Sunday, March 20, 2011
Shooting at Israeli Civilians
Hamas is having problems with the Palestinian Authority and probably with the Palestinian electorate, so it shoots at Israelis. Makes sense. Israel has lodged a formal complaint at the UN. That'll help.
Haaretz Obfuscates Matters
A primary task of a high-level newspaper is to clarify complicated ongoing issues. Or at least, that's what you'd think. With newspapers such as the Guardian and Haaretz, however, the main priority is to bolster an ideological agenda, and facts are a mere handmaiden.
Today's report about taxation in East Jerusalem is a fine example. The headline, "East Jerusalem residents exempted from municipal taxes" says almost nothing except to attract our interest (who is doing the exempting? why? who is being exempted? what for? in return for what?), but that's legitimate for a newspaper. The article itself then fuses two very different subjects, and two very different sources, without telling us that's what it's doing, and thereby implies a conclusion which a fuller account would never warrant.
The beginning of the article cites a Palestinian agency claiming the 55,000 Palestinians in the section of East Jerusalem which is beyond the fence are no longer being required to pay municipal taxes; this exemption, we are told, is a bad thing, as it means Israel intends to "get rid" of those 55,000 people.
The editor at Haaretz makes no attempt to verify the story, by making some inquiries at the municipality, say. On the contrary, having quoted a Palestinian source reporting on an Israeli action, Haaretz then tells a separate story as if it corroborates the Palestinian one: that the Israeli municipality isn't building enough schools in the eastern part of town, and that the Israeli High Court of Justice has reprimanded it on the matter.
Let's see if I can unravel this, and you'll tell me if the story I end up with resembles the one Haaretz would have us believe.
Since the beginning of the construction of the fence in 2003, the geographical area annexed by Israel in 1967 commonly known as East Jerusalem (in reality it's north west, north, east, south, and southwest) has been divided into two unequal segments. Most of the area is inside the fence, including its Arab neighborhoods, and they're slowly merging into the Jewish sections. (This is a very large subject which I'm collecting material to write a book about, but for this blogpost I'll simply let it stand as is). Then there are some parts of town that are outside the fence, and the Israeli policy seems to be to allow them to revert to West Bank status: Kfar Akeb, which is actually part of Ramallah, and Shuafat, are the two largest such areas. The number of people living in these neighborhoods may be 55,000 - that's what everyone says, but the reality is that no-one knows, and anyway the fact that the number has been stable for five years at least means it's a figment of political discourse, not fact.
The first part of the Haaretz report deals with those 55,000 people. Since they live outside of the fence, and it has often been mortally dangerous for municipal technicians to enter their neighborhoods, they have been receiving ever fewer services. They can visit the fine Israeli hospitals of Jerusalem by driving to them, but the water company can't send technicians to fix water mains, for example. So this newest development is a recognition of reality. The municipality isn't able to offer them its services, so it's not going to tax them anymore. (It would be helpful to know from an official Israeli source that this is really happening, and not a figment of someone's imagination).
Meanwhile, inside the fence, the level of infrastructures including schools is mostly lower in the Arab neighborhoods than in the Jewish ones, except in the cases where it isn't. Beit Hanina (Arab) has better infrastructures than Zichron Moshe, for example. This is indeed a problem, which is why the High Court has ruled on it, yet the reasons for it, while complex in their details, are rather simple in their principles. Since 1967 Israel has not been certain it will remain in control there, since there's an international consensus it won't, and thus has been hesitant to invest large sums there. On the other hand, when it does, the result is a growing reluctance from the local Arab side to consider being sent back to live outside Israel.
If we look at the story from a political perspective, therefore, what the Palestinian source and Haaretz are complaining about is that the Israelis are creating facts on the ground in Kfar Akeb and Shuafat that will make it easier to transfer those areas to Palestinian control. In the second half of the report, Haaretz castigates Israel for not investing enough in creating facts on the ground where the Palestinians of East Jerusalem prefer to stay in Israel. Or to be even more pointed: if one assumes some day Jerusalem will be divided, the more Israel has invested in the Palestinians of East Jerusalem the greater their pain will be once they're cut off from Israel, the greater their anger, and the greater the chance that some of them will respond to being cast into Palestine by destroying the peace in Jerusalem.
If none of this fits the pat schemes we're fed year in year out by "everyone", I apologize. But that won't change the facts.
Today's report about taxation in East Jerusalem is a fine example. The headline, "East Jerusalem residents exempted from municipal taxes" says almost nothing except to attract our interest (who is doing the exempting? why? who is being exempted? what for? in return for what?), but that's legitimate for a newspaper. The article itself then fuses two very different subjects, and two very different sources, without telling us that's what it's doing, and thereby implies a conclusion which a fuller account would never warrant.
The beginning of the article cites a Palestinian agency claiming the 55,000 Palestinians in the section of East Jerusalem which is beyond the fence are no longer being required to pay municipal taxes; this exemption, we are told, is a bad thing, as it means Israel intends to "get rid" of those 55,000 people.
The editor at Haaretz makes no attempt to verify the story, by making some inquiries at the municipality, say. On the contrary, having quoted a Palestinian source reporting on an Israeli action, Haaretz then tells a separate story as if it corroborates the Palestinian one: that the Israeli municipality isn't building enough schools in the eastern part of town, and that the Israeli High Court of Justice has reprimanded it on the matter.
Let's see if I can unravel this, and you'll tell me if the story I end up with resembles the one Haaretz would have us believe.
Since the beginning of the construction of the fence in 2003, the geographical area annexed by Israel in 1967 commonly known as East Jerusalem (in reality it's north west, north, east, south, and southwest) has been divided into two unequal segments. Most of the area is inside the fence, including its Arab neighborhoods, and they're slowly merging into the Jewish sections. (This is a very large subject which I'm collecting material to write a book about, but for this blogpost I'll simply let it stand as is). Then there are some parts of town that are outside the fence, and the Israeli policy seems to be to allow them to revert to West Bank status: Kfar Akeb, which is actually part of Ramallah, and Shuafat, are the two largest such areas. The number of people living in these neighborhoods may be 55,000 - that's what everyone says, but the reality is that no-one knows, and anyway the fact that the number has been stable for five years at least means it's a figment of political discourse, not fact.
The first part of the Haaretz report deals with those 55,000 people. Since they live outside of the fence, and it has often been mortally dangerous for municipal technicians to enter their neighborhoods, they have been receiving ever fewer services. They can visit the fine Israeli hospitals of Jerusalem by driving to them, but the water company can't send technicians to fix water mains, for example. So this newest development is a recognition of reality. The municipality isn't able to offer them its services, so it's not going to tax them anymore. (It would be helpful to know from an official Israeli source that this is really happening, and not a figment of someone's imagination).
Meanwhile, inside the fence, the level of infrastructures including schools is mostly lower in the Arab neighborhoods than in the Jewish ones, except in the cases where it isn't. Beit Hanina (Arab) has better infrastructures than Zichron Moshe, for example. This is indeed a problem, which is why the High Court has ruled on it, yet the reasons for it, while complex in their details, are rather simple in their principles. Since 1967 Israel has not been certain it will remain in control there, since there's an international consensus it won't, and thus has been hesitant to invest large sums there. On the other hand, when it does, the result is a growing reluctance from the local Arab side to consider being sent back to live outside Israel.
If we look at the story from a political perspective, therefore, what the Palestinian source and Haaretz are complaining about is that the Israelis are creating facts on the ground in Kfar Akeb and Shuafat that will make it easier to transfer those areas to Palestinian control. In the second half of the report, Haaretz castigates Israel for not investing enough in creating facts on the ground where the Palestinians of East Jerusalem prefer to stay in Israel. Or to be even more pointed: if one assumes some day Jerusalem will be divided, the more Israel has invested in the Palestinians of East Jerusalem the greater their pain will be once they're cut off from Israel, the greater their anger, and the greater the chance that some of them will respond to being cast into Palestine by destroying the peace in Jerusalem.
If none of this fits the pat schemes we're fed year in year out by "everyone", I apologize. But that won't change the facts.
The Real Heroes of March
The few hundred Japanese engineers and technicians trying to head off nuclear catastrophe at Fukishima. Undoubtedly the world's top heroes this March.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Besieging the Temple
The Talmud isn't a history book. If you know how to read history from whatever you've got, however, there is much to be learned from the Talmud about Jewish life in the 500 years of its creation. Sometimes it's little snippets, that come and go even before you have time to notice them.
Yesterday's daf dealt with the question how many components of a meal-offering, if any, can be dropped and still the offering will be acceptable (and what does "acceptable" mean). Then, at the very bottom of the page, there was a sudden question: "How do we know that if heathens have surrounded the Temple Mount, the priests are allowed to eat the offering even inside the Temple itself [take shelter there]?" The Gemara then finds a verse, which clearly didn't have that scenario in mind, and the discussion wanders off to other matters.
Heartbreaking, if you think about it.
Menachot 8b. This thread began and is explained here.
Yesterday's daf dealt with the question how many components of a meal-offering, if any, can be dropped and still the offering will be acceptable (and what does "acceptable" mean). Then, at the very bottom of the page, there was a sudden question: "How do we know that if heathens have surrounded the Temple Mount, the priests are allowed to eat the offering even inside the Temple itself [take shelter there]?" The Gemara then finds a verse, which clearly didn't have that scenario in mind, and the discussion wanders off to other matters.
Heartbreaking, if you think about it.
Menachot 8b. This thread began and is explained here.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The Other Oldest Profession
There's no concrete evidence that the world's oldest profession really is the oldest. There are ancient examples of it, or course, but the assumption it's the oldest is simply because it's human nature.
So here's another profession that has been around forever: dictators. Or anyway, men who use force and brutality to dominate their fellow men. This is also human nature, and has also been around forever. Both professions will also always be here, never to disappear. Human nature ensures that.
As the international community talks its way out of assisting the brave Libyans fighting for freedom from a brutal dictator and his cruel henchmen, it's worth keeping in mind that even if they did want to do anything, the only people who can are the armed and the trained. Over the past few weeks I have repeatedly noted how the international ineptitude must remind us the importance of never being weak. The flip side is that the price of pacifism and disarmament means accepting brutal dictators.
Something to keep in mind next time someone claims the moral high ground for their pacifism.
So here's another profession that has been around forever: dictators. Or anyway, men who use force and brutality to dominate their fellow men. This is also human nature, and has also been around forever. Both professions will also always be here, never to disappear. Human nature ensures that.
As the international community talks its way out of assisting the brave Libyans fighting for freedom from a brutal dictator and his cruel henchmen, it's worth keeping in mind that even if they did want to do anything, the only people who can are the armed and the trained. Over the past few weeks I have repeatedly noted how the international ineptitude must remind us the importance of never being weak. The flip side is that the price of pacifism and disarmament means accepting brutal dictators.
