tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15391189787410264082024-03-12T19:55:06.706-07:00Jewish DemocracyPaul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-18584305107872566752012-06-08T18:08:00.000-07:002012-07-01T13:10:36.955-07:00So does either side actually want a two-state solution?<span style="font-family: inherit;">... <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 21px;">As we look at the continuing impasse, and the reality that there has been less than a month of tentative negotiation in the three years since this government came to office, Israeli officials have been telling anyone who’ll listen that the Palestinians are wholly to blame for the absence of peace talks. The Prime Minister, they say, has been waiting for Mahmoud Abbas to join him for peace talks; instead the Palestinian Authority President has tried to circumvent negotiations and unilaterally force the issue at the UN.</span></span><br />
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For their part the Palestinians claim that negotiating with Netanyahu would be a waste of time. And it is the case that, in a fashion familiar to observers of the Prime Minister’s first term in office, he has rhetorically supported moderate positions while giving a nod and a wink to hardliners in his government and the settlement movement. For instance following his announcement of the ten-month settlement freeze in 2009, he <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/netanyahu-settlement-freeze-is-one-time-temporary-move-1.3042" style="border: 0px; color: #346f99; font-size: 15px; font: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">quickly moved</a> to reassure settler leaders that this was a one-off event and that building would resume in the West Bank once the period of the moratorium had elapsed....</div>
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<i style="color: black; line-height: normal;">To continue reading, follow the link to my blog on </i><span style="color: black; line-height: normal;"><a href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/so-does-either-side-actually-want-a-two-state-solution/" target="_blank">The Times Of Israel</a>.</span></div>
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<br /></div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-23288054015415292002012-04-02T09:18:00.005-07:002012-04-02T09:19:25.890-07:00It was fascism in Toulouse<br />
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The original suspects for the cold-blooded murder in
Toulouse of Jonathan Sandler, his young children Aryeh and Gabriel, and 8-year
old Miriam Monsonego were three neo-Nazis. Police had linked the atrocity to
the fatal shooting, a few days earlier, of three French off-duty paratroopers,
who also happened to be Muslim. It did
seem reasonable to assume that the killer was a far-right activist,
"collecting" ethnic minority victims.</div>
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The discovery that the killer was actually <span class="st">Mohamed
Merah, </span>an Islamist linked to Al-Qaida, will not surprise anyone alive to
the reality of Muslim radicalization in Europe. However, it will be interesting
to see whether the great liberal consciences of the West, who were poised to
loudly condemn this latest demonstration of murderous contemporary fascism,
will now fall silent, or whether they will press on with their intended
message. For make no mistake, this is fascism...</div>
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<i>To continue reading, follow the link to my blog on </i><a href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/it-was-fascism-in-toulouse/" target="_blank">The Times Of Israel</a>.</div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-49032204262581943002012-03-30T06:29:00.002-07:002012-03-30T06:30:24.039-07:00Kadima election - first thoughtsI confess I have something of a soft spot for Tzipi Livni, for two principal reasons.Firstly, and it's worth remembering, she could and would have been prime minister had she given in to Shas's extortion and continued the government she inherited from Ehud Olmert on the back of increased funds for Charedi yeshivot and schools. That she preferred to stick to her principles was admirable, and a marked contrast to the man who <i>did</i> become Prime Minister<i>. </i>Netanyahu often acts as though being in power is the end rather than the means.<br />
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Secondly, she is the only leading Israeli politician in recent years to have made a point of speaking out on the need for Jewish pluralism in Israel and for really trying to ask questions about how to strengthen Jewish identity in Israel in a pluralistic way. In 2010 she even held a day-long <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=176150" target="_blank">conference</a> in the Knesset on the subject, moderated by the <a href="http://www.hartman.org.il/" target="_blank">Shalom Hartman Institute</a> - one of the outstanding centers of open-minded Jewish and Zionist thought in the world.<br />
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However, it can't be denied that she has been politically cack-handed as leader of the opposition. She has been completely undiscriminating in her criticism of the government, even attacking Netanyahu for steps that she would almost certainly have taken herself in the same situation. She has (rightly) condemned the government for its failure and/or unwillingness to act proactively or creatively to change the status quo with the Palestinians, but she's let Mahmoud Abbas completely off the hook, refusing to condemn his numerous evasions of negotiations and steps away from the peace process and towards rejectionism.<br />
<br />
So what of her replacement? As Defense Minster under Ariel Sharon Shaul Mofaz was one of the most uncompromising and hawkish figures in the cabinet (in an administration not lacking uncompromising hawks). He also embarrassed himself hugely by publicly pledging to stay in the Likud after Sharon had left to create Kadima, then jumping ship to join the new party only when it became clear he would have no chance of beating Netanyahu for the Likud leadership.<br />
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Despite all that, the labelling of him as a simple "right-winger" or the accusations from many, that there is no significant ideological difference between him and Netanyahu, are wide of the mark. On the contrary, the one thing that marks Mofaz out as different, not just from Bibi or Livni, but from any other senior member of Knesset, is that he has proposed a serious and thoughtful alternative to negotiations with the Palestinians. (And I said serious and thoughtful, so I'm not including the "do nothing" option of much of the Likud or the "kick out the Arabs" ethnic cleansing of the far right.)<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.israelpolicyforum.org/analysis/mofaz-plan-permanent-palestinian-state-temporary-borders-advance-final-status-talks" target="_blank">plan </a>he launched at the end of 2009 was not dissimilar in essence to those of others who understand that there is an urgency to ending the occupation and separating from the Palestinians, and have been ready and able to think outside the box - such as leading Arab affairs journalist <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/Article.aspx?id=172220" target="_blank">Ehud Ya'ari</a> and the Tel Aviv thinktank the <a href="http://www.reut-institute.org/data/uploads/PDFVer/20080902%20Upgrading%20the%20PA%20to%20PSPB.pdf" target="_blank">Reut Institute</a>. Mofaz's proposal would see a gradual process of establishing a Palestinian state with temporary borders. Settlements in areas that would <i>have</i> to be given up in order for this state to be contiguous would be evacuated (with a comprehensive resettlement and compensation plan drawn up first) while the settlement blocs would be <i>de facto</i> incorporated into Israel with all restrictions on building lifted.<br />
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Mofaz has said: "My main idea is to start with a Palestinian state. The state is not
temporary, the borders are temporary. The moment they have a state, they
could build their economy, law and security apparatuses. They could
build a better life for the Palestinian people."<br />
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There would be a Palestinian state and an end of Israeli occupation, but the final borders would be resolved in negotiations. The onus would be on Palestinians to return to the negotiating table to finalize the borders - the temporary borders would be dictated by Israel and its security concerns.<br />
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Let's be clear, the polls do not look good for Kadima and the chances of Mofaz being in a position to advance this plan are not high. In addition, he is completely untested as a political leader and the demands of Israeli coalition politics could well see him make concessions to right-wing partners. However, whether or not he ends up as Prime Minister, I for one hope he can use his new prominence as leader of the opposition (and, currently - lest we forget - the largest single party in the Knesset) to get more support for his plan or something similar. Shelly Yacimovich has had precisely nothing to say on the peace and security question since becoming leader of the Labour Party, there is no reason why she could not endorse Mofaz's plan as way to break the current diplomatic impasse. Then there is Yair Lapid, the other main contender for center-left votes in the next election. It is clear that he sees the demographic, diplomatic and moral dangers of remaining in control of another people, but that he has little trust in the Palestinians as negotiating partners. At the very least, he should have something about to talk to the new Kadima leader.<br />
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Mofaz is an unlikely savior, and I did not write the above with a great deal of optimism. But for those of us tired of an Israeli government and a Palestinian Authority that seem equally unwilling to go that extra mile to end an occupation that is ruinous for both peoples, straw-clutching is preferable to imagining that Netanyahu and Abbas will remain co-captains of a sinking ship.Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-36116201444386090712012-01-05T13:07:00.000-08:002012-03-11T12:21:45.612-07:00Christopher Hitchens on fascism and religion: lessons for Israel<div style="font-family: inherit;">
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<span style="font-size: small;">THE DEATH of Christopher Hitchens last month, at the age of
62, robbed the world of one its most eloquent advocates for freedom and
democracy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">He was a man of contradictions: a graduate of British
Marxism whose political hero was Thomas Jefferson; in 2000 he described George
W. Bush as "</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: small;">unusually
incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically
uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these
things</span><span style="font-size: small;">", and then vocally supported his re-election against
Democrat John Kerry four years later. The victims of his mercilessly caustic
pen also included Republican statesman Henry Kissinger, Democratic President Bill
Clinton and even Mother Theresa (</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: small;">"She
spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, the empowerment of
women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory
reproduction").</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">However one consistent thread running through his seemingly
scattergun worldview was his hatred of tyranny and oppression.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Indeed, his uncompromising atheism – of which
more later – was based on his belief that religion equaled slavery, with God
cast as an all-seeing, authoritarian overlord.</span><span style="font-size: small;">
His socialism was, in his words, "anti-totalitarian" rather
than "anti-imperialist". He eschewed the knee-jerk anti-Americanism
so prevalent among European leftists, instead supporting US-led military
