Prime Minister Gordon Brown went to Buckingham Palace yesterday to ask Queen Elizabeth to dissolve parliament on April 12. New elections will take place on May 6. At the moment, the Conservative party under David Cameron is leading Brown's Labor party in the polls; the Liberal Democrats, headed by Nick Clegg, are in a strong third position
The sun may have set on the British Empire, but the U.K. continues to exercise considerable influence in the international arena. Britain is a major force in the European Union and a permanent member of the UN Security Council; it plays a leading role in NATO and the 54-nation Commonwealth. It also remains a world financial center and, through the BBC, wields considerable "soft power" worldwide.
As for its relations with Israel, trade now stands at £2.3 billion annually. But politically the country has been an indifferent friend at best, funding a dozen advocacy organizations that press Jerusalem to soften its security policies.
What would a change in government mean for British-Israel relations? Probably not a great deal—all three parties are on record as favoring Israel's withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice lines. Still, significant differences are discernible in the parties' approach.
Labor: Brown has close personal ties to the Jewish community; his father, a Presbyterian minister, was chairman of the Church of Scotland's Israel Committee. Foreign Minister David Miliband is a non-practicing Jew who recently ordered an Israeli diplomat expelled in connection with Israel's alleged forging of British passports in the assassination of Hamas arms smuggler Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Justice Secretary Jack Straw has refused to modify the country's Universal Jurisdiction law, invoked to threaten visiting Israeli officials with arrest on "war crimes" charges. The Labor party essentially accepted the Goldstone Report on the 2009 Gaza war. Last week, Britain merely abstained in the UN Human Rights Council vote demanding that Israel pay reparations to Gaza.
Several Labor back benchers are notorious Israel-bashers. Gerald Kaufman has compared IDF soldiers to Nazis; Martin Linton warned that Israel's "long tentacles" could warp the outcome of the coming elections. A group with the name Labor Friends of Israel has called on the government to pressure both Israelis and Palestinians "evenhandedly."
Liberal Democrats: Clegg has urged Britain to stop selling weapons to Israel. MP Paul Rowen is one of parliament's most ardent supporters of the Palestinian cause. And former MP Jenny Tonge, now in the House of Lords, declared it was worth investigating whether IDF aide workers in Haiti were actually harvesting organs for transplant. On the plus side of the ledger, the party recently authorized a support group to foster better relations with the Jewish community.
Conservatives: The tone of party pronouncements on Israel are notably sympathetic. William Hague, a former party leader and now Shadow Foreign Secretary, criticized Labor for not voting against the Goldstone Report. There are promises to modify the Universal Jurisdiction law.
Britain's Jewish community of 300,000 souls holds sway in perhaps a half-dozen of the country's 646 constituencies. While there are just four Muslim MPs, politicians are mindful that the overall Muslim population stands at 2.4 million. Most Jews will likely vote their economic and social interests, though a vocal minority can be expected to support the Tories purely because of Labor's shabby treatment of the Jewish state.
-- April 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
Britain & Israel
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Meeting Israel Prize Winner Hanoch Bartov
To judge by the many prestigious awards his country has bestowed upon him, and by his prolific output—including ten novels, six collections of short stories, and three books of essays—the eighty-four-year-old Hanoch Bartov should need no introduction. And yet, outside Israel, this master of Hebrew style and quintessential son of the Jewish people and the Jewish state is relatively little known.
One can only hope this will change now that Bartov is about to receive his country's highest honor, the Israel Prize, to be awarded at a nationally televised ceremony on Independence Day, April 20. Informed of the prize, the voluble octogenarian cracked that, although arriving "a little late," it at least provided "scientific proof that there is life after death."
Born in Petah Tikvah to immigrant parents in 1926, the young Bartov preferred burying his head in a book to playing sports. He received a religious education but left school at fifteen to become an apprentice diamond polisher. At seventeen, he joined the Palestine regiment that later became the Jewish Brigade, a formation tardily authorized by Winston Churchill toward the closing stages of World War II.
At war's end, Bartov remained in Europe, where he helped to seek out surviving Jewish refugees and transport them "illegally" into Palestine. Twenty years later, his experience would provide material for a novel, The Brigade, one among the few Bartov works available in English.
Back in Palestine, Bartov spent several semesters at the Hebrew University before being abruptly called up in 1947 to serve in the Haganah during Israel's War of Independence. Thereafter, his career as a writer, which included decades as a columnist for Maariv as well as the steady production of distinguished works of fiction and non-fiction, began in earnest.
When did you first see your name in print?
I started writing as the result of an army bet when I was nineteen. It was a very short story about unrequited love, a subject troubling me at the time. It took me a while to figure out where to send it, but six or seven weeks later a check arrived for a little over a pound—a lot of money at the time.
I was not yet a writer, but I was writing. I'd caught the bug.
Unlike many Israeli writers, you insist on calling yourself a "Jewish writer."
One of my formative experiences was serving in the Jewish Brigade in Europe. A second, after the War of Independence, was living in Jerusalem's German Colony where my wife and I were surrounded by Holocaust refugees rebuilding their lives. After my experiences with the survivors, I dropped my exclusively "Israeli" identity. If I was not foremost a Jew, what did I share with these people who had gone through the hell of the Holocaust?
Hillel Halkin, who translated one of your books, has said that you were among the first in Israel's literary establishment to write in the language people actually spoke.
Yes. Though I employ linguistic allusions to Torah and Mishnah, I don't go in for flowery usage or images. I'm not a fan of post-modern writing, either. I write what I see.
Which authors would you recommend to someone who wants to start exploring contemporary Hebrew literature?
First, read my books!
What book would I find on your bedside table?
Josephus' The Wars of the Jews. It's really about the wars among the Jews. An ancient book, but I read it to understand the tragic parallels with our own times.
You are a man of the Left.
I am Left, but left alone. My Left was shattered many decades ago by the revelations about the crimes of Stalin. Nowadays, I find the Meretz party to be irrelevant, and Labor is led by a millionaire [Ehud Barak], a bourgeois par excellence.
Where does that leave you?
Adhering to certain values that, if besmirched, would make the Zionist enterprise meaningless. Israel needs to be a society based on justice and honesty, the values propagated by the ancient Hebrew prophets. We used to be egalitarian, but we've become a plutocracy. There is a shocking disparity of income. I was disillusioned with Communism, but I remain a social democrat—an old-fashioned socialist.
What do you make of Israel's anti-Zionist Left?
You're speaking of the Left in academia. They are mere curiosities. They lead comfortable lives and mouth platitudes.
In retrospect, was Israel's founding generation mistaken in aiming to create a "new Jew?"
Before the Holocaust, the idea of creating a Jew with none of the baggage of the Diaspora seemed reasonable. But after the loss of Europe's authentic centers of Jewish life, the situation changed. We in Israel did not appreciate how much, and regrettably we allowed our children and grandchildren to grow up Jewishly illiterate
What is the way forward?
It's not religious extremism, though frankly I prefer the [fanatical ultra-Orthodox and anti-Zionist] Neturei Karta types to the Hebrew-speaking post-Zionism crowd. Why? Because after a generation or two, there's a chance the ultra-Orthodox may become heretics, but they'll still retain enough of their heritage to stay Jewish, whereas those who are Jewishly illiterate will be lost forever.
Getting back to literature, in the last ten years you have published two novels, a long novella, and a collection of essays. What next?
I'm not comfortable talking about work in progress. But I do have a project that's been in the works for several years. Now that I've won the Israel Prize, I feel duty-bound to finish it.
As for my recent fiction, I continue to grapple with the Israeli-Jewish connection, tackling it from different angles. For instance, in 2006 I published Beyond the Horizon, Across the Street [Mi-hutz la-Ofek, Me`ever la-Rechov], a work that took me twenty-eight years to complete. I don't really call it a novel because it deals with an actual family and I let their story speak for itself.
