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

When Richard Mellon Scaife has kind words to say about Hillary Clinton you know either the sky is falling or something very strange is afoot. After an editorial meeting with his Pittsburgh newspaper, he wrote:

“I have a very different impression of Hillary Clinton today [than in the 1990s],” he wrote in an opinion article published Sunday…”And it’s a very favorable one indeed.”

I suppose you could say Scaife has seen the handwriting on the wall and realizes the Democrats may take the White House and strenthen their holds on both Houses of Congress. Perhaps he doesn’t want to be out in the cold for the next four to eight years. Or perhaps he thinks he can build up Hillary in order to tear down Obama, who he thinks is a more formidable candidate.

But if the Clintonites think a Scaife encomium is going to help their candidate they’re off their rocker:

“I never thought I would utter these words, but I would like to shake his hands for keeping his mind open despite the predisposed prejudice toward her,” said Lanny Davis, a longtime Clinton supporter who served as President Clinton’s lawyer during the late 1990s.

What Democrat will be impressed by kind words from one of the hardest and wealthiest of the hard-right Republican ideologues?

Hillary’s spokeswoman made an even more daft statement:

Hillary Clinton is in the solutions business and has demonstrated the ability to bridge old divides and get things done. Winning over Mr. Scaife is just another example.”

I don’t know of many Democrats who want to “win over” Richard Mellon Scaife or bridge old divides with him. For many of us this guy personifies the enemy. The fact that Hillary touts him as a fan does more harm than good to her cause.

tags richard scaife praises hillary, Rosy Words for Clinton by 90s Nemesis

Gershom Gorenberg has to be one of the best journalists writing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He’s just published a new piece in American Prospect which describes how Ehud Barak’s vendetta against those who blame him for the failure of Camp David still resonates today in the U.S. presidential election. Gorenberg begins with the most recent smear of Rob Malley. The former finds its origin in an article Malley and Hussein Agha wrote in the NY Review of Books which eviscerated the Barak generated narrative that Arafat was at fault for the failure of Camp David. Enraged, Barak responded with an interview with right-wing Israeli historian Benny Morris, which attempted to turn the tables on his critics.

The interview contains this memorable piece of racism which makes you wonder why Barak ever bothered to go to Camp David in the first place (quoting from Gorenberg):

The Palestinians “are products of a culture in which to tell a lie … creates no dissonance. They don’t suffer from the problem of telling lies that exists in Judeo-Christian culture,” he told Morris. To explain why he had not succeeded, he argued that success was impossible…

The journalist follows this passage with an apt and even charitable observation:

Going to Camp David, Barak was brave in seeking an agreement but was also tragically unsuited by temperament to achieve what he wanted.

All of this, of course raises alarm bells in the current political context in which Barak appears only too eager to smother any ray of daylight that emerges on the peace front by rattling sabers and even worse (the Bethlehem executions bear his signature). He figures that by destroying Olmert’s chances at attaining peace he will then clear a path to become prime minister himself. In which case he will, no doubt fail in his own bid for peace at least as abjectly as he did last time.

Gorenberg closes with a ringing defense of Malley and of Barack Obama’s chances of succeeding where Bill Clinton failed:

The most common versions of the Israeli and Palestinian narrative share this: Each side perceives the other as wanting to push it out of the land through both aggression and artifice. Those stories helped foil the talks at Camp David. They also shape the post mortems. The story told by Barak, erstwhile peacemaker, reinforces the old story of conflict. Malley’s account — a careful, scholarly telling by a diplomat committed to Israel’s future — is met with ferocious emotion by those who misperceive it as an assault on Israel’s very existence. The reaction becomes another obstacle to understanding of the past and to future compromise.

There’s two implications here: Precisely because he is committed to Israel’s well-being, Barack Obama will do well to listen to Robert Malley’s analysis of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. But if he has the opportunity, beginning next January, to renew diplomatic efforts, he will need to do more than reconcile conflicting interests. He will have to look for ways to reconcile the conflicting stories. The right choice of words will be critical. It’s said that Obama has some skill in that realm.

Amid the insanity that is the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict would that such sane voices on both sides were the ones that prevailed.

tags american-prospect, ehud barak failure at camp david, gershom-gorenberg, The Strange Case of Robert Malley

Condi’s back in Israel wheedling and cajoling in her usual fitful, unsuccessful way. In the process of her visit, Tzipi Livni made some darkly (unintentionally) humorous comments:

”The idea is to ease the lives of the Palestinians, to help, as far as we can, in order to improve their lives, to advance and have progress,” she said. ”Like always, the formula is to do whatever we can as long as it doesn’t affect our own security.”

Translation: Like always, the formula is to do whatever we can as long as we don’t have to do anything.

But both Rice and Livni said it was important to make progress on an overall agreement as soon as possible.

”Time is of the essence,” Livni said. ”Stagnation and stalemate is not the Israeli government policy, it doesn’t serve our own interest.’