campaigns against ethnic cleansers like Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Writing after the 9/11 atrocities, he used the phrase
“fascism with an Islamic face” to describe the ideology driving the
perpetrators.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> He subsequently, in
hundreds of articles, speeches and televised interviews and debates, referred
to the contemporary threat of "Islamo-fascism". </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">As Israelis, as Jews, and as citizens of a liberal
democracy, we would do well to heed Hitchens's erudite words of warning that,
today, fascism wears religious clothes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">This does not mean we should ignore the threat of the
secular far-right in Europe – extremists always thrive in adverse socio-economic
conditions – but the extreme nationalists in Belgium, Austria and Hungary do
not pose a threat to western civilization as do the forces of revolutionary
Islam, which, like the fascisms of yesteryear, is aggressive, implacable and all
too willing to kill those who reject its worldview.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Yes there are differences aplenty between an Islamist nationalist
movement like Hamas and the disparate, global Jiihadists of Al-Qaida, but both
share an unshakeable belief in the certainty of the justice of their cause, and
that the cause justifies the mass murder of innocent people. Both share a
hatred of liberal democratic societies and their legal and civil protections of
the rights of women, homosexuals and religious and ethnic minorities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Alongside these Sunni extremists, one can place the Shi’ite
Islamists of Iran and their proxy terror group Hizballah.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Again, there are differences, theological
above all, between extremists from the two branches of Islam, but Iran does not
disagree with Hamas’s diagnosis of the 'sicknesses' of western society, nor on
the necessary cure: a sharia-based society where women’s rights are restricted,
where homosexuals are executed and where non-Muslims are second-class citizens.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Finally, what all these Islamic representatives of the new
fascism share is that old staple of their secular forerunners – antisemitism. It
can be found in the overt Jew-hatred of Al-Qaida and Hamas, the Holocaust
denial of the Iranian regime and the crude ‘blood libel’, ‘Protocols of the Elders
of Zion’ propaganda of all of them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">All of this makes the alliance of certain sections of the
left with Islamist groups as contemptible as it is bizarre. It has been instructive
to see how the great consciences of the West have responded to the slaughter of
over 5,000 of his own civilians by Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. You will
search in vain for the demonstrations sweeping Europe, or the masses camped
outside Syrian embassies in western capitals.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">No. Assad's campaign of torture and butchery is not worthy
of condemnation because he remains an ally in the battle that really counts:
the struggle against Zionist and American imperialism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Christopher Hitchens's voice was among the most persistent
in rejecting this perversion; routinely stripping bare the hypocrisy and moral
bankruptcy of the left’s alliance with fascism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">HERE IN Israel, the f-word has been bandied about with some
regularity of late, following the legislation proposed by certain right-wing
members of Knesset. Their efforts to restrict the independence of the Supreme
Court or freedom of speech are illiberal and out of sync with Israel's
democratic character, but they are not fascism. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">However, Jewish fascism – or something perilously close – <i>is</i>
preached by those on the far-religious right. Those responsible for the 'Price
Tag' attacks on Palestinian property, Jewish leftists and now the IDF may be
guileless young hoodlums, but they are receiving their indoctrination from
somewhere. They are drinking from the same steady stream of toxic bigotry and
hatred that convinced Baruch Goldstein it was a "religious act" to
slaughter 29 Muslim worshippers in Hebron. They are taught by the same
fanatical "Rabbis" who declared that Yitzhak Rabin was a traitor to
the Jewish people and a <i>rodef</i>; in context a <i>halachic</i> term for a
"murderous pursuer" that it is legitimate to kill. Yigal Amir did not
reach these conclusions on his own.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">THE OTHER source of extremism in Israeli Jewish life comes
from sections of the Charedi community. Here, Christopher Hitchens’s warnings
about fascism are less relevant than his trenchant opposition to religion.
Indeed, the well-documented incidents in Bet Shemesh and on 'segregated' buses
exactly fit his description of organized religion as: "</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: small;">violent, irrational, intolerant".</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Just as the nationalist Rabbis calling for a ban on renting property
to Arabs are ignoring very specific <i>halachic</i> injunctions to the contrary
(from Rav Kook among others), so there is nothing in normative Jewish teaching
that says a man cannot sit next to a woman on a bus. Meanwhile, spitting at and
abusing an eight-year old girl goes against the most fundamental Jewish
imperatives regarding respect for human dignity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Hitchens was mistaken in applying some of his very general
assertions about religion to Judaism <i>per se</i>, because there is so much
diversity in how Jewish scholars through the ages have understood God and his
relationship to humanity. Similarly his wholesale denigration of the bible is
not sufficient as a critique of Jewish religious thought because the
development of <i>halacha</i> has come about through such a sophisticated
process of human exegesis.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Yes, large sections of the Charedi community view the world
through a stiflingly narrow prism, rejecting rationalism as a secular evil, but
there is an array of influential Jewish thinkers through the ages who
understood that Jewish philosophy can and should be influenced by human
reason.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Hitchens's assessment of a primitive
and tribalist Jewish theology ignores not only historical giants such as Maimonides,
who incorporated Aristotelian philosophy into his understanding of the law, but
more recent figures. Joseph Soloveitchik, was the outstanding Orthodox thinker
of his generation, but that did not prevent him from bringing to his
interpretation of the Talmud the existentialism of Kierkegaard or even the
philosophy of Christian theologians of the day. Abraham Joshua Heschel, famous
for his involvement in the civil rights movement, taught that a religious Jew
should keep the <i>mitzvot</i>, seek a personal spiritual relationship with God
<i>and</i> fight for justice for all of humanity, regardless of religion or
race. </span><span style="font-size: small;"> <i> </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Yes there <i>are </i>Jews convinced that the world is
literally 5772 years old; or that the non-Jewish world contains nothing of
value. Thankfully though, this fundamentalism is not a pre-requisite for living
a Jewish life, even a religiously observant one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS was a rare talent. One of the most
brilliant polemicists of his generation, he was as provocative as he was articulate,
and I doubt there are many who were not infuriated by some of his
pronouncements just as they wholeheartedly agreed with others.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Behind his razor-sharp wit lay even sharper warnings: contemporary
fascism in its religious – primarily Islamic – guise will be the enemy of the
free and democratic world for the foreseeable future. Here in Israel, we are on
the frontline of that battle. And, lest we grow complacent, there is a small
but significant number among our own Jewish population who are abandoning
reason, basic models of human decency and the many examples of a tolerant,
open-minded and intellectually curious Judaism, for a 'religion' of bigotry and
dogma. One does not have to share Hitchens’s catch-all atheism to understand
this is exactly the type of ‘religion’ that has had such a malign influence across
the world, including in otherwise modern, democratic countries like our own.</span></div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-89511908507755911972011-05-22T13:35:00.001-07:002012-03-11T12:15:41.820-07:00On (wilfully) misquoting Obama<div class="mbl notesBlogText clearfix" style="font-family: inherit;">
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<span style="font-size: small;">Obama at the AIPAC conference clarifying what his reference to the 1967 lines in his speech last week meant:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">“by definition, it means that the parties themselves -- Israelis and Palestinians -- will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967”.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Indeed.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">And that should have been obvious to anyone who actually read/heard what the said rather than the hysterical reaction from some quarters in Israel.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: small;">It's shocking how misleading much of the coverage has been, with many (mis)quoting him as saying Israel should return to the green line, NOT what he actually said - that the final border will be <i>based </i>on the Green Line "with mutual swaps". The difference is significant, with the former being unacceptable for any Israeli government and the latter being pretty much what's been on the table since 2000.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Most damaging have been the responses from opportunistic right-wingers like the reliably moronic Danny Danon comparing Obama to Yasser Arafat.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Some perspective is required. There are reasons aplenty to criticise the Obama administration's handling of the the situation over the past two years but a speech notable mainly for its condemnation of Hamas, its rejection of the Palestinian unilateral route to statehood and its clear statement that the future Palestinian state be demilitarised is not one of them.</span></div>
</div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-21663371708577309302011-05-09T13:02:00.000-07:002012-03-11T12:18:04.599-07:00Defending the declaration<div style="font-family: inherit;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>“The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish
people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here
they first attained statehood…</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>"The State of Israel will be open for Jewish
immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the
development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be
based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it
will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its
inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of
religion, conscience, language, education and culture…”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Extracts from Israel’s Declaration of Independence, read out
by David Ben Gurion, almost exactly 63 years ago, as the storm clouds of war
gathered. The following day the Arab
world would unite in an attempt to strangle the Jewish State at birth. Israel won that war, and several since, but
today, though the physical threats to its security remain, there is also another
war to be fought; it is for the defense of the dreams of Israel’s founding
fathers. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">ISRAEL HAS no written constitution, and the Declaration of
Independence is the closest thing we have to a mission statement for the first
sovereign Jewish polity in 2000 years.