Something to keep in mind next time someone claims the moral high ground for their pacifism.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Intense Navel-Gazing at the New Yorker
Apropos uninformed outsiders interfering in serious matters they know nothing about (see my previous post) the New Yorker's David Remnick is on a roll, with the second silly column on Israel-Palestine in two weeks. This time he lambastes Netanyahu, which is a popular pastime among journalists. There's nothing particularly new or insightful in his column, but the degree of his self-absorption is a wee bit overblown. Musing on Obama, he notes that "When it comes to domestic politics in Israel, he is in a complicated spot. For some Israelis on the right, his race and, more, his middle name make him a source of everlasting suspicion."
Uh huh. Let's see. Back in the day, when Anwar Sadaat came to Jerusalem and told the Knesset, in Arabic, that peace would require that Israel return the entire Sinai, it didn't seem to matter much that he had an Arabic name, did it. I seem to recollect that masses of Israelis were swooning all over the fellow. The "No more war, no more bloodshed" part seemed more important than his religion, unless perhaps the two fused into an overpowering climax. It may be true, perhaps, that some Americans are troubled by their president's name or skin color, though not enough to prevent his election, but what does that have to do with Israelis? The Americans have their historical neuroses, and Israelis have different ones, and if Remnick insists on understanding Israelis through the prism of his own society, he should probably stick to writing about things he knows.
Uh huh. Let's see. Back in the day, when Anwar Sadaat came to Jerusalem and told the Knesset, in Arabic, that peace would require that Israel return the entire Sinai, it didn't seem to matter much that he had an Arabic name, did it. I seem to recollect that masses of Israelis were swooning all over the fellow. The "No more war, no more bloodshed" part seemed more important than his religion, unless perhaps the two fused into an overpowering climax. It may be true, perhaps, that some Americans are troubled by their president's name or skin color, though not enough to prevent his election, but what does that have to do with Israelis? The Americans have their historical neuroses, and Israelis have different ones, and if Remnick insists on understanding Israelis through the prism of his own society, he should probably stick to writing about things he knows.
Palestinians Condemning Murder
Yesterday I linked to a Guardian story which encouraged us to believe that Palestinians and Israelis were equally shocked by the murder of the Fogel family. The reporter, Harriet Sherwood, didn't supply any facts to bolster her claim, not even one, so it's hard to know what she thought she was referring to, or if - as I understand it - she was simply inventing things from thin air.
A number of readers discussed the matter, and one, Mich, offered a fascinating report by Shlomi Eldar (not to be confused with Akiva Eldar of Haaretz: Shlomi is a reporter who's primary interest is in facts). You need Hebrew to follow Eldar's report, which of course Sherwood doesn't have, and since she gives no inkling she's aware of Eldar's report, I stand by my characterization of her as an ideologically-motivated hack. Having said that, Eldar's report deserves an English summary:
1. Netanyahu's economic peace is working. Look at the store fronts of Shchem: the economy is obviously booming, people are beginning to live normal lives, and this allows them to think normal thoughts. The fact that the IDF has largely moved out of the West Bank and has dismantled most of the roadblocks, even as the settlements aren't growing, no matter what the international media reports, is creating a new breathing space for the Palestinians, and they're beginning to breathe normally.
2. Exhaustion. The economic peace of 2009-2011 is succeeding where the boom of the late 1990s didn't, because the Palestinians have lost their illusions. In their suicide-bomber war of 2001-2003 they tried to break Israeli society, but the attempt backfired disastrously. Now they're eager to pick up where they could have been in 1999, this time wiser and more realistic about what can and can't be achieved.
3. The Arab Spring of 2011 really does mean something. Over the past few months we've seen masses of Arabs all over the region wishing for the same kind of world the rest of us live in, and bravely trying to get there. It's not even remotely clear they're going to end up with liberal open societies, but then again, it's not certain they won't - and even if they don't, some of them really do seem to be striving for it.
4. Settlements aren't as aggravating as we've endlessly been told. If there really is a sea change underway in the West Bank, it has started even though the Jewish settlements are still there. This doesn't necessarily mean the Palestinian populace is willing to have them stay there, but it may mean they're open to a process where reconciliation happens in the minds before the reality is foolishly and irrevocably changed.
5. Most important of all, were it to be true: After a full century of miscalculating, the Palestinians are beginning to understand that the only way they'll get peace with Israel is by mutual recognition of our common humanity. The first man interviewed says, repeatedly: "Tell the Israelis Muslims aren't allowed to murder", and the teenager, brandishing the picture of Ehud Fogel says "Why should he have died? Isn't it a waste?"
This is all speculative, and possibly wishful thinking. Yet I'm not certain. Over the past few months, perhaps a year, I've been wandering a lot through East Jerusalem, and occasionally through parts of the West Bank, and the calm and normality have been striking. I've also had more simply normal human interactions with Palestinians than in many years. Something may be happening - unreported in the media, in a dynamic which contradicts the endless chatter of the diplomats - but potentially very important.
If so, it needs to be carefully and warily nurtured. Carefully, warily, and nurtured. And patiently. Not words that are easily compatible with the instincts of the people who've got it wrong so far, who need to see their pet solutions applied NOW, and are intoxicated with their certainties.
A number of readers discussed the matter, and one, Mich, offered a fascinating report by Shlomi Eldar (not to be confused with Akiva Eldar of Haaretz: Shlomi is a reporter who's primary interest is in facts). You need Hebrew to follow Eldar's report, which of course Sherwood doesn't have, and since she gives no inkling she's aware of Eldar's report, I stand by my characterization of her as an ideologically-motivated hack. Having said that, Eldar's report deserves an English summary:
I've been reporting in the Palestinian territories for many years, and the responses I recorded today in Shchem (Nablus) really surprised me. They seem to show a substantial distance between the PA leadership and regular people. The leadership (he cites Abbas and others) are muttering a condemnation of the murder, mostly not in Arabic and not in front of their public, and then they're condemning Israeli settlements. Nothing new here. On the other hand, I went to Shchem today, and was very surprised. People on the street were willing to condemn the murder unequivocally, in Arabic and in Hebrew, with no embarrassment, in front of the camera, and even identify themselves. [He shows some examples]. I've been covering the Palestinian territories for years, but this I've never seen before. In the middle of town, publicly, people had no compunctions openly to condemn the murder of children.
At this point one of the two anchormen asks if this is real, or perhaps a one-off encounter with unusual townsmen. Eldar insists: the interviews I've just shown were representative, and I made lots of them, not only the snippets I just screened. Moreover, I didn't find anyone saying the usual things about how it's settlers and Israelis and IDF violence and all that. The atmosphere in Shchem today is that the murder of the Fogel family was a terrible crime.OK. So what does all this mean? Shlomi Eldar says he doesn't know, so I certainly know even less. Still, being a blogger means you've got to have theories about everything all the time, right? So here are some conjectures.
1. Netanyahu's economic peace is working. Look at the store fronts of Shchem: the economy is obviously booming, people are beginning to live normal lives, and this allows them to think normal thoughts. The fact that the IDF has largely moved out of the West Bank and has dismantled most of the roadblocks, even as the settlements aren't growing, no matter what the international media reports, is creating a new breathing space for the Palestinians, and they're beginning to breathe normally.
2. Exhaustion. The economic peace of 2009-2011 is succeeding where the boom of the late 1990s didn't, because the Palestinians have lost their illusions. In their suicide-bomber war of 2001-2003 they tried to break Israeli society, but the attempt backfired disastrously. Now they're eager to pick up where they could have been in 1999, this time wiser and more realistic about what can and can't be achieved.
3. The Arab Spring of 2011 really does mean something. Over the past few months we've seen masses of Arabs all over the region wishing for the same kind of world the rest of us live in, and bravely trying to get there. It's not even remotely clear they're going to end up with liberal open societies, but then again, it's not certain they won't - and even if they don't, some of them really do seem to be striving for it.
4. Settlements aren't as aggravating as we've endlessly been told. If there really is a sea change underway in the West Bank, it has started even though the Jewish settlements are still there. This doesn't necessarily mean the Palestinian populace is willing to have them stay there, but it may mean they're open to a process where reconciliation happens in the minds before the reality is foolishly and irrevocably changed.
5. Most important of all, were it to be true: After a full century of miscalculating, the Palestinians are beginning to understand that the only way they'll get peace with Israel is by mutual recognition of our common humanity. The first man interviewed says, repeatedly: "Tell the Israelis Muslims aren't allowed to murder", and the teenager, brandishing the picture of Ehud Fogel says "Why should he have died? Isn't it a waste?"
This is all speculative, and possibly wishful thinking. Yet I'm not certain. Over the past few months, perhaps a year, I've been wandering a lot through East Jerusalem, and occasionally through parts of the West Bank, and the calm and normality have been striking. I've also had more simply normal human interactions with Palestinians than in many years. Something may be happening - unreported in the media, in a dynamic which contradicts the endless chatter of the diplomats - but potentially very important.
If so, it needs to be carefully and warily nurtured. Carefully, warily, and nurtured. And patiently. Not words that are easily compatible with the instincts of the people who've got it wrong so far, who need to see their pet solutions applied NOW, and are intoxicated with their certainties.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The Guardian's Alternate Universe
The Guardian's Harriet Sherwood, never a reporter to allow facts to interfere with her agenda, charts new terrain of cynicism, backed to the hilt by her editors. Having visited Itamar, she sums up the story of the murder of the Fogel family by informing us that "Israelis and Palestinians [are] in shock" about the massacre.
[h/t CifWatch]
[h/t CifWatch]
Libya, America, and the Ability to Take Care of Yourself
Gaddafi is going to win. By now, that's pretty clear. Sad as it is to say, it's not even clear if the rebels are the kind of people who need to be supported, or at least not all of them, including perhaps the ones who might come out on top. Leon Wiesltier, using moral arguments, thinks Obama's response is a scandal. Larry Diamond, trying to be a realist, thinks it's counterproductive. Michael Totten, as usual taking an unusual perspective, asks why Arabs think the Americans owe them assistance.
I continue to look at this from the perspective of a country universally and incessantly exhorted to take risks for peace and justice, and am convinced, yet again, that the only way to ensure one's existence at time of danger is by being well armed and well trained, and very dangerous to anyone who might harm you. If anyone assures you they'll be there for you, they're lying. If you rely on them, you'll deserve their betrayal.
I continue to look at this from the perspective of a country universally and incessantly exhorted to take risks for peace and justice, and am convinced, yet again, that the only way to ensure one's existence at time of danger is by being well armed and well trained, and very dangerous to anyone who might harm you. If anyone assures you they'll be there for you, they're lying. If you rely on them, you'll deserve their betrayal.
