Haim Dov Beliak just e-mailed me about a bombshell piece of news.
Eckstein sittin’ pretty: Helping restore Jesus to his throne at $600K per annumFor the first time in its history, the Jewish Agency has named a non-Jew to sit on its top leadership board. And not just any non-Jew, but a right-wing evangelical. The Jerusalem Post put it most dramatically:
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews will become one of the central strategic partners – and funders – of the Jewish Agency following a deal announced this week that will see some $45 million donated by the organization to the Agency over three years.
The funds will go to the Jewish Agency’s core budget, which has been shrinking in recent years as donors overseas choose to give directly to projects, bypassing the Agency. As a result, many in-house Agency projects, such as Jewish identity programs in the former Soviet Union, face cutbacks each year.
The donation is part of a broader agreement that will see Fellowship founder and president Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein join the Jewish Agency Executive, the 26-member “cabinet” that makes its high-level decisions and implements policy.
Fellowship representatives will also be given seats on the agency’s Budget and Finance Committee and the Coordinating Committee between the agency and the Israeli government.
The groundbreaking move comes at the behest of Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, the leading fundraiser among the U.S. evangelical community. Eckstein’s International Fellowship of Christians and Jews raises scores of millions each year for Israel. Though IFCJ says the funds do not support “construction of settlements” it clearly supports projects both within and outside the Green Line, as this Haaretz article makes clear, and makes no distinction between them. One thing is for sure: whether or not the group funds settlements its mission calls for 100% support of retention of the Occupied Territories via the work it does with an affiliate, Stand With Israel. This is from one of its publications (pdf):
The Lie: Israeli settlements are an obstacle to peace.
The Truth: The Oslo Accord, signed by Israel and the Palestinians in 1993,
contains no language requiring Israel to dismantle or freeze any settlements…When the Palestinians put down their guns, there will be peace.
When the Israelis put down their guns, there will be no Israel.
Haim Dov Beliak tells me he has been the leading private donor to the settlements though I’m trying to authenticate where his resources are spent and whether they have a political/ideological agenda. The new agreement gives him a seat on the Agency’s executive by dint of his fundraising prowess. At any rate, Christian Zionists in general provide massive amounts of financial support to settlements.
It’s laughable that IFCJ’s Christian representatives disclaim a political agenda:
…A Jewish institution official who spoke anonymously…wondered if American Christians’ voice would be heeded when deciding politically-sensitive issues. But a source familiar with the group’s workings said it had always limited itself to apolitical welfare work.
“The Fellowship interacts with donors in terms of values, where the money is going, reporting and accountability,” he said. “But that’s the end of the relationship. The donors…influence over decision-making is almost nil. In the disengagement [from Gaza in August 2005], or on the question of donating over the Green Line, you see that the organization had no political side. It gives according to National Insurance Institute categories of poverty, not political viewpoint,” the source said.
It’s important to understand why IFCJ specifically supports immigration, as this has a theological context for the Christians according to this Eckstein interview in The Guardian:
“They believe, and I believe, that they have a very important role in helping facilitate the in-gathering of the Jewish people as foretold and promised by Isaiah and the prophets and this is part of the messianic redemptive process,” he [Eckstein] says.
In other words, in order to fulfill their End Times prophecy these evangelicals are attempting to bring every Jew back to Israel. The more Jews make aliya, the closer they get to Armageddon and Jesus’ return (which I might add includes the notion that one-third of all Jews will be killed).
Not every IFCJ venture succeeds. Their project to persuade Iranian Jews to make aliya offered a $10,000 bounty for any Iranian who took them up on the offer. There were so few takers they’ll be discontinuing the program at year’s end. They could always have tried bombing a few Jewish synagogues and saying the Revolutionary Guards did it. That tactic has been tried with some success in past attempts to persuade Middle Eastern Jews to emigrate.
IFCJ’s 2006 IRS form 990 indicates that Eckstein earned nearly $600,000 in salary and benefits. Helping restore Jesus to his throne can be quite a profitable venture for some Jews.
