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Go Home Kol Nidre, Israel, and American Jews

TEL AVIV JOURNAL OCTOBER 8, 2011

Kol Nidre, Israel, and American Jews

BY MARTIN PERETZ

Kol Nidre is the most haunting prayer in the Jewish liturgy. I would gauge that more Jews attend synagogue at this moment than at any other time in the year. (You’ve already missed it if you wanted to go.) For some it may be an act of desperation, a stance between belief and non-belief, hovering somewhere between trust and trembling. In any case, it is my or your—if you had decided to try—last chance to settle accounts with God, in the heavens or with the god of your imagination. Kol Nidre means not “all prayers” but “all vows.” The theology of this distinction goes back many centuries, at least to the sixth century C.E. There are several interpretations. But the dry legal formula which introduces the plea certifies at least one explanation for sure, and it is that Jews had for more than a millennium been legally coerced or socially dragooned into swearing fidelity to one or another Christian faith and Christian prince. It happened to Jews in Muslim jurisdictions, as well.

Could these converts be admitted to a congregation of Jews? Here’s what the rabbis answered:

In the tribunal of Heaven and in the tribunal of Earth, by the permission of God and by the permission of the holy congregation, we hold it lawful to pray with the transgressors.

Simple! But what sturm und drang attended these trials of the soul. 

Kol Nidre has its place in the general culture. A part of the traditional niggun (melody) found its way into Beethoven’s 6th String Quartet, Op. 131. Max Bruch—a Protestant, by the way—did his own gorgeous orchestration and you can listen to it with either Pierre Fournier, Jacqueline Du Pre, or Yo-Yo Ma as cello soloist. It was also put to song by Perry Como, Johnny Mathis, and Neil Diamond, aside from a close-to-authentic rendition earlier in the century by Al Jolson in the film The Jazz Singer.

Still, the most chilling of the cultural expressions of Kol Nidre is the one composed by Arnold Schoenberg, the innovator of twelve scale and inspiration to just about everyone from Alban Berg through John Cage to Glenn Gould. Born a Jew, he was converted in 1898 to Christianity under the influence of Gustav Mahler, a prior convert himself. Schoenberg returned to the faith and to the Jewish people, with Marc Chagall at his side, at a 1933 religious ceremony in the synagogue on the rue Copernic in Paris where in 1980 Palestinian “freedom fighters” pulled off a bombing which killed four people and injured dozens. It was October 3, the eve of Simhat Torah, what turned out to be only the beginning of a series of attacks at pregnant moments of the Jewish calendar in places of Jewish worship, at each of which several lives were taken from the innocent.

You might have noticed the year of Schoenberg’s return: 1933. It was not an accident. He was standing up as in a confessional to declare himself a Jew and a Zionist when mobs all over Europe were braying for the skin of his people. I always listen to some of Schoenberg’s music around the High Holidays—and, frankly, some of it is trying. But the environment was much more than trying, especially for Jews, and his compositions were part of his way of coming to terms with the hatred of the gentile world—at once oh, so polite and so bloody—for the people of the book who, in Palestine, were also making themselves the people of the plow. Now, they are a people among very few other peoples who can claim to have put their stamp on science. I confess to feeling fraternal pride whenever one of my tribe receives the Nobel Prize. So I’ve admitted it: I have tribal feelings and I pity those Jews who don’t. They are nothing Jews. You can see the discomfort on their faces when they try to explain to you that they are “cultural Jews” when all that means is that they like Woody Allen. A world of thought and spirit and body, and they proudly reduce it all to one little drip. Oops! This is another sin of mine, to insult a great comic and just before Kol Nidre.

Fifteen years ago, maybe 20, I was asked to do the narration to Schoenberg’s Kol Nidre with the American Symphony Orchestra and its conductor Leon Botstein at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall. It was not a star performance. But after the concert I was accosted (politely) by a tall and elegant old man who told me he had survived Sobibor, the umshlagplatz from which very few escaped alive. My guess (he told me but I can’t remember now) from his accent is that he hailed from Germany or Austria or maybe Czechoslovakia, not Poland where my mother and father’s families were led or fed to the slaughter. The man told me that he’d been a communist in his youth, that there were communists as well as Jews in the camp. And then his eyes teared up. He asked me whether I knew the poem “Elegy for the Soviet Yiddish Writers” by the late great novelist Chaim Grade. I said yes. I even recalled some lines. He wandered off, muttering something like “the communists, too. For survival trust only ourselves.”

It’s a harsh judgment he made. And wrong in a way. FDR may not have much cared for the dying Jews under his war watch. Maybe, in the tangle of strategy and tactics, he didn’t much notice. But it is America and some of the commonwealth English-speaking countries who have bonded with Israel and in the crazy house of the United Nations sheltered it from what could be a Charlie Chaplin spoof of international diplomacy. The U.S. has made itself responsible for some of the margins in military hardware that insure the Jewish state. I want to be very candid about this: As some of you understand, I do not trust Barack Obama’s feelings for Israel. But he has not ever endangered Israel’s strategic edge. What his silly talk does is another matter. Still, his talk has become in recent weeks less silly. But only in recent weeks.

Some synagogues and congregations—this means mostly their rabbis—charge their faithful with transgressions of the whole house of Israel. Some charge them with bearing the sins, real and imagined, of the State of Israel. I do not deny that there are such sins. But—this is a weak defense—even they are lesser offenses than the offenses of other nations. Compare the targeted assassinations conducted by Israel and by our own country. Hands down. For Israel, this struggle is a fight for survival, no way out. For the U.S., it is an intricate calculation with many alternatives: After all, George Bush didn’t conduct the Iraq war relying on targeted assassinations (although I would have wished he had). I could go on and on.

There is a new type of Jew in the world: one whose only Jewish feelings and only Jewish thoughts are criticisms of Israel. Nothing else. If he cries gevald he’s so full of heart—for Israel’s declared enemies. If he’s of the cerebral type he’s a dreykop with clever burglaries from Jewish logic. It cannot be a gratifying life. Or certainly a gratifying Jewish life. His Jewishness—in name only, of course—is an instrument, a useful instrument to more effectively lambaste Israel. “I am one of them. And even I despise them.”

On the day before Kol Nidre, Nicholas Kristof took it upon himself to lecture the Jews about their responsibility to chastise Israel for the idea of a “whole” Jerusalem, for new housing in Jerusalem, even for Israel’s rough-going with Turkey, “its most important friend in the region.” Why do I say that he is lecturing the Jews? It’s simple, all too simple. He addressed his column to Israel’s friends: “Friends do not let friends drive drunk.” He is finished arguing with Netanyahu. It’s hopeless, although the Israeli prime minister has been willing to come to the table for eons but without having settled the issues that have divided the two parties for more than 60 years—and actually closer to a century.

Now, I have a grudge against Kristof. Last year about this time he wrote a column attacking me for what he deemed racist words about Muslims. I apologized for one stupid, really stupid and perhaps also prejudiced remark about them. I’ve woken up nights thinking about this fault—yes, even sin—against conscience. But I am not so sure that my main point that Muslim societies and Arab societies tolerate mass violence with greater equanimity is wrong. Just think of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, even Egypt. And Libya where the rebels are said to have triumphed over the tragic-comic personalist killer-fascism of Qaddafi. But in that liberated Libya there is an epidemic of revenge. Anyway, Kristof wrote and a mob of thugs, following him, so to speak, tried to chase me across Harvard Yard, shouting, “Peretz is a racist pig.” Big triumph for Kristof and his sensitive sensibility.

I suppose that I am among the friends of Israel who is called upon to intercede with Netanyahu. But, as Kristof points out himself, it is not Netanyahu alone or with his coalition. It is the people of Israel who no longer can be seduced into an agreement that is fundamentally implausible. I know, moreover, that it is difficult for an egotist like Bill Clinton to accept that the terms of peace which his underlings crafted are by now not even germane. After all, Israel accepted them before. The Times columnist may console himself that, if not for Bibi, even Oslo might be resuscitated. It can’t. And it is not especially because of the settlements. I happen to think that there will be a tacit understanding without a signed agreement, and that small Jewish villages and towns in central Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) will be left empty. Gaza is an ugly precedent. But it is a precedent, nonetheless. No Israeli really wants all of Jerusalem. Parts of it will be shucked off to whatever the Palestinians can make of Palestine. Maybe you think a lot. I think it’s a phantasm. Maybe many Arab flags will fly on Al Aqsa plaza and many Israeli police will be stationed there. In the meantime, we know that more and more Palestinians want to live in an Israeli Jerusalem. Some 20,000 have already moved there within the last 18 months.

Kristof also pins responsibility on Bibi for the conflict with Turkey, “burning bridges with Israel’s most important friend in the region.” Perhaps Kristof hasn’t noticed that Erdogan has shattered ties with many countries and entered upon a pan-Islamic campaign in the Ottoman style. Even the FT, which finds it hard to chastise any Muslim country, published an at once plaintive and angry editorial, “Talking Turkey,” which is an attempt to curb the country’s sudden aggressive spirit.

As it happens, Kristof’s strategem of calling on Israel’s friends—in the Yom Kippur context, the obvious ploy for America’s Jews—to change Netanyahu’s policy is actually based on false history. The Palestinians have not yet—and I sadly believe they won’t anytime soon—confronted the reality that is staring them in the face. It is the reality of a democratic, social democratic, increasingly social democratic country with the advantages of active enterprise that knows how to defend itself. It will not empty the West Bank as long as there is the probability, even the possibility of rockets and missiles and bombs aimed at the heart of the country which, given its size, is everywhere. History has not stood still over these last more than six decades. The Arabs cannot have what they turned down as temporary armistice in 1949. They also cannot have a peace with neither of their movements (Fatah and Hamas) having provably shorn themselves of the terrorist spirit and terrorist strategy.

Here is Kristof’s panacea:

The Palestinians’ best hope would be a major grass-roots movement of nonviolent peaceful resistance aimed at illegal West Bank settlements, led by women and inspired by the work of Mahatma Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A growing number of Palestinians are taking up variants of that model, although they sometimes ruin it by defining nonviolence to include stone-throwing and by giving the leading role to hotheaded young men.

From his mouth to God’s ear. And, no, I will not confess at Kol Nidre tonight and at Neilah tomorrow night and during the day of fasting in between to what Kristof sees as my sins and the sins of the people Israel in this blessed land.

Martin Peretz is editor-in-chief emeritus of The New Republic.

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95 comments

The majority of American Jews are afflicted with masochistic self-hatred. Why else would they vote for Barack Hussein Obama? Why does the world's most accomplished and intelligent people have a death wish? May God bless Marty Peretz for having the courage to speak the truth.

- bulbman1066

October 8, 2011 at 2:17am

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As usual, I find it difficult to respond to posts such as this (and comments such as bulbman's). My ancestors were Jews. As a child, I was raised by non-religious Jews, and briefly sent to an orthodox synagogue, and told that the formation of Israel was a great triumph. I've read about the persecution of Jews, and don't consider it imaginary or trivial. I have not experienced persecution in my life, and I see no evidence for the existence of the being described as "God," whether considered Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu. In fact, if God existed, logically It would be sensible to consider It as a monster. We are on our own as human beings, and we need to find something to believe in that gives our brief lives meaning and assists us in helping each other and living in peace and mutual accord. I am not sure how identifying ourselves with our races and religions and ethnicities and skin colors and eye shapes--while they can't be ignored--helps us very much. Where do we go from here in an overpopulated, ecologically stressed world? How does this article help?

