Page_8-The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, September 13, 1984
M-T
Brian Mulroney, having catapulted himself to the highest political office in die land, faceis enormous andonerpus responsibilities as Canada's new prime minister.
The Progressive Conservatives buried the Liberals in a landslide last week, emerging from the wilderness to hand Prime Minister John Turner a stinging rebuke. With the sweet aroma of victory still strong in his nostrils, Mulroney can luxuriate in his euphoria. He and his party conducted a persuasive campaign that convinced 50% of all Cahadians to vote for the Tories. ' Possessing a mandate to attack the ills of this country, Mulroney will, have no time to waste after he is sworn in later this month. If the Tories can run the nation as well as they managed their campaign, Canada may be in store for some welcome changes.
By trouncing the Liberals in Quebec—an old Liberal stronghold^and practically winning the West, the PCs have an historic opportunity to build bridges among Canadians. Western Canadians, having felt alienated for so long, may regard Mulroney's triumph as a signal that their concerns will no longer be minimized or ignored; Quebecers, having been misunderstood for generations, may weU feel that a new deal is in the offmg.
One issue that Mulroney will have to come to terms with quicklyisthe economy. Inflation has been brought down to manageable proportions, but the sipecter of 1.4 million unemployed men and women remains a terrible and embarrassing blight.
It will be incumbent on Mulroney to tame unemployment while keeping the inflation rate within acceptable boundaries. If he is to succeed, vve will have no choice but to tighten our belts. A form of austerity may be necessary.
The solutions, if there are any, should not be achieved on the backs of the weaker segments of our society, and social welfare programs must not be axed. Foreign investment should be encouraged, but not at any price. The taxation system can yield surplus funds for job creation if all Canadians, including the very rich, pay their fair share of taxes.
If the Conservatives really mean to bring meaningful change, they must begin the arduous task of restructuring the economy, so that Canada can take its rightful place as a great industrial power.
Canada, unfortunately, is in a position akin to colonial India, which had abundant natural resources but not much of an industrial base. Canada's branch plant economy must be overhauled, and the emphasis must be placed on the production of goods here rather than abroad. Infinitely more Canadians would be put to work under such a plan.
Needless to say, the goyernmerit should think seriously of doubling or tripling expenditures on research and development, as the New Democratic Party has suggested. The computer. age into which we have plunged demands it.
Foreign policy does not excitie many Canadians, but this, too, is an important issue. :Canada has certain commitments to its friends and allies, but these commitments should not entangle us in untenable agreements, foolish obligations, or misguided adventtires. Canada has a useful role to play in international relations, be it Europe or the Middle East, as a trusted mediator.
With Mulroney on his way to 24 Sussex Drive, Canada may be poised on the edge of a new and Vital beginning. Th6 Conservatives have been given a clear and unambiguous mandate to make this country work like a Swiss watch, and they should not abuse it for the sake of petty party politics or narrow ideological considerations.
Canadians,for better or worse, have placed their trust in the Conservatives. Let the Conservatives show us they are worthy of the challenge.
Pledges to ^^drive brael^
■■ By SHELDON KIRSHNER
There haisn't been an uproar like it in years.
The election of Meir Kahane to the Knesset has triggered nationwide disgust and revulsion, a pointed warning from the Israeli president to safeguard democracy, a call from the justice minister for the enactment of an anti-racist law, and suggestions that Israel's electoral isystem be changed.
Kahane, the 52-year-old founder of the Jewish Defence League, is leader of the Kach movement, which .idvocates the expulsion of Arabs frOm Israel and the occupied areas.
An Orthodox rabbi's son, Kahane is as outspoken as they come. Unlike some Israeli politicians of the right, he speaks frankly^nd openly of his goals, eschewing polite or diplomatic doubletalk.
After winning his parliamentary seat in the July 23 election, Kahane shocked Israelis and Diaspora Jev»Ty by Vowing that his first act in the Knesisiet would be to propose a bill expelling the 700,000 Israeli Arabs and the 1.3 million Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Kahane hasn't yet tabled the bill, but he and his followers have tried to storm two Arab villages in an effort to induce Arabs to emigrate.
In doing so, Kahane — an ordained rabbi — has apparently abused his privileges as a member of parliament. But thii is hardly surprising. He has said he would act in defiance of Israeli law to promote his cause.
Inevitably, Kahane's inflammatory rhetoric has produced a counter reaction, particularly among Jewish officials.
Yitzhak Shamir, the caretaker Prime Minister, has described Kahane's election as "a negative phenomenon." Shamir, before learning that President Chaim Herzog would designate Labor Party chieftain Shimon Peres to try to form a government, ruled out Kahane as a potential coalition partner.
For the record, Kahane had said he would only join the Likud bloc if Shamir promised an amnesty for the 24 members of a Jewish terrorist ring that had wreaked havoc against Arabs,
Teddy KoUek, the mayor of Jerusalem, called Kahane's electoral triumph "a strain on Israeli democracy,'' while Shlomo Goren, the former Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi, condemned Kahane's ideas and methods as totally contrary to Jewish
religious law.
