Acre riots

While most Israeli Jews spent Yom Kippur in prayer, contemplation or communing with their bicycles, a troublesome minority exploited the Day of Atonement to sin against public order.

In Kiryat Motzkin, Haifa, Beersheba, Holon, Rehovot and Jerusalem, loutish Jewish youths - overwhelmingly not haredi - stoned MDA ambulances in displays of juvenile delinquency that have become all too common in recent years.

Violence of a different order broke out in the northern town of Acre, where the population of 50,000 is about one-third Arab. Here, at about 11:30 p.m., Jewish youths hanging out on Yom Kippur took umbrage when Tawfik Jamal, an Arab resident of Acre's Old City, drove his car along Avraham Ben Shoshan Street in the Jewish part of town. Some of the youths claimed they feared he was about to carry out a vehicular terrorist attack - similar to those recently committed in Jerusalem.

Just what Jamal was doing on Yom Kippur eve in a Jewish neighborhood - where virtually no cars except emergency vehicles are on the road - is in dispute. His claim is that, accompanied by his son and the son's friend, he was picking up his daughter from her fiancé's place. The Jewish youths say he was blasting music and smoking a nargila in an act of ostentatious provocation. The initial police report backed the youths' version and suggested that Jamal was also intoxicated.

A verbal confrontation quickly deteriorated, with the Jews throwing stones and bottles at the Jamal party, which was eventually rescued by police.

An Arab who saw the altercation contacted a local sheikh and, within minutes, calls were made from mosque loudspeakers: "The Jews are attacking us!" Up to 2,000 rioting Arabs chanting "Death to the Jews" then converged on the Jewish part of town, rioting and looting. Hundreds of cars were damaged; scores of shops vandalized. The disturbances petered out with daybreak.

However, on Thursday night after the fast, sporadic violence reignited in areas where Jewish and Arabs neighborhoods abut. All told, about eight people were injured.

Several hours after Yom Kippur, the country's top cops were on the scene and taking charge. Some 700 specially-equipped police, outfitted for riot duty, were deployed. Israel Police Insp.-Gen. David Cohen ordered that no live fire be used in quelling any further disturbances.

Everyone recalls the October 2000 Arab riots which erupted simultaneously with the outbreak of the Aksa intifada. Jewish Israelis felt under siege then and the police reacted to the bloodshed as if it were a full-scale rebellion. A state commission of inquiry later criticized their handling of the violence in which 13 Arab citizens were killed.

What is essential now is that the violence, which has continued to flare intermittently over the weekend, not spread to other areas where Jews and Arabs live in close proximity. Constructively, over Shabbat, moderate Arab leaders publicly criticized Jamal for his insensitivity. Still, all eyes remain on Acre, where tensions have long been simmering between the mostly working-class populations, with the Arabs insisting that they're not getting a fair share of municipal services.

I have no sympathy with the band of Jewish youths who resorted to rioting when Jamal made his appearance. What they should have done was to call the police while seeking safety if they felt genuinely threatened. The behavior of the Arabs involved, many screaming "Itbah al-Yahud" [death to the Jews], disgusts me and is a reminder of how dangerously radicalized segments of the community have become. The police need to identify the lawbreakers and bring them to justice.

Sadly, the usual political arsonists played their predictable roles. MK Ahmed Tibi termed the Acre events a "Jewish pogrom," while MK Arieh Eldad also played the "pogrom" card. Eldad further fanned the flames: "One should not be surprised if Jews take up arms to defend themselves while the police does nothing to protect them."

Tibi and Eldad, predictably, got it wrong - as did local TV reports and several of the Friday Hebrew newspapers. Using the term "pogrom" in connection with Acre is an insult to the memories of the many Jews murdered in state-sponsored pogroms such as those organized by the Russian government in the 1880s.

A correct Zionist response is to insist that Arab and Jewish citizens live by the same rules and obligations. Anyone who advocates vigilantism undermines the Jewish state and should be shunned.

Edgy markets

Edgy markets
Oct. 6, 2008


Don't just do something - stand there. That's probably still the best advice economists can offer policymakers as Israel navigates its way through the global credit crisis.

Some of the uncertainty Israelis are experiencing is attributable to the country's political vacuum. A deeply unpopular prime minister has resigned and no successor is yet in place. Nor is there a figure of stature who can reassure the country, FDR-like, that "there is nothing to fear but fear itself."

This past Sunday's cabinet meeting addressed the economic crisis perfunctorily. On his way to Moscow, the premier allowed that the source of the problem was external. In a globalized world, however, this "insight" is small comfort.

Meanwhile, economists can't agree whether government spending next year should be increased beyond the planned 1.7 percent. If it is, the times demand that the additional monies contribute to growth and not be squandered on political payoffs.

