(Continued from p.2)
that I assumed Arafat sought peace just as I do. It looks as if I was badly misled. But it shows what a wonderful fellow I am--indeed I would suffer from a crisis of conscience if I had not believed the best of Arafat. And now I admit that my generosity of spirit was in error, and Arafat and his movement are a bloodthirsty lot after all. All of which shows I am nobler than ever, believing the best of my fellow man and yet willing to admit my error in this instance.In fact, the more he stakes out his claim to moral superiority, the more morally offensive Yoffie becomes. After badgering Israel for the last eight years for ever more concessions to achieve "peace," now that Israel has followed his advice (with the inevitable result that terror has become rampant), he announces the Reform movement will halt its youth trips to Israel because the country has become too dangerous.
In Gothenburg, Sweden police used live fire on protesters seeking to disrupt a European Union summit. The police were responding to masked anarchists who vandalized shops, piled tables and chairs into makeshift barricades and set them afire, and hurled rocks and assorted objects at police. Ruth and Nadia Matar, for Women in Green, sent the following letter to the Swedish ambassador in Israel. "Now that your police shot live ammunition at stone-throwing demonstrators in Gothenburg, you certainly have no right to pass judgment on Israeli police or army, who come under daily attack from Palestinian so-called 'demonstrators' who go well beyond stones--throwing firebombs and grenades, as well as firing semi-automatic weapons. Will your government negotiate under fire with the demonstrators in Gothenburg as you expect Israel to do with its terrorist enemy? Shame on you for hypocrisy and cowardice in your continued support of Arafat!"
Tony Blair, quick to call for ever more Israeli concessions in the wake of PLO violence, felt differently when he was on the receiving end. He condemned the rioters as an "anarchists' traveling circus" and urged fellow EU leaders not to "concede an inch" to the demonstrators.
Rabbi Haskell Lookstein has called for a ten day boycott (between Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur) of the New York Times as a "symbolic protest" against the Times' biased coverage of Israel. Good for Rabbi Lookstein, but why only ten days? Why does he not urge his congregation to go cold turkey and subscribe instead to the Wall Street Journal? Does he fear his congregants are so attached to their daily dose of Holy Writ that ten days is the most they can live in deprivation? If so, he has an affluent congregation. He can suggest they wean themselves off the Times by looking at it on the Net (no charge and hence no financial benefit to the Times) while they accustom themselves to the vastly superior coverage (on a host of topics) of the Wall Street Journal.
Americans For a Safe Israel
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Outpost - 12 - June-July 2001