Vocal Pontificating

I'm not going to have any time for blogging today. Fear not, however! This brave new world we live in enables a person from Virginia whom I've never personally met to connect me to a fellow from Melbourne I've never met to interview me and put it up on the Internet so readers from Jerusalem whom I've never met can listen. Or not. As you wish. Still, think about it before you turn elsewhere: instead of reading me pontificating, you can listen. Even on your iPod.

Mondowiess Expose

Jay Adler has a long, thoughtful and empathic analysis of the Mondoweiss folks. It hinges on Jewish identity, and how it can function or malfunction. Jay's reading is as compelling as it is, precisely because he more or less shares a starting point with the Mondoweiss folks - though of course he then took a different road. Read the whole thing.

Can we say all this of Mondoweiss? No, we cannot. Not really. For while Mondoweiss may at times espouse these positions, none of them are the end it seeks to serve, not even the ultimate end of a just settlement and a lasting peace. In conflict, a just settlement recognizes the legitimate desires of all parties, not the moral claim of only one. But the active agents behind Mondoweiss do not believe that Israel, or the Jewish people in relation to Israel, has just desires. Horowitz does not support the existence of a Jewish state. Blumenthal, like him, believes that Zionism (Jewish nationalism) – in apparent contradistinction to any other nationalism – is inherently racist. Weiss, a deeply anti-Semitic work in progress, in his haziest, most narcotic fantasy of peace, envisions as its ecstatic end not the peace, but the end of Israel.

American Philanthropy in Israel

There's a fellow who has been writing me recently to convince me, I suppose, of his opinion. His thesis is that American Jews should be donating to worthy causes near home and in their own communities, while Israel should wean itself of its dependence on them.

It's a compelling argument, and I can see his point. Except he's missing most of the picture.

The national budget weaving its way through the Knesset these days is for almost $64billion. I've spent the past half hour or so Googling to find how much American Jews give annually to Israeli philanthropic causes (investing, supporting one's children who are in Israel, maintaining an apartment here and so on, don't count as philanthropy). Or for that matter, all Jews outside Israel. I'm somewhat out of my depth, and short of spare time, so I haven't found the number. But by all accounts I have found, it lies somewhere between 1-5% of the total. Probably closer to the lower sum.

Which means at least 95% of the financial cost of having a Jewish State is covered by the people who live in it. (Not to mention other types of cost, such as defending it). This is as it should be: states and their citizens are meant to cover their costs. But it does raise a different question: if the entire effort of having a Jewish State and 95% of its cost is borne by the 45% of the Jews who live in it, in what way do the others participate? Not by coming here often, alas: something like 80% of America's Jews have never been here, not even once.

I agree with my correspondent that philanthropy, or what used to be called "check-book Zionism", is not the best way for America's Jews to participate in the most important Jewish effort of the past 2,000 years. Investing here, coming often, owning an apartment and spending time here most years, sending each child to study one year at one of our fine universities or yeshivas – all these and many other options are preferable to the check-book variant of Zionism. But they're also all more time consuming, more of an effort, and probably costlier in an immediate way, though eventually they give far better returns.

Philanthropy is a time honored tradition in Judaism. If a majority of America's Jews have decided to marginalize themselves from the Zionist project, I wouldn't try to break one of the most important bonds they still do have (if they do). They need the connection.

Jews Can Be Our Worst Enemies

A Dutch organization whose aim is to convince Dutchmen to boycott Israel has been rebuked by a local "truth in advertising" watchdog for, how shall we put it, fibbing.

So we've got some folks blatantly lying so as to hurt the Jewish State. I think that's a reasonable early warning sign of antisemitism, don't you? I continue to think so, even after reading the item all the way through:

Peace chairman Joost Hardeman, who is Jewish and says he supports Israel
but opposes its occupation of Palestinian land, told Haaretz earlier this year
that he rejected the center's allegations. "We do not propose a comprehensive
ban on Israeli goods, and we are opposed to this," he said. "We only demand that
consumers be made aware, through labeling, of the origins of the goods they are
purchasing."

