News and Analysis from Meretz USA, 4/27/07

Israeli Independence Day Reflections

This past week, Israel marked its War Memorial Day and celebrated its 59th Independence Day. Coming a week after Holocaust Memorial Day and two weeks after Passover, the Festival of Freedom, Independence Day is a reflective time when many Israelis, both publicly and privately, think about the state of their nation, and their relationship to it.

A particularly interesting "journalistic debate" could be seen in Haaretz over the past two weeks, when two distinguished left-wing columnists, Gideon Levy and Avirama Golan, offered contrasting perspectives on patriotism, and what it means to fly the Israeli flag on Yom Ha'Atzma'ut (as Independence Day is known in Hebrew). In a provocative piece, Gideon Levy explains that he cannot bring himself to fly the flag, as the settler movement had essentially defiled it by hoisting it in the name of their extremist nationalism. Levy writes: "How can I hang at my home the same flag that flies over the homes of the Jewish settlement in the heart of Hebron, which has expelled nearly 20,000 residents from their homes?"

Although agreeing with much of Levy's analysis, Avirama Golan reaches a different conclusion. Explaining, "Why I flew the flag," Golan acknowledges that the Israeli flag, "has served as a belligerent instrument in the hands of those who received a license from the government to exclusively and one-dimensionally represent nationalism. Mutely, the flag was raised by those who overturn peddlers' stalls in Arab cities." However, Golan insists, "a normal people is not supposed to let those with power and authority snatch their symbols from them."

Another difficult issue that comes up anew every Independence Day is the State of Israel's relationship to its Palestinian Arab citizens, who make up no less than 20% of the country's citizenry. Haaretz publisher, Amos Schocken, issued a challenge to the State of Israel: To make next year's Independence Day celebration, the 60th, an event that offers more than a one-sided Zionist perspective. By now, he argues, Israel should be secure enough in its existence to also recognize the Arab experience in the country's formation: "the Nakba - the Palestinian 'Catastrophe,' as the Arabs call the events of 1948 – the loss, the families that were split up, the disruption of lives, the property that was taken away, the life under military government". (Hadash MK Dov Khenin similarly remarked that, "the time has come for the state to recognize the Palestinian people's tragedy.") For a start, Schocken proposes amending the national anthem, "HaTikva" so that it addresses all Israel's citizens, not only Jews.

YNet focused on this theme as well, interviewing an array of Israeli Arab intellectuals and political leaders, who argued that the Israeli Arab demand for equal rights and full partnership in the country should not be regarded as a threat to Israel's existence, nor to the Jewish right to self-determination.

In a somewhat similar vein to Schocken's, esteemed author A.B. Yehoshua suggested this week that, as a first step towards reconciliation, Israelis and Palestinians should establish a joint memorial day: "to honor the deaths of all non-combatant civilians who fell at the hand of war on both sides of the border." Yehoshua believes that, "the ability to also identify with the pain of our enemy's civilian bereavement, regardless of who caused it, would further contribute to the effort of preventing the next war."

Preventing the next war was also on the mind of Gershon Baskin this week, who bemoaned the mutual fear and suspicion that exists between Israelis and Palestinians: "When they see us, they see in us exactly what we see in them. Enemies. Brutal enemies who kill without remorse. The dead have no names for the other side..." Like Yehoshua, Baskin suggests that the healing begin with each side acknowledging the pain and sorrow of the other side.

Notwithstanding the confidence that (as Amos Schocken believes) Israelis should have in Israel's strength and existence, various indicators suggest that this is still not the case. Nehemia Shtrasler argues that, in practical terms, Israel's independence is "just an optical illusion", since Israel remains completely dependent, politically and economically, on the support of the United States. The average Israeli might be even more pessimistic: According to a poll in the Yediot newspaper, a full 47% of those surveyed believe that Israel will not make it to its centennial year in 2048. Perhaps to reflect the recent upsurge in Israeli pessimism, YNet this week published an op-ed by an Israeli ex-pat in Australia, who called on Jewish Israelis to declare the country a failed project and emigrate. In contrast to such post-Zionist sentiments, Avi Sagi and Yedidia Stern lengthily reflected on the importance of a Jewish state as a vehicle for realizing such progressive Jewish principles as "tikkun olam", charity, tolerance and social solidarity.

But not everyone is so blue. Journalist-cum-politician-cum journalist, Tommy Lapid, submitted that "Life is good here," arguing that the Israeli media is responsible for creating feelings of "dejection and despondency", and that - despite Israel's many problems - things are much better than the way the press likes to depict them. Although not as unrestrainedly upbeat, Haaretz editorialized this week that, despite the problems, the implementation of a two-state peace agreement still held out the chance to right the ship of the Israeli state. (In the same editorial, Haaretz also applauded Jews outside Israel who, rather than giving Israel "blind support," are sober and caring in their criticism of Israeli government policy.)

‘Context’

It was journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, as moderator of a recent program at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage, who mused in jest that news items about Palestinian casualties might ideally be prefaced as follows: “Partially as a result of the Palestinian Arab refusal to accept the UN partition plan of 1947, X Palestinians were killed today....”

That is the historical context for the armed conflict between the sovereign State of Israel and Palestinian Arabs. This conflict was renewed with the violent reaction to the failed Camp David talks in the summer of 2000. I know that this is a simplification of a complex history; I do not exonerate Jewish parties and Israeli governments of responsibility for bad deeds, bad decisions and even instances of bad faith — but it’s still essentially true. And it’s this context of the Al-Aksa Intifada of the early 2000s that has led to the construction of the security barrier and the huge increase in number and perniciousness of checkpoints in the West Bank. It’s this context that our guest, Hana Barag of Machsom Watch, missed making absolutely clear when she spoke of the humanitarian issues raised by checkpoints.

I believe that the case for Israel is morally strengthened if this matter of context is remembered more often. Blu Greenberg – a writer and Orthodox feminist activist who spoke at the “Is It 1938, Again?” conference on the state of world Jewry at Queens College of the City University of New York, April 22-23 – spoke about context (mentioning the need to counter “half truths”) in the “war of narratives” that Israel is currently losing. Unfortunately, however, Ms. Greenberg’s notion of truth and half truth is very conventional, giving Israel far more credit than it deserves in the pursuit of peace — a quest that Israel has made inconsistently, incompetently, and sometimes even insincerely. There’s plenty of blame to go around for all sides in this sorry history and this makes me and my Meretz colleagues almost alone among a world full of both supporters and detractors of Israel who agree only that the “other side” is at fault.

Where Blu Greenberg was entirely correct, however, is in recounting how an Egyptian-American feminist colleague traveling with her some years back insisted that Israel was at fault for all of the wars. When Greenberg countered this argument, her companion retreated to insisting that Israel was guilty simply for being there. Mind you, Israel really doesn’t need the other side to grant it the ‘right to exist’; what it absolutely requires, however, is that the other side stop disputing its existence. It’s sad that the conflict is still in part about something so basic.

At Queens College on April 22, I again caught up with Prof. Michael Walzer, the political philosopher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ who is also a member of the Meretz USA advisory board. He raised hackles and hecklers, even with his measured words, for speaking of Israel’s “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians as part of the initial problem. I happen to agree. I audibly raised hackles myself (but anonymously) with a written question, read from the podium, in which I suggested that since most checkpoints are well within the West Bank and not along the border with Israel, the checkpoints are more "punitive" than "protective." Most American Jews are ill prepared to concede such hard truths.

