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

“How the mighty have fallen,” to quote David mourning the death of King Saul and his beloved Jonathan. So we say also about Robert Rosenberg, technology entrepreneur, pioneering Israeli journalist, social justice activist, and poetry lover. Robert, whose daily column about Israeli-Arab affairs, Today’s Situation, I’ve read religiously for several years, died of cancer today.

I noticed that he’d stopped writing his column on September 21st. I’d written to him during that time expressing my hope and wish that he was not silent because of a health issue (he’d taken another health-related hiatus earlier in the year as well). I never heard an answer. I should’ve known why.

Robert was a very forthright and amiable chap. But he was diffident too in a European sort of way. When he first took off time from the site, I wrote to him wishing him a speedy recovery. He wrote me back graciously but never mentioned a word about his condition. You have to respect a man for having such a sense of privacy and also for not wanting to burden someone who didn’t know him well.

I just wrote to my Mideast peace buddy, Sol Salbe, yesterday asking if he knew anything. He didn’t reply immediately. But just now he sent me the link to Robert’s obituary in Haaretz. This is what I replied to him when I first opened his e mail:

Oh my God! I had no idea, but when I wrote to you asking about him I feared this was possible. I’m so sad. Who will take his place? We are all bereft to have lost such a true comrade in the struggle for a just Israel.

I should explain that Robert began Haaretz’s website and served as a senior editor at the paper for some time. I probably could not write this blog without Haaretz’s site. That’s how important Robert was within certain circles. What’s more, Ariga was one of my most helpful sources linked often here. He will be missed in many ways.

I should make clear I didn’t know Robert personally. Our relationship was entirely online. But that makes it no less intense than if we’d known each other personally.

Robert’s column was a cogent and sharp progressive analysis of Israeli politics. He always managed to quote sources on important issues whose views I hadn’t previously heard. In other words, Robert went over familiar territory (the Mideast situation does seem to repeat itself ad nauseum at times), but always added a new insight or a new source to the mix which kept things refreshed and informed.

I didn’t always agree with Robert. And when I didn’t I told him so. And he would always reply graciously and sometimes agree with me and sometimes not.

I was astonished to read that Robert began his trailblazing website, Ariga, in 1995. I said 1995! Do you understand what that means? How many websites do you think there were in 1995? I started this site in 2003 and thought I was getting in on the ground floor of the blogging phenomenon. But Robert was blogging before there was blogging. His was not a blog in the current sense of the term since he didn’t have a comments feature or the bells and whistles common to the rest of us. But he wrote every day about the conflict and engaged closely with his readers. That’s why I call his effort a blog even though he might not have. I don’t know how much Israeli bloggers appreciate this pioneering performance. If they don’t they should.

Here is what Haaretz wrote about him:

Robert Rosenberg, author, poet, Internet pioneer and journalist, died of cancer Wednesday in Tel Aviv. He was 54.

Born in Boston and raised in Newton, Massachusetts, Rosenberg was educated at Tufts University and Tel Aviv University, and held a master’s degree in education from Harvard. He had many intense interests but journalism always played a major part in his life, mainly due to his passionate concern for Israeli society…

Rosenberg’s prescient interest in computers and the Internet, combined with his dedication to the cause of peace and social justice, led him to found the Ariga Web site in 1995. Ariga was always way ahead of its time - Rosenberg was blogging about the peace process in 1996, before the word “blog” had even been coined. He is widely considered to be the grandfather of all peace-related sites in the Middle East.

David Landau, editor of Haaretz’s English language edition, wrote this appreciation of Rosenberg. It gives you a more personal perspective on Robert:

Many, many were the nights when without Robert this paper would not have come out. Or at any rate, that is how it most certainly seemed to us, his colleagues at Haaretz English Edition, as we squeaked past another after-midnight deadline with reams and reams of raw Haaretz copy all somehow translated, edited, page-set and sent to press.

His output was truly phenomenal. His capacity vast; his knowledge encyclopedic. Uncomplaining, with breathtaking speed, with unfailing good grace, he would wade through troughs of dense prose, written to fill whole pages of Hebrew newsprint, and emerge with a succinct, coherent story often capped with a cute or sardonic headline for good measure.