I don’t find this surprising, seems like a logical step along the way of this great love affair between Christian Zionists and right-wing Israelis. I do find it ironic and hypocritical that Zionist zealots will brand anyone who criticizes Israel with the “anti-Semitic” label, yet take money and support from people who make no secret of the fact that they want us Jews to disappear from the face of the earth.
–ellen
Yes – according to those types we need to be “perfected”… And heaven help us if we want to send our kids to public schools in any jurisdiction they hold sway.
Speaking of public schools…
“.South Carolina church adds foot-washing to its shoe giveaway in public schools.”
No joke:
This website, http://www.jewsonfirst.org/, defends the First Amendment against the Christian Right, and has the So.Carolina story.
ellen
This is a terrible blood libel you are propagating. Not only were zionists not responsible for the synagogue bombing in Iraq which killed four including a 12 year old boy, but two innocent zionist activists had confessions tortured out of them and were executed.
http://jewishjournal.com/iranianamericanjews/2007/08/johnathan-cook-is-wrong-about-iranian.html
Read the comments as well. Interesting exchange at the end of them with the author and another Iranian Jew.
Blood libel? Typical histrionics from Amir. First, even if the Muslim Brotherhood WAS responsible for the original bombing a member of the Zionist underground tacitly admitted that he conducted terror actions after his comrades were arrested in order to prove they weren’t involved. While his motives might’ve been righteous, all of this certainly contributed to an atmosphere of terror among Jews & led to the emigration of virtually the entire community.
Historic references confirm that almost all Iraqi Jews who left believed that Israel had committed the terror actions. Are they believers in blood libel as well?
Israeli agents also tried terror in the Lavon Affair directed against Egypt though this was not for the purpose of stampeding Egyptian Jews to emigrate.
Regarding the Iranian Jews who don’t want to leave Iran, I can only point out that large numbers of Jews who had the chance to leave Nazi Germany also didn’t go, for many of the same reasons. So what’s the point?
Regarding Eckstein’s salary, it was revealed here in Israel that “Peace Now” activisits Yoav Oppenheimer and Dror Etkes (who recently had a falling out with the organization and left it) receive nice salaries paid for by several countries in the European Union. Yossi Beilin also has receieved a lot of money from the EU. Lots of peope in different parts of the political spectrum know how to latch on to those non-Jews who want to interfere in Israel and Jewish affairs and who are willing to pay them handsomely for carrying out the purposes which are not necessarily in the interests of Israel or the Jewish people.
A correction to a comment you made in your posting about the Shalem Center. You said the “Ariel College is unaccredited” (I have no idea what point you were trying to make in saying this). My daughter attends there and I can assure you it is accredited. It is one of the largest institutions of higher learning in Israel (and has a good number of Arab students as well). It is in the process of getting accreditation as a University.
The Jewish Agency will come to regret this. Jesus will not return when the Xtn Zionists want him to, and they are likely to blame Israel, Jews in the US, etc. I’ve already met individual who thought Dispensationalism was a Zionist plot!
Zhu Bajie
1) Iran is NOT Nazi Germany; 2) One might find it a lot easier to pay Iranian Jews to go to the US.
Zhu Bajie
Comparing Iran to Nazi Germany is absurd. The Forward had anarticle on the failure on the campaign to recruit Iranian Jews to come to Israel. With regard to Jews in Iran, it wrote:
“HIAS declined to comment on its efforts to promote emigration, but some observers claim that the main reason Iranian Jews have chosen to stay is that they are, for the most part, free to practice their faith. “Iranian Jews have a comfortable Jewish life,” said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born Middle East analyst now living in Israel.
At a time when Tehran and Jerusalem trade barbs and threats, the 25,000 Jews of Tehran, Shiraz and Yazd attend packed synagogues, send their children to Jewish schools, buy their meat in kosher butchers and are even exempt from prohibitions on alcohol. This modus vivendi is the result of a compact between the leadership of the Jewish community and the Iranian authorities, whereby Jews are permitted to practice their faith as a community on the condition that they remain out of politics and do not speak out in favor of Israel.”
So as long as the Jews agree to pretend to be happy living in a totalitarian dictatorship, they are fine. Very nice. How do you know the situation will remain as it is? How many of you out there would like to live in Iran?
