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

The N.Y. Times reports that Hillary Clinton has accepted Barack Obama’s invitation to be his secretary of state. This development will no doubt rankle some on the left who campaigned hard for Obama’s election.  I’m concerned too.  I wonder which Hillary will be secretary of state: the bellicose, saber-rattling presidential primary candidate who threatened to wipe out Iran; or the pragmatic, flexible Hillary we’d prefer to see fill that position.

The Times notes my special concern regarding her views on the Israeli-Arab conflict:

On Israel, the other chronic foreign policy issue that will bedevil the next secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton would bring baggage as well. She is seen as fiercely loyal to Israel, which can be both a plus and a minus, Middle East experts say.

While her pro-Israel record as a senator from New York might cause her to be viewed with suspicion in the Arab world, it could give her credibility to ask Israel to make tough choices for peace.

The argument is the same as the one made in favor of Rahm Emanuel’s appointment. Because of his pro-Israel bona fides when he called upon an Israeli prime minister or defense minister to stop settlements Israeli pols couldn’t dismiss him as a Johnny-come-lately naive American pol. He would be a force to be reckoned with.

So which Hillary will we get?  The one who never met a Separation Wall she didn’t like?  The one beloved of Aipac?  Or the one who can jawbone with the best of ‘em, including top IDF brass?  I believe she could be a very good secretary of state if she can distance herself from her campaign jingoism.  But the jury is definitely out on this one.

The accompanying B’Tselem video should make your stomach turn and call to mind what a Kristallnacht perpetrated by Jews might resemble.  These are citizens of the State of Israel who treat its authorities with utter contempt, not to mention shower them with violence:

…B’Tselem released footage on Thursday showing a mob of settlers clashing with Israeli security forces in the West Bank town of Hebron.  During the clashes…settlers…wounded an IDF soldier by pouring turpentine on him as he tried to stop them from throwing stones at Palestinians…The settlers also scribbled graffiti…including spraying ‘Mohammed Pig’ on the walls of a local mosque and on Palestinian homes nearby.

Mouatassem Daana, a Palestinian resident of Hebron, said he saw settlers gathered near the building “writing demeaning graffiti on the wall of the mosque insulting the Prophet Mohammad” and breaking windows.

An IDF spokesman said settlers also vandalized a cemetery near the mosque.

Israel’s prime minister has called such outrageous behavior a “pogrom.”  Last week, Jews around the world commemorated the anniversary of Kristallnacht. I’m afraid that this represents our own Jewish Kristallnacht by which we desecrate Muslim cemeteries and mosques. And settlers committed such violence not only against their Palestinian target of choice, but against IDF soldiers and Israeli police.  In fact, one wonders whether they even make a distinction.

In fact, one West Bank rabbi has gone so far as to state:

“The state of Israel has become the enemy of the people and the land of Israel,” settler rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe said Tuesday during an emergency meeting on the state’s plan to evacuate a house in Hebron…

For the life of me I simply cannot understand the forbearance with which Israel treats these traitorous zealots.  Yes, the settlers are known to make outrageous claims that confronting them will lead to civil war; that the nation will rise up against any political leadership that opposes them, etc.  But all this is always shown to be empty rhetoric when push comes to shove as it did during the Gaza evacuation.  This however, doesn’t prevent said leadership from being cowed in the face of such bullying blackmail.

All this is something over which I have no control.  Where I do have control, and do feel great anger is knowing that my own government has provided 501c3 non-profit status to various settler groups which raise funds to support this noxious enterprise.  And raise fund they do.  Of the three groups listed in the Reuters report, a single one, the Hebron Fund raised $8 million from 2002-2005.

It hosts an annual gala in Manhattan each year which provides one-third of the overall funds raised in a given year.  This year’s event was held last week at a midtown hotel.  Adalah NY demonstrated outside the event and unsuccessfully asked the Marriott to cancel it on the grounds that the settlement project constitutes a gross violation of Palestinian human rights.  The hotel chain was more concerned about accepting the Hebron Fund’s check than they were with respecting human rights.

In fact, the violence in Hebron revolves around a formerly Palestinian property appropriated/stolen by settlers through a forged deed (not the first time they’ve tried this fraudulent ruse).  The High Court has directed the settlers to return the property and they’ve refused.  Which means they deny the authority of Israel’s supreme judicial authority to adjudicate the matter.

