Judea Pearl, Daniel Pearl's father, should, by rights, be a featured speaker this April in Geneva, at the United Nations' follow-up meeting to the famous World Conference Against Racism, Racial Intolerance, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance - who can't love that name? - that was held in Durban in September of 2001. After all, Pearl's family was directly victimized by prejudice - Danny Pearl was murdered because he was a Jew.
Judea told me he would be happy to speak at the conference, though he believes that it will once again focus almost exclusively on the sins of one country, and one country alone. How could Israel not become the target of the conference, when Iran and Libya are key planners of the meeting?
The Obama Administration, which is boycotting the conference (Ben Smith has the scoop), along with Canada and Israel and perhaps some Western European countries, should suggest to the United Nations that Judea address the General Assembly on the subject of hate. What better way to highlight the issue of racism than by listening to its victims? I spoke to Judea about Durban and about his recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, which criticized, among others, Jimmy Carter, for accepting as legitimate the demands of terrorists. Here is an edited version of our conversation.
Jeffrey Goldberg: What is your specific problem with Jimmy Carter?
Judea Pearl: Jimmy Carter believes that terrorism will stop when the Palestinians get what they say they want. I believe that terrorism should be taboo regardless of the grievance, and he doesn't see it like that. He sees it as a legitimate way of pressuring someone. But everybody has a grievance. There are just some things that you don't do. There is good and there is evil. The men who killed my son had a grievance, everybody has a grievance. Once you focus on the grievance, rather than the terrorist act itself, the terrorist has won.
JG: The Durban II draft calls for official international protections for religion against criticism. You've suggested that this is motivated by some Muslim nations that want to shift the focus away from Islamist terrorism.
JD: What gets me is the idea that speaking against terrorism gets you labeled Islamophobic.
JG: How do you think the U.S. should try to influence the outcome of the Durban II conference?
JD: They should try to discredit it because of its essential ridiculousness. It's a focused hatefest. It's a hatefest against one entity, the Jewish national movement. Iran and Libya are organizers, after all. I think the whole negotiating text is meant to exclude the kind of hatred that took Danny's life. The hatred was directed at the U.S., Israel, and the Jewish people. Durban protects this kind of hatred. Durban wants to criminalize any criticism of groups that say they are acting on behalf of Islam. Religions do not have a monopoly on human sensitivity. There are other symbols, other aspects of people's lives that deserve respect, such as the belief in Jewish national quality, the belief that Jews are entitled to sovereignty in the country where they were born. There should be sensitivity to the issue of burning the Israeli flag, which contains a national and religious symbol. I feel pained when people burn the Israeli flag, the same way a Muslim feels abused when the Koran is mistreated.
JG: Do you think we've reached some sort of point of no return in the questioning of Israel's legitimacy?
JD: There is latent anti-Semitic pressure in the world and Gaza took the lid off. That's one way to look at it. Group hysteria is catching. Gaza gives people the chance to feel morally superior. I mean, look at the Libyan government. Are they saying they're morally superior to Israel? For the Libyan people it's very important that there's one speck, one human area, where you're worth something - you're morally superior to the Jews. It's a confirmation of worthiness. The average Libyan is not having a very good time most days. So it's good to have a scapegoat. This is what Durban is about.
Freeman's Blind Spot on the Saudi Question
A few years ago, Chas Freeman, the apparent Obama pick to run the National Intelligence Council, visited the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and had this interesting exchange with its director, Robert Satloff (we're coming in in the middle of the exchange; for the full dialogue, see here):
Freeman: And what of America's lack of introspection
about September 11? Instead of asking what might have caused the
attack, or questioning the propriety of the national response to it,
there is an ugly mood of chauvinism. Before Americans call on others to
examine themselves, we should examine ourselves. Satloff: I find
it difficult to accept that the people who were on the receiving end of
the September 11 attacks should begin by focusing on what they did to
deserve it. Freeman: My point is that cause and effect work both
ways. They exist in both directions, whatever the moral consequences
might be.
In this dialogue, Freeman also stated that "I accept that al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden almost certainly perpetrated the September 11 attacks," but never mind this off-putting hesitancy; what's particularly interesting is his desire to see an exploration of 9/11 cause and effect. Let's posit as true that al Qaeda acted against America out of specific grievances (I think it's also true that al Qaeda acted out of Muslim supremacist ideology, but let's put that aside as well). What was the principal political grievance of al Qaeda before 9/11? The stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia at the request of the Saudi government, in order to protect the kingdom from Saddam Hussein.
Most experts agree that this was the triggering event. There were many others, of course -- Bin Laden's generalized grievances against the Saudi royal family, and at number three or four, the Israel-Palestine crisis. But it was the joint American-Saudi decision to place American troops on holy Muslim soil that sent bin Laden around the bend. Freeman, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and a recipient, as head of the Middle East Policy Council, of funds from the Saudi royal family, should know that Saudi Arabia, the native land of most of the 9/11 hijackers, also provided the raison d'etre for al Qaeda, and our entangling alliance with Saudi Arabia made us a target of al Qaeda rage. Perhaps in his new job as the government's analyst-in-chief, he'll say that.
February 26, 2009
Jewish Leaders Overreact to Hillary's Demands
According to this report, Jewish leaders (which seems to mean mainly Mort Zuckerman) are upset with Hillary Clinton for demanding that Israel speed up the flow of aid to Gaza. Do I have to point out that this doesn't make her George Galloway? I understand Israel's hesitations here -- it has a kidnapped soldier, Gilad Shalit, in Gaza -- but a comprehensive easing of tensions might make Shalit's release more, and not less, likely. (This doesn't mean anything more than technical negotiations with Hamas, by the way). And I have not a single doubt that Hillary Clinton is working assiduously to free Shalit, and working assiduously to marginalize Hamas in other ways, in order to buttress the moderate government of Abu Mazen and Salam Fayyad on the West Bank.
