Less informed than we'd like to admit

Charles Levinson is in Lebanon, trying to figure out what's going on there, and specifically, what Hezbollah is doing. Levinson's reports the way democracies should insist that their reporters do: he's educated and knows the relevant languages, he's on the ground trying to figure out for himself what the story is, and he tells us facts without insisting he knows the full story or all the answers. Woefully rare, this method.

More cynical than we thought

My doubts concerning the story of the Holocaust survivors and their compaign for govermental support have been reinforced by the revelation that their campaign is being directed by one of our most ruthless PR consultancies. I suppose that every modern society has firms such as these, but it's not something to be proud of. Nor their ability to set the agenda by pulling in support from thousands of well-meaning but poorly informed citizens.

More complex than we thought

The police have announced this evening that yesterday's attacker of a guard in the Old City of Jerusalem was a 29-year-old Israeli Arab from the Galillee, who left behind a baby daughter and pregnant wife. Ra'ed Salach's Israeli Islamists are hailing him as a martyr, while his family is claiming the whole thing is an invention of the two guards who murdered him in cold blood. The family's response is human, though the fact that the event was captured on video (most of the Old City is covered by video cameras for security reasons) sort of demolishes their version. The framing of the story in the BBC's terms (see my previous post) looks even less convincing than initially. What young husband and expecting father travels three hours by bus to attack a guard and shoot pedestrians, even if he does intensely dislike the policies of the government? There is a serious story here, but it's not the one the BBC told us.

Haaretz has the item here, though you'll notice that they simply regurgitated an earlier version of the story and replaced only the top few paragraphs. I haven't found anything on the BBC. The story no longer interests them, obviously.

Life-Threatening Tools

Achikam called home late last night. His unit had spent most of the week out in the field, and cellphones had been strictly forbidden. He sounds fine, given that he's in basic training, an event meticulously planned to be unpleasant. The only problematic incident, so he told, had been when while handling his rifle on the firing range he had committed some very minor infraction of the safety rules, and he now expects to be hauled before the entire company to have the episode analyzed.

I told him that's a good thing. Within months this group of teenagers will be handling not only rifles but weapons of far greater potency, and they will be doing so under conditions of physical exertion and exhaustion such as they never encountered in their civilian lives, and - given where we all live - they may be called to do so under conditions of emotional tension that make the exertion and exhaustion pale. In all of this, it will be a matter of life and death that they know what they're doing, not as an academic exercise, but instinctivelly. (And note the correct response of the guard discussed in the previous post as an illustration).

Furthermore, I reassured him, he wasn't about to be disciplined, he was to be part of an act of education. One of the most important thing an army needs continually to do is to analyze its actions, to learn from its mistakes as well as from its successes, and next time to do better. Sure, analyzing why he misunderstood the leutenant's command and cocked his rifle ten seconds too early isn't going to help the IDF prepare for war, but what must be done at the top levels is inculcated from the very bottom levels up, always. His training consists not only of learning how to obey orders as a new soldier, it also includes how to think as a future combat soldier and beyond. This is a point I expect to return to from time to time: the extent that the IDF tries to be a thinking army.

(Though admitedly, insisting that basic trainees look straight forward no-matter how much their sargeant is bawling them out two inches from their left ear isn't conducive to constructive thought).

From the micro to the macro: I am often astonished that commentators on military matters are unable to understand the degree to which military forces need to learn how to deal with new challenges. There always seem to be the expectation that if it's an army, and it has generals, they must know what they're doing, and if at first they're not supplying results it must be for some nefarious reason.

Confusion in reporting a terror attack

Earlier this morning a young Palestinian man grabbed the weapon of an Israeli guard in the Old City of Jerusalem and shot him. The guard's colleague shot back, chased the attacker through the alleys, both of them shooting, until the attacker was killed. A number of passersby were wounded, most of them lightly; the wounds sustained by the first guard were moderate.

So much for the facts. And now, for the reports.

The best, clearest, and most concise report was filed by CNN. It's title is reasonable: Eight Hurt in Jerusalem Shooting, it contains all of 68 words, and no ideological slant I can see. Simply the news.

