Divisiveness Marks Reaction to Death Locally

You don’t have to go as far as Israel to unearth divisions among Jews about the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

You need only look as far as the 3,000 families who are members of Rabbi Isaiah Zeldin’s Stephen S. Wise Temple in Bel Air. The largest synagogue in the Western United States houses an equally large array of disagreement about how--or even whether--the current peace talks should succeed.

“We are divided,” the Reform rabbi said Saturday. Nonetheless, “most of my members support the peace process . . . if it is done cautiously and with all due deliberation.”

The Studio City publisher of National Jewish News was even blunter.

The negotiations have been “the most divisive issue in the Jewish community,” said Phil Blazer, who also hosts a television talk show on Jewish topics.

In September, when the first of 10 retired generals and ranking Israeli figures came to Los Angeles on a cross-country campaign to explain the Israeli government’s position, several synagogues and community groups would not see them.

Blazer recalled a demonstration last month by Orthodox and other Jews outside the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles to protest relinquishing land to Palestinians.

“I don’t think a credible religious group has ever done that before here,” he said. Usually, the Los Angeles Jewish community tries to maintain a united front on Israeli issues, he added.

At the same time, Blazer, like others, said the majority of American Jews “are befuddled with the issues because they are so complicated.”

Politics notwithstanding, an outpouring of encomiums for Yitzhak Rabin was heard all across Southern California, home to the second-largest Jewish community in the country.

In the Fairfax district, Betty Ingber declared herself shocked: “He was a great man. It’s unbelievable that when the peace process was going along that he should be gunned down.”

But there were, within a mile or two, other voices, stronger critics.

Returning from temple with his four children, Yitzhak Fuchs declared in Hebrew: “Blessed is the true judge.”

Fuchs opposes the peace pact’s ceding of Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. “Nobody will condone killing. I feel badly that this happened to him, but unfortunately, it seems God has judged.”

And Abraham Polonsky, who teaches film at USC, said in reference to the politics of the alleged assassin: “Very religious Jews are just as bad as all other people in the world. They can’t live a second with others that disagree with them.”

Not unexpectedly, expressions of sorrow from the region’s Middle Eastern community were mingled with relief at the news that the alleged assassin is Israeli. Arab Americans are just recovering from the premature finger-pointing that blamed Islamic terrorists for the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.

“My first reaction was, ‘Oh, my God, I hope it’s not an Arab,’ ” said Don Bustany, former president of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

The accused assassin, Bustany said, is “an Israeli John Wilkes Booth.” If he had been an Arab, the peace process might well have been derailed. Now, Bustany believes, the assassination could hurry peace along.

“Rabin will become a martyr, a symbol of peace. . . ,” he said. “The peace process is unstoppable because of the dollars at stake.”

The assassination came as the committee’s Western regional conference was under way in Anaheim. The pro-peace organization supports Palestinian self-rule.

Samir Hijazi, an organizer for the committee, said the killing underscores the fact that “extremists are not only on one side.”

“It’s always portrayed that way, that Muslims are doing this or that. Sometimes the ones you don’t watch get you,” Hijazi said.

All you had to do, said organizer Waleed Ali of Los Angeles, “was listen to the right wing in Israel. You had rabbis saying it would be a moral act to assassinate Rabin. You have rabbis teaching soldiers to ignore any orders to evacuate the West Bank. That’s sedition.”

Dr. Maher Hathout of the Islamic Center of Southern California said Rabin’s death “will add confusion and difficulty to the Middle East during this time of delicate peace negotiations.” Bloodshed or assassination “enhances no cause.”

Few are more opposed to the terms of the peace process than Irv Rubin, the Los Angeles-based national chairman of the 18,000-member Jewish Defense League. He said the assassination will accentuate political divisions in both the United States and Israel, where he speculated it could even be a harbinger of civil war.

“I know those settlers, and they will not go without resistance and they will meet force with force,” said Rubin, who went to Norway with other JDL members to demonstrate when Rabin was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year.

Rubin also predicted that Rabin’s slaying will intensify attacks on the right.

“I just have this great expectation that people, including in America, will look upon the opposition as brutal fanatics,” he said. “And that’s not us. We wanted to see him defeated by the ballot, not by the bullet.

“Even though I was 100% opposed to his policies--they were disastrous and suicidal for the state of Israel--I certainly did not want him assassinated,” Rubin said. “I have great trepidation and fear of his successor, Shimon Peres, who I think is the architect of this suicidal policy.”

While most people insist they want peace, there is certainly disagreement over what price--literal and figurative--should be paid to achieve it.

At stake in Congress this year is $100 million for the new governing Palestinian Authority, a sum that is critical to keeping the peace process afloat. It is a small part of a larger package of $2.4 billion pledged two years ago by the United States and the West, but canceling it could pull the keystone from the arch of the peace talks.

Israel has been worried that if American Jews appear to be less than enthusiastic about the peace process, Congress might balk at voting to spend the money. So when it comes to handling the spin on the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, Israeli officials clearly know where direct information--and perhaps indirect leverage--is needed: among America’s influential Jewish communities, especially in Los Angeles and New York.

A September poll by the American Jewish Committee, one of the nation’s largest Jewish groups, showed the dichotomy: 68% of American Jews backed Israel’s handling of peace talks, but 63% opposed any more U.S. aid to Palestinians.

Especially disturbing to Israeli leaders was the loss of support among the Orthodox. The poll found that 52% supported the Rabin government at the onset of peace talks but that, by September, 64% opposed the way talks were going.

Times staff writers Bettina Boxall, Karen D’Souza, Peter Hong and Bob Pool contributed to this report.