Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

In May, Akiva Eldar wrote in The Nation about a felicitous encounter he had with an Egyptian cab driver who picked him up in New York City.  The man followed Eldar’s reporting religiously and praised it effusively. In the course of the article, Eldar notes an important column that Israel’s most popular daily columnist wrote criticizing Haaretz’s commentators for their attitude toward Palestinian terror:

…Nahum Barnea wrote in November 2000 (in a publication of the Israel Democracy Institute) that “there are Israeli reporters who do not pass the ‘lynch test.’” These, he wrote, are journalists who could not bring themselves to criticize the Arabs even when two Israelis were savagely murdered by a mob in Ramallah. Barnea…went on to argue that our [the journalists'] support for the Palestinian position is absolute. He concluded, “They have a mission.” I was honored to be mentioned as one of those journalists, alongside my fine colleagues Gideon Levy and Amira Hass.

I admit to being guilty as charged.

Me too. You see, I resent the fact that there is a “test” that you must pass in order to be considered truly supportive of Israel when it suffers a terror attack; that you must be prepared to bray for blood vengeance or else be insufficiently patriotic or pro-Israel or whatever term you’d like to use. Similarly, I’d like to think, in fact I know, there are Palestinians who don’t scream for vengeance whenever the Baruch Goldsteins, Natan-Zendas, or the IDF perpetrates a ritual act of bloodletting. There must be those on both sides who understand that the acts of individual terrorists do not mean that an entire people have hatred of the other inscribed in their DNA; or even that the horrific acts of a national army represents a destiny of perpetual war for both peoples.

The genesis of this post was entirely contrary to most posts based on ideas contributed by readers. This one came from an especially hateful and annoying one, Bill Pearlman, who wrote in reply to my last post about the bulldozer terror attack in Jerusalem:

…You should check out the lynch test has [sic] spelled out by Nahum Barnea. Sombody [sic] with way more reason to be bitter than you. You fail miserably…

Since I’d never heard of the “lynch test” it set me to Googling which turned up Akiva Eldar’s sterling piece from The Nation. Without Pearlman’s ankle-biting comment, I wouldn’t have learned that I proudly failed Nahum Barnea’s test, which insists that all red-blooded Israel supporters must hate ALL the enemy when a SINGLE one commits an act of blood lust.

Haaretz’s Brad Burston has definitely passed the lynch test with this churlish, obtuse rant:

The attack came after the latest in a series of attempts by groups in the States, some of them atheist/anarchist, some of them Muslim, some of them Jewish, to lobby Prostestant churches and respected universities to divest from Caterpillar, because the IDF uses its bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes.

I would like to hear them now. Just once. I would like them to divest from terrorism. Not understand it as the natural outgrowth of the crimes of occupation. For once, I would like my sisters and brothers on the left to be every bit as hard on their comrades the Palestinians for taking a bulldozer and crushing Jews, as they are on Israel for bulldozing homes.

Why would anyone on the left or otherwise NOT understand terror as a “natural outgrowth of the crimes of Occupation?”  In the Israeli context terror and Occupation walk hand in hand.  What Burston does not understand is that believing this does not condone terror.  It does not say Palestinian terror is justified.  It merely says that such terror is not an evil without cause.  This is what Burston refuses to concede.

He continues:

…What’s a decent person supposed to think?

That it’s all right to launch rockets against residential areas during a cease-fire, because the occupation is still going on? That it’s all right to crush Jewish civilians, because the occupation has not been halted and settlers continue to build homes?

…What’s a decent person to think when the man who drove the bulldozer was himself the father of two, a construction worker from East Jerusalem, whose desire to kill Jews - and, in so doing, further soil and damage the cause and name of Palestine - was greater than his feeling for the mother who had to throw her baby from a car to save it?

What is astonishing about this monologue is that Burston refuses to understand the suffering the Occupation inflicts on the Palestinians.  Does he believe that the Palestinians must simply acquiesce to that suffering; or perhaps protest it by writing letters to the prime minister?  If the Occupation brings deadly violence to the everyday lives of Palestinians, does Burston think that the same will not happen to Israelis?  What specifically indemnifies Israelis from feeling any pain when their army inflicts pain on another people?

What is astonishing about the following passage is that from the rampage of a single troubled Palestinian, Burston has extrapolated the innate hatred of the entire Palestinian people for Jews from time immemorial:

I, for one, would like to ask for proof of what it is that Palestinians really want. I no longer believe that it’s as simple as wanting statehood.