Good post.
Actually, the exceprt I posed quoted an Iranian-born analyst livng in Israel, Meir Javedanfar. Why would Meir Javedanfar lie? It’s not like he has any interest in pleasing the IRI.
No one has said the situation for Iranian Jews (or any other Iranians) is ideal, just that it’s wrong to make claims of widespread persecution, let alone make absurd comparisons to Nazi Germany. I suppose things could change, as they could anywhere, but there has been a radical Islamic Republic in Iran since 1979 with rabid anti-Israel rhetroic, so it’s not as if Jews are confronting anything unprecedented with Ahmadinejad.
RS – I sent you an e-mail concerning the e-mail you sent me but was blocked by your spam filter.
Peter, Israeli Arabs are allowed to practice their faith. Their mosques are packed. They can buy Halal food. Christain Arabs can even buy pork and celebrate their holydays. Israeli Arabs, as opposed to Iranian Jews, are even allowed to get invoved in politics and speak out in favor of Israel’s enemies and against the state of Israel. So I guess everthing is fine and dandy.
Amir,
First you compare the Jews of Iran to the Jews in Nazi Germany. Now you are comparing them to Israeli Arabs. Did you really mean to compare the Israeli Arabs to Nazi Germany’s Jews, or did your hasbara wires just get a bit crossed in the delivery? Next time, if you are going to try to pull off the old “Jews in X Country” are treated just like in Nazi Germany gambit, perhaps you shouldn’t change gears mid-argument lest you hoist yourself on your own petard.
This is Amir trolling through the comment threads here looking to both create an argument & change the subject. This thread had nothing to do w. the treatment of Israeli Arabs in Israel which is reprehensible by the standards of most western democracies.
But regarding standards of freedom and liberty does Israel wish to be compared to Iran’s authoritarian regime (in which case it would come out looking pretty good) or the standards of western democracies (in which case it would come out distinctly on the short end of the stick). But I warn you Amir, we’ve argued & debated the subject of the discriminatory treatment of Israeli Arabs in several other threads. If you want to hijack this thread I won’t let you.
In a previous comment you accused me w/o any basis of “bashing Israel.” If you want to reply as I insisted before I allow you to that comment again, then do so here in this thread or use the Contact link to do so. Otherwise, as I said I may discontinue yr access to this site until you apologize for that comment.
Zed: I think you may’ve confused the fact that Bar_Kochba said some of the things you’re attributing to Amir.
This is preposterous. Peace groups on both sides of the conflict receive funding from the EU because the EU is trying to foster peace bet. both sides. The EU’s funding is transparent. It’s not making anyone rich. Eckstein, on the other hand, is not trying to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace. He is trying to create a maximalist Jewish state that will never be at peace with its neighbors. He’s trying to bring near the End Times on behalf of his evangelical clients.
By my lights, any donor who advances the chances for peace is doing so in “the interests of Israel and the Jewish people.” I have no problem with EU funding. I have worlds of problems with Eckstein exploiting evangelical Christian theological mania in order to promote his own well-being & an extreme Israeli nationalist position.
As for the Jews in Iran, the traditional Zionist view is that no Jews should live in the Diaspora and all should come to Israel. A more Diasporist position seeks for all Jews to live as Jews in their current homelands & preserve their Jewish traditions there. I believe that if Iranian Jews choose to remain there they should. I’m not going to second guess their choices. Only a myopic Zionist like perhaps Bar_Kochba, would have the chutzpah to do that. I should point out that while I AM a Zionist I believe that the Diaspora is equally important to Jewish life, which is NOT a Zionist concept.
Regarding Ariel College, there is only one accrediting authority in Israel for higher educational institutions. Ariel has failed to gain accreditation from this body. So who are you claiming has accredited Ariel?
Well, what do you know?…an article from Ha’aretz about an organized group of Iranian Jews making aliyah with this organization’s help! Note how some are afraid to walk around with a kippah and the prohibition on learning Hebrew. Who said the Jews have it “good” in Iran?
