LETTERS THEY
REFUSED TO PRINT
16 July 1996
Letters to the Editor
Jerusalem Report:
Anne Roiphe's recollection (July 11, 1996) of a meeting "a while after" the late 1980s at which she and Michael Lerner were allegedly shouted down by a howling "pro-Likud" mob bears little resemblance to what actually happened in New York on May 21, 1992. The meeting took place under the auspices of Writers & Artists for Peace in the Middle East.
The panelists were Roiphe and Lerner on one side, Cynthia Ozick and David Sidorsky on the other. I myself had agreed to be a panelist in the debate, but Lerner told the organizer, Harry Steinberg, that he would withdraw if I participated.
Since I had been invited into New York especially for the occasion, I was asked by Mr. Steinberg, at the end of the debate, to make the first remarks from the floor. But Lerner was no more prepared to let me speak from the floor than he had been to tolerate me on the panel. Even before I reached the (ill-functioning) floor microphone, he began bellowing into his microphone that he would not stand for this, that it violated the "rules" of the discussion to allow me to speak.
Every time I tried, Lerner would raise his Boanerges voice
to interrupt, and his cries of outrage were reinforced by the caterwaulings of Anne Roiphe. When I managed to say that "it's clear Mr. Lerner hasn't forgotten the tactics he learned in the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley," all hell broke loose, with his boisterous followers screaming "Sit down! Shut up! Lerner isn't the issue!"
The bedlam created by Lerner, Roiphe, and their acolytes continued for almost 15 minutes, until I gave up and sat down. Lerner and Roiphe then calmed themselves; but the next
explosion was not far off.
The second speaker from the floor offered a trenchant criticism of Lerner's assertions about the "legitimate rights of the Palestinians," but also suggested that he suffered from "psychological problems." This phrase touched a sensitive nerve in Lerner, who rose in a rage and stormed out of the hall. Anne Roiphe, whose puppetlike obedience to her editor seemed a miracle in this age of feminist self-assertion, trotted out behind him, "like a calf on a rope," as a woman near me remarked.
Roiphe's image of herself and Lerner as innocent lambs pelted with epithets by a thick-skinned mob may show a primitive form of novelistic imagination, but bears no resemblance to the truth.
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Edward Alexander
Professor of English
University of Washington, Seattle
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11 July 1996
Letters to the Editor
Forward
David Arnow ("Defending Secular Israel," June 21) demands more Israeli government aid for Reform Judaism, basing his argument on public opinion surveys which he interprets as meaning that most Israelis support his position.
If Arnow sincerely believes that government policy should be shaped in accordance with polls, then he evidently would also support government policies that would reflect these positions taken by a majority of Israelis in recent polls:
* Arafat "does not keep his Oslo obligations with regard to fighting Hamas" (65.5% of Israelis said so in an April 21, 1996 Gallup poll).
* Israeli negotiations with the PLO should be halted until the PLO "controls terror" (62.9% said so in a February 28, 1996 Modiin Ezrahi poll).
* "Most Palestinians have not come to terms with the existence of Israel and would destroy it if they could." (62.8% of Israelis said so in a February 7, 1996 Dahaf Institute for Davar Rishon).
* Israel should carry out the Oslo accords only "if the PLO extradites terrorists to Israel" (63% of Israelis said so in a September 15, 1995 Dahaf Institute poll for Yediot Ahronot).
* Israel should use the death penalty against convicted Arab terrorists (a position supported by 70-75% of Israelis consistently for decades).
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Herbert Zweibon
Chairman
Americans For a Safe Israel
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26 June 1996
Letters to the Editor
Jerusalem Post
The rage of countless American journalists over the election of Benjamin Netanyahu has not yet abated. This fact was amply demonstrated by NBC's Tom Brokaw in a broadcast of June 25. After reporting at length the terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed and wounded scores of Americans, he moved on to the meeting that had just taken place in Jerusalem between Secretary of State Christopher and the Israeli prime minister. After the
standard growling about Netanyahu's "hard line," Brokaw added that although there was "no proof" that the Jerusalem meeting had caused the terrorist bombing, there was "no ruling it out either." Can we now look forward to the incomparable Brokaw announcing that although there is "no proof" that Jewish doctors are responsible for spreading the AIDS virus, there is "no ruling it out either"?
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Edward Alexander
Professor of English
University of Washington, Seattle
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