So, chill until further notice, please.
Holocaust-Denying Bishop: "Sorry. To The Church, I Mean."
Richard Williamson has apparently apologized, but it's still not clear if he believes that the Holocaust actually happened:
In a statement published by the Zenit news agency on Thursday,
Bishop Williamson said: "I can truthfully say that I regret having made
such remarks, and that if I had known beforehand the full harm and hurt
to which they would give rise, especially to the Church, but also to survivors and relatives of victims of injustice under the Third Reich, I would not have made them."
He added: "To all souls that took honest scandal from what I said, before God I apologize."
His
statement did not address the content of his remarks, in which he had
said that no more than 300,000 people died in the Holocaust and none in
gas chambers. In recent weeks, he has said in interviews that he needs
more time to study documentation about the Holocaust.
What It's Really Like at The Atlantic
People often ask me, "Jeff, what is it like being at a magazine that has so many geniuses working in the same place at the same time? Is it unbelievably awesome?"
It's like this:
On the Analytical Abilities of Chas Freeman
When the great David Rothkopf comes to Chas Freeman's defense, I pay attention. Writing on his Foreign Policy blog, Rothkopf argues that Freeman, whose organization, the Middle East Policy Council, has taken Saudi money, and who has sometimes been rather aggressively critical of Israel, is precisely the sort of person who should be analyzing intelligence for the President:
The head of the NIC is, in some respect, the analyst-in-chief of the U.S. government. He or she must have a great mind, must reject cant, must have a nose for political agendas (and the willingness to filter them out... including first and foremost his own biases), and must be genuinely intellectually daring, willing to explore unpopular or unlikely ideas to consider their implications... Few people would be better for these tasks than Chas Freeman. Part of the reason he is so controversial is that he has zero fear of speaking what he perceives to be truth to power. You can't cow him and you can't find someone with a more relentlessly questioning worldview.
I take David's views very seriously, but in rereading one of Freeman's more vituperatively anti-Israel speeches last night, I became stuck on this line: "Demonstrably, Israel excels at war; sadly, it has shown no talent for peace."
Is this an example of Freeman's analytical abilities, or his polemical gifts? Let me grant that he might have been doing a bit of sucking up to his audience when he made this assertion, but even so, where's the analysis? I argue constantly that Israel shares the Palestinian talent for never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity, but really, has Israel never shown any talent for peace? Even Benny Morris and the new historians would argue that this is, at best, inconsistently the case. Israel, after all, ceded the entire Sinai peninsula to Egypt in exchange for peace; it made a durable peace with the Hashemites; it pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, only to be rewarded by Hezbollah rocket fire and ground attacks; it went to Camp David that same year and offered what President Clinton considered to be a credible set of concessions to the Palestinians, only to have Yasser Arafat reject them without making a counter-offer; and in 2005, one of Israel's great warriors, Ariel Sharon, unilaterally conceded the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority. Did he do that in the interest of furthering war with the Palestinians?
Quite often it's been the case that both sides in the conflict have shown no talent for making peace; an "analyst-in-chief" would acknowledge that complex truth. Chas Freeman doesn't.
The phrase "war on terror," a hallmark of President George W. Bush's White House, is rarely used in the Obama administration, but Panetta that "there's no question this is a war."
Roger Cohen's Very Happy Visit with Iran's Jews
Others have picked over Roger Cohen's recent column on Iran's Jews, so I won't try to make the obvious points. But one line struck me as particularly credulous:
Perhaps I have a bias toward facts over words, but I say the reality of Iranian civility toward Jews tells us more about Iran -- its sophistication and culture -- than all the inflammatory rhetoric. That may be because I'm a Jew and have seldom been treated with such consistent warmth as in Iran.
Warmth, civility, hospitality and friendliness are the hallmarks of most Muslim societies I've visited. I have been in many places -- in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Gaza, Iraq and Iran -- where people absolutely hate Israel, absolutely hate "International Jewry," and hate the Talmud, or what they think is in the Talmud. But people in these places have been almost uniformly kind to me as a visiting Jewish reporter (and they almost always know, right from the outset, that I'm Jewish, because it's not something I ever hide). The people with whom I visit -- and I count the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah in this group -- are raised by their families to be kind to guests. It's very lovely and civilized -- Israelis could learn a thing or two about politeness from Muslims -- but it's irrelevant to their politics, or to their beliefs about what should happen to the Jewish state and its supporters.
I was once with a mullah in Pakistan who told me that Allah would soon fulfill his promise and destroy the Jews, but who invited me to stay in his guest room rather than make a dangerous night drive back to my hotel. I took him up on his offer, and slept soundly. It wouldn't be fair of me to call this sort of hospitality superficial, because it grows from a real spirit of personal generosity, but I've learned the hard way that the personal isn't always the political.
February 25, 2009
Where in the World Does Dennis Ross Work?
Dennis Ross is the newly-appointed special adviser to the secretary of state for the Gulf and Southwest Asia. Which means he works in what countries? Who knows? Maybe the State Dept briefer can explain:
QUESTION:
Can you give us - well, what is the State Department's definition
geographically of Southwest Asia? What countries does that include?
MR. WOOD: Matt, I didn't --
QUESTION: No, you guys named an envoy for Southwest Asia. I presume that you know what countries that includes. MR.