Here is an excerpt:
————————————————
Israel welcomes largest group of Iran olim since Islamic Revolution
By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Correspondent, and The Associated Press
A group of 40 new immigrants from Iran touched down at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Tuesday, the largest since the fall of the Shah and Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979.
The immigrants, from Tehran, Shiraz, and Isfahan, each received a $10,000 grant from international Jewish organizations.
Relatives screamed in delight and threw candy at the newcomers as they emerged into the airport reception hall after a long bureaucratic procedure.
Two brothers, Yosef and Michael, said they were glad to be in Israel. They declined to give their family name in order to protect relatives.
“I feel so good,” said Yosef, 16. “I just saw all of my family. You can’t put that into words.”
Michael, 15, said he told all his friends where he was going, and they wanted to come along. “I was scared in Iran as a Jew,” he said. “I would never be able to wear a skullcap in the streets there.”
Others said they felt safe in Iran, discounting warnings that Jews could become targets.
The brothers arrived with their parents and a sister and were greeted by their grandparents, whom they had not seen since the grandparents left for Israel six years ago.
“I’m in heaven,” gushed Avraham Dayan, 63, waiting for his son, daughter-in-law and grandson. He said he had not seen his 38-year-old son in 11 years, missing his son’s wedding and the birth of his grandson.
A total of 200 Iranian Jews have immigrated to Israel in 2007, compared to only 65 in 2006.
The immigrants who arrived Tuesday flew to Israel through a third country, although which country cannot be published at this time.
There are an estimated 25 to 28,000 Jews currently living in Iran. The Islamic government does grant them relative freedom of religion, although they are prevented from learning Hebrew and face certain emigration restrictions.
—- cut portion of article
“Our feeling is that this is very similar to the situation of Jews in Germany in the 1930s,” Eckstein said of the threat facing Jews in Iran. “By the time they realize it’s not going to blow over, it’ll be too late. All it needs is a U.S. or Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear program for them to come down strong on the local Jewish population.”
Benjamin Yakobi, 16, has lived in Israel seven years. Waiting for his cousin, he said Israel is safer than Iran. “Here we are all Jewish, and we are not worried that someone will do something,” he said.
In 2000, Iranian authorities arrested 10 Jews, convicted them of spying for Israel and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from four to 13 years. An appeals court later reduced their sentences under international pressure and eventually freed them.
—cut rest of article
Regarding Ariel College..their degrees are recognized as official academic degrees. I don’t know what you are referring to.
Richard, you said:
———————
By my lights, any donor who advances the chances for peace is doing so in “the interests of Israel and the Jewish people.” I have no problem with EU funding. I have worlds of problems with Eckstein exploiting evangelical Christian theological mania in order to promote his own well-being & an extreme Israeli nationalist position.
———————
Of course, I look on it exactly the opposite…I see the EU trying to damage Israel in order to kowtow to Arab interests, without any concern for Israel’s rights or security, and Eckstein and his Christian allies working for Israel’s interests, for whatever reasons.
Since this is a tie, then I think the point boils down to whether foreign non-Jewish interests should contribute money to Israeli groups who are carrying out activities they approve of. It may interest you to know that Rabbis in Judea/Samaria do have some reservations about accepting money from Christian groups and there has been debate about it in their scholarly journals. The main concern is hidden missionary activities. What the Christians might think about what is going to happen at some distant point at “the end of days” from their point of view doesnt’ really interest me as long as they are helping in the here and now.
It’s amazing how bar_kochba132 & Amir love to put words in my mouth. Nowhere did I ever say that Jews “have it good” in Iran, just that claims of widesread persection were bogus.
And it’s not true that Hebrew is forbidden in Iran. See this video about Jews in Iran, for instanc, which includes scenes of Iranian Jews praying in Hebrew,
It’s amazing how bar_kochba132 & Amir love to put words in my mouth. Nowhere did I ever say that Jews “have it good” in Iran, just that claims of widesread persection were bogus.
And it’s not true that Hebrew is forbidden in Iran. See this video about Jews in Iran, for instance, which includes scenes of Iranian Jews praying in Hebrew,
Peter H-you are correct about Hebrew not being forbidden, even though the article did say that. There was an interview on Israel radio today with an Israeli correspondent who was working out of New York two years ago, and she visited the Jews of Teheran and went into the synagogue. She asked them about their situation…they were leery to talk to her but they did tell her that they are allowed to study Hebrew.
