CATCHING UP - Meeting Flemming Rose

I've been too busy to post lately. Here are three piece back-to-back.

An Islamist 'new world order'

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) member-states at the Durban II gathering in Geneva is pushing for "a new world order" that would expand and impose "nondemocratic and illiberal values on the West," says the Danish editor who in 2005 commissioned and published a series of cartoons, one of which depicted the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban that led to worldwide Muslim rioting.

Flemming Rose, editor of Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's largest-circulation newspaper, is visiting Israel under the auspices of the Hebrew University's Shasha Center for Strategic Studies, headed by former Mossad director Efraim Halevy. He's here to lecture on how nations need to find the right balance between religious sensitivities and freedom of expression.

Rose says the OIC is trying to use Durban II to rewrite the rules of human rights and international law in a way that undermines the values of liberty enshrined in the Western canon - including the US Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It's all part of an ongoing Muslim campaign that has been making significant strides, says Rose.

European liberal values, which dominated United Nations voting following the fall of the Soviet Union, are now in retreat. Muslim states attending Durban II are pushing the conference to say that criticizing Islam is a form of incitement.

"We're seeing an erosion of support in the West for freedom of expression in the guise of preventing incitement against Islam," says Rose.

He wants the West to stop being so defensive, pointing out that "Muslims in Demark enjoy far more civil and political rights than they would have in their home countries."

Rose would distinguish between criticizing Islam as a theological and political idea and insulting its adherents.

"I spent many years in the former Soviet Union as a foreign correspondent and married a Russian woman. I am a strong anti-communist, but my late Russian father-in-law was a staunch Stalinist. I abhorred his convictions, but felt love and tenderness for him as an individual."

His experience in the Soviet Union gave him a "very strong antagonism against self-censorship and intimidation of people because of what they are saying."

In Muslim society, he notes, the rights of the dominant religion and culture are paramount. In the West, it is the rights of the individual that reign supreme.

Rose argues that in a globalized world, the idea that Westerners conduct their lives according to Western values while Muslims conduct theirs according to Muslim values simply does not work - because globalization involves both technology and human migration.

"When you publish in Denmark, you can read it within minutes in a totally different political and cultural context. At the same time, every European society is getting more complicated culturally and ethnically. Different taboos and moral codes are forced to live together."

Within their own world, says Rose, Muslims "do not see their own minorities. And when they come to the West, they continue to behave as if they were in the majority."

In this context, the West has no choice but to stand firm on its values - because Muslims are constantly pushing theirs. In our interconnected world, the old model of live and let live simply doesn't make sense.

What Rose would really like to see is reciprocity. He dreams of challenging Muslims: "Accept my taboos, and I will accept yours. If it is a crime to build a church in Saudi Arabia, then it should be illegal to build a mosque in Europe."

But such an approach, he readily admits, is unacceptable because it would lead to an intolerable decrease in freedom.

He talks about "sleeper" blasphemy laws - statutes that have long been on the books in European countries, and that Muslims are trying to reinvigorate. He argues for a "redefinition" of the concept of blasphemy so that it is not exclusively about religion but includes values, classical liberal ones as well.

Were it up to Rose, the only free speech restrictions he'd allow are those that prevent incitement to violence, and discourage libel and infringement on privacy.

"All other restrictions - like blasphemy laws, some of which date back to the 1930s - I'd get rid of."

The key, says Rose, is for the West to continue to emphasize individual rights and not, as in Muslim society, collective rights.

That leads him to make the controversial case for repealing legislation that makes Holocaust denial a crime - even though he feels strongly that the Shoah was a unique event in history, "without precedence. But I think it is a question of morality that you deal with through education and debate; it is not something you legislate. I would only leave [the Holocaust denial law] on the books if you could prove that repealing it would lead to violence. That is not a danger in today's Europe."

"Let's be consistent," he says. "We don't want Jews to have a law based on them as a group if we're arguing that Muslims living in the West should equally not have special group privileges."

Moreover, he says, holding firmly to preserving Western values at home makes it easier for the West to defend human rights in the Muslim world and elsewhere.

Rose wants Israelis to understand that Durban II is part of a broader trend of non-democratic societies trying to hijack international law, thereby instituting a new set of values.

How ingenious, he notes, that having coined the term "Islamophobia," Muslim countries are insinuating that criticizing Islam - as distinct from discriminating against individual Muslims - "is a disease, a sick fantasy that needs to be cured."

Durban II - Here we go again

Wishing all of you a Shabbat Shalom

Friday & Saturday - April 17 & 18

The Durban II charade


First the good news: United Nations professionals have taken over the operation of next week's Durban II conference, determined not to permit the meeting to deteriorate into a repetition of the infamous (2001) Durban I - an anti-racism conference which ironically became a cesspool of Jew-hatred.

Now the bad news: Even if the conference, in Geneva on April 20-25, is conducted in an atmosphere of superficial civility, the deck is already stacked against the Jewish state. The real, irreparable damage has been done by the preparatory committee chaired by Libya and co-chaired by Iran - and paid for mostly by Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The PLO threw in $1,700 as a token of its esteem.

