Balfour Street - A blog about life in Israel and Tel Aviv

Not compensating for something ...

2011-09-28T01:06:00.000+03:00

The Turkish PM introducing his big, strong, powerful new battleship.

Jihadist Jellyfish ...

2011-07-06T14:34:00.000+03:00

After Israel sent a fleet of "Zionist Attack Sharks" to terrorize Egyptian Red Sea resorts, and then inserted a dangerous "Zionist Spy Vulture" to conduct sabotage operations in Saudi Arabia, Israel's enemies have unleashed their response on Israel's infrastructure: Jihadist Jellyfish.

A swarm of jellyfish is threatening a power plant in Israel.

The facility in Hadera uses sea water for cooling off purposes but huge numbers of jellyfish have been sucked into the cooling system.

Israel's Electric Corp, which runs the plant, has warned entire cities could be left without power if the problem persists.

Nachum Plaumbaum, a worker at the plant, explained how the jellyfish could stop the power plant from functioning.

Terrifying!

Is this excessive force ...

2011-05-29T15:36:00.000+03:00

I think it bears repeating that when someone makes a claim about a particular event, especially when it is an event that has to do with Israel, that claim should be treated with skepticism. All too often the people reporting on events here are subject to profound bias.

This is especially true of the various blogs and websites affiliated with the radical Israeli left and other anti-Israel sites. One example is the 972 magazine website.

In a recent post on the site, writer Joseph Dana covered a protest that was held against a new Jewish neighborhood in the eastern part of Jerusalem. The protesters labeled the community as an illegal settlement in Arab East Jerusalem.

I don't want to get into the details of their claim. I think these people have the right to believe whatever they want and to hold peaceful protests if they so choose.

That is precisely how Dana described the protest, as non-violent, and he posted two videos to prove his point. He also claimed that the Israeli police "reacted with excessive and violent force against the chanting Jewish protesters." I highly recommend you read the post and watch both videos that he posted. I'm posting the second, longer video as it provides a much more accurate picture of the event.

I also believe that the video contradicts Dana's account of the protest. The longer video makes it clear that the protesters were blocking the entrance to the community. Additionally, the video shows protesters linking arms and resisting police efforts to clear them from the entrance.

In this light, the police actions do not appear to be excessive at all. In fact my observations of the video lead me believe that police used restraint in dealing with the protesters who were very aggressive and actively confronted them.

This is one of my main issues with the hard left in Israel. I frequently read their accounts of encounters with Israeli police and all too often they post videos in support of their claims that demonstrate the exact opposite.

To be sure, I have also seen videos of Israeli police and soldiers using excessive force against protesters. But overall I find the Left to be inaccurate more often than it is accurate. It is these posts and accounts that make it hard for me to trust the leftist accounts of events here; not only in Israel, but in the West Bank as well.

Perhaps it's just me? So please watch the video and tell me if this is an excessive reaction by the police.

Why the mass marches against Israel wont matter, eventually ...

2011-05-19T14:57:00.001+03:00

So I haven't posted anything here in a while. Suffice it say that I haven't had much time to write with the responsibilities of my new job. I'll be trying to make more time in the future but until then I'll have to settle for very sporadic posts.

This brings me to the events of this week. On Sunday, Arabs across the region commemorated the anniversary of Israel's birth as Nakba day, or the day of catastrophe.

Most observers of the region are already well aware of the events which transpired, including the mass demonstrations on Israel's borders with Lebanon and Syria on Sunday that resulted in the infiltration and deaths of several demonstrators.

There are plenty of stories out there about what happened so I'll leave it to you to do a Google search to find a relevant story if you need to catch up.

What I would like to comment on is whether or not these demonstrations are the result of the Arab Spring, if they signal start of a third Intifada, and whether they signal a dramatic shift in the Arab-Israeli conflict. I'll go over my points one by one.

Yes, these demonstrations are connected to the Arab Spring. There have been signs for months that the demonstrations that have rocked the Arab world would eventually be exported to Israel. Arabs have been planning for mass demonstrations and opened several Facebook pages and websites calling exactly for what we saw on Sunday. Those demonstrations should have surprised no one, but evidently they still managed to surprise the IDF which obviously wasn't paying attention.

Do these demonstrations signal the start of a third Intifada? Maybe. If these demonstrations pick up steam, and are repeated frequently than yes this could mark the beginning of the third Intifada. I don't think anyone has a good idea what will happen once it starts but it shouldn't surprise anyone once it does.

Do these marches of masses of people signal a dramatic shift in the conflict? It's a shift but I don't think it's all that dramatic. What is clear is that the IDF was caught unprepared on Sunday. Well, they are preparing for the next round right now, and I'm certain those preparations are being accelerated.

There have been several articles saying that the IDF is worried about how to stop masses of people marching unarmed to the border. I don't think this is the most complicated problem to solve. The answer is masses of security forces and soldiers to meet them. If that is not enough to prevent every single demonstrator from getting through there is always a fallback option – the people, government, and State of Israel!

The naiveté of the organizers is remarkable. Their plan is to implement the right of return by simply marching across the border and conducting sit-ins in their so-called places of origin. What they are overlooking is that there is an entire country of Israelis standing in their way, ready to repel their invasion.

This is the critical factor that makes all these comparisons to the Arab Spring irrelevant. Those demonstrations were people who rose up against their own government. They are now trying to turn those demonstrations against another people – the Jewish people. It's also worth noting that the demonstrators were not campaigning against Israel's control of the West Bank. They were marching in order to gain their so-called right of return to Israel. They were marching to overwhelm Israel demographically and destroy it.

While this tactic is certainly creative and presents Israel with new challenges, there is still no choice to confront it because the alternative is our destruction. That is precisely why these marches will amount to nothing. There is no example in history of non-violence being used to destroy another country and that is the same reason while Israel will pass this new test.

Richard Goldstone's April Fools Joke on Israel ...

2011-04-02T16:17:00.001+03:00

First, I want to apologize for the lack of blogging. My new job is keeping me very busy and I haven't figured out how to work blogging into the mix. I'm working on it. Now, on to the matter at hand.

Yesterday was April 1st. I played a trick on my girlfriend that involved our upcoming trip to the states. I fooled her for about minute, it was funny.

Well, someone else pulled a trick on us yesterday, except he started working on his prank two years ago. The prankster was South African jurist Richard Goldstone, the eponymous lead author of the Goldstone Report.

You know the report, it's the one where he laid unsubstantiated charges against Israel, that Israel had a policy of targeting civilians during it's military campaign in Gaza at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009.

Goldstone's critics have been saying since the report came out that it overlooked critical pieces of information and that it drew conclusions that weren't supported by the evidence.

Well now, on April 1st of all dates, Goldstone has come out and in an opinion piece in the Washington Post basically said yeah, my critics were right, the report should be reconsidered.

The allegations of intentionality by Israel were based on the deaths of and injuries to civilians in situations where our fact-finding mission had no evidence on which to draw any other reasonable conclusion. While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.

Was there really no other evidence? Was Israel's formal lack of cooperation the reason that Goldstone's commission didn't make the slightest effort to corroborate the allegations it was making against Israel?

I find all this too hard to believe, that now, after two years of lies and allegations against Israel, Goldstone feels like he needs to come out and set the record straight. After two years of his report being used as a hammer to beat Israel over the head with allegations of war crimes and crimes and against humanity, now he comes out and says "oops, my bad."

Who does he blame for this? Not himself, G-d forbid, for serving as the Jewish fig-leaf to this modern day UN sponsored blood-libel against Israel. No no no no. Who's fault is it? It's Israel's fault of course.

Israel’s lack of cooperation with our investigation meant that we were not able to corroborate how many Gazans killed were civilians and how many were combatants. The Israeli military’s numbers have turned out to be similar to those recently furnished by Hamas (although Hamas may have reason to inflate the number of its combatants).

At some point we are all held responsible for our actions. Whether it's by our friends and family, by history, or by the law, there is always a price to paid when we transgress. Goldstone, whether by naivete, incompetence, or willful dishonesty in the pursuit of personal gain has slandered Israel and the Jewish people. His actions will not be easily forgotten.

Yes, this is actually rather religious ...

2011-02-20T23:50:00.000+02:00

I have heard this song played many times in bars, nightclubs, and at weddings here in Israel. I never really made an effort to listen to the words even though I knew they had a religious meaning.

But I was surprised when I finally made an effort to understand the song. It's very religious. Here are the lyrics of the chorus (translated into English):

We are believers; children of believers

And we don't have anyone to depend on

Except, except for our father

Our father in heaven

The music itself doesn't exactly cry out with religious fervor:

I'm still here ...

2011-01-30T23:05:00.000+02:00

I realize blogging has been rather light of late. I just started a new job last week and it's been keeping me very busy. I hope to find some time to write this week.

A Follow Up on Macy Gray ...

2011-01-20T10:23:00.000+02:00

It appears that Macy Gray will be coming to Israel after all. Challah Hu Akbar and Israellycool are both reporting that she has decided to come after receiving both pro and anti-Israel messages on her Facebook and Twitter pages.

This is a big step for Israel supporters but I think there are some important lessons to be learned.

As I was looking through some of the comments people were posting to her Facebook page I noticed that some Israelis has posted comments similar to the following.

"Fine. Don't come. We don't want you anyway."

This is a really poor and unhelpful way to react. It won't convince her to come and it hurts the cause of people trying to promote Israel.

Additionally, Israellcool pointed out that we shouldn't forget the things Gray said.

But I’m not getting carried away. Gray still did the wrong thing by characterizing Israel’s treatment of the palestinians as disgusting, as I posted yesterday. And for that, I am boycotting her performance.

He's right that we shouldn't forget, but I don't think we should be too aggressive with performers like Gray. She has probably received a ton of aggressive and angry messages from Israel haters. We should all be fully aware of the lies, misinformation, and hate that these people can spread.

We can't fault every person who is suckered in by their rhetoric and lies. We need to respond with the truth, but in a helpful and compassionate manner.

No one likes to be lectured or yelled at. But if we gently point out to people where they have made a mistake without getting angry, it will be much more effective to persuade them to agree with us.

Tell Macy Gray Why She Should Perform in Israel ...

2011-01-19T20:42:00.000+02:00

This is SO important. Supporters of BDS are exerting incredible pressure on artists and musicians not to perform in Israel. Most of these performers don't know what really happens here. It is up to us who know and love Israel to explain to them what is really going on here.

A few days ago musician Macy Gray posted this on her Facebook page:

I'm booked for 2 shows in Tel Aviv. I'm getting a lot of letters from activists urging/begging me to boycott by NOT performing in protest of Apartheid against the Palestinians. What the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians is disgusting, but I wana go. I gotta lotta fans there I dont want to cancel on and I dont know how my NOT going changes anything. What do you think? Stay or go?

Go now, right now, to her page. Click Like, and then write a respectful, calm, and compassionate comment on her post about why she should perform in Israel. For example, this is what I wrote:

Macy, you should definitely come to Israel. You should come to see that Israel is a normal country, filled with warm and compassionate people who are desperate for a normal, peaceful existence.

Israel is no way, shape, or form an Apartheid state. Israel is a democracy that provides equal rights under the law for all its citizens irrespective of race, religion or gender. It's a liberal, progressive democracy faced with numerous challenges.

People who support boycotts against Israel are not interested in achieving a peaceful two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians. Their objective is the elimination of Israel, of the only Jewish state in the world. Those calling for a boycott of Israel are engaging in the most vicious kind of racism, that which seeks to deny an entire people their right to independence and freedom.

If you're curious about what it's like to perform in Tel Aviv you should ask Paul McCartney, Elton John, Madonna, and others who have performed in Israel to cheering and appreciative fans.

If you wish to help promote peace between Israelis and our Palestinian neighbors you can follow the example of Leonard Cohen who donated all the proceeds of his show to organizations that promote coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. Even better would be to perform for both Israeli and Palestinians audiences and share with both of them your message of cooperation.

Macy, don't believe everything you are told. I'm an American who has lived here in Israel for the last four years. Israel is a good, freedom loving country that is surrounded by neighbors who seek to drive us from our country. We are imperfect, but we value human life and sincerely hope to one day live in peace with our neighbors. Come here and see for yourself.

Go right now!

Promoting Palestine by Slandering MLK ...

2011-01-18T16:08:00.000+02:00

I first saw this op-ed on Mondoweiss, but it was originally published by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Under the headline "King’s words live in Palestinian city," the article tries to argue that the Palestinians have taken on the mantle of Martin Luther King Jr. I don't think I can imagine a more fitting way to slander the man who was perhaps the greatest American to ever live.

While the writer focuses mostly on the weekly demonstrations in Bil'in and Ni'lin, she gives away her true perspective at the end of the piece:

More civil society actions to highlight Palestinian dispossession are being planned, probably the most spectacular of which will be the next flotilla planned to take place a few months from now. Ordinary civilians from the U.S. will embark on “The Audacity of Hope,” a U.S.-flagged boat, to sail the Mediterranean and bring the world’s attention to the Israeli siege of Gaza. The Israelis have threatened snipers and attack dogs against unarmed people but ultimately, the worldwide effort to end this siege will succeed. That is because this action is in the spirit of the great civil rights movement 50 years ago and demonstrates the power of ordinary people to withstand whatever armies have in mind for them.

This is unbelievable. It takes a truly mendacious individual to compare the situation in Gaza today to that which existed in the southern U.S. 50 years ago. I think we should just take a minute here and compare the rhetoric of the leadership of the two communities.

First, Dr. King:

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. (source)

And now let's look at Hamas, the leadership of Gaza:

(The economic crisis is the result of) "bad administrative and financial management and a bad banking system put into place and controlled by the Jewish lobby."

(The Jewish lobby) "controls the U.S. elections and defines the foreign policy of any new administration in a manner that allows it to retain control of the American government and economy."

- (Hamas Spokesman Fawzi Barhum, October 7, 2008; as reported by AFP and other news agencies)

"...the Jewish faith does not wish for peace nor stability, since it is a faith that is based on murder: 'I kill, therefore I am'... Israel is based only on blood and murder in order to exist, and it will disappear, with Allah's will, through blood and Shahids [martyrs]."

- (Dr. Yussuf Al-Sharafi, Hamas representative, April 12, 2007; as reported by Palestinian Media Watch, April 23, 2007)

"This is Islam, that was ahead of its time with regards to human rights in the treatment of prisoners, but our nation was tested by the cancerous lump, that is the Jews, in the heart of the Arab nation... Be certain that America is on its way to utter destruction, America is wallowing [in blood] today in Iraq and Afghanistan, America is defeated and Israel is defeated, and was defeated in Lebanon and Palestine... Make us victorious over the community of infidels... Allah, take the Jews and their allies, Allah, take the Americans and their allies... Allah, annihilate them completely and do not leave anyone of them."

- (Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Bahar, acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, April 20, 2007; as reported by Palestinian Media Watch, April 23, 2007) (source)

Yes, clearly it's exactly the same thing.

A Silly Headline But Bradley Burston Makes Some Good Points ...

2011-01-17T21:35:00.000+02:00

Having met Bradley Burston I can say that he is a genuinely nice guy even though I don't agree with a lot of his politics.

His most recent column features the rather sensationalist headline "Think Israel's a lost cause? Ten reasons to think again."

While that headline seems a bit over the top to me Burston goes on to point out some interesting developments taking place in Israel's political scene right now. I'll point out two things that appeal to me since they happen to criticize my favorite Israeli political target, Avigdor Lieberman.

1. Avigdor Lieberman may be a lost cause.

At the weekend, veteran journalists Dan Margalit and Mordechai Gilat reported that prosecution officials concur with police recommendations that be indicted on charges of taking bribes, fraud, and money laundering, and that a decision would be made by the beginning of February.

WHY THIS MATTERS: Lieberman, whose party received only 12.5 percent of the vote in the 2009 election, has effectively blocked the entry of Kadima into the government, and thus quashed any chance of peace progress with the Palestinians.

2. Lieberman's dark laws may be a lost cause.

There is every reason to believe that none of Lieberman's party's long list of anti-democratic bills will actually become law. Media reports have made it seem as though bills which have been approved by the cabinet and passed a preliminary Knesset vote have become law, but Yisrael Beiteinu's entire legislative agenda is gummed up in committee, and the ruling coalition is in turmoil over vocal Likud opposition to Lieberman's flagship vendetta against human rights organizations.

WHY THIS MATTERS: Only 12.5 percent of Israelis voted for Lieberman's ostentatiously racist agenda. Russian immigrants voted for Lieberman because he promised to make them, for the first time, real Israelis. In the end, he has only made the rest of Israel see them more strikingly as Russian.

On the second point, I've tried explaining this before when people wail and moan about Lieberman. So far the man hasn't achieved anything, thank G-d, and hopefully enough of his supporters have seen how ineffective and misguided he is that they won't vote for him in the next election.

One can only hope.

Karl Vicks Article was Horribly Biased, But …

2011-01-13T14:44:00.000+02:00

Jennifer Rubin responded to the ridiculous Karl Vick hit piece against Israel that was published in Time recently. She is right to criticize this article, but I think she goes too far in defending the proposed legislation that is featured in the piece.

In the article Vick mixes together all kinds of different government actions and news events in order to paint a picture of Israel sliding towards right-wing extremism. He unfairly attributes this to Netanyahu when most of the proposed legislation has in fact come from Israel's Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman. It's important to note that nothing that Lieberman or his party have proposed has actually passed into law. His proposals have merely passed various stages of committees while not being voted on by the full Knesset. But let's contrast that to the tone in Vicks article:

Taking a page from neighboring authoritarian states, Netanyahu encouraged support for the law, appointing a panel to investigate independent organizations that are critical of government actions. These include Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli soldiers that has published a book of testimonies detailing human-rights abuses, which the former soldiers say they witnessed while serving in the West Bank; the rights group B'Tselem, which documents abuses by settlers and security forces in the West Bank; Gisha, which monitors the plight of Palestinians caught between Hamas and Israeli collective punishment in the Gaza Strip; and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, which recently reported in gruesome detail the plight of African economic immigrants, who are commonly referred to "infiltrators."

Wow, how much crap can you throw at Israel in one paragraph? This is the main problem with Vick's article. He uses the existence of these organizations, that are trying to prevent abuses in Israel, to tarnish the entire country. Then he uses the desire to investigate their sources of funding as evidence that Israel is simply trying to suppress these organizations from using their right to free expression.

It isn't as simple as that. Many of the MKs that supported the investigation most likely did so to understand where these groups were getting their funding and if that included any countries hostile to

Israel

I actually think that this investigation is highly flawed and it does paint worrying signs about Lieberman and his party. There are already sufficient systems in place to ensure that organizations declare their funding in a transparent way. Those systems, including the office of Israel's attorney general who opposed the investigation, should be trusted to oversee these groups in an objective and non-partisan manner.

However, Vick uses this issue and Lieberman's radicalism, and even the opposition of some Lukid members to the proposal, as a club to beat

Israel

I agree with Rubin in her criticism of Vick's article. But I think she goes too far to try and support Leiberman's proposal. Rubin provided responses to the article from an Israeli government source and from CAMERA:

Israel's Knesset voted to establish a parliamentary committee to examine international sources of funding for Israeli organizations that "aid the de-legitimization of Israel through harming IDF soldiers."

As Ronen Shoval, head of the Im Tirtzu organization that has exposed linkages between extremist NGO's and the notorious Goldstone Report, writes in Ha'aretz: "During the past year, the vast majority of the public became convinced that the organizations that call themselves human rights groups actually belong to the extreme left and seek to force their radical values on others through foreign funding." Much of the far left, which supports the extreme NGO's, has risen in fury at the prospect of parliamentary inquiries into funding. Karl Vick's story parrots the indignation of those who have previously dispensed biased, false attacks against Israel with impunity.

This to me is a highly flawed motivation for an investigation. The focus should not be on the content of the criticism from these organizations. Individuals and organizations have the right to say whatever they want and to voice whatever opinion they want within the established legal limits of free speech. That would exclude speech that calls for violence or that is slander or libel.

What should be a focus, and is already enshrined in law, is whether these organizations are receiving funding from enemy states or charities that are actually fronts for terror organizations. Fortunately

Israel

's legal system already addresses this issue and is competent enough to handle the task without interference from the Knesset or Avigdor Lieberman.

The bottom line is that it is possible to criticize the Lieberman investigation without bashing Israel, which Karl Vick and many media organizations fail at miserably. It is also possible to defend Israel without supporting the policies of one extreme politician with little real-world influence.

Goldberg or Lozowick ???

2011-01-12T13:30:00.001+02:00

Two of my favorite bloggers are Jeffrey Goldberg of Goldblog fame and Yaacov Lozowick. While I would imagine that Jeffrey Goldberg is much more widely read than Dr. Lozowick, I view them as being two of the leading voices on Israel.

I have said here that Goldberg is one of my intellectual heroes, but I don't agree with him 100% of the time. A recent example is the case of the Shepard Hotel in Jerusalem. Both Goldberg and Lozowick wrote about the issue and I respect the opinions of both of them, but I think that I have been more convinced of late by Dr. Lozowick and his perspective that Jerusalem can't and shouldn't be divided.

First this is what Goldberg had to say on the issue:

Peace will not come without the birth of a Palestinian state on the West Bank which has its capital in East Jerusalem. I'm as sure of that as I am of anything in the Middle East. Of course, peace may not come even with the birth of this state -- I'm no longer quite so sure in the possiblity, or at least in the availability, of peace -- but it will surely never happen without it. This is why, of course, certain right-wing Jewish groups, aided and abetted by different factions in Israel's chaotic government, are seeking to populate East Jerusalem with Jews: to prevent the birth of a Palestinian state. These particular Jews operate under the delusion that Israel< can keep control of the Arab neighborhoods of forever, and most of the West Bank forever, without negative consequences. They are drastically wrong. Eventually, something is going to give. At a certain point in the not-so-distant future, Israel will either cease to be a Jewish state, or it will cease to be a democracy. Attempts to abort the birth of a Palestinian state only hasten this moment of decision.

