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March 2, 2001/Adar 7, 5761, Vol. 53, No.22
Israel crisis lights fire
SHARON SAMBER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - Prompted by concern over recent violence, Jewish communities and college campuses are mobilizing for Israel in ways they have not done in years.
The relatively stable situation in Israel during the past decade had made many local communities and national organizations complacent. Now, they feel they have been caught off guard by the recent outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed.
"We were resting on our laurels," admitted Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Jewish groups are now looking for a way to educate their constituents about the situation and to counter the coordinated effort of Arab groups that use the media to promote public sympathy for the Palestinians.
Hoenlein and other national leaders told those who attended the Jewish Council for Public Affairs' annual conference this week that they must counter Arab attacks on the Jewish claims to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.
Some lay leaders from St. Louis and New York said they were worried that some Israeli policies, like the "excessive force" being used against the Palestinians as the U.S. State Department's annual report on human rights put it, make it difficult for them to make the case that Israel should be supported.
Local groups were urged to use the Web sites of the Anti-Defamation League, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the American Jewish Committee to develop ads, letters to the editor and other strategies that best suit their communities.
Community relations councils are feeling the pressure to respond to well-organized Arab and Muslim groups who use the media to their benefit.
In Detroit, which has the largest Arab American population in the United States, the sophisticated advocacy efforts of Arab groups are spurring a change in programming, said David Gad-Harf, the executive director of the JCRC of Metropolitan Detroit. As part of the council's solidarity mission to Israel last month, participants learned how to go back and teach the Detroit Jewish community how to be better advocates for Israel.
The current crisis has brought Israel to center stage on campus, according to University of Pennsylvania students Andrew Joseph and Gabrielle Sirner who were attending the B'nai B'rith Hillel Forum on Public Policy, which is held in conjunction with the JCPA plenum. More than 400 students participated in this year's student activist conference that focused on hunger, homelessness, illiteracy and the environment.
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