The man was a joy to have around. He was a relief to have around - because you knew that with him the inevitable nightly crises would somehow be resolved. He was often a headache to have around, because, while doing his speed-reading, speed-writing, speed headline-composing and speed-laying-out he would be treating all those within earshot to a cheery, incessant, unquenchable patter of opinion. Sometimes it was about the story in hand. But often it would be about something completely different - which made his expeditious progress on the text all the more amazing. He liked to have the television blaring in the background, too - usually about still another subject. Robert, who was a decade ahead of his time on the Internet, was the consummate multitasker before the rest of us had heard of the concept…

But above all, and at this moment of hesed shel emet when only the truth should be written, it is Robert Rosenberg’s good-heartedness that deserves words of praise and admiration. For more than 30 years I would hear him criticizing the whole world. But I never heard him say a bad word to anyone. He was full of kindness. That, as we are told (Avot 2,9), caps everything.

“He was full of kindness.” May we all have someone say that about us after we go. May we all be worthy of having someone say that about us. Robert was worthy. We have lost a great one. May his memory be for a blessing. I wish comfort to his wife, Silvia and daughter Amber.

tags ariga.com, israeli-journalist, robert-rosenberg-dies, todays-situation

We are in an eerie phase of Israel’s Gaza invasion. Operations have begun and Israeli forces have entered the territory. Some offensive operations have begun but mostly from the air or artillery. The major expected ground assault has not materialized. Palestinians are poised for the worst, but they know they’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg.

Reading today’s Haaretz, it seems there may be disagreement among Olmert, Peretz, chief of staff Halutz and his own senior commanders on what the proper order of battle should be:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday rejected a proposal by Defense Minister Amir Peretz and the Israel Defense Forces for a ground operation in the northern Gaza Strip against the ongoing Qassam rocket fire.

According to government sources, the operation, which will target Beit Hanun, will take place, but Olmert wants the operation to be “prolonged and exhausting,” and did not believe that the plan he was shown fit the bill…

The sources added that while IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz approved the plan, other IDF officers opposed it, and Olmert was informed of their objections.

The operation was aimed at halting Qassam rockets from being fired at southern Israel. Meanwhile, six of the homemade rockets struck the western Negev and Sderot on Thursday evening.

As best I can tell, Peretz (possibly along with Halutz) seems to have prepared a short range plan that would attempt to knock out Qassam sites, but would not involve a thorough “cleansing” or wholesale or long-term eradication of such capability. Olmert, after hearing of displeasure expressed by Halutz’s commanders has ordered Peretz’s plan thoroughly revised so that it will be a longer and more comprehensive operation.

One can only wonder what more Israel can do than it already has done to stop the rocket launches. And certainly no plan, whether it be Peretz’s or Olmert’s will stop a determined enemy from attacking Israel in whatever way and by whatever means are available to it.

Another consideration may be causing a delay in the full-scale assault: an Egyptian request to give its mediators several more days to broker an agreement. Notably, Khaled Meshal was due in Egypt today to speak with Egypt’s intelligence chief presumably to find a way to reach a compromise that might satisfy both Israel and the militants. Peretz appears in favor of the delay while his presumably more hot-headed field commanders may be tearing at the bit to attack. At any rate, there seems little love lost between the Defense Minister and whoever the unnamed “defense officials” may be who are referred to here:

Defense officials were furious at Peretz Thursday night, accusing him both of revealing that the planned military offensive in northern Gaza had been postponed and of denying initial reports that the postponement had been at Egypt’s request.

Part of the IDF’s plan in supposedly rooting out the Qassam menace appears to involve a forced exodus of the Palestinian civilian population from northern Gaza:

Meanwhile, in Gaza…leaflets were flung from helicopters last night over Beit Lahiye and Beit Hanoun, the two northeast corner towns of Gaza used by Qassam rocket launching crews to set up their attacks on the Israeli hamlets and towns around Gaza. The leaflets warned residents ‘to stay away’ as the IDF prepared to shell the residential areas and move in. Not since Operation Grapes of Wrath in southern Lebanon, when Israel warned civilians to leave south Lebanon and then proceeded to shell the region to drive out Hizbollah forces, has Israel taken a step so clearly aimed at forcing people out of their homes…Operation Grapes of Wrath ended with an accidental Israeli shelling of a UN encampment set up to provide refuge for fleeing Lebanese, killing some 120 people. As of noon…there were reports of hundreds of Beit Lahiye and Beit Hanoun families moving out of the area.