They were from Kovno, in Lithuania: very Zionist, speaking Hebrew and always intending to come to Palestine but never succeeding. During the brief Soviet occupation [June 1940–June 1941] before the Nazis invaded, they were able to send two of their sons here. I met one of them in the Jewish Brigade, and the other I knew later in Jerusalem. Miraculously, the family back home survived the Holocaust; they were reunited by our Jewish Brigade, and the entire family--the youngest boy was thirteen--made it to Israel. Both the adult sons fought in the War of Independence, but tragically the older one was killed in action. The parents lived well into their eighties with all of these memories.
For me, this is a saga that mixes Jewish and Israeli fates. In what sense? You never know whether you are going to survive or die.
--April 2010
One can only hope this will change now that Bartov is about to receive his country's highest honor, the Israel Prize, to be awarded at a nationally televised ceremony on Independence Day, April 20. Informed of the prize, the voluble octogenarian cracked that, although arriving "a little late," it at least provided "scientific proof that there is life after death."
Born in Petah Tikvah to immigrant parents in 1926, the young Bartov preferred burying his head in a book to playing sports. He received a religious education but left school at fifteen to become an apprentice diamond polisher. At seventeen, he joined the Palestine regiment that later became the Jewish Brigade, a formation tardily authorized by Winston Churchill toward the closing stages of World War II.
At war's end, Bartov remained in Europe, where he helped to seek out surviving Jewish refugees and transport them "illegally" into Palestine. Twenty years later, his experience would provide material for a novel, The Brigade, one among the few Bartov works available in English.
Back in Palestine, Bartov spent several semesters at the Hebrew University before being abruptly called up in 1947 to serve in the Haganah during Israel's War of Independence. Thereafter, his career as a writer, which included decades as a columnist for Maariv as well as the steady production of distinguished works of fiction and non-fiction, began in earnest.
When did you first see your name in print?
I started writing as the result of an army bet when I was nineteen. It was a very short story about unrequited love, a subject troubling me at the time. It took me a while to figure out where to send it, but six or seven weeks later a check arrived for a little over a pound—a lot of money at the time.
I was not yet a writer, but I was writing. I'd caught the bug.
Unlike many Israeli writers, you insist on calling yourself a "Jewish writer."
One of my formative experiences was serving in the Jewish Brigade in Europe. A second, after the War of Independence, was living in Jerusalem's German Colony where my wife and I were surrounded by Holocaust refugees rebuilding their lives. After my experiences with the survivors, I dropped my exclusively "Israeli" identity. If I was not foremost a Jew, what did I share with these people who had gone through the hell of the Holocaust?
Hillel Halkin, who translated one of your books, has said that you were among the first in Israel's literary establishment to write in the language people actually spoke.
Yes. Though I employ linguistic allusions to Torah and Mishnah, I don't go in for flowery usage or images. I'm not a fan of post-modern writing, either. I write what I see.
Which authors would you recommend to someone who wants to start exploring contemporary Hebrew literature?
First, read my books!
What book would I find on your bedside table?
Josephus' The Wars of the Jews. It's really about the wars among the Jews. An ancient book, but I read it to understand the tragic parallels with our own times.
You are a man of the Left.
I am Left, but left alone. My Left was shattered many decades ago by the revelations about the crimes of Stalin. Nowadays, I find the Meretz party to be irrelevant, and Labor is led by a millionaire [Ehud Barak], a bourgeois par excellence.
Where does that leave you?
Adhering to certain values that, if besmirched, would make the Zionist enterprise meaningless. Israel needs to be a society based on justice and honesty, the values propagated by the ancient Hebrew prophets. We used to be egalitarian, but we've become a plutocracy. There is a shocking disparity of income. I was disillusioned with Communism, but I remain a social democrat—an old-fashioned socialist.
What do you make of Israel's anti-Zionist Left?
You're speaking of the Left in academia. They are mere curiosities. They lead comfortable lives and mouth platitudes.
In retrospect, was Israel's founding generation mistaken in aiming to create a "new Jew?"
Before the Holocaust, the idea of creating a Jew with none of the baggage of the Diaspora seemed reasonable. But after the loss of Europe's authentic centers of Jewish life, the situation changed. We in Israel did not appreciate how much, and regrettably we allowed our children and grandchildren to grow up Jewishly illiterate
What is the way forward?
It's not religious extremism, though frankly I prefer the [fanatical ultra-Orthodox and anti-Zionist] Neturei Karta types to the Hebrew-speaking post-Zionism crowd. Why? Because after a generation or two, there's a chance the ultra-Orthodox may become heretics, but they'll still retain enough of their heritage to stay Jewish, whereas those who are Jewishly illiterate will be lost forever.
Getting back to literature, in the last ten years you have published two novels, a long novella, and a collection of essays. What next?
I'm not comfortable talking about work in progress. But I do have a project that's been in the works for several years. Now that I've won the Israel Prize, I feel duty-bound to finish it.
As for my recent fiction, I continue to grapple with the Israeli-Jewish connection, tackling it from different angles. For instance, in 2006 I published Beyond the Horizon, Across the Street [Mi-hutz la-Ofek, Me`ever la-Rechov], a work that took me twenty-eight years to complete. I don't really call it a novel because it deals with an actual family and I let their story speak for itself.
They were from Kovno, in Lithuania: very Zionist, speaking Hebrew and always intending to come to Palestine but never succeeding. During the brief Soviet occupation [June 1940–June 1941] before the Nazis invaded, they were able to send two of their sons here. I met one of them in the Jewish Brigade, and the other I knew later in Jerusalem. Miraculously, the family back home survived the Holocaust; they were reunited by our Jewish Brigade, and the entire family--the youngest boy was thirteen--made it to Israel. Both the adult sons fought in the War of Independence, but tragically the older one was killed in action. The parents lived well into their eighties with all of these memories.
For me, this is a saga that mixes Jewish and Israeli fates. In what sense? You never know whether you are going to survive or die.
--April 2010
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Making Tzipi Livni Look Good
I can't say I am disappointed in Shaul Mofaz of Kadima since I did not have high expectations of him in the first place.
But his intemperate piece in yesterday's Maariv and his remarks on Israel Radio today about the Im Tirtzu movement are nevertheless notable.
Mofaz thinks it is "thuggish" to call attention to a political culture at Ben-Gurion & other universities which creates a safe haven for Israelis enablers of the boycott of Israel movement.
Yet speaking out of both sides of his mouth he also said that anti-Zionist lecturers should not be employed. Huh?
I have nothing against employing anti-Zionists. But when you reach a tipping point and the anti-Zionists set the tone for an entire department and even a campus, something is terribly wrong.
But his intemperate piece in yesterday's Maariv and his remarks on Israel Radio today about the Im Tirtzu movement are nevertheless notable.
Mofaz thinks it is "thuggish" to call attention to a political culture at Ben-Gurion & other universities which creates a safe haven for Israelis enablers of the boycott of Israel movement.
Yet speaking out of both sides of his mouth he also said that anti-Zionist lecturers should not be employed. Huh?
I have nothing against employing anti-Zionists. But when you reach a tipping point and the anti-Zionists set the tone for an entire department and even a campus, something is terribly wrong.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Friday, July 16, 2010
British Jews and Israel
On Friday, Jewish Ideas Daily called attention to an important survey of British Jewish public opinion:
http://www.jpr.org.uk/downloads/Attitudes%20of%20Jews%20in%20Britain%20towards%20Israel.pdf
One finding that struck me is that 95 percent of UK Jews have visited Israel. Granted the journey is not as long as a trip from North America. Still, it is significant contrasted with US Jews -- MOST of whom have NEVER been to Israel.
http://www.jpr.org.uk/downloads/Attitudes%20of%20Jews%20in%20Britain%20towards%20Israel.pdf
One finding that struck me is that 95 percent of UK Jews have visited Israel. Granted the journey is not as long as a trip from North America. Still, it is significant contrasted with US Jews -- MOST of whom have NEVER been to Israel.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Friday, July 09, 2010
Now that's what I call an exchange: What Jerusalem Can Learn from Washington & Moscow
10 Russian agents who infiltrated suburban America were deported in exchange for four people said to have been spying for the West and held in Russian prisons.