- skahn

October 8, 2011 at 4:41am

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"and Libya where the rebels are said to have triumphed over the tragic-comic personalist killer-fascism of Qaddafi. " Prof. AbuKhalil informs us, approvingly: "The NATO rebels closed down the synagogue in Tripoli. A statement from the rebels said that they won't allow the reopening of the synagogue unless the petitioner is not an Israeli, and a supporter of Israel, and that he should be a supporter of Palestinian right to return." As Marty said so articulately in the other article: "Arab Spring, my foot."

- noga1

October 8, 2011 at 6:40am

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As usual these recent times I am enjoying Peretz's discursive, punchily written pieces, agreeing with a lot here, disagreeing with a lot there, liking the combing here, splitting hairs there, finding wisom here, errant foolishness there, and agreeing a lot with his overarching comments on whither Israel and the Palestinians. For my own discursiveness, his bit on the issue of the re-admittance of the forced converts reminds me of (my just having read) the argument by Smerdyakov in the 7th chapter of Book 111 of Part 1 of The Brothers Karamazov, in the company of Gregory, Fyodor, Ivan and Alyosha, about whether renouncing God and Christian faith under the threat of death is an unforgivable sin and about the nature of Christian faith. Bulbman, who I quite like, is wildly over the top. Skahn, who I quite like too, is fatuous in his universalist concerns and in his empty criterion of how Peretz's article helps solve the world's problems. I also like it when Jews do well, win prizes and so on. As Peretz says...I confess to feeling fraternal pride whenever one of my tribe receives the Nobel Prize. So I’ve admitted it: I have tribal feelings... Though I get off the train when he complains that those who don't feel that way are "nothing Jews" and think he's quite absurd when he reduces their (cultural Jews)Jewishness to the synecdoche of "liking Woody Allen." C'est ca pour maintenant.

- basman

October 8, 2011 at 10:25am

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For another take on the Kol Nidre, see Lawrence Grossman in Jewish Ideas Daily. Nicholas Kristoff is a creature of the NY Times, which has always lectured the Jews. He is a well-meaning gentile who doesn't understand the evil that faces Israel. His Jewish colleagues, who should know better, Tom Friedman, Roger Cohen, editorial writer Andrew Rosenthal, and the Anglican Jewish Sulzbergers, have set the pattern for Israel-bashing. I think that alienated Jews who cannot affirm anything together with other Jews should stop calling themselves "Jews" and find something more positive to do.

- amidut

October 8, 2011 at 3:22pm

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" I think that alienated Jews who cannot affirm anything together with other Jews should stop calling themselves "Jews" and find something more positive to do." It is a puzzle, isn't it, that "alienated" Jews do not just shrug their ancestral identity off and go on to better and more enlightened feats and worlds. They have to return, obsessively, to the congregation in order to declare, again and again, ad nauseam, that they are no longer members and how much better it is for them, or whatever. It makes you wonder, doesn't it, why, if you don't like your first grade friends, you keep showing up, univvited, at their monthly reunions. Don't you have any better friends? Amidut, are you familiar with the Gilad Atzmon phenomenon? If he weren't so toxic, I would actually feel a great deal of pity for him.

- noga1

October 8, 2011 at 5:32pm

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Noga, I've read bits and pieces about Atzmon and just looked at his Wikipedia autobiography. I have to agree with you about him. He's in his 40's, lives in Britain, grew up secular in Israel and was a paramedic in the Israeli army, so has a hard time walking away from a large, evidently unsatisfactory, part of his life. His separation has been emotionally violent. And there's an audience of both the dismayed and delighted for his politically charged acting out, especially in Britain. I remember a TV interview with a Mormon elder. A seemingly mild-mannered man, he said that Mormonism isn't for everybody, especially if they can't conform to traditional Mormon notions of family life. He very much regrets that, he said, but implied that there is suitable earthly life, if not salvation, outside of the Mormon community.

- amidut

October 8, 2011 at 7:05pm

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my own ramblings. I went thru a more personal pre-sundown wrestling with whether I had sins to atone for... And woke up, again, with the flu which kept me sleeping for most of today. But, I remain troubled by why anyone who thinks they stand for morality, e.g., Kristof, continue to hate Israel for being Jewish. Since I stopped reading all NYT op-ed writers once they erected their pay wall, I applaud Peretz's smackdown of Kristof before Yom Kippur. I no longer try to attend services because I never learned Hebrew, but never felt Jewish in American versions to the left of Conservative congregations. Yes, I really need to learn Hebrew. amidut mentioned Mormons. I watched PBS Newshour on Friday night, and discovered there was an edit-for-tv and full transcript of Judy Woodruff's interview with Mitt Romney. She asked specifically about his position on apartments in Jerusalem. What was broadcast was an evasive answer. In the full transcipt, Woodruff pressed again, and never got an answer. Here are both versions: What was actually broadcast http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec11/romney_10-07.html 10 07 2011 JUDY WOODRUFF: I do want to ask you one or two other international-related questions, direct question on the Middle East, pretty much up or down. This administration and most Western countries criticized the recent announcement by the Israelis that they were going to continue to build more apartments in Jerusalem, saying this is counterproductive. Do you agree with that? MITT ROMNEY: What I -- what I believe is that when you have an ally that shares your values, as does Israel, that if you disagree with them, you do so in private. You don't want to in any way encourage the adversaries of your ally to assume that perhaps they can get a better deal by going around Israel and negotiating with you directly. Other candidates may have differing views. That happens to be my view, that in a setting of this nature, particularly one as fragile as Israel -- right now, I don't think I have seen Israel in as fragile a setting as we're seeing them today. And this is not a time for America to be -- to be dictating to Israel how they should negotiate." FULL TRANSCRIPT http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec11/romneyfull_10-07.html JUDY WOODRUFF: "I do want to ask you one or two other international-related questions. Direct question on the Middle East, pretty much up or down. This administration and most Western countries criticized the recent announcement by the Israelis that they were going to continue to build more apartments in Jerusalem, saying this is counterproductive. Do you agree with that? MITT ROMNEY: What I - what I believe is that when you have an ally that shares your values, as does Israel, that if you disagree with them, you do so in private. You don't want to in any way encourage the adversaries of your ally to assume that perhaps they can get a better deal by going around Israel and negotiating with you directly. And so I think it is a mistake on the part of the president, as he did at - in his first address at the United Nations, to criticize Israel for building settlements and not mentioning that Hamas has launched thousands of rockets into Israel. JUDY WOODRUFF: Well do you think it's fine for - or do you think it's all right, acceptable for Israel to build housing settlements in any of the areas that were occupied in the 1967 war? MITT ROMNEY: Again, I would tell you that the role of a person running for president or a person who is president, in my view, is to stand by our ally and if we disagree do so in private. If I were to tell you that I disagreed I'd violate my own rule. And in this - in this case I believe that my opinions on Israel's posture in negotiating with the Palestinians would be something I would keep to myself and to Bibi Netanyahu and leaders of the minority, Tzipi Livni, and others. That's something I would not share with the public. Instead, link arms with our allies and make sure that our public posture communicates our commitment to peace there. And recognize that some of the things Israel does, I'm sure, have negotiating elements to them and they do things from which they will strengthen their negotiating hand. JUDY WOODRUFF: So voters, you're saying, don't need to know what you think about this? Is that what you're saying when you say it should be done in private? MITT ROMNEY: I think in dealing with a ally like Israel that's in a conflict with the Palestinians, where the two are, hopefully, at some point, going to negotiate progress there, that our job is not to tell Israel how to negotiate or how we would draw the line, but instead to publicly stand with Israel and to lock arms with Israel, not to show a dime's worth of distance between us. Now, other candidates may have different views. That happens to be my view: that in a setting of this nature, particularly one as fragile as Israel right now - I don't think I've seen Israel in as fragile a setting as we're seeing them today. And this is not a time for America to be - to be dictating to Israel how they should negotiate."

- K2K

October 8, 2011 at 8:12pm

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I'm satisfied with Romney's answer(s). We can't really quarterback the Israelis on Jerusalem real estate issues in the context of much bigger issues, especially the unwillingness of the Arabs and Muslims to accept Israel in any form. The real estate issues are a distraction.

- amidut

October 8, 2011 at 8:28pm

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Marty has a weird sense of what it means to care for Israel: " The U.S. has made itself responsible for some of the margins in military hardware that insure the Jewish state. I want to be very candid about this: As some of you understand, I do not trust Barack Obama’s feelings for Israel. But he has not ever endangered Israel’s strategic edge. What his silly talk does is another matter. Still, his talk has become in recent weeks less silly. But only in recent weeks." If Obama has never endangered Israel's existence by his actions why do his words matter that much? Marty must be a believer in "words speak louder than actions," an I hope no one else in the US government comes around to believing as Marty does. I guess if I had lived only by words for most of my life, I too would have ended up believing in their magic.

- arnon

October 8, 2011 at 9:35pm

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Noga would introduce the quasi Nazi Atzmon and very real anti-Semite here. Who cares if his family was or is Jewish? He has stopped being one the moment he dedicated his sorry and absurd life to eliminating the Jewish people.

- arnon

October 8, 2011 at 9:40pm

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It was actually Mearsheimer who "introduced" Gilad Atzmon into the discourse, by endorsing his book. A respectable American professor who wrote a very well received book on the Zionist power configuration (a modern version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion) adopted Atzmon as one of the "Righteous Jews" he singled out for praise some time ago. Why would Arnon be afraid of talking about it, I wonder? It's a perfectly relevant subject to talk about, especially if words are deemed to be so totally insignificant, as arnon would have us believe..

- noga1

October 8, 2011 at 11:23pm

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"It was actually Mearsheimer who "introduced" Gilad Atzmon into the discourse, by endorsing his book." I am glad he did since he also at the same time destroyed his credibility. More people (some of whom didn't think that M&W were antisemitic) have seen the light and now know that at the very lest they do seem to have a problem with Jews and not just Zionists. They are also one more example of "sincere folk" who begin by embracing an anti-Israel point of and end up revealing themselves as vile antisemites.

- arnon

October 8, 2011 at 11:51pm

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And, btw, Mearsheimer didn't post about the vile Atzmon here.

- arnon

October 8, 2011 at 11:54pm

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arnon: "Marty must be a believer in 'words speak louder than actions,' an I hope no one else in the US government comes around to believing as Marty does." I've often had the same weird impression at moments. If Obama had said X or Y then that would have counted with Marty; Obama actually doing stuff (e.g. concluding weapons deals with Israel, killing more actual Al Qaeda terrorists in two years than Bush-Cheney did in eight, trying various aggressive tactics with Iran including trying to mess up their centifruge control software, and and and) doesn't mean a damn thing, apparently. I remember a truly ridiculous discussion sparked off, I think, by him picking up on a piece by the ostentatiously clueless Mark Steyn in which he complained that, at a White House event in memory of Daniel Pearl, Obama didn't specifically mention in his remarks that Pearl had been killed by having his head cut off. Obama's comments were very general and lacking in bloodthirsty detail. Typical Obama, Marty thought, being evasive on the nature of terrorism, as usual. It turned out later that Pearl's seven year-old son was sitting a couple of feet away from the president. That was why.

- ironyroad

October 9, 2011 at 12:43am

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I agree with Basman, I think Marty's recent articles are good and this one is quite moving. When I was a kid the High Holy Days were truly awe-inspiring, they were my favorite time of the year and I have never wandered far from my roots, although my step-father didn't think Jews were "real Americans" and therefore we should become Unitarians so we could "understand regular people." But I've never forgotten the cantors and the long shadow of our history. And only recently did my dad tell me why he took me on a trip to Nebraska that year, when I had so been looking forward to going to Temple. In light of that, on a personal level this article really hit home.