This is what I don’t yet want to admit: that for all these years…what a critical mass of Palestinians want most, perhaps even more than statehood, may be as simple as the vile thrill of vengeance, as straightforward as nothing more than seeing Jews dead and gone.

Here Burston has become entirely unmoored.  He has used the beserk ramapage of a single troubled Palestinian and extrapolated from it an innate hatred of the entire Palestinian people for Jews.  This is without doubt racism of the most pernicious sort.  Yes, Burston and all Israelis have the right to feel anger for this attack.  But their anger should be directed at the individual and not the individual’s nation.  Once again, Burston is engaging in the politically bankrupt act of assigning collective guilt.

Let me be clear about what I am not saying: I am not saying that such acts of terror on both sides should not be condemned when they occur. That should go without saying. Terror does not bring peace closer. It only leads to more terror. That is why violence of any kind is reprehensible.  It is why I am in favor of bringing both sides before the bar of international justice for their heinous acts.

But if there is going to be violence–and of that we can be sure given that we’re talking about one of the more blood-soaked regions of the world these days–we must not fall into traps set for us by false allegiance to a set of prejudices that make the enemy out to be demons and us out to be superior to them.

What hath Caterpillar wrought? (BBC)

As I heard the terrible news of the terror attack in Jerusalem carried out by an East Jerusalem construction worker, I thought what an irony it would be if the bulldozer used was made by Caterpillar.  Yesterday’s NY Times coverage confirmed my thought:

Witnesses said they saw the vehicle, a large Caterpillar front-end loader, set off close to midday from a building site at one of the busiest intersections in the predominantly Jewish, western half of the city…

Caterpillar equipment has a special resonance among Palestinians. Human rights activists have lobbied the company to stop selling its heavy vehicles to the Israeli military out of concern that they have been used to demolish Palestinian homes, uproot orchards and construct Jewish settlements in occupied land.

Though perhaps the terrible irony of this incident will be lost on Israeli Jews, it will not be lost on Palestinians who are made to suffer the brunt of the terrible destructive power of the Caterpillar bulldozer, the “engine” of the Occupation.  We should add to this, that a similar vehicle by the same company killed Rachel Corrie.

Seattle’s Initiative 97, which calls for divestment from companies like Caterpillar which profit from the Israeli Occupation, takes on a whole new meaning in light of this attack.  The bulldozer not only harms Palestinians, but Israelis as well.

Israeli politicians are once again baying for collective blood-vengeance against East Jerusalem residents despite that fact that a single individual was responsible.  They have conveniently forgotten that collective guilt violates not only international law, but Jewish law as well.

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz informed Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Thursday that rulings made by the High Court of Justice over the years clarify there is no constitutional barrier to demolishing the home of a terrorist, although there are legal obstacles in both the local and international arenas that must be considered.

Mazuz arrived at this ruling after in-depth discussions…over the question of whether Israel is permitted under the law to demolish the home of the East Jerusalem man who plowed a bulldozer into a string of vehicles in downtown Jerusalem on Wednesday and killed three people.

Olmert’s political hatchet man, Haim Ramon, concedes the demolition will have absolutely no impact on future terrorism and thereby concedes the utter bankruptcy of the government policy.  But not only does he propose demolishing the home, he also demands (and this is a new and insidious proposal) that ALL residents of neighborhoods where terrorists live should be collectively punished by being cut off from Jerusalem:

Vice Premier Haim Ramon (Kadima) told Army Radio on Thursday morning that Israel should treat the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Jabel Mukaber and Zur Baher as Palestinian villages, and revoke the permanent residency status of their residents.

Wednesday’s attacker came from Zur Baher, and Jabel Mukaber was the home of the Mercaz Harav terrorist. In the aftermath of both attacks, Ramon called for the two neighborhoods to be entirely cut off from Jerusalem.

“One of the main reasons that the attack was carried out yesterday with such ease was because there are Palestinian villages that for some reason are called Jerusalem - Jabel Mukaber and Zur Baher. They need to be treated as we treat Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jenin and Nablus,” Ramon told Army Radio.

Such a policy would give Israel the best of all possible worlds.  It can annex East Jerusalem as it did taking control of Palestinian territory, while surgically removing specific residents and neighborhoods from the benefits of being annexed to Israel.  Israel still controls their land, but no longer has any responsibilities toward the residents.  A strange and, as I said, an insidious policy.

The cluelessness of Israeli policy is most evident in this statement:

Ramon also told Army Radio that he felt, as opposed to the prime minister and his fellow ministers, that demolishing the home of the terrorist’s family would not prevent the next terror attack. However, he said that the house should be demolished anyway, if the law allows it.

