Iran sidetracks the world
There has been so much good news about Iran's nuclear weapons program lately that it's almost churlish to expose that news for what it really is - hollow and ephemeral.
Teheran has offered to ship much of its low-enriched uranium to Russia and France, where it will be processed before being returned for use in medical research and generating electricity. Yesterday, Iran also agreed to allow international inspectors to visit its previously secret - and still unfinished - uranium enrichment plant at Qom on October 25.
President Barack Obama said that the uranium export offer was "a step toward building confidence that Iran's program is in fact peaceful." Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations said that if Iran honored its pledge to export its fuel for processing, Washington's proliferation concerns would be partly alleviated.
But Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center asserted that "the fuel France and Russia will send back to Iran will be far more weapons usable, being enriched with 19.75 percent nuclear weapons-grade uranium, than the 3.5 percent enriched brew Iran currently has on hand."
Experts say that uranium needs to be enriched at 90% for use in a nuclear bomb.
So instead of talking about when Iran will suspend its fuel-making activities, the mullahs have cleverly shifted the conversation to what their export pledge means - even though it would not take effect for a year or two.
And just to muddy the waters, Iran's ambassador to Britain, Mehdi Saffare, a member of its delegation to the Geneva talks with the Security Council "five plus Germany," insisted that the idea of sending Iran's enriched uranium out of the county had "not been discussed yet."
ON SATURDAY, The New York Times reported (elaborating on a story carried last month by the Associated Press) that dissident experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency have tentatively concluded that Iran has "sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable… implosion nuclear device."
Their report, "Possible Military Dimensions of Iran's Nuclear Program," also argues that the country is aiming to place a nuclear payload on its Shahab 3 missile - which can reach parts of Europe.
The only genuinely good news is that "Overall the Agency does not believe that Iran has yet achieved the means of integrating a nuclear payload into the Shahab 3 missile with any confidence that it would work…."
Still, the IAEA specialists believe that though Iran hasn't detonated a device, the elaborate nature of its experiments gives it confidence that its bomb will explode.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the outgoing IAEA chief, has spiked the report. Yesterday, in Teheran he talked about how Iran has supposedly shifted from confrontation toward "transparency and cooperation."
With IAEA dissidents, and the intelligence services of Britain, France, Germany and, of course, Israel arguing that Iran is racing toward a bomb, Obama has instructed the US intelligence community to reevaluate its controversial 2007 finding that Teheran had halted efforts to design a nuclear weapon back in 2003.
NO MATTER how the US intelligence reassessment goes, or how Iran's export gambit plays out, or what happens when the inspectors visit Qom, at the end of the day - and in keeping with the mullahs' strategy - Iran will have bought time.
Obama insists his administration is "not interested in talking for the sake of talking. If Iran does not take steps in the near future to live up to its obligations, then... we are prepared to move towards increased pressure."
Of course, the president would have greater credibility with the mullahs if the heightened sanctions his administration insinuated would be forthcoming in September had actually been implemented.
At this point, there are only three possibilities: (a) Iran will build a bomb; (b) draconian sanctions, spearheaded by Washington, will persuade Teheran to abort its program; (c) military intervention will significantly set the mullahs back.
Assuming Obama realizes that the second option is by far the most preferable, he must not allow Teheran to sidetrack the discussion.
All the world needs to know is when Iran will stop enriching uranium, and when it will end its weapons program.
Monday, October 05, 2009
Good News From Iran
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.
Book Review: "The Israel Test" by George Gilder
Das Capital
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The Israel Test
By George Gilder
Richard Vigilante Books, New York
255 pages. $27.95
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George Gilder's short, breezy, and passionately argued polemic might have been better titled "They Are Envious," or, "Netanyahu, Savior of Israel," or, The REAL Case for Israel," or, simply, "Jews are Smarter."
Gilder argues that Israel's fate, capitalism's prospects, and the ideal of liberty are interwoven. His immoderate tone will be off-putting -- at least initially -- to readers who are not enamored with capitalism in these times. His argument that Jews are inherently smarter than others will make even some members of the tribe squirm. His rapturous description of Israel's high-tech sector will irritate thousands of recently laid-off workers (especially native English-speaking technical writers whose work has been subcontracted to south Asia ). And his fawning tribute to Benjamin Netanyahu for rescuing Israel's economy in the 1990s will make those familiar with the Jewish state's transition from socialist corporatism to laissez-faire capitalism wonder why Gilder seems clueless about the critical role Shimon Peres played in this transition years earlier.
But to say this book is merely "red meat" for the high-IQ, anti-egalitarian, religious true-believers, not-one-inch, and venture capitalist crowd, does not really do it justice.
For once you get past the overbearing smugness of a writer who on the face of it abhors nuance, it turns out that there are long stretches of edifying and proleptic argument in The Israel Test. It's as if Gilder started out wanting to tell it like (he thinks) it is, and along the way decided that the messy business of trying to win over those who come to the book with a different viewpoint was worth the effort.
WERE GILDER Jewish, I'd describe him as Marx's living antithesis.
Where Marx was a self-hating Jew, Gilder is a "Judeophile." Indeed, he defines hatred of capitalism as a form of anti-Semitism, since Judaism provides a moral framework for capitalist activity. When Gilder says "Jews lead all other American groups in per-capita income," he plainly means this as a compliment. And he is convincing when he posits that "The success or failure of Jews in a given country is the best index of its freedoms."
Gilder sees Israel as one of the "world's leading capitalist powers" and presents a sort of domino theory: "If Israel is destroyed, capitalist Europe will likely die as well, and America , as the epitome of productive and creative capitalism spurred by Jews, will be in jeopardy." So in essence, "the Israel test" amounts to the degree of commitment the West is prepared to make for Israel 's survival and the extent it is willing to correctly identify and protect its own interests.
Even champions of Israel , he complains, too often make "the case for Israel " by "defending" Israeli policies based on mitigating circumstances. Not Gilder; because he believes Israel is hated not for what it does but for the virtues of the Jews. The Jews have been hated for their intellectual and entrepreneurial accomplishments since pagan times. He says outright: "The source of anti-Semitism is Jewish superiority and excellence." Part of the book seeks to prove this thesis by citing chapter and verse the extraordinary contributions of Jews to science and mathematics. There are fascinating sketches of brilliant minds, among them John von Neumann, without whose work on algorithms computers as we know them would not be.
GILDER'S BOOK is also an excellent primer against the Palestinian Arab cause.
Their self-induced dependency on foreign aid, exacerbated by the intervention of international aid groups, has "transformed the Palestinians into a ghetto of violent male gangs and welfare queens." Such over-the-top language actually camouflages an otherwise convincing argument.
As proof Gilder cites Musa Alami telling David Ben-Gurion in 1934: "I would prefer that the country remain impoverished and barren for another hundred years, until we ourselves are able to develop it on our own" than make common cause with the Zionists. Sure enough, between 1967 and 1987 – prior to the first intifada – the West Bank was "one of the most dynamic economies on earth."
True to Alami's sentiments, the Palestinians threw it all away by launching the first intifada in 1988. Then in the wake of the 1993 Oslo accords, their economy began thrived again. Hundreds of thousands of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians were employed within the Green Line; Nablus license plates could be seen on the streets of Tel Aviv. And still, in 2000, having rejected Ehud Barak's overly generous terms for a state, the Palestinian leadership launched the second intifada and again drove their people into a crater of violence and economic depression. It was all done out of irrational hatred. Gilder says "capitalism requires peace" and the Palestinians want neither.
THE strongest case conservatives have over liberals, in my view, is in how they understand human nature. Gilder quotes the physicist Eugene Wigner: "It is just as foolish to complain that people are selfish and treacherous as it is to complain that the magnetic field does not increase unless the electric field has a curl. Both are laws of nature." Gilder believes not just in the laws of nature but something greater: "The universe rests on a logical coherence that cannot be proven but to which men must commit if they are to create."
His enthusiasm for Israeli high-tech is explained by his first-hand knowledge of its key players and most intriguing innovations, the result of his being a "practicing venture capitalist." Gilder offers absorbing sketches of the people -- not a few of them immigrants from the United States -- behind the country's high-tech success.
"THE great irony of Israel ," writes Gilder, "is that for much of its short history it has failed the Israel test," meaning the Jewish state was mired in socialism.
It is certainly true that until 1977, when Likud wrested power away from it, the country was solidly in the grip of the Labor Party which was then social democratic in orientation and had used the state and the Histadrut to wield near-total power. It would take years to reconfigure the Israeli economy. In 1985, inflation ran at 450 percent a year. That's when the national unity government headed by Labor's Shimon Peres and Likud's Yitzhak Shamir adopted tough anti-inflationary measures, reduced taxes, and fundamentally liberalized the economy. I think it is a bit churlish of Gilder not to give Peres his due. By the time Netanyahu came into power in 1996 and promoted supply-side economics, the edifice of the old socialist-oriented economy had largely been consigned to the dustbin of history.
Moreover, as Israel moved from Labor-dominated corporatism to capitalism, and as state-owned companies were privatized, power shifted from the Labor Party/Histadrut/state troika, to a constellation of oligarchs who today hold sway over the economy. This is a far cry from genuine capitalist competition, I think.
THEIsrael Test contains an excellent chapter that deconstructs the certainties of the Left. (In Israel , "left" refers generally to security matters; many on the left are solidly bourgeoisie.)
Gilder visits with (or reads) a range of post-Zionists and leftists among them Ehud Olmert's draft-dodging, expatriate son, Shaul. Mouthing his hackneyed, discredited Peace Now dribble, Olmert junior is the perfect foil for Gilder. Only when he dismisses Olmert's criticism of the haredim, is Gilder on shaky ground. Gilder wrongly see these men in black as the "defenders of the faith" and the "answer to the [Palestinian] demographic crunch caused by secular Israelis with their abortion culture and their gay-rights marches."
In fact, the haredim are part of the problem. The more insular among them do not do national service and do not pay taxes; as a community they are dependent on the largesse of the taxpayers; some are openly anti-Zionist; and their political clout stymies needed reform of the political system. Finally their hijacking of the established "church" of Orthodoxy via their stranglehold on the rabbinate has alienated countless non-observant Israelis from their heritage.
Gilder's book has many heroes but among my favorite is Nobel laureate Robert Aumann whose analysis of Palestinian rationality – suicide bombers included -- and Israel's failing nerve, is worth the price of this book, and needs to be understood by anyone venturing an opinion on "how to achieve peace" in the Arab-Israel conflict.
Finally, writing prior to Netanyahu's seminal Bar-Ilan address in June offering negotiations toward the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state, Gilder makes an interesting, albeit unrealistic, moral defense of the West Bank status quo -- demography notwithstanding: "If the right answer for Israel is to rule for a thousand years the territories on which reside enemies committed to its destruction, then no true principle of democracy compels them to do otherwise."
The chapter that captured my heart was Gilder's affecting testimony of what it was like to grow up as a privileged WASP in an atmosphere where refined anti-Semitism was taken as a given. It is this section which unravels how Gilder came to be a Judeophile, and reading it reminded me how few friends the Jews have in this world outside the Christian evangelical fold.
In his affinity for Jews and Israel , Gilder recalls the late Robert St. John who wrote several admiring books about the Zionist enterprise and whom David Ben-Gurion described as "our goyisher Zionist."
With this book – for all its faults – Gilder becomes St. John's worthy successor.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
The Israel Test
By George Gilder
Richard Vigilante Books, New York
255 pages. $27.95
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
George Gilder's short, breezy, and passionately argued polemic might have been better titled "They Are Envious," or, "Netanyahu, Savior of Israel," or, The REAL Case for Israel," or, simply, "Jews are Smarter."
Gilder argues that Israel's fate, capitalism's prospects, and the ideal of liberty are interwoven. His immoderate tone will be off-putting -- at least initially -- to readers who are not enamored with capitalism in these times. His argument that Jews are inherently smarter than others will make even some members of the tribe squirm. His rapturous description of Israel's high-tech sector will irritate thousands of recently laid-off workers (especially native English-speaking technical writers whose work has been subcontracted to south Asia ). And his fawning tribute to Benjamin Netanyahu for rescuing Israel's economy in the 1990s will make those familiar with the Jewish state's transition from socialist corporatism to laissez-faire capitalism wonder why Gilder seems clueless about the critical role Shimon Peres played in this transition years earlier.
But to say this book is merely "red meat" for the high-IQ, anti-egalitarian, religious true-believers, not-one-inch, and venture capitalist crowd, does not really do it justice.
For once you get past the overbearing smugness of a writer who on the face of it abhors nuance, it turns out that there are long stretches of edifying and proleptic argument in The Israel Test. It's as if Gilder started out wanting to tell it like (he thinks) it is, and along the way decided that the messy business of trying to win over those who come to the book with a different viewpoint was worth the effort.
WERE GILDER Jewish, I'd describe him as Marx's living antithesis.
Where Marx was a self-hating Jew, Gilder is a "Judeophile." Indeed, he defines hatred of capitalism as a form of anti-Semitism, since Judaism provides a moral framework for capitalist activity. When Gilder says "Jews lead all other American groups in per-capita income," he plainly means this as a compliment. And he is convincing when he posits that "The success or failure of Jews in a given country is the best index of its freedoms."
Gilder sees Israel as one of the "world's leading capitalist powers" and presents a sort of domino theory: "If Israel is destroyed, capitalist Europe will likely die as well, and America , as the epitome of productive and creative capitalism spurred by Jews, will be in jeopardy." So in essence, "the Israel test" amounts to the degree of commitment the West is prepared to make for Israel 's survival and the extent it is willing to correctly identify and protect its own interests.
Even champions of Israel , he complains, too often make "the case for Israel " by "defending" Israeli policies based on mitigating circumstances. Not Gilder; because he believes Israel is hated not for what it does but for the virtues of the Jews. The Jews have been hated for their intellectual and entrepreneurial accomplishments since pagan times. He says outright: "The source of anti-Semitism is Jewish superiority and excellence." Part of the book seeks to prove this thesis by citing chapter and verse the extraordinary contributions of Jews to science and mathematics. There are fascinating sketches of brilliant minds, among them John von Neumann, without whose work on algorithms computers as we know them would not be.
GILDER'S BOOK is also an excellent primer against the Palestinian Arab cause.
Their self-induced dependency on foreign aid, exacerbated by the intervention of international aid groups, has "transformed the Palestinians into a ghetto of violent male gangs and welfare queens." Such over-the-top language actually camouflages an otherwise convincing argument.
As proof Gilder cites Musa Alami telling David Ben-Gurion in 1934: "I would prefer that the country remain impoverished and barren for another hundred years, until we ourselves are able to develop it on our own" than make common cause with the Zionists. Sure enough, between 1967 and 1987 – prior to the first intifada – the West Bank was "one of the most dynamic economies on earth."
True to Alami's sentiments, the Palestinians threw it all away by launching the first intifada in 1988. Then in the wake of the 1993 Oslo accords, their economy began thrived again. Hundreds of thousands of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians were employed within the Green Line; Nablus license plates could be seen on the streets of Tel Aviv. And still, in 2000, having rejected Ehud Barak's overly generous terms for a state, the Palestinian leadership launched the second intifada and again drove their people into a crater of violence and economic depression. It was all done out of irrational hatred. Gilder says "capitalism requires peace" and the Palestinians want neither.
THE strongest case conservatives have over liberals, in my view, is in how they understand human nature. Gilder quotes the physicist Eugene Wigner: "It is just as foolish to complain that people are selfish and treacherous as it is to complain that the magnetic field does not increase unless the electric field has a curl. Both are laws of nature." Gilder believes not just in the laws of nature but something greater: "The universe rests on a logical coherence that cannot be proven but to which men must commit if they are to create."
His enthusiasm for Israeli high-tech is explained by his first-hand knowledge of its key players and most intriguing innovations, the result of his being a "practicing venture capitalist." Gilder offers absorbing sketches of the people -- not a few of them immigrants from the United States -- behind the country's high-tech success.
"THE great irony of Israel ," writes Gilder, "is that for much of its short history it has failed the Israel test," meaning the Jewish state was mired in socialism.
It is certainly true that until 1977, when Likud wrested power away from it, the country was solidly in the grip of the Labor Party which was then social democratic in orientation and had used the state and the Histadrut to wield near-total power. It would take years to reconfigure the Israeli economy. In 1985, inflation ran at 450 percent a year. That's when the national unity government headed by Labor's Shimon Peres and Likud's Yitzhak Shamir adopted tough anti-inflationary measures, reduced taxes, and fundamentally liberalized the economy. I think it is a bit churlish of Gilder not to give Peres his due. By the time Netanyahu came into power in 1996 and promoted supply-side economics, the edifice of the old socialist-oriented economy had largely been consigned to the dustbin of history.
Moreover, as Israel moved from Labor-dominated corporatism to capitalism, and as state-owned companies were privatized, power shifted from the Labor Party/Histadrut/state troika, to a constellation of oligarchs who today hold sway over the economy. This is a far cry from genuine capitalist competition, I think.
THEIsrael Test contains an excellent chapter that deconstructs the certainties of the Left. (In Israel , "left" refers generally to security matters; many on the left are solidly bourgeoisie.)
Gilder visits with (or reads) a range of post-Zionists and leftists among them Ehud Olmert's draft-dodging, expatriate son, Shaul. Mouthing his hackneyed, discredited Peace Now dribble, Olmert junior is the perfect foil for Gilder. Only when he dismisses Olmert's criticism of the haredim, is Gilder on shaky ground. Gilder wrongly see these men in black as the "defenders of the faith" and the "answer to the [Palestinian] demographic crunch caused by secular Israelis with their abortion culture and their gay-rights marches."
In fact, the haredim are part of the problem. The more insular among them do not do national service and do not pay taxes; as a community they are dependent on the largesse of the taxpayers; some are openly anti-Zionist; and their political clout stymies needed reform of the political system. Finally their hijacking of the established "church" of Orthodoxy via their stranglehold on the rabbinate has alienated countless non-observant Israelis from their heritage.
Gilder's book has many heroes but among my favorite is Nobel laureate Robert Aumann whose analysis of Palestinian rationality – suicide bombers included -- and Israel's failing nerve, is worth the price of this book, and needs to be understood by anyone venturing an opinion on "how to achieve peace" in the Arab-Israel conflict.
Finally, writing prior to Netanyahu's seminal Bar-Ilan address in June offering negotiations toward the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state, Gilder makes an interesting, albeit unrealistic, moral defense of the West Bank status quo -- demography notwithstanding: "If the right answer for Israel is to rule for a thousand years the territories on which reside enemies committed to its destruction, then no true principle of democracy compels them to do otherwise."
The chapter that captured my heart was Gilder's affecting testimony of what it was like to grow up as a privileged WASP in an atmosphere where refined anti-Semitism was taken as a given. It is this section which unravels how Gilder came to be a Judeophile, and reading it reminded me how few friends the Jews have in this world outside the Christian evangelical fold.
In his affinity for Jews and Israel , Gilder recalls the late Robert St. John who wrote several admiring books about the Zionist enterprise and whom David Ben-Gurion described as "our goyisher Zionist."
With this book – for all its faults – Gilder becomes St. John's worthy successor.
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, October 02, 2009
Boosting Hamas will come back to haunt Israel
================================================================================
A special mazal tov to Hadas Silver on her bat mitzva...
shabbat shalom
elliot
===============================================================================
Signs of life
The onus has always been on kidnappers to prove that their hostages are alive and well. Yet this week, the government of Binyamin Netanyahu paid Hamas to do just that.