I will say more in another posting about this event, including more on Michael Walzer and Prof. Moshe Halbertal, Alan Dershowitz and others.

Isseroff on 'Israel Lobby'

I'm under the weather today. Our prolific friend, Ami Isseroff, has notified us of this piece with word that it's "timely both for Six Day War anniversary coming up and for the Israel Lobby issue."

There is good material on Senator Fulbright’s anti-Israel and anti-Jewish animus, but it goes on a bit long and is weakened in my view by Ami’s caustic style. Still, it's worth a look.

Richard Cohen: Why Boycott Israel?

It’s interesting to note that Richard Cohen of the Washington Post is one of the “progressives” attacked by Prof. Alvin Rosenfeld in a paper published by the American Jewish Committee for being an extreme Israel basher. Yet it’s this same Richard Cohen who eloquently complains here about the vehemence of anti-Israel sentiment coming from the left:

In Iran, the government overturned the convictions of six men who, among other things, killed a young couple because they were walking together in public. In China, local authorities seized about 60 women and forcibly aborted their pregnancies. In Russia, the Putin government expanded its control of the media. In Cuba . . . oh, well, you already know. But what you may not know is that given such a vast palette of injustice and depredations, the British National Union of Journalists made a truly original move: It singled out Israel to boycott.

The boycott, mind you, is not a journalistic one. Instead, it will extend to lemons and melons and that sort of thing. The boycott was issued as "a gesture of support for the Palestinian people," some of whom, as it happens, abducted a BBC correspondent, Alan Johnston. One group has claimed that it executed him, although no proof has been offered. Suffice it to say the situation is dire.

What possessed the journalist union's board – in a vote of 66 to 54 – to take such action? The question is worth posing because it followed a similar vote last year by British academics (later rescinded) to avoid, under pain of death or something, their Israeli colleagues. And, more important, it is yet another bleat, in Europe and in this country, from people and organizations that, for good reasons and bad, have simply had it with Israel. Why won't the pushy Jewish state shape up?

In some sense, it is a fair enough question. The wrongful and counterproductive occupation of the West Bank is now in its 40th year. Settlements continue to go up, and the government of Ehud Olmert, weak and hapless, is unable or unwilling to contain them. The government proved its incompetence in the Lebanon war of the summer past, managing to enhance Hezbollah's standing and not managing to retrieve the two captured soldiers in whose name the war was launched in the first place. For Israel – but really for Lebanese civilians most of all – the war was a disaster.

But Sudan kills by the score in Darfur and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe beats his opponents to a pulp, and in almost all of the Arab world there is no such thing as freedom of the press. In Israel there not only is, but the press is as rambunctious as can be found anywhere.

The British journalists say they are moved by the plight of the Palestinian people, and they are right to be. But the misery of a Gazan or a West Banker is not solely Israel's doing. The government of Gaza is the political arm of a terrorist organization, and if the West Bank is suffering – and it is – the cause is not only Israeli land lust but also a morbid Israeli fear of terrorism. British journalists would no doubt approve similar measures if London's city buses had not once but repeatedly been blown to smithereens by passengers with the exact fare and belts of explosives.

So what explains this fury at Israel – and only at Israel? What explains this need to denounce, to boycott? Some of it surely comes from the uncritical support that Israel gets from the United States, which to lefties all over the world is a vile state, maybe worthy – if it were not for jeans, movies and hip-hop – of a boycott itself.

Some of it no doubt reflects frustration from the efforts of Jewish organizations to suffocate any criticism of Israel and to hurl the epithet "anti-Semite" at anyone with an odd bent to his thinking. But some of it, surely, is anti-Semitism itself, a rage at the impudent, pushy Jew and this state created in the midst of the Arab world. Forgotten, conveniently and appallingly, is history itself and the reason for Israel's creation. This does not excuse injustice to Palestinians, it merely explains. But it is an explanation so soaked with the blood of Jews as to seem utterly concocted: It cannot be! But it was.

The British journalists, like the academics before them, dare to tread where an army of goons has gone before. If they do not recognize the ember of anti-Semitism still glowing within them, they ought to park themselves before a mirror and ask why, of all the nations, they single out Israel for reprimand and obloquy. This business of assigning to Jews a special burden, for seeing in them more of mankind's bad qualities and less of its good, has a dark and ugly pedigree: the Chosen People, again -- and again in the wrong way.

The Work of ‘Machsom Watch’

A “machsom” is Hebrew for checkpoint. On Wednesday, April 18th, Hanna Barag of Machsom Watch addressed guests of Meretz USA.

Hanna Barag has been a member of Machsom Watch since 2002. A retired political organizer, the mother of two and grandmother of four, she was born in Haifa, grew up in Tel Aviv, and is now living in Jerusalem.

Machsom Watch was founded in February 2001 by a group of women. It includes 400 Israeli women– and only women– who observe, report on, and document events at the checkpoints in the West Bank and Jerusalem. In cases of gross human rights violations, severe intimidation, and restrictions on movement, Machsom Watch tries to intervene and, where possible, to prevent them.

Ms. Barag is literally a little old lady, a lively and intensely dedicated woman in her 70s. She was full of praise for Meretz MK Ran Cohen, who has been a great help for their activities — including the escort of tours for other MKs who come to learn of the hardships and abuses forced on people by the checkpoints.

What Hana Barag and her colleagues do is of great moral and humanitarian consequence, but her talk was full of extraneous political observations that were of questionable value. Can she validly say that the machsomim are not really there for security? She made the point that if they were all along the West Bank border with Israel, she wouldn’t be engaged in this activism; most are well into the West Bank, but she did answer positively that she had twice witnessed instances where people were disarmed who might well have intended an attack. Yet even in this response, she wondered aloud whether these weren’t “tests” staged by Israel’s Shin Bet.

It's important for Palestinians to see Israelis who are other than soldiers or settlers oppressing them. But I wish that she had answered more clearly my question about how the Intifada boomeranged against the Palestinians with the imposition of the security barrier and the proliferation of checkpoints, with all their noxious and arbitrary procedures as illustrated by Hanna’s presentation. Although it is mainly innocents who suffer at the checkpoints, this is not a conflict which is simply a matter of terrible Israelis oppressing innocent Palestinians. The truth remains a context that we discount at Israel’s peril: if not for the Intifada that began in 2000 and has taken 1,000 Israeli lives, there would be many fewer checkpoints.

Israelis: Jews are happy, Arabs ‘oppressed’

The following is an edited version of J. Zel Lurie’s column, written April 18 for publication in the April 23 issue of the Jewish Journal of South Florida:

There is no logical reason for Israelis to feel happy and content. Yet they are. At least the middle class ... is. ... The news, on the other hand, was horrible. Another alleged rape victim of President Moshe Katzav surfaced, making it eleven or was it twelve women who claimed that he used his high office to rape them.

The police were investigating the income tax authorities for taking bribes to lessen tax payments. And the Minister of Finance, a pal of Prime Minister Olmert, was found to have large cash deposits in his bank account. Where did the money come from?

Forty percent of Israelis were still living below the poverty line, which was set by the government a a low level. But business was good and the CEOs were taking higher and higher pay. In a decade or two, Israel had shifted from an egalitarian society to one with one of the largest wage gaps in the world.

There was also a glimmer of good news. Olmert was meeting every fortnight with the head of the Palestine Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. The long freeze, based on impossible conditions for resuming talks, had been broken by the intervention of Secretary of State Condi Rice.