10 for 4.
The four were said to have delivered such good material to make the lopsided exchange reasonable.
10 for 4.
Not 1,000 for 1.
Not ONE of the 10 released pose any threat to US national security. Not one.
1,000 for 1? When among the 1,000 are scores who will kill again? Not spy again, kill again.
No way.
10 for 4.
The four were said to have delivered such good material to make the lopsided exchange reasonable.
10 for 4.
Not 1,000 for 1.
Not ONE of the 10 released pose any threat to US national security. Not one.
1,000 for 1? When among the 1,000 are scores who will kill again? Not spy again, kill again.
No way.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Celebrating the Venice Declaration
No, it's not your imagination.
The editor of the op-ed pages of the International Herald Tribune has allowed two sympathetic pieces about Israel to appear since the Turkish/Hamas flotilla provocation.
There was the oped by Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the US and one by the eloquent Israeli-American author Daniel Gordis.
Everything else, day in and day out has lived up to the usual illiberal idea of balance: On one one hand, criticism of Israel by Arabs; on the other hand, criticism of Israeli policies by Israelis.
Today's piece by Sharon Pardo of Ben-Gurion University and Yonatan Touval urging Europe to pressure Israel is the latest installment of the IHT -- the Global Edition of the NYTimes -- onslaught.
Which is not to say the IHT is worse than the British press.
Pardo & Touval look back with fondness on the 30th anniversary of the Venice Declaration -- the European push for the legitimization of the PLO.
After all, that eventually led to Oslo.
Their piece would work in The Onion as satire.
But these guys are serious. I feel a European junket coming on.
The editor of the op-ed pages of the International Herald Tribune has allowed two sympathetic pieces about Israel to appear since the Turkish/Hamas flotilla provocation.
There was the oped by Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the US and one by the eloquent Israeli-American author Daniel Gordis.
Everything else, day in and day out has lived up to the usual illiberal idea of balance: On one one hand, criticism of Israel by Arabs; on the other hand, criticism of Israeli policies by Israelis.
Today's piece by Sharon Pardo of Ben-Gurion University and Yonatan Touval urging Europe to pressure Israel is the latest installment of the IHT -- the Global Edition of the NYTimes -- onslaught.
Which is not to say the IHT is worse than the British press.
Pardo & Touval look back with fondness on the 30th anniversary of the Venice Declaration -- the European push for the legitimization of the PLO.
After all, that eventually led to Oslo.
Their piece would work in The Onion as satire.
But these guys are serious. I feel a European junket coming on.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Ross Douthat: worth skipping
I have to confess that I tend to give a miss to Ross Douthat's NYTimes op-eds.
But it is worth reading one from time to time to remind myself why -- at least when it comes to Israel -- the man knows not from whence he speaks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/opinion/07douthat.html?hp
Ross, before there were Crusader states, indeed before there was Christianity -- there was the Jewish state of Israel and an already ancient Jewish civilizational connection to the country.
The moral stance to take -- the right thing to do -- is to support Israel not to join the jackals.
But it is worth reading one from time to time to remind myself why -- at least when it comes to Israel -- the man knows not from whence he speaks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/opinion/07douthat.html?hp
Ross, before there were Crusader states, indeed before there was Christianity -- there was the Jewish state of Israel and an already ancient Jewish civilizational connection to the country.
The moral stance to take -- the right thing to do -- is to support Israel not to join the jackals.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Monday, June 07, 2010
More on the peace activists
In case you missed it:
The following passengers on board the Mavi Marmara are known to be involved in terrorist activity.
Fatimah Mahmadi (born 1979), is a United States resident of Iranian origin, and an active member of the organization "Viva Palestine", she attempted to smuggle forbidden electronic components into the Gaza Strip.
Ken O'Keefe (Born 1969), an American and British citizen, is a radical anti-Israel activist and operative of the Hamas Terror organization. He attempted to enter the Gaza Strip in order to form and train a commando unit for the Palestinian terror organization.
Hassan Iynasi (born 1982), a Turkish citizen and activist in a Turkish charity organization, is known of providing financial support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Terror organization.
Hussein Urosh, a Turkish citizen and activist in the IHH organization, was on his way to the Gaza Strip in order to assist in smuggling Al-Qaeda operatives via Turkey into the Strip.
Ahmad Umimon (born 1959), is a French citizen of Moroccan origin, and an operative of the Hamas Terrorist organization.
***************
Also, have a look at
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/
The following passengers on board the Mavi Marmara are known to be involved in terrorist activity.
Fatimah Mahmadi (born 1979), is a United States resident of Iranian origin, and an active member of the organization "Viva Palestine", she attempted to smuggle forbidden electronic components into the Gaza Strip.
Ken O'Keefe (Born 1969), an American and British citizen, is a radical anti-Israel activist and operative of the Hamas Terror organization. He attempted to enter the Gaza Strip in order to form and train a commando unit for the Palestinian terror organization.
Hassan Iynasi (born 1982), a Turkish citizen and activist in a Turkish charity organization, is known of providing financial support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Terror organization.
Hussein Urosh, a Turkish citizen and activist in the IHH organization, was on his way to the Gaza Strip in order to assist in smuggling Al-Qaeda operatives via Turkey into the Strip.
Ahmad Umimon (born 1959), is a French citizen of Moroccan origin, and an operative of the Hamas Terrorist organization.
***************
Also, have a look at
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Friday, June 04, 2010
One tidbit from the Friday Haaretz
There is actually one op-ed word reading in the Friday Haaretz. But I can't link it here because it is not yet on the web.
The piece is by Israel Harel entitled "Exhausting ourselves to death." He recall the famous quote by Chaim Weizmann: It is easier to take the Jews out of the galut (diaspora) than to take the galut out of the Jews.
The reaction of Israel's media elite and intelligentsia to the world's defamation of our country was akin to how ghetto Jews reacted in the bad old day before the state.
We've acted, Harel says, "like an insecure community"; "we do not stop flagellating ourselves over not having done enough to provide 'information' to those who hate us, as if they do not know the truth."
Harel goes on to point out that we still have many friends in the US and elsewhere but their friendship is not appreciated or treated as somehow "strange."
The Friday page one of today's (Friday's) Haaretz is the least anti-Israel -- the least post-Zionist -- of the week. Curious.
The piece is by Israel Harel entitled "Exhausting ourselves to death." He recall the famous quote by Chaim Weizmann: It is easier to take the Jews out of the galut (diaspora) than to take the galut out of the Jews.
The reaction of Israel's media elite and intelligentsia to the world's defamation of our country was akin to how ghetto Jews reacted in the bad old day before the state.
We've acted, Harel says, "like an insecure community"; "we do not stop flagellating ourselves over not having done enough to provide 'information' to those who hate us, as if they do not know the truth."
Harel goes on to point out that we still have many friends in the US and elsewhere but their friendship is not appreciated or treated as somehow "strange."
The Friday page one of today's (Friday's) Haaretz is the least anti-Israel -- the least post-Zionist -- of the week. Curious.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Trading access for access: Let the Red Cross See Gilad Schalit
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman proposes that Israel open a number of additional overland passages into the Hamas-occupied Gaza Strip in return for a commitment from the Islamist rulers to allow regular monthly visits by Red Cross representatives to Gilad Schalit.
It's certainly an idea worth considering.
It's certainly an idea worth considering.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Meanwhile....
You never know quite what to believe. Mossad chief Meir Dagan told members of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Iranian nuclear program is facing many technological difficulties.
The NYTimes is reporting that Iran has now produced a stockpile of nuclear fuel that experts say would be enough, with further enrichment, to make two nuclear weapons.
The NYTimes is reporting that Iran has now produced a stockpile of nuclear fuel that experts say would be enough, with further enrichment, to make two nuclear weapons.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
The pressure mounts on Israel
It's no fun waking up to see the world's irrational reaction to the interdiction of the non-humanitarian flotilla bound for Hamas-controlled Gaza continuing to dominate the news. To hear the Irish premier warn Israel of the consequences of the next interdiction.