Many messages can be derived from it, but the two central motifs are exemplified
in the sections cited above. Namely:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">1)</span><span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: small; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">That Israel is the realization of the legitimate right of the
Jewish people to a sovereign state of their own, within the boundaries of their
historical, cultural and religious homeland;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin-left: 36pt; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">2)</span><span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-size: small; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">That that state should fulfill the moral imperatives inherent in
Judaism, expressed by the ancient prophets and consistent with the modern
principles of democracy and human rights.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">These should remain the key principles to any roadmap for
Israeli policymakers if we are to see the country live up to the vaunted
aspirations of, not only the drafters of the Declaration, but godfathers of Zionism
like Herzl, whose novel <i>Altneuland</i> envisaged an enlightened Jewish state
acting as a beacon of freedom; or Ahad Ha'am, for whom the Jewish character of
the state, epitomized by an ethical core, was the <i>raison d'être </i>of the
state itself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The war for the defense of the Declaration of Independence
has two battlefields: here in Israel and abroad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Living in the UK I became aware, from my student years
onwards, of the routine demonization of Israel in public discourse; and of left-wingers
setting aside their commitments to women's rights, gay rights and religious and
racial equality, in order to scream anti-Zionist slogans alongside radical Islamists.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">When I was studying for my Masters degree, my university
student union banned its Israel Society on the grounds that Zionism equals
racism. Every other country was allowed
to be represented by a student society – including such human rights luminaries
as Syria, and even Iran, with its treatment of women as third-class citizens,
its execution of homosexuals and its persecution of religious minorities.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I understood very quickly that this was indeed the new
anti-Semitism; the ostracization of the Jewish state, the singling out of
Israel – notable also in such august bodies as the UN Human Rights Council,
which at each session has a permanent agenda item addressing only Israel's
alleged human rights abuses. The Council is routinely chaired by the likes of Gaddafi's
Libya and genocidal Sudan.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Outside of Israel, fighting this demonization,
delegitimization and double standard is to defend the Declaration: specifically,
to defend the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own within the
borders of their historic homeland.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">THIS WAS the battlefield I had been familiar with. Moving to
Israel some three years ago, I have discovered that here, defining what it is
to ‘defend the Declaration’ is perhaps less simple. Here, there remains the necessity
of protecting Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state – diplomatically and,
of course, militarily – but there is also an increasingly urgent need to defend
the principle of <i>"equality of social and political rights to all its
inhabitants</i>".</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Many of those who loudly proclaim their Zionism display ideological
positions somewhat out of sync with the text of the Declaration . I'm thinking in particular of those pushing
'loyalty' legislation clearly aimed at Arabs (they seem to have no problem with
the clear disloyalty to the state of settlers building outposts illegally and
then throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and police), or the religious Zionist
Rabbis routinely issuing "halachic" judgments against non-Jews – actually
in defiance of both religion (as defined by the numerous eminent halachists who
have condemned them) <i>and</i> Zionism (as defined by the state's founders in
the Declaration). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The Declaration was signed by representatives of <i>all</i>
the Zionism factions – socialist, revisionist, religious <i>et al</i>. Too many
of today’s heirs of the revisionist stream (primarily in the Likud) seem to
have forgotten that their movement's founding father Ze'ev Jabotinsky was a liberal
nationalist committed to a fully democratic Jewish state. Meanwhile religious
Zionism has, since 1967, been hijacked in large part by the settler movement
who increasingly act according to their Rabbis' dictates rather than the laws
of the democratic state with its "gentile court" (to cite the
outrageous term used by Rabbis expressing their public support for a convicted
rapist, former President Moshe Katsav). The Rabbis condemning those who rent
apartments to Arabs seem ignorant of the entirely contrary ruling on this
matter by past luminaries of religious Zionism such as Rav Abraham Kook and the
state's first Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog. The latter even argued that the
Declaration of Independence was a halachically binding document.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Rav Kook is often regarded as the spiritual father of
religious Zionism, but he never taught that settling the entire Land of Israel was
the<i> </i>pre-eminent <i>mitzvah</i>. (Neither is it among the 613 <i>mitzvot </i>that
are considered binding on observant Jews.)
That notion, promoted by his son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook has directly
caused the biggest threat to Israel's status as a democracy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Israel's control over the entire West Bank, with Jewish settlers
enjoying the rights of citizenship and Palestinians not, cannot be reconciled
with the democratic Zionism of the Declaration. A failure to relinquish that
control will ultimately lead to a 'one-state solution': either an Arab majority
Arab state or a Jewish-run apartheid state – the choice between surrendering
Jewish sovereignty or democracy and moral legitimacy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">WITH DEBATES aplenty about what Zionism should mean today,
and what a Jewish and democratic state should look like, the Declaration of
Independence, Israel's founding document, provides the legitimate framework
upon which to construct the answers to these questions. In Israel and outside,
the fight is on to defend the principles of the Declaration. Outside Israel, this battle is principally
concerned with defending Israel's legitimacy as the nation-state of the Jewish
people. Within the country itself, it is
also about ensuring that Israel keeps the promise made by its founding fathers
that <i>all</i> its citizens will be guaranteed equal rights and freedoms. Within today's Knesset, it is clear that
those Arab MKs who reject Israel's Jewish national character, <i>and</i> those
on the far-right who believe that Israel's non-Jewish citizens should have
second-class status, are equally in breach of the Declaration's principles.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">These principles dictate that Israel act, with force if
necessary, to thwart the plans of Hamas, Hizballah and their sponsor Iran – all
of whom seek Israel's demise no less sincerely than did the Arab armies who massed
in an attempt to annihilate the nascent Jewish state in 1948.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">They also require that greater efforts be made to safeguard
the equality of Israel's non-Jewish citizens and to prosecute those who incite
racism. Israeli law is actually very
robust in this area but too often the various tools at the state's disposal are
not applied.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Finally, with large swathes of the international community
poised to endorse Palestinian statehood in September, Israel <i>must </i>counter
this move with a proposal of its own that will look to establish secure borders
and to end the occupation that will ultimately derail the Zionist project and
destroy the dreams of our founding fathers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Their words, accepted then by religious and secular
Zionists, leftists and rightists, remain valid for the State of Israel today. A State "<i>based on freedom, justice
and peace</i>" where we can exercise "<i>the natural right of the
Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their
own sovereign State</i>."</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>This was published as an op-ed in </i><a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=219801" target="_blank">The Jerusalem Post</a> <i>on 8/5/2011</i></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="textexposedshow2" style="font-size: small;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span class="textexposedshow2" style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: black; line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-81293199785058779112010-12-29T12:57:00.000-08:002012-03-11T12:17:44.158-07:00In the absence of peace - if we don’t act, they will<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And so we
appear to have reached the end of the latest fruitless attempt at resolving
this too long, and too bloody, conflict.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">There’s
plenty of blame to go around. The
Americans’ early focus on an Israeli settlement freeze ensured that the
Palestinians would have a perfect excuse to avoid direct negotiations – even
though this had never before been asked of Israel as a condition for peace
talks. Meanwhile, revelations that Mahmoud
Abbas had rejected Ehud Olmert’s parting gift of a two-state solution that went
beyond anything previously offered to the Palestinians in its crossing of supposed
Israeli red lines, was not a promising sign that the Palestinians were even ready
to do a deal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Netanyahu
responded to the US’s request by trying to appease Obama while not alienating
the settlers, ordering a ten-month moratorium on building in West Bank
settlements but insisting it would be a one-time event. He ignored the advice of wiser heads in his
government such as Dan Meridor, who urged him to take the opportunity to make a
distinction between the settlement blocs (which, according to all previous
peace proposals would remain part of Israel) and settlements that would have to
be evacuated in any future peace agreement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">However,
far more depressing than this entirely predictable failure, is the unavoidable
feeling that, for some members of the government, possibly including the Prime
Minister, the situation simply means we can go on as before. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">They are surely
familiar with the arguments for Israel reaching a two-state deal with the
Palestinians. For the past decade or
more, Israeli politicians on the left and, increasingly the center and even the
right, have understood that Israel is fast heading towards a situation where
the number of Arabs living in all of the territory that Israel controls will
outnumber the number of Jews. Israel would
then face a Palestinian demand for a one-state solution which would force Israel
to either lose its Jewish character demographically, or to become an apartheid
state.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Israel
needs to end the occupation of the Palestinians, not for peace, not for the
cause of Palestinian statehood, but for Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The
reasons for this, in fact, go beyond the 'demographic’ argument.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">We should
not underestimate how much we gain internationally by virtue of being part of
‘the west’. As much as we complain,
justifiably, about the double standards at play in the western media and among
certain European 'liberal', institutions,
Israel is a close ally on the international stage with, not just the US,
but the EU states, Canada, Australia and the liberal democratic world. This status is manifested in numerous ways,
from preferential trade agreements, to diplomatic support at the UN, to
cultural ties and more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">However, as Ehud Barak said,
just a few days ago: "<i>The
world is changing before our eyes and is no longer willing to accept, even
temporarily, our continued control over another people.</i>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Quite
simply, Israel's status as a western democracy will not survive our ruling the
Palestinians indefinitely. Israel's
security-based arguments for not returning to the pre-1967 borders are sound,
but there is no western government that will accept that Israel's historical
and religious ties to Judea and Samaria can justify it remaining in control
there while denying the Palestinians equal rights.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">If you
need another argument how about this one: if we don't act to change the status
quo, the Palestinians will. Palestinian threats
to give up on a negotiated settlement and to go to the international community
for support are not idle. If the world perceives Israel to be primarily to
blame for the hold-up in negotiations (for example by continuing to build
settlements in areas of the West Bank that will definitely be part of a future
Palestinian state), then there could be widespread support for an imposed
solution, with the world – including Israel's allies – recognizing the State of
Palestine within borders chosen by the Palestinians.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The final
reason for Israel to end, finally, its control of the Palestinians is the
simplest of all. It is wrong. Eitan Haber, who served as Yitzhak Rabin’s bureau
chief, has described how Rabin understood, “<i>that we could not continue to
rule 2.5 million Palestinians against their will. The indications of moral deterioration that
had appeared as part of our rule over the Arabs in the territories led him to
recognize that we must not continue to dominate another people. The scenes of what the occupation was doing to
the IDF and the behavior of soldiers at roadblocks or in the pursuit of
demonstrators concerned him greatly.</i>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Rabin was
steeped in the founding values of the IDF. For him, Israel's young men and
women should be donning the uniform with the pride that comes with defending
one’s country; not preparing to serve as the policemen of a military
occupation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">There was
a time not so long ago when unilateral withdrawal in the absence of a
Palestinian peace partner was a winning political platform. It was Kadima's avowed agenda when they
finished as the largest party in the 2006 Knesset elections. The public were persuaded that Israel had to
draw permanent borders which would be secure and defensible, separating from
the Palestinians and leaving to them the majority of the West Bank. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Before
long though, that bubble had burst; pricked by the precedents set in the two
areas already vacated unilaterally – Gaza and southern Lebanon. Hamas and
Hizbullah rained down rockets on Israeli civilians, and the vindicated right punctuated
their “told-you-so”s with grim assurances that an evacuated West Bank would
quickly become another base for genocidal Iranian proxies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">However,
as <i>Haaretz </i>commentator, Ari Shavit, recently pointed out, to cite the
increased Qassams following disengagement is to miss the point:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“<i>The
right was right, but the right was also wrong. It understood the latent dangers
in the withdrawal, but completely failed to understand its necessity… The right
failed to grasp five years ago exactly what it refuses to grasp today … Israel
must take its fate in its hands and act wisely to create a border between
itself and Palestine. Only thus can it ensure its identity and legitimacy as a
Jewish and democratic state.</i>”<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">An
Israeli withdrawal from part of the West Bank in the absence of a peace
agreement need not be entirely unilateral.