Funds raised from the N.Y. fundraiser will be used to “Judaize” the building and Hebron itself:

After settlers took over a new but unfinished building in Hebron in March 2007, the fund solicited donations to finance renovations like installing doors, windows and heating systems.

“Dozens of new families can now come live in Hebron — only if we renovate this building quickly!” the Hebron Fund said in its appeal…Critics who argue that the projects promote settlement expansion and run counter to U.S. foreign policy…

Not to mention that the ultimate goal of these Jewish extremist is to uproot any vestige of Palestinian existence from Hebron and the rest of the Territories.  This is what our government is endorsing with a tax-exemption.  How does the IRS do this and let these people get away with this U.S. endorsed racism and hooligan violence?

Let us tell our government that American Jews do not support this disgusting display.  We do not want such Jews given a heksher by our government.  If anything, they should be declared a terrorist organization just like Hamas and Kahane Chai.  When will government bureaucrats come to their senses and understand this?  When will our so-called Jewish leaders speak out and tell them this?  If they truly disapprove of this stain on the Jewish conscience then they would denounce it publicly and intensely.  Thus far, I’ve heard only silence from Abe Foxman, David Harris and the Israel lobby groups which claim to be concerned about human (not just Jewish) rights.

Some of my readers persist in the belief that only Muslims and Arabs hate Jews but that there is no such feeling among Jews toward the former.  This story disproves that false notion.  Hate unfortunately is an equal opportunity offender that afflicts both religions.

Thanks to a reader who prefers to remain anonymous for research and the original story tip.

This is for all of you out there who sincerely believe that Aipac is a non-partisan, fair-minded, centrist group.  You’ll recall the story of Steve Rosen (at the time Aipac’s chief political operative) and Keith Weissman, allegedly caught red-handed by the FBI accepting secret U.S. government documents from Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin.  The pre-trial motions have dragged on for a few years.

The indicted Rosen is basically unemployable by any of the pro-Israel political groups, think tanks, PACs or politicians that might hire him.   Apparently tired of stewing in his own juices, he’s affiliated with several far-right Jewish media enterprises.  He’s begun, Obama Mideast Monitor, whose home is at Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum.  The blog promises to probe Obama’s Israel policy and foreign policy appointments with a fine tooth comb looking for ‘anti-Israel’ tendencies.  He’s also become a contributor to American Thinker,** home of some of the farthest right anti-Obama smearmongering during the last campaign.  All that remains is for Rosen to publish in American Thinker’s sister publication (ideologically), Frontpagemagazine.  That’ll come I guess.  Rosen has made his hard-right political bed and now he’s happy to lie in it.

But Steve is attempting to take the high road and gamely denying any partisan intent:

“One should not assume that the purpose of this blog is to draw a negative picture of a future Obama administration’s views toward the Middle East,” Rosen told the Forward, adding that he does not necessarily agree with all the views of the Middle East Forum, which is hosting his blog.

I’d like to ask him which specific militantly pro-Israel, anti-Obama, and anti-Arab views of Daniel Pipes does the former “not necessarily agree with?”  Or was Rosen so desperate to “get back in the game” that he took the only offer he could get, from the likes of Pipes.

While I’m not an attorney, I find it astonishing that someone indicted for allegedly passing state secrets to Israel would hitch their wagon to such militantly pro-Israel enterprises.  Doesn’t he thereby reinforce the notion that his original commitment in accepting the documents was to aid Israel’s intelligence capabilities?  And doesn’t that in turn help the government prosecution in making its case against him?  Besides, isn’t throwing in your lot with two harshly anti-Obama Jewish sites basically sticking your finger in the eye of the new president and daring him to redouble the government’s efforts to win a conviction?

I also find it rather astonishing that he’s writing specifically about Bush Administration policy toward Iran, precisely the subject that brought him to the FBI’s attention in the first place.  His motivation, from what I can tell, appears at least partially to embarrass Bush, who he must blame for his legal troubles.  Additionally, his goal seems to be to point out the perfidy and evil represented by the Iranian regime.  It may raise his polemical hackles should an Obama Administration go all soft inside and stoop to negotiating with the Ayatollahs.  All this has me scratching my head saying: “Huh?”  Does this guy know what he’s doing?