Khaled Meshaal, Peacenik

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal responds to the positions of Obama and Netanyahu:

"We reject the position taken by Netanyahu... on east Jerusalem, settlement activity, the right of return of Palestinian refugees and his vision of a demilitarised Palestinian state deprived of sovereignty over its land, air space and territorial waters," Meshaal said.Meshaal said Hamas opposed Israel as a Jewish state because that would amount to the denial of the rights of the six million Palestinian refugees."The enemy's leaders call for a so-called Jewish state is a racist demand that is no different from calls by Italian Fascists and Hitler's Nazism," Mashaal said.

This is actually mildly funny, since the Hamas Charter blames the Jews for World War Two (along with WWI and the French Revolution). It's also not in any way new; I'm linking to it not to inform y'all of something you didn't already know, but simply to record the re-iteration of these well-worn positions after all those speeches.
(Via Jeffrey Goldberg)

American Pressure on Israel can Cost Lives

I'm having a second look at Elliot Abram's article "Hillary is Wrong".

There is nothing in it that we didn't already know, of course, yet let's look at this section:

In June 2003, Mr. Sharon stood alongside Mr. Bush, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas at Aqaba, Jordan, and endorsed Palestinian statehood publicly: "It is in Israel's interest not to govern the Palestinians but for the Palestinians to govern themselves in their own state. A democratic Palestinian state fully at peace with Israel will promote the long-term security and well-being of Israel as a Jewish state." At the end of that year he announced his intention to pull out of the Gaza Strip.
The U.S. government supported all this, but asked Mr. Sharon for two more things. First, that he remove some West Bank settlements; we wanted Israel to show that removing them was not impossible. Second, we wanted him to pull out of Gaza totally -- including every single settlement and the "Philadelphi Strip" separating Gaza from Egypt, even though holding on to this strip would have prevented the smuggling of weapons to Hamas that was feared and has now come to pass. Mr. Sharon agreed on both counts.
These decisions were political dynamite, as Mr. Sharon had long predicted to us.

Noteworthy points:

1. Sharon, like Barak before him, publicly accepted Palestinian statehood, but this made it no more likely to happen.

2. The Bush administration (Bush!) pressured Israel to go beyond what it intended, and Israel complied. This made Palestinian statehood no more likely than before, since the fundamental Palestinian demands are incompatible with Zionism, and therefore won't happen.

3. The Bush administration forced Israel to take severe risks, namely leaving the strip of territory along the Gaza-Egyptian border. The idea was that only by totally leaving Gaza could Israel claim it had really left, and this was regarded as neccessary for the rise of a functioning Palestinian quasi-state in Gaza. The hope was that the Palestinians would indeed take advantage of the opportunity, and it would be possible to build on it. The danger was that the Palestinians would not try to get their act together and would prefer to continue waging war against Israeli civilians.

4. After the Bush administration forced Israel to take the risk, and the calculation misfired, there was no cost to the Americans. Israelis died, and lots of Palestinians, but no Americans. On the contrary: the Americans held an election, replaced their administration, and the new one is repeating the mistakes of its predecessor.

The Palestinians Missed Again

Ehud Olmert and Saeb Erekat both agree that Olmet made on offer to the Palestinians in September 2008 that goes way beyond what any Israeli prime minister ever offered, and the Palestinians didn't respond.

At the end of Olmert's term he tried one last maneuver in an effort to secure a legacy. Olmert told me he met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in September 2008 and unfurled a map of Israel and the Palestinian territories. He says he offered Abbas 93.5 to 93.7 percent of the Palestinian territories, along with a land swap of 5.8 percent and a safe-passage corridor from Gaza to the West Bank that he says would make up the rest. The Holy Basin of Jerusalem would be under no sovereignty at all and administered by a consortium of Saudis, Jordanians, Israelis, Palestinians and Americans. Regarding refugees, Olmert says he rejected the right of return and instead offered, as a "humanitarian gesture," a small number of returnees, although "smaller than the Palestinians wanted—a very, very limited number."

