Opinion

OTHER VIEWS

Influence Pro-Israel Policy

Washington, D.C.

T

he American Jewish community
understands that the United
States and Israel share values and
foreign policy interests. Perhaps we have
gotten so used to the idea that America
will support Israel that we have lost sight
of how important it is to actively par-
ticipate in lobbying efforts to keep that
support in place, especially in the United
States Congress.
Even support derived from principle
benefits from periodic reminders by con-
stituents that the interests of the United
States and Israel are closely aligned.
To many American Jews, the operative
question is, what does it mean for a policy
to be pro-Israel? It is easy to see that Iran
cannot be allowed to achieve a nuclear
capability and that Hamas is a murder-
ous gang, but is it in America's interest
for the Palestinian Authority (RA.) to be
strengthened and supported by the U.S.
taxpayer? Although the current adminis-
tration, like the last two presidents, thinks
aid to the P.A. is a good idea, the answer is
actually very clearly no.

The administration has com-
mitted to pay nearly a billion
dollars to the P.A. this year. That
amount is in addition to the $2
billion in bilateral economic
assistance to the P.A. since the
Oslo accords were signed, over
$3 billion we have contributed
to Arab refugee assistance and
about $2 billion in other for-
eign assistance aid. The grand
total is well over $6 billion and,
unfortunately, a large portion of
it has been wasted or deposited
in the Swiss bank accounts of
the corrupt leadership of the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
The P.A. has done nothing to fulfill
Palestinian Arab commitments under
each of the signed peace accords and has
not fulfilled their obligations under the
2003 "Roadmap." It has not outlawed ter-
rorist groups, jailed terrorists, confiscated
illegal weapons or ended incitement to
hatred and murder in the RA.-controlled
media.
Every week, we learn of another
example of a P.A. school or youth camp

where hatred is being preached.
Recetl ■ ,,, the P.A. ambassador to
Lebanon stated in an interview
that America and Israel are the
enemies of the Palestinian peo-
ple and that peace agreements
are merely tactics leading to the
destruction of Israel.
You may have read about
Hamas TV's use of a "Mickey
Mouse" character to indoc-
trinate children in hatred for
Jews, but PA TV also used cute
Disney characters as a back-
drop to honor Dalal Mughrabi,
a terrorist who killed 37 people
during a 1978 attack on an Israeli bus. Just
over a month ago, the director of a youth
orchestra was fired and the music group
was disbanded for the "crime" of playing
for Jewish Holocaust survivors at an Israeli
old-age home.
Terrorists who claim affiliation to Fatah,
the main party within the RA., have
been responsible for about half of the
Jews killed since the Oslo accords were
signed. As Hamas missiles flew from Gaza
towards Israeli targets in southern Israel,

few American reporters told us that P.A.-
affiliated groups were also firing missiles
at Israeli targets.
The American Jewish community's
friends and potential friends in Congress
should be informed about these particu-
lars.
Every reader of the Detroit Jewish News
should have the e-mail and phone num-
bers of their senators and representative
handy and contact them frequently when
matters concerning Israel are considered.
For example, the congressman elected last
November from the Ninth District is Gary
Peters, and the number of his office in
Washington is (202) 225-5802.
When you, as a constituent, respectfully
and persuasively urge your representative
to heed the realities on the ground rather
than the rhetoric of failed policies, you can
strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship in a
real and meaningful way.
Our legislators ultimately listen to their
constituents. It is up to you to speak up. L

Daniel Pollak is co-director of government rela-

tions for the Zionist Organization of America

(ZOA) in Washington, D.C.

Hillel Mission Remains Vital

Waltham, Mass./JTA

E

ighty-five years ago, in 1924,
two wealthy and accomplished
Jewish college students, Nathan F.
Leopold and Richard A. Loeb, motivated by
Nietzchean philosophy and determined to
commit the "perfect crime,' brutally mur-
dered 14-year-old Bobby Franks in Chicago.
Shocked B'nai B'rith leaders in Mobile,
Ala., wrote to the national secretary of
B'nai B'rith, Leon Lewis, expressing inter-
est in the case and wondering what the
Jewish organization's response would be.
The answer, in one word, was "Hiller
The new campus organization, whose
establishment Lewis characterized as
"almost providential," would henceforward
provide Jewish students with precisely the
kind of initiation into Jewish communal
life that Leopold and Loeb never had.
Wisely, B'nai B'rith adopted Hillel in
1925 and sponsored the organization for
nearly 70 years.
Hillel, which continues its 85th anni-

A32 June 11 . 2009

Depression when (as now)
versary year celebrations this
higher education seemed to
summer, began independently in
many Jews a more sensible
1923 at the University of Illinois,
alternative to unemployment.
Champaign-Urbana, and focused
Since Jews faced significant
from the start on winning over
social discrimination on col-
assimilated Jewish college stu-
lege campuses in those days,
dents.
Hillel provided them with
"The average student is sick
a refuge, a home away from
and tired of hearing about the
home. It strove to meet their
glorious past of our people," a
Jonathan D.
social, cultural and religious
Hillel executive reported in 1928.
Sarna
needs.
"He wants to have definite
Special
Following World War II,
advice as to sex morality, about
Commentary
thanks in part to the G.I. Bill,
Jewish home life, his attitude
the number of Jews on college
toward his girl, etc. Unless we
campuses mushroomed. The American
can give him that conception, make him
Jewish community's interest in campus
understand that any sort of Jew is accept-
affairs, meanwhile, waned. As B'nai B'rith
ed, that we do not classify the Jews as
support for Hillel diminished, Hillel pro-
Orthodox or Reform, then we have failed."
fessionals — fatefully — concentrated
Under the direction of Abram Sachar,
their attention on the minority of involved
later the founding president of Brandeis
Jewish students. For the rest, Hillel became
University, Hillel expanded, growing to
irrelevant.
more than 100 units at universities across
Underfunded and passive, Hillel was
North America. Many of these, signifi-
ill prepared to weather the cultural and
cantly, opened during the dark days of the

political storm of the 1960s.
"In an age when students protest
against the establishment, Hillel is the
symbol of the establishment," Rabbi
Edward Feld, then Hillel director at the
University of Illinois, complained.
Rabbi Irving Greenberg characterized
the American college campus as a "disas-
ter area for Judaism, Jewish loyalty and
Jewish identity"
By the 1970s, Hillel was admitting
defeat." We are doing our job poorly in
some places:' its national director, Alfred
Jospe, confessed. "We continue to have
utterly inadequate and sometimes virtu-
ally nonexistent program budgets.
Jospe went on to note that with "a staff-
student ratio of one to 2,000 or one to
3,000 or even one to 5,000," Hillel is "cru-
elly underfunded."
The 1988 appointment of Richard Joel
as international director began Hillel's
modern-day revival. During the course of
his tenure, Joel remade, re-energized and
repackaged the organization. Exploiting