Rosen has high-priced and high-profile Washington legal representation in Abbe Lowell.  So I find it hard to believe that his attorney would tell him to plow ahead with these projects.  But I guess I’m wrong.  What do I know?  But then again, I’m not on trial for espionage and Rosen is.

Rosen’s current affiliations also go a long way toward explaining what his views were when he worked for 23 years for the ‘non-partisan, centrist’ Aipac.  And so much for the truth of that claim.  Aipac, like Rosen, has always interpreted pro-Israel as being pro-nationalist and pro-Likud.  They were birds of a feather.

**Rachel Neuwirth, my legal nemesis, has been known to peddle her smearmeistering there too.

Yes it is.  It truly is.  So says Pam Geller (notice the quotation marks–I didn’t say that) of Atlas Shrugged and one of the world’s most distinguished forensic psychologists and learned scholars of Islam.  Er, not really.  The only forensic psychology this woman has ever practiced involves writing her own blog which is a repository for pathological hatred.  As for her scholarly credentials, she earned them at the Merkaz HaRav Kahane yeshiva or was it the Bernard Lewis School of Neocon Anti-Jihadism?  Actually, she is the one of the blog world’s greatest Jewish purveyors of Muslim hate.  How else could she come up with this blog post title?

MISTRIAL IN JEWISH FEDERATION MASSACRE:ISLAM IS A MENTAL ILLNESS

I only learned about this dreck thanks to her link to a blog post I wrote about the Naveed Haq murder trial, which ended in a mistrial recently.  This, as you might guess, drove the Jewish anti-Muslim right into paroxysms of rage since it clearly meant that a hard-core jihadi was abusing the legal system to get off scot free.  As for the ten years during which Haq was under psychiatric care for serious mental disorders, well mental illness be damned.  Islam itself is a mental illness, don’t you know.

An irony totally lost on Geller is that Haq hated Islam and tortured his family with his angry outbursts against the religion.  In fact, he went so far as to be baptized a Christian in his twisted pursuit of a spiritual identity.  So much for Haq as a Muslim adherent.  Has it never crossed her mind how bizarre and contradictory it would be for a healthy individual to express hatred for his religion and then go out and supposedly kill for it?  This is clearly the act of a terribly deluded, twisted and ill mind.

Daniel Pipes, a more sophisticated but no less toxic Jewish anti-Muslim chirpily calls Haq “Seattle’s jihadi.”  He rails against Seattle’s soft Jews who don’t know a committed Al Qaeda fanatic when they see one.  Actually, if you look at a picture of Haq, you see an overweight, confused, and clouded individual.

Pipes practically screams out against the shooting victims: instead of recognizing the “real” threat Haq represents they persist in their Kumbaya notion that the true enemy in this case was freely available guns and a paucity of mental health options for the seriously ill:

In response to the hideous assault on herself and her co-workers, however, [Dayna] Klein offers this pablum: “I see this as an amazing opportunity. I see this as a chance for Seattleites and people across America … to look at some serious issues about workplace safety, gun control, gun violence and empowerment.” What about jihad, Ms Klein?

…Even more appalling, the parents of Layla Bush, 23, Haq’s most severely wounded victim who is battling for her life, focused entirely on Haq’s supposed mental illness.

Imagine that, shot by a Jihadi assassin and the victim’s parents refuse to acknowledge the evil looking at them in the face and get suckered by pablum about mental illness.  Imagine Pipes’ tut-tutting as he penned this attack on shooting victim, Cheryl Stumbo’s comment, published here at this blog:

One of Haq’s victims appears to remain in utter denial of the cause of her trauma. A writer identifying herself as Cheryl Stumbo writes today:

“…The man who shot me and five of my colleagues (killing one and seriously injuring the rest of us, not to mention traumatizing the entire staff and volunteer base) was raised Muslim, yes, but by peace-loving parents, from all accounts. His problem was long-term, very serious mental illness. Let’s not attribute blame to ethnicity/religion when there are documentable medical explanations. Rationality and reason should prevail.