Earlier this year, Ehud Ya’ari, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>’s
most prominent Arab-affairs journalist, proposed an “armistice agreement” with
the Palestinians, whereby <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>
would evacuate settlers and soldiers from the vast majority of the West Bank,
keeping enough territory to ‘thicken’ <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> at its most vulnerable
points, but leaving contiguous territory for the Palestinians to establish a
state with provisional borders. The
question of final borders, as well as the thorny issues of the refugees and Jerusalem
would be left until the Palestinians were ready and willing to negotiate. Ya’ari believes that the Palestinians could
be persuaded to agree to this if the western states that bankroll the Palestinian
economy would endorse his plan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This is
not the cry of a utopian peacenik.
Ya’ari’s extensive sources in the Arab world tell him that the
Palestinians will soon be pushing for one-state-of-all-its-citizens – that is,
one state on all of the land, where Arabs would outnumber Jews. There would be no Jewish state here, just the
latest Arab state:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“<i>The
process of rethinking the goal of Palestinian statehood within the ’67 borders
is already at work, and Israelis have become so apathetic to anything that
happens on the other side of the security fence that we as a society are way
behind in reading the writing on the wall.</i>” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Does this
apathy extend to the country’s leaders?
We must hope not. For one way or
another, with or without a negotiating partner, Israel needs to act. Netanyahu’s principal focus on stopping Iran
going nuclear is understandable, but continuing Israel’s rule over the West
Bank poses no less of an existential threat to our Jewish and democratic state.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>This was published</i> <i>as an op-ed in</i> <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=201332" target="_blank">The Jerusalem Post</a> <i>on 28/12/2010.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-78059012653796606652010-08-16T08:08:00.000-07:002012-03-11T12:19:36.768-07:00Indefensible Borders<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Harvard law professor and noted Israel advocate Alan
Dershowitz has said that the best way to win over the ‘undecideds’ when he’s
speaking in universities on ‘the case for Israel’, is to show that the
‘pro-Israel’ crowd are also in favor of a two-state solution to the conflict,
whereas the ‘pro-Palestinian’ supporters are not. In other words, whereas the Jewish student
society is willing to see a Palestinian state established alongside Israel, the
collection of far-leftist, (allegedly) liberal and Muslim students who support
the Palestinian cause cannot reconcile themselves to Israel’s existence.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Having been involved in Israel advocacy in universities
myself in Britain (a country where the campus anti-Zionism makes the average US
university look like an AIPAC conference) I broadly agree with Professor Dershowitz. There is no question that the best hasbara
tool Israel has is the Arab world’s history of rejectionism and its repeated preference
for continuing the fight to eliminate the Jewish state, rather than compromising
on the land and finally giving the Palestinians a state of their own alongside Israel.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">However, what happens if it’s Israel who are the
rejectionists? What happens in a debate
before college students, if the Palestinian speaker says that he accepts
Israel’s right to exist but that the Palestinians should be freed from Israeli
occupation, and the speaker on behalf of Israel says that he thinks Israel
should remain in control of the entirety of the West Bank? This scenario is not, of course,
far-fetched. Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad
are both on record as supporting a two-state solution. And even if you don’t believe they are
genuine, this Israeli government is full of ministers – not to mention other
MKs – who don’t even try to hide their opposition to it.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">It is relatively straightforward to argue that a military
operation against Hamas in Gaza is legitimate – they are a terrorist
organization committed to Israel’s destruction.
Ditto Hizballah in Lebanon. It is
also possible – and, I believe, right – to justify refusing to withdraw to the
pre-’67 borders. They were never a formal
border, just an armistice line, and even the drafters of the relevant UN Security
Council resolutions understood that the ‘green line’ is not a defensible border
for Israel. So yes, Israel can say that
they will keep Maale Adumim and Gush Etzion, and that they will require some
kind of military arrangement in the Jordan Valley, and the Palestinian state
must be demilitarized. All of these
demands are fully justifiable given the Palestinians’ historic (and possibly
current) hostility to Israel’s very existence, and the experience of withdrawal
from Southern Lebanon and Gaza – both met with a huge upsurge in rocket attacks
and the abduction of Israeli soldiers.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">There are sound security arguments for keeping anything from
5 to 30 percent of the West Bank (depending on your school of thought), but the
building of dozens of settlements dotted around the hilltops of Judea and
Samaria was fueled by a messianic religious ideology, not a dispassionate assessment
of Israel’s security requirements. And
it is an ideology that will not wash in the democratic west to which Israel
professes to be a part. Just as no Saudi
will convince American or European opinion that women should not be allowed to
drive cars just because (his version of) Islam says so; no Israeli will
persuade the same audience that it is ok to control a territory in which the
Jews have full democratic rights and the Arabs do not, just because (his
version of) Judaism says so.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Of course that comparison can only go so far; Saudi Arabia
does not define itself as a democratic state. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Listen to the next time an Israeli leader holds a press
conference with an American official. It
is guaranteed that he will stress the shared democratic values of the two
countries. Similarly, at an AJC
conference or any large gathering of American Jews, the visiting Israeli VIP will
talk about the love of democracy and liberty that unites Israel and the US.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Let us be clear.
Israel <i>is</i> a democracy.
With free elections, a free, (hyper-) critical press, and frequent
public dissent at the government. But
there is no getting away from the fact that a democratic state cannot
permanently rule over another people who are denied the basic rights of
citizenship. It can’t be spun and it
can’t be brushed under the carpet.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Yes, Netanyahu has said that he supports two states for two
peoples. And he has talked
euphemistically about being willing to make “painful concessions” , but the freeze
on building in settlements ends in
September, and the signs are that it will not be continued. If he renews construction in the settlements
beyond the blocs, the very existence of which would make a contiguous Palestinian
state impossible, the occupation which threatens the Zionist dream of a Jewish,
democratic state will just become further entrenched.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Hasbara is important.
