One Minute to Midnight

Dr. Irving Moskowitz

Not Newsworthy?

Religious conflicts in Israel recently inspired a series of violent attacks by extremists--but not the kind you've read about in the general media.

In the town of Kiryat Gat, a group of youths active in the leftwing Meretz Party tore fifteen mezuzuot

from the doorposts of local stores, and burned them. The charred remains were found near the local Meretz office. In the Shenkin Street area of Tel Aviv, extremists pasted up posters comparing Orthodox Jews to pigs. In Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood, vandals spray-painted anti-religious and anti-nationalist slogans on the walls of the local Bnei Akiva center. And during the recent Sukkot holiday, anti-religious arsonists torched the sukkah of the chief rabbi of Carmiel.

If you didn't read about these attacks in the New York Times or hear about them from Peter Jennings, don't be surprised; victims who are Orthodox or nationalist are not politically correct.

Another Victory

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Israel paid the most serious price, because as soon as the war ended, Baker began pressuring Israel for concessions, leading to the Madrid Conference later that year which, in turn, helped set the stage for the Oslo accords two years later.

There is now an undeniable gap between what the State Department perceives as America's interests and what Israel knows are its own vital security interests. Madeleine Albright and Martin Indyk believe that pressuring Israel and paving the way for the creation of a PLO-Hamas state is in America's interest. Israelis know that making more unilateral concessions, and permitting the creation of a PLO-Hamas state will reduce the Jewish State to indefensible borders.

Appeasement today will have the same effect as in 1938. Then Czechoslovakia was supposed to pay the price. It did--followed by the countries who sold her out. If Israel is appeasement's victim today, in the long run the entire world will pay the price.

Herbert Zweibon is chairman of Americans For a Safe Israel.

Pollard

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involving their own status as full citizens of this country--an issue which will decisively influence their votes in the next election. Instead of issuing blustery exhortations about how the far-off state of Israel should govern its religious and political affairs, our leaders would do well to reflect upon their dereliction of duty in the Pollard affair and ponder the text from Song of Songs (1:6) which says: "They made me a keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard I have not kept!"

Edward Alexander is professor of English at the University of Washington in Seattle. His most recent book is The Jewish Wars: Reflections By One of the Belligerents (available from AFSI).