Ynet is beyond comprehension. Ynet, you may be interested to know, is Israel's most popular news website, and it's run by the company that publishes Yediyot Acharonot, Israel's most popular newspaper. Their Hebrew-language description of the event is fine, but it appears they had it translated either by a computer or by an an-alphabetic shepherd from Mongolia. The result is unhelpful if you want to understand the event, which is a problem since some people don't read Hebrew.

The English at Haaretz is fine. The report contains useful details for Jerusalemites trying to understand what happened, such the names of the alleys. The number of injured (10) differs from CNN (8) and from Ynet (11). Interestingly, Haaretz also carries the allegation that the guard continued shooting even after the attacker was down, thereby wounding more people. This allegation comes from "a witness". I wasn't there, but given the street names they've so helpfully supplied us with it seems to me reasonable that the witness is a local Palestinian - who could be telling the truth, could be telling the truth as he or she believes it, but also just might be embellishing a wee bit on the story. Haaretz then goes on to allow Aharon Franco, the head of the police, to commend the guard while noting that the witness is being questioned.

Where the Israeli sources reflect the chaos of such an event and the lack of time required to unravel its elements before going online, the BBC has no problems in using it to trot out their usual agenda. Watch this:

Title: Palestinian killed in Jerusalem

Keep in mind who's the victim, right? This is followed by a picture of at least six uniformed Israelis standing over the covered dead body.

A Palestinian man has been shot and killed in Jerusalem's Old City after trying to seize a weapon from an Israeli security guard, police say.

He may only have been trying, mind you, and we only have the word of the police for it, not, say, the hospital where the wounded guard is lying. You have to read all the way to the end to learn that even the BBC knows that the attacker really did attack anyone.

The Old City lies in East Jerusalem and houses the key Jewish, Muslim and Christian sites. East Jerusalem has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Palestinians hope to establish their capital there but Israel claims the entire city. Israel's annexation of the city is not recognised by the international community.

It would be rude to ask how this might be essential to the story, because in the minds of the staff of the BBC it is the story. The attack happened because Israel claims the Old City, and our task as readers, if any of us are part of "the international community", is to reject Israel's position; this leaves us, if not quite cheering the attacker, at least agreeing with his frustration.

Hurricane Noah Sighted in Israel

Noah Feldman's "Orthodox Paradox" article in the NY Times Magazine a few weeks ago came before this blog was active, and I saw no particular need to enter the fray - especially as it didn't occur to me that the fray would be so protracted. Well, I was certainly wrong about that one, wasn't I! For a re-cap of the whole story, see Yair Sheleg's article in Haaretz today. (And, by the way, thanks to digg for circumventing the NYT's archive fee for us - but that's a subject for another day).

A synopsis of the re-cap of the story: Professor Noah Feldman of Harvard Law School, ueber-polemist, published an article slamming the Modern Orthodox community in which he was raised for its paradoxes as it strives to combine tradition and modernity; he muddied the water or spiced the feast, depending on your perspective, by intertwining his own personal saga into his article: he's married to a non-Jew, and is having problems with the tensions this causes with some of his previous world-mates. The article launched a hurricane of responses. Here is the particularly eloquent response of Rabbi Norman Lamm. My impression is that this is THE STORY of the summer in the world of American Jewry.

And that is an interesting illustration of the real, and perhaps widening, gap between the Jews of Israel and America. Until Sheleg's article this morning there was no public awareness of any of this in Israel - nor will there now be any excitement. Sheleg, one of the more interesting and serious journalists at Haaretz, picked up on the story partially because he was in the States recently. He reported, some people read, and life goes on as usual. You could say this is a sign of Israeli insularity (or some harsher word), but I think it's deeper than that. Being actively Jewish in America is much more a decision (or a never-ending series of decisions) than it is in Israel, and therefore Feldman's discussion of the tension between personal decisions and communal cohesion is so potent (radioactive?) there, but not here.