WOOD: Yes. Of course, we know. I just - I don't have the list to run
off - you know, right off the top of my head here. But obviously,
that's going to encompass - that region encompasses Iran. It will - you
know, it'll deal with --
Because why
would you bringing the list of countries included in Dennis Ross's new
brief to the press conference about Dennis Ross's new brief?
QUESTION: Does it include Iraq?
MR. WOOD: Indeed, it does.... .
QUESTION: And so, does it include parts of the Middle East?
MR. WOOD: Yes.
QUESTION: It does? Does it include Syria, and it includes Israel and it includes Jordan?
MR. WOOD: Well, he'll be looking at the entire region that will include, you know -
QUESTION:
Where does that stop? I mean, you know, you have NEA which, you know,
runs all the way to Morocco. So does it include -
MR. WOOD: Well, he's going to be in touch with a number of officials who work on issues throughout this region.
On Reading the Hamas Charter Carefully
Paul Berman on the complexities of managing Hamas:
There is an obligation to live, which means that Israel has not just the right but the obligation to defend herself. Judging the proportionality of the Israeli actions runs into a complication, though - something of a logical bind.
It is now and then noted in the press that Hamas, in its charter, calls for the elimination of Israel - though, actually, the charter goes further yet, which is almost never noted. Article Seven of the charter, citing one of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, makes clear that Hamas acknowledges a religious duty to kill the Jews. It's all pretty explicit. Which Jews in particular must be killed, in order to bring about, as the charter puts it, the "Last Hour?" Article Seven merely stipulates "the Jews" - which leaves open the possibility, I would think, of killing all of the Jews, or at least (judging from other sections of the charter) the Jews who inhabit any place that is now or used to be Islamic. In any case, the Jews of Israel.
Diet Tips from Al Sharpton
So I was on the shuttle from New York this morning when who shows up next to me but Reverend Al (it's been a good week for shuttle-spotting: Placido Domingo! Dan Bartlett! Mark Leibovich! A guy who looked almost exactly like Joe Torre!). Sharpton, who I think was coming down to D.C. to yell at President Obama about something, was looking as thin and dapper as the last time I saw him two years ago.
"What's your diet secret?" I asked him. After all, stripping weight away is somewhat easy, compared to keeping it off. Sharpton put his arm around my shoulder and said, "I'll tell you the secret. You ready for the secret?" He lowered his voice. "Never, ever eat anything after 6 p.m. Never."
It's at least as good as any other advice I've ever heard.
February 24, 2009
Branding Israel, One Supermodel at a Time
Aluff Benn on an Israeli Foreign Ministry project (which included Israeli models posing in bikinis for Maxim magazine) to brand Israel as more Western, and less foreign:
Israelis tend to see their country as part of the
West, and compare it to the United States and Britain. The problem is
that the West is not too thrilled by the comparison and regards Israel
as an oddity, a country using excessive force in permanent conflict
with its neighbors. In Europe, and to a growing extent in the U.S., the
use of military power is seen as primitive, something that belongs to
the previous century, something that decent people don't do. When the
Europeans apply force in Afghanistan or Kosovo, they are not proud of
it like Israeli leaders who get excited about the bombing of Gaza. Israel's public-relations machine has tried for many years to
market Israel as a villa in the jungle, a Western frontier outpost
against extremist Islam. We are hit by rockets in Sderot and bomb Gaza
in order to save Paris and London. Israeli leaders complain that the
West is unconcerned by the danger posed by Islam, and instead of
dealing with it they criticize Israel for defending itself. But the
media and public opinion in the West ignore this message and insist
that Israel is at least as violent as its enemies.
Freeman, a polyglot foreign policy veteran -- he was Richard Nixon's
translator in China in 1972 -- is being backed by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, with whom he's close, for the job; Blair, I'm told, extended the offer. He's seen as ideal for the post, which is structured to offer an outside, skeptical view on U.S. intelligence, for his broad knowledge and experience in Africa, Europe, and Latin America as well as the Middle East, and for inclinations that cut against those of many others on Obama's foreign policy team. In
particular, he's been a critic of what he's described at Israel's lack of a talent for peace, and of the role of the "Israel Lobby" in the U.S.
Those stands have, not unpredictably, provoked a fierce behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to torpedo the appointment -- which, as Anthony Zinni learned, can't be seen as final until it's public -- from the pro-Israel side.
Nasrallah in Pajamas
This music video, which was popular in Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War, gives us the softer side of Nasrallah:
The capital, Beirut, is in better shape than it has been in more than three decades. It's like an Arabic version of the French Riviera once again. That's one side of the country. There is another. More than once since the Syrian military was evicted in 2005, the Paris of the Middle East became the Baghdad of the Levant.
It is going to happen again. No Lebanese people I know think history has tired of molesting their country. Predicting the timing of Lebanon's chronic outbursts of violence is impossible, but it's not hard to see that another conflict is coming sooner or later.
On Islam and Beheading
Slate has an interesting piece on beheadings, in light of that most unfortunate incident in Buffalo:
Muhammad's earliest biographer, Ibn-Ishaq, describes how the prophet approved the beheadings of between 600 and 900 men from the Jewish Quyraza tribe following the Battle of the Trench. Decapitation of a dead enemy on the battlefield was the "primary form of symbolic aggression among Ottoman soldiers," according to this history of the Ottoman Empire. However, Christian Crusaders were known to do likewise--Fulcher of Chartres chronicles how, in 1099, 10,000 Jews and Arabs were beheaded in the Temple of Solomon during the capture of Jerusalem.
