My college classmate, Donald Trump's Israel adviser, eviscerates Reform leader Jacobs
A while back, someone told me that 'Dave Friedman' who went to Columbia was Donald Trump's adviser on Israel.
There were (at least) two Dave Friedman's who started Columbia with me who eventually became lawyers. One, with whom I have been in touch over the years through friends, is a partner at a Manhattan law firm. The other, who actually overlapped with me for a year at NYU law (I took two years off between college and law school to study in yeshiva in Israel) was someone I had not seen since he graduated law school in 1981. I googled and found the picture above. Unmistakable. Definitely the wisecracking Dave Friedman who went to college and law school with me.
Dave has come under attack by rabbi Rick Jacobs, the President of the Union of Reform Judaism, a member of J Street's rabbinic council, a board member of the New Israel Fund, and someone who has participated in demonstrations against Jerusalem's Jews in Israel. Why? Because of remarks Dave made to CNN last week.
"It ought to be time to at least take a
fresh look at this," Friedman said, adding that he believes even many
Arabs in the West Bank may prefer Israeli rule to a Palestinian state.
"The two-state solution might be one answer, but I don't think it's the
only answer anymore."
Friedman was the Trump adviser who told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz two weeks ago that Trump may be open to Israel annexing part of the West Bank, which is counter to stated U.S. policy.
Friedman told CNN this week that he was
responding to a hypothetical situation and saying there may be
circumstances where that is true, rather than putting it forward as a
policy position.
But he also
indicated to CNN that Trump could be amenable to the changes the Iron
Dome Alliance is seeking, though he didn't comment on specific language.
He
said the mogul would support a policy of not "imposing" U.S. will on
Israel. Other policy positions would include an undivided Jerusalem as
the capital of Israel, regional military and technological superiority
for the nation and showing "no daylight" between the U.S. and Israel in
public.
For the record, the Iron Dome Alliance is a group started by Jeff Ballaboon, who follows me on Twitter and likely reads this blog from time to time.
These reports raise a number of significant concerns and more than a few questions, such as:
Under what circumstances can you imagine another “answer” would be preferable?
What would another “answer” look like? How would it be developed? Implemented?
How would any other “answer” provide peace and security for Israel?
How would any other “answer” provide peace and security for the Palestinians?
Do you believe Israel can have peace and security without the Palestinians having the same?
I ask these questions because it seems axiomatic that the
alternative to two states is one state. Such a state would either be a
Jewish state that would cease to be a democracy and disenfranchise
millions of Palestinian souls, or it would be a democracy and cease to
be Jewish. It would put the fate of the Jewish State of Israel in the
hands of extremists on all sides, exposing the region to an endless
cycle of violence. Are either of these alternatives acceptable to you?
They are not acceptable to us, and that is why the Reform Movement has a
longstanding position in support of a two-state solution.
I write with a sense of deep concern. As I hope and trust you know, a
two-state solution has been a bedrock of American foreign policy for
decades, supported by every American President – Democratic and
Republican alike – since at least President George W. Bush in 2002. It
is also the policy of the Israeli government, and has been the policy of
every Israeli government since Prime Minister Rabin signed the Oslo
Accords at the White House in 1993.
Only two states for two people can end the conflict and offer hope and
security to a part of the world that needs and deserves them, a region
that is of vital interest to the United States in all of our nation’s
foreign policy concerns.
No one familiar with the current reality can doubt that there remain
significant obstacles to achieving a two-state solution, but that
doesn’t mean it is no longer the preferred solution. Any comments
suggesting otherwise undermine responsible Middle East policy.
For all these reasons and more, I was taken aback to read Mr. Friedman’s
suggestion that another “answer” might make more sense, especially
because he did not offer any ideas about what such an alternative might
be. To talk about discarding such a fundamental tenet of both U.S. and
Israeli policy, without offering any alternative, suggests either a lack
of understanding or a lack of seriousness. Either way, the statement
calls for your urgent clarification.