Monday, March 14, 2011
The Long Long War
The other day a group of readers got into a heated debate about Israeli control of the West Bank and settlements. I actually thought of responding with a post of my own which would try to pull together the various strands of the discussion and present a coherent position. Then, while I was engaged in other things, there was the murderous attack in Itamar, and it seemed the wrong time to be explaining (not for the first time) why Itamar shouldn't be there, even though peace is not in the offings. So some other day.
In the meantime, Melanie Phillips has pulled together lots of examples of what she calls "armchair barbarism", in which respectable western media blames Jews for getting murdered.
Also, Itamar Markus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, who spend their days consuming official Palestinian media and futilely try to tell people what they're hearing, note that the leaders of the PA have condemned the recent murder, but they bear considerable responsibility for it because of their incessant incitement against Israel and glorification of murderers.
In the meantime, Melanie Phillips has pulled together lots of examples of what she calls "armchair barbarism", in which respectable western media blames Jews for getting murdered.
Also, Itamar Markus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, who spend their days consuming official Palestinian media and futilely try to tell people what they're hearing, note that the leaders of the PA have condemned the recent murder, but they bear considerable responsibility for it because of their incessant incitement against Israel and glorification of murderers.
The Last Surviving Member of the First Knesset
... Was Tawfik Toubi, who began his political life as a member of the Palestinian Communist Party, and served for four decades as a communist Knesset member. He passed away over the weekend, the last of his generation.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Celebrations in the Family
News junkies (and most blog readers are a subset of them) can easily lose perspective, compelled as we are to endlessly respond to immediate events. So here's a spot of perspective.
Yesterday I was talking to Moshe Z, a member of our congregation. Moshe looks like a robust 70-year-old, but since he's got an Auschwitz number on his forearm he's got to be in his early 80s. Last week his first great-grandchild, a girl, was born to one of his granddaughters. Moshe was telling me how emotional it was for him to have a fourth-generation descendant. He then went on to tell that this is being a good month for him. First, the great-granddaughter. Then a few days later, his second-youngest grandson (of eight) joined the IDF. Next week another granddaughter is marrying.
I congratulated him on the birth and the wedding, but was a bit hesitant to classify the grandson's enlistment in the same category of joyous events. "No, Yaacov, you're wrong about that. For those of us who came from Europe and know how important this country is, the privilege of seeing our sons serve in our army is something to celebrate".
"May he return in peace", I said, and we shook hands on that.
Yesterday I was talking to Moshe Z, a member of our congregation. Moshe looks like a robust 70-year-old, but since he's got an Auschwitz number on his forearm he's got to be in his early 80s. Last week his first great-grandchild, a girl, was born to one of his granddaughters. Moshe was telling me how emotional it was for him to have a fourth-generation descendant. He then went on to tell that this is being a good month for him. First, the great-granddaughter. Then a few days later, his second-youngest grandson (of eight) joined the IDF. Next week another granddaughter is marrying.
I congratulated him on the birth and the wedding, but was a bit hesitant to classify the grandson's enlistment in the same category of joyous events. "No, Yaacov, you're wrong about that. For those of us who came from Europe and know how important this country is, the privilege of seeing our sons serve in our army is something to celebrate".
"May he return in peace", I said, and we shook hands on that.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Guardian Readers: Enjoy, Don't Think
Just Journalism has waded all the way through a long, sloppy and meandering item at the Guardian, which basically says that the paper gives its readers what they want, and doesn't challenge their pet likes and dislikes. This means British royals, the church, Israel and (American) Republicans are bashed, but folks on the Guardian's nice list never are (the top example being the ever-worsening regime in Turkey). Read the synopsis at Just Journalism; the original is too long.
Humanitarian (Non) Intervention in Libya
Michael Walzer philosophizes about Western intervention in Libya. Walzer is a serious thinker on the laws of war, and generally puts his understanding above politics, meaning he supports military actions or disproves of them based on his understanding of the principles, not on the identity of whomever is sitting in the White House.
The problem is that all his formidable intellectual tools don't much help him in making up his mind about Libya today. He leans heavily on John Stuart Mill's ideas, in which democracy needs to be created by the demos, the people, not by intervening foreigners, and if the locals can't get there on their own they aren't ready yet. He also doesn't think things in Libya are serious enough yet, though he isn't sure they won't be. So he looks for the appropriate entity to intervene, if and when and perhaps: Italy? Nah. NATO. It won't. Finally he decides the Egyptians and Tunisians should intervene, and by this time he's no longer pondering a no-fly-zone, but rather a real invasion on the ground.
Egypt and Tunisia, huh? If that's the best he can come up with, maybe he's too much of a philosopher and not enough of a consumer of the daily news. Egypt and Tunisia happen both to be busy these days trying to sort out if they're ready for democracy, in Mill's terms, and probably couldn't cobble together the ability to intervene in Libya even if they desperately needed to: who would be the governments giving the marching orders, pray tell?
By way of jolting us out of our philosophical reveries, it could be bracing to read this description of how people are being tortured in Gaddafi's Libya, right now. (In an aside, I don't know how the Palestinian fellow can be called a "refugee", but that's not important in this context). The story underlines a truth which is often not mentioned in this sort of discussion: that it's not Gaddafi who's doing the torturing, nor is anyone following his direct orders. His regime is based on large numbers of evil and cruel men, who need no special orders to destroy human beings. All the agonizing in the West and at the UN and in the International Community is taking place while in Libyan prisons and camps people are agonizing in the real meaning of the word, meaning they're in terrible agony.
Part of the discussion is the extreme reluctance of Western powers to intervene is a way that could be construed as "colonial", or "post-colonial". This seems to me exceptionally cynical. The world has created a set of concepts and buzz-words in which rich and powerful countries may not intervene to save lives of suffering people today, because a century ago their forefathers may or may not have been nasty to the forefathers of today's culprits and victims. Of course, nothing the British ever did in places like Raj India was ever remotely as bad as what the Indians and emerging Pakistanis did to each otter after the English left, or what the West Pakistanis did to the East Pakistanis a generation later, or what the Sri-Lankens did to the Sri-Lankens another generation on, all in what had once been British India. No matter: colonialism trumps local crimes then, and does so in Libya now. But anyway, the issue ought to be moot, because the rebel half of the Libyans seem to want some sort of no-fly-zone, so the colonial part shouldn't be relevant, and the French have apparently even officially recognized them as the emerging government.
Seen from an Israeli perspective, both sides of the Libyan conflict are probably equally distasteful. But one side has heavy weapons and a system which tortures people, and the other side is resisting them. If morality plays a role in international relations, two weeks ago was the time to take action to protect the Libyan people who want a better life. If it doesn't - and perhaps maybe it doesn't - then no action should be taken, period, and the Libyans should be told they're on their own while the world gets on with other things, and drop the pretenses.
Meanwhile, in another faraway land, the Iranians are supplying the Taliban with weapons the better to kill Western forces and then terrorize Afghans. To the best of my understanding, they didn't seek international support or legitimation for this, they just did it.
The problem is that all his formidable intellectual tools don't much help him in making up his mind about Libya today. He leans heavily on John Stuart Mill's ideas, in which democracy needs to be created by the demos, the people, not by intervening foreigners, and if the locals can't get there on their own they aren't ready yet. He also doesn't think things in Libya are serious enough yet, though he isn't sure they won't be. So he looks for the appropriate entity to intervene, if and when and perhaps: Italy? Nah. NATO. It won't. Finally he decides the Egyptians and Tunisians should intervene, and by this time he's no longer pondering a no-fly-zone, but rather a real invasion on the ground.
Egypt and Tunisia, huh? If that's the best he can come up with, maybe he's too much of a philosopher and not enough of a consumer of the daily news. Egypt and Tunisia happen both to be busy these days trying to sort out if they're ready for democracy, in Mill's terms, and probably couldn't cobble together the ability to intervene in Libya even if they desperately needed to: who would be the governments giving the marching orders, pray tell?
By way of jolting us out of our philosophical reveries, it could be bracing to read this description of how people are being tortured in Gaddafi's Libya, right now. (In an aside, I don't know how the Palestinian fellow can be called a "refugee", but that's not important in this context). The story underlines a truth which is often not mentioned in this sort of discussion: that it's not Gaddafi who's doing the torturing, nor is anyone following his direct orders. His regime is based on large numbers of evil and cruel men, who need no special orders to destroy human beings. All the agonizing in the West and at the UN and in the International Community is taking place while in Libyan prisons and camps people are agonizing in the real meaning of the word, meaning they're in terrible agony.
Part of the discussion is the extreme reluctance of Western powers to intervene is a way that could be construed as "colonial", or "post-colonial". This seems to me exceptionally cynical. The world has created a set of concepts and buzz-words in which rich and powerful countries may not intervene to save lives of suffering people today, because a century ago their forefathers may or may not have been nasty to the forefathers of today's culprits and victims. Of course, nothing the British ever did in places like Raj India was ever remotely as bad as what the Indians and emerging Pakistanis did to each otter after the English left, or what the West Pakistanis did to the East Pakistanis a generation later, or what the Sri-Lankens did to the Sri-Lankens another generation on, all in what had once been British India. No matter: colonialism trumps local crimes then, and does so in Libya now. But anyway, the issue ought to be moot, because the rebel half of the Libyans seem to want some sort of no-fly-zone, so the colonial part shouldn't be relevant, and the French have apparently even officially recognized them as the emerging government.
Seen from an Israeli perspective, both sides of the Libyan conflict are probably equally distasteful. But one side has heavy weapons and a system which tortures people, and the other side is resisting them. If morality plays a role in international relations, two weeks ago was the time to take action to protect the Libyan people who want a better life. If it doesn't - and perhaps maybe it doesn't - then no action should be taken, period, and the Libyans should be told they're on their own while the world gets on with other things, and drop the pretenses.
Meanwhile, in another faraway land, the Iranians are supplying the Taliban with weapons the better to kill Western forces and then terrorize Afghans. To the best of my understanding, they didn't seek international support or legitimation for this, they just did it.
Sacrifying to be Jewish
Veteran readers may have noted that it's been quite a while since I blogged in the Daf Yomi series. (Recent readers can find the introduction and explanation of this thread here). The main reason has been that about three months ago we finished the Nezikim order, which deals with commonplace things such as legal transactions, courts and contracts, which are as relevant today as they were 1,800 years ago, and started the Kodashim order, which concentrates (mostly) on holy ritual, some of which is rather outlandish from a modern perspective. The first tractate, which we finished today, was Zevachim, Sacrifices (120 pages).