“I doubt that demolishing the house will achieve what it aims to achieve, though if possible, the house must be razed. The laws must be made to fit the policy and we mustn’t give up,” Ramon said. “What we are permitted to do, we must do as soon as possible.”

Interesting that Ramon seems so concerned about maintaining the semblance of legality to the housing demolition scheme, while being someone convicted of sexual assault.  How can someone who broke the law and paid for it convince anyone that he’s concerned about what the law says in this case.  The only thing more icily and darkly ironic would’ve been if Olmert had named Ramon justice minister after his sentence was completed.

My impression of political policy was that it should be efficacious.  It should achieve some result.  Here there is no result.  There is only an appearance that the government is doing SOMETHING to respond to terror when in reality it is doing nothing.  This reflects a political system that is bankrupt & political leaders who are rudderless.  Days like yesterday and statements like these make me feel utterly hopeless that there can ever be any good that comes out of this Godforsaken conflict.

Apparently, Israel is such a country where the families of Arab terrorists are not allowed to mourn their dead, as Haaretz shows video images of Israeli police tearing down in disgust the mourning tent erected by the family of the bulldozer driver.  Has it come to this that we can’t allow our enemy to engage in the fundamental human act of mourning the dead?  We aren’t talking about making a hero out of the man, but merely allowing his family to mark his passing.

For those of you who want to read a few twisted screeds from the Jewish-Israeli press on this incident (and I don’t recommend this for the faint of heart) read Bradley Burston’s Kahanesque rant in a Haaretz that should’ve been embarrassed to publish it and Jonathan Mark’s equally vile ranting in Jewish Week.  After you’ve done this you must read Bernard Avishai’s moving commentary that puts both of the above pieces of excrement to shame with its profound humanity.

There have been a lot of changes here at Tikun Olam lately. Not in terms of content, but in terms of graphics, site design and other technical issues. Yesterday and today I moved servers. It was more complicated than I expected (isn’t it always) and the site wasn’t available for parts of both days. But I had the help of two wonderful folks, Carthik Sharma and Jonathan at DigitalToast who kept at it despite all the frustrating technical problems. We’re now moved over to the new server which will serve pages much faster than our previous one. I’m also expecting much less down time than we had before.

In the past week or so I also changed the theme of this blog. I hope you’re enjoying the slideshow banner as much as I’m enjoying finding images that express some of my Jewish and political values. I’ve always felt that even political blogs should not be satisfied with merely words on a page. The blog medium needs to be visual. This new theme, Living OS Upsilon, allows me to do this. With the help of a web designer Wajahath Dean, I’ve also tweaked the theme so that the post display area is wider to accommodate my longer posts.

If you have any technical difficulties with any aspect of the site please let me know.

Title credit of ‘Sleeping With the Enemy’ video

Israel’s Channel 10 has uncovered an astonishing display of Jewish racism not against Palestinians, but against fellow Israeli citizens, the Bedouin. It all happened in the town of Kiryat Gat, where the municipal and education authorities, and local police joined together to create a campaign against Jewish girls fraternizing with Bedouin men. In the YouTube age, they even created their own video, Sleeping with the Enemy (I kid you not).

Here is a translation of some of the interview footage from the news report, beginning with a propaganda lecture delivered to high school girls by the town welfare services representative:

Like they warn you to be careful while driving or when they warn you to be careful when swimming in the sea and there’s a black flag and a red flag–when it’s allowed and when it’s forbidden–the same thing we’re doing to warn girls of this unnatural phenomenon.

In an on-camera interview the representative continues:

The [Jewish] girls, in their innocence, hook up with Bedouin Arabs who exploit them. She sleeps with the enemy without realizing it.

The video also quotes from the Koran in an attempt to show the girls that Islam mistreats women.

Further in the video a representative of a religious organization which discourages inter-ethnic relationships talks about the deceit with which Arabs begin their flirtations:

The affair begins as superficial love which appears to be authentic. Many times the girl doesn’t even know she’s going with someone who is a minority. He introduces himself with a Hebrew name and speaks Hebrew fluently.

The idea that this project might be racist seems never to have crossed these people’s minds:

Whoever calls this [program] ‘racist’ doesn’t know what he’s talking about because we’re not talking here about mutual exploitation. We’re talking about racism on their [the Arabs'] part because they come to us to exploit the girl, then throw her to the winds once she gets pregnant. Then the whole problem becomes doubled.