Rather than tell Hamas that unless it could prove Gilad Schalit was in good condition there was nothing to negotiate, Israel agreed to release 20 Palestinian women prisoners in exchange for a recent video of the captive soldier.
The official spin is that these Palestinian ladies are not accomplished terrorists. Yet each and every one of them tried to kill, or help someone else try to kill Israeli soldiers or civilians. They are members of Fatah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Some, like the knife-wielding Bara'a Malki, are juveniles serving short terms. Others such as the 47-year-old Zohar Hamdan, were caught smuggling suicide bomb belts.
Forget those stereotypes about Jewish business acumen. This was a bad bargain.
In paying for this "sign-of-life," Israel has also certified that Hamas's counterintelligence operation is superb. Clearly, our intelligence agencies don't have a handle on where Schalit is being kept - even though it's probably a relatively short drive from the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.
Discharging the women inmates is phase one of a deal that could see the staged release of 1,000 terrorists, including key operatives behind some of the most heinous bloodbaths carried out by the Palestinian "resistance." If things go smoothly for Hamas, it will have essentially achieved the objectives put forth the very first week Schalit was taken prisoner three years ago.
The main stumbling block to total Israeli capitulation is, apparently, the security establishment's insistence that the 1,000 terrorists be confined to the Gaza Strip. Assuming further elasticity of Israeli principles, a steadfast Hamas politburo will have triumphed over two consecutive Israeli cabinets loaded with savvy ex-generals.
WHILE PAYING Hamas's price will end the Schalit family's ordeal, it will also have two perilous repercussions: Some of Hamas's most able "engineers" and tacticians will resume their careers; and the movement's standing within the Palestinian polity - and in the international arena - will further solidify.
Palestinians assert that Israel is holding 9,000 prisoners. If one Israeli soldier can buy 1,000 prisoners, how many will it take to deliver the other 8,000?
From Hamas's vantage point, all this could not come at a better time. The Islamists, under Egyptian auspices, may soon sign a "national unity" pact with Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah, paving the way for West Bank and Gaza elections in 2010. Hamas will then reasonably campaign as the "resistance" faction that can "deliver" Israeli concessions.
It is true that the Abbas "moderates" have shown no sign of wanting to come to an agreement with Israel - not with the Olmert-Livni government, and not with Netanyahu's. Fatah refuses to recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state; Abbas's maximalist negotiating demands would have a militarized Palestine face a truncated Israel confined behind the 1949 Armistice Lines. Strategic settlement blocs would have to be abandoned. The cost of making peace on Abbas's terms would be acceding to the demand for millions of Palestinians to "return" to Israel proper.
Nor has Abbas prepared his people for the idea of coexistence. In fact, though he egged Israel on to rout Hamas during Operation Cast Lead, now he's exploiting the Goldstone Mission's findings, leading the bandwagon to have Defense Minister Ehud Barak, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin labeled "war criminals."
With all that, Abbas does proclaim his backing for a two-state solution. He does not advocate portraying the Palestinian conflict with Israel as part of the global jihad. Hamas, in contrast, will not even entertain the prospect of Israel's right to exist. And its theoreticians are unregenerate anti-Semites.
WE DO not presume to know the depth of suffering felt by Gilad Schalit and his parents, Noam and Aviva, dignified and indefatigable advocates for their son's freedom. But the government's responsibility extends to the entire House of Israel.
Much as we Israelis welcome a sign of life from the soldier whose fate is so much in our hearts, it is the government's duty to pursue his freedom mindful of the many other lives at stake down the road.
A special mazal tov to Hadas Silver on her bat mitzva...
shabbat shalom
elliot
===============================================================================
Signs of life
The onus has always been on kidnappers to prove that their hostages are alive and well. Yet this week, the government of Binyamin Netanyahu paid Hamas to do just that.
Rather than tell Hamas that unless it could prove Gilad Schalit was in good condition there was nothing to negotiate, Israel agreed to release 20 Palestinian women prisoners in exchange for a recent video of the captive soldier.
The official spin is that these Palestinian ladies are not accomplished terrorists. Yet each and every one of them tried to kill, or help someone else try to kill Israeli soldiers or civilians. They are members of Fatah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Some, like the knife-wielding Bara'a Malki, are juveniles serving short terms. Others such as the 47-year-old Zohar Hamdan, were caught smuggling suicide bomb belts.
Forget those stereotypes about Jewish business acumen. This was a bad bargain.
In paying for this "sign-of-life," Israel has also certified that Hamas's counterintelligence operation is superb. Clearly, our intelligence agencies don't have a handle on where Schalit is being kept - even though it's probably a relatively short drive from the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.
Discharging the women inmates is phase one of a deal that could see the staged release of 1,000 terrorists, including key operatives behind some of the most heinous bloodbaths carried out by the Palestinian "resistance." If things go smoothly for Hamas, it will have essentially achieved the objectives put forth the very first week Schalit was taken prisoner three years ago.
The main stumbling block to total Israeli capitulation is, apparently, the security establishment's insistence that the 1,000 terrorists be confined to the Gaza Strip. Assuming further elasticity of Israeli principles, a steadfast Hamas politburo will have triumphed over two consecutive Israeli cabinets loaded with savvy ex-generals.
WHILE PAYING Hamas's price will end the Schalit family's ordeal, it will also have two perilous repercussions: Some of Hamas's most able "engineers" and tacticians will resume their careers; and the movement's standing within the Palestinian polity - and in the international arena - will further solidify.
Palestinians assert that Israel is holding 9,000 prisoners. If one Israeli soldier can buy 1,000 prisoners, how many will it take to deliver the other 8,000?
From Hamas's vantage point, all this could not come at a better time. The Islamists, under Egyptian auspices, may soon sign a "national unity" pact with Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah, paving the way for West Bank and Gaza elections in 2010. Hamas will then reasonably campaign as the "resistance" faction that can "deliver" Israeli concessions.
It is true that the Abbas "moderates" have shown no sign of wanting to come to an agreement with Israel - not with the Olmert-Livni government, and not with Netanyahu's. Fatah refuses to recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state; Abbas's maximalist negotiating demands would have a militarized Palestine face a truncated Israel confined behind the 1949 Armistice Lines. Strategic settlement blocs would have to be abandoned. The cost of making peace on Abbas's terms would be acceding to the demand for millions of Palestinians to "return" to Israel proper.
Nor has Abbas prepared his people for the idea of coexistence. In fact, though he egged Israel on to rout Hamas during Operation Cast Lead, now he's exploiting the Goldstone Mission's findings, leading the bandwagon to have Defense Minister Ehud Barak, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin labeled "war criminals."
With all that, Abbas does proclaim his backing for a two-state solution. He does not advocate portraying the Palestinian conflict with Israel as part of the global jihad. Hamas, in contrast, will not even entertain the prospect of Israel's right to exist. And its theoreticians are unregenerate anti-Semites.
WE DO not presume to know the depth of suffering felt by Gilad Schalit and his parents, Noam and Aviva, dignified and indefatigable advocates for their son's freedom. But the government's responsibility extends to the entire House of Israel.
Much as we Israelis welcome a sign of life from the soldier whose fate is so much in our hearts, it is the government's duty to pursue his freedom mindful of the many other lives at stake down the road.
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, September 29, 2009
Leading up to the October 1 talks between the G-5+1 and Iran
Think Cuban missile crisis
Iran recently became aware that its adversaries had uncovered the existence of a nuclear facility in Qom. Last week, the US shared what it knew with Russia and China, trying to persuade them to support tougher sanctions against Teheran. Late Thursday, the mullahs abruptly "reported" the secret uranium enrichment plant still under construction to the International Atomic Energy Agency. And on Friday, the US, Britain and France announced that Iran had been exposed - for the third time - trying to deceive the world.
The underground facility, ensconced inside an Islamic Revolutionary Guards base, was described by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates as "part of a pattern" of "lies" that has characterized Iran's nuclear program from "the very beginning."
But don't expect Teheran to show contrition when it meets in Geneva on Thursday with the five permanent members of the Security Council - the US, Russia, China, Britain, France, plus Germany; its first official "engagement" with Washington in decades.
Iran will express, as did Ali Akbar Salehi, head of its Atomic Energy Organization on Saturday, shock at the negative reaction to Qom. In 2003, it promised to reveal any new facilities to the IAEA as soon as it made plans to build them, but later backtracked, allowing Salehi to argue that Iran had had no obligation to tell the IAEA about Qom any sooner.
Add Qom to the scary list of facilities - at Bushehr, Isfahan, Natanz and Arak, and who knows where else - where Islamist fanaticism is being wedded to weapons of mass destruction.
The Iranian leadership's unvarnished thinking on the Qom expose was enunciated by Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's bureau chief: "God willing, this plant will be put into operation soon, and will blind the eyes of the enemies."
WHAT happens next? President Barack Obama declared that his "offer of a serious, meaningful dialogue to resolve this issue remains open." But he wants Iran to "come clean" and "make a choice" - cooperation or "confrontation" with the international community. Obama says his policy of engagement and multilateral consultations means that if "diplomacy does not work, we will be in a much stronger position to, for example, apply sanctions that have bite."
That is doubtful. Iran's game continues to be a cunning combination of cooperation and recalcitrance. One step forward, two steps back. For example, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told The Washington Post that he is willing to have his nuclear experts meet with scientists from the United States as a confidence-building measure. Of course these experts will be in no position to answer questions about Iran's nuclear infractions.
The autocrat who stole a basically fixed Iranian election in which only vetted candidates could compete, who believes a cabal of Jews controls the world, that the Holocaust never happened and Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth, has now given his word that Iran has no interest in acquiring nuclear weapons: "We fundamentally believe nuclear bombs are the wrong thing to have."
Iran's stratagem is to "engage" as it pushes ahead with its bomb, thereby making it hard for the international community to impose meaningful sanctions. Once it feels certain it has all the pieces of the nuclear weapon's puzzle in place - fuel, warhead, delivery system - it might offer Obama a stop just short of a test detonation, in return for a long list of Western concessions.
Anyway, the pace of economic sanctions is way out of sync with the progress the mullahs are making on their bomb. Even if Russia and China accepted a winter embargo on refined petroleum products entering Iran, is there any reason to imagine that the mere discomfort of the Iranian masses would take precedence for Khameini and Ahmadinejad over the bomb?
Obama should leapfrog over futile intermediate steps and place draconian sanctions on the table, now. To paraphrase John Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, this would mean that all ships and planes bound for Iran, from whatever nation, would be turned back.
Perhaps this prospect, coupled with a complete land, sea and air quarantine, can influence Iran's leaders to rethink their one-step-forward-two-steps-back strategy, and save humanity from an Iranian bomb.
Iran recently became aware that its adversaries had uncovered the existence of a nuclear facility in Qom. Last week, the US shared what it knew with Russia and China, trying to persuade them to support tougher sanctions against Teheran. Late Thursday, the mullahs abruptly "reported" the secret uranium enrichment plant still under construction to the International Atomic Energy Agency. And on Friday, the US, Britain and France announced that Iran had been exposed - for the third time - trying to deceive the world.
The underground facility, ensconced inside an Islamic Revolutionary Guards base, was described by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates as "part of a pattern" of "lies" that has characterized Iran's nuclear program from "the very beginning."
But don't expect Teheran to show contrition when it meets in Geneva on Thursday with the five permanent members of the Security Council - the US, Russia, China, Britain, France, plus Germany; its first official "engagement" with Washington in decades.
Iran will express, as did Ali Akbar Salehi, head of its Atomic Energy Organization on Saturday, shock at the negative reaction to Qom. In 2003, it promised to reveal any new facilities to the IAEA as soon as it made plans to build them, but later backtracked, allowing Salehi to argue that Iran had had no obligation to tell the IAEA about Qom any sooner.
Add Qom to the scary list of facilities - at Bushehr, Isfahan, Natanz and Arak, and who knows where else - where Islamist fanaticism is being wedded to weapons of mass destruction.
The Iranian leadership's unvarnished thinking on the Qom expose was enunciated by Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's bureau chief: "God willing, this plant will be put into operation soon, and will blind the eyes of the enemies."
WHAT happens next? President Barack Obama declared that his "offer of a serious, meaningful dialogue to resolve this issue remains open." But he wants Iran to "come clean" and "make a choice" - cooperation or "confrontation" with the international community. Obama says his policy of engagement and multilateral consultations means that if "diplomacy does not work, we will be in a much stronger position to, for example, apply sanctions that have bite."
That is doubtful. Iran's game continues to be a cunning combination of cooperation and recalcitrance. One step forward, two steps back. For example, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told The Washington Post that he is willing to have his nuclear experts meet with scientists from the United States as a confidence-building measure. Of course these experts will be in no position to answer questions about Iran's nuclear infractions.
The autocrat who stole a basically fixed Iranian election in which only vetted candidates could compete, who believes a cabal of Jews controls the world, that the Holocaust never happened and Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth, has now given his word that Iran has no interest in acquiring nuclear weapons: "We fundamentally believe nuclear bombs are the wrong thing to have."
Iran's stratagem is to "engage" as it pushes ahead with its bomb, thereby making it hard for the international community to impose meaningful sanctions. Once it feels certain it has all the pieces of the nuclear weapon's puzzle in place - fuel, warhead, delivery system - it might offer Obama a stop just short of a test detonation, in return for a long list of Western concessions.
Anyway, the pace of economic sanctions is way out of sync with the progress the mullahs are making on their bomb. Even if Russia and China accepted a winter embargo on refined petroleum products entering Iran, is there any reason to imagine that the mere discomfort of the Iranian masses would take precedence for Khameini and Ahmadinejad over the bomb?
Obama should leapfrog over futile intermediate steps and place draconian sanctions on the table, now. To paraphrase John Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, this would mean that all ships and planes bound for Iran, from whatever nation, would be turned back.
Perhaps this prospect, coupled with a complete land, sea and air quarantine, can influence Iran's leaders to rethink their one-step-forward-two-steps-back strategy, and save humanity from an Iranian bomb.
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, September 25, 2009
64th UN General Assembly...leading up to Netanyahu's speech
============================================================================
Dear Reader.
Thank you for returning. As you can see, we are back from our break.
Shana tova; tzom kal.
& shabbat shalom.
elliot
==============================================================================
Uncles and elephants
When the "family of nations" gathers, expect a mad uncle or two to show up. Sure enough, the 64th session of the UN General Assembly this week was blighted by the participation of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.
In 1993, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, writing about how cities had resigned themselves to outlandish, unacceptable behavior by segments of their populations, coined the phrase "defining deviancy down." The UN General Assembly established its reputation for "defining deviancy down" in 1974, when it invited Yasser Arafat to speak.
On Wednesday, Libya's costumed colonel denounced the UN's structure, noting disdainfully that the tyrannical majority is partly constrained by the UN Charter; and ripped up a copy. After 90 minutes of blather, he finished by complaining that the General Assembly was "like Hyde Park Corner - we just speak, and nobody implements our decision."
Later, Ahmadinejad took the podium to pronounce that it was unacceptable for "a small minority" to "dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of the world by its complicated networks." This cabal - guess who he meant - sought to "establish a new form of slavery and harm the reputation of other nations." He then demanded to know why the "crimes" of the "Zionist regime" received unconditional support from "certain governments."
Out of the 192 Assembly members, let it be recorded that a few, including Argentina, Australia, Britain, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, the United States - and Sweden, according to Israel Radio - dissociated themselves from this odious message by not having representatives present in the chamber while he spoke.
Of course, a bigger test for the international community comes on October 1 when the permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany, meet with Iranian diplomats to try once again to sway the mullahs to abandon their quest for nuclear weapons. Iran will continue to play for time, knowing that China, but now Russia perhaps less, opposes punishing economic sanctions.
By year's end, it should become apparent once and for all whether the civilized world has the will to stop an Iranian bomb.
IT WASN'T all Hyde Park Corner at the General Assembly.
President Barack Obama delivered a substantive address devoted partly to peace "between Israel, Palestine and the Arab world."
For Israelis, it was a painfully measured speech - one sentence for us, and one for the Arabs.
Still, he advised Arab states to publicly back a peace they claim privately to support.
He said the goal of peacemaking was to end "the occupation that began in 1967" by establishing a contiguous Palestinian state. Palestinian advocates took this to mean that the president wanted an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice Lines. He said no such thing.
Radical Palestinians interpreted Obama's advocacy of "a Jewish State of Israel" as negating the Palestinians' claim to a "right of return." We agree.
Relative moderates among the Palestinians were perturbed that Obama wanted negotiations to resume without preconditions. Mahmoud Abbas had been holding out for a total settlement freeze. Yet by speaking of "settlements" in the generic sense, without reference to strategic settlements blocs, the president was inadvertently encouraging Abbas to dig in his heels.
UNSUPRISINGLY, Obama found it politic not to mention that Hamas controls Gaza and has designs on the West Bank. Palestinian disunity was the elephant in the room.
Palestinian elections are supposed to take place in 2010. Paradoxically, unity augurs ill because among the Palestinians, rejectionism has historically trumped conciliation. At the same time, the continuing fragmentation of the Palestinian polity makes genuine conflict resolution a theoretical goal, at best.
Given the inhospitable venue, we did not realistically expect Obama to take moderate Palestinians to task for their unwavering insistence on the "right" to settle Palestinians en masse in Israel proper; nor did we expect him to call on them to budge from their demand for a pullback to the 1967 boundaries. We also did not realistically expect the president to say that Palestinian demilitarization is the sine qua non of any resolution.
But Obama must at least say these things privately to the Palestinians if the prospect of lasting peace "between Israel, Palestine, and the Arab world" is to be fulfilled.
Dear Reader.
Thank you for returning. As you can see, we are back from our break.
Shana tova; tzom kal.
& shabbat shalom.
elliot
==============================================================================
Uncles and elephants
When the "family of nations" gathers, expect a mad uncle or two to show up. Sure enough, the 64th session of the UN General Assembly this week was blighted by the participation of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.
In 1993, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, writing about how cities had resigned themselves to outlandish, unacceptable behavior by segments of their populations, coined the phrase "defining deviancy down." The UN General Assembly established its reputation for "defining deviancy down" in 1974, when it invited Yasser Arafat to speak.
On Wednesday, Libya's costumed colonel denounced the UN's structure, noting disdainfully that the tyrannical majority is partly constrained by the UN Charter; and ripped up a copy. After 90 minutes of blather, he finished by complaining that the General Assembly was "like Hyde Park Corner - we just speak, and nobody implements our decision."
Later, Ahmadinejad took the podium to pronounce that it was unacceptable for "a small minority" to "dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of the world by its complicated networks." This cabal - guess who he meant - sought to "establish a new form of slavery and harm the reputation of other nations." He then demanded to know why the "crimes" of the "Zionist regime" received unconditional support from "certain governments."
Out of the 192 Assembly members, let it be recorded that a few, including Argentina, Australia, Britain, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, the United States - and Sweden, according to Israel Radio - dissociated themselves from this odious message by not having representatives present in the chamber while he spoke.
Of course, a bigger test for the international community comes on October 1 when the permanent members of the Security Council, plus Germany, meet with Iranian diplomats to try once again to sway the mullahs to abandon their quest for nuclear weapons. Iran will continue to play for time, knowing that China, but now Russia perhaps less, opposes punishing economic sanctions.