How outlandish? Quite, to be honest. The Bible commands four types of sacrifices, which are then divided into sub-groups. Each sacrificial act is divided into a series of actions, which need to be done in very specific places, mostly but not always by priests (cohens) of varying degrees of purity, with specific tools, in specific order, and with specific intentions. The time of day (or night) is also important, as are lots of very detailed aspects of the alter (blood from sacrifice A has to be splattered above the red line on the left side of the alter, or below the line in a different context). Then the accidents have to be taken into account: what happens if something falls, onto what, and is then replaced. Or not. Also, was the priest wearing the correct uniform when it happened, and does it need to be laundered immediately, or later, or not at all? Quantities are important, sometimes. Or is it always, but in different ways? Did I mention the problem of scarifying an animal which is in the wrong section of the Temple Mount but it's throat was in the right place, or was it the other way around, the animal was in the right place but it's throat reached out over the line but then turned back just in time not to be too late, if it isn't already irrevocably too late because the intention to eat it by whomever changed in the meanwhile?
It's not the arcane details which make all this so strange. Observe any present day insurance company lawyer doing her best to prove her client actually doesn't owe you anything, and it will rapidly become just as arcane. What makes it so strange is the content. We can't imagine sacrifices, and only dimly can we appreciate matters of purity and impurity, or even religious tithes and all that goes with them.
The thing that's historically so interesting about the tractate is that the rabbis can't really imagine it, either. The Temple was destroyed in the early mishnaic era, which means only the earliest generations of the Mishnaic rabbis, the Tana'im, had any personal knowledge of the matter; the latter Tanaim and all the Amoraim, i.e the large majority of the Talmudic rabbis, had never seen any of this, nor had it been happening in living memory. Occasionally the tractate cites a Zkan Hacohanim, which seems to mean the last of the cohanim still alive to tell how things were, but even then their authority isn't clear. At one point the tractate spends many pages discussing the dimensions of the alter and Temple plaza; the entire section is scholasticism, meaning it's based upon interpreting the verses of the Bible, not reconstructing the physical place (which, having been razed, can't be done) or looking for someone who might have preserved or recorded real memory.
Actually, scholasticism plays an unusually large part in the tractate, even more than usual. Many of the detailed arguments aren't about how things were supposed to work, but rather how they can be learned from which words in which verses. Some of the discussions in Nezikin move so far away from the original Biblical verses it's obvious the rabbis have enacted laws which relate to their social reality, not the one of Deuteronomy. (The laws of inheritance, for example, which are developed well beyond the rudimentary commandments in the Pentateuch). Not so in Zevachim, which goes on endlessly about who learns which arcane detail from which confluence of words in two separate verses, but has no reason - obviously - to adapt the practice to the real world of the rabbis.
At one point the tractate even says this explicitly. An Amora has pronounced on halacha: the law is that it's done this way, not that, and the tractate basically says "Huh? Who cares? No-one does any of this anyway? We're studying so as not to forget". Yet the deeper we got into it, the more it became clear to me that even that wasn't the case. Keep in mind that the Tamud is the central creation of the Pharisees, rabbinical Judaism, who were often at war - sometimes even violent war - with the Sadducees .The Saducees were the ones running the Temple, and they decidedly didn't use the rabbinical form of learning, which means that even if we could invent a time machine and go back to the Temple, we wouldn't see the practices described in great length in the Talmud. There must have been some resemblance, but it would have been limited.
The Talmudic scholars spent centuries discussing the most arcane minutiae of the practice of the Temple so as not to forget it, and never to loosen the Jewish ties to a physical place which had been gone for centuries, and they did so by describing a reality which never existed in the form they created for it.
Yet it worked. Judaism became a religion which could exist without its concrete, physical heart, because the imagination of that heart had become central to Jewish civilization.
Ironically, almost everyone I talked to about the tractate these past few months has agreed that it's very outlandish, and we're not particularly enjoying it; it's too foreign. But that's part of the greater irony of Zionism, which arose and succeeded in a historical era when the old forms of preservation were losing their potency. Either Zionism arrived at the last possible moment, as the civilizational binds that held the Jews together were about to slip off, or it arose because the old forms were weakening and there was no option but to go back to the basics of land, language and national political life. Choose whichever explanation you prefer.
Either way, the slowly widening gap between the Jews of Israel and America is very serious. For most of America's Jews, not only Zvachim is outlandish, the entire Talmud is also, as is the prayer book, the Jewish calender, and of course Jewish rituals of all kinds. It may not be urgent, but after a while one does need to ask what holds Jews together when the traditional ties are gone, and the more common national-political ones aren't compelling either. I come by this theme from time to time, it's not new. Shmuel Rosner has apparently just written a book about it (in Hebrew), and has an interesting chapter (in English) here. What happens, he asks, when the political agenda of the Israelis is different from the political agenda of American Jews, on American subjects, not on Israel's security or well-being. Say, if Israeli Jews admire an American president the American Jews despise. Well, when it was George Bush II, the resounding answer was that America's Jews split from Israel. Yet not because of any major argument. It was simply that the Israeli position didn't interest America's Jews, and this itself was a sign of the growing indifference large numbers of American Jews display towards Israel.
Which brings me back to Zvachim. You can find it outlandish, and look forward to the time when the Daf Yomi series will return to less far-fetched topics. That's qualitatively different than having a Judaism which is indifferent both to the cultural and also the geographical center. A Judaism which focuses mainly on its local agenda and not on the ones which unify all Jews, will someday have to explain to itself what makes it Jewish, and why the rest of the Jews should care.
Update: Yehuda Mirsky has thoughts on Jewish identity in America today, here. Some of it (not all: don't jump on me) doesn't much look like Judaism at all to me.
How outlandish? Quite, to be honest. The Bible commands four types of sacrifices, which are then divided into sub-groups. Each sacrificial act is divided into a series of actions, which need to be done in very specific places, mostly but not always by priests (cohens) of varying degrees of purity, with specific tools, in specific order, and with specific intentions. The time of day (or night) is also important, as are lots of very detailed aspects of the alter (blood from sacrifice A has to be splattered above the red line on the left side of the alter, or below the line in a different context). Then the accidents have to be taken into account: what happens if something falls, onto what, and is then replaced. Or not. Also, was the priest wearing the correct uniform when it happened, and does it need to be laundered immediately, or later, or not at all? Quantities are important, sometimes. Or is it always, but in different ways? Did I mention the problem of scarifying an animal which is in the wrong section of the Temple Mount but it's throat was in the right place, or was it the other way around, the animal was in the right place but it's throat reached out over the line but then turned back just in time not to be too late, if it isn't already irrevocably too late because the intention to eat it by whomever changed in the meanwhile?
It's not the arcane details which make all this so strange. Observe any present day insurance company lawyer doing her best to prove her client actually doesn't owe you anything, and it will rapidly become just as arcane. What makes it so strange is the content. We can't imagine sacrifices, and only dimly can we appreciate matters of purity and impurity, or even religious tithes and all that goes with them.
The thing that's historically so interesting about the tractate is that the rabbis can't really imagine it, either. The Temple was destroyed in the early mishnaic era, which means only the earliest generations of the Mishnaic rabbis, the Tana'im, had any personal knowledge of the matter; the latter Tanaim and all the Amoraim, i.e the large majority of the Talmudic rabbis, had never seen any of this, nor had it been happening in living memory. Occasionally the tractate cites a Zkan Hacohanim, which seems to mean the last of the cohanim still alive to tell how things were, but even then their authority isn't clear. At one point the tractate spends many pages discussing the dimensions of the alter and Temple plaza; the entire section is scholasticism, meaning it's based upon interpreting the verses of the Bible, not reconstructing the physical place (which, having been razed, can't be done) or looking for someone who might have preserved or recorded real memory.
Actually, scholasticism plays an unusually large part in the tractate, even more than usual. Many of the detailed arguments aren't about how things were supposed to work, but rather how they can be learned from which words in which verses. Some of the discussions in Nezikin move so far away from the original Biblical verses it's obvious the rabbis have enacted laws which relate to their social reality, not the one of Deuteronomy. (The laws of inheritance, for example, which are developed well beyond the rudimentary commandments in the Pentateuch). Not so in Zevachim, which goes on endlessly about who learns which arcane detail from which confluence of words in two separate verses, but has no reason - obviously - to adapt the practice to the real world of the rabbis.
At one point the tractate even says this explicitly. An Amora has pronounced on halacha: the law is that it's done this way, not that, and the tractate basically says "Huh? Who cares? No-one does any of this anyway? We're studying so as not to forget". Yet the deeper we got into it, the more it became clear to me that even that wasn't the case. Keep in mind that the Tamud is the central creation of the Pharisees, rabbinical Judaism, who were often at war - sometimes even violent war - with the Sadducees .The Saducees were the ones running the Temple, and they decidedly didn't use the rabbinical form of learning, which means that even if we could invent a time machine and go back to the Temple, we wouldn't see the practices described in great length in the Talmud. There must have been some resemblance, but it would have been limited.
The Talmudic scholars spent centuries discussing the most arcane minutiae of the practice of the Temple so as not to forget it, and never to loosen the Jewish ties to a physical place which had been gone for centuries, and they did so by describing a reality which never existed in the form they created for it.
Yet it worked. Judaism became a religion which could exist without its concrete, physical heart, because the imagination of that heart had become central to Jewish civilization.
Ironically, almost everyone I talked to about the tractate these past few months has agreed that it's very outlandish, and we're not particularly enjoying it; it's too foreign. But that's part of the greater irony of Zionism, which arose and succeeded in a historical era when the old forms of preservation were losing their potency. Either Zionism arrived at the last possible moment, as the civilizational binds that held the Jews together were about to slip off, or it arose because the old forms were weakening and there was no option but to go back to the basics of land, language and national political life. Choose whichever explanation you prefer.
Either way, the slowly widening gap between the Jews of Israel and America is very serious. For most of America's Jews, not only Zvachim is outlandish, the entire Talmud is also, as is the prayer book, the Jewish calender, and of course Jewish rituals of all kinds. It may not be urgent, but after a while one does need to ask what holds Jews together when the traditional ties are gone, and the more common national-political ones aren't compelling either. I come by this theme from time to time, it's not new. Shmuel Rosner has apparently just written a book about it (in Hebrew), and has an interesting chapter (in English) here. What happens, he asks, when the political agenda of the Israelis is different from the political agenda of American Jews, on American subjects, not on Israel's security or well-being. Say, if Israeli Jews admire an American president the American Jews despise. Well, when it was George Bush II, the resounding answer was that America's Jews split from Israel. Yet not because of any major argument. It was simply that the Israeli position didn't interest America's Jews, and this itself was a sign of the growing indifference large numbers of American Jews display towards Israel.