Fears about the delegitimisation and demonization of Israel on
university campuses, in newspapers and, of course, in Orwellian bodies like the
UN Human Rights Council are all too justifiable. But pro-Israel activists and diplomats should
not be expected to defend the indefensible.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>This was published as an op-ed in </i><a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=184755" target="_blank">The Jerusalem Post</a> <i>on 15/8/2010</i></span></div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-38423500078397331282010-02-26T13:12:00.000-08:002012-03-11T12:21:15.646-07:00Zionism, religion and the modern State of Israel<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">BACK IN the UK
I was a Zionist.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> I supported the right of
the Jewish people to a state of their own in their historic homeland.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Now I’m an Israeli, it seems I can’t define
myself that way anymore without being thought of as either hopelessly
anachronistic, or avowedly right-wing. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Sections of the Israeli right have made Zionism synonymous
with support for the settlement movement, while sections of the left have
acquiesced in this fiction by abdicating ownership of the term. </span><span style="font-size: small;"> (It is worth noting that Zionism was
originally a progressive liberation movement with its roots in enlightened 19<sup>th</sup>
century liberalism; closer in spirit to those supporting an end to the
occupation of the Palestinians than to the West Bank settlers.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Even the father of what became the Israeli
right, Vladimir Jabotinsky, was an avowed liberal who insisted on democratic
rights for all the citizens of the putative Jewish state and who spoke resolutely
against expelling Arabs from their homes).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Early secular Zionists forecast that Zionism would replace
Jewish religion as the core identity of the Jewish people.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> They imagined that the creation of a modern
Jewish state would lead to the gradual marginalization of religious practice and
its replacement by a proud secular nationalism that would unify the Jewish people.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile the religious Zionists who followed Rav Kook saw
Zionism as the next stage in God’s plan for the Jewish people.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> For them, Zionism would persuade unbelievers
by heralding the messianic age.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The secularists have been proved wrong by the polarization
of Israeli society into religious Jews on the hand, and secularists who feel
little kinship with the wider Jewish world on the other.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile, the religious Zionists have, since 1967, obsessively
prioritized the <i>mitzvah</i> of settling biblical Judea and Samaria
– hardly a unifying issue in Israel.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">So can Zionism mean for 61 year-old Israel in the 21<sup>st</sup>
century?</span><span style="font-size: small;"> It didn’t replace religion as
the secularists predicted; neither can it be used to promote religion to the
Jewish masses if it remains politically aligned with the advocates of ‘Greater
Israel’ – or indeed if only a one-size-fits-all Orthodoxy is sanctioned by the state
authorities.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I got a hint of an answer to this question on the Fast of
Gedalia, a minor fast day in the Jewish calendar.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> It marks the assassination of the Jewish
Governor of Judea after the destruction of the First Temple. Gedalia was
murdered by another Jew – a betrayal of the Jewish people regarded as so
heinous by the Rabbis that a fast day was instituted.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">A close friend of mine, with a strong Jewish and Zionist
identity, but avowedly not religious, surprised me by informing me that she
would be observing the fast. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“I’ve kept this fast since the Rabin assassination,” she
explained.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">An added twist to the tale is that far from being a
supporter of the former prime minister, she was a fierce opponent of his
policies who demonstrated against the Oslo Accords.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> She was desperate to see him removed from
office, but the way in which this eventually happened shocked her to her
Zionist core.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">For her, the Jewish tradition – </span><span style="color: black; font-size: small;">which
she less than scrupulously observes</span><span style="color: red; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">–
provided a precedent of how to respond to the murder of a Jewish leader by
another Jew.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I was struck by her decision.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> She is not religious, but neither is she part
of a secular community that has divorced itself from the Jewish world.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> She is a Zionist, proud of being an Israeli,
devoted to the country <i>and</i> deeply connected to Jewish tradition.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Her Judaism informs and strengthens her
Zionism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">There are some excellent programs in Israel today, looking
to promote Zionism as well as an understanding of, and identification with,
Jewish tradition and culture, but Israel needs more of them, as well
as government support for a new Zionist agenda which embraces Jewish tradition
in a spirit of pluralism.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> We also
desperately need an entirely different relationship between the state and the
Orthodox religious authorities, whose uncompromising monopoly on religious life
in Israel
has been one of the contributing factors to the alienation of most Israelis
from religion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I am not taking a stand against religious Zionists or indeed
Orthodoxy; but there <i>have</i> to be religious role models in Israeli society
preaching a Judaism that is not antithetical to the basic liberal democratic
values of tolerance and freedom.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> In the words
of Michael Melchior, an Orthodox Rabbi and former Israeli government minister:</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">“Only a reconnection to the hyphenation that links
Jewish and democratic values, Zionism and religion, the teachings of Judaism
and the teachings of ethics, will offer a chance for the continued existence of
the State of Israel as a state that fulfils the dreams imbued in it when it
came into being. </span></i><i>Only the reconnection of past heritage to present
challenges will ensure future hopes.</i><i><span lang="EN-GB">”</span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: small;">I REJECT
the notion that Zionism is either dead or only meaningful to the settler movement
and its supporters. It has long been a
cornerstone of contemporary Jewish identity outside Israel;
within Israel
it can be something that transcends politics and religious observance while
connecting Jews to both their state <i>and</i> their heritage.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: small;"><i>This was published as an op-ed in </i><a href="http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/comment/28695/a-proud-ethical-zionism-21st-century" target="_blank">The Jewish Chronicle</a> <i>under the title: "A proud ethical Zionism for the 21st century", on 25/2/2010.</i> </span></div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-51576759201317015952010-02-13T13:31:00.000-08:002012-03-11T12:22:32.461-07:00The lies they teach their children<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was sitting in a church in Jerusalem’s
Old City with participants on a program I work
with; young Jews from around the globe, living here for a year to learn about
Israeli society and politics.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We wanted them to hear from different religious leaders, and
here we were, meeting with a young, Palestinian Christian priest.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He called for an end to Israeli control of the Old City
saying that under Arab control “all religions would be respected”. One of my group remarked that Jews could be
forgiven for being sceptical given that no Jew was allowed to set foot in the Old City
during the years of Jordanian control between 1949-1967. Our speaker’s response? “I’ve never heard of this before. I’m sure that’s not how it was.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
It reminded me of a taxi journey I took with an Arab driver
some months ago. He was from East Jerusalem. He
told me that his grandfather could remember a time when there were no Jews
living in Jerusalem. I wondered out loud that that seemed unlikely,
as there had been a continuous Jewish presence in Jerusalem
for many centuries, and that Jews had actually been the majority population in Jerusalem for the past 150
years. He told me I had my facts wrong.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I should not have been so surprised. The official Palestinian position on the Temple Mount
is that the Jews have no claim to it; that it was never the site of the First
and Second Temples.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is worth comparing this policy of 'Temple
denial' with a guidebook published by the Muslim authorities in Palestine in 1925. About the Temple Mount
the following is said:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The current Palestinian position is not derived from
Islam. It is political. Its purpose is to paint a picture: Israel is a western implant. The Jews are interlopers in this land with no
historical or religious ties.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Palestinians are not being taught the truth about Arab
misdeeds, or about the Jewish connection to the land. Instead, they are being fed a narrative that
delegitimises Israel
and denies its importance to the Jewish people.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My heart sinks when I hear educated Arabs like the young
priest demonstrate such ignorance of basic historical facts. What are they being taught? And how much hate
will it sow?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes the truth may hurt; but, in this region, lies can kill. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>This was published in </i>The Jewish News<i> on 12/2/2010</i> </div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-8752899714726684582009-11-14T13:24:00.000-08:002012-03-11T12:23:32.718-07:00And the world is silent…<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Three events, occurring over the same 48 hours, in three different
locations:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In New York, the UN General Assembly endorsed the Goldstone
Report into Israel’s ‘Operation Cast Lead’ against Hamas terrorists in Gaza.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the waters off the coast of Cyprus, the Israeli navy
intercepted a vessel containing 300 tons of weaponry and explosives destined
for Hizballah, dispatched by Iran.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Iran itself, mass crowds gathered to curse the ‘Great
Satan’, the United States, on the 30<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the US Embassy
hostage crisis which followed the revolution that overturned the Shah’s secular
autocracy and ushered in the Islamist reign of the Ayatollahs.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The UN vote was predictable – more General Assembly resolutions
condemning Israel have been passed than against every other country combined.
However, there is something particularly insidious about the Goldstone Report. In the first place, it was commissioned by
the UN Human Rights Council, a body that has Israel as an agenda item for every
meeting and the likes of Sudan and Libya deciding what constitutes human rights
abuse. Moreover, one of the members of the Commission had already signed a
letter to <i>The Times</i> condemning Israel for “war crimes” <i>before</i> the
commission had conducted its investigation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The flurry of activity in the international community over
Goldstone stands in marked contrast to its deafening silence following Israel’s
capture of the shipment of arms which included thousands of Katyusha rockets
and an incredible 9,000 mortar shells; all en route to Hizballah, the Lebanese
terrorist organization which acts as Iran’s proxy in the region.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The western powers are frantically searching for a way to
prevent Iran going nuclear without the need for an Israeli military strike,
which they fear could lead to all-out war.
But they are silent on the war that Iran has been waging against Israel
all along. In violation of international
law and numerous UN Security Council resolutions, Tehran has been relentlessly
arming and supporting Hizballah and Hamas, establishing <i>de facto </i>Iranian
bases in Southern Lebanon and in Gaza.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Without Iran’s supporting of “the armed resistance” against
Israel, there would have been no need for Israel’s military action in Gaza
which precipitated the Goldstone Report.
So when will we see a UN-commissioned report examining Iran’s role in the
terrorism directed at Israel’s citizens over the past decade?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I will not be holding my breath.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>This was published in </i>The Jewish News <i>on 13/11/09</i>.</div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-19318625648277502152009-10-31T13:59:00.000-07:002012-03-11T12:24:27.209-07:00Remembering Rabin<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Last week Israel commemorated 14 years since the assassination
of Yitzhak Rabin.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Predictably, there was
much discussion in the press – and I dare say in the cafes and on the street –
about his legacy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The left have claimed his memory – he did, after all, begin
the peace process with the Palestinians and make peace with Jordan.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> However, prior to his (second) premiership in
1992 he was not part of the ‘Peace Now’, anti-occupation left.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"> Rabin was
a tough, security-obsessed military man – a hero of the War of Independence,
IDF Chief-Of Staff during the Six-Day War and a hawkish Defense Minister. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">His decision to sign the Oslo Accords and embark on a peace
process with Yasser Arafat – a man he personally detested – stemmed from a
belief that the status quo could not continue.</span><span style="font-size: small;">
This is his legacy.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> A military
man to his bones, he became profoundly disturbed at how the occupation of the
Palestinians had turned his beloved IDF into riot police or enforcers of checkpoints
against a civilian population. He was the first prime minister since the
conquering of the disputed territories in 1967 to sound the alarm about the
corrupting effect that controlling another people was having on Israeli
society, and the first to declare that Israel would have to give up land if it
was to remain both Jewish and democratic. </span><span style="font-size: small;"> The latter point at least as since been
absorbed even by some on the right – witness arch-settlement builder Ariel
Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza, dyed-in-the-wool Likudniks Ehud Olmert’s and
Tzipi Livni’s zealous conversion to the two-state faith, and even Bibi
Netanyahu supporting the creation of a (demilitarized) Palestinian state.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The assassination itself shook the country to its core.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> That another Jew could murder the prime
minister was not something that anyone in Israel had believed possible.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> But though Yigal Amir fired the shots, he was
not operating in a vacuum.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Opposition to
Oslo had been intense and heated, and while the vast majority of the protesters
were genuinely concerned at the risks being taken in the name of peace, there
was also something darker simmering.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> More
extreme right-wing elements in Israeli society began to take things further. At
demonstrations posters appeared depicting Rabin as an SS officer while
religious edicts issued forth from certain radical West Bank Rabbis calling the
prime minister a traitor to the Jewish people and </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: small;">religious newspapers branded him ‘an
antisemite’. </span><span style="font-size: small;">The assassination
was merely the culmination of what had been developing for a long time: the
presence of a growing population of extremists who believed that the Torah
commanded them to keep all of <i>Eretz Israel</i> and that violence was
acceptable to prevent the secular government from giving up sacred territory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Today, this ideology can be seen in the settlers who attack
IDF soldiers and call them Nazis when they come to dismantle illegal outposts.