By year's end, it should become apparent once and for all whether the civilized world has the will to stop an Iranian bomb.
IT WASN'T all Hyde Park Corner at the General Assembly.
President Barack Obama delivered a substantive address devoted partly to peace "between Israel, Palestine and the Arab world."
For Israelis, it was a painfully measured speech - one sentence for us, and one for the Arabs.
Still, he advised Arab states to publicly back a peace they claim privately to support.
He said the goal of peacemaking was to end "the occupation that began in 1967" by establishing a contiguous Palestinian state. Palestinian advocates took this to mean that the president wanted an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice Lines. He said no such thing.
Radical Palestinians interpreted Obama's advocacy of "a Jewish State of Israel" as negating the Palestinians' claim to a "right of return." We agree.
Relative moderates among the Palestinians were perturbed that Obama wanted negotiations to resume without preconditions. Mahmoud Abbas had been holding out for a total settlement freeze. Yet by speaking of "settlements" in the generic sense, without reference to strategic settlements blocs, the president was inadvertently encouraging Abbas to dig in his heels.
UNSUPRISINGLY, Obama found it politic not to mention that Hamas controls Gaza and has designs on the West Bank. Palestinian disunity was the elephant in the room.
Palestinian elections are supposed to take place in 2010. Paradoxically, unity augurs ill because among the Palestinians, rejectionism has historically trumped conciliation. At the same time, the continuing fragmentation of the Palestinian polity makes genuine conflict resolution a theoretical goal, at best.
Given the inhospitable venue, we did not realistically expect Obama to take moderate Palestinians to task for their unwavering insistence on the "right" to settle Palestinians en masse in Israel proper; nor did we expect him to call on them to budge from their demand for a pullback to the 1967 boundaries. We also did not realistically expect the president to say that Palestinian demilitarization is the sine qua non of any resolution.
But Obama must at least say these things privately to the Palestinians if the prospect of lasting peace "between Israel, Palestine, and the Arab world" is to be fulfilled.
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, September 07, 2009
HARRY S NETANYAHU
Gone fishing. Hope to be back after Rosh Hashana.
Thanks for reading.
ej
Plain speaking
According to one version, Harry S Truman said: "If you can't convince them, confuse them." This seems to be the political line taken by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on the settlement issue. However, according to another source, what America's 33rd president actually said was: "It's plain hokum. If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em. It's an old political trick. But this time it won't work."
The policy of pressing ahead with settlement construction while planning to announce a temporary building freeze may seem disingenuous. On the other hand, the Arab-Israel conflict has not proven itself conducive to Truman-like plain speaking.
EUROPE, AND increasingly Washington too, prefer the comfort of self-delusion about why this conflict is so hard to resolve. In the Orwellian world of peace-processing, those who adhere to the view that settlements are not the main obstacle to peace are committing thought crime. So plain speaking necessarily gives way to doublespeak.
Washington wants Israelis to know that as reward for a settlement freeze, President Barack Obama will be less icy toward Netanyahu, and that Arab states on the margins of the conflict may reopen interest sections (that they should never have closed in the first place).
Given such inducements, Netanyahu has decided to allow building now in progress to proceed on 2,500 units in Judea and Samaria; announce approval for the construction of hundreds of new units within existing settlements, or in areas immediately adjacent to settlement blocs. And around the time of his anticipated meeting with Mahmoud Abbas and Obama at the UN General Assembly later this month, Netanyahu will announce a building freeze - excluding metropolitan Jerusalem - of up to a year.
Publicly, the White House has taken umbrage over Netanyahu's build-and-freeze scheme. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs declared that "the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion, and we urge that it stop." EU foreign ministers have tripped over each other to condemn Netanyahu's approach.
In a parallel universe, meanwhile, Israeli officials are absolutely convinced that they have reached a tacit understanding with the administration. After months of wrangling, Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Yitzhak Molcho and Michael Herzog think they have just about persuaded the administration to drop its demands for a categorical settlement freeze everywhere over the Green Line first enunciated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on May 28.
Supposedly, the White House has come to realize - despite the counsel of J Street, Peace Now, Haaretz and an assortment of big-name pundits for the Hebrew tabloids - that a total freeze is impractical; that the previous administration really did tell Israel that certain construction would be tolerated; that the US insistence on a freeze has frozen only the negotiations; and, finally, that Saudi Arabia will make no gestures to Israel that might contribute to creating a better environment for peacemaking.
Time will tell if the Israelis are right about having changed American minds.
TO GIVE Netanyahu his due, at his Bar-Ilan speech in June, he tried speaking plain about settlements and about the root causes of the conflict, but much of what he said was lost on his American and European audiences. The premier urged the Palestinian leadership to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of its own. Abbas said no. Netanyahu implored them to solve the Palestinian refugee issue outside Israel's borders. Abbas ignored him. The premier urged them to negotiate the establishment of a non-militarized Palestinian state. Abbas's advisers scorned the notion.
Netanyahu also tried some plain speaking to the settlers, saying Israel did not want to rule over the Palestinians. Granted, it would have been better had he stated unequivocally that even a deal with the Palestinians he could live with would entail uprooting communities outside the settlement blocs. Yet given the constraints of our political system and the inhospitable political environment in Europe and in Washington, there is just so much plain speaking Netanyahu can usefully do.
SO MAYBE the real problem, in this instance, is not that Netanyahu doesn't speak plainly, but that ears attached to closed minds - on the Israeli Right, at the EU and in Washington - have made it difficult for his words to strike a chord.
Thanks for reading.
ej
Plain speaking
According to one version, Harry S Truman said: "If you can't convince them, confuse them." This seems to be the political line taken by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on the settlement issue. However, according to another source, what America's 33rd president actually said was: "It's plain hokum. If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em. It's an old political trick. But this time it won't work."
The policy of pressing ahead with settlement construction while planning to announce a temporary building freeze may seem disingenuous. On the other hand, the Arab-Israel conflict has not proven itself conducive to Truman-like plain speaking.
EUROPE, AND increasingly Washington too, prefer the comfort of self-delusion about why this conflict is so hard to resolve. In the Orwellian world of peace-processing, those who adhere to the view that settlements are not the main obstacle to peace are committing thought crime. So plain speaking necessarily gives way to doublespeak.
Washington wants Israelis to know that as reward for a settlement freeze, President Barack Obama will be less icy toward Netanyahu, and that Arab states on the margins of the conflict may reopen interest sections (that they should never have closed in the first place).
Given such inducements, Netanyahu has decided to allow building now in progress to proceed on 2,500 units in Judea and Samaria; announce approval for the construction of hundreds of new units within existing settlements, or in areas immediately adjacent to settlement blocs. And around the time of his anticipated meeting with Mahmoud Abbas and Obama at the UN General Assembly later this month, Netanyahu will announce a building freeze - excluding metropolitan Jerusalem - of up to a year.
Publicly, the White House has taken umbrage over Netanyahu's build-and-freeze scheme. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs declared that "the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion, and we urge that it stop." EU foreign ministers have tripped over each other to condemn Netanyahu's approach.
In a parallel universe, meanwhile, Israeli officials are absolutely convinced that they have reached a tacit understanding with the administration. After months of wrangling, Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Yitzhak Molcho and Michael Herzog think they have just about persuaded the administration to drop its demands for a categorical settlement freeze everywhere over the Green Line first enunciated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on May 28.
Supposedly, the White House has come to realize - despite the counsel of J Street, Peace Now, Haaretz and an assortment of big-name pundits for the Hebrew tabloids - that a total freeze is impractical; that the previous administration really did tell Israel that certain construction would be tolerated; that the US insistence on a freeze has frozen only the negotiations; and, finally, that Saudi Arabia will make no gestures to Israel that might contribute to creating a better environment for peacemaking.
Time will tell if the Israelis are right about having changed American minds.
TO GIVE Netanyahu his due, at his Bar-Ilan speech in June, he tried speaking plain about settlements and about the root causes of the conflict, but much of what he said was lost on his American and European audiences. The premier urged the Palestinian leadership to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of its own. Abbas said no. Netanyahu implored them to solve the Palestinian refugee issue outside Israel's borders. Abbas ignored him. The premier urged them to negotiate the establishment of a non-militarized Palestinian state. Abbas's advisers scorned the notion.
Netanyahu also tried some plain speaking to the settlers, saying Israel did not want to rule over the Palestinians. Granted, it would have been better had he stated unequivocally that even a deal with the Palestinians he could live with would entail uprooting communities outside the settlement blocs. Yet given the constraints of our political system and the inhospitable political environment in Europe and in Washington, there is just so much plain speaking Netanyahu can usefully do.
SO MAYBE the real problem, in this instance, is not that Netanyahu doesn't speak plainly, but that ears attached to closed minds - on the Israeli Right, at the EU and in Washington - have made it difficult for his words to strike a chord.
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, September 04, 2009
Gilad Schalit
-------------------------------------------------------
In Memory of Abigail Radoszkowicz
-------------------------------------------------------
Barak takes a tough line
The first time Noam Schalit's photograph appeared in The Jerusalem Post was on June 27, 2006, two days after his son Gilad was taken by Hamas. Our headline quoted him as saying: "We are hoping for good news."
Noam and his wife, Aviva, together with their other children, Yoel and Hadas, have been waiting three agonizing years for these hopes to be fulfilled.
Periodic reports in the Arab or German press, relayed in the Israeli media, have hinted at momentum in the circuitous negotiations between Israel and Hamas: something Khaled Mashaal or Mousa Abu Marzook said, or that Osama Hamdan didn't say. Talk of momentum has been inspired too by sightings of Ahmed Ja'abari or Mahmoud al-Zahar in Cairo.
The latest rumors claim Israel gave Hamas a new list of 450 prisoners it is willing to release, to be followed by 550 additional "humanitarian cases" set free down the line, ostensibly unconnected to the soldier's ransom. There are stories that Hamas is insisting on including Israeli Arab prisoners in any deal; and that it wants Fatah "redeemer" Marwan Barghouti included. Other accounts have Hamas sticking to its demand that the masterminds of the Sbarro, Moment Cafe and Dolphinarium attacks, and of the Netanya Pessah Seder massacre, be included in any exchange. Rumor has it that Israel will try to save face by deporting these evil men upon their release, the tacit understanding being that many will eventually slither into Gaza.
WHAT MAKES us think that the government of Binyamin Netanyahu really is close to a deal is, paradoxically, the hard line we've been hearing lately from Defense Minister Ehud Barak: "We are taking and will continue to take every possible and proper action in order to bring him back quickly to his family. I emphasize: Every possible and proper action... but not at all costs. Not at all costs."
Noam Schalit responded - as any father would - by saying that in these days of repentance leading up to Rosh Hashana, all he cared about was having Gilad home.
But the defense minister's eminently reasonable stance unleashed a deluge of biting criticism. One pundit retorted: It's not like we're being asked to exchange Schalit for the Golan Heights or east Jerusalem. "We are talking about a certain price... more or less several hundred (sic) terrorists… some with blood on their hands, some... who will resume terrorist activities immediately upon their release. This is the price." In other words: Let's go for it.
Other advocates of meeting Hamas's demands grant that some of the released terrorists will plan a new wave of bus bombings, drive-by shootings and the occasional assassination of a government minister, but they find solace in the hope that the overwhelming majority of the freed prisoners will be content to serve as quiet role models to a new generation of Palestinians.
ISRAELIS DESPERATELY want to see an end to the Schalit family's ordeal. But the one thing even more important than bringing Gilad home is doing so in a way that does not give the enemy an incentive to try again.
Were Netanyahu to cave in to the emotional blackmail instigated by those in the populist media, he would be broadcasting to Iran and Hizbullah, not to mention the Palestinians, that for all his braggadocio, he has no stomach for confrontation; no patience for victory.
If the government grants Hamas essentially what it has been asking for all along, no amount of subterfuge will camouflage the truth.
This brings us back to Barak - Israel's grandmaster of strategy, whose brilliance and zigzags are sometimes too clever by half.
Forgive us for wondering if Barak doth protest too much, if his "not at all costs" rhetoric is actually a Machiavellian scheme concocted together with the premier to bring the Schalit saga to closure - largely on Hamas's terms.
Having now established himself as courageously prepared to take flak for opposing a deal that goes too far, Barak positions himself to validate any deal he does embrace as good for Israel.
Hebrew speakers would call such a ploy hafuch al hafuch. We might simply call it deceitful.
In Memory of Abigail Radoszkowicz
-------------------------------------------------------
Barak takes a tough line
The first time Noam Schalit's photograph appeared in The Jerusalem Post was on June 27, 2006, two days after his son Gilad was taken by Hamas. Our headline quoted him as saying: "We are hoping for good news."
Noam and his wife, Aviva, together with their other children, Yoel and Hadas, have been waiting three agonizing years for these hopes to be fulfilled.
Periodic reports in the Arab or German press, relayed in the Israeli media, have hinted at momentum in the circuitous negotiations between Israel and Hamas: something Khaled Mashaal or Mousa Abu Marzook said, or that Osama Hamdan didn't say. Talk of momentum has been inspired too by sightings of Ahmed Ja'abari or Mahmoud al-Zahar in Cairo.
The latest rumors claim Israel gave Hamas a new list of 450 prisoners it is willing to release, to be followed by 550 additional "humanitarian cases" set free down the line, ostensibly unconnected to the soldier's ransom. There are stories that Hamas is insisting on including Israeli Arab prisoners in any deal; and that it wants Fatah "redeemer" Marwan Barghouti included. Other accounts have Hamas sticking to its demand that the masterminds of the Sbarro, Moment Cafe and Dolphinarium attacks, and of the Netanya Pessah Seder massacre, be included in any exchange. Rumor has it that Israel will try to save face by deporting these evil men upon their release, the tacit understanding being that many will eventually slither into Gaza.
WHAT MAKES us think that the government of Binyamin Netanyahu really is close to a deal is, paradoxically, the hard line we've been hearing lately from Defense Minister Ehud Barak: "We are taking and will continue to take every possible and proper action in order to bring him back quickly to his family. I emphasize: Every possible and proper action... but not at all costs. Not at all costs."
Noam Schalit responded - as any father would - by saying that in these days of repentance leading up to Rosh Hashana, all he cared about was having Gilad home.
But the defense minister's eminently reasonable stance unleashed a deluge of biting criticism. One pundit retorted: It's not like we're being asked to exchange Schalit for the Golan Heights or east Jerusalem. "We are talking about a certain price... more or less several hundred (sic) terrorists… some with blood on their hands, some... who will resume terrorist activities immediately upon their release. This is the price." In other words: Let's go for it.
Other advocates of meeting Hamas's demands grant that some of the released terrorists will plan a new wave of bus bombings, drive-by shootings and the occasional assassination of a government minister, but they find solace in the hope that the overwhelming majority of the freed prisoners will be content to serve as quiet role models to a new generation of Palestinians.
ISRAELIS DESPERATELY want to see an end to the Schalit family's ordeal. But the one thing even more important than bringing Gilad home is doing so in a way that does not give the enemy an incentive to try again.
Were Netanyahu to cave in to the emotional blackmail instigated by those in the populist media, he would be broadcasting to Iran and Hizbullah, not to mention the Palestinians, that for all his braggadocio, he has no stomach for confrontation; no patience for victory.
If the government grants Hamas essentially what it has been asking for all along, no amount of subterfuge will camouflage the truth.
This brings us back to Barak - Israel's grandmaster of strategy, whose brilliance and zigzags are sometimes too clever by half.
Forgive us for wondering if Barak doth protest too much, if his "not at all costs" rhetoric is actually a Machiavellian scheme concocted together with the premier to bring the Schalit saga to closure - largely on Hamas's terms.
Having now established himself as courageously prepared to take flak for opposing a deal that goes too far, Barak positions himself to validate any deal he does embrace as good for Israel.
Hebrew speakers would call such a ploy hafuch al hafuch. We might simply call it deceitful.
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, September 02, 2009
Remembering how the Second World War Began ...five lessons that apply today
70 years later
Seventy years is a long time. The span between the outbreak of World War II and today is about equal to the period between the first powered flight of the Wright brothers and NASA's Saturn V rocket launch of Skylab.
Men and women in their 20s today can't but relate to the Second World War as something that happened in their grandparents' generation. People in their 40s and 50s relate to WWII as something their parents may have experienced. Take President Barack Obama, who at 48 has only heard stories about how his great-uncle Charles Payne helped to liberate Buchenwald.
THE PASSAGE of time notwithstanding, controversy over the war remains vibrant. Revisionist historians, for example, falsely claim that there is no difference between the victims of communism and the victims of Nazism.
A more serious debate revolves around who, apart from Hitler, was most responsible for starting WWII?
Russia blames Poland for being Hitler's accomplice to the partition of Czechoslovakia in 1938, thus setting the stage for the conflict. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania along with Ukraine are marking the anniversary by spotlighting the evil committed by Josef Stalin and arguing that he and Hitler shared responsibility for the horrendous consequences of the war. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev calls this view a "flat-out lie."
Stalin, as we know, was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 20 million people within the borders of the Soviet Union until his death in 1953. His authorization of the August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact provided Hitler with the breathing space needed to launch Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. The pact allowed Moscow to annex Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, two-thirds of Poland and a chunk of Romania.
The Russians point out that their pact with Hitler would not have been necessary if not for the Munich agreement Britain and France signed with Germany. That September 1938 deal obliged Czechoslovakia to trade land for peace and turn over its Sudetenland region to the Nazis. Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, heralded the accord as delivering "peace for our time."
Hitler betrayed Stalin and in one of the fuhrer's greatest blunders ordered the invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941. With the Soviet Union fighting on the side of the Allies, the Nazis were decisively defeated.
Whatever the miscalculations and moral deficiencies of Chamberlain, Stalin and the other leaders of that era, the unalterable fact is that Hitler alone instigated World War II.
The war made it possible for the Nazi leader to fulfill his "prophecy" that European Jewry would be destroyed. Indeed, implementing the systematic, industrial-scale murder of the Jews was a raison d'être for launching the conflict - and a critical German war aim.
BUT AS we said, 70 years is a long time ago. Today, a quarter of Germans, according to Stern magazine, believe there were positive aspects to Nazi rule. And as The Associated Press recently reported from Gaza, a Hamas spiritual leader considers it a war crime to teach Palestinian pupils that the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews.
Despite a myriad of Holocaust films, museums and books that have made the Final Solution synonymous, in many minds, with the war itself, only 37 percent of British high school students knew that 6 million Jews were killed in the Shoah. A staggering 83% of Dutch people surveyed in 2006 thought the Allies fought WWII because of the Holocaust.
As the world marks the anniversary of the outbreak of WWII this week, and with the Iranian leader set to address the United Nations next month, those who make fateful decisions for the international community need to draw the appropriate lessons from history.
These include, we submit:
• Leaders will appease tyrants when confrontation is costly, only to pay a greater price later.
• Purely pragmatic yet amoral policies directed at a tyrant broadcast weakness.
• When a tyrant prophesies a world without Jews (or Israel), he is revealing his intentions.
• Rational decision-making models may not apply in polities where crucial choices are made by a strongman and his sycophants. Such leaders are inherently unpredictable.
• Appeasement emboldens autocrats convinced they have a special aura and messianic mission.
History does not repeat itself. But people have been known to make the same mistake twice.