This is akin to purveyors of trans-fat orchestrating a conference on good nutrition. You just know they have ulterior motives.

Under Western pressure, the Durban II organizers "cleaned up" a draft declaration which "reviews" how well the "action program" of Durban I was implemented. All the blatant and egregious references to Israel have been removed. Nevertheless, the supposedly sanitized document begins with an "affirmation" of the original Durban hate-fest and closes with a spiteful denunciation of "occupation" as being "closely associated with racism."

Those who understand the Orwellian newspeak of the "World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance" will appreciate that by affirming Durban I and denouncing "occupation," the conference's built-in anti-Israel majority has simply found a palatable way to continue exploiting the cause of human rights in order to demonize the Jewish state.

Canada, to its credit, was first to announce it would not participate in the Durban II charade. Israel followed suit; then Italy.

Unfortunately, the EU appears set to attend since it can hardly oppose a reaffirmation of Durban I, in which it participated. And Germany, once again, rather than being Israel's true friend inside the EU, says that given its past, it can't be seen to miss an anti-racism conference - even a bogus one.

The Obama administration continues to demand significant changes in the draft declaration and opposes a reaffirmation of Durban I. We urge it to hold firm.

HOWEVER the conference plays out, whatever Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says when he addresses it, and whatever surprises the Organization of the Islamic Conference may have in store for the wording of the final declaration, this conference will end badly because it is attracting the same old crowd, the non-governmental organizations that made Durban I a scandal.

On Sunday, the anti-Zionist radicals plan a massive protest against Israel in Geneva.

So, in the final analysis, it isn't only the text that's a problem, it's the overall Durban gestalt.

Israel has wisely decided to boycott Durban II. Jerusalem's policy is not to play along with phony probes over false massacre charges in Jenin (2002); suspicious deaths of Palestinian civilians in a Gaza beach explosion (2006); the Palestinian bid to use the World Court to block the security barrier (2004); and Richard Falk's investigation of Israel's "human rights abuses" in Gaza (2009).

And if Richard Goldstone does not investigate Hamas when he probes civilian deaths in the recent Gaza war, he too should get no cooperation.

If you hold a political pogrom and no Zionists show up, it kind of takes the pleasure away.

Israel has no interest in enabling sham investigations where its guilt has been predetermined or in facilitating propagandistic show trials.

THE REAL losers in the Durban II charade are the millions of human beings who suffer at the hands of state practitioners of systematic intolerance. With the Jewish state serving as a scapegoat, authoritarian states, including China, Russia, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and Iran, will get a free ride at a conference supposedly dealing with oppression. Countries like North Korea, Libya, Sudan and Somalia, whose citizens enjoy neither political rights nor civil liberties, will strut about as they judge our country.

Fortunately, while the world makes a mockery of human rights, the honor of Geneva will be salvaged and the suffering of the oppressed will receive a glimmer of attention via a parallel gathering - the Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance & Democracy - co-sponsored by genuine human rights groups including Freedom House, Stop Child Executions and UN Watch.

All is not lost.

George Mitchell in Israel

Thursday - Helping Mitchell


US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, on his first visit here since the new government took office, is scheduled to meet separately today with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to discuss how to move forward on negotiations with the Palestinians.

He may well find the Israeli leadership distracted.

In a report neither confirmed nor categorically denied by the White House, The New York Times has stated that Barack Obama may be ready to drop a previous Bush administration demand that Iran stop enriching uranium as a precondition for holding direct negotiations with Washington. The US has anyway said it is ready to join talks with Iran that Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia want to convene. Simply put, Teheran's intransigence has yet again paid dividends.

The US would be willing to "allow Iran to continue enriching uranium for some period during the talks," according to the Times. America's immediate aim is for Teheran to allow international inspectors into its nuclear facilities wherever they may be. Washington's longer-term goal is for Iran to cease enrichment.

Clearly, even at this late date, a compromise could be found that would allow Teheran to maintain a closely monitored civilian nuclear program in return for acquiescing to intrusive international inspections to guarantee it has ceased pursuing a bomb.

Israelis worry, however, that the administration will delude itself into thinking that it has lots of time for talk. We've seen how adept Iran is at playing for time. So, any diplomatic approach needs to have fixed dates and performance-based milestones.

There is reason to think US decision-makers appreciate how fast the clock is ticking. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a House committee last month that Iran had enough material to manufacture a bomb. He added: "Iran having a nuclear weapon… is a very, very bad outcome for the region and for the world."

Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, told a Senate committee that, "although we do not know whether Iran currently intends to develop nuclear weapons, we assess Teheran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop them."

CIA director Leon E. Panetta was more explicit: "From all the information I've seen, I think there is no question that they are seeking [weapons] capability."

Even the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran's 5,500 centrifuges provide it with enough enrichment capacity to build two nuclear bombs a year.