Robert adds the reference to the grave shelling error during Operation Grapes of Wrath which forced its demise. This of course reminds us of just how capable the IDF is of royally messing up its operations through the wholesale killings of Palestinian civilians. Would anyone care to doubt that this outcome is certain if all-out hostilities commence in Gaza?

Presumably, elimination of northern Gaza’s civilian population would give Israel freer reign to extirpate both the Qassams and the militants who fire them. But to me this strategy is little better than the U.S. strategy in retaking Fallujah last year. You have a “cesspool of violence” (their view not mine) and so decide to root out the evildoers. First you uproot civilians, then you go in and get the bad guys. Problem is, the bad guys have long gone by the time you get even remotely close to where you could catch them. Eventually, you have to leave as you cannot occupy the town forever. So what happens? The bad guys reinfiltrate Fallujah and you’re back where you started. Except for the casualties and dead on our side and theirs.

And even should you “cleanse” Fallujah (or northern Gaza) of bad guys, they just move elsewhere finding a weak point in our defenses to exploit. In the case of Fallujah, the insurgents moved to other towns in Anbar province.

One only wonders how this would work out in Gaza. But it’s entirely possible that once the IDF leaves the bad guys will simply move back into northern Gaza and take up where they left off. Unless, that is, the IDF plans on entirely and permanently uprooting Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanun, the two towns nearest to the launching sites. This of course would be a violation of the Geneva Conventions as would be a semi-forced expulsion/exodus of civilians from the area in order to promote the IDF’s ease in uprooting the militants.

In this hour of darkness, it is some small comfort to find brothers and sisters in arms who share my mistrust of the IDF’s plan and motives; and who hold out some hope that somehow common sense, cooler heads, call it what you will, can prevail and avoid the utter horror and bloodshed that appear to be in store should the IDF let loose with a full scale assault. Robert Rosenberg has been that “brother” over the past few days. His Ariga report today echoes many of the thoughts I wrote in yesterday’s report on the Gaza horror (given the time difference between the west coast and Israel, we may’ve even been writing at almost the same time).

Israel Using Hamas Political Echelon As Bargaining Chips?

Rosenberg expands upon the Shin Bet’s strange plan to arrest virtually the entire Hamas political echelon (at least those who weren’t smart enough to go underground to evade capture) and investigate them for their supposed complicity in terrorist crimes:

…Israel…put into motion a secret plan approved weeks ago by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz — the arrest of dozens of Hamas officials, including ministers and parliamentarians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The 87 Hamas officials, including 64 elected officials, from Palestinian parliamentarians to at least two major city mayors (Jenin and Qalqiliya), are not being held as counter-hostages, as part of Israel’s efforts to win the release of captured soldier Gilad Shalit, Israeli officials insisted. They are all going to be questioned as suspects in specific terror cases and charged if evidence is found against them. Among those arrested are at least two Palestinians suspected of direct involvement in the murder of Asheri.

A separate Haaretz article quotes the IDF’s denial that the detainees (or should we call them ‘kidnap victims??’) are ‘bargaining chips’:

An IDF spokeswoman said the arrests were part of an operation against suspected terrorists, and were not “bargaining chips” for the release of abducted IDF soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit.

“They are not bargaining chips for the return of the soldier. It was simply an operation against a terrorist organization,” she said. “They will be investigated, brought before a judge to extend their detention and charge sheets will be prepared.”

You can see how much credence Haaretz gives to the army’s denial in the following sentence which directly contradicts the IDF:

The arrests are part of several moves designed to increase pressure on the militant group to free a captive soldier. Israel blames Hamas for the abduction of Shalit, kidnapped Sunday by militants who attacked an IDF post near the border with Gaza.

Army Radio speculated that the lawmakers might be used to trade for the captured soldier, but the IDF refused to comment on the matter.