Seventy years is a long time. The span between the outbreak of World War II and today is about equal to the period between the first powered flight of the Wright brothers and NASA's Saturn V rocket launch of Skylab.
Men and women in their 20s today can't but relate to the Second World War as something that happened in their grandparents' generation. People in their 40s and 50s relate to WWII as something their parents may have experienced. Take President Barack Obama, who at 48 has only heard stories about how his great-uncle Charles Payne helped to liberate Buchenwald.
THE PASSAGE of time notwithstanding, controversy over the war remains vibrant. Revisionist historians, for example, falsely claim that there is no difference between the victims of communism and the victims of Nazism.
A more serious debate revolves around who, apart from Hitler, was most responsible for starting WWII?
Russia blames Poland for being Hitler's accomplice to the partition of Czechoslovakia in 1938, thus setting the stage for the conflict. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania along with Ukraine are marking the anniversary by spotlighting the evil committed by Josef Stalin and arguing that he and Hitler shared responsibility for the horrendous consequences of the war. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev calls this view a "flat-out lie."
Stalin, as we know, was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 20 million people within the borders of the Soviet Union until his death in 1953. His authorization of the August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact provided Hitler with the breathing space needed to launch Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. The pact allowed Moscow to annex Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, two-thirds of Poland and a chunk of Romania.
The Russians point out that their pact with Hitler would not have been necessary if not for the Munich agreement Britain and France signed with Germany. That September 1938 deal obliged Czechoslovakia to trade land for peace and turn over its Sudetenland region to the Nazis. Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, heralded the accord as delivering "peace for our time."
Hitler betrayed Stalin and in one of the fuhrer's greatest blunders ordered the invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941. With the Soviet Union fighting on the side of the Allies, the Nazis were decisively defeated.
Whatever the miscalculations and moral deficiencies of Chamberlain, Stalin and the other leaders of that era, the unalterable fact is that Hitler alone instigated World War II.
The war made it possible for the Nazi leader to fulfill his "prophecy" that European Jewry would be destroyed. Indeed, implementing the systematic, industrial-scale murder of the Jews was a raison d'être for launching the conflict - and a critical German war aim.
BUT AS we said, 70 years is a long time ago. Today, a quarter of Germans, according to Stern magazine, believe there were positive aspects to Nazi rule. And as The Associated Press recently reported from Gaza, a Hamas spiritual leader considers it a war crime to teach Palestinian pupils that the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews.
Despite a myriad of Holocaust films, museums and books that have made the Final Solution synonymous, in many minds, with the war itself, only 37 percent of British high school students knew that 6 million Jews were killed in the Shoah. A staggering 83% of Dutch people surveyed in 2006 thought the Allies fought WWII because of the Holocaust.
As the world marks the anniversary of the outbreak of WWII this week, and with the Iranian leader set to address the United Nations next month, those who make fateful decisions for the international community need to draw the appropriate lessons from history.
These include, we submit:
• Leaders will appease tyrants when confrontation is costly, only to pay a greater price later.
• Purely pragmatic yet amoral policies directed at a tyrant broadcast weakness.
• When a tyrant prophesies a world without Jews (or Israel), he is revealing his intentions.
• Rational decision-making models may not apply in polities where crucial choices are made by a strongman and his sycophants. Such leaders are inherently unpredictable.
• Appeasement emboldens autocrats convinced they have a special aura and messianic mission.
History does not repeat itself. But people have been known to make the same mistake twice.
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, September 01, 2009
Why Israelis are cynical about their elected officials
Yes to outrage
You know what's really distressing about Sunday's indictment of former prime minister Ehud Olmert on graft charges? It's that the news was anti-climatic. That Israeli society has reached the point where one mass-circulation tabloid devoted more front page coverage to Madonna's visit to the Western Wall than to the historic indictment of an ex-premier.
Israelis were not shaken. We did not feel betrayed. And therein lies the heartbreak.
Part of the blasé reaction can be explained by the fact that Olmert has been under investigation for so long. In September 1996, while in the Likud, he was indicted for illicit fund raising and for signing false statements. He was ultimately acquitted.
In the last three years, Olmert stood accused of influence-peddling at the Finance Ministry to ensure that the privatization tender of Bank Leumi was won by Australian businessman Frank Lowy. That case was dropped. As Industry, Trade and Labor minister, he was accused of handing out patronage jobs to a company associated with his former law partner. That case is still pending.
Back on March 2, 2006, The Jerusalem Post reported that then-acting prime minister Olmert had been cleared of any wrongdoing in the sale of his home on Rehov Kaf Tet B'November in Jerusalem. Further on in that story, though, we reported that Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz was looking into charges that Olmert's purchase of another Jerusalem home on Cremieux Street was shady. No wrongdoing was ever proven in connection with Olmert's real estate dealings on Cremieux St, or in Nahalot, or in Sheinkin Street in Tel Aviv.
Still, when Olmert was ultimately driven from office it was not for his inept handling of the Second Lebanon War, but because he became too unpopular to lead Kadima at the polls.
THE attorney-general has now filed a 61-page, three-count indictment charging Olmert with tax evasion, falsifying financial statements and failing to report income. The charges relate to the period Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem and a minister. None allege wrongdoing initiated during his premiership. Olmert is not charged with taking bribes, though that is implicit.
# Charge One: Rishon Tours. Olmert is accused of double, sometimes triple billing the government and not-for-profit organizations for reimbursement of 17 trips abroad between 2002-2006, and of directing that surplus funds, roughly $90,000, be held on account at the travel agency for personal use by him and members of his family.
# Charge Two: Morris Talansky affair. Olmert is accused of receiving $600,000 from the American businessman, some of it in cash-stuffed envelopes, between 1997 and 2005.
# Charge Three: Investment Center. As Minister of Industry and Trade, Olmert is charged with a conflict of interest in intervening on behalf of the clients of his law partner Uri Messer to obtain government grants.
No prime minister or ex-premier has ever before been indicted on criminal charges in Israel's history.
This is the place to say that we have not been impressed with the deportment of Olmert's lawyers, particularly their efforts to delay the handing down of this indictment and impugning the motivation of the prosecution. To insinuate that the indictment was driven by ulterior motives is to undermine trust in the legal system.
Olmert is innocent until proven guilty. He is expected to go on trial in Jerusalem District Court before a three judge panel probably after the High Holy Days. The trial is expected to be a drawn out affair, barring a plea bargain.
WE ARE left feeling that hubris more than ethical standards guide the behavior of too many of our politicians. Sixty years after the establishment of the state, the sense that certain things are just not done remains undeveloped.
Former president Moshe Katsav and now Olmert have been indicted. Former finance minister Avraham Hirschson and former Shas MK Shlomo Benizri both start their prison sentences today. Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak both escaped indictment - just. Police have recommended indicting Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
The charges, circumstances, and personalities may vary but the lingering impression is that those who ought to be paragons of probity too often treat the law with contempt. Their greatest offense is making the rest of us cynical about our country.
You know what's really distressing about Sunday's indictment of former prime minister Ehud Olmert on graft charges? It's that the news was anti-climatic. That Israeli society has reached the point where one mass-circulation tabloid devoted more front page coverage to Madonna's visit to the Western Wall than to the historic indictment of an ex-premier.
Israelis were not shaken. We did not feel betrayed. And therein lies the heartbreak.
Part of the blasé reaction can be explained by the fact that Olmert has been under investigation for so long. In September 1996, while in the Likud, he was indicted for illicit fund raising and for signing false statements. He was ultimately acquitted.
In the last three years, Olmert stood accused of influence-peddling at the Finance Ministry to ensure that the privatization tender of Bank Leumi was won by Australian businessman Frank Lowy. That case was dropped. As Industry, Trade and Labor minister, he was accused of handing out patronage jobs to a company associated with his former law partner. That case is still pending.
Back on March 2, 2006, The Jerusalem Post reported that then-acting prime minister Olmert had been cleared of any wrongdoing in the sale of his home on Rehov Kaf Tet B'November in Jerusalem. Further on in that story, though, we reported that Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz was looking into charges that Olmert's purchase of another Jerusalem home on Cremieux Street was shady. No wrongdoing was ever proven in connection with Olmert's real estate dealings on Cremieux St, or in Nahalot, or in Sheinkin Street in Tel Aviv.
Still, when Olmert was ultimately driven from office it was not for his inept handling of the Second Lebanon War, but because he became too unpopular to lead Kadima at the polls.
THE attorney-general has now filed a 61-page, three-count indictment charging Olmert with tax evasion, falsifying financial statements and failing to report income. The charges relate to the period Olmert was mayor of Jerusalem and a minister. None allege wrongdoing initiated during his premiership. Olmert is not charged with taking bribes, though that is implicit.
# Charge One: Rishon Tours. Olmert is accused of double, sometimes triple billing the government and not-for-profit organizations for reimbursement of 17 trips abroad between 2002-2006, and of directing that surplus funds, roughly $90,000, be held on account at the travel agency for personal use by him and members of his family.
# Charge Two: Morris Talansky affair. Olmert is accused of receiving $600,000 from the American businessman, some of it in cash-stuffed envelopes, between 1997 and 2005.
# Charge Three: Investment Center. As Minister of Industry and Trade, Olmert is charged with a conflict of interest in intervening on behalf of the clients of his law partner Uri Messer to obtain government grants.
No prime minister or ex-premier has ever before been indicted on criminal charges in Israel's history.
This is the place to say that we have not been impressed with the deportment of Olmert's lawyers, particularly their efforts to delay the handing down of this indictment and impugning the motivation of the prosecution. To insinuate that the indictment was driven by ulterior motives is to undermine trust in the legal system.
Olmert is innocent until proven guilty. He is expected to go on trial in Jerusalem District Court before a three judge panel probably after the High Holy Days. The trial is expected to be a drawn out affair, barring a plea bargain.
WE ARE left feeling that hubris more than ethical standards guide the behavior of too many of our politicians. Sixty years after the establishment of the state, the sense that certain things are just not done remains undeveloped.
Former president Moshe Katsav and now Olmert have been indicted. Former finance minister Avraham Hirschson and former Shas MK Shlomo Benizri both start their prison sentences today. Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak both escaped indictment - just. Police have recommended indicting Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
The charges, circumstances, and personalities may vary but the lingering impression is that those who ought to be paragons of probity too often treat the law with contempt. Their greatest offense is making the rest of us cynical about our country.
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, August 31, 2009
Are Europe & America starting to wake up?
Iran without the bomb
The battle raging among Sunni Muslims - between belligerent Islamists carrying the mantle of al-Qaida and comparatively more moderate adherents - is sufficiently disturbing without throwing the destabilizing impact of Iranian Shi'ite imperialism into the mix.
Over the weekend, for instance, came news that the son of the Saudi interior minister - who happens to be his father's deputy at the ministry - had been the target of a failed al-Qaida assassination attempt. Elsewhere, hundreds of Sunni Muslims have been killed this summer by fellow Sunnis in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya. In Afghanistan/Pakistan, the slaughter is mostly Sunni on Sunni. Only in Iraq has much of the recent intra-Arab killing been carried out by Sunnis against Shi'ites.
On top of what the Sunnis are doing to each other, Iran does its bit to promote the bloodletting, in Afghanistan and Iraq, naturally, but also in Yemen, where the latest uptick in violence is facilitated by Iranian support of anti-government Shi'ite rebels. Iran also stokes upheaval by supporting seditious Sunni groups in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania and among the Palestinians. In Lebanon, Teheran operates openly through its Hizbullah proxy. Its agents in South America and Africa pursue their malevolent goals more surreptitiously.
Iran makes all this mischief armed with only conventional weapons. Place an atom bomb in the hands of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the world becomes exponentially more dangerous - especially now that his regime is becoming more despotic.
As Iran's June elections demonstrated, power is now concentrated among an ever-shrinking elite which feels no need to pursue consensus policies at home. Former leading revolutionaries have been subject to Stalin-like show trials, coerced into making transparently false confessions. The revolution is consuming its own, becoming more fanatical and turning crooked. The Economist reports this week that the Revolutionary Guards control most state-owned companies and may even have a stranglehold over the black market in alcohol, tobacco, and heaven knows what else.
The appointment as defense minister of Ahmad Vahidi - the man most likely responsible for the 1994 bombing of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires in which 85 people were killed and 200 wounded - supplies yet further proof that the ruling clique has become more shameless, arrogant and unpredictable.
ON FRIDAY, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei issued another one of his Kafkaesque reports, in advance of a September 7 meeting of the agency's 35-member policymaking body in Vienna. He has perfected the art of airbrushing any sense of urgency out of these reports. "There remain a number of outstanding issues," ElBaradei droned, "which give rise to concerns and which need to be clarified to exclude the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program…."
He makes no judgment about the military aspects of Iran's nuclear program; takes no position on reports that a renegade Russian scientist provided weaponization knowhow to Iran; and offers no view about reports of Iranian scientists carrying out computer modeling of above-ground nuclear detonations.
Here is ElBaradei taking off the gloves: The IAEA does "not consider that Iran has adequately addressed the substance of the issues…." To his credit, he doesn't sweep under the rug the fact that Iran has not suspended its enrichment of uranium or halted work on heavy water, as demanded by the Security Council.
The generally well-informed Jim Hoagland of The Washington Post predicts that after much haggling, Iran will agree to stop short of building a bomb, but will insist on retaining its capability to do so. That would leave Iranian imperialism unchecked and perpetuate for generations the threat of an Iranian bomb.
On Wednesday, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will meet in Frankfurt. Berlin and Paris have announced that stiffer economic penalties are in the offing if Iran does not end its quest for the bomb. Meanwhile, a new poll tells us that 81 percent of Americans feel Iran poses a serious threat to the United States; a survey last month found 66% feeling that President Barack Obama is not tough enough on Iran.
Iran without the bomb is a certified menace. Perhaps the nightmarish consequences for Europe and America of a nuclear-armed Iran are, belatedly, starting to register.
The battle raging among Sunni Muslims - between belligerent Islamists carrying the mantle of al-Qaida and comparatively more moderate adherents - is sufficiently disturbing without throwing the destabilizing impact of Iranian Shi'ite imperialism into the mix.
Over the weekend, for instance, came news that the son of the Saudi interior minister - who happens to be his father's deputy at the ministry - had been the target of a failed al-Qaida assassination attempt. Elsewhere, hundreds of Sunni Muslims have been killed this summer by fellow Sunnis in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya. In Afghanistan/Pakistan, the slaughter is mostly Sunni on Sunni. Only in Iraq has much of the recent intra-Arab killing been carried out by Sunnis against Shi'ites.
On top of what the Sunnis are doing to each other, Iran does its bit to promote the bloodletting, in Afghanistan and Iraq, naturally, but also in Yemen, where the latest uptick in violence is facilitated by Iranian support of anti-government Shi'ite rebels. Iran also stokes upheaval by supporting seditious Sunni groups in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania and among the Palestinians. In Lebanon, Teheran operates openly through its Hizbullah proxy. Its agents in South America and Africa pursue their malevolent goals more surreptitiously.
Iran makes all this mischief armed with only conventional weapons. Place an atom bomb in the hands of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the world becomes exponentially more dangerous - especially now that his regime is becoming more despotic.
As Iran's June elections demonstrated, power is now concentrated among an ever-shrinking elite which feels no need to pursue consensus policies at home. Former leading revolutionaries have been subject to Stalin-like show trials, coerced into making transparently false confessions. The revolution is consuming its own, becoming more fanatical and turning crooked. The Economist reports this week that the Revolutionary Guards control most state-owned companies and may even have a stranglehold over the black market in alcohol, tobacco, and heaven knows what else.
The appointment as defense minister of Ahmad Vahidi - the man most likely responsible for the 1994 bombing of the Jewish center in Buenos Aires in which 85 people were killed and 200 wounded - supplies yet further proof that the ruling clique has become more shameless, arrogant and unpredictable.
ON FRIDAY, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei issued another one of his Kafkaesque reports, in advance of a September 7 meeting of the agency's 35-member policymaking body in Vienna. He has perfected the art of airbrushing any sense of urgency out of these reports. "There remain a number of outstanding issues," ElBaradei droned, "which give rise to concerns and which need to be clarified to exclude the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program…."
He makes no judgment about the military aspects of Iran's nuclear program; takes no position on reports that a renegade Russian scientist provided weaponization knowhow to Iran; and offers no view about reports of Iranian scientists carrying out computer modeling of above-ground nuclear detonations.
Here is ElBaradei taking off the gloves: The IAEA does "not consider that Iran has adequately addressed the substance of the issues…." To his credit, he doesn't sweep under the rug the fact that Iran has not suspended its enrichment of uranium or halted work on heavy water, as demanded by the Security Council.
The generally well-informed Jim Hoagland of The Washington Post predicts that after much haggling, Iran will agree to stop short of building a bomb, but will insist on retaining its capability to do so. That would leave Iranian imperialism unchecked and perpetuate for generations the threat of an Iranian bomb.
On Wednesday, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will meet in Frankfurt. Berlin and Paris have announced that stiffer economic penalties are in the offing if Iran does not end its quest for the bomb. Meanwhile, a new poll tells us that 81 percent of Americans feel Iran poses a serious threat to the United States; a survey last month found 66% feeling that President Barack Obama is not tough enough on Iran.
Iran without the bomb is a certified menace. Perhaps the nightmarish consequences for Europe and America of a nuclear-armed Iran are, belatedly, starting to register.
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, August 28, 2009
How Ted Kennedy's death is seen in Jerusalem
Liberals and Israel
The death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, a quintessential liberal, reminds us that there was a time when liberalism and pro-Israelism were synonymous.
Kennedy-style liberalism was rooted in optimism about human nature, trust in the good that government can do, and faith in the power of negotiations to resolve seemingly intractable problems.
Kennedy made his first trip to Israel in 1962 as a prelude to his senatorial campaign. Though it was billed as a "private visit," Kennedy gave a "fervent Zionist address" before 2,000 Hebrew University students. A handful of local communists protested the appearance. In those days, liberals and communists were bitter enemies.
As a freshman senator, Kennedy became chair of the subcommittee on international refugees. When he came to suspect that UNRWA money - largely contributed by US taxpayers - was being diverted to Ahmed Shukeiry, Yasser Arafat's predecessor, and his gunmen, he protested.
After visiting Arab refugee camps in Lebanon and the Jordanian-occupied West Bank, Kennedy advocated rehabilitation and training programs to help those displaced by the 1948 war start new lives. Israeli leaders supported his efforts. But the Arabs insisted that the only just solution for the refugees was their return to their original homes and the dismantling of Israel.
KENNEDY was by no means a knee-jerk supporter of this country.
He opposed Israeli retaliatory raids against Arab fedayeen and called for third-party mediation.
In 1966, he introduced his own plan for Middle East peace which advocated respect for the territorial integrity of all states in the region. The Arabs would have none of it.
After the 1967 Six Day War, Kennedy remained a steadfast friend of Israel and said that on a personal basis, he did not object to Jerusalem remaining united under Israeli sovereignty.
During the Nixon administration, he urged the sale of Phantom fighter planes to Israel, clashing with J.W. Fulbright, the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee.
By the early 1970s, he had became a key champion of the Soviet Jewry movement. In 1974, he irritated the Kremlin by meeting with Jewish refuseniks in Moscow.
Throughout the Nixon and Ford years, Kennedy steadfastly championed military aid to Israel.
