Thanks a lot, Mr. Vice President

Biden's signal


There's little doubt that US Vice President Joe Biden was signaling, in his Sunday television interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, that the Obama administration would not stand in the way if Israel chose military force to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons.

GS: Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it pretty clear that he agreed with President Obama to give until the end of the year for this whole process of engagement to work. After that, he's prepared to take matters into his own hands. Is that the right approach?

Biden: Look, Israel can determine for itself - it's a sovereign nation - what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.

GS: Whether we agree or not?

Biden: Whether we agree or not. They're entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is... But there is no pressure from any nation that's going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed. What we believe is in the national interest of the United States, which we, coincidentally, believe is also in the interest of Israel and the whole world. And so there are separate issues. If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right... That is not our choice.

GS: But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat [and] they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?
Biden: Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do... if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.

GS: You say we can't dictate - but we can, if we choose to, deny over-flight rights here in Iraq. We can stand in the way of a military strike.

Biden: I'm not going to speculate, George, on those issues, other than to say Israel has a right to determine what's in its interests; and we have a right and we will determine what's in our interests.

BIDEN HAS been known to commit the occasional faux pas. But the Israeli consensus is that he was sending a message from President Barack Obama. Is live television the best way for two allies to communicate on a matter of such import? Yes - if the goal was to instantly "reward" Binyamin Netanyahu for uttering the magic words "two states for two peoples" at Sunday's cabinet meeting.

Or could Biden have been signaling the Iranians that Washington would unleash the Israeli military if the mullahs continue to drag their heels on engagement? Unlikely.

After Biden's remarks, however, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, implied he doesn't think an Israeli bombing is preferable to an Iranian bomb.

ISRAELIS FEEL little appreciation for Biden's signal. Not to sound churlish, but we don't really need his confirmation that we are a sovereign country. Moreover, president George W. Bush's April 2004 letter to Ariel Sharon - the one Obama studiously ignores - already supported Israel's right "to deter and defend itself, by itself, against any threat."

So rather than subcontracting the safeguarding of American, Western and Arab interests in keeping the bomb out of Iran's clutches - and being left to eventually face down Iran on our own - what Israelis would prefer is concerted US leadership now.

The administration remains committed to reaching out to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Fearing it would upset the mullahs, however, Obama's has been reluctant to adequately prepare for the likely possibility that the Iranians will not even discuss their nuclear program, or will use any talks to stall for time.

The Europeans - even as they conduct billions of dollars' worth of trade with Iran - are belatedly turning to Washington for leadership on genuinely meaningful sanctions, the kind that would get Khamenei's undivided attention, should engagement fail.

Though even its most hardcore Western apologists have stopped making excuses for the Iranian regime, the Obama administration appears hesitant to see it for what it is.

Obama will have an opportunity to prove our assessment wrong later this week, at the G-8.

Ultra-Orthodox riot while the Arabs shoot it out

Unquiet weekend


For 2,000 years, the Jewish people yearned to be sovereign and free in "the land of Zion and Jerusalem." That wish has not been completely realized, as two violent disturbances in the capital over Shabbat hammered home.

The first involved anti-Zionist Eda Haredit rioters - joined by other, non-Zionist haredim - protesting the Sabbath opening of a parking garage near the Old City's Jaffa Gate. The second reflected an abrogation of responsibility by authorities as Arab clans shot it out in Silwan.

Arab residents who called police say they hesitated to respond for long hours, and that ambulances were not given armed escorts (necessary when entering Arab neighborhoods), anxious calls for medical assistance notwithstanding.

THE HAREDI protesters violated the sanctity of the Sabbath they claim to be defending by forcing the deployment of large numbers of security forces - including helicopters, mounted police, and observant officers - at whom they hurled rocks and invective ("You will burn in the fire of hell," "Nazis," and - to policemen wearing kippot: "half-breeds.")

Other haredim opened a second front, throwing stones at cars traveling along Route 9. As night fell, louts set fire to trash bins in Mea She'arim.

Police reacted with questionable restraint, making just one arrest - compared to 60 last Saturday. It remains to be seen whether this approach will boomerang. Haredi elders did discourage overheated adolescents and children from participating in Saturday's unrest.

Police pledge to press for indictments of the 60 arrested, even as they continue to hold 10 of the worst offenders. The extremists are apparently divided, some wanting to up the ante by holding midweek protests that include many children.

The haredi claim that the car park upsets the religious-secular status quo is nonsense. The facility, in a non-haredi tourist area, is free and staffed by non-Jews to accommodate vehicles that would anyway have been driven into town and left, helter-skelter, to block streets and sidewalks.