Ah yes, rationality and reason–not qualities in great supply when it comes to the Jewish wingnut brigade epitomized by Pipes and Geller.  And to think of it, without his link to Stumbo’s comment at this blog I might’ve missed this jewel of penetrating anti-jihadi analysis.

What specially strikes me about all this blowhardery is the unmitigated chutzpah shown by them in attacking the feelings and beliefs of the victims.  Isn’t there some element of human decency which should require anyone, even a wingnut, to grant a few shreds of credence to the views of victims of this horrible tragedy?  Isn’t it sheer effrontery for them to substitute their superior wisdom and analysis for that of those ‘poor deluded sheep,’ victims Stumbo, Klein and Bush?

The problem with Pipes is that he’s got the world figured out.  He knows who are the good guys and who are the bad guys and he’s not afraid to tell you.  And woe betide anyone who stands in his way or muddies the waters of his moral clarity.  Off with their heads.  This is the mark of the true believer–the type of person who’ll lead you on a moral crusade.  The type of person in fact has brought nothing but devastation and pestilence on the human race.  He’s the Savanarola, the Torquemada, the Robespierre of the anti-jihadi set.  Woe unto a generation and a world that feels it must turn to such a one for moral leadership.

Personally, I am deeply thankful for the courage, bravery and moral clarity of these victims.  They can teach us all a thing or two about persevering in the face of tragic violence and adversity.  My Jewish tradition calls not only for strict justice, but for mercy as well.  The Midrash teaches us that a world where there is only justice and no mercy is a hellish world that cannot long endure.  Our victims have shown us that that is true and I am proud of them for it.

It is for this reason that I have dedicated myself to the Weekend of Twinning of mosques and synagogues sponsored by the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.  Here in Seattle, we are planning a program in the coming weeks that will partner Congregation Beth Shalom with Redmond’s Muslim Association of Puget Sound mosque.  I look forward to sharing our questions, conflicts and mutual views about our religious traditions then.

JTA’s Eric Fingerhut must’ve had a really slow news day because he chose to write up a previously reported interview Alan Dershowitz gave to that august forum of Jewish media excellence, Shalom TV. There Der Dersh recounted one of his Samsonian fever dreams in which he single-handedly saved the Democratic national convention from having to sit through an address from the despised anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, no goodnik former president Jimmy Carter. Yes, it was all Alan’s doing, our great Mattathias, our great Maccabee, that hammer of the Jewish people.

Alan Dershowitz revealed that he was among those who convinced Barack Obama to keep Jimmy Carter from addressing the Democratic National Convention.

“I pushed him very hard to make that decision. Barack Obama had to make a choice between his Jewish supporters and his anti-Israel supporters like Jimmy Carter, and he did not choose Jimmy Carter. And that was an embarrassment for Jimmy Carter and a show of disrespect. And I’m very glad he made that decision. It was a good decision, a wise decision, a moral decision.”

Excuse me while I barf in my air sickness bag. First, why should anyone believe this lying schemer that he had anything to do with whether or not Jimmy Carter spoke to the Convention? Second, if Obama’s people did nix Carter, then having Der Dersh call a decision based on cynical, political expedience a “wise, moral decision” is beyond despicable (as Dershowitz is).

Dersh has been reading too many of his own press releases. Instead of a law professor, he should’ve been born in the age of the traveling circuses. He would’ve made an excellent carnival barker or perhaps Borsht Belt tummeler. Unfortunately for him, many of us stopped reading his press releases decades ago. Dershowitz is a parody of himself. A buffoon. A babbling idiot. I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would bother listening to anything he says or quote him in a serious newspaper (though JTA often falls short of qualifying as serious journalism I’m afraid).

Here’s some more entertaining spew from Big Al:

[He] received thousands of emails from Jews opposing Obama during the election campaign…Dershowitz is convinced that many were from “extreme right-wing Jews” and that some were “out-and-out racist.”

Right-wing, out and out racist Jews?  Dersh must’ve been writing to himself.  I mean of course, his racism toward Palestinians since he seems to have curbed whatever racist inclinations he might’ve once had toward African-Americans.

Dersh for AG! And only at Shalom TV!