- Sophia

October 9, 2011 at 3:15am

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"... in memory of Daniel Pearl, Obama didn't specifically mention in his remarks that Pearl had been killed by having his head cut off. " If I remember correctly, (and I may be wrong), the kerfuffle in that discussion was not about the fact that Obama refrained from talking about the gory details of Daniel Pearl's death but that he omitted to mention that his murder was due, in large part, to the fact that he was a Jew. I'm sure Ironyroad you can understand why some people (not ostensibly cold bystanders like you) would find that omission to have some significance.

- noga1

October 9, 2011 at 7:26am

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Sophia: You can console yourself with the knowledge that conversion has always been a part of natural defence against the lessons of Jewish history. Benjamin Disraeli's father baptized his son when he was 13 years old in order to spare him the obstacles that his Jewishness would certainly have imposed on his future career. It was ironical how little that fact played out for Disraeli who was forever plagued and jeered at by his Jewish descent. Not that it stopped him. Anyway, Unitarianism is not so remote from the spirit of Judaism which is the spirit of placing high value on community and mutual responsibility. It's like being Jewish in a different way. A friend of mine who passed away was a Unitarian and I went to her memorial service at a Unitarian church. Since her husband had been Jewish, a Kadish was said for her during the services, and that was the only religious feature in an otherwise completely a-religious ceremony. And consider the conversos who, 5 centuries after their being forced to convert, are still in some way maintaining a Jewish identity. And lastly, there is Maimonides' "Igeret HaShmad" in which he tried to explain that if your life is in danger because you are a Jew, it is OK to convert and then, when circumstances are improved, go back, or move to a location where you will not be persecuted for being Jewish. Spinoza's parents did just that. But that's another story.

- noga1

October 9, 2011 at 7:53am

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... Disraeli who was forever plagued and jeered at FOR his Jewish descent. Not that it stopped him.

- noga1

October 9, 2011 at 7:54am

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Words obviously "do not speak louder than action", however, should we conclude from this that words have no consequences? There is no question that Obama's speeches in Cairo and Istanbul created certain anticipation in the Arab and Islamic realm and promoted the feeling of dread in Israel. His apparent lack of sympathy or empathy to the Israeli predicament promoted the view that he is the least pro-Israeli president in many many years. His visible antipathy to Netanyahu did not create many fans among Israelis either. For thousands of years the Jewish people listened to and analyzed speeches by foreign leaders in anticipation of things to come and it did not serve the community well if we disregarded the hints and threats contained in those speeches. I am not here to suggest that Obama is an enemy of Israel. He is definitely not, but only that he at best conditional friend.

- rmakover@swbell.net-OLD

October 9, 2011 at 9:09am

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makover "Words obviously "do not speak louder than action", however, should we conclude from this that words have no consequences?" Of course words too have consequences, but we are talking about helping Israel with words versus helping Israel defend itself. Obama has been helping Israel keep its military edge over its enemies and when he saw the threat to Israel at the UN he defended it with words also. What more can you ask? As for the so called Arab "democratic" uprisings, as a threat to Israel it doesn't compare with the threat caused by Bush and his Ms. Rice when they insisted that the PA hold elections. This led to Hamas taking power in Gaza. If you want to blame someone for the recent upheavals in the Arab world than Bush and the neo-cons with their "democratization" in the Middle East policies were as responsible for the uprisings there than Obama's one speech.

- arnon

October 9, 2011 at 9:53am

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http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/10/plo-ambassador-in-brazil-israel-must.html "On Friday, Alzeben Ibrahim, the Palestinian ambassador in Brazil, told a group of university students that "Israel should disappear." To leave no doubt as to what he meant, he added, "And this is not the ambassador of Iran or President Ahmadinejad who is speaking." Thus it was evident that he did not mean Israel must disappear from the West Bank, but wiped off the map as Ahmadinejad preached. Knowing that Hamas, which also says that Israel must disappear, will not stop shooting rockets into Israel, Alzeben said: "Israel is preparing provocations for a new conflict. Be skeptical of the origin of the next rocket departing from Palestine. " BTW, this is a representative of the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, who is speaking.

- noga1

October 9, 2011 at 10:32am

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Due to Yom Kippur, Israeli press has published some history lessons. One such was an article about Moshe Dayan which mentioned a famous speech he made in the funeral of Ro'i Guttenberg, a soldier brutally murdered by fedayeen who infiltrated from Gaza in 1956. http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/239/021.html?hp=1&cat=479&ap=1&from_art=2293155&to_art=2239021 I think it is a good time as any to post that speech here: "Early yesterday morning Roi was murdered. The quiet of the spring morning dazzled him and he did not see those waiting in ambush for him, at the edge of the furrow. Let us not cast the blame on the murderers today. Why should we declare their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate. It is not among the Arabs in Gaza, but in our own midst that we must seek Roi's blood. How did we shut our eyes and refuse to look squarely at our fate, and see, in all its brutality, the destiny of our generation? Have we forgotten that this group of young people dwelling at Nahal Oz is bearing the heavy gates of Gaza on its shoulders? Beyond the furrow of the border, a sea of hatred and desire for revenge is swelling, awaiting the day when serenity will dull our path, for the day when we will heed the ambassadors of malevolent hypocrisy who call upon us to lay down our arms. Roi's blood is crying out to us and only to us from his torn body. Although we have sworn a thousandfold that our blood shall not flow in vain, yesterday again we were tempted, we listened, we believed. We will make our reckoning with ourselves today; we are a generation that settles the land and without the steel helmet and the cannon's maw, we will not be able to plant a tree and build a home. Let us not be deterred from seeing the loathing that is inflaming and filling the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Arabs who live around us. Let us not avert our eyes lest our arms weaken. This is the fate of our generation. This is our life's choice - to be prepared and armed, strong and determined, lest the sword be stricken from our fist and our lives cut down. The young Roi who left Tel Aviv to build his home at the gates of Gaza to be a wall for us was blinded by the light in his heart and he did not see the flash of the sword. The yearning for peace deafened his ears and he did not hear the voice of murder waiting in ambush. The gates of Gaza weighed too heavily on his shoulders and overcame him." (Translation found on wikipedia)

- noga1

October 9, 2011 at 10:45am

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The name of the soldier is : Ro'i Rutenberg (not Gutenberg)

- noga1

October 9, 2011 at 10:48am

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arnon: You actually reinforce the point I made. It is about time that US administration recognize that the Israelis know the region and the neighborhood in which they dwell. It is about time to realize that maybe, just maybe the Israelis know what is good for them better than the America that is pushing them to do what they consider suicidal. Be that elections in Gaza or withdrawal to the armistice lines. I think it is disingenuous to put the responsibility for the Arab spring on the shoulders of Bush's administration and the much maligned neocons. I think that the attempt of the current administration to re-connect with the Muslims in general and Arabs in particular had a lot to do with it. The administration condemnation of Israel gave the Arabs hope that finally a disconnect has occurred. Furthermore, I do not see the Arab spring in such a dark light. I would like to quote Spangler in Asia Times: " The prospects for a formal peace are the worst since 1977, while Israel's military position has improved. The Syrian army is too busy butchering protesters to attack the Jewish state, and the uncertain position of the Bashar al-Assad regime weakens its Lebanese client Hezbollah. Egyptian popular sentiment has turned nastily against Israel, but the last thing the Egyptian army needs at the moment is a war with Israel that it inevitably would lose. Egypt is a failed state. It has no way out. Chinese pigs will eat before the Egyptian poor, as wealthy Asians outbid impoverished Arabs for grain. Egypt imports half its caloric consumption, and its foreign exchange reserves last week dipped below what its central bank called the "danger" level of $25 billion covering six months of imports, down from $36 billion before Hosni Mubarak was toppled." As a matter of fact I would like to recall what somebody else on another Peretz's blog wrote. I don't exactly remember how it went but it was something like this: Just like S. Korea is living with a crazy N. Korea next door and is thriving, just like US is living with Cuba next door so Israel can live with crazy regimes like the PLO and Hamas next door without formal peace. Just withdraw from the territories, build a wall, keep a strong army and be prepared every few years for a conflagration here or there or a "correction" (in Wall Street jargon) and wait. The United States and the West should give up their favorite opiate of Israeli-Palestinian peace. Israel, United States and the West should focus on Iran and it's true existential threat to peace and security in the ME.

- rmakover@swbell.net-OLD

October 9, 2011 at 12:31pm

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Hussein Ibish wrote an articulate and thoughtful piece on Gilad Atzmon and John Mearsheimer: http://www.ibishblog.com/blog/hibish/2011/10/01/gilad_atzmon_and_john_mearsheimer_self_criticism_self_hate_and_hate

- JPKatz

October 9, 2011 at 1:02pm

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Yes, it is thoughtful piece although his view of Israel Shahak is absurd.