In your letter earlier today to Donald J. Trump and me, you
state that you were “taken aback” by my comment that a “two state
solution was an answer, but not the only answer,” to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I am happy to engage in a discussion with
you on the subject, which I believe is more detailed and complex than
either your letter, or my response below, can do justice. Nonetheless, I
am happy to offer some brief summaries of my views.
That a two-state solution has been a part of American foreign
policy for some length of time – something you place great weight upon
-- is, to me, entirely irrelevant. The wars in Vietnam and Iraq were
also part of American foreign policy and I have no doubt that these were
policies you opposed. As I’m sure you recognize, and as we witnessed
this past week with the brutal murder of Hallel Ariel as she lay
sleeping in her bed, followed the next day by the murder of Rabbi
Michael Mark, a father of 10, the numerous proposals and initiatives for
a two-state solution over the years have brought neither peace nor
security to the State of Israel.
The issue confronting both the Israelis and the Palestinians is
fundamentally humanitarian in nature. It is not political and it is not
geographic. Both peoples are entitled to live in peace and dignity, and
both peoples are being deprived of those fundamental rights because of
one thing and one thing only – radical Islamic jihadism, a cancer that
infects Israel and much of the rest of the world. No re-allocation of
land will cure this scourge, and, indeed, Israel knew no peace from 1948
to 1967 when it did not even control Judea and Samaria.
So what should we do? Should we continue to force a square peg
into a round hole and demand that Israel cede land to Palestinians in
exchange for a naked promise that the Palestinians will change their
behavior? Are you not concerned that Mahmoud Abbas has no electoral
mandate (his term expired six years ago), and that his justification for
not calling for new elections is that he will be replaced by an even
more violent jihadist? Are you not concerned that Mr. Abbas presides
over ceremonies honoring Palestinian terrorists or that he has been
accused of massive fiscal corruption? Are you not concerned that
Palestinians teach their children to hate and murder Jews, even putting
on school plays enacting such despicable behavior? Are you not concerned
that the Palestinian Authority has no ability to control the Hamas
factions in Hebron, Jenin and Nablus, which continuously assault and
kill Jewish people? Are you not concerned that the Palestinian Authority
pays generous stipends to the families of terrorists who are jailed or
killed after murdering Jews? Are you not concerned, after seeing the
disastrous results of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, that a Palestinian
state on the West Bank will bring missile attacks to the entire
population of Israel?
I know that you have no doubt that the People of Israel want
peace and that they are overwhelmingly well-intentioned, well-informed,
and non-hateful. Given that, are you not concerned that your desire to
divide Israel in two, leaving it without defensible borders, is solidly
rejected by a super-majority of Israelis? Indeed, even many Palestinians
now sensibly prefer Israeli rule to a nascent Palestinian state. Where
but in Israel do Arabs have educational opportunity, first class
healthcare, social and religious freedom and civil rights for women?
There are – and there must be -- other “answers” to a two-state
solution, some short term, some longer. I would begin by making
appropriate demands upon the Palestinians to end terror, incitement and
hateful indoctrination. I would condition further US funding on
meaningful progress in this regard. I would also encourage significant
economic investment in Palestinian communities – a challenge given the
difficulty of identifying non-corrupt leaders but still worth pursuing –
to strengthen the Palestinian middle class. I would improve
infrastructure and commit resources to enhance the quality of life for
every inhabitant of the region. Simply put, I would focus on what most
Palestinians and Israelis care the most about – better living conditions
and better opportunities. If and when those initiatives bear fruit and
tensions are reduced, talks could continue about long term solutions.
But, even then, I must reject categorically your statement that
Israel must either be a democratic state or a Jewish state. The numbers
simply do not support that conclusion. The Jewish population of
pre-1967 Israel is now about 6.3 million out of 8.4 million people –
about 75%. The Jewish population of Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem is
another 700,000 people out of about 2.4 million people (it may be lower
as many think the Arab population is overstated). Thus, the Jewish
population of the entire region is about 7.0 million out of 10.8 million
– still a solid 65% majority. (By the way, many people quote all kinds
of numbers for the West Bank population – these are, I believe, the most
accurate)
I’m not saying, one way or the other, that a “one state
solution” is the correct path. That is a decision for the Israeli people
to make in consultation with the Palestinians. But it is simply not
true that Jews will become a minority in their own land if a two-state
solution is not implemented. Indeed, given the demands of the
Palestinians for a return of so-called “refugees,” even the two-state
solution they envision would provide no demographic certainty to Israeli
Jews.