First, I share Goldberg's pessimism about peace. There isn't going to be a negotiated solution here for many reasons and Jerusalem is certainly chief among them. But I disagree that Jews are moving to Jerusalem specifically for the purpose of preventing the creation of a Palestinian state. I think most Israeli Jews, my self included, see Jerusalem as a separate issue and one that has a value that is completely separate from Israel's control of the West Bank. No matter what the right says, Hebron, Shiloh, and Schem are not the same as Jerusalem. Most Israelis want to separate from the Palestinians and to leave the West Bank. But I'm not certain that a majority of Israelis are ready to withdraw from the parts of Jerusalem, namely the old city, that would be necessary for a successful division.

Now let's see what Dr. Lozowick has to say on the issue. You really must read the whole post he wrote. It is far more educational than anything you will find in a main stream publication:

Near the top of the building you can see the logo of Briyut Klalit - twice. Once in Hebrew (right) and once in Arabic (left). Briyut Klalit is the name of the largest health insurance organization in Israel. The building, and the compound around it, is an Israeli institution, but since this particular branch serves the Arab population of Wadi Jose, most of its staff are Arab, and the language spoken in its hallways is mostly Arabic. So if you're dividing the city along ethnic lines, what is it? Do you go by the identity of the organization or the identity of the clients? If you decide it's Palestinian, the Israelis will of course shut down the building and its services, leaving the locals with no health service. If it's Israeli, then you're going to have to draw an international border between the health center and its clients, who will live in a different country and won't be eligible for its services. (And why should they be? Health services are paid by from the Israeli budget, from taxes collected from Israeli citizens. Not citizens of Palestine.

If the health center stays in Israel, the fence between it and the Shepherd Hotel compound will then be an international border. If there are Israelis living in the Shepherd area by the time the border gets drawn, the other fence of the compound will be the border. It's hard to see how either scenario is an existential threat to peace making, since the two fences are about 150 yards apart.

On the other hand, it's easy to see why the whole concept of drawing an international border along fences of properties might perhaps not be such a good idea. In the real world, I mean. From time to time I take foreign visitors for walks along the line the peace-makers propose, and am often asked why they don't see the division can't possibly work. I have no answer to this. Then my visitors ask me what the solution will be: if dividing the city will be a calamity, how do we reach peace? So far as I know, no-one has an honest answer to that.

This is something that Lozowick offers that almost no one else does; an up-close, realistic look at what it would take to divide Jerusalem. The really interesting thing is that this example would be relatively easy to resolve compared to the nightmare that is the old city. And of course, it's the old city that really matters anyway.

Avigdor Lieberman Rises to New Levels of Jackassery

2011-01-11T13:03:00.000+02:00

Jackassery isn't a word, but it should be. Our Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has taken his stupidity and thuggishness to new heights and surely he deserves to have a new word created in his honor.

I used to cringe when Israel's critics described Lieberman as a fascist, but now there's not much you can say about the man that will upset me. I still don't think it's fair to call him a fascist, however. He doesn't have the intellectual capacity to form an ideology, so he can't properly be described as having one as complex as fascism.

What has got me so worked up? Yesterday Lieberman spoke out on his party's new bill to investigate NGOs to determine the source of their funding. On the face of it, this appears to be a legitimate goal. Political organizations that receive funding from foreign countries should be upfront about the sources of the money. So if this was a general overview of all political organizations to make sure they are following the guidelines of full disclosure that would be OK. But Lieberman makes it clear that is not the case:

Speaking at the opening of a Yisrael Beiteinu faction meeting, Lieberman accused opponents of the probe of presenting false facts about the proposal, and those who groups which would be investigated.

"[The proposed probe] does not include the Geneva Initiative and Peace Now, which are legitimate, and there is no intention to investigate groups that are truly involved in politics and human rights," Lieberman said. "The only groups to be investigated are those whoses [sic] goals are to deter the IDF from its fight against terrorism."

"Looking at the facts, we are asking why don't they protest about Gilad Shalit. They always argue that Israel is not right. These are organizations that aid terrorism, and whose goals are to weaken the IDF and the state of Israel.

So basically Lieberman has come out and says that the organizations will be investigated because of their political orientation and not some objective legal framework. Lieberman, apparently thinking he is the king of Israel, says that organization "A" is ok, but clearly organization "B" is not.

How is this even remotely OK. If Lieberman wants to set a legal standard about countries that can't be used as sources of funding, or if he wants to make sure that organizations are clear in the reporting of their funding those are legitimate issues.

But when you start saying that organizations have to tow a specific political line, then you are policing people's thoughts and that goes against one of the most basic tenets of democracy.

Again, I don't think this proves that Lieberman is against democracy. He just doesn't understand what it means. Lieberman has the political knowledge and sophistication of those weird crazy people who start up conversations with you while you're waiting for the bus. It's extremely depressing that he somehow managed to slime his way into the role of Foreign Minister.

What Bi'lin Looks Like on a Friday Afternoon ...

2011-01-09T21:46:00.000+02:00

I like to think of myself as a moderate, and a centrist. If you look at my blog roll you'll see that I've included both right-leaning sites and left-leaning sites. Is it completely balanced? No. But I would say that's an indication of the fact that the English speaking Israeli and Jewish blogosphere tends to lean to the right.

At any rate, one of the left-leaning bloggers that I try to follow is Lisa Goldman. I generally find her stuff well written and thought provoking, and I think that she is one of the more trust worthy bloggers on the left. I've been reading her stuff on and off for years now. But I've found recently that her tone has taken a harder turn towards more radical positions. I also follow her on Twitter and there were a few tweets about last Friday's demonstration in Bi'lin that made me want to write this post.

There are members of Knesset and visitors from Europe in Bil'in. They are all unarmed. And the army is attacking them.

Massive publicity, int'l media & EU parlliament members come to Bil'in & IDF's response is EVEN WORSE.

Well, I wasn't at the event in Bi'lin, the one last Friday or the one before that, so I can't say personally what happened. Fortunately, pro-Palestinian activists make sure to film the event. I think we can assume that these videos are edited to make the Israeli army look as bad as possible. I've typed up what happens in the first video (with a few notes about the second), so if you want you can just read my description, but I really recommend that you watch the videos for yourself to get an accurate picture of these "demonstrations." Please keep in mind these videos are showing the Palestinian perspective.

00:00 - 1:10 - Music, chanting, marching and demonstration.

1:11 - First view of the Israelis soldiers standing and waiting.

1:25 - More chanting, Palestinians push open the yellow gate leading to the fence.

1:46 - Palestinians make contact with the fence and start climbing on it. (In the second video they start pulling down the fence, see 1:34.)

1:53 - Palestinians run away as they are sprayed by the "Skunk," an extremely foul smelling liquid (described as a combination of dead bodies and feces).

2:05 Palestinians respond by throwing stones at the skunk machine.

2:45 - Young Palestinians throw stones and get yelled at by other Palestinians.

2:54 - More stone throwing, Israeli soldiers stand around and do nothing.

3:34 - Israeli soldiers respond with tear gas. People continue to walk around near the tear gas without being greatly affected. Stone throwing continues.

At about this point in the second video you see two men injured, but there is no way to know how they were injured.

4:10 - More tear gas.

4:33 - More skunk

5:55 - Yes, tear gas is painful.

6:13 - More stones, more tear gas

6:30 - Israeli soldiers cross the fence and start moving towards the stone throwers.

7:00 The Palestinians start moving back towards the village. The Israelis uses more tear gas and flash bang grenades.

7:36 - Note the way the Israelis fire the tear gas, in the air, at about a 60 degree angle. This is the way tear gas is meant to be fired.

8:20 - A Palestinian lectures the Israelis, in Hebrew, about killing everyone in the village. The Israelis ignore him.

What always amazes me is that these videos are trying to make the Israelis look as bad as possible, but what do we see? The most basic break-down of events is this. Palestinians try to pull down the fence, the Israelis use the skunk, the Palestinians throw stones, the Israelis use tear gas. Rinse, repeat.

Being opposed to the fence is one thing, being opposed to Israel's control of the West Bank is another. I actually think both of those positions are legitimate. I personally support the fence and think that while Israel ultimately needs to leave the majority of the West Bank, it's not that simple of an issue.

But I can't look at this video and see how you can fault the IDF for it's actions. How can you legitimately say "There are members of Knesset and visitors from Europe in Bil'in. They are all unarmed. And the army is attacking them."

That is not a reasonable statement that accounts for a nuanced situation which includes violence from both sides.

Should the soldiers simply allow the Palestinians to pull down the fence? Should the soldiers simply stand back as the Palestinians riot and throw stones? Should they wait until someone fires live ammunition? What?

The video seems to show a measured and calculated response to Palestinian initiated actions. I would love to have someone explain to me how it isn't.

Lisa Goldman Makes a Technical Error ...

2011-01-05T15:51:00.001+02:00

One of the left leaning bloggers that I have been reading regarding the Jawaher Abu Rahmah case is Lisa Goldman. She wrote a long post on her site about the incident which you can read here.

She made some claims, or at least repeated claims made by others, that appear to be factually incorrect. I'm focusing specifically on this.

According to the website MySay, the army uses a type of tear gas that is the most toxic and dangerous type available. The gas, known by the acronym CS, was outlawed in the UK as far back as 1964 due to concerns over its many side effects – one of which is the potentially deadly accumulation of fluids in the lungs several hours after exposure to the gas.

In her post she links to this report to back up her claims. However, it seems that report doesn't confirm her statements and actually contradicts one of them.

First, it seems that CS is not currently banned in the UK. The Wikipedia article on CS contains numerous references to the use of CS in the UK. It does imply that there were calls to ban CS in 2006 after this incident, in which a man was scarred after he was directly sprayed in the face with CS.

Secondly, the report states that CS is not the most toxic form of tear gas. In a table on the "Factors influencing the effect of exposure to tear gas" that reports states the following:

Potent toxicity of the product (chloroacetophenone is more toxic than chlorobenzylidene-malononitrile)

Just to clarify, chloroacetophenone is known as CN and chlorobenzylidene-malononitrile is known as CS.

Additionally, the report backs up the IDF claims in some way, that CS has never killed anyone when used outdoors. The report specifically mentions that deaths resulted when the gas was used in a confined space:

Several cases of death have been attributed to the use of chloroacetophenone in confined spaces. Some of the deaths in the 1993 siege on the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, were attributed to the use of large amounts of chlorobenzylidene-malononitrile in a confined space.

Also the report lists the following in the same table I referenced earlier:

Environmental factors

Confined space
Poor ventilation

Again, there is nothing to support the idea that a normal, healthy woman could be killed by tear gas while standing in an open area. Also, the report Goldman linked to shows that CS is NOT the most toxic form of tear gas.

There are serious questions to be asked about this case and they need to be asked.

My Two Cents on Jawaher Abu Rahmah ...

2011-01-05T10:49:00.001+02:00

I was all set to try and write a detailed, balanced post on the death of Jawaher Abu Rahmah who was allegedly killed after inhaling tear gas fired by the IDF at a recent demonstration in the West Bank village of Bil'in. Then I saw this article in Haaretz written by Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff and realized they had done a far better job than I ever could.

I've said before (maybe) that these two writers are among the few worth reading at Haaretz. They don't dissapoint in this story which is balanced, thoughtful, and frighteningly reasonable.

They acknowledge that something doesn't makes sense about the claims from the Palestinians while also looking at the IDF claims with an apropriate level of skepticism. They conclude that there are few established facts in the case, and that little hard evidence actually exists.

According to testimonies from villagers and demonstrators, Abu Rahmah was hurt by the gas. However, it's reasonable to assume that this wasn't the sole cause of death. She had some health problem that caused headaches and dizziness, and stained her skin, but in the medical documents this is not described as the cause of death.

It is possible that there was a combination of factors. Beyond this, if it was the gas that killed her, as was claimed, one would have expected that others near her would have also suffered injury. A young woman that was near Abu Rahmah said that she was only lightly affected by the gas.

The thing that bothers me most about this incident is how readily individuals and the media, both inside Israel and internationally, were willing to accept the Palestinians claims without the one thing that would actually support them: an autopsy.

No autopsy was performed. No matter what you believe about Israel or the Palestinians, it is impossible to say one way or another what killed this woman without an autopsy. Especially if we are to believe that she was somehow poisoned by tear gas.

This is one of the things about this conflict that drives me mad. In any other situation the word "murder" is used with the gravity it deserves, but here it is tossed around without a second thought. Why are so many people, so many Israelis, ready to accuse their own army of murder without demanding the same level of evidence that they would expect for even the most well known criminal?

I just don't understand.

Andrew Sullivan Makes a Stupid Statement ...

2011-01-04T11:59:00.000+02:00

Oh for crying out load. Andrew Sullivan, who I actually like in a lot of ways, makes another plainly stupid statement about Israel. This one came in reaction to Goldblog's post worrying, too much, about the future of Israel's democracy.

Sullivan is also apparently worried about Israel, and the focus of his concern seems to be Avigdor Lieberman. Regular readers of this blog, if there are any, know that I have no love for Lieberman. Actually, I rather dislike our Foreign Minister. If a Kansas tornado were to pick up a small farmhouse furnished with farm girl and dog, and then drop said farmhouse onto Mr. Lieberman, I wouldn't shed a tear.

That, being said Sullivan's latest statement is just stupid.

What panics me is that the Israel that I see today is not the Israel I thought I knew only two years ago. Avigdor Lieberman is the de facto leader of the country, commanding its foreign policy, defying its prime minister, enraging allies, forswearing any peace.

I'm sorry, Lieberman just doesn't matter that much and everyone knows it. He is a joke and his only real power comes from his ability to embarrass Netanyahu and the Israeli public. He is popular with his voters, of which he has a few, but he is reviled by most other Israelis.

He is like an annoying prankster. He can ruin things and annoy people and embarrass and do other stupid things. But he has no real ability to do anything. The world community doesn't work with him, and the Americans have been conducting their talks with either Netanyahu directly or with Ehud Barack.

Sullivan isn't the first observer to exaggerate Lieberman's importance. Not too long ago Newsweek magazine promoted him to the position of Israel's most popular politician, which is odd since in my four years of living here I have yet to encounter a single Israeli who actually likes him let alone voted for him.

Granted I live in Tel Aviv and don't have many acquaintances from the FSU, but still, if he were so popular I should have encountered at least one person who liked him.

The best analogy that I can come up with is if someone said that Sarah Palin is the de facto leader of the U.S. She was the driving force behind the tea party movement and look how that turned out. Do I really believe that? No. Neither do I believe that Lieberman is the de facto leader of Israel and neither should Andrew Sullivan.

Shmuel Rosner has blogged about Lieberman's popularity here and responded to Goldblog's post as well here. He went over both issues in a more organized fashion so I highly recommend that you read his responses.

Trying to Predict the Future on the Occasion of a New Year …

2011-01-02T14:36:00.000+02:00

Well, we are now into the second year of this still young decade at it's hard to figure what the next ten years will be about.

I remember a conversation with my friends about the beginning and the end of decades and how they don't always perfectly line up with the calendar. For example we all agreed that the 90's began somewhere around 91 or 92, about the time Nirvana came on the scene with their first hit. The 80's are a bit tough for me since I was born in 1980, but it seems as if the last few years of the 70's could be thrown into that decade as well. The aughties are the easiest to pinpoint and have an exact date for when the decade truly began, that being September 11th of course.

So I'm left wondering what event will mark the transition from one decade to the next. What I feel pretty confident about, however, is that this decade will bring with it dramatic changes for Israel and the region. I've told people about my prediction privately, but I'll consider this post to be my official registration of the idea. Basically I believe that Israel is in store for a radical change, one that will be the most significant change since 1967, and that it will occur within about five years. I'm not certain what that change will be, but I'm certain that everyone will be able to recognize it when it happens.

Now, why do I believe this? Let's go over my reasons:

A negotiated peace is not going to happen

I've covered this in other posts, but it's worth repeating. There is no chance of there being a negotiated solution to this conflict, at least its Israeli-Palestinian component (there very may well be peace treaties with other Arab countries, but probably not). There are many reasons for this but it boils down to the fact that neither side is capable of making the necessary compromises necessary for a solution.

The status quo is about to collapse

Pressure is building, quickly, to change the situation. The international community is rapidly growing tired with the situation here, as are certain elements within the U.S. The policies of Barack Obama are evidence of this. While Israel would be happy to allow the current situation to carry on indefinitely, it certainly seems that there is an expiration date and that it is coming up soon.

The Palestinians are growing bold

Along with the growing impatience for Israel and the status quo, the Palestinians are reading the willingness of the world to support their position. They realize, more so than Israel, than a negotiated peace is not going to happen. This is why they are pushing for unilateral actions and pressure from Europe and the UN. This is also why the Palestinians are pushing for, and receiving, recognition from other countries.

There will be a trigger

Whether it’s a unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinians, a UN Security Council resolution calling for Israel to withdraw, or perhaps even a new war or Intafada, something will happen to crush the current quiet that has come over the region.

What will be the outcome?

So here is my official prediction. Before the end of this decade, and probably within about five years, Israel with withdraw from the majority of the West Bank. It will most likely withdraw, unilaterally, to the fence, possibly with some small changes. Israel will not withdraw from any of Jerusalem. I'm not sure how the world will react, but I think the fallout will be manageable. I'm also not sure how the Palestinians will react, nor am I certain that it matters.

Israel is quickly learning that the Gordian Knot with the Palestinians must be cut. I don't think the separation will be pretty, but I do believe that is inevitable and coming soon.

Now all that being said, would I be willing to wager money on my prediction? Not in a million years. The Middle East is a region famous for making predictions look stupid. This part of the world is simply too unpredictable to see the future clearly. But, if I had to bet money on something happening, it would look like the scenario I laid out above. I'm very curious to see how things work out.

A Buffet of Good Israel News with a Bitter Dessert ...

2010-12-30T13:38:00.000+02:00

Yesterday provided a nice break from the standard news day here in Israel in that it featured several positive news stories.

The first was the surprisingly pleasant announcement that Israel's economy grew 4.5% in 2010.

Israel's GDP rose 4.5% in 2010, in fixed prices, according to preliminary estimates by the Central Bureau of Statistics. Israel's GDP growth was almost double the expected OECD average of 2.7% for the year.

Israel's GDP rose by 0.8% in 2009, and rose by 4.2% in 2008. The 2010 growth figure is unexpectedly strong; economic organizations had predicted 4% growth.

The strong economy was probably boosted by the record number of tourists Israel recieved, nearly 3.5 million.

Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov announced Monday that preliminary estimates show Israel received 3.45 million visitors this year.

That's 14 percent higher than the previous record of about 3 million tourists in 2008. Tourism slid last year during the global economic crisis.

There was also great news yesterday that will surely impact the future of the Israeli economy as Noble Energy confirmed that the Leviathan gas field contains enough natural gas to turn Israel into a gas exporter.

An offshore natural gas reserve contains some 16 trillion cubic feet of gas worth an estimated $45 billion, an energy corporation which owns a share of the project said on Wednesday.

Noble Energy Inc., which owns 39.66% of the prospect, said the massive store of natural gas in the “Leviathan” reserve – the largest of its kind discovered in the world in the last decade – “has the potential to position Israel as a natural gas- exporting nation.”

There was also this nice little article that mentioned an Israeli medical device, the ReWalk, which was featured on a recent episode of the extremely popular Glee television show. The device is a robotic exoskeleton designed to allow paralyzed individuals to regain some of their mobility. Here is a clip from the show that was posted to YouTube.

Wow, what an amazing news day it was. Maybe things are actually getting better here. I guess it's just good news from here on out, right?

So, what do we have for today?

Former President Moshe Katsav guilty of rape and sexual assault

Oh frak.

Avigdor Lieberman Suffers from Chronic Diarrhea of the Mouth ...

2010-12-26T17:52:00.000+02:00

Every time I see a news article about another stupid thing our Foreign Minister has said I silently scream inside my head, "SHUT UP!!!! SHUT UP, YOU FREAKIN IDIOT. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!?! ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE EVERYONE HATE US?!?!?!"

This recent batch of stupidity from Leiberman is no exception. Please keep in mind that this man is supposed to be our chief diplomat. Instead he is our "Chief Asshole in Charge of Pissing Off Foreign Leaders."

Lieberman 'won't accept Turkish lies'

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman took aim at Turkey Sunday just hours after the Mavi Marmara ship, which led the flotilla to Gaza in May, was cheered into Istanbul with calls of "Death to Israel".

Lieberman called Turkey's demand for an apology over the IDF raid on the Marmara, in which nine Turkish civilians died, "beyond rude".

"I will not accept the lies we're hearing all the time," the foreign minister told a conference of ambassadors, referring to a speech by his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, who said Saturday that his country wanted to restore relations with Israel but that internal strife present in the coalition was preventing this from happening.

Hamas to Israel: Leave or Die ...

2010-12-26T11:57:00.000+02:00

I suppose this isn't really news but it certainly deserves to be repeated and disseminated widely.