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, confirmed that Olmert had made the offer. "It's very sad," Erekat said. "He was serious, I have to say." Erekat said that he and Abbas studied the materials and began to formulate a response, coordinating with the Americans. But time eventually ran out. A few months after Olmert presented his offer, war erupted in Gaza. Shortly after that, Olmert was out of power.

The line about how time ran out is unconvincing. In September 2008 Olmert was about to be replaced by Livni; that this didn't happen was not something anyone could have counted on at the time. Basically, there was an offer on the table that gave the Palestinians considerably more than the Israeli public intended, made by a prime minister who had nothing to lose since his political career was over, and the Palestinians dithered. They always do: either because they're incompetent, or because they'll never give up on their precious right of return – and we'll never allow it. Which means they're holding out for what they can't have, and in the meantime they live without what they could have.

Andrew Sullivan, Isolationist

Andrew Sullivan quotes a reader, and agrees:

A reader writes:
I just glanced at the clock and realized it's 5pm and I've done almost nothing related to my job today -- I've been clicking through link after link, reading and watching all I can from the reports trickling out of Iran. I am so overwhelmed with emotion I can't find the words to properly describe it. My heart reels for these people -- at the same time, I am almost dumbfounded by their courage and bravery and ideals. It's an incredible thing to watch history unfold in real time. I feel confident that one day my children will see these photos and read these accounts in their history books, and I take some solace in the fact that history is on the side of these protesters. But as the day winds down, I find that the emotion I feel most vividly is frustration.
I can't stop thinking about my visit to a concentration camp in Germany a few summers ago and the raw emotion I felt walking slowly down the hall in to the gas chambers. I have some German-Jewish heritage so the moment was especially poignant for me, but you didn't have to be a Jew to appreciate the significance of the surroundings. I remember asking myself over and over again how the world let something like this happen - how good people could stand by and watch as people were slaughtered. I know the comparison isn't fair -- and I know that it's oversimplifying the situation to say that good people are standing by doing nothing. Still, besides turning my twitter avatar green and donating money to tehranbureau.com (god, those sound even sillier writing them out) I don't know what I can do. I know the answer is nothing. It just doesn't seem like enough.

I understand the feeling. My own sense of helplessness is abated by blogging manically. It's all I know to do. But watching a boot come down on a human face in real time is ... well more than frustrating. But this is the fallen world we inhabit in which power always trumps freedom if it is ruthless enough in the short term. What we look for is the long term, the arc of history, and the rightness of the cause. Our job cannot be to end tyranny or evil, for that is impossible and the attempt can be counter-productive. But we can expose it, explain it, witness it and through the march of time chip way at it.

So that's what it has come to. The American Left, traumatized by the Bush years, has receded to the cynical and egotistical isolationism of the American Right in the 1930s. Yes, there's lots of evil out there, but no, there's nothing efective we can do about it, so we'll live our fine lives over here and pity the poor folks over there.


I'm not saying one should always set out to slay whatever dragons can be seen on the horizon. Yet it seems to me the story of American policy between 1939 and 2004 was an attempt to find the right balance between effectively promoting freedom and destructively not suceeding. No longer, if it depends on the people in Andrew's camp. They'll have compassion, yes, and green tweets, but don't expect much more from them.

Andrew Sullivan Misses Some Points

Andrew Sullivan doesn't allow comments on his blog.The best you can hope for is that he'll cut a section from a letter you send him, and post it annonymously, as "A reader writes".

Well, yesterday I wrote him, not something I often do. While my readership is but a tiny fraction of his, you folks can see it, no censorship here.


Hi Andrew –

Your link to Mark Lynch is a bit problematic.

Yes, it's likely American pressure is causing Israel to open many roadblocks.