When I first read his article, back when it was published and before the hurricane, my response was warmly to recommend it to my wife because of the compelling way he described the importance of Jewish learning as a formative influence in his life. Now that's an issue that's relevant to the Israeli scene, where broad sections of the society may be willing literally to die for their Jewish state, but are abysmally ignorant of the wealth of their culture. Feldman could easily teach them.

Raul Hilberg (1926 - 2007)

My farewell to one of my most important teachers is too long for a blog post, so I've put it here.

Copenhagen

One cold and wet evening last March we were walking across a university campus in a small German town to the hall where I was scheduled to give a lecture related to the German-language version of Right to Exist. With me was the author of Lizas Welt, a must-read blog for all German-readers because of his unusual ability to see the world through a different set of lenses than most of his compatriots. We'd been talking about the usual things: Middle-East politics and their place in the larger picture. Now, however, he turned to more interesting things, such as the approaching game between Maccabi Haifa and some other team. It was immediately clear that he knew more about the subject than I, somewhat to our amusement, given that it was an Israeli team we were discussing, not a German one.

Last night, so I'm told, some Danish team threw some Jerusalem team out of some championship (further details here), so I'm dedicating this post to all the people who should care less than me but actually care more. Thanks for caring, folks!

Over at the Guardian

Bashing the Guardian would be too easy to engage in often, and I'm pleased with myself for having resisted the urge so far. I can't promise always to show such restraint. I do take upon myself to try my best to succumb only when doing so might serve some purpose beyond merely venting my spleen.

Like today, for example.

In today's editorial (called a Leader in UK parlance), the Guardian told us what we already knew, that they don't like Israel. Nothing mention worthy there. There were, however, some interesting little giveaways.

On the immediate issues facing the Palestinian Authority - lifting the roadblocks, dismantling settlements, releasing prisoners, restoring tax revenue - there has been little progress in the West Bank, and none at all in Gaza, which is cut off from the outside world. Israel released 255 prisoners last month as well as some of the withheld revenue. But these are small steps, given what remains to be done.

On the distant issues - the so-called final status issues of the future borders of a Palestinian state, the right of return of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war, and the status of Jerusalem - no progress has been achieved since the last talks ended seven years ago.

See that? Dismantling settlements is an immediate issue, as is releasing prisoners, while distant issues are borders, right of return and Jerusalem. Also, Gaza is cut off from the world. True, Israel actually has recently freed hundreds of prisoners, as well as some of the revenue, and there are no disagreements about the borders of Gaza nor are their any Israeli settlements left there, but why quibble?

I post, you decide.

Negotiations for real?

Haaretz is very optimistic this morning: Olmert can cobble together 70 MKs (out of the necessary 61) to authorize an agreement with the Palestinians that would give them 100% of the West Bank including land swaps so that some Jewish settlements would remain Israeli, and some towns of Arab Israelis would become Palestinian. I think they're right that were such an offer on the table, a large majority of Israelis could be convinced to support it, if they thought it would bring peace. I've never heard that the Israeli Arabs slated to be re-defined into Palestine would be willing to accept this, but who know? Life can be full of surprises.

On the other hand, it was only yesterday (!) that the very same place in Haaretz - the top of page 1 - told the opposite story. Yesterday they were informing us that

The Palestinian Authority's security organizations are unable to assume security control of cities in the West Bank, Prime Minister Salam Fayad told senior Israeli officials during recent meetings. Fayad told Israeli officials that the PA's security forces are unable "to impose law and order in the West Bank at this time."

How do we align yesterday's pessimism with today's optimism? I have no explanation, save to suggest that we'll definitely hear more about all this - oceans of ink, they used to say - before... well, before we hear even more about it.

Spontaneous logistics

Achikam got home for the weekend, as is customary the first weekend in the army (things go downhill from there...). This morning he went back to his base, as did many tens of thousands of other soldiers, all of them toting gigantic backpacks full of clean laundry and other essentials not supplied by the army. The backpacks all get stashed in the storage compartments of busses. Well, Achikam got off his bus in Beer Sheva... and no backpack! I would have panicked more than he did, but he wasn't pleased, and called me to ask what now. I told him he should call his sargeant (they all have cellphones these days).