Hamas held a press conference to celebrate its anniversary and the second anniversary of Cast Lead. Haaretz reports on the details of their message:

Hamas: Israel has two options - death or leaving Palestinian lands

... Hamas would not rest until Israel was ousted from Palestine, said Ahmed al-Jabari, leader of the Izz a-din al-Qassam Brigades, adding that Israel had two options – to leave Palestinian territories or face death. He said that Hamas resistance would continue as long as Zionists remained in Palestine.

Of course most of the world will ignore this and go on pretending that the Palestinians still want peace.

Wait, actually that above statement is not fair. Many Palestinians don't support Hamas and many Palestinians do want peace.

I should have written that the world will go on pretending that it doesn't matter that many Palestinians don't want peace and simply want to destroy Israel and drive out all its Jews. That's a more accurate statement.

No, Jesus Wasn't a Palestinian ...

2010-12-25T12:11:00.001+02:00

Honestly, this issue shouldn't matter, but of course when you're talking about Israel everything matters.

This issue has been making the rounds in the Israeli blogosphere over the last few days, most likely due to the Christmas holiday and because of a post put up by Palestinian Media Watch.

I honestly don't know why the Palestinians feel that they need to deny and rewrite the history of this land. They have plenty of valid issues that they could rely on without having to make stuff up.

I also don't see why we need to waste time talking about what happened 2000 years ago. People's lives are at stake right now, shouldn't we be focussed on the present? I suppose the past is important simply because it plays a role in finding out what the truth is, and the truth is vitally important to solving the conflict.

So in order to help find the truth, let's look at what everyone can agree is the most authoritative book on Jesus: The New Testament.

BibleGateway.com is a very helpful site that lets you search the entire bible for any passage or keyword. I went there and searched The New Testament for the word Palestine. I got zero results.

Well maybe I need to search for the word Philistine since that is where the word Palestine comes from. Also zero results.

What about the word Jew: 200 results. I found this passage to be particularly interesting. From John, chapter four:

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])

Well, that's good enough for me.

Just another Karl Vick in the Wall ...

2010-12-14T14:19:00.000+02:00

Really Karl Vick? Really Time Magazine? Did I really just read this idiotic article you put together?

I don't even know where to begin. Ok, that's not true, I do know.

Why oh why please tell me, do you refer throughout your article to Israel's security barrier as "the Wall" with the "W" capitalized? Is it the only wall in the world, earning it the right to be capitalized? Is the barrier so unique that it has been gifted with the status of being a proper noun like "The White House?"

Beyond that there is so much more. The article, "Palestinians, Contained," is not so much journalism as it is pro-Palestinian theater. It seems to rehash several pro-Palestinian memes that the media has conjured up throughout the last decade, throwing them all together into a pastiche of sympathy and pity for the poor, hapless Palestinians. As in the following:

The economic consequences of the Wall are plain: it has kept out of Israel hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who used to travel there every day, mostly to work. In the living room of Ramzi's father, family friend Taeser Ihmad complains that after 20 years earning 200 shekels ($55) a day as a gardener at a Jerusalem hospital, he now makes just 80 shekels ($22) building houses in Ramallah.

Is it really the barrier that has kept Palestinians out? Is it not perhaps due to Israel's decision to close of it's territory to the Palestinians, the logical and inevitable result of the war of terror the Palestinians waged against Israel's civilians?

Of course, this is not an anti-Israel article per se; Vick tries throughout to provide some sympathy to the Israelis as well. They are described as nice and pleasant by the Palestinians who used to visit them in Israel before the Intifada. But overall, the situation is described as deteriorating, and the problems are inevitably linked to the separation caused by Israel's barrier.

And a generation of Palestinians is coming of age without even knowing what Israelis look like, much less the land both sides claim as their own. The absence of familiarity, names, basic knowing — the absence of the foundations of empathy — does not bode well for the chances of the two peoples one day living as neighbors in peace.

Yes, the separation is truly terrible. Perhaps it would be best if we went back to the good old days when we were at each others throats and hundreds of people were dying every month. Clearly there was much more empathy back then.

What's really amazing is that out of the approximately 1,700 words that make up this article about the effects of Israel's barrier, the word "terrorist" is used exactly once. Also, the term "suicide bombers" is used exactly once. Is the entire reason for the barrier not relevant to the story, or of so little relevance that it need be mentioned only once?

Of course, beyond the typical pro-Palestinian mindset that frames the entire article, there are interesting clues that seem to betray a total lack of understanding on Vick's part of the basic history of the situation here. Take a look at these two examples:

Rabah attributes the shift partly to the rise of political Islam across the Muslim Middle East — and partly to Israel's pushing Palestinians into that very community, not least by taking as its own nearly the whole Mediterranean coast, which historically kept Palestinian elites, at least, oriented to the West.

As late as 1967, some Palestinians often saw impressed Israelis who on weekends would drive over to Ramallah to snap pictures of Rabah's grandfather's villa. "Now it's reversed," he says. High-tech Israel has an enviable quality of life, one that young Palestinians would like to experience for themselves. But neither side visits the other.

On the first paragraph I'm left asking, "What the hell are you talking about?"

The whole Mediterranean coast? When? In '48? What does that have to do with the barrier Israel built in 2003? How does Israel's creation and the nature of it's territory lead to the radicalization of the Palestinians? You mean they are more radical now than when they wanted drive all the Jews into the sea? And this is because they can't spend time at the beach?

On the second paragraph, I sincerely hope that it was just a typo and that he meant 1977, or '87, or 97. You know, cause, Israelis couldn't go into the West Bank before '67, when it was occupied by Jordan.

I really don't know what to say other than all in all this article is a piece of crap.

This had been the Palestinian's strategy all along ...

2010-12-12T00:15:00.001+02:00

In case it isn't clear to everyone yet, the Palestinians have more or less come out and said what it is they want, and what they have been trying to accomplish for the past two years since Obama became President.

From Haaretz:

Palestinians: Clinton should have blamed Israel for failure of Mideast talks

Palestinian officials said that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton should have blamed Israel for the failure of the latest Mideast efforts.

The officials reacted on Saturday to a Clinton speech before Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy's seventh annual forum in Washington, in which she said Israelis and Palestinians both bear responsibility for the failure of the direct talks that took place in September.

If you haven't gotten the message yet, you haven't been paying attention. The Palestinians don't want to negotiate. The believe, accurately, that they can't get what they want through negotiations. So they have been busy stalling the process with preconditions and with trying to assign the blame for the inevitable failure on the Israelis.

First they demanded a settlement freeze. Obama, in his ignorance, agreed. Then when Israeli actually froze settlement construction the Palestinians waited for nine out of the ten months of the freeze before coming to the negotiating table.

Then when it looked like the U.S. had offered enough incentives to Israel to enact another freeze, the Palestinians made it clear that they wouldn't negotiate if the freeze didn't include Jerusalem; something Israel would never do.

The Palestinians are making demands about entering negotiations that are supposed to be the subject of the negotiations themselves.

Yet, somehow there are still people out there who place the blame on Israel or on Netanyahu. Bibi has been practically begging Abbas to negotiate and has made unprecedented concessions as well.

The Palestinians have been steadfast in their refusal to do anything, ANYTHING, that could even remotely be construed as productive, or in the spirit of compromise that the negotiations will require if they are to be successful.

The Palestinians have been leading Obama around on a leash since day-one and they see no reason to stop now. They see an opportunity to take a unilateral step, either at the U.N. or simply through recognition by other countries, that will drastically change the situation here. With Obama in power, they just might be successful.

Stop freaking out ...

2010-12-06T23:03:00.001+02:00

Sorry about the light blogging, my real life has been very busy lately. I just felt that I had to write something about the Carmel Forest Fire that broke out recently here in Israel.

Perhaps it's because I grew up in southern California, but this fire didn't make me freak out like everyone else in this country. Please understand, I was just as shocked by the death toll from the bus incident as everyone else. It was horrifying and tragic. But it was horrifying and tragic in the same way as a plane crash or any other disaster.

However, I don't think it was indicative of this particular incident. Had that bus left five minutes earlier, or five minutes later, the tragedy might never have happened. That is significant.

The Israeli press, especially Haaretz, has been running full steam ahead with ridiculous and sensationalist headlines about how woefully unprepared Israel was, and how this means Israel can't handle war, or that this means if we're attacked by Iran it will mean our 'national collapse." Just look at these headlines from Haaretz:

And since a picture is worth a thousand words I'll throw this in for good measure, also from Haaretz. Check out the "More On This Topic":

Really? REALLY? One bad fire means all this. If there is a lesson to be learned from this it's that maybe Israel is TOO prepared for war, and not prepared enough for a fire.

Well considering that in Israel's history there has been ONE really bad fire and almost ten wars or major armed conflicts that kinda makes sense doesn't it?

Ok, here's another picture. This one is of a forest fire and it was taken by me.

That's not the Carmel and that picture wasn't taken in Israel. That is the San Fernando Valley where I lived for most of my life. I took this picture about four years ago during one of the countless fires I've seen with my own eyes from my parents house. It seems like at least every two to three years another massive cloud of smoke would appear over the horizon.

This happens all the time. It's a wonder that it doesn't happen more often in Israel considering how similar the climates are. But no one ever freaked out when a fire broke out. No one moaned that it signaled the imminent collapse of California or the U.S.

I simply don't believe there was anything unique about this incident. Bad things happen, and they will continue to happen. That's life and it sucks.

There are lessons to be learned from this incident. But Israel needs to learn the right lessons. Alarmist and panicked coverage from the media won't help. Angry calls for politicians' resignations won't help. Calling for more fire fighters and fire fighting aircraft won't ... wait that actually is a good idea.

My point is this. On the same day the fire broke out, the Prime Minister concluded that Israel's fire-fightinig services were insufficient for the job. He asked for help, and several generous countries came forward and helped us out. The fire was extinguished approximately 80 hours later. This is not the end of the world. Crying that it is doesn't help anyone.

So please, stop freaking out!!! That means you Haaretz.

Proof that the Wikileaks diplomatic cables paint Israel in a good light ...

2010-11-29T21:47:00.000+02:00

Much has been written about how the release of countless U.S. diplomatic messages has basically backed up Israel's position regarding Iran and other matters. The release has been called a vindication for Israel. You can read all about it here, here, here, here, and here.

I don't have much to add to the links above, so I wont try. I do think, however, that the most interesting analysis can be found in the comments section of sites like Mondoweiss.

For example, look at a comment from this post:

Gellian November 28, 2010 at 10:31 pm

There’s a theory kicking around the ‘net that Wikileaks basically is Israel; i.e. that Israel, or someone friendly to it, is feeding all this stuff to Assange and co.

It’s probably a conspiracy theory with no merit; who knows? I know I don’t. But a favorite axiom to apply in trying to figure it all out is that of cui bono (who benefits?).

I gotta say, from what I’ve seen so far Israel comes out smelling like a rose from all this. From what the Guardian and Spiegel websites are reporting, the Arabs really are terrified of Iran and want us to bomb it; so are some other countries. Even the stuff you’re posting here, Phil, only makes it look all the more like us democracies gotta stick together. A fair reading of it all suggests that our congressmen are far from being alone in the world in wanting to bomb Iran to prevent their nuclear ambitions; heck, practically everyone is on our side (including the Arabs!).

So despite the hype I don’t see Israel hurting one iota from any of this; on the contrary, they’re benefiting enormously.

Which is funny, because I didn’t really expect that.

When the conspiracy theories come out, you know you've won.

It's the little things ...

2010-11-25T21:09:00.000+02:00

I went to get lunch yesterday at work but first I needed to get some money from the ATM. Unfortunately the ATM was out of money and the schnitzel stand where I was planning to eat only takes cash. Since I eat there about once a week I have a casual acquaintance with the owner and I asked him where I could find another ATM. He said the next closest one was about six minutes away. I knew where he was talking about and I also knew that it was more like ten minutes away.

He saw that I was disappointed and asked me what I wanted. The conversation, in Hebrew, went something like this:

Me: What do you mean?

Him: Come on, tell me what you want and you'll pay me tomorrow.

Me: Really, it's ok?

Him: Sure neshama, come on what do you want to eat?

I left the word neshama untranslated because it literally means soul, but it's used here as a term of casual endearment.

I'm pointing this out not because it's unique here. You only need to shop at a place a few times before you're a regular and then the owners seem willing to spot you a missing shekel here and there, always on the understanding that "you'll bring it by tomorrow."

I can't say that this never happens in the states. I can only say that this never happened to ME in the states. I guess that's all that matters.

Americans want Israeli style security, but ...

2010-11-23T21:59:00.000+02:00

So there has been much wailing and moaning in the American media lately about the new security guidelines set by TSA. If you aren't familiar with them you should look up Jeffrey Goldberg's excellent series of posts about the new search procedure (the posts come with the added bonus of finding out what Goldblog calls his balls).

One of the interesting stories to come out of this debate is that many Americans now want Israeli style security. I assume by this most people mean some form of profiling. I find it odd that this is the solution most Americans want considering how much critisicm Israel recievies regarding it's various air travel security procedures.

This phenomon lead to the head-spinning situation on Ynet recently in which this story, 'I may never return to Israel', in which a young Australian woman complains about her treatment by El Al security personnel, was followed just one day later by this, Americans want 'Israeli' airport security.

I don't think most Americans appreciate just how personal and unnerving it can be to go through an Israeli airport security check. They ask all kinds of surprising questions, and you really have to stop and think about the answers.

I remember that even after living here for a year, going through this check made me ask myself whether I had been secretly planning terrorist activities.

I also wonder whether there is a too large number of Americans who think that Israeli security profiling is based solely on race or ethnicity. I imagine there are a few Americans who think only brown-skinned people with Arab or Muslim sounding names get interviewed.

It doesn't work that way. There are all kinds of things that go into the profiling, not that I know most of them, but I don't think most Americans will feel comfortable being asked about their background, their childhood or education, or, G-d forbid, their religion.

I'm sure some changes will be made to the security system in the states, but I don't think it will look very Israeli in the future.

The reason there isn't peace in the Middle East ...

2010-11-23T00:02:00.000+02:00

There is no end to how genius this is. Fowl language warning:

The Palestinians freeze the peace process ...

2010-11-21T13:26:00.000+02:00

If what is reported in the following article is true, and the Palestinians maintain this position, then the PA has effectively frozen the peace process indefinitely.

Abbas: no talks without east Jerusalem building freeze

The Palestinian Authority will not return to peace talks with Israel unless there is a freeze on settlement building that includes east Jerusalem, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday. "If there is no complete halt to settlements in all of the Palestinian territories including Jerusalem, we will not accept," he said.

No Israeli government, and I mean none, will agree to an official building freeze in Jerusalem. No Israeli politician can bend that far and expect to survive. Furthermore there is practically zero support amongst the Israeli public for this drastic of a concession without some kind of drastic concession in return.

Additionally, the concession cannot come from Obama. It must come from the Palestinians. Nothing short of a renunciation of the so-called right of return, or a Palestinian recognition of the Jewish character of Israel would get the Israelis to even begin thinking about this.

Abbas is giving the finger to Obama, to the world, and the Israelis. He's saying 'I'll come to the negotiating table after you've agreed to all my demands.' He's dictating terms as if he has all the power in the world.

The sad thing that's not too far off the mark. Obama is letting Abbas get away with this, with deliberately stalling negotiations so he can suck as much from Israel in advance as possible. Hell, Obama is encouraging him with his calls for a settlement freeze.

Obama has completely derailed whatever peace process existed before he came to power. I wonder how much more damage he can cause before he's through.

Tel Aviv is not Jerusalem ...

2010-11-20T04:37:00.000+02:00

Shabbat in Tel Aviv, 1:15 AM, Saturday morning.

Can Israel Survive Without the West Bank? I would say yes ..

2010-11-18T21:43:00.000+02:00

The question above was posed in this post by Jeffrey Goldberg. He was in turn responding to another blog post from a Rabbi who lives in a West Bank settlement.

Goldberg argues that the question is in many ways irrelevant and that the proper question is in fact the opposite. Can Israel survive WITH the West Bank?

Let me reverse this question on Reuven Spolter: Does he believe that his country will survive if it continues to dominate another ethnic group that resists domination? Because that, in essence, is what he is arguing for.

I don't pretend that withdrawing from large parts of the West Bank will be easy, nor that it won't pose major security challenges to Israel. But the choice is not between leaving the West Bank and getting war, and staying in the West Bank and getting peace.

If Israel stays in the West Bank, it will face an ever increasing diplomatic, political and, eventually, economic challenge.

Israel has two bad choices and can pick only one.

But let's imagine it a different way.

Suppose one-day your doctor told you that you had cancer in your legs. In order to survive, he would have to amputate both your legs just below the hip. The other option is death.

Is loosing both of your legs terrible? Yes. Will it make your life much more difficult and painful? Yes, and yes. Is it better than death? Some people will say no to that question. I don't agree with them and that is precisely the reason that I believe Israel will eventually withdraw from the majority of the West Bank.

Miscellaneous ...

2010-11-17T21:20:00.000+02:00

Life has kept me busy so blogging has been light, but here are a few short blurbs.

On the standard of living:

Israel Matzav talks about the decrease in the standard of living an American Oleh experiences when he moves to Israel. The Israeli economy is doing well right now and unemployment is lower here, but people are still much wealthier in the states. Only an idiot would argue that the standard of living is higher in Israel. Right Glenn Greenwald?

On things changing:

While the standard of living is still higher in the states nothing lasts forever. The economy here is actually doing better than expected. In the last quarter the economy grew 3.8%.

On the original inhabitants of the land:

One of the charges made against Israel is that it is a country made up of foreigners who displaced the original inhabitants. The Jewish answer has been that Jews have always lived in Israel, albeit as a minority for significant parts of that time.

Last night I went out for drinks with an old friend who I haven't seen in 15 years. He moved to the states from Israel as a child and I know him from elementary and middle school.

In the course of our conversation I asked him where his family was from originally.

My Friend: We're from here.

Me: And before that?

My Friend: No, were from here. We've been here 10 generations that we know of. We've got a real big family. We're all over the place, here, Syria. My family used have land all the way from Jerusalem to Damascus.

In Tiberias, there's a two-thousand year old synagogue with my family name inscribed on the wall. I'm from here.

On the bar where this conversation took place:

Armadillo, 51 Ehad Ha'am, Tel Aviv. A nice neighborhood bar just off Rothschild. Try the Dancing Camel, it's the best beer in Israel.

I run in circles ...

2010-11-16T11:56:00.001+02:00

The title above was the slogan I chose for my bib in the recent Nike Night Run Tel Aviv 2010. Held on the auspicious date of 10/10/10, the run was more a less a big party of sweaty Tel Avivians taking over the city's streets.

Nike just posted a video from the run and it does a good job of capturing the mood of the event and also the mood of Tel Aviv as a whole.

The U.S. - Israel peace process ...

2010-11-14T13:07:00.001+02:00

I recall reading several times from various critics of Israel that the U.S. should not serve as Israel's "lawyer" in the peace process. That is to say that the U.S. should serve as a unbiased moderator of the negotiations and shouldn't take a position in favor of one side or the other.

I find it quite ironic then that the U.S. has now taken on the role of acting as the Palestinians' lawyer, pushing Israel for a continued settlement freeze and offering Israel a sizable incentive package to do so:

The forum of top seven government ministers convened Saturday night at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem to discuss the latest American proposal for renewing direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Just a month after he vowed that construction in the West Bank would continue until the Palestinian Authority recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked his ministers to approve a 90-day settlement construction freeze.

Netanyahu apparently succumbed to the ongoing US pressure following a lengthy meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ...

In exchange for a freeze extension, the US would object to international attempts to force a diplomatic agreement on Israel in the UN and in other global forums, while utilizing the American veto power in the UN Security Council ...

Moreover, the US Administration would ask Congress to approve the sale of another 20 advanced fighter jets to Israel worth some $3 billion. This would supplement a comprehensive future Israeli-American security agreement, to be signed alongside a peace deal, in the aims of addressing Israel's security needs in any future treaty.

I'm not sure what to think of this. Is it further evidence of Obama's desperation? He seems willing to do anything to get Israel to agree to another freeze. Of course Israel has no desire whatsoever to do this and would only agree in response to extreme pressure and or incentive from the U.S.

The really sad thing is that a continued settlement freeze will have no discernible positive impact on the peace process. It may bring the two-sides back to the negotiating table for a few months, but there is no indication that progress will be made. The Palestinians continue to show no sign at all of being ready to discuss peace in a realistic way.

I think it's valuable to take a look at the Palestinian reaction to the American proposal:

Palestinians are expressing strong reservations about a US proposal meant to entice Israel to reinstate limits on West Bank settlement construction and revive peace talks.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat did not reject the proposal outright on Sunday, but said a decision on whether to endorse it would be made after consultations with Palestinian and Arab leaders.

The proposal calls for a 90-day ban on housing starts in the West Bank, but not in war-won east Jerusalem, the Palestinians would-be capital.

Let us recall that Israel never agreed to a Jerusalem construction freeze and that this didn't stop the Palestinians from entering into negotiations a few months ago. The Palestinians also repeatedly stated that the negotiations couldn't continue without a reinstatement of the freeze.

Now, as a renewal of the freeze becomes a reality, the Palestinians are saying it's not enough. This demonstrates the futility of Obama's strategy. The Palestinians make a demand, Obama agrees with the demand and then puts pressure on Israel. Then, once that demand has been fulfilled, the Palestinians make another demand or create another precondition.

So far this strategy has worked wonders for them. They are able to ask for whatever they want and are asked for nothing in return. Obama's sole strategy here has been to pressure Israel. This is pointless. Israel is not the side that needs to be pressured. Israel is much closer to being able to make peace than the Palestinians.

