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

I’m pretty jaded when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the depths of depravity to which it often sinks. But why, in heaven’s name would the IAF fire a missile at a clearly marked journalist’s jeep, killing him while wounding innocent civilians?

Fadel Shana, 23, a cameraman for Reuters, was killed when a missile struck his clearly marked jeep in the area, Reuters’ Gaza bureau said.

Asked about the many civilian casualties, Maj. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli Army spokeswoman, said the military had struck an armed group. “It could be that civilians were nearby; it would not be the first time,” she said.

Major Leibovich said that if a cameraman had been killed, “we apologize for that.”

“It was not intentional,” she said, adding that journalists took a risk by operating in fighting zones.

In the accompanying picture you see the cameraman’s vehicle clearly marked (”TV”) and the wounded civilians. Where is the “armed group” that the IDF struck? I realize the spokesperson wasn’t there and is probably talking out of her ass, but this is so clearly mendacious as to be almost laughable (in a very dark sort of way).  [UPDATE: Reuters makes clear that he was killed by a tank shell and not a missile, which changes the complexion of some of the things I wrote above.  It is more difficult to tell from inside a tank what you're shooting at.]

Why would Israel want to kill journalists? Clearly, they would prefer no journalists cover Gaza as they’ve prevented their own Israeli journalists from doing so as Gideon Levy often laments in Haaretz. But killing them? Why are the lives of journalists as cheap as the lives of Palestinian civilians to the IDF? I realize I’m asking a rhetorical question. But I’d still like to know the answer.

The IDF lost three of its own in a firefight with Hamas militants yesterday, one of the largest losses of Israeli life I can remember in Gaza. The army must be seething. I guess it’s easier to kill an unarmed TV cameraman than it is to find and liquidate the gunmen who killed those Israeli boys. But isn’t taking it out on the media going a bit far?

In a related matter, Haaretz reports that one of the three IDF soldiers who died, a Bedouin, is slated to have the home he just built for his new bride demolished since Israel refuses to provide building permits for Bedouin. Let’s add insult to injury why don’t we? He can die for his country. He just can’t live in his own home.

tags fadel shana, palestinian civilians, Palestinians Fight Israelis in Gaza Toll Exceeds 21, reuters journalist killed by idf

Clare Kinberg brings word of a wonderful art exhibit, Antea Darom, devoted to ten women artists at the Kaye Gallery in Beersheva. I’m not in the habit of promoting specific events in Israel since I don’t think my blog will do much on behalf of building attendance. But the quality of the work in this show and the quality of other work at the Rita Mendes Flohr’s website is beautiful and deeply compelling:

Kol Ha-Isha’s Antea Gallery of feminist art has been invited to bring an exhibit of 10 Antea artists to the Kaye College of Education in Beer Sheva.

This large, varied and mutlicultural exhibit, called Antea Darom - Antea in the South, opens on March 11, 2008, at 1 p.m. to mark International Women’s Day, and can be seen until May 12th, 2008.

The exhibit is curated by Rita Mendes-Flohr and Nomi Tannhauser, with the curator from the Kaye College, Israel Rabinowitz.

the participating artists:

Hannan Abu Hussein, Sara Alimi, Nomi Bruckman, Hoda Jammal, Lena Zeidel, Nomi Tannhauser, Yonat Ofer, Annette Kleinfeld Lissauer, Parvin Schmueli Buchnik, Rachel Shajar.

What is specially compelling about Playground is the innocent young girl standing, with arms raised in welcome and accompanied by her pony, before what used to be an idyllic childhood playground. Somehow her childhood toys have all been transformed into instruments of war. The innocence and menace of the images are jarring in juxtaposition.

I haven’t been able to discover the title of Hoda Jamal’s beautifully colorful and fanciful work which reminds me of an embroidered Palestinian woman’s blouse. The sense of joy and harmony with two birds singing together is palpable. Perhaps an omen of two peoples who might sometime sing together in harmony?

There are many other equally compelling images here. Please enjoy the feast and ponder it.

tags antea gallery, clare kinberg, hoda jamal, israeli feminist art, kol haisha, rachel shajar, rita mendes flohr

If I had a nickel for every wingnut who’s ever written something stupid or sleazy about me I’d be a rich man. The infinite variety of the abuse, lies and invective is a remarkable testament to the inventiveness of the human race. It’s also a testament to the human ability to waste its time and energy in copious amounts.