When Jimmy Carter pushed a major arms package for Saudi Arabia, Kennedy voted against - though he honored a White House request not to lead the opposition to the deal. He also opposed Carter's occasional flirtations with the then-quarantined PLO.
And when the Carter administration supported an Arab-inspired UN Security Council resolution calling for the removal of all Jewish settlements beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines, Kennedy called the US vote "shameful." He wanted to see the parties negotiate the issues - including settlements.
He unsuccessfully challenged Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination, while receiving strong support from Rabbi Alexander Schindler of the Reform movement and other liberal Jews. (Carter ultimately lost his bid for a second term to Ronald Reagan.)
When Reagan sought to sell F-15s to Saudi Arabia in 1981, he too ran into opposition from Kennedy. And in the face of unbridled Reagan administration outrage over the Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear facility later that same year, Kennedy lambasted the administration as "profoundly wrong."
THE PRO-ISRAEL liberalism embodied by Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Henry Jackson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jacob Javits seems archaic nowadays.
Their generation knew first-hand that the Arabs' rejection of Israel's existence was at the root of the conflict.
Today, calls for throwing the Jews into the sea have been replaced by reasonable-sounding Arab initiatives for a two-state solution. Only the fine print - pertaining to recognition, borders, militarization and refugees - suggests something else.
Once there were no settlements, and still the Arabs sought Israel's destruction. Yet yesterday, a CNN primer of the conflict pointed to settlements as the stumbling block to peace.
Maybe the old Kennedy liberals were really centrists, and today's progressives are really leftists. Or maybe, 60 years on, liberals have just grown uncomfortable and impatient - after Lebanon wars, intifadas, checkpoints, barriers and Gaza blockades.
The liberal catechism is 1. All conflicts are soluble; 2. Israel is the stronger party; 3. And so it must take the greater risks for peace.
Liberals are exasperated by Israel's failure to embrace these principles categorically. Yet we survive in this region because we don't.
Edward Kennedy understood all this and more. Israel feels his loss acutely.
====================
Shabbat shalom to all
The death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, a quintessential liberal, reminds us that there was a time when liberalism and pro-Israelism were synonymous.
Kennedy-style liberalism was rooted in optimism about human nature, trust in the good that government can do, and faith in the power of negotiations to resolve seemingly intractable problems.
Kennedy made his first trip to Israel in 1962 as a prelude to his senatorial campaign. Though it was billed as a "private visit," Kennedy gave a "fervent Zionist address" before 2,000 Hebrew University students. A handful of local communists protested the appearance. In those days, liberals and communists were bitter enemies.
As a freshman senator, Kennedy became chair of the subcommittee on international refugees. When he came to suspect that UNRWA money - largely contributed by US taxpayers - was being diverted to Ahmed Shukeiry, Yasser Arafat's predecessor, and his gunmen, he protested.
After visiting Arab refugee camps in Lebanon and the Jordanian-occupied West Bank, Kennedy advocated rehabilitation and training programs to help those displaced by the 1948 war start new lives. Israeli leaders supported his efforts. But the Arabs insisted that the only just solution for the refugees was their return to their original homes and the dismantling of Israel.
KENNEDY was by no means a knee-jerk supporter of this country.
He opposed Israeli retaliatory raids against Arab fedayeen and called for third-party mediation.
In 1966, he introduced his own plan for Middle East peace which advocated respect for the territorial integrity of all states in the region. The Arabs would have none of it.
After the 1967 Six Day War, Kennedy remained a steadfast friend of Israel and said that on a personal basis, he did not object to Jerusalem remaining united under Israeli sovereignty.
During the Nixon administration, he urged the sale of Phantom fighter planes to Israel, clashing with J.W. Fulbright, the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee.
By the early 1970s, he had became a key champion of the Soviet Jewry movement. In 1974, he irritated the Kremlin by meeting with Jewish refuseniks in Moscow.
Throughout the Nixon and Ford years, Kennedy steadfastly championed military aid to Israel.
When Jimmy Carter pushed a major arms package for Saudi Arabia, Kennedy voted against - though he honored a White House request not to lead the opposition to the deal. He also opposed Carter's occasional flirtations with the then-quarantined PLO.
And when the Carter administration supported an Arab-inspired UN Security Council resolution calling for the removal of all Jewish settlements beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines, Kennedy called the US vote "shameful." He wanted to see the parties negotiate the issues - including settlements.
He unsuccessfully challenged Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination, while receiving strong support from Rabbi Alexander Schindler of the Reform movement and other liberal Jews. (Carter ultimately lost his bid for a second term to Ronald Reagan.)
When Reagan sought to sell F-15s to Saudi Arabia in 1981, he too ran into opposition from Kennedy. And in the face of unbridled Reagan administration outrage over the Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear facility later that same year, Kennedy lambasted the administration as "profoundly wrong."
THE PRO-ISRAEL liberalism embodied by Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Henry Jackson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jacob Javits seems archaic nowadays.
Their generation knew first-hand that the Arabs' rejection of Israel's existence was at the root of the conflict.
Today, calls for throwing the Jews into the sea have been replaced by reasonable-sounding Arab initiatives for a two-state solution. Only the fine print - pertaining to recognition, borders, militarization and refugees - suggests something else.
Once there were no settlements, and still the Arabs sought Israel's destruction. Yet yesterday, a CNN primer of the conflict pointed to settlements as the stumbling block to peace.
Maybe the old Kennedy liberals were really centrists, and today's progressives are really leftists. Or maybe, 60 years on, liberals have just grown uncomfortable and impatient - after Lebanon wars, intifadas, checkpoints, barriers and Gaza blockades.
The liberal catechism is 1. All conflicts are soluble; 2. Israel is the stronger party; 3. And so it must take the greater risks for peace.
Liberals are exasperated by Israel's failure to embrace these principles categorically. Yet we survive in this region because we don't.
Edward Kennedy understood all this and more. Israel feels his loss acutely.
====================
Shabbat shalom to all
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, August 27, 2009
MERKEL & NETANYAHU MEET TODAY IN BERLIN
The PM in Europe
Were it not for fresh revelations about the cause of Michael Jackson's demise and embarrassing questions about British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's involvement in setting the Lockerbie bomber free, the media in England might have devoted itself to more thoroughly bashing Israel on the occasion of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to London this week.
Alas, the Guardian on Tuesday relegated its two anti-Zionist pieces to page 16. The Times carried a Ramallah-datelined interview with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad on the inside pages. The Telegraph reported (incorrectly) that Netanyahu was about to concede on the settlement freeze issue, but worried that "his nationalist foreign minister" had "inflamed the situation by dismissing the prospect of a diplomatic breakthrough." The Independent tried to uncover the real reason Israel has lifted checkpoints in the West Bank including around Nablus, the "town once synonymous with the Palestinian resistance." According to one local, it was a temporary charade put on for the Americans and Europe.
That was the context for yesterday's meeting between Netanyahu and his "good friend" Brown at No. 10 Downing Street. Britain indeed counts itself as a "true friend" of Israel deeply concerned over a Jewish presence beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines. Yet despite incessant pressure from pro-Palestinian advocates for a boycott, Israel-UK trade remains strong. Netanyahu also thanked Brown for his support on the Iranian issue. Britain does not promote trade with Iran, though the extent of commerce between the two countries is hard to gauge since much of it takes place surreptitiously via the United Arab Emirates.
ON THURSDAY, Netanyahu is to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. The last embers of hope that economic penalties could sway Ayatollah Ali Khamenei not to proceed with his bomb may well rest with her. Unfortunately, Germany has the distinction of being Iran's second biggest trading partner after China.
Germany is deeply involved in trying to influence events in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. It has lent its good offices to help free Israeli captives; it provides important military support to Israel. After Netanyahu's path breaking Bar-Ilan speech in June, Merkel telephoned with words of encouragement. Germany is also heavily involved in aiding the Palestinians - spending $50 million on West Bank sewage treatment plants.
Popular attitudes in Germany toward Israel are little different than elsewhere in Europe. The Economist recently described Germany as "a place built on consensus - in the workplace, in society and in politics."
It must exasperate Germans that Israelis and Palestinians have still not buried the hatchet. But they place the onus squarely on Israel because of the "occupation." It does not occur to them that unremitting Palestinian rejectionism is the main obstacle to peace. That explains why President Horst Kohler was tone deaf to Israeli outrage over awarding the Federal Cross of Merit to the anti-Zionist campaigner Felicia Langer.
During Operation Cast Lead, polls showed that Germans found Israel "aggressive" (49 percent) and "ruthless" (59%). Seventy percent of young Germans rejected the idea of a special relationship with Israel because of the Shoah. In fact, 13% opposed the existence of a Jewish state altogether.
In this context, it is notable that Merkel feels quite differently. During a March 2007 visit to Israel she insisted that Germany did have a "historic responsibility" to the Jewish state. "It means for me, as a German chancellor, Israel's security is non-negotiable." She has a reputation for being "a strong backer of Israel" and "instinctively pro-American" in venues where these are not necessarily meant as compliments.
Netanyahu arrives in Berlin a month before parliamentary elections that may see Merkel's Christian Democratic Union in a position to jettison its "grand coalition" with Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier's Social Democratic Party. Arguably, one reason German policy has been less demonstrably pro-Israel than Merkel's rhetoric is Steinmeier's influence.
Guido Westerwelle of the Free Democratic Party, a likely Merkel coalition partner, is in the running for the foreign minister job. When Westerwelle's homosexuality was exposed, he was "smeared" with the - unproven - allegation of being "excessively pro-Israel."
After the September 27 elections, Israelis are hopeful that Merkel will find a way to bring her sentiments and her government's polices - especially on Iran - into greater harmony
Were it not for fresh revelations about the cause of Michael Jackson's demise and embarrassing questions about British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's involvement in setting the Lockerbie bomber free, the media in England might have devoted itself to more thoroughly bashing Israel on the occasion of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to London this week.
Alas, the Guardian on Tuesday relegated its two anti-Zionist pieces to page 16. The Times carried a Ramallah-datelined interview with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad on the inside pages. The Telegraph reported (incorrectly) that Netanyahu was about to concede on the settlement freeze issue, but worried that "his nationalist foreign minister" had "inflamed the situation by dismissing the prospect of a diplomatic breakthrough." The Independent tried to uncover the real reason Israel has lifted checkpoints in the West Bank including around Nablus, the "town once synonymous with the Palestinian resistance." According to one local, it was a temporary charade put on for the Americans and Europe.
That was the context for yesterday's meeting between Netanyahu and his "good friend" Brown at No. 10 Downing Street. Britain indeed counts itself as a "true friend" of Israel deeply concerned over a Jewish presence beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines. Yet despite incessant pressure from pro-Palestinian advocates for a boycott, Israel-UK trade remains strong. Netanyahu also thanked Brown for his support on the Iranian issue. Britain does not promote trade with Iran, though the extent of commerce between the two countries is hard to gauge since much of it takes place surreptitiously via the United Arab Emirates.
ON THURSDAY, Netanyahu is to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. The last embers of hope that economic penalties could sway Ayatollah Ali Khamenei not to proceed with his bomb may well rest with her. Unfortunately, Germany has the distinction of being Iran's second biggest trading partner after China.
Germany is deeply involved in trying to influence events in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. It has lent its good offices to help free Israeli captives; it provides important military support to Israel. After Netanyahu's path breaking Bar-Ilan speech in June, Merkel telephoned with words of encouragement. Germany is also heavily involved in aiding the Palestinians - spending $50 million on West Bank sewage treatment plants.
Popular attitudes in Germany toward Israel are little different than elsewhere in Europe. The Economist recently described Germany as "a place built on consensus - in the workplace, in society and in politics."
It must exasperate Germans that Israelis and Palestinians have still not buried the hatchet. But they place the onus squarely on Israel because of the "occupation." It does not occur to them that unremitting Palestinian rejectionism is the main obstacle to peace. That explains why President Horst Kohler was tone deaf to Israeli outrage over awarding the Federal Cross of Merit to the anti-Zionist campaigner Felicia Langer.
During Operation Cast Lead, polls showed that Germans found Israel "aggressive" (49 percent) and "ruthless" (59%). Seventy percent of young Germans rejected the idea of a special relationship with Israel because of the Shoah. In fact, 13% opposed the existence of a Jewish state altogether.
In this context, it is notable that Merkel feels quite differently. During a March 2007 visit to Israel she insisted that Germany did have a "historic responsibility" to the Jewish state. "It means for me, as a German chancellor, Israel's security is non-negotiable." She has a reputation for being "a strong backer of Israel" and "instinctively pro-American" in venues where these are not necessarily meant as compliments.
Netanyahu arrives in Berlin a month before parliamentary elections that may see Merkel's Christian Democratic Union in a position to jettison its "grand coalition" with Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier's Social Democratic Party. Arguably, one reason German policy has been less demonstrably pro-Israel than Merkel's rhetoric is Steinmeier's influence.
Guido Westerwelle of the Free Democratic Party, a likely Merkel coalition partner, is in the running for the foreign minister job. When Westerwelle's homosexuality was exposed, he was "smeared" with the - unproven - allegation of being "excessively pro-Israel."
After the September 27 elections, Israelis are hopeful that Merkel will find a way to bring her sentiments and her government's polices - especially on Iran - into greater harmony
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, August 25, 2009
What Obama can learn from LBJ
How to lose a war
Earlier this summer, The New York Times reported, Barack Obama gathered a group of historians for dinner at the White House. The president expressed concern that Afghanistan could hijack his presidency just as Vietnam overtook the stewardship of Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ pursued a grand domestic agenda - civil rights and the Great Society - yet failure in Vietnam defined his presidency.
Military analyst Harry G. Summers, who died several years ago, identified two reasons why the US abandoned the fight in Vietnam in his book On Strategy: 1. There was no society-wide commitment to victory. American leaders had not psychologically mobilized the home front behind the war, refusing to ask Congress for a declaration of war; 2. The US failed to go after North Vietnam for most of the war, focusing instead on its Viet Cong proxies.
These fundamental errors are being repeated in the struggle against Islamist extremism.
People in Europe and America do not grasp why their troops are fighting in Afghanistan. On Iran, Western leaders have not only avoided a head-on confrontation with the mullahs, but are even seeking to appease their Hizbullah and Hamas proxies.
In fairness, Obama has tried to explain that Afghanistan is not a war of choice, but of necessity. "Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaida would plot to kill more Americans."
In fact, the situation in Afghanistan is muddled. The surviving Arab terrorists responsible for 9/11 - including Ayman Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden - have found refuge inside Pakistan. The Taliban are actually a loose confederation of religious fanatics (whose leader, Mullah Omar, also survives), Pashtun xenophobes, drug lords and tribal chiefs. The war is being waged on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, and Pakistan has its own Taliban. In this context, Afghan election results - due today - are unlikely to herald a new dawn.
The war is not going well. So America has revised its strategy. The focus is not on killing the enemy, but on avoiding civilian casualties while creating conditions necessary for society-building. Unfortunately, there are insufficient troops on the ground to accomplish this goal. Most of the country is too unsafe for aid agency personnel to operate.
Washington has invested $30 billion in Afghanistan since 9/11 and now has 57,000 military personnel on the ground. Britain has committed to 9,000. In theory, there are 42 nations in the anti-Taliban coalition, but whereas the US has suffered 796 combat deaths and Britain 206, the combined loses of Germany, France and Spain amount to 87. No wonder support for the war in Britain is stagnating at 46 percent, while fully 65% of Americans expect the US will eventually have to withdraw without achieving its goals.
BRITAIN'S unconscionable release on humanitarian grounds of terminally ill Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the December 21, 1988, Lockerbie bombing, could pave the way for billions of dollars in oil contracts between Tripoli and London. But what message does the Brown government's decision to play footsie with Muammar Gaddafi - while hiding behind the Scottish justice secretary - send to Britons already feeling cynical about staying the course in Afghanistan?
This sordid episode, moreover, does nothing to illuminate who really blew Pan Am flight 103 out of the sky.
In 2000, a man named Ahmad Behbahani, claiming to be a defecting Iranian intelligence operative, told CBS's 60 Minutes that Iran was behind Lockerbie; and that the motive for the attack was retaliation for the accidental downing in July 1988 of Iran Air flight 655 by the USS Vincennes, killing all 290 passengers. Behbahani spoke of an operation involving the Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and a group of Libyans trained and funded by Iran.
If patience is running thin on Afghanistan, and there is no stomach to stop Iran, the reasons are obvious. From Lockerbie to Afghanistan, Western decision-makers have compartmentalized Islamist violence - rather than defined it as a strategic menace to the Western values of tolerance and liberty.
The lesson of Vietnam is that wars become unwinnable when leaders fail to identify their true enemies, leaving their societies unmobilized, confused and lacking in motivation.
Earlier this summer, The New York Times reported, Barack Obama gathered a group of historians for dinner at the White House. The president expressed concern that Afghanistan could hijack his presidency just as Vietnam overtook the stewardship of Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ pursued a grand domestic agenda - civil rights and the Great Society - yet failure in Vietnam defined his presidency.
Military analyst Harry G. Summers, who died several years ago, identified two reasons why the US abandoned the fight in Vietnam in his book On Strategy: 1. There was no society-wide commitment to victory. American leaders had not psychologically mobilized the home front behind the war, refusing to ask Congress for a declaration of war; 2. The US failed to go after North Vietnam for most of the war, focusing instead on its Viet Cong proxies.
These fundamental errors are being repeated in the struggle against Islamist extremism.
People in Europe and America do not grasp why their troops are fighting in Afghanistan. On Iran, Western leaders have not only avoided a head-on confrontation with the mullahs, but are even seeking to appease their Hizbullah and Hamas proxies.
In fairness, Obama has tried to explain that Afghanistan is not a war of choice, but of necessity. "Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaida would plot to kill more Americans."
In fact, the situation in Afghanistan is muddled. The surviving Arab terrorists responsible for 9/11 - including Ayman Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden - have found refuge inside Pakistan. The Taliban are actually a loose confederation of religious fanatics (whose leader, Mullah Omar, also survives), Pashtun xenophobes, drug lords and tribal chiefs. The war is being waged on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, and Pakistan has its own Taliban. In this context, Afghan election results - due today - are unlikely to herald a new dawn.
The war is not going well. So America has revised its strategy. The focus is not on killing the enemy, but on avoiding civilian casualties while creating conditions necessary for society-building. Unfortunately, there are insufficient troops on the ground to accomplish this goal. Most of the country is too unsafe for aid agency personnel to operate.
Washington has invested $30 billion in Afghanistan since 9/11 and now has 57,000 military personnel on the ground. Britain has committed to 9,000. In theory, there are 42 nations in the anti-Taliban coalition, but whereas the US has suffered 796 combat deaths and Britain 206, the combined loses of Germany, France and Spain amount to 87. No wonder support for the war in Britain is stagnating at 46 percent, while fully 65% of Americans expect the US will eventually have to withdraw without achieving its goals.
BRITAIN'S unconscionable release on humanitarian grounds of terminally ill Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the December 21, 1988, Lockerbie bombing, could pave the way for billions of dollars in oil contracts between Tripoli and London. But what message does the Brown government's decision to play footsie with Muammar Gaddafi - while hiding behind the Scottish justice secretary - send to Britons already feeling cynical about staying the course in Afghanistan?
This sordid episode, moreover, does nothing to illuminate who really blew Pan Am flight 103 out of the sky.