Let’s not grandstand this issue any more with “open letters”
that I can’t help but feel have more to do with American politics than
doing what’s best for Israel. Let’s have a cup of coffee (or some
Israeli wine) and continue the dialogue.
Respectfully, David Friedman
Sounds like Dave has been reading CarolineGlick and YoramEttinger, while Jacobs is still living under the two-state delusion. Zeir gut gezogt (very well said).
I'm back in Israel. Wiped out, but hey, I'm Executive Platinum on American (Emerald on OneWorld) for the next year. Luxury lounges when I travel and eight free systemwide upgrades on flights. Definitely worth it. :-)
I've been meaning to tell you all that once again I am a Fab 50 Blog Award Winner. Thanks again to Doug Ross and his crew for selecting me, and a pleasure to be lined up with the great Caroline Glick.
Caspit: At the end of the day, Netanyahu to blame for failure to attack Iran
If I am to believe Ben Caspit, Binyamin Netanyahu was a gutsy soldier and is a yellow-bellied Prime Minister. Caspit looks at Caroline Glick's confrontation with Meir Dagan and Gabi Ashkenazi at the Jerusalem Post conference over the weekend, and argues that the real question is not why Israel did not attack Iran in 2010 (when Dagan was heading the Mossad and Ashkenazi the IDF), but rather why it did not attack in 2012.
This dialogue in New York, about five years after the fact,
reveals just the tip of the iceberg of what was taking place behind
closed doors during those long, tense months in the conference rooms of
Israel’s top defense leadership. All the heads of the various security
forces were unanimous in their opinion that an Israeli attack on Iran
would be a historic mistake that could result in disaster. At the same
time, however, decisions in Israel are made by the political leadership.
The defense establishment is then expected to carry them out without
hesitation. On the other hand, to follow through with a perilous,
strategically historic move such as attacking Iran, any Israeli prime
minister would want the support of his defense leadership, or at least
the chief of staff.
Netanyahu is an overly cautious prime minister with an
aversion to military adventurism, for reasons of personal
political survival. He knew that if something went wrong with the attack
and it then became public that he gave the order despite the
recommendations of all of the professionals in the security services, it
would be the end of his political career. At first, he invested
enormous energy in trying to convince some of the defense chiefs to
adopt his position. The event reported here occurred when he finally
gave up.
The question that the Israeli right should ask Netanyahu is
why he didn’t attack Iran in the summer of 2012. As far as Netanyahu
was concerned, that summer was seemingly the ultimate moment: The heads
of the security forces had left the IDF and were replaced with a new
crop of generals lacking experience, charisma or influence among the
public. At that time, Netanyahu had a weak and anonymous chief of staff
in the person of Benny Gantz, a novice director of the Mossad with Tamir
Pardo, a new chief of military intelligence and a new director of the
Shin Bet on the way. At the same time, the United States was caught up
in a bitter presidential election, in which President Barack Obama was
fighting for his second term. Netanyahu was seemingly free to act. There
was nothing to prevent him from attacking Iran in July, August or
September 2012, but he hesitated and eventually put his dream aside. At
the time, however, there was no one to interfere in any significant way.
So why didn’t he go through with it? First of all, because Netanyahu was afraid. Second, Barak made a sharp, last minute U-turn and switched to the opponents’ side. And there must be other reasons.
So why did Netanyahu back down? What are those 'other reasons'? Here are a couple that might have played a role:
1. The 'most pro-Israel administration evah' made very clear that it would not have Israel's back if Israel attacked Iran. One of the working assumptions to that point was that if Israel went ahead with the attack and found itself endangered in the aftermath, the United States would step in. In August 2012, we were told clearly that was not the case.