15 minutes later he called back. Apparently, someone at the central bus station in Jerusalem noticed that his backpack had been bumped off the bus to Beer Sheva, and so they put it onto the next bus. Once it arived in Beer Sheva, someone noticed an orphaned backpack (with name tag), so they paged him. Well, sort of: They paged the soldier Achikam Lozowick who had lost his pack, but warned that if he didn't hurry up they'd call the bombsquad.

Don't let anyone tell you we aren't models of efficiency.

International Tracing Service

Arthur Max of the AP has published yet another piece on the saga of opening the ITS archives at Arolsen (see the LA Times here, or, if you have registration problems, Newsday). Since this is an issue I know about from very close up, a number of comments:

1. The Arolsen archives will have very little effect on the historical study of Nazism and the Holocaust, since they contain almost no general documentation that does not exist also elsewhere, where it has been open to researchers for years.

2. It may well be the single most important archive for tracing individuals who were persecuted by the Nazis, and to a degree, even for tracing individuals in the first post-war years, especially those who were in DP camps, or who went through the American consular services in Germany.

3. In spite of its being such an important source for information about individuals, most Jews murdered in the Holocaust will not appear in it, since they were not recorded at the time. This may not be what most people think ("The Nazis kept meticulous records, didn't they?"), but it is nonetheless fact. (No, the Nazis actually didn't keep records about most of the Jews they murdered).

4. There is a part of the ITS collection that was created in the first post-war years, when tens - or perhaps even hundreds - of thousands of survivors filled out forms detailing the names of those they had lost. These forms may be among the most important segments of the ITS collections, partly for what they contain, but also because unlike many other parts of the ITS archives, they were never open at all, and even the fact of their existence was not known. Sadly, this entire segment of the ITS collections will not be scanned for a while (probably a year or two), meaning it will NOT be accessible in 2008. This has nothing to do with malice from any direction, and is merely an organizational-logistic decision.

5. The pressure generated by Dr. Paul Shapiro and his colleagues at the USHMM which resulted in the Bonn Agreement (2006) detailing how the ITS archives will be digitally duplicated and made accessible in various countries, wrought a revolution. Until then, all sorts of agencies involved were obstructing access to the ITS collections; so far as we can tell, since then EVERYONE INVOLVED is actively working towards making the archives accessible. Reto Meister, the new director of the ITS, and his staff, are bending over backwards in their efforts to be helpful. Whatever problems still exist - and they are multiple and diverse - are now the result of objective difficulties.

6. The Bonn Agreement allows one digital copy per member country. No more. And it clearly forbids putting the copy on the Internet. The various publications, newspaper articles and other public statements calling for more than that are unfair. Attacking the USHMM, of all institutions, is, well, ungracious, to say the least.

7. Large segments of the ITS collections have been open to the public at Yad Vashem for decades. This is not to belittle the present achievement or its significance, but it is likely that some people now clamouring to see what is in the ITS collections could have had the information from Yad Vashem anytime they wanted over the past decades - and indeed, countless thousands of people have done so. On this point as on others, this blog is adverse to shrill populism and cynical emotional manipulation.

8. The reasons it will be so hard to create simple access to the ITS collections even once they are thrown open in the various national institutions, probably sometime in 2008, are very technical, but also very real. In a nutshell, they are the result of the fact that the structure of the collections at the ITS was never planned with public access in mind (and indeed, into the 1980s there was no public interest in the collections); the computerization projects undertaken at the ITS in the 1990s were also tailored to the very narrow purposes of the ITS as an institution, not those of a broad public. One can bemoan this, but it doesn't change the reality.

9. As a result, the best the various institutions are aiming at right now is to create a somewhat modified system in the various venues. Given the time constraints, technical challenges and costs involved, this is a reasonable decision, probably the only one. The result will be that queries will be processed by staff members, not the general public, and this may require weeks - though not years.

