Jews say liberation of Iraq could fuel Mideast peace

NWI Times ^ | April 16, 2003 | JOE PUCHEK

[new cruelty]

As Jews around the world begin observing Passover at sundown tonight, area Jewish leaders are watching to see if a modern-day liberation will help bring peace in Israel.

The eight-day holiday commemorates the exodus of Hebrew slaves, led by Moses, from Egypt to what is now Israel. The path to peace in Israel today will be led by men named Sharon, Arafat and Bush.

While President Bush was preparing for war with Iraq, he announced in March a "road map" for peace in Israel. Bush has called for the acceptance of a Palestinian state and has left little room for negotiation. His plan, while not yet formally announced, has been reported to include demands that Israel pull back its West Bank settlements and that the Palestinian government stabilize under its new prime minister, Abu Mazen, not longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

But it is the liberation of Iraq that makes Michael Steinberg hopeful.

"I look at this war with Iraq and all these people who were in bondage for three decades," said Steinberg, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Northwest Indiana. "If you can draw any correlation between the people being in bondage and now they've been freed, in a way it is the same."

Having the will to achieve peace in Israel -- just as Moses had the will to bring the Israelites out of Egypt -- is what will make it happen, said Rabbi Stanley Halpern of Temple Israel in Gary's Miller section.

"We were enslaved in Egypt, and God saved us. We are enslaved today," he said. "Our prayer this time of year is that we and all people will be free. We have to be willing to be God's partners in liberation, just as we are partners in creation. We focus on God bringing us out of Egypt, but we had to be willing to go."

Both men said they are hopeful that the active role of the U.S. government in the Middle East, as seen in Iraq and with the Bush plan for Palestine, will bring negotiation. Key areas for the plan, however, hinge on concessions on both sides. Published reports indicate that there may be a softening of the Israeli position on the issue of settlements, areas in the West Bank that would fall inside Palestine's borders. In the past, the Israeli government has said the settlements would stay and become a part of Israel.

Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon has said this week that he would consider pulling back on settlements in Palestinian areas, but reports from Jerusalem on Monday indicate that Arafat and Mazen have engaged in shouting matches over the new prime minister's cabinet appointments.

"I'm encouraged by the changes in the Palestinian Authority," Halpern said. "Once again, it's being forced from the outside, though. I think there are a great many in Israel and Palestine who are tired of burying their children."

Arafat, Steinberg said, is the sticking point to any peace plan.

"The only way peace will happen is if Arafat is out of the picture. The prime minister is ceremonial in position (because) Arafat is giving him no means to form a government. Mazen is trying to do his job."

Arafat, whom Bush has called the world's longest-living terrorist, is considered a nonentity by the Israeli government. Last June, in response to a series of suicide bombings -- including one in which 29 people were killed in Netanya, Israel, on the first night of Passover -- Israeli troops surrounded Arafat's compound in Jerusalem and, using tanks and bulldozers, leveled all of the buildings except the one he was in.

On Monday, four members of the Hamas terrorist organization were sentenced to 29 consecutive life sentences plus 20 years in jail in connection with the Netanya attack.

"How do we go from here to something that can produce a meaningful peace in that area of the world? That's the challenging part. That's the skillful part," Halpern said. "The war (in Iraq) has underscored the willingness of the administration to go out on a limb. Bush was reluctant to do what President Clinton did."

In 2000, Clinton brought then-Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Barak and Arafat to Camp David for a peace summit. Bush, however, has refused to meet with Arafat and has demanded that he step aside if there is ever going to be a chance for peace.

"If the Israelis and Palestinians can stop killing each other and begin negotiations, that's a good sign," Halpern said. "Among both sides there are people who do not want peace. The ones who do, need to be louder and more vocal."

With no timetable set for the start of negotiations and the Israeli government already on record as being against any timetable for the start of a Palestinian state, Steinberg and Halpern are optimistic that peace will come.

"I think our country and Britain are on a real path to push these two countries together in light of Iraq," Steinberg said. "But the question is, will Sharon relent in the speed of the process? Or will he say, 'We will negotiate, but at our pace and not yours.' "

Times West Lake County Editor Joe Puchek can be reached at jpuchek@nwitimes.com or (219) 933-3250.

[COURAGE]

"We have crushed the whole force which dared to venture there. Now they're outside the wall and the heroic Republican Guard is now in control of the whole area. . . . So where are those villainous louts, those mercenaries?''