2. Those who were 'out of power' were not exactly without influence.
Caroline Glick confronts Meir Dagan and Gabi Ashkenazy over refusal to carry out order to bomb Iran (with video)
JPost columnist Caroline Glick confronted former Mossad Director Meir Dagan and former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazy at the newspaper's conference in New York on Sunday, and accused them of refusing to carry out an order to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.
Let's go to the videotape.
"In 2010, according to a report from 2012 on the Israeli news program
Uvda, we learned that two of the men on this panel were given an order
to prepare a strike against Iran's military installations and they
refused," Glick said.
"Because it was an illegal order," Dagan interjected.
"You were ordered by the security cabinet," Glick said.
"You don't know what happened there," Dagan answered.
"It
is not in your expert legal opinion to determine whether or not the
prime minister of Israel and defense minister of Israel have a right to
order Israel to take action in its national defense. We would not be
where we are today. We would not now be faced with a situation where no
international coalition will be built, where now we are seeing the
United States moving forward at the end of the month to conclude a
nuclear agreement with Tehran that will enable them to acquire the bomb.
We would be in a different position.," Glick charged.
Ashkenazi
said that what Glick was saying was "stupid," later apologizing and
saying he meant "insulting." He rejected the idea that the military
echelon could prevent the political echelon from attacking Iran.
Glick is 1000% correct. Too bad it won't help at all today.
I cannot think of any other country in the West where something like this could happen.
It's been less than a week since the Obama administration started seething over a surprise invitation extended to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress by Speaker of the House John Boehner. The Obama administration whined to anyone who would listen that the invitation was a 'breach of protocol.'
The Obama administration is reinventing diplomatic protocol. It is sending a team to Israel - led by Obama's own campaign manager from the 2012 elections - to defeat Netanyahu in Israel's March 17 election. I hope that all Israelis are outraged by this patronizing interference in our country's election. Yet another reason to vote against Livni and Herzog's non-Zionist party (as if you needed one).
This is from the next to last link.
The anti-Netanyahu, left wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports a
group called “One Voice,” reportedly funded by American donors, is
paying for the Obama campaign team. That group is reportedly being lead by Obama’s 2012 field director Jeremy Bird.
As Jerusalem Post columnist and putative Knesset candidate Caroline
Glick reported on her Facebook page, “Obama won’t meet Benjamin
Netanyahu in Washington when he addresses the Joint Houses of Congress
in March because of Netanyahu’s visit’s proximity to the Israeli
elections. And Obama, of course believes in protocol and propriety which
is why he won’t get involved.” And yet, Glick adds, “He’s just sending
his 2012 field campaign manager to Israel to run a campaign to defeat
Netanyahu.”
For all the harsh accusations of foreign interference currently being leveled against GOP Speaker John Boehner, Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, reports
of Obama operatives actively working to unseat a democratically elected
leader of a strong U.S. ally is hardly the news it might appear to be.
The Obama White House has aggressively worked to defeat allied
leaders it has not liked and to elect or re-elect foreign leaders it
does like. As the Times of Israel recently reported, the list of Obama Administration meddling in foreign elections is a long one.
Danish Ambassador to Israel Jesper Vahr tries to justify Europe's discriminatory treatment of Israel, and Caroline Glick rips him some new cavities.
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Sunlight).
I'd love to see Caroline in the Knesset, but I understand that she's not going to put up with the corruption it usually takes (fighting or joining) to get there in the current party system.
How to deal with rampant anti-Semitism on US college campuses
Given the anti-Semitism being taught in the classrooms on so many North American college campuses, it's not too surprising that anti-Semitism has become rampant on those same campuses. This is Caroline Glick.
Increasingly, anti-Semites in the US are adopting brownshirt tactics
to violently advance their goal of removing Jews from the public square
and intimidating others into boycotting Israel and those who support it.
Take just a few examples in recent weeks. In late September, several
hundred anti-Semitic rioters at the Port of Oakland prevented
longshoremen from unloading cargo from the Israeli cargo ship Zim
Shanghai. According to media reports, there were 50 policemen from the
Oakland police force on the scene, but their presence did not stop the
rioters or enable the longshoremen to offload the cargo.
