'Partners for Progressive Israel' Blog

For the Rights of Women vs. Islamists

noreply@blogger.com (Lilly Rivlin) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 03:52:00 +0000

The writer Meredith Tax wrote an Open Letter and petition to Human Rights Watch. The letter is fantastic; she points out that Human Rights Watch supports the Islamists coming to power but never mentions the burden this places on women.

I read the letter and signed the petition. I am relieved that Meredith is telling it like it is and not being politically correct. For the full text of her letter, here is the link: http://www.centreforsecularspace.org/?q=news/open-letter-kenneth-roth-human-rights-watch. And the link to the petition is: http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/tohrw

--Lilly Rivlin

Dialogue on Hamas-Fatah unity

noreply@blogger.com (Ralph Seliger) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 06:15:00 +0000

Paul Scham, who teaches Israel Studies at the University of Maryland, originally meant some version of this as a comment on my initial post on Fatah-Hamas unity, but he felt a need to modify it as a result of Haniyah's declaration a few days ago that Hamas will never accept Israel. But this did not change Paul's fundamental view. I don't necessarily disagree with Paul; I think it's possible that Hamas can take a back seat to Fatah negotiating peace and then accept it by default. Yet I'm not optimistic. I will provide a fuller response beneath Paul's comment.

From Paul Scham: It's 'Good for the Jews'

I think it ought to be recognized that Hamas-Fatah unity is "good for the Jews" -- and Israel. Thus, Israel advances its own interest in a viable two-state solution by accepting that. (Obviously I am arguing in the abstract. Even Kadima and Labor, let alone the current government, are a long way from accepting that premise).

The primary reason for this is pragmatic. It is a fact that has been true for years that Hamas represents between 25-35% of Palestinians. Even if Fatah were to try to make peace on its own, Israel can't accept that because a huge chunk of the Palestinian people and leadership wouldn't have bought in. I doubt Fatah would try to sign a treaty in the face of Hamas's opposition; if it did there is little reason to believe it could be enforced.

However, Hamas will not, I believe, under any currently imaginable circumstances, "recognize" Israel. Its ideology will not stretch that far. However, I believe it might well accept such a peace, and perhaps even be part of a government that makes such a treaty.

Why should Hamas be expected to recognize Israel? Hamas is many things - a party, and a terrorist group among others - but one thing it is not, and has never claimed to be, is a government. If Hamas is a part of a government that wishes to make peace, then that government will have to deal with Israel on a government to government basis. Only governments recognize other governments.

I have spelled out the reasons Hamas may agree to be part of a government that makes peace with Israel while still refusing to recognize Israel itself in a much longer piece that the US Institute of Peace published in 2009 and which is available online for download, and again in an article published at the end of January, in The National Interest.

That would be a stronger peace than waiting around for Hamas to do something it will never do. Hamas has given numerous signals it would accept a two-state solution, based on the 1967 borders. Of course it has also indicated the opposite. It should be challenged to make peace with Israel in a fair two-state context simply because Hamas has to be part of any enduring solution, and a two-state resolution of the conflict is in Israel's interest.

It is not our business how Hamas makes it internal decisions. What is important is that a duly constituted Palestinian government, which is able to maintain itself (i.e., with the tacit acceptance or participation of Hamas) makes a binding peace with Israel. Pursuing an empty "recognition" will simply mean maintaining the current stalemate.

Encouraging Palestinian unity and being willing to deal with Hamas are not favors but moves that are in Israel's interest. Nor am I ignoring that Hamas is opposed to Israel's existence. At the moment we see unusual dissension in Hamas's ranks with its outside leadership leaving Damascus, possibly to end up in Qatar. There is tension in its relationship with Iran, which it is trying to repair, but they differ strongly over Syria. Meanwhile, Hamas's elder brother, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, almost certainly being the senior party in a government which will have to maintain the peace with Israel. Thus, it will be more difficult for Hamas to carry out a program of violence.

Israel (and the US) should be taking advantage of this time of changes by actively trying to help maneuver Hamas into a position in which it is close to moderate states like Egypt (assuming it reconstitutes itself), Jordan, and Qatar. It should likewise be encouraging Palestinian unity, because that is a prerequisite to any enduring and mutually beneficial relationship with the Palestinians.

My response: Explain it to the Jews (and don't discount or berate their skepticism)

It is hard to envision peace between Israel and the Palestinians without the eventual acquiescence of the 20 to 45% of the Palestinian population which variously supports Hamas. But the more moderate leadership of the Palestinian Authority needs to make every effort to explain to the understandably skeptical majority of Israeli Jews (and the Israeli government in particular) how unity would be a step toward a peaceful resolution of the conflict and not the beginning of a broader coalition of anti-Israel forces. Otherwise, this simply adds to the basis for distrust.

Commentary on 'Bedouin Removal' Policy

noreply@blogger.com ("Partners" Blogmaster) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:43:00 +0000

Our friend in Montreal, Stephen Scheinberg, an emeritus professor of history and a leading activist of Canadian Friends of Peace Now, brings our attention to a piece on the Bedouin, posted at "+972," an online magazine, based in Israel and Palestine:

Remains of an unrecognized Negev Bedouin village

Some of you know that my dedication to a better Israel is not merely concentrated on peace with the Palestinians. A few years ago, on a visit to Israel, I was struck by Israel's blindness towards her indigenous people, the Bedouins. The article below serves as an update on the policy of Bedouin Removal and leaves me in pain.Where are the voices of liberal Jews in Canada, U.S. and elsewhere, to protest this massive violation of human rights? What do those who defend Israel as "the only democracy in the Middle East," have to say? As an American historian, it reminds me of the Cherokee Removal and other infamous acts. Can this be the 21st century?--Steve

Author of this "+972" article: Mya Guarnieri

Where is the ‘inevitable’ Bedouin Intifada...?

In 2004, Israeli officials were up in arms about an impending Bedouin Intifada. But the Bedouin didn’t rebel and now, despite plans to expel tens of thousands of them from their homes in the West Bank and the Negev, things remain relatively quiet. Why?

This is how Mya Guarnieri answers the above question in her concluding paragraph:

With Palestine’s Bedouin divided between Israel and the surrounding countries; split between those who serve in the Israeli army and those who don’t; struggling to survive; lacking leadership and a cohesive national strategy – an organized and sustainable uprising is unlikely. The international community, then, has a responsibility to stop the home demolitions and forced transfers that Palestinians and Bedouin face in the West Bank and inside Israel.

Discussing Ari Shavit's 'New Peace'

noreply@blogger.com (Lilly Rivlin) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:03:00 +0000

This is a new position that has been in the making for a few years. Ari Shavit articulates it in Ha'aretz in "The New Peace": that a full, formal peace has not worked out (primarily in Shavit's view because the Palestinians have rejected it) and that a non-violent form of coexistence must be regarded as the "new peace." I've invited a number of friends and colleagues to respond.-- Lilly

Their comments are included below:
1. Writer and veteran Americans for Peace Now activist Letty Cottin Pogrebin:

But what does the new peace look like and how would it be achieved and would both sides participate with equal commitment and what happens to the Islamic forces in the meantime and how many new "facts on the ground" will be established in the settlements in the meantime? The article ends just before the hard part.

2. Lesley Hazelton, a liberal British-American Jewish writer, who has lived in Israel:

Part of the problem is the idealistic way we use the word peace -- images of skies full of doves and balloons, former enemies hugging each other in tears, calling each other brother and sister etc. In other words, we tend to have an all-or-nothing image of peace. A Hallmark-card image. Maybe we can start with people not killing each other, even if they don't like not killing each other. Maybe we can start with no-war. After all, the Egypt-Israel peace treaty has held, despite everything, for over thirty years, and there's certainly no love lost on either side (it even survived being inaugurated with the full Hallmark-card treatment, Nobels and all). I think of England and Germany. Or Japan and the US. Perhaps peace is the uncomfortable accommodation nations make with each other in order to get on with the business of pursuing their own self-interest. -- L.

3. Sherry Alpern, a Brooklyn-based peace activist who has been a lay leader of J Street:

I don't like Shavit, for the most part. And I don't like this column, though I agree it may be important to consider.

He seems to lay the entire blame for the ailing, left-for-dead, peace process at the feet of the Palestinians. Viewing things from here, I don't agree. Do you?

I am also unclear about what he actually proposes. If it's a gradual, partial peace -- what exactly does that entail? -- that he's suggesting the parties settle for, I frankly doubt that the current Israeli government would go even that far. Even a partial peace is unlikely if 'Security Security Security' is all the Bibi government cares about -- that plus cementing his ultra conservative base and getting re-elected (a little like the USA on that score.)

4. Ralph Seliger (of this blog):

Did you see a definition of this "new peace"? I didn't.