- rmakover@swbell.net-OLD

October 9, 2011 at 1:32pm

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Korea's De-Militarized Zone, from wiki: It is 250 kilometres (160 miles) long, approximately 4 km (2.5 mi) wide and is the most heavily militarized border in the world." [I add North Korea has never made genocide of all South Koreans their military goal.] Israel as a Jewish nation has never been accepted as a legitimate nation by the arabs: " We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood." – Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt, March 8, 1965 Copied from a very good history lesson from JPost, here is entire article: "Into the Fray: Reassessing ‘root causes’ and ‘red herrings’ " By MARTIN SHERMAN 10/07/2011 12:10 "In the face of mounting international pressure, Israel cannot afford to lose sight of what the conflict is really about. We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood. – Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt, March 8, 1965 This chilling declaration of genocidal intent by the leader of the largest Arab nation, over two years before any Israeli presence in the “occupied territories,” was not an isolated aberration. Quite the contrary, it was typical of a pervasive Judeo-phobic frenzy that prevailed throughout the Arab world, well before the notions of “occupation” and “settlements” — the current buzzwords for rallying anti-Israeli sentiment — had any meaning. Recalling recalcitrant realities Thus on May 18, 1967, following the withdrawal of the UN peacekeeping forces in Sinai, in compliance with Egyptian demands, the Cairo-based radio station Voice of the Arabs blared: “As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more.... The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence.” Two days later, Gen. Hafez Assad, then-Syrian minister of defense, and later president, boasted: “Our forces are now entirely ready.... The time has come to enter a battle of annihilation.” On May 27, Nasser reiterated his murderous goal: “Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight.” And four days before the outbreak of war, on June 1, Iraqi President Abdul Rahman Ali — later assassinated by Saddam Hussein — threatened: “The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified... Our goal is clear – to wipe Israel off the map.” The Jordanian factor and the Palestinian element The mood on the Jordanian front and among the Palestinians, together with their Arab “patrons,” was strikingly similar. Nasser on November 18, 1965: “Our aim is the full restoration of the rights of the Palestinian people. In other words, we aim at the destruction of the State of Israel. The immediate aim: perfection of Arab military might. The national aim: the eradication of Israel.” Jordan’s King Hussein, apparently impressed by this bluster, entered into a military pact with Egypt on May 30, 1967 — despite bitter acrimony between Nasser and himself. He declared: “All of the Arab armies now surround Israel. The UAR [Egypt], Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan and Kuwait.... There is no difference between one Arab people and another, no difference between one Arab army and another.” At the time, the entire “West Bank” and Gaza, territories now claimed for the establishment of a Palestinian state as the alleged sine non qua for peace — were under Arab control. Nasser ruled Gaza, Hussein the “West Bank.” Yet neither undertook the slightest initiative to initiate any self-governing Palestinian entity in these territories. (What is even more astounding, as we shall see later, is that the Palestinians themselves eschewed any aspirations of sovereignty over the “West Bank” and Gaza, which seem to have been totally irrelevant to “full restoration of the rights of the Palestinian people” in the eyes of both the Palestinians and of the wider Arab world — MS.) The rhetoric from Palestinian leaders was no less bellicose. On May 27, Ahmad Shukeiri, Yasser Arafat’s predecessor as chairman of the PLO, gloated: “D Day is approaching. The Arabs have waited 19 years for this and will not flinch from the war of liberation.” And a few days later, on June 1, in a somewhat premature flush of triumph, he crowed: “This is a fight for the homeland – it is either us or the Israelis. There is no middle road. The Jews of Palestine will have to leave. We will facilitate their departure to their former homes. Any of the old Palestine Jewish population who survive may stay, but it is my impression that none of them will survive.... We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors — if there are any — the boats are ready to deport them.” As the Arab armies massed against it, Israel began to brace itself for the coming war — preparing mass graves in Tel Aviv and other cities in anticipation of heavy civilian causalities. ‘Liberation’ equals ‘annihilation’ Shukeiri’s use of the words “liberation” and “homeland” is revealing. They clearly did not apply to the “West Bank” or the Gaza Strip, since both were under Arab rule and certainly not considered the “homeland” towards which Palestinian “liberation” efforts were directed. The true significance of these terms emerges with stark clarity from the text of the original version of the Palestinian National Charter — formulated in 1964. Article 16 states: “The liberation of Palestine... [is] necessitated by the demands of selfdefense” and “the Palestinian people look forward to [international] support... in restoring the legitimate situation to Palestine... and enabling its people to exercise national sovereignty and freedom.” But Article 24 stipulates precisely what is not included in the “homeland” of “Palestine” and where sovereignty is not to be exercised. Indeed, it unequivocally forswears Palestinian claims to “any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Gaza.” It is difficult to imagine a more authoritative source for exposing as bogus the Palestinian claim that the “West Bank” and Gaza comprise their “ancient homeland.” Indeed, even within the pre-1967 lines, long before the alleged “root causes of the conflict” — “occupation” and “settlements” — were part of the discourse, much less facts on the ground, Israel was condemned as a colonial, fascist, expansionist power. According to Article 19: “Zionism is a colonialist movement in its inception, aggressive and expansionist in its goal, racist in its configurations, and fascist in its means and aims. Israel, in its capacity as the spearhead of this destructive movement and as the pillar of colonialism, is a permanent source of tension and turmoil in the Middle East.” The implication is clear. To remove enduring “tension and turmoil” in the region, their “source” — Israel — must be removed. Accordingly, we must conclude that the only conceivable “plain-English” translation for the ‘liberation of the homeland” must be the “annihilation of Israel.” Hatred frozen in time The 1964 Palestinian National Covenant was replaced by a 1968 version, which in the guise of “the liberation of Palestine,” continued to advocate the destruction of Israel as a necessary precursor for Mideast peace — now in blatantly explicit terms. Article 22 states that the “liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East.” Any thoughts that the reference was now to the post-1967 “occupied territories” is quickly dispelled by Article 19, which declares: “The partition of Palestine in 1947, and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal, regardless of the passage of time...” Article 20 delves even further back into history — to 1917 — to deny the validity of Jewish statehood in any portion of the Holy Land: “The Balfour Declaration, the Palestine Mandate System, and all that has been based on them are considered null and void. The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history and the conception of what constitutes statehood.” This implacable repudiation cannot be ascribed to wrath induced by post-1967 Israeli occupation. They echo — almost verbatim — those articulated in Articles 17 and 18 of the pre-occupation 1964 Covenant, underscoring the unbroken persistence of the Palestinians enmity towards Israel — regardless of any temporal or territorial parameters. From Shukeiri to Abbas This provides the conceptual context for the indefatigable refusal of the allegedly moderate Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to acknowledge that Israel is the nation-state of the Jews. After all, he is merely being faithful to his National Covenant (both original and current) according to which “Jews do not constitute a single nation with an identity of their own,” and the establishment of Israel comprises a “violation of the basic principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations.” Both versions of the Covenant are posted on the Palestinian Permanent UN Observer website. This is an outrage of epic proportions, for despite a promise to president Bill Clinton and a vague letter that certain — unspecified — articles have been abrogated, the Covenant has not been formally changed or redrafted. Indeed, to fulfill the pledge to Clinton, 28 of the 33 articles would have to be annulled or amended. It is therefore brazen gall on the part of the Palestinians to aspire to UN membership while flaunting documents that denounce the 60- year-old membership of another nation as a “violation of the basic principles... of the United Nations — and scandalous misrepresentation on the part of Clinton to charge, as he recently did, that it was Binyamin Netanyahu who “... killed the peace process.” Thus, Israel would be sadly remiss not to perceive Abbas, the current chairman of the PLO, as adhering to the principles laid down by Shukeiri, the first chairman of the PLO, who drafted the original National Covenant. This was rather starkly illustrated at the recent UN General Assembly session when Abbas, theatrically, exclaimed: “After 63 years of suffering: enough, enough, enough.” How reminiscent this was of Shukeiri’s 1964 declaration, 47 years earlier at the first session of Palestinian National Council, that “Palestinians had experienced 16 years’ misery.” Hmmm. 16 + 47 = 63 years! Thus both past and present PLO chairmen steadfastly condemn the birth of Israel — not the “occupation” – as the “original sin” that is exclusively to blame for Palestinian “suffering”/”misery.” Certainly can’t fault them for inconsistency! “The Arabs are the same Arabs...” So one might be forgiven for conceding that Yitzhak Shamir might just have had a point when he cautioned that “the Arabs are the same Arabs, and the sea is the same sea.” Indeed there are those who might see corroboration for this abrasive assessment in the fact that the allegedly “pragmatic” Fatah movement (established in 1959) found no need to amend its constitution (also formulated in 1964 but not to be confused with the Palestinian National Covenant) at its 2009 Convention in Bethlehem. This constitution specifies the “goal” of the organization as: “Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.” It goes on to stipulate the “method” by which this “eradication” is to be effected, i.e., “armed struggle,” and emphasizes that this “is a strategy and not a tactic. [T]he Palestinian Arab People’s armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated.” The Fatah emblem shows “Palestine” as extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Separating ‘red herrings’ from ‘root causes’ Israel has allowed itself to be manipulated into a perilous and potentially tragic situation. To have any hope of extricating itself from this unenviable position, it must be very clear as to what this conflict is really about — and what it is not about. It must separate the “root causes” from the “red herrings.” Mistaken diagnosis will result in mistaken policies choices which are liable to precipitate “terminal” consequences. It is time to acknowledge the unpalatable fact that the enmity of Arabs towards the Jews and the Jewish state is: – not about borders but about existence; – not about what the Jewish people do but about what the Jewish people are; – not about the Jewish state’s policies but about the Jewish state per se; and – not about Jewish military “occupation” of Arab land but about Jewish political existence on any land. Israel must internalize these truths and undertake a policy to convey them – with conviction and vigor — to the world. Otherwise it may well be “liberated.” " http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=240870

- K2K

October 9, 2011 at 2:25pm

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K2K: Everything you said is true. But I just don't see how this contradicts my main point. I truly believe that currently, peace between Israel and Palestinians,( I mean permanent peace), is not achievable. I agree with Spangler that Israeli security position is strong (notwithstanding Hizballa's arsenal). I believe that the Palestinians today themselves pose no existential threat to Israel, they can just be nuisance. The Egyptian threat is gone, the Syrian threat is minimized, Hizballah due to Bashar's difficulties is weakened and the Iranians face loosing a base in Syria and in Lebanon too. I am more optimistic about the Arab spring today that I have been in the past. I am not saying that the Palestinians won't be a nuisance, but that's about it. Militarily I don't think Israel has a problem. I think the problem is diplomatic and that is not an Arab issue but a Western issue. That's why I said that the West needs to give up the snake oil of Israel/Palestine peace process and accept that for now it is not going to happen. I also think that Israel needs to unilaterally withdraw from the West Bank and let the Palestinians govern themselves. If they want to cooperate economically, fine, if not, as I said, complete the wall act militarily from time to time if warranted and wait.

- rmakover@swbell.net-OLD

October 9, 2011 at 3:45pm

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Noga, you could be right that the Steyn argument had a number of aspects but that's one that I recall because it was so crass -- and perhaps I'm doing Marty a slight injustice because he may not have endorsed Steyn in full. I don't remember. I'm an ostensibly cold observer of what? makeover: You may be right, but what about Netanyahu's hostilty to Obama? If Obama, for example, had been invited by Livni to speak to the Knesset in a context that seemed like a domestic political snub to Netanyahu, I don't think he would have liked it. But that's what the PM did here in the U.S. But let's not get into a who-started-it kind of ping-pong game. Incidentally, I don't think that Cuba "next door" is a threat to the U.S. except in the sense of a refugee wave when the regime crumbles. The threat to the U.S., to all intents and purposes, dissolved when the Soviet Union withdrew. I would see that as a bad analogy for Israel and its neighbors partly also because of the difference in land area.

- ironyroad

October 9, 2011 at 4:38pm

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Makover “You actually reinforce the point I made. It is about time that US administration recognize that the Israelis know the region and the neighborhood in which they dwell. It is about time to realize that maybe, just maybe the Israelis know what is good for them better than the America that is pushing them to do what they consider suicidal. Be that elections in Gaza or withdrawal to the armistice lines.” My only disagreement in what you said is that the Obama administration is pushing Netanyahu to withdraw to the armistice lines. Obama stated explicitly that there could be land swaps and that security interests are of paramount importance. He also said at the UN that “Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations — if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now. Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians who must live side by side. Ultimately, it is the Israelis and the Palestinians — not us –- who must reach agreement on the issues that divide them: on borders and on security, on refugees and Jerusalem.” He didn’t call for a return to the armistice lines did he? My only point is the Obama has shown through deeds and if read right through speeches that he is not hostile towards the Jewish State Even the Cairo speech talked about the close bond between the US and Israel. “America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.” Yes, he also talked about Palestinian’s 60 year “tragedy” but in the context of a two State solution: “But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.” Then he went on in a passage seldom mentioned: “Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed.” Now if you decide that this speech is just words, then you have to acknowledge that the whole speech is just words. But if you think that words matter then his call for a Palestinian State is also merely words. I tend to think that actions is more important than words, that helping Israel keep its military edge is of more value to the Jewish State than vaguely phrased promises to all sides. Nixon was very hostile to Jews yet he offered concrete aid to the Jewish State in its hour of need during the Yom Kippur wars.

- arnon

October 9, 2011 at 6:04pm

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irony: I agree with you on Cuba. It is a poor analogy. Obama's hostility to Netanyahu greatly precedes the speech in Congress. The snub of Netanyahu occurred in March, 2010. This from the London Telegraph: "Benjamin Netanyahu was left to stew in a White House meeting room for over an hour after President Barack Obama abruptly walked out of tense talks to have supper with his family, it emerged on Thursday." But that is not really the crux of my point. It was a side comment. My point is that words matter and have consequences. I think that at least partially, the reason Israel is becoming more isolated was the initial rhetoric coming out of the White House regarding Israeli ingratitude, inflexibility, hawkishness and other such statement. The Palestinians, the Arabs and the Europeans picked up on this as a free for all. Today it looks like this was a serious error.

- rmakover@swbell.net-OLD

October 9, 2011 at 6:06pm

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ironyroad: Netanyahu was never, could never be, uncivil to Obama and I already told you that if Obama had come to the Knesset, everything would have been different, regardless of who invited him. He would be seen as visiting the State of Israel, not the headquarters of Kadima party. I don't see what's the point of discussing anything with you if you keep repeating the same old unfounded conjectures as if you were presenting some irrefutable facts. You are a cold bystander in the I/P conflict. You are trying to keep a neutral position, giving both parties equal consideration. In my view, anyone who keeps that kind of so-called superior objectivity is de-facto NOT pro-Israel. In today's world, anyone who insists on "even-handedness" is in effect rooting for the Palestinians, with their 400 million Arab brothers and 1.4 Billion fellow-Muslims.

