November 2009 Archives

I don't think it's been explained more clearly than this.  Earlier this week, David Bogner laid on the line in another of his don't-miss posts at Treppenwitz. 

First, the history lesson.  That part can't be effectively excerpted (especially the excellent maps) but it starts with the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan and works its way on up to the present.

Then comes the argument.

But anyone with a third grade education can read for themselves that the '49 Armistice Agreements (there were individual agreements between Israel and each of the enemy states that attacked it) clearly state that the final borders must be negotiated between the parties, and that the so-called Green Line (the lines when the fighting ended) was never intended to be viewed by anyone as a permanent border.

So again, I ask what is so magical about the 1949 Armistice Lines?  If the Arabs feel they are entitled to a do-over for any and all of the military fiascoes they perpetrated, why not demand a return to the original Partition Plan lines??? 

And, finally, the punch line.

This may sound like a somewhat strange position for an Israeli to be taking, but if you think about it... it is the only logical place to begin the process of making everyone understand the real situation; that no country is allowed a do-over after losing a war... and that no country that wins a war is required to offer up land in order to sue for peace.

Yet, we've had to fight for our very survival on so many occasions that the world has gotten into the habit of thinking of Israel as temporary... negotiable.

Well, enough already!

Personally, I couldn't possible care less what the world wants Israel to do.  If we've learned only one thing during the short history of our country, it is that we are the only ones who will ever have our best interest at heart. 

But more importantly, I honestly feel that the only thing that has a prayer of unifying the Jewish people (or at least unifying those living in Israel) is for nearly all of us to be labeled illegitimate by the international community. 

I'm deliberately leaving out a lot of the good parts.  The launching point for this essay is the sudden, unwelcome and inappropriate interest of the Obama in Gilo, but it could easily apply to any other Jewish community on the "wrong" side of the Green Line.  Please go read it all.  Now would be a good time.

And speaking of the Green Line, Barry Rubin is seeing a glass half full in the response of the Obama administration to Israel's ten-month settlement freeze.  He makes a strong case (as always) and I wouldn't bet against any of his analyses on this subject but I'm not feeling the warm fuzzies on this one yet myself.  I'm pretty sure I've heard this song before, so I'll wait for the next verse.

Shabbat Shalom.

No matter where you go, there they are.  Try to indulge in a little light browsing while discussing trivia on the phone with a friend and, presto!  you find yourself slapped in the face with one more example of celebrity idiocy, out of the blue.

Who originally wrote the melody to "Turn Turn Turn," the 60s hit single by the Byrds based on the third chapter of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) (King James version)?  According to Wikipedia, it was Pete Seeger.  Well, fine and dandy, that was all I was looking for.  I really, really didn't need to know this.

45% of the royalties for this song ("because [in addition to the music] I did write six words") are donated to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

Then again, maybe I did.  Here is one of CAMERA's (early) analyses of the activities of the ICAHD.

A poisonous anti-Israel road show is making its way across America for a second year, this winter landing in eighteen cities between January 16th and February 12th. Jeff Halper, coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and Salim Shawamreh, a Palestinian whose house has been torn down by Israel because of zoning violations, have brought accusations of Israeli apartheid, Nazism and racism to universities, churches, community groups and even the occasional synagogue and Hillel. Newspapers and radio talk-shows too have been enlisted to reach the public.

And here is another, more recent.

In its relentless quest to demonize the Jewish state, The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), a virulently anti-Israel activist organization headed by Jeff Halper (and funded by the European Union), has in effect rewritten the Fourth Geneva Convention, ...

Yet more here, courtesty of NGO Monitor.

Summary:  The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) claims to be "a non-violent, direct-action group ... to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories."  A recipient of EU funding, ICAHD partners with radical NGOs such as Sabeel, Christian Aid, and LAW to campaign against the two-state solution, promote the "Durban Strategy" of boycotts and demonizing Israel, using terms such as "apartheid", and grossly distorting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So every time you hear "Turn Turn Turn" on the radio (or elsewhere), be aware that a bunch of bucks are going to fund the nefarious antics of yet another anti-Israel-posing-as-pro-"peace" hate group.  A few months ago, Ha'aretz published this report, in which a quote from a 2002 interview with Seeger reveals the utter cluelessness that often attends such celebrity posing.

"With 'Turn, Turn, Turn' I wanted to send 45 percent, because [in addition to the music] I did write six words and one more word repeated three times, so I figured I'd keep five percent of the royalties for the words. I was going to send it to London, where I am sure the committee that oversees the use of the King James version exists, and they probably could use a little cash. But then I realized, why not send it to where the words were originally written?"