The latest example of this is someone who calls himself ‘John Rohan’ and blogs at Shield of Achilles (no, I’m not going to do anything to boost this shmendrik’s site traffic by providing a link). After an endless stream of logorrheic comments here and being called by him a self-hating Jew (Rohan isn’t Jewish of course, which certainly makes him the best judge on matters like this), “fraud,” and other choice epithets, I banned ‘Rohan’ (or whatever his name is).

What’s interesting about this fellow if he tells the truth on his blog (which with wingnuts is, of course, always in doubt) is that his blog claims he is a military intelligence officer serving in Wiesbaden, Germany. If he does serve in the U.S. armed forces it means that your and my tax dollars are supporting military wingnuts in smearing their fellow citizens online. Don’t know about you–but I find this disturbing. Not to mention that the vitriol he spouts puts him at odds with U.S. military and foreign policy. In comments at my blog and private e-mails, he attacks erstwhile U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia by name and denounces Palestinians as a people as little short of terrorist murderers. I’d have thought that the military would want to protect itself from being associated with wingnut rage like this.

If this guy is genuine is it any wonder that our military effort in Iraq has failed so miserably (where he claims to have served training the Iraqi police, God help us–and them)? Is it any wonder that our armed forces and government as a whole have absolutely no idea how to relate to the Arab world when this is the best our military can come up with?

Just in case there’s any truth to his claims about his occupation, I’ve written to the base commander at Wiesbaden to report on “Rohan’s” activity. If I don’t receive any reply my next step will be contacing my Congressional representative.

If Rohan is lying and he is not a military intelligence officer then we’ll have yet one more example of wingnuts posing as macho wannabe gung ho types. He’ll be little more than a poor, raging fool seeking to create a life for himself based on fantasy. Given that Rohan has publicly attacked me on his own blog I’d guess he’s either a fraud claiming to be a military intelligence officer or a supremely self-confident soldier-fool who thinks he can get away with just about anything. And if he’s fake, I’d think the army would not look kindly on bloggers falsely assuming the identity of military personnel.

I have a reader who serves in the Israeli army and often disagrees with my views and tells me so. But unlike Rohan, the former won’t blog publicly about his political views or comment at my blog both because the army doesn’t want him to and because he doesn’t want his own views to reflect in any way on the army. I can respect that. “Rohan” has no such humility or modesty.

After I banned Rohan, he began sending me unsolicited e-mails. When I told him to stop writing, all of a sudden I started getting e mails making virtually the same false claims about me from someone named ‘Michael Villano.’ I don’t know whether the e-mails are from Rohan or a wingnut co-conspirator (their IP addresses appear to be different). I don’t even know if their author really is named Michael Villano–michaelvillano@att.net.

Rohan has taken the despicable step of publishing my e mail address at his blog, thereby allowing spammers to harvest it. Since one egregious violation of personal privacy deserves another, I’ll feature his here and let the spammers have at him as well: johnrohan@hotmail.com.

tags john rohan fake, michael villano, military intelligence, shield of achilles, wiesbaden

You may recall Hillary Clinton trumpeting the news that Palestinian school textbooks teach hatred of Israel and Jews. This so-called revelation was supposed to teach the world the perfidy of Palestinians; that they don’t want peace; that they only want to hate; and that the fault for the conflict lay at the foot of the Palestinians alone. Hillary’s ‘news’ was meant as a boon to AIPAC and the Israel-First crowd and meant to bolster her pro-Israel bona fides. In fact, two senior Jewish Federation volunteers use the charge to support their endorsement of Clinton’s candidacy.

When I first read of Hillary’s charge my response was: “So what?” I spent most of my public school education resisting the propaganda some of my teachers tried to inculcate (cf. Tom Paxton’s remarkable song, What Did You Learn in School Today?). Many students are smart enough to see through the lies that might be taught them. Besides, do we really believe that what schoolchildren learn is critical to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

But little did I realize that I needn’t have bothered trying to explain or rationalize the allegedly defamatory Palestinian textbooks. Why? Because Hillary’s claims were not true. Diane Mason lays out the case in her own impeccable fashion at Lawrence of Cyberia and I recommend you read the entire post.

In short, Hillary relied in her charges on “research” performed by the Committee for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP), a right-wing pro-Israel propaganda outfit founded by Itamar Marcus. CMIP’s purpose, like that of MEMRI, CAMERA, Debka, and a host of other similar groups is to cut and paste media stories that are embarrassing to Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular. Many of the stories are either mistranslated, wrenched out of context, or generally twisted to place Islam in the worst possible light.