- noga1

October 9, 2011 at 6:12pm

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A surprisingly moving and well written piece by Peretz. Be still my heart.

- Tristan

October 9, 2011 at 6:12pm

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And O/T, ironyroad, but apropo something we talked about before. You may remember that you claimed AbuKhalil would not be politically influencing his students at the university with his anti-Israel animus. I think this post from today proves that you gave him too much credit. If I'm mistaken could you please explain how? http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/10/message-from-shane-bauer-one-of-three.html

- noga1

October 9, 2011 at 6:18pm

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arnon: Lately Obama changed his tactics due to approaching elections and his sinking in the polls; his speech to the UN was very impressive. Yes, deeds are more important than words, although as I mentioned in the previous post the damage that was already done is serious. I think that this early rhetoric empowered the Palestinians to neglect the direct talks and demand preconditions to any negotiations, something they previously did not demand. I still think though that peace with the Palestinians is not possible in the near future, maybe ever. Please, don't think for one moment that I consider the Israeli governments blameless. The errors committed by them are many. But one thing they cannot be accused of are any illusions regarding the region and the intentions of the Arabs. Anybody living is Israel is painfully aware that living in this part of the world is like trying to diffuse a bomb. You cannot afford to make even one error.

- rmakover@swbell.net-OLD

October 9, 2011 at 6:21pm

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Irony, the kerfluffle over Obama's comments about Daniel Pearl was indeed that he failed to acknowledge that Pearl's murder had anything to do with him being a Jew, whereas it was openly affirmed both by the victim and by his killers. Obama's behavior was the reverse side of the coin of political correctness (where stone-cold jihadist killers like Nidal Hassan are merely described as "mentally unstable"). It appeared that he didn't want to be accused of philosemitism which is nearly as grave an offense as Islamophobia...

- willjames77

October 9, 2011 at 6:32pm

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Noga, thanks for the link to the speech by Dayan. It helps one to remember that the earlier generation saw the hatred that surrounds them with utter sobriety. When I watch the younger generation's satires on Latma's YouTube sketches, I'm encouraged that they seem to have boldly shed the illusions of their immediate predecessors during the Oslo era. It bodes well for the future that they prefer bitter truth to soporific dreams of universal brotherhood.

- willjames77

October 9, 2011 at 6:41pm

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K2K, I've bookmarked the Post article. What else is there to say that needs saying? Perhaps the Israeli government office should xerox it and send it to newspapers of the world as a backgrounder for their reporters. The question for me remains: How can Israel share and publicize this truthful account of events in such a way that the Palestinian narrative is exposed in the eyes of the world for the fraudulent scam that it is? The $64,000 dollar question...

- willjames77

October 9, 2011 at 6:45pm

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We mostly agree, makover.

- arnon

October 9, 2011 at 6:47pm

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Noga, I've discussed my attitudes to the Palestinians, which have undergone some changes over recent years, openly on these boards and if anyone truly believes that I am anti-Israeli then there's not much I can do about it. I think there is in fact a potentially pragmatic nationalism that could take root in Palestinian communities but I'm a lot less hopeful about it than I was a few years ago. I've spent a lot of time arguing pro-Israeli positions elsewhere and I didn't get much support from people who might have been expected to step up (part of the reason I departed facebook), so your accusation rolls off me like a glass of that tasty Israeli anis-type drink off a duck's back. On the professor person at CSU Stanislaus, I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Reading the two letters, my immediate impression is that his ex-student was very willing to confront him on his assumptions about, or ideological misjudgments of, the incident (which actually speaks for Abu-Khalil somewhat), and secondly that Abu-Khalil is startlingly defensive in his response. In any case, I didn't say that he doesn't try to influence his students politically, he may do so. I said that I would want to see at least some concrete evidence (e.g. a series of student complaints) before I just ran with that accusation.

- ironyroad

October 9, 2011 at 7:32pm

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Noga, thanks for your comments as always. I felt very comfortable with the Unitarians, they were a diverse and liberal group of people and they actually taught a lot of theology, comparative religion, in Sunday school where we were treated like adults. Also this was during the Civil Rights struggle, in which they were active. So their message of tolerance and their intellectual approach I respect enormously. However, being pulled away from my community, my tribe if you will, was painful and unnecessary and I am sorry my dad did that; I've never "converted," never considered myself anything but Jewish, but I had no power over this situation. It's a shame that he and so many of his generation (and apparently, W/M) felt/feel that Jews aren't "real Americans," but I think that was very common. He was born in 1923, and antisemitism was pretty poisonous, it would have been hard to escape the ravings of Henry Ford and his ilk for example and among the more refined, well what Groucho Marx said. Oh well. Anyway, my dad's actions did have a big impact on my younger sister. She doesn't consider herself Jewish, in fact turned her back on us, on her heritage; and her daughters have no knowledge of their history; indeed one is married to a Mormon and has been "sealed." Interestingly she does self-identify as Jewish also. My sister's alienation is pretty total though. I gave her a set of Sephardic music CD's, gorgeous collection with historical notes, and to my knowledge she never listened to them nor read the booklets. A shame! For they tell the story of the Inquisition, but also earlier catastrophes that befell us - one song is about the fall of the First Temple and the suffering of the people in Jerusalem - they say, the lucky ones died.

- Sophia

October 9, 2011 at 7:35pm

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With bringing the Day of Atonement into the discussion of Jews and Israel being in vogue, I'd like to bring in an item from the Yom Kippur liturgy to explain the conflict: כי הנה כחמר ביד היוצר, like clay in a potter's hand. This liturgical poem towards the end of the Yom Kippur night service describes the position of the Jews in relation to their divine master. However, for centuries it also described the position of the Jews in relation to their human masters both under Christendom and under Islam. Starting with the Emancipation, Christendom has abandoned this position. However, Islam has not accepted the Jews' unilateral ending of it. Peace in the Middle East will require Muslim regimes accepting that Jews in their midst should not be like clay in a potter's hand, and their subduing any coreligionists who do not accept that notion. What does that mean Israel should do? First is to assess Fatah, do they reject the notion of Jews in their midst being like clay in a potter's hand? The answer is no. Full stop, unless that changes, no effort should be made to achieve peace with Fatah. Are there Palestinians who do reject that notion? The answer is yes, but their position in Palestinian society particularly in light of Fatah feeding the notion that the Palestinians should be like potters with clay in their dealings with the Jews and killing many of those who think otherwise. So what Israel must do is empower the Palestinians who are prepared for genuine accommodation. I can think of four basic items that are needed, though others might be as well: 1) Provide a vision of what these accommodationists can achieve for their people. This will almost certainly include evacuating the settlements in the middle of Judea and Samaria. 2) Give the accommodationists a chance to be seen achieving it. 3) Provide security for the accommodationists from Fatah and other Palestinian National Movement factions. 4) Do NOT give Fatah a chance to be seen achieving any advances for their people while holding on to the notion that they can once again become like potters with clay in relation to the Jews.

- sighthnd

October 9, 2011 at 7:49pm

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Sophia: Was this the CD set you gave your sister? I collect Sephardic music and this is one of the most brilliant interpretations I have. http://www.amazon.ca/Sephardic-Experience-Renaissance-Players/dp/B00000JH8H/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1318204134&sr=1-1 It is a sad story, but then you have to accept a person's wish to become whoever they want to become. I was making a point in one of the British blogs about Atzmon (not that I'm comparing your sister to him) and I wrote that the phenomenon of the “self-hating Jew” is as rational a product of virulent antisemitism as the death camps were. It is a kind of mutilation of the soul. Atzmon just joins a certain trend in the history of the Jews, the most recent example I encountered was this heartbreaking story of Irène Némirovsky, a Jewish author who wrote successful novels which depicted ugly, monstrous Jews before she was deported to die in Auschwitz. “And after her arrest her husband, Michel Epstein, pleaded with the German ambassador for her release, arguing that “it seems … unjust and illogical to me that the Germans would imprison a woman who, though originally Jewish, has no sympathy, and all her books show this … for Judaism.” http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=1ed87cd1-0944-455f-9219-1fb5d1ff77be In Louis Malle’s film “Lacombe Lucien” in which an illiterate, anti-social French Nazi collaborator who likes to kill things, forces himself on a young beautiful, talented, Jewish woman who lives in semi-seclusion with her father. He takes her to a party where she is treated like a whore. At one point, she says (I’m paraphrasing from memory): I’m so tired of being Jewish… I want to stop being Jewish… Can we condemn her? Hannah Arednt understood the Nemirovskys and Atzmons of this world, as she observed in “Rahel Varnhagen”: “In a society on the whole hostile to Jews, it is possible to assimilate only by assimilating to antisemitism also”. But it is an extremely sad kind of affirmation, as if the only way of affirming your selfhood is by denying or removing it. How can one be whole, or recover a sense of self after such a surgery?

- noga1

October 9, 2011 at 7:59pm

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I don't understand how exactly you find in favour of abuKhalil from the aforementioned post but it is no more than I expected. Some people have casuistric way of writing; others have a casuistric way of understanding. That would be you, I guess. "so your accusation rolls off me " I didn't accuse you of anything unless you regard "Cold bystander" as an accusation. Some people would regard it as the highest compliment. I meant it more as an admonishment to myself to stop hoping you might demonstrate a little genuine warmth and affection for Israel and Israelis. I take it you couldn't care less. Fine.

- noga1

October 9, 2011 at 8:08pm

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Sophia: This is for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQYo5P4zhUk

- noga1

October 9, 2011 at 8:18pm

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I have a lot of warmth and affection for Israel and Israelis, and have had since my teenage years; not particularly for Netanyahu, however. Sorry if that doesn't sit right with you. As far as the intemperate professor person goes, I didn't understand fully what you were saying about the communication, and I gave my first impression of what was on the screen in front of me. This included a message to him from a former student who felt who could challenge Khalil on his statements, which suggests that Khalil is open to criticism in some shape or form, including from students. Again, you might be right about his classes being merely political advocacy. I just don't want to assume it with zero evidence.

- ironyroad

October 9, 2011 at 9:33pm

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I've just been thinking about this. I'm not a cold person. Nobody who met me for five minutes would ever think that. What gives you the right to make such an accusation, you who don't know me at all? I don't believe anyone else here believes that about me. All I've ever done is try to argue with you in an honest but non-offensive way what I think about the matter under discussion, whether it be Middle East politics or films or poetry. Years of that, which clearly mean nothing in the end. The don't even introduce a moment's hesitation before a ludicrous and offensive judgment about my personality for which you have nothing to go on? All I did was paint a target on my back, obviously.

- ironyroad

October 9, 2011 at 9:57pm

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Oh please ironyroad, why the melodramatics? I said nothing about your personality about which I don't really know much. I was merely characterizing your attitude to Israel as cold and standoffish. As deliberately refusing to take sides and often, if not always, casting some sort of aspersion on Israeli motives. You might try to see how you come across from where I'm standing. And I repeat: from where *I* am standing. Not any other poster on this board.

- noga1

October 9, 2011 at 10:13pm

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"From his mouth to God's ear." I too have thought how different all this could be if Palestinians could wrap their arms around a non-violent movement. That's not what Israelis are dealing with now, though.

- SFergessen

October 9, 2011 at 10:47pm

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I don't know where you are standing. I'm not clairvoyant. All I can go on is what the content of someone's argument is. Your characterization of my attitude is a complete misrepresentation, however, so how can I judge accurately where you are standing? One-sided goodwill is not sufficient.

