To the Moon

And that's the way it was...


On July 20, 1969, at 10:18 p.m. Israel time - 40 years ago today - Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon.

President Barack Obama will have to weigh the advice of a panel of experts due to report in August and decide whether to spend an estimated $100 billion so that Americans can return to the moon on the 50th anniversary of the first landing.

Lunar colonies could serve as a stepping-stone for an eventual manned mission to Mars. From the moon, astronauts might travel into deep space to the asteroid Apophis, when it passes near Earth in 2021. Later they might reach Mars' moon, Phobos. Some experts hope that humans could journey to Mars as soon as 2031.

Or should space exploration be relegated to cheaper robotic proxies? It's a tough decision.

America finds itself $11 trillion dollars in debt. This year's budget deficit alone is $482 billion. With a wobbly economy, rising unemployment, wars in Afghanistan-Pakistan and Iraq, and millions of Americans without health insurance, can Obama afford to be extravagant on space?

THE NIGHT of that moon landing, Americans were mesmerized by a grainy black-and-white simulation of the Eagle approaching the moon. Millions were tuned to CBS, where Walter Cronkite was anchoring coverage of the descent to the lunar surface. Mission control called off the numbers until there were none left - and Cronkite exclaimed: "Man on the Moon!"

A moment later came word from the astronauts: "Houston, Tranquility base here; the eagle has landed."

Cronkite, who died on Friday at 92, recalled that despite years of preparation, he was nearly speechless with joy. On earth, the War in Vietnam was taking its toll; campus unrest and racial tension roiled. But all that was placed in abeyance as eyes turned heavenward - via the miracle of television - to see Armstrong step onto the surface of the moon, with the words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

This week, the Endeavour space shuttle with its seven-member crew docked with the International Space Station, a structure now as large as a four-bedroom house, presently home to 12 men and a woman - seven Americans, two Russians and two Canadians. When this mission is over, the station will contain an "outdoor" observatory. Only seven missions remain before the shuttle fleet is retired, NASA says.

ISRAELIS COULD not view the live telecast of the first moon landing - our technology was not that advanced. Israel Radio instead broadcast the news in real time, translating each milestone into Hebrew.

The country tried to put aside its reality to share in the excitement. In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the US Cultural Center was screening NASA films every 30 minutes.

Israel's victory in the Six Day War notwithstanding, a war of attrition raged on with Egypt. And as Michael Collins, Armstrong and Aldrin were orbiting the moon, the IAF shot down five Egyptian planes over Suez. Around the time the Eagle rejoined Columbia in orbit, Jordanian artillery was shelling Beit She'an.

Israel's Sephardi Chief Rabbi, Yitzhak Nissan, prayed that the moon walk would not deepen man's hubris, but that instead people would better appreciate the act of Creation.

Both Egypt and Jordan devoted more news coverage to the moon landing than to their war against Israel; not so Syria. Palestinian Arab terrorism continued unabated: an attack in Hebron on Israelis making a pilgrimage to the Cave of the Machpelah; the murder of a man waiting for a bus in Tel Aviv by an exploding parcel.

As the astronauts splashed down safely, the IAF downed seven more Egyptian planes after 40 enemy aircraft crossed the Suez Canal. In Haifa's outdoor market, three bombs planted in watermelons detonated, injuring shoppers.

LOOKING back, it is heartening that Israel is now at peace with Egypt and Jordan, though endlessly disquieting that Palestinian intransigence has stalemated reconciliation on that front.

The exploration of space, meanwhile, is a constant reminder that all of us are denizens of the third planet from the sun, and part of something far bigger than meets the eye.

Haredi intifada

Gevalt!

An innocent and devoted mother sits in jail because Zionist authorities want to make an example of her to intimidate God-fearing haredim struggling to preserve the sanctity of Jerusalem. The trumped-up charge that keeps this selfless (pregnant) lady behind bars is that for two years she starved her little boy almost to death.

They claim she is suffering from a psychiatric disorder, Munchausen syndrome-by-proxy, which caused her to harm her son to win attention for herself. What nonsense! Everyone knows she is perfectly normal.

Why isn't the media reporting the truth? The child suffered from cancer and had undergone chemotherapy. The doctors told his mother not to allow him food by mouth - which is why the three-year-old became so emaciated, requiring multiple hospitalizations, and ended up weighing seven kilograms. Everyone in the Hadassah oncology department knows this to be true; they saw how she stayed with the child from early morning until late at night.