The Irish premier. Jesus, Mary and Joseph! What does Ireland have to do with Gaza?
The world's hostility and refusal to even consider Israel's position seems almost ...metaphysical.
Our existence has become such a terrible nuisance. They either do not know or do not care what Hamas would do if we stepped back and allowed unfettered access to Gaza. Israelis would love nothing better than to wash our hands of Gaza.
Critics here say the problem is hasbara.
I wish.
I heard a British anchor yesterday press a beleaguered Israeli spokesman trying to explain what our commandos encountered on the "aid ship.": "Yes, but you shot them, didn't you...yes, yes, but you shot them, didn't you?"
She was not open to so much as hearing Israel's position.
Yes the IDF tape of what our commandos faced should have been released earlier. No doubt. For our own edification. To help Israelis cope through that long Monday morning.
But I doubt it would have persuaded a world that has closed its mind toward Israel. They have eyes but they do not see; ears but do not hear.
Haaretz, as usual, continues to do irreparable damage to the Zionist enterprise -- a tradition that dates back decades.
Tuesday's front page was replete with sickening self-flagellation.
Wednesday's paper is a joke; an exercise in self-indulgence in which novelists were invited to take over most of the news pages. Post-modernist Haaretz: Truth/Fiction. Whatever.
The Irish premier. Jesus, Mary and Joseph! What does Ireland have to do with Gaza?
The world's hostility and refusal to even consider Israel's position seems almost ...metaphysical.
Our existence has become such a terrible nuisance. They either do not know or do not care what Hamas would do if we stepped back and allowed unfettered access to Gaza. Israelis would love nothing better than to wash our hands of Gaza.
Critics here say the problem is hasbara.
I wish.
I heard a British anchor yesterday press a beleaguered Israeli spokesman trying to explain what our commandos encountered on the "aid ship.": "Yes, but you shot them, didn't you...yes, yes, but you shot them, didn't you?"
She was not open to so much as hearing Israel's position.
Yes the IDF tape of what our commandos faced should have been released earlier. No doubt. For our own edification. To help Israelis cope through that long Monday morning.
But I doubt it would have persuaded a world that has closed its mind toward Israel. They have eyes but they do not see; ears but do not hear.
Haaretz, as usual, continues to do irreparable damage to the Zionist enterprise -- a tradition that dates back decades.
Tuesday's front page was replete with sickening self-flagellation.
Wednesday's paper is a joke; an exercise in self-indulgence in which novelists were invited to take over most of the news pages. Post-modernist Haaretz: Truth/Fiction. Whatever.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
How to understand Israel's Response to the Gaza Flotilla
The developing diplomatic and media reaction to Israel's interdiction Monday of a pro-Palestinian flotilla steaming toward the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip speaks volumes: about Israel's deepening isolation in the world and the perverted moral priorities of the international community.
Even before Defense Minister Ehud Barak presented Israel's preliminary report at a 1 p.m. Tel Aviv news conference the censorious deluge had begun. The European Union called for an end to the quarantine of Gaza; Greece cancelled a scheduled visit by the commander of the Israeli Air Force; France unleashed a stinging denunciation; Switzerland called in the Israeli ambassador.
A morning anchor on Britain's Sky News demanded an Israeli spokesman tell him why Israel had no respect for international law. Not one satellite news channel in the region carried Barak's English-language briefing. Only a few bothered to broadcast an earlier statement by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.
As soon as operational conditions permitted, Jerusalem wasted no time in presenting its case, but what it said was promptly ignored, denigrated or dismissed.
These basic facts were known early on:
• Organizers: The flotilla was instigated by the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, an extremist Islamist organization based in Turkey in collaboration with the violence-prone International Solidarity Movement. Their moves were coordinated with Turkey and Hamas.
• Aid was a pretext: Organizers were offered the opportunity to ship any humanitarian supplies to Gaza via the Israeli port of Ashdod; a million tons of humanitarian supplies have entered Gaza from Israel over the last 18 months. They refused.
• Propaganda was the aim: IHH was repeatedly warned that under no circumstances would its convoy be permitted to sail into Gaza. Only when last-minute sea-to-sea warnings to desist were ignored were the vessels boarded by Israeli navy commandos. There was minimal resistance on five of the six boats as the troops, equipped with anti-riot gear, came aboard.
• Violence was premeditated: Instead of encountering "peace activists" the commandos rappelling down from helicopters onto the largest boat – the multi- story ocean liner Mavi Marmara with hundreds of militants aboard -- were set upon by crowds armed with knives, metal bars, and Molotov cocktails. At least two commandos are in hospital with gunshot wounds; another has a fractured skull. The commandos radioed that they feared being overwhelmed and lynched (video) and were given permission to use live fire.
These are the circumstances – self-defense – in which 9 pro-Palestinian activists, mostly Turkish nationals, were killed.
Nevertheless, Israel confronts a media intifada in which rage replaces rationality. From the outset, Arab news outlets and their enablers, stoked anti-Israel sentiment with bogus claims disseminated by new media technologies that 20 "activists" had been wantonly slaughtered, and that the Islamic Movement's northern branch chief Raed Salah (an Islamist agitator who carries an Israeli passport and was on board the Mavi Marmara) had been "assassinated." He is alive and well.
Arab leaders in Israel have called for raucous a general strike; Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad has urged Hamas to put aside its differences with Fatah in the common struggle against Israel. Radicalized Turkey, now allied with Iran and Hamas, may have found a pretext for a formal break in diplomatic ties with Israel.
Liberal Europe has trotted out the usual litany of charges. Israel is accused of violating international law, notwithstanding that it is legally entitled to quarantine Hamas which has declared war on Israel. The Jewish state is excoriated for acting on the high-seas, though that's where the unlawful intent of the flotilla could best be preempted. It is criticized for disproportionate use of force, though its soldiers met with lethal opposition.
In practice, any steps Israel takes in self-defense are adjudged "disproportionate."
In many ways, Monday's dawn clash off the Israeli coast was an incident foretold. At the UN, U.S. diplomats blocked a completely one-sided formal Security Council resolution condemning Israel that had demanded a Goldstone-like commission of inquiry. Instead, they tiredly acquiesced to a less equivocal censure which calls for an "impartial investigation."
Yet this is an administration that prides itself on "never letting a serious crisis go to waste."
It is, therefore, not too late for President Barack Obama to lead the civilized word out of its moral stupor; to emphatically declare that the season for shameless scapegoating of the Jewish state is over; to assert that Israel is in the forefront of a struggle against Western civilization by insidious Islamist fanaticism.
Even before Defense Minister Ehud Barak presented Israel's preliminary report at a 1 p.m. Tel Aviv news conference the censorious deluge had begun. The European Union called for an end to the quarantine of Gaza; Greece cancelled a scheduled visit by the commander of the Israeli Air Force; France unleashed a stinging denunciation; Switzerland called in the Israeli ambassador.
A morning anchor on Britain's Sky News demanded an Israeli spokesman tell him why Israel had no respect for international law. Not one satellite news channel in the region carried Barak's English-language briefing. Only a few bothered to broadcast an earlier statement by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.
As soon as operational conditions permitted, Jerusalem wasted no time in presenting its case, but what it said was promptly ignored, denigrated or dismissed.
These basic facts were known early on:
• Organizers: The flotilla was instigated by the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, an extremist Islamist organization based in Turkey in collaboration with the violence-prone International Solidarity Movement. Their moves were coordinated with Turkey and Hamas.
• Aid was a pretext: Organizers were offered the opportunity to ship any humanitarian supplies to Gaza via the Israeli port of Ashdod; a million tons of humanitarian supplies have entered Gaza from Israel over the last 18 months. They refused.