Those who follow official Israeli government pronouncements as I do will know how to read these tea leaves: whenever an official denies that Israel’s tactics are intended to achieve thus-and-such a goal, you pretty much know that the denied motivation is precisely the actual one that motivates the Israelis. So of course the Hamas operatives ARE being held as counter-hostages despite what Israel’s Kabuki spokespeople say. But the very idea that such a stupid plan can have its desired impact of threatening or cowing or even dismantling Hamas and the PA is ludicrous as Robert notes:

The more pressure on the population, the more the Hamas government wins popular support;

Arresting Hamas Legislators As Attempt to Derail National Unity Government

Today’s NY Times adds another interesting and convincing dimension to the Israeli sweep against Hamas’ elected officials:

Ali Jarbawi, a professor and dean at Birzeit University here, said he thought the real goal was to remove the Hamas government from power.

Israel wants to continue with its unilateral policies based on the idea that there is no “Palestinian partner,” said Mr. Jarbawi, who turned down an offer from Hamas to join the government as an independent. “If you build up your strategy on having no partner, then you have to ensure you don’t have one. So when Palestinians tell you that there is about to be a political agreement among the factions, putting their house in order at last, you intervene.“

So, according to this thinking the coming together of Hamas and Fatah in a national unity government severely threatened Olmert who would rather have a divided and severely weakened PA.

Rosenberg views dubiously Israel’s entire rationale for the Gaza operation:

Operation Summer Rains is thus gradually transforming from an operation…meant to put pressure on the Palestinian population to put pressure on the Hamas government to put pressure on the Hamas militants who are holding Shalit, into an operation with three goals: freeing the soldier, ending the Qassam fire, and bringing down the Hamas government.

But it is not at all clear if it can accomplish any of those three goals. The more pressure on the population, the more the Hamas government wins popular support; even as Israel was issuing dire warnings about the Qassam fire coming from the northern Gaza area, Qassams were being fired into the Western Negev; and even if Israel were to arrest all the Hamas parliamentarians and all its ministers, the Fateh leadership would not be able to step in lest it appeared as if they were merely Israeli collaborators.

Finally, he raises this chilling possibility should Israel actually fully eradicate Hamas and the PA:

Indeed, if Israel is not careful…it could bring down the PA itself. And that would mean Israel is once again responsible not only for security, but for the health, education and welfare of the Palestinians, to the tune of billions of shekels. Furthermore, it would likely mean a new eruption of intifada-style warfare in the territories, which would once again damper the Israeli economy, driving away tourists, harming international investment, and curtailing the impressive 5-6 percent economic growth rate Israel has enjoyed for the last year.

But of course it is not in Israel’s interests to entirely eradicate the PA. Just to cause enough disintegration to prevent anyone from being able to govern effectively. Israel for many reasons vastly prefers a fragmented, ungovernable Palestinian entity to one that is stable and coherent. For while a stable, coherent Palestinian government might rein in militants and end terror; it would also command the respect of the international community and possibly force Israel to negotiate with it in good faith. While some may see this view as cynical, I ask how in heaven’s name can Israel believe what it is doing now can ever lead to any coherent Palestinian governing authority? Sure they can try to destroy Hamas (and fail), but what is their alternative? Fatah? They think Fatah is going to be more moderate or amenable after this mass-hooliganism on Israel’s part? All I can say is “Hah.”

Mubarak Announces Hamas Agrees to Terms for Kidnapped IDF Soldier’s Release

I can’t believe I read the entire Haaretz article referenced above and almost missed the most hopeful part of it (at least potentially hopeful). Hosni Mubarak says that Hamas has agreed to terms for Corp. Shalit’s release:

Palestinian militants have agreed to a conditional release of Shalit, but Israel has not yet accepted their terms, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in remarks published Friday.

In an interview with Egypt’s leading pro-government newspaper, Al-Ahram, Mubarak said “Egyptian contacts with several Hamas leaders resulted in preliminary, positive results in the shape of a conditional agreement to hand over the soldier as soon as possible to avoid an escalation.

“But agreement on this has not yet been reached with the Israeli side,” Mubarak said.