What I read was a tendentious argument that the Palestinians have always shown bad faith. On the same page, there's a link to a Haaretz editorial entitled "By Avoiding peace, Netanyahu is punishing Israel." The lack of peace is not totally the bad faith of one side or the other; it's because there's not enough good faith effort by both sides.

5. From Jonah Shepp, a young American Jew I know who lives and works in Jordan:

I won't bother to take the obvious bait about how he lays all the blame for the failure of the peace process on the Palestinians; I don't need to repeat myself about how irrelevant, disingenuous and tiresome this argument is. What bothers me most about this piece is that Shavit is engaging in rhetorical sleight of hand: his "new peace" really means an endless war in which Israel never wins outright but always has its fundamental interests protected at the expense of the Palestinians and the stability of the region. It is exactly the same thing as the "economic peace" Netanyahu likes to talk about, and it is nonsense.

How anyone can seriously advocate a permanent state of cold war between Israel and the Arab countries as a positive good is beyond me. For one thing, such a situation would compel both Israel and its neighbors to remain wildly overmilitarized, obstructing the development of democracy in the Arab states and eventually reversing it in Israel (as we can already see happening). Instead of putting forward actual solutions to the conflict (such as, say, negotiating in good faith and preparing to make sacrifices for peace rather than proposing impossible borders to which the Palestinians can't possibly agree, then calling them intransigent for not accepting what the Israeli government knows is unacceptable), Shavit apparently wants Israel to continue playing rhetorical games and casting itself as an eternal victim, while sustaining an expansionist policy and a bloated military presence to deter possible resistance.

And to top it all, he has the audacity to call such a state of affairs "peace"? Please.

6. Hillel Schenker (of this blog):

Well, with all due respect to Ari Shavit, not very convincing. As I read this exchange, the two chairs of the Palestinian-Israeli PeaceNGO Forum, Oslo architect Dr. Ron Pundak, and Samaan Khoury, together with Dr. Meir Margalit, a Meretz Jerusalem city councilor, have just left a meeting in Buenos Aires with Argentina president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, the son of noted author and activist Jacobo Timerman who lived in Israel in the late 70s-early 80s. Margalit was born in Argentina , and was the go-between.

As a rising power on the international scene, Argentina wants to become active in promoting the two-state solution, and they want to mobilize most of the other Latin American countries to join them. And particularly important, they will work to ensure that the Arab Peace Initiative (from 2002), in which the entire Arab and Moslem declare their readiness to recognize Israel based upon the two state solution, will remain on the table even after the changes being caused by the repercussions of the Arab Spring -more about this when Pundak and Khoury return to the Middle East next week.

In my view, the two-state solution continues to remain the only game in town. Meanwhile, here's a link to Akiva Eldar's article in Sunday's Haaretz about the meetings in Buenos Aires:
Argentine President calls for regional involvement in Israeli-Palestinian conflict
"Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner meets with Israeli-Palestinian delegation Peace NGO Forum and announces Argentina will spearhead the Latin American role in reinvigorating the peace process."

Zehava Gal-On New Leader of Meretz Party

noreply@blogger.com ("Partners" Blogmaster) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:37:00 +0000

On Monday night Zehava Gal-On was declared the new chair of the Meretz party. She won majority support of about 950 members of the party central committee with 60.6% of the vote. MK Ilan Gilon won 36.6%, and Ori Ophir won 2.8%.

In her victory speech, Zehava promised to re-energize the party, and bring back its sharp, smart, brash, against-the-stream spirit. She said the party would be the party of the Left, and would not court the 'Center' or choose its positions based on what was easily marketable. Y-net sums up her speech with this quote:

Under my leadership, Meretz will bring Israel's Left home... it will no longer be a boutique, north Tel Avivian faction. Meretz will translate last summer's social protest into political power. It will be a true social-democratic party that supports dividing the land (of Israel).

As per her capsule online biography: She immigrated to Israel as a child from Vilnius, Soviet Lithuania in 1960. She is 56 years old, married with two children and lives in Petah Tikva. She is a veteran political activist and Member of the Knesset, who is much honored and also controversial for her outspoken progressive positions on women's issues, peace and other matters.

For a constructive response to Fatah-Hamas unity

noreply@blogger.com (Ralph Seliger) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:06:00 +0000

It is reported that the Palestinians are on the verge of a unity government once again. History argues against this as a lasting arrangement, but regardless, Israel's reaction is predictably and unnecessarily negative. Prime Minister Netanyahu repeats the mantra that Abbas and the Palestinian Authority can have peace with Israel or unity with Hamas but not both. While I understand this view, I think that Israel should have a more creative response.

Why not critique this deal by suggesting that peace can be had with Israel if Hamas fully endorses the principle of peaceful coexistence? If, as some argue, Hamas is moving toward accepting Israel, why not suggest that this be a component of the Palestinian unity process? Instead of simply dismissing them as "terrorists," challenge Hamas to definitively and explicitly change from a movement rooted in "armed struggle" and antisemitism into one that makes history by breaking with its past.

I know, Hamas sometimes hints at a long-term truce or armistice with Israel and at accepting Israel along the pre-1967 borders. But a truce is not a peace, and demanding a particular end-point of a territorial agreement is not the same thing as negotiating a deal. The many contentious issues between Israel and the Palestinians need to be hammered out in an overall treaty. Moderates and progressives on both sides have long known that a territorial settlement will be based on the old '67 boundary but would also include a substantial exchange of territories. Unfortunately, Israel is neither politically nor physically capable of removing over a half million Jews from all post-1967 neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and each and every West Bank settlement. But, if both Israelis and Palestinians can summon the wit and the will, a deal is there to be made.

Israel vs. Iran: The Debate Rages On

noreply@blogger.com ("Partners" Blogmaster) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:20:00 +0000

Here are some recent news items and editorial comments:

Nuclear Inspection Visit to Iran Deemed a Failure By Robert F. Worth and David E. Sanger (NY Times): This assessment came as Iran’s supreme leader lashed out at the United States, vowing to retaliate against oil sanctions and threats of military action. The IAEA delegation, returned from its three-day visit to Iran, is reported as dissatisfied with the level of access and cooperation afforded them: ".... diplomats briefed on the trip said that Iranian officials had not answered the questions raised in an incriminating report issued by the agency in November... [that] cited documents and evidence of experiments with detonators that strongly suggested Iran might have worked on technologies to turn its nuclear fuel into working weapons and warheads. Tehran ... has refused to engage in substantive discussions or inspections."
Trading Threats With Iran (NY Times editorial): Tehran’s nuclear ambitions are real and dangerous, but a military attack would backfire. “Israel must defend itself. This country’s alliance with Israel is crucial. We hope for everyone’s sake that Israel’s leaders weigh all of the consequences before they act. A military attack would almost certainly make things worse. Tough sanctions and a united diplomatic front are the best chance for crippling Iran’s nuclear program”
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius warned on the looming threat of an Israeli attack, while its editorial page voiced the same line as the NY Times, for sanctions and diplomacy rather than an attack. Click to watch How Will Iran's Threats Affect U.S.-Israeli Ties?, the discussion last week on the PBS Newshour between David Ignatius and David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
NY Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Ethan Bronner writes on how the loud current debate in Israel on Iran may be contrary to traditional Israel lore that public debate precludes military action. He concludes with reference to an Israeli authority who sees this public cacophony as undercutting the important role of diplomacy in defusing the situation: "In Israel, Talk of Attacking Iran Transcends Idle Chatter."
In a NY Times op-ed, veteran US diplomats William H. Luers and Thomas R. Pickering discuss how a diplomatic deal with Iran might work, including mutual guarantees that the US will not work to overthrow the Islamic Republic and that: "Once international agencies had full access to Iran’s nuclear program, there could be a progressive reduction of the Security Council’s sanctions that are now in effect. Iran would agree to cease making threats against Israel, and the United States would agree to support efforts toward achieving a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East."

Alternatives needed now for 2 states? (Not yet)

noreply@blogger.com (Hillel Schenker) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:22:00 +0000

Some people are saying that since Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are a non-starter, the settlements are continuing, and the international community seems to be unable to jump-start the peace process (President Obama’s preoccupied with the elections, and the Europeans with the fate of the Euro-zone), the two-state solution is dead and we--who believe in the necessity of an end to the occupation and a non-violent political resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--should begin to explore alternative solutions: Like a Palestinian state in the West Bank with provisional borders, a unilateral Israeli “convergence” (disengagement), a confederation of Israel-Palestine-Jordan, or a bi-national one state solution.

Anyone who doubts the importance of the international community in the achievement of progress, or who challenges the Palestinian application for membership in the UN, would do well to recall that the basis for the legitimacy of the State of Israel was UNGA Resolution 181, otherwise known as the Partition Plan. That served as the basis for Ben-Gurion’s declaration of the independent State of Israel. Thus the international community played a key role in the establishment of the state.