In an obvious reference to Kahane, Chaim Herzog, in remarks to the 11th Knesset, urged its members to protect democracy and noted that Israel's declaration of independence promises equal rights for all citizens; regardless of religion, race or sex.
To show his disdain for Kahane, Herzog refused to invite him to the presidential home for the
Meir Kahane and his bodyguard [IPPA photo]
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customary post-election consultations in which members of pariiament usually take part.
In response, Kahane threatened to break into Beit Hanassi — prompting one of Herzog's spokesmen to reject "with contempt" his threat.
Moshe Nissim, the justice minister, asked the attorney-general to prepare legislation making racist incitement a crime.
And, for the first time in its history, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel suggested the limiting of certain civil rights to prevent MKs from abusing their immunity from prosecution.
There were even calls for modifying or changing Israel's proportional representation system, so that fanatics like Kahane could not sit in the Knesset.
Under the present rules, any candidate who wins about 21,000 votes — or 1 % of the total vote across the country — is eligible to be an MK.
Appealing mainly to poor Sephardic Jews in large and small development towns like Beer-sheba, Ashdod, DihiOna and Beit Shean, Kahane captured 25,000 votes, or 1.3% of the vote.
Proponents advocating change charge that the system spawns representatives like Kahane and enables the small parties to practice blackmail in its dealings with the two main political blocs, Likud and Labor.
Such critics are in favor of the British or American constituency system.
No matter how this conundrum is resolved, Kahane is a force, negligible or not, to be reckoned with. -
Certainly, he represents the most disruptive element in the Knesset since Samuel Flatto Sharon, who was elected as an independent in 1977. A Polish Jew who held French citizenship, Flatto Sharon fled to Israel after coming under a cloud for dubious financial activities in France.
Much to everyone's surprise, he was elected.
Recently, he was indicted for practicing bribery in the 1981 election. Flatto Sharon is scheduled to begin a 3-month prison sentence soon.
Although he was generally regarded as an embarrassment to Israel, Flatto Sharon was no wild-eyed reactionary, nor, if only because of his mediocre Hebrew, did he voice his views in the Knesset.
Kahane not only has a good command of Hebrew. He intends to unburden himself of his thoughts, having pledged to drive Israel "crazy."
No believer in Israeli-style democracy, which has accorded him the privilege of being an MK, Kahane claims that there is a '^potential contradiction between a Jewish state and a Western democratic one."
It is "absurd," he writes in one of his frequent newspaper pieces, for Israelis to talk of a Jewish state while in the same breath to offer equal social and political rights to all citizens. As he puts it:
"A Jewish state, by definition, is one with a majority of Jews who can, thus, establish their own sovereignty and become captains of their own fate. A democracy, on the other hand, allows non-Jews to become a majority and, thus to turn Israel into a non-Jewish state.
"The very idea of a 'democratic Jewish state'
is nonsense. A state can be permanently defined as Jewish or as democratic, but never both."
To Kahane, the choice is simple, given the Arabs' higher birth rate: "I have no desire to continue living as a minority at the suffrance of a majority — a situation that inevitably leads to inquisitions, pogroms and Auschwitzes. I have not the slightest guilt about choosing a Jewish state — and life — over the dertiocratic possibility of losing that state."
Kahane's prescription is to annex the occupied territories and to force the Arabs there — and in Israel — to leave.
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U.S/may ^8^^ militant leader of citizenship
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Asked at a recent press conference to envisage a hypothetical scenario whereby an American party called for the expulsion of U.S. Jewry, Kahane said cockily: "I'd pay them money. I wish the gOyim would throw them out ~- not kill them — but drive all the Jews to Israel."
This isn't likely to happen, but what is plausible is that Kahane — an Israeli since the early 1970s — may lose his U.S. citizenship.
Born in Brooklyn, Kahane is in danger of losing it because he swore allegiance to a foreign government — Israel — in taking his Knesset seat. Kahane wants to keep his American citizenship because it enables him to travel to the U.S. to raise hinds for Kach and supervise the activities of the Jewish Defence League.
If he had no American passport, he would need a visa to enter the U.S. and that could be denied on the basis of his police record.
Since his arrival in Israel, Kahane has been arrested 20 times, the charges ranging from flouting police orders to inciting anti-Arab demonstrators. Kahane is the only Jewish citizen ever detained without trial under Israel's emergency regulations, usually reserved for suspected Palestinian terrorists.
Although most of his supporters in Israel are law-abidiiig citizens, at least a couple are not.
• Allan Goodman, an American living in Israel, was jailed for killing two Arabs and wounding 60 in a shooting spree in Jerusalem Vh years ago. , • , ■ '
• Yehuda Richter^ who was placed second on the Kach list, was convicted last month of wounding six Arab bus paissengers on the West Bank. An American immigrant, he was serving in the Israeli army at the time of the attack.
As far as can be ascertained, Kahane himself lias not personally engaged in violence. But, in winning a Knesset seat, after three unsuccessful attempts since 1973, Kahane has greatly encouraged some of his wilder acolytes to act out their chauvinistic beliefs.