The president said he had asked Olmert “not to hurry” the military offensive in Gaza, but to “give additional time to find a peaceful solution to the problem of the kidnapped soldier.”

A Foreign Ministry official said Israel did not know of such an offer.

“In general Israel’s stance is, as the prime minister said earlier, that the soldier will only be released unconditionally and there will be no negotiations with a gang of terrorists and criminals who abducted a soldier from Israeli territory,” the official said.

Mubarak’s remark implied he was claiming a role in Israel’s decision.

“Israeli leaders promised, and I hope they will stick to it, not to shed the blood of innocent Palestinian civilians in any hurried military operation,” Mubarak said.

“At the same time, Egypt warned Hamas leaders of the dire consequences of adopting of tough positions and urged them to shoulder their responsibilities in view of the dangers and difficulties faced by the Palestinian people at the present time,” Mubarak said.

It is hard to know what all this means. Is Mubarak exagerrating the possibility of a solid agreement in order to burnish his own credentials as Mideast peace negotiator? In the event that Hamas is willing to engage in a prisoner swap for Shalit will Israel go along or will it truculently try to force the issue and go it alone in attempting to secure the soldier’s release? I have said many times here that both sides in this conflict “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Cleary, Mubarak is warning both sides in this particular contretemps not to make the same mistake they’ve made in the past and botch an opportunity to potentially resolve the crisis short of a bloodbath.

And I’d like to know where the Hell is the Bush Administration on this? Why aren’t they restraining both sides with forceful statements instead of milquetoast pronouncements forgotten as soon as they’re uttered? We’re AWOL as usual when push comes to shove in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel’s conduct is becoming so outrageous, so beyond the pale of accpeted international norms, that some cooler heads outside the immediate zone of conflict must prevail.

tags ariga.com, beit-hanun, beit-lahiya, fallujah, forced-population-expulsions, gaza-invasion, idf, olmert, peretz, qassams, robert-rosenberg

Right off the bat, let me say that I’m not about the argue that Israel’s invasion of Gaza is precisely like its 1982 invasion of Lebanon (known then as Operation Peace for Galilee). But there are important and interesting similarities. Today’s Haaretz already notes that Ariel Sharon used the attempted assassination of Shlomo Argov, Israel’s ambassador to England as a pretext to launch the attack. The kidnapping of Gilad Shalit serves the same purpose today.

Military strategists note that the most important guarantee of success on the battlefield is having a carefully considered and precise plan. Knowing what you do not want to do is as important as knowing what you do. If you try to do too many things then you are almost guaranteed to fail. Likewise, in some cases (as with our invasion of Iraq) if you try to do too little then you will fail.

Today’s developments in Gaza show that Israel has fallen prey to precisely the same mistake as afflicted its long-term occupation of southern Lebanon. It seems to have allowed its politicians and military strategists to create a wish list of things it would like to accomplish regarding Gaza (this from Ariga.com):

Operation Summer Rains…includes an incursion…into southern Gaza as the first stage of a ‘big operation’ meant to apply military pressure on the Palestinians not only to release captured soldier Gilad Shalit, believed to be held somewhere in southern Gaza, but to end Qassam rocket fire on the Western Negev, ‘rehabilitate’ Israel’s deterrence against the Palestinians, and, say some, to bring down the Hamas government. The next stage began this evening as Israeli TV military reporters said planes would drop thousands of leaflets into the two northeast Gazan towns of Beit Lahiye and Beit Hanoun, warning residents to stay away from the army, which implied it was planning to roll into the area to try stopping the Qassam rockets.

It wants to do too many things and risks failing at all or most of them.

Another point on Israel’s Gaza invasion “wish list” that reared its ugly head today was the desire to decapitate the Hamas-led PA. Hence, the announcement that it has detained 87 (as of this writing) Hamas legislators, government ministers and ‘military operatives.’ The idea that a nation may invade another and imprison the latter’s entire political echelon is quite novel and preposterous. One wonders not only at what Olmert hopes to accomplish by doing so, but also what the actual result will be. If he stopped to think for a mere second he’d realize that every single one of the pols he’s jailed has become an instant hero to the average Palestinian. In fact, this so guarantees Hamas’ continued popularity that one almost wonders whether Olmert has some latent wish for Hamas to continue in power for the indefinite future. If he wishes to drive a wedge between Hamas and the Palestinian people he’s picked precisely the wrong way to do it.