Which brings me back to Zvachim. You can find it outlandish, and look forward to the time when the Daf Yomi series will return to less far-fetched topics. That's qualitatively different than having a Judaism which is indifferent both to the cultural and also the geographical center. A Judaism which focuses mainly on its local agenda and not on the ones which unify all Jews, will someday have to explain to itself what makes it Jewish, and why the rest of the Jews should care.
Update: Yehuda Mirsky has thoughts on Jewish identity in America today, here. Some of it (not all: don't jump on me) doesn't much look like Judaism at all to me.
David Grossman and Yehuda Poliker: Short Spring
David Grossman has written a poem about his son Uri, who was killed in Lebanon in 2006. Yehuda Poliker, son of two Holocaust survivors who has written and recorded songs about his nephew Kobi, who was killed as an IDF soldier, put Grossmans poem to music and recorded it. Here it is, along with the lyrics. (Hebrew). The title: Spring is so Short Around Here
There's a short moment of Spring between Winter and summer when everything blooms, but the signs of its end are written into it.
There's a short moment of Spring between Winter and summer when everything blooms, but the signs of its end are written into it.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Books Books Books
As a general thing, reading worthy books is a better pastime than reading blogs. Trust me. So here are some links about some books.
Hadar Sela reviews Michael Totten's new book, The Road to Fatima Gate: The Beirut Spring, the Rise of Hezbollah, and the Iranian War Against Israel
. The review is here, and if you live in the US, you've got till the end of this week to order the book directly from Michael himself, as he explains here. I haven't read it yet but do intend to.
One reason I have yet to read Michael's book is that I'm reading Jerusalem: The Biography
by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Here, if you're in the US you've actually got a problem, since you can only buy the Kindle version of the book; the dead tree version will only come out later this year. I acquired a UK copy, and am very much enjoying the read. I'm also concurrently reading Albert Hourani's A History of the Arab Peoples which is also very interesting.
David Brooks, a semi-conservative who writes as a fig leaf at the New York Times, has recently published The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement
, in which he apparently makes the argument that people are not as rational as they're supposed to be, and also that cultural conditionig can, well, condition us. The Economist reviews the book favorably, and in spite of themselves make a list of two kinds of countries, on which Israel ranks very well, apparently even better than the UK:
. Personally, I would never buy a used car from someone with the name Malloch, and certainly not after having been reminded by Sebag Motefiore about what used to be done in his name (more or less) in a valley to the south of Jerusalem. But that's just me. The greater problem with the book is that Mr. Brown seems to think it would be a good thing to have some sort of universal government for all of humanity, which of course isn't going to happen, but even having to deal with the people who think it should is a major pain in the neck. Which means, this actually may be a book worth perusing, in a "know the enemy" sort of vein. The Economist reviews it here.
Well, that should keep you busy for a bit.
Hadar Sela reviews Michael Totten's new book, The Road to Fatima Gate: The Beirut Spring, the Rise of Hezbollah, and the Iranian War Against Israel
. The review is here, and if you live in the US, you've got till the end of this week to order the book directly from Michael himself, as he explains here. I haven't read it yet but do intend to.One reason I have yet to read Michael's book is that I'm reading Jerusalem: The Biography
by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Here, if you're in the US you've actually got a problem, since you can only buy the Kindle version of the book; the dead tree version will only come out later this year. I acquired a UK copy, and am very much enjoying the read. I'm also concurrently reading Albert Hourani's A History of the Arab Peoples which is also very interesting.David Brooks, a semi-conservative who writes as a fig leaf at the New York Times, has recently published The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement
, in which he apparently makes the argument that people are not as rational as they're supposed to be, and also that cultural conditionig can, well, condition us. The Economist reviews the book favorably, and in spite of themselves make a list of two kinds of countries, on which Israel ranks very well, apparently even better than the UK:Culture and the community in which a child is raised help to build the way the conscious and unconscious intertwine. Mr Brooks recounts a survey of diplomats who failed to pay parking fines in New York. By far the worst non-payers came from countries where corruption is endemic: Egypt, Pakistan, Nigeria and so on. By contrast, diplomats from Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Israel, Norway and Canada had no unpaid fines at all. “Thousands of miles away from home,” Mr Brooks writes, “diplomats still carried their domestic cultural norms inside their heads.”Finally, we've got the new book by Mark Malloch Brown, The Unfinished Global Revolution: The Pursuit of a New International Politics
. Personally, I would never buy a used car from someone with the name Malloch, and certainly not after having been reminded by Sebag Motefiore about what used to be done in his name (more or less) in a valley to the south of Jerusalem. But that's just me. The greater problem with the book is that Mr. Brown seems to think it would be a good thing to have some sort of universal government for all of humanity, which of course isn't going to happen, but even having to deal with the people who think it should is a major pain in the neck. Which means, this actually may be a book worth perusing, in a "know the enemy" sort of vein. The Economist reviews it here.Well, that should keep you busy for a bit.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Antisemitism is Invisible
The Economist has a column on the spate of celebrities who have recently been caught making antisemitic comments. The columnist makes no pretense the comments weren't antisemitic, and of course has no patience for their content, nor any empathy for the people who made them. However, he (she? You never know with the Economist) then goes looking for explanations, mostly economic explanations, for the stupid utterances of some cultural celebrities, and for the swift responses of their employers who fire them. It's an interesting column, and there's no particular reason to argue with any of what it says.
I do have a problem with what it doesn't say. Or rather, with the question it doesn't pose, and then the answer it doesn't give.The un-posed question is of course, why are there so many people with the need to make antisemitic statements? And the answer which is not investigated has to do with the possibility that they're not only spoiled brats, these celebrities, they also truly don't like Jews.
I'm not seeing antisemites under every rock. On the contrary, the swiftness with which these ranters get punished is admirable, sometimes even too swift - after all, in a democracy one should be allowed to say ugly things. Yet I can't help but notice that the Economist can't entertain the concept that hatred of Jews can be a very real thing, an extremely deep-seated urge.
In the long run, this inability to imagine authentic hatred of Jews is a problem.
I do have a problem with what it doesn't say. Or rather, with the question it doesn't pose, and then the answer it doesn't give.The un-posed question is of course, why are there so many people with the need to make antisemitic statements? And the answer which is not investigated has to do with the possibility that they're not only spoiled brats, these celebrities, they also truly don't like Jews.
I'm not seeing antisemites under every rock. On the contrary, the swiftness with which these ranters get punished is admirable, sometimes even too swift - after all, in a democracy one should be allowed to say ugly things. Yet I can't help but notice that the Economist can't entertain the concept that hatred of Jews can be a very real thing, an extremely deep-seated urge.
In the long run, this inability to imagine authentic hatred of Jews is a problem.
Hitch on Revolutions
I continue not to know where Arab democracy is going this week, this month, this year. Just like everybody else doesn't know. Hitch, however, brings a perspective I haven't much seen in all the verbiage, so you might be interested in reading it.
Monday, March 7, 2011
New Website With Blogs
I'm seriously looking into changing the format of this blog into something richer and more useful. The idea will be to have different sections that do different things, one of which might or might not be a blog. So I started looking into Wordpress (Blogger isn't relevant). So far as I can see, however, doing this the right way will require more technical skill than I've got. So if there's anyone out there who lives in my vicinity, and has experience in setting up a website using Wordpress, and wishes to announce themselves to me, it's yaacov dot lozowick at yahoo dot com. Until I change that, too.
Roger Waters is A Fool; Rashad Bayoumi Isn't; Obama?
Roger Waters of the Pink Floyd band has announced his support of BDS, although not until a few years after doing a large concert in Israel which probably generated a spot of income, so the practical aspect of boycotting dosen't mean much. In this article he explains his decision.
I don't much follow such matters, but I expect Waters is a talented musician. His grasp on the facts of the Israel-Palestine conflict is very shaky; here's a man who can be fed contradictory lies and swallows them all unthinkingly. I was especially impressed by the fact that he returns again and again to the wall Israel has built (well, that would make sense, given Water's history of walls), without ever reflecting on the fact that the wall is actually an expression of ending the occupation: the sense of having a border is that the Palestinians will end up on one side, and the Israelis on the other, and there will be a border separating them. The wall, and partition, also contradict the right of return he supports, but no matter. The important thing is that a man with no grasp of the reality feels it's an honorable thing to make idiotic and counter-factual statements about the Jewish state, and he'll be applauded for doing so by large numbers of other malicious fools. That's the important heart of the matter.
Rashad Bayoumi isn't a fool. He's a hard-core antisemite, of the boilerplate opinion that Jews rule America and America wishes to destroy Islam, and Israel is the tool they use to attack the Muslim world from its geographic center. He's also a top fellow in the Muslim brotherhood. Just like everyone else, I don't know how influential he and his evil comrades will be in the new Arab world that will rise from the present turmoil, but it certainly needs careful monitoring at the least, and lots of careful planing: what if he turns out to be very influential? What then? Here, for starters, is a translated interview with him from last week. Listen, and shudder.
In a recent meeting between President Obama and a bunch of prominent American Jews, reports on which are conflicting because it was off the record and no official transcript has been produced, Obama seems to have
I don't much follow such matters, but I expect Waters is a talented musician. His grasp on the facts of the Israel-Palestine conflict is very shaky; here's a man who can be fed contradictory lies and swallows them all unthinkingly. I was especially impressed by the fact that he returns again and again to the wall Israel has built (well, that would make sense, given Water's history of walls), without ever reflecting on the fact that the wall is actually an expression of ending the occupation: the sense of having a border is that the Palestinians will end up on one side, and the Israelis on the other, and there will be a border separating them. The wall, and partition, also contradict the right of return he supports, but no matter. The important thing is that a man with no grasp of the reality feels it's an honorable thing to make idiotic and counter-factual statements about the Jewish state, and he'll be applauded for doing so by large numbers of other malicious fools. That's the important heart of the matter.
Rashad Bayoumi isn't a fool. He's a hard-core antisemite, of the boilerplate opinion that Jews rule America and America wishes to destroy Islam, and Israel is the tool they use to attack the Muslim world from its geographic center. He's also a top fellow in the Muslim brotherhood. Just like everyone else, I don't know how influential he and his evil comrades will be in the new Arab world that will rise from the present turmoil, but it certainly needs careful monitoring at the least, and lots of careful planing: what if he turns out to be very influential? What then? Here, for starters, is a translated interview with him from last week. Listen, and shudder.