Then one day she said something that offended some big-shot doctor, because they were doing experiments on the child. Naturally, our community is in an uproar over her unjust arrest…

THIS IS a composite of the conspiracy theories circulating not just on the streets of Mea She'arim and Ramat Beit Shemesh, where the extremist, anti-Zionist Toldot Aharon hassidic sect - to which the troubled family adheres - and its fanatical Naturei Karta allies hold sway, but also in other ultra-Orthodox areas such as Jerusalem's Har Nof, where denizens lead considerably less insular lives. There is sympathy in the wider haredi world for the grievances of the rioters, who have vandalized traffic lights, burned garbage dumpsters and thrown projectiles at police, city workers and passing vehicles.

Haredi women have conducted special prayer meetings for the mother's release. Hassidic politicos have denounced as "collective punishment" Mayor Nir Barkat's decision to suspend municipal services in the affected areas after city social services and sanitation workers came under attack. (Only Lithuanian haredi rabbis have urged their followers not to participate in the rioting.)

For the record, Dr. Yair Birnbaum, deputy director of Hadassah hospital, has confirmed that the abused child never had cancer, and was never treated with chemotherapy. Also that since the boy's separation from his mother, he has been gaining weight and his physical condition has improved.

THAT THE haredi world - particularly Ashkenazi hassidim - finds it enormously difficult to grapple with child, sexual and spousal abuse comes to light when community members turn to the state for vital medical and social services. That's how we learned about Rabbi Elior Chen, who instructed a gullible mother to cleanse her child of "satanic possession." And about Yisrael Walz, who shook his son to death - that became known when the infant was brought to hospital. Some haredim, fearing the diabolical designs of Zionist authorities, say they now hesitate to take their children to hospital.

There are dysfunctional families among all strata of Israeli society. But the only stratum that reacts with collective violence when abuse is exposed is the most insular subdivision of the haredi world.

Why is such antisocial behavior tacitly countenanced by the more conventional hassidim? Because they share values which hold that men should be gainfully unemployed, women socialized to believe that the back of the bus is where God wants them, and youths reared to be clueless about the outside world.

Violence - stopping archeological digs (which might unearth Jewish graves) and protesting the opening on Shabbat of cinemas, 24/7 mini-markets, and parking garages outside their neighborhoods - has become a default, communally sanctioned response.

THIS impulse is emblematic of an alienation which, because it is ripping Israeli society apart, begs to be better understood. Haredim, like Arab citizens of Israel, want to be accepted as different, yet feel shunned.

The Kerner Commission was established to examine the causes of rioting in America's inner cities; in Britain and France, commissions have examined Muslim unrest. Here in Israel, the Orr Commission investigated Arab rioting.

Perhaps we need a state commission to tell us not only why a volatile minority of hassidic sects periodically runs amok - but also how to discourage the culture of extreme insularity that lies at the root of their self-perpetuated estrangement.

Obama meets US Jewish leaders

Whenever American Jewish leaders are invited to the White House to talk
about Israel --­ as 16 were on Monday evening ­-- rest assured that the purpose
of the invitation is not to give the machers an opportunity to sway the leader of the free world, but for the administration to diminish any prospect of them lobbying against the president's policies.

White House aides Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Dan Shapiro sought to
exclude anyone who was likely to strike a discordant note.

None of Israel's leading Christian supporters were invited. And just to be on the safe side, the heads of marginal groups lobbying for an American-imposed solution to
the conflict were invited, and put on a par with the leaders of mainstream
political, religious, fraternal and philanthropic organizations.

It's one thing to criticize Israel's policies; another to advocate
approaches that endanger our security.

Jewish personalities have been legitimately criticizing this or that Israeli
policy since the 1950s, long before the "occupation" and settlements.

When the settlement enterprise got under way after the 1967 war, American Jewish
leaders were not enamored. But so long as the Arabs were perceived to be in
a zero-sum conflict with Israel, Diaspora discomfiture over settlements was
mostly muted. That changed when the perception became one of an emerging
moderate Palestinian Arab leadership genuinely committed to a two-state
solution.

Various administrations have since found it easier to pressure Israel into
concessions by dissociating the pro-Israel community from Israeli West Bank
policies, and by promoting American pressure as being in Israel¹s own best
interest.

Today, we are witnessing a "perfect storm" of diffuse US pressure on Israel.
Begin with the unyielding opposition to the settlement enterprise of every
administration since Richard Nixon's. Add the growing sense among
establishment figures that non-strategic settlements really are an obstacle
to peace. Consider that the overwhelming majority of American Jews have
never once visited this country and have no understanding of the topography
of the West Bank, or of Israel's legitimate security needs. Then throw in
the emergence of self-proclaimed pro-Israel groups ­ stridently ideological,
highly mobilized and well-funded ­ advocating an American-imposed solution
to the conflict.