Those old enough to remember the 1982 invasion will recall Sharon’s repeated assurances that the operation was meant as a short-term tactic to end rocket fire from southern Lebanon on Israel’s northern cities (shades of today’s Qassams!). His assurances turned out to mean nothing as Israel occupied southern Lebanon for years, hundreds of young Israelis died, Barak was forced to withdraw in defeat while Hezbollah crowed with victory and made its reputation as an Israeli dragon-slayer. Through last year’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza, Sharon handed Hamas precisely the same victory which in part led to its election victory in parliamentary elections. Olmert, unintentionally perhaps but foolishly nevertheless, seems hellbent on sealing Hamas’ popularity in perpetuity. Does this rhetoric give you deja vu all over again?

‘We have no intention of reoccupying Gaza, or to remain there. We have one main purpose, to bring Gilad home,’ he said. But the press reads the operation differently, with much talk about how the army has plans for going house to house, searching not only for the soldier but for the ‘terrorist infrastructure,’ a euphemism for suspected terrorists, their weapons, and their munitions factories, such as the workshops where the Qasam rockets are made. Israel has conducted many such operations in the past, with mixed results that don’t last very long. Proof? Last night, even as the tanks were rolling into southern Gaza, four Qassams were fired from northern Gaza.

Olmert has made a fool of Condoleeza Rice and her advice yesterday that Israel should “cool it” and give diplomacy a chance. Perhaps she was a fool to think that such advice would register at all with an Israeli political leader faced with a crisis. In such situations historically Israel knows but one language: absolute force. Not that this policy succeeds, much of the time it doesn’t and sometimes it fails miserably, but the force is projected as much to mollify an impotent public as to solve the crisis. Indeed, while such force is meant to convey a message of control and even dominance of the enemy it often betrays an absolute inability to influence events. This, I sadly predict is what must happen in Gaza. One wonders whether George Bush or Condi Rice could muster even an ounce of moxie to call Israel back from the precipice onto which it has crawled by demanding that it exercise restraint and release the Hamas leaders.

It is telling and sad to read Robert Rosenberg’s report that:

The kidnapped soldier’s father meanwhile was saying that the only way Israeli soldiers are ever returned is through negotiations.

Tell it to the PM.

Yet another point Olmert neglects to understand is that those who perpetrated the guerrilla operation that resulted in the kidnapping–Khaled Meshal with the approval of his Syrian protectors–expects precisely the bellicose response which the PM has provided. Israeli overreaction serves the Palestinian rejectionists perfectly. It ratchets up the heat and hatred against Israel AND against the Hamas ‘moderates’ led by Ismail Haniye. It precludes any possible rapprochement between Israeli and the Palestinians. It maintains the bloody status quo.

Shlomo ben Ami made another good point against the Gaza invasion. It bodes terribly ill for Olmert’s proposed West Bank withdrawal. When Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza last year it hoped it would be done with Gaza for good. Now, this ‘chicken’ of a delusion has come home to roost:

I think it was wrong to do that [invade Gaza], because — if only for the reasons that affect the stability of the government itself. You see, the government is engaged now in this idea of disengagement from the West Bank. If the they invade the Gaza Strip, what they are going to show to the Israeli opinion and to public opinion, as a whole, is that disengagement, unilateral disengagement, doesn’t work. If you do not coordinate things, either with the Palestinians or through a third party — the Quartet, for example — disengagement creates a frontline in a state of war, in a permanent state of war. And therefore, you’ll have to reoccupy the territory, so what’s the point in disengaging in such a manner? I think the government is exposing the fallacies of its own policy by occupying or reoccupying the Gaza Strip.

As another Haaretz commentator wrote last night, the territorial withdrawals only change the battle lines. Wherever Israel places its Separation Wall will be where the new Qassam battles will be fought.