- ironyroad

October 9, 2011 at 11:16pm

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'I wrote that the phenomenon of the “self-hating Jew” is as rational a product of virulent antisemitism as the death camps were. It is a kind of mutilation of the soul.' And what of the mutilation of the soul that comes from Jews themselves becoming colonizers and oppressors, justified but absurd legalisms? Becoming not self-hating Jews, but joining the ranks of the anti-Semites to visit oppression on others?

- roidubouloi

October 9, 2011 at 11:46pm

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ironyroad: I don't understand your comment or your complaint. Are you suggesting bad faith on my part, when you choose to characterize my view as a "misrepresentation"? Do you think I have an ulterior, nefarious motive to characterize your attitude as negative despite an awareness that it is not so? For this is what "misrepresentation" means, doesn't it? For shame. I don't think we have anything to say to each other any more.

- noga1

October 10, 2011 at 5:39am

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roid: "to visit oppression on others" One thing to point out, the Palestinians are not innocent bystanders in Jewish history. The Jews were no less like clay in a potter's hand under Islam than they were under Christendom. The actual position of the Jews in the Middle East was much like the blacks in the Jim Crow south. Have you ever visited any of the medieval synagogues in Jerusalem? One curious feature is that they have two arks in from instead of the regular one. One theory as to why that is is that the Muslim authorities had a requirement that the Jews keep copies of the Koran in their ark. The Jews had to comply, but were determined to ignore this, so they put two arks in their synagogues, one to satisfy the Muslim decree and for actual use. While the Jews under Islam, so long as they payed homage to the master faith, were free from the arbitrariness of Christendom, they had to pay homage. The early Zionists of the 19th and 20th centuries absolutely refused to pay homage, and THAT is the source of Muslim rage. The Muslim response to Zionism could be summarized, to paraphrase the late senator from South Carolina, as "It is destroying the amicable relations between the Jewish and Muslim faiths that have been created through 13 centuries of patient effort by the good people of both faiths. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding." There are Palestinians who do turn their backs on their community's traditional view on relations towards Jews and are thus innocent victims of their greater community. Israel should those Palestinians in any way possible that would not help the Palestinian National Movement in its goal of restoring the Pact of Umar.

- sighthnd

October 10, 2011 at 9:58am

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I join willjames7 in thanking k2k for the Post article. I've bookmarked it as well and sent it on to a couple of people. It should be reconsidered from time to time when reminding ourselves of what's what.

- basman

October 10, 2011 at 10:30am

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Noga, I have been -- provably, as far as is possible here -- neither cold nor standoffish in relation to Israel and Israelis. Therefore, to accuse me of being so is a misrepresentation. It misrepresents my position and attitudes and history of participation in the debate. Nor is disagreeing with you "casting aspersions on Israeli motives." Solidarity and support are not the zero-sum opponents of honest assessment and rational analysis -- indeed the latter may well be required for the former to mean anything other than a hollow declaration.

- ironyroad

October 10, 2011 at 12:53pm

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Marty first devotes a paragraph to excoriating those Jews "whose only Jewish feelings and only Jewish thoughts are criticisms of Israel" and then goes into an extended criticism of Nicholas Kristof's urging American Jews to criticize the current Israeli government. Unless I'm missing something, this suggests that Nicholas Kristof is an example of the kind of Jew that Marty so deplores -- except that Nicholas Kristof isn't Jewish! Someone who didn't know Nicholas Kristof's family background would justifiably believe him to be a self-hating Jew on the basis of this article. Given Marty's rich vein of hatred for those Jews whom he perceives as self-hating, I'm not sure why he took the trouble to single out Kristof as an example of a bad man with whom he disagrees.

- wildboy

October 10, 2011 at 2:49pm

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willjames77 and basman: I need to thank RealClearWorld for highlighting Martin Sherman's excellent JPost "Why Israel is Hated" on Sunday - it is the second most read link in the past 24 hours as I write. I am noticing that Abbas made one big mistake in his UN speech in how the Israel-bashers now percieve the "moderate Fatah" - the complete denial of any historical/theological connection of Judaism to one square inch of "palestine". This passage from the Haaretz transcript (which I am not checking for accuracy) comes after his repeated merging of "east" Jerusalem with the "occupation": "...I come before you today from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine, the land of divine messages, ascension of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the birthplace of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people in the homeland and in the the Diaspora, to say, after 63 years of suffering of the ongoing Nakba: Enough. It is time for the Palestinian people to gain their freedom and independence. ..." http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/full-transcript-of-abbas-speech-at-un-general-assembly-1.386385 I remember being most startled by this passage when I forced myself to watch/listen to Abbas at the UN. At some point last week, I actually read a follow-up piece on the pal quest for statehood at New York Review of Books, which I stopped reading by 2008 because of their overwhelming Israel-bashing, but the link was at RCW - and even THAT author noted Abbas' complete denial of the existence of Judaism in the Holy Land. Here is Pat Condell (Irish atheist?) on "The Great Palestinian Lie": http://www.youtube.com/user/patcondell I continue to think Obama's words and actions that have made Jewish neighborhoods built on previously vacant land that happened to be east of the 1949 armistice line into "settlements", specifically Ramat Shlomo on March 2010, and now Gilo, are reason enough to never trust a Democratic Presidential candidate again on foreign policy - too easily swayed by fiction. The Wailing Wall and Old Jewish Quarter also happen to be east of the 1949 armistice line, now called the "1967 borders". Obama the 2008 Candidate" had the chutzpah to turn the Wailing Wall into a campaign stop. I shall never forgive him for betraying Jerusalem.

- K2K

October 10, 2011 at 2:56pm

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K2K, if you're sitting around expecting Palestinian officials to approve of Israel's control over East Jerusalem and to agree with the assertion that the city will be the "eternal, undivided capital of Israel", you're going to sit around for a long time. They have always had the opinion that the part of the city occupied by Jordan in 1948 and taken by Israel in 1967 and subsequently annexed to Israel in 1980 belongs solely to them and whatever sovereign government they form in it. Expecting the Arabs to concede their rights to self-government in East Jerusalem is foolish -- except where that expectation is made in transparent bad faith to serve as an excuse for Israel to deny rights to Arabs in Jerusalem and subsidive Jewish settlement in the Eastern neighborhoods. I charitably assume that you're not acting in bad faith when you complain about Obama's "Betrayal of Jerusalem" when he recognizes such bad faith himself.

- wildboy

October 10, 2011 at 3:13pm

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...K2K, if you're sitting around expecting Palestinian officials to approve of Israel's control over East Jerusalem and to agree with the assertion that the city will be the "eternal, undivided capital of Israel", you're going to sit around for a long time... What about sitting around expecting Palestinian leadership to be real partners for peace not intsransigents, its intransigence ranging from the pragmatic to the fanatic, intransigents awaiting redemption from 1948 and the resettling all of "Palestine," the implementation of the Palestinian right of return, intransigents who perceive themselves still as 1948's victims, who cannot confront the reality of Israel as a Jewish state, and inransigents who would have the U.N vouch their position absent negotiation with Israel in repudiation of U.N.S.C Resolution 242 demanding that Palestinians negotiate out all issues arising from Israel's victory in its defensive war in 1967 as that victory pertains to the the "Territories?" Long sentence that!

- basman

October 10, 2011 at 3:50pm

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K2K, the first time I heard Pat Condell a few years ago I found him a bit extreme but refreshing. Listening to the piece you linked to above, I now realize that there is nothing extreme in his position except for his absolute insistence on speaking the truth and calling out the pathological liars for what they are. Israel needs someone like him to represent them on the talk show circuits and media venues. Mordechai Kedar comes about as close as anyone I know of in Israeli society, but folks like him who can put an interviewer in his place are few and far between. If you've never seen this clip, it's a hoot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHpMhAzj-Tk

- willjames77

October 10, 2011 at 5:12pm

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Wildboy, it's an interesting argument to say that because the Palestinians insist that East Jerusalem belongs to them, Israel should accept their claim. Why? Because the Jordanians expelled the Jews in '48? Why can't they move back there now that the Jordanians can no longer keep them from doing so? Why do the Pals who moved in after the ethnic cleansing of the Jerusalem Jews have more rights to the place than the original inhabitants who were the majority population there for centuries according to both Ottoman abd British census data? Are those who fled East Berlin when they had the chance forever to be banned from moving back to their former neighborhoods now that the Ruskies are gone and the city is reunited?

- willjames77

October 10, 2011 at 5:26pm

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Basman, that is a long sentence (and justified at that). You would probably have to sit around for a long time expecting Palestinian leaders to stop being intransigents about all those things. Which is why the gambit of asking for UN recognition as a state without undertaking negotiations with the Israelis won't work, and why their refusal to undertake negotiations while Netenyahu had imposed a partial settlement freeze was another in a long catalogue of mistakes. On the other hand, it would be helpful for Israel's government and supporters to admit to themselves that it is a reasonable to expect the Palestinians to want the eastern part of Jerusalem as the capital of their state and to proceed from the assumption that sovereignty in the eastern part of Jerusalem should be shared by the two states or else have Palestinian sovereignty over some areas with Israeli security control. And it would be helpfu for the Israeli government l to slow down or stop subsidizing Jewish settlemtent in the eastern ares of the city, or at least outside the Jewish Quarter in the Old City. No right of return (or a very small-scale one) in exchange for shared sovereignty in eastern Jerusalem -- if any Israeli government could bring itself to make that sort of concession, there might be a chance for the Palestinian leadership to accept it. Of course, let's not all hold our breath on that.

- wildboy

October 10, 2011 at 5:27pm

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William, for starters Jews were not a majority in the part of Jerusalem that came under Jordanian control in 1948 -- they were a majority in the city as a whole and in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, but the neighborhoods seized by the Jordanians (with the exception of the Jewish Quarter) were majority or almost entirely Muslim. Putting that aside, the UN resolution that granted statehood to Jewish and Arab states in the former British Mandate of Palestine did not grant sovereignty to either of those states in Jerusalem -- it was designated as an internationally-administered territory, giving it a unique status in the world. As a result of the 1948 war, Israel retained control of the western half of the city and Jordan took over the eastern half, but neither side's sovereignty over its respective acquisition was universally recognized by the international community. Israel's claims to the western half have been accepted by most countries that have diplomatic relations with it and Jordan formally relinquished its claims to the eastern half in 1988; however, most countries (including the US) don't fully recognize Israel's claim to sovereignty over the eastern half. As for the arguments over who is entitled to move back to what area of Jerusalem (or elsewhere), these have long since lost all sense of restitution to rightful owners. The Israeli government has subsidized the settlement of Jews in all of eastern Jerusalem, without anyone having to prove that they are former residents who were expelled by the Jordanians or descendants of former residents. And Israel expelled Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem (in demolishing the Mugrabi Quarter to create the Kotel Plaza, for example) without asking about or accounting for the duration of time those people or their ancestors lived in Jerusalem. In addition, the East Berlin argument is inapposite -- East Berlin was part of a sovereign East Germany and, when that nation agreed to unification with West Germany, the whole city was united under a recognized single international sovereign that did not make distinctions between its old and new citizens. Jerusalem, in contrast, was never part of a single, internationally-recognized state under a single sovereign since the end of the Palestine Mandate.

- wildboy

October 10, 2011 at 5:40pm

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"The Israeli government has subsidized the settlement of Jews in all of eastern Jerusalem, without anyone having to prove that they are former residents who were expelled by the Jordanians or descendants of former residents. " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Jarrah#History "In 1956, the Jordanian government moved 28 Palestinian families into Sheikh Jarrah who were displaced from their homes in Israeli-held Jerusalem during the Israeli War of Independence.[14] As permanent ownership transfer was illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention, the area was placed under the jurisdiction of the Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property.[15] During the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel captured East Jerusalem, including Sheikh Jarrah. In 1972, the Sephardic Community Committee and the Knesset Yisrael Committee went to court to reclaim their property in the neighborhood. In 1982, they demanded rent for this property and the Supreme Court of Israel ruled in their favor. The tenants were allowed to remain as long as they paid rent."