10. At some time in the future it should be possible to migrate the ITS collections into a system that would enable the general public merely to type a name into a computer and get the full relevant results from across the ITS collections. Theoritically we know how to do this, but it will be rather like re-tooling a pickup truck to be a Formula 1 race-winner: it's never been done before, and it won't be easy or cheap. In any case, it will not be possible between now and next year, and anyone demanding it is being unfair.

11. The ITS collections that will be opened in Washington, Jerusalem, Paris and eleswhere in 2008 will not be the complete ITS collections. Because of their size, the scanning of the entire collection will take another few years, and their processing could take even longer. Again, this is not malice, it is reality. At the moment, scanned and indexed archives containing tens of millions of documents are still very thin on the ground. To expect the ITS to be way ahead of what anyone else can do is unrealistic.

The Populists and the Level Headed

The very top item on the front page of Haaretz this morning tells that Olmert is caving in to the public demand and will raise the pensions of Holocaust survivors. And indeed, the sums decided upon earlier this week were worse than nothing: they were insulting (as Tom Segev and I agreed).

On the other hand, the entire issue reeks of cynicism and populism from all sides, as Sever Plocker carefully documents in Yediot Acharonot (unfortunately, his article seems to be online only in its Hebrew original, not in English). The funds transferred from Germany to Israel as restitution payments have long since been spent, most of them wisely, so that whatever payments offered now come from Israel's own budget. One might ask - were it not politically incorrect - why needy Holocaust survivors should be supported with greater largesse than all the other needy elderly Israelis. In addition, the current criteria defining Holocaust survivors are very broad, probably too broad, and encompass hundreds of thousands of people who were not threatened by the Nazis in any immediate way such as Jews deep in the Soviet Union.

The present depiction of the Holocaust survivors as a group of destitute and defeated people does them no justice. As my colleague Prof. Hannah Yablonka has shown, the reality was more likely the opposite. In the first years after the Holocaust, hundreds of thousands of truly destitute and lonely survivors found themselves in the beleaguered State of Israel, and by and large they purposefully went about the task of rebuilding lives for themselves without waiting for assistance from the state. Most of them were very successful, against all odds, and deserve to be recognized as the resourceful people they were, not as a group that needs our pity.

I expect that were we to examine the data, we'd find that many of the present needy survivors are elderly immigrants who arrived over the past 15 years. I am all for Israel ensuring that they live in dignity - as people too old to help themselves, irrespective of their biographies.

Haaretz reads 'Ruminations'!

Less than a week since the launch of 'Ruminations', it today transpired that the editor in chief of Haaretz must be a regular reader of this blog. Otherwise, how to explain that in response to yesterday's post about who serves in the IDF, he placed not one, but two relevant articles right on the front page of the op-ed section?

Loyal readers of 'Ruminations', take pride in the company you're in!

Women in the IDF

Lydia in the comments asks about women in the IDF in general, and about my daughter Nechama in particular.

It's an interesting question, precisely because the answer is so diverse. The simple answer is that women serve about two years instead of the three that men usually serve. Though, truth be told, the entrance bar for women is higher, meaning that women with weaker socio-economic backgrounds are more likely not to be enlisted than men. Then again, the range of jobs women can do in the military has been broadening consistently for decades; you're still unlikely to find them in combat units, though interestingly they often participate in the training of combat soldiers. And after a long legal battle back in the 80s (or was it early 90s?), women are now considered for pilot training, the most prestigious of all jobs, and if only very few complete the course, well, hardly any men do, either.

All jobs that require brains not brawn are equally open for men and women. Achikam’s girlfriend, for example, enlisted months ago to some special unit for whiz kids, which however demands of all its personnel that they stay in longer than the normal legal stint. Their willingness to do so is an example of my fourth point in the previous post.

Orthodox women who are leery of the overtly macho ambience that is often found in the army (any army) can do national service. Nechama did two years at a children’s cancer ward in a large hospital near Tel Aviv; very few women in the army could claim to have done anything more worthy… or demanding.

Does everyone serve?