In this particular case, CMIP’s research and conclusions are entirely wrong. While there are some textbooks used by students which deride Jews and Israel, they are old Jordanian and Egyptian publications and they are being used because Israeli administrators prefer not to allow Palestinians to use textbooks created by the PA for fear that this might mean recognition of a Palestinian claim to sovereignty. Actual Palestinian textbooks do NOT contain any of the slurs documented by CMIP.

To the CMIP charge that classrooms display maps missing the State of Israel, non-partisan academic investigators note that the maps are GEOGRAPHIC, and not political or national maps. In other words, they don’t show the boundaries of ANY country.

Diane also notes that in an interview a CMIP director acknowledged that he does not think that Palestinian textbooks are guilty of incitement against Israel or Jews. There goes Clinton’s argument. There is much more to the story of course which you may pursue at Diane’s site.

But let’s return to the question why any of this is important considering that Hillary’s errant claims are several years old. The reason why this is entirely relevant is that Hillary is running for president on a hawkish, pro-Israel agenda. She has never renounced these false claims. She continues to raise them in Jewish venues as if they are true.

Clinton has a first-rate staff that I’m sure researches all of the claims she makes to test their accuracy. It would be extremely easy for her to investigate the Palestinian textbook claim and discover that it is false. Yet she does not do so. So much for a concern for truth. So much for a sensitivity to the Palestinian educational system which she has slandered for political advantage.

In other words, this is a candidate who uses a sledge hammer when it comes to discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when a scalpel is required. Do we trust her to understand the nuances, complexity and ambiguity of the issues involved? Do we trust her to be an honest broker in bringing the two sides together should she become president? I know I don’t and this issue confirms my doubts.

Writing just after the New Hampshire primary, in which Clinton displayed deep emotion in responding to sexist attacks against her, Mason writes:

Like many people, I’ve been disgusted by the sexist attacks that you have faced in the primaries so far, and will no doubt continue to face the closer you get to the Presidency. It must be very difficult to be the first serious female contender for President, and to see your candidacy belittled by big-mouthed pundits who…demean you just because of who you are. We could all see how much that hurt you when you teared up in New Hampshire. But have you never stopped to consider that you have made a political asset out of demonizing and defaming Palestinian Arabs, even though racist rhetoric hurts its target just as much as sexism hurts you? You have made a decision that it is all right to do to others what is obviously painful when it is done to you, just so long as there is some political advantage to be had.

I look at how much you are hurt by the sexist rhetoric you face, and I want to feel sorry for you. But then I look at how easily and how repeatedly you demonize Palestinians just because you have calculated that it will win you some votes…

tags center-for-monitoring-impact-of-peace, hillary-clinton, itamar-marcus, palestinian-textbooks-teach-hatred-of-israel

Breaking the Silence, the Israeli anti-Occupation group composed of IDF veterans, is sponsoring a photo exhibition in Philadelphia and Boston. It consists of photographs shot by active duty IDF troops during their service in Hebron. The shots run the gamut from the most banal to the most deeply disturbing. They all document what it is like to defend a tiny Jewish settler minority from the massively larger native Palestinian population. There is boredom, insults, play, fellowship, hate and fear inscribed in every image.

I’ve published my first article in the Jewish Forward, Warring Views, about the exhibition. I must thank Vanity Fair writer, David Margolick, who arranged a shiduch with Alana Newhouse, the Forward’s arts and culture editor, who asked me to write this piece. I should also thank Alana for her interest in my work. Thanks to Breaking the Silence co-founder, Mikhael Manekin for his interview.

The article is quite short. I plan to publish an expanded version here in the coming days.

Breaking the Silence Exhibit:
Israeli Soldiers Talk About the Occupied Territories

March 1 – March 16
Beren Hall (second floor) at Harvard Hillel
52 Mt. Auburn Street
Exhibit open hours:
Mon – Thurs: 2 pm – 8 pm
Fri: 10 am – 4 pm
Sat: Closed
Sun: 12 pm – 8 pm

Opening Night Reception on Saturday, March 1 at 7 pm

tags breaking-the-silence-photo-exhibit, hebron, israeli-occupation, jewish-forward, jewish-settlers, warring-views

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I can remember way back when I was an eight year old spending many hours of pleasure reading in my public library. Those were innocent days compared to the marketing blitz the publishing industry has in store for today's children. Forget about Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, and Wuthering Heights. Nowadays, Jane would be hawking product placement rights for appearing in her novel. Miss Havisham would be promoting tie-ins with the bridal industry. What is this world coming to? Those of you who don't have young daughters probably see this as the price of living in modern society. But those of us looking at the world our little girls will grow into are appalled at what they'll ...

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