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Special Repo

ON THE COVER

'T:*

parinfent building
in Haifa damaged by
rocket fire from
southern Lebanon.

L

ast Thursday, July 12, more
than 4,000 Israelis rallied in
Haifa and listened to the moth-
ers of kidnapped soldiers Eldad Regev,
Ehud Goldwasser and Gilad Shalit call
for their sons' immediate release. The
event marked one year since Hezbollah
terrorists kidnapped Regev and
Goldwasser, during which three Israel
Defense Forces soldiers were killed and
11 wounded.
This aggressive act threw Israel into
a 34-day war in Lebanon that would
test its leaders, cast doubt on the
readiness of its army, leave many of its
shell-shocked northern residents home-
less and confined to outdated bomb
shelters or evacuated south – and have

Long Arm
Of War

Local Jewish-Arab
relations remain
strained.

no clear victor.
As former Israel Defense Minister
Amir Peretz said on the one-year anni-
versary: "This was Israel's wake-up
war."
North American Jewish communi-
ties responded quickly and generously
by raising more than $360 million in
pledges for the North American-based
United Jewish Communities' Israel
Emergency Campaign. So far, $230 mil-
lion in available funds has been allocat-
ed to programs helping Israelis recover
from the war.
Detroit'sJewish community held a mas-
sive rallyat Congregation ShaareyZedek in
Southfield, welcoming home participants
from the Teen Mission and raising more

Don Cohen
Special to the Jewish News

year after last summer's war
between Israel and Hezbollah,
relations between local Jews
and Arabs remain strained. Jews still
smart from the anti-Israel, pro-Hezbollah
and anti-Jewish sentiments expressed
at Dearborn rallies and in some local
mosques and Arab news media. Arabs still
resent the Jewish community's criticism of
their support of Hezbollah, seeing it as an
effort to stifle their political voice.
While cooperation on shared interests
continue and some programs focus on
healing the local rifts, unresolved tensions
both here and in the Middle East cast a

than $15 million.
Locally, the Second
Lebanon War strained
alreadytenuous relations
between Detroit's Jewish
community and its Arab-
American neighbors,
especially in Dearborn,
where rallies supporting Gilad Shalit
theterroristorganization
Hezbollah took place at the height of the
war. Both parties still are wary.
The war ended Aug.14, 2006, with a
United Nations-brokered cease-fire. But,
in recent months, with Hamas' takeover of
the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah restocking and
upgrading its weapons in Lebanon, and
Iran's influence on Syria, some experts are

shadow over relations between the two
communities.
"While many Jewish and Arab leaders
are committed to preserving and promot-
ing good relations between their commu-
nities, they realize there is no quick and
easy way to make that happen:' says Todd
Mendel, new president of the Bloomfield
Township-based Jewish Community
Relations Council. "There is little common
ground at this time for Jews and Arabs
here to have productive conversations
about the Middle East, and such conversa-
tions take place for the most part on the
op-ed pages."
Nonetheless, Mendel points to the posi-
tive impact of "people-to-people" pro-
grams that bring Jewish and Arab youth

Ehud Goldwasser

Eldad Regev

predicting another
war late this summer.
In the following pages, we'll take a
look at the Second Lebanon War – one
year later – and its impact here and in
Israel.

- Ken Guten Cohen, story development editor

together, a strengthening of relations with
the local Chaldean (Christian Iraqi) corn-
munity and organizational cooperation on
issues of common interest.
"Through the Interfaith Partners orga-
nization, Muslims and Jews stood together
— along with those of other faiths — to
condemn Holocaust denial in the Middle
East and the desecration of [Arab] houses
of worship here at home he says.
Another reaction to last year's war has
been for Council to intensify its Israel
advocacy efforts, which Mendel cites as
its top priority. The Council has shown its
own multimedia presentation on Israel
and the Middle East to local newspaper,

Long Arm Of War on page 14

July 19 • 2007

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