One way for Diaspora Jews to register their censure of such extremist behavior is by insisting that Mea She'arim-based institutions seeking their support go on record as denouncing such Shabbat riots.

We are also waiting for leading non-haredi Orthodox rabbis to echo former chief rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau and challenge the pernicious idea that it is halachically permissible to assault security personnel of the State of Israel - much less on the holy Sabbath.

SILWAN IS located below and to the south of the Old City walls. It is home to some 45,000 Palestinian Arabs - tax-paying residents of Jerusalem who carry standard blue Israeli ID cards - and a small enclave of national-religious Jews based in the City of David.

The terrifying outbreak of night-long mayhem between the Rajabi and Udan-Gawani clans, reportedly involving automatic weapons and grenades, left two dead and up to 10 wounded. A number of Arab homes were set ablaze. Repeated calls for calm over mosque loudspeakers were ignored - which only added to the sense of chaos and abandonment.

City of David residents said their calls to the police were ignored; Arab residents said they called for ambulances which never came. A Magen David Adom spokesman said police would not escort MDA ambulances, so the Red Crescent was told to bring the wounded to the entrance of the village. Instead they were taken to an Arab hospital.

Yakir Segev, a Jerusalem municipal councilmen, told Israel Radio that police have essentially abdicated their responsibilities in the Arab sections of Jerusalem. "The chance of seeing a regular police cruiser is close to zero," lamented Segev. Unconfirmed Arab reports say that the police allow Palestinian Authority operatives (who are officially barred from the area) to deal with clan violence.

The police say complaints of abandonment by both Arab and Jewish residents of Silwan/City of David are unwarranted. They say a number of Border Police jeeps entered the area when the shooting was first reported, and returned when it resumed after midnight. They point to three suspects arrested.

Silwan is not located in Hamas-controlled Gaza nor in the Fatah-dominated West Bank, but within walking distance of the Western Wall, within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries. The police must act accordingly.

Sovereignty comes with responsibilities. When the latter is abdicated, so is the former.

A visit from Congressman Wexler with a message from President Obama

'Calling their bluff'


One of President Barack Obama's earliest backers, US Representative Robert Wexler, was in Jerusalem this week trying to persuade Israelis that a settlement freeze would be a win-win proposition.

"I want to call their bluff," Wexler told The Jerusalem Post, referring to the Arab countries.

"I want to see, if Israel makes substantial movement toward a credible peace process, whether they are willing to do it. And if they are not, better that we should find out five or six months into the process, before Israel is actually asked to compromise any significant position."

Wexler added: "And if the Arab world fails to deliver, you can rightly say that all bets are off."

The Democrat from south Florida told the Post that the Obama administration was placing America's Arab allies under heavy pressure to take substantial steps toward normalizing relations with Israel, in return for a settlement freeze. He said they were being lobbied to establish trade offices, economic links, and cultural and educational exchanges; and to permit Israeli airliners to traverse Arab airspace.

Wexler added that the US was "open to suggestions from the Israeli side" for "different indicators of normalization that would… create credibility among the Israeli public."

IT IS notable that otherwise savvy Israeli and Western politicians have found themselves repeatedly out-maneuvered in attempting to "call the bluff" of their Arab interlocutors. The assumption is that if their ostensible demands are met, the Arabs will be painted into a corner and have no choice but to be accommodating.

Ehud Barak thought he had called Yasser Arafat's bluff at Camp David in 2000, offering roughly 90 percent of the West Bank, all of the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

Arafat said it wasn't enough - and launched the second intifada.

In 2005, Ariel Sharon unilaterally uprooted all Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and pulled the Israeli army out totally. He told the Palestinians: "To an outstretched hand, we shall respond with an olive branch."

They replied with an onslaught of Kassam rockets against the Negev.

In 2008, Ehud Olmert thought he had called Mahmoud Abbas's bluff by offering him the equivalent of 100% of the West Bank, plus international control of Jerusalem's Holy Basin. Abbas retorted: Make me a better offer.

When Binyamin Netanyahu took office, Abbas came up with a new bluff: The Palestinians would return to the negotiating table only in exchange for a settlement freeze.

Of course, had Abbas said yes to Olmert, the settlement issue would have become moot. All Jewish communities situated within the agreed boundaries of "Palestine" would, in all likelihood, have been uprooted.