Until someone pressures the Palestinians to take a realistic approach to negotiations, the peace process will continue to go nowhere. It doesn't seem that Obama is going to exert that pressure any time soon.

I agree with Jeffrey Goldberg, but ...

2010-11-11T17:26:00.001+02:00

I have already said here that Jeffrey Goldberg is one of my intellectual heroes, but in a recent post on his blog I think he oversimplifies the situation of Jerusalem.

Man, this is getting dreary. One reason, as I've explained, that I don't post more on the peace process is that there isn't actually much of a peace process on which to post. But, Jerusalem. Yes, it is true that "Jerusalem," as Jews understand the word, is not a settlement; it is the center of Jewish history, culture and religion. But what does "Jerusalem" mean as a practical matter? Does it mean neighborhoods far from the Temple Mount that have been Arab for hundreds of years? Does it mean neighborhoods far from the Temple Mount that no Jew visits? Yes, of course, all the Land of Israel is holy to Jews, and yes, of course, Jews lived in these places long before Arabs (and yes, it is true that Jews were ethnically cleansed from many of these places by Arabs in 1948) but the possession of land is not the only Jewish value, particularly land that provokes no overwhelming feeling of Jewish connection. At prayer, when we announce to God our deep love of His holy city, are we really talking about Abu Dis and Isawiya?

Well, I don't think anyone in Israel is talking about Abu Dis as being part of Jerusalem since it's both outside of the municipal border and also on the other side of the security barrier, and as for Isawiya, I honestly don't know.

Like I said I mostly agree with what he said here, but like most things here it's just not that simple.

The real question is what do you mean when you say "divide" Jerusalem. If dividing Jerusalem means letting the old city, the holy basin, the Mount of Olives, and other important sites slip out of Israeli control, I imagine most Israelis would oppose it. I also assume that the Palestinians have some almost identical formulation.

Additionally, it is a more complicated question than simply drawing a new line and putting one religious shrine on one side and putting a different religious shrine on the other. All of these sites and the different neighborhoods are literally built on top of each other.

What this means is that if you want to control all those sites that are honestly and authentically important to Israel and the Jewish people, you also have to control all the area that allows access and control of those sites.

Basically Israel needs to control certain Arab neighborhoods even though it might not feel any overwhelming attachment to those places. All of this is why I have been coming round to the position that Jerusalem can't be divided.

I have to profess, though, that I'm not an expert on this issue. You should really read Yaacov Lozowick who has done a great job covering this subject.

Now, all that being said, I really have no idea why anyone is getting upset about the recent announcement of plans to build new homes in places like Har Homa, Ramat Shlomo, and other neighborhoods. None of those places are close to built up Arab areas, and none of them in anyway prevent a division of Jerusalem. A million other reasons prevent it, but not those particular neighborhoods.

On Andrew Sullivan ...

2010-11-10T20:47:00.000+02:00

I didn't really know anything about Andrew Sullivan until I read this piece in Tablet by Lee Smith. In the article, Smith commented on the rising tide of anti-Israel invective on the Internet and placed Sullivan in the same category as several viciously anti-Israel bloggers and writers including Glenn Greenwald, Stephen Walt, and Phillip Weiss of Mondoweiss fame.

Let me say that I find it incredibly unfair to Sullivan for him to be compared to those individuals (actually it would be unfair to anyone to be compared to Weiss, hell it would be unfair to navel lint to be compared to Weiss).

Andrew Sullivan is highly critical of Israel, but he is no anti-Semite and he is not an irrational Israel basher either. As Jeffrey Goldberg once said he cares deeply about Jews and he would pass the Anne Frank test.

I like his blog although I disagree with a lot of what he says there. Now with all that being said, I think he is pretty clueless about Israel. I don't really have the time to go into detail about it, but I think his criticisms of Israel stem from a combination of misinformation and a world view that is predisposed to seeing Israel as the more guilty party. He has written a series of in-depth posts about Israel recently, and I really hope that I might be able to go over them in more detail in the future. I realize it's not quite fair that I've criticized him and I haven't backed up my argument, but I just don't have the time right now.

But I do want to show you the thing he said that pushed me over the top. I think this one little line represents the way he is thinking about Israel right now and why it isn't productive. From his daily wrap up of posts:

Obama's Indonesian nanny was a tranny, and he used his trip to Asia to put Israel in its place … (emphasis mine)

Apparently that is the way Sullivan views the U.S. – Israel relationship, or at least Obama's role in it. Israel needs to be put in its place, by its one friend and ally no less.

This is such a clear prescription for disaster, and such a total failure to understand the Israeli psyche, that I'm surprised someone as intelligent and reasonable as Sullivan would stoop to this level of thinking.

When the U.S. starts pushing Israel too hard, pushing Israel to bend on issues where there is no room to bend, the relationship will break. When that happens, things are going to get very ugly here.

The harder the U.S pushes, the further Israel will move to the right, and the further it will move from peace. Israel desperately needs the support of the U.S. Not for financial reasons, not even for political reasons (even though it is INCREDIBLY important), but for psychological reasons.

Israel, and Israelis need to know that they have at least one advocate, at least one country that will stand up for them, for their rights, for their history, for justice for them. Until now the U.S. has fulfilled that role.

It's a shame that Sullivan wants to see that change.

With friends like these ...

2010-11-09T21:43:00.000+02:00

Turkey used to be one of Israel's closest allies in the region. But then the flotilla fiasco happened and well ... the rest as they say is history.

Of course, it doesn't help that the Turkish media and entertainment industry is producing films like this:

The already tense relations between Israel and Turkey are about to get even more strained. Turkish TV stations and cinemas have began showing trailers of a violent, anti-Israel film focusing on a fictitious Turkish revenge campaign in response to the killing of nine flotilla activists by the IDF last May.

The film, "Valley of the Wolves – Palestine" will be released in January 28. It is being promoted as an anti-Zionist feature which is meant to raise awareness to "the Palestinians' terrible suffering" and shows Israel as a bloodthirsty regime. The $10 million production is the most expensive film ever made in Turkey.

The film's trailer shows a Turkish secret agent brutally murdering IDF soldiers in an attempt to take out the Israeli officer who planned the raid on the Marmara and oversaw it. Israelis are depicted as a nation of murderers seeking to build "greater Israel" on the bodies of Palestinians.

Here is the trailer of the film. It doesn't paint a very positive picture of Israel.

I still believe that relations with Turkey can be improved. There was a Muslim Turkish girl in my ulpan in Tel Aviv. She was kind, modern, intelligent, and completely reasonable. I hope that there are enough people in Turkey like her to help repair what has been broken.

Rachel's Tomb is so Jewish, the dome on top had a bris ...

2010-11-09T16:14:00.000+02:00

I wasn't sure what to think exactly of the row between UNESCO and the Israeli government after the former designated Rachel's Tomb in Bethelehem as a Palestinian mosque. But then I saw several comments pop up on blogs harshly criticizing the re-branding of the site, most of them claiming that the Palestinians had never used the name "Bilal bin Rabah Mosque," but rather had simply referred to the site using the Arabic equivalent of it's original Hebrew name.

It took me just a few minutes of googling to find a huge number of sites referring to Rachel's Tomb or Kever Rachel (the Hebrew name), but hardly any calling the site "Bilal bin Rabah Mosque."

Then yesterday I saw this article on JPOST which provided the most detailed and thorough refutation of the Palestinian claims yet. It really seems that in the case of Rachel's Tomb this is nothing more than a brazen attempt by the Palestinians to co-opt an unquestionably Jewish religious site.

Here's a sample from the JPOST article:

For centuries, Rachel’s Tomb was considered only a Jewish holy place.

The 16th-century Arab historian Mujir al-Din regarded Rachel’s Tomb as a Jewish holy place. Beginning in 1841, the keys to the place were deposited exclusively with Jewish caretakers who managed the site until it fell into Jordanian hands in 1948. In contravention of the armistice agreement, Jordan prevented Jews from accessing the site during all the years of its rule (1948-1967).

Following the Six Day War, Jews returned to Rachel’s Tomb, with millions of Jews from around the world having visited the site. According to Jewish tradition, Rachel died on the 11th day of the Hebrew month of Heshvan; in 2010, some 100,000 Jews visited Rachel’s Tomb on that day (October 19).

Read the whole thing.

Canadian PM defends Israel …

2010-11-09T11:23:00.000+02:00

It never ceases to amaze me when non-Jewish political leaders are able to make the case for Israel better than Israel's official spokespeople. I wrote about two great examples here and here.

This recent speech by Canadian PM Stephen Harper is another great example.

Hat tip Israel Matzav.

Add this to the list of things to boycott ...

2010-11-08T23:20:00.000+02:00

More info on the Israeli company behind the tech here.

How am I supposed to make sense of this?

2010-11-08T17:22:00.001+02:00

Criticism of Israel is running at an all time high, the U.S. President is pushing hard for peace talks and warning that time is running out, and the anti-Israel loonies are calling for the PA to be dismantled .

Things must be terrible right? Yet, at the same time I see stories like this:

There is not a single security suspect being sought by Israel in the northern West Bank for the first time since the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000. In the southern West Bank, there are only a few names on the security establishment's wanted list. The situation is a reflection of both the improved security situation in the West Bank and the increasing cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian Authority security forces.

I'm not being naïve. I realize that there are still numerous problems here and that the situation between us and the Palestinians is fragile and untenable. But people aren't dying; there is relative peace and quiet here. There is economic growth both here in Israel and in the West Bank.

The first half of this decade saw one of the worst bouts of violence in the history of this conflict. The understanding and trust that had taken years to grow between the two sides was destroyed. Now the situation is different, it's calmer; it is objectively better than it has been for a long time.

Why is there so much pressure to change things now? Why not give the two sides time to come a little bit closer to an understanding? I just don't get this mad rush to fix all the problems here when in reality things are a lot better than they've been for a long time.

In July, I drove threw the West Bank on trip to the Dead Sea. We stopped at a gas station not far from Jericho to have lunch. No one was worried, no one was scared. There were tourists there, and it was calm.

Why do people feel the need to change everything overnight? I just don't get it.

Hat tip Yaacov Lozowick.

Two of my worlds collide ...

2010-11-08T13:14:00.001+02:00

This blog is usually about Israel. But sometimes it's about other things, and often that "other" is somehow connected to Apple.

Well it just so happens that today this blog will be about both. I saw links to this article on a bunch of sites, Gizmodo might have been the first.

It talks about how the technology behind Microsoft's new motion controller, Kinect, was originally offered to Apple. The CEO of the Israeli company that created the technology had several meetings with Apple, but anyone who follows Apple closely and is also familiar with Israeli culture knows that the two are simply incompatible.

Yet the initial meetings hadn’t gone so well. Obsessed with secrecy, Apple had already asked Beracha to sign a stack of crippling legal agreements and NDAs.

He shook his head. Why didn’t he want to do a deal with Apple? No need. The technology was hot. He could sell it to anyone.

“Apple is a pain in the ass,” he said, smiling.

Read the whole thing.

Israel and Apartheid ...

2010-11-07T14:51:00.000+02:00

I remember it rather vividly. It was around the end of 2002 and I was in the process of starting my self education about Israel.

Growing up I hadn't really cared that much about Israel, and I honestly didn't know that much either. When the second Intifada broke out during my junior year in college it really took me by surprise. It's hard to think back and remember how ignorant I was, but I really didn't understand what I was seeing all around me. There were protests and posters and fliers, and almost all of it was denouncing Israel.

So when I got back home from college, I decided that I needed to actually learn something about Israel. I wandered into a random bookstore and picked up about five different books on the subject. I tried to get a diverse set of books that would represent both sides of the subject. So along with From Beirut to Jerusalem and From Time Immemorial I also picked up a book called The Second Intifada: Resisting Israeli Apartheid.

This was my first introduction to the infamous Zionism=Apartheid analogy. The funny thing is that this book, which laid out a plan to dismantle Israel, was one of the main things that motivated me to care even more about Israel. It motivated me, in a way, to eventually move to Israel. I guess I never really cared that much about Israel until I realized there were people who were trying to take it away from me. Perhaps that's what it took for me to realize how important it was, and ultimately how important it is to me to be Jewish. But that's a post for a different time.

The reason I'm touching on this subject is because the South African Jewish community has recently put together a website in support of Israel that directly challenges the false apartheid comparison. This is a community that experienced apartheid rule and understands the difference between it and Israel far better than Israel's critics. The website doesn't refrain from criticizing Israel's practices in the West Bank, but it points out how the apartheid analogy caries almost no significance for anyone trying to understand the conflict here.

Go check out the site right now.

Hypocrisy, double standards, denial of history, and more from PLO Ambassador to the U.S. …

2010-11-04T16:24:00.000+02:00

This is incredible. I don't know if I've seen a more thorough example of the hypocrisy and downright lunacy of the official Palestinian perspective on the conflict and peace process than this interview with PLO ambassador to the U.S. Maen Rashid Areikat.

Areikat was interviewed for Tablet magazine by David Samuels and the whole thing is a must read.

Here are some of the highlights from the exchange:

[Q] OK. Now that we are sitting across the table here in New York 10 years later, under completely different circumstances, let me ask you this: Was there ever a Jewish temple in Jerusalem?

[A] I’m not a historian.

[Q] I have the reference right here from the Encyclopedia Britannica. Is it wrong?

[A] I’m not a historian. What are you trying to get to? That Jews were present then?

[Q] Were they?

[A] President Abbas in his meeting with the leaders of the American Jewish community in June said that yes, the Jews were in the Middle East, and that one-third of the Quran talks about Jews.

[Q] Are the people who say they’re Israeli Jews today related to the people who were Jews in the time of the Quran?

[A] It’s for historians to establish the link. I believe many Jews who lived at one point in that land continue to live in that land, and their descendants stayed in that land.

[Q] So, today’s Palestinians are the real Jews?

[A] Everywhere in the world, Jews follow the nationality and citizenship of the country where they live. In the United States, you have American Jews, who live in the United States. You have French Jews. And this was the original argument between us and the Jews. Why can’t you be Palestinian Jews?

This is really the standard Palestinian denial of the Jewish connection to the land, and it isn't so surprising. Earlier in the interview he vaguely acknowledges Jewish peoplehood, but his response here seems to imply that it's more logical for Jews to take other nationalities.

Here's more:

[Q] In our community, we’re taught that the toleration of Jews in most Muslim empires was greater than it was in Christian Europe. But we also hear that, for example, the other day the head of the Palestine National Council, Salim Zanoun, said that the Palestinian people can never recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

[A] I said it yesterday!

[Q] Why did you say that?

[A] Israel is a political establishment that claims to represent Jews all over the world. I very much doubt that Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu represent every Jew in the world. I know there are Jews who don’t agree with Netanyahu.

This argument is just plain stupid, and yet variations of it are used all the time by Israel haters. He's saying that because not all Jews agree with the politics of the current Israeli government, it therefore can't be a Jewish state. The other, and more common, variation of this argument says that because not all Jews live in Israel it can't be considered a Jewish state.

First, Israel doesn't claim to represent the political views of all Jews. It does, however, claim to serve as the place in which Jews can exercise their right to national self-determination. Most Jews agree with this.

Additionally, the fact that a large portion of the Jewish people doesn't reside in Israel says nothing of the legitimacy of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. There are many countries with large diaspora populations. It's like saying that every Mexican, Armenian, Irishman, or Italian that chooses to reside in the U.S or other countries instead of in their home nation somehow supports the idea that those countries can't be seen as the home of their people.

A little later he continues with this:

[A] We are still negotiating an end to this conflict. Let’s say that tomorrow the Palestinian leadership comes out and says, “OK, we’re ready to recognize the Jewishness of the state.” What implications would that have, immediately, on the Palestinians? You know that in our view the refugee problem is the crux of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Today we have 6.5 million registered refugees out of 10 or 10.5 million Palestinians. One out of six refugees in the world is Palestinian. By accepting Israel’s claim now, that they are a Jewish state, we are telling the Israelis: Forget about the refugees, forget about their plight, no right of return, no U.N. General Assembly resolution 194; we are giving up the refugee issue, we are taking it off the table before we even started negotiating.

Listen to the nonsense this man is spewing. Let's break his argument down to the simplest form possible.

Recognizing Israel's Jewishness = No Right of Return

Therefore logic dictates that we conclude the following:

Implementing the Right of Return = No Jewish Israel

Which leads us to the following:

Israel = A Jewish state

No Jewish state = No Israel

Why are the Palestinians allowed to make this ridiculous argument? Why are they allowed to claim that they have recognized Israel but refused to recognize its Jewish character? The logic is clear to everyone, and yet the Palestinians are allowed to spew this propaganda about Israel's Jewishness not being important. That is POINT of the whole freaking conflict!!!

There is so much more in the interview, but I feel like this post is too long already. Go read the whole thing right now.

Yaacov Lozowick can read my mind ...

2010-11-03T22:49:00.000+02:00

At least it seems that way. Yaacov Lozowick just posted something on what would happen if the Palestinians were to unilaterally declare statehood.

His post is required reading. What he describes is basically my prediction for what is going to happen here. I've never read anything before that felt like it was coming from my own brain, but this is about as close as I can imagine.

About those elections …

2010-11-03T10:56:00.000+02:00

I haven't said anything here about the U.S. mid-term elections. I'm sure there is something interesting to be noted about what the results mean, what they say about Obama and the Democrats, and what we can expect in the presidential election in two years, but I'm not the one to say it. I don't have the answers to those questions and I'm sure there are lots of other bloggers around who are much more informed about the issue and can touch on it in a much more eloquent fashion than I.

There is one thing I am sure of though. Based on all the poling data I've seen, this election was overwhelmingly about the economy and about Obama's domestic policies in general. It had very little to do, if at all, with Obama's foreign policy.

I'm sure there are many Israelis who would like to view this election as a rejection of Obama's relations with Israel. But, the truth is that most Americans don't have the time to care about it right now. They're all worried about the economy and their jobs (or lack thereof).

Of course, none of this has stopped our neighbors from making ridiculous accusations:

Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary-general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's Executive Committee, said Wednesday morning that Israel intervened in the American mid-term elections in a bid to disrupt the Middle East peace process.

He went on to slam the Israeli government, noting that "these results prove that Israel played a role in these elections and cooperated with US elements in order to use the results to thwart the negotiations. More than anything, this testifies to the Israeli government's intentions in regards to the peace process."

While things change in the U.S., life here stays exactly the same.

The rule of law …

2010-11-02T17:30:00.002+02:00

Not too long ago there was a string of reports in the media about Israeli soldiers taking inappropriate photos and video alongside bound Palestinian detainees. The photos and videos, which were often posted to social media sites like Facebook, caused quite a storm here in Israel and abroad.

Well in one of those cases a soldier was sentenced to five months in prison for his behavior:

An IDF soldier was sentenced to prison for posing for a photo showing him pointing a loaded weapon at a blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinian prisoner.

An Israeli military court on Sunday handed down a five-month sentence; prosecutors had asked for six months.

The soldier's cell phone also contained photos of two friends in similar poses. Legal proceedings against the other two soldiers reportedly are going forward.

The three soldiers were indicted for abuse, illegal use of weapons and improper behavior.

Israel is a state that upholds the rule of law. The soldier broke the law and he was punished, which is as it should be.

That's what we've been saying …

2010-11-02T14:28:00.000+02:00

Ever since Operation Cast Lead in Gaza almost two years ago Elder of Ziyon has been doing a great job examining the casualty statistics that were released by various NGOs and human rights organizations.

Elder has shown that many so-called civilians were in fact Hamas fighters and that hundreds of Hamas policemen killed in the fighting were also members of Hamas' armed groups.

A Hamas minister recently more-or-less confirmed what Israel and its supporters have been saying all along. Elder points out the interesting findings:

Hamas' al-Qassam website has been steadily listing these hundreds of "policemen" as Qassam Brigades "martyrs" and we have been documented that since April, 2009.

The intriguing part is that we have only documented 210 policemen (defined by the PCHR) as terrorists - so we may have undercounted. As it is, we already have proven that 75% of the "policemen" killed during the fighting were, in fact, Hamas militants and that there Hamas never distinguished between the al-Qassam Brigades and its police force.

If indeed some 250 of the policemen that were killed in only the initial day were al Qassam members, that would indicate that far more than 75% of the policemen were terrorists - because PCHR only documented 282 total policemen killed during the entire operation, plus two policewomen.

Go read the whole thing.

I love this town ...

2010-11-01T20:34:00.000+02:00

I love Tel Aviv. I mean I just really love Tel Aviv. It's hard to explain exactly what it is about this city that makes it so amazing. It's just electric, it's in the air, the atmosphere, the feeling you get walking down the street. This place is alive like almost no where else I've been.

I love this town and I'm not the only one. I saw this article on Haaretz. Apparently, Tel Aviv was chosen for Lonely Planet’s top 10 cities for 2011. It came in at #3.

Tel Aviv is the total flipside of Jerusalem, a modern Sin City on the sea rather than an ancient Holy City on a hill. Hedonism is the one religion that unites its inhabitants. There are more bars than synagogues, God is a DJ and everyone’s body is a temple. Yet, scratch underneath the surface and Tel Aviv, or TLV, reveals itself as a truly diverse 21st-century Mediterranean hub. By far the most international city in Israel, Tel Aviv is also home to a large gay community, a kind of San Francisco in the Middle East. Thanks to its university and museums, it is also the greenhouse for Israel’s growing art, film and music scenes.

I really love this town.

Why Israel is a rogue state ...

2010-10-31T20:54:00.001+02:00

This is just too good. I stumbled upon this at the headquarters of the International Conspiracy of Puppies, Sunshine, and Unicorns (thats' my pet name for Mondoweiss, which is a horrible site if you aren't familiar with it and didn't catch my sarcasm).