There has been a discussion going on here the past week or so about the recently published statistic whereby 25% of our 18-year-olds are not enlisting this year. Ehud Barak, recently reappointed minister of defense, said the other day that the statistic isn't so dramatic, what's new is the brazenness of those who don't join. Since Achikam just joined, four days ago, I have a very vested interest in the discussion, but I'm not joining in the uproar.

First, becasue Achikam himself is 19, not 18, and I wonder how many others like him deferred their enlistment for a year, for tracks that will ensure that when they do enlist they'll be better soldiers (and better citizen soldiers). Thousands, I'd hazard a guess.

Second, because some of the rise in the number of non-enlisters is simply the result of the growing proportion of the ultra-orthodox, most of whom never served; the relationship of the ultra-orthodox to the rest of us is more complex than the present spate of statements in the media.

Third, the brazenness is there, no doubt, but it's not evenly spread. I'd guess it's concentrated in one or two segments of the society, and - at least for the time being - is probably still containable.

Which brings me to my final point, which is that when I look at the 75% who are enlisting - an unimaginable number in most Western societies - I see a generation that is taking upon itself a heavy responsibility, unparalleled elsewhere, with a determination that is nothing short of awe inspiring, were it not the norm here.

So yes, we've got a problem with that growing minority, or better, a complex set of diverse problems, but they can be faced. The statistic does not tell of a declining will of the Israelis to persevere.

Agreeing even with Tom Segev

Generally speaking, I am not much of a Tom Segev fan. On the other hand, I rather like Isaac Herzog, our Minister of Welfare, even though career politicians are only rarely worthy of being liked. This morning, however, the editor of Haaretz was quite right to put Segev's scathing attack on the front page.

Prehistory

Prior to this blog, I briefly ran an experimental one, which I used to understand the technology. People tell me it's the only blog they ever saw about starting a blog. It is now defunct, but still online, and can be visited here.

Distances and communications

Back at the turn of the 20th century all of my various great-grandparents, most of them young couples with small children, took leave of their parents, siblings and cousins in various towns and cities of what at the time was Russia, and went to America. With one notable exception, they never saw any of their relatives ever again. The separation was forever, as eveyone involved knew.

It also saved the lives of all those who migrated, as they perhaps sensed it might, but that is a different story.

Many years later my father, their grandson, went off to serve in the American military. He was already married, didn't see his wife for some months, and then got shipped off to Germany. Months later she joined him there; when I was born, a while later, one of my grandmothers came over to Germany; this was the only member of their family my parents saw for the entire three-year duration.

In the 1970's I joined the army (the Israeli one, the family having changed countries in the meanwhile). By the end of the week I was back home for the weekend. Though, truth be told, later on I often did spend many weeks with no leave, with only one weekly phonecall on Saturday night, with half of the platoon standing in line listening to the conversation and kvetching if anyone talked more than 46 seconds

Yesterday Achikam went in. Throughout the entire day I kept looking at my cellphone, hoping he'd call, or at least send a text message. Eventually he called, late in the evening. What a long day it was.

Language and Perspectives

Achikam, my 19-year-old son, was inducted into the IDF yesterday morning. Last week he and I, along with his 21-year-old sister Nechama, went to a store in Jeruslem's largest mall that specializes in the gear that soldiers buy - all those neccessary items the army doesn't supply them with. As part of their service the staff (mostly in their twenties themselves) have drawn up tailored lists of what new soldiers will need, according to their branch of the army (and, of course, they just so happen to have all the items, perhaps not dirt cheap but conveniently all at one place). So Nechama and Achikam were following the list and filling a basket with stuff, while I wandered around. Nearby stood a rather bewildered looking woman, trying to figure out what she needed. A few people tried to be helpful, but eventually she muttered that she'd simply have to bring her son; a short exchange and it was clear that her son, also, was about to enlist, just like mine.

In English when sending someone off to deal with some challenge we wish them "good luck". Not so in Hebrew, where we say "be'hatzlacha" - "may you be successful". Is there a deep philosophical difference here? I don't know.

So I expressed my wishes for the woman's son: "That he be successful". She looked at me curiously, and retorted: "Let him come back in peace. Who cares about success!?"