer newspaper. Some of the Muslims
had never before spoken with Jews.
We heard that Jews hate Muslims. Jews
think they are "chosen" and superior. Jews
think heaven is reserved only for them.
It's in the Talmud, right? Jews control U.S.
foreign policy. Jews and Muslims had
j
good relations before the Zionists invaded
Palestine. Israel turns Palestinians into
terrorists by killing their families. And
more of the same.
Despite the stunningly ignorant words,
the tone was respectful and friendly.
We did our best to respond. Among
other things, I said that most Jews wish
Muslims no harm; but we will defend
ourselves. We believe we were "chosen"
to bring Torah to the world, which is a
duty that earns us no special privileges.
Heaven is open to all good people of any or
no faith. America supports Israel mainly
because many non-Jews believe in the
cause of Israel. Jews suffered under Muslim
rule for centuries before Zionism. Israel
is the Jewish homeland which has a right
to live in peace; and when that occurs,
many Jews will support a Palestinian Arab
state. Palestinians kill Israeli families, but
Israelis don't become terrorists.
We stressed that we spoke for ourselves
and the AJC, not for all Jews or Jewish
organizations.
We heard that Israel doesn't want peace.
I described the many times Israel tried to
negotiate a compromise, to be met with
rejection and war each time, and said that
this shows that the Palestinians want the
whole country. To this, I noticed several
nods of understanding.
One guest listed Israeli
faults, as if to prove the coun-
try's evilness. I said if we seek
only the bad in others, we
will find it; and there's good
and bad in all nations. More
nods of agreement.
It wasn't all about Jews or
Israel. One visitor, a Shi'ite,
blasted the Saudis for funding
Sunni schools that promote jihad. He said
that this money must be cut off because
people are learning that they will go to
heaven for killing "infidels." I asked if he
agrees that Jewish blood is a Muslim's ticket
to heaven. He said Shi'ites don't believe this.
Another still blames the West for the
Danish cartoon controversy. He agreed
that the Muslim riots were wrong, but
— ironically for a journalist — rejected
the superior value of free speech.
Despite harboring many prejudices, the
guests seemed genuinely curious about
Judaism and Jews. I believe that at least
some of them said the hateful things not
to offend but to elicit rebuttals to claims
they had heard all their lives.
They asked us to distinguish Judaism
from Zionism. AJC member Sheldon Toll
recited a concise history of Zionism. They
asked about Jewish acceptance of
converts and the conversion pro-
cess, whether Jews may intermarry
with persons of other faiths, and
the laws of kashrut.
One asked how would we
describe Judaism in one sen-
tence? Some of us recounted
Rabbi Hillel's famous answer:
"That which is hateful to you, do
not do to your neighbor" I saw
eyes widen with appreciation. Others recit-
ed the three Jewish pillars of God, Torah
and peoplehood.
I don't know if we changed or even
opened any minds. But the ignorance
about Jews we heard from educated peo-
ple, and our own need to learn, suggests a
need for more Jewish-Muslim dialogue in
similar relaxed settings.
Postscript: After our meeting, one jour-
nalist wrote that, based on his "eye-open-
ing experience he has "decided to become
a messenger of unity and peaceful coexis-
tence" in his city.
I hope it doesn't seem too naive to pray:
May his efforts succeed and multiply. El
Kenneth C. Gold is vice president, American
Jewish Committee Metro Detroit Chapter,
based in Bloomfield Township.
The Soviets' Six-Day War
Philadelphia
mystery, amassing information
from voluminous sources, guiding
ne of the great enig-
readers step-by-step through the
mas of the modern
argument, making an intuitively
Middle East is why,
compelling case that must be
40 years ago next week, the
taken seriously. In summary, it
Six-Day War took place.
goes like this:
Neither Israel nor its Arab
Moshe Sneh, an Israeli commu-
neighbors wanted or expected
nist leader (and father of Ephraim
Daniel Pipes
a fight in June 1967; the con-
Sneh, the country's current deputy
Special
sensus view among historians
minister of defense), told the
Commentary
holds that the unwanted com-
Soviet ambassador in December
bat resulted from a sequence
1965 that an adviser to the prime
of accidents.
minister had informed him about "Israel's
Enter Isabella Ginor and Gideon
intention to produce its own atomic
Remez, a wife-husband team, to chal-
bomb." Leonid Brezhnev and his col-
lenge the accident theory and offer a
leagues received this piece of information
plausible explanation for the causes of
with dead seriousness and decided — as
the war. As suggested by the title of their
did the Israelis about Iraq in 1981 and
book, Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets'
may be doing about Iran in 2007 — to
Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War (Yale
abort this process through air strikes.
University Press), they argue that it origi-
Rather than do so directly, however,
nated in a scheme by the Soviet Politburo
Moscow devised a complex scheme to
to eliminate Israel's nuclear facility at
lure the Israelis into starting a war
Dimona and with it the country's aspira-
which would end with a Soviet attack on
tion to develop nuclear weapons.
Dimona. Militarily, the Kremlin prepared
The text reads like the solution to a
by surrounding Israel with an armada
0
30 June 7.
2007
of nuclear-armed forces in both the
Mediterranean and Red seas, pre-posi-
tioning materiel on land, and training
troops nearby with the expectation of
using them.
Perhaps the most startling informa-
tion in Foxbats over Dimona concerns the
detailed plans for Soviet troops to attack
Israeli territory, specifically to bombard
oil refineries and reservoirs, and reach
out to Israeli Arabs. No less eye opening
is to learn that Soviet photo-reconnais-
sance MiG-25s (the "Foxbats" of the title)
directly overflew the Dimona reactor in
May 1967.
Politically, the scheme consisted of
fabricating intelligence reports about
Israeli threats to Syria, thereby goading
the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian forces
to go on war-footing. As his Soviet mas-
ters then instructed, Egypt's Gamal Abdel
Nasser moved his troops toward Israel,
removed a United Nations buffer force
and blockaded a key naval route to Israel
— three steps that together compelled
the Israelis to move to a full-alert defense.
Unable to sustain this posture for long,
they struck first, thereby, it appeared, fall-
ing into the Soviet trap.
But then the Israel Defense Forces did
something astonishing. Rather than fight
to a draw, as the Soviets expected, they
quickly won what I have called the most
overwhelming victory in the annals of
warfare. Using purely conventional means,
they defeated three enemy Arab states in
six days, preempting the Soviets.
This fiasco made the elaborate Soviet
scheme look inept, and Moscow under-
standably decided to obscure its own role
in engineering the war (its second major
strategic debacle of the decade — the
attempt to place missiles in Cuba having
been the first). The cover-up succeeded so
well that Moscow's responsibility for the
Six-Day War has disappeared from his-
tories of the conflict. Today's Arab-Israeli
conflict, with its focus on the territories
won in 1967, accompanied by virulent
anti-Semitism, results in large part from
Kremlin decisions four decades ago. l!
Daniel Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director
of the Middle East Forum.