In 2000, a man named Ahmad Behbahani, claiming to be a defecting Iranian intelligence operative, told CBS's 60 Minutes that Iran was behind Lockerbie; and that the motive for the attack was retaliation for the accidental downing in July 1988 of Iran Air flight 655 by the USS Vincennes, killing all 290 passengers. Behbahani spoke of an operation involving the Syrian-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and a group of Libyans trained and funded by Iran.
If patience is running thin on Afghanistan, and there is no stomach to stop Iran, the reasons are obvious. From Lockerbie to Afghanistan, Western decision-makers have compartmentalized Islamist violence - rather than defined it as a strategic menace to the Western values of tolerance and liberty.
The lesson of Vietnam is that wars become unwinnable when leaders fail to identify their true enemies, leaving their societies unmobilized, confused and lacking in motivation.
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, August 24, 2009
Civil liberties even when it is not easy
From 'Aftonbladet' to Neve Gordon
It's easy to support freedom of the press and freedom of speech as abstract principles. But what if a Swedish newspaper publishes false stories that could inspire violence against Jews? What if a tenured Israeli academic calls on the world to boycott his country?
Last week, Donald Boström "reported" in the mass-circulation Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet that the IDF murders young Palestinian Arabs to enable the harvesting of their organs for transplanting. On Sunday, the paper said it had sent two other journalists, Oisin Cantwell and Urban Andersson, to the West Bank, where Palestinians confirmed Boström's original expose.
If Israelis have overreacted to this mendacious twaddle, it's because anti-Semitic blood libels have had deadly consequences for our people ever since Greek pagans first accused ancient Jews of kidnapping foreigners for sacrificial purposes. Christians picked up the theme in the Middle Ages, accusing Jews of drinking the blood of Christian children for ritual purposes.
In 1236, Germanic Christians "modified" the vilification by claiming that the Jews used the blood of Christian boys for medicinal purposes. And the Nazis brought the defamation into the 20th century via Der Stuermer.
Now Aftonbladet has the distinction of keeping the lie alive in 21st-century Europe.
Had the Swedish Foreign Ministry backed the condemnation of Boström's article by Elisabet Borsin Bonnier, Sweden's ambassador in Tel Aviv - instead of reprimanding her - the matter would have ended there. Stockholm could have announced that in a democracy, the government does not muzzle newspapers; but that the blood libel does not reflect the views of the Swedish people or government. Israel did not ask for anything more.
Instead, while Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt opted to pontificate about the Swedish constitution and freedom of speech, he could not bring himself to dissociate from the substance of the defamatory article.
STILL, perhaps the Israeli reaction has been over the top. While Aftonbladet was exposing the Jews for snatching Arab body parts, Britain's Sun newspaper revealed yesterday that space aliens may be in the process of invading that island nation. Indeed, over the weekend, the Scarborough Evening News reported fresh UFO sightings over Yorkshire.
Meanwhile, in America, the Weekly World News covered the discovery of the secret burial ground of Bigfoot. Only recently, the paper had revealed that the head of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia would soon announce the location of the Ark of the Covenant, noting that some experts saw a link between UFOs and the Ark.
Perhaps Aftonbladet will now investigate the connection between other reports circulating on the Web of alien sex experiments on earthlings and the missing Palestinian organs. Or does the paper take itself too seriously to pursue such a line of inquiry?
Aftonbladet can take succor from the support it received Sunday from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The terror group recalled that as early as the 1980s, the IDF had been suspected of stealing organs from Gazan children who had been taken to Israeli hospitals - ostensibly for treatment.
Free-world newspapers, in both hard copy and electronic form, can write basically anything they want, subject to self-regulation and national libel laws. So it should be.
The bylaws of the Swedish Journalists Association call on members not to lie. Sweden's press ombudsman and its press council are charged with monitoring and promoting good journalistic practice. Let them judge whether Aftonbladet has violated the ethical standards of Swedish journalism.
WE FEEL much the same way about Neve Gordon's op-ed in The Los Angeles Times last week, in which the Ben-Gurion University political science instructor called for boycott, divestment and sanctions against our country.
If the op-ed editors of the paper want to maintain their practice of carrying two pieces critical of Israel for every pro-Israel comment, that is their prerogative.
But it would be an egregious mistake - playing straight into Gordon's hands - for donors to punish his Zionist university in Beersheba for upholding freedom of expression in connection with Gordon's destructive views by withholding their support.
The most apt response would be for contributors to endow a chair in Zionist studies in Gordon's department, and for the university to fill it with a Zionist scholar of world renown.
It's easy to support freedom of the press and freedom of speech as abstract principles. But what if a Swedish newspaper publishes false stories that could inspire violence against Jews? What if a tenured Israeli academic calls on the world to boycott his country?
Last week, Donald Boström "reported" in the mass-circulation Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet that the IDF murders young Palestinian Arabs to enable the harvesting of their organs for transplanting. On Sunday, the paper said it had sent two other journalists, Oisin Cantwell and Urban Andersson, to the West Bank, where Palestinians confirmed Boström's original expose.
If Israelis have overreacted to this mendacious twaddle, it's because anti-Semitic blood libels have had deadly consequences for our people ever since Greek pagans first accused ancient Jews of kidnapping foreigners for sacrificial purposes. Christians picked up the theme in the Middle Ages, accusing Jews of drinking the blood of Christian children for ritual purposes.
In 1236, Germanic Christians "modified" the vilification by claiming that the Jews used the blood of Christian boys for medicinal purposes. And the Nazis brought the defamation into the 20th century via Der Stuermer.
Now Aftonbladet has the distinction of keeping the lie alive in 21st-century Europe.
Had the Swedish Foreign Ministry backed the condemnation of Boström's article by Elisabet Borsin Bonnier, Sweden's ambassador in Tel Aviv - instead of reprimanding her - the matter would have ended there. Stockholm could have announced that in a democracy, the government does not muzzle newspapers; but that the blood libel does not reflect the views of the Swedish people or government. Israel did not ask for anything more.
Instead, while Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt opted to pontificate about the Swedish constitution and freedom of speech, he could not bring himself to dissociate from the substance of the defamatory article.
STILL, perhaps the Israeli reaction has been over the top. While Aftonbladet was exposing the Jews for snatching Arab body parts, Britain's Sun newspaper revealed yesterday that space aliens may be in the process of invading that island nation. Indeed, over the weekend, the Scarborough Evening News reported fresh UFO sightings over Yorkshire.
Meanwhile, in America, the Weekly World News covered the discovery of the secret burial ground of Bigfoot. Only recently, the paper had revealed that the head of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia would soon announce the location of the Ark of the Covenant, noting that some experts saw a link between UFOs and the Ark.
Perhaps Aftonbladet will now investigate the connection between other reports circulating on the Web of alien sex experiments on earthlings and the missing Palestinian organs. Or does the paper take itself too seriously to pursue such a line of inquiry?
Aftonbladet can take succor from the support it received Sunday from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The terror group recalled that as early as the 1980s, the IDF had been suspected of stealing organs from Gazan children who had been taken to Israeli hospitals - ostensibly for treatment.
Free-world newspapers, in both hard copy and electronic form, can write basically anything they want, subject to self-regulation and national libel laws. So it should be.
The bylaws of the Swedish Journalists Association call on members not to lie. Sweden's press ombudsman and its press council are charged with monitoring and promoting good journalistic practice. Let them judge whether Aftonbladet has violated the ethical standards of Swedish journalism.
WE FEEL much the same way about Neve Gordon's op-ed in The Los Angeles Times last week, in which the Ben-Gurion University political science instructor called for boycott, divestment and sanctions against our country.
If the op-ed editors of the paper want to maintain their practice of carrying two pieces critical of Israel for every pro-Israel comment, that is their prerogative.
But it would be an egregious mistake - playing straight into Gordon's hands - for donors to punish his Zionist university in Beersheba for upholding freedom of expression in connection with Gordon's destructive views by withholding their support.
The most apt response would be for contributors to endow a chair in Zionist studies in Gordon's department, and for the university to fill it with a Zionist scholar of world renown.
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, August 21, 2009
Maybe there are just too many generals in Israeli politics
Ya'alon's misstep
Here's a prediction: When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu travels to London and Berlin next week, Vice-Premier Moshe Ya'alon won't be standing in for him as acting premier. That's because Ya'alon has gone off the reservation.
As guest of honor earlier this week at a meeting of the Jewish Leadership Movement, a stridently right-wing Likud caucus led by Moshe Feiglin, Ya'alon said the wrong things, in the wrong way, in the wrong place.
In arguing that Jews have a right to live anywhere in Judea and Samaria, Ya'alon was articulating a fairly conventional Israeli position. Yet this government, in pursuing an accommodation with the Palestinian Arabs, has agreed that Israel will not exercise Jewish rights everywhere between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean.
In arguing that even unauthorized outposts "are completely legal," Ya'alon was staking out a position at odds with his own government.
The tone of what Ya'alon said was also off-putting. This newspaper has been critical of Peace Now for its wholesale marginalization of the entire settlement enterprise. We've criticized the organization too for taking money from foreign powers and foundations intent on swaying Israeli public opinion and government policies. Yet we have never questioned the motives of grassroots Israelis who earnestly identify with Peace Now. And we think Ya'alon's intolerant characterization of the organization as an elitist "virus" further demeans the level of political discourse in this country.
Ya'alon's venue was also peculiar. Netanyahu opposes any role for Feiglin within the party. The premier's ongoing campaign to block Feiglin, who nowadays plays by the rules of the political game, from lawfully dissenting within the Likud strikes us as wrongheaded. But in aligning himself so publicly with Netanyahu's nemesis, Ya'alon has demonstrated a remarkable lack of loyalty to the man who so recently ushered him into politics.
THE YA'ALON affair exposes yet again why the Israeli political system is dysfunctional. There is something awfully wrong when a number two feels no compunction about turning against his chief after only five months in office.
The controversy also reminds us that generals tend to find the give-and-take of politics exasperating. Politics is the art of the possible; it demands compromise and endless bargaining over who gets what, when and how. The military, in contrast, is a hierarchical organization. Generals give orders; subordinates obey.
Just as Ya'alon is proving a divisive force in the Likud - irritated, perhaps, that he has to compete with others in influencing the premier - Shaul Mofaz is champing at the bit as Tzipi Livni's number two in Kadima. Ehud Barak, meanwhile, has practically eviscerated the Labor Party to maintain his grip on power.
Ya'alon presents himself as a man above the fray who speaks truth to power. His supporters believe that Ariel Sharon did not extend the then chief of staff's term by the customary year because Ya'alon opposed the Gaza disengagement. Opinions differ on whether this was really so.
In any event, Ya'alon could learn something from his cabinet colleague Bennie Begin about honorable behavior at the apex of government.
THE PRIME Minister's Office announced that "Minister Ya'alon's statements are unacceptable to the prime minister, both in substance and in style, and do not represent the government's position."
Speaking at Bar-Ilan University in June, the premier outlined the peace policies of this government. He noted that "in the heart of our Jewish homeland [there] now lives a large population of Palestinians. We do not want to rule over them. We do not want to run their lives." He offered to negotiate the creation of a demilitarized state for the Palestinians, insisting that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state and renounce the "right of return" to Israel proper for refugees and their descendants. A pullback to the 1949 Armistice Lines is out of the question.
Ya'alon heard that speech - some reports suggested he participated in drafting it - and the next day told Army Radio that he could live with a Palestinian state under the conditions defined by Netanyahu.
=========
Shabbat shalom
Here's a prediction: When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu travels to London and Berlin next week, Vice-Premier Moshe Ya'alon won't be standing in for him as acting premier. That's because Ya'alon has gone off the reservation.
As guest of honor earlier this week at a meeting of the Jewish Leadership Movement, a stridently right-wing Likud caucus led by Moshe Feiglin, Ya'alon said the wrong things, in the wrong way, in the wrong place.
In arguing that Jews have a right to live anywhere in Judea and Samaria, Ya'alon was articulating a fairly conventional Israeli position. Yet this government, in pursuing an accommodation with the Palestinian Arabs, has agreed that Israel will not exercise Jewish rights everywhere between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean.
In arguing that even unauthorized outposts "are completely legal," Ya'alon was staking out a position at odds with his own government.
The tone of what Ya'alon said was also off-putting. This newspaper has been critical of Peace Now for its wholesale marginalization of the entire settlement enterprise. We've criticized the organization too for taking money from foreign powers and foundations intent on swaying Israeli public opinion and government policies. Yet we have never questioned the motives of grassroots Israelis who earnestly identify with Peace Now. And we think Ya'alon's intolerant characterization of the organization as an elitist "virus" further demeans the level of political discourse in this country.
Ya'alon's venue was also peculiar. Netanyahu opposes any role for Feiglin within the party. The premier's ongoing campaign to block Feiglin, who nowadays plays by the rules of the political game, from lawfully dissenting within the Likud strikes us as wrongheaded. But in aligning himself so publicly with Netanyahu's nemesis, Ya'alon has demonstrated a remarkable lack of loyalty to the man who so recently ushered him into politics.
THE YA'ALON affair exposes yet again why the Israeli political system is dysfunctional. There is something awfully wrong when a number two feels no compunction about turning against his chief after only five months in office.
The controversy also reminds us that generals tend to find the give-and-take of politics exasperating. Politics is the art of the possible; it demands compromise and endless bargaining over who gets what, when and how. The military, in contrast, is a hierarchical organization. Generals give orders; subordinates obey.
Just as Ya'alon is proving a divisive force in the Likud - irritated, perhaps, that he has to compete with others in influencing the premier - Shaul Mofaz is champing at the bit as Tzipi Livni's number two in Kadima. Ehud Barak, meanwhile, has practically eviscerated the Labor Party to maintain his grip on power.
Ya'alon presents himself as a man above the fray who speaks truth to power. His supporters believe that Ariel Sharon did not extend the then chief of staff's term by the customary year because Ya'alon opposed the Gaza disengagement. Opinions differ on whether this was really so.
In any event, Ya'alon could learn something from his cabinet colleague Bennie Begin about honorable behavior at the apex of government.
THE PRIME Minister's Office announced that "Minister Ya'alon's statements are unacceptable to the prime minister, both in substance and in style, and do not represent the government's position."
Speaking at Bar-Ilan University in June, the premier outlined the peace policies of this government. He noted that "in the heart of our Jewish homeland [there] now lives a large population of Palestinians. We do not want to rule over them. We do not want to run their lives." He offered to negotiate the creation of a demilitarized state for the Palestinians, insisting that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state and renounce the "right of return" to Israel proper for refugees and their descendants. A pullback to the 1949 Armistice Lines is out of the question.
Ya'alon heard that speech - some reports suggested he participated in drafting it - and the next day told Army Radio that he could live with a Palestinian state under the conditions defined by Netanyahu.
=========
Shabbat shalom
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 19, 2009
'Obamacare'
Wed & Thursday
The US health care debate
As Israelis observe Americans debate universal healthcare, we find ourselves struck by the fact that our little country is actually more advanced than the US in providing all residents with medical coverage. But we take no pleasure in the realization that political discourse in the US has sometimes deteriorated to the crude levels too often seen in Israel.
Most of America's 307 million people do have health coverage, either through their employers, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' benefits or special government programs targeting children of the working poor.
But 49 million don't; some of these probably want coverage but can't afford it. An additional 25 million Americans have too little insurance for their needs.
Yet even without universal coverage, America has a budget deficit of $1.8 trillion and spends twice the average share of its gross domestic product - 16 percent - on health as Israel.
President Barack Obama wants every American to be able to choose a private or government-backed health care plan. Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate have put forth several schemes (some with White House input) as they hold town-hall meetings with their constituents. No one yet knows what the final healthcare bill will look like.
Ardent conservatives, among them the influential radio personality Rush Limbaugh, say Obama's plan shows "similarities between the Democrat Party of today and the Nazi Party in Germany." Limbaugh: "Obama's got a healthcare logo that's right out of Adolf Hitler's playbook"; and "Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate."
Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin claims the president is intent on setting up "death panels" of government bureaucrats empowered to determine whether disabled or elderly Americans are "worthy of healthcare."
WHAT explains such vituperative language? Part of the answer is that America's political culture abhors a concentration of power in any one branch of government out of a visceral fear, dating back to the founding fathers, of tyranny.
Moreover, as with all Big Lies, there is a kernel of truth to the implicit charge that universal healthcare will not provide unlimited care, forever, under all circumstances.
On the other hand, those who now have private insurance live under those same constraints, and those who have no insurance have no protection at all. All plans - commercial, governmental or hybrid - "ration" healthcare.
According to the Pew Research Center, most Republicans say the US healthcare system doesn't need fixing, while most Democrats argue the opposite view. But overall, says the center, 75 percent of Americans do want to change the system. And Obama remains popular with an average 53:40 approval rating, while his Democratic Party controls both houses of Congress.
Even Obama supporters say he needs to give the American people more specifics on how the plan will be paid for and better explain why providing a public or quasi-public option is not some elaborate plot for a government takeover of all healthcare delivery.
WE DO not presume to tell Americans how to proceed. We can only point to our own experience which demonstrates - albeit on a smaller scale - that universal coverage is workable.
However, there is no doubt that Israelis sacrifice a level of privacy that Americans enjoy. For instance, medical records in Israeli health funds are computerized, and their confidentiality is hardly airtight.
Visiting a family doctor here tends to be a no-frills affair. Care is generally of a high standard, but there are no stylish offices or solicitous receptionists. You hand the physician your magnetic card; there's a minimum of small talk; you're treated and quickly out the door.
Israelis belong to one of four health funds, equivalent to HMOs: Clalit, Maccabi, Meuhedet and Leumit. Your GP does not oversee your care during hospitalization. There may be a wait for elective procedures.
But hospitalizations and medications are fully covered, though most people also purchase supplementary health insurance from their health fund and some take out additional private insurance coverage.
Everyone is covered. We pay for it all through individual sliding-scale health taxes deducted from our salaries and transferred to the health funds via the National Insurance Institute.
It may well be that a modified version of our system could work well in the American setting.
The US health care debate
As Israelis observe Americans debate universal healthcare, we find ourselves struck by the fact that our little country is actually more advanced than the US in providing all residents with medical coverage. But we take no pleasure in the realization that political discourse in the US has sometimes deteriorated to the crude levels too often seen in Israel.
Most of America's 307 million people do have health coverage, either through their employers, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' benefits or special government programs targeting children of the working poor.
But 49 million don't; some of these probably want coverage but can't afford it. An additional 25 million Americans have too little insurance for their needs.
Yet even without universal coverage, America has a budget deficit of $1.8 trillion and spends twice the average share of its gross domestic product - 16 percent - on health as Israel.
President Barack Obama wants every American to be able to choose a private or government-backed health care plan. Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate have put forth several schemes (some with White House input) as they hold town-hall meetings with their constituents. No one yet knows what the final healthcare bill will look like.
Ardent conservatives, among them the influential radio personality Rush Limbaugh, say Obama's plan shows "similarities between the Democrat Party of today and the Nazi Party in Germany." Limbaugh: "Obama's got a healthcare logo that's right out of Adolf Hitler's playbook"; and "Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate."
Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin claims the president is intent on setting up "death panels" of government bureaucrats empowered to determine whether disabled or elderly Americans are "worthy of healthcare."
WHAT explains such vituperative language? Part of the answer is that America's political culture abhors a concentration of power in any one branch of government out of a visceral fear, dating back to the founding fathers, of tyranny.