- noga1

October 10, 2011 at 6:00pm

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In a nut shell. Steve Jobs the genius of the computer world that has to be celebrated over and over again. His natural parents were father a Syrian Muslim and mother a Swiss German. Read all the details in ABC news site. As we celebrate the Jewish noble prize winners. We have the responsibility to celebrate and made it known that Steve Jobs was of Muslim descent. And have Muslims celebrate the life and creativity and genius of one of their own. Honesty and truth will save your soul. And Tristan watch it and keep your mouth from insulting, despite your Iranian masters and bosses. We can always give you a job and re-educate you.

- JAIMECHUCH

October 10, 2011 at 6:07pm

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"And have Muslims celebrate the life and creativity and genius of one of their own. Honesty and truth will save your soul. " According to wiki: "Jobs was born in San Francisco to Joanne Carole Schieble (later Simpson), an American of Swiss and German ancestry,[12] and Abdulfattah John Jandali, a Syrian, both graduate students.[13] Jobs was placed for adoption after Schieble's father opposed their marriage.[14]... Jobs was adopted by the family of Paul Jobs and Clara Jobs (née Hagopian) who moved to Mountain View, California when he was five years old.[1][2] Paul and Clara later adopted a daughter, Patti. Paul Jobs, a machinist for a company that made lasers, taught his son rudimentary electronics and how to work with his hands.[1] His adoptive mother was an accountant.[15] Asked in a 1995 interview what he wanted to pass on to his children, Jobs replied, "Just to try to be as good a father to them as my father was to me. I think about that every day of my life." When asked about his "adoptive parents," Jobs replied emphatically that Paul and Clara Jobs "were my parents."

- noga1

October 10, 2011 at 6:24pm

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Thank you noga1. Steve Jobs was a workaholic. His Syrian Muslim father now 80 years old, is and always was, a workaholic. His father graduated in political science and was a professor at a college. His mother , Swiss German, graduated as a speech therapist. His father is now a vice-president of a casino in Las Vegas. No to rub it at my nemesis Tristan, in Spanish triste is sad. I am really sad at Steve Jobs passing. He was a Bhudist. The Wikipedia lists that as a religion. Which is not accurate. Budhism is a way of life.

- JAIMECHUCH

October 10, 2011 at 7:13pm

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Steve Jobs went only one semester to college.

- JAIMECHUCH

October 10, 2011 at 7:20pm

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Steve Jobs went only one semester to college.

- JAIMECHUCH

October 10, 2011 at 7:20pm

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...On the other hand, it would be helpful for Israel's government and supporters to admit to themselves that it is a reasonable to expect the Palestinians to want the eastern part of Jerusalem as the capital of their state and to proceed from the assumption that sovereignty in the eastern part of Jerusalem should be shared by the two states or else have Palestinian sovereignty over some areas with Israeli security control. And it would be helpfu for the Israeli government l to slow down or stop subsidizing Jewish settlemtent in the eastern ares of the city, or at least outside the Jewish Quarter in the Old City... I used to think this but am asking myself more and more why. If the Palestinians had wanted East Jerusalem as a capital they could have had it in the context of negotiating out with Olmert a deal when he was offering it to them. Their instransigence may have cost them it. I don't know that if they sat down with Netanyahu now there couldn't still be some compromise on East Jerusalem if a real peace was in the forseeable offing. But it's a justifiable strategic approach, even if others calaculate matters differently, for Israel to insist that the Palestinians cannot be intransigent with impunity, which is to say, their intransigence must be understood to cost them something for so long as it persists. How else to get them to to come to resolution? When that approach is married to an entirely arguable legal claim to be able to "settle" East Jerusalem and to inarguable historical claims to it, I'm not sure why the assumption you spell out necessarily correct, though it can be reasonably argued for. I never would have said this not too long ago but in the absence of resolution, in that vacuum, due to Palestinian unwillingness to make a deal, facts on the ground, whatever else they are, are facts on the ground.

- basman

October 10, 2011 at 8:03pm

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Wildboy, Basman, I invite you to step back for a moment and ponder the gross difference between our argumentation about neighborhoods in Jerusalem and their histories and geneologies and the simple Palestinian assertions that Jews have no connection whatsoever to Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, or the land of Israel. Do it seem to you as if there is a middle ground in this dispute that can be reached by simple airing of grievances and reasonable compromise? The reason for Palestinian intransigence is not that difficult to understand: they want it all. It serves them to play good cop/bad cop with the international community so that they can extract whatever concessions serve in the interim. But their clear agenda is to undermine Israel's strategic strengths domestically in terms of control of territory and internationally in terms of legitimacy, trade, and alliances. There are a thousand actions they have taken that support this reading of their motives. Is there a single example that anyone can provide that demonstrates their desire to compromise and live peacefully with their neighbors? If not, why continue to fool ourselves? Israel needs the active support of people of good will who have seen through the Palestinian charade. It doesn't need the chastisement of false friends like Nicholas Kristof and Tom Friedman who urge additional concessions without having grasped that these are simply steps toward the alligator's gaping jaws.

- willjames77

October 11, 2011 at 5:37am

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http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/23/world/middleeast/jerusalem-map.html adding to willjames77 comment above - a MAP is worth a million words on whether Ramat Shlomo and Gilo are, by any geographic standard, in "east" Jerusalem. NO, Ramat Shlomo is in NORTH Jerusalem and Gilo is in Southwest Jerusalem, both neighborhoods having been developed on previously undeveloped rocky hills. The palestinian definition of "east" Jerusalem is solely based on land that is east of the 1949 armistice line. If Obama had made Maale Adummin his public diplomacy "settlement" crisis, then I would at least give him credit for being able to read a map. From what I have gleaned from studying other maps of Judea and Samaria, I still think Ariel is the only "settlement" worth being at issue. The palestinians already have three capitals: Amman, Gaza City, and Ramallah. The only reason they want "east" Jerusalem as their capital is to deny any historical Jewish connection to Jerusalem. Abbas said so at the United Nations. poof! no Jewish history. Does he have an ancient stone tablet telling the fable of how Hagar converted Abraham to Islam more than 5,000 years ago??????

- K2K

October 11, 2011 at 10:10am

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clarification on my previous comment "From what I have gleaned from studying other maps of Judea and Samaria, I still think Ariel is the only "settlement" worth being at issue." ADDING, that I think a Judenfrei "Palestine" anywhere in Judea and Samaria is obscene, and I only meant that a city the size of Ariel is a valid issue if the palestinians were actually interested in a peaceful negotiation to FINALLY end their genocidal quest to expel every Jew from any square inch of land that may once have been conquered by a muslim. I continue to believe that Islam is an Intolerant, Imperialistic Ideology, and that the self-described palestinians are professional refugees who deserve nothing but assimilation with a path to citizenship in one of the other 22 arab countries. This is the opinion of a secular historian and mapmaker who thinks most of the world has gone totally insane. When the ROW finally kills the last Jew, they will then move on to the all-powerful Armenians - add my rueful smile.

- K2K

October 11, 2011 at 10:24am

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willjames: thanks for the link to Mordechai Kedar in 2008 on al Jazeera. While I think some things were not translated into the English sub-titles, Kedar deserves a medal for the truth as smackdown. :)

- K2K

October 11, 2011 at 12:19pm

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K2K, still looks like you're playing with maps where other people actually live and work. You would have fit in well at the Versailles Peace Conference. Basman, you're right that the Palestinians would have gotten a deal on shared sovereignty in Jerusalem from Olmert, and this is the most realistic best thing that Israel could have given them on the city. Of course, Abbas turned Olmert down because he saw Olmert as a lame duck who had lost all political support and who was going to be succeeded by a PM from another party who was rhetorically opposed to Olmert's (and his predecessor Sharon's) policies vis-a-vis the Arabs and who might successfully urge the Knesset not to approve any deal Olmert signed with Abbas. Those views were hardly irrational, although they were short-sighted. Do most Arabs and Palestinians want all of Jerusalem? Do they want the entire territory of the State of Israel for themselves? Sure, but the majority who are not Islamists or members of nationist or religious militant groups don't care more about this than living their daily lives and would be satisfied with as much as they could get from the Israelis in a peaceful deal. But is Israelis and Jews believe that it is insulting for Arabs to tell them that the Har Habayit is not actually the original Temple Mount, or that they have no historical connection to Jerusalem, or that they should be satisfied with a capital in Tel Aviv, then Arabs and Palestinians have the right to be insulted when Jews and Israelis lecture them about how they already have capitals in Amman or Ramallah, or how the Koran doesn't mention Jerusalem so Islam has no special relationship to Jerusalem (though the Hadith mentions Jerusalem plenty of times as a holy city and the site of Mohammed's dream ride to heaven), or about how Palestinians are just a bunch of local Arab clans and don't have any right to national self-determination as a result (but Jews, of course, are a nationally recognized people who do have such a right). Diplomacy doesn't require clean hands to be effective, but at the least it requires both sides to swallow their own hypocrisies in the pursuit of a deal. If Israelis want Arabs to swallow their hypocrisies in order to accept Israel and give up the right of return, they should expect to swallow their own hypocrisies and accept that Palestinians have the right to select Jerusalem as their capital in the same way Israelis have the right to select it as theirs.

- wildboy

October 11, 2011 at 12:39pm

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"... but the majority who are not Islamists or members of nationist or religious militant groups don't care more about this than living their daily lives and would be satisfied with as much as they could get from the Israelis in a peaceful deal." http://pajamasmedia.com/michaeltotten/2011/06/19/the-palestinians-of-1967/ “Where were we?” he said. “We were discussing politics,” I said, “so let me ask you what you think of Barack Obama.” “I will cut off my hand if Obama makes peace in this country,” he said. “He can’t. And when he’s gone, the next president will be the same. Obama is on Israel’s side. I don’t know if it’s because of the Jewish lobby or what, but he will never force Israel to give us a state.” “All our recent presidents,” I said, “including Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, supported a Palestinian state.” He dismissed what I said with a wave of his hand. “What about Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza?” I said. Again, he dismissed what I said with a wave of his hand. I asked him about Barak’s and Clinton’s offers for a final settlement in 2000, which would have given the Palestinians all of Gaza, almost all of the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem, including the Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarters of the Old City. “They wouldn’t give us the mosque,” he said. “The Al Aqsa Mosque,” I said. “Yes, the mosque,” he said. “Israelis don’t care about keeping the mosque,” I said. “They just want to keep the Western Wall of the temple.” “I hope Iran gets the bomb,” he said. “Then we’ll be equal.” “Don’t you think that will make the Middle East even more dangerous than it already is?” I said. “I am ready to die,” he said. “If Israel can be destroyed, I am willing to die.”

- noga1

October 11, 2011 at 1:02pm

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Wildboy, Just for the record, most of the Hadiths, as I'm sure you know were written well after the Koran. The specific Hadith that located Mohammed's night journey in Jerusalem was written at an interesting moment. It dates from a time when tribal disputes made Mecca temporarily inaccessible to pilgrims for the annual Haj. So, creative Islamic clerics suddenly realized that the reference to Al Aqsa, the "far mosque", in the Koran was actually a reference to a specific mosque in Jerusalem. And, voila, it became the new hip, alternative place to go on pilgrimage. Until, of course, the dispute with the Meccan tribes was resolved. After that, no one gave a damn about the Al-Aksa mosque for centuries. Thanks, btw, for explaining why Abbas turned down Olmert. I suppose that Arafat probably had the same motives, i.e., they both knew that no deal with Israel could be trusted. And here I was all this time thinking that it was because the Pals weren't willing to compromise their goal of destroying Israel.