No, it didn't start with Obama. No conceivable American pressure would have made any difference if opening roadblocks had immediately enabled terrorist attacks, as was the case for much of this decade. There has been significant improvement in the PA's ability – and WILLINGNESS – to combat their own thugs; this has enabled Israel to open roadblocks without endangering innocent lives. This Palestinian change of tack should be attributed to their fear of Hamas taking over the West Bank, and also to the efforts of the Bush administration. I realize it will be hard for you to accept that the Bush administration did anything right, but this is a clear case, and it has been discussed in the Israeli media repeatedly over the past year or 18 months – long before Obama was president.

The efforts of the Obama administration, so far, are peculiar. True, pressure on the Netanyahu government is yielding some results. Yet the potential of this pressure, at its greatest, will be to bring the Israeli positions back to where they were when President Clinton dictated his final terms for peace on December 24th 2000, which Israel accepted; probably even that is no longer achievable, since the experience of this decade has taught a broad consensus of Israelis never to accept any significant Palestinian right of return. Meanwhile, even if the Obama administration pushes Israel all the way back to December 2000, the Palestinians – as we all remember, even if you've forgotten – rejected Clinton's diktat. Unless the Obama administration puts massive pressure on the Palestinians to change their fundamental positions, no peace is possible. So far, such pressure is not in evidence.

A comment on the 600 roadblocks Lynch mentions. They don't exist. I wrote about this recently here, but you should look at my post only so as to reach the United Nations report behind it. Even according to their own data, the 600-roadblock story is counterfactual. Or put in simpler language: it's a lie. A widespread lie, true, one repeated so often that many gullible people repeat it thoughtlessly since "it must be true", but it's still a lie. And the propagators either know it (Palestinian and UN), or should know better (Andrew Sullivan).

Finally, I see you're deeply troubled by the claims of the Iranian regime that the CIA shot Neda. I can understand why you're troubled, but I'm mystified by the surprise in your voice. Since when it is news that regimes that are willing to murder people are also willing to lie about it? Isn't that one of the main stories of our age? Yet why should we castigate only the vicious regimes, when even you, Andrew Sullivan, participate in dissemination of a Big Lie about Israel?

Israeli Concessions, American Ones, and no Palestinian Ones

The New York Times has a reasonable article about the steps Israel is taking to improve conditions for the Palestinians on the West Bank. Reasonable, in that at least the article doesn't pretend it all happened because of Obama. No more than reasonable, however, because the article somehow manages not to mention the efforts of the Bush administration, personified by General Dayton, who has been mentoring the PA security forces for quite some time and who must bear at least some credit for their growing abilities; without that happening Israel wouldn't be lifting its own hand.

The part I most liked was this:

But Palestinian officials said that the Israeli measures did not go far enough. The prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday that they did not meet Palestinian expectations, and that “what is required is a full cessation of military raids in Palestinian Authority areas.”

It was always thus: Israel doesn't meet Palestinian expectations.

At the bottom of the NYT piece is a link to Elliot Abram's op-ed at the Wall Street Journal. According to Abrams, who was there, the Bush administration did reach understandings with Sharon's government recognizing that the largest settlements near the border would remain in Israel (implying there might be land swaps for them). Abrams thereby contradicts Hillary Clinton who says such understandings never happened.

What surprises me about the whole issue is the assumption - nay, certainty - that no-one's keeping track so people, even the American Secretary of State, can say whatever they wish because no-one knows enough to call them on their fibs. I mean, we're talking about 2004-2005, not the twelfth century. The day before yesterday. Some of us are old enough to remember what was happening four years ago, and we don't need Elliot Abrams to write in the newspapers to know that Hillary Clinton is not telling the truth, unless it might be in some lawyerly-hairsplitting meaning.

The funny part, of course, is that Hillary's husband Bill, once President of the United States, had the same position when on December 24th 2000 he dictated his terms of peace to the Palestinians and Israelis: That the large settlements near the border stay put. Buy hey, that was a very very long time ago, almost nine years, and it's too much to expect that anyone know facts that old.