Zvi Solow, who teaches at Ben Gurion University, provides this thumbnail political-economic-social sketch of Kiryat Gat, which helps explain the prudish, moralizing, and racist nature of this campaign:

Kiriat Gat is an ex “development-town” where in the early 1950’s Government settled mainly eastern-origin [Mizrahi] new olim and encouraged the then “traditional” blue collar industries to open plants in order to provide work. Kiriat Gat was the home of the Polgat textile network of factories and the now older-generation of its inhabitants mostly worked there. The Israeli textile industry went the way of most blue-collar industries in the age of globalisation and free trade.  The last Polgat plant shut down some months ago, with the media featuring human interest stories of families who both worked there for decades and were facing either early retirement on a meagre pension, or life on the dole.

Anticipating this, all Israeli governments encouraged Intel to open its big manufacturing operation in Kiriat Gat and they just opened its second big plant there. Intel Kiriat Gat is a success by all the usual criteria, but for most Kiriat Gat inhabitants, who lack the necessary technological & linguistic (English) skills, it only offers menial jobs (cleaning, security etc). Most of the high tech people commute to work or choose to live in nearby moshavim or kibbutzim in one-family houses (they can afford it).

In the last decade, Kiriat Gat also absorbed a group of ex-Soviet olim, many of them retirees.

This demographic mix makes it naturally observant (Orthodox), conservative (Zeevik Boim now a minister in Olmert’s government, was for years its mayor on behalf of the permanent Likud majority), & of course hawkish & anti-Arab.

There are no neighbouring (by Israeli standards) Bedouin settlements, but the Bedouin town of Rahat is only about a 30-minute drive away.

Nana offers a longer version of the video and accompanying Hebrew language article.

Let’s keep in mind that not only are these Bedouin citizens of the State, they also serve important roles in the IDF as trackers. They are as loyal and willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their country as Jews. So why do some Israeli citizens consider them the enemy? If there is a social problem in Kiryat Gat with girls and unwanted pregnancies is this the proper way to approach the issue?

Mohammed Omer, Gaza photojournalist roughed up by Shin Bet

If you’re an award-winning Gaza journalist, the Shin Bet has a message for you: get out and don’t come back.  Inter-Press Service photographer Mohammed Omer just won the distinguished Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in London.  He traveled to Jordan on his way home and stopped to coordinate his return with Israeli authorities.  Once he was given proper approvals he went to the Allenby Bridge to cross into the Occupied Territory.  Here is what happened:

Accompanied by Dutch diplomats, Omer passed through the Jordanian side of the border without incident. However, after arrival on the Israeli side, trouble began. He informed a female soldier that he was returning home to Gaza. He was repeatedly asked where Gaza was, and told that he had neither a permit nor any coordination to cross.

Omer explained that he did indeed have permission and coordination but was nevertheless taken to a room by Israel’s domestic intelligence agency the Shin Bet, where he was isolated for an hour and a half without explanation.

“Eventually I was asked whether I had a knife or gun on me even though I had already passed through the x-ray machine, had my luggage searched, and was in the company of Dutch diplomats,” Omer said.

His luggage was again searched, and security then proceeded to go through every document and paper he had on him, taking down the names and numbers of the European parliamentary officials he had met.

The Shin Bet officials then started to make fun of the European parliamentarians, and mocked Omer for being “the prize-winning journalist”.

The Gazan journalist was repeatedly asked why he was returning to “the hell of Gaza after we allowed you to leave.” To this he responded that he wanted to be a voice for the voiceless. He was told he was a “trouble-maker”.

The security men also demanded he show all the money he had on him, and particular attention was paid to the British pounds he was carrying. His Gellhorn prize money had been awarded in British pounds but he was not carrying the entire sum on him bodily, something the investigators refused to believe.

After being unable to produce the prize money, he was ordered to strip naked.

“At first I refused but then I had an M16 (gun) pointed in my face and my clothes were forcibly removed, even my underwear,” Omer said.

At this point Omer broke down and pleaded for an end to such treatment. He said he was told, “you haven’t seen anything yet.” Every cavity of his body was searched as one of the investigators pinned him down on the floor, placing his boot on Omer’s neck. Omer began vomiting, and fainted.

When he came round his eyelids were being forcibly opened and his eardrums probed by an Israeli military doctor, who was also armed. He was then dragged along the floor by his feet by the Shin Bet officials, with his head repeatedly banging on the floor, to a Palestinian ambulance which had been called.

“I eventually woke up in a Palestinian hospital with the doctors trying to reassure me,” Omer told IPS.

Reuters adds to the story that Omer’s ribs were broken during his manhandling.