Moyers is among the most sanctimonious individuals on television (quite a feat, given the competition). He presents himself as a champion of good government, an intrepid voice for integrity and honesty, ever on the lookout for people who would degrade our public discourse or act in a dishonorable manner. That's why this revelation -- Moyers seeking information on the sexual preferences of White House staff members -- is particularly notable. And I suspect his excuse, that his "memory is unclear after so many years," probably wouldn't persuade Moyers himself, if the person in question were, say, a conservative.
These haven't been such great weeks for Moyers, who was last heard suggesting that Jews are genetically-encoded for violence.
Holocaust Art and the Statute of Limitations
Since Sir Norman Rosenthal, a British curator and son of German Jews, called for a statute of limitations on Holocaust art claims -- insisting "history is history and that you can't turn the clock back, or make things good again through art" -- there's been an ongoing (and often high-decibel) conversation in the art world about issue. The Guardian's art critic, Jonathan Jones, wrote last month that "nothing in today's art world is more absurd and insidiously destructive" then returning stolen art to the heirs of Holocaust victims. "At best," he explained, "restitution so long after the crime is meaningless."
Obviously, not everyone agrees. Responding to Rosenthal's article and addressing the larger debate, Robin Cembalest clearly explains the stakes:
In ostensibly placing the integrity of public collections above all other considerations, these critics are ignoring a host of inconvenient truths about art stolen during the Holocaust. Beyond the fact that the looting of cultural assets was part of the larger Nazi policy of exterminating an entire people, and beyond the issue of whether it is just to pretend that museums legitimately represent the public good when they illegitimately claim to be the owners of the objects they exhibit, the fact remains that restitution research is very much a work in process.
Saudi Advocate to Run the National Intelligence Council?
Laura Rozen gets the scoop that Chas Freeman, the president of the Saudi-funded Middle East Policy Council, is in line to become chairman of President Obama's National Intelligence Council. Freeman is well-known for his hostility toward Israel, but what's more substantively troubling about this report is the obvious inappropriateness of hiring a well-known advocate for the interests of Middle Eastern autocracies to produce national intelligence estimates for the Obama Administration. It would be inappropriate to appoint an official of AIPAC to run the National Intelligence Council (though it must be said that AIPAC doesn't receive any funding from the Israeli government) and it seems inappropriate to give the job to a Saudi sympathizer as well.
February 22, 2009
On Jews and The American Conservative Magazine
David Schraub has a nuanced view of Glenn Greenwald's decision to write for The American Conservative:
I cannot think of a conversation that has this extreme a ratio of heat
to light. I think most American Jews have a definitively negative view
of The American Conservative, because Buchanan-style
conservatism has always been extremely unpopular with American Jews and
most Jews do consider him to be flatly anti-Semitic. Greenwald's
writing in that magazine was, at the very least, probably a tactical
mistake regardless of the content, if the goal is to persuade the
Jewish community writ large that the dovish positions that Greenwald
holds are a safe location for them. But I don't think he himself is
anti-Semitic or that there are any grounds to imply otherwise.
February 20, 2009
Glenn Greenwald is Hysterical
Not funny-hysterical, just hysterical. I think he feels badly about writing for The American Conservative, maybe because he knows that writing for a magazine founded by Pat Buchanan and animated by Buchanan's hostility to Jews and to Israel is a self-marginalizing act for any Jewish person trying to convince other Jews to leave Team AIPAC and support J Street. I don't read Greenwald very much -- only when Andrew links to him -- but his characterization of my politics means that he's either dishonest or ignorant. If he hasn't read what I've written about, say, the settlements, or about AIPAC, then he's not qualified to comment on my politics. If he has read these articles, then he knows that I'm not a revanchist Zionist, but falsely accuses me of being one anyway. What a putz.
"but I just want everyone to know that Khaled Meshaal is coming to my daughter's Bat Mitzvah."
ur kidding, right? (i hope...)
Yes, I was kidding. Meshaal can't make it. But we're giving Hassan Nasrallah an aliya. It's the least we could do for him, since he's coming all the way from his bunker.
"Our way of life is over," Hedges began in a monotone. "Our profligate consumption is finished. Our empire is imploding. Our children will never have the standard of living we had, and poverty and despair will sweep across the landscape like a plague. This is the bleak future. There is nothing President Obama can do to stop it. It has been decades in the making. It cannot be undone with a trillion or two trillion dollars in bailout money. Our empire is dying. Our economy has collapsed."
Durban II To Adjudicate the Holocaust?
I always believed that one-third of the world's Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Apparently, though, this is still an open question to the planners of the Durban II anti-racism conference:
As for what this Review Conference is supposed to achieve, some
clues are provided in the latest draft of the so-called Outcome
Document. Israel's "racial policies" are a major theme, as is "the
plight of Palestinian refugees and other inhabitants of the Arab
occupied territories," meaning Israel itself. Under debate, however, is
whether to include a line that the Holocaust "resulted in the murder of
one third of the Jewish people." Presumably Iran objects.
How much better do we behave when someone is watching? Our
morals, like our clothes, seem designed for display.
In The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton writes of one
of her characters: "It would have been impossible for Mrs. Peniston to be
heroic on a desert island." Knowing others are looking spurs us to
goodness, as the motorist who spots a camera at the corner brakes at the
yellow light. Technology might help here: Perhaps a camera in every
cellphone will lead to a viral outbreak of ethical behavior?