Predictably, the folks from the Palestinians-are-always-right brigade are linking to a rebuttal of Abrams. It's over here, should you be interested. It left me unconvinced, but maybe you'll be swayed. In any case, the key point to remember is the distinction between outposts and far-flung settlements, on the one hand, and large settlements near the line, on the other. The first two ultimately have no future as even Netanyahu's government implicitely admits; the second type will never be dismantled, as even the people of the Geneva Accord recognized in writing. How President Obam and Secretay Clinton, two highly intelligent people, have managed to lose sight of this, I cannot say.

A Booming Economy!

I've been reading the Economist, off and on, for 40 years. While they often have interesting things to say on many topics, their primary interest is economics. More often than not, when their reporters file stories about places there will be a noticable emphasis on its economics.

Not when it comes to Israel, of course. While I have no doubt that they have reported on Israel's economy once or twice in the past half century, I can't offhand remember ever having noticed. When they report on Israel they talk about politics.

So it remains for others to do. Here's a nice article in Haaretz. Synopsis: While much of the world economy and world's economies are sagging groaning and creaking, Israel's is doing admirably well. The country's economic leadership has mostly got things right, and its entrepreneurs and businessmen are taking fine advantage. True, the political leadership of the country is a disaster (it's the same people, by the way), and the crushing burden of being at war for a century doesn't help - but apparently it doesn't harm much, either. Israel's GDP per capita ranking is about 20th worldwide as is.

Remove the need for that gigantic army and everything that goes with it, and we'll shoot to the top of the table within 5 years, if you ask me: move over Norway.

Next time you hear the boycott-Israel brigade enthuse about the tomatos they aren't buying, you might want gently to tell them Israelis are largly a hard-working bunch who've faced far worse adversity without blinking.

Geneva vs. Haifa

Remember that giant atomic contraption built under the Swiss-French border that cost gazillions and didn't work? Well, I don't profess to understand any of this article, but the first two paragraphs were fun:

WHEN the Large Hadron Collider, a giant particle accelerator near Geneva, was switched on last September, the press was full of scare stories about the risk of it producing a tiny black hole that would, despite its minuscule size, quickly swallow the Earth. In fact, the first test runs could never have made such an object. And, just over a week later, the LHC broke and has not yet been repaired. But it is true that one of the things its operators would like to create, if and when they get it going again, are miniature versions of those fabled astronomical objects whose intense gravity means no light can escape them.

Among their reasons for this aspiration is a wish to examine Stephen Hawking’s famous but untested prediction that, despite their famous blackness, black holes do actually emit radiation, including light. But if they do not get the LHC running pronto, they may find themselves beaten to the prize of producing this so-called Hawking radiation by an experiment being carried out on a desktop in a laboratory in Haifa.

Save the Planet the Human Way: Forward

Lots of the more vocal Cassandras insist we must dramatically impair our standards of living so as to Save the Planet. (The Guardian, predictably, is a hotbed of these folks). True, human nature being what it is, this is both impossible and vicious. Impossible because it contradicts human nature - never an obstacle to the millenarians, but still true. Vicious because even if it were somehow to happen, most of the suffering would inevitably be bourn by the poor; the poor in the developed world, and the poor in the rest of the world. Not a problem, say the Cassandras: we'll have to force the rich to ante up.

Which is why it will never happen, of course. Even if it would save the planet, which is debatable.

The traditionally human way of doing this is by moving forward, into technologies that impact the world less while offering more.

Building a smart electric grid, for example, which will probably reduce the use of electricity by 10% while bringing vast benefits.

Once these issues are ironed out, though, the smart grid could provide the platform for a huge range of innovation and applications in energy, just as the internet did in computing. “I think that an open, standards-based network could give birth to a thousand new companies,” says Eric Dresselhuys of Silver Spring Networks, a firm based in California that works with utilities to implement smart-grid networks. A smarter grid will not only help people save energy or use it more efficiently, but will also promote the adoption of all kinds of green technologies, including wind, solar and plug-in vehicles. “It’s the platform that allows for the transformation of one of the largest and most important industries in the world to take place,” says Mr Dresselhuys.

