\nThis is a tough time for people who believe in Middle East peace. You might as well believe in the Tooth Fairy, or a flat earth. From L.A. to Tel Aviv, the mood among moderates has become grim. When a Woodland Hills rabbi asked congregants during his Yom Kippur sermon to say a prayer for slain and injured Palestinians, many congregants got up and walked out, while others hissed.
Israel\’s political landscape has, over the past decade, been transmogrified by the growing strength of the ultra-Orthodox Sephardi party Shas (Sephardic Torah Guardians). But the conviction and recent jailing of party leader Aryeh Deri has only fortified Shas\’ power among an electorate of largely disenfranchised Middle Eastern Jews; the party currently holds 17 seats in the Knesset, just behind Likud. The American Jewish community, which had not previously taken much notice of Sephardic Jewry, has been shaken by the Shas phenomenon. Last week, Hebrew Union College invited Dr. Zvi Zohar, one of Israel\’s most astute observers of the socio-political scene, to give a lecture in Los Angeles on what many now perceive to be a permanent feature of Israeli politics.
As if to underscore what some Jews believe is a media bias against Israel when portraying violence in the Middle East, The New York Times and other major dailies this week misidentified a Jewish victim as a Palestinian in one of their photos illustrating the bloodshed in Israel.
Supporters of the Oslo peace process have, for seven years, persistently argued that there was no choice but to make peace with the Palestine Liberation Organization, Israel\’s most bitter of enemies.
The Clinton administration will continue to try to stem the violence and make noises about a possible resumption of serious talks.
The organized North American Jewish community\’s reaction to the violent events in the Middle East can be summed up in a few words: solidarity with Israel.
America\’s failure to quickly and publicly condemn Arafat\’s tactics may have encouraged further Palestinian violence and convinced Arafat his dangerous gambit could succeed.
I stared with the rest of the horrified world at the photo of the anonymous Palestinian father holding his anonymous Palestinian son – father wounded, son dead.
Yom Kippur – a time of personal introspection – now a time of national reflection. How far have we really come in all these years?
I first met Maurice Singer on the far bank of the Suez Canal during the second week of the Yom Kippur War, soon after Israel had counter-attacked across the waterway. The British-born, 28-year-old machine-gunner was grimy and sweating on his clanking, dust-encrusted half-track, the forerunner of today\’s armored personnel carrier. Like all his comrades, he scribbled a phone number and asked our group of reporters to let his family know he was okay.
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