None of the anti-Semites were arrested. Zim Shanghai was forced to leave the port with its cargo and sail on to Los Angeles.
The group that organized the assault on the Zim ship calls itself
Block the Boat for Gaza. It operates through its Facebook page where it
openly organizes violent assaults on Israeli shipping. Another assault
is planned, according to its Facebook page, for October 25.
A previous assault in August, during Operation Protective Edge, also
took place with police presence and nonintervention. The Zim Piraeus was
forced as well to pull anchor with its cargo and sail on to Los
Angeles.
Block the Boat for Gaza is supported by another group called Arab Resource and Organizing Center.
On October 8, the Brooklyn Nets played an exhibition game against
Maccabi Tel Aviv at the Barclay Center in downtown Brooklyn. The event
was a benefit for Friends of the IDF. Twelve IDF soldiers wounded during
Operation Protective Edge were guests at the event.
About a hundred anti-Semitic rioters organized outside the event.
They were members of variety of organizations reportedly including
Jewish Voices for Peace, Adalah – New York, and the Direct Action for
Palestine.
After the event, a number of the rioters accosted Leonard Petlakh,
the director of a local Jewish community center, as he was leaving the
arena with his two young sons. According to The Forward, they shouted,
“Free Palestine,” and, “Your people are murderers.” And then one of them
punched him in the face, breaking his nose.
The assailant was arrested. But strangely, he was not charged with
committing a hate crime despite the clear anti-Semitic character of his
crime.
On October 5, hours after the end of Yom Kippur, swastikas were
painted on the walls of AEPi Jewish fraternity at Emory University near
Atlanta. Swastikas were also painted at the Yale University campus. In
July, mailboxes of AEPi members at University of Oregon were defaced
with swastikas.
In August, a Jewish student at Temple University was assaulted by a member of Students for Justice for Palestine.
In a video filmed at the national convention of AEPi and posted on
YouTube two weeks ago, members of AEPi from campuses around the US and
Canada shared the stories of anti-Semitic assaults they and their
friends suffer regularly on their campuses. The attacks described
included, among other things, violent assaults.
Gideon Rafal, the president of AEPi at University of Arizona, described
how he was assaulted while trying to prevent a group of 20 Jew-hating
thugs from forcing their way into his fraternity house.
Rafal said he was struck from behind and lost consciousness.
The injuries he sustained during the assault included a skull
fracture, bleeding in the brain, a concussion and a lower back fracture.
He says that he was hospitalized for three weeks, spending 10 days in
the intensive care unit.
Rafal did not say who the assailants were or what legal measures were
taken against them or what organization if any, they were associated
with.
Other students described threats against Jewish students manning a
table for Birthright Israel programs at Loyola University in Chicago,
and the assault of a Jewish female student at University of California
at Santa Cruz.
Shane, a student at University of Calgary, described how he, his
mother and sister were violently assaulted for counter-protesting at an
anti-Israel protest. The group that sponsored the anti-Israel protest
and whose members attacked him and his family is an official campus
organization.
Shane said he fears for his life as he walks through campus.
In recent years it has become apparent that university campuses have
become breeding grounds for anti-Semitism. The incidents described by
the Jewish students who attended the AEPi convention indicate that the
anti-Israel propaganda taught in the classrooms is increasingly being
translated into anti-Jewish violence outside of them.
Caroline Glick writes about the necessity for Israel to cultivate non-Jewish supporters and then gives a shout-out to two of them: Jon Voight and Rick Santorum.
Consider the case of Jon Voight.
The celebrated Oscar-winning actor is an outspoken champion of
Israel. Earlier this month, Voight published an open letter to Penelope
Cruz and Javier Bardem in Variety where he harshly criticized the
Spanish performers for their public statement condemning Israel and
siding with Hamas in its war against the Jewish state.
In his words, “I am heartsick that people like Penelope Cruz and
Javier Bardem could incite anti-Semitism all over the world and are
oblivious to the damage they have caused.”
...