Regarding “religious persecution”, I have done some reading recently about people who visited Syria. Syria is also a totalitarian police state and if I understood correctly what they wrote, I would conclude that fear of the regime and secret police is much more palpable in Syria than it is in Iran. However the person who wrote about his experiences pointed out that Assad’s Ba’athist regime is secular so there is tolerance for all religions and sects. Thus “tolerance of religious worship” is nowhere the same thing as “freedom” in general.
Nothing quite gets my blood boiling like the Rapturists. In a dramatic case of truth being stranger than fiction, these people are willing and eager to bring on an apocalyptic world war in the name of a bad science fiction fantasy. It’s beyond my understanding why any decent person would want anything to do with them. The Israeli right is playing the Rapturists for suckers, as is its prerogative, I suppose; it’s just unfortunate that the Palestinians are the ones who are really paying the price.
“which I might add includes the notion that one-third of all Jews will be killed”
FWIW, this article
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/north7.html
puts it at two-thirds.
I’d like you to point to a single instance in which the EU did anything that damaged Israel’s interests or “kowtowed” to Arab interests.
And who do you think provides Eckstein with the scores of millions he uses to fund settlement projects ea. yr? Himself and other Jews? Not a chance. It’s all “foreign non-Jewish interests” e.g. evangelical Christians.
Not a very defensible ethical perspective in my book. The fact that evangelicals not only provide millions for settlements, but support the most extremist positions on Israeli policy vis a vis its Arab neighbors, all because of their fervor to bring the Second Coming, Armageddon, a World War in which 1/3 of Jews will die & the rest subsequently convert to Christianity–all this is very relevant & should make any sober Jew reject such support. Anyone who foresees the death of 1/3 of my people is not a friend of mine & frankly I don’t see how he can be a friend of yours unless you stretch to the limits of credulity the definition of Friend of Israel.
That’s right. I’m always confused about whether 1/3 or us will fry or 2/3s. So the 1/3 will be the “surviving remnant” of Israel spoken of in the prophets (is it Isaiah or Ezechiel?).
This is from a friend who teaches at an Israeli university & knows whereof he speaks:
Tel Aviv Univesity is built on Arab land from the former village of Sheikh Munis, now called Ramat Aviv, which was taken without any compensation from the Arabs who owned it and who fled as a result of Israel’s War of Independence (which their side started) and are now most likely in camps in the Gaza Strip.
I see you do agree that I was correct in stating Ariel College is indeed accredited as a college, which is what I stated. They have applied for University status.
Thank you for pointing out the terrible injustice upon which one of Israel’s great academic institutions was built. The Arabs from whom this land was stolen deserve compensation and will hopefully receive it one day. One great injustice does not justify another.
Ariel is accredited by a right wing body that supervises education within the Territories. That doesn’t sound like full accreditation to me. That sounds like accreditation that is accepted within the Territories. Probably not within Israel itself and certainly not in the international community. And it will likely never receive university accreditation unless Bibi Netanyahu comes to power.
The College of Judea and Samaria (the official name of the Ariel College) is one of the largest institutions of higher education in Israel. It has thousands of graduates (most are engineers) working in industry in Israel. As I told you, my daughter is studying engineering there. Before she enrolled in the school, she investigated how well its graducates are doing in the job markent in Israel and she found they are doing very well. Israeli government and industry accepts their degrees as valid. There are many Arabs studying there. I think there is an important point you tend to overlook….most Israelis (I would guess at least 80%) do not think about the “territories” (i.e. Judea/Samaria or the West Bank or whatever you want to call it) and the Jewish presence there the way you do…i.e. as “illegal”. I would include at least part of the Left in this category. They may say that it is not wise or practical to have Jews living there, but they won’t say it is “illegal”. The government doesn’t look at it that way. Most Israeli have friends or relatives living there, many work there. Thus, if Netanyahu comes to power and they grant University status, no one, except for the vociferous minority will give a second thought to it. Of course, in my comments about Tel Aviv University, I am attempting to show that it would seem to many to be hypocritical for professors and students there to say that Ariel College is “illegal and immoral”, but their school isn’t. I am sure the Arabs of Sheikh Munis would think so.