At any rate, the Obama administration is, Wexler tells us, presently concentrating on calling the Arab states' "bluff," saying, in effect: "If we get you a settlement freeze - and you do keep insisting settlements are the stumbling blocks to peace - what sort of minimal moves toward normalization with Israel will you offer in return?"

To date, the Arabs have told the White House: "Have a nice day."

BUT SAY Netanyahu was prepared to call the Arabs' bluff (again) by agreeing to a freeze on construction outside the strategic settlement blocs. What reciprocal moves would mainstream Israelis want as a credible indication that the Arabs were on the way to normalization with Israel?

Some suggestions:

# Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States should establish interest sections at the Egyptian or Jordanian embassies in Tel Aviv and staff them with their own diplomats.

* The Arab states should declare a complete and immediate freeze on all anti-Israel agitation at the UN and associated bodies.

* Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan should pay official visits to Israel.

* The Saudi king should meet with President Shimon Peres in a third country.

Wexler said that the Israeli press seemed oblivious to the administration's pressure on the Arab states to show signs of normalization with Israel, and that the Arab media wasn't publicizing these efforts either.

That can be remedied. Let Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Special Envoy George Mitchell make their normalization calls on the Arabs publicly, and with the same zeal that has characterized their calls for a settlement freeze.

Sarkozy sideshow...what really matters to Israeli foreign policy

Last week in Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu to replace Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman with Tzipi
Livni. "I'm telling you," he reportedly said, "you need to get rid of that
man."


That might have been a propitious moment for Netanyahu to recommend that
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner be replaced by Martine Aubry, head
of the Socialist Party. Instead, the premier replied, somewhat
mealy-mouthed, that Lieberman was actually a nice chap ­ once you got to
know him.


No doubt, were Sarkozy directeur des ressources humanines at our Foreign
Ministry, the place would take on a different political orientation. Would
Golda Meir have gotten his nod? Ariel Sharon? Moshe Arens? Yitzhak Shamir?
Unlikely.


But it's easier to be contemptuous of Sarkozy¹s behavior than to address the
bigger problems besetting foreign policy under Netanyahu¹s stewardship.
When he took office in March, he promised a reassessment of Israel¹s stance
vis-à-vis the Palestinians. Yet he arrived at the White House in May without
a plan; and didn¹t articulate one until his June 14 Bar-Ilan address. In
contradistinction to an Obama administration which knew exactly what it
wanted, the PM¹s three months of dawdling proved costly to Israeli
interests.

Secondly, Netanyahu appointed a foreign minister with a not-undeserved image
problem.


This newspaper was unenthusiastic about Lieberman's appointment. We strongly
urged Tzipi Livni to put country first and join a Netanyahu-led coalition as
foreign minister. It was not to be.


SOME Israelis suspect that when journalists rush to characterize Lieberman
as an "ultra-nationalist" and a "settler," or when foreign leaders maintain
their discreet boycott against him, they are motivated less by revulsion
over the positions of his Israel Beiteinu Party than by the sense that he is
a tough negotiator. Yet Lieberman embraced the road map and Netanyahu¹s
Bar-Ilan speech endorsing a two-state solution, and nothing about his
policies merits disdain. Moreover, if a security or settlement policy
doesn¹t gain Lieberman¹s support, chances are it won¹t fly with mainstream
Israelis either.

For all his bombast and past demagoguery, Lieberman is a remarkably
pragmatic politician.

So Netanyahu needs to be emphatic that Lieberman is a "fact on the ground" ­
and he made a good beginning on this before the European ambassadorial
delegation to Israel on Tuesday. The premier must do nothing to facilitate
foreign leaders going around Lieberman and dealing with Netanyahu directly.
A third problem is that there are too many players engaged in high-stakes
foreign policy-making. For instance, we find it curious that Defense
Minister Ehud Barak ­ rather than Lieberman ­ was tasked with negotiating
with US Special Middle East Envoy George Mitchell in New York. After all,
the foreign minister met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in
Washington last month, and acquitted himself well. Certainly, Mitchell¹s
constitution is no more delicate than Clinton's.

Lieberman could have been accompanied by experts from the Defense Ministry
to help with any security issues that might have arisen. But the controversy
over a total and unconditional settlement freeze is in the purview of
foreign, not defense policy. Indeed, it was the Foreign Ministry that
disseminated the rather hollow joint statement following the meeting.
Nor, anyway, did Barak¹s presence ­ as opposed to Lieberman¹s ­ charm the
pants off Mitchell. A senior White House official told The Washington Post,
bluntly: "We have not changed our position at all... Nor has the president
authorized any negotiating room."