None of this affected my family who were occupied with the fantastic wedding I described in my last column. The daily paper was still delivered every morning but I was the only one who paid it close attention. The days when calls are forbidden between 9 and 10 in the evening, when television news is on, are long over. Israelis are no longer glued to the hourly news.

Some of them never read a newspaper or listen to the TV news. Politicians are by nature corrupt, they say. It is an unfortunate fact of life that these corrupt politicians can declare war, as they did last July, and cost the lives of reservists.

Meanwhile, the miserable days of the suicide bombers are history. The middle class Israeli Jew is happy and content.

Arab Citizens Feel Oppressed

I was occupied, as usual, with the character of Israel and the attitudes and actions of its Jewish and Palestinian citizens.

... I was shocked to read, in a Foreign Office publication, a statement by an Israeli Arab teacher: “I feel oppressed,” she said bluntly, “I need to be liberated.”

I knew that Israeli-Arab citizens, who are 18 percent of the population, suffer discrimination by every government department. I also knew that this became starkly evident during the Second Lebanon War when 4,000 Hezbollah rockets fell on the Galilee, which is 50 percent Arab. Jewish cities and towns had shelters, Arab cities and villages did not. Yet, for the first time, American Jewish charities [and the Jewish Agency for Israel -- ed.] have allocated emergency funds for Arabs in the Galilee.

“What’s with this oppression?” I asked Mohammed Darawshe [former communications director for Givat Haviva, who now works for the Abraham Fund -- ed.] at his home in Iksal, an Arab town about five miles from Nazareth. First, Mohammed told me how his grandfather had saved the town during the War of Independence in 1948.

During the Arab rebellion in 1936-39 his grandfather had sheltered the Jews of nearby Tel Adashim. When the Palmakh arrived in 1948 and ordered the town evacuated to Lebanon, his grandfather walked to Tel Adashim and got the Jews to rescind the Palmah’s order. Still about a third of the village became refugees in Lebanon.

As for oppression, Mohammed told me many stories of discrimination. Here is the first and the last: Mohammed says that his family’s land, and that of other families in Iksal, was confiscated by the Israeli Land Authority. He pays the authority rent on an enclave that contains his home and those of his parents and two brothers and one large garage.

Mohammed married a woman from Issawiya, a village on Mt. Scopus, which was incorporated into East Jerusalem in 1967. She became an Israeli citizen in 1995. That would be impossible today.

Her sister lives in Chicago with an Israeli Arab who is an American citizen. Her travel document says that she must return home within two years. Last summer she arrived at the Allenby Bridge four days late. She had given birth in Chicago and there were complications. She was hospitalized for two weeks.

She was refused entry to Israel. She won’t see her parents and siblings until she learns enough English to qualify for American citizenship and a passport. Even with an American passport, under current regulations, she won’t be able to land at Ben-Gurion airport, but must go through Amman.

Mohammed is currently organizing the annual Children’s Festivfal of Peace for Arab and Jewish youth on behalf of the Goodwin Foundation in New Jersey. It will be held in May.

I spoke to Shuli Dichter, co-director of Sikkuy, which documents government discrimination against its Arab citizens. I asked him how many of the Arabs he comes in contact with feel oppressed. “All of them,” he replied.

And the better educated they are, I added, the more they have taken advantage of Israeli institutions of higher learning, the more they feel oppressed.

Palestinian ‘right of return’ debated

The following account came in from the World Union of Meretz:

The debate, which was part of the Doha Debates series chaired by Tim Sebastian, centered on the question of the Palestinian right of return.

Laying out the Israeli case against the Palestinian right of return, Yossi Beilin argued that no Israeli government will ever agree to the Palestinian claim to a "right of return," since the acceptance of such a claim would undermine the very existence of a Jewish state. Moreover, the very logic of the two-state solution, which is the only widely acceptable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stipulates that there be two nation-states – a Jewish one and a Palestinian one – living side by side. In contrast, any peace agreement that accepted the right of return would mean that a Palestinian state would supplant the Israeli one, and that another a Palestinian state would be established alongside it, resulting in two Palestinian states and no Jewish one.

Yet if Israel will never accept the Palestinian claim to a right of return, Yossi added, nor should the Palestinians be expected to give up on it. Instead, Yossi called for a pragmatic approach along the lines of the Geneva Initiative, which outlines a practical and definitive solution to the problem of the refugees in the context of a package deal that includes all the other outstanding issues between the two sides, including Jerusalem and Temple Mount.

Pointing out that the Geneva Initiative does not make any mention of the right of return, Yossi asserted that no political agreement between Israel and the Palestinians should be expected either to accept or reject the Palestinian right of return, since the issue is best relegated to the place of national mythology, where people's dreams and aspirations can live on without jeopardizing their collective future. Indeed, easy as it is, and even appropriate, for historians like Ilan Pappe (who participated in the debate) to speak in favor of the Palestinian right of return, the role of statesmen and politicians on both sides, Yossi concluded, was to make sure that people's dreams do not become national nightmares.

In arguing against the political viability of the Palestinian right of return, Yossi was joined by Bassem Eid, a long-time Palestinian human rights campaigner. They were challenged by Israeli academic Ilan Pappe and Ali Abunimah, an American of Palestinian origin living in Chicago.

One final note: The debate took place in front of an audience made up of people living in or visiting Qatar, with university and high-school students from a wide range of mostly Arab and Muslim countries comprising about half of the audience. The debate culminated in a vote of the audience, almost 82% of which voted that the Palestinians should not give up their right of return, against 18% who voted that they should. At the same time that this debate took place, Arab League ministers convened in Riyadh and debated the same topic in the context of their deliberations on the regional peace initiative. Their final draft resolution, reiterating the language of the Arab Peace Initiative from Beirut, March 2002, called for a "just solution" to the problem of the Palestinian refugees but - significantly - avoided any mention of the phrase "right of return."

Farewell to Baghdad

'Our' correspondent in Iraq, a contract advisor in economic development who has requested anonymity, is apparently leaving for good now:

Orhan Pamuk cites some unknown (at least to me) Turkish poet in one of his novels: "Drunk on the wine of hazard. You are thirsty like a buzzard." That is not me. I am sated on the wine of hazard. This time I'm outta here for good (maybe), though I will miss this place and especially its people.

Meanwhile, Kurt Vonnegut had the bad taste to die yesterday. I will miss him. And Kilgour Trout. One of my favorite Trout stories – I hope I remember it right – involves someone who comes to earth from another planet to cure cancer and warn of a massive impending disaster. On his planet, people communicate by tap dancing and farting. As he frantically tries to deliver his message to the first person on earth he sees, the person looks at him quizzically then brains him with a golf club.

Several of you noted a Vonnegut-like anger and bitterness creeping – or perhaps galloping – into my reports. It is true. My increasing frustration has partly fed on the disconnect between the situation here and the happy-talk I see on the news.

In answer to an email a couple of days ago, I looked at an internal report by the Department of State to Congress. It listed the number of troops here. We are used to hearing of 130,000 or so, but here is a fact or two. There are even more contractors – read mercenaries – than soldiers in the field. They are performing military tasks, such as guarding, that soldiers historically have done everywhere. This is not the multi-national force. They either are included in the American numbers or make a trivial addition to them. In fact, these mercenaries are paid to do what military does not want to do – kind of like migrant laborers in California. (You know from my past reports that no Americans guard the Iraqi Parliament building where Friday the Thirteenth occurred Thursday – only Chileans, Peruvians, Ugandans, Georgians, Colombians, et al. — English is not required.)