I would like to add that you pointing out that Ariel College might not be recognized by the “international community”, the same can be said of Israel’s capital Jerusalem, which is also not recognized by the international community. So what? I don’t know anybody here in Israel that loses sleep over that.
If yr description of the attitudes of Israelis to the Territories is correct (& I am by no means accepting that it is), it will create all the more shock, dislocation & national trauma when Israel finally ends up withdrawing from almost all of that Territory which Israelis supposedly see as integral to their national consciousness. This is the sickness of both Occupation & settlements. It poisons the soul of the nation & makes it deeply problematic to ever have a normative existence.
You are entirely too ready to see those Israelis who object to the settlements & do NOT see them as integral to Israel as fringe or marginal when they are nothing of the sort. The Israeli left does not see the settlements as illegal?? If so, then they are not the Israeli left. I’d like you to point me to any alleged Israeli progressive who accepts the legality of settlements.
As for Tel Aviv University, you seem to assume that my Israeli professor-correspondent teaches there, but he doesn’t. Besides, I don’t blame the current faculty for sins committed by the Israeli government & Palmach/Haganah in 1948. That is a national issue which will have to be worked out in peace talks.
If you believe that a degree from Ariel College is equivalent to a degree from a fully accredited Israeli university then you’re only fooling yrself.
I presume that you are aware that the settlements in post-1967 Judea/Samaria/Gaza were first put up by the Labor Party. Yitzhak Rabin, even AFTER he signed the Oslo Agreements was a big supporter of building in Gush Katif. I am, of course, including the Labor Party in the “Left” column. The biggest backer of Gush Emunim and settlement in Samaria was Shimon Peres. Moshe Dayan, Yigal Allon and David Ben-Gurion were aong the first supporters of building Kiryat Arba next to Hevron. The Israeli Supreme Court, which has always had a Leftist majority has ruled that the settlements are “legal”
I am willing to admit that many of the Labor Party people who supported the settlements will now say it was a “mistake” for PRACTICAL reasons, but I am sure they would NOT say that they are “illegal” or “immoral”, any more than the settlements that were built before 1967 in the rest of the country.
I am using the term “Left” as is generally accepted in Israel. I repeat, part of the Left does agree with your position and part (the majority) doesn’t. Your definition of a “progressive” (a term not used much in Israel) as meaning someone who ipso-facto defines settlements as illegal and immoral is yours and yours alone. MERETZ, which does fit your definition of “progressive” and does oppose all the settlements, views itself as a natural ally of the Labor Party and NOT of the anti-Zionist HADASH or Arab parties and thus even they feel more comfortable with those who in the past supported the Judea/Samaria project.
You’re using ideological terminology that’s WAY out of date. Is Ehud Barak a “leftist?” Hardly. Is Colette Avital a “leftist?” More likely. To call Labor a “leftist” party is quite absurd. Some members are left of center, some are right of center. And as a party it has no strong ideological stance except as some vague centrist force perhaps slightly to the left of Kadima though even that’s stretching it.
That’s nonsense. You’re using the term “Left” in a way that is convenient for yr argument but in no way reflects any prevailing consensus on usage of the term in Israel or anywhere else.
Ho ho, that’ll be news to Peace Now, Meretz, Brit Tzedek, Israel Policy Forum, B’Tselem, Machsom Watch, Anarchists Against the Wall, Combatants for Peace, Breaking the Silence, & scores of other progressive NGOs who believes precisely what I believe. Guess I’m not so all alone as you make me out to be.
What are you smokin’? Is that why Meretz currently sits in government with its “natural ally,” the Labor Party?? Oh, what’s that you say? Meretz isn’t in the government? Well, how could that be? I thought Labor was it’s “natural ally.” Wouldn’t Meretz want to join Labor in the government if it was indeed a “natural ally?” Guess that’s another rhetorical stretch on yr part. Meretz refused to join the government and Labor agreed. Guess they’re not “natural allies” after all.