In a recent meeting between President Obama and a bunch of prominent American Jews, reports on which are conflicting because it was off the record and no official transcript has been produced, Obama seems to have
reportedly urged Jewish communal leaders to speak to their friends and colleagues in Israel and to “search your souls” over Israel's seriousness about making peace.Furthermore, some (but perhaps not all) participants felt Obama was singling out Israel:
[T]he president also implied that Israel bears primary responsibility for advancing the peace process. They interpreted the president’s comments either as hostile, naive or unsurprising. Obama said Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is eager to secure his legacy by establishing a Palestinian state and would accept a decent offer if one were on the table, according to participants. “The Palestinians don't feel confident that the Netanyahu government is serious about territorial concessions,” the president reportedly said.I wasn't there, and don't know exactly what he said. The idea, however, that the American president thinks Israelis need to be lectured at by him or by American Jews about the threats that face them is, to my mind, extremely distasteful. The idea that the Palestinians will accept any offer the Israelis can viably make so as to end up with a small state on a fragment of the territory they feel they deserve has, alas, been repeatedly tested and has repeatedly led to disaster. Disaster in which Israelis (and Palestinians) pay a price in blood. No-one needs to expect a faraway musician to know about this, or to care; the American president, however, ought to.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Jaffa Street: Pedestrian Zone
No real time for blogging today, so here's a bit of information about Jerusalem which is actually almost two months old, but still nice: Jaffa Road isn't anymore. I mean, it's still there, but it's not a road, if by that you mean an artery through a city used to move traffic, with pedestrians crammed like sardines on the edge. As of early 2011, the traffic is gone, and the entire length of the street is given over to sleek modern streetcars which don't carry passengers yet (this summer, they promise us), and pedestrians. The first time I walked the length of the street (and took the pictures below) I was astonished: it was possible to hear people talking. The streetcars sort of swish, but they aren't anything like the din of incessant buses, trucks, cabs, blaring traffic horns and overall din. Moreover, the 15-year process of tearing up the street and generally causing chaos, now that it's almost over, has changed the proportions of the space between the buildings on either side. It used to be that one had to weave among people in order to get anywhere; now there are broad sidewalks on each side of the narrow part given over to the streetcar tracks.
If indeed the streetcars start serving the public sometime soon, I expect capitalism to kick in again. Over the past 20 years or so the opening of large malls on the edge of town, and the perpetual tearing up of the center of town have meant the only businesses still viable sell cheap trinkets or bolts of cloth. Not what the largest city in the country is supposed to look like. Already, however, some of them are shutting down, and new To Rent signs are appearing on their windowpanes; here and there a smart-looking establishment is hesitantly appearing. If the gamble works, by 2013 the center of Jerusalem could be a delightful area of open-air cafes and fashionable stores. It could happen, you know.
If indeed the streetcars start serving the public sometime soon, I expect capitalism to kick in again. Over the past 20 years or so the opening of large malls on the edge of town, and the perpetual tearing up of the center of town have meant the only businesses still viable sell cheap trinkets or bolts of cloth. Not what the largest city in the country is supposed to look like. Already, however, some of them are shutting down, and new To Rent signs are appearing on their windowpanes; here and there a smart-looking establishment is hesitantly appearing. If the gamble works, by 2013 the center of Jerusalem could be a delightful area of open-air cafes and fashionable stores. It could happen, you know.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Progressive Israel-Scolds Inadvertantly Support Conflict
I was a bit surprised when a number of readers responded earlier this week to a post on J-Street by apparently saying that J-Street doesn't entertain the positions it entertains. I may have played into their hands, however, by focusing on marginal issues such as the number of participants at the J-Street conference. In a week where yet another poll of American public opinion found that 60-plus% of Americans (most of whom can't be Jewish) support Israel, and fewer than 20% support the Palestinians, it doesn't make much difference if the radical wing of American Jewry can convene 1,000 people or 5,000. You get the feeling, these past two years, that even the Obama White House has understood that the votes aren't in that particular political camp - though the chattering classes in Europe agree wholeheartedly with the J-Street agenda.
What is the agenda? As David Suissa has put it, there are two planks to the platform: It is really, really, really, really important that Israel reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians... [and] the underlying assumption is always that the major obstacle to peace is Israel. Israel Matzav dug up a short video in which some participants at the conference said predictable things such as that Hamas isn't as bad as the IDF. It's the usual Mondoweiss fare.
This week also saw the publication of an 11,000-word article by the New Yorker's David Remnick, fawning over Haaretz and describing it as the best of Israel. I mention it here because Remnick's piece is a fine demonstration of how the J-Streeters see Israel; along the way it also shows why they're irrelevant for almost all Israelis. According to Remnick, Haaretz is alone in Israeli society in its willingness to face the reality of Israel's wars, its conflict with the Palestinians, its occupation of them, and all the things that are wrong with Israel's politics in matters of war and peace. Alas, he continues, not only are Israelis not willing to listen, but even most of the political left cannot abide with Haaretz, because, as he repeatedly tells, it lacks empathy with the Israeli side of the story, and refuses to offer any sort of consolation for their suffering at times of terror attacks. It's position is principled, and the principles cannot change merely because people are frightened, say, or bereaved.
The arrogance of Haaretz, of Remnick, and of the many non-Israelis who allow themselves this train of thought is always aggravating, but hardly unusual. Only once in the entire article does Remnick very briefly allude to a different dynamic:
What is the agenda? As David Suissa has put it, there are two planks to the platform: It is really, really, really, really important that Israel reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians... [and] the underlying assumption is always that the major obstacle to peace is Israel. Israel Matzav dug up a short video in which some participants at the conference said predictable things such as that Hamas isn't as bad as the IDF. It's the usual Mondoweiss fare.
This week also saw the publication of an 11,000-word article by the New Yorker's David Remnick, fawning over Haaretz and describing it as the best of Israel. I mention it here because Remnick's piece is a fine demonstration of how the J-Streeters see Israel; along the way it also shows why they're irrelevant for almost all Israelis. According to Remnick, Haaretz is alone in Israeli society in its willingness to face the reality of Israel's wars, its conflict with the Palestinians, its occupation of them, and all the things that are wrong with Israel's politics in matters of war and peace. Alas, he continues, not only are Israelis not willing to listen, but even most of the political left cannot abide with Haaretz, because, as he repeatedly tells, it lacks empathy with the Israeli side of the story, and refuses to offer any sort of consolation for their suffering at times of terror attacks. It's position is principled, and the principles cannot change merely because people are frightened, say, or bereaved.
The arrogance of Haaretz, of Remnick, and of the many non-Israelis who allow themselves this train of thought is always aggravating, but hardly unusual. Only once in the entire article does Remnick very briefly allude to a different dynamic:
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The ICC Rides to the Rescue in Libya. Or Perhaps Not.
HRW has the story, along with lots of FAQs. The essentials are that while Qaddafi is busy killing thousands of people, the international community (whoever they are) have swiftly passed a UNSC resolution, and in its aftermath, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court will now open an investigation. How soon, if ever, will this make a difference?
According to our media, one of the things the Libyan rebels are saying about Qaddafi is that his mother was Jewish. On our news this evening a grinning armed rebel explained to the camera that they are going to "kill that Zionist". I see no particular reason to believe that either side in the Libyan conflict like Jews. No matter. My heart aches when I hear about how Qaddafi and his side are apparently slaughtering civilians for the crime of wishing him gone. I can't offhand think of another recent conflict where there's so obviously a good side and a bad one. Moreover, unlike in complicated places with jungles, like the Congo, or primitive places where genocide is done by men with machetes or horse-riders with automatic riles, in Libya the murdering side is using easily identified equipment such as airplanes and perhaps artillery. Throughout almost all of history outsiders rarely involved themselves in faraway conflicts they had no interests in, and certainly not for simple humanitarian reasons. These days, however, such considerations are deemed worthy of consideration, at the very least. Well, if someone wishes to save Libyan lives now, not later once lots of them will have been lost, the way to do so is by sending in the airforce now, not the ICC prosecutor someday.
If, on the other hand, there's no budget for saving Libyan lives, or the shadow of an irrelevant colonial past is too deep, or the distaste for any use of military might is too great, or the fear that Qaddafi might in the end not be beaten and there are too many financial considerations at stake - fine. But then don't babble on about the UNSC, and shut up with the chatter about the ICC. Admit that Libyan civilians aren't worth the only kind of effort that might save their lives, and get on with life. There are Olympic Games to prepare, after all, where the world community will convene next year to demonstrate our common human aspirations.
This ICC track is beyond pathetic. I'm open to arguments telling why I'm wrong, but they'll have to be very compelling, since the arguments supporting my position look overwhelming.
There are many steps between the opening of an investigation and the eventual trial of a case.My translation of all the legalese gobbledygook: The only way to bring Qaddafi and his top goons to justice is to have them long since out of power. There's no other way. Of course, if some day there's a free Libya, they'll try the man themselves: in that case who will need the ICC? If there isn't, how will he ever get there? One way or the other, the ICC is irrelevant if you wish to prevent the present mass murders from getting any more numerous.
It is important to understand that investigations by the ICC prosecutor may not necessarily lead to prosecutions. While the initial decision to open an investigation is based on information available to the prosecutor at that time, the prosecutor must then conduct an independent investigation. On the basis of this investigation, the prosecutor may determine that there is insufficient evidence that crimes committed within the court's jurisdiction have taken place. Or the prosecutor may determine that there are proceedings at the national level that would make any case before the ICC inadmissible or that a prosecution is not in the interests of justice. If the prosecutor decides not to proceed with prosecutions following investigations, this decision can be reviewed by ICC judges sitting in a pre-trial chamber.
If, based on the investigation, the prosecutor wishes to pursue prosecutions, he will need to ask ICC judges to issue arrest warrants for individuals on the basis of specific charges. The prosecutor must establish to the satisfaction of the pre-trial chamber that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the individual named in the request has committed a crime within the jurisdiction of the court and that an arrest is necessary to ensure that the person will appear at trial or that the person will not obstruct or endanger the investigation or the court proceedings, or that a warrant is needed to prevent ongoing crimes. The prosecutor can also request a voluntary summons to appear if he considers that a summons is sufficient to ensure the individual's appearance before the court.
It is difficult to predict how long it might be between the beginning of an investigation and the issuance of arrest warrants or summonses. To date, the court's investigations have lasted between 10 and 20 months before the first arrest warrants have been issued. Most recently, the ICC prosecutor conducted an investigation in the situation in Kenya for eight months before asking the pre-trial chamber to issue summonses for six people on charges of crimes against humanity. A decision on those requests is pending.
In addition, because the ICC does not have its own police force and must rely on governments and the United Nations to enforce the warrants and effect arrests, some of its warrants have been outstanding for more than five years.
When an individual appears before the Court, following either an arrest or a summons, pre-trial proceedings known as the "confirmation of charges" take place to determine whether the available evidence establishes substantial grounds to believe that the person committed each of the crimes charged in the indictment. When and if a charge or charges are confirmed, a trial date is set.