Never has criticism of Israel been less nuanced and more unhelpful to
fostering peace.

Who can blame Barack Obama for exploiting this political environment to put
the screws on Israel?

Answer: Those who realize that the settlement-freeze
issue is a red herring; that the non-zero-sum nature of Palestinian
intentions is far from assured; and that it is the Palestinians, not Israel,
who are inhibiting progress on a two-state solution.

AT MONDAY¹S meeting, according to The Los Angeles Times, Obama told the Jewish leaders that public disagreements between the US government and Israel were useful leverage in the pursuit of peace. The AP synopsized
Obama¹s position this way: Eight years of demanding Palestinian concessions
produced no results; it was time to try a different tack.

Assuming these accounts are accurate, it is depressing that Obama's words
did not elicit respectful dissent. Rather, as one rabbinical attendee -- a leader of the Conservative movement -- told reporters, he was keen to let the president have a go.

Obama claimed that the media tended to play up disagreements with Israel
while ignoring his demands of the Arabs. If so, that's probably because the
administration's calls on Israel are public and strident, while those on the
Arabs are hushed and diplomatic.

I'm not suggesting that Obama is substantively less pro-Israel than most
of his predecessors. But I am concerned over his refusal to explicitly
embrace the 1967-plus strategy enunciated by his predecessor. The furthest
he seems willing to go is to hint that changes which have occurred since
1967 will inevitably influence final-status negotiations.

IF THE administration feels it faces no countervailing pressure, it will go
on maintaining that settlements are the obstacle to peace. This alienates
Israel's majority, which is willing to make painful territorial concessions,
yet believes that ill-tempered calls for an unconditional freeze everywhere
only encourage Palestinian intransigence.

Pro-Israel Americans should caution Obama not to lose the Israeli "street"
as he seeks favor with the Arab one.

They need to say --­ loud and clear --­ that the principles enunciated by Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at Bar-Ilan deserve strong the administration's
backing.

Javier Solana and an imposed 'peace' in the Middle East

'Real mediation'


Javier Solana has had enough. After 10 years as the European Union's foreign policy chief - and despite all the treasure and energy he has poured into Middle East peacemaking - the physicist-turned-diplomat is heading into retirement with Iran on the cusp of an atom bomb, Hamas solidifying its control over Gaza, and Mahmoud Abbas as recalcitrant as ever.

On July 11, Solana gave a speech to the Ditchley Foundation in London which made headlines.

Like many diplomats and intellectuals, Solana appears to regard a Palestinian state as some kind of regional cure-all. Reading between the lines, it's as if he believes that the mullahs in Iran will stop grabbing for regional hegemony, stealing (rigged) elections, and pursuing nuclear weapons; that Arab autocrats will guide their polities toward tolerance and representative government; that Shi'ites and Sunnis will stop blowing each other up; that Kurds, Copts and Baha'is will gain equality.

The Taliban in Afghanistan will liberate women from their burqas; North Africa's Islamists will lay down their weapons; al-Qaida will disband. And millions of restive, alienated Muslims throughout Europe will find a sense of belonging, allowing tranquility to prevail in the continent's inner cities... If only the Palestinians had a state.

THE FRAMEWORK for Palestinian statehood Solana referenced in his London speech included the Clinton Parameters and the Geneva Initiative. Israelis find these, whatever their imperfections, broadly acceptable as points of departure for negotiations.

It was on January 7, 2001 that then-president Bill Clinton called for the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state on most of the West Bank; for the incorporation of settlement blocs into Israel, and for land swaps as necessary. Palestinian refugees, he said, could "return" only to a non-militarized Palestine.

The European-financed Geneva Initiative similarly called for settlement blocs to be annexed to Israel and for a demilitarized Palestinian state. It also insisted that a solution to the refugee issue had to be found in "Palestine," not Israel.

Tellingly, Solana chose to ignore the fact that Ehud Olmert, at the end of 2008, had essentially offered Abbas a turbo-charged version of the Clinton Parameters. Abbas said no, insisting that Israel pull back to the 1949 Armistice Lines and permit itself to be demographically smothered by Arab "refugees" in their millions.

Solana's speech then went off on a tangent about settlements - about how many more Jews lived in Judea and Samaria today compared to when the Oslo Accords were signed. Solana knows that were Israel and the Palestinians to agree on permanent boundaries, settlements situated on the Arab side of the border would, in all probability, be uprooted. It is the Palestinian propensity for violence and intransigence that has robbed Israelis of any incentive to abandon the Jewish heartland.