Last week, two UCLA professors, Mark LeVine and Gil Hochberg,
co-authored an article published in The Huffington Post assaulting him
for his views and his temerity to suggest that Israel is a moral,
embattled democracy fighting genocidal forces committed to its
destruction.
The two Jewish academics are supporters of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
The principal aim of the BDS movement is to make it socially
unacceptable to support Israel. In 2010 LeVine and Hochberg signed a
petition calling for California state universities to divest from
companies that do business with Israel.
Online Hollywood commentators, such as Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva,
opined that Voight, who was nominated for an Emmy Award for his role in
Showtime’s Ray Donovan series, was liable to lose his Emmy bid due to
his support for Israel.
Hochberg and LeVine’s assault on Voight was a long-winded voyage into
the post-Zionist and anti-Zionist literary moonscape. Their principal
criticism of Voight was that he refuses to accept this intellectual
wasteland’s rejection of the known facts of history.
Voight is not an academic, nor has he ever claimed to be an expert on
Middle Eastern history. He is a non-Jewish American concerned about the
future of America.
That is why he stands with Israel. Voight recognizes that when Israel
is under assault, and its right to defend itself is denied while
terrorists are supported, the US is endangered. And so he feels
compelled to speak out, regardless of the price.
...
Another non-Jewish champion of Israel is former US senator and
Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum. Both during his tenure in
the Senate and since, Santorum has spoken out strongly against Iran’s
nuclear program, insisting that it is a serious threat not only to
Israel, but to the US itself.
Like Voight, Santorum recognizes that the fate of the US is directly tied to the fate of Israel.
For his trenchant support for Israel, and his outspoken concern about
Iran’s nuclear program, as well as his support for domestic issues
where he has not shied away from taking controversial, inconvenient
position, Santorum’s critics have demonized him.
...
Last week, Santorum led a solidarity mission to Israel. The majority
of his colleagues were non-Jewish opinion shapers from Iowa, the first
state to hold Republican presidential contests. Santorum explained that
his goal in coming to Israel was not simply to show Israelis that the
American people support us. It was to build support among Republicans in
Iowa for a robust US engagement in foreign affairs based on supporting
Israel, fighting America’s enemies and preventing the forces of hatred,
like Hamas and Iran, from expanding their power.
Santorum’s chief concern is that weary of foreign policy failures,
more and more Republicans are embracing the isolationism most identified
with Senator Rand Paul. Paul is currently polling well in Iowa.
...
Santorum is convinced that if Iowans are educated about the nature of
the threats emanating from the region, and of Israel’s singular
contribution to the cause of freedom and stability, their position can
become the basis for a Republican foreign policy that rejects
isolationism and embraces US leadership in world affairs as the only way
to secure the US and strengthen its embattled allies.
In other words, like Voight, Santorum’s support for Israel is rooted
in his concern about America, and its future. Like Voight, Santorum
recognizes that the growing penchant among elite opinion shapers to
ignore truth in the pursuit of moral relativism and fake sophistication
or isolationism constitutes a danger to America.
Caroline Glick connects the media's blame game involving the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers, the celebration of that kidnapping by the 'moderate' 'Palestinians,' the 'international community's support for the Hamas-Fatah 'unity government,' anti-Semitism in Europe and the decision of the United States' premier opera company to stage (and until today's cancellation to simulcast) an opera glorifying a 'Palestinian' terror attack.
As for Fatah, since Frankel, Shaer and Yifrach were taken on Thursday
night, Fatah has glorified and celebrated their capture on its official
Facebook page and its official newspaper. Fatah’s Facebook page
depicted the boys as rats, reeled in by a fishing pole.
The Palestinian Authority’s daily newspaper Al Hayat al Jadida published a mock World Cup logo in which three hands held three people who held their hands up in surrender.
And Fatah activists posted a revealing directive on Facebook after the boys were abducted.
No, Abbas’s “moderate” faction of the Palestinian unity government,
so energetically supported by the US, the EU and the western media, did
not call for the public to quit celebrating the abduction. Nor did it
condemn the brutal assault.