Could Dershowitz be part of an Obama administration, perhaps as Attorney General? Dershowitz responded with a categorical, “no.”

Thank God Obama seems inclined to pick Eric Holder for that job, someone who actually deserves consideration unlike Al.

Why in God’s name would anyone from Obama’s campaign have wanted Dersh to speak on his behalf? I guess someone there believes he retains some credibility among a few Jews (probably those over 90 sitting in West Palm retirement homes):

Dershowitz also said he declined a request to represent Obama on the campaign trail, explaining, “I said I couldn’t do that because I want to keep my own independent views independent. I don’t want to be a surrogate for anybody.”

He’s a two-faced SOB and his endorsement of Obama was about as heartfelt as a Dear John letter.  Thanks to one of my readers for pointing out this story.

* Tummeler: a raucous Borsht Belt comedian; full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

This coming weekend (November 21-23), forty communities (see list) throughout the U.S. will feature a local mosque and synagogue joining together to host a joint program on the subject of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.  The goal of this national project sponsored by the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding is to combat ethnic tension between Muslims and Jews.  The event will also seek common ground between the two religious traditions so that members of two faiths can study their shared sacred texts and discover their common humanity.

While the heaviest conflict between Jews and Muslims plays out in the Middle East, that does not mean that here at home all is sweetness and light.  There are numerous instances of rather acrid misunderstandings and even campaigns of hatred by Jews against Muslims and vice versa.

As an example, in this blog, I have been chronicling the anti-Muslim documentary films Obsession and Third Jihad produced by the Aish HaTorah offshoot Clarion Fund.  The latter deliberately marketed the films during the election campaign in a failed effort to drive a wedge between Barack Obama and the Jewish vote. The Republican Jewish Coalition, in attacking Barack Obama, attempted to capitalize on rumors deliberately circulated by Daniel Pipes and others to cast suspicion on him by claiming he was Muslim.

In New York, under the tutelage of Jewish extremists Pipes and David Yerushalmi, a local Jewish group organized to force a Muslim-American woman, Debbie Almontaser, out of her job as principal of the first Muslim public charter school in New York and the U.S.

Prior to that a group of Jewish Barnard College alumni lobbied hard against Nadia Abu El Haj’s attempt to gain academic tenure.  In all the above cases, perfectly reasonable, rational Muslims were targeted as Islamist extremists by frightened, ignorant Jews who believed the worst of them and their motives.

Conversely, here in Seattle, a Muslim-American lashed out against local Jews in a shooting at the Jewish Federation that left one staff member dead and several seriously injured.  I am sure if I knew the Muslim community as well as I know the Jewish community, I could list other instances of Muslim hatred of Jews. Because our own communities here in the U.S. are a microcosm of the conflict playing out in the Middle East, it is necessary that we work hard to overcome our differences here at home as well.

The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding is the brainchild of Orthodox Rabbi Marc Schneier.  It is his vehicle for international dialogue among Jews, Christians and Muslims.  In his capacity as world Jewry’s foremost proponent of interfaith dialogue, he has met the Pope and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

Several months ago, Walter Ruby, the national director of the Twinning project and a freelance Jewish journalist whose work I greatly respect, asked me whether any synagogues in Seattle might be interested.  This blog often deals with Muslim-Jewish relations including what drives us apart and what unites us.  I wrote extensively about the Haq shooting.  Like both communities during that tragedy, I was looking for common ground rather than focussing on the hate that might divide us, and which felled the mentally ill Haq.

For that reason, I was delighted when Walter contacted me.  Truthfully, I had few friends or contacts in the local Muslim community.  But I did approach Rabbi Jill Borodin, at Congregation Beth Shalom, where I belong.  She was enthusiastic about trying to put together a Seattle twinning.  We started by contacting the Idriss mosque in Northgate since it was closest to us geographically.  Attempts to reach them were unsuccessful.

For a short time, a Muslim community leader offered to speak to our synagogue, though he was not an imam nor did he represent a mosque.  I had never met, nor heard of the leader before, but I was grateful for his offer which we accepted until a mosque did finally come forward.

