Meeting Abigail Green

I understand that you are related to your subject Moses Montefiore?
Yes. He was my great great great great great uncle.
Tell us a bit about your own background.

I was born and bred in London, and since my father isn't Jewish and my mother's family have been here for 200 years that makes me a very English Jew. My mother was brought up in the Sephardi congregation, but she didn't feel she could stay after she married out, and so she joined West London Synagogue which, ironically, is the Reform synagogue Montefiore's brother Horatio helped to found. My husband's Sephardi too, so we got married in the Sephardi synagogue at Bevis Marks. The rabbi was delighted!

When did you decide to write this book?
About 10 years ago. Of course I had always known about Montefiore, but I became intrigued by him as a historical figure when working as a research assistant for Niall Ferguson's History of the House of Rothschild.

Where do you do most of your writing?
I wrote the first half of the book in my office at Brasenose [Oxford University], but when I became a mother I began working at home when my daughter napped.

Is this your first book?
No. My first book was Fatherlands: State-building and Nationhood in Nineteenth Century Germany about identity formation in non-Prussian Germany during the pre-unification period (to c. 1870). Jews did not feature at all, which may be one reason why I wrote this book.

What is your next project?
I'm still narrowing it down, but probably something to do with 19th century humanitarianism.

Let's talk a bit about Montefiore the man. Would he be someone you would enjoy having at your Shabbat dinner table? What was he like?

He was well known for his old-fashioned courtesy so I'm sure he would have been a great Shabbat guest. And of course he was striking -- well over 6 ft even in old age, [though] his dress sense remained stuck in the 1820s.

I always imagined him sounding a bit like my grandfather. I can tell from the way he transliterated Hebrew words in his diary that he pronounced them in exactly the same way.

As to what he was like, I suspect that changed over time. Judith [his wife] liked him, and since I never came across anyone with a bad word to say about her I think we have to take that seriously. He was probably much more fun in his 20s and 30s, when he made friends with some really interesting (if earnest) characters. But as he became older he inevitably became much more rigid. Perhaps he made up for it by having so many interesting stories to tell.

Was it religious fervor that drove his vehement opposition to the establishment of a Reform congregation in London?

No, it was also about keeping the Sephardi community together – I think in many ways that was more important. Almost all the reformers came from Bevis Marks and most of them were Montefiore's relatives, so it was a very bitter thing.

What would it have been like to travel with Montefiore?

To begin with Montefiore and Judith only took a couple of servants with them, and they weren't particular about keeping kosher (although they seem to have avoided bacon). That changed as they became more religious, and after 1846 Montefiore never travelled anywhere without his own shochet. A lot depended on where he was travelling. When he visited Morocco in 1864, he took the train most of the way through France and Spain so he didn't need a lot of people with him, but it was very unusual for Europeans to travel in the Moroccan interior and he crossed the desert from Essaouira to Marrakesh with an entourage of well over a hundred.

Was there a pattern to the type of women Montefiore sought out for his dalliances?

We only have names for two of them, so it's hard to generalize. But neither were Jewish, which I think is not surprising. One was married and the other was a servant. Family legend has it that there were lots of Montefiore "by-blows" [offspring of unmarried parents] wandering round Ramsgate and its surroundings, so I tend to think he dallied with the lower orders -- which would have been very Victorian.

Could you explain why the bulk of the records of this obsessively organized man -- his logs, his meticulous files -- came to be burned upon his demise by a rabbi acting under instructions of Montefiore's nephew Sir Joseph Sebag-Montefiore?

No one really knows, but I find it hard to believe that Montefiore himself ordered it after taking so much trouble over his paperwork.

Was someone trying to protect his reputation?

George Collard, who claims to be an illegitimate descendant of Montefiore’s, likes to think that there was material relating to illegitimate offspring among the papers that were destroyed. Perhaps, but the surviving Montefiore diaries do not contain any kind of intimate information and it is by no means clear that he would have kept a record of any affaires of the heart.

On the other hand, Montefiore’s correspondence would have contained a great many very mundane letters of little interest to anyone. I find it more probable that Montefiore’s nephew simply couldn’t see the point of most of it – especially since so much would have been in languages he could not understand. He certainly made sure that those documents that did survive were those of most interest to him -- his own letters to Montefiore, a diary entry relating to his marriage, material relating to the Damascus Affair, correspondence with the great and good of the non-Jewish world.

How did Montefiore become a Jewish celebrity on a global scale?