Moreover, as with all Big Lies, there is a kernel of truth to the implicit charge that universal healthcare will not provide unlimited care, forever, under all circumstances.
On the other hand, those who now have private insurance live under those same constraints, and those who have no insurance have no protection at all. All plans - commercial, governmental or hybrid - "ration" healthcare.
According to the Pew Research Center, most Republicans say the US healthcare system doesn't need fixing, while most Democrats argue the opposite view. But overall, says the center, 75 percent of Americans do want to change the system. And Obama remains popular with an average 53:40 approval rating, while his Democratic Party controls both houses of Congress.
Even Obama supporters say he needs to give the American people more specifics on how the plan will be paid for and better explain why providing a public or quasi-public option is not some elaborate plot for a government takeover of all healthcare delivery.
WE DO not presume to tell Americans how to proceed. We can only point to our own experience which demonstrates - albeit on a smaller scale - that universal coverage is workable.
However, there is no doubt that Israelis sacrifice a level of privacy that Americans enjoy. For instance, medical records in Israeli health funds are computerized, and their confidentiality is hardly airtight.
Visiting a family doctor here tends to be a no-frills affair. Care is generally of a high standard, but there are no stylish offices or solicitous receptionists. You hand the physician your magnetic card; there's a minimum of small talk; you're treated and quickly out the door.
Israelis belong to one of four health funds, equivalent to HMOs: Clalit, Maccabi, Meuhedet and Leumit. Your GP does not oversee your care during hospitalization. There may be a wait for elective procedures.
But hospitalizations and medications are fully covered, though most people also purchase supplementary health insurance from their health fund and some take out additional private insurance coverage.
Everyone is covered. We pay for it all through individual sliding-scale health taxes deducted from our salaries and transferred to the health funds via the National Insurance Institute.
It may well be that a modified version of our system could work well in the American setting.
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, August 18, 2009
Crime in Israel
Crime and values
Crime in Israel doesn't just seem to be getting worse. It is worse. On Monday, The Jerusalem Post published a "crime blotter," compiled from reports after the weekend by news editor Amir Mizroch, of murder (and dismemberment), armed robbery, intimidation of the police by mob figures, stabbings, rape, sexual assault, family violence and juvenile delinquency.
Many Israelis are dismayed by what is happening; especially the senseless murder of Leonard Karp and the assault on his wife and daughter on the promenade at Tel Baruch beach in Tel Aviv. A group of eight Arab youths, who were inebriated, accompanied by two young Jewish women, one a soldier, allegedly murdered Karp, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This news came on the heels of the recent discovery of body parts both in Ramat Gan and north of Netanya; the arrest of a suspected serial rapist in Haifa; and an apparent revenge murder in Beit Dagan - among other mayhem. In contrast, 20 years ago, the entire month of August 1989 passed without a single criminally-inspired murder. There were heroin busts and arrests for foreign currency smuggling. A police chase resulted in the accidental death of a three-year-old Tel Aviv girl. A Knesset committee learned that prostitution was unchecked; another panel heard that thousands of children had been abused. In addition to horrific violence associated with the first intifada, there was also the occasional attack by groups of Israeli Arabs inside the Green Line - robbing passersby (in Haifa) and throwing stones at strolling couples (in Acre). A Gaza Palestinian accused of raping and killing a Jewish boy was on trial for murder.
There was also religious violence, with Jerusalem haredim clashing with police (in Har Nof) in "defense of the sanctity of the Sabbath."
Though this country has never been a Shangri-La, it has known comparatively little violent crime of the kind that makes a person think twice about going out for a walk.
IT MAY be true that Israel's murder rate is now comparable to other advanced societies, as police insist. For instance, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, there were 171 murders in Israel (population 7.4 million) during 2008. In New York City (population 8.3 million) there were, by comparison, 523 killed last year. London (7.5 million) averages around 170 homicides annually.
Comparing crime rates across societies is unsatisfying. Zionist sensibilities are not assuaged because Israel's murder rate is on par with London's. True, we are no longer a small and comparatively homogeneous country. Still, who wants "natural growth" in our murder rates, in line with an increasing population?
Israel is not immune to the ills that affect other advanced societies - teenage binge-drinking, desensitizing computer-generated virtual violence; brutality peddled as entertainment, laissez-faire parenting and adolescent ennui.
A PUBLIC policy debate is under way about how to address a situation perceived to be deteriorating.
Part of the solution is more effective and efficient management of police resources. For instance, in certain districts, community-based policing can provide some of the answers - especially when cops who know a neighborhood walk the beat. Decision-makers still need to decide whether it's best to give municipal officials jurisdiction over local crime-fighting, or empower regional police commanders to do the job.
We need to be hiring more police. Currently there are 2.65 cops for every 1,000 Israelis (in Italy, the ratio is 5:1). But quality matters as much quantity. Starting officers' salaries are woefully low; we need to raise the pay scale of police and strengthen their professionalism.
Enhancing personal security also requires appointing prosecutors and judges who put public safety first, and a Finance Ministry prepared to spend astutely on the criminal justice system, including the Prison Service. Above all, it requires leadership from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Since criminal behavior permeates all strata of society, tackling it requires a multi-faceted approach. For instance, youthful boredom in the Arab sector can perhaps be ameliorated by mandating community service.
One way to re-instill decency and civility as requisite values of Israeli society is for mukhtars, business leaders, politicians, rabbis, media personalities and other elites themselves to behave as if the children of this country are watching. Because they are.
Crime in Israel doesn't just seem to be getting worse. It is worse. On Monday, The Jerusalem Post published a "crime blotter," compiled from reports after the weekend by news editor Amir Mizroch, of murder (and dismemberment), armed robbery, intimidation of the police by mob figures, stabbings, rape, sexual assault, family violence and juvenile delinquency.
Many Israelis are dismayed by what is happening; especially the senseless murder of Leonard Karp and the assault on his wife and daughter on the promenade at Tel Baruch beach in Tel Aviv. A group of eight Arab youths, who were inebriated, accompanied by two young Jewish women, one a soldier, allegedly murdered Karp, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This news came on the heels of the recent discovery of body parts both in Ramat Gan and north of Netanya; the arrest of a suspected serial rapist in Haifa; and an apparent revenge murder in Beit Dagan - among other mayhem. In contrast, 20 years ago, the entire month of August 1989 passed without a single criminally-inspired murder. There were heroin busts and arrests for foreign currency smuggling. A police chase resulted in the accidental death of a three-year-old Tel Aviv girl. A Knesset committee learned that prostitution was unchecked; another panel heard that thousands of children had been abused. In addition to horrific violence associated with the first intifada, there was also the occasional attack by groups of Israeli Arabs inside the Green Line - robbing passersby (in Haifa) and throwing stones at strolling couples (in Acre). A Gaza Palestinian accused of raping and killing a Jewish boy was on trial for murder.
There was also religious violence, with Jerusalem haredim clashing with police (in Har Nof) in "defense of the sanctity of the Sabbath."
Though this country has never been a Shangri-La, it has known comparatively little violent crime of the kind that makes a person think twice about going out for a walk.
IT MAY be true that Israel's murder rate is now comparable to other advanced societies, as police insist. For instance, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, there were 171 murders in Israel (population 7.4 million) during 2008. In New York City (population 8.3 million) there were, by comparison, 523 killed last year. London (7.5 million) averages around 170 homicides annually.
Comparing crime rates across societies is unsatisfying. Zionist sensibilities are not assuaged because Israel's murder rate is on par with London's. True, we are no longer a small and comparatively homogeneous country. Still, who wants "natural growth" in our murder rates, in line with an increasing population?
Israel is not immune to the ills that affect other advanced societies - teenage binge-drinking, desensitizing computer-generated virtual violence; brutality peddled as entertainment, laissez-faire parenting and adolescent ennui.
A PUBLIC policy debate is under way about how to address a situation perceived to be deteriorating.
Part of the solution is more effective and efficient management of police resources. For instance, in certain districts, community-based policing can provide some of the answers - especially when cops who know a neighborhood walk the beat. Decision-makers still need to decide whether it's best to give municipal officials jurisdiction over local crime-fighting, or empower regional police commanders to do the job.
We need to be hiring more police. Currently there are 2.65 cops for every 1,000 Israelis (in Italy, the ratio is 5:1). But quality matters as much quantity. Starting officers' salaries are woefully low; we need to raise the pay scale of police and strengthen their professionalism.
Enhancing personal security also requires appointing prosecutors and judges who put public safety first, and a Finance Ministry prepared to spend astutely on the criminal justice system, including the Prison Service. Above all, it requires leadership from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Since criminal behavior permeates all strata of society, tackling it requires a multi-faceted approach. For instance, youthful boredom in the Arab sector can perhaps be ameliorated by mandating community service.
One way to re-instill decency and civility as requisite values of Israeli society is for mukhtars, business leaders, politicians, rabbis, media personalities and other elites themselves to behave as if the children of this country are watching. Because they are.
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, August 17, 2009
Hosni Mubarak in Washington
In February 1982 when Hosni Mubarak made his first visit to Washington as Egypt's president, it was Ronald Reagan who was waiting for him in the White House.
There were many visits in the intervening years, though Mubarak avoided coming during most of George W. Bush's tenure, miffed at administration demands for democratization.
Now, Mubarak, age 81, is back.
Washington-Cairo relations are again on track; US pressure for reform is less heavy-handed and less public. Mubarak will meet with President Barack Obama on Tuesday, and is scheduled to see American Jewish leaders today. Cairo views the visit as an opportunity to reclaim its place as America's key ally in the Arab world.
The two issues topping the agenda - just as they did 27 years ago - are the Palestinians and economic ties. Bilateral trade today stands at $8.4 billion; annual US aid is pegged at $2b. On economics, the Egyptians are pushing for more non-energy sector trade. They also want to decrease (from 11 percent) the amount of goods produced by Israeli companies participating in the Egypt-US-Israel Qualified Industrial Zones - duty-free gateways to the American market.
MUBARAK will be pushing Obama to present yet another international plan to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict and echoing with gusto the Obama administration's call for a construction freeze over the Green Line. Of course, it would be far more helpful were Cairo - and Washington - to urge Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority to return to the bargaining table and respond constructively to Binyamin Netanyahu's seminal Bar-Ilan address of two months ago.
The settlement freeze issue is a diversion because in any final status agreement, Jewish communities on the "Palestine" side of the border would be relocated to the Israeli side. Egypt should instead be pressing Abbas to negotiate as if he really wanted a Palestinian state. This means dropping unrealistic demands for an Israeli pullback to the 1949 Armistice Lines; finding a mechanism to share Jerusalem (Israel has proposed several ideas); accepting that "Palestine" will have to be demilitarized, and abandoning calls for the so-called Palestinian right of return to Israel proper.
Egypt has been working to promote a Palestinian national unity government that has the support of both Fatah and Hamas. In Washington, Mubarak needs to hear that harmony among the Palestinians will be meaningful only insofar as it leads to reconciliation with Israel, an end to terror and a commitment to fulfill previous Palestinian commitments. Cairo appears to be playing a helpful role in indirect talks between Israel and Hamas aimed at freeing Gilad Schalit. And since Egypt faces a dual threat - from Sunni jihadists connected to al-Qaida and from Shi'ite Iran's infiltration of the Palestinian cause via Hamas - it is wise to be trying harder to stem the flow of weapons from Sinai into Gaza.
However, in urging Arab Gulf states to reject the administration requests that they improve relations with Israel, Cairo is being decidedly unhelpful, especially since it should be in the vanguard of building trust between the Arab world and Israel. It is being reckless in its plans to redirect worldwide concern over Iran's quest for nuclear weapons, to Israel's non-threatening nuclear program at next month's UN General Assembly session.
Plainly, Cairo does recognize the menace the Iranian regime presents to Egypt and the region. It has quietly allowed an Israeli dolphin-class submarine and missile cruisers to transit the Suez Canal - a clear signal to Teheran. It continues to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood, saying that some of its members have been spying for Iran while others have been accepting money from Hizbullah.
ARGUABLY, Mubarak's regime could have done more to institutionalize representative government without jeopardizing its own stability. In squashing the reformists, the regime has forced opponents to coalesce around Muslim extremists. Twenty percent of the parliamentary opposition are "independents" associated with the Brotherhood.
We can't predict whether Mubarak will seek reelection in 2011. But when he leaves the scene it is in Israel's highest interest that his successors uphold Egypt's peace treaty obligations.
Israelis have long regretted Mubarak's insistence on a "cold peace" rather than one that would have served as a template for genuine reconciliation between Arabs and Israelis. We would be delighted if he yet changed course
There were many visits in the intervening years, though Mubarak avoided coming during most of George W. Bush's tenure, miffed at administration demands for democratization.
Now, Mubarak, age 81, is back.
Washington-Cairo relations are again on track; US pressure for reform is less heavy-handed and less public. Mubarak will meet with President Barack Obama on Tuesday, and is scheduled to see American Jewish leaders today. Cairo views the visit as an opportunity to reclaim its place as America's key ally in the Arab world.
The two issues topping the agenda - just as they did 27 years ago - are the Palestinians and economic ties. Bilateral trade today stands at $8.4 billion; annual US aid is pegged at $2b. On economics, the Egyptians are pushing for more non-energy sector trade. They also want to decrease (from 11 percent) the amount of goods produced by Israeli companies participating in the Egypt-US-Israel Qualified Industrial Zones - duty-free gateways to the American market.
MUBARAK will be pushing Obama to present yet another international plan to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict and echoing with gusto the Obama administration's call for a construction freeze over the Green Line. Of course, it would be far more helpful were Cairo - and Washington - to urge Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority to return to the bargaining table and respond constructively to Binyamin Netanyahu's seminal Bar-Ilan address of two months ago.
The settlement freeze issue is a diversion because in any final status agreement, Jewish communities on the "Palestine" side of the border would be relocated to the Israeli side. Egypt should instead be pressing Abbas to negotiate as if he really wanted a Palestinian state. This means dropping unrealistic demands for an Israeli pullback to the 1949 Armistice Lines; finding a mechanism to share Jerusalem (Israel has proposed several ideas); accepting that "Palestine" will have to be demilitarized, and abandoning calls for the so-called Palestinian right of return to Israel proper.
Egypt has been working to promote a Palestinian national unity government that has the support of both Fatah and Hamas. In Washington, Mubarak needs to hear that harmony among the Palestinians will be meaningful only insofar as it leads to reconciliation with Israel, an end to terror and a commitment to fulfill previous Palestinian commitments. Cairo appears to be playing a helpful role in indirect talks between Israel and Hamas aimed at freeing Gilad Schalit. And since Egypt faces a dual threat - from Sunni jihadists connected to al-Qaida and from Shi'ite Iran's infiltration of the Palestinian cause via Hamas - it is wise to be trying harder to stem the flow of weapons from Sinai into Gaza.
However, in urging Arab Gulf states to reject the administration requests that they improve relations with Israel, Cairo is being decidedly unhelpful, especially since it should be in the vanguard of building trust between the Arab world and Israel. It is being reckless in its plans to redirect worldwide concern over Iran's quest for nuclear weapons, to Israel's non-threatening nuclear program at next month's UN General Assembly session.
Plainly, Cairo does recognize the menace the Iranian regime presents to Egypt and the region. It has quietly allowed an Israeli dolphin-class submarine and missile cruisers to transit the Suez Canal - a clear signal to Teheran. It continues to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood, saying that some of its members have been spying for Iran while others have been accepting money from Hizbullah.
ARGUABLY, Mubarak's regime could have done more to institutionalize representative government without jeopardizing its own stability. In squashing the reformists, the regime has forced opponents to coalesce around Muslim extremists. Twenty percent of the parliamentary opposition are "independents" associated with the Brotherhood.
We can't predict whether Mubarak will seek reelection in 2011. But when he leaves the scene it is in Israel's highest interest that his successors uphold Egypt's peace treaty obligations.
Israelis have long regretted Mubarak's insistence on a "cold peace" rather than one that would have served as a template for genuine reconciliation between Arabs and Israelis. We would be delighted if he yet changed course
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, August 14, 2009
'Rescue' as process
'Rescuing' Ethiopian Jews
The Soviet Jewry movement helped shape the Jewish identity and Zionist commitment of Diaspora activists, taking precedence over family, work and school. There were nighttime vigils and Sunday marches. London Jewish ladies chained themselves to the gates of the Russian Embassy. University students smuggled holy books to refuseniks.
When the Soviet empire imploded in 1990 and the iron gates were opened, 600,000 Jews left for Israel. This was the single biggest wave of aliya in Zionist history. The country had to house the new arrivals. It had to provide work, retrain them, teach them Hebrew and support them in the difficult transition to a new way of life.
Israelis were swiftly disabused of the notion that the immigrants would all be clones of the heroic figures they had come to "know" - Shpilberg, Zalmanson, Sharansky. Most were mere mortals. Some had intermarried; many were Jewishly illiterate. Soon enough, prejudice against the immigrants denigrated them as "welfare cheats, frauds, goyim and sluts."
How much easier to "Save Soviet Jewry" than selflessly share our space and resources with them!
And yet their absorption is largely a success story.
BUT IF Russian-speaking Jews have suffered prejudice, Ethiopian Jews have fared much worse. The Ethiopians had no mythical heroes to offer us. Beta Israel were simply our unfortunate brethren and we felt obliged to help them - hence Operation Moses (1984) and Operation Solomon (1991).
Other Ethiopians, some with dubious ties to Jewish civilization but with family connections to those already here, continued to trickle in. The community is pressuring authorities to bring in other relatives left behind.
Our country has been generous in providing for Ethiopian absorption; and selfless volunteers have taken up the cause of helping the Ethiopians acclimate. As a community-organizing effort to reconnect Ethiopian olim crammed into city apartment blocks with the land, an innovative group called Earth's Promise has been developing a string of garden plots in Beersheba, Hadera and elsewhere.
The Jewish Agency sent three Ethiopian teens to Turkey last week to attend an international space camp run in partnership with NASA.
But for many of the 100,000-plus Ethiopian olim, the transition from an agrarian milieu to a technologically advanced urban society has not been smooth. The older generation arrived here battered by dislocation, civil war and famine. Many households are dysfunctional, strained by changing gender roles and a yawning generation gap in which traditionalist parents feel alienated from their Hebrew-speaking offspring. Crime, truancy and domestic violence are all too prevalent. Formerly honored elders have been disempowered by Israel's jealous religious establishment.
With their family and communal structures torn asunder, it is remarkable that so many Beta Israel have managed to thrive. Some of the younger generation blend in comfortably at fashionable Tel Aviv nightspots; others have been warmly embraced by the Orthodox. There are now Ethiopian broadcasters and an Ethiopian member of Knesset. This summer even saw the release of the first ever Israeli-Ethiopian film, Zrubavel, by director/screenwriter Shmuel Beru.
Unfortunately, Ethiopians remain the victims of those who imagine themselves racially superior. Last week, for instance, an Egged driver allegedly refused to open the door of his bus to an Ethiopian college student; when she finally managed to board, he harangued her with slurs.
It is, however, not racism when schools in socio-economically deprived areas decide to limit the enrollment of Ethiopian children, fearing that a demographic "tipping point" might force the exodus of other youngsters. In any case, Ethiopian students bunched together in poorly performing schools would be unlikely to achieve success. Many require intensive and costly remedial, educational and social services. One solution might be for schools in more affluent areas to set aside scholarships for Ethiopian students.