It seems about a week ago there was a Cambridge Union Society debate in which the proposition to be debated was "This House believes that Israel is a Rogue State."

In the end, the proposition was defeated, but the event didn't proceed without an unusual twist. It seems one of the members of the side in favor of the proposition, a student who was apparently selected at random (or not at random), decided to argue the point from a decidedly pro-Israel perspective.

As it turns out he has now been banned from the Union, although it seems there may have been other reasons.

Phillip Weiss (of Mondoweiss) made contact with the 19 year old student and received a copy of the statements he made. I'm going to copy the relevent sections of his post and paste the young man's statement in full simply because it's that good. If Gabriel Latner, the student who delivered the statement, sees this and wants me to remove it, I'll certainly comply. I just think people should have an opportunity to see what he had to say.

From Mondoweiss:

Below is Latner's argument before the Cambridge Union. It is (c) [copyright] Gabriel Latner; and he asked me not to "cherrypick" his argument but publish it in full. I do so because it is newsworthy and Latner is a smart kid who is likely to be around for a while. (The lack of paragraphs is because I lose paragraphs when I transfer copy from one program to another and don't have the time to stick them in.) Latner:

Please forgive any spelling or grammar errors, this was an oral presentation. Square brackets denote impromptu comments that were added into the text after the fact. I may have strayed from the text at a few points, but this was the gist of it.
This is a war of ideals, and the other speakers here tonight are rightfully, idealists. I'm not. I'm a realist. I'm here to win. I have a single goal this evening – to have at least a plurality of you walk out of the 'Aye' door. I face a singular challenge – most, if not all, of you have already made up your minds.
This issue is too polarizing for the vast majority of you not to already have a set opinion. I'd be willing to bet that half of you strongly support the motion, and half of you strongly oppose it. I want to win, and we're destined for a tie. I'm tempted to do what my fellow speakers are going to do – simply rehash every bad thing the Israeli government has ever done in an attempt to satisfy those of you who agree with them. And perhaps they'll even guilt one of you rare undecided into voting for the proposition, or more accurately, against Israel. It would be so easy to twist the meaning and significance of international 'laws' to make Israel look like a criminal state. But that's been done to death. It would be easier still to play to your sympathy, with personalised stories of Palestinian suffering. And they can give very eloquent speeches on those issues. But the truth is, that treating people badly, whether they're your citizens or an occupied nation, does not make a state' rogue'. If it did, Canada, the US, and Australia would all be rogue states based on how they treat their indigenous populations. Britain's treatment of the Irish would easily qualify them to wear this sobriquet. These arguments, while emotionally satisfying, lack intellectual rigour.
More importantly, I just don't think we can win with those arguments. It won't change the numbers. Half of you will agree with them, half of you won't. So I'm going to try something different, something a little unorthodox. I'm going to try and convince the die-hard zionists and Israel supporters here tonight, to vote for the proposition. By the end of my speech – I will have presented 5 pro-Israel arguments that show Israel is, if not a 'rogue state' than at least 'rogueish'. Let me be clear. I will not be arguing that Israel is 'bad'. I will not be arguing that it doesn't deserve to exist. I won't be arguing that it behaves worse than every other country. I will only be arguing that Israel is 'rogue'. The word 'rogue' has come to have exceptionally damning connotations. But the word itself is value-neutral. The OED defines rogue as 'Aberrant, anomalous; misplaced, occurring (esp. in isolation) at an unexpected place or time ', while a dictionary from a far greater institution gives this definition 'behaving in ways that are not expected or not normal, often in a destructive way '. These definitions, and others, centre on the idea of anomaly – the unexpected or uncommon. Using this definition, a rogue state is one that acts in an unexpected, uncommon or aberrant manner. A state that behaves exactly like Israel. The first argument is statistical. The fact that Israel is a Jewish state alone makes it anomalous enough to be dubbed a rogue state: There are 195 countries in the world. Some are Christian, some Muslim, some are secular. Israel is the only country in the world that is Jewish. Or, to speak mathmo for a moment, the chance of any randomly chosen state being Jewish is 0.0051% . In comparison the chance of a UK lotto ticket winning at least £10 is 0.017% - more than twice as likely. Israel's jewishness is a statistical abberation. The second argument concerns Israel's humanitarianism, in particular,Israel's response to a refugee crisis. Not the Palestinian refugee crisis – for I am sure that the other speakers will cover that – but the issue of Darfurian refugees. Everyone knows that what happened – and is still happening in Darfur is genocide , whether or not the UN and the Arab League will call it such. [ I actually hoped that Mr Massih would be able speak about this - he's actually somewhat of an expert on the Crisis in Darfur, in fact it's his expertise that has called him away to represent the former Dictator of Sudan while he is being investigated by the ICC. ] There has been a mass exodus from Darfur as the oppressed seek safety. They have not had much luck. Many have gone north to Egypt – where they are treated despicably. The brave make a run through the desert in a bid to make it to Israel. Not only do they face the natural threats of the Sinai, they are also used for target practice by the Egyptian soldiers patrolling the border. Why would they take the risk? Because in Israel they are treated with compassion – they are treated as the refugees that they are – and perhaps Israel's cultural memory of genocide is to blame. The Israeli government has even gone so far as to grant several hundred Darfurian refugees Citizenship. This alone sets Israel apart from the rest of the world. But the real point of distinction is this: The IDF sends out soldiers and medics to patrol the Egyptian border. They are sent looking for refugees attempting to cross into Israel.. Not to send them back into Egypt, but to save them from dehydration, heat exhaustion, and Egyptian bullets. Compare that to the US's reaction to illegal immigration across their border with Mexico. The American government has arrested private individuals for giving water to border crossers who were dying of thirst – and here the Israeli government is sending out its soldiers to save illegal immigrants. To call that sort of behavior anomalous is an understatement. My Third argument is that the Israeli government engages in an activity which the rest of the world shuns -- it negotiates with terrorists. Forget the late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, a man who died with blood all over his hands – they're in the process of negotiating with terrorists as we speak. Yasser Abed Rabbo is one of the lead PLO negotiators that has been sent to the peace talks with Israel. Abed Rabbo also used to be a leader of the PFLP- an organisation of 'freedom fighters' that, under Abed Rabbo's leadership, engaged in such freedom promoting activities as killing 22 Israeli highschool students. And the Israeli government is sending delegates to sit at a table with this man, and talk about peace. And the world applauds. You would never see the Spanish government in peace talks with the leaders of the ETA – the British government would never negotiate with Thomas Murphy. And if President Obama were to sit down and talk about peace with Osama Bin Laden, the world would view this as insanity. But Israel can do the exact same thing – and earn international praise in the process. That is the dictionary definition of rogue – behaving in a way that is unexpected, or not normal. Another part of dictionary definition is behaviour or activity 'occuring at an unexpected place or time'. When you compare Israel to its regional neighbours, it becomes clear just how roguish Israel is. And here is the fourth argument: Israel has a better human rights record than any of its neighbours. At no point in history, has there ever been a liberal democratic state in the Middle east- except for Israel. Of all the countries in the middle east, Israel is the only one where the LGBT community enjoys even a small measure of equality. In Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, and Syria, homosexual conduct is punishable by flogging, imprisonment, or both. But homosexuals there get off pretty lightly compared to their counterparts in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, who are put to death. Israeli homosexuals can adopt, openly serve in the army, enter civil unions, and are protected by exceptionally strongly worded ant-discrimination legislation. Beats a death sentence. In fact, it beats America. Israel's protection of its citizens civil liberties has earned international recognition. Freedom House is an NGO that releases an annual report on democracy and civil liberties in each of the 195 countries in the world. It ranks each country as 'Free' 'Partly Free' or 'Not Free'. In the Middle East, Israel is the only country that has earned designation as a 'free' country. Not surprising given the level of freedom afforded to citizens in say, Lebanon- a country designated 'partly free', where there are laws against reporters criticizing not only the Lebanese government, but the Syrian regime as well. [ I'm hoping Ms Booth will speak about this, given her experience working as a 'journalist' for Iran,] Iran is a country given the rating of 'not free', putting it alongside China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Myanmar. In Iran, [as Ms Booth I hoped would have said in her speech], there is a special 'Press Court' which prosecutes journalists for such heinous offences as criticizing the ayatollah, reporting on stories damaging the 'foundations of the Islamic republic' , using 'suspicious (i.e. western) sources', or insulting islam. Iran is the world leader in terms of jailed journalists, with 39 reporters (that we know of) in prison as of 2009. They also kicked out almost every western journalist during the 2009 election. [I don't know if Ms Booth was affected by that] I guess we can't really expect more from a theocracy. Which is what most countries in the middle east are. Theocracies and Autocracies. But Israel is the sole, the only, the rogue, democracy. Out of every country in the middle east, only in Israel do anti-government protests and reporting go unquashed and uncensored. I have one final argument – the last nail in the opposition's coffin- and its sitting right across the aisle. Mr Ran Gidor's presence here is the all evidence any of us should need to confidently call Israel a rogue state. For those of you who have never heard of him, Mr Gidor is a political counsellor attached to Israel's embassy in London. He's the guy the Israeli government sent to represent them to the UN. He knows what he's doing. And he's here tonight. And it's incredible. Consider, for a moment, what his presence here means. The Israeli government has signed off,to allow one of their senior diplomatic representatives to participate in a debate on their very legitimacy. That's remarkable. Do you think for a minute, that any other country would do the same? If the Yale University Debating Society were to have a debate where the motion was 'This house believes Britain is a racist, totalitarian state that has done irrevocable harm to the peoples of the world', that Britain would allow any of it's officials to participate? No. Would China participate in a debate about the status of Taiwan? Never. And there is no chance in hell that an American government official would ever be permitted to argue in a debate concerning it's treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. But Israel has sent Mr Ran Gidor to argue tonight against [a 'journalist' come reality tv star, and myself,] a 19 year old law student who is entirely unqualified to speak on the issue at hand. Every government in the world should be laughing at Israel right now- because it forgot rule number one. You never add credence to crackpots by engaging with them. It's the same reason you won't see Stephen Hawking or Richard Dawkins debate David Icke. But Israel is doing precisely that. Once again, behaving in a way that is unexpected, or not normal. Behaving like a rogue state. That's five arguments that have been directed at the supporters of Israel. But I have a minute or two left. And here's an argument for all of you – Israel willfully and forcefully disregards international law. In 1981 Israel destroyed OSIRAK – Sadam Hussein's nuclear bomb lab. Every government in the world knew that Hussein was building a bomb. And they did nothing. Except for Israel. Yes, in doing so they broke international law and custom. But they also saved us all from a nuclear Iraq. That rogue action should earn Israel a place of respect in the eyes of all freedom loving peoples. But it hasn't. But tonight, while you listen to us prattle on, I want you to remember something; while you're here, Khomeini's Iran is working towards the Bomb. And if you're honest with yourself, you know that Israel is the only country that can, and will, do something about it. Israel will, out of necessity act in a way that is the not the norm, and you'd better hope that they do it in a destructive manner. Any sane person would rather a rogue Israel than a Nuclear Iran. [Except Ms Booth]

And now for something completely different ...

2010-10-28T19:05:00.000+02:00

I had always intended for there to be a mix of subjects here, and one of my favorites subjects is of course Apple.

This post from John Gruber about the continued woes of the Great White iPhone is absolutely hilarious and a must read.

Original iPhone: Look at you. You’re a fucking mess.

White iPhone 4: (Without looking up from poker machine.) Nice to see you too.

Original iPhone: Is that cocaine all over your face? Jesus Christ. You’re lucky I’m not picking you up in jail again.

White iPhone 4: Who gives a shit if you were? Who cares?

Original iPhone: Who do you think you are? You think all publicity is good publicity? You think you’re the bad-boy star? Lindsay fucking Lohan with a stainless steel frame and glass back? There’s a big difference between you and her. She’s made actual movies, which have sold actual tickets. She had an actual career to ruin. What have you done, at all, other than embarrass yourself? ...

Read the whole thing.

Mondoweiss just makes stuff up ...

2010-10-27T15:26:00.001+02:00

I realize I keep dwelling on it, but Mondoweiss seems to provide an endless well of lies and disinformation. This post is no exception. A small sample:

I went on a tour to photograph the Apartheid Wall that was built on the territory of the Palestinian village of Bil'in, located in the West Bank.

After a ruling of the highest Israeli Court, the path of which the first wall had been built had to be changed and now the Israel has to build a new wall: the new wall is a set of concrete cubes ranging in length up to eight meters tall. The old wall was an electric fence with barbed wire which would send an electric shock at the slightest touch. This first wall was set up by Israel on Palestinian land and has been extremely dangerous (in some cases deadly), not only to human beings but also to animals and other wildlife. Many animals lost their lives after running into the fence and being instantly electrocuted.

The first thing I love about this post is the verbal gymnastics ... no that's not the right term ... verbal drunken stumbling the author goes threw as he describes the barrier.

The old wall was an electric fence ...

Well, finally the anti-Israel propagandists have confirmed what we've been saying all along, the "wall" is a fence. Actually this semantic argument always made me laugh. Where the barrier is a wall it actually takes up much less space than where it is a series of fences and ditches. Of course Israel haters wanted people to think of the Berlin Wall or, as Norman Finkelstein once suggested, the wall around the Warsaw Ghetto, so they always said wall no matter what the truth was.

The above line from Mondoweiss is even more funny since apparently it was both a wall and a fence at the same time. Maybe this is a new application of the "uncertainty principle." But I digress.

The more interesting piece of information is that the author is implying that the fence is an electric fence that delivers electric shocks. As I understood it, the fence has electronic monitoring sensors, but was not an electric fence in the "crap that hurts" sense.

I will rely for a moment on that questionable source Wikipedia:

Most of the barrier (over 95% of total length) consists of a "multi-layered fence system".^[31] The IDF's preferred design has three fences, with pyramid-shaped stacks of barbed wire for the two outer fences and a lighter-weight fence with intrusion detection equipment in the middle. Patrol roads are provided on both sides of the middle fence, an anti-vehicle ditch is located on the West Bank side of the fence, and a smooth dirt strip on the Israeli side for "intrusion tracking".

Here's another source, The Israel Project:

The fence, like the new crossings, are all state-of-the-art, relying on the latest technology. The apparatus consists of an electronic sensor fence lined by a patrol road, with barbed wire on either side. The fence is simply a sophisticated sensory device, whose goal is solely to alert Israeli security if someone tries to cross. When the fence is touched, it sets off an alarm in the control center and a patrol is sent to check out if anyone tried to cross or tamper with it. It is not an electric fence and can do no bodily harm.

I haven't found a single non-propaganda site that makes the claim that fence delivers electric shocks. If I am wrong, someone PLEASE PLEASE correct me. But for the moment, I'll assume this is just more Mondoweiss BS.

Ok, help me out here …

2010-10-26T11:47:00.000+02:00

Can someone explain this discrepancy?

This is from an article posted today on Google from a service called "The Canadian Press." The article is discussing the friction between settlers and Palestinian Arabs during the olive harvest.

In a spat last week, Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights, which helps Palestinians harvest their olives in the West Bank, confronted Ben-Saadon and accused him of using land owned by Palestinians.

Ben-Saadon said he was farming on land given to Jewish settlers by the Israeli military. He said he had no ownership papers — but needed none.

"Our land deed is the Bible," Ben Saadon said.

This sounded awfully familiar so I looked and found this in a Haaretz article from last week.

Near Har Bracha, a verbal confrontation erupted yesterday between Jewish farmer Erez Ben Sa'adon and Rabbi Arik Ascherman, the head of Rabbis for Human Rights. Ascherman claimed Ben Sa'adon was harvesting olives that belonged to Palestinians from nearby Karyut. Ben Sa'adon, whose nearby vineyard had been destroyed by unidentified parties the previous night, said he had leased that plot for the past 12 years and the olives were his.

Civil Administration officials were called to resolve the dispute, and they summoned the mayor of Karyut - who admitted that the trees belonged to Ben Sa'adon.

Ok, this is apparently the same incident but it is described in dramatically different ways. The Canadian Press article repeats a lot of stereotypes about the friction between settlers and Palestinians and seems to take the typical mainstream media line on this issue. Haaretz is certainly not a friendly publication to the settlers. Both of these publications should be equally likely to take a position against the settlers.

If there is a discrepancy in a situation as simple as the one listed above, how much else are these media organizations messing up?

May we always be cursed with such "problems" ...

2010-10-24T16:03:00.000+02:00

Saw this in Haaretz. It is truly a terrible problem.

This month is shaping up to be the country's best month for tourism in a decade, approaching the record set in October 1999 on the eve of the second intifada, with more than 1 million hotel nights.

But the 350,000 tourists are maxing out the capacity of the country's hotels and placing incredible stress on service, which is suffering as a result, industry professionals say.

This is the headline of the article: Record-breaking tourism could spell problems for Israel

Haaretz once again demonstrates it is the news source that proves the saying "every silver lining has a cloud." Read the whole thing.

Anti-Israel activists are afraid of the truth …

2010-10-24T12:09:00.000+02:00

Please watch the video below. It shows anti-Israel activists staging a walkout from a talk given by two Israeli soldiers at the University of Michigan.

This video is interesting for several reasons. First, the anti-Israel crowd scored a well organized and orchestrated propaganda point by filling the room with protesters and then walking out. On the video it looks very nice for them. They placed tape over their mouths and wear their signs that say "silenced" and then leave the room empty.

I would be curious to find out how many people weren't allowed to enter the room due to lack of space, and then entered the room after the protesters left, but for the sake of argument I'll assume there were no other students who were interested in seeing the soldiers' speech.

What I take away from this video is the sad fact that anti-Israel students are not only completely ignorant of the Israeli side of the story, but that they celebrate their ignorance. They are so proud of their unwillingness to listen to the other side that they promote it on YouTube.

I found the tape the activists place on their mouths to be ironic. Anyone who has spent any time on college campuses knows that the anti-Israel voice is everywhere. They certainly do not have a problem with being silenced. It would have been much more appropriate for those activists to place the tape over their eyes and ears for they are desperately afraid to hear the truth.

What truth are they afraid of? That Israelis are human beings. That Israelis are not the racist monsters that hate sites like Mondoweiss talk about. Notice how the soldiers practically beg them at the end of the video to stay and ask questions; to stay and maybe, just maybe, look at them as people and not as monsters.

This is the same blindness that led anti-Israel students to try and shut down the talk given by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine. It is the sad and desperate effort to shut out any voice, any sign, that Israelis deserve the respect and dignity afforded to any human-being. It is a concerted effort to dehumanize Israelis and to strip them of the rights that freedom loving individuals grant to all people.

This is the sad state of Israel discourse on U.S college campuses today. Anti-Israel voices are promoted and celebrated, while Israel is libeled and disparaged to the point that even to propose it should granted equal standing to other nations is considered racist.
It is a truly depressing situation.

He's really screwed up here ...

2010-10-22T15:58:00.000+02:00

Benjamin Kerstein does a much better job than I ever could of explaining just how bad a job Obama has done trying to guide the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.

Obama’s failure in this regard is not merely the result of the fact that he pushed for negotiations when conditions were far from ideal. In fact, Obama sabotaged the peace process from the outset, largely through his own incompetence. By opening his presidency with a demand for an Israeli settlement freeze, including in Jerusalem and its environs, he pushed both parties into a corner. Netanyahu could not agree to such a freeze without endangering his governing coalition, and Abbas could not negotiate without it. As a result, demands on both parties were too high before negotiations even began. The impasse at which we now find ourselves is the inevitable outcome.

Read the whole thing. Hat tip to Michael Totten.

Does not compute …

2010-10-19T14:39:00.001+02:00

A lot of blogs have been talking about the recent 60 Minutes piece that aired about the situation in Jerusalem and specifically about the City of David archeological project and the Arab neighborhood of Silwan in which it is located.

If you haven't seen the 60 Minutes clip, I highly recommend that you check it out. It does an ok job of laying out some of the tension in the city and doesn't completely gloss over the complexity of the situation.

One of the themes from the piece is that Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat, and many other Israeli leaders, believe that Jerusalem cannot be divided. They believe this for many reasons, most of them practical and logistical.

As Barkat claims in the video, "show me one example of a divided city that works, it doesn't exists."

This echoes some of the work done by Israeli blogger and historian Yaacov Lozowick. I pointed it out before, but you should read up on his posts about why Jerusalem can't and shouldn't be divided.

I used to be very much in favor of the Clinton parameters as the solution here, including the division of Jerusalem. Now I'm not so sure. Why I still believe firmly in a two-state solution, I'm coming around to the position that Jerusalem simply cannot be divided.

While I was influenced by Lozowick's position and his postings, I think the time I have spent in Jerusalem has been more persuasive. What that time has convinced is that Israel cannot divide Jerusalem because it doesn't belong to Israel. It doesn't belong to the Arabs either, nor does it belong to the Jewish people as we might wish to believe.

Jerusalem, more than any other group, belongs to the Haredim. You see it when you walk down the street in that city. The Haredim are the one community that has shown a complete and total commitment to the city. I'm not trying to place a value judgment on this fact; I'm simply describing the situation as I see it. The Haredim will never let Jerusalem, and by that I mean more or less the old city and the holy basin, slip out of Jewish control.

On the other hand, the reaction of the anti-Israel community to the 60 Minutes piece has been predictably nonsensical. Exhibit A, not surprisingly, is the headline from this post over at Mondoweiss.

