Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 2, 1994 TAG: 9403030154
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cal Thomas
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But he won't employ the same logic for the massacre in Hebron, conducted by a devil of death, Baruch Goldstein, and properly condemned by the Israeli government, President Clinton and civilized people everywhere. Arafat says he doesn't believe Goldstein acted alone and has summoned his advisers to Tunis for consultations about how to make political hay out of the tragedy. They intend to put pressure on Israel for greater concessions, perhaps including an even larger Jericho.
What some Jews call ``Jewish guilt'' was quickly displayed only 24 hours after the Hebron massacre of 48 Muslims at prayer. Michael Lerner, editor of the liberal journal Tikkun and unofficial spiritual adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton, groveled before the world in a New York Times op-ed column. Lerner said Goldstein's indefensible act was not the work of one man acting alone. No, Goldstein's ``craziness mirrors a climate of hatred nurtured by right-wing Jews.'' Lerner says Goldstein and those who are fearful a bad peace with Arafat will lead to their death and displacement feel ``threatened with the possibility of peace.''
Quite the contrary. The settlers feel threatened, all right, but it isn't by peace. It is by extermination.
Lerner says right-wing Jews have been ``raised on a steady diet of Holocaust stories.'' Stories? Surely the Holocaust is far more than a story. Is ``Schindler's List'' just a movie? Would Lerner fault blacks for telling ``stories'' about slavery and asserting that the experience of their ancestors affects their race still today?
Lerner's reasoning is all too familiar. When Jews are killed, it is Israel's fault because it occupies Palestinian and Arab land. When Palestinians are killed, it is also Israel's fault because the killings are a product of the ``systematic misuse of Judaism and Jewish suffering'' which, he claims, is used ``to justify racist and oppressive treatment of other people.''
President Clinton is right to condemn the killings and to call the parties to the peace agreement to Washington. These meetings, however, should not be used by the United States to put pressure on Israel. After years of frustration, the parties are finally talking to each other. America's role should be one of facilitation, not dictation.
While no decent person can condone or explain the cold-blooded murder of innocent people at prayer, perspective is always important in the Middle East, and that is clearly lacking in the stories and commentaries about this latest atrocity. Some Islamic clerics during Friday prayers regularly exhort worshipers to ``kill the Jews.'' I have heard them inside and outside mosques on the Temple Mount on Fridays when I have been in Jerusalem.
Some people forget what has gone before. Only two weeks ago, an Israeli woman who was seven months pregnant was shot near Ariel in the West Bank. She and her baby died. Six weeks ago, an Israeli man and his son were shot to death in Kiryat Arba, near the site of the Hebron massacre.
In fact, since Israel captured the West Bank in 1967, there have been far more terrorist incidents and murders committed by people with ties to Arab states or to Palestinian and other terrorist groups than by people with Israeli ties. Just a few will remind us.
May 30, 1972: Three Japanese gunmen acting for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine killed 25 and wounded 60 at Tel Aviv's Lod Airport.
April 11, 1974: Arab gunmen entered Israel from Lebanon, opening fire on women, children and soldiers at Kiryat Shmona, killing 18.
May 15, 1974: Palestinians held 100 Israeli students hostage in a school in Maalot; 21 children were killed and 70 wounded.
March 11, 1978: Arab guerrillas infiltrated Israel from the sea and attacked a bus and another vehicle; 37 killed, 87 wounded.
May 2, 1980: Arab gunmen killed Jews on their way home from a synagogue in Hebron; six killed, 17 wounded.
July 6, 1989: A Palestinian from the Gaza Strip seized the steering wheel of an Israeli bus and sent it into a ravine; 16 dead, 27 wounded.
The Israeli government must investigate the Hebron killings to make sure its soldiers were not lax in their duty to protect the area. But the worst thing that could come from this incident is what is proposed by some liberal Jewish thinkers such as Michael Lerner - that all West Bank settlers be disarmed. Most West Bank settlers are responsible and armed for their own protection.
The Hebron massacre was a horrible act, but it was one act by a deranged zealot that should not be used to change the momentum of the peace talks or weaken Israel's resolve to make sure its safety and security are preserved.
by CNB