The Partition Plan called for the establishment of a Jewish and an Arab state in place of the British Mandate. The State of Israel was established, fulfilling one half of the call, and unfortunately for all of us, the Arab state was not established. There are many reasons why the Palestinians and the Arab world were incapable of accepting the idea that only 45% of the land was to become an Arab state in 1947. Today there are senior Palestinians who regret this, and explain why they were incapable of doing it at the time.

What is happening now, still, is an attempt by the Palestinians, the Arab World and the international community, to belatedly realize the fulfillment of the second half of the Partition Plan, naming the aforementioned “Arab state” as the Palestinian state, under much worse conditions – 78% of the land for the Jewish state (Israel), and only 22% of the land for the Arab state (Palestine), of course with mutually agreed upon land swaps.

What Hashomer Hatzair, Meretz, Peace Now and all of the mainstream of the Israeli peace movement is saying today, is that the establishment of that Palestinian state is in the best interests of Israel, to ensure it’s future, and yes also, a deserved right of the Palestinian people – otherwise known as the mutual right to self-determination.

As for alternative proposals like that of Yossi Alpher and others, of a convergence or a partial agreement, as promoted by Shaul Mofaz who is running for the leadership of Kadima against Tzipi Livni -- we had a discussion in the Political Committee of the Israeli Peace NGO Forum two weeks ago (an umbrella for 60 mainstream peace and human rights organizations), started by the chair of the committee Prof. Dan Jacobson, about whether we, as the Zionist peace movement should begin to raise alternatives to the 2 state solution. Everyone who spoke said, in one manner or another, that as long as the official position of the Palestinian leadership and the international community is in favor of a two-state solution, we of all people should not be the ones to in any way legitimize alternatives.

If the day comes when the continuation of Israeli settlement activity and the lack of initiative on the part of the international community towards helping to resolve the problem leads the Palestinian leadership to change their position, and to come out in favor of a bi-national one man/woman one vote solution, we will have to seek alternatives. That day may be drawing near, but it has not yet arrived; we still have a window of opportunity – particularly as long as the Arab Peace Initiative remains on the table, in which the whole Arab and Moslem world declared that it would accept the State of Israel and normalize relations with it in exchange for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state based on the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem (an offer that may yet be removed), and if President Obama will be reelected to a second term.

We could always get Gingrich and his “invented Palestinian people”. Romney is not much better.

Hillel Schenker

Co-Editor

Palestine-Israel Journal

PO Box 19839, Jerusalem

972-2-6282115

972-(0)528-321830

Responses to NY Times Mag Article on Iran

noreply@blogger.com ("Partners" Blogmaster) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:32:00 +0000

Gary Sick, a veteran foreign policy analyst currently associated with Columbia University, has written a sharp rebuttal on his blog, which begs a number of questions: Is Prof. Sick correct that international nuclear monitors maintain an ongoing presence in Iran? If so, do we know that this presence includes all of their nuclear facilities or are there some beyond their reach? Finally, is Prof. Sick's contention contradicted by the news report that Iran’s foreign ministry has offered to extend a three-day visit of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors?

Robert Wright has written his highly skeptical response at The Atlantic website.

Prof. Stephen Walt advises in his commentary at Foreign Policy's website:

There are lots of obvious reasons why Israeli officials might want to exaggerate their willingness to use force against Iran, and this simple fact makes it unwise to take their testimony at face value... an article based on interviews of [the Israeli security establishment] just isn't very informative.

The NY Times Magazine author himself, Ronen Bergman, discusses his piece with Laura Rozen at the Yahoo News blog site, who also raises the possibility that Israeli officials may have used Bergman to bluff their way toward desired ends.

This selection of articles has been compiled thanks to the eagle eyes of Lilly Rivlin, Helen Knight (of J Street), and Ralph Seliger.

Palestine-Israel Journal issue on 'Arab Spring'

noreply@blogger.com ("Partners" Blogmaster) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:35:00 +0000

This is a message from the British-Jewish Mideast analyst and activist, Tony Klug:

I thought you might like to know that an extraordinary compendium of articles on the Arab uprisings -- more than 20 altogether -- specially commissioned by the Palestine-Israel Journal, has just been published in its latest volume under the rubric 'Arab Spring'. The Israeli, Palestinian and international authors -- comprising public figures, prominent academics and veteran writers -- examine from diverse viewpoints just about every aspect of the recent turmoil in the Arab world, its causes, significance and future implications, including the place and role of Israel in the emerging regional order.

Most of the articles are available online at http://www.pij.org/current.php. My contribution, 'Have the Arab Uprisings lost their Spring?', may be accessed direct at http://www.pij.org/details.php?id=1409. Over the next few days I plan to read every single article. I am sure it will be fascinating. You are welcome to join me!

And here is the letter from the editors:

Palestine-Israel Journal

___________________________________

of Politics, Economics and Culture

Dear Researcher, Librarian and Student,

We would like to introduce you to the latest issue of the Palestine-Israel Journal , focusing on ' The Arab Spring '. This issue will be a particularly important tool for those wishing to understand, in depth, the current political situation in the Middle East, and in particular its effects on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

After a year of uprisings, revolutions and ongoing struggles, it is vital for students and researchers to have access to up-to-date, thorough analysis of recent events. The Arab Spring issue includes input from academics, public figures and writers from Israel and Palestine, as well as authors from the region and the international community who have discussed the phenomenon, each from his own perspective. To sample the Arab Spring issue, please follow this link to our website.

The Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture (www.pij.org) is the only independent, joint publication to be produced locally by a joint team of Israeli and Palestinian academics and journalists, and includes first-hand, in-depth analysis from leading thinkers, experts, and public figures, both Israeli and Palestinian. The journal encourages a climate of constructive criticism and mutual respect, active dialogue and exchanges within and between the two civil societies. It is indispensable for anyone who wants to study this ever-changing region.

The Palestine-Israel Journal is produced quarterly and is a respected addition to many academic libraries and course curriculums around the world. It is our belief that your department and library, and anyone intent on studying the recent events in the Middle East, would find this resource a valuable addition to your collection.

An annual subscription costs only $75 (€55) per year, including postage and packaging. To subscribe please follow this link to our website.

We also invite you to purchase an individual copy of the Arab Spring issue on a promotional price of $15 including shipment. (usual price $17 plus shipment).

Thank you in advance and we look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Ziad AbuZayyad and Hillel Schenker
Co-Editors
Palestine-Israel Journal

____________________________________________

4 El Hariri St. East Jerusalem POB 19839

Tel: 972(02)6282-115/59 Fax: 972(02)6273-388 E-mail: pij@pij.org Website: www.pij.org

Israel vs. Iran: Who is threatening whom?

noreply@blogger.com (Ralph Seliger) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:35:00 +0000

Cover story, Jan. 29, 2012.

As you should know by now, I'm very much against an Israeli attack on Iran to forestall its nuclear development; and I agree with Prof. Shibley Telhami that moving toward regional nuclear disarmament may facilitate a solution. But I take Iran's nuclear program seriously as a security threat to the region. I fervently hope that a diplomatic resolution is found, but (speaking only for myself) because of the gravity of this threat, I support cyber warfare and covert sabotage as alternatives to an all-out attack.

For example, the crisis would be considerably alleviated if Iran formally proclaimed its recognition of Israel's legitimacy, rather than not even mentioning Israel by name. It's generally referred to as the "Zionist regime" or some such. (I'd similarly favor Israel and the US stating their peaceful intentions toward the Islamic Republic.)

Aside from inviting a catastrophic war, an Israeli attack would not deter Iran. Part of the problem is the hardened and dispersed nature of Iran's nuclear facilities; another part is Israel's limited capacity as a military power. Back in August 2006, I blogged about the myth that Israel is a military superpower, beginning as follows:

An ongoing tragedy of Israel is that so small a country... must remain a major military power in order to survive. It pays a high price to do so, with most Israeli men spending three years of their youth as regular conscripts and then one month of each year until the age of 50 in active reserve units and subject to unlimited emergency call-up.

Anti-Israel critics like to minimize Israel’s urgent security needs by referring to it, rather abstractly and without real analysis, as the 'fourth' greatest military power in the world. ...

According to Wikipedia, Israel's armed forces rank 34th in the world in relative size. Still, Israel is
surely more powerful than many countries with larger forces; this is especially true because its air force is strong--less due to its rather modest size, than to its quality. It's hard to say how to rank Israel as a military power over all; rather than either 4th or 34th, it is probably somewhere in the range of 10th to 15th. But its very small area and population are tremendous disadvantages against potential enemies in the Middle East, which are far larger and could (as in the past) attack Israel in a coalition.

Also according to Wikipedia, Israel is 97th in population in the world (about 7.8 million) and 151st in area; as compared with Iran, which is 17th in population and 18th in area. In other words, Israel has about 1/10 the population of Iran and a little over one percent of Iran's land mass.