Earlier, I had found via a web search the Muslim Association of Puget Sound (MAPS), a mosque in Redmond.  After several attempts, I finally reached their president, Hyder Ali, who consulted with his board and imam and received approval to go forward.  All this took weeks.  By the time Hyder came back with a positive answer, it was just after the High Holidays in October, and Rabbi Borodin didn’t feel we had enough time to pull off a successful, well-coordinated event for this coming weekend.

Walter persuaded her to persevere and she agreed to allow me to go forward with meetings with MAPS members to plan the event.  I had a delightful lunch with two of them and found that I shared more in common with them in our respective approaches to our own traditions than I did with some Jews.  They too grappled with aspects of traditional belief that troubled them.  They too were eager to overcome suspicion of the other to make common cause in fighting bigotry in our society.

During this period last month, the rabbi was away on a ten day trip.  It was then synagogue members began to ask questions about the event.  A few were concerned when they heard that the local Muslim community leader I mentioned above would be the one speaking at our shul (even though by then we had moved on to working with MAPS as our partner).  This leader was considered controversial by more conservative members of the Jewish community.  Enough of a brouhaha had been stirred up, that when Rabbi Borodin returned from her vacation she decided that more prep work and education needed to be done within the synagogue.

That’s why the Seattle Twinning program will not happen this weekend.  Instead, it’s planned for a later date possibly in December.  This gives congregants a chance to ask any questions they might have about the program and our Muslim partners; and it gives the rabbi an opportunity to both answer the questions and explain the rationale for hosting the program.  It also gives the Muslim-Jewish partners a chance to meet and fine-tune the program they’re planning.

While it’s true that suspicion and fear characterized the response of some members of my shul, I’m proud that this was overcome by a rabbi and synagogue leadership convinced that this project was the right thing to do.  All of us are subject to the prejudices by our co-religionists.  We are a product and microcosm of such attitudes.  But we are not prisoners of them.  We are able to liberate ourselves from them and reach across boundaries and barriers established that prevent such dialogue between Jews and Muslims.

If your Jewish community is hosting a Twinning program this weekend mazel tov to you for the vision and courage you have shown.  If you’re not and would like to, ask your rabbi or imam to contact the Foundation in order to participate in future programs.

I love this Haaretz headline which refers to the fact that the IDF controls half the territory of the State and makes use of it with very little oversight and virtually no planning or development process whatsoever.

Of course, the reason I really like the headline is its more charged meaning indicating that the IDF is the tail wagging the dog of the State of Israel.  Whereas in most western countries the nation’s armed forces serve the interests of the state, one gets the sense that either the IDF IS the state or that the state’s interests are so tied to national security that there is no difference between the interests of the one and the other.  This is certainly a recipe for disaster for those citizens who believe the army should be subservient both formally and informally to civilian political control as it is in most countries.

Yet a third echo of the headline, is the title of Akiva Eldar’s book about the settlers, Lords of the Land.

Haaretz revealed yesterday that a U.S. website uncovered the identity of a hitherto secret senior Shin Bet operative.  Thanks to Sol Salbe, we’ve ascertained that the Aipac-oriented think tank, WINEP, published a piece by Yoram Cohen about Hamas.  WINEP even reveals Cohen’s Shin Bet affiliation.

It should be emphasized that both Cohen and WINEP  have done this with their eyes open and no U.S. law has been violated in publishing his name.  But due to the hidebound nature of Israeli military censorship, no Israeli publication can report this news even though we’ve reported here ourselves.  To do so might risk prosecution under Israel’s Shin Bet law.  So much for Israeli democracy and freedom of the press.  Anything I can do to subvert the Israeli military censor I’m happy to do.  It’s cold, heavy hand clamps down on the free exchange of ideas through the media and all in the name of national security.

Why shouldn’t the average Israeli know by name that Shin Bet operatives have trogdolytic views of some of Israel’s enemies? Why should the Shin Bet hide behind the veil of secrecy and refuse to name the officers who make Delphic, anonymous, and vapid utterances in the Israeli press about Syria or Iran’s desire to annihilate Israel, or Hamas’s goal of throwing the Jews into the Mediterranean; especially when the same officers are willing to attach their names to the same garbage when they publish it abroad?