‘60 Minutes’ marks the end of the two-state solution

This is a common staple of anti-Israel propaganda; that the failure to divide Jerusalem would render the two-state solution unworkable. To this I ask: why? Certainly the Palestinians would not agree to a peace treaty that didn't include Jerusalem. However, the lack of an agreement does not in any way render two-states an impossible outcome of the problem here.

I have recently been of the thinking that a Palestinian state will be created long before it reaches a peace agreement with Israel. Certainly a happy and peaceful division of Jerusalem would be preferable to the Palestinians. But I fail to see, and no one has made a logical (or truthful) argument as to why a Palestinian state would be unviable if it didn't include Jerusalem.

This argument necessitates the same logic that said that the inclusion of Ma'ale Adumim in Israel would somehow prevent a contiguous Palestinian state. It takes only a split second glance at a map to disprove that argument, and it takes only the most cursory examination of the situation here to know that a Palestinian state that didn't include Jerusalem would still be a completely viable basis for a state.

But hey, the anti-Israel crowd hasn't been making any sense for the last 60 years, why should they start now?

Mondoweiss; promoting the Palestinian narrative at the expense of the truth …

2010-10-17T13:53:00.000+02:00

I had already come to this conclusion, but a recent post at Mondoweiss demonstrates just how that site has become the epicenter for anti-Israel bigotry and Jewish self-hatred on the web.

The post is remarkable for its frankness, as is much of the content at Mondoweiss. The writers there, while completely dishonest in their discussions about Israel, are remarkably honest about their intentions.

The writer laments the pro-Palestinian Israeli left, complaining that they are somehow dishonest about their intentions because they are living on "stolen" Palestinian land. The following excerpt displays both the writer's hatred for Israel, and his profound ignorance of the truth.

Every time I would tell my girlfriend (she's Palestinian) about a famous Israeli activist or writer or she would ask why they still call themselves Israeli. She tells me things like, 'See. They still call themselves Israeli. When they use that word they are automatically erasing Palestine.'

Later on the writer continues …

But I have to ask Israelis the question: "If you feel so strongly about what is being done to the Palestinians, how can you continue to live in their stolen country?"

How can you go from a West Bank protest back to your Tel Aviv home, which very well may have belonged to a family member of your friends in the West Bank? Can you really be supporting someone when you live on the land which was violently seized from them?

If these Israeli activists truly believe what they say they should move to the occupied territories and live as a Palestinian.

Where do I begin???? Let's start with Tel Aviv as I happen to be a resident of that city.

The chances that an Israeli living in Tel Aviv is living in the former home of a Palestinian are remarkably slim. Tel Aviv, quite possibly the most authentic Israeli city in Israel, truly exemplifies the Israeli narrative. This city was built on empty sand dunes north of Jaffa. This is not a myth but is the unquestionable reality of this city. Additionally, the land that was used to build Tel Aviv was overwhelming land that was purchased specifically for the purpose of Jewish settlement.

Additionally, anyone familiar with the architecture of Tel Aviv and it's often unique style of building (read ugly), knows that the overhwelming majority of the city was built after the establishment of the state in a mad rush of building to accomadate the multitude of Jewish refugees who were settling in the country.

Tel Aviv is the single worst example of the Palestinian narrative in which Jews "stole" their country through force. Yet, this is specifically the city in which the writer chose to focus his accusations against "thieving" Israelis.

But, truth be told, I could tolerate blanket distortions of the truth if I believed that it somehow brought us closer to peace and reconciliation with our neighbors. Of course, as was so clearly demonstrated in the opening quote from the writer's girlfriend, the Palestinians and their international, American, and even Jewish supporters have no intention of making peace with Israel. They seek to dismantle it.

This is the equation that the Palestinians are offering to Israel, this is their version of "peace." This is what they are saying to Israelis:

Give up, surrender. One way or the other we are going to destroy your country. Your only option is to join our side and do as you're told, otherwise …

And it’s that last point that's left to our imaginations. Well, I have a rather vivid imagination, I don't much like what I see.

While we're on the subject of this whole Jewish state business ...

2010-10-14T16:19:00.000+02:00

There are two great articles out there today about why it is fundamental that the Arabs, and the world in general, recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The first comes from Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren. His article in the New York Times articulately lays out why this is a critical step for peace. A highlight:

Affirmation of Israel’s Jewishness, however, is the very foundation of peace, its DNA. Just as Israel recognizes the existence of a Palestinian people with an inalienable right to self-determination in its homeland, so, too, must the Palestinians accede to the Jewish people’s 3,000-year connection to our homeland and our right to sovereignty there. This mutual acceptance is essential if both peoples are to live side by side in two states in genuine and lasting peace.

The second great argument in favor of this course of action comments from, of all places, Haaaretz. Left-leaning commentator Ari Shavit lays out seven reasons why recognition is crucial. Another highlight:

Second reason: This is the heart of the conflict. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict stems from the fact that for a century, the Jewish national movement and the Palestinian national movement refused to recognize each other. In 1993, Israel recognized the Palestinian people and its rights. But to this day the Palestinians have not recognized the Jewish people and its rights.

Indeed. Hat tip Yaacov Lozowick.

Thanks for the traffic ...

2010-10-14T13:39:00.002+02:00

Well it looks like I got someone's attention. I checked Google Analytics this morning and saw a considerable spike in traffic. By spike I mean there actually was traffic since practically no one reads this blog in the first place.

I checked for the source and apparently it came from Ali Abunimah's twitter stream. He was reacting to this post that I wrote about two earlier tweets of his. Here's what he wrote:

"The kind of racist defamation Zionist settlers sink to: 'Abunimah sees Jews as his dogs with no rights whatsoever" http://j.mp/c4oWZL'"

Coming from him I'll take that as a compliment. To be honest I don't see how my comment could be construed as racism, considering I was referring specifically to Abunimah and not to any particular group of people. It could theoretically be viewed as defamation, although based on Abunimah's twitter stream alone I believe my description of him to be accurate.

I also find it amusing that I have somehow been elevated to the status of settler. Apparently Abunimah now views central Tel Aviv as a settlement. I suppose that says something about his perspective on the situation here.

In case anyone reading Abunimah's twitter stream is confused by his rhetoric I will state here clearly my opinion of the Palestinians. They are a people, and like all peoples should be afforded the right to live in peace and dignity. I believe that they deserve a state of their own, and I have no problem recognizing their legitimate right to self determination.

It would be nice if they, and Abunimah, were willing to confer the same right to the Jewish people. I believe that their denial of the Jewish peoples' legitimate right to self determination is the primary obstacle to peace in the region. But that's just my humble opinion.

At any rate, Abunimah did get one thing right. I am indeed a Zionist, and I'm proud to be one.

Ali Abunimah's hypocrisy …

2010-10-13T14:26:00.000+02:00

Rabid Israel hater Ali Abunimah posted the following tweets yesterday in response to the Obama administration's endorsement of Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland of the Jewish people.

He changed the White House statement in order to paint Israel as some sort of racist state.

# "We recognize the special nature of the [Northern Irish] state. It is a state for the [Protestant] people." http://j.mp/9P6QZJ #Israel about 14 hours ago via bitly

# "We recognize the special nature of the [South African] state. It is a state for the [White] people." http://j.mp/9P6QZJ #Israel #apartheid

I humbly offer my own alternative and hope to see Abunimah post it on his twitter account in the near future.

"We recognize the special nature of the [Palestinian] state. It is a state for the [Palestinian] people."

I have to admit, I don't see anything wrong about that last statement. It actually makes a lot of sense to me.

Perhaps that's because I see Palestinians as human beings with legitimate aspirations for statehood, while Abunimah sees Jews as his dogs with no rights whatsoever.

About that Jewish and democratic state thing ...

2010-10-12T15:11:00.000+02:00

In case I wasn't clear yesterday, I don't support the proposed amendment to the citizenship law as it currently exists for several reasons. It seems to me unnecessary, ineffective, and it seems to be overly demanding of Israel's non-Jewish citizens.

However, none of my reasons include opposition to Israel's definition as a Jewish and democratic state. That is a completely non-controversial statement and definition, and one which has many parallels throughout the rest of the world.

But just in case there are people who do oppose that definition, I would like to propose several alternative texts to establish Israel's relationship to Judaism.

Proposal #1:

RELATIONS OF SYNAGOGUE AND STATE

The prevailing religion in Israel is that of the Orthodox Jewish Rabbinate. The Orthodox Jewish Rabbinate, acknowledging the G-d of Israel, is inseparably united in doctrine with the Orthodox Jewish Rabbinates and with every other Orthodox Jewish community of the same doctrine, observing unwaveringly, as they do, the holy and sacred traditions as ordained in Halacha.

Well perhaps that might be too strong.

Proposal #2:

In the Name of the G-d of Israel, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,

We, the people of Israel,

Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, the G-d of Israel, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,

Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation,

And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations,

Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.

Well, again that might be too many obligations to the Jewish G-d. Perhaps something simpler and more straightforward?

Proposal #3

The Israeli Government supports the Jewish religion.

Well, maybe I should take a look at what Israel's Declaration of Independence has to say on the matter. It is after all the founding document of the country that, along with the basic laws, has been interpreted as Israel's constitution. I'll include two key components of the declaration.

ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE'S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL. …

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

You know what, that's pretty good. I think we should stick with that and forget about the alternatives. Of course you may be wondering where the alternatives came from. Well I thought maybe Israel should take a page from other countries, and base its laws on theirs. So I borrowed text from the constitutions of other countries.

Proposal #1 – Greece:

SECTION II RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE

Article 3

1. The prevailing religion in Greece is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ. The Orthodox Church of Greece, acknowledging our Lord Jesus Christ as its head, is inseparably united in doctrine with the Great Church of Christ in Constantinople and with every other Church of Christ of the same doctrine, observing unwaveringly, as they do, the holy apostolic and syn- odal canons and sacred traditions. It is autocephalous and is administered by the Holy Synod of serving Bishops and the Permanent Holy Synod originating thereof and assembled as specified by the Statutory Charter of the Church in compliance with the provisions of the Patriarchal Tome of June 29, 1850 and the Synodal Act of September 4, 1928.

Source: http://www.hri.org/docs/syntagma/artcl25.html#S11

Proposal #2 – Ireland:

In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,

We, the people of Éire,

Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,

Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation,

And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations,

Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.

Source: http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/attached_files/Pdf%20files/Constitution%20of%20Ireland.pdf

Proposal #3- Argentina:

Section 2.- The Federal Government supports the Roman Catholic Apostolic religion.

Source: http://www.argentina.gov.ar/argentina/portal/documentos/constitucion_ingles.pdf

Avigdor Lieberman is a douchebag ...

2010-10-11T17:32:00.001+02:00

There has been a lot of shrill discussion, as there usually is, in Israel's media lately about the proposed amendment to Israel's citizenship law. The amendment would require individuals seeking Israeli citizenship to pledge loyalty to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state." This amendment has been labeled as racist and fascist and all sorts of other "ists" by individuals within and outside of Israel.

When I stop to think of it, this amendment really doesn't seem that controversial to me. Israel has long defined itself as a Jewish and democratic state, so asking prospective citizens to swear allegiance to Israel as such should be obvious, right?

Well not necessarily. This bill seems largely superfluous and unnecessary. The amendment will apply almost exclusively to non-Jews who are seeking to immigrate, and won't apply to Jews making aliyah according to the law of return. Why shouldn't Jews also be required to take this oath? I'm not alone in feeling lukewarm about this amendment. Even members of the conservative Likud party are uncertain about its effect.

"This is the Jewish people' state. We've inscribed that in our Basic Laws. Do we really have to keep repeating it? It creates detrimental tensions," he said.

The second ramification Meridor warns of is the possible harm to Israel's international image: "We are in the midst of fighting a de-legitimization campaign against Israel, which is a huge danger. This fight has to be managed carefully and this is not helping us. No other nation mandates such a thing, why give anyone another thing to use against us?

I think the real reason this bill is seen as controversial is because of its source: Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu party. Lieberman, and his party, have the uncanny ability to make even reasonable ideas sound racist and fascist. I personally believe this is related to Lieberman's embarrassing, amateurish, stupid, and thuggish performance as Foreign Minister. The man seems hell bent on making Israel seem as uncivilized and boorish as possible and Prime Minister Netanyahu has inexplicably given him the perfect office to do so.

At any rate, I believe a reasonable compromise will be reached. It will happen because most Israelis and most of their leaders are reasonable people. They are proud to live in a Jewish state, while recognizing the need to be sensitive to the minority population that lives amongst us. As for Lieberman, I pray every day that someone in this country comes to their senses and fires his stupid ass.

Actually, there is good news ...

2010-10-10T17:22:00.000+02:00

For a long time the only positive news out of Israel was economic news. Then the global financial crisis hit and Israel was pulled down just like everyone else.

Well, now it seems that Israel has pulled itself back up again. Even the IMF has noticed.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts 4.2% GDP growth in Israel in 2010, up from 0.8% growth in 2009. The optimistic forecast is contained in the IMF's bi-annual World Economic Outlook report which was published today on the eve of the IMF conference in Washington DC.

The IMF forecast is higher than the Bank of Israel's 4% prediction, which was issued on September 29, having been revised upwards from its 3.7% forecast in April.

Read the whole thing.

It happens once in a hundred years ...

2010-10-06T18:18:00.000+02:00

Plastered throughout Tel Aviv there are larger banner ads promoting a mysterious and unnamed product. They feature different attractive looking people (and one dog) from various age groups looking happily towards the sky at some unseen magnificent sight.

What they're looking at is left to the imagination and they only clue given is the tag line "it happens once in a hundred years."

Well with a little searching I figured out this is an ad for "Gindi Tel Aviv," a new apartment project under development in Tel Aviv.

The Gindi project is part of the massive Wholesale Market Compound, a huge lot in central Tel Aviv that until a few years ago was occupied by the aforementioned wholesale market. A development plan was drawn up for the lot including four tall apartment towers, about ten low-rise apartment buildings, commercial space, and green open areas. All in all, the plan calls for some 1,125 residential units. You can read all about the project at the Tel Aviv Info website.

The Gindi Tel Aviv project represents the first stage of the plan, calling for the construction of the ten low-rise buildings. I have a hobby of reading about urban developments and towers here in Tel Aviv so I wandered over to the website and Facebook page of the developer.

They had some nice renders of the project and a photo gallery from their "gala announcement." It's all very classy. Of course any apartment in this project is certain to be super expensive so only a very select group of people will ever be able to even think about buying an apartment there.

This project is another example of how the Israeli economy continues to grow at a prodigious speed. Israeli is now outpacing most of the other developed economies in terms of growth. The situation here is certainly more robust than in the U.S. and I feel it when I talk to my friends and family back in the states.

But there is something about this project and its ads that … poked me somewhere inside my head. I realize that's a clumsy analogy but it’s the best I could do. This apartment project was advertised as if it were a rock concert. They weren't selling homes; they were selling a very clear idea, an idea that says "wealth, success, and opportunity."

It says something about the mindset of people here. I sit around most days worrying about all the people who hate Israel. Most Israeli's could care less, they're to busy living their lives and building an amazing, vibrant, and dynamic country.

Ummm? Actually no ...

2010-10-04T17:08:00.000+02:00

I'm sure Desmond Tutu is a good man. He has worked tirelessly for the cause of freedom and human rights, and for that he deserves to commended. However, when it comes to Israel he has proven himself to be profoundly ignorant.

He recently supported a call for a South African university to sever ties with an Israeli university. Here is the justification he provided.

"Israeli universities are an intimate part of the Israeli regime, by active choice," Tutu wrote in an essay that appeared in a South African newspaper Sunday. "While Palestinians are not able to access universities and schools, Israeli universities produce the research, technology, arguments and leaders for maintaining the occupation."

I'm sorry, but anyone who knows even the slightest bit about Israeli universities knows that they are the sources of the most vocal criticism of Israeli society, of the Israeli government, and of Israel's policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians.

To suggest that Israeli universities "are an intimate part of the Israeli regime," whatever that means, shows a total failure to form even a rudimentary understanding of Israeli society. It shows a perspective that is based on the propaganda and distortions of Israel's most hateful critics, rather anything related to truth or fact.

Like most universities, Israel's institutions of higher learning are bastions for Israel's most liberal and progressive thinkers. They serve Jews and Arabs alike and provide a vital forum for the free flow of ideas and democratic values. Israel's universities have recently come under attack by more radical right-wing elements in Israeli society for the often biting criticisms and viewpoints that are produced there.

Anyone who attacks these institutions merely sets back those members of Israeli society seeking to promote dialogue and reconciliation, and ultimately harms the chances for peace.

There are two cooks in Israel's kitchen ...

2010-09-28T19:01:00.000+02:00

Earlier today Israeli Foreign Minister and all around schmuck Avigdor Lieberman gave an address to the U.N. in which he laid out his plans for peace. His vision includes a swap of populated territories in which Arab communities in Israel would become part of the new Palestinian state and Jewish communities in the west bank would become part of Israel.

A short while later Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that he had not approved Lieberman's speech and that he alone was in charge of the negotiations. As described in Haaretz:

The PMO's statement Tuesday essentially put Netanyahu and Lieberman on a public collision course, after the foreign minister effectively expressed his disagreement with Netanyahu's peace-talks policies. While aides to the prime minister admitted that Lieberman's scheme has come up during internal discussions, no official decision as to his stance have been made, they said.

Hopefully Bibi will fire his idiot FM and we can finally have someone represent Israel who can speak English and isn't thought of as a racist fascist by the rest of the civilized world.

Uplifting ...

2010-09-28T16:02:00.000+02:00

Several weeks ago the pro-Israel blogosphere covered the story of Cliona Campbell, a young Irish woman who came to Israel to volunteer to help the IDF. She didn't serve as a soldier but rather spent her time preparing army bags and painting bases and other such activities.

Upon her return to Ireland she was met with a wave of anger and hatred, and she was ridiculed and reviled in the press. Well, she has written an outstanding post at CiF Watch about her experience and it is a must read for anyone looking to understand the atmosphere of hatred that surrounds the people who are opposed to Israel.

Yet when I returned home to Ireland after two months of packing kitbags and painting warehouses on Israeli army bases, I was, for all purposes, the devil incarnate. As punishment for making public my volunteering in Israel, I was met by an onslaught of savage attacks and condemnation from my fellow countrymen. They called for the confiscation of my passport, claiming that I had already revoked my Irish identity the minute I volunteered for Israel. As far as they were concerned, I was a “baby killer”, a “terrorist” and a traitor to Ireland. Many Irish people openly voiced their disappointment that I had not been raped and shot by the Israeli soldiers of whom I had worked alongside ...

To see the country of one’s birth become the feeding ground for Islamists and extremists is in no small way soul-destroying. I simply hope that someday people will wake up and realise that Ireland’s history of decades of bloody terrorist activity was never noble and never justifiable. As a nation which has endured the agony of years of terrorism, we should be on the frontline campaigning in opposition to such barbaric tactics. Has it been so long that we have forgotten that armed resistance is not the precursor to peace, but a foretaste of more savage brutality?

I always say that I understand why Jews support Israel, we have to deal with the hatred and the danger, we have no other country and no other choice. But I fail to understand how brave non-Jews can come here and tolerate the level of hatred that is directed at Israel. Perhaps I don't need to understand and rather simply say thank you.

Receiving blessings ...

2010-09-28T13:01:00.000+02:00

I'm not particularly religious. On the Israeli scale I fall somewhere between Hiloni and Masorti, that is, somewhere between secular and traditional. I grew up going to a conservative synagogue in the U.S. and that is a pretty good label for my Jewish identity.

Living here in Israel it's hard to find a religious community that accurately represents my view. There are only a handful of conservative shuls in Tel Aviv and the more progressive ones are just a bit too "shanti" for my taste. But nevertheless I've found places to celebrate the holidays with friends and neighbors and I feel very much at home here.

Having grown up in a conservative shul in the states I had never witnessed a ceremony called the "Birkat Ha'Kohanim," which is practiced during major Jewish holidays. The first time I saw it was when I went with my father to a Chabad service for Rosh Ha'Shana. It is a fascinating service in which all the Cohens in the congregation gather together to perform the "Priestly Blessing." This blessing is commonly known amongst many communities in its English translation:

May the Lord bless you and keep you:

May the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious unto you:

May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

In the service all the men lift up their Talitot and cover themselves in them. Fathers will cover their children and it is customary not to look at the Kohanim as they perform the blessing. What is not seen is that under their Talitot the Kohanim are extending their hands in a very specific way. It is this same hand signal that was later immortalized by Leonard Nimoy in his Vulcan hand salute.

A few years ago I stumbled upon a video of this ceremony being performed by tens of thousands of people at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem. I had never seen anything like it in my lifetime of Judaism, and I found it be hauntingly powerful. Here is a video from this year's ceremony:

The ceremony is performed twice a year at the Kotel during the festivals of Sukkot and Passover. These are two of the traditional pilgrimage festivals in which all of the nation of Israel would gather in Jerusalem to pray at the temple.

Last week I realized that the "Birkat Ha'Kohanim" was approaching, and I decided I wanted to attend. So on Sunday I woke up at 5:45 in the morning, which is for me a miracle in itself, and took the bus to Jerusalem. The city was bustling with people making their way to the Kotel for the ceremony. The bus was overflowing with people, and the bus company had clearly made special arrangements for the large crowd that was coming. The closest feeling to the atmosphere is the push before a major concert or sporting event. Moving tens of thousands of people around, all headed to one central location, is complicated and stressful. Nevertheless, most people were calm and friendly, including the nice Haredi man on the bus sitting next to me who asked me where I was from and pinched my cheek after he found out that I had made aliyah.