Solana's fixation with settlements obfuscates and plays to the galleries, but does not genuinely illuminate why peacemaking has stalled.

Next, he turned to Hamas: "Whether we like it or not, Hamas will have to be part of the solution." Full stop. Not a word about the Quartet's principles on recognizing Israel, ending terrorism and abiding by past Palestinian commitments.

He did offer a circumspect critique of the "binary character - all or nothing" of the Arab Peace Initiative, which he admitted would have to be "nuanced."

SOLANA THEN offered a way forward toward creating a Palestinian state: "real mediation." By this, he appeared to mean imposing a solution, and a timetable for its implementation. If the parties didn't go along, he'd have the UN Security Council essentially codify the "real mediation" with its imprimatur.

The contrasting reactions to the Solana speech are instructive. The Palestinians' creative interpretation had Solana calling for the Security Council to recognize a Palestinian state - in line with their maximalist stance - by a certain deadline; even if Israel does not.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said: "We do not object. It's time for the international community to stop treating Israel as above the laws of man."

The reaction of Israel's Foreign Ministry was that peace had to be built on negotiations, not imposed.

Plainly, the Palestinians trust that an internationally imposed "peace" would mostly ignore Israeli concerns, while catering to theirs.

Israelis do not disagree.

NAACP at 100 as seen from Jerusalem

Out of Africa

In the American ideal, leaders who cling to power through deceit and the silencing of dissent are on the wrong side of history, to paraphrase a line from President Barack Obama's inaugural address.

This was essentially the message Obama brought with him as he and his family spent a day over the weekend in Ghana.

The president is of Kenyan descent on his father's side; the First Lady is the great-great-granddaughter of a slave.

In Ghana, the couple and their daughters, Sasha, eight, and Malia, 11, passed through the "Door of No Return" at Cape Coast Castle, where African slaves were "warehoused" in dungeons, sometimes for weeks on end, before being shipped to a life of bondage in the New World. Obama said the 17th-century fortress was "reminiscent of the trip that I took to Buchenwald. It reminds us of the capacity of human beings to commit great evil."

Though the White House kept the itinerary of the visit low-key, thousands of Ghanaians, many wearing souvenir T-shirts and waving American flags, lined the streets and crowded on rooftops to catch a glimpse of Obama.

Ghana was selected for the visit because it is one of the few stable democracies on the continent.

Obama met with President John Atta Mills and addressed parliamentarians and dignitaries at Accra's convention center, saying: "We must start from the simple premise that Africa's future is up to Africans… The West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants."

He drew applause when he added: "No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the port authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery."

OBAMA returned to the US just as delegates of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) were gathering in Manhattan to mark the group's centenary. An impetus for the NAACP's founding was the revulsion liberals felt toward the vile practice of lynching; another was shock over the anti-black rampages in Springfield, Illinois, in 1908.

The NAACP's founders and early activists included legendary African Americans, among them W.E.B. Du Bois, joined by socially committed Jews, including Henry Moscowitz, Joel Spingarn, Julius Rosenthal, Lillian Wald, Emil G. Hirsch and Stephen Wise.

Over the years, Jews also contributed to some of the key legal victories achieved by the civil rights movement. For instance, Jack Greenberg assisted Thurgood Marshall in the watershed US Supreme Court case of Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, and succeeded him as counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

When the black power movement achieved ascendancy in the 1960s-1970s, and violent Jew-hatred became a regular occurrence in urban America, what divided Jews and blacks became stronger than that which united them. The two communities were further driven apart because Jews mostly opposed racial preferences in employment (affirmative action) - even to compensate for institutionalized discrimination.

Meanwhile, the NAACP went through a period of racial chauvinism, reaching its nadir with the brief appointment, in April 1993, of Ben Chavis as executive director. He was and remains a follower of the notorious hater Louis Farrakhan.

TO A welcome and remarkable extent, tensions between African Americans and Jews have receded in the 21st century. It seemed only natural that Obama should receive 78 percent of the Jewish vote, and that two of the president's closets aides would be Jewish.

Today's NAACP, led by Benjamin Todd Jealous, has recommitted to the values of its founders: "We are from our origin a multiracial, multiethnic human rights organization."

And so long as prejudice, sometimes spilling over into outright hate, remains intrinsic to human nature there will be work for advocates of civil rights.

The US civil rights movement and our Zionist enterprise, 6,000 miles away, share a passion for the Promised Land. For Zionists, it is a tangible place; for African Americans it is more of an destination. As both secure their hard-won achievements, they need to strive to remain faithful to their founders' ideals.