• Propaganda was the aim: IHH was repeatedly warned that under no circumstances would its convoy be permitted to sail into Gaza. Only when last-minute sea-to-sea warnings to desist were ignored were the vessels boarded by Israeli navy commandos. There was minimal resistance on five of the six boats as the troops, equipped with anti-riot gear, came aboard.
• Violence was premeditated: Instead of encountering "peace activists" the commandos rappelling down from helicopters onto the largest boat – the multi- story ocean liner Mavi Marmara with hundreds of militants aboard -- were set upon by crowds armed with knives, metal bars, and Molotov cocktails. At least two commandos are in hospital with gunshot wounds; another has a fractured skull. The commandos radioed that they feared being overwhelmed and lynched (video) and were given permission to use live fire.
These are the circumstances – self-defense – in which 9 pro-Palestinian activists, mostly Turkish nationals, were killed.
Nevertheless, Israel confronts a media intifada in which rage replaces rationality. From the outset, Arab news outlets and their enablers, stoked anti-Israel sentiment with bogus claims disseminated by new media technologies that 20 "activists" had been wantonly slaughtered, and that the Islamic Movement's northern branch chief Raed Salah (an Islamist agitator who carries an Israeli passport and was on board the Mavi Marmara) had been "assassinated." He is alive and well.
Arab leaders in Israel have called for raucous a general strike; Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad has urged Hamas to put aside its differences with Fatah in the common struggle against Israel. Radicalized Turkey, now allied with Iran and Hamas, may have found a pretext for a formal break in diplomatic ties with Israel.
Liberal Europe has trotted out the usual litany of charges. Israel is accused of violating international law, notwithstanding that it is legally entitled to quarantine Hamas which has declared war on Israel. The Jewish state is excoriated for acting on the high-seas, though that's where the unlawful intent of the flotilla could best be preempted. It is criticized for disproportionate use of force, though its soldiers met with lethal opposition.
In practice, any steps Israel takes in self-defense are adjudged "disproportionate."
In many ways, Monday's dawn clash off the Israeli coast was an incident foretold. At the UN, U.S. diplomats blocked a completely one-sided formal Security Council resolution condemning Israel that had demanded a Goldstone-like commission of inquiry. Instead, they tiredly acquiesced to a less equivocal censure which calls for an "impartial investigation."
Yet this is an administration that prides itself on "never letting a serious crisis go to waste."
It is, therefore, not too late for President Barack Obama to lead the civilized word out of its moral stupor; to emphatically declare that the season for shameless scapegoating of the Jewish state is over; to assert that Israel is in the forefront of a struggle against Western civilization by insidious Islamist fanaticism.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Meet This Year's Israel Prize Winner for Hebrew Literature
Introducing Hanoch Bartov:
To judge by the many prestigious awards his country has bestowed upon him, and by his prolific output—including ten novels, six collections of short stories, and three books of essays—the eighty-four-year-old Hanoch Bartov should need no introduction. And yet, outside Israel, this master of Hebrew style and quintessential son of the Jewish people and the Jewish state is relatively little known.
Please see my interview:
www.jewishideasdaily.com
To judge by the many prestigious awards his country has bestowed upon him, and by his prolific output—including ten novels, six collections of short stories, and three books of essays—the eighty-four-year-old Hanoch Bartov should need no introduction. And yet, outside Israel, this master of Hebrew style and quintessential son of the Jewish people and the Jewish state is relatively little known.
Please see my interview:
www.jewishideasdaily.com
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
New Elections Have Been Called in the UK
Will a change in government matter to US-Israel relations?
Please visit:
www.Jewishideasdaily.com
Please visit:
www.Jewishideasdaily.com
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
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I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Musings on Moses & Muhammad
During the last full week of February, Jews and Muslims memorialized their respective founding prophets who, coincidentally, both died on their own birthdays.
Judaism commemorated Adar 7 as the day when Moses was born and died (coinciding with February 21); Islam commemorated Rabi-al-Awwal 12 (coinciding with February 26) as Muhammad's birthday and the anniversary of his death. The day, Milad an-Nabi, has religious as well as cultural significance. In Southeast Asia, for instance, it is marked by a carnival atmosphere. More conservative Muslim authorities hold that there is no theological basis to sanctify the day.
Yet this year in Damascus, it was a pan-Islamic occasion which saw Syrian President Bashar Assad, an Alawite, and the Persian Shi'ite president of Iran, Mahmud Ahmadinijad, attend a Sunni-led service.
Among Jews, the day is set aside for fasting and penitence but nowadays observed only by sectors within the Orthodox world. During medieval times, in Egypt, for example, Adar 7 took on communal and cultural significance; while Adar 8 was a carnival day! This made some conservative rabbis unhappy and they imposed restrictions on the participation of women.
The two faiths use different calendars so this year's convergence of birth/death anniversaries was mere coincidence. Yet there are some notable parallels along with dissimilarities between the two founders.
Moses was raised as a prince, but his birth father plays only a cameo role in the Torah and Muhammad's father, Abdullah, died while the prophet-to-be was still in his mother's womb. Some of Muhammad's successors were uncomfortable with the parallels the Koran draws with the Torah -- as when the Muslim holy book replicates the Torah's story of Moses smiting the rock for water.
Where Moses was a reluctant leader; Muhammad was keen and confident. Both men were warrior prophets, but Moses went to battle unenthusiastically, and appeared not to relish the role as commander-in-chief. Perhaps that is a reason why modern Israel memorializes those of its fallen soldiers whose graves are not known on the same day it remembers Moses.
Muhammad saw himself as more than the inheritor of Moses' mantle; he had come to perfect the earlier prophet's message. Muhammad, who came into contact with the Jewish tribes of Arabia viewed Judaism as a direct challenge to his religious mission. There is an account, for instance, of how his face changed color when he saw a follower reading from the Torah. The Hadith has Muhammad declaring that were Moses his contemporary, the Israelite would have become a Muslim.
Whereas Moses died with Joshua designated as his clear successor, Israelite fragmentation along tribal lines, notwithstanding -- Muhammad's demise led to a schism played out to this day between Sunnis and Shi'ites.
In the end, Moses expired in presence of God alone, whereas Muhammad passed away from an illness in his wife Aisha's home today. No one knows where Moses' burial place is. Muhammad is buried in the Al-Masjid al-Nabawi Mosque in Medina.
Judaism commemorated Adar 7 as the day when Moses was born and died (coinciding with February 21); Islam commemorated Rabi-al-Awwal 12 (coinciding with February 26) as Muhammad's birthday and the anniversary of his death. The day, Milad an-Nabi, has religious as well as cultural significance. In Southeast Asia, for instance, it is marked by a carnival atmosphere. More conservative Muslim authorities hold that there is no theological basis to sanctify the day.
Yet this year in Damascus, it was a pan-Islamic occasion which saw Syrian President Bashar Assad, an Alawite, and the Persian Shi'ite president of Iran, Mahmud Ahmadinijad, attend a Sunni-led service.
Among Jews, the day is set aside for fasting and penitence but nowadays observed only by sectors within the Orthodox world. During medieval times, in Egypt, for example, Adar 7 took on communal and cultural significance; while Adar 8 was a carnival day! This made some conservative rabbis unhappy and they imposed restrictions on the participation of women.
The two faiths use different calendars so this year's convergence of birth/death anniversaries was mere coincidence. Yet there are some notable parallels along with dissimilarities between the two founders.
Moses was raised as a prince, but his birth father plays only a cameo role in the Torah and Muhammad's father, Abdullah, died while the prophet-to-be was still in his mother's womb. Some of Muhammad's successors were uncomfortable with the parallels the Koran draws with the Torah -- as when the Muslim holy book replicates the Torah's story of Moses smiting the rock for water.
Where Moses was a reluctant leader; Muhammad was keen and confident. Both men were warrior prophets, but Moses went to battle unenthusiastically, and appeared not to relish the role as commander-in-chief. Perhaps that is a reason why modern Israel memorializes those of its fallen soldiers whose graves are not known on the same day it remembers Moses.