Meretz “feels comfortable” with past and present supporters of the Occupation? Where are you digging this stuff up? Just as a fer instance. Yossi Beilin was a Peres protégé. How “comfortable” does Yossi Beilin feel about Shimon Peres’ past support for the settlements and Occupation? On a scale of 1 to 10 I’d give it about a 1.
MERETZ is not in the gov’t because Olmert didn’t want them, he wanted SHAS and Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu. It was Olmert who won the last election and he decided who would be in the coalition. All the NGO’s you listed are still, all together, considered fringe groups .
Let’s say you are correct and that Labor is not a “progressive” party. Then how many Jewish “progressive” seats there are in the Knesset: MERETZ’s 5 out of 120. Let’s add the 9 Arab seats, one of which in HADASH is held by a Jew, Dov Kheinan (if you consider Islamic fundamentalists “progressives”). Now we are up 14 out of 120, slightly more than 10%. Now, lets say that all the Labor party MK’s agree with you, even though you yourself said they don’t (I mean on the “illegality and immorality” of the settlements)…they have 19 so that puts us up to 33, slightly more than 1/4 of the Knesset. There you have it, the total representation in the Knesset that MIGHT agree with you.
I should add that MERETZ has voters in Judea/Samaria, mostly in places like Alfei Menashe, Ariel and other settlements that are considered “within the consensus” (whatever that may mean).
Yossi Beilin has been ousted by MERETZ so I don’t know how much weight he carries any more in the Israeli political system. He was previously ousted by the Labor Party. I guess they felt that his responsibility for Oslo was a drag on their electoral prospects.
First, Olmert considered asking Meretz to join the gov’t but the party refused to join. 2nd, even if what you say is right (which it isn’t) why would Olmert refuse to include Labor’s “natural ally” in a coalition gov’t.? I guess Olmert doesn’t quite see Meretz as Labor’s natural ally.
Again, says you. I’ve got news for you–you’re a fringe too. Your views are no more representative of the majority of Israelis than mine are.
I don’t judge the popularity of my political views based on the composition of the Knesset. The Knesset, because of many factors, not least of which it’s lack of local geographical representation, is not truly representative of grassroots Israeli opinion. Just look at all the opinion polls whose results completely contradict government policy. A majority of Israelis in favor of sharing Jerusalem. A majority in favor of final status negotiations & an independent Palestinian state. A plurality in favor of negotiations with Syria and Hamas. Sorry, but it’s the government which refuses to acknowledge the views of the populace.
And Mike Huckabee has Jewish voters. So what. There will always be weird anomalies in electoral voting. Besides, if there are those who live in the Territories who oppose the Occupation & want to vote for Meretz, more power to them. One commenter at this blog fits this category. He’s a good soul fr. what I can tell. He’s made his life there but is willing to come back within the Green Line when the Israeli government tells him to.
There you go again. Beilin LEFT the Labor party to form Meretz and he has not been “ousted” by Meretz. He stepped down from his position as party chair which was not a successful tenure for him. I don’t know who you think you’re fooling with yr distortions of reality. But it’s no one here.
Could you give me an example of polls saying “the majority of Israeli favor dividing Jerusalem”? I know that the Genevi Initiative people quote one poll claiming there is a majorithy in favor of that. However ALL the polls I have heard quoted in Israel since the subject was brought up by Ramon a few months ago say there are large majorities against it. The GI people obviously have an interest in promoting results that favor their position, they are not interested in “neutral” observations of public opinion. I think the most reliable polls are the Steinmetz Center polls reported monthy in Ha’aretz and IIRC they don’t show anything like the GI poll results.
You are quite right that my position is not that of the majority in Israel. I never said it was. A majority of Israeli would agree to having a Palestinian state set up IN RETURN FOR A REAL PEACE AGREEENT, something I object to for various reasons. What I said is that the majority of Israelis do not view the settlements as “illegal or immoral”.