Hamas is Nasty

Do you ever get the feeling Hamas (and others of its ilk) use the terminology of human rights and democracy cynically? When it serves them, they're all for it and swear by it, but if it doesn't serve them, not? If so, you won't be surprised to hear this story (Hebrew only).

B'tselem, an Israeli so-called "human rights" group which focuses mostly on Israeli infringments and rarely on Palestinian ones, to the extent many of us find them factually challenged, has published an ad in the main West Bank newspaper (Al Quds) calling for the exchange of Gilad Shalit for many Palestinians held by Israel. Shalit was kidnapped three years ago yesterday, and contrary to international law and all that, no-one has seen him since, his family has no way of communicating with him, the Red Cross never visits him, he has no access to any sort of legal proceedings, nothing.

Why in the West Bank, you ask? After all, Shalit is being held (probably) in Gaza?

Because in Hamas-controlled Gaza B'tselem wasn't allowed to publish their ad. Asked to comment, the spokesperson of B'Tselem had no official explanation, but said that they assume ("anachnu manichem") that in Gaza the press isn't very free.

Homosexual Rights in Israel

The annual Gay Parade will march this afternoon in Jerusalem. No counter demonstrations are expected, probably because the Haredi community is collecting its powder for the large demonstration they're planning for Saturday afternoon against a municipal parking lot that will be opened near their neighborhood; this is turning into the first major test of the political mettle of our new mayor, Nir Barkat. The Gay Parade is a distraction so will be ignored.

Personally, I don't know what the Gay Parade is for. It originated in New York, a town that loves parades about everything, in the 1970s when gays were campaigning for acceptance. Jerusalem doesn't generally have political parades, and anyway, what are the local gays demonstrating for?

A few weeks ago the research unit of the Knesset posted a paper they'd prepared about the legal status of gay marriages in Israel and elsewhere. (In Hebrew, of course). It tells that there are seven countries in the world that recognize gay marriages, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Canada and South Africa; also, five States in the US. Then there is a larger group, though not that large, that recognizes varying forms of civil arrangements. Israel is near the top of that group, with arrangements that are functionally the same as marriage, without the name.

I followed this up by checking with a legal fellow who's invovlved in this matter. He agreed with me that the legal rights of homosexuals in Israel are mostly guaranteed, and there isn't much left to kvetch about. He even agreed with the logic of my position that marriage itself, being a cultural and religious institution with many layers of meaning to it, is better left alone, and told me that's also the position of the Supreme Court. He'd probably like it otherwise, but he can see the sense of the compormise.

I'd have you compare this with the Arab world, but that would be snarky of me. So compare it to Asia Africa or South America, instead.

Roadblocks on the West Bank

Heard the one about the more than 600 roadblocks that make life on the West Bank so hellish for the Palestinians? I'm sure you have, often. Why, the United Nations itself says so.

Although if you carefully read the most recent UN report, 18 pages of it, and you understand the topography, recognize the places, and take note of what's really being claimed, the situation is not exactly black and white. I'm not going to do your work for you this morning, but here's one hint, from page 8:

Not certain what you're seeing? The caption may be helpful:

A guardrail and an earthmound blocking a access to Road 60 from a dirt track
south of Sinjil village, Ramallah governorate

They're evil, those Israelis are, putting up guardrails along highways to obstruct tractors and cows from straying onto them from the surrounding countryside. As a matter of fact, their reach is so all-encompassing that every single such guardrail the world over has been set up by Zionists, in case you didn't know; if you see any in your vicinity, say, in New Zealand Texas or Bavaria, now you know they're actually signs of our secret dominance over you. And if this blog goes off air, it'll be because I've been revoked by the Elders.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the one in which the roadbloacks were put up because the empiric experience was that they were one of the tools to protect civilians from being blown up in Pizza parlors, most of them have been removed, and travel for Palestinians across the West Bank is mostly undisturbed.

