Peace Now at 30

This month marks Peace Now's 30th anniversary. On Tuesday evening supporters will gather in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square to mark the milestone.

The movement embodies the almost instinctive yearning for peace shared by virtually all Israelis. That's why Peace Now has charmed both Israeli and Diaspora Jews for three decades with its un-jaded enthusiasm for a Middle East where Israelis and Palestinians respect each others' aspirations, hear each others' narratives and live side by side in peace and security.
The movement emerged in March 1978 during Israeli-Egyptian peace talks, when 348 IDF reservists signed an open letter to prime minister Menachem Begin urging a more conciliatory Israeli negotiating posture, denouncing Begin's commitment to Judea, Samaria and Gaza as integral parts of Israel and opposing the settlement enterprise.

Since Anwar Sadat was, in effect, negotiating not just for the return of Sinai but also on behalf of the Palestinian Arabs, albeit against their will, Peace Now demanded that Begin cut a deal - any deal.

The founders of Peace Now were an eclectic bunch - liberal reservists, academics and Tel Aviv bohemians. Their aim was to present a Zionist alternative to Gush Emunim. They always knew what they were against - settlements and the "occupation" - but never managed to articulate a viable alternative.

Peace Now isn't oblivious to the strategic value of the West Bank. Its leaders know you can walk from Samaria to the Mediterranean, across Israel's narrow waistline and population hub, without stopping for a drink of water. Yet the group has an overarching devotion to the notion that "true security" can only be achieved with the arrival of "peace."

To attain peace now - notwithstanding what the Palestinians are saying or doing - has always required the group to almost willfully disregard the unpleasant realities of the Arab-Israel conflict. Its emphasis is exclusively on what Israelis should concede, as if our collective craving for peace alone can supernaturally overcome Palestinian intransigence, incitement, internal upheaval and the culture of violence.

Over the years, many but not all of Peace Now's positions have been mainstreamed. Israel is indeed negotiating with the PLO. Most Israelis are reconciled to a Palestinian state, though only in the context of a deal that guarantees them real security. And most accept - unenthusiastically - that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria would have to be uprooted were the Palestinians prepared for peace. But they are not.

PEACE NOW spokesman Yariv Oppenheimer says vaguely that he supports whatever Israeli and Palestinian negotiators can agree upon. But in practice, Peace Now is demanding something different and specific. While claiming it does not want to push Israel back to the indefensible 1949 Armistice Lines, Peace Now nonetheless opposes any construction over the Green Line. It does not support the retention of major settlement blocs such as Gush Etzion, Ma'aleh Adumim and Ariel; it considers east Talpiot, Gilo and Pisgat Ze'ev "occupied territory."

Peace Now also stands squarely outside the consensus by favoring "joint sovereignty" over Jerusalem's Old City. And while it opposes the "implementation" of the Palestinian "right of return," it does not necessarily oppose its affirmation.

Moreover, for a group with so much media clout, Peace Now shows an appalling lack of financial transparency and administrative accountability. Israelis are asked to believe that a finely-tuned machine capable of running airborne surveillance over every nook and cranny of the West Bank operates quite informally, by consensus, under the auspices of university students and aging hippies.

Peace Now is actually funded through an educational NGO called Sha'al, which receives "most" of its funds from American Jews, according to Oppenheimer. But he declines to say what his annual budget is, or how much cash comes from foreign governments and foundations who might be interested in co-opting the Peace Now brand.

Peace Now helps remind us that Jewish civilization attaches the highest value to peace. Yet by remaining ideologically stagnant, holding to positions that experience has shown risk rendering Israel indefensible, and keeping its decision-making methods and funding sources mystifying, the organization places itself on the periphery of Israel's body politic.

This is a drill

At 10 a.m. Tuesday, the wailing of sirens will be heard throughout Israel - except in the southern communities near Gaza under intermittent Palestinian bombardment.

Israel has begun a week-long civil defense drill. On Sunday the cabinet was briefed by Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna'i, who is commanding the nationwide exercises. Everyone from kindergarten children to senior civil servants will practice the emergency measures to be taken in the event of an actual attack or catastrophic earthquake. These national home front exercises are intended to help authorities evaluate how prepared the country is to face the threat, for instance, of missiles - conventional, biological, chemical or nuclear - smashing into our population centers.

Are rescue services geared up to save casualties from dozens of simultaneously collapsed buildings? Are hospitals capable of treating mega-casualties? Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, along with officials of the Home Front Command, National Emergency Authority and emergency services, will spend the better part of the week simulating potential disaster scenarios.