Your statement about “Beilin leaving Labor to found MERETZ” is completely incorrect. Beilin, in the Labor Party primaries before the 2003 elections was placed somewhere near place number 40 on the Knesset party list, while polls showed them getting in the low 20’s (they got 19 in the end). When this happened he announced , along with Yael Dayan, that they were jumping to MERETZ, then headed by Yossi Sarid. They weren’t really wanted there, either and were place in spots number 11 and 12 (IIRC) when going into the election they had 9 and polls showed them getting fewer. They ended up getting 6 leading Yossi Sarid to quit. Beilin was then elected head of the party because he lined up the old MAPAM party machine vote in the Kibbutz Artzi movement. This group turned against him in the upcoming race and he was badly trailing in the polls and left the race. It was this machine vote that ousted all the original RATZ people who were among the founders of MERETZ like Shulamit Aloni, Dedi Zucker and Benny Temkin.
MERETZ was founded as a merger between Shulamit Aloni’s RATZ (Citizens’s Rights) and the MAPAM party which previously had been part of the “Alignment” with Labor, along with Amnon Rubinstein’s SHINUI Party, which later broke off. This merger occurred in the 1980’s , long before Beilin left Labor in 2003.
Although I don’t recall all the coalition negotiations, Olmert might very well have asked MERETZ to join but this almost certainly would have been after he already had SHAS inside and MERETZ had very bad experiences with sitting alongside SHAS, both in Rabin’s Oslo gov’t and then Barak’s.
Meretz and Labor are natural allies. Since 1977 there has never been a Labor led government without Meretz (or its predecessor Ratz) nor has Meretz ever joined a government not led by Labor. I’m not counting national unity governments (Labor/Likud). Meretz and Labor are not identical but they are natural allies.
There must be an echo here. Bar Kochba just said precisely the same thing.
As for Meretz joining Labor governments…just how long has it been since Meretz has been in any government? Oh let’s see–the last one was 2000. So that would make Meretz a natural ally of Labor 8 yrs ago. And based on an event that happened 8 yrs ago you make a claim that Meretz still remains Labor’s “natural ally?” And since 1977, how many Labor governments have there been & how long has Labor ruled during that 30 yrs period. Answers: very few & very little.
Bar_Kochba: A survey covered in the Jerusalem Post. I wrote a post about it here–you should find it if you do a search. Let me know if you can’t. NOT a Geneva Initiative poll btw.
The majority of Israelis are prepared to give up most of the settlements in return for real peace. I don’t require every Israeli to accept my precise political or moral outlook. I’m happy enough that they agree with me that the majority of settlements aren’t worth dying for. That’s all that I require.
Thank you for explaining the genesis of Meretz. But you too were incorrect in saying that Labor kicked Beilin out. They didn’t as you yrself make clear.
Putting Beilin in a low-ranking spot knowing that he had zero chance to get in the Knesset is the same as “kicking him out”.
Both the Labor Party and MERETZ define themselves as being in the “peace camp”, so they are saying they are natural allies. Labor, as was explained, was not in a position to force Olmert to include them. If the “peace camp” were to get a majority in the Knesset (the last time this happened was in 1992), Labor would have no choice but to turn to them first as a coaltion partner. There is even talk about merging the two parties.
You yrself said the ranking was produced by a primary election. So no one “put” him there except the votes of Labor members in a primary. In fact, his low placement in the primary vote is yet another indication that neither Beilin’s nor Meretz’s politics make them “natural allies” of Labor.
Labor as a party defines itself as being in the peace camp? You’ll have to explain to me how Ehud Barak, who opposed Annapolis, is in the peace camp. No, sorry. I don’t care what anyone says. Barak can say he’s Harry Houdinin for all I care. It’s what they do that counts. Calling Labor in the peace camp is a gross overstatement. You can keep beating this horse to death (& you will) but you simply can’t find any credible evidence to buttress yr statement. Can you even find a single Meretz MP who has come anywhere close to making such a statement??
Let’s see that makes it 16 yrs. since Labor won a majority & it should take another 16 before that might happen again the way the party is going. If my name were Benedict I could be the Pope. But it’s not and I won’t be. So we’ll just have to wait & see for a decade or so whether Meretz or whatever it’s then called will still be “natural allies” of Labor when the latter party or whatever it’s then called does finally win an election. Let’s not ea. hold our breath, shall we?