This, of course, is not the first time that Palestinians accompanied by western diplomatic personnel have been roughed up.  It’s not even the first time that western diplomatic personnel themselves have been roughed up by Israeli goons masquerading as representatives of the security apparatus.  The last time something like this happened, the prime minister’s office was abject in apologizing and swearing something like this wouldn’t happen again.  Well guess what–it has.

What’s the Israeli explanation?  They have many, all of which appear lame:

A spokeswoman at the Israeli Foreign Press Association said she was unaware of the incident.

Lisa Dvir from the Israeli Airport Authority (IAA), the body responsible for controlling Israel’s borders, told IPS that the IAA was neither aware of Omer’s journalist credentials nor of his coordination.

“We would like to know who Omer spoke to in regard to receiving coordination to pass through Allenby. We offer journalists a special service when passing through our border crossings, and had we known about his arrival this would not have happened.

“I’m not aware of the events that followed his detention, and we are not responsible for the behaviour of the Shin Bet.”

So you have a rogue Shin Bet answerable to no one taking it upon itself to brutalize Palestinian journalists merely because they’ve distinguished themselves by winning an international journalism prize.  Of course, what the Shin Bet really wants is for Gaza’s best journalists to leave Gaza and never return so there will be no one to report to the world on Israel’s behavior there.  They’ve already prohibited Israeli journalists from reporting there.  Much too uncomfortable to have Israelis knowing from their own journalists about the hell that Israel is making there.

One wonders whether the Shin Bet and CIA are sharing “interrogation techniques” in the hunt for dangerous “Islamist terrorists” like Mohammed Omer.  I suppose Omer should be happy he didn’t receive the treatment recently accorded another Gaza photojournalist, Fadel Shana–a flechette blade to the neck courtesy of an IDF tank, severing his spinal cord and killing him instantly.

This story was also covered by Democracy Now.  Thanks to reader Ellen Rosner for tipping me off to the story.

Matt Stoller at Open Left reports that Seattle area Congressional candidate Darcy Burner told him that she received a phone call from an AIPAC representative warning her against accepting an endorsement from J Street, the dovish American-Jewish peace lobby:

Darcy Burner…told me that she got a call from people affiliated with the conservative Jewish political group AIPAC.  They told her to distance herself from the new pro-peace group J Street, which they said is full of radical leftists who believe in capitulation to the forces of the Arab world who would overrun and destroy Israel.

I have calls in to Burner’s staff and have e-mailed Stoller to ask for further clarification about precisely who spoke to Burner.  I can’t imagine that an AIPAC staff member would be foolish enough to state in such a bald-faced way what they probably believe, but would not want to make publicly known.

In fact, I have spoken to someone in a position to know a bit more about what actually happened. This person likely has his own partisan agenda and so his perspective needs to be vetted as well.  But the story he tells is that a local Burner volunteer who is also an AIPAC volunteer warned her of the dangers of affiliating with J Street.  This supporter was supposedly doing her a favor in telling her how dangerous it could be to her campaign to get into bed with such a group.

My take on this, before getting more explicit background information from the principles, is that an overzealous AIPAC supporter took it upon himself to get in Burner’s face on this matter.  AIPAC wants to get as far away from this story as it can and doesn’t even concede explicitly that the person who warned Burner was affiliated with it.

Whatever did happen, I think this indicates that J Street is getting under the skin of precisely the people whose skin it should be getting under.  I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear more stories like this on the campaign trail.  We need to be vigilant to head off such threatening behavior if it does rear its ugly head.

There is one misconception in Stoller’s report:

AIPAC’s people are backing Darcy’s opponent, Dave Reichert…

AIPAC doesn’t officially endorse candidates.  In fact, one of the things you’ll hear them screaming about is that they are in fact non-partisan.  It’s a crock really, but in combatting AIPAC I think you have to at least publicly describe the way they operate as they themselves do.  So AIPAC wields its political power through independent pro-Israel PACs which dole out money to candidates.  The PACs are run by AIPAC donors and so are an indirect extension of AIPACs political reach.

It’s likely that pro-Israel PACs will be funding Reichert’s campaign, though we’ll have to follow the money trail to see to what extent this is true.  By the way, if pro-Israel PACs DO support Reichert, they’ll be cozying up to one of the Hagee-style evangelical extremists who, as a candidate, proudly and publicly states that America is a Christian nation.

Also, I’ll be very curious to see how much, if anything, the pro-Israel PACs give to Burner.  If they shut her out, it will speak volumes about AIPAC’s real feelings about J Street.  If they don’t, then they’ll be smarter and more sophisticated than I’ve hitherto given them credit.  In fact, if any reader out there either keeps track of such information or knows groups that might, please let me know.