- willjames77

October 11, 2011 at 1:48pm

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Breaking news: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-hamas-reach-gilad-shalit-prisoner-exchange-deal-officials-say-1.389404 "Israel and Hamas reached a prisoner exchange deal that will secure the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, officials at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Tuesday. The officials' comment came following a report by Al-Arabiya, according to which a deal has indeed been reached between Israel and Hamas geared at the release of the IDF soldier, in Hamas captivity since 2006." Hamas confirmed.

- noga1

October 11, 2011 at 2:17pm

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Noga, that is truly blessed news -- although the deal is tentative (according to NYTimes reportage) and subject to Israeli cabinet confirmation, which should approve the deal. While we might disagree on many things Israel-related, I would hope and pray that all of us believe fervently in the safety and security of the Israeli people and stand with them and the Shalit family in getting their son home safely and securely.

- wildboy

October 11, 2011 at 2:58pm

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"Thanks, btw, for explaining why Abbas turned down Olmert. I suppose that Arafat probably had the same motives, i.e., they both knew that no deal with Israel could be trusted. And here I was all this time thinking that it was because the Pals weren't willing to compromise their goal of destroying Israel." I smell a hint of sarcasm in that paragraph, so let me respond by saying that, while plenty of Pals have the goal of destroying Israel (such as the Pals in Hamas, Islamic Jihad or the Popular Resistance Committees), there is no evidence that Mahmoud Abbas is in that category. He has often walked away from good deals and has been a maddening interlocutor with the Israelis and Americans, but his government recognizes Israel and has been negotiating (in fits and starts) toward Israel's recognition of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Arafat's motives are murkier, as he was certainly head of a group that wanted to eliminate Israel but then recognized Israel in the aftermath of the Oslo Accords and attempted to create a sort-of-state during the years Oslo was in effect. Whether he ever gave up his dream of a Palestinian state from the Jordan to the Mediterranean is debatable, and evidence suggests (though it isn't clear) that he essentially abandoned the peace process during the Second Intifadah until his de facto capture by the Israelis and medical exile in Paris. As for not being able to rely on Israeli support for peace deals, is it really so crazy for Palestinians to doubt that Israeli public opinion would support a peace deal negotiated by a lame duck PM? Why should they be different from any other country, whose rules view diplomatic initiatives launched by a lame-duck elected official in another country with less enthusiasm than the same initiatives launched by a newly elected one. It happens with Israel and America all the time -- and Israelis are fully justified in doubting the commitments made by an unpopular, lame duck US President where they can rely on those made by a popular, re-elected one.

- wildboy

October 11, 2011 at 3:07pm

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"It happens with Israel and America all the time -- " Israelis and Americans share a ethos, a belief in democracy, order, law, rationality, interest, toleration. The Americans have a constitution that affirms liberal values. Palestinians have a charter that affirms that only Arabs have a claim for Palestine/Jerusalem, and that the ultimate sacred goal is to destroy Israel. It seems almost incredible that you should be so naive as to compare Israel/America with Israel/Palestine.

- noga1

October 11, 2011 at 3:34pm

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This is somewhat relevant to Marty's article: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLSvK2eIoBs&feature=player_embedded

- noga1

October 11, 2011 at 3:45pm

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Noga, thanks for sharing the news about Gilad Shalit. May it come to pass. The angry man in the link you posted is not a mystery to me. The disenfranchised, who are often also dysfunctional, are easily persuaded that the Jews have gotten where they are by stealth and manipulation. The notion that parents toiled diligently at menial work to be able to educate their children whom they loved and cherished seems too far-fetched and has so much less sizzle. What puzzles me more are those who are quite well-educated but feel compelled to bend over backwards to believe Palestinian propaganda and discount Israeli truths. Is it a misguided idea of fairness, or a reflexive assumption that we always have to split the difference when two sides disagree? It continues to baffle me that so many apparently well-intentioned observers can't seem to get past the "pox on both your houses" view of ME reality.

- willjames77

October 11, 2011 at 4:26pm

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K2k, willjames7, wildboy, anyone who can answer this: I've been for my own interest pursuing with someone else a possible argument for the West Bank settlements' legality based on the langauge of Res. 242. I have asked my interlocutors for a security council level and legally binding resolution that answers my argument (which turns on "Territories" in 242 and not "the Territories.") I have been given S.C resolution 476 to consider. I believe in a separate discussion roiduboulois cited the same resolution. 476 seem fairly clear, as it reads, in relation to all of Jersalem not just East Jerusalem. I have for sake the argument conceded that the S.C is a source of international law. I know that some S.C resolutions are legally binding and some not. The U.S. abstained from 476. I also know that political realities are of greater signiificance than international law arguments. But I regardless I'm hoping some can elucidate for me as a legal matter why 476 may not be a good answer to the language of 242, if in fact it's arguable that 476 isn't a good answer. I'd be obliged.

- basman

October 11, 2011 at 4:51pm

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willjames: I began to answer your very pertinent question but it became so complicated that I gave up. I'm sure we will have other occasions to discuss this issue when I 'm a little more focused. In the meantime, you might be interested in this video: http://hurryupharry.org/2011/10/11/photojournalism-behind-the-scenes/#comments

- noga1

October 11, 2011 at 5:11pm

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Grazie mille, Noga, l'ho trovato molto interessante!

- willjames77

October 11, 2011 at 6:30pm

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Best I have been able to come up with in answer to my own question--10/11/2011 - 4:51pm EDT--is that S.C. Resolutions not passed under Chapter 7 of U.N. Charter aren't legally binding, rather, merely advisory. And 476 wasn't passed under Chapter V11. But, apparently, the legal nature of non Chapter V11 S.C. resolutions is controversial, a controversy whose depth I haven't plumbed.

- basman

October 11, 2011 at 7:18pm

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basman: see my response after the break. My thoughts as to the Iranian+Mexican-drug-cartel plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the US, and blow up both the Israeli and Saudi embassies? Countdown to how long before it becomes a Mossad plot using specially trained rats masterminded by Texas Governor Perry, since it was a Texan-Iranian arrested :) (what is the linkage that the Saudi ambassador graduated from a North Texas college?) Actually, the linkage of Israel with Saudi Arabia is fascinating, even for the Iranians. I guess the Ayotollahs really do believe THEY should be the guardians of Mecca and Medina, and (in the 'we should be so lucky' category of conspiracy theories) the House of Saud is in league with the Zionists who rule the world :) basman: am not a lawyer and SCRes476 June 30, 1980, is solely about Jerusalem, without specifying the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem at any moment in time- very vague. There have been some legal arguments supporting the legality of all "settlements" in "the territories" based on, as I recall, that the Ottoman Empire forfeited sovereignty over 'unclaimed lands' and that Jordan never tried to annex same lands during their occupation 1948-67. Ah, here is David Phillips on that from Dec, 2009: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-illegal-settlements-myth/ basman, you might also find other people with legal opinions with bread crumbs from these two posts: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/enough-already-are-israeli-settlements-actually-%e2%80%98illegal%e2%80%99/?singlepage=true June 29, 2011 http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/48830/ the magic of bookmarks that still work! and wildboy: I do not "play" with maps. Those of us actually trained to make maps know how others "play" with maps. Perhaps you should read David Fromkin's "A Peace to End all Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East " AFTER you read Margaret McMillan's "Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World" BEFORE you fling bizarre accusations about who should have attended the Treaty of Versailles, or Sevres, or San Remo. I study maps in my personal atlas library which is skewed to historical maps. Such a dangerous passion...

- K2K

October 11, 2011 at 7:18pm

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Thanks so much k2k: the avenue I'm pursuing for the moment is the notion that 476 and its ilk are advisory and not binding. But I'm interested in anything that helps. And I'll surely look at what you noted. I read and years later reread Phillips's essay and didn't find it too helpful. An excellent article is by Nicholas Rostow, don't know if he's related to Eugene: http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=782

- basman

October 11, 2011 at 9:58pm

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K2K if you're interested: I think res 476 could've only been passed under chapter vi of powers accorded to s.c. by un charter, chapter v. V1 is recommendatory only. So, the argument is, 476 no binding force. It's an arcane point compared to rich issues and arguments that are real, historical and political. But it's interesting to me to examine the often unexamined assertion that west bank settlements are necessarily illegal as a matter of international law and to find that things are not necessarily so clear.

- basman

October 11, 2011 at 11:20pm

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"Actually, the linkage of Israel with Saudi Arabia is fascinating, even for the Iranians." Yes and no. If there were to be an actual air attack on Iranian nuclear development sites, I'm pretty sure that the following would happen: 1. A quiet word would take place between Jerusalem (Noga! :)) and Riyadh. 2. One night, a Saudi air force officer would accidentally trip over a cable and extinguish the power system for the air defense facilities, saying loudly, oops sorry guys, looks like we have no radar coverage tonight. How awful. I mean, just anyone could fly over our territory and we wouldn't know. 3. The planes hit the Iranian sites. 4. Next morning, Saudi Arabia reconnects their radar equipment and protests that Israelis and Americans have once again taken to violence against another Muslim country and, well, that sucks. 5. Somewhere, a bottle of champagne is opened.

- ironyroad

October 12, 2011 at 1:31am

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basman: thanks for the link to Rostow in 2010. though I am not a lawyer, I appreciate your interest in the finer points of the weight of UNSC and res476 about Jerusalem. I just think picking a fight over Ramat Shlomo and Gilo is sad. Wrong neighborhoods to try to paint as "settlements". re: Iran plot: just read competing views at The Atlantic, and now my take-away is there is probably a sub-plot to renew US-Saudi relationship; and/or "Wag The Dog" time for Obama/Holder since I have vague awareness of the March to Subpoenas on "Fast & Furious" and Solyndra. irony: cute plotline. what most people do not seem to realize is that the Saudis have Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in hand, and perhaps even part of it already physically transferred to Saudi Arabia. btw, after last night's GOP "debate", Greta van Susteren asked Gingrich and Cain (separately) what they would do with Iran now that this plot was revealed. Cain wanted to move US Aegis missile systems up Iran's a**. Amazing (ok, not so amazing) Mr. Cain has no idea that the USS George HW Bush carrier strike group 2, currently deployed in the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean, includes three Aegis-missile equipped destroyers: USS Leyte Gulf, USS Monterrey, and USS Vella Gulf. not including all the Tomahawks on the six cruisers and unknown number of submarines under the command of the first woman to ever command a carrier strike group, Rear Admiral Nora Tyson. Tyson's command is certainly the most under-reported story of 2011. No matter - Romney and Santorum declared Trade War against China last night. which apparently puts them in agreement with most of the US Senate - true bi-partisanship at last!

- K2K

October 12, 2011 at 11:54am

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from Spengler Oct 12, the conclusion to Kristofianism "Never have so few been blamed for so much by so many" "...For extra credit, class: If 15 million Egyptians starve to death, and all the Copts are murdered, and Syria plunges into a genocidal civil war, and Turkey kills another 40,000 Kurds, and the Iraqi Shi'ites and Iraqi Sunnis all fight to the death, whose fault will it be? I bet you guessed right this time. Israel's, for building apartments in Gilo." http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MJ12Ak02.html see ya' K2K

- K2K

October 13, 2011 at 11:15am

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Thank you so much! Only one incorrect point. Roosevelt knew exactly what was happening in Europe and refused to even bomb the railroads to the extermination camps. A courageous Polish diplomat, Jan Karski told Roosevelt, Eden... exactly what was happening in Europe. This is what Jan Karski said in dismay after the war: "They knew, they all knew what was happening." The worst of it is this: US Jews knew that Roosevelt closed the doors of escape to the US and still voted for him as they voted for anti- Semite Obama.

- Poupic

October 14, 2011 at 5:27pm

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