But wait, there's more. We forgot the 130+ companies (okay, some of them were included above) providing security coverage for convoys supplying the military – forget about protecting us, that is not a military function, even though we are working for State. We do not have a clue how many folks work for these private security contractors. Sandi is a small company and it probably has 120 here right now, plus others in convoys, etc. DynCorps numbers are almost not countable. So, what does that come to? I figure that, not including private security contractors, the total is about 475,000 troops (less than 30% are US military, though of course we are sending bombers now). What does it say about who's really fighting? What does it say about the surge as a marginal increase in the total force? What does this say about whether we are winning or losing? Our administration does not need a timetable, it needs an abacus.

The security situation on the ground has created continual moving targets and more frustration for me. Our work has taken me farther and farther from the reasons I came back, and the murders and kidnappings have murdered the project that meant most to me and my hope for making a dent here. And finally, I have become frustrated with my own lack of courage to quit or to try to do what I came to do despite the challenges and changes, and to take the contracting and other consequences for doing so.

But there was a point at which things moved me up a notch on the real anger scale. Now that I am leaving, I can admit this. It happened about a month and a half ago, two weeks before I moved to a new room. The reason for the move was that I had been more or less Katusha'd, and so I commandeered one of the safer rooms in the compound. At the moment of the attack it became easy to decide that this "challenge to die for" was not worth dying for. My statements about the safety of our compound did not start out as a lie, but they became one. I am sorry for perpetuating it.

Actually, it was not my room that was hit, but Tamra's next door and across the hall, maybe 20 feet away. Our "hotel" literally is built like a brick. It has interwoven 1" rebar in a foot thick cement roof/ceiling that slowed the rocket's penetration. Its walls are 9" thick and composed of solid brick sandwiched between hefty slices of cement. If the building had been built like, say, the World Trade Center. ...

Tamra was in Dubai. That is the only reason she is not now the hole that her chair became. Because of ordinance set off by the rocket's red glare, a grenade and some magazines went off, and CS gas (kept here illegally of course) got loose through the buildingl. Then there was the fire department 's water . Yes, there is a Baghdad fire dept., and, boy, are they busy. The fire and water "edited" much of our hard copy research, criticized our deliverables, and commented on almost all of our equipment. My computer still panics when it sees a large hose. My room smelled like a combination tobacco growers' convention and feed lot lagoon, an probably still does. We cleaned up, salvaged, recovered quickly, and met all our deadlines. Luckily for recordkeeping, this is the electronic age. In the end, nobody was even slightly injured – a miracle given that we had no evacuation plan (despite my complaints and others' too). The explosion, which, by the way, managed to meet the criterion of a window rattler, happened too fast for me to get scared and had its humorous elements. But you had to be there.

Our incident (reported by Aljazeera as an attack on a Mosad/CIA compound) was the third of such "Iraqis' Greatest Hits" here over a period of a week or so. One of the other two caused two deaths and some injuries, 150 meters or so from us. And while I can guess at reasons for the attacks, the reasons do not matter. Our good guys finally got the rocketeer a couple of weeks later, but not before he hit the International [or Green] Zone, or the Tigris between us and the IZ, five or six more times. The IZ is hit a lot and missed a lot, and we can never be sure where things originate unless we are outside and hear the whistle. Two people died in the IZ the day before yesterday. It was a beautiful day, so while the Parliament was exploding we ate lunch outside by Saddam's old – and now the Embassy's – grand pool, about ten meters from where the mortar hit them. Twenty meters or so on the other side, the debris rained on the roof of a friend. She says that since our last visit a week ago, she no longer can sleep. She is going home in early May. We have Humvees in our "yard" fairly regularly, and from time to time American soldiers sandbagged into a cozy nest on the roof of the building – former home to the hapless Bulgarian Embassy – that I used to climb with Joker to watch sunset on the Tigris. Going away from here is good.

Sort of good. As before, our team met and surpassed performance expectations, but fell short of what we wanted to do and what I expected from myself. People here need a lot. We have taken a lot from them and they have multiplied our theft by taking lives and dignity from each other. As I leave I cannot suppress the guilt I feel for what I failed to do, and yet how glad I am to get out anyway. No matter what you hear on TV, and no matter how valient and dedicated our soldiers are, there are no heroes here. Only a sickening scar on our national character that I believe no amount of political and media plastic surgery will beautify. Where is Ice-Nine when you need it?

See you after May Day or Karl Marx's birthday.

Rosenberg tries too much 'empathy'

While I respect MJ Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum, and see us as being in the same dovish pro-Israel camp, I have a little bone to pick with his most recent weekly column, “Try a Little Empathy,” of 4/13/07.

Although it's perhaps surprising that American Enterprise Institute neoconservatives would have a dialogue with Arab thinkers at all, I thought that the tone and substance of Brooks' column was exactly right. Brooks is more than a cut above the average neocon for perception and sensitivity (even "empathy," as Rosenberg put it) and is actually dovish regarding peace with the Palestinians.

This is what I wrote in Jan. '06 about a column by Brooks that had especially impressed me:

In his New York Times column of November 17, 2005, Brooks argued poignantly for a negotiated peace with the Palestinians and against a continuation of Israeli "disengagement." Among the cogent, even liberal, observations made by Brooks: "...unilateral disengagement is no option because the Israelis will never do it well. Driven by normal self-interest and by the bitterness of war, Israelis will grab too much land, and impose too much pain. ... Unilateral action is bound to be unjust and thus unstable."

I very much fear that Brooks is correct when he sums up his disappointment with the conference he attended in Jordan, co-sponsored by AEI, in “A War Of Narratives,” April 8, 2007:

I just attended a conference that was both illuminating and depressing. ... the idea was to get Americans and moderate Arab reformers together to talk about Iraq, Iran, and any remaining prospects for democracy in the Middle East.

As it happened, though, the Arab speakers mainly wanted to talk about the Israel lobby. ... Speaker after speaker triumphantly cited the work of Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer and Jimmy Carter as proof that even Americans were coming to admit that the Israel lobby controls their government.

The problems between America and the Arab world have nothing to do with religious fundamentalism or ideological extremism, several Arab speakers argued. They have to do with American policies toward Israel, and the forces controlling those policies.

As for problems in the Middle East itself, these speakers added, they have a common source, Israel. One elderly statesman noted that the four most pressing issues in the Middle East are the Arab-Israeli dispute, instability in Lebanon, chaos in Iraq and the confrontation with Iran. They are all interconnected, he said, and Israel is at the root of each of them.

We Americans tried to press our Arab friends to talk more about the Sunni-Shiite split, the Iraqi civil war and the rise of Iran, but they seemed uninterested. ... It was all Israel, all the time. ...

The Arabs will nurture this Zionist-centric mythology, which is as self-flattering as it is self-destructive. They will demand that the U.S. and Israel adopt their narrative and admit historical guilt. Failing politically, militarily and economically, they will fight a battle for moral superiority, the kind of battle that does not allow for compromises or truces. ...

What we have is not a clash of civilizations, but a gap between civilizations, increasingly without common narratives, common goals or means of communication.

