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

Shmuel Rosner is always good for some amusement (unintended of course). And reader Eran points to today’s column as a special laugher about George Bush’s Half Done (more accurately “half-baked”) presidency. The worshipful prose is unbelievable considering how universally condemned the Bush presidency has become (most polls show him at or near his lowest popularity ratings ever)–at least in this country. There is one country, Rosner notes, where Bush’s popularity remains high…You guessed it:

If he thinks that a majority of Israelis appreciate…Bush himself - he apparently is correct. According to a Gallup poll conducted last summer, 66 percent of Israelis are satisfied with the U.S. leadership - higher than any Western state and most non-Western states.

I know most ex-presidents are consumed with their presidential libraries, securing endorsement deals, making high-paid speeches, creating a legacy. But Bush shouldn’t give up on being president merely because his eight years are over. There’s a place for him in Israel’s heart–and perhaps in its presidency. One of its more recent presidents was caught with his pants down and unceremoniously sacked. Its current president, Shimon Peres, is an old geezer whose time has long past. Bush could hardly be less relevant than Peres as president–or could he?

Yes, he might have to take Israeli citizenship. But given the support he receives from Christian Zionists and his love for Jesus who walked this land, that might not be a stretch.

Clearly, Bush isn’t going to get that Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement he predicted by year’s end. What better way to keep the peace fires burning than by taking a shot at being Israel’s president? He shouldn’t have any problem getting elected. Israelis know he was the most obsequious U.S. president on record to Israel’s interests. He’d be a shoe-in if he wanted to work the same magic he’s done here on Israel.

Luckily for Israel, its presidency is largely ceremonial. If Bush had any real power as Israel’s president think of the disasters he could wreak.

Among the truly memorable puffery in Rosner’s piece is a favorable comparison of Bush to Lincoln, Truman and Washington:

Over the past year, Bush read a few books about the first president of the United States, George Washington. If he is still being written about today - over 200 years later - then perhaps Bush will also be written about, even argued over, hundreds of years down the road.

Yeah, they’ll argue whether he was the worst president on record or the second worst. Dream on, Shmulik–and he does:

Bush certainly merits criticism in a number of areas, but there’s one thing nobody can take away from him: He comes to work every morning to work, to try to change the world, for the good.

There are probably fourteen people left in the world who believe, along with Rosner here, that George Bush has changed the world for the good. The former isn’t merely a voice in the wilderness. I’d say he’s practically a lone voice in the cosmos. But it’s good that George will have someone with whom he can commune once he retires to the ranch, where he’ll break out the ol’ electric saw to trim brush on the back 40. In fact, George may be looking for a personal assistant or PR flack for his post-presidency gig. Rosner should apply.

Rosner isn’t quite done with his hagiography:

At the end of his term he will leave behind a job left uncompleted. The observer scrutinizing his actions will have to choose between two reasons: Either the policy was wrongheaded to begin with, or Bush’s diagnosis was correct but eight years was simply not enough time to prove it.

How could any reasonable person not see that the main problem with the Bush presidency was that he wasn’t given enough time to prove himself and his policies? Just think how much better off we Americans would be if we could give him another four years!

Rosner closes his elegy with this lofty thought:

And so it is that Bush comes to his second and final visit to Israel as president with a sense of serenity about what he has done and about what he will not manage to do…

If George Bush is serene it is the serenity of the obtuse. I’m reminded of the title of that classic American novel, A Confederacy of Dunces. Between Rosner and Bush there appears to be a confederacy of serene dunces.

tags bush presidency, job half done, shmuel-rosner

Wise words always seem to come from Rabbi Eric Yoffie when he speaks. Recently he addressed an international Islamic conference and denounced Jewish and Muslim extremism. Now, he has given all Reform congregations explicit instructions that John Hagee, Christian evangelical zealot and founder of Christians United for Israel should not be welcome by anyone in the movement. Thank God and higiah z’man:

“No, we cannot.” We cannot cooperate with the Christian Zionists, Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, told the annual conference of the movement’s rabbis…

“What they mean by support of Israel and what we mean by support of Israel are two very different things.”

