One Minute to Midnight Dr. Irving Moskowitz SYNAGOGUE-SMASHERS Throughout the past year, public opinion polls have consistently found that the majority of Israelis no longer support the Rabin government's policy of gradually surrendering Judea, Samaria and Gaza to the PLO. In a widely-quoted conversation with Russia's foreign minister earlier this year, Rabin acknowledged that "only 30%" of Israelis still support his policies. This poses quite a problem for Michael Lerner, editor of the leftwing journal Tikkun. Lerner contended, in a recent op-ed in the Jewish press, that Jews who criticize Rabin's policies are "strategic allies" of the Hamas terrorists. But since 60%-70% of Israelis are critical of Rabin, it means that Lerner is, in effect, claiming that 60%-70% of Israelis are allies of Hamas. Obviously that's absurd, and Lerner knows it will convince nobodyÑso he tries to make it appear as if the only Jews criticizing Rabin are a handful of "rightists" and "settlers." That won't wash. The majority of the Israeli public cannot be dismissed as "rightists" or "settlers." Why have most Israelis lost faith in Rabin's process? Because they have watched the Gaza-Jericho "experiment" for the past two years, and they have seen

that the experiment failed. Lerner and his camp always claimed that giving up land would mean less terrorism. Instead, there has been more terrorism. Lerner and his camp insisted that Yasser Arafat had truly changed his ways. Instead, Arafat continues to make speeches exhorting his followers to "jihad" against "the Zionist enemy." Lerner and his camp said that if the Arabs in the territories were granted self-rule, they would live in peace with the Jews. Instead, an Arab mob last month smashed down the walls of a synagogue near Beit El, and set fire to prayer books and a Torah. That synagogue-smashing took place just a few miles down the road from where Lerner is currently staying, in Jerusalem. I wonder what he thought when he watched the scenes of destruction on Israel Television, with the synagogue walls lying in rubble and smoke rising from the ashes of the Jewish holy books that the Arabs had set afire. I wonder how he reacted when it was revealed Ñby the leftwing Israeli daily Ha'aretz (Aug. 25,1995), which is known for bending over backwards to give kind treatment to the PLO-- that the Arab mob that smashed the synagogue was organized by the "National and Muslim Committee for the Struggle Against Settlers," which is part of the PLO's own Palestinian Authority. As a young man, Lerner once wrote (in Judaism magazine, Fall 1969), "The synagogue as currently established will have to be smashed...." We can only presume he was speaking rhetorically.

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Outpost               - 12 -               November 1995