The Fatah activists called for shopkeepers in the vicinity of the
kidnapping to destroy any footage their security cameras filmed in the
24 hours following the operation to prevent the IDF from seizing the
footage and using it in its efforts to locate the boys.
That makes Fatah an accessory after the fact to the attack. And yes,
that means that the PA – which is comprised of Fatah and Hamas – is in
fact one great big terrorist organization.
When Rudoren and her colleagues in the media look in the mirror, they
don’t see themselves as enablers of murderers and champions of
terrorists.
...
Rather than demand that Abbas take the responsibility he claims to
carry, and convince his coalition partner to return the children they
stole, the two-stater peaceniks blame Israel. And the kidnapped boys.
Maybe there is something else going on here.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but perhaps the media and the
governments championing Palestinian unity are less motivated by
geopolitical concerns than they would have us believe?
In one of those ironic coincidences that happens every so often when
events converge to expose patterns and relations between seemingly
unrelated events, in the two weeks before the Palestinians abducted
Yifrach, Shaer and Frankel, the American Jewish community discovered
that the object of the largesse of many an American Jewish patron of the
arts – New York’s Metropolitan Opera – has gone full-on anti-Semitic.
In its fall line-up, the Met will produce the acclaimed-by- anti-Semites opera, The Death of Klinghoffer.
Not only will they stage the show at Lincoln Center, the Met is going
to broadcast it through its HD broadcast program to 2,000 theaters in 66
countries reaching a potential audience of millions.*
The Death of Klinghoffer romanticizes the lives and times of the PLO terrorists who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise liner in 1985 and murdered wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old Jewish American.
...
Jewish teenagers are kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists in Israel, and it’s their fault.
A old, handicapped Jewish man was thrown over the deck of a cruise ship, and America’s premier opera house says it’s art.
Jewish teenagers are violently assaulted on the streets of Europe, and Europe yawns.
There is a pattern here. And it has nothing to do with peace.
N. wrote that most IDF officers and soldiers were deeply disappointed
and distressed about Israel’s performance in the 2006 war with
Hezbollah, because they recognized that the IDF’s failure to defeat
Hezbollah rendered the jihadist force the victor.
But one faction of Israeli society viewed the war as an out-and-out victory. That faction is the legal fraternity.
Due to the widespread outrage over the war’s progression, then-prime
minister Ehud Olmert was compelled to form the Winograd Commission to
study the military and political leadership’s stewardship of the war.
In testimony before the Winograd Commission, then-attorney-general
Menahem Mazuz extolled the war as “the most ‘lawyerly’ in the history of
the State of Israel, and perhaps ever.”
It wasn’t that IDF commanders put legal considerations ahead of operational and strategic goals. It was worse than that.
According to Mazuz, the generals and the political leaders limited their
goals from the outset to what they hoped would conform with perceived
legal restrictions. This restraint, he bragged, was “the result of a
sort of education and internalization that have taken place over the
years.
“I remember periods when there was a great deal of friction with the
senior military level regarding what is allowed and what is prohibited.
But today I think there is more or less an understanding of the rules of
the game, and I can’t identify any confrontation… or… demands to ‘let
the IDF win.’” According to then-IDF military advocate-general
Brig.-Gen. Avi Mandelblit and Mazuz, legal advisers were present at all
levels of command in all the relevant service arms and in the security
cabinet.
At each level the lawyers were asked to judge the legality of all the
proposed targets and planned operations before they were carried out.
And as the two explained, in their decisions, these lawyers were
informed not by the goal of winning the war but by their interpretation
of international law.
Law professor Ruth Gavison, who was a member of the commission, found their testimony deeply disturbing.
“I find this analysis harsh,” she chided. “I think that you have
ignored the fact that international law is plagued with problems of
selective enforcement and that the application and use of international
law in the context of international conflicts is very biased and very
political…. Therefore, [reliance on international law] seems to me to be
a position that is possible to argue on a rhetorical level, but to
internalize it as a real position, that looks to me like a strategic
danger.”
Unfortunately, Gavison’s warning fell on deaf ears. Not only has the
power of radicalized lawyers with a distorted view of the laws of war
not been rolled back in the intervening years. It has expanded, to the
point where today, staff officers in the military refuse to carry out
lawful instructions from the government.