…In his speech Wednesday night…Yoffie declared that an alliance with Christian Zionists must be rejected for the sake of Israel. Christian Zionist support for Israel is harmful, he said. It’s not “unconditional support for the Jewish state,” but rather support for certain leaders, certain parties, for a political agenda that is unacceptable to Yoffie and, he believes, to a majority of Israelis. The Evangelicals reject a two-state solution and oppose Israeli territorial concessions, and for that reason the Reform Movement cannot cooperate with them.

Yoffie’s speech focused on one man: John Hagee, founder of the Christians United for Israel lobby group. That in itself is notable, since Hagee ostensible received the stamp of approval when he was invited to speak to an AIPAC policy conference last year.

…”By what right do we expect others to walk away from those who make anti-Jewish or anti-Israel statements when we will not walk away from those [like Hagee] who make anti-Islam or anti-Catholic statements?”

The Reform leader stresses he isn’t rejecting support from the Evangelicals per se, but rather only those whose political goals he sees as unacceptable…

The AP story on the speech also quotes this important passage:

“On Israeli-Palestinian politics, John Hagee and the CUFI are extremists. In expressing contempt for other religions and rejecting territorial compromise under any and all circumstances, their views run against the American grain.”

The speech ended on this important note:

“And it is important to remember that Israel’s greatest friends and most important defenders are not the fundamentalists and extremists and those who take their orders directly from God, but those who work for an end to this terrible conflict, and who pray for peace for all who live in the land that we all call holy,”

As a great gospel singer used to say: “Say amen somebody.” For the full speech visit this page.

Aside from the importance of the Reform movement’s top leader denouncing evangelical extremism on behalf of Israel, the speech is important because several federations around the country have hosted “evenings for Israel” organized by CUFI. While some community leaders have criticized these events, no one on the national scene has done so and they have sprung up like mushrooms after a spring rain (well, perhaps not so fertile as that). Yoffie’s remarks should make any Jewish congregation, even non-Reform, think twice before allying itself with the good and radical reverend.

It should also set up an interesting tension between Yoffie’s movement and AIPAC which feted Hagee like a lion with standing ovations and rousing huzzahs when he delivered a stem-winding sermon attacking Arabs and calling for a military attack against Iran at its last convention.

For any students of Shmuel Rosner’s right-wing journalism, take a look at the assumptions underlying his Haaretz story and study them to see what editorial partisanship passing for serious journalism looks like.

I take back my opening sentence as JTA points out that some very feeble thoughts did actually come from Yoffie during the same speech:

…From the Palestinians we see only relentless terror. Surely the Palestinian national movement, in its various manifestations, is one of the ugliest and stupidest national movements in modern history.”

Uglier and stupider than the terror employed by sectors of the Jewish national movement before 1948? The good rabbi seems to have a case of historical amnesia.

tags christians-united-for-israel, eric-yoffie, john-hagee, reform-judaism, shmuel-rosner

At this point, no one is much surprised by the right-wing skew of Shmuel Rosner’s coverage of Israeli politics as Haaretz’s Washington correspondent. But his Israel Factor campaign coverage hit a new low with this headline for today’s column. If you look inside at the column you’ll only be partially relieved to note that the panel Rosner appointed to rate the presidential candidates pro-Israel bona fides mostly dismisses the claim that Obama is pro-Palestinian. I say “mostly” because the score was 2.5 out of 5 meaning someone on the panel attributed at least some credibility to the charge.

But other questions about Obama rate disturbing responses. The panel only rated this statement 3.5:

There is a ‘constant virulent campaign’ against Obama regarding his position on Israel.

Here is how Rosner characterized the panel’s vote:

Six of the panelists believe this statement to be true, but not all of them strongly. Of the two who gave this statement a score of 1 or 2 - meaning they do not at all believe it - one of them believes Obama is overstating the degree to which there is such campaign. The other one told me that he found many of the allegations against Obama to have a kernel of truth in them.

To a statement that is patently true to any reasonable Jewish observer (and a story reported as credible by all the major Jewish media including Haaretz), two panelists don’t believe it at all and one of those (no doubt Dore Gold) actually believes the smear campaign. Some of the other six don’t believe strongly in the proposition that Obama is being smeared.