Clearly, one lesson to be taken from the assassination is that Israeli should
be on its guard against those who would strip Judaism of its ethical dimension
and imperil Israel’s democracy in the name of religion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">As for Rabin himself, his legacy can be expressed best in
his own words.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> His 1992 speech to the
Knesset after becoming Prime Minister, included this address to the
Palestinians:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>"You have failed in your war against us. One hundred years of your bloodshed and
terror against us have brought you only suffering, humiliation, bereavement and
pain… For forty-four years you have been
living under a delusion. Your leaders
have led you through lies and deceit.
They have missed every opportunity, rejected all the proposals for a
settlement, and have taken you from one tragedy to another...</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>“We are destined to live together, on the same soil in
the same land. We, the soldiers who have returned from battle stained with
blood, we who have seen our relatives and friends killed before our eyes, we
who have attended their funerals and cannot look into the eyes of their
parents, we who have come from a land where parents bury their children, we who
have fought against you, the Palestinians, we say to you today in a loud and
clear voice: Enough of blood and tears. Enough."</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">And three years later, also in the Knesset, he spelt out the
future that Israel must create:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>“We had to choose between the whole of the land of
Israel, which meant a binational state, and whose population, as of today,
would comprise four and a half million Jews, and more than three million
Palestinians, who are a separate entity -- religiously, politically, and
nationally -- and a state with less territory, but which would be a Jewish
state. We chose to be a Jewish state.”</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Yitzhak Rabin - Prime Minister, Soldier, Zionist, Jew.
Defender of Israel and seeker of peace.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">May his memory be blessed. </span></div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-19442773339994768872009-10-03T13:20:00.000-07:002012-03-11T12:26:02.965-07:00UN-surprising<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Israel’s relationship with the United Nations has been turbulent
to say the least.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> In 1947 the UN General
Assembly (GA) passed resolution 181 dividing what had been the British mandate
of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. At that point the new
international body was a hero for the Jewish people, granting international legitimacy
to the notion of a Jewish state in <i>Eretz Yisrael</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">However, the GA is entirely a reflection of its members –
the nations of the world.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> If in 1947
those countries were well-disposed towards Zionist aspirations, it did not set
a precedent. The Soviet Union, which was the first country to voice support for
the partition plan, would, within a decade of that vote, have thrown its
support behind the Arab states committed to Israel’s destruction.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Before long, the Soviet bloc and the Arab and
Muslim world could command an automatic anti-Israel majority in the GA.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> The nadir was reached in 1975 when resolution
3379 was passed, equating Zionism with racism.</span><span style="font-size: small;">
Although the resolution was rescinded in 1991 (against the backdrop of
the USSR’s collapse and an Arab world courting American approval) it would
serve as a warning of what was to follow. In the years since, Israel has been
subjected to more condemnatory GA resolutions than any other country; while
there has never been a single GA resolution condemning any act of violence or
aggression by any Arab state or terror organization against Israel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">It is hardly surprising then that Israelis tend to regard
the UN with suspicion. This past week, with the annual opening of the GA, three
speeches in particular commanded the attention of people here. First was
President Obama’s.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> That he devoted more
time to the Israeli-Arab conflict than any other single issue may not have
pleased some Israelis, it was consistent with his promise to focus on it as a
priority in his first term. He repeated his demand that the Palestinians end
incitement against Israel and his opposition to Israeli settlement building and
declared the following aim:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“Two states living side by side in peace and security – a <i>Jewish
state</i> of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable,
independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory…”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I have written previously of the need for the Palestinians
to accept Israel’s right to exist as the state of the Jewish people.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Obama’s - no doubt very deliberate - choice
of wording was an important development.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The second speech of particular interest to Israelis was
that of Iran’s President. The content featured the usual assurances of his
regime’s peace-loving nature alongside accusations of Israeli “genocide”
against the Palestinians. This was less important however than the fact that he
was allowed to speak at all.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Just a few
days before his speech, he addressed a crowd in Teheran, referring to the
Holocaust as “an </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: small;">unprovable</span><span style="font-size: small;">
mythical lie”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The UN could have reasserted much of its diminished moral
credibility by banning this serial Holocaust denier from the UN. It didn’t.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The final speech I wish to mention is that of Binyamin
Netanyahu. I have written critically of him before – and will likely do so
again – but </span><span style="font-size: small;"> this was a <i>tour de force </i>of
a speech, with the most important section coming at the beginning with a
powerful denunciation of Ahmadinejad and some well-chosen words on the
reactions of UN member states to the Iranian leader’s presence:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from
this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room
in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor
to your countries. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">"But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say
on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have
you no shame? Have you no decency? “</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">No Bibi, they haven’t.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>An edited version of this was published in </i>The Jewish News <i>on 2/10/2009.</i></span> </div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-44368079813154348212009-06-27T13:16:00.000-07:002012-03-11T12:26:53.822-07:00Return of the rejectionists<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">A quick history lesson.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">1937: The British government recommends partitioning Palestine into an Arab state on roughly 80
percent of the land and a Jewish state on the rest.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> The Zionist leadership accept this offer of a
mini-state on 20 percent of the territory.</span><span style="font-size: small;">
The Arabs refuse.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">1947: The UN votes in favour of Resolution 181 – the partition of Palestine into a Jewish
state and an Arab state, this time roughly 50:50. The Jews accept, the Arabs
refuse and, for good measure, declare that they will strangle the new Jewish
state at birth.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">2000: At Camp David, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak suggests
establishing a Palestinian state in Gaza and
some 90 percent of the West Bank.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Yasser Arafat rejects the offer and makes no
counter-proposals.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> A few months later,
after Arafat has already launched the second Intifada, President Clinton
presents both parties with a last chance to make peace before he leaves
office.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> His plan would see the creation
of a Palestinian state in Gaza and 97 percent of
the West Bank, with a capital in East Jerusalem.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Barak, with reservations, accepts the
proposal.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Arafat rejects it. Saudi Arabia accuse
him of committing "a crime against the Palestinian people".</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Last week, I was at Bar
Ilan University
to hear Benjamin Netanyuahu surprise many by accepting the need for a two-state
solution.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> I wondered what would be the
reaction of the Palestinian Authority; I guessed it would be cautiously
optimistic. I was wrong.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">"He announced a series of conditions and qualifications that render
a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian state impossible,"
complained Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> What were these "impossible"
conditions? That the Palestinian state be demilitarized, and that the
Palestinians accept Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> The first of these is nothing new.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Clinton's proposals
also included this concession to Israel's security
requirements.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> It is the price the
Palestinians must pay for decades of threatening Israel with annihilation.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> The second qualification simply states that
if Israel
accepts the right of the Palestinian people to a state of their own, then <i>quid
pro quo</i>: the Palestinians recognise the right of the Jewish people to their
own state.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Every time there has been an offer on the table, the Palestinian
leadership has adopted an "all-or-nothing" policy and ended up with
nothing. And while Israel
has made its fair share of mistakes over the years, no one factor is more
significant in the failure to find a resolution than the enduring stupidity of