In the Mishna, Hillel declares, "In a place where
there are no men, strive to be a man." This is usually taken to mean that
when other people are acting in an indifferent or cowardly fashion, one
should stand up and be a mature, courageous human being. But it could also
mean that one should act as a mensch -- a decent person -- when there
are no others around, in a place where there literally are no men. God may
be always watching but many of us care less for God's good opinion than
for that of our neighbors. So we may have to fall back on the old standby
-- strength of character, the kind of rock solid soul that would lead one
to be heroic, even alone, on a desert island.
Full-Body Pat-Downs Vs. Body Scanning, Cont'd
A reader writes:
So let me get this straight...you object to TSA's Full-Body scanning because you claim they will see you naked. You suggest that people demand to be patted down, but then you claim that technique is flawed. So if TSA conducted real pat downs that Law Enforcement is accustomed to would you then suggest that flyers demand to use the Full-Body scanner because they are less invasive than pat downs? I'm just asking...
The answer is yes. If blue-shirted TSA agents began poking around my lower-half with real enthusiasm, I would demand the full-body scan. Or I would seek out this better alternative.
"You Have a Nice Body, Miss"
From reader Natalia Yegorova:
I read with interest your missive on TSA full-body scans, and wanted to share an experience I had flying from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Portland, Oregon a month or so ago. After going through the security check, the Canadian version of the TSA decided to subject me to a pat down. A female officer of East Indian descent was doing a pat down, and as she was feeling me up, she commented, "You have a nice body, miss." I did not know whether I should be appalled by the un-PC nature of her comment, discount it as a lack of cultural training, or be flattered. Anyway, my point is that a pat down may not be as invasive as TSA seeing you naked, but there is definitely a human factor associated with it which can make it for even a less comfortable and more intimate experience that leaves you feeling pretty unsettled.
February 19, 2009
The Very Spiritual David Gregory Has a New Blog
My Torah study partner David Gregory has a new blog, in which he gets very spiritual, though not as spiritual as he can get in person, which is very, very spiritual. He's actually helped me quite a bit, in part by giving me language to help me relate to the deepest currents of Jewish spirituality. Also, he puts me on his show once in a while, which is helpful. But not deeply. The challenge in Washington -- the challenge anywhere, really -- is to remember, in the rush of each frenetic day, what actually counts, what actually makes a person a mensch. David is very good at remembering, and reminding me to remember. Here he is on the importance of knowing what it means to be alive:
When we chose life - a meaningful, purpose-filled life, we unlock our potential to help others and to help ourselves slow down enough to say "Aha!" this is what it means to be alive. I have that feeling when I put my kids to bed and they ask me to say the Shema (a core prayer in Judaism). That moment draws us closer and they find comfort in the words just as they drift off to sleep. As a father, at that moment my heart is totally open to them. In the presence of their innocence, I have made space for the spiritual.
A Stimulus Plan for Middle East Peace?
It's time for a multi-billion dollar stimulus plan for peace, Lenore G. Martin writes on the new and improved Israel Policy Forum website:
By
all accounts, Israeli settlements block the implementation of a
two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. The stimulus
package should consist of a multi-billion dollar international fund
with a first priority of reversing the growth of Israeli settlements
and financing the resettlement of Israelis from the West Bank
essentially within the 1967 borders. The next application of the fund
will be to house Palestinians in the vacant Israeli settlements. The
ultimate goal of the stimulus package will be the creation of an
economically viable Palestinian state.
If only the
settlements were the sole impediment to peace, as Martin states, then
this might work. But we would still have that little matter of the
Palestinian civil war to worry about. And one other thing -- I've never
been sure why we should pay for the removal of settlers. As Dov
Zakheim, the former Defense Department official, Orthodox Jew, and
non-neo-con conservative, famously said when asked whether the U.S.
should help pay for the relocation of the settlers: "We should pay for their mishegoss?"
Peres: No More Unilateral Disengagements
Israeli President Shimon Peres issues a mea culpa on the disengagement from Gaza:
"What will happen in the future, we shall not repeat the wrongs we did in leaving Gaza," Peres said in a question and answer session with a group of American Jewish leaders. "It should have been done otherwise. I was for leaving Gaza. I feel myself as one of the persons mistaken."
The skeptics say the current state of affairs is identical to the situation that existed before the war: Hamas firing rockets and Israel reacting with extreme restraint. So, they say, everything is back to square one. Defense Minister Ehud Barak says nothing could be further from the truth.
It might have been a military victory -- if the goal was to convince Hamas that it is not Hezbollah, then this goal has been achieved -- but Israelis never seem overly cognizant of the way their actions are interpreted abroad. Some of these interpretations, of course, are rooted in anti-Semitism, and there's nothing much you can do about them. Some of these interpretations, however, are not anti-Semitic, and should be reckoned with. As time goes by, I wonder how much it would have hurt for Israel to first have gone to the UN Security Council to make its complaint against Hamas. It would have lost, obviously -- this is the UN we're talking about -- but it was a box Israel could have at least checked.
February 18, 2009
Nizar Rayyan: Courtly, Humorous, and a Little Bit Evil
James Bennet writes of his encounters with Rayyan, one of my all-time favorite Hamas theologians and advocates of murder-suicide: "Rayyan said that he missed the son who had died attacking the settlement (he was 16), but that he planned to push another son to conduct an attack of his own. 'It's our home,' he said. 'It's more dear to me than my kids.' He was then looking to add a fourth wife--'I love women,' he told me with a smile--with a goal of eventually having 50 children."
James brought his lovely, and pregnant, wife with him to Gaza, and the following hilarity ensued:
When I mentioned that my wife had come with me to Gaza, where I was reporting for The New York Times, he insisted I call her down from our room. She was then almost eight months pregnant with our first child. To demonstrate how cosmopolitan he was, he made a point of shaking her hand, though in theory, Islam prohibits a man from touching a woman to whom he isn't related.