Finally, 18 year-old Eliyahu Osheri’s body was found buried in a Ramallah field today. He was kidnapped and murdered by the Popular Resistance Committees shortly after his kidnapping on Sunday. To some Palestinians, there might be some modicum of sense in this killing since Osheri hailed from one of the more ideologically hardline West Bank settlements. But to everyone else this crime must be added to all the other horrible ones perpetrated by both sides in the name of national honor and vengeance. In reality, such acts bring no honor to their cause and only promote further rounds of revenge from the enemy camp. So the cycle continues.

The chance of Operation Summer Rains bringing any rain or relief to the Israeli people are about as nonexistent as the chance, way back in 1982, that Operation Peace for Galilee would bring the Galilee, or Israel any peace.

tags ariga.com, ehud-olmert, eliyahu-osheri, gaza-west-bank-withdrawal, gilad-shalit, hamas, israel-gaza-invasion, lebanon-invasion, operation-summer-rains, qassam-rockets

Ariga.com reports today that the Defense Minister’s wife published a front page story in one of Israel’s major dailies offering one way to end Qassam rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel. Here is the translation provided by a friend of this blog:

HEARTFELT PROTEST: Ahlama Peretz

The residents of Sderot need you today. I call on all the nation of Israel to stand beside those who I think are heroes of Israeli society. Anyone who has not experienced the fall of a Qassam right next to them does not know how great the fear is. More than any financial help or Apache helicopter attack, the people of Sderot need an embrace from the people of Israel, who once knew how to unite in times of trouble. Have we lost that Israel we once knew?…

The protest of Sderot is not politically partisan. It is a protest from the heart, from the pain. No effort to pain the anger and frustration of the residents with political shades will work.

For five years, the people of Sderot have lived an abnormal reality, under repeated attacks by Qassam rockets on the town. When a Qassam falls in the town and its explosion is heard everywhere, every mother and father feels anxious for their children. Amir and I have spent decades in Sderot. Our children grew up here and still go to school here. When a rocket falls in Sderot, like every mother I call Yiftah and Matan., to make sure they are okay. The heart skips a beat and when they answer the phone I resume breathing normally…

At that horrifying moment [when the rocket falls], all the mothers and fathers carry that prayer and hope for a miracle. But it is clear to us that we cannot county only on miracles. It is obvious that only through dialogue will it be possible to put an end to the cycle of violence. The army is the executive arm of the government, but the political echelon must do everything to speak with the other side, because that’s the only way to end the bloodshed. This is not a matter of miracles. To start a political process and reach results, we must find moral responsibility and leadership prowess within ourselves…

Ms. Peretz is no Martha Mitchell. She’s not a political wife with an axe to grind who spouts off in ways embarrassing to her husband. Ahlama is known to play a key role in Amir Peretz’s political decisions. So I say ‘Bravo’ to her for telling Israelis a difficult truth.

For it appears that the Palestinian rocket fire is causing a minor uproar on the Israeli political scene. Sedrot’s mayor has called for a city-wide protest ‘lockdown’ which would prevent entrance and exit from the city and bring the city to a virtual halt. He’s apparently trying to gin up a nationwide crisis mentality along the lines of what the militant settlers tried to do during the Gaza withdrawal. That’s why Ms. Peretz’s essay took some guts as it goes against the current political grain. One only hopes her husband is listening as his performance so far as defense minister has disappointed.

Ms. Peretz’s contrarian stance on this particular issue reminded me of Ehud Olmert’s daughter’s participation in a peace demonstration against the IDF chief of staff after the Gaza beach massacre. Now, if only we could get Ahlama Peretz to take her husband’s place in government and Dana Olmert to take her father’s. That government would show some promise of getting this conflict resolved!

tags ahlama-peretz, ariga.com, dana-olmert, qassam-rockets, sderot

Over the past few days, I’ve had a dialogue of the deaf with Lisa Goldman, a Canadian-Israeli journalist who edits the Israel section of the Global Voices website. I’ve criticized the lack of diversity in Goldman’s choices of blogs she covers in her regular roundups of Israeli blogs. I’ve also criticized her narrow definition of what her section accepts. For example, this blog is not eligible because I am not Israeli, even though I blog about Israel every day.