In Dec. 2001, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president of Iran and still a leading figure now associated with reformist elements in the Islamic Republic, chillingly reasoned that since "the Islamic World" is so much larger than Israel, it could destroy the Jewish state in a nuclear war and survive ("the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything"). This reinforced Israeli fears that some Shi'ite religious fanatics in the Iranian leadership may believe in a theological doomsday scenario, which would invite a horribly destructive war with "infidels." The threat that Israelis sense from Iran is logical--augmented further by Iranian allies inhabiting three of Israel's borders (Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and Assad in Syria), together concentrating over 50,000 rockets and missiles on Israel's cities and towns.

This is what I've gleaned from Wikipedia on the size of the Israel Defense Force (IDF):
"Active personnel 187,000 (ranked 34th); Reserve personnel 565,000." By comparison, this is an estimate of Iran's armed forces: "Active Military: 545,000 [2011]; Active Reserve: 650,000 [2011]."

Excluding Ireland (not significant as a military power), here are comparative stats (from Wikipedia) of the armed strength of all of the "I" countries--plus Russia, China and the USA:

State              Active          Reserve     Paramilitary      Total
India           1,325,000     2,142,821    1,300,586       4,768,407
Indonesia       302,000       400,000        280,000          982,000
Iran                523,000     1,800,000    1,510,000       3,833,000
Iraq                191,957            0              386,312          578,269
Israel              176,500         565,000          8,050           749,550
Italy               293,202           41,867      142,933           478,002
Russia         1,027,000    20,000,000      449,000     21,476,000
China          2,285,000         800,000   1,500,000       4,585,000
USA            1,468,364      1,458,500        11,035       2,937,899

Storm over Obama 'hit' idea & Iran

noreply@blogger.com (Ralph Seliger) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:31:00 +0000

In his column a few days ago, the owner-publiser of the Atlanta Jewish Times, a Jewish weekly newspaper independent of the local Jewish community federation, spun out the "option" (one of three posed) of Mossad agents killing Pres. Obama to get Vice Pres. Biden in office as a replacement more inclined to move militarily to forestall an Iranian nuclear bomb. He laid out this as a possibility:

Third, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies. Yes, you read “three” correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?

This became a national story in the media, with a mandatory Secret Servicer investigation and a prompt apology & retraction by the publisher, Andrew Adler. This story has also been predictably distorted by hate-mongerers in the blogosphere, such as this site which claims:

The Atlanta Jewish Times, a newspaper representing the Jewish people in the Atlanta area, is taking donations for a fund to finance the murder of President Barak Obama on behalf of the Israeli government.

The Jewish community responded quickly, with indignant condemnations of Mr. Adler, including such stalwart defenders of Israel as the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee. The Jerusalem Post blog by David Harris, the executive director of the American
Jewish Committee, is entitled "Dear Atlanta Jewish Times Publisher Andrew Adler: How Revolting!" The more consistently dovish and liberal Israel Policy Forum dubbed its statement, "We will not stand for this."

There's not likely to be an actual Jewish conspiracy to assassinate the President, nor did Adler appear to write his column as a call for such a horrible deed, but he surely sullied the good name of both Israel and the Jewish community with this irresponsible flight of speculation. And clearly, it could inspire extremists and mishugenas to think in these terms.

The Inevitable Question of Iran

This episode also reminds us how unnerving the prospect of an Iranian nuclear bomb is to so many Jews (myself included). I hope and pray that a peaceful solution will be found to this problem.

My heart is with Roger Cohen, as expressed in his NY Times column, "Don't Do It, Bibi." I also found the recent op-ed co-authored by Shibley Telhami, "Preventing a Nuclear Iran Peacefully" somewhat promising. Telhami is a University of Maryland professor and highly-respected pollster of opinion in Middle Eastern countries.

I've met him twice: at a meeting a number of years ago of the Meretz USA board and at last year's J Street conference. An Arab-American (interestingly, we resemble each other physically), he grew up in Israel and is a moderate on Mideast issues.

He plausibly suggests that if Israel were to open its nuclear facilities to international inspection, in concert with Iran doing the same, this would be a "game-changer." He and his co-author Steven Kull contend:

... a nuclear-free zone may be hard for Iran to refuse. Iranian diplomats have said they would be open to an intrusive role for the United Nations if it accepted Iran’s right to enrich uranium for energy production — not to the higher levels necessary for weapons.

Wisely, Telhami does not suggest that a nuclear-free Middle East would immediately be in the offing. Many observers, including myself, see Israel's actual nuclear disarmament as only possible following a general regional establishment of peace with the Jewish state (because Israel's nuclear arsenal is a hedge against the overwhelming numerical superiority of its potential enemies). Even then, it may take years or decades for Israel to be confident enough to take this plunge. But it would be good for the journey to begin.

Jewish labor leader chastises Netanyahu

noreply@blogger.com ("Partners" Blogmaster) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:13:00 +0000

Stuart Appelbaum, JLC pres.

The Jewish Labor Committee is an organization in which a number of our activists have played a leading role for many years. While being known as liberal and dovish, the JLC has until now tended to focus its attention on Israel-Arab issues by mostly defending Israel against one-sided condemnations and the international boycott movement.

This dovish pro-Israel perspective has not changed, but the JLC's rhetoric did, last Thursday night, at its annual Human Rights Award dinner. A NY Jewish Week news article by Doug Chandler tells the tale, focusing upon the speech by JLC president Stuart Appelbaum (a member of the J St. and Ameinu boards) chastising Prime Minister Netanyahu, and prompting a walk-out by Israel's deputy consul-general:

"Israeli Official Leaves JLC Dinner After Criticism of Netanyahu"
Labor Committee’s president calls Israel’s current government a ‘curse,’ but couples his criticism with condemnations of the BDS movement and Hamas.

.... Appelbaum condemned what he called “new expressions of contempt for Israel within the Arab world,” a reference to the movement to delegitimize Israel. That contempt, he said, is at least partly rooted “in the conviction that Israel will never accept the right of the Palestinians to an independent state.”

But Appelbaum added that Israel was “cursed with a right-wing coalition government that’s regularly giving credence” to that point of view. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “talks a good game about a two-state solution,” he said, his administration “shamelessly” promotes “the construction of illegal settlements on the West Bank” — a policy that “severely impedes negotiations.” It’s a situation that Appelbaum likened to the employer “who comes to the bargaining table, telling us he wants a contract that’s a win-win for both sides, while, at the same time,” instructing his lawyers to work on petitions that would decertify the union.

.... Appelbaum told The Jewish Week after his speech that he’s always considered himself a keen supporter of Israel and “its right to exist as a Jewish state within secure borders. Nothing has changed. But I’m concerned, as many people are, about Netanyahu’s policies on building new settlements,” which he believes are obstacles to the peace process.

Neither has anything changed at the JLC, which has supported a two-state solution for decades and has voiced criticism of Israeli actions in the past, he said. “The difference is not in our position,” he added, “but in how loudly we’ve articulated it” — at an annual dinner, rather than just in press releases and written statements. Appelbaum said he believes that Mahmoud Abbas and other leaders of the Palestinian Authority also deserve blame for the failure of peace talks — not just Israel alone — and that he’s criticized them, as well, “perhaps in stronger terms.”...

E. Jerusalem national park is a 'farce'

noreply@blogger.com ("Partners" Blogmaster) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:11:00 +0000

"According to many planners and urban development experts there is no special ecological interest in these areas, which are located in the middle of two Palestinian villages. Indeed, according to a [Meretz] member of Jerusalem’s city council, Meir Margalit, “This national park is a farce. There’s nothing there but rocks and thorns, certainly nothing to justify a national park. The only reason for such a plan is to seize lands and hold them as a reserve for a future settlement, while suffocating the Palestinian neighborhoods.”

Read this post at the +972 Blog:
‘National Parks’ in East Jerusalem: New tool in occupation...

"The establishment of national parks in East Jerusalem may sound like a nice idea that fosters the preservation of natural reserves – but in reality, it is a crafty method the Israeli government and its institutions have found to keep East Jerusalem under Israeli control and prohibit Palestinian territorial contiguity, rights and independence. ..."

Holocaust scholar interviewed on Al-Jazeera

noreply@blogger.com (Ralph Seliger) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:37:00 +0000

Yehuda Bauer (photo at Wikipedia.org)

I was made aware of this television discussion with Yehuda Bauer, a distinguished Israeli Holocaust historian, by our friend in Canada, Prof. Stephen Scheinberg (also a historian). Bauer is a veteran member of the Meretz party and its socialist-Zionist predecessor, Mapam; he was interviewed by Al-Jazeera television for 25 minutes. He did a good job of providing a progressive Zionist perspective, but the historian could have made some additional points.

For one thing, he could have made a stronger critique of Prof. Shlomo Sand, when his work disputing the existence of a historic Jewish people was brought up. Sand is polemical and tendentious more than scholarly (if you enter Sand's name in this blog's search window, you'll find a number of posts on his work). Although Bauer is correct that he's not entirely wrong, there are areas where he's stretching for ideological reasons; for example, there's no significant basis for Sand's contention that Ashkenazi Jews are largely of Khazar-Turkic origin.