It's not that I'm competitive with James, but I just want everyone to know that Khaled Meshaal is coming to my daughter's Bat Mitzvah.
Just Say No to TSA Full-Body Scanning
The TSA now wants to see you naked. There's a way out of this -- demand a pat-down. It's less creepy, and less invasive. Far less invasive, in fact, because TSA officers have no idea how to conduct actual pat-downs. The frisking they do now is entirely symbolic. As I've pointed out in the past, frisking is only useful if it's invasive, which is to say, clever terrorists -- and we know that the TSA, at least under the rule of Kip Hawley, wasn't actually hunting for clever terrorists -- hide weapons in their anuses (just as prisoners do), and behind the scrotum. Small items, such as razor blades, can be hidden in the mouth, or between toes. Female terrorists have even more options. I'm not, by the way, encouraging terrorists to hide knives in their nether regions. I'm just pointing out that, as ever, TSA has left a giant loophole open for anyone clever enough to find it.
February 17, 2009
The Futures Market, M.E. Division
Ian Bremmer, guru of the political futures market, takes a gamble on what the future of Israel will look like. Not so good, in short:
Once Hezbollah can hit Tel Aviv with a rocket equipped with a relatively sophisticated guidance system from anywhere inside Lebanon, life will be much tougher for Israelis. ... [A]s Tel Aviv becomes directly vulnerable, Israel's extremely mobile and globalized population -- and its strong activist diaspora -- will become a weakness, because they will be the most vulnerable to attack and the first to leave. ... At that point, there's a risk of a sharp shift to the right in Israeli politics, much sharper and further to the right than the one we've seen in recent months. Under this circumstance, we'd likely see the most democratic government in the region in much more direct conflict with Israeli Arabs. We'd also see a spike in violence in Gaza, the West Bank, and within Israel's borders.
Least Surprising News of the Day
Israel might be assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, according to one report:
[Israel] is using hitmen, sabotage, front companies and double agents to disrupt the regime's illicit weapons project, the experts say.
The most dramatic element of the "decapitation" programme is the planned assassination of top figures involved in Iran's atomic operations.
Okay, So Yogurt Might Be a TSA-Banned Gel
Astute reader Thomas Riehle points out that yogurt, technically, speaking, is a gelatinous substance, so it would be, in larger quantities, a banned substance, though he agrees with me that it is "idiotic" for the federal government to confiscate yogurt from air travelers.
February 16, 2009
Where the Left and Right Always Seem to Agree
Joseph Epstein's excellent essay in The Wall Street Journal about I.J. Singer's The Brothers Ashkenazi (them that is in the know -- and that includes most of us Forward veterans -- know that I.J. was a better writer than his brother I.B.)contains
this penetrating observation: "Politics taught I.J. the bitter lesson
that, however much the extreme
left and the extreme right might disagree, the one common ground upon
which they met comfortably was anti-Semitism." This is an evergreen
phenomenon, unfortunately. We see the brown-red coalition aligned
against Israel in Europe, of course, and, in less dramatic, but still
disturbing fashion, we The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan's
paleo-con magazine, featuring the writings of doctrinaire leftists on
Buchanan's least-favorite country, the one he recently compared to Nazi Germany. The Buchananites have even recruited Jews to do their Israel-bashing for them. This particular development falls in the category of shocking yet not exactly surprising.
The TSA's War on Yogurt
I was on line to show my ID (not actually necessary to get on a plane, by the way) at Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport the other day when the woman in front of me pulled out a small container of strawberry yogurt and asked the blue-shirted TSA representative (I miss those maroon sweater-vests), "Can I bring this on the plane?" The TSA agent inspected the yogurt container carefully, and then reported the sad news: "You can't. It's a gel."
A gel? Yogurt is yogurt. People don't eat gels. The woman didn't fight, however. She handed over the contraband yogurt, and the TSA scored another victory against reason.
Did the Right Actually Win the Israeli Election?
I thought it did, but Bradley Burston points out that Avigdor Lieberman embraces many of the positions favored by the Tel Aviv left, though he does it without the feel-good rhetoric:
Lieberman, the hands-down success story of the election, has repeatedly outraged the far-right by suggesting in the past that some heavily Arab-populated East Jerusalem neighborhoods and refugee camps be ceded to an eventual independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. He has consistently alienated the ultra-Orthodox - an essential building block of any right-wing dream coalition - by demanding civil-marriage and modified Jewish conversion legislation favored by Lieberman's ultra-secular constituency.
February 13, 2009
Milbank Eviscerates Plouffe, Film at Eleven
One of my favorite writers (and I don't even know him!), Dana Milbank, both eviscerates and defenestrates -- which isn't easy -- the cash-hungry, press-fearing David Plouffe for closing his speech -- at the National Press Club -- to the press:
This sort of mess has become a trademark of the former Obama campaign manager. Plouffe still keeps his Obama ties -- over the weekend he sent out an e-mail in his name to millions from barackobama.com titled "Urgent message from President Obama" -- yet he is also profiting from them. He is reported to have received as much as $2 million for his forthcoming book, "The Audacity to Win," and he can't give his material away in public speeches.