That's a big question. People like Dona Gracia and Moses Mendelssohn had big reputations in the parts of the Jewish world, and Shabbatai Zevi managed to bridge the Ashkenazi-Sephardi divide. But I think Montefiore was the first global Jewish celebrity because this was a more global age and because he was also a celebrity in the non-Jewish world. Imperialism and the communications revolution (press,
telegraph, steam and rail) were probably the most important underlying factors.

What distinguished him from the "court Jews" of an earlier era?

The key difference was that he was out in the open. In 1846 a Russian Hassid suggested he should just have bribed the government to improve the situation of Jews in the Pale of Settlement, which would have been the traditional way of doing things; Montefiore was appalled because his whole approach was about honorable publicity.

What was his biggest miscalculation as a Jewish leader?

Travelling to St. Petersburg to congratulate Alexander II on the bicentenary of Peter the Great in the aftermath of the Odessa pogrom of 1872.

And his biggest achievement?

The firman of 1840 [decree issued by the Sultan decrying the false blood libels] was his single greatest achievement, but his achievements as a mobilizer -- of money and public opinion -- were more significant in the long run.

How would you characterize his answer to the perennial "Jewish question"?

I think it changed over time. To begin with, he looked to gradual emancipation and social integration which is why he tried to get Jews in Russia and Turkey to learn Russian and Ottoman, but by the 1880s this was looking increasingly unrealistic in places like Russia and Romania, and even in Western Europe the situation was coming unstuck. That's why he supported the early Zionists and put his faith in the messiah.

Is it remotely conceivable that a leader of his stature and style could arise and wield comparable influence today?

No. The Jewish world is much, much more divided now than it ever was in Montefiore's time -- then it was still possible for one man to speak to a multitude of different religious and cultural constituencies in the same voice.
###ENDS###

Violent Diversions

Time and again troubles in the Arab world have increased the chances of violence against Israel. Case in point: Hezbollah's assassination of Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri, the country's chief Sunni figure, on February 14, 2005, resulted in a period of severe political pressure on the Shi'ite movement. Its Syrian ally, presumed complicit in the murder, was compelled to withdraw its forces from the country. Only when the Islamist group sent its gunmen across the border into Israel on July 12, 2006 seizing two Israeli soldiers and sparking a 34-day conflagration was attention diverted from the crime. Hezbollah bought the time it needed to solidify its position as the ultimate domestic arbiter of Lebanese politics.

Now, with the Special Tribunal For Lebanon reportedly poised to finger senior Hezbollah operative Mustafa Badr al-Din for carrying out the Hariri murder, will Hassan Nasrallah again seek to draw attention away from his movement's culpability with a diversionary attack against Israel? This time there is less incentive to do so. He has already preempted the panel by predicting that his men were about to be traduced. Syria, like Hezbollah a client of Iran, has brazenly demanded that the Hariri investigation be shut down because identifying Hariri's killers would threaten Lebanon's stability. Sunni powers are capitulating to the Syrian and Hezbollah intimidation.

Saudi King Abdullah, patron to the slain Hariri as well as his son, current Prime Minister Saad Hariri, travelled to Beirut on the same plane as Syrian President Bashar Assad in a symbolic push for Lebanese unity during an hours-long "summit." An Arab analyst close to the Hariri camp intuited that Syria had offered to "protect" the surviving Hariri in return for quashing the indictment against his Hezbollah killer. The son, who once openly blamed Assad for murdering his father, has sensibly concluded the neither Washington, Europe nor the Sunni Arab powers are prepared to stand up to Hezbollah, Damascus or Tehran. Consequently, the younger Hariri has pledged homage to Assad.

With Sunnis and Shi'ites working in tandem to cover-up the Hariri assassination in a bid to calm Lebanese tensions, Israeli analysts rate the prospect of a "diversionary" attack from the north as low.

Turning to the south, divisions among the Palestinians have been contributing to a heating up the Gaza front. The Palestinian Authority has come under intense pressure from Washington to enter into direct negotiations with the Netanyahu government. In interviews with the Israeli media, PA negotiator Saeb Erekat has taken to lobbying the Israeli public to justify the Palestinian refusal to talk. Erekat explained that Mahmoud Abbas has submitted "far-reaching" proposals on final-status issues -- borders, Jerusalem, refugees, water and security -- to U.S. peace envoy George Mitchell and is waiting to hear a positive response from Israel. Washington, however, has apparently advised the PA that it will not be able to further assist the Palestinians in establishing a state if they continue to reject talking directly to Israel.