Muhammad saw himself as more than the inheritor of Moses' mantle; he had come to perfect the earlier prophet's message. Muhammad, who came into contact with the Jewish tribes of Arabia viewed Judaism as a direct challenge to his religious mission. There is an account, for instance, of how his face changed color when he saw a follower reading from the Torah. The Hadith has Muhammad declaring that were Moses his contemporary, the Israelite would have become a Muslim.
Whereas Moses died with Joshua designated as his clear successor, Israelite fragmentation along tribal lines, notwithstanding -- Muhammad's demise led to a schism played out to this day between Sunnis and Shi'ites.
In the end, Moses expired in presence of God alone, whereas Muhammad passed away from an illness in his wife Aisha's home today. No one knows where Moses' burial place is. Muhammad is buried in the Al-Masjid al-Nabawi Mosque in Medina.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
German liberalism
Friedrich Naumann
When thinking of 20th century Germany, the first thing that comes to mind isn't its liberal tradition. Yet not only has a centrist liberal polity emerged from the ashes of the Nazi regime which ruled from 1933 until 1945, but the origins of liberalism in Germany can be traced to a political tradition dating back to the early 1900s.
To hear Prof. Moshe Zimmermann, the 67 year-old-head of the Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem tell it, modern German history could have gone either way; there is nothing metaphysical in the German political character that made the rise of the Nazis inevitable. It was, instead, a matter of circumstances and bad luck framed by economic depression and military defeat in the First World War.
To drive home this point, Zimmerman cited the legacy of Friedrich Naumann (1860-1919) a Lutheran pastor turned politician and Reichstag member who sought to navigate his middle class constituents toward social reform and political tolerance.
Speaking Monday at a seminar on German liberalism at Hebrew University, co-sponsored by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty, Zimmerman insisted that liberalism and emancipation were as much a part of Germany's political legacy as its darker contributions.
Naumann's answer to the Jewish question, Zimmermann told Jewish Ideas Daily, was to proclaim that there really ought to be no Jewish question at all; that anti-Semitism was wrong and counter-productive, and that there was no trans-national or over-arching Jewish problem; that whatever problems Jews faced (or, presumably, were thought to cause) could be solved within the framework of the countries in which they lived.
These progressive views were enunciated in a political environment in which hatred of Jews permeated even democratic movements.
Naumann visited Palestine in 1898 – the same year as did Kaiser Wilhelm II and Theodore Herzl – and returned home with mildly anti-Zionist attitudes. Why? Firstly, because he didn't conceive of the Jews as a nation, people or ethnicity, but as a religious denomination. Nor did he think the Zionist enterprise would take off. And, finally, he worried that Zionism would exacerbate intolerance toward Jews within Germany.
As far as Zimmerman knows, Naumann did not give Zionism further consideration and did not publicly react to the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
GERMAN LIBERALS of the early 1900s have little in common with their 21st century counterparts, Zimmerman said. Though it is doubtful whether the Friedrich Naumann Foundation -- which is affiliated with the Free Democratic Party, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition -- would agree. Germany's foreign minister is FDP chair Guido Westerwelle. He and Merkel currently disagree about taxes (he wants them cut) and nuclear power plans (he wants them built).
In any event, the liberals of old opposed the conservative understanding of civil society (Gesellschaft) as an "organism" which worked best under authoritarian rule. In contrast, the liberals championed individual over group rights.
Definitions of liberalism have evolved over the decades, but at minimum it is an ideology that "considers individuals the seat of moral value and each individual as of equal worth," according to political sociologist John A. Hall.
The German liberals of Naumann's era engaged in political combat against the aristocracy and oligarchy on the one hand, and the working classes on the other.
Their natural constituency was the middle class – the bourgeois – the very strata in which the Jews felt most at home.
******
THE argument that racism and authoritarianism were not inherently more at home in the pre-WWII German body politic than liberalism is, shall we say, revisionist. But in championing this position, Zimmerman, who wrote his master's thesis on Naumann, is hardly being at his most controversial.
The product of a privileged national-religious Jerusalem home, Zimmerman has established a notorious reputation beyond the sphere of his academic work for having compared IDF soldiers serving in Judea and Samaria to the SS, and Hebron settlers to the Hitler Youth.
All of which goes to show that even agreeable academic, an expert on liberalism, can give voice to intolerance.
When thinking of 20th century Germany, the first thing that comes to mind isn't its liberal tradition. Yet not only has a centrist liberal polity emerged from the ashes of the Nazi regime which ruled from 1933 until 1945, but the origins of liberalism in Germany can be traced to a political tradition dating back to the early 1900s.
To hear Prof. Moshe Zimmermann, the 67 year-old-head of the Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem tell it, modern German history could have gone either way; there is nothing metaphysical in the German political character that made the rise of the Nazis inevitable. It was, instead, a matter of circumstances and bad luck framed by economic depression and military defeat in the First World War.
To drive home this point, Zimmerman cited the legacy of Friedrich Naumann (1860-1919) a Lutheran pastor turned politician and Reichstag member who sought to navigate his middle class constituents toward social reform and political tolerance.
Speaking Monday at a seminar on German liberalism at Hebrew University, co-sponsored by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty, Zimmerman insisted that liberalism and emancipation were as much a part of Germany's political legacy as its darker contributions.
Naumann's answer to the Jewish question, Zimmermann told Jewish Ideas Daily, was to proclaim that there really ought to be no Jewish question at all; that anti-Semitism was wrong and counter-productive, and that there was no trans-national or over-arching Jewish problem; that whatever problems Jews faced (or, presumably, were thought to cause) could be solved within the framework of the countries in which they lived.
These progressive views were enunciated in a political environment in which hatred of Jews permeated even democratic movements.
Naumann visited Palestine in 1898 – the same year as did Kaiser Wilhelm II and Theodore Herzl – and returned home with mildly anti-Zionist attitudes. Why? Firstly, because he didn't conceive of the Jews as a nation, people or ethnicity, but as a religious denomination. Nor did he think the Zionist enterprise would take off. And, finally, he worried that Zionism would exacerbate intolerance toward Jews within Germany.
As far as Zimmerman knows, Naumann did not give Zionism further consideration and did not publicly react to the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
GERMAN LIBERALS of the early 1900s have little in common with their 21st century counterparts, Zimmerman said. Though it is doubtful whether the Friedrich Naumann Foundation -- which is affiliated with the Free Democratic Party, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition -- would agree. Germany's foreign minister is FDP chair Guido Westerwelle. He and Merkel currently disagree about taxes (he wants them cut) and nuclear power plans (he wants them built).
In any event, the liberals of old opposed the conservative understanding of civil society (Gesellschaft) as an "organism" which worked best under authoritarian rule. In contrast, the liberals championed individual over group rights.
Definitions of liberalism have evolved over the decades, but at minimum it is an ideology that "considers individuals the seat of moral value and each individual as of equal worth," according to political sociologist John A. Hall.
The German liberals of Naumann's era engaged in political combat against the aristocracy and oligarchy on the one hand, and the working classes on the other.
Their natural constituency was the middle class – the bourgeois – the very strata in which the Jews felt most at home.
******
THE argument that racism and authoritarianism were not inherently more at home in the pre-WWII German body politic than liberalism is, shall we say, revisionist. But in championing this position, Zimmerman, who wrote his master's thesis on Naumann, is hardly being at his most controversial.
The product of a privileged national-religious Jerusalem home, Zimmerman has established a notorious reputation beyond the sphere of his academic work for having compared IDF soldiers serving in Judea and Samaria to the SS, and Hebron settlers to the Hitler Youth.
All of which goes to show that even agreeable academic, an expert on liberalism, can give voice to intolerance.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
CHECK OUT MY NEW HOME
Dear Reader,
Below is the final editorial I have written for The Jerusalem Post in my capacity as Editorial Page Editor.
I am delighted to tell you that I have accepted a new job with the Jewish Ideas Daily website as managing editor. It is an ideas-driven (as opposed to news driven) site and I look forward to the challenge. I join an outstanding team of editors.