The "Birkat Ha'Kohanim" is now one of the closest things we have to how Jews practiced their religion during the time of the temple. It is a profound statement about the effect that Israel has on the Jewish people and how they practice their religion. When I saw this ceremony I couldn't help but feel that this is what a people looks like when it is returned to its land.

Why I don't care about Jonathan Pollard …

2010-09-21T14:28:00.000+02:00

There has been a lot of rumbling in the Israeli press and in the pro-Israel blogosphere that the U.S and Israel may agree to a three-month extension of the settlement freeze in exchange for the release of convicted spy Jonathon Pollard. It may sound insensitive, considering Pollard has been in jail since 1987, but I don't really care about what happens to him.

Pollard is a U.S citizen and passed on secret U.S. information to Israel. Now, it may be true that the U.S. and Israel are allies and that the information probably pertained to Arab countries and other enemies of Israel. But that doesn't make it ok.

Pollard broke the law. He is an American and his loyalty should lie with the U.S. More than that, I learned long ago a rule to live by: don't frak with Uncle Sam.

Now many may question how I can say this with such confidence considering I left the U.S. and now live in Israel. "Don't you have dual loyalties?" they might ask.

Yes, I do have dual loyalties. I have dual citizenship. I have to respect the laws of both countries and support the wellbeing of both countries. And you know what, it's not hard. The U.S. and Israel ARE allies and their interests tend to coincide.

Yes the countries have differences of opinion about policy. But those differences are no greater than what can be found among the elected representatives of both countries. I don't agree with a lot of Obama's policies, but that doesn't make me disloyal to the U.S. I disagree with a lot of Netanyahu's policies, and I absolutely loathe Avigdor Lieberman, but that doesn't make me disloyal to Israel.

But Pollard was an employee of the U.S. government and he had an obligation to uphold the law. He failed, and he was tried and sentenced fairly. He deserves his fate.

The worst comparison in the history of comparisons …

2010-09-19T18:53:00.002+02:00

For some inexplicable reason the comparison of the Arab-Israel conflict to the problems in Northern Ireland keeps popping up again and again. I touched on this subject briefly before, but I haven't addressed it in great depth.

I think I'll leave it to others, probably smarter than I am and certainly better informed, to tackle this issue head-on.

There was a great refutation of the comparison in Slate, and the Z-Word blog has run several posts on the subject.

I have some more thoughts on this but so far not enough time to organize them.

Smoke on the water ...

2010-09-19T16:28:00.000+02:00

Several weeks back, pro-Israel blogs pointed out that there was a water park in Gaza, and that it was proof that there certainly isn't a dire humanitarian catastrophe there.

Well it looks like Hamas is working hard to make sure that life in Gaza is absolutely as miserable as possible.

Gaza's aquapark attraction "Crazy Water Park" was vandalized and partially set ablaze by on (sic) Sunday morning, the seaside resort's management said.

Around 40 unidentified militants stormed the tourist resort, breaking and destroying items and setting fire to its restaurant and administration buildings.

Go read the whole thing.

It needs saying ...

2010-09-16T17:44:00.000+02:00

I've said this before in other places but it should be said here as well. Jeffrey Goldberg is my new intellectual hero. His insight into the conflict here is balanced, informed, intelligent, and mercifully moderate.

In a blog post today he sums up his feelings on the current round of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians with the brevity the subject deserves. It just so happens that his thoughts closely mirror my own.

In other words, the maximum the Israelis can afford to offer is less than the minimum the Palestinians can accept. Maybe things will change if Hamas rule of Gaza, and settler rule of the West Bank, come to an end. But I'm not seeing that right now.

I'm not one for brevity, however, so I will elaborate a bit on the big issues and the huge gulf that exists between the sides.

1. Palestinian Refugees: The Palestinians continue to insist, publicly at least, that they will never relinquish the so called right of return. On the other hand, there is practically zero support to concede on this issues amongst Israel's leadership or the Israeli public.

If somehow a Palestinian leader agreed to concede on this issue, there is no evidence that the Palestinian public, both in the territories and across the world, would accept this concession.

2. Jerusalem: The standard formulation for peace calls for a division of Jerusalem. Well that sounds easy enough until you actually start to think about what that means. While most Israeli won't have too much trouble giving up the city's Arab neighborhoods, the really tricky part is the Old City.

How do you divide between two countries something not much larger than Disneyland? How do you split up the Temple Mount and all the other sensitive religious spots? I've seen some of the compromises people have come up with and none of them seem realistic.

Yaacov Lozowick has written a series of posts on this subject and their worth checking out.

3. Borders: This is probably the easiest issue to resolve and yet it's still a nightmare. While both sides would be willing to accept mutual and agreed border exchanges, the extent of those land swaps are still highly debatable.

One big question, for example, is the West Bank city of Ariel. Most Israelis consider it a settlement in the consensus, while the Palestinians say it's a non-starter because it would break up the continuity of their state, even though it wont.

It short, there is much more room for pessimism than there is optimism here.

Why I don't support the settlement freeze (right now) …

2010-09-15T13:58:00.000+02:00

The big talk out on the Interwebs is whether Israel will continue with its self imposed settlement freeze. The Obama administration has been pushing hard for Israel to continue with the building moratorium, while Abbas has claimed that any continued settlement construction will cause him to pull out of the peace talks.

I'm not a big supporter of the settlements. I think Israel needs to start delineating its borders and the settlements don't help in that regard. I also believe strongly in a two-state solution to the conflict and that will inevitably require Israel to withdraw from many settlements.

There are many Israelis who think like I do, but there isn't that much support for the freeze. The reason is that Israelis understand that these negotiations are a game. A deadly game to be sure, but they are a game. One of the rules of negotiations is that you don't give up something for nothing. Israelis made an unprecedented concession by declaring a freeze on settlements and they got nothing in return.

This sets a dangerous pattern for the negotiations. Israel's leaders need to come out and say we are willing to go a long way for peace, but we're not going to give, and give, and give, and get nothing in return.

The media keeps talking about gestures the Israelis can offer to show that they are serious to the Palestinians. Well I and many other Israelis are still waiting for a single Palestinian gesture to show that they are serious.

People are visiting ...

2010-09-14T23:17:00.000+02:00

Well the tourist numbers are out and they keep going up. This year has so far been a stellar one for the Israeli tourist industry and it looks like we're on pace for a new record.

This is nothing but good. Tourists do many things. They give the economy a boost and they go back to their home countries to spread the good word about Israel.

The last part is critical in my opinion. The best PR Israel can get is by people coming here and seeing the country. People who come here are often surprised by how normal Israel is, and anyone who comes here with an open mind generally goes away with a new found appreciation for the country.

It looks like this year I'm gonna connect with at least four tourists to Israel. My mom and sister came in July to celebrate my 30th birthday with me. At the same time my friend's brother came for the first time on a Birthright trip. In October, my cousin will be coming for a visit also with Birthright.

Each one of these people will go back with a better picture of reality here, and will help spread the image to the people they know.

Also, just in case you're looking for some good tourist information about Israel, I highly recommend the site igoogledisrael. It's a great resource for some real inside information on visiting the country.

Palestinian Vengeance Porn ...

2010-09-13T20:13:00.001+02:00

When Hamas says they want to destroy Israel, most Israelis take them at their word, interpreting the statement as a call for the violent destruction of Israel. We are only left to speculate as to what will happen to the Israelis themselves.

Some people, notably certain pundits and analysts in the west, have argued that the Israel needs to begin a dialogue with Hamas, and that the Islamist terror organization needs to be involved in the peace process.

Some people who make this argument genuinely believe that Hamas can become moderate. Others simply make the argument because fundamentally they agree with Hamas' goal of destroying Israel, although not necessarily with its tactics.

However, it's important to look at what Hamas actually has to say about their goals. Fortunately, they are fairly clear about it and have provided us with a great visual demonstration of what the destruction of Israel will look like.

The video, which is particularly popular in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, was created by two Hamas operatives from Gaza and the West Bank.

It shows a graphic simulation of the burning down of the High Court of Justice and the Bank of Israel buildings in Jerusalem, and cars with Palestinian flags driving across Ayalon Highway.

The beginning of the video shows a Palestinian refugee saying "Inshallah, the Jihad will take back the homeland."

The next image is of Palestinian students telling their teacher they want to become part of the resistance; followed by an image of an armed Palestinian outlining the liberation operation.

After Israel is successfully attacked and "liberated," Palestinians are shown walking along the Tel Aviv promenade and on its streets.

At the pinnacle moment of the video, the opening credits to Channel 2's nightly news edition appear, but anchorwoman Yonit Levy's place is taken by a Palestinian anchorman, depicted getting ready for the news broadcast declaring the "liberation of Tel Aviv and Palestine."

While this is not a surprising vision from Hamas, it should throw cold water on anyone who believes that a one-state solution is possible. Many leftist anti-Israel activists somehow believe that simply ending Jewish sovereignty will make everything "all better" and that Hamas and other Palestinian radicals will let go of their thirst for vengeance.

This belief is prominent amongst many of the anti-Israel Jews who post at sites like Mondoweiss. I suppose it's possible that Jews actually believe in that fantasy. After all, there are many people who believe that 9-11 was an inside job, or that the moon landings were faked, or that leprechauns exist.

But when I see this video, I can't help but believe that this is what the Palestinian activists have in mind when they envision a one-state solution. They may not be as blunt about it as Hamas, but their rhetoric is in many ways no less hateful or full of rage.

For a Jew, Israel is the only normal country …

2010-09-12T12:06:00.000+02:00

For the Rosh Ha'Shana eve dinner I went with my girlfriend to her uncle's house in Ber Sheva. I've been here almost four years now but celebrating the holidays always kicks me back into that mindset where I notice just how Jewish Israel really is.

We got to Ber Sheva around seven, just as the holiday was coming in. We hit a bit of traffic on the way down as other families made their way to family dinners.

As we sat on the porch waiting for the other family members to arrive people walked down the street, wearing kippot and heading off for prayers at the synagogue.

There was nothing remarkable about the scene really. It felt like any other holiday that I saw growing up in the states. But of course here it was a Jewish holiday that caused the country to come to a standstill. Here everyone says Shana Tovah, Happy New Year, and the holiday is all around you.

I still get a kick out of that feeling. People who hate Israel often come up with complex and elaborate reasons why the country came into existence. They prefer to see Israel as the result of a very strange, unique, and dangerous ideology – Zionism.

This of course has nothing to do with reality. Zionism and the Zionist movement are really just fancy names for a very basic desire among Jews. That desire is to feel like a normal people, like people in countries everywhere else in the world.

It is desire to have a home, a place that is permanent, and a place in which you are the master of your own fate.

It is the most basic desire in the world, and in Israel, on the holidays, Jews know that this is their home.

Another great spokesman for Israel

2010-09-07T14:26:00.000+03:00

In an earlier post I mentioned how former British PM Tony Blair is a fantastic spokesman for Israel. Well as it turns out there is another former European leader who is a strong supporter and articulate advocate for Israel.

And here is where Israel enters the equation. If the major strategic challengers are a potential nuclear Iran on the one hand and jihadism on the other hand, Israel is vital for us, for our nations and societies. Israel is not only an integral part of the West, for all kind of reasons I don’t need to elaborate here, Israel is today essential for us. Even more now than before, not only because you are in the region where the strategic tectonic plates collide, but because you are one of the few nations willing to pay a price for your survival, a nation that will do whatever it takes to defend itself, a nation where our core democratic values are so ingrained that defending the State of Israel is the same as defending our liberal system.

The words above came from former Spanish PM José María Aznar. Like Blair, he delivered an address to the World Jewish Congress that was recently convened in Jerusalem.

It's a bit of a long speech but it's certainly worth the read. There is also a video link on the site if you prefer that.

Aznar mentions in his speech that he helped form a group of European leaders called the Friends of Israel Initiative. I'm not sure what this group is doing or how successful it is, but it is certainly reassuring that there is someone left in Europe who cares about protecting the modern democratic world from the numerous threats and challenges it faces.

Hat tip: Israel Matzav

Perhaps I should just let him do all the work ...

2010-09-06T21:12:00.000+03:00

A little while ago I mentioned here that I needed to rearrange by blog roll. Well that hasn't happened yet.

When I do get around to it, one blogger I will be certain to add is Yaacov Lozowick.

I discovered his blog only a little while ago, but it's quickly become one of my favorite reads.

He has two great posts up today. One is about the story of an Arab man who was convicted of "rape by deception" and the worldwide media storm the issue caused. Well now it turns out that it was more rape than deception, and yet the world media is silent.

The other post he has up is a rundown on how Max Blumenthal is a propagandist and a liar. Well, you can't ask for more than that.

Yaacov is articulate, balanced, and extremely well informed. I guess that makes me a fan.

What do you mean by peace?

2010-09-05T12:20:00.000+03:00

"Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace"

This was the headline that accompanied a Time magazine article on the Israeli public's cool and indifferent view of the peace negotiations that were recently restarted in Washington.

The problems with this headline are numerous. First of all, it becomes clear in the article that the author is not really referring to peace as much as he is referring to the peace process.

When he does refer to actual peace, the feeling one gets from the article is that Israelis no longer believe in peace.

"Listen to me," says Eli Bengozi, born in Soviet Georgia and for 40 years an Israeli. "Peace? Forget about it. They'll never have peace. Remember Clinton gave 99% to Arafat, and instead of them fighting for 1%, what? Intifadeh."

I can say that this disbelief is one of the most common views I have heard from Israelis. Many people here will make the same argument, which sounds something like this: "It doesn't matter what we do, or what we give up, it will never be enough for them. There will never be peace here. I would give up all the West Bank and even Jerusalem, but that won't bring peace. As long as Israel is here, they will want to destroy us."

This perspective, from what I understand, didn't really exist ten years ago. If it did, it certainly wasn't main stream. But after the Intafada, the Second Lebanon War, Cast Lead, and all the other countless incidents Israel has experienced in the past decade, belief in peace has withered greatly.

The author of the article never really delves into what Israelis think of as peace, or what they envision peace will be like. It must be said, however, as Backspin pointed out in their critique of this article, that this is an abridged version of the story. It's possible that the author goes deeper into the issue in the print version of the magazine.

Yet, more than anything, I think the writer misses out on a big part of the story even though it's staring him in the face in his own article. Israelis don't really care about the peace process or about achieving peace with their neighbors, because to a great extent they already have it or, at least, something close enough to it.

… the truth is, Israelis are no longer preoccupied with the matter. They're otherwise engaged; they're making money; they're enjoying the rays of late summer …

Now observing 2½ years without a single suicide bombing on their territory, with the economy robust and with souls a trifle weary of having to handle big elemental thoughts, the Israeli public prefers to explore such satisfactions as might be available from the private sphere, in a land first imagined as a utopia.

Want Israelis really want is normalcy - quiet, mundane existence. They don't see that in the peace process, which has failed to bring security, and has mostly brought international scorn and condemnation.

What has worked for Israel is military action. The Intafada was quelled not with diplomacy, but with force. The Second Lebanon War returned quiet to the northern border. Cast Lead brought some respite for the southern communities.

Until Israelis are convinced that the Arabs want real peace with them, they will continue to ignore the much touted peace process and will instead rely on the might of the IDF to bring the security they so desperately crave.

It never fails ...

2010-08-31T23:07:00.003+03:00

Any time Israel takes a step for peace there is inevitably a violent response from somewhere in the Palestinian camp.

A few hours ago, four Israelis, two men and two women aged about 25 and 40 and apparently from the same family, were killed near Hebron in the West Bank. Terrorists shot at their car, and then approached and made sure they were dead. It's unclear at this time who exactly was responsible for the attack since no terror group has come forward to claim responsibility. It doesn't really matter.

No one should be surprised by this. Every single Israeli gesture is always met with violence. Every offer, every withdrawal, any step towards peace. It's the radicals way of claiming victory and making their "voice" heard.

This is what happens when people have the intention to kill. They walk up to a car with four innocent people and shoot until everyone is dead.

But some people don't understand that concept.

Earlier today Israeli Arab MK Hanin Zoabi told a UN Human Rights panel that the Israeli soldiers who boarded the Mavi Marmara intended to kill the passengers on board.

She said "We were very peaceful activists, but the commandoes came to kill."

She said this despite the fact that:

Activists on the ship had expressed their desire to die
Activists on the ship had threatened a violent confrontation if the IDF boarded the ship
Activists attacked the soldiers as soon as they reached the ship
Activists used live fire against the soldiers

And also that:

Soldiers boarded the ship with paintball guns
Three soldiers were captured and others badly injured
Five other boats were captured without incident
Deaths only occurred on the Mavi Marmara, where Zuabi was located

Zuabi is a liar, and everyone knows it, but she and the rest of the world go on playing the game in which she has something valuable to say.

This woman claimed that there were no armed activists on the boat and that she didn't see anyone with clubs or knives. She said this even after video appeared of her standing 10 feet from a group of men holding iron bars.

That is what people do when the have the intention to kill, they prepare weapons and declare their readiness to die. They don't board boats with paintball guns.

When people have the intention to kill, they spray bullets towards a car carrying innocent people, including a pregnant woman. Then they walk up to the car and shoot the people at point blank range to make sure they're dead.

A follow up post ...

2010-08-30T11:23:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I highlighted the twisted logic of anti-Israel activist Ali Abunimah's op-ed in The New York Times. Well today I found a great summary of the problems with the Northern Ireland analogy over at the 'Z' Word blog.

They do a much better job running down the inconsistencies in Abunimah's argument, and also highlight the overall problems with the analogy. Go read the whole thing.

The unique anti-logic of Ali Abunimah …

2010-08-29T18:40:00.001+03:00

I wasn't sure what I was going to post today until I wandered over to Mondoweiss and was directed towards what was described as "a great journalistic moment." Philip Weiss was simply giddy that his anti-Israel colleague, Ali Abunimah, was granted op-ed space in The New York Times.

What was Abunimah's main argument? That the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians will be futile as long as Hamas is excluded from the process.

Abunimah, the founder of the Electronic Intifada website, BDS activist, author of various anti-Israel screeds, and all around pleasant fellow, made a comparison to the situation in Northern Ireland in order to prove his point. While I can understand this reference to a certain extent, since Abunimah was referring to U.S Middle East envoy George Mitchell's success in that region, he nevertheless draws completely the wrong conclusion. Color me surprised.

I have long argued that the situation in Northern Ireland will offer an observer exactly zero insight into the Arab-Israeli conflict. Without going into detail, the two are in no way related. Nevertheless, Abunimah finds considerable evidence there that Hamas should be engaged and involved in the peace process.

In regards to Northern Ireland Abunimah argues that it was "only by breaking with one-sided demands that Mr. Mitchell was able to help bring peace." Abunimah states earlier in the article that the U.S has imposed a similar set of one-sided demands on Hamas. It is interesting to read how those demands are described.

The United States insists that Hamas meet strict preconditions before it can take part in negotiations: recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by agreements previously signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, of which Hamas is not a member. These demands are unworkable …

Please note that Abunimah describes what any rational observer would list as the most basic, minimum requirements for Israel to engage Hamas as "strict" and "unworkable." What would there be to discuss? Will Israel continue to exist, will it not? Well according to Abunimah, that would be discussed.

Abunimah, as anyone familiar with him would know, does not recognize Israel's right to exist. In that regard he completely agrees with Hamas, making it no surprise that he wants them involved in the negotiations. But what is most remarkable about Abunimah's argument is what follows in the very next sentence.

Why should Hamas or any Palestinian accept Israel’s political demands, like recognition, when Israel refuses to recognize basic Palestinian demands like the right of return for refugees?

This is perhaps the most perfect summary of the impossible logic of the anti-Israel community. As anyone familiar with the Arab-Israeli conflict knows, the implementation of the so-called "right of return" would effectively eliminate the State of Israel by inundating it with Palestinian Arabs. Abunimah and others admit this openly. This allows us to rephrase and simplify Abunimah's argument to see what he is really saying.

Why should Hamas or any Palestinian accept Israel’s political demands, like recognition, when Israel refuses to recognize basic Palestinian demands like the right [to eliminate Israel]?

Anyone looking for explanations why there isn't peace need look no further than Ali Abunimah.

The best spokesman for Israel ...

2010-08-26T11:00:00.000+03:00

You need to read this speech given by one of the most eloquent spokesman for Israel around. The funny thing is, I bet you wont guess who gave the speech. I'll save the surprise for the end, but first some interesting highlights.

I often have a conversation about the West Bank which goes like this. Someone says: Israel must lift the occupation. I reply: I agree but it has to be sure that when it does so, there will be security and a Palestinian force capable of preventing terrorism. They say: so you’re supporting occupation. I say: I’m not: I’m simply pointing out that if Hamas, with an unchanged position on Israel, were running the West Bank, Israel would have a perfectly legitimate right to be concerned about it’s security.

A constant conversation I have with some, by no means all, of my European colleagues is to argue to them: don’t apply rules to the Government of Israel that you would never dream of applying to your own country. In any of our nations, if there were people firing rockets, committing acts of terrorism and living next door to us, our public opinion would go crazy. And any political leader who took the line that we shouldn’t get too excited about it, wouldn’t last long as a political leader. This is a democracy. Israel lost 1000 citizens to terrorism in the intifada ...

Pretty strong stuff right? Wait, it gets better.

Let me tell you why I am a passionate believer in Israel. This is a democracy. It’s Parliament is vibrant. Its politics is, well, not notably restrained, let’s say. Its press is free. Its people have rights and they are enforced. I had an argument with a friend about Israel. I said to them: ‘ok let’s assume you are charged with a crime you didn’t commit and the penalty is 20 years in prison. And you’re a critic of the Government. Tell me: under which country’s legal system, in this region, would you prefer to be tried?’ He struggled for a bit and then said: ‘that’s not the point.’ ‘But it is’ I replied.