And when asked about the connection between Israel and the Holocaust, Dr. Bauer says (correctly) that it's a "negative" one, because the Holocaust murdered many people who might have become Israelis, and might have wiped out the Jewish people entirely if the Nazis had won the war or been able to keep on killing for a few more years. But he neglects to indicate that Zionism was a response to antisemitism that predates the Holocaust; he also might have made the point that American and other Diaspora Jewish communities were won over to Zionism or to being pro-Zionist by the Holocaust, because most Jews came to believe that a Jewish state was necessary to defend Jewish lives and rights. Yet I don't blame him for not thinking of everything under the pressure of a television conversation with an interviewer who--although polite and respectful--was neither particularly knowledgeable of, nor sympathetic to, Israel and Zionism.

I disagree somewhat with Bauer's response on Prime Minister Netanyahu's demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a "Jewish state." While I fully agree that Israelis don't need to be told that Israel is a Jewish state--to retain its majority culture, religion and identity--I don't believe that Netanyahu is making this demand because he's somehow insecure in his Jewishness. Although Netanyahu may be unhelpful in adding this as a condition for peace, it would be reassuring to Jews, and therefore all to the good, if the Palestinian Authority acknowledges that Israel is the Jewish-majority state which the UN called for in its 1947 General Assembly resolution for the partition of the Palestine Mandate into Jewish and Arab states. In fact, because the PA has used that resolution as a basis for its recent effort to be recognized as a state at the UN, this should not be as much of a problem for the Palestinians as they are making it into.

I know that I'm departing from dovish orthodoxy by suggesting this, but the peace process would be facilitated if the Palestinians were to remove this as an issue by simply acknowledging the obvious about Israel's Jewish nature. This should not be considered an abandonment of Arab citizens of Israel to unequal treatment, nor disallowing Jews from one day living as full citizens in a majority Palestinian-Arab state.

Check out Al-Jazeera's website for the interview with Yehuda Bauer and the points that Al-Jazeera chooses to emphasize:

Yehuda Bauer: Israel's genocidal nationalists
As tensions grow between ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Israeli state, the scholar discusses Jewish identity and extremism.

What remains of Israel's months of protest?

noreply@blogger.com (Ralph Seliger) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:37:00 +0000

Faces of Daphni Leef & Stav Shafrir, protest leaders, held aloft

Allow me to review what I've learned in recent months about Israel's new movement for social justice, and project forward. As of this moment, street protests continue, including a clash in recent days with police over the removal of protest tents; but these current activists are in the hundreds rather than the tens and hundreds of thousands who rallied peaceably during the summer. Still, the structure I reported on for In These Times magazine, continues to operate, with the movement attempting "to carry itself beyond the streets.":

.... Alongside "general assembly" meetings in parks, neighborhood committees have been formed around the country, as well as advisory committees comprised of prominent personalities from Israel's diverse ethnic and religious communities.

By any estimation, Israel's summer of protest was an impressive display of progressive social activism, rallying nearly half a million protesters (out of Israel's seven million population) into the streets at its high-water mark on September 3rd. More than one hundred tent encampments for social justice dotted the entire country. It united (rhetorically at least) Arabs in Jaffa with traditional working class Likud and Shas supporters in the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Hatikva. (See the great liberal Orthodox activist, Leah Shakdiel, speaking with this unifying theme at the Yerucham protest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVbW3ARsHLk.)

The following is from a Dec. 25 news article in the Jerusalem Post:

Leaders of the summer's "J14" [July 14] protest movement for social justice announced Sunday what they called the formation of a political movement based on the protests that swept the country over the summer.
Daphni Leef, the 26-year-old Tel Avivian who started the nationwide tent city protests against housing costs this July with a post on Facebook, said the movement "will forge an extra-parliamentary means to protest the cost of living, fight for Israeli democratic and cultural values and serve all branches of the protest that started this past summer."

One likely result of the movement is that it has helped catapult the Labor Party over Kadima as the number one opposition voice within the Knesset. In the national election to occur within the next year or so, Labor's new female leader, Shelly Yachimovich, will probably displace Kadima's Tzipi Livni as leader of the opposition. Yachimovich emphasizes a traditional Labor-Zionist social democratic agenda, whereas Livni remains an economic conservative.

But the conflict with the Palestinians and the ongoing occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem remain a gaping wound that the social protest movement does not address. Progressives who embrace the movement hope that average Israelis will eventually connect the dots and come to agree that funding West Bank settlements has been at their expense; but so far, the movement as a whole has tried to soft-pedal this central political issue as too divisive.

This is but one of a number of contradictions confronting Israeli society. For one thing, Israel's economy is stronger than that of most other countries. Since its banks are not especially tied to international banks, it has avoided the mortgage crisis that has rocked most of the West, and its level of unemployment is not high. Still, as reported in a front-page article in the New York Times in August, Israel has undergone a high concentration of wealth with a consolidation of economic power in a handful of family-owned conglomerates. This is ascribed to the fire sale of state-owned assets to politically-connected "cronies" in the 1980s and '90s, as occurred later in Russia and other socialistic economies that were privatized.

The housing crisis that sparked Daphni Leef's initial tent protest was caused by a rush of apartment purchases in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem by Jews from abroad who still live most of the year in France, the US or elsewhere in the West. This problem could be remedied by restricting foreign investment in the housing market within central Israel. Yet this would do little or nothing for the very different housing issue that confronts Israeli Arabs.

Arab citizens of Israel mostly face a land problem: their towns and cities are unable to expand to meet their housing needs. While numerous new towns and cities have been built with Jewish Israelis in mind, hardly any such development has occurred for Palestinian Israelis.

In his latest column for Jewish Currents magazine, Ron Skolnik tries to explain puzzling polling results which consistently show a majority of Israelis optimistic about their lives and satisfied with the direction of the country, despite their massive support for the social protests. The most reasonable answer he can find (borrowed from Yediot and Ynet columnist Yehuda Nuriel) is that the protests have revived a "familial sense of national solidarity" -- primarily among Jews.

Hopefully, this old Zionist tradition of Jewish solidarity can include their Arab fellow citizens as well, yet this will not be easy. It would mean reversing the anti-Arab reactions of the last few years, fueled by Jewish frustrations at Arab attacks from beyond Israel's pre-'67 borders, despite several withdrawals since the 1990s from parts of the West Bank, all of Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and two failed attempts at negotiating a final peace.

As CUNY professor Dov Waxman pointed out at a Manhattan JCC panel discussion in October, Israeli "fatigue and fatalism" on the peace issue drove Israelis' focus inward into a personal and depoliticized direction. The protests have reignited political and socially conscious passions, but not necessarily in a coherent way. In the end, Waxman concluded, the usual over-arching political concerns of the Arab-Israeli conflict and security may still trump social justice. One must hope that these objectives are somehow reconciled to allow the pursuit of social justice to facilitate the quest for peace (and vice versa), but this would be a new departure for Israeli society.

Urgent Zionist Need to Break Ultra-Orthodox Power

noreply@blogger.com (Lilly Rivlin) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:37:00 +0000

The article I am recommending below, came to me via the father & father-in-law of the couple who wrote it, Ariel and Erin Beery, who moved to Israel last year. They are expecting a daughter. Asked what I thought of it, this is what I wrote:

I agree with its sentiments 100%, however, I've always been ambivalent about Diaspora Jewry's right to influence Israeli politics in spite of the fact they have been called upon to make contributions to Israeli social and health institutions, at the very least, if not more. I think Ariel and Erin are so right on. The fact that this piece has been published in Tablet is absolutely necessary. This is a leading edge magazine for young Jews, who, according to the most recent polls, are less involved in Israel. I think an article like this might activate them.

Lilly Rivlin
www.gracepaleythefilm.com
Distributor: www.jewishfilm.org

The following is the central passage of this article, which can be read in its entirety online:

.... Due to Israel’s coalition-based government system, where coalition partners are given control over ministries in return for voting as a bloc, governments from David Ben-Gurion’s to Benjamin Netanyahu’s have preferred to add an ultra-Orthodox, non-Zionist party to their coalition rather than create a coalition without parties such as United Torah Judaism. Such a non-ultra-Orthodox coalition could, in one vote, break the rabbinate’s power. But the major parties are stuck in a kind of prisoner’s dilemma: Each party fears that if it votes against Orthodox control, while the other does not, the Orthodox would ally with the opposition to crush it. So, the status quo persists.

Young Maccabee girls in their camp in Zikhron Ya’akov, 1939. (Library of Congress)

In this context, our daughter will not be considered Jewish by the state. That’s because Erin’s mother had Conservative Jewish conversion in Canada before Erin was born, and because we decided it was insulting to ask Erin, who lived her whole life as a Jew, to “convert” just because a state-employed rabbi decided she is not Jewish enough.