A drill of this magnitude has never been undertaken. Yet we don't need a drill to realize that the Home Front Command Web site (www.oref.org.il), currently limited to Hebrew and English, should do a better job of communicating with Russian, Arabic and Amharic speakers; and that authorities need to clarify their zigzagging policies regarding gas masks. For our part, we citizens must take these exercises seriously - specifically, locating the closest shelter or secure room when the siren sounds.

While this is only a drill, it comes as tensions are high on the northern front over concern that Hizbullah may attempt a massive terrorist operation, ostensibly in retaliation for the mysterious liquidation in Damascus of its top commander, Imad Mughniyeh. Jerusalem has signaled Bashar Assad's regime that it might hold Syria accountable if Hizbullah strikes. That, in turn, probably led Damascus to leak a story to the London-based Al Quds al-Arabi about Syrian reservists mobilizing "in anticipation" of an Israeli attack. Conflicting reports remain over whether and to what extent the Syrian army is in fact massing troops.

Tensions are further exacerbated by reports of authorities continuing to worry that enemy forces may try to down - or hijack - an Israeli airliner. Extraordinary preventative measures are under way. But has Israel's deterrence so deteriorated that terrorists and/or their state benefactors - Syria and Iran - would even consider such a heinous assault? Are they unmindful of the devastating consequences?

Equally troubling are unconfirmed reports that Russia has now joined Iran in providing personnel for Syrian monitoring stations which also feed data to Hizbullah.

Meanwhile, Israel remains alert (in the north and south) against the threat that its soldiers may be kidnapped, or that Hizbullah may send bomb-laden drones to infiltrate Israeli airspace.
As if the situation were not sufficiently fraught, authorities are surely also trying to make sense of the recording by al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released last week. Entitled "Rush to Support Our People in Gaza," Zawahiri urges Islamists to strike at Jewish and American interests everywhere. But Noah Shachtman, national security blogger for Wired.com, has called attention to an intriguing aside in Zawahiri's message, namely, what he says about Iran:
"The dispute between America and Iran is... over areas of influence... the situation will be in the interest of the Mujahideen if the war saps both of them. If, however, one of them emerges victorious, its influence will intensify and fierce battles will begin between it and the Mujahideen..."

Zawahiri thus inadvertently reminds us - at a time when it feels as if we're surrounded on all sides - that Sunni-Shi'ite and Arab-Persian cleavages have not been buried. Islamists may cooperate on the tactical level, but the enemy is neither monolithic nor unified.

As Israelis prepare for a disaster we pray will never come, today's sirens cannot help but underscore the threats that surround the Jewish state. Let them, equally, ring out our readiness to defeat any foe.

Axis of the unloved

A BBC poll released this week found that Iran has edged out Israel as the most unpopular country in the world, 54 percent to 52%, with Pakistan coming in a close third.
Welcome to the Axis of the Unloved.

To the question "Which countries have a mainly positive or mainly negative influence in the world?" 52% of respondents identified Israel as having a harmful role, while only 19% thought of the Jewish state in positive terms.

Egyptians and Lebanese have become even more entrenched in their animosity toward Israel. That's not surprising given the unrelenting anti-Zionist "reporting" broadcast 24/7 by Arab satellite stations as well as local Egyptian and Hizbullah media outlets.

Ninety-four percent of Egyptians think of Israel in negative terms (up from 85%), while 87% of Lebanese rate Israel negatively (up from 78%). At the same time, 62% of Egyptians think positively of Iran.

Majorities in Spain (64%) and Japan (55%) disapprove of Israel, the BBC found.
In Africa, 45% of Kenyans view Israel's influence as positive, up from 38%, while Ghanaians are divided: 30% positive versus 32% negative.

It's disconcerting that negative views have apparently increased among Americans (39%, up from 33%); though 43% of Americans have a positive attitude compared to 39% who think of Israel in disapproving terms. This seems to mesh with a poll released by The Israel Project, also this week, in Jerusalem which found that 40% of Americans see Israeli policies as extreme. The Israel Project also found that only 7% of Americans put the Arab-Israel conflict at the top of their agenda. Still, Americans support the creation of a Palestinian state, though most don't see it as ending the conflict. Curiously, Iran's negative rating in the US dropped to 55%, from 63% last year.

On the bright side, majorities with negative views of Israel have fallen in France (52%, down from 66%), Germany (64%, down from 77%), Brazil (57%, down from 72%) and Chile (43%, down from 57%).