In other words, with the Bush administration bogged down in Iraq, the EU shamelessly stoking Iran's economy, Russia and China flagrantly running interference for it at the UN, and Iran's apologists in the media presenting Israel as the real villain in the Middle East, the mullahs were able to cross the threshold - they now have the material and the knowledge, but have not yet constructed a bomb.

WITH THE threat of an Iranian nuclear device hanging over us, it is improbable that Mitchell will make much headway on the Palestinian track.

Furthermore, the Palestinian polity is paralyzed by divisions between an ascendant Hamas and a fading Fatah. Yet in rejecting an unprecedentedly magnanimous peace plan proffered by the Kadima government late last year, Mahmoud Abbas's "moderates" exposed themselves as unwilling to make the most rudimentary compromises necessary to achieve a two-state solution.

To restate the obvious: No Israeli government will agree to withdraw to the 1949 Armistice Lines, or to a militarized "Palestine" or to a Palestinian "right of return." Moreover, Fatah's recent affirmation of its disgraceful refusal - 16 years after Oslo - to recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state speaks volumes about ultimate Palestinian intentions.

And while we welcome Abbas's cordial pre-Pessah telephone call to Netanyahu, what Israelis would really like to happen is for Fatah to become a genuine alternative to Hamas. That means preparing its people for the kinds of painful concessions they will have to make - alongside the painful concessions Israelis have already indicated a willingness to make - for peace.

So the sooner Iran's toxic sway over the region is dissipated, the better the prospects that Mitchell can help us all move toward reconciliation.

Wealth & Responsibility

Tuesday & Wednesday - Charity begins with priorities


Before the global economic crisis robbed millions of their financial security and turned the world upside down for some, and before most of us had ever heard of Bernie Madoff, organizations tasked with providing basic services to Jews in the Diaspora were - as early as the winter of 2008 - reporting fund-raising shortfalls due to the drop in the value of the dollar.

For the organizations that provide humdrum but utterly indispensable services, this past year or so has been shattering.

It's looking like the United Jewish Communities will be cutting another 18 percent from its $37 million budget - on top of an earlier series of reductions and layoffs. The UJC is the successor organization to United Jewish Appeal, the Council of Jewish Federations and the United Israel Appeal. It brings together 157 local Jewish Federations and 400 independent communities across North America.

Even the solidly middle-class Jewish Federation of Greater Washington has had to trim it budget and give managers a pay cut.

Cash is down but needs are high.

Nursery tuition at a middle class Manhattan Jewish day school runs $23,875. New York's Jewish Week reported that financial aid requests from parents are soaring.

In addition to providing programming for middle class people hard hit by the recession, federations continue to look after the less well off. Roughly 15-20% of the US Jewish population lives below the federal poverty level.

The community could once count on government to carry the bulk of the burden for responsibilities such as operating nursing homes. But US municipalities and states have had to cut their allocations and the federal stimulus package will not cover the entire shortfall.

The economic crisis also means there is less money leaving America for the Jewish Agency and the American Joint Distribution Committee, which helps overseas communities. During Operation Cast Lead, for instance, the federation system provided a credit line to pay for programs that helped Sderot residents receive treatment for trauma.

Too many Israelis are ignorant of the role played by US Jews (and also evangelical Christians) in helping to cover expenses for programs and activities aimed at a wide stratum of our society - from those who frequent the opera to those dependent on communal Seders.

THE ECONOMIC crisis notwithstanding, the top priority for America's estimated 6 million Jewish people is continuity. From a sociological perspective, Jewish affiliation in the 21st century is a matter of choice. Cohesion comes more naturally to those whose Jewishness revolves around religious observance and/or who look to Israel as the cultural center of their lives.

Some 47% of US Jews marry out. So there is an urgent need to anchor affiliated Jews within the community and entice others back.

All this requires, foremost, a vibrant leadership capable of raising funds and establishing coherent program and budgetary priorities.

The trouble is that the community has grown so hyper-pluralist that coherence doesn't come easy. There are too many organizations and there is too much competition for resources. No organization dares admit that it's superfluous. Rich people, along with just plain folk, can always be convinced to part with their money - sometimes for worthy causes and sometimes not. Moreover, as if by magic, "new" rich people come along to fill a void. Guma Aguiar, CEO of Leor Energy, has emerged as a major giver to Chabad-Lubavitch and to Nefesh B'Nefesh.

NO ONE knows when the global financial crisis will finally end. Nor can anyone tell the wealthy how to spend their money. Still, we would urge communally responsible philanthropists to focus their support on charities and causes that aid the broader community. When times are good no one begrudges an affluent person their philanthropic dalliances. But these are not ordinary times. And the needs of the many deserve priority.

In order for money to go where the community most needs it, Jewish benefactors ought to do a better job of communicating, coordinating and networking. This may require a willingness to partner with existing philanthropic structures.

Capital is accumulated in the free market, but prioritizing Jewish communal needs necessarily involves an element of collective decision-making.