What is a "just peace"?

Letters

Editor: In the Haftorah of Eikev, which we read earlier this month, we read "Thy children make haste; Thy destroyers and they that make thee waste should go forth from thee." (Isaiah 49:17)

The prophet Isaiah castigated as Israel's worst enemies those Jews who, at a time of national peril, tarnished Israel's name.

Can, all proportions guarded, a parallel be found today? Israel has been singled out from among all the states of the world as a target of the unceasing, relentless, campaign of demonization, orchestrated and financed by the Arab-Muslim coalition. In this campaign, moreover, actively participate most of the western media, notably CBC and BBC. In addition, the European Union finances, besides the Palestinian Authority, the terrorists ("militants," as CBC, in its Orwellian "doublespeak," calls them) of Hamas. In the midst of this flood of venomous propaganda, which spills over onto the Jews of the Diaspora, we sadly meet Jews, who obviously think this is still not enough and must lend a hand to our enemies. Secure in the knowledge that few Jews would likely turn up to contradict him on a Friday night, Steven Aberle of "Jews for a Just Peace" chose the Shabbat eve of the festival of Shavuot, one of the holiest dates in the Jewish calendar, to travel to Kelowna for the purpose of rousing against Israel an audience of poorly informed students at Okanagan University College. What do Jews like Aberle, who show such contempt for our religious tradition, mean by a "just peace"? Is it the peace of a cemetery?

Rene Goldman
Summerland, B.C.

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