Hebrew University Africa expert Steven Kaplan recently told The Los Angeles Times that "even after 30 years," he could not say with "any real confidence" that "we've turned the corner for the second and third generations of Ethiopians."
Part of the reason is the immensity of the challenge; the other is Israelis' failure to internalize the idea that "rescuing" Ethiopian Jews - even more than "saving" Soviet Jews - is not a lightning operation, but a process that demands persistence.
Shabbat shalom
The Soviet Jewry movement helped shape the Jewish identity and Zionist commitment of Diaspora activists, taking precedence over family, work and school. There were nighttime vigils and Sunday marches. London Jewish ladies chained themselves to the gates of the Russian Embassy. University students smuggled holy books to refuseniks.
When the Soviet empire imploded in 1990 and the iron gates were opened, 600,000 Jews left for Israel. This was the single biggest wave of aliya in Zionist history. The country had to house the new arrivals. It had to provide work, retrain them, teach them Hebrew and support them in the difficult transition to a new way of life.
Israelis were swiftly disabused of the notion that the immigrants would all be clones of the heroic figures they had come to "know" - Shpilberg, Zalmanson, Sharansky. Most were mere mortals. Some had intermarried; many were Jewishly illiterate. Soon enough, prejudice against the immigrants denigrated them as "welfare cheats, frauds, goyim and sluts."
How much easier to "Save Soviet Jewry" than selflessly share our space and resources with them!
And yet their absorption is largely a success story.
BUT IF Russian-speaking Jews have suffered prejudice, Ethiopian Jews have fared much worse. The Ethiopians had no mythical heroes to offer us. Beta Israel were simply our unfortunate brethren and we felt obliged to help them - hence Operation Moses (1984) and Operation Solomon (1991).
Other Ethiopians, some with dubious ties to Jewish civilization but with family connections to those already here, continued to trickle in. The community is pressuring authorities to bring in other relatives left behind.
Our country has been generous in providing for Ethiopian absorption; and selfless volunteers have taken up the cause of helping the Ethiopians acclimate. As a community-organizing effort to reconnect Ethiopian olim crammed into city apartment blocks with the land, an innovative group called Earth's Promise has been developing a string of garden plots in Beersheba, Hadera and elsewhere.
The Jewish Agency sent three Ethiopian teens to Turkey last week to attend an international space camp run in partnership with NASA.
But for many of the 100,000-plus Ethiopian olim, the transition from an agrarian milieu to a technologically advanced urban society has not been smooth. The older generation arrived here battered by dislocation, civil war and famine. Many households are dysfunctional, strained by changing gender roles and a yawning generation gap in which traditionalist parents feel alienated from their Hebrew-speaking offspring. Crime, truancy and domestic violence are all too prevalent. Formerly honored elders have been disempowered by Israel's jealous religious establishment.
With their family and communal structures torn asunder, it is remarkable that so many Beta Israel have managed to thrive. Some of the younger generation blend in comfortably at fashionable Tel Aviv nightspots; others have been warmly embraced by the Orthodox. There are now Ethiopian broadcasters and an Ethiopian member of Knesset. This summer even saw the release of the first ever Israeli-Ethiopian film, Zrubavel, by director/screenwriter Shmuel Beru.
Unfortunately, Ethiopians remain the victims of those who imagine themselves racially superior. Last week, for instance, an Egged driver allegedly refused to open the door of his bus to an Ethiopian college student; when she finally managed to board, he harangued her with slurs.
It is, however, not racism when schools in socio-economically deprived areas decide to limit the enrollment of Ethiopian children, fearing that a demographic "tipping point" might force the exodus of other youngsters. In any case, Ethiopian students bunched together in poorly performing schools would be unlikely to achieve success. Many require intensive and costly remedial, educational and social services. One solution might be for schools in more affluent areas to set aside scholarships for Ethiopian students.
Hebrew University Africa expert Steven Kaplan recently told The Los Angeles Times that "even after 30 years," he could not say with "any real confidence" that "we've turned the corner for the second and third generations of Ethiopians."
Part of the reason is the immensity of the challenge; the other is Israelis' failure to internalize the idea that "rescuing" Ethiopian Jews - even more than "saving" Soviet Jews - is not a lightning operation, but a process that demands persistence.
Shabbat shalom
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 12, 2009
Haredi violence...again
Reflexive violence
What is it about the sub-culture of a not inconsiderable number of haredim, primarily those belonging to sects adhering to social insularity and theological extremism, that makes them habitually turn to violence when frustrated? Rather than hold a peaceful protest, lobby elected officials, or seek relief via litigation, too many of those associated with the anti-Zionist Edah Haredit, a constellation that encompasses Satmar, Toldot Aharon, Toldot Avraham-Yitzhak, and elements of the Breslav, Dushinsky and Munkacs sects, reflexively - so it seems - turn to thuggery and intimidation. So do some other haredim.
The latest instance took place Sunday night when Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat was leaving a non-political meeting at the home of the "Admor of Kalib," Rabbi Menachem Mendel Taub, in the Ezrat Torah section of town. He was set upon by dozens of stone-throwing Satmar ruffians. After the mayor's security detail whisked him to safety, Barkat declared that he would not cave-in to violence.
He was referring to haredi opposition to his decision to provide free public parking near the Old City on the Sabbath. Despite initial, tacit approval from ultra-Orthodox municipal council members, haredi demagogues incited against the garage opening on the dubious grounds that it violated the religious-secular status quo. The car park is actually blocks from the nearest haredi district. And police had recommended its opening to accommodate the influx of vehicles heretofore scattered helter-skelter outside the Old City walls.
In pledging not to give into violence, Barkat could just as easily have been talking about the rioting that followed the arrest of a haredi mother accused of trying to starve her son to death. Extremist haredim reacted with nights of stone-throwing and property destruction.
With commendable alacrity, mainstream haredi leaders - Hassidic, Litvak and Sephardi - on the city council stridently denounced Sunday's assault on Barkat. Unfortunately, they've allowed themselves to be browbeaten into coming out against the car park opening.
The Edah Haredit, for its part, said it planned to "demonstrate" outside Barkat's home, office and at the disputed facility - possibly on weekdays as well as Saturdays. Rabbi Tuvia Weiss, a leading rabble-rouser, rejects any compromise "over the holiness of the Sabbath." Read: "We will continue to desecrate the holy day 'in order to save it.'"
WE WORRY that the authorities will - Barkat's rhetoric notwithstanding - ultimately find a "compromise" that essentially rewards the extremists. Doing so would send a terrible signal about the character of the capital.
We note that the court ultimately released the allegedly abusive mother to house arrest - just as the rioters had demanded. A legal observer we respect has argued that police could have separated the mother from the endangered child without taking her into police custody. Perhaps. But for those raised in a sub-culture that disparages outsiders, rioting - not reasoned dialogue - is the default response to not getting your own way.
There's no point in reminding the extremists that halacha obligates them to adhere to the law of the land - dina d'malchuta dina. They shamelessly engage in Talmudic sophistry to justify their immoral, unethical and anti-halachiac deportment.
The larger issue for us is the character of Jerusalem. Observant Jews of all stripes, and good number of secular residents too, appreciate the fact that Jerusalem slows down for the Sabbath. There is a dramatic drop in traffic; most businesses are closed. Public transportation comes to a halt. The calm is good for the soul and the environment.
Frankly, extremist haredim are giving Jewish observance a bad name. In one neighborhood, locals opposed the opening of a mikve (ritual bath) to be used by the entire community out of fear that it would draw haredim to the area.
Most Jerusalemites value tradition while rejecting religious coercion. Their ideal is a city whose neighborhoods are mixed - not one of Balkanized enclaves.
Whether the issue is Shabbat parking, gender-segregated buses, or the equal application of the law, we urge authorities to hold firm. And we appeal to mainstream haredim, the majority of whom, we fervently trust, do not identify with the tactics of the extremists, to at least speak out for tolerance even if their consciences do not allow them to advocate pluralism.
What is it about the sub-culture of a not inconsiderable number of haredim, primarily those belonging to sects adhering to social insularity and theological extremism, that makes them habitually turn to violence when frustrated? Rather than hold a peaceful protest, lobby elected officials, or seek relief via litigation, too many of those associated with the anti-Zionist Edah Haredit, a constellation that encompasses Satmar, Toldot Aharon, Toldot Avraham-Yitzhak, and elements of the Breslav, Dushinsky and Munkacs sects, reflexively - so it seems - turn to thuggery and intimidation. So do some other haredim.
The latest instance took place Sunday night when Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat was leaving a non-political meeting at the home of the "Admor of Kalib," Rabbi Menachem Mendel Taub, in the Ezrat Torah section of town. He was set upon by dozens of stone-throwing Satmar ruffians. After the mayor's security detail whisked him to safety, Barkat declared that he would not cave-in to violence.
He was referring to haredi opposition to his decision to provide free public parking near the Old City on the Sabbath. Despite initial, tacit approval from ultra-Orthodox municipal council members, haredi demagogues incited against the garage opening on the dubious grounds that it violated the religious-secular status quo. The car park is actually blocks from the nearest haredi district. And police had recommended its opening to accommodate the influx of vehicles heretofore scattered helter-skelter outside the Old City walls.
In pledging not to give into violence, Barkat could just as easily have been talking about the rioting that followed the arrest of a haredi mother accused of trying to starve her son to death. Extremist haredim reacted with nights of stone-throwing and property destruction.
With commendable alacrity, mainstream haredi leaders - Hassidic, Litvak and Sephardi - on the city council stridently denounced Sunday's assault on Barkat. Unfortunately, they've allowed themselves to be browbeaten into coming out against the car park opening.
The Edah Haredit, for its part, said it planned to "demonstrate" outside Barkat's home, office and at the disputed facility - possibly on weekdays as well as Saturdays. Rabbi Tuvia Weiss, a leading rabble-rouser, rejects any compromise "over the holiness of the Sabbath." Read: "We will continue to desecrate the holy day 'in order to save it.'"
WE WORRY that the authorities will - Barkat's rhetoric notwithstanding - ultimately find a "compromise" that essentially rewards the extremists. Doing so would send a terrible signal about the character of the capital.
We note that the court ultimately released the allegedly abusive mother to house arrest - just as the rioters had demanded. A legal observer we respect has argued that police could have separated the mother from the endangered child without taking her into police custody. Perhaps. But for those raised in a sub-culture that disparages outsiders, rioting - not reasoned dialogue - is the default response to not getting your own way.
There's no point in reminding the extremists that halacha obligates them to adhere to the law of the land - dina d'malchuta dina. They shamelessly engage in Talmudic sophistry to justify their immoral, unethical and anti-halachiac deportment.
The larger issue for us is the character of Jerusalem. Observant Jews of all stripes, and good number of secular residents too, appreciate the fact that Jerusalem slows down for the Sabbath. There is a dramatic drop in traffic; most businesses are closed. Public transportation comes to a halt. The calm is good for the soul and the environment.
Frankly, extremist haredim are giving Jewish observance a bad name. In one neighborhood, locals opposed the opening of a mikve (ritual bath) to be used by the entire community out of fear that it would draw haredim to the area.
Most Jerusalemites value tradition while rejecting religious coercion. Their ideal is a city whose neighborhoods are mixed - not one of Balkanized enclaves.
Whether the issue is Shabbat parking, gender-segregated buses, or the equal application of the law, we urge authorities to hold firm. And we appeal to mainstream haredim, the majority of whom, we fervently trust, do not identify with the tactics of the extremists, to at least speak out for tolerance even if their consciences do not allow them to advocate pluralism.
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, August 11, 2009
A Third Lebanon War May be on the Horizon
Is Nasrallah miscalculating?
It's been fairly quiet along the Gaza-Israel border, hasn't it? Well, actually, no. Approximately 107 Kassam rockets and 66 mortar shells have been fired by Palestinians at Israel since the end of Operation Cast Lead on January 18, 2009. Shells hit yesterday at the Erez crossing meters from ambulances about to evacuate Gazan heart patients for treatment in Israel; Kibbutz Alumim was also targeted.
Despite what Palestinian supporters call the "siege of Gaza," Israel routinely trucks-in tons of food and supplies to the hostile Strip and is responsive to humanitarian appeals for medical evacuations. But the "siege" - such as it is - ought to continue until IDF soldier Gilad Schalit is released and Hamas abides by the demands of the civilized world to end terrorism, recognize Israel and assume as binding previous commitments made by the Palestinian Authority.
To it credit, Human Rights Watch has belatedly - ok, very belatedly - labeled Hamas's bombardment of Israeli civilians a "war crime." For the most part, however, unless Israel retaliates in a robust manner, no one takes much notice of how many rockets are fired from Gaza into Israel.
THE more worrisome - for now - powder keg is along the border with Hizbullah-subjugated Lebanon.
Last month a huge Hizbullah arms depot located on the outskirts of Khirbet Slem blew up, sending shock waves across the border. In an atypical reprimand, UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Alain Le Roy publicly criticized Hizbullah for violating UN Security Council Resolution 1701 (which brought the Second Lebanon War to an end in the summer of 2006). In the past three years, Hizbullah has been illegally replenishing its weapons, which are mainly shipped by its Iranian patrons with Syrian connivance.
Hizbullah seems intent on carrying out a mega-terror attack in Israel or the Diaspora ostensibly in retaliation for the 2008 liquidation in Damascus of Imad Mughniyeh, the group's principal terror-master. The likelihood may be that Hizbullah will attack an Israeli airliner, diplomat or some Jewish target abroad. Meanwhile it has been engaging in psychological warfare - blasting the muezzin's call to prayer across the border and sending its operatives, dressed in civilian clothes, to the border fence.
Last week on Israel Radio, Defense Minister Ehud Barak sent a warning to Hizbullah: An attack against Israeli or Jewish targets anywhere would result in painful reprisals against Lebanon's infrastructure as well as Hizbullah strongholds. On Sunday, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon reiterated that Israel would hold not only Hizbullah, but the Beirut government responsible for violence initiated in Lebanon. And yesterday Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu added his voice, warning Lebanon/Hizbullah not to attack because if it did Beirut will be held responsible.
In an amiable interview with Al-Jazeera on Sunday - there was some joking about whether a jet passing overhead was Israeli - Hashem Safi al-Din, who is chairman of Hizbullah's executive council, taunted our defense minister: Act "foolishly" and "the war of the summer of 2006 will look like a joke," he warned. While asserting that Hizbullah did not seek war with Israel, Safi al-Din let drop that, "Today we are more powerful, and this is thanks to the 2006 victory, which is why we think the Israeli threats are hollow and meaningless." The "resistance," he claimed, has long possessed "rockets that can reach every house in Tel Aviv."
It is hard to know whether Lebanese internal political developments are contributing to Hizbullah's jingoism. Lebanon elected a new parliament in June when Hizbullah supposedly suffered an electoral setback; yet the formation of a government is still far-off. The ever-mercurial Druse leader, Walid Jumblatt, has switched sides - sort off - from the Christian-Sunni March 14 Coalition to cast the fate of his people with the Shi'ites.
IN August 2006, Hassan Nasrallah admitted that had he appreciated the ferocity of Israel's response to Hizbullah's aggression, he would have never sent his men across the border. Now, with new weapons in-hand, Nasrallah may calculate that Israel will abjure hard-hitting retaliation, even for a mega-terror attack, in order to keep its population safe from reprisal bombardment in a third Lebanon war.
It would be too bad for us all if Nasrallah's destiny was to keep making the same stupid mistake.
It's been fairly quiet along the Gaza-Israel border, hasn't it? Well, actually, no. Approximately 107 Kassam rockets and 66 mortar shells have been fired by Palestinians at Israel since the end of Operation Cast Lead on January 18, 2009. Shells hit yesterday at the Erez crossing meters from ambulances about to evacuate Gazan heart patients for treatment in Israel; Kibbutz Alumim was also targeted.
Despite what Palestinian supporters call the "siege of Gaza," Israel routinely trucks-in tons of food and supplies to the hostile Strip and is responsive to humanitarian appeals for medical evacuations. But the "siege" - such as it is - ought to continue until IDF soldier Gilad Schalit is released and Hamas abides by the demands of the civilized world to end terrorism, recognize Israel and assume as binding previous commitments made by the Palestinian Authority.
To it credit, Human Rights Watch has belatedly - ok, very belatedly - labeled Hamas's bombardment of Israeli civilians a "war crime." For the most part, however, unless Israel retaliates in a robust manner, no one takes much notice of how many rockets are fired from Gaza into Israel.
THE more worrisome - for now - powder keg is along the border with Hizbullah-subjugated Lebanon.
Last month a huge Hizbullah arms depot located on the outskirts of Khirbet Slem blew up, sending shock waves across the border. In an atypical reprimand, UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Alain Le Roy publicly criticized Hizbullah for violating UN Security Council Resolution 1701 (which brought the Second Lebanon War to an end in the summer of 2006). In the past three years, Hizbullah has been illegally replenishing its weapons, which are mainly shipped by its Iranian patrons with Syrian connivance.
Hizbullah seems intent on carrying out a mega-terror attack in Israel or the Diaspora ostensibly in retaliation for the 2008 liquidation in Damascus of Imad Mughniyeh, the group's principal terror-master. The likelihood may be that Hizbullah will attack an Israeli airliner, diplomat or some Jewish target abroad. Meanwhile it has been engaging in psychological warfare - blasting the muezzin's call to prayer across the border and sending its operatives, dressed in civilian clothes, to the border fence.
Last week on Israel Radio, Defense Minister Ehud Barak sent a warning to Hizbullah: An attack against Israeli or Jewish targets anywhere would result in painful reprisals against Lebanon's infrastructure as well as Hizbullah strongholds. On Sunday, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon reiterated that Israel would hold not only Hizbullah, but the Beirut government responsible for violence initiated in Lebanon. And yesterday Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu added his voice, warning Lebanon/Hizbullah not to attack because if it did Beirut will be held responsible.
In an amiable interview with Al-Jazeera on Sunday - there was some joking about whether a jet passing overhead was Israeli - Hashem Safi al-Din, who is chairman of Hizbullah's executive council, taunted our defense minister: Act "foolishly" and "the war of the summer of 2006 will look like a joke," he warned. While asserting that Hizbullah did not seek war with Israel, Safi al-Din let drop that, "Today we are more powerful, and this is thanks to the 2006 victory, which is why we think the Israeli threats are hollow and meaningless." The "resistance," he claimed, has long possessed "rockets that can reach every house in Tel Aviv."
It is hard to know whether Lebanese internal political developments are contributing to Hizbullah's jingoism. Lebanon elected a new parliament in June when Hizbullah supposedly suffered an electoral setback; yet the formation of a government is still far-off. The ever-mercurial Druse leader, Walid Jumblatt, has switched sides - sort off - from the Christian-Sunni March 14 Coalition to cast the fate of his people with the Shi'ites.
IN August 2006, Hassan Nasrallah admitted that had he appreciated the ferocity of Israel's response to Hizbullah's aggression, he would have never sent his men across the border. Now, with new weapons in-hand, Nasrallah may calculate that Israel will abjure hard-hitting retaliation, even for a mega-terror attack, in order to keep its population safe from reprisal bombardment in a third Lebanon war.
It would be too bad for us all if Nasrallah's destiny was to keep making the same stupid mistake.
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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