Meretz USA News Update, 4/13/07

Focus on: Hebron's "House of Dispute"

The Jewish Telegraph Agency’s Dina Kraft wrote this week that a “more aggressive and proactive mood in the settler camp” is developing — “especially among the younger generation.” It’s an assertiveness that has manifested itself in recent actions such as a march to Homesh, one of four West Bank settlements from which Israel withdrew in the summer of 2005, as well as the disputed purchase of a house in Hebron. The Homesh “re-settlers” have since been evacuated, but those in Hebron continue to set up camp — creating a tense situation in an area known for its hostilities between Jewish settlers and Palestinian inhabitants.

Hebron is known and revered in all three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) as home to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the burial place of the patriarchs and matriarchs of the bible: Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah. The city is overwhelmingly inhabited by Palestinians, but, after Israel took control of the West Bank in 1967, the government set up the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba — providing a place for settlers outside, but close to, the city. However, in 1979, several women and children took up residence in an abandoned building in Hebron. This residence called Beit Hadassah was subsequently joined by three other settlements, Tel Rumeida, Beit Ramano, and Beit Chason.

Enjoying extensive army protection, these settlements have significantly disrupted the lives of local Palestinians. An increased military presence surrounding the buildings – along with frequent violence and harassment by the settlers – has caused many Palestinians to abandon their homes. As Yehuda Litani writes, those 150,000 that remain face drastic restrictions on movement and live in fear of the 600 or so settlers. One Palestinian resident of Tel Rumaida, who recently had his car torched for the fourth time in recent months, is no exception.

Now settlers have taken over a new building. Already housing more than thirty families and a school, and no smaller in size than the four already inhabited, a Haaretz editorial rightly points out that the move constitutes the beginning of a new settlement. Even more dangerously, the building occupies a strategic location between Kiryat Arba and the four older settlements: with all the army protection it will necessitate, the new settlement, if it stays, will connect the two points, creating a barrier between the northern and southern parts of the city.

The settlers occupied the building illegally. Although they allegedly purchased it from a Palestinian, they did not receive the Defense Minister’s consent — a prerequisite in this case. Amir Peretz has since ordered their evacuation, but this does not mean that the settlers will now leave. In fact, they now have fifteen days to appeal to the Civil Administration, the branch of the IDF in charge of civilian affairs in the Territories. And even if this petition is overturned, they will be able to turn to the higher courts for additional recourse.

It is for these reasons that Nehemia Shtrasler writes that eviction is becoming increasingly unlikely: even throughout the legal battles, “they will bring equipment, additional families, volunteers, sympathizers and yeshiva students from all over the country, as well as ministers and MKs who will visit and express support.”

Historically, this sequence of events: 1) the takeover a house without government authorization; 2) in the name of security, the creation of a military presence around the house — resulting in restrictions on Palestinians in the surrounding area; and 3) the establishment of a permanent presence with ex pos facto authorization “ is the settlers” modus operandi. This is what happened in 1979 at Beit Hadassah, when women and children settled in quietly at night, surprising soldiers and causing them to set up a restricted area around the building.

Everyone agrees that, had Defense Minister Peretz acted immediately, he could have removed the settlers — indeed, he did so just recently in Homesh. But each day the settlers resist removal, the more deeply entrenched they become. Yossi Sarid writes that for the settlers, “temporary” means “for eternity.” As we’ve seen in the past, time works in the favor of settlers.

In other news

* Amid rumors that he may resign, MK Amzi Bishara, chairman of the Arab party Balad, has been the focus of much speculation this week. At the latest, he has announced that he may not resign, after stating earlier in the day that he planned to do so. Read Meron Rapoport’s analysis of the topic by clicking here.

* Hamas militants have now given a list of prisoners to be released in an exchange for Cpl. Gilad Shalit. This list includes several suicide bombing masterminds and other notorious figures.

Politicization of the Holocaust

April 15 is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. The following is a slightly expanded version of my “Viewpoint” article in the March-April edition of Jewish Currents magazine (I serve on its editorial advisory council), “Politicizing the Holocaust”:

Sadly, our remembrances of the Holocaust are being sullied by politicization. These horrible events are still within living memory, but the violent renewal of the Israeli-Arab conflict, following the encouraging gains of the peace process of the 1990s, has rendered the Islamic world into a hotbed of anti-Semitic passions. This is the backdrop for Iran’s shameless Holocaust-deniers’ conference, which really was about the denial of Israel’s right to exist.

And an anti-Holocaust narrative is gaining force among the activist left in the US and internationally. It's increasingly hard for progressives to hear discussions of the Holocaust without some dismissing these — especially when coming from Jews — as attempts to justify Israel's existence or its policies vis-a-vis Palestinians. Anti-Semitic passions unleashed, ironically, at the “Anti-Racism” conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, was a particularly traumatic event for Jewish participants (See the “Anti-Semitism on the Left” subsection of Column Left, Israel Horizons, Winter 2005, pp. 3-4).

It’s with the left that I argue the meaning of the Holocaust. For example, I've been in a long-term e-mail dialogue with the now retired pacifist and Socialist Party leader David McReynolds and some of his friends and comrades. McReynolds himself insists on characterizing the Holocaust as not an exclusively Jewish event. He includes other victims of the Nazis and refers to 11 or 12 million rather than six million dead. He gets indignant when I point out that the others were murdered due to a brutal occupation but — with the exception of Gypsy groups — they were not explicitly slated for collective annihilation. Also, the Nazis used anti-Semitism as a mobilizing ideology of central importance, over and above their other numerous hatreds.

We are now increasingly living in a post-post-Holocaust era; the initial post-Holocaust decades were marked by contrition in Germany and the West for Holocaust-era crimes and the anti-Semitic habits of thought and practice that made them possible. But today, the political uses of the Holocaust are increasingly being turned against the Jews, who are being unfairly identified with the so-called neoconservatives, a tiny political current that is largely but not entirely Jewish, and has been conflated with the overwhelmingly liberal majority of American Jews. A crude chain of causation, which echoes pernicious anti-Semitic conspiratorial tropes, is widely believed in the world: Jews + Israel = Neoconservatives = Bush administration = Aggressive War.

I recently engaged in an inexact but illuminating exercise to get at the immensity of the Holocaust. Using the approximate start date of June 22, 1941, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, for its beginning — the Einsatzgruppen began their mass shootings of whole communities at this time — I calculated that an average of over 29,000 Jews were murdered each week until the war ended on May 8, 1945. This was over 4,000 per day; in other words, the European Jewish population of 11 million suffered the equivalent of more than one and a third 9/11 size catastrophes everyday for three years and ten months.

It is being argued with increasing frequency that Jews are now more vulnerable in Israel than in the Diaspora, and there is statistical evidence for this contention. As an argument this smacks of blaming the victim, but it does counter the earnest Zionist hope that Israel would be the Jews’ safehaven. And, sadly, the threat continues, magnified by the possibility of nuclear doom at the hands of crazed agents of Iran or Al Qaeda. Still, the death toll of all Israel’s wars, skirmishes and terror attacks since 1948 totals about 23,000 — equivalent to less than six days of the Holocaust.

These facts do not make Jews better than anyone else, but they do entitle us to recall the bitter memories of our past, and to consider the ongoing threats to our future, without apology. We are entitled to compassion and understanding from the rest of the world, not least being those who profess humanitarian and universalist values as activists on the left.

Progressive notes on anti-Semitism

Chris Macdonald-Dennis and I participate in an ongoing left-wing e-mail discussion group on anti-Semitism. Chris shared the link to Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz's article in the current issue of Jewish Currents magazine, "Some Notes on Anti-Semitism from a Progressive Jewish Perspective," and asked if she was "minimizing" the problem of anti-Semitism.

