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ilewish Press
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Serving Nebraska and Iowa Since 1920
17 Eliil, 578S, Saptotber «, IBM
VoL LXX No. 4« Omaha
Peace?
A letter to Mark Epstein Dear Mark: Your mother called me the other day to express the appreciation of your family for our help in the campaign to raise $150,000 for your bone marrow transplant. She described your attitude as upbeat and optimistic. I told her that I ivanted to drop you a note to express my admiration for your behavior during this medical emergency, and I am taking the liberty of sending the letter through this column. In our conversation, I told your mother that in my almost 18 years of editing the Omaha Jewish Press, I had never before seen such an outpouring of concern and afTection on the part of the Jewish community. Our office and the Jewish Community Center switchboard are handling scores of calls from readers who want to know,where they should send checks and how they can boost your morale. So, I want you to know that although you may feel alone and isolated from the community, the opposite is true. You have an extended family and with each passing week, the membership in this family grows and everyone wants you to know that you are not alone. The outburst of afTection on the part of the readership is reflected in the many checks that arrive daily. All of us want your treatment to start without delay. We understand the deadliness of cancer, and we want to make certain that we do everything possible to give you a fighting chance at life. Readers are acting - sending contributions to the University of Nebnuka Medical Center via Sheldon Bernstein, Federation Foundation, 333 South 132nd St., Omaha, NE 68164.
Harry Paskowitz (left) president of YES, presents a donation for Mark £pstein to Sheldon Bernstein, Foundation director. In addition, Jewish organizations are building up steam - making contributions and starting fimdraisers. For example, the Young Energetic Seniors (YES) group made a nice contribution from the Mitzvah fund and I am certain that other organizations also will make similar donations. I understand also that the 20-Something group of Temple Israel will be selling apples and honey for the new year and that proceeds will be used to help you. This sale is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 12 from 10 a.m. to noon at Temple Israel, and information may be obtained from Rabbi Dan Fink at 556-6536. This is only the beginning. Our Jewish community -- yours and mine - is rallying to help. With Rosh Hashanah fast approaching, let us pray that during this holiday period, the rabbis of our community will be able to announce the successful completion of the fiindraising so that you can be blessed with a long life of health and happiness.
Sweeping changes move peace process By David Landau JERUSALEM (JTA) — Developments in the Middle East peace process that only months ago would have been condemned as anathema, or dismissed as fantasy, are taking place in staggering succession. And yet the Israeli public is going about its daily business largely undisturbed. The government is considering full recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organixation, an agreement with the Palestinians for interim self-rule and total withdrawal from the CSolan Heights. Yet many Israelis, especially of the younger generation, seem to be at least as preoccupied with news about pop singer Michael Jackson, due to perform here soon, as with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres' secret meetings with PLO ofiicialt and U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher. The one public manifestation of concern over the peace procefts is a nationwide rash of huge, handpainted placards asserting, "The People are with the CSolan." The slogans are everywhere — on billboards, balconies and trees. The Public Works Department labors to remove them, on the grounds that such advertising requires a license, but they go up more quickly than they can be taken down. But the impact of these posters is largely unknown. While they assert the people's solidarity with the Oolan, they also raise the question — unthinkable until not long ago — that Israel may be able to do without ths itrategie plateau overlooking Galilee. Il would b« simplistic to attribute the relative passivity of the public to the atmosphere of hedonism represented by the preoccupation with Michael Jaokion.
For, as has been well documented in the past, these same young hedonists can quickly rise up to defend a cause — or the state itself— when moved to doso. j^. The st^etal forces that brought Labor to power after more than a decadp of Likud primacy, and that have led to a widespread acceptance of Labor's far-reaching peace moves, reach deeper than hedonism. Some scholars have detected a "weariness with war" on both sides of the Middle East conflict. Others link the current mood to the sense of relief that swept the world with the end of the Cold War. For Israelis, the dismemberment of the Soviet Union has meant that their Arab enemies can no longer call on Russia to supply weapons that would pose a threat to the Jewish state. The rise of the Islamic fundamentalist threat, moreover, has put Israel in the same boat as many other countries: Among them Arab regimes that are still technically Israel's enemies. Perhaps the leading influence on the present Israeli mood is the trauma caused by the Iraqi Scud missile attacks on Tel Aviv during the Persian Gulf War. The fleeing citixeniy felt in the most direct and personal way that neither the Golan nor the Gnzo Strip served as any defense for their homes and lives. The behavior of the Paleitiniani — who cheered SB Scuds landed in Tel Aviv — further served to persuade many Itraelii of the iinponlblHty of coexisting with the Palestinians as members of the lamo country.
By Gil Sedan JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel may formally recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization as pfti't of a preliminary agreement on interim Palestinian self-rule in the administered territories. In turn, the PLO would formally renounce terrorism as a means of accomplishing its goals and rescind articles in the Palestine National Covenant that call for the destruction of Israel. These elements are being proposed as part of an agreement that would give limited self-rule to the Palestinians in the Cxaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho. The proposed agreement, apparently hammered out during the last few weeks in a series of secret meetings between high-level Israeli and PLO officials, was approved Monday at a special meeting of the Cabinet convened by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The agreement heralds a historic turning point in the negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, which have dragged on for 22 months and been repeatedly sidetracked by an array of procedural rather than substantive issues. Many of the details must still be workeid out, and this was expected to be the focus of what could be difficult negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian delegations to the bilateral peace talks, which resumed in Washington on Tuesday. But in an indication that serious progress toward reaching an agreement had already been made, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres flew to California for a surprise meeting last Friday with U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Peres himself apparently played a key personal role in working out the understanding with the Palestinians. Although the foreign minister denies it, he is reported by four Israeli'newspapers to have met with a senior PLO official in Stockholm on Aug. 20, during a trip to Scandinavia. Several other highly placed members of the Israeli government have met recently with PLO representatives, despite Jerusalem's official policy that it will not negotiate with the Tunis-based organization. Peres was believed to have explained to Christopher the nature of the direct contacts between Israel and the PLO, since U.S. policy still bars direct contacts with the PUD. The United States was believed to have given its full blessing to the latest developments. Here in Israel, while many hailed the plan for Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and Jericho as a historic breakthrough, the proposal also drew some strong negative reactions, including warnings of civil war. Benjamin Netanyahu, chairman of the opposition Likud party, blasted the plan and vowed to bring down the government over the issue. He charged the Israeli government was throwing a lifeline to the PLO, which he said is bankrupt and remains committed to Israel's destruction. Likud favors holding an election before going forward with a Gaza-Jericho First proposal. The head of the Likud caucus in the Knesset, Moshe Katsav, said the proposal paves the way for a Palestinian state, H
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"We are afraid this policy has only one significance; to put the cornerstone of the Palestinian state in Julfea and Samaria," he told Israel Television, using the biblical namst for the West Bank. He added: "And we believe that in a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria there it only one meaning: the destruction of Israel." Settlers in the territories have roundly condemned the proposal and warned that deep divi> lions over it could erupt into a full-blown campaifrn of civil disobeditnce.
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