Do you wake up in a cold sweat at night wondering whether George Bush or Ehud Olmert will drop the big one on Nantanz and what the implications will be for the rest of us?  If so, Mother Jones’ Laura Rozen is the answer to your prayers.  She has put together an interesting collection of Iran experts and posed the question: will Israel or the U.S. attack Iran?  Her panel includes Daniel Levy, Trita Parsi, Yossi Melman and Danny Postel among others.  The prevailing view among them is that there will not be such an attack–at least not in the foreseeable future (though some panelists see a possibility of such an attack in the longer term).

The perspective closest to my own was that of Danny Postel who wrote:

None of us can be certain at this point whether the US or Israel will attack Iran, but I read recent signs as being just ominous enough that I’d rather err on the side of being too worried than of not being worried enough. Even that paragon of cool sobriety The Economist now concludes that Israel’s recent maneuvers suggest that it might not be bluffing. One thing we do know is that the intellectual runway is being slicked for an attack. John Bolton has floated the suggestion that Israel will attack after the November elections but before the next president takes office, while Daniel Pipes has evoked the same scenario, only with the US doing the job…Norman Podhoretz not only “prays” that Bush will bomb Iran but has personally urged the president to do so in a private meeting between the two. (Bush, according to Podhoretz, “gave not the slightest indication of whether he agreed,” but “listened very intently” and “looked very solemn.”) The writing on the wall looks deadly serious to me. I’d rather fall for the hawks’ propaganda than awake one morning to find out that I’d underestimated the threat. But even if it is just posturing, it’s a very dangerous game with potentially cataclysmic consequences.

Whether the likelihood of an attack is low or high, the entire saber-rattling exercise is deeply disturbing.

One of my hopes is that with an Obama Administration (if that happens) at least 1/2 of the insanity of the current Israel & U.S. policy approaches to Iran will be eliminated. That just leaves a hot-headed Israel to worry about.

What most worries me about Israeli policy options is that they went into the Lebanon war with precisely the same delusions about what they could accomplish. An Iran adventure would be virtually the same type of situation: much ballyhoo about eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, a strike of limited success, then Iranian blowback that turns the region into a smoking ruin.

If Israel was stupid enough to sink into the Big Muddy in Lebanon, what’s to hold them back from doing the same in Iran?

While I detest Ehud Barak politically, I’m hoping that he’ll be a far stronger, wiser & more strategic defense minister than Amir Peretz was during the Lebanon misadventure. While Barak rattles sabers with the best (or worst) of them, perhaps he has just enough saychel (”common sense”) to know what Israel can and cannot achieve with the military option regarding Iran.

What I especially like about the MoJo Convo concept is getting together the best progressive minds on a specific knotty political problem and giving them space to talk about it. On top of that, allowing readers to participate in the conversation as well and then allowing the panelists to interact with each other online and with readers–well, this idea is beyond cool.

I think this should be done a lot more often on other types of subjects.  For example, I’d like to see a group of similar Jewish intellectuals discuss the topic of “what is pro-Israel” in the context of the presidential campaign.  I know a lot of people have been writing about this lately including me, but having everyone get together in one place to discuss it would be really neat.

I was thinking of creating a blog composed of progressive Jews writing about the presidential campaign discussing issues pertinent to American Jews–including but not limited to Israel.  I had even solicited a group of bloggers to do it.  But it never got off the ground.

Malcolm Hoenlein delivered a strange video address to the people of Iran recently which you’ll find on YouTube.  It reminds me a little of those old science fiction movies in which the president makes a television address to invading Martians telling them that we are a peaceful people and wish them no harm.  This is one bizarre performance.

After thinking about this a little more, it occurs to me that this is precisely the type of address that George Bush would deliver on the eve of bombing Tehran.  Imagine the sheer megalomania of Hoenlein arrogating to himself the role of explicating U.S. policy and American Jewish attitudes toward that country.  He has the sheer chutzpah to make comments like the following:

We know that the people of Iran do not support Ahmadinejad…

Whether or not the majority of Iranians support Ahmadinejad (and how would Hoenlein know that they don’t?), they certainly do not support whatever Hoenlein is trying to sell them.

And further:

We want to help you, we want to work with you, we want to support you in your effort to have a better life; to have a government that reflects your positions, your interests, and can help contribute to a different kind of region in the Middle East; to a different kind of world at large.