WHAT ARE we to make of all this? Public opinion is both influenced by, and commands the attention of politicians and the media. Valid public opinion surveys (not to be confused with statistically suspect Internet click polling) do give us insights into what "the people" are thinking.

But let's remember that most folks don't follow current events closely - or intelligently - enough to develop informed opinions. Not a few are influenced by hateful imams, demagogic ministers and malevolent, manipulative televised images. So even when opinion surveys accurately reflect the views of the masses, policymakers need to take into account the profound ignorance and intolerance which sometimes color public opinion.

Take the case of the March 6 terrorist attack on Mercaz Harav. The fact that 84 percent of Palestinians supported it does not make the slaughter of young yeshiva students acceptable. Abroad, surveys have shown that a majority of African-Americans believe the HIV virus is man-made, a US government conspiracy to decimate the black population. And a significant segment of US blacks hold that Washington is responsible for spreading narcotics in the inner cities. Many Muslim Americans actually believe Arabs were not responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
The point is that while what people think cannot be discounted, it is sometimes immensely misguided and must not automatically be allowed to serve as any kind of guide for Israeli actions. At the same time, effective public diplomacy, bringing basic facts to people's attention, really can change people's views.

Influencing opinion rather than being victims of it should be the focus of Israel's public diplomacy efforts. We need to connect with Generations Y and Z - born since 1980 - who get much of their news unfettered and unvetted from FaceBook, MySpace and other social networking sites. And we must address the crying need for an Israel-based 24/7 satellite news channel.

Public opinion is malleable. But we cannot expect people to embrace Israel's cause if we fail to present it to them in a coherent and accessible way.

A constructive role for the Arab League

Wrapping up its meeting in Damascus on Sunday, the Arab League threatened to "reevaluate" its 2002 peace offer to Israel. The plan is contingent, Secretary-General Amr Moussa warned, on "Israel executing its commitments."

Actually, it is Arab League policy which needs reevaluation. Six years after it was tendered by the Saudi Crown prince, now king, Abdullah, Arab leaders still do not comprehend why Israelis haven't enthusiastically embraced their initiative.

First, some context: The Arab League was founded in 1945, in Cairo. Its primary mission was to obstruct the emergence of a Jewish state anywhere in British-controlled Palestine. In 1946, the Arab League supported the intransigence of Haj Amin al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem, over more moderate Palestinian Arab voices. It then rejected the 1947 UN Partition Plan, which would have created two states - one Arab and one Jewish - living side-by-side in peace.

After the 1948 war, rather than reconcile with Israel, the League spearheaded the creation of UNRWA, effectively perpetuating the statelessness of Palestinian refugees. In 1957 it sealed their fate by rejecting appeals that they be resettled in Arab states, just as Jewish refugees from the Arab countries had been resettled in Israel.

It was with the League's imprimatur that Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser created the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1963 - four years before the West Bank and Gaza came under Israeli control. Then, in March 1979, the League suspended Egypt for signing a peace treaty with Israel. Cairo was not readmitted until 1989.

AND THEN, in March 2002, after nearly six decades of unremitting hostility, the League apparently changed direction and adopted the Saudi peace initiative.

But even this giant leap falls short. It demands Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice Lines; acceptance of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital; and a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem based on UN General Assembly Resolution 194.

On borders, at least on the Palestinian front, it is common knowledge that Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Ahmed Qurei are, right now, poring over maps, trying to come up with an agreement in principle which would presumably take effect only after the Palestinians stop violence, terrorism and incitement against Israel and both peoples approve of the deal.

Arguably, the biggest obstacle for Israelis in the Saudi plan is that it addresses the plight of Palestinian refugees by invoking General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948. Carried out in practice, it would inundate Israel - Jewish population 5.3 million - with 4.5 million stateless Palestinians. Few Israelis view this as anything but a recipe for the demographic destruction of the world's only Jewish state. And yet the idea that an organization unambiguously created to quash the birth of a Jewish state, and long dedicated to that goal, would ever offer even the theoretical opportunity of "normal relations" - albeit on terms no Israeli government could possibly accept - should not be summarily dismissed. And it hasn't been.

In March 2002, then foreign minister Shimon Peres declared Israel was prepared to discuss the plan; not as a diktat, but as a starting point. So it is really up to the Arab League to modify a fundamentally flawed offer by opening up negotiations with Israel. Let Secretary-General Moussa himself come to Jerusalem - where he would be cordially welcomed - to pursue such discussions.