Haaretz reports that when the current Shin Bet director, Yuval Diskin retires that Cohen will put his hat into the ring to succeed him.  If and when the latter became director, then his identity would become public record.  Till then, he’s supposed to be secret.  Oh well, I guess we’ve unmasked him (though what have we really unmasked?) for any Israeli who visits our website.

As for Cohen’s analysis of Hamas’ intentions and goals, it’s pretty much the standard recycled garbage that emanates from some in Israeli intelligence circles.  You’ve heard it all before ad nauseum, but here’s another taste:

Last week, Israeli forces entered Gaza, destroyed an underground border tunnel, and battled Hamas fighters, leaving several militants dead. In response, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired around eighty rockets into southern Israel, including the Israeli city of Ashkelon. Despite this breach of the tahdiya, or ceasefire, both Hamas and Israeli leaders have stressed their desire to deescalate the situation. But considering Hamas’s history of violence against Israel, the organization’s commitment to the tahdiya is open to serious question.

Only an Israeli pol, IDF general, Shin Bet spook or Alan Dershowitz would have the chutzpah to admit that Israel violated a ceasefire and then in the same breath claim Hamas’ commitment to it is in doubt.    It wouldn’t occur to them to think that it’s the Israelis whose commitment is in doubt since they initiated the first violation last week.

Let’s review what happened here. The IDF claimed (with no proof provided) that Hamas was building a tunnel to kidnap an IDF soldier.  Then, instead of destroying the tunnel with any manner of less invasive weapons choices, it decided on U.S. election day to mount a full-scale infantry assault.  This guaranteed a serious firefight with Palestinian defenders four of which were killed.  It is clear to any fair observer that the IDF deliberately violated the ceasefire and did so on a day when U.S. and world attention would clearly be diverted and unable to mount any protest whatever.  Cohen conveniently omits all the back story to this event which is so inconvenient to the Israeli version.

And here’s yet more of Cohen’s Stone Age wisdom:

Hamas’s primary long-term goal is the liberation of historic Palestine “from the sea to the river” and the foundation of an independent state based on sharia, or Islamic religious law. This would require the destruction of the state of Israel and control over Palestinian institutions, including the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Palestine Liberation Organization, and all of the Palestinian Diaspora groups. To this end, Hamas seeks a powerful modern army to continue its armed struggle against Israel, a goal that is aided by Israel’s enemies, Iran, Syria, and Hizballah.

Should Cohen become Shin Bet director this tells you that the same tired old thinking will continue to reign over the intelligence apparatus.  And don’t expect anyone there to advocate any bold, original or creative thinking when it comes to dealing with Hamas.  Undoubtedly, with this publication Cohen was hoping to burnish his credentials with his betters back home in preparation for the battle for his chief’s job.  Instead, he’s shown us how tired thinking is at the top levels of the Shin Bet.  And it’s all there for the world to see.

The fact that Cohen chose to be a visiting fellow at WINEP and to publish his analysis at its website indicates the cozy relationship between the think tank and Israeli military/intelligence circles.  It should be noted that Dennis Ross, who is angling for a major Middle East position in the Obama administration has been a senior WINEP fellow and is currently listed as “consultant.”  Makes you wonder a bit which side his bread is buttered on, doesn’t it?

Similarly, the Aipac spy charges against Keith Weissman and Steven Rosen reinforce the notion of that group being a conduit to and from Israeli military intelligence circles.  Both WINEP and Aipac have an interlocking and close relationship by which the former serves as the think tank and intellectual incubator for the latter.

The Guggenheim Museum announced that Palestinian artist, Emily Jacir has won this year’s prestigious Hugo Boss Award:

Emily Jacir, the 37-year-old artist of Palestinian descent…has won this year’s Hugo Boss Prize.

The $100,000 award, established in 1996 by the Guggenheim Museum and named for the German men’s wear company that sponsors it, is given every two years for significant achievement in contemporary art…

Ms. Jacir, who divides her time between Ramallah…and New York, won the Golden Lion Award…at the 2007 Venice Biennale. Her work there, a room-size installation in the Italian pavilion, documented the assassination of the Palestinian intellectual Wael Zwaiter by Israeli agents in Rome in 1972 for what they believed was his role in the massacre of Israeli athletes at that year’s Summer Olympics.** Using photographs, objects, texts and interviews, she created a narrative that reflects on her own anguish over the Middle East.

