Once in a while, an eccentric person walks into the press center in Jerusalem, going from one news agency to another, telling you that he is something that he is not. Sometimes he tells you that he has met Moses or Jesus, sometimes he tells you that he has seen the Messiah. Sometimes he tells you that he is the Messiah. The standard attitude to these visiting sources from outer wherever is to write their stories on a proverbial yellow pad and show them the door.

A few years ago, a certain Rabbi wandered the press center, claiming to represent all Orthodox Rabbis in North America. He was carrying stationary to prove it, he said. He carried with him a number of proclamations from all the “leading” Rabbinic authorities around the world – that Israel must immediately annex Judea and Samaria, expel the Arabs, and declare that any Jew who was not an observant Jew to be declared invalid to participate in the government of Israel. I wrote down his story and showed him the door. This Rabbi was persistent, insisting that I organize a press conference for him. I only got rid of him when he realized that press conferences cost money, and, well, he did not have any money to pay for it. He left me his card and his letter of reference from some unknown Rabbinical organization. And then I noticed something funny. He was carrying Rabbinic stationary with most of the Rabbis on the letterhead who are no longer of this world.

I thought that was that and that I wouldn’t hear from this joker again. When I got home that night, I was more than surprised to turn on the radio newsreel and hear this Rabbi giving press interviews to the Voice of Israel. he had managed to convince the night editor of Israel radio that HE was the voice of American Orthodox Jewry. And then I saw him pop up on a few of the wire services. And then he was featured in a few Orthodox-owned newspapers. He only stopped his schvung when he could no longer pay his hotel bill. I know because a friend of mine was the hotel manager who called the next day with an amazing story: a Rabbi was staying at the hotel wanted the Chief Rabbinate to pay his bill but they nothing about him, so the Rabbi mentioned that the reporters at Beit Agron press center vouch for him.

The hotel sent him packing, which is what the press should have done, but he was so articulate, so genuine, and he made such a good story.

The Rabbi made one more visit to the press center, this time leaving his picture because he wanted a “shiduch” – a match made in heaven for this devil who was 40+.

I didn’t hear from this “Rabbinical source” for quite awhile. I can’t say that I missed him.

And then, the night of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, that same Rabbi was on all the prime time radio and TV programs in New York, and quoted in the New York Times, expressing joy and praise at the news of Rabin’s death. Once more, the Rabbi was saying that represented the biggest organization of American Orthodox Rabbis.

In the aftermath of the assassination, the same Rabbi, again on a roll, went one step further, claiming to know one Moshe Gross, a Rabbinc student who had raised half a million dollars for the YIGAL AMIR LEGAL DEFENCE FUND. A cooperative media in shock picked up on the Moshe Gross story and published it all over the world. The New York Times, the Israeli consulate in New York, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and many others publicized the fund as fact, although nobody had met Gross and nobody had seen any bank statement. The Rabbi had a way to convince people. He simply faked another voice, claiming to be “Gross in hiding”, and gave tens of interviews to hungry reporters who were ready to hear about an Orthodox Jewish conspiracy to kill Rabin & protect his killer.

The Rabbi went one step further – he fabricated a tape recording on a telephone line in Brooklyn that advertised the fact that Yigal Amir sought a “shiduch”, a match that would marry the assassin while he served his life sentence. That tape played on Israel radio and Israel TV, with the number for young eligible ladies to call.

And, you guessed it, women who called the line got a call back from the horny single Rabbi who was “available”. If you can’t love the nut you want, love the nut you’re with.

After some reporters smelled a rat, the Rabbi again disappeared from the public eye.

Well, the Rabbi resurfaced.

While discrete discussions were underway in the Israeli Knesset to try to organize a compromise between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Knesset members over new proposed religious identity legislation, the same Rabbi Of Fraud appeared in the office of one of the major wire services in New York at the end of a work day, with his Rabbinic proclamation that declared that anyone who was not Orthodox was simply not Jewish. The release was carried on all major wires, having an immediate international lightening effect, and the story was headlined up as a serious news item by the hundreds of member syndicates of New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and many others, as it reverberated to the Israeli news services, and bounced back to the US with seeming Israeli verification, as the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Jewish movements shried with justified anger and repulsion.

Later the next day, the three authentic Orthodox organizations in the US and Israel denounced the initiative. However, the damage was done. As my grandmother used to say, you never get more than one chance to make a first impression.