Robert Rosenberg, who IS an Israeli and the author of Ariga.com a blog cum daily briefing on Israeli politics, informs me that his site is not considered eligible by Ms. Goldman because it is not a blog (or so she claims). [Correction: Though Goldman does not include Ariga in her roundup, Robert corrects my misinterpretation of something he wrote in a e-mail. She has never explictily explained to him why he is not included. I stand corrected.] The only thing Ariga.com lacks that other blogs have is a comment feature (and there are many blogs which turn off their comment feature, yet they’re still considered blogs). Interestingly, Goldman includes in her coverage Karen Alkalay-Gut’s website that calls itself a “diary” but is clearly not a conventional blog. The reason I raise Ariga as an example of Goldman’s narrow-mindedness is that Robert’s views of the Israeli-Arab conflict are similarly progressive to my own.

A search of Goldman’s roundups at the site turns up no mention of Aron Trauring’s Israel Peace Blog, another progressive voice among the Israeli blogging community. Ran Hacohen’s Letter from Israel at Antiwar.com also apparently doesn’t rate as a blog and so is deemed ineligible by Goldman.

I’ve already mentioned in my last post about Global Voices that there are no current Israeli-Arab bloggers featured there (though Goldman had recruited one who stopped writing). This means that Global Voices is not hearing from 20% of the Israeli population.

So who is she covering? In her current roundup she features Dutchblog Israel criticizing the British academic boycott of Israel. She calls him a “leftist” even though his position in the post in question can’t remotely be called leftist. I get the distinct impression that Goldman was pleased to feature a “leftist” who attacked the academic boycott. Next, she featured Olegirl who is “utterly disgusted” by the boycott. Hmm, do we start to see an ideological pattern here?

She also features a post from Treppenwitz about the story of a Palestinian girl suffering from cancer who was treated at an Israeli hospital. It seems the Palestinian minister of health refused to contribute toward the operation because Hamas does not wish to cooperate with such Israeli endeavors. The clear political motivation of the blog post was to stick it to Hamas and the (anti-Israel) world media for allegedly not covering the story:

Yet to these people [journalists] who drool over even the smallest news story the way a starving man drools over a steak, the willingness of the Palestinian Minister of Health… a Medical Doctor for whom politics should come second (if at all)… to let a little Palestinian girl die rather than cooperate with the Israelis, isn’t considered newsworthy.

And secondarily, he seeks to show how magnanimous Israel was to provide the medical treatment to begin with.

Goldman cites Sharvul for a non-political post and calls him “politically leftist.” After searching through his blog I could find hardly any material with overt political content except one post which criticized Israeli peace activists demonstrating outside chief of staff Dan Halutz’s home for calling him a “murderer.” Even if one agrees with his sentiment I’d hardly call it “politically leftist.”

To her credit, Goldman does feature one blog, which she again cites as “leftist” (what is it with the phrase that she uses it so much?), whose owner recounts her personal journey from a Land of Israel supporter to a human rights activist on behalf of the Palestinians. She also features a blog post by Karen Alkalay-Gut about a popular Israeli-Arab writer, one by a gay non-Israeli living in Israel about Gay Pride Day and one by a Lebanese tourist visiting Israel. I’m glad she included these posts (though only the first deals with the Israeli-Palestinian issue I’m raising here).

I have not yet heard from Global Voices editorial management about whether they see a need to expand the political voices in their Israel section. Goldman certainly doesn’t see a need as she dismissively ended our conversation about this saying she was merely writing to explain her position but not to listen to mine. She’s already spent too much time dealing with me as it was, etc.,etc. That’s why I call it a dialogue of the deaf. So unless and until anything changes at Global Voices, you’ll largely be hearing there but a single side of that critical conflict that hovers over Israel and Palestine (and the world) like a 900 lb. elephant. ‘Tis a pity.

I also want to make clear that while I am critical of the way Lisa Goldman is editing her section, I admire Global Voices’ mission overall and wish it only the best. My comments are meant to challenge the site to do better and are not meant at all destructively.

tags ariga.com, aron-trauring, global-voices, israel-peace-blog, lisa-goldman, ran-hacohen

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