So, please visit Jewish Ideas Daily: http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/ and take a moment to register.
My thanks to all my friends and colleagues at The Post for nearly 11 fascinating years of creativity.
Elliot
==============================================================================
Passport ‘rage’
Dahu Khalfan Tamim now has a world-class reputation for detective work. The head of the Dubai police swiftly determined that Hamas’s Mahmoud Mabhouh did not die of natural causes at the five-star Bustan Rotana Hotel on Jan. 20. He was assassinated.
Let’s for the sake of argument grant that Israel did away with Mabhouh; that he was not killed by Iran or over some intra-Palestinian dispute, and that clues pointing to Israeli culpability are genuine.
Mabhouh certainly deserved to be assassinated by Israel. Hamas declared war on Israel. And he co-founded its military wing and was personally involved in the (separate) 1989 killings of IDF soldiers Ilan Sa’adon and Avi Sasportas.
Mabhouh was a key link in the unlawful syndicate which delivers Iranian weapons to Gaza. He was apparently tasked with importing an arsenal that would make life hellish for Israelis living in metropolitan Tel Aviv. He was, perhaps, Hamas’s equivalent to Hizbullah’s Imad Mughniyeh, whose car blew up in Damascus two years ago.
YOU CAN tell a great deal about the moral compass and political leanings of a society by observing its reaction to the Mabhouh liquidation.
There is unease in Europe because the purported assassins identified by Dubai were travelling under forged French, German, Irish and British passports; and identities of Israelis with dual-citizenship were utilized.
Even The Times of London, whose editorial page has been sympathetic toward Israel, expressed chagrin over the affair, saying this country had shown poor regard for the “future security of British passport holders overseas.” Frankly, there is little reason to think that the tradecraft employed in this assassination – which we will not second guess at this stage – jeopardizes anyone.
Actually, what troubles us is the question of whose passport Mabhouh was traveling under and why he was allowed to enter neutral Dubai on gun-running business.
Of course, that’s not how the British see it. The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen warned that if Israel had used British passports for “nefarious” purposes – meaning sending Mabhouh to his Maker – Bowen expected, or would it be more accurate to say, hoped for, “a crisis” in relations between London and Jerusalem.
The Guardian quoted a Foreign Office mandarin as gloating: “Relations were in the freezer before this. They are in the deep freeze now.” The paper then grumbled about the British government’s “supine” response to the assassination, editorializing against the government’s proposal to lift the threat of lawfare. The Guardian wants visiting Israeli ministers to continue to worry about facing Palestinian-inspired “war crimes” charges.
With the British media delighting in the assassination-passport kerfuffle – a Daily Mail headline screamed: “Dragged into a Mossad murder plot” – Menzies Campell, a routinely anti-Israel elder of the Liberal Democrats, declared that “Israel has some explaining to do.”
An anyway beleaguered Prime Minister Gordon Brown intoned: “We have got to carry out a full investigation into this. The British passport is an important document that has got to be held with care.” Sentiments echoed by Opposition Leader David Cameron.
The most encouraging view – paradoxically – came from Robert Fisk, the Independent’s inveterate Israel-basher: He suspects that London and Paris colluded with Jerusalem in Mabhouth’s assassination, in a reprise of the 1956 Sinai Campaign. That explained, he wrote, the flawless biometric passports.
What an uplifting (if improbable) scenario: MI6 and the Directorate-General for External Security working in tandem with the Mossad to stop Iranian arms from reaching Hamas.
PERHAPS the shrill reaction in some (though certainly not all) British quarters is not rooted purely in anti-Israelism. Chances are that at least parts of the British intelligentsia and media would have reacted similarly if the man in that hotel room had been Osama bin Laden... or Adolf Eichmann. And this pigheaded refusal to acknowledge that sometimes the ends do justify the means reflects a moral impoverishment that’s not limited to Britain.
Some pundits here have also gone wobbly, asking whether the Mabhouh hit was worth the trouble; others are rashly calling for the resignation of Mossad chief Meir Dagan.
In fact, removing a Mabhouh or a Mughniyeh – agents of evil engaged in sensitive compartmentalized work – significantly disrupts Hamas and Hizbullah. It sows distrust within enemy ranks. And it forces whoever replaces them to dissipate their energies just trying to stay alive.
Below is the final editorial I have written for The Jerusalem Post in my capacity as Editorial Page Editor.
I am delighted to tell you that I have accepted a new job with the Jewish Ideas Daily website as managing editor. It is an ideas-driven (as opposed to news driven) site and I look forward to the challenge. I join an outstanding team of editors.
So, please visit Jewish Ideas Daily: http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/ and take a moment to register.
My thanks to all my friends and colleagues at The Post for nearly 11 fascinating years of creativity.
Elliot
==============================================================================
Passport ‘rage’
Dahu Khalfan Tamim now has a world-class reputation for detective work. The head of the Dubai police swiftly determined that Hamas’s Mahmoud Mabhouh did not die of natural causes at the five-star Bustan Rotana Hotel on Jan. 20. He was assassinated.
Let’s for the sake of argument grant that Israel did away with Mabhouh; that he was not killed by Iran or over some intra-Palestinian dispute, and that clues pointing to Israeli culpability are genuine.
Mabhouh certainly deserved to be assassinated by Israel. Hamas declared war on Israel. And he co-founded its military wing and was personally involved in the (separate) 1989 killings of IDF soldiers Ilan Sa’adon and Avi Sasportas.
Mabhouh was a key link in the unlawful syndicate which delivers Iranian weapons to Gaza. He was apparently tasked with importing an arsenal that would make life hellish for Israelis living in metropolitan Tel Aviv. He was, perhaps, Hamas’s equivalent to Hizbullah’s Imad Mughniyeh, whose car blew up in Damascus two years ago.
YOU CAN tell a great deal about the moral compass and political leanings of a society by observing its reaction to the Mabhouh liquidation.
There is unease in Europe because the purported assassins identified by Dubai were travelling under forged French, German, Irish and British passports; and identities of Israelis with dual-citizenship were utilized.
Even The Times of London, whose editorial page has been sympathetic toward Israel, expressed chagrin over the affair, saying this country had shown poor regard for the “future security of British passport holders overseas.” Frankly, there is little reason to think that the tradecraft employed in this assassination – which we will not second guess at this stage – jeopardizes anyone.
Actually, what troubles us is the question of whose passport Mabhouh was traveling under and why he was allowed to enter neutral Dubai on gun-running business.
Of course, that’s not how the British see it. The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen warned that if Israel had used British passports for “nefarious” purposes – meaning sending Mabhouh to his Maker – Bowen expected, or would it be more accurate to say, hoped for, “a crisis” in relations between London and Jerusalem.
The Guardian quoted a Foreign Office mandarin as gloating: “Relations were in the freezer before this. They are in the deep freeze now.” The paper then grumbled about the British government’s “supine” response to the assassination, editorializing against the government’s proposal to lift the threat of lawfare. The Guardian wants visiting Israeli ministers to continue to worry about facing Palestinian-inspired “war crimes” charges.
With the British media delighting in the assassination-passport kerfuffle – a Daily Mail headline screamed: “Dragged into a Mossad murder plot” – Menzies Campell, a routinely anti-Israel elder of the Liberal Democrats, declared that “Israel has some explaining to do.”
An anyway beleaguered Prime Minister Gordon Brown intoned: “We have got to carry out a full investigation into this. The British passport is an important document that has got to be held with care.” Sentiments echoed by Opposition Leader David Cameron.
The most encouraging view – paradoxically – came from Robert Fisk, the Independent’s inveterate Israel-basher: He suspects that London and Paris colluded with Jerusalem in Mabhouth’s assassination, in a reprise of the 1956 Sinai Campaign. That explained, he wrote, the flawless biometric passports.
What an uplifting (if improbable) scenario: MI6 and the Directorate-General for External Security working in tandem with the Mossad to stop Iranian arms from reaching Hamas.