Some of the uncertainty is psychological. With the word "panic" dominating US and European media coverage of the banking and credit crisis, Israelis can't help feeling a sense of spillover queasiness.

We went into Rosh Hashana with tabloid headlines screaming about how much the country's richest personalities - Shari Arison, Lev Leviev, Nochi Danker, Yitzhak Tshuva and the Offer brothers - had lost on their global investments. Implication: Their pain would trickle down.

So it was predictable that shares would take a beating when trading resumed Sunday on the Tel Aviv Stock Market. Yesterday the market also closed down across the board.

Sunday's losses were the worst in close to a decade. In fact, since January 2008 real estate shares have lost 67% of their value. Market gains elsewhere achieved over the past two years were largely wiped out.

GRANTED, it is hard for local policymakers to address the effects of the worldwide crisis on Israel when no one can yet fathom its scope.

But if the current global crisis has taught us anything, it is that calling for complete governmental noninterference with business is just as dopey as advocating a centrally planned economy.

Crucially, those charged with making economic decisions for the country need to do a better job of agreeing among themselves and communicating a coherent message - not just to big business, finance and the stock market, but to average Israelis as well.

We need to be hearing more from the top professional echelon at the Finance Ministry, the Israel Securities Authority and the Bank of Israel, among others. The media must resist the temptation to sensationalize the situation even as they keep Israelis abreast of developments. Finance Ministry Director-General Yarom Ariav's reassuring interview Monday morning on Army Radio is an example of the responsible coverage needed.

Israelis everywhere are watching developments. Those who run small businesses worry that it will be harder to obtain bank loans; those about to buy new homes hope mortgages will remain within reach. From builders to hoteliers, sectors dependent on overseas customers are watching to see how the crisis in Europe and America will affect them.

Israeli employers pay into a tax-exempt keren hishtalmut account - a sort of rainy day fund maintained for their employees. This money is invested until tapped cyclically. With the market down, so too is the value of these keren hishtalmut accounts, as consumer spending will probably soon reflect.

Many Israelis also belong to a pension scheme - kupat gemel - to which both they and their employers contribute. These funds, too, are invested in the market. Nine percent of pension savings have reportedly been lost since the beginning of the year.

Just about every Israeli has a bank account. But unlike in the US where the FDIC insures deposits - Israelis have no such insurance. Fortunately, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer assures us that the country's banks are stable - that no one expects a run on the banks.

Nevertheless, developing a plan to protect the deposits of average Israelis should figure high on the agenda of the next government.

Israelis need reassuring that those charged with regulating the country's business, finance, markets and economy are effectively looking out for their interests, even as they encourage efficient growth and investment.

And the winner is...

Oct. 7, 2008


I do hope you are right.
- Winston Churchill accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1953

The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded this week to Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier "for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus," and to Harald zur Hausen "for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer."

Hausen, from the Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, gets half the prize; while Mme Barré-Sinoussi, from the Pasteur Institute, and Montagnier, from the World Foundation for AIDS Research, share a quarter each.

No one questions the wisdom of awarding the prize to these virologists. Since 1981, when AIDS was first identified, 25 million people have died; 33 million live with this incurable disease. Roughly 5,000 AIDS cases have been diagnosed in Israel.

Barre-Sinoussi and Montagnier have made it possible not only to manage the illness, but to screen for HIV in the blood supply. Hausen's work will one day allow scientists to overcome the number two cancer killer among women. It is too bad, however, that the Nobel medical jury - Stockholm's Karolinska Institute - did not see fit to also recognize the contribution of Dr. Robert Gallo, an American virologist widely co-credited with discovering HIV. It's true that the jury was limited to three choices; still, Gallo's exclusion proves that the Nobel awarders don't always get it right.

Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, died in 1896 and left his fortune to endow the prize named after him. Nobel committees in various fields solicit nominations from academics, scientists, previous laureates and others.

Most of us will have to rely on the wisdom of the physics jury in selecting Yoichiro Nambu, Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa yesterday: Nambu for discovering the "mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics" and Maskawa, with Kobayashi, "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature."

The chemistry award will be announced today; literature follows on Thursday. The peace prize will be revealed Friday, and economics on October 13.

While many Nobel decisions are universally respected, others generate controversy.

For instance, PLO leader Yasser Arafat was awarded one-third of the 1994 prize, along with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, for "efforts to create peace in the Middle East" - though he really specialized in creating chaos. Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho shared the 1973 prize for helping South Vietnam trade land for peace. Sometimes a peace prize, like the 1929 award to Frank Billings Kellogg, a US secretary of state, reflects the triumph of hope over experience. Kellogg crafted a treaty, ratified by scores of countries including Germany and Japan, which outlawed the use of force in international relations.