My response was that I respect the complex view she lays out, but what I think she's minimizing is the extent to which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict involves provocations and nasty things done by both sides, not just by Israel. (If only her view of Israel were as complex and textured as her view of anti-Semitism.)

A non-Jew who participates with us as a "Gentile ally" also offered some important points that merit wide circulation:

Anti-Semitism is the fault of the anti-Semites, not the fault of Jews doing any particular thing. Jews should have the right to be radical, conservative, visible, rich, poor, to make mistakes and to be oppressive – all the things Gentiles do all the time – without being attacked for those things as Jews. There's this odd little piece of anti-Semitism that says that Jews have to be better than anybody else in order to avoid anti-Semitism....

[And finally] Kantrowitz said that she didn't feel that she needed to police the person with the "Sharon=Hitler" sign. But I think it is the responsibility of Gentile allies to talk to that person.

'New Anti-Semitism': Wrong term, real problem

I don’t like the ‘New Anti-Semitism’ as a term. It’s meant to define a form of prejudice that unfairly and callously attacks the State of Israel, as if Israel were the despised Jew targeted by the “old” anti-Semitism. I agree that many critics of Israel, if not most, go over the top in their criticisms, to the point that there is a kind of bigotry. Israel’s transgressions are magnified and taken out of historical context and the misdeeds or malicious intentions of its enemies are either denied or excused.

Yet anti-Semitism is NOT the motive of most of these people, many of whom are Jews. They are motivated by a more or less sincere sense of outrage against injustices and hardships imposed upon the Palestinians. To make things even more complicated, the use of this term is not necessarily meant to label them as anti-Semites, but it has this effect and therefore misdirects the debate into an unproductive dead end of accusations and counter-accusations.

But the outsized and automatic anti-Israel animus that this term identifies, resembles a form of prejudice. I prefer to call it “anti-Israelism.”

The following was written as a report for ISRAEL HORIZONS, but the primary author decided not to be identified by name. This is about the same event that Chris MacDonald-Dennis discussed in February. Again, I disagree with the use of this term, the ‘New Anti-Semitism,’ but I agree that it refers to a real problem. – R. Seliger

Finding Our Voice: A Conference of Progressives Against the ‘New Anti-Semitism’
By Anonymous and Chris MacDonald-Dennis

.... Undoubtedly, there has been a rise in anti-Semitism since the commencement of the Second Intifada at the end of 2000; this is frequently identified as the “New Anti-Semitism.” What distinguishes it from the old anti-Semitism is that the images and words of prejudice directed against Israel [rather than Jews as such] are reminiscent of attacks on the despised Jew of old....
An environment is created that leaves many Jews both here and abroad feeling oppressed or threatened and seeking to label their distress and find support.

Enter “Finding Our Voice,” a conference held at the end of January and conceived by a gamut of people to offer support and provide tools to those impacted by the New Anti-Semitism. The conference arose through the joint efforts of individual progressives pushing the Northern California chapter of the Anti-Defamation League to host a San Francisco event with a national flavor. It brought the most diverse group of co-sponsors and endorsers together under one marquee for arguably the very first, but hopefully not the last time. Groups supporting the conference ranged from Jewish Voice for Peace, Brit Tzedek, New Israel Fund and Americans for Peace Now on the left of the spectrum to AIPAC and ADL together with many mainstream Jewish organizations on the right....

The conference was structured around educational sessions in the morning, aimed to provide a base of knowledge to participants, and hands-on skills sessions in the afternoon, providing tools and ideas to use on an interactive basis. Morning sessions covered the history of anti-Semitism, divestment, boycotts, the left, labor movement issues, the New Anti-Semitism, cartoons and editorials in the media, campus issues, Israeli progressive society and more. The interactive afternoon sessions included panels for “Jews of color” and LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered) Jews and workshops to learn techniques in dialogue, in addressing campus issues, creating Jewish self-esteem, in coalition building and in presenting the message that anti-Semitism is unacceptable in any form....

The internationally renowned keynote speaker was the British lawyer Anthony Julius who represented Professor Deborah Lipstadt in her libel defense against Holocaust-denier, David Irving, in the British High Court.... Julius has written extensively on anti-Semitism in art and in the writings of T.S. Eliot. He holds a Ph.D. in English and will shortly publish a study of English anti-Semitism entitled “Trials of the Diaspora.”

Julius’ keynote speech addressed where and how legitimate criticism of Israel crosses the line. After briefly reviewing the ancient heritage of anti-Semitism, Julius turned to the present incarnation. He went on to point out that many anti-Zionists are in denial about the existence of anti-Semitism and that the failure to take anti-Semitism seriously in 21st century culture is far more threatening than the existence of anti-Semitism among anti-Zionists.

This observation was well illustrated in the closing Q&A, when an eminent progressive rabbi criticized the conference for permitting critics of Israel to be labeled as anti-Semites.... [Yet] the message that criticizing Israel in and of itself is NOT an expression of prejudice was repeated at the opening, the plenary, the closing and in many sessions. The expression of anti-Semitism by critics of Israel is determined by the form of their criticisms, not the substance.

Anthony Julius attributed the resurgence of anti-Semitism – the New Anti-Semitism – to two factors:
1) The 1967 Six-Day War that resulted in the current occupation; he believes the occupation threatens the integrity of the Jewish State by encouraging opposition to its existence.
2) The collapse of the socialist project: Julius went back to the collapse of fascism in 1945 that stimulated the growth of communism. Finally collapsing in 1989, the failure of the communist state left a void for many on the left. At roughly the same time, many Zionists moved away from their socialist roots... while parts of the left merged into liberal causes. This encouraged the establishment of leftist ‘boutique’ causes, which opposed nation-states in the name of universalism: e.g., environmentalism, human rights and anti-Zionism.

The most beneficial result of Finding Our Voice was to be able to speak out about the insidious prejudice of anti-Semitism, the reality of which Julius so correctly sees as being frequently denied in modern society. As he stated, racism is all too often regarded as only afflicting disenfranchised, unempowered peoples; it’s a myopia of the left that Jews, by definition, are never categorized as victims today or as being threatened.

The conference provided a gathering space for those who have felt the oppression, to compare experiences, provide support and consider how to create alliances. The keen local and nationwide response of the media to cover the resurgence of the New Anti-Semitism in print and on the air tended to confirm that the hearty attendance was not a chance occurrence....

Anonymous participated in the planning of the ‘Finding Our Voice’ conference. CHRIS MACDONALD-DENNIS, Ed.D., is a college administrator who lives in Philadelphia and is a new member of the board of Meretz USA; he was also a presenter at the ‘Finding Our Voice’ event.

Peace initiative(s) vs. confrontation

Passover ends tonight, but perhaps I seemed holier than thou by pledging a break until the yom tov was officially over. Although less hopeful than we tend to be at Meretz USA, Ami Isseroff still makes good sense in his argument for Israel to respond constructively to the Saudi/Arab League peace initiative. An abridged version follows; it can be read in its entirety, along with its embedded Web links, online at his Mideast Web.org site:

The Arab peace initiative, renewed at the recent Arab summit, has created the expected confusion in Israel. The doves, predictably, insist that Israel must seize the opportunity. The Arab side has come a long way since the "three nos" of the Khartoum conference, and offers peace, as hardnosed Zeev Schiff notes. The offer cannot be dismissed easily. Even if it is a bad offer, the admission that Israel has the right to exist and that there could be peace in principle establishes a precedent, a change in the culture of the conflict, and it must not be ignored. From Israel's point of view, it is a giant step forward that should be amplified and bolstered in any way possible.