…This effort to achieve a nuclear capacity at any cost…[stems from] a misguided desire on their part to achieve hegemony and to foster their own extremist religious and ideological goals.

We hope the people of Iran understand that we reach out to you, we care about you.  We want to do nothing that harms you or hurts you.  We understand that this [Ahmadinejad] is not the voice of the people of Iran.

Does Hoenlein seriously believe that this will persuade Iranians that their leaders are making a grievous error in pursuing a nuclear weapon (if they indeed are doing so?).

This feeble performance begs many questions: why does Malcolm Hoenlein think any Iranian gives a flying fig what he has to say?  Has the Conference of Presidents ever done anything to earn the trust or respect of Iranians?  How does Hoenlein expect that his message will be heard by Iranians?  Does he expect they’ll broadcast it on their nightly news?  Will he set up his own Persian version of Radio Marti (Radio Tehran?) and beam it directly to his Iranian audience?

So let’s dispense immediately with the likelihood that Hoenlein has even an ounce of credibility with any Iranian.  Has he pulled this stunt in order to impress his own constituency (i.e. hard-line American Jewish leaders who are gunning for war against Iran)?  If so, what is he trying to prove to them?  That he’s put American Jewry’s best foot forward in attempting to persuade Iranians that we mean them no harm but that it’s those dreadful ayatollahs we aim to exterminate?

Trying to plumb Hoenlein’s thinking is a little like spelunking through the mind of Marty Peretz: it’s deep and dark in there and hard to figure out which way is up or down. But this is the quality of American Jewish “leadership” these days. The troglodytes lumber through halls of power roaring for Iranian and Palestinian blood disguising their true agenda with fake deferential speeches like this one. Woe unto a people with leaders such as these. Who appointed them to represent us? All I can say is: not in my name. Not in my name does this man speak.

Yesterday, with the invaluable help of Jonathan of Digital Toast, I changed this blog’s Wordpress theme.  I’ve been considering doing this for some time for many reasons.  After reviewing hundreds of WP themes I found Living OS Upsilon, which I think is quite wonderful because one of its main features incorporates a WP Smoothgallery slideshow plugin and allows you to display rotating images in the blog banner.

For some time, I’ve wanted to redesign my banner to feature a specifically Jewish theme.  Upsilon allows me to load a series of images and highlight what I find special or unique in Jewish art, culture, or politics in image form.

The only downside is that as far as I can tell you pretty much have to figure out the theme and how it works on your own.  While the plugin author has created a wonderful tool, his willingness to interact with users is quite limited in my experience.  I’m not sure why that is though there may be many legitimate reasons.  It does make for some frustration though if you’re not up to the task technically.  Which is why Jonathan has proven himself indispensable in sorting through some of the technical challenges.

For anyone thinking of switching to Upsilon or one of its related themes a few hints.  The Recent Events portion of the main page banner is controlled through the Sidebar2 in the widget section.  Also, the WP Footnote plugin conflicts with the Slideshow feature (thanks for figuring that out, Jonathan!).  Anyone who’s using the former will have to disable it until/unless the author can resolve the issue.

If anyone reading this has css experience, I’d like to widen the post display area and narrow some of the side borders.  I’d love some help changing those dimensions.

Several readers have told me they’ve found it difficult to figure out how to post a comment from a post displaying on the main page.  To do that, look at the line just under the post title that displays the post date.  You will see an small icon with the upper half of a body in profile along with a number (the number of comments for that post).  Click on the icon and this will open the comment box.  Alternatively, you can also click on the post title & will find the comment box at the bottom of the post.

Please let me know if you have any other comments or issues with the new theme.  Let me know if you discover any technical problems as well.

I’ve been following Adalah’s energetic, months-long campaign against Russo-Israeli diamond baron Lev Leviev with great interest. Not so much because I agree with Adalah’s politics regarding the I-P conflict, but because I find Leviev’s political, commercial and religious interests to be so odious. Through an imaginative, tenacious campaign they have nipped at Leviev’s heels all over the globe where he maintains commercial interests. Most recently they persuaded Dubai to refuse to allow him to open a new jewelry outlet there.

But Adalah’s greatest coup thus far has been persuading UNICEF to refuse to accept future gifts from Leviev. An activist from the human rights group noticed that Leviev’s website boasts of his sponsorship of a Cannes gala whose proceeds went to the charity. That prompted a letter to UNICEF director and (ironically) former Bush cabinet officer Ann Veneman, and a long deliberation process which included a UNICEF delegation visiting the Palestinian villages, Jayous and Bilin, most damaged by Leviev’s settlement building activities. The final result was this letter (pdf) to Adalah:

UNICEF will not consider partnerships–direct or indirect–with Mr. Leviev of any of his corporate entities, and will not accept financial or other support that we know is from him or his corporate entities.

