Girl’s Death on the West Bank

Amid the sadness and despair attending the reports of violent clashes between Arabs and Jews in Israel, Times staff writer Dan Fisher (Part I, April 7) includes an event that sounds a whisper of hope. He cites a statement by Lt. Gen. Dov Shomron, the Israeli chief of staff, that some Arab villagers in Beita helped hide a number of the Jewish Israeli teen-agers when they came under attack by other angry Arab villagers. They also telephoned for ambulances.

That intervention required moral courage for the consequences of Arabs protecting Jews in the environment were far from trivial. In terms of numbers and the complexity of the riot provocations, such singular behavior seems small enough. But it is an important augury for future relations and the possibilities of reconciliation. That action belies the inflammatory contention that Arabs and Jews are hopelessly and forever locked in a fatal embrace. Esau and Jacob began their career as mortal enemies but in time resolved their distrust, fell upon each other’s neck in a spirit of harmony, embraced and wept. (Genesis 33:4).

RABBI HAROLD M.

SCHULWEIS

Valley Beth Shalom

Encino