The Israeli government, for its part, sniffs and pokes at the peace initiative like a dog who is not too hungry and has been offered some strange food. Dennis Ross is probably right that neither Olmert nor Abbas are strong enough to make peace, and that in itself tells us something about the current mentality of Israelis and Palestinians....

The antipathy to peace is due to cultural and geopolitical realities that cannot be dismissed. No peace plan can succeed as long people do not really want peace, because the demands and requirements that they make are designed to prevent peace, and if those are met, they will find new ones: [for example] It is “absolutely necessary” to have a settlement in Ariel, because having the settlement in Ariel will prevent the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. [Or] It is “essential” to get return of the Palestinian refugees to Israel, because return of the refugees to Israel will destroy the Jewish state....

The novelty of the Saudi peace plan is that a major Middle East player has made a bid for leadership based on peace, and not on the politics of confrontation....

There are indications indeed that the plan is just a device, a gimmick, that is not intended to be pursued seriously....

In a news conference following the Arab League Summit, Prince Saud declared that there was nothing in effect, for Israel to negotiate with most Arab countries. Israel should first meet all the terms of the Syrians, Palestinians and Lebanese, and then the Arab countries would make peace, at an unspecified date. Perhaps they would, and perhaps they would not. However, it is clear that Prince Saud is not stupid, and that he understands that Israel would not make sweeping concessions of the type demanded in the initiative unless there was absolute certainty that Israel will get peace from the Arabs in return. Moreover, the Arabs rejected PM Olmert's offer to meet and did not make a counter offer, so apparently they are not as anxious to make peace as to talk about making peace.

The terms of the initiative in their worst interpretation are certainly unacceptable to Israel, but Israel cannot afford to stand by and do nothing. Gimmick or not, the initiative is a very effective weapon in the diplomatic war that Arab countries have been waging against Israel. Whining that the initiative is not serious and ignoring it will not suffice.

It would be inappropriate for Israel to respond to this initiative with a simple "no" or with a half-hearted "let's talk" as PM Olmert has done. Vague talk of "political horizons" is not enough either. Israel must craft a public peace plan of its own and put it on the table to compete with the Arab Peace Initiative. This plan should reflect national consensus, and must be generous enough to get the backing of the European Union and the United States. For the Palestinians, it can be modeled on the Clinton Bridging Proposals or the Geneva Initiative or the Ayalon-Nusseibeh plan. These are the plans that all the experts point to as the only possible shape of a peace solution: "two states for two peoples" and territorial compromise. None of these plans contemplate full withdrawal or massive return of Palestinian Arab refugees. All of them would give both sides peace with security, if they are carried out as agreed. All of them would safeguard Israeli rights in Jerusalem and other holy places to a greater or lesser extent, as well as allowing for Arab rights. Therefore, these plans can have a greater appeal to the international community than the Arab peace plan.

The Arab peace initiative also demands that Israel negotiate peace with Syria. Israel should be asking loudly of the USA, or threatening to ask in public, if their support for the initiative means that the US wants Israel to begin negotiations with Syria. Apparently the USA does not want to say this, but if so, they should get Israel off the hook. Very likely, Mr. Bush doesn't want to say it, but Dr. Condoleezza Rice does want to say it. The Arab League is not the only forum with divergences of opinion.

Any public Israeli peace plan is better than no plan at all. There is not much to the Arab peace plan. Like any good military strategy, it is simple but deadly. The plan does not have to be complex. It might suffice for Israel to say that it accepts the principle of land for peace, and will make peace with all Arab countries based on UN Security Council Resolution 242 and the Bridging Proposals of President Clinton.

.... Even if no peace agreement is reached immediately, it helps to legitimize two very important ideas that must be the basis of any future peace. On the Arab side, there must be an understanding that Israel is here to stay and that recognizing Israel and the rights of Jews is no longer a cultural taboo. On the Israeli side, there must be a realization that it is, after all, possible to make peace and desirable to do so. Once both sides agree on both points, most of the solution is in hand.

Carter vs. Clinton and Beilin

In connection with this news of Bill Clinton’s rupture with his fellow Democratic former president, Jimmy Carter (reported in The Forward, March 30, with highlights below), it’s interesting to note that Meretz party chair, Yossi Beilin, has also expressed disappointment with Pres. Carter's “Apartheid” book. Beilin considers the former president a personal friend and a friend of Israel who did great work in mediating the peace with Egypt. But Beilin indicated during his meeting with Meretz USA, March 22, that the book was published as if it were an unedited draft, without fact checking. He said that Carter had even misidentified him (Beilin), referring to him as deputy prime minister in the Barak government rather than justice minister.

‘Apartheid’ Book Exposes Carter-Clinton Rift
Clinton: ‘I Don’t Know Where His Information Came From’
Jennifer Siegel | Fri. Mar 30, 2007

....[F]ormer president Bill Clinton spoke out against Carter’s book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” during an appearance before the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County. “If I were an Israeli I wouldn’t like it, because it’s not factually correct and it’s not fair,” Clinton reportedly said.

This appears to be one of the few times that Clinton has taken a public swipe at the book or spoken out directly against his fellow former president on any matter. In addition to Clinton’s comments in San Diego, the American Jewish Committee released a letter last week from the former president thanking the group’s executive director, David Harris, for speaking out against the book.

“Thanks so much for your articles about President Carter’s book,” Clinton wrote in a handwritten note dated January 11. “I don’t know where his information (or conclusions) came from, but Dennis Ross has tried to straighten it out, publicly and in two letters to him. At any rate, I’m grateful.”

Clinton appeared to be referring to sections of Carter’s book that denigrate the American-backed land-for-peace final settlement offer that Israel made to the Palestinians in 2000. Ross, who served as Clinton’s envoy to the Middle East, has said publicly that maps he published outlining the Clinton proposal were improperly reprinted, and then mislabeled, by Carter. In doing so, Ross said, Carter wrongly suggested that Israel had not, in fact, offered the Palestinians all of Gaza and roughly 97% of the West Bank, but instead small and isolated islands of Palestinian territory.

... Carter argues that the terms of Clinton’s peace proposal at Camp David in the summer of 2000 were untenable for the Palestinians. “There was no possibility that any Palestinian leader could accept such terms and survive,” Carter wrote. “But officials statements from Washington and Jerusalem were successful on placing the entire onus for the failure on Yasir Arafat.”

Click here for entire Forward article online. Enjoy the rest of the Passover holiday; unless somebody else posts, this blog will be taking a break during the two last days of Yom Tov, Monday and Tuesday.

Meretz USA News Update - Passover edition

The Four Sons and the Arab Peace Initiative

Last week's meeting of the Arab League in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia reaffirmed the Arab League peace initiative, which was originally approved in Beirut, Lebanon in 2002. With the Passover holiday here, one wonders what the “four sons” (hereinafter to be referred to as the “four children”) of the Haggadah would ask about this initiative and its implications for Israel and the peace process. So, in reverse order:

1. "Sheh Aino Yode'a Lishol" - The Child Who Doesn’t Know Enough to Ask.

Wikipedia’s entry for the 2002 Arab League summit offers a general background to the origins of the Arab League initiative though it offers little information on the recent effort to revive it. The March 30 New York Times offers a summary of developments this week, as does Haaretz.