I think you’ve just heard everything you needed to know about how useful the Israel Factor is as a yardstick of anything serious related to juding the Israel policy of the various presidential campaigns.

tags haaretz, israel-factor, obama-pro-palestinian, shmuel-rosner

Do you think Obama is thinking of all those elderly Jewish voters he has to face in Florida in a few weeks? And of his need to fend off a potential Clinton attack from his political right?

Dear Ambassador Khalilzad,

I understand that today the UN Security Council met regarding the situation in Gaza, and that a resolution or statement could be forthcoming from the Council in short order.

I urge you to ensure that the Security Council issue no statement and pass no resolution on this matter that does not fully condemn the rocket assault Hamas has been conducting on civilians in southern Israel…

All of us are concerned about the impact of closed border crossings on Palestinian families. However, we have to understand why Israel is forced to do this… Israel has the right to respond while seeking to minimize any impact on civilians.

The Security Council should clearly and unequivocally condemn the rocket attacks… If it cannot bring itself to make these common sense points, I urge you to ensure that it does not speak at all.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama
United States Senator

This letter is a perfect example of how election campaigns prostitute legitimate policy objectives. Of course, Israel was NOT forced to put Gaza under siege. To say otherwise is first of all to pander to the right-wing portion of the Jewish electorate and second to distort reality. Israel certainly has the right to respond to the Qassams but the method it has chosen has MAXIMAL impact on civilians. Unfortunately, Obama neglected to consider that fact.

Also disappointing is that Obama didn’t call for the UN ambassador to add a denunciation of the siege with his condemnation of the Qassam attacks. How many Arab-American voters do you think there are in Florida? Not many–just as I thought.

It’s no accident that this letter was first published by AIPAC’s favorite columnist, Shmuel Rosner. In fact, except for a few details in it, like the expression of concern for Gaza civilians, the letter could’ve been written by an AIPAC staffer. In fact, that’s a very strong possibility in this instance. Thanks to Racheli Gai who discovered this via the Tikkun daily newsletter.

There was talk earlier today that the Obama campaign denied he’d written the letter. But the U.S. UN Mission press office confirms that the Ambassador did receive a letter from Obama. And Rosner swears to it as well.

tags aipac, haaretz, obama-says-Gaza-siege-forced-on-Israel, shmuel-rosner

Thanks to Phil Weiss for noting this terrific profile of Haaretz by Stephen Glain in The Nation. Every Israeli newspaper has its own functional niche in the country’s media marketplace and both Maariv and Yediot each have important columnists. But there really is no paper quite like Haaretz for the breadth of its coverage. It is to Israel, and even the entire Mideast, what the New York Times or The Guardian are to those respective countries. I simply could not write this blog in this format without the resource that Haaretz provides. What other media outlet has two reporters, one of whose beats is the West Bank and the other, Gaza? The latter, Gideon Levy, writes the most wrenching, disturbing and powerful profiles of Palestinian in extremis. He deserves the Israeli or even international journalism equivalent of a Pulitzer for the sheer humanity of his writing.

I read the English language website and not everything there meets the high standard that the paper’s Hebrew language edition does. Translations and grammar are skewed and sometimes even mysteriously truncated (toned down?) possibly for Diaspora consumption. Also, one has the feeling that the military censor (yes, Israel still has such a thing) tamps down debate. For example, Israel’s recent incursion into Syrian and, it appears, Turkish airspace, has been stifled by such censorship. One wishes Haaretz had a bit more of the gumption shown by the NY Times in the face of LBJ’s [correction: "Nixon's" of course] White House during the Pentagon Papers case. But one can’t lay blame for this at the doorsteps of a single newspaper when the issue is systemic and goes to the nature of Israeli democracy (or lack of it).