Any Orthodox denial of the story simply gave the news item more attention and credibility, as the wily Rabbi continues to flood the wire services and every possible media outlet with faxes of his Rabbbinic decree with his proclamation of excommunication… to a media and public that is ready to believe and swallow this garbage.

The Rabbi plays the stereotype of Orthodox Jews that the Jewish and Israeli public would like to believe, and the Rabbi knows how to play the press for what it is worth.

What will it take to convince the reps of the non-Orthodox Jewish movements of fraud? Does it matter? One of my colleagues who fundraises for the Movement for Conservative Judaism in the US confides to me that he makes his best money when Orthodox Rabbis mouthe off like this, and that he expects the money to flow thanks to a certain Rabbi with diarreaha of the mouth.

David Bedein
Media Research Analyst
Beit Agron International Press Center,
Jerusalem, Israel
e-mail: media@actcom.co.il
Fax: (+972-2) 623-6470

The following are the results of a poll of a representative sample of 500 adult Palestinians from Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion (PCPO) at Beit Sahour and prepared under the supervision of its President Dr. Nabil Kukali on March 9-11, 1997. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points.

1. Position on continuing negotiations in the light of Israel’s intransigence in building a settlement on Abu Ghneim.
   Continue 27.1%, halt 34.2%, abolish 38.7%.
2. Position on the stance of President Bill Clinton vis-a-vis a potential settlement in East Jerusalem:
   Positive 14.2%, negative 73.2%, no opinion 12.6%.
3. President Clinton’s invitation to Arafat to visit the United States is a real change in the American policy:
   Favor 17.8%, oppose 64.2%, noncommittal 18%.
4. The Palestinian reaction to the settlement on Mount Abu-Ghneim will be:
   a neo intafada 48.3%, a peaceful confrontation 32.6%, abstain 19.1%.
5. If the answer to question no 4 is a neo-intafada, are you ready to take part in it?
   Yes 48.5%, no 27%, no opinion 24.5%.
6. Are you in favor or against suicidal attacks against Israeli targets?
   Favor 40.8%, against 44.1%, noncommittal 15.1%.
7. If Israel insisted on building the settlement on Abu-Ghneim, are you in favor of the idea of building an equal number of housing units to the Arabs in East Jerusalem in return?
   Favor 43.2%, oppose 46.7%, no opinion 11.1%.
8. Position on the Palestinian action on the local, Arab and international levels to stop building settlements:
   satisfactory 16.9%, unsatisfactory 72.4%, noncommittal 10.7%.
9. Position on the American stance in the UN in the light of latest Veto?
   Impartial 9.9%, biased 72.8%, no opinion 17.3%.
10. Position on the unilateral decision of the Israeli government on the redeployment in 9% of the West Bank.
    Israel committed to the peace process 4.5%,
    An Israeli hoax to undermine the peace process 67.1%,
    Unsatisfactory unilateral step 28.4%.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director
IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
P.O. Box 982, Kfar Sava, ISRAEL
email: imra@netvision.net.il

One of the most important topics on the agenda of any Middle East peace conference should be how to improve the socio-economic conditions of Palestinians in refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Unfortunately, for the Palestinians, the PLO rarely brings up the subject. Getting these families out of the refugee camps just isn’t on their agenda.

Nor is the question as to why the Palestinians have been forced to live in these camps for more than 50 years is rarely raised in official Palestinian circles. Who have been keeping the Palestinians in the refugee camps from being resettled? Not Israel, as there are refugee camps outside of Israel that Israel has no control over.

The existence of these wretched refugee camps is a mark of shame on the Palestinian people. Why, then, do they even still exist?

How many live in the camps? Today less than one in five Palestinians are classified as a “refugee.” One half of the Gazan and one-quarter of the West Bank Palestinian refugees live in camps. The United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) says there are 450,000 refugees in Gaza and 370,000 in the West Bank. According to the United Nations’ definition, one does not have to be resident of a camp to be considered a refugee. Nor does leaving a camp disqualify a resident from receiving UNWRA benefits such as free education until the end of junior high school and health care, but income above a certain level does. Ironically, since the camps are in fact shantytowns, there is even an influx of population as rents are half of those in the surrounding villages or towns.

Many people have this idea of refugee camps of destitute, underfed people who wait around all day for the UN relief workers to come to hand out their rations. The fact is most get up every morning and go to work, usually in Israel- if they can. Some camp dwellers even enjoy a higher standard of living than some of the neighboring villages. For instance, 95% of the population in refugee camps in Gaza have electricity around the clock, slightly more than the surrounding villages and towns. The conditions in many refugee camps in Gaza exceed those of the most remote villages in the West Bank. For example, 98% of the towns, but only 48% of the West Bank villages have electricity 24- hours a day.