This in itself is a significant achievement as it puts Israeli companies which profit from building settlements on notice that they risk becoming pariahs in certain circles for their support of the Occupation.  But just as important has been Adalah’s provocation of the that lumbering Jewish dinosaur, Abe Foxman, who has come to Leviev’s defense with a blistering, and error-filled attack on UNICEF.  When you provoke Abe Foxman’s ire you know you’ve really poked the Israel lobby in the eye:

The ADL…urged…UNICEF to reconsider its decision to reject donations from a Jewish philanthropist…”The decision not to accept assistance from Mr. Leviev smacks of selective political discrimination,” said Abraham H. Foxman…”This decision only gives legitimacy to those who would seek to promote a boycott of the State of Israel and its supporters.”

Ah, the dreaded creature, The Boycott, rears its ugly head yet again.  It seems to be the shibboleth of the moment for the Israel lobby.  There’s only one problem.  UNICEF has an Israel chapter and gladly accepts funds from Israeli donors.  Hmm, Abe, you’ll have to do better next time.

Abe utilizes another tried and true Israel lobby tactic: the “double standard:”

…The [ADL]…not[ed] that the fund has a history of accepting aid from other questionable partners, including the International Islamic Relief Organization [IIRO], which was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2006 because of its links to Al Qaeda.

Abe is sloppy regarding this charge as well.  IIRO was NEVER designated a terrorist organization by the U.S.  One Saudi official of the group and two of its affiliates (in Indonesia and Philippines) were so designated.  Besides, if we keep in mind the Justice Department’s recent failed prosecution of the Holyland Foundation for being an alleged supporter of Islamic terror, the Bush Administration’s judgment of what is and what is not a legitimate Islamic charity is a tad suspect.  In addition, IIRO doesn’t contribute to UNICEF.  It is a UNICEF partner in delivering care to Saudi children.

Even the Bush Administration, hardly a supporter of Islamic terror, seems to understand the distinction as reported in the Jerusalem Post:

The U.S. government also noted the distinction between the head office and the international branches.

“We are monitoring the situation closely, but we also understand the difference between the IIRO main headquarters and its branches,” Carolyn Vadino, deputy spokeswoman for the U.S. mission to the U.N., wrote…

“It is the two branches in question that are designated and have ties to terrorists and at this time we have been assured that they are separate entities,” Vadino wrote.

Not surprisingly, Foxman has harvested a lot of these specious charges from right-wing pro-Israel sites like IMRA. This is yet another example of how the extremist wingnuts of Jewish life insinuate themselves into mainstream political discourse. Abe Foxman is the militant pro-Israel wingnuts’ best friend.

But this oblique slap in the face from Abe is what should have Adalah supporters smiling:

“At a time when children around the world are in desperate need of food, medical care, education and other aid, it is a sad day when UNICEF has to create unnecessary, arbitrary and discriminatory guidelines in a bid to satisfy the demands of an outside group with little vested concern in improving the lives of children,” said Mr. Foxman.

So what Abe would have UNICEF do is accept support from anyone who wishes to provide it: armaments manufacturers, cigarette companies, alcohol purveyors, and settlement builders.  Undoubtedly, this is the path that the ADL follows in accepting contributions for its activities.  Fortunately, UNICEF has determined that some donations are tainted with the stain of exploitation of children.  The charity has ethical standards for which the ADL sees no need.

Interesting that Foxman describes Adalah as having “no concern for improving the lives of children.”  Cleary, Adalah’s concern for the villagers of Bilin and Jayous confirms their dedication to the welfare of the children of these communities, many of whose families can no longer afford to send them to school because the new Separation Barrier has cut these farmers off from their fields and destroyed their livelihoods.

Perhaps what Foxman really means to say is that Adalah cares about Palestinian children, but they don’t count as legitimate objects of UNICEF’s concern.

For anyone wishing to see how the European glitterati flaunt their wealth, you can see a video of the Gala Magazine party which Leviev sponsored and which raised funds for UNICEF.

I haven’t written yet about this video which features a Leviev address to a large Chabad gathering.  In it, he speaks of his wealth as God-given and a sign that the Lord approves both of him and his actions.  In light of Leviev’s willingness to impoverish Palestinians in order to enrich himself, one has to question God’s judgment in pouring His favor on someone like Leviev.

Thanks to David Bloom for providing some of the research on which this post is based.