Instead of reaching out, an Arab League in disarray has continued its hard-line, anti-Israel rhetoric. That's easier than bridging internal gaps between Hamas and Fatah, and over Iraq, Lebanon, and Alawite-led Syria's ever-closer melding with the Persian ayatollahs. Moussa had to make the most of a summit boycotted by the kings of Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Morocco, as well as by Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Yemen's Ali Abdullah Salah. Hence his denunciation of invented Israeli "war crimes" in Gaza, and perhaps also PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's incongruent plea for League intervention to save "besieged" Palestinians. Comic relief was provided by Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who helpfully pointed out that Arab leaders hate and conspire against each other.

With Damascus now assuming the Arab League presidency, it's hard to see the organization playing a constructive role in ushering in an era of peace and reconciliation. Still, a good place to begin would be for Arab leaders to address Israel's concerns about their March 2002 proposal.

Judaism's golden mean

An ultra-Orthodox couple from Beit Shemesh are under arrest for allegedly assaulting at least some of their 12 children. Sadly, that's not earth-shattering news in a country where child abuse seems to be on the rise. That some of the couple's children may have engaged in incest only adds to the grotesque revelations.

Yet what makes this story truly bizarre is that the 54-year-old wife and mother involved also heads a sect of several dozen women who maintain a Taliban-like dress code requiring them to cover their faces and wear multiple layers of clothing.

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, in another ultra-Orthodox household, several people are under police investigation for abusing two toddlers. The youngest remains hospitalized and in a coma. The mother allegedly "corrected" the children's behavior by whipping them. Police insinuate she may be part of a sect which adheres to violent child-rearing practices.

Then there was the shocking bombing in Ariel on Purim, which critically wounded 15-year-old Ami Ortiz, the son of Messianic Christian pastor David Ortiz. A court order prevents detailing the direction of the investigation. What does seem apparent is that the perpetrators were Jewish extremists.

Messianics insist that one can remain a loyal Jew while professing faith in Jesus as the Son of God and the Messiah. In fact, this theology is abhorrent to Jews and Judaism. Christians who identify themselves as Jewish have long complained of violent harassment, most recently in Beersheba and Arad. Not a few messianic Jews live among us as "reverse Marranos," frightened to share their true identity for fear of persecution. Plainly, for those who proselytize - a practice insulting in Jewish eyes - such concerns are not misplaced.

Finally, there is the decree of the chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba, Dov Lior, coming in the wake of the March 7 massacre at Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, which claimed the lives of eight students, that it is "forbidden" to rent homes to Arabs or employ Arabs anywhere in Israel. Other religious Zionist rabbis have also supported a ban on Arab labor.

THERE MAY not be a pattern here, but all these are manifestations of religious extremism seemingly tolerated by the community in which they took place.

Take the deviant deportment of the "Taliban mother." Anyone who moves around, as this family reportedly did, among the country's various ultra-Orthodox communities, will almost immediately come into contact with their synagogues, rabbis, communal leaders and teachers. In these communities a fair amount of privacy is willingly sacrificed for a life within the all-embracing collective. Peer pressure is the norm.

That being so, why was there no intervention? After all, had the "Taliban family" made it their practice to drive on Shabbat, their car would quite likely have been stoned by those irate at this desecration of the holy day.

There was at least one attempt by a neighbor to sound the alarm via Internet postings, but did more of the family's genuinely pious neighbors, who may have suspected something was not right, report their qualms? And if not, what happened to the principle that all Jews are responsible for one another?

Or take the attack on the Ortiz family. We've heard Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman condemn the bombing. Likewise, Penina Taylor, of Jews for Judaism, says unequivocally that her anti-missionary group denounces the "atrocity" and prays for "the complete healing of this boy and the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator[s] of this heinous crime." Amen to that.

But we'd like to hear leading rabbis in the haredi and national religious community explicitly denounce all anti-missionary violence - not just the Ortiz attack, but also the ongoing harassment in Arad and Beersheba.

Let them say what we all know: that in a sovereign Jewish state such violence is immoral, illegal and contemptible. Further, and more broadly, let our spiritual leaders declare that fanaticism - whether that embodied in the Taliban of Beit Shemesh, or in blanket prohibitions on all Arab labor - goes beyond the bounds of Judaism.

It was not only Aristotle who preached the desirability of the golden mean. Authentic Judaism, too, has always sought a balance between "too much and too little." Clearly, the lesson needs to be taught anew; and it is up to those we turn to for spiritual succor to teach it.