Against this background, over the weekend a Grad missile fired from Gaza slammed into Ashkelon, and Kassam rockets smashed into Sapir College in the western Negev. Fortunately, no one was hurt in either attack.

By striking across the border – or looking the other way as global jihadist launch their rockets on Eilat – Hamas may be trying to instigate an Israeli retaliation that it can portray as an "atrocity" or "war crime" thereby inhibiting an anyway hesitant Ramallah from participating in genuine give-and-take bargaining with Israel. Past experience is worth recalling: Hamas first gained infamy with a bus bombing in April 1993 intended to thwart the Oslo Accords signed anyway five months later. In the course of 1995 and 1996 Hamas's cold-blooded bombing campaigns were aimed at torpedoing Oslo's implementation.

Hezbollah has acknowledged miscalculating the force of Israel’s reaction to previous Islamist aggression. Hamas has been less publicly self-critical about the repercussions of its violent adventurism. What would happen if the next rocket from Gaza were to strike a crowded shopping mall or playground? The risks notwithstanding, chances are Hamas's will continue its noxious efforts to foil an anyway hobbled peace process.

-- August 2010

Waiting for a Political Messiah

Israelis are not scheduled to go to the polls until October 2013 though no one would be astonished if some political upheaval forced new elections to be held earlier.

Several high profile contenders are already letting it be known that they could be enticed to provide the political deliverance Israelis habitually crave – either by starting new parties or taking leadership roles in existing ones. The saviors waiting in the wings include the photogenic television personality Yair Lapid, who is promising to stand up to the "settlers" and "ultra-Orthodox." His late father, Tommy Lapid, trail blazed a similar path.

Then there is the magnetic Aryeh Deri, once the top vote-getter of the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox Shas party and now staking out a politically centrist position. Lastly, though this hardly exhausts the list, is Dan Halutz. Feeling unappreciated, he belatedly resigned as IDF Chief of General Staff in 2007 in the wake of official criticism over his handling of the Second Lebanon War.

Perhaps more than voters in other Western democracies Israelis go to the polls with a smorgasbord of choices. The country's proportional representation system encourages new parties to crop up all the time. Why? Because "winning" a parliamentary seat requires crossing an electoral threshold set at a mere 1.5 percent of the total vote (1% until 1992). The proliferation of parties means that all Israeli governments have been based on coalitions; no single party has ever achieved an outright majority in the 120-member Knesset.

In the country's early years, elections were essentially competitions among left-wing parties for supremacy, and mostly won by Mapai (a precursor to today's Labor). Only in 1977, with the victory of the right-wing Likud party did power become more diffuse – though the basic rules of the political game remained the same. Minor parties continued to come and go impelled by personality clashes within existing parties, ethnic or religious grievances, or demands for ideological rigidity. Two with an atypical shelf-life were Ratz which broke away from Labor in 1973 to champion a more dovish security line and eventually morphed into today's Meretz, and Shas which quit the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox amalgamation in 1984 to become a Sephardi powerbase.

As early as 1976, however, voters were looking for a viable major party alternative to Labor and Likud. Liberal voters in particular were dejected over Labor's often corrupt stranglehold on power, yet were uncomfortable with Likud's perceived stridency about the West Bank. The Democratic Movement for Change, founded by archeologist and soldier Yigael Yadin met their yen for a "third-way" that backed a pragmatic middle ground. But Yadin's party fragmented and by 1981 he had retired from politics.

Still other third way aspirants appeared: The Centre party, founded by general Yitzhak Mordechai (1996), and Avigdor Kahalani's Third Way Party (1996), actually mostly a single-issue movement committed to retaining the Golan Heights. In 1999, columnist Tommy Lapid – Yair's father -- captured the third way mantle in a big way with his Shinui ("Change") party, that presented itself as secular and centrist, but which achieved most of its traction by lambasting (sometimes tastelessly) perceived ultra-Orthodox religious coercion in the public square. By 2006, this party, too, had devoured itself in internecine power struggles.

Then came Kadima founded in 2005 by Ariel Sharon – ostensibly as a third way movement – and bringing together politicians from both Labor and Likud. In reality, the party was a necessary vehicle for Sharon who had repeatedly failed to obtain Likud support for his determination to disengage from the Gaza Strip. In any case, Israeli third way movements have been closely tied to the personalities of their leaders whether Yadin, Lapid or a rebranded Sharon.