One of the world's great reporters, Mark Bowden, who, like many of the world's great reporters, works at The Atlantic, has a fascinating piece about the F-22 in our latest issue, which should be read on paper, ideally:
American air superiority has been so complete for so long that we take it for granted. For more than half a century, we've made only rare use of the aerial-combat skills of a man like Cesar Rodriguez, who retired two years ago with more air-to-air kills than any other active-duty fighter pilot. But our technological edge is eroding--Russia, China, India, North Korea, and Pakistan all now fly fighter jets with capabilities equal or superior to those of the F-15, the backbone of American air power since the Carter era. Now we have a choice. We can stock the Air Force with the expensive, cutting-edge F‑22--maintaining our technological superiority at great expense to our Treasury. Or we can go back to a time when the cost of air supremacy was paid in the blood of men like Rodriguez.
Fat Soldiers = Victory in Iraq?
USA Today reports that obesity among American soldiers has doubled since the start of the Iraq War, and argues that the weight gain represents "yet another example of stress and strains of continuing combat deployments." But maybe it also means that American soldiers have run out of insurgents to chase and now having nothing else to do but watch old Lethal Weapon movies and eat potato chips. Just a thought.
February 10, 2009
A Stunning Israeli Election
As I noted, I'm pretty far from Israel (geographically, that is), but my cell phone works in the western desert, and I've been talking to friends in Tel Aviv. A number of quick observations:
1. The stunner, for me at least: The Labor Party is dead. More than that, the peace camp is dead, or comatose, at least. According to exit poll numbers I heard, Haifa and Tel Aviv went for Livni (who is no leftist, except in comparison to Netanyahu and Lieberman); the south went for the hard right. The rockets voted, in other words.
2. Washington should prepare itself for the possibility of Avigdor Lieberman as Israel's foreign minister. This is almost-pure speculation on my part, but seems not unlikely. Netanyahu, assuming he can form a government, won't give the defense portfolio to Lieberman's party -- which leaves the foreign ministry. This isn't as bad as it sounds, since Israel doesn't have a foreign policy, just a defense policy. It's also not as bad as it sounds because Lieberman is preoccupied with Israel's Arab citizens, and not the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank. In fact, he seeks territorial compromise in order to rid Israel of responsiblity for these Arabs. The man does not like Arabs, in case you haven't heard. His rise brings up an obvious question for Democrats: Which Lieberman do they like less?
3. The Arab world doesn't have enough democracy; Israel has too much. Israel's is an insane system, which gives every lunatic fringe party disproportionate say in the running of the country, and therefore encourages radicalism. Lieberman is incorrigible, but if he had to exist within the framework of a center-right party, he'd be marginally less offensive.
4. Did I mention that the Labor Party, which built the Jewish state, is dead? Its only hope for relevancy is a merger with Kadima. This would have the added benefit of being good for Israel, and for people who desire negotiations with the Palestinians. Which is why it probably won't happen.
Time Magazine's Middle East Coverage
I don't understand Time Magazine's coverage of the Middle East anymore: Its reporters issue stunning, simple-minded pronouncements about the peace process, but don't seem to know who served as Israel's prime minister during the Six-Day War.
Exit Polls: Livni in the Lead
Ha'aretz: exit polling shows Livni's Kadima beating out Netanyahu's Likud by a few seats.
Despite the poll results, it is not certain that Livni will be able to muster the 61-seat coalition needed to form a government. The elections were called when she failed to achieve this goal following the resignation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert late last year.
If the exit polls are correct, the right-wing bloc, led by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, will comprise 63-64 seats, while the center-left bloc, headed by Livni, will take 56-57 seats. This means that a win in the polls does not necessarily mean that the next government will have a center-left bent.
Posted by Joshua Miller
The Israeli Elections
Well, it's not the best choice in Israeli history, is it? I don't have all that much to add right now, in part because I'm 7,416 miles away from Tel Aviv, in a very different sort of desert, with only limited access to the interwebs. I think it's clear that Lieberman is simply the German word for Le Pen, and that Livni is Hebrew for "ineffectual." I'm still assuming that Netanyahu squeaks this one out, and, God willing, forms a coalition with Kadima and Labor, and not our cut-rate Putin (although it would be uncharitable for me not to note that Lieberman doesn't have the messianic attachment to the West Bank that some of his fellow settlers in Nokdim have, which has to count for something.). As for Netanyahu, I've never felt the hostility to him that my fellows travelers on the Zionist left feel for him, in part because I remind myself constantly that it's the hard-ass right-wingers who will deliver peace. Barak couldn't do it, though he obviously is capable of delivering war.
February 9, 2009
The Danger of Too Much Exercise
It can make you anti-Semitic. Especially if you work for the Foreign Office:
A high-ranking diplomat at the Foreign Office has been arrested after allegations that he launched a foul-mouthed anti-Semitic tirade. Middle East expert Rowan Laxton, 47, was watching TV reports of the Israeli attack on Gaza as he used an exercise bike in a gym.
Stunned staff and gym members allegedly heard him shout: 'Fucking Israelis, fucking Jews'. It is alleged he also said Israeli soldiers should be 'wiped off the face of the earth.'
His rant reportedly continued even after he was approached by other gym users.
The Royal Court Theatre's Blood Libel
The playwright Caryl Churchill's new anti-Jewish agitprop play, "Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza," has opened in London. The details are over at Harry's Place. Suffice it to say two things: One, this isn't surprising, given the peculiar attitude of some of the English to the Jews. Two: Just because it's not surprising doesn't mean it's not shocking. The mainstreaming of the worst anti-Jewish stereotypes -- for instance, that Jews glory in the shedding of non-Jewish blood -- is upon us.
Danish Schools Might Ban Jewish Children
I missed this horrible story when it appeared last month. Denmark used to be known for the moral courage of its people. Maybe not so much today:
Headmaster Olav Nielsen of Humlehave School in Odense
publicly admitted he would refuse Jewish parents' wish to place their
child at his school.