The ICC's first trial- of Thomas Lubanga -- began in January 2009, nearly five years after the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo was referred by its government to the ICC prosecutor and three years after Lubanga was transferred to ICC custody. The trial has yet to reach completion. While the start of Lubanga's trial was delayed for reasons that are unlikely to recur and the two other trials ongoing at the ICC have moved more quickly, the ICC's unique pre-trial proceedings and the complicated nature of cases tried by the court mean that proceedings are likely to last two to three years from arrest to verdict.
According to our media, one of the things the Libyan rebels are saying about Qaddafi is that his mother was Jewish. On our news this evening a grinning armed rebel explained to the camera that they are going to "kill that Zionist". I see no particular reason to believe that either side in the Libyan conflict like Jews. No matter. My heart aches when I hear about how Qaddafi and his side are apparently slaughtering civilians for the crime of wishing him gone. I can't offhand think of another recent conflict where there's so obviously a good side and a bad one. Moreover, unlike in complicated places with jungles, like the Congo, or primitive places where genocide is done by men with machetes or horse-riders with automatic riles, in Libya the murdering side is using easily identified equipment such as airplanes and perhaps artillery. Throughout almost all of history outsiders rarely involved themselves in faraway conflicts they had no interests in, and certainly not for simple humanitarian reasons. These days, however, such considerations are deemed worthy of consideration, at the very least. Well, if someone wishes to save Libyan lives now, not later once lots of them will have been lost, the way to do so is by sending in the airforce now, not the ICC prosecutor someday.
If, on the other hand, there's no budget for saving Libyan lives, or the shadow of an irrelevant colonial past is too deep, or the distaste for any use of military might is too great, or the fear that Qaddafi might in the end not be beaten and there are too many financial considerations at stake - fine. But then don't babble on about the UNSC, and shut up with the chatter about the ICC. Admit that Libyan civilians aren't worth the only kind of effort that might save their lives, and get on with life. There are Olympic Games to prepare, after all, where the world community will convene next year to demonstrate our common human aspirations.
This ICC track is beyond pathetic. I'm open to arguments telling why I'm wrong, but they'll have to be very compelling, since the arguments supporting my position look overwhelming.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Sonya Levy, RIP
Sonya Levy was an archivist at Yad Vashem. I gave her a job when she made aliya from Bulgaria in 1996, and from then until shortly before her death she was in charge of the Bulgarian collection, which she also considerably expanded by bringing in additional microfilmed collections. I didn't have much daily contact with her. There were 150 people on the archives staff, Sonya was competent and needed no interventions from me, and my focus was on other things.
A few months ago she passed away, 57 years old. Her friends have now put up a tribute to her on YouTube - in Hebrew, the language she (and they) adopted. May she rest in peace.
A few months ago she passed away, 57 years old. Her friends have now put up a tribute to her on YouTube - in Hebrew, the language she (and they) adopted. May she rest in peace.
Arab Spring? Could it Happen?
A number of people who I know aren't naive, and also are generally knowledgeable, are suggesting the Arab Spring actually could happen. It isn't clear it will, but it isn't clear it won't, either. So here's hoping. Max Boot, for starters, but more significant, for his greater scholarship, Daniel Pipes.
Ongoing Murkiness in Jaffa
A while back I wrote about a demonstration in Jaffa where Israeli Arabs chanted about destroying Jews, and Israeli radical-left Jews squirmed a bit but didn't leave the ranks of the demonstrators. This set off a bit of discussion among readers, some of whom thought I was slanting the story.
Yesterday the story took a different direction, since now it's the municipality of Tel Aviv-Jafa which is setting out to construct housing meant only for Arabs, and this irks some and satisfy others, all in the opposite directions. To be honest I'm not certain what's really going on, and the few efforts I made today to find out weren't very helpful, so we'll mark this as an ongoing, not yet clear story.
Yesterday the story took a different direction, since now it's the municipality of Tel Aviv-Jafa which is setting out to construct housing meant only for Arabs, and this irks some and satisfy others, all in the opposite directions. To be honest I'm not certain what's really going on, and the few efforts I made today to find out weren't very helpful, so we'll mark this as an ongoing, not yet clear story.
Trophy Anti-Anti-Tank System and Context
Yesterday somebody in Gaza attacked an IDF tank in Israel with an RPG-anti-tank missile. The tank's newly mounted Trophy system responded immediately and destroyed the RPG. This caused great satisfaction in Israel since it was the first battleground proof that the Trophy system does what it was designed to do. In the endless cycle of development and counter development the Israeli Armored Corps is now the only one in the world which has (alas, temporarily) beaten whatever the competition has on offer.
The Trophy was being considered for years; its development was greatly accelerated by the anti-tank abilities demonstrated in 2006 by Hisballah. So in a roundabout way, some of the credit goes to Hassan Nassrallah, the fellow who was convinced Israeli was a spider web that could easily be torn.
It's also worth noting that there are forces in Gaza trying to destroy IDF tanks on the Israeli side of the border. And that this isn't being reported in the general media. And that someday, when the next large showdown happens, the ability of Israel's enemies to destroy IDF armor is even more limited now than before, and the ratio of casualties between the sides may demonstrate this - a fact that will be universally cited to prove Israeli cruelty.
George Patton is reported to have said that the job of soldiers is not to die for their country but to make sure the other guys die for their country. This is as true now as it always was, but isn't as obvious as it once was, or anyway, not to folks who know next to nothing about war.
The Trophy was being considered for years; its development was greatly accelerated by the anti-tank abilities demonstrated in 2006 by Hisballah. So in a roundabout way, some of the credit goes to Hassan Nassrallah, the fellow who was convinced Israeli was a spider web that could easily be torn.
It's also worth noting that there are forces in Gaza trying to destroy IDF tanks on the Israeli side of the border. And that this isn't being reported in the general media. And that someday, when the next large showdown happens, the ability of Israel's enemies to destroy IDF armor is even more limited now than before, and the ratio of casualties between the sides may demonstrate this - a fact that will be universally cited to prove Israeli cruelty.
George Patton is reported to have said that the job of soldiers is not to die for their country but to make sure the other guys die for their country. This is as true now as it always was, but isn't as obvious as it once was, or anyway, not to folks who know next to nothing about war.
Politics and International Law
Robin Shepherd last week wrote a delightful article at the Jewish Chronicle about how Obama has weakened the notion that Israeli settlements are illegal. His thesis is that if the UN Security Council is an important legislator of International law, and it just refrained from declaring the settlements to be illegal, apparently they aren't, or at least the case is murky.
Of course, anyone committed to the idea that the settlements are illegal will brush this aside by saying that the American veto which forged that outcome was pure politics, not legality, but that's precisely the point. If you operate in purely legal mode, you've got to accept the manner in which decisions are made and the tools defined for making them. If the decisions aren't to your liking or the tools malfunction according to your lights, you can go back to the sovereign (the electorate) and try to change things until you get to the result you'd like, and you may or may not succeed. Until then, however, you can't say the law is illegal, or the legal situation is illegal, or what have you. In the realm of international law there is no sovereign, which is an enormous problem, but there are rules and the position of the Security Council is pretty strong; there's no legal methodology to say that when the UNSC makes "wrong" decisions, they don't apply. Can't do that.
Of course, some of us find the entire discussion proves its own futility. International conflicts can only be resolved through politics (or war, a continuation of politics). There will be cases where the parties to the conflict agree, for political reasons, to arbitration by legal entities of rules. That's fine for them. (Israel and Egypt disagreeing over Taba, in the early 1980s, is a local example). There will be cases when they won't agree that way, but some other way - say, by ethnically cleansing respective regions until they can bridge the remaining gaps by negotiation, as in the former Yugoslavia. Or they may resolve the matter by one side winning and the other side losing, as between Tibet and China, for example. (In the Sakhalin Islands, the side that won didn't even do anything, except take advantage of the loss of the other side). Sooner or later conflicts end, when the parties decide they're over; international law and institutions can be useful tools, or not, but they aren't the reason the conflicts end.
Normblog, who probably has a higher opinion than mine of the role of international law, notes that the crimes of Gaddafi are rapidly re-awakening the humanitarian interventionist instincts which supposedly died out forever after the invasion of Iraq, a mere 8 years ago. Words like "forever" and "never" rarely mean what they're supposed to mean.
Finally, since I'm on the topic, Human Rights Watch yesterday published two admonishments to Israel and Hamas. Hamas, they pontificated, must stop firing rockets at Israeli civilians, because it's a crime. In a show of perfect balance, they also pontificated that Israel must investigate why when it responds to Hamas fire, civilians sometimes get hit. Now of course, no-one on either side decides what its interests are according to the lights of HRW, nor should they. Governments should be accountable to their electorates (this many not be the case in Gaza, it's hard to know), not to unelected and unaccountable individuals in New York. Yet the imbalance not mentioned in HRW's fake act of impartiality is that when Hamas tries to kill Israeli civilians this is a fundamental element of what Hamas is all about; when IDF actions cause civilian causalities among Palestinians, the Israelis investigate. They don't always investigate with alacrity, and often the results of the investigations indicate greater caring for Israelis and the troops that defend them than for the civilians of the enemy, and sometimes they need to be prodded, but that's the thing about legal systems: they are flexible enough to take account of political considerations, and the sovereign has to ensure they don't stray too far.
Just like international law can't. There's no sovereign, but also no such thing as fully objective impartial truth to be applied in advance to any situation.
Oh, and by the way, the HRW declaration about the bad things Israel does includes that ridiculous canard about how the 300-meter security zone Israel is enforcing along the border of Gaza covers one third of the arable land in Gaza. Some anti-Jewish libels never die, and they don't fade away, either.
Update: in January 2011 the United Nations Human Rights Council announced it was about to adopt a resolution praising Libya for its human rights record. I spoof you not.
Of course, anyone committed to the idea that the settlements are illegal will brush this aside by saying that the American veto which forged that outcome was pure politics, not legality, but that's precisely the point. If you operate in purely legal mode, you've got to accept the manner in which decisions are made and the tools defined for making them. If the decisions aren't to your liking or the tools malfunction according to your lights, you can go back to the sovereign (the electorate) and try to change things until you get to the result you'd like, and you may or may not succeed. Until then, however, you can't say the law is illegal, or the legal situation is illegal, or what have you. In the realm of international law there is no sovereign, which is an enormous problem, but there are rules and the position of the Security Council is pretty strong; there's no legal methodology to say that when the UNSC makes "wrong" decisions, they don't apply. Can't do that.