Time is NEVER of the essence as far as Israel is concerned. Stagnation and stalemate is always the preferred government policy and it does serve their interest if you define such interest as maintaining the status quo of Israeli dominance and Palestinian subjugation.

We’ve also heard this “promise” at least fourteen times before:

Israeli defense officials said they would remove a major West Bank checkpoint and dozens of smaller roadblocks…and grant more permits to Palestinian merchants for access into Israel.

The officials said Israel will take down the military checkpoint controlling movement in and out of the West Bank city of Jericho, which would be the first time residents of the largely quiet city will enjoy unrestricted freedom of movement since violence erupted in 2000.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because there has not yet been an official announcement of the steps.

Translation: officials spoke on condition of anonymity because as soon as Rice leaves they have no intention of honoring their pledge.

Besides, calling Jericho’s a “major checkpoint” is like saying that Spokane is a hotbed of Muslim terror. Jericho is the most peaceful of all Palestinian cities and aside from Israel assaulting the city’s jail to kidnap imprisoned Palestinian militants last year, it has seen very little violence during the conflict. So what kind of sacrifice is it for Israel to remove a checkpoint from Jericho?

Let’s just stop this charade shall we? Neither Condi nor George Bush are going to come remotely close to a peace agreement before he leaves office. It’s just another of his empty, broken promises. We’re so cynical and jaded at this point how can we be disappointed? We never believed him to begin with when he said he would do so. He’s never achieved anything during his presidency, at least not anything constructive like a peace agreement. So why should (or could) he start now?

tags israeli checkpoints, Rice Pushes Meaningful Mideast Steps, tzipi-livni

A group called World Evangelical Alliance bought a full-page N.Y. Times ad (at least $120,000) this week. A bigger waste of money I’d have a hard time conceiving. Nearest I can tell, the basic message is: “Jews, we love you. But we don’t love you enough to stop proselytizing you or converting you. In fact, we really don’t care what you think of that, since it’s more important to us to keep doing this than it is to respect your wishes that we not do so.” And the real kicker was that the evangelical signatories insisted that converted Jews like Jews for Jesus and messianic Jews are still authentic Jews; and that despite becoming Christian, have a right to call themselves Jews for the purpose of insinuating themselves into the lives of unsuspecting Jews they seek to convert.

The ad is quite a performance. Full of fake love and respect attempting to conceal presumptuousness and condescension toward Jews. The odd thing is that the ad pretends it is directed as a friendly communique to Jews. I actually took it as a declaration of war. So if it was supposed to say anything positive toward Jews it failed miserably on that score. In truth, I think it was meant more for an evangelical audience to reconfirm their certainty that they are right in their efforts to convert the Jews.

The ad begins well enough:

As evangelical Christians, we want to express our genuine friendship and love for the Jewish people. We sadly acknowledge that church history has been marred with anti-Semitic words and deeds; and that at times when the Jewish people were in great peril, the church did far less than it should have.

We pledge our commitment to be loving friends and to stand against such injustice in our generation.

But it quickly goes downhill:

• At the same time, we want to be transparent in affirming that we believe the most loving and Scriptural expression of our friendship toward Jewish people, and to anyone we call friend, is to forthrightly share the love of God in the person of Jesus Christ.
• We believe that it is only through Jesus that all people can receive eternal life. If Jesus is not the Messiah of the Jewish people, He cannot be the Savior of the World (Acts 4:12).
• We recognize that it is good and right for those with specialized knowledge, history and skills to use these gifts to introduce individuals to the Messiah, and that includes those ministries specifically directed to the Jewish people (1 Corinthians 9:20-22).
• We deplore the use of deception or coercion in evangelism; however, we reject the notion that it is deceptive for followers of Jesus Christ who were born Jewish to continue to identify as Jews (Romans 11:1).

We love you so much we’d like to kill your religion with kindness. As for Jesus being the messiah of the Jewish people, we Jews don’t believe it. Judaism has never attached a specific identity to the concept of messiah and indeed the very idea of there being a messiah is a late one in the Jewish religion.

I’ve got news for these evangelical jerks: if you continue your ministry to the Jews YOU ARE NOT A FRIEND OF THE JEWS. In fact, you are an enemy of the Jews and we will treat you as such.

Finally, while they reject coercion and deception in missionizing to the Jews, it’s still OK for messianic Jews to pretend that they are Jews in order to beckon real Jews into the embrace of Jesus. Isn’t this the very definition of “deception?” What hypocrisy. What mendacity. Do these people have no shame?

But here’s the real kicker:

We want to make it clear that, as evangelical Christians, we do not wish to offend our Jewish friends by the above statements; but we are compelled by our faith and commitment to the Scriptures to stand by these principles. It is out of our profound respect for Jewish people that we seek to share the good news of Jesus Christ with them, and encourage others to do the same, for we believe that salvation is only found in Jesus, the Messiah of Israel and Savior of the World.