The comments were made following an
incident last week in which two Israeli citizen's were shot and wounded
at a city shopping centre. Police believe the incident was a reaction
to the Gaza conflict.
Other headmasters have now come forth to support Nielsen's position, adding that they are putting the child's safety first.
The (Avigdor) Lieberman Phenomenon
According to JPost's set of recent polls, Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party is set to take as many as 20 seats in the Knesset: Says Imshin:
Did I say wasn't going to vote
for him? Faced with the escalation of the horror warnings in recent
days, as Lieberman gains in the polls, I'm finding it harder and harder
to resist. And why is he gaining in the polls? Not because he offers
simple solutions for simpletons, no, that's actually what left-wing
Meretz is doing, but because he is the only voice saying what a lot of
people are thinking. Trying to forcibly stifle this
voice is not being received very well by the general public,
apparently! It's having the opposite effect, showing exactly how we
feel about our esteemed media.
February 8, 2009
Old Jews Telling Jokes
We Jews are sure as shit funny. You've got to give us that:
February 6, 2009
Michael Gerson, True Christian
Even though, by my capacious standards, he's Jewish. But that's another story. Here he is on the scandal of the Holocaust-denying bishop:
It is very difficult to understand how those who worship a man on a cross could help to drive the bloody nails themselves. But the record is clear: When religion is infected by racism, ideology or extreme nationalism, it can become a carrier of hatred instead of conscience. And when churches are concerned mainly with their institutional self-preservation, they often end up neck-deep in compromise or paralyzed by cowardice.
On Blacks and Jews Shooting Back
Ta-Nehisi talks about that great Shel Silverstein story Lafcadio, about the lion who fought back, in a fascinating post about the romance of self-defense:
I loved that story when I was kid. Like I later loved the stories
of Menelik II at Adowa, or Nat Turner or Robert Charles. These were
Negroes Who Shot Back, or in the words of Robert Williams, Negroes With Guns. Like, I later still loved--in very perverse fashion--the story of Joseph Trumpeldor and that great quote--"No matter, It is good to die for our country." Trumpeldor is the Jew Who Shot Back.
Ta-Nehisi writes that he loved Trumpeldor "in very perverse fashion" only because he's distancing himself from a core truth of his being, which is that he's actually Jewish. I, too, loved the Trumpeldor story -- the one-armed Russian army veteran who made a valiant last stand at the Alamo Tel Hai in the Upper Galilee, though the chance that his last words were "it is good to die for our country," or "one's country," or whatever, is pretty slim. Once, in basic training, we we were brought to Tel Hai for a fortifying lesson in heroism, which was completely undermined by my lieutenant, who was one of the few authentically funny Israelis I ever met -- American Jews, funny, Israeli Jews, not so much -- who said: "You know what Trumpeldor's last words were? `My legs! Where the fuck are my legs? Fuck!" This doesn't mean, the lieutenant explained, that Trumpeldor wasn't the most bad-ass Jew in the valley, because he was. I think his point was that it's a good thing not to get shot.
February 5, 2009
When Advice Columnists Attack
I'm new to the advice column racket, but it already seems like a tough crowd. And I thought they played rough in the Middle East.
This Man is a Saint
The Palestinian doctor and father of eight who lost three daughters to IDF fire during last month's Gaza invasion says in an interview that he plans to move forward, despite his pain.
"I have two options - the path of darkness or the
path of light. The path of darkness is like choosing all the
complications with diseases and depression, but the path of light is to
focus on the future and my children. This strengthened my conviction to
continue on the same path and not to give up."
Iraq's polity is still fragile. Parliamentary elections later this year
will be another test of whether the horrific inter-Islamic violence of
recent years is over. The country is still far from united and its
infrastructure still needs massive investment. But there are now real
grounds to hope that Iraqis are finally on track to creating a far more
decent society than they have ever had. This would never have been
possible without the US-led overthrow of the psychotic Saddam family.
February 2, 2009
Hezbollah vs. the Palestinian Authority
Nasrallah's strategy, as understood by a pro-Cedar Revolution Lebanese website:
Together, Iran's and Hezbollah's priority is now to seize control of
the Palestinian cause while marginalizing the Palestinian Authority and
its regional backers. ... What we are seeing today is a disturbing trend. Iran is trying to lead
a new alignment of Arab states that welcomes a new and more aggressive
strategy of confrontation with Israel.
February 1, 2009
Was the Venezuela Synagogue Attack a New Kristallnacht?
I don't think so. But Abe Foxman does. The national director of the Anti-Defamation League had this to say about the defiling of a Caracas synaogue, in which Torahs were desecrated but no one was hurt:
Just days after the international community commemorated the Holocaust in ceremonies of remembrance throughout the world, a synagogue in Caracas was the scene of a modern day Kristallnacht. For five hours, violent anti-Semites profaned and vandalized the most sacred space and objects of Jewish life, leaving behind graffiti that said "Get out," "Death to All," and "Damn Israel, Death." This violent attack occurring on the Jewish Sabbath is reminiscent of the darkest days leading to the Shoah, when Jews were attacked and synagogues and Torahs vandalized and destroyed under the guard of the Nazi regime.
I respect Abe Foxman, but this is a bit much. Jews tend not to like it when people such as Pat Buchanan compare Israel to the Nazis, or when Europeans call Gaza a concentration camp. Israel isn't Germany, and Gaza isn't a concentration camp. And what happened in Venezuela the other day wasn't Kristallnacht. It doesn't take anything away from the horror of the event to say that. Let's save the Nazi analogies for the really big things, no?