Glain really nails Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz’s right-wing U.S. correspondent:

Then there is Rosner’s blog, a landfall for hardliners inside Ha’aretz’s liberal archipelago. In the wake of Hamas’s Gaza takeover in June, Rosner suggested (in a piece written with Aluf Benn) that the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might be ditched in favor of a Palestinian confederation or autonomous region comprising Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan. Such an alternative, Rosner wrote, “can be viewed as part of the search for a solution, but also as a whip being held over the head of the hesitant [Palestinian Authority President] Abbas.” It was a brazen proposition even within the Washington Beltway, where the goal of Palestinian statehood is embraced across much of the political spectrum.

Rosner, who worked as an editor at Ha’aretz before moving to Washington, acknowledges his minority status at the paper but says he is no outcast. “As an editor,” he says, “I’ve had to justify my decisions to colleagues, but the dialogue was always professional. I don’t agree with most of the paper’s editorials and neither do a lot of readers, but they subscribe anyway because it is so good.”

I have inveighed here about Rosner’s piss poor journalism and narrow-minded approach to Israeli and American Jewish politics. And if Haaretz is “so good” it’s not because of Rosner’s contribution. I’m not just saying this because of his politics because someone can be conservative and yet write well on this subject. But Rosner is not that person. He doesn’t bring anything to the debate. Yes, he makes AIPAC happy and perhaps that’s one of the sole reasons he’s there. But if it is, that’s a dumb reason to keep a columnist. Find someone conservative who has a voice and something important to say.

Here’s yet another example of why I find Rosner obtuse and tone deaf:

“Never trust Ha’aretz as a true reflection of the average Israeli newspaper reader,” says Shmuel Rosner, the paper’s right-of-center chief US correspondent. “For many Israelis, Ha’aretz is like The Nation. People who read it are better educated and more sophisticated than most, but the rest of the country doesn’t know it exists.”

If Haaretz wanted to be the New York Daily News of Israel, a widely read tabloid, it wouldn’t be Haaretz. And why should it try to be that? Because 90% of Americans might not know the New York Times exists does that detract from the role it plays in society? Haaretz holds out a vision not of what Israeli society IS, but what it might be on its best days. And that’s more than enough for me.

In the unlikely event that I could BE a newspaper and some of the this were on my tombstone, I’d die a happy man:

As a newspaper that succeeds with smart reporting and good writing, Ha’aretz is a model worthy of emulation for a troubled news industry worldwide….Unique among national newspapers, Ha’aretz is both public forum and chronicle of a religious and political movement that has, for good or ill, transformed a region and consumed the world. If the paper has a bias, it is less its liberal sensibility than its appeal to the possible–like Yitzhak Rabin’s “calculated risk” for a negotiated peace–over the reflexively negative of our post-9/11 world. By creating a home for opinions and values that are at odds with its own, Ha’aretz radiates security in its identity and convictions. And by supporting dialogue with Israel’s enemies, it projects confidence in the Jewish state’s ability to coexist with its neighbors as just one rational actor among many. At a time when the Zionist movement appears to be content with exchanging one ghetto for another, Ha’aretz insists on an Israel that is of the world as well as in it.

When I was a Hebrew University grad student in 1980, I read the Hebrew edition every day and it was a major language tutor for me. I felt it kept me in touch with the heart of Israeli society, politics and culture. I sometimes fantasize that if I’d made aliya working for Haaretz might’ve been one of the ways I couldn’t earned a living and made a meaningful social contribution.

So let us sing hosannas to a beacon of light and tolerance in Israel: Haaretz.

tags gideon-levy-moral-conscience, Haaretz-Israels-Liberal-Beacon, israeli-media, shmuel-rosner, stephen-glain, the-nation

Shmuel Rosner, one of the U.S. Israel Lobby's best friends in the Israeli media, is on the warpath against Wes Clark. Why? Because he had the temerity to "out" the Lobby (particularly Aipac) for beating the drums for war against Iran. Arianna Huffington got a call from Clark after he'd read a Bibi Netanyahu interview with Arnaud de Borchgrave in which the old 'peacenik' detailed his efforts to lobby the Bush regime to take out the Iranian nuke facilities. Bibi asserts in the interview that American military intervention is all but a done deal. I don't know about you, but I'm with Wes on this one. This sort of stuff is Netanyahu's metier. ...

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