Palestinian rejectionism.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; font-family: inherit; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>This was published in </i>The Jewish News <i>on 26/6/2009.</i></span> </div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-29866832432621787362009-05-15T13:33:00.000-07:002012-03-11T12:28:40.664-07:00Beware the prophets of certainty<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">“There is something very un-Jewish about certainty…” So said the writer and thinker Rabbi Daniel Gordis during an event launching his new book <i>Saving Israel</i>.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I was reminded of his comment as I spent Shabbat a few days later with my friend’s family in Kfar Adumim, a settlement in the West Bank; potentially one of those evacuated as part of a final two-state solution with the Palestinians. Gordis was positing that, whether left-wing or right-wing, it is un-Jewish to be <i>certain</i> that our position is the correct one; we should always question.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The traditional left-wing position is that Kfar Adumim is one of many settlements built on land which Israel itself has not formally made part of the state and which prevent Palestinians from having a state of their own. The traditional right-wing view is that Kfar Adumim was built on territory that the Jewish people have a historical and religious connection to and which was not the sovereign territory of any other people when Israel took control of it in 1967.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Both of these statements are correct. But the <i>certainty</i> with which both sides proclaim their positions masks the more complex reality.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The left’s determination to abandon the territories conquered in 1967 led to the empowering of Yasser Arafat and a Palestinian movement in the West Bank and Gaza which would incite, encourage and abet terrorism against Israeli civilians. The left’s certainty of the justice of the Palestinian cause blinded them to the reality that many Palestinians would not be satisfied with a state <i>alongside</i> Israel but would seek to destroy the Jewish state and to murder as many of its people as possible. The second intifada that accompanied Arafat’s rejection of the Clinton Plan in 2000 was a brutal reality check to those Israelis who had believed that the Oslo Accords would bring peace.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile, the right’s unqualified support for the settlement movement, their own certainty of the righteousness of settling biblical Judea and Samaria, has led Israel down a moral <i>cul-de-sac</i>, threatening its status as a democratic state. No democracy can permanently control territory in which they will not grant citizenship to one group of people defined by race. That will lead Israel towards apartheid.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The left forgot the tragic lesson of Jewish history – that there are people that simply want us powerless or dead with whom we cannot negotiate or compromise with. The right chose to ignore the basic truth that permanent occupation is incompatible with democracy.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The dilemma for Israel is acute. Its future as a democracy rests on ending its rule over the Palestinians as soon as possible, yet a withdrawal from most of the West Bank tomorrow would almost certainly lead to the establishment there of a Hamas state, allied to a genocidal Iran.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The message Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will give to President Obama when they meet in Washington next week is that he wishes to negotiate with the Palestinians, but that there is no hope of a two-state solution unless the Palestinian society and governing infrastructure is reformed so as to allow for a peaceful, lawful democracy to emerge – one that accepts Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Netanyahu’s position makes a great deal of sense, but there needs to be a political horizon for the Palestinians also. Kfar Adumim may well be one of the settlements that remains part of Israel in a two-state deal. It is close to the “Green Line” and not so near Palestinian towns. There are however, many Israeli settlements built near Palestinian population centres which would render any future autonomous Palestinian entity nothing more than a series of cantons separated by Israeli roads and checkpoints.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">So yes, Netanyahu is right that there can be no comprehensive settlement in the immediate future; Israel should not be expected to agree to the creation of a terror-state next-door within rocket range of the entire country. But, if he is serious about improving the lot of ordinary Palestinians and creating the conditions necessary for a solution to emerge, then the terrible mistake of the mass settlement colonization of the West Bank must be reversed.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The big settlement blocs around Jerusalem will remain. They contain the majority of the West Bank Jewish population and form a crucial buffer at a strategically important point for Israel. The future of Kfar Adumim depends on exactly how much of the West Bank Israel will ultimately retain. For the residents, including my friend’s family - even more than for the rest of us Israelis – nothing is certain.</span></div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-4548342459659151822009-04-03T13:32:00.000-07:002012-03-11T12:29:45.078-07:00Enemies of the state<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Hanin Zouabi is the first female Member of Knesset for an Arab party. Despite this milestone, interviews she has given indicate that Arab women’s issues will not be her main focus. A protégé of the former leader of her Balad Party, Azmi Bishara, it appears that she shares his agenda – to campaign for the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">(Bishara is currently living in Jordan to escape his arrest by Israeli security services on charges of espionage and aiding enemies of the state, specifically Hizballah.)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Some 20 percent of the population of Israel is Arab, almost 1.5 million people. The vast majority of them are law-abiding and, though they frequently voice opposition to Israeli policies in the territories, the number of Israeli Arabs that have been involved in supporting or perpetrating acts of terrorism is tiny. Nevertheless, when prominent figures in the Arab community, like MKs, use their public platform as a pulpit from which to support antisemitic terror organisations and to call for Israel’s demise, it creates understandable fear of an Arab “fifth column” and strengthens extremists on the Jewish side.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Which leads me to another new MK whose arrival at the Knesset is noteworthy for all the wrong reasons. Michael Ben Ari is an MK with the National Union Party, which supports the “transfer” of Arabs from the West Bank. Ben Ari describes himself as a “devoted student of Rabbi Meir Kahane” the late founder of the Kach Party, the only party ever to be banned from the Knesset for racism. Last week, Ben Ari took part in a march through the Israeli Arab village of Umm-El-Fahm, organized by far-right activists with histories of anti-Arab violence. (Imagine a BNP march through Golders Green headed by David Irving and you will get some idea of why this was so provocative.)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">These two unwelcome additions to Israeli public life exemplify threats to Israel’s Jewish character, and its democracy. If Arab MKs do not wish to live in a Jewish state there are plenty of Arab countries they can move to. We will not return to the status quo ante-1948 when we did not have a state of our own. At the same time, there should be no place in Israel's parliament for someone who believes that Israel's non-Jewish citizens should be deprived of their democratic rights. With our history, we do not need our own fascists sitting in the Knesset.</span></div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-10296636976409446222009-02-09T00:50:00.000-08:002012-03-11T12:31:40.964-07:004 comments on the election...<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">1. Yisrael Beiteinu and ‘loyalty to the state’</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu claim that their policy of demanding that all Israeli citizens sign a pledge of “loyalty to the state” is not racist because while they have Israelis Arabs in mind with this proposal, it is not based on their ethnicity but their behavior – their suspected disloyalty. In this case, I wonder whether certain Jewish Israelis would also have a problem pledging their loyalty to the state. I am thinking in particular of those extremist West Bank settlers who insist that the democratically elected government of Israel has no authority over them because they answer only to God and His interpreters, their Rabbis. Would those residents of Hebron who attacked Israeli soldiers and their Rabbis who called Olmert and Barak enemies of Judaism be regarded as loyal to the State under Lieberman’s definition? And would those Charedim who regard Yom Haatzmaut and Yom Hazikaron as irrelevant to them be able to sign a loyalty pledge in good conscience?</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I agree that Israeli law should have a more effective way of dealing with Arab MKs who openly laud Hizballah and Hamas, and the spread of radical Islam among Israeli Arabs is, of course, legitimate cause for concern. But Lieberman has in his sights all 1.5 million Arab citizens of Israel. To expect them to associate themselves with the words of the Hatikvah is ridiculous. Israel, in defining itself as both Jewish and democratic, made the decision to grant all its citizens equal rights but to emphasize its Jewish character through state symbols such as the flag and the entirely Jewish-centric national anthem. I would not want to see Israel change either its democratic nature, nor its insistence on these Jewish symbols, but the quid pro quo of this arrangement is that Israel’s non-Jewish citizens cannot be expected to identify with these symbols, just to be law-abiding citizens of the state.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Yisrael Beiteinu is playing to the basest instincts in people in its bid for votes: fear and prejudice. How sad that this ploy is working to such an extent that the polls show them becoming the third largest party in the Knesset.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">2. The Likud’s position on the Palestinian issue</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Binyamin Netanyahu says that he rejects the current ‘Annapolis process’ of negotiations with the Palestinians towards a two-state solution and would implement a policy of improving the Palestinian economy and society instead. He also says that he will not remove a single settlement but does not wish to govern a single Palestinian. The problem is that real Palestinian autonomy and a properly functioning Palestinian economy will be nigh impossible to achieve while there remain the small settlements, such as Yitzhar or Kedim, that lie deep within Palestinian populated areas of the West Bank and the network of roads connecting them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The Likud’s assertion that a two-state solution is not currently viable because the Palestinian Authority is not strong (or trustworthy?) enough to be given control of the West Bank without causing an unconscionable security risk to Israel, is certainly not a hollow claim. But there would be more integrity in a position which did not rule out evacuating the smaller settlements while keeping the settlement blocks and the Jordan Valley, which Netanyahu has stressed is vital to Israeli security.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">3. The need for both Kadima AND Labour?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I would challenge anyone to find a significant difference between Kadima’s and Labour’s positions on the Palestinian issue. Both support continued negotiate with Mahmoud Abbas. Both support a two-state solution in principle. Both stress that they will not sign a peace deal that threatens Israeli security. While the right-wing bloc in the Knesset will undoubtedly be larger after these elections, if Kadima and Labour ran a joint list, they would emerge as the largest single faction. With this in mind, Labour’s expected unprecedentedly poor showing is due in part to the fact that more people who support the Kadima/Labour position want Tzipi Livni as Prime Minister than want Ehud Barak.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Where they do differ is on socio-economic policy with Labour remaining somewhat true to its social democratic roots and focusing more on the needs of those left behind by the free market. For some (including myself) this could provide a reason for voting Labour rather than Kadima - as well as the whiff of scandal that clings to Livni’s part even post-Olmert, not helped by the continued presence on the party slate of figures such as Haim Ramon, who was found guilty of sexual harassment last year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">4. Further to the right and left</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">On the right, the idea of consolidating the national-religious camp farcically fell apart when the newly established Habayit Yehuhdi succumbed to the not unpredictable battle of egos and split into its original constituent parts of Mafdal (the National Religious Party) and Ichud Leumi (the National Union). Mafdal kept the new name of Habayit Yehudi and Ichud Leumi became… well, Ichud Leumi again!