We don’t want to offend you Jews but by God we’re sure as hell willing to do so. But to pretend that they stand by these so called principles out of “respect for Jewish people” is simply beyond the pale. I’m practically sputtering with rage as I write this.

These people are religious Neanderthals. They’ve never heard of ecumenism, tolerance, diversity, respect. Their religious message is: my way or the highway. Let them not deceive themselves that any self-respecting Jew will have anything positive to say about this. The message of this ad should be met with righteous indignation.

Who are some of the individuals and institutions behind this ad? Chuck Colson for one, he of the Watergate burglar coverup and now ministering to prisoners. The director of the Billy Graham Center, a director of the Salvation Army, a bishop of the Church of England, a dean of Pat Robertson’s Regent University, and last but not least, Ken Hutcherson. This former pro football player is local to my neck of the woods and runs a church near the Microsoft campus. He has the dubious distinction of “persuading” Microsoft to turns its back on a state bill that would have prevented discrimination against gays. When he braggged publicly about his lobbying prowess there was such a stink raised among Microsoft employees that Steve Ballmer personally directed his state lobbyists to turn around and support the measure, which promptly passed the next session. Clearly, humility is not a strong suit of this evangelical bunch.

tags ken-hutcherson, messianic jews deception, ministry to jews, proselytizing, world evangelicals

Neal Gabler wrote a NY Times op ed column this week claiming that John McCain has the press eating out of the palm of his hand. It was an interesting and slightly scary (if you don’t want McCain to be president) article. But I guess Gail Collins never rode the Straight Talk Express (she’s “off the bus”) because she’s written one helluva funny column eviscerating McCains’ economic policies and just about everything else for which he stands:

The theme for his mortgage speech this week was basically McCain to Homeowners: Drop Dead. It was, he said sternly, “not the duty of the government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly.” The good news, he noted, was that out of 80 million American homeowners, only 4 million are in the tank, while everybody else is “working a second job, skipping a vacation and managing their budgets” the way Countrywide Financial intended them to.

He did, however, leave the door open for some vague, amorphous, undefined aid to good homeowners, as opposed to irresponsible ones who … did something irresponsible. Like taking that vacation.

I used to think Maureen Dowd was one of the funniest political satirists around. Fuhgedaboudit! Gail Collins is the new It Girl of columnists. She has a deft touch and is funny as hell.

tags gail collins, maureen-dowd, mccain forecloses, neal gabler, political-satire

Geert Wilders of Fitna fame: picture of smug self-promoter Yes, I know Geert Wilders' anti-Muslim diatribe, Fitna, has been watched by 400 zillion YouTube viewers. That must make it right, right? Wrong. I watched the first minute or so at the behest of a very nice fellow who's been helping me upgrade my Wordpress installation. As soon as the first panel from the Koran was displayed on screen quoting a verse that threatens death to all and sundry and was followed by the 9/11 plane flying into the World Trade Center, I knew what I was in for. That was enough for me. Do I ...

Yesterday, I wrote about the shocking story reported in Haaretz that B'Tselem had compiled eyewitness testimony confirming that the IDF had murdered four Palestinian militants execution style in Bethlehem a few weeks ago, which contradicted earlier IDF claims that the victims had resisted arrest or returned fire on their attackers. Several IDF apologists in the comment thread for that post have attempted to raise doubts about the nature of the attack. So I thought I would quote from one of the witnesses, Muhammad Abu 'Ahour, to give readers a sense of how reliable his account is. I warn you that this is very graphic and very disturbing stuff. If you have half a conscience it ...

It's pouring snow from the heavens as I write this! I've lived here in Seattle 11 years and never seen snow this late in the season. Maybe in Boston or New York, but never here. What's the world coming to? A friend who was born here told me the last time it snowed so late in the season was 1985.

I've just discovered that The Guardian has published my latest contribution in their Comment is Free blog, Acting in Ignorance, which details harsh acts of Israeli incitement in the aftermath of the Merkaz HaRav terror attack.  I've grown used to the editors changing my chosen titles and this time is no exception.  My original title was a riff on the old HaShomer slogan: In Blood, Fire and Hatred Shall Judea Rise Again, which I like quite a bit better. I can't believe how many comments have been deleted by the moderator.  I'm used to stirring up a hornet's nest in certain circles.

Sorry for the black humor but this is the Middle East after all. Dueling headlines: Olmert upbeat on Mideast peace talks Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday said he was optimistic that current negotiations would produce a lasting peace with the Palestinians. --Los Angeles Times Olmert Pours Cold Water On Peace Process Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday that he expected that only a framework of a peace deal could be reached with Palestinians by the end of the year, not an actual agreement. --Daily Star Go figure. It's the Middle East. Your guess is as good as mine which is right and what any of it means. Here's some more odd I-P humor: President Bush has invited Palestinian Authority ...