Of course, some of us find the entire discussion proves its own futility. International conflicts can only be resolved through politics (or war, a continuation of politics). There will be cases where the parties to the conflict agree, for political reasons, to arbitration by legal entities of rules. That's fine for them. (Israel and Egypt disagreeing over Taba, in the early 1980s, is a local example). There will be cases when they won't agree that way, but some other way - say, by ethnically cleansing respective regions until they can bridge the remaining gaps by negotiation, as in the former Yugoslavia. Or they may resolve the matter by one side winning and the other side losing, as between Tibet and China, for example. (In the Sakhalin Islands, the side that won didn't even do anything, except take advantage of the loss of the other side). Sooner or later conflicts end, when the parties decide they're over; international law and institutions can be useful tools, or not, but they aren't the reason the conflicts end.
Normblog, who probably has a higher opinion than mine of the role of international law, notes that the crimes of Gaddafi are rapidly re-awakening the humanitarian interventionist instincts which supposedly died out forever after the invasion of Iraq, a mere 8 years ago. Words like "forever" and "never" rarely mean what they're supposed to mean.
Finally, since I'm on the topic, Human Rights Watch yesterday published two admonishments to Israel and Hamas. Hamas, they pontificated, must stop firing rockets at Israeli civilians, because it's a crime. In a show of perfect balance, they also pontificated that Israel must investigate why when it responds to Hamas fire, civilians sometimes get hit. Now of course, no-one on either side decides what its interests are according to the lights of HRW, nor should they. Governments should be accountable to their electorates (this many not be the case in Gaza, it's hard to know), not to unelected and unaccountable individuals in New York. Yet the imbalance not mentioned in HRW's fake act of impartiality is that when Hamas tries to kill Israeli civilians this is a fundamental element of what Hamas is all about; when IDF actions cause civilian causalities among Palestinians, the Israelis investigate. They don't always investigate with alacrity, and often the results of the investigations indicate greater caring for Israelis and the troops that defend them than for the civilians of the enemy, and sometimes they need to be prodded, but that's the thing about legal systems: they are flexible enough to take account of political considerations, and the sovereign has to ensure they don't stray too far.
Just like international law can't. There's no sovereign, but also no such thing as fully objective impartial truth to be applied in advance to any situation.
Oh, and by the way, the HRW declaration about the bad things Israel does includes that ridiculous canard about how the 300-meter security zone Israel is enforcing along the border of Gaza covers one third of the arable land in Gaza. Some anti-Jewish libels never die, and they don't fade away, either.
Update: in January 2011 the United Nations Human Rights Council announced it was about to adopt a resolution praising Libya for its human rights record. I spoof you not.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
J-Street, and the Popular Art of Not Seeing Israelis
J-Street has just had its second annual shindig. Most of the observers saw it through the lens of their expectations. Compare, for example, right-wing Jennifer Rubin with Haaretz reporter Natasha Mozgovaya. They were both in the same room, listening to the same speech, and we don't even know if the audience responded warmly when Dennis Ross told of America's steadfast support for Israel. Mozgovaya says the response was warm, Rubin says it was actually cold. This may well be representative of journalism in general these days; as regular readers of this blog will be only too aware by now, I don't often feel we're really being told reliable facts; the problem being that there's no obvious alternative to consuming media reports if we're interested in the world, short of traveling all the time and knowing all the languages and informing ourselves.
I've been at AIPAC shindigs before, and some differences are so obvious they can't be obfuscated away. First, the big ones are big. I was at one with 6,000 participants, and I'm told they're still growing. I was once at a smallish one, open only to major donors (and Israeli types) - even that one probably wasn't much smaller than this one seems to have been, but AIPAC would never have allowed themselves the mistake of holding a conference in a venue with room to spare for other parallel events. You organize whatever event you have in a location which makes it appear crowded. Elementary.
A second difference seems to be that AIPAC, being a lobby, puts the politicians very much in the center. They're paraded, lauded, honored - so that their constituents who like AIPAC will know they're on the right side. In all the descriptions I read this week about J-Street (I admit, I didn't read that many), no-one seems clear which politicians were there, if at all. On the contrary, some of the reporters seem to be saying J-Street isn't really a lobby, it's a Jewish organization where certain sorts of Jews find like-minded folks. Is this what's really happening?
A third difference, either a tiny detail or the entire story, depending on how you understand the world, is that the J-Street conference apparently either offered no kosher food, or people had to go looking for it (again, who do you believe?). At the AIPAC ceremonial dinners everyone, including the top-level national politicians such as senators or cabinet officers, all eat kosher because that's the only option on the menu.
Before explaining why I think the kosher thing is central, here's a rather fawning article about J-Street published by the NYT way back in September 2009, when the world was younger and different. How different? This different:
The feeling "they might come to get you" is actually not a one-timer generated by the Nazis. The genius of the Jews is that though many of them lived under persecution far greater than most people today can imagine, or its plausible threat, they generally didn't allow themselves to wallow in self pity, nor be distracted by useless acts of revenge or histrionics, preferring instead to get on with things, including creating a magnificently rich culture. Although the Haredi rabbis today won't admit it, many of them also did what one might call "Buddhist seders", in the meaning that they incorporated all sorts of things into Judaism along the way - tho they kept the seders kosher at all times, indicating they had no feelings of Jewish inadequacy, merely honest curiosity.
It's the lack of respect, perhaps even the embarrassment of things Jewish. Mozgovaya starts her reportage with a fine example, though she imbues it with the wrong significance:
Of some six million Jews in Israel, there are perhaps three thousand who subscribe to these positions. You can respect Israeli democracy for what it is. You can wonder why it makes the decisions it makes, and try to find out - to inquire, to empathize, to try to see the world from an Israeli perspective. Or you can bemoan the bad things that are happening to Israelis, because of their evil politicians, or some inexplicable madness that has descended upon them, or even worse, because they've willfully allowed themselves to become evil. The J-Streeters seem to prefer the last option, which has the added advantage of making them feel real good about themselves.
Which brings me to the article in this week's New Yorker which a number of readers have called to my intention. I'll respond to it tomorrow, Insha'allah.
I've been at AIPAC shindigs before, and some differences are so obvious they can't be obfuscated away. First, the big ones are big. I was at one with 6,000 participants, and I'm told they're still growing. I was once at a smallish one, open only to major donors (and Israeli types) - even that one probably wasn't much smaller than this one seems to have been, but AIPAC would never have allowed themselves the mistake of holding a conference in a venue with room to spare for other parallel events. You organize whatever event you have in a location which makes it appear crowded. Elementary.
A second difference seems to be that AIPAC, being a lobby, puts the politicians very much in the center. They're paraded, lauded, honored - so that their constituents who like AIPAC will know they're on the right side. In all the descriptions I read this week about J-Street (I admit, I didn't read that many), no-one seems clear which politicians were there, if at all. On the contrary, some of the reporters seem to be saying J-Street isn't really a lobby, it's a Jewish organization where certain sorts of Jews find like-minded folks. Is this what's really happening?
A third difference, either a tiny detail or the entire story, depending on how you understand the world, is that the J-Street conference apparently either offered no kosher food, or people had to go looking for it (again, who do you believe?). At the AIPAC ceremonial dinners everyone, including the top-level national politicians such as senators or cabinet officers, all eat kosher because that's the only option on the menu.
Before explaining why I think the kosher thing is central, here's a rather fawning article about J-Street published by the NYT way back in September 2009, when the world was younger and different. How different? This different:
During the July meeting, held in the Roosevelt Room, Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told Obama that “public disharmony between Israel and the U.S. is beneficial to neither” and that differences “should be dealt with directly by the parties.” The president, according to Hoenlein, leaned back in his chair and said: “I disagree. We had eight years of no daylight” — between George W. Bush and successive Israeli governments — “and no progress.”Uhh huh. Meanwhile, we've had two years of daylight, and no progress. Arguably, we've had quite a bit of backsliding though. Anyway, the article held out all sorts of promise for the young J-Street, partly because it was going to address a new constituency among America's Jews:
The average age of the dozen or so staff members is about 30. Ben-Ami speaks for, and to, this post-Holocaust generation. “They’re all intermarried,” he says. “They’re all doing Buddhist seders.” They are, he adds, baffled by the notion of “Israel as the place you can always count on when they come to get you.”As an aside: if you're trying to attract non-Jews to supporting Israel, why not start with the tens of millions of them who already have very strong feelings on the matter?
The feeling "they might come to get you" is actually not a one-timer generated by the Nazis. The genius of the Jews is that though many of them lived under persecution far greater than most people today can imagine, or its plausible threat, they generally didn't allow themselves to wallow in self pity, nor be distracted by useless acts of revenge or histrionics, preferring instead to get on with things, including creating a magnificently rich culture. Although the Haredi rabbis today won't admit it, many of them also did what one might call "Buddhist seders", in the meaning that they incorporated all sorts of things into Judaism along the way - tho they kept the seders kosher at all times, indicating they had no feelings of Jewish inadequacy, merely honest curiosity.
It's the lack of respect, perhaps even the embarrassment of things Jewish. Mozgovaya starts her reportage with a fine example, though she imbues it with the wrong significance:
Aaron Weinberg, a 20-year-old freshman at Brandeis, stood up Saturday night with others to clap for Peter Beinart, one of the three people honored at J Street's national conference in Washington, when Beinart remarked that "Israel cannot be holy in the days of Bibi, Lieberman and Rabbi Ovadia." "There is no kedusha in Netanyahu's and Lieberman's conduct with peace process, and there is no kedusha in Rabbi Ovadia's monopoly on who is a Jew and his lack of engagement", agreed Weinberg, using the Hebrew word for holiness.There's much in Israel with which to disagree, but being uncomfortable with an entire electorate for "holding such views" is a bit beyond reasonable. It may, however, be standard fare for J-Street and its supporters. In everything we read about them, they seem in thrall of the double thesis that Israel's democracy is declining, and that there's no peace with the Palestinians because Israel prefers the occupation. An Arab journalist called on the audience to encourage revolution in Israel, and the public gave her a 20-second standing ovation.
"When I was in high school, everyday I was coming home and telling my mom that I wanted to go to the airport, to make aliyah. I was making friends only with those who spoke Hebrew. But frankly, I feel very disenfranchised by the Israeli government and Israeli public voting for such a government. I think I would feel pretty uncomfortable to live with a group that holds such views," he said, explaining why he is still today in the U.S.
Of some six million Jews in Israel, there are perhaps three thousand who subscribe to these positions. You can respect Israeli democracy for what it is. You can wonder why it makes the decisions it makes, and try to find out - to inquire, to empathize, to try to see the world from an Israeli perspective. Or you can bemoan the bad things that are happening to Israelis, because of their evil politicians, or some inexplicable madness that has descended upon them, or even worse, because they've willfully allowed themselves to become evil. The J-Streeters seem to prefer the last option, which has the added advantage of making them feel real good about themselves.
Which brings me to the article in this week's New Yorker which a number of readers have called to my intention. I'll respond to it tomorrow, Insha'allah.
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