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Habayit Yehudi have actually, rather admirably, in some respects turned the clock back to pre-1967 when religious Zionism was about more than building settlements in the West Bank and have chosen to focus more on Jewish education and the ‘Jewishness’ of the State. However they remain committed to Greater Israel and not giving up an inch of land. They have not explained how they can perpetuate the status in the West Bank indefinitely and keep Israel a democracy but at least they have not signed up to Ichud Leumi’s ludicrous ‘Israel initiative’ which posits paying the Palestinians to move to Jordan. (Notwithstanding the question of what an Ichud Leumi government would do with the Palestinians who refuse to go, the last thing Israel needs is to see Jordan destabilized on its eastern border by the influx of 4 million Palestinians.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The right remain committed to their dream of holding on to all of the land, Israel’s democracy be damned, but on the left, Meretz are no less irresponsible. They have not deviated from their policy of signing a two-state deal at the earliest opportunity despite the likelihood of the West Bank falling to Hamas if Israel hands over the keys any time in the near future.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Those are some thoughts, and I’ve not even covered the Charedi parties or the very welcome emergence of Rav Melchior’s Green Movement-Meimad alliance! </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Happy voting everyone.</span></div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-85210152331999226192008-12-30T01:16:00.000-08:002012-07-03T13:08:55.486-07:00And so it is war...<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The Israeli public has rarely been a dutiful amen chorus for its political leaders, to say the least. Israel’s hyper-active democracy involves frequent demonstrations attacking the government of the day from the left and the right. Public opinion led to commissions of inquiry into the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and more recently, the 2006 Second Lebanon War. Twenty-five years ago massive public protests against government policy during the First Lebanon War led to the removal of Defence Minister Ariel Sharon.<br /><br />All of this makes the overwhelming public support for this campaign against Hamas in Gaza all the more notable. A few days before the attack began, the left-wing Meretz Party – unwaveringly committed to a negotiated two-state deal with the Palestinians – called for military action against Hamas.<br /><br />Israel has had enough.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />We withdrew all settlements and soldiers from Gaza in 2005. Hamas used the very areas that had been vacated by Jewish settlers as launching sites for Qassam rockets against southern Israeli towns. It attacked an Israeli army post on the Gaza border in 2006 and kidnapped 19 year-old Gilad Shalit. The rockets have continued to fall (well over a thousand in 2008 alone) and our young soldier remains in captivity over two years later.<br /><br />Israel is, of course, being criticized for “excessive” force. But we have exercised extraordinary restraint for the past two and half years. Of those countries currently wagging a finger, which of them would have responded to non-stop rocket attacks on their citizens by taking no military action, and continuing to supply the very regime launching the rockets with electricity. Britain? France? To say nothing of Russia whose ‘concern’ for the lives of innocent Palestinian civilians is frankly laughable. Fighting Chechen rebels operating from within a civilian population, the Russian air force made no attempt to discriminate in its bombing. Neither NATO in its air strikes on Milosevic’s Serbia, nor the US and its allies in Afghanistan after 9/11, took anything like the measures Israel has employed to try to minimize civilian casualties.<br /><br />Unfortunately, tragically, ordinary Palestinians have been killed and injured. Hamas makes a point of using civilian homes and even schools, as bases and for arms storage. (Such callous disregard for the lives of their own people is hardly a moral deviation for an organisation that indoctrinates children in kindergartens to become suicide bombers.)<br /><br />Every Israeli politician, official, or spokesman has stated that Israel is not at war with the people of Gaza but with Hamas. Even as the attacks on Hamas targets continue, Israel is allowing aid trucks into Gaza for the ordinary population. The tragedy for the Palestinians – yet again – is their leadership. Just as Yasser Arafat denied his people a viable state in Gaza and 97% of the West Bank, with a capital in East Jerusalem, by rejecting the Clinton Plan in 2000, so the Hamas regime has condemned 1.5 million Gazans to international isolation and now, to be caught up in a military conflict that their leaders could have so easily prevented.<br /><br />Hamas refused to accept what they claimed were the international community’s “unreasonable” criteria for international acceptance – that the organisation abandon terrorism and recognize Israel’s right to exist. Egypt pleaded with Hamas to end its rocket attacks lest Israel be left with no choice but to declare war on the Gaza regime. Hamas ignored the advice.<br /><br />Pity the Palestinians for their wretched self-destructive leaders, who would see their own people burn rather than give up the dream of destroying the Jewish State.<br /><br />Hamas, motivated above all by hatred of Israel and of Jews, has always looked to sow bloody carnage. Now it is reaping the fruits on a grand scale. This is war. Israel has had enough.</span><br />
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</div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1539118978741026408.post-80694235116243094072008-07-16T12:33:00.000-07:002012-03-11T12:33:14.175-07:00Swapping coffins for murderers<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: 100%;">Today was Israel’s blackest day since I arrived some seven months ago. The ‘prisoner swap’, painstakingly thrashed out between Israel and the Lebanese terrorist group Hizballah reached its macabre conclusion. The two soldiers abducted by Hizballah almost exactly two years ago were returned to Israel, and Israel returned to the Lebanese convicted murderer Samir Kuntar and four Hizballah gunmen captured during the 2006 war sparked by the abduction.<br /><br />Except, of course, the two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, returned to their homeland in coffins.<br /><br />It has been quite extraordinary witnessing the debate generated by this saga. Should Israel release the murderers of its citizens in return for dead soldiers? Indeed, should Israel release murderers at all - whether the soldiers are alive or dead? Should the entire principle, which the State of Israel has adhered to throughout its 60 years of existence, of placing the return of its soldiers over almost all other moral concerns, be abandoned?</span></div>
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<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-size: 100%;"><br />A word about some of the specifics: first, Samir Kuntar. In 1979, in the middle of the night, he crossed the border into Israel and, after killing a policeman entered the home of the Haran family. He shot to death Danny Haran in front of his four-year old daughter Einat. He then killed her by bashing in her skull with the butt of his gun. Meanwhile, Danny’s terrified wife Smadar, who was hiding with their two-year old daughter Yael, accidentally smothered the child to death in her desperation to prevent her crying and giving them both away to Kuntar.<br /><br />In anticipation of Kuntar’s release, Hizballah have prepared a massive celebration and the Lebanese government and people are welcoming him as a returning hero. Hizballah’s response is as predictable as it is despicable, but the general air of festivity in Lebanon is deeply disturbing and perhaps exemplifies how successful Israel’s enemies have been at sowing the seeds of hate in ordinary people.<br /><br />Cruelly, Hizballah kept the families of the two soldiers guessing about their fate right to the last. Last week, after Israel had announced that they believed them to be dead, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah told a press conference that this was just speculation on Israel’s part. Even today, as Israelis waited for a sight of the soldiers and the entire country prayed that the assessment had been wrong and they would be returned alive, a Hizballah official refused to confirm anything, simply telling the TV cameras: “You’ll know their fate soon enough”. Not long after, two black coffins appeared.<br /><br />The debate in Israel is complex, incorporating not just national feeling but religious imperatives. According to Jewish law, everything possible must be done to secure the release of a captive, and further, even the dead body of a Jew must be returned to his family for a proper burial as a matter of supreme religious importance. At the same time, the Israel Defense Forces moral code states that missing in action soldiers will never be abandoned and all steps will taken to return them. In a country like Israel, where almost every family sends his children to the army at the age of 18, this promise is part of the contract between the army and the people it serves.<br /><br />Both of these points resonate with me. And I don’t doubt that if my son were kidnapped I would willingly release every terrorist in Israel’s jails to secure his release. But my feeling right now is that this has to stop. I believe that Israel has to say: no more. No more negotiating the release of convicted murderers and terrorists. If you kidnap our soldiers our response will not be to agree a ‘swap’. For all the mishandling of the 2006 Lebanon War, that was the right response to the abduction of the soldiers. As Yitzhak Rabin described the policy that should underlie Israel’s dealings with its neighbours: “One hand will reach out for peace, the other we will keep poised on the trigger” - Arab olive branches should be responded to in kind, but acts of aggression will be met with the fury of a people that has faced hatred and persecution for 2000 years and now, finally, has the means to defend itself.<br /><br />One more Israeli soldier remains in captivity. Gilad Shalit, was 19 years old when he was abducted by Hamas in June 2006 and taken into Gaza. It is generally thought that he is still alive. Israel sought to make his release one of the terms of the temporary ceasefire agreed with Hamas last week but Hamas refused, saying only that the ceasefire would speed up negotiations for his release. Like Hizballah, Hamas wish to secure the maximum capital they can from their captured Israeli; they want the release of several hundred Palestinian terrorists incarcerated in Israeli jails. And like Hizballah today with Kuntar, Hamas would draw the maximum possible propaganda value out of the release. Hizballah are proclaiming this as a great victory over Israel. Hamas would do the same, telling the Palestinian people that only they could force the hand of the Zionist enemy.<br /><br />For this and other reasons, Israel should never have agreed to the truce. Even with Shalit’s release it made questionable strategic sense but without it, it simply buys a few months of calm which, despite the Qassam rocket fire, benefits Hamas more than Israel anyway. Israel should have said: no Shalit no deal. And if the rockets don’t stop we’re sending in the army.<br /><br />There is simply no easy answer to how to deal with this. Whichever option is taken, there are serious implications for the safety and security of innocent people. And whichever option is taken, there is an injustice done somehow. What today has shown me, if i did not know already, is just how close-knit this country is. The entire nation is in mourning today for the two soldiers. The entire nation is crying. Every parent here knows it could have been their child.<br /><br />Meanwhile, in Lebanon, Hizballah are basking in the glory of their ‘victory’ and a big party is being thrown for Samir Kuntar.</span><div style="font-family: inherit;">
</div>Paul Grosshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00265634803486941507noreply@blogger.com0