Numerous efforts to resettle these refugees have been tried, but all have failed. In l950, long before the territories came under Israeli control, UNRWA suggested moving 150,000 of them to Libya, but Egypt objected. In l951, UNRWA vetoed a plan to move 50,000 Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip to Northern Sinai when Egypt refused permission to use the Nile waters to irrigate proposed agricultural settlements. In l952, Syria rejected UNRWA’s initiative to resettle 85,000 refugees in camps in that country. In l959, UNRWA reported that of the $250 million fund for rehabilitation created in l950 to provide homes and jobs for the refugees outside of the camps, only $7 million was spent.

One approach which was partially successful was initiated by Israel in the early l970’s, called the ‘build your own home’ program. A half a dunam of land outside the camps was given to a Palestinian who then financed the purchase of the building materials, and usually with friends, erected a home. Israel provided the infrastructure: sewers, schools, etc. More than 11,000 camp dwellers were resettled into ten different neighborhoods before the PLO, using their time-honored tactics of intimidation, ended the program. The Israeli authorities would say that if the people were able to stand up to the PLO within eight years every camp resident could own a single dwelling home in a clean and uncongested neighborhood.

A major problem in resettlement is that so much of the land in Gaza is owned by a few large, wealthy Palestinian families. If this property were available, Gaza could lower its density of 1,250 persons per square kilometer. Yet even so there is ample living space even in the camps to build three or four story apartment blocks, (building up instead of out is for some reason not part of the Arab culture). Improving the quality of the existing homes inside the camps is a much cheaper undertaking than building entire new neighborhoods.

If the political climate was right, how much would it cost to solve the Palestinian refugee problem?

Most Palestinians economists, such as Dr. George Abed who wrote a book a few years back on the subject, agree that just to build enough homes, without any additional investment in infrastructure or job creation, would cost more than $2 billion just to resettle those refugees currently residing in the West Bank and Gaza.

So why isn’t UNRWA doing just that?

What was regarded as a temporary measure forty years ago has turned into a quasi-political entity which although its mandate prohibits it from doing so, oftentimes claims to speak on behalf of the Palestinians under their administrative wing to Israel and to the world at large. If UNRWA changed its charter to include investments in infrastructure and not strictly in health and education, then much of its $230 million operating budget could be used to actually solve the refugee- resettlement problem.

Political propaganda aside, the inability of the Palestinians to get themselves out of refugee camps and into permanent dwellings is their current number one problem. If the reason why the Arab nations refuse to solve this problem is because the existence of the camps serves to “make a political point,” and if the Palestinians knowingly accept this, then one wonders with this attitude, how the Palestinians would ever be expected to build the infrastructure of a working state? “

The continued existence of the refugee camps should serve as a reminder to all those who believe that the moment Israel withdraws from the entire area of the West Bank the Palestinians’ problems will be solved. In fact, despite their insistence on the ‘right of return’ of all Palestinians throughout the world, this would turn out to be the greatest socio-economic problem the new state would face. In addition to rehabilitating the refugees in the West Bank and Gaza, if refugees from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan returned they would initially have to be fed and housed, and then found jobs. The rate of increase in the territories is very high, about 3.5% a year, with 50% of the population under 15 years of age. More than 15,000 new workers entering the labor force each year.

And, unlike Israel’s experience in absorption which began at least two decades before the establishment of the state, the Palestinians have none. Entire infrastructures will have to be built and expertise obtained, almost immediately. The Palestinians will also have a problem the Jews did not face: rehabilitating the mindset of refugees who have been living in refugee camps for more than four decades and their resultant hatred for Israel.

It is time the Palestinian leadership realized that they can’t go on ignoring this crucial issue. It is one thing to demand that Israel allow Palestinian refugees the right of return. It is another matter to be able to absorb and house these people if and when

Joel Bainerman
The Israel Technology Letter
P.O. Box 387, Zichron Yaacov, Israel, 30900
Tel: 972-6-639-6673
Fax: 972-6-639-8880
email: isratech@Netvision.net.il

A major political issue facing Israel now is the question of whether in Israeli democracy someone has the right NOT to desecrate the Sabbath.

Yes, you read that correctly. No misprint.