Israel recently appointed the highly capable Michael Oren as its ambassador
to Washington. His accreditation is in its final stages. Once that goes
through, it would be wise for visiting Netanyahu confidantes to steer clear
of meetings with Obama administration officials. It is essential that Oren
be recognized as Israel's paramount voice in the American capital.
Israelis' splenetic reaction to Sarkozy¹s meddling is understandable. Let it
not distract us, however, from far more serious challenges.

We need decisive, coherent foreign policy leadership at a time when
President Barack Obama seems intent on testing the special relationship
between the US and Israel. And Netanyahu needs to work with Lieberman in
explaining why ­ for all its good intentions ­ the administration's approach
is bad for both countries.

Mercy has its limits -

Vengeance & Bernie Madoff


When Bernard Madoff's attorney, Ira Lee Sorkin, appealed to US Federal District Court Judge Denny Chin to go easy on his client just before the Ponzi-scheme king was sentenced on Monday, his argument was: "Vengeance is not the goal of punishment."

There is no way of knowing what the judge thought of that. What we do know is that after labeling Madoff's 20-year crime spree an "extraordinary evil," Chin sent him to prison for 150 years. Granted, Madoff showed - if not remorse - then self-awareness, admitting that his $65-billion racket had caused "a great deal of suffering and pain… I live in a tormented state now… I've left a legacy of shame." Indeed, his wife, who absented herself from the courtroom, claims to have known nothing of the plot which left her "embarrassed and ashamed."

Just as "Quisling" has become synonymous with "collaboration"; "Churchillan" with "eloquence" and "Freudian" with "analysis," the name Madoff will henceforth, as The New York Times aptly put it, "become synonymous with greed and fraud."

It will be years before the Nobel Prize winners and baseball heroes; the foundations, hospitals and yeshivot; the universities and charities - and the thousands of pensioners and civil servants (who didn't even know their savings had been funneled to Madoff's operation by the firms they invested with) - know whether any of their losses can be recouped.

The number of lives Madoff shattered will never be known; nor the total number of potential medical breakthroughs his crimes aborted. The harm he caused to countless, anonymous individuals is incalculable.

From a Jewish perspective, Madoff has brought shame upon our people and disrepute to Judaism. He has desecrated God's name - a hillul Hashem. That the religion and ethnicity of non-Jewish criminals is seldom made an issue of is beside the point. It is our tradition, and not what the Gentiles may say, that makes Madoff's Jewishness pertinent.

THIS BRINGS us back to the issue of vengeance. Avraham Feder, rabbi emeritus of Beit Knesset Moreshet Yisrael in Jerusalem, notes that in the 1790s, after European Jews were emancipated, various ancient Hebrew ideas fell out of favor. With modernity, vengeance came to be seen as unethical and even un-Jewish. Jews began to embrace the Christian tenet of turning the other cheek.

In fact, in Jewish tradition, going back to ancient times, vengeance is closely associated with justice. The Psalmist calls upon the Creator: "Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge you, on the kingdoms that do not call on your name; for they have devoured Jacob and destroyed his homeland."

Feder points out that while vengeance is the Lord's, the collective is occasionally empowered to exact retribution or vindication, as in Chapter 8, verse 13 of the Book of Esther, when the Jews are told to be ready "to avenge themselves on their enemies."

Rabbi Jacob Chinitz, a noted Jerusalem educator, has argued that vengeance is justice by another name - and justice is vengeance, so long as it is carried out lawfully, and sanctioned by society. Vigilantism by individuals is not justice and, if rampant, would send civilization back to a Hobbesian state of nature.

Elwood McQuaid, a leading Protestant clergyman and Christian Zionist, cites Romans 12:19 in defining his tradition's attitude to vengeance: "Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath: for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' says the Lord."

McQuaid: "What's interesting, and I believe clarifying here, is that the passage bases its authority on Deuteronomy 32:35. In the following passage, Romans 13, the justice/vengeance issue is left in the hands of the 'governing authorities,' with a strong admonition to obey and support those laws. Therefore, in cases like the Madoff fiasco, Christians would support whatever terms of justice/vengeance the law imposed. The prohibition is against executing personal vengeance, but supportive of the law of the land - justice."

So to attorney Sorkin, we say: Vengeance is indeed an acceptable goal of punishment, certainly in such a case. You might more credibly have appealed for mercy, which the Judeo-Christian tradition, and American jurisprudence, provide when justice makes a petitioner undeserving of leniency.

But even mercy has its limits.