2. The "Tam" - The Simple, Uninformed Child: What does s/he ask? “What is the Arab League proposing” “And what is Israel’s response”?

This week’s “Riyadh Declaration” essentially reauthorized an Arab League proposal first approved in 2002. This 2002 Arab Peace Initiative appears in English on a variety of webpages, where it is sometimes referred to as the Beirut Declaration. It is also available on the webpage of Israel’s Foreign Ministry. The Arab League proposal calls for Israel’s withdrawal to the pre-war 1967 borders, the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel (with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital), and the “achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian Refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194" in return for full peace and normal relations with the entire Arab world.

The Israeli response to the Riyadh Declaration is harder to define. The official response, which appears on the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s website, seems to do its best to be “parve”: It neither endorses the Riyadh Declaration nor rejects it. The response merely restates the basic tenets of the Israeli approach, foremost among them being a two-state solution and a desire for dialogue with the Arab world. Although Israel’s endorsement of Palestinian statehood is always welcome, this initial reaction studiously steers clear of any reference to the future borders of Israel and Palestine, or to possible compromises over Jerusalem and refugees.

Senior Israeli politicians are also beginning to weigh in on the Arab League proposal. In a Passover interview with Haaretz, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert tried to take a more upbeat tone, offering praise for Saudi Arabia and expressing willingness to take part in a regional peace conference. But, Haaretz also quotes Olmert as indicating that he finds the call for Israel to return to the 1967 borders unacceptable.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, fighting for his political survival within his own Labor Party, offered a more positive assessment: Suggesting that Israel see the “glass as half full,” Peretz indicated that the Arab initiative could serve as the basis for peace talks.

Vice Premier Shimon Peres tended to toe the official Israel line, merely calling for Israeli-Arab talks with no preconditions.

3. The "Rasha" - The Wicked (or, perhaps, Skeptical) Child: What does s/he ask? “Why should Israel bother with this initiative? Isn’t this just another Arab effort to bring about Israel’s destruction?”

This child will point to the tough talk used this week by Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, who said that if Israel were to turn down the Arab offer, it would essentially be placing its faith and fate in the vicissitudes of the military balance of power. PA President Mahmoud Abbas also warned of impending violence if the offer were rejected – the type of remarks Israel often interprets as a threat, rather than a sober and cautionary projection. Indeed, Prof. Shlomo Avineri has argued that the Arab League plan is all about making demands, and not about dialogue.

Nonetheless, perhaps this child should be instructed to look at editorials in both The Forward and Haaretz, which call on Israel to respond positively to the renewed Arab initiative. And he or she should read an analysis by Israeli Jewish journalist Orly Azoulay, who was allowed to visit Saudi Arabia as part of the UN Secretary-General’s entourage. Azoulay reports that the Saudi kingdom is entirely serious about its drive for Middle East peace; indeed, she writes, the invitation of an Israeli journalist to an Arab League summit – “a move that raised more than a few disapproving Arab eyebrows” – was an indication that the Saudis are willing to push past the decades-old Arab consensus in their efforts.

4. The “Chacham”? the Wise, Inquisitive Child: What does s/he ask? “The question of Israeli-Arab peacemaking seems quite complicated. How might I learn more about the specifics of the Arab initiative, especially its treatment of the refugee issue? And how might I find additional perspectives?”

The question of how the Arab initiative relates to the refugee issue has been much in dispute. Dr. Jerome Segal has argued that the Arab initiative refers to refugees only within the context of UN General Assembly Resolution 194 “which neither mentioned nor endorsed an absolute ‘right of return’.” An op-ed co-authored by Meretz MK Abu Vilan offers a similar conclusion — that Israel has nothing to fear from this UN Resolution. Of course, the future of the refugees does remain an important and fiercely contested issue. But, if Yediot reporter Smadar Peri is to be trusted, Saudi Arabia, the US and Israel are already at work behind the scenes, putting together a proposal that would offer compensation to those refugees willing to remain in their current countries of residence.

Finally, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has dedicated two recent columns to Middle East peace: In one, he calls on Saudi Arabian King Abdullah to push past the dry formulations of the Arab peace plan, and to come to Israel to deliver his message of peace personally Anwar Sadat in 1977. In another column, Friedman argues that the Bush team’s ineptitude and apathy with regard to the Middle East has undone much of the progress made under President Clinton. The Bush decision to let the breakthrough Clinton plan fade away, Friedman maintains, has essentially made the Arab Initiative the only game in town.


Update on the Ensign-Nelson Letter to Secretary Rice

Last week, Meretz USA asked its members to call their Senators and urge them not to sign onto a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, which called for the Bush administration to deny financial aide and contact with the Palestinian government until it recognizes Israel, renounces terrorism, and accepts past agreements.

In the end, the letter was signed by seventy-nine Senators. But, because of the efforts of organizations like Meretz USA, Americans for Peace Now, and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, the initial language was tamed. The letter, in its final form, reaffirmed the status quo for the Administrations aid to the Palestinians and allowed for contacts with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Significantly, the majority of Senators signed onto the letter after the changes were made. Please read the Forward article for more information.

A Happy Pesach to all! A Ziesen Pesach! Hag Sameach!

Thoughts for Passover

If we look at the Passover/Exodus story in terms of political symbolism, it’s about the birth of the Israelites (the ancient ancestors of the Jews) as an independent people. For obvious reasons, the African-American spiritual tradition – both the music and the theology – draws powerfully on this narrative.

The Biblical portion of Bo refers to this time of Exodus and freedom, the Hebrew month of Nissan, as a “new year.” This is curious, since it’s clearly not Rosh Hashana, which is in the fall. It is the time of nature’s new year in that it’s the spring, the time of new life. But it’s also a revolutionary time, as the birth of a nation always is. I’m reminded that during it’s most radical phase, the French Revolution began a new calendar, counting “year one” as from the fall of the Bastille, renaming the months and even experimenting with a ten-day “week.”

We identify strongly as Jews with the freedom narrative of Passover. Even if ultra-Reform or secular, most Jews partake of something they call a “seder.”

As dramatized by the Passover story, we identify strongly with the poor and the oppressed. Yet, for the most part, American Jews are neither poor nor oppressed. The old cliche is that Jews “earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans” (no aspersions intended, at least not by me) — and this is still remarkably true.

There have been some conservative trends seeping into Jewish consciousness of late. For example, younger generations of Jews tend to be somewhat less liberal than their elders, possibly a symptom of youthful assertiveness and rebellion. Overall, the Jewish community is the most liberal-minded ethnic group in the country. I say this as a function of both voting behavior and attitudes on social issues – with a “mere” 75% vote for John Kerry over George W. Bush in 2004 having grown to an estimated 87% for Democrats in 2006; African Americans are somewhat more consistently loyal to the Democrats than Jews, but Jews are generally more tolerant in their social attitudes, such as on gay rights.

Consequently, one may legitimately ask if any trend toward conservatism would make Jews “less Jewish.” On the issues, this is a grossly unfair question. I believe that individual Jews who can and do trend toward the right by virtue of their honest convictions, are not truly “less Jewish”; such a conclusion is an insult to such people. But if Jewish political behavior as a group begins to closely resemble the political opinions and orientation of most other ethnic and religious groups in the US, which is distinctly to our right, this would be a sure sign that the American Jewish community has largely assimilated.

We'll being taking the next day(s) off for Pesakh (Pesach, for you 'traditional' spellers). Enjoy and see you again soon.