On a trip to Ramallah, Palestinians will be checked at the Za'atra roadblock,
which is south of Hawara, but Palestinian eyewitnesses said there are no delays.
This is the only roadblock in the northern West Bank where checks of Palestinian
vehicles are still being carried out. On average, a trip between Ramallah to
Jenin takes 90 minutes, while several months ago it took hours.

Some roadblocks, however, are still acitve:

Twenty days ago the DCO roadblock to the eastern entrance to Qalqiliyah was
removed, and the Einav roadblock east of Tul Karm was also lifted. In it place
there are soldiers but they do not check Palestinian vehicles but only cars with
Israeli license plates to prevent Israeli citizens from entering Palestinian
towns.

Any idea why such measures might be necessary?

Don't expect this to be cited at Mondoweiss. Or the Guardian.

The Protracted Demise of a Once Significant Organization

Back in the 1930s, the Jewish Agency was the closest thing the Jews had to a government - which means, not close at all. It operated in a context of international hostility towards its people that is basically unimaginable today, for any group worldwide. Yes, there are some groups today that face seemingly intractable hurdles on their way towards national political expression - the Tibetans spring to mind - but none of them have international hostility remotely resembling the world-wide antisemitism of the 1930s, backed up by the malign indifference of the most powerful governments in the world.

Still, the leaders of the Jewish agency, with David Ben Gurion at their head, plodded on and did their best. Sometimes successfully, oftimes not; sometimes wisely, oftimes not.

After they succeeded, and the State of Israel was founded, the Jewish Agency still had important auxiliary tasks, and again, it did them about as reasonably as any institution peopled by people might be expected to do: With more success than failure, overall.

That was then. Today, it's hard to know what the Jewish Agency is for, what it does, why it still exists even in its much-reduced form - unless perhaps as a vehicle for political machinations. And even that isn't enough to justify its continued existence; we've got more viable vehicles.

The Strange Stories of the Jews

The Jewish world is full of strange things, places and people. New York and its Times are an important place in it. But Israeli is the center of it all.

As it should be.

The Middle Satan

Simon Tisdall at The Guardian is offended that Ahmedinejad and colleagues are blaming the UK for inciting the turmoil in Iran, along with the usual suspects such as the CIA and the Mossad.

Near the bottom of his column he admits, through very gritted teeth, that the antics of the Iranian regime are making Netanyhu's job easier.

So far so uninteresting. What is of greater value, if you're interested in peering into the cesspool of antisemitism and related hatreds beneath the veneer of civilisation in the UK and elsewhere, are the comments at the bottom of the column. Many of the peole who comment at CiF, that's the readership of the Guardian's website, fully accept Ahmedinejad's line. I remind you that comments on CiF are moderated by Guardian staff.

We Don't Deny the Holocaust, We Do Accept Israel's Rights

CNN has an interview with an Iranian student in Teheran. His opinions are anecdotal - there's no way of knowing how representative he is - but his description of how the demonstrations are organized is less anecdotal; he tells that they're being organized by a leadership council, and people like himself go when and where the leaders tell them.

The anecdotal part is of course encouraging, were it to be widely accepted:

For about three decades our nation has been humiliated and insulted by this regime. Now Iranians are united again one more time after 1979 Revolution. We are a peaceful nation. We don’t hate anybody. We want to be an active member of the international community. We don’t want to be isolated. Is this much of a demand for a country with more than 2,500 years of civilization? We don’t deny the Holocaust. We do accept Israel’s rights. And actually, we want — we want severe reform on this structure. This structure is not going to be tolerated by the majority of Iranians. We need severe reform, as much as possible.

It occurs to me that if Israelis ever manage to talk to Iranians again, they won't be confronted by the Palestinian narative about how the European Jews colonized the Palestinians land and invented a false history. The Iranians have a long memory, apparently, so we can appeal to the mutual parts of it, which go back a very long time. Cyrus, for example, the Persian emperor who granted the Jews the right to return from Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE: that's quite a while ago, isn't it, and the Palestinian insistence on denying it denies one of his most famous acts, too, doesn't it?