We could not be married in Israel because of Erin’s official lack of Jewishness, despite the fact that we are observant Jews who keep Shabbat and a kosher home. (Our marriage certificate is from the state of Illinois.) Likewise, our daughter could in the future be legally barred from marrying the person she loves in Israel. If the laws continue as they are, the two of us will not be able to be buried in the same state-run cemetery, and our daughter would be excluded from burial in a Jewish cemetery when her life is spent. She’ll be a citizen, just as we are, and she’ll serve in the army, just as Ariel did. But if the status quo persists, she will go from cradle to grave knowing that in the eyes of the government of the state of Israel she is not a Jew.

For us, nothing is more painful. Our grandparents devoted their lives to supporting the state and its establishment, and we’ve devoted ours to building Israeli organizations that have connected thousands to Israel. But all of that is irrelevant in the eyes of the bearded men who have power over critical aspects of the lives of this country’s 6 million Jews.

This is not what the pioneers who founded this state worked toward, and it isn’t what generations of Diaspora Jews fought for.

It is time that the world Jewish community knew about this systemic bias in Israel—and time for Diaspora Jewry to act. ...

This schism between who is a Jew in the Diaspora and who is considered a Jew by the state of Israel will only grow, considering that more than a quarter of Jewish students entering the first grade in Israel this year are ultra-Orthodox, as Dan Ben-David, director of the Taub Center in Jerusalem, has noted. This means that if we want Israel to be a Jewish state for all the Jewish people, as well as a democratic state that respects the individual rights of its citizens, we have a small window to break the Orthodox monopoly on Israel’s core institutions. ...

My response to liberal-Zionist critic of J St.

noreply@blogger.com (Ralph Seliger) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:16:00 +0000

Speaking only for myself, I e-mailed someone I know who is progressive and a Zionist but concerned that J Street is not adequately addressing Israel's needs. The following is a somewhat modified version of how I responded to his concerns:

I understand your distrust of J St., but I have decided to be active within it. First of all, I think their position on Iran is not well understood; according to this statement online, it favors sanctions against Iran and diplomacy, but not an attack. I share this view, although I'm not sure that stating in advance that military action is completely "off the table" is the way to go; I would also favor a secret campaign of sabotage against their nuclear program, such as is probably now being pursued by Israel and/or the US.

But J St. is correct that an overt and massive attack would be hugely destabilizing and dangerous for Israel and the US -- only to be contemplated as a last resort. And I don't believe that Israel alone is capable of launching an effective attack. I'd also suggest that the US reassure the Iranians that it is not seeking regime change, but only measures which guarantee that its nuclear development is for peaceful purposes.

This is part of J St.'s position on settlements, which I fully endorse:

.... Certain agreed modifications to the 1967 lines are possible – allowing some settlements to be incorporated within Israel’s final and agreed borders in the context of reciprocal land swaps. Those settlements (perhaps accounting for as many as three-quarters of all settlers) will then become part of Israeli recognized sovereign territory and construction there will be able to continue according to the laws and zoning ordinances of those localities. [*It is important to note that J Street supports the concept of a security barrier as an important element of Israel’s defense, but believes that the barrier must be located along an internationally recognized border. Its present route has confiscated land and separated Palestinians from their jobs, health care and family. It will have to be relocated in many sections as part of a final status agreement.]

The way in which the current Israeli government has pursued settlement expansion in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem is pernicious and sabotages a two-state solution. Extremist settler activity in Jerusalem is especially disheartening and destructive to Israel's interests and needs.

Where I would differ somewhat with J St. would be to cite the ways in which both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have been subverting negotiations. Both have engaged in provocations, in different ways: Israel through settlement expansion and through incendiary rhetoric, laws and proposed laws which threaten the rights of Israeli Arabs and of progressive NGOs. The PA through refusing to officially recognize Israel as a "Jewish state" and demanding a settlement freeze as a precondition for negotiations; but Abbas is more moderate than many give him credit for (read this).

I would also press the point that a Fatah coalition with Hamas only makes sense, from the point of view of progress toward peace, if Hamas explains to Israel's satisfaction that it is now prepared to accept previous agreements with Israel, to renounce violence and to live in peace with Israel.

As for the PA initiative at the UN, J Street officially opposed it, even supporting a US veto. My position on this would actually be more hopeful and conciliatory, urging that a UN resolution endorses a Palestinian state as part of the eventual solution, in which the borders of Israel and Palestine are peacefully negotiated, including a significant exchange of territories.

Frightening Video of 'Hilltop Youth'

noreply@blogger.com ("Partners" Blogmaster) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:10:00 +0000

The following is from Stephen Scheinberg, a veteran leader of Canadian Friends of Peace Now:

An enlightening video of the militant settler youth. Recall, as you watch, how many times we are told that "they (the Palestinians) teach their children to hate." Who are the parents and supporters of these Israeli children?

Click below:
WATCH Hilltop youth: “Burn down Al-Aqsa Mosque? Of course!”

H. Schenker: 'Don't...shut down discussion'

noreply@blogger.com ("Partners" Blogmaster) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:00:00 +0000

Hillel Schenker

Sadly, the lack of progress toward a two-state solution is creating a backlash among some Palestinians who are now turning against dialogue and cooperation with dovish Israelis. An article in Haaretz by our Israeli colleague, Hillel Schenker, "Don't let them shut down discussion,"published on Dec. 30, tells the tale; here are highlights:

.... Last week the Palestine-Israel Journal, the quarterly I co-edit, was obliged to postpone a public conference we were organizing at an East Jerusalem hotel about the impact of the so-called Arab Spring on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, due to pressure on Palestinian speakers and threats against the hotel owner. ...
A news item ... earlier in the week stated that the Fatah leadership had decided to halt all unofficial Palestinian-Israeli meetings due to ... Prime Minister's Netanyahu's insistence on continuing settlement expansion. Unnamed Palestinian officials were quoted claiming that Israel exploits such meetings in order to tell the world that a dialogue is taking place between the two peoples, and that it is only the Palestinian Authority that refuses to sit down at the negotiating table.
This seems like a parallel to the familiar criticism of such meetings by right-wing Israelis, who accuse Israeli participants of being concerned only about Palestinian rights, as opposed to Israeli security needs. Suffice it to recall recent campaigns by NGO Monitor, Im Tirzu and others against Israeli peace, human rights and civil liberties NGOs....
What was so threatening about a conference at which Israelis and Palestinians were going to discuss the potential impact of the Arab world's uprising, whose speakers were to include Ron Pundak, co-chair of the Palestinian-Israeli Peace NGO Forum, and Khalil Shikaki, the renowned Palestinian public-opinion specialist?
Some Palestinians claim that such meetings constitute "normalization," which has the effect of legitimizing a continuation of the occupation. On the contrary, one of the primary goals of such meetings is education, to shed light on the nature of the occupation that most Israelis and members of the international community are unaware of, and to produce initiatives that can help bring about an end to the occupation and a peaceful resolution of the conflict. ...
.... However, it should be noted that senior Fatah spokespeople like former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath have stated that there was no Fatah decision against the meeting, and they continue to support joint Israeli-Palestinian activity that's meaningful. The worsening situation in East Jerusalem was vividly described by my colleague and Palestine-Israel Journal co-editor Ziad AbuZayyad in a column in Al-Quds last Sunday. He wrote that young Palestinians in East Jerusalem feel "a sense of asphyxiation in the city due to the settlement surge in Silwan, Ras al Amud and Sheikh Jarrah." One young man told him that he is "forced every day at sunset to bring his children inside the house, out of fear that they would be beaten, attacked and spit on by settlers." They also "fear that their homes will be demolished." AbuZayyad asked rhetorically whether it's wise to boycott or protest against Israelis ... who are dedicating their lives to fighting the very same situation....
Hillel Schenker is co-editor of the Palestine-Israel Journal.

Again, the entire article can be read online by clicking here.

Widening concern for Israeli democracy

noreply@blogger.com (Lilly Rivlin) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 15:42:00 +0000

Two very different articles pointing to the same problems: one by Yossi Sarid, former Minister of Education and former Meretz party leader, writing about how Israelis have gotten used to the deterioration of morality, especially public morality, to the encroachment of church and state in the form of more and more limits on women -- "get thee to the back of the bus," voices of women "polluting" the poor ears of religious men, etc. This links to his article online at the Haaretz website.

The other article is by Daniel Gordis-- hardly my favorite columnist, but he too writes about the deterioration of Israeli democracy-- also focusing on the medieval laws coming down and limiting women's rights. I don't know if anyone is paying attention; I think that Israelis who don't like what is going on are no longer watching or hearing what happens in the public sphere. They have turned off. Sorry to depress you in these dark times. Last night I made an attempt, during Chanuka, to seek a sliver of light.