This fixation with new personalities and parties promising change continues. Political scientists have called for, and politicians have even paid lip-service to, restructuring the current hyper-pluralist political system beginning with electoral reform. This would weaken the power of parties whose commitments are to ethnic, religious or single-issue causes rather than to broader societal interests. Alas, the present system is designed to perpetuate itself. Even David Ben-Gurion could not pull off electoral reform back in the 1950s – which goes a long way toward explaining Israelis' fascination with ephemeral political saviors.

-- July 2010

Israel's Mossad

Israel's successful deployment last week of its fourth orbiting spy satellite, Ofek 9, is being lauded by the country's intelligence community for delivering better than expected surveillance images of "areas of interest." At the same time, Israel's human intelligence apparatus, as essential as ever to the Jewish state's survival, has come under mounting criticism for the blow-back of two of its recent missions: the presumed liquidation of senior Hamas operative Mahmoud Mabhouh in Dubai, and the Israel navy's unpreparedness in the interdiction of the Gaza-bound Turkish flotilla. Meantime, Lebanon continues to sweep-up reputed Israeli assets spying on Hezbollah. Over the weekend, came reports that the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was looking to replace Meir Dagan, the head of the Mossad foreign intelligence agency, rather than extend his term after eight years.

David Ben-Gurion established the Israel Secret Intelligence Service (its current name) in 1951 and made it directly accountable to the Prime Minister's Office. The Mossad solidified its international reputation for spycraft when in 1956 it obtained Khrushchev's Secret Speech signaling a repudiation of Stalinism. In 1961 the Mossad alerted French president Charles de Gaulle of a plot against his life thereby crucially strengthening Franco-Israeli relations.

Until recently admiration for Dagan, in the afterglow of the elimination of Hezbollah mastermind Imad Mughniyeh and the purported stalling of Iran's dash for nuclear weapons, outweighed disapproval over his management style. In any event, Dagan is hardly the first Mossad chief to face criticism.

The Mossad has, in fact, historically been a lightning rod for condemnation. Even the decisions of the legendary Isser Harel, the Mossad's longest serving chief, drew -- comparatively mild by today's standards -- UN condemnation after the agency abducted Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires to face justice in Jerusalem. Or take Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor, undoubtedly facilitated by Mossad intelligence, which was unanimously condemned by the UN Security Council. The Mossad's capture in London of the Israeli renegade nuclear worker Mordechai Vanunu in 1986 likely provoked a General Assembly resolution denouncing Israel's purported nuclear capacity. The 1988 assassination of Fatah co-founder Khalil Wazir (Abu Jihad) in Tunis as he was laying the groundwork for the first intifada generated a strong denunciation from the UN Security Council. And in 1997, after a spate of suicide bombings in Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, serving his first term as premier, ordered the Mossad to retaliate against Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal then based in Amman. But the mission to poison Mashaal ended in ignominious failure when two members of the Mossad team were captured. Under intense US pressure Israel was forced to provide Jordan with the antidote and release Hamas prisoners.

Invariably, when the Mossad becomes involved the stakes are already high. Its primary mission today is to block Iran's quest for nuclear weapons and to conduct counter-terror operations. Because of the nature of its work, its successes tend to remain hidden while its failures are often magnified. Speaking at a gathering for current and former Mossad operatives this week, Dagan was still standing and full of praise for his operatives as was President Shimon Peres who remarked that the Mossad’s reputation in the global intelligence community was undiminished.

John Le Carre, for all his moral relativism, may have been on to something when he had the anti-hero of his espionage classic Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy remark that you can tell the soul of a nation from its intelligence service. What can one discern about Israel's soul from the operations of the Mossad? That the Jewish state lives on a practically constant war-footing facing existential danger is obvious. What stands out is that Israel's quest for security is inextricably linked with a yearning to create conditions conducive for a secure peace. It is not incidental that the Mossad's logo contains – not a hawk or eagle – but a dove.

-- June 2010

Gaza's isolation

On Monday, European Foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg heard Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy czar, argue that Gaza's "dangerous isolation" had to end. The 27-nation union agreed that Israel's blockade of the Hamas-governed enclave was "unsustainable" and "politically counterproductive."

In the aftermath of the failed May 31st attempt by a Turkish flotilla to defy Israel's maritime quarantine of the Strip, and the ensuing deaths of nine Turkish mercenaries on board, Jerusalem has come under withering pressure to abandon its policy of strictly limiting the type of non-humanitarian commodities allowed into the Strip.

