Opinion

A MIX OF IDEAS

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Greenberg's View

Editorial

The Enigma Of Fatah

T

he drumbeat of hate permeates
the official television network of
the Palestinian Authority, which
governs the West Bank and is supposedly
Israel's best hope as a Palestinian peace
partner.
That hope is a pipedream.
Consider the nature of June program-
ming on P.A. TV:
• The host of For You, which features
interviews with families of Palestinians
imprisoned by Israel, described Jews as
"our enemies" and Israeli soldiers as "wild
animals" when she interviewed young
children.
• An educational documentary that had
been taken off the air six months ago but
rebroadcast, described the Israeli cities of
Haifa, Acre, Ashkelon and Jaffa as well as
the Sea of Galilee as Palestinian.
• On The Stars, a game show between
competing Palestinian universities, a stu-
dent demonstrated the success of the P.A.
in teaching children to envision a world
without Israel and its geography as part of
"Palestine."
Any one of these programs could be
dismissed as an isolated example of the
P.A. getting in one last dig at its longtime
nemesis and enemy before sitting down,
once more, at the negotiating table. The
sad reality, reinforced by the Israel-based

Palestinian Media Watch: This anti-Jewish
rant remains the soundtrack of P.A. TV.
Significantly, P.A. TV is under the direct
control of the office of P.A. Prime Minister
Mahmoud Abbas. His Fatah party boasts
a political wing that has made weak (and
suspect) gestures toward negotiating with
Israel's Netanyahu government and has a
military wing still committed to imposing
a terrorist rain upon Israelis.
On the heels of telling President Obama
he would "work against incitement of
any sort" during the Israeli-Palestinian
proximity talks facilitated by U.S. envoy
George Mitchell, Abbas either ignored
what P.A. TV was presenting, was power-
less to change the content of programs or
defiantly saw belittling Jews on the air as
separate from talking about security, bor-
ders and Jerusalem.
Further evidence about Fatah, and thus
the Palestinian Authority, emerged when
senior Fatah leader Nabil Shaath, speaking
for Abbas, declared that Hamas didn't have
to 1) recognize Israel, 2) stop murdering
Jews, 3) embrace the 1990s Oslo Accords
or 4) meet any other conditions of the
Quartet to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Even the unlikely acceptance
of those terms wouldn't override the
Hamas Charter, which still calls for Israel's
destruction and the use of terror as a

A.4140

means to that end.
Shaath called for the Palestinians to
be represented at any direct talks by the
Palestine Liberation Organization — the
anti-Zionist, Jew-hating PLO founded by
Yasser Arafat. Enough said on that hollow
point.
Shaath had the temerity to say a step-
pingstone to normalized relations between
the Arab League and Israel would be
Israel's acceptance of e 2002 Arab Peace
Initiative plus a negotiated Arab-Israeli
ceasefire. Previous "ceasefires" have left
murdered and maimed Israelis in their
wake as a result of Palestinian terror. The
Saudi-floated Arab Peace Initiative, mean-
while, seeks complete withdrawal from
the "occupied territories" — including the
eastern sector of Jerusalem. The initia-
tive also seeks a "just settlement" of the

Palestinian refugee crisis based on U.N.
Resolution 194 (which recommends that
Israel and Arab states allow any refugees,
Jewish or Arab, "wishing to return to their
homes and live at peace with their neigh-
bors" to do so and to provide compensa-
tion for those who do not want to return).
We can't imagine any Jews booted from
Arab lands in the shadows of Israeli state-
hood will want to return there. But the
open return of Palestinian refugees who
largely fled the new State of Israel would
obliterate Israel as a Jewish state.
The Zionist Organization of America
is right: Fatah's incitement to hatred and
murder against Israel, via P.A. mosques,
media, schools and youth camps, under-
scores the fraudulence of Fatah's claims
in the West to being moderates and peace
seekers. ❑

being torn down during a siege
of a city unless they are being
used by the enemy for warfare.
After the siege is ended, these
trees may not be destroyed for
the sake of denying the enemy
food (Leviticus, 20-19, 20).
Based on this passage,
one of our greatest scholars,
Maimonides, articulated the
doctrine of ba'al tashchit, which
prohibits unnecessary waste,
even an action as small as wast-
ing a peppercorn. The modern-
day environmental slogan of
"reuse, recycle and reduce" is completely
consistent with ba'al taschit.
Other passages in the Torah express
prohibitions on certain activities, thus
limiting human authority to "dominate"
the earth. For example, there are numer-
ous restrictions regulating the treatment
of animals. Productive activity is pro-
hibited during the Sabbath. Agricultural
land is required to lie fallow every seven
years. Another example is the preserva-
tion of open land immediately outside a

walled city, thus laying the foundation for
the modern-day practice of preserving a
greenbelt near urban areas.
In our daily prayers, we recognize that
it is God's Earth, not ours. Three times a
day, our liturgy states: "Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord of Hosts; the whole Earth is full
of this Glory." In the psalm for Sunday, we
recite: "The Earth is the Lord's and the
fullness thereof."
We are stewards of the Earth, not the
owners. Under Jewish law, every day is
Earth Day. ❑

Saving The Earth

T

wo years ago, when becoming
interested in promoting greater
use of recycling, I wondered if
Judaism has a position on environmental
issues. It is fairly easy to find the founda-
tions of most Jewish ethical principles in
the Torah, Psalms, Talmud and our daily
prayers. Jewish law gives guidance on a vari-
ety of common issues such as the consump-
tion of food, appropriate business practices
or how to conduct oneself with family.
The "Jewish position" on modern
environmental issues is more difficult
to discern since no single passage of the
Torah directly addresses the relationship
of people to the environment.
However, numerous rabbis and scholars
from all movements of Judaism have con-
cluded that Torah and other laws suggest
a pro-ecological viewpoint in daily living
and societal conduct.
Many Jewish scholars view the jus-
tification for pollution resulting from
unchecked development as a misinterpre-
tation of Torah. Genesis 1-28 is frequently
cited for this justification: "Be fertile and
become many. Fill the land and conquer it.

24

July 8 • 2010

Dominate the fish of the sea, the
birds of the sky and every beast
that walks the land."
Every word of Torah has a
meaning therefore, this phrase
cannot be ignored. However, when
placed in context with other pas-
sages in the Torah, this section
does not condone environmental
destruction. To the contrary,
two other passages have been
frequently interpreted to require
environmental preservation:
• First, a few paragraphs after
the "be fruitful" paragraph, God
states: "God took the man and placed him
in the Garden of Eden to work it and to
watch it" (Genesis, 2-15). Thus, the role of
people is to be the guardian of the earth,
creating a balance with his role to "domi-
nate" it. Use of the land for productive
activity is appropriate, if done in an envi-
ronmentally sustainable manner.
• Second, a passage in Leviticus concern-
ing limitations on war has been interpreted
to prohibit wanton destruction. That pas-
sage prohibits fruit-bearing trees from

Steven Schwartz, D-Farmington Hills, is an

Oakland County commissioner represent-
ing Farmington and the western third of

Farmington Hills.

This commentary summarizes the
author's research on the issue and
incorporates comments he made
at a May 2 joint presentation spon-
sored by the Jewish National Fund
and the Congregation B'nai Moshe
Men's Club in West Bloomfield.