Yet wasn't it Prime Minister Netanyahu (whom Gordis likely supports) who not very long ago warned of this being 1938 all over again, regarding the nuclear threat from Iran? The Gordis article can be read in its entirety at the Jerusalem Post website, but here's its core:

... Close to home and far away, real dangers lurk. But there is also danger to the danger. Utterly convinced that the world is aligned against us, it's too easy to conclude that we have no choice but to man the barricades and to fire away until we're out of ammo. ...

But while that sort of Armageddon thinking may make for gripping Hollywood scenes, it does nothing to promote wisdom. When Michele Bachmann addresses an American Jewish conference proclaiming "not one inch" and thousands of Jews leap to their feet with calls of "Bachmann for President," we're in hysteria-land.

Ariel Sharon did not say "not one inch." Binyamin Netanyahu does not say "not one inch." Even Avigdor Lieberman, toiling tirelessly to create a state in which few of us would want to live, does not say "not one inch." But people love a rallying cry, especially in the face of danger. Bumper stickers, after all, are so much more appealing than thinking. ...

Once you know the world is one big danger, you just batten down the hatches and toss thinking to the wind. European governments fund left-leaning organizations that rightly worry us? Let's create convoluted laws to tax the funding into insignificance.

Let's tamper with the Supreme Court (one of Israel's few well-functioning governmental bodies...) while we're at it. It doesn't matter that the government's recent slew of legislative innovations has horrified both centrist Israelis and Zionist American Jews, or that it has elicited warnings from world leaders. After all, these are dire times.

Who can afford the luxury of worrying about Israel's fragile democracy (how many Israeli immigrants came from countries where democracy was well-established? - very few, of course) and how easily the enterprise could topple. ...

.... Despite all the similarities to 1938, let's not lose sight of the overwhelming differences. American Jews of 2011 are nothing like the timid, intentionally invisible Jews of 1938. ... Congressional support is solid. The Jews are no longer landless and homeless, but sovereign. Much of the West is even awakening (though admittedly too slowly) to the dangers of Iran and radical Islam.

To be sure, we have enemies. ... But we're not the forgotten, powerless, ignored masses that we were 70 years ago.

Is this the moment to abandon any semblance of moderation, to risk becoming our own worst enemies by destroying from within what our foes would destroy from without? ...

Lilly Rivlin

www.lillyrivlin.com

www.gracepaleythefilm.com

Distributor: www.jewishfilm.org

What Are Israelis So Happy About?

noreply@blogger.com ("Partners" Blogmaster) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:43:00 +0000

Partners for Progressive Israel executive director Ron Skolnik, in his latest column for Jewish Currents magazine, tries to explain puzzling polling results which consistently show a majority of Israelis optimistic about their lives and satisfied with the direction of the country, despite their massive support for last summer's social protest movement. The following are selected passages of Ron's article:

If things in Israel are so bad, how can they be so good? That’s the paradoxical question that formulated in my brain as I perused the surprising results of a string of public opinion polls commissioned and published by Israel’s newspapers on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. They found that the vast majority of Israelis are happy with their lot and generally pleased with the national situation. ...

In March of last year, I had written for my organization’s on-line publication that “Israel’s part-fence, part-wall barrier has not only added security . . . Psychologically, it has severed the average Israeli’s sense of responsibility for what goes on under the Occupation on the other side: Out of sight, out of mind, as it were — except when spasms of violence temporarily upset the general equilibrium.” The Rosh Hashanah poll results substantiated this analysis — that with terrorism down over the past years, thanks in large part to the improved security cooperation of the Palestinian Authority forces in the West Bank, Israelis are happy to push the difficult question of war and peace to the back burner. Pessimism about peace prospects therefore does not translate to pessimism overall because Israelis have essentially tuned out the “Palestinian problem” as a day-to-day concern. ...

Israel polls obsessively to gauge support for the various political parties. These polls, too, have recently made it clear that pessimism about peace is doing little to dampen Israeli optimism. To the contrary, Israel’s two main opposition parties were experiencing a reversal of fortune that was very much the result of the public’s inward focus. Labor’s star was rising with a new party chief, MK Shelly Yachimovich, who is closely identified with Israelis’ bread-and-butter concerns, while Kadima continued to sink under the leadership of Tzipi Livni, who has branded herself as a sober alternative to Netanyahu in the diplomatic arena but has failed to stake a claim as a populist
economic leader. (No surprise here: As director-general of the Government Corporations Authority between 1996 and ’99, Livni helped to propel the much-reviled policy of privatization during Prime Minister Netanyahu’s first term.) ...

What, then, should we make of conflicting data about the domestic scene, which showed wall-to-wall support for social-justice protests alongside an equal amount of sanguinity and well-being? Scouring the polls for statistical clues about this, I found little that would reconcile the seeming contradiction — until an otherwise unremarkable editorial on the Israeli YNet News website offered a promising new perspective. Writing over the summer in support of the nascent protest movement, columnist Yehuda Nuriel suggested that it was as much about reviving Israel’s familial sense of national solidarity as it was about the principles of social democracy. “[H]ere is the Zionism we almost lost,” Nuriel gushed, explaining that the protest encampments had allowed “Israelis from all walks of life [to] meet . . . each other, like relatives who had never met.”

Interesting! The idea that the masses of Israelis who had supported the social-justice protests had been less motivated by a sense of fairness and equality than by a more tribal need to reconnect with “kinfolk” in a spirit of self-defense rang a bell for me. During the days of the yishuv, Zionists had endured the difficult struggle for statehood by invoking such principles as arvut hadadit (mutual responsibility), derived from the old Talmudic injunction, “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh b’zeh,” “All Jews are responsible for each other.” Throughout the decades, Jewish Israelis have prided themselves on their ability to overcome their differences and come together as a nation during time of war.

I recalled the words of a leading Israeli peace activist, who analyzed the wave of orchestrated incitement against the country’s human-rights organizations that ratcheted up significantly after the 2009 election of Netanyahu. Israel’s right-wing government, she argued, was well aware that it was directing the country towards a confrontation with the rest of the world. With the Jewish state again facing pariah status, the right knew that Israel could get by only if it felt united in purpose and resolve, and the way to achieve this, the activist reasoned, was to scapegoat a small minority of citizens by branding them as agents of foreign governments and inimical to Israel’s security interests. ...

Ron Skolnik's entire article can be read online at the Jewish Currents website.

Hannukah & history: the pride & the pity

noreply@blogger.com ("Partners" Blogmaster) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:19:00 +0000

This is a reprise and slight update of past postings about Hannukah. It comes every year, after all, and its bottom-line lesson for us has not changed:

History is of necessity an interpretive process, and these interpretations often spawn self-serving myths. National myths are not usually complete fabrications, but they tend to romanticize and sanitize real events.

The traditional Hanukkah story is a source of pride for the Jewish people. We are taught that a small army of freedom fighters, the Maccabees, led by the heroic priestly family of Mattathias and his seven sons, successfully resisted the cruel pagan tyranny of the ancient Greco-Syrian Seleucid dynasty. This is not untrue, but it's only part of the story.

We are usually not taught the far more complex reality that the Maccabean war of liberation was also a civil war between rural “fundamentalist” religious adherents of the old order and the more educated and cosmopolitan Hellenized Jews of the city, who voluntarily and eagerly embraced

the Greek culture of the Syrian empire. The Maccabees surely killed many of these “liberal” Jews in their struggle.

It is ironic that the Hasmonean family— the Maccabees’ ruling dynasty— within one generation of their victory for Jewish values over Hellenism, was taking Greek names, speaking Greek and transforming Judea into a Jewish Hellenistic kingdom. These rulers alienated the masses of the Jewish people by extreme acts of cruelty and debauchery. Their military prowess ultimately undermined their rule, as conquered peoples were converted to Judaism by the sword; Herod emerged from one such Judaized people to marry his way into the Hasmonean clan and murder them into extinction. Herod’s disastrously bloody reign led to Judea’s disintegration as an independent state and its domination by Rome.

Nevertheless, the Maccabees were brave and valiant warriors who did in fact win great victories over a powerful and authoritarian foreign enemy. But to take this snapshot in time as the whole picture is to accept a one-dimensional myth. For some of the reasons mentioned, Rabbinic Judaism accorded Hanukkah a minor religious status. (For example, although obligated to light the Menorah for eight nights, there is no requirement for religious Jews to refrain from work.)

When considered within its historic context of bloody Jewish civil wars and despotic rule, both embedded within the Hanukkah story and in the eventual downfall of Judea within its wake, Hanukkah provides a cautionary tale. Sixteen years after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, we should be warned against the dangers of fratricidal hatred, of demonizing our political foes, and of failing to understand the need at times for compromise and accommodation. Many of us have not yet learned this lesson. Khag Sameakh!

Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011): 'Jewish' gadfly

noreply@blogger.com (Ralph Seliger) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:48:00 +0000

I last saw him at the New York Public Library in June 2010, days before he learned of his illness. There, in the NYPL's magnificent main building, he spoke about his recent autobiography ("Hitch-22"), making a point of saying that he wanted to write it at a not-yet-advanced age, because you never know when you'll breathe your last. He was about three weeks older than I.

I frequently read his articles and essays with great interest, and I was amused by his brilliant exposé of Mother Teresa. I disagreed about as often as I agreed with his positions. In particular, I did not agree with his stubborn defense of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and of George W. Bush, even though I fully appreciated the human rights considerations which motivated his support for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. (Full disclosure: I initially supported the run-up to the invasion, until the US lost the vote in the UN Security Council and insisted on unilateral military action; I rejoiced at Saddam's overthrow for humanitarian reasons, but also came to know that the terribly ill-advised decisions of US "proconsul" Paul Bremer-- to fire Saddam's military and to bar even lowly Bathist Party members from government jobs-- made Iraq's sectarian civil war inevitable.)

The JTA's obit article on Hitchens is particularly interesting to me, as it focuses upon his long and complicated track record regarding Jews, Judaism and Israel:

.... Regarding Israel, he allied himself in the 1970s and 1980s with Palestinian nationalists and called himself an anti-Zionist.
As an atheist, he engaged with Judaism as he did with other faiths – with disdain for what he saw as a corrupting, malign irrationalism.
Yet in later years ....He developed a grudging appreciation for a democracy in a region he saw burgeoning with radical theocrats.
He also detected among some of his fellow Israel critics a tendency toward anti-Semitism....
.... Hitchens was 38 when his maternal grandmother revealed to his younger brother Peter that she was Jewish.
He told The Observer in 2002 that the revelation “thrilled” him – living in Washington, he had acquired a passel of Jewish friends. Moreover, he had had a dream of being on the deck of a ship and being asked to join a minyan.
Despite his rejection of religious precepts, Hitchens would make a point of telling interviewers that according to halacha, he was Jewish.
Hitchens’ proclivity, his insistence on pleasing no one but himself, was evident this summer when his target was a small group of pro-Palestinian activists aiming to breach Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip on the anniversary of the Israeli raid on another flotilla that claimed the lives of nine Turks and earned Israel international opprobrium.
He could not resist tweaking Israel for a tendency to blunder into confrontation. “Since Israel adopts a posture that almost guarantees a reaction of some sort in the not-too-distant future, and since there was such a frisson of violence the last time the little fleet set sail, there’s no reason for it not to become a regular seasonal favorite,” he wrote in Slate.
But then he went on to note the activists['] ties or sympathies with the Hamas-led government in Gaza, also noting Hamas’ embrace of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. “This disgusting fabrication is a key foundational document of 20th-century racism and totalitarianism, indelibly linked to the Hitler regime in theory and practice,” he wrote. “It seems extraordinary to me that any ‘activist’ claiming allegiance to human rights could cooperate at any level with the propagation of such evil material.”
He continued: “The little boats cannot make much difference to the welfare of Gaza either way, since the materials being shipped are in such negligible quantity. The chief significance of the enterprise is therefore symbolic. And the symbolism, when examined even cursorily, doesn’t seem too adorable.”

Israel alarmist tackles post-Holocaust thought

noreply@blogger.com (Ralph Seliger) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:22:00 +0000

Alvin Rosenfeld, the Indiana University professor of English and Jewish Studies engaged in dialogue at the NY Museum of Jewish Heritage, Dec. 14, with David Harris, director of the American Jewish Committee, on his new book, The End of the Holocaust (Indiana University Press, 2011). Prof. Rosenfeld had achieved a measure of notoriety with an essay published by the AJC in 2006, “Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Antisemitism.” The controversy that followed is admirably summarized in this Wikipedia article.

You might wish to read “Shotgun Blast,” an analysis of the essay in The American Prospect magazine by Gershom Gorenberg. He praised Rosenfeld's idea, but criticized his "sloppiness":

.... While attacking vituperative opponents of Israel who call themselves "progressive," he identifies their views with all who call themselves progressives – rather like letting James Dobson define what "Christian" means. He fires the shotgun of his criticism at such a wide flock of writers that his reader can wonder where he is aiming. Does The Washington Post's pro-Israel columnist Richard Cohen really belong to the same ideological species as those who accuse Israel of genocide? [Cohen apparently went overboard in one column, cited by Rosenfeld, when he characterized Israel’s creation as a “mistake”; in another column published not long after Rosenfeld’s essay came out, Cohen complains (in much the same way that Rosenfeld would) about the left’s outsized focus upon Israel, while often giving far worse human rights offenders (like China, Sudan, Zimbabwe and Iran) a bye.--R. Seliger]
The blurriness is a shame, because Rosenfeld has a legitimate argument. ... his intended target is those Jews who reject the very existence of a Jewish state, and who express their opposition in shrieks that rise to equating Israel with the Nazis.

Another excellent critique was written by Andrew Sillow-Carroll, editor-in-chief of the New Jersey Jewish News, in an editorial that I reproduced on this blog. Since I share Rosenfeld’s concern for the more outlandish and unfair arguments against Israel that characterize so much of the left, and occasionally seep into mainstream liberal discourse, my response was rather mild.

Yet, as in the AJC essay, Rosenfeld (judging from this public appearance) engages in overkill in
his new book. He’s terribly pessimistic, to the point of being alarmist, that the Holocaust is not generally understood and even that the Jewish people face the possibility of a second Holocaust in Israel. But during the Q & A, when I challenged his initial statement bemoaning a trend he cites for Holocaust museums and study centers to include “genocide and human rights” in their mission, he admitted that it’s not wrong for Holocaust institutions to also deal with these issues; we readily agreed that it should not be a requirement that they do so, nor their primary focus. He’s concerned with the “equivalence” question -- overly so, in my view.

Alvin Rosenfeld

Yes, the Holocaust was the largest and most sustained project of mass murder in modern times. This is less because of the number of victims-- which are nearly duplicated, or even surpassed-- in some other recent outrages, than in its systematic nature. The politically-induced famine produced by Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” in the late 1950s may have actually cost many more lives. The under-reported chaotic war in the eastern provinces of the former Zaire, now the ludicrously named Democratic Republic of Congo, is estimated at causing five million deaths and still counting (mostly due to starvation and disease). But what marked the Holocaust was its scope and intensity: operating throughout Nazi-occupied Europe and even into North Africa, with a single-minded focus to hunt-down and annihilate a single people, concentrating the political and technological resources of a modern state in an unprecedented way.

It’s good for this story to be understood. The Holocaust was not-- as described by a frequent email interlocutor of mine, the veteran pacifist and socialist leader David McReynolds-- the slaughter of 11 million European non-combatants under Nazi occupation (including the six million Jews). Other civilian victims of the Nazis were not categorically marked for death-- with the exception of some Roma (“Gypsy”) groups-- nor with such maniacal energy.

Still, there sometimes is an unseemly self-centeredness among Jews in their vigilance against “moral equivalence” arguments in invoking the primacy of the Holocaust as compared with other mass crimes or instances of gross injustice. And I can see where this would trouble a non-Jewish progressive like McReynolds. Yet complications abound; for example, even if one criticizes Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, they are in no way “genocidal,” and the Gaza Strip-- even on its worst days-- has never been like the Warsaw Ghetto (a massive holding pen for doomed prisoners).

In the conclusion of Rosenfeld’s discussion with Harris, he spoke about the four Holocaust writers who have most influenced him: Italy’s Primo Levi, author of Survival in Auschwitz; Imre Kertész of Hungary (now residing more comfortably in Germany because of the disturbingly antisemitic environment of present-day Hungary), the Nobel Prize winning author of Fateless or Fatelessness (apparently the same book, rendered with different titles in separate translations); the essayist Jean Améry, born Hanns Chaim Mayer; and the ever-familiar Elie Wiesel. Two are Nobel Laureates (Kertész & Wiesel) and two committed suicide (Levi & Améry).

Lawrence L. Langer’s review in The Forward, in June 2011, sums up Rosenfeld’s invocation of these four as follows:

Dispirited by the amnesia of the Germans about the crimes of their forebears, Améry could ask in 1977, a year before his suicide, “what is the good of my attempt to reflect on the conditio inhumana of the Third Reich? Isn’t it all outdated,” while Kertész could assert in 1997 with equal gloom that “There is an ‘Auschwitz mode of existence’…that continues to claim victims decades after the Nazi death camps themselves were destroyed.” Nevertheless, Wiesel and Kertész keep writing, and the voices of Améry and Levi were silenced only by their [self-inflicted] deaths.

My bottom-line sense of Rosenfeld's two works is that the author is out of his depth in both. As a scholar of literature rather than a journalist, historian or social scientist, I fear that his analysis is more acutely impressionistic than rigorously factual.