The Hugo Boss Award jurors had this to say about her work:

“Emily Jacir’s rigorous conceptual practice—comprising photography, video, performance, and installation-based work—bears witness to a culture torn by war and displacement. As a member of the Palestinian diaspora, she comments on issues of mobility (or the lack thereof), border crises, and historical amnesia through projects that unearth individual narratives and collective experiences. Jacir combines the roles of archivist, activist, and poet to create poignant and memorable works of art that are at once intensely personal and deeply political. It is the refined sophistication of Jacir’s art and the relevance of her concerns—both global and local—in a time of war, transnationalism, and mass migration that led us to award her the 2008 Hugo Boss Prize.”

This is a description of another work of hers which sounds interesting and provocative:

…Where We Come From…was recently acquired by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Jacir asked Palestinians around the world: “If I could do something for you, anywhere in Palestine, what would it be?” She then documented herself fulfilling the requests for people who are prohibited entry into their homeland and/or restricted from movement within it. She visited a mother’s grave, played soccer with a boy in Haifa, and visited a student’s family in Gaza because he is prevented from traveling home while at school in the West Bank.

And another fascinating project:

Crossing Surda (A Record Of Going To And From Work), which was inspired by Israeli soldiers throwing her passport in the mud and holding a gun to her temple at a checkpoint between Ramallah and Birzeit University, and involved her cutting a hole in the bottom of her handbag and stealthily filming her trek across the same terrain, to and from teaching classes, as a generative gesture of revenge…

I’ve featured this story for two reasons: one, that I wish to highlight anyone, whether Jewish or Muslim; Israeli Jew or Palestinian who achieves distinction working for peace and justice for either or both peoples; two, Palestinians, including their artists, generally labor in obscurity.  For those of us who read the N.Y. Times daily (you can fill in the name of your own daily paper), why hasn’t Ethan Bronner done a feature story about Jacir, whose work has earned numerous international art awards?  Why when we think of the word “Palestinian,” do we not even think of the word “artist?”  And isn’t this another symptom of the cultural impoverishment foisted upon us by this age-old conflict?

If you live in or near New York, the Guggenheim will host a show of Jacir’s work from February 6-April 15th.  The National has featured a fine profile of Jacir.

**Actually, the Mossad’s “Wrath of God” operation was supposedly intended to gun down the Palestinians who planned and executed the Munich Olympic massacre.  But many of the assassinated victims were Palestinian artists and intellectuals who had nothing to do with Munich.  While the Mossad claims Zwaiter was involved, Palestinians who knew him claimed he was “energetically against terrorism.”

In the wake of Barack Obama’s election victory, pundits noted that the economic situation was so dire the nearest comparison they could think of in terms of presdiential transition was FDR during the Depression or possibly Abraham Lincoln in the runup to the Civil War.

It seems that George Bush, in his Wall Street speech yesterday, was doing his best not only to guarantee his utter political irrelevance; but his very best Herbert Hoover imitation as well.  Remember, the latter was the well-meaning, genial fellow who simply hadn’t a clue how to handle the worst financial collapse in American history.  He basically did little or nothing and hoped it would simply pass as previous financial panics had.

Here’s what the latter-day Hoover had to say to a Wall Street that has lost its bearings and its moorings:

In a defiant declaration in his waning days as president, Mr. Bush traveled to Wall Street — ground zero for a financial crisis that has spread around the globe — to…deliver an apparent warning to the world’s leaders, and the incoming Obama administration, not to draw the wrong lessons.

Mr. Bush suggested those making arguments for ambitious new forms of regulation…were sorely mistaken.

“The crisis was not a failure of the free-market system, and the answer is not to try to reinvent that system. Free-market capitalism is far more than an economic theory. It is the engine of social mobility, the highway to the American dream.

We must recognize that government intervention is not a cure-all,” Mr. Bush said, adding, “History has shown that the greater threat to economic prosperity is not too little government involvement in the market, but too much.”

This from a guy who’s just cooked up the largest single government intervention in the U.S. financial system in the country’s history. I never expected George Bush to have much of a sense or irony, but it really helps to have one when you read this speech.  Where is Jonathan Swift when you need him?