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Palestinian Authority (which incite hatred of Israel and Jews). She replied that they were not. Asked if she could provide a copy of any public statement ADL had put out on the matter, she replied the ADL had issued no public statements of protest.Lerner: ADL as a practice does not put out press releases about things it is upset about?
Laura (of ADL): We do sometimes. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don't....
Lerner: The ADL does not feel that it should share its concerns on this issue with its members?
Laura: We are not a membership organization.
Lerner: So to share with the community at large?
Laura: I think that anybody who asks us the question gets an answer.
The ADL spokeswoman told Lerner that the ADL had "constantly" been telling the Palestinians that it had experts in curriculum development "and would be happy to guide them in the right direction."
But when ADL head Abraham Foxman came to Israel the following week and accompanied by an ADL delegation met with Yasser Arafat, he did not even raise the issue of the PA's curriculum. However, on leaving, he handed Arafat a letter stating "we are encouraged by reports that the new textbooks do not have incendiary anti-Israel or anti-Jewish passages." But as media research analyst David Bedein points out, the ADL clearly had not bothered to look at the new textbooks. "There is no alternative to destroy Israel," says the title page of a new sixth grade textbook, while on the back cover it says, "The Jewish claim to Palestine is the greatest lie known to humanity."
Nor is this wilful blindness new to ADL. Bedein points out that in its annual survey of worldwide anti-Semitism, the ADL has never examined the PA's schoolbooks, even though they have been made available to it for review. Nor did Foxman raise the issue of the PA's summer camps with Arafat -- which even the New York Times has reported on in depth as a training ground for terrorists.
Ignoring the anti-Semitic hatred promoted by the PLO, Foxman finds anti-Semitism in the (temporary?) punishment of Martin Indyk, U.S. ambassador to Israel, for security lapses. Indyk's arrogant behavior (he has behaved like a modern-day Roman procurator) so angered Uzi Landau, former chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and currently chairman of the Knesset State Control Committee (equivalent of the U.S. Senate's Committee on Governmental Affairs), that he sent an open letter to President Clinton asking that Indyk be withdrawn. The most recent manifestation of Indyk's procurator-complex had been his diktat that Israel divide Jerusalem ("there is no other solution" said Indyk). Of course, Indyk was not withdrawn at Landau's request but because his arrogance and sense of superiority to the rules extended to other matters. But to attribute Indyk's comeuppance to anti-Semitism!
Under Abe Foxman's abysmal leadership, the ADL is less and less an organization combating anti-Semitism, more and more an organization of left-wingers who happen to be Jews, mindlessly pursuing politically correct fashions of the moment.
The Pollard Issue
As Ruth King notes in this issue, the Connecticut Jewish Ledger is publishing some of the most intelligent and courageous editorials in the world of Jewish journalism. A recent editorial on Jonathan Pollard is another example.
In the opinion of your editor, Pollard should be freed. He has been in prison longer than others who have spied for friendly countries and indeed longer than many who spied for our enemies.
But, and here we fully agree with the
Jewish Ledger, the decision must be made on the merits of
the
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The referendum in Israel? It will probably be wrapped around an election for a new government. With Barak's signature on the "final status" agreement, Israelis will be asked if they favor peace or not. And as they've done in the past, they probably will say yes. Ever since the first Oslo deal in 1993, polls have shown that the Israeli public doesn't trust Arafat and the Palestinians, yet wants to make peace with them. After a century of fighting the Arabs, war weariness is understandable in Israel, but the Arabs have shown no equivalent weariness and are aggressively reaching for their goals. We hope the preceding scenario turns out to be wrong. We pray that Israel will find a way to peace with her neighbors. But we don't think that peace can be bought or imposed from the outside. And we do think that both parties to an agreement must respectfully share the vision of that peace and work toward it together."
We at AFSI share the editor's prayer that this looming nightmare does not come to pass.
Ruth King is a member of the executive
committee of Americans For a Safe Israel.
October 2000 - 11 - Outpost