So who - of the 33 groups and 164 individuals nominated - will the International Peace Research Institute, the Nobel peace jury, tap this year? Among the leading candidates are two "disappeared" Chinese dissidents, Gao Zhisheng of the Falun Gong and environmental campaigner Hu Jia.

In literature, London bookies are betting on relative unknowns: Claudio Magris, Adonis - said to be one of the Arab world's greatest living poets - and Jean-Marie Gustave Clezio. Dark-horse contenders include Israel's Amoz Oz and Jewish American novelist Philip Roth. It's been 15 years since a US author won. Professor Horace Engdahl, a Scandinavian literature professor and Nobel juror, claims that "The US is too isolated, too insular" to generate world-class fiction.

Jews have done rather well in the Nobel, capturing 19% of the chemistry awards; 41% in economics; 13% in literature; 9% of the peace prizes; 26% in physics and 28% in medicine. Israelis have made their mark too: Robert Aumann for economics (2005); Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko for chemistry (2004); Daniel Kahneman, economics (2002); Rabin and Peres for peace (1994); Menachem Begin, peace (1978); and Shmuel Yosef Agnon for literature (1966).

WHAT THIS suggests, simply, is that in the roster of some 780 prizes given to individuals (and 20 awarded to organizations) since 1901, Nobel jurors have made laudable decisions as well as egregiously foolish ones.

Isn't it good to know that some of the smartest people around are as fallible as the rest of us?

Four more weeks

Four more weeks
Oct. 10, 2008


Not surprisingly, on a day when the New York stock market dropped more than 500 points, the second presidential debate on Tuesday between Republican nominee Sen. John McCain and his Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama in Nashville, Tennessee focused largely on the economy.

Obama tied the financial crisis to government deregulation and the Bush administration's lack of fiscal discipline, while McCain painted his opponent as a tax-and-spend liberal. He says he would have the federal government buy up bad mortgage debts to bring relief to regular Americans; the Obama campaign counters that such a plan is basically already in place.

On Tuesday, Obama declared: "A year ago, I went to Wall Street and said we've got to re-regulate. And nothing happened. And Sen. McCain during that period said that we should keep on deregulating because that's how the free enterprise system works."

But McCain says he has all along been advocating tighter controls over the sub-prime housing market and that it was Obama who thought such loans were a good idea.

The race remains close; surveys show Obama leading McCain by roughly 49 to 44 points.

The campaign is also getting personal. McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," pointing to Obama's links with 1960s-era radical William Ayers. Palin says she's "just so fearful that this is a man who does not see America as you and I see it." McCain asks: "Who is the real Barack Obama?"

Anti-Obama bloggers continue to promote the ludicrous idea that he is a secret Muslim or - in the latest fantasy - a closet communist. Andy Martin, the blogger who first promoted the secret Muslim canard, has now been revealed to have had ties to a political action committee whose stated goal was "to exterminate Jew power in America..."

For its part, the Obama campaign is trying to undermine McCain's image as a maverick Washington outsider by reminding voters of his involvement in the 1989 Keating Five corruption scandal for which a Senate panel criticized his "poor judgment." Keating was convicted of securities fraud.

NOT MUCH foreign policy ground was covered in Tuesday's debate. McCain again took Obama to task for his willingness to "negotiate with [Iran] without preconditions," telling a questioner that "we can never allow a second Holocaust to take place."

Obama responded that it was "true... that I believe that we should have direct talks - not just with our friends, but also with our enemies - to deliver a tough, direct message to Iran that, if you don't change your behavior, then there will be dire consequences." He reiterated that he would "never take military options off the table," or give the UN veto power over US policy.

THIS AMERICAN election was always bound to hinge on domestic, not foreign policy, issues. A Pew Research Center survey found that US voters are taking an unprecedented interest in news about the economy. Barring some unforeseen calamity, the likely victor on November 4 will be the candidate who instills the most confidence among ordinary voters in his ability to rescue the ailing economy.

That said, it remains hugely important to all Israelis that the next American president be personally empathetic and diplomatically supportive to our cause. The Bush administration has requested $2.55 billion in security assistance for Israel - part of a new 10-year $30 billion security package. Whatever the issue - Iran, Hamas, or Hizbullah - Jerusalem needs a friend in the White House.

Fortunately, both candidates define themselves as pro-Israel. Frankly, we hope Obama clarifies his attitude toward borders and settlements to reassure us that an Obama administration would never pressure Israel back to the 1949 Armistice Lines. We'd also value hearing a similar message from John McCain.

Of course, we can't ask more of Obama or McCain than from our own government. The world knows where the Palestinian Authority stands - intransigently in our view - on the issues of borders, refugees and Jerusalem. So the most constructive step the next Israeli government can take - once it is finally in place, and preferably before the next president is inaugurated - would be to announce where Israel draws its "red lines."