Look around the world about what we admire about the Jewish people: their contribution to art, culture, literature, music, business and philanthropy. It’s a spirit that is identifiable, open and rather wonderful. Whatever bigotry is, it is the opposite of it. It is a free spirit. On holiday I read the new biography of Einstein. Having in early life taken not much interest in the issue, he became an ardent supporter of Israel. But look at the character of the Israel he supported: like Einstein himself – a free thinker, a rebellious thinker even, but one supremely attuned to the future.

That is the Israel people like me support. So guard it; keep it. I am a religious person myself. But the society I want to live in, is one that treats me no better as a result; makes my view one amongst many; and pursues science, technology and progress with vigour and without prejudice. The best answer to the de-legitimisation of Israel lies in the character of Israel itself and in the openness, fair-mindedness and creativity of ordinary Israelis. That character and those people built the State of Israel. They remain it’s guardians. They are why to de-legitimise Israel is not only an affront to Israelis but to all who share the values of a free human spirit.

Amazing, beautiful, poetic. This is one of the best arguments in favor of Israel that I have seen in a long time. It must come from an ardent, passionate Zionist. Perhaps a Jewish leader, a great Rabbi even.

No, the speech was delivered by former British PM Tony Blair at a conference on the de-legitimisation of Israel.

That Israel, and the wider Jewish, world lacks a single individual who can argue Israel's case so articulately, and so beautifully, is truly depressing.

That a gentile, and an important European leader, is willing and able to argue so well in favor of Israel, is one of the most inspiring things I've seen in a long time.

Read the whole thing, it's really amazing.

Hat tip Yourish.com.

About those Evangelical Christian supporters of Israel ...

2010-08-25T21:59:00.004+03:00

It's a bit of controversial subject, and one that I honestly haven't made up my mind about. But I have to admit that every time I've met these people they've been kind, courteous, and unapologetically supportive of Israel.

This article in Slate says that Jews just don't understand Christian Zionists, and that they just simply love us.

There's no question that they have different politics, rhetoric, and even culture from what we're used to seeing in the Jewish world. But they do seem to express a genuine love and care for Jews. "Being loved" is not something Jews take to easily (or, at least, this Jew doesn't), and it's still pretty awkward for me in personal conversations with Christians—but, awkwardness aside, this palpable sense of concern for Jewish welfare is the first that Jews have felt from such a large religious group in their history.

Is it a good thing that these people support us. In my opinion yes. In the situation Israel is in we can't afford to be picky about our friends. Plus, I think most of these people are decent, honest human beings who are simply committed to their faith.

They've gotten a bad rap in more liberal circles, but I think it's always a good idea for Jews to be open and tolerant to people they may not have trusted in the past.

Hat tip Elder of Ziyon.

The most uplifting thing I've seen in a long time ...

2010-08-24T13:12:00.000+03:00

This profile of an Arab-Israeli businessman is an amazing read. It shows one of the ways in which coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Israel is not a dream, but a reality.

Inas Said is the chief executive of Nazareth based Galil Software. His company is providing a much needed opportunity for the many qualified Arab engineers who have, unfortunately, been unable to break into the Israeli high-tech industry.

One of the more interesting points raised in the article is Said's perspective on why the Arabs have had trouble navigating Israel's high-tech sector.

The Israeli high-tech industry is like an old boys’ club, in which friends bring in friends and many people know each other from the Israeli army, in which Arabs typically don’t serve.

Many Israeli leaders have been looking at the Arab community in Israel as a potential source for new talent and new economic growth. I can't stress how important this is. If Israel can more successfully integrate the Arab community into its advanced economy, the results will be dramatic.

The standard of living of the Arabs is much lower than the Jews at present. There is therefore great potential to increase income, and spending in this community, and to reap the inevitable economic benefits that this would provide for the entire country.

Additionally, improving the economic situation of Israel's Arab citizens will help promote additional cooperation and support from this community and encourage a greater sense of belonging to the state

The non-crisis in Gaza goes mainstream …

2010-08-23T11:41:00.000+03:00

If any label can be applied to The New York Times, mainstream is certainly it. The paper is widely regarded as THE American newspaper, the most respected throughout the nation, and the standard by which other papers are measured.

An article in the paper yesterday touched on the recently opened Gaza Mall, a small shopping center in the city that has received much attention from the pro-Israel blogosphere. In the article Ethan Bronner provides, in my opinion, one of the most succinct and honest descriptions of the situation in Gaza.

To the commentators who have never been here, certain points need to be cleared up. To those who contend the mall is proof that Gaza has construction materials: the building is 20 years old. To those who have described the mall as “gigantic” and “futuristic”: it is small and a bit old-fashioned. To Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, who wrote that the mall “would not look out of place in any capital in Europe”: it would.

But the broader point many of these advocates are making — that the poverty of Gaza is often misconstrued, willfully or inadvertently — is correct. The despair here is not that of Haiti or Somalia. It is a misery of dependence, immobility and hopelessness, not of grinding want. The flotilla movement is not about material aid; it is about Palestinian freedom and defiance of Israeli power.

“Gaza is not poor in the way outsiders think,” said Nida Wishah, a 22-year-old information technology student who was at the mall one recent afternoon. “You can’t compare our poverty with that of Africa.”

I think it must be said that this story would never had appeared but for the noise created by pro-Israel bloggers and Israeli government offices. For too long unfounded claims about Gaza - that there was a raging humanitarian crisis, or that it was a large prison or concentration camp – went unchallenged and were accepted by many as fact.

Examples of this kind of rhetoric are abundant. There was the recent statement by the British PM calling Gaza a prison camp, or this example from the BBC in which a Cardinal from the Vatican compared Gaza to a concentration camp
.
For a long time it was almost impossible to challenge this narrative. But slowly, the truth about Gaza was presented. Two blogs stand out in this regard; Elder of Ziyon and Israellycool. Both feature frequent posts highlighting the lack of devastating poverty in Gaza
.
I recall seeing comments from left-wing Israeli commentators deriding these assertions as "government propaganda." But now, the point has been made, and by The New York Times no less.

This is another example of the power of the blogosphere to shape to the public debate about the conflict, and it's an unquestionable win for those seeking to promote the Israeli perspective. This, along with the relative, but small, successes from the flotilla incident, shows the growing skill of the pro-Israel community to disseminate the truth about the situation
.
The pro-Israel community was certainly late to the game in terms of communications savvy. But it is learning fast, and has already produced tangible results.

However, pro-Israel bloggers need to be careful moving forward. We can not overstate the case. While it is true that the situation in Gaza is far from the disaster that was commonly presented in the media, it is also true that there is nevertheless a difficult situation there. Using terms such as "luxury mall" is unnecessary hyperbole. Presenting a truthful, but balanced perspective is always the best course of action, and in the end, it is the truthful narrative that will support Israel the most.

The negotiations are dead, long live the negotiations ...

2010-08-22T15:11:00.000+03:00

So the big news about Israel internationally is the announcement that direct peace talks between us and the Palestinians are set to resume. This news flash was greeted by the Israeli public with a loud and resounding "meh."

Indifference to the peace talks in Israel is rampant, and expectations for a peace agreement are close to zero. The New York Times has a great analysis of the significance of the talks, which to me have no significance.

I saw a statement from the Obama administration that they believe an agreement can be reached within a year. This seems to me either insanely optimistic, or simply bluster meant to pretty up what is in reality a measly foreign policy victory.

Stating that peace is possible within a year is also a great way to doom the talks to failure. Any agreement that could be reached within a year would likely be rejected by the Israeli public. There is simply no way that the serious and substantive differences between the two sides can be breached in a year, if ever. Stating that peace is possible within a year sets unrealistic expectations, and guarantees that the talks will be looked at in some way as a failure.

I heard recently perhaps the best summary of the Israeli view on the negotiations from my girlfriend quoting her father. His perspective:

Israel has been negotiating over one soldier for more than four years now, and still hasn't reached an agreement. How are we ever going to negotiate peace?

Exports ...

2010-08-19T20:04:00.001+03:00

I tend to freak out about things. For instance, the anti-Israel BDS movement scares the crap out of me. These people use the language of peace and justice as a means to destroy Israel, essentially to wage war against the world's sole Jewish state. It is truly perverse.

But every now and again I see something that helps me calm down. The latest was a piece of economic news out of Israel. It seems that despite all the anger and tension between Israel and Turkey, Israel still managed to increase its exports there.

Trade with Turkey is still higher than in 2009, even after the flotilla incident. Israeli exports to Turkey in July were 57% higher than the $81.6 million in July 2009, and imports from Turkey were 1.4% higher than the $136 million in July last year.

This does not bode well for those who aim to impose a truly effective boycott regime against Israel. Turkey would certainly be an easy target for the boycott Israel movement, with its Muslim population, sympathy for the Palestinians, and new found anger at Israel. However, the tensions have had no perceptible impact on trade between the countries.

While I would like to chalk this up to the heart felt affection the Turks have for us, this probably has nothing to do with it. The real reason probably has more to do with the fact that Israeli businesses aren't easily identifiable. Additionally, many of the largest Israeli companies don't sell their products directly to consumers.

A good example is Amdocs, which creates billing software. One of their big clients is AT&T. Essentially, in order to effectively punish the Israeli company, you would have to first boycott an American one. This is one example, but it speaks to the globalized and highly integrated nature of the Israeli economy.

Blogging update ...

2010-08-18T18:49:00.000+03:00

I've been going pretty strong here in my "return to blogging" effort managing about a post a day except for Fridays and Saturdays. Most of my posts have focused on news and politics, but of course there is room for a whole lot of other things.

One of the mistakes that people often make about Israel is basing their impression of the country solely on what is reported in the news. This gives a horribly skewed view of the country, and fails to relate just how normal life is here.

I hope to work into future posts some more of the things that I love about Tel Aviv and the energy of the city. It's a really great place to live as a (somewhat) young person, with seemingly endless opportunities for good food and entertainment.

One of the fabulous features of the city is of course the beautiful beach and promenade that fronts the western side of town. I'm not much of a beach person, but the atmosphere and the scenery makes for a wonderful place to waste some time. Or, as I plan to do this evening, go running.

Speaking of running, in October, I'll be doing the Nike Night Run Tel Aviv 10k race. This will be my third time doing this run, and it is one of the few things that motivates me to keep running.

I hope to post some photos from the race once I'm done, and maybe update the blog with my progress in getting ready.

Cruel and stupid ...

2010-08-17T12:50:00.000+03:00

That seems to me the only way of describing the actions and reactions of the female Israeli soldier who posted photos to Facebook of herself posing in front of bound and blindfolded Palestinian detainees. Her comments to Israeli media seem to indicate that she really doesn't understand the significance of her actions.

"I still don't understand what's wrong," Abergil told Army Radio on Thursday, saying that the "pictures were taken in good will, there was no statement in them."

The former IDF soldier said the pictures, which she said were of Gazans who had been arrested while attempting to crossover into Israel, were meant to depict a "military experience," and were not intended to injure the detainees.

During the Army Radio interview, Abergil repeatedly said that it had never occurred to her that "the picture would be problematic," asking interviewer Ilana Dayan whether the media asked for detainees permission when they film them.

It's interesting to note that she doesn't see any statement in the photos she posted, or in the comments she later wrote on Facebook. This speaks to something that I have observed among some Israelis; a kind of ignorance and profound immaturity amongst a certain segment of the population.

Some have argued that this behavior is a result of Israel's control of the territories and the Palestinians. I'm not so sure. I have seen some Israelis behaving in equally crass ways to each other. Israelis are notoriously blunt, and will often speak their mind without considering the impact of their words or actions on other people.

Many Israelis simply believe it is more important to be straightforward than to be sensitive. The merits of this line of thinking are highly debatable.

The IDF has an important role to serve and valid reasons to be in the West Bank and Gaza. Detaining Palestinian's who attempt to cross into Israel, as apparently these individuals were doing, should be rightly prevented.

However, Israeli society must ensure that the task is carried out with appropriate sensitivity to the Palestinian population. In this case, it is clear that we failed.

Israel keeps on growing ...

2010-08-16T14:54:00.000+03:00

The good news out of Israel today is the announcment that the Israeli economy grew by 4.7% in the second quarter, and by 4.1% in the first half of this year.

Considering the awful economic situation in many parts of the world, and the bad news about the unemployment situation that I hear from my friends and family back in California, I think everyone here should be awful greatful that things are as good as they are.

I've been saying for a long time that Israelis don't know how good they've got it here. It's true that the economic picture isn't perfect, but it's actually ... pretty good. The situation looks even better when compared to the complete havoc that has been unleashed on the U.S. and Europe because of the economic crisis and so-called "Great Recession."

This news is also critically important because wealth is one of the key advantages that Israel has vis-a-vis the Palestinians. Israel needs to continue to develop it's economic power to serve as a buffer from the eventual shocks to the country as the peace process moves forward, or collapses into another round of fighting.

Snobbery ...

2010-08-15T13:12:00.000+03:00

I stumbled upon an interesting article in Haaretz the other day. It was a heavily sarcastic piece, deriding the recently renovated old Jaffa train station as a tourist trap. The writer could barely contain her displeasure at the quaint, but somewhat schmaltzy setting for a whole new set of typically Tel Aviv cafes, bars, restaurants, and stores.

Like every self-respecting tourist trap, Hatahana is also purporting to be the real thing. While the complex is marketed as a historic site "that preserved its original character," after not functioning as a train station for some time, what remains are prehistoric background props. This gives off an effect resembling the television series "The Flintstones," which created a kind of taste of the schizophrenia of modern life during the Stone Age.

No trains or vehicles travel along the train tracks, preserving their original character, while the station's surrounding facilities have been turned into cafes, boutiques, a souvenir shop and one store with nothing - which no self-respecting tourist trap would be without. The complex was mistakenly crowned "the next hot thing in Tel Aviv." But a tourist trap is a tourist trap; the cooler revelers will see through the forgery and stay away. Tourists from Paris or Rishon Letzion, however, will innocently wander through the refurbished area, scan through clothes selling for the price of a mortgage, search in vain for something else of interest and agree "Wow, look how nice they made this place."

When I first went there I did indeed remark that it had been renovated in quite a lovely way. I still like the place, and I'll hopefully get the chance to spend some more time over there in the near future. I don't pretend to understand the Haaretz writer's disdain for the new complex. Perhaps I'm just not sophisticated or "cool" enough to see what's wrong with the place.

Perhaps, I'm not the one with the problem. I recall a while back reading an article in Haaretz bewailing the fact that a prized architectural gem was going to be demolished in favor of a new apartment tower or some other modern development. The building in question was a classic example of the "Hideous" school of Tel Aviv architecture; a grey drab concrete building with no sense of decoration or style that was easily perceptible.

It seems that this Haaretz piece speaks more to that population that resists any and all attempts to develop Tel Aviv into something slightly more attractive than what it is today. The "old" Tel Aviv snobs claim that the city's ugliness is part of it's charm.

I love Tel Aviv and I love living in this city. But I don't feel threatened by the thought of adding a few coats of plaster or paint to some of the more disgusting and run down buildings here. If that means that a few more yuppies might move in than so be it.

Go. Read. Goldberg ...

2010-08-12T17:21:00.000+03:00

Well it seems like everybody, and I do mean everybody, is talking about Jeffrey Goldberg's Atlantic article on whether Israel will attack Iran.

Go read it. It's a brilliant piece of journalism that stands out in a generally crap field that has become inundated with ignorant, ideological bloggers. And I'm a blogger!

It does what journalism should; inform in an objective way, ask serious questions, and make you reconsider your perspective on the situation.

The anti-Israel crowd is pooh poohing it as "Zionist cheer leading" for a strike on Iran. But you'd have to be a complete irrational idiot to take that away from the article considering the way Goldberg lays out the possible and horrifying repercussions of a strike.

What I take away from it is that this is a serious issue, and that it is rapidly coming to a head. Anyone who has a strong opinion on this subject should let their voice be heard now, because time is rapidly running out.

More flotilla madness

2010-08-11T10:57:00.000+03:00

This video was just released by Israel Army Radio. It shows Israeli Arab Knesset Member Haneen Zoabi talking in Hebrew with Israeli commandos about evacuating the wounded to Israeli hospitals. She makes it clear, as does another flotilla activist that the wounded "don't want to be taken to Israeli hospitals."

Many in Israel will take note of this video because it shows MK Zoabi's participation in the flotilla. I find it fascinating for another reason.

One of the claims made by the flotilla activists is that the IDF didn't allow them to care for the wouned, or that the IDF delayed treatment of the wounded. Yet this video provides additional evidence of the way the flotilla activists have lied about what happened.

The hatred these people have for Israel is so great, that they would rather sit and bleed rather than be treated by Israelis. I wonder, but seriously doubt, whether anyone will pay attention to this video and call the flotilla activists on their lies and hatred of Israel.

More houskeeping ...

2010-08-10T17:01:00.000+03:00

Back when I decided to revive this blog I thought about laying out some general guidelines for this site - a mission statement of sorts. Well I'm happy to announce that I still haven't started it yet.

But I thought that with my post today I would flesh out some of the ideas I have on the subject.

It's important to reiterate that my desire to start blogging again came from my re-realization that there are many people in the world who are committed to Israel's destruction. I've known this for some time but it's one of those things that I find almost impossible to ignore. Every so often it comes back from that place in my mind where I tried to hide it away with all the other horrible things in the world and kicks me in the chest.

An additional motivating factor came from my understanding that Israel is the future of the Jewish people. I think that if you look at the world objectively, at the demographic trends, and at the other trends of Jewish identity, that there is no other conclusion that can be made. There are no alternate Jewish futures where Israel doesn't exist. The end of Israel equals the end of the Jewish people as we know it.

Faced with these two realities I concluded that anyone who cares about the Jewish people, and who wants to see it continue to exist, must therefore care about the continued existence of Israel. You may not like Israel, or its policies, but you must want to see it survive otherwise you don't want the Jewish people to survive.

I realize those are some bold claims and they really need a whole series of posts to explain, but that's my basic thinking. I hope to get my ideas organized and written soon, and then I'll start putting them up here.

Required reading ...

2010-08-09T16:09:00.000+03:00

I don't know who Benjamin Kerstein is but I'd sure like to get to know him. I imagine we'd have a lot in common, what being American Olim in Israel and all. That, and in a recent interview he more or less summarized my politcal view on the situation here to a "T".

You can find the interview over at Michael Totten's blog, which really is required reading for anyone interested in the middle east. I read him pretty regularly a little while back before my two years of silence.

He's here in Israel right now and I'm looking forward to some more interesting posts from him in the coming days and weeks. He is one of the most in depth and thorough journalists around, and he is a true exception to the normally ignorant coverage of Israel that has been the standard from most media outlets.

You're right, we are afraid ...

2010-08-08T16:28:00.000+03:00

From that charming center of anti-Israel invective, Mondoweiss, comes this post on a recent fundraiser for another flotilla aimed at breaking Israel's blockade of Gaza. The post offers some interesting insights into the mindset of the Israel hating community. I found the following parts of a speech by Chris Hedges (as cited by site owner Philip Weiss) to be the most stimulating.

"I would like to remind them that it is they who hide in the darkness, we are in the light." And now their moment is coming to an end. "The arc of the moral universe is long... You may have commandos who descend on ropes... we have only our hands, our hearts, our voices... But note this, note this well: it is you who are afraid of us, not us who are afraid of you... When there is freedom in Gaza, we will forgive you..."

Regardless of the fact that Israel left Gaza completely, I have to admit that I agree with Hedges on one point. We, being Jews and Israelis, ARE afraid of you. What do you expect?

You seek our destruction, either physically in the case of Hamas, or politically in the case of the BDS and flotilla movements.

You openly and plainly announce that you seek the end of our state, couching your message in the rhetoric of peace and justice.

You slander us and state that we have inherited the mantle of the Nazis, of those who murdered us and burned us, who tried to destroy an entire people.

You treat Israel in a way that you would treat no other people on Earth, and announce in plain language that we are afraid of you. How can we not be when it is our very existence at stake?

While Hedges is seemingly proud of our fear of his movement, I believe that he neglected to highlight the matching emotion amongst the anti-Israel crowd. That emotion is of course hate. It is the overriding theme of the rhetoric used against Israel. Indeed it seems that the level of hate at the fundraiser was so high that even Weiss hinted at it in his post.

I felt that these people were excited to be recognized in an American venue, without judgment, and that this long-withheld recognition had allowed them to let out deep griefs and angers that, say, professors Edward Said and Rashid Khalidi were required to restrain when they addressed the same matters. There was talk of the dispossession that began 63 years ago; and I am sure that several of these Palestinians do not accept the existence of Israel. Myself, I am conflicted about these questions (and indeed a friend said later that the anger at times made her uncomfortable), but I find my own intellectual/political struggle less interesting/important than the presence of young Palestinian-Americans. (emphasis mine)

The Arabs have always been angry at Israel, and they have largely rejected any compromise with Israel or the presence of a sizable and thriving Jewish community in the heart of the Arab world. The extremists at Mondoweiss often discuss an invented ideology of Jewish superiority that they claim lies at the heart of Zionism.

Zionism at its heart, of course, is a rejection of Jewish exceptionalism. It is rather a call for equality for the Jewish people, by creating a nation-state that mirrors the nation-states of other peoples.

The solution to this conflict lies in the acceptance of the Jewish people, as a people, in their homeland. Until the Arabs and their supporters accept this equality, we will all have something to fear.