There has long been tension in Israel because of the politicized “religion” of the demagogues of the various religious parties who have attempted – not very successfully – to coerce people into religious observance, such as through prohibiting bus operations and movie showings on the Sabbath. I regard this as “nuisance religion” and insist that it is not a legitimate function of the government to pressure people to be observant. I also think it arouses antagonism to religion and drives people AWAY from observance. In any case, the scope of nuisance religion is exagerated and does not affect at all most Israelis; when everyone owns cars it does not matter if buses run on Sabbath, and besides there are taxis. And when everyone has a VCR, who cares if cinemas are open or not on Friday night?

But as I say, all that is not what is now at issue, but rather whether Israelis have the right to choose NOT to desecrate the Sabbath.

The issue has come up with respect to Lev Leviov. Leviov is an immigrant to Israel who has done quite well in the Israeli business world, and is also a “hozer b’tshuva”, someone who became religiously observant. Leviov is the owner of a new shopping center in Ramat Aviv, the yuppie Leftist suburb north of Tel Aviv, in which Tel Aviv University sits, in which people like Shimon Peres and Leah Rabin live.

Leviov has decided that in the shopping center, which is his personal property, the stores and services will not operate on the Sabbath. Sure, he will lose some rent, but that is what he wishes.

But that decision has outraged the Leftist lumpenproletariat of yuppie Ramat Aviv. No fair, they screameth. Ramat Aviv is a leftist secular enclave! They insist that Leviov allow all the shops and services to operate in his shopping center mall, since after all they serve the militant secularists of Ramat Aviv, the same folks by the by who have been demonstrating against polluting the Tel Aviv University campus thru allowing a synagogue to be built there. The Labor Party and Meretz pols have joined in and are also demanding that Leviov be coerced into allowing the mall to stay open on the Sabbath, giving the teenagers of Ramat Aviv some place to hang out and play Beverly Hills 90210.

Then along comes Roni Milo, the mayor of Tel Aviv. Now Ramat Aviv is not even in Hizzohuh Da Mare’s jurisdiction, and Milo is from the Likud. But Milo, whose principles are interchangeable with those of the Labor Party left (he favors Oslo) has come out in FAVOR of the forces of darkness attempting to coerce the opening of Leviov’s mall on the Sabbath. Milo is following in the steps of his predecessor Mayor General Shlomo Lahat, who got elected to City Hall as a Liberal Party (part of Likud) candidate and then became Shimon Peres’ booster and cheerleader for Oslo. Milo wants to ride the fence and play the Leftist-metamorphosis option.

The secularists are threatening to invade religious town Bnei Barak on Sabbath with cars and noise as “retaliation” for the human rights abuse being perpetrated upon them by Leviov in his obstinate refusal to allow the Sabbath to be desecrated on his property.

And have a good Sabbath….

Dr. Steven E. Plaut
Graduate School of Business
University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel
Phone (972-4) 824-0110
Fax (972-4) 824-0059 or (972-4) 824-9194
email: rsec792@uvm.haifa.ac.il

Joyce Boim, an American-Israeli citizen residing in Jerusalem, has filed an official complaint with US Ambassador Martin Indyk, following her meeting with Israel Minister of Justice Tzachi HaNegbi. Mrs Boim had requested that HaNegbi ad the name of Amjad HaNawi. who murdered her son David, age 16, last May, to the list of suspects that Israel was demanding that the Palestine Authority arrest and turn over to Israel. According to Mrs. Boim, HaNegbi simply shrugged his shoulders and refused her request…When I called the Justice Minister’s office for a response, his spokesperson said that since the official meeting did not happen between HaNegbi and his PA counterpart last Sunday, the list was never handed over and the list is no longer relevant.

Mrs. Boim has asked Indyk to intervene in this matter.

Meanwhile, another American-Israeli citizen, Mrs.Esther Wachsman, the mother of Nachson Wachsman, who was abducted and murdered in October 1994, has filed a complaint with Indyk that the Israeli government is not requesting the arrest of Muhammad Deif, a Gaza resident who masterminded the abduction and murder of his son. President Clinton, who visited her son’s grave on March 14, 1996, said on that occaision that Deif was on the list of America’s most wanted criminals and that Israel should not proceed with the process without Arafat handing over Deif. Present to hear and confirm Clinton’s words were Yehudah and Esther Wachsman, US ambassador Martin Indyk, and then-prime minister of Israel, Shimon Peres.

However, there is no record of any official Israeli or American written demand to Arafat to hand over Deif. Palestine Authority Gaza security chief, Nassar Yusef reported to Yehudah Wachsman last July that Arafat had given him orders not to arrest Deif.