ICAHD's Halper met with Seeger in New York last week and remarked that "he said he thought it was appropriate that the biblical part of the song make its way to Israel, he doesn't want to take credit for it."

Ironically, Pete Seeger's mythical "role in ending Israeli house demolitions" appears to be his one and only connection to the Jewish State.  It's sad, really.  To everything there is, indeed, a season.  A time to keep silence (v. 7), especially when you don't know what you're talking about.  And a time to take heed that, again in the immortal words of Kohelet (v.2),

Havel havalim hakol havel.  Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

Powerline on Pete Seeger.

This editorial at the Jerusalem Post focuses on what is becoming a disturbingly regular event in Israel's capital: haredi riots on Shabbat.  Just as Fridays have, over the past few years, become the scheduled day for riots by "peace activists" at the site of Israel's security wall in Bil'in and Ni'lin (e.g.), so the "ultra-Orthodox" and anti-Zionist group Eda Haredit has taken to organizing violent and disruptive protests in Jerusalem on the Sabbath.

Sometimes it seems as if there's an evil mastermind out there determined to make Jewish tradition, observance and ritual seem repellent, retrograde, even ridiculous to as many unaffiliated and secular Jews as possible while making even the traditionally observant cringe with embarrassment.

What better way to heighten alienation from all things Jewish than to rebrand Judaism as the sole province of a scowling ultra-Orthodox minority - and to do so in Jerusalem before the entire world. Last Shabbat, hundreds of "fervently Orthodox Jews" spent the afternoon rioting outside the Intel computer chip fabrication plant in Jerusalem, "desecrating the Sabbath in order to save it."

It's hard to fathom how breaking into the Intel plant's chapel, smashing windows and furniture and throwing prayerbooks on the floor could possibly be seen as a defense of Shabbat on any day of the week.  On the Sabbath, such vandalism is, clearly, a desecration of the day of rest, in addition to a viscous crime.

In a separate article, Abe Selig delves into some of the background of these riots and the factors that are fueling Eda Haredit's increasing sense of entitlement and empowerment.  He also stresses the importance of Intel's presence in Israel to the economic health of the country, giving due credit to this comprehensive report on the riots and their implications by Jameel at The Muqata earlier this week.

There is no place on earth like Jerusalem.  It seems that Shabbat descends there with its gentle presence all on its own, regardless of what else is going on, who's still working, what noises they're making.  Some of it, of course, is the swelling music of joyful songs that rises from hilltops, homes and synagogues, and the bustle of people hurrying home with smiles on their faces and the way the light seems somehow ... different as dusk falls.  And some of it is ... well, something else.

Eda Haredit could find much, much better ways of promoting the peace of Shabbat in Yerushalayim.  I sincerely hope they do.

Shabbat Shalom.

To close out the week, here are two videos, one very short, one much longer.

Here's Anne Bayefsky, delivering the remarks that, unbelievably, got her physically ejected from the UN



And here's Dore Gold's superlative response to Justice [sic] Richard Goldstone at Brandeis last night.



The full video, including Goldstone's remarks and the Q&A that followed, is posted here, at One Jerusalem.  I didn't hear a lot that was new, but one impression that's been growing for months now was substantially reinforced. 

The report that Goldstone shepherded, as well as his apologetics for, excuses and defenses of that report and the mission itself, consistently reflect the indignation of a man who believes he has been deeply wronged and that his mission was unjustly impugned and unfairly dismissed.  Goldstone is clearly convinced of his own impartiality and righteousness in this matter, regardless of how clearly the evidence shows the contrary. 

If you read the exchange of letters with the Israeli government that he mentioned at the beginning of the debate (they're appended to the report), and then listen to him talking during the Q&A about his warm reception in Gaza, his umbrage at the rejection of his mission by Israel comes through loud and clear.  Notwithstanding Ambassador Leshno-Yaar's clear and unequivocal assurance that Israel's refusal to cooperate in the mission in no way reflected upon Goldstone personally, notwithstanding the Ambassador's efforts to explain the grossly politicized and biased terms of the UNHRC resolution that authorized the mission, Goldstone continued to insist that on the basis of his own pretensions to fair and equitable investigation, as reflected in his personally crafted (but totally unofficial) revision of his mandate, Israel should nonetheless acquiesce in and cooperate with that mission.  There's even a thinly veiled threat, repeated more than once in Goldstone's ongoing efforts to persuade the Israeli government to let him in.