PERHAPS the shrill reaction in some (though certainly not all) British quarters is not rooted purely in anti-Israelism. Chances are that at least parts of the British intelligentsia and media would have reacted similarly if the man in that hotel room had been Osama bin Laden... or Adolf Eichmann. And this pigheaded refusal to acknowledge that sometimes the ends do justify the means reflects a moral impoverishment that’s not limited to Britain.
Some pundits here have also gone wobbly, asking whether the Mabhouh hit was worth the trouble; others are rashly calling for the resignation of Mossad chief Meir Dagan.
In fact, removing a Mabhouh or a Mughniyeh – agents of evil engaged in sensitive compartmentalized work – significantly disrupts Hamas and Hizbullah. It sows distrust within enemy ranks. And it forces whoever replaces them to dissipate their energies just trying to stay alive.
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Iran...as time runs out
The eleventh hour
The Islamic Republic of Iran celebrated its 31st anniversary yesterday with an enormous rally held in the shadow of the Azadi Tower. The monument was built by the Shah in 1971 to commemorate the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire. The plaza surrounding the monument has been cynically renamed Freedom Square.
One day, when the Iranian people overthrow this evil regime, perhaps they will rededicate the square as a memorial to the victims of the Khomeinists – dissidents such as Muhammad Reza Ali-Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour, who were judicially executed last month. Of the 5,000 people arrested since the country’s June 2009 “elections,” 11 have met a similar fate.
A recent Amnesty International report tells the stories of some of the regime’s victims who were simply murdered: Amir Javadifar, a 25-year-old student of management at Qazvin Azad University, was beaten and tortured to death. Twenty-eight-year-old Taraneh Mousavi was raped and tortured before her burned body was dumped in an open field. Those who speak against the regime place not only themselves but also family members in jeopardy. This is true even for disillusioned Khomeinists.
ALL THIS helps explain why the regime’s celebrations went unmolested. Dissidents previously released from custody were warned to stay home. State-controlled media were reminded to watch what they disseminated. All images coming out of the country were carefully controlled by the regime. Foreign media outlets such as CNN and BBC have been banned from Iran. Internet and other new media (Twitter, Facebook) were disrupted.
Opposition figures who did try to rally supporters were intercepted by government thugs and intimidated into returning home; others were arrested. The AP, relying on opposition Web sites, reported on clashes between security forces and protesters away from the pro-government rally. Police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators, and paintballs to mark them for arrest.
Footage broadcast on YouTube showed small numbers of – undoubtedly courageous – opposition demonstrators waving green ribbons. But an unprecedented police clampdown appears to have snuffed out any hope that the opposition could parlay the regime’s party into a day of meaningful protest.
Instead, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad harangued – Castro-style – those who turned up for over an hour, telling them that Iran had already produced its first batch of uranium enriched to a 20-percent level. If true, it’s a step that brings an atomic bomb exponentially closer. In his next breath, the disingenuous dictator declared: “When we say we do not manufacture the bomb, we mean it.”
ON Wednesday, the Obama administration intensified existing US sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. It blocked the assets of an Iranian general and four companies affiliated with the IRGC.
The administration argues that its unsuccessful year-long effort to reason with the mullahs has given it the political capital to ask the UN Security Council to support a system of sanctions that would further hinder Iran’s banking, shipping and insurance industries. The world will soon learn whether Russia and China will feign cooperation while working to water down President Barack Obama’s proposed resolution.
David E. Sanger of The New York Times suggests Obama is gambling that a global agreement on sanctions will persuade the mullahs to stop spinning their centrifuges. We’d like the president to raise the stakes and press the UN to prohibit the export of refined petroleum to Iran.
Some say tough sanctions will send the masses into the arms of the government and undermine the opposition. But yesterday’s rally showed that the regime doesn’t have a problem putting on a show of support; and that the opposition is weak, fragmented and under siege.
The prospects of the opposition are unpredictable, regardless of what happens on the sanctions front. Pretending otherwise strikes us as a lame excuse for doing nothing.
We also understand that sanctions on gasoline could enrich the IRGC, which already controls Iran’s black market in commodities. Still, the debilitating impact on the regime of endless lines at petrol stations should not be underestimated.
Dawdling by two US administrations and by an international community preoccupied with immediate economic gratification has brought the world to this eleventh hour. It may already be too late for the real sanctions option.
But given the stark alternative – isn’t it worth a try?
The Islamic Republic of Iran celebrated its 31st anniversary yesterday with an enormous rally held in the shadow of the Azadi Tower. The monument was built by the Shah in 1971 to commemorate the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire. The plaza surrounding the monument has been cynically renamed Freedom Square.
One day, when the Iranian people overthrow this evil regime, perhaps they will rededicate the square as a memorial to the victims of the Khomeinists – dissidents such as Muhammad Reza Ali-Zamani and Arash Rahmanipour, who were judicially executed last month. Of the 5,000 people arrested since the country’s June 2009 “elections,” 11 have met a similar fate.
A recent Amnesty International report tells the stories of some of the regime’s victims who were simply murdered: Amir Javadifar, a 25-year-old student of management at Qazvin Azad University, was beaten and tortured to death. Twenty-eight-year-old Taraneh Mousavi was raped and tortured before her burned body was dumped in an open field. Those who speak against the regime place not only themselves but also family members in jeopardy. This is true even for disillusioned Khomeinists.
ALL THIS helps explain why the regime’s celebrations went unmolested. Dissidents previously released from custody were warned to stay home. State-controlled media were reminded to watch what they disseminated. All images coming out of the country were carefully controlled by the regime. Foreign media outlets such as CNN and BBC have been banned from Iran. Internet and other new media (Twitter, Facebook) were disrupted.
Opposition figures who did try to rally supporters were intercepted by government thugs and intimidated into returning home; others were arrested. The AP, relying on opposition Web sites, reported on clashes between security forces and protesters away from the pro-government rally. Police fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators, and paintballs to mark them for arrest.
Footage broadcast on YouTube showed small numbers of – undoubtedly courageous – opposition demonstrators waving green ribbons. But an unprecedented police clampdown appears to have snuffed out any hope that the opposition could parlay the regime’s party into a day of meaningful protest.
Instead, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad harangued – Castro-style – those who turned up for over an hour, telling them that Iran had already produced its first batch of uranium enriched to a 20-percent level. If true, it’s a step that brings an atomic bomb exponentially closer. In his next breath, the disingenuous dictator declared: “When we say we do not manufacture the bomb, we mean it.”
ON Wednesday, the Obama administration intensified existing US sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. It blocked the assets of an Iranian general and four companies affiliated with the IRGC.
The administration argues that its unsuccessful year-long effort to reason with the mullahs has given it the political capital to ask the UN Security Council to support a system of sanctions that would further hinder Iran’s banking, shipping and insurance industries. The world will soon learn whether Russia and China will feign cooperation while working to water down President Barack Obama’s proposed resolution.
David E. Sanger of The New York Times suggests Obama is gambling that a global agreement on sanctions will persuade the mullahs to stop spinning their centrifuges. We’d like the president to raise the stakes and press the UN to prohibit the export of refined petroleum to Iran.
Some say tough sanctions will send the masses into the arms of the government and undermine the opposition. But yesterday’s rally showed that the regime doesn’t have a problem putting on a show of support; and that the opposition is weak, fragmented and under siege.
The prospects of the opposition are unpredictable, regardless of what happens on the sanctions front. Pretending otherwise strikes us as a lame excuse for doing nothing.
We also understand that sanctions on gasoline could enrich the IRGC, which already controls Iran’s black market in commodities. Still, the debilitating impact on the regime of endless lines at petrol stations should not be underestimated.
Dawdling by two US administrations and by an international community preoccupied with immediate economic gratification has brought the world to this eleventh hour. It may already be too late for the real sanctions option.
But given the stark alternative – isn’t it worth a try?
I am an Israel briefer and analyst, a political scientist, and a speaker on Jewish civilization. I'm also a rewrite guy & fact-checker, who can make your writing clear and compelling & help you contextualize.
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