The EU ministers want daily life for the people of Gaza to return to normal and for Israel to relate to Gaza as if Hamas were not ruling the enclave. To that end, the ministers demanded the unconditional opening of crossings for the flow of goods and persons to and from the Strip. No claim of a humanitarian crisis was made, so what appears to be "unsustainable" in Europe's mind is the continued lack of normalcy. The ministers did not relate to the consequences normalization might have on strengthening Hamas's rule. Instead, they obliquely called for "Palestinian reconciliation behind President Mahmoud Abbas."

After Hamas defeated Fatah in the January 2006 Palestinian elections, the Quartet – the EU, US, Russia and the UN – laid down conditions Hamas needed to meet to be accepted by the civilized world: a commitment to non-violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous Palestinian obligations. Nevertheless, several EU countries have been discreetly talking to Hamas; Russia has been doing so openly, and Hamas claims it has even had indirect contact with the Obama administration.
For Europe, isolating Gaza is "politically counterproductive" in the sense that some EU members presumably prefer the path of least resistance and are willing to accept Hamas as a fait accompli. Some see dealing with Hamas as potentially facilitating Palestinian reconciliation. And some may hope that engaging Hamas might help moderate its policies.

In fact, the path of least resistance is paved with perilous consequences. The surest indicator Hamas has no interest in moderating its opposition on peace is its rejection of the Quartet's conditions in the first place. And as for promoting Palestinian reconciliation, Fatah has made it plain that the international flirtation with Hamas is unhelpful.
Far from the continued isolation of Gaza being "dangerous," insisting on normalcy under current conditions is untenable. First, it would legitimize and solidify Hamas's suzerainty over the Gaza Strip, institutionalizing a destabilizing, intransigent and obsessively anti-Israel Iranian-backed satellite situated a short drive from metropolitan Tel Aviv. Second, it could set the stage for Hamas's complete takeover of a still under-developed Palestinian polity, dislodging the comparatively moderate Fatah government now in the West Bank. (Indeed, this week's visit to Gaza by Arab League chief Amr Moussa was viewed with consternation by Fatah officials in Ramallah.) Third, and massively important to the West, it could undermine the stability of Egypt – just over the Gaza border -- by providing an infusion of energy and succor to Hamas's beleaguered parent-body, the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Gaza blockade is too often portrayed as an arbitrary exercise in Israeli power. History argues otherwise. Ariel Sharon's government, finding no Palestinian peace partner, unilaterally disengaged from Gaza in the summer of 2005 thus presenting the Palestinians with the opportunity to create a Singapore on the Mediterranean. In January 2006, however, Hamas defeated Fatah in Palestinian elections. Within six months, Gaza gunmen raided Israel killing two IDF soldiers and capturing Gilad Schalit. Israel also came under accelerated bombardment from Gaza. All the while, Arab states sought -- and failed-- to heal the Fatah-Hamas rift. Instead, Hamas expelled Fatah from Gaza in an orgy of violence. To halt the onslaught of rockets that had traumatized Sderot, Ehud Olmert was obliged to launch Operation Cast Lead (December 27, 2008-January 18, 2009). That unfairly-maligned military campaign has mostly deterred further Hamas aggression.

If The New York Times is correct that Israel's efforts to weaken Hamas and drive it from power have failed, it is precisely because the international community has worked so diligently to undermine Israel's labors. The Economist complains that Israel's policy of isolation is responsible for the fact that the Islamists are creating a Gaza in their own image. But precipitously opening up Gaza now would more likely spread the Islamist toxin to the West Bank than relative Fatah moderation to Gaza.
With the Quartet and EU apparently poised to buckle, Hamas is already relishing an end to the blockade. Yet officials in Israel maintain that Hamas is in fact on the brink of political and economic collapse; its popularity among Palestinians faltering. According to a Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll released Tuesday, if presidential elections were held today, Abbas would defeat Hamas premier Ismail Haniyeh 54 percent to 39%.

In short, contrary to accepted wisdom, the blockade may well be working.
Israelis are aware that Europeans unfairly view them as paranoid – supposedly suffering from a "siege mentality." Yet a devil-may-care approach to ending Gaza's isolation could permanently implant an empowered Hamas to menace not just the Jewish state and moderate Arabs, but to challenge Western interests for years to come.



-- June 2010