I also respectfully submit that it would be in the interest of the State of Israel and the Israeli victims to cooperate with the Mission so that its and their views, concerns and submissions could receive appropriate attention and consideration and be reflected in the outcome of the Mission's work.

There's something horrifying about the amount of damage that a slight to one man's ego can do.  I'm well aware that there was more to the Goldstone report than that, but nevertheless it appears to me to be a factor that can't be ignored.  The fact is that, his protestations notwithstanding, it's Goldstone who has made the controversy over this report all about him.

Finally, our thoughts and prayers go out of the victims of the Fort Hood massacre and their families.  May the wounded be healed and the dead remembered for a blessing.

Shabbat Shalom.

I'm sorry, but this is the best line I've read in a long time.

As hard as it may be for the GOP to contain Sarah Palin (R- Facebook), Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and their various allies, it's a lot harder to deal with a public that's losing faith in government to improve their lot.

Thank you, Margaret Carlson!  I needed a good laugh.

The rest of the essay is pretty good too.  I wish Carlson could resist throwing a plug for her beloved public option in almost everything she writes, but she does get a good dig in at David Alexrod in the opening 'graph.  And she's right about Republicans eating their own.

Sarah Palin (R- Facebook).  Too funny.

And it comes, unsurprisingly, from David Bogner at Treppenwitz.  Lots of history (some of which I didn't know), an excellent job of pulling together some fairly diverse strands of the past and present and a most eloquent and apt conclusion, which I'll share ... but only if you promise to go read the whole thing.

...

Personally, I have no problem with the idea of holding annual remembrance ceremonies for Yitzhak Rabin.  In fact, I'm in favor of it.  It is necessary.  He was the prime minister during a tumultuous time and was gunned down while in office.  It was a tragedy worth marking and remembering.

But these ceremonies cannot be allowed to be used to accuse me and my children, and everyone else on the political right, of creating and fostering an environment where murder becomes not only possible... but probable!

If we are ever to find our way as a nation - a unified nation with a comfortably diverse population engaged in healthy, energetic political debate - we must also use these annual ceremonies to teach our children - and remind each other - about the tragedy of 'The Saison'... and to finally understand that in a world where so many want to annihilate us, Jew must never raise a hand against Jew.

Emes.

Why would this Jersualem Embassy Relocation Act be different from the previous Jersualem Embassy Relocation Act?

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) is planning to introduce legislation today or tomorrow that would remove the presidential waiver from the law calling for the U.S. Embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jersualem. He announced his sponsorship of the Jersualem Embassy Relocation Act of 2009 on Tuesday afternoon at a Capitol Hill meeting of the Jerusalem Conference.

The legislation would call on the State Department to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and get rid of the waiver in the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Law that every president since then has renewed every six months.

The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, you see, required that the U.S. Embassy in Israel was to be moved to Jerusalem by May 31, 1999, and further called for a restriction on the use of federal funds for the maintenance and acquisition of U.S. buildings abroad (like embassies) if it wasn't.  But the act contained an escape hatch in Sec. 7, Presidential Waiver, allowing the President to suspend those restrictions for six months if he should deem it necessary in the interests of national security.  And every six months since, the President (Clinton, Bush, and now Obama) has exercised that waiver.  In the interests of national security, of course.

So far, Brownback's bill does not appear to have materialized.  Not much can be expected from it if it does.  This is a hot potato that Congress no longer seems interested in touching and various attempts at concurrent resolutions over the past several years trying to push it to the front burner have either never made it out of committee or been buried in the Senate.  A shame.

Bill Freeza pushes some interesting topical buttons in this essay bemoaning the new junk science invading the White House. 

Regardless of your tribal affiliations, were you cautiously optimistic when our new president promised to "restore science to its rightful place" in the formulation of public policy? Were you embarrassed by the prior occupant's politicization of issues that should have been decided on a more scientific basis? Did you assume that Barack Obama would surround himself with apolitical science advisors unencumbered by embarrassing anti-science baggage and free of culture-war axes to grind?

Yes, yes and yes.  It was one of the few silver linings I anticipated would come out of the thundercloud of last year's election.  Oh well.

Vaccination paranoia, global warming and the old "population bomb" are now among the drivers of our national agenda, endangering lives, undermining what's left of the economy and the environment and, well, hinting at the dawn of a truly Orwellian world.

Out with the old embarrassing anti-science baggage and in with the new.  Read it and weep.