What's ahead, according to Glick, is worse.
As a consequence [of the Mavi Marmara incident], Israel formed the Turkel Commission charged with
determining whether Israel’s system of investigating charges of war
crimes meets the requirement of international law.
In the event, in February the commission submitted a 1,000-page report
to Netanyahu. It concluded that Israel’s system does abide by the
requirements of international law.
Yet, despite this fact, it recommended removing the authority to
investigate war crimes allegations from the IDF and transferring it to
the attorney- general and the military advocate-general who would no
longer be subordinate to the IDF chief of General Staff.
Moreover, the commission recommended that Israel’s political
leadership and General Staff be held criminally culpable “for violations
committed by their subordinates, if they do not take all reasonable
measures to prevent these violations or do not bring those responsible
to justice when they find out about violations after the fact.”
The strategic implications of the Turkel Commission’s recommendations are earth shattering.
They mean that from now on, when defending Israel from its enemies,
both government ministers and generals will be at the mercy of a
self-appointed, radical, unaccountable legal fraternity whose
interpretation of the laws of war has but a glancing relationship with
the laws of war.
As Mazuz explained its interpretation back in 2007, “The laws of war, or
international humanitarian law doesn’t concern itself with relations
between two states, but with the relationship between civilians and
states. That is, it places the two warring states on one side of the
divide and the citizens of the two states on the other side, and the
goal of international law is to protect the citizens of the two states
and to say: You’re big kids. You want to fight, go fight, you have
rules… and the rules aim to minimize as much as possible the
consequences of the war.”
In other words, just as the civil administration officers argued,
following international law means caring more about enemy populations
than you care about your own. Civilian and military leaders who seek to
secure Israel are now being subordinated to lawyers whose primary
concern is the enemy.
The real demographic balance between Israelis and 'Palestinians'
Shavua tov u'moadim l'simcha, a good week and a happy holiday to all of you.
The main criticism of Caroline Glick's The Israeli Solution is that her demographic projections are somehow risky or not widely accepted.
Caroline says that's totally false. Here is a discussion of the numbers from Israel television channel 2. It's in Hebrew with English subtitles.
In this video, Dr. Guy Bechor discusses the actual demographic balance between Israel
and the Palestinians on Israel TV Channel 2's morning show. His data are
aligned with those set out in Caroline Glick's book: The Israeli
Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in The Middle East and point to the
same policy conclusions
The only ones threatened by demography are the Arabs.
Anti-J Street documentary screened in Philadelphia
I want to show you the trailer for a documentary (which I still have not seen) about the 'Jewish' J Street group, which calls itself 'pro-Israel, pro-peace.' J Street is currently seeking admission to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and the fact that this documentary was shown in Philadelphia last night will not help J Street's cause.
The J Street Challenge is an important and timely documentary about a significant issue facing the American Jewish community.
Since
it was founded in 2008, J Street's idealistic message has attracted
many Jews, young and old, who are frustrated by the Middle East conflict
and sincerely want peace between Arabs and Jews. J Street has been a
subject of controversy. Critics claim that J Street has divided the
Jewish community and weakened American Jewish support for Israel. "The J
Street Challenge" lets viewers hear both sides of this important debate
over the elusive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The film
explores the reasons for J Street's appeal, as well as the diverse and
at times contradictory motivations of its leaders and followers. The
film is being released at a critical time for the American Jewish
community given the intense efforts by the United States to resolve the
conflict and influence the community's leadership to support these
efforts. The Kerry peace initiative has further divided the Jewish
community, with J Street working to weaken the influence of AIPAC while
strongly backing the administration.
The film includes distinguished
scholars and writers from a wide political spectrum, including Harvard
professors Alan Dershowitz and Ruth Wisse, Rabbi Daniel Gordis of the
Shalem College in Jerusalem, Caroline Glick, Managing Editor of the
Jerusalem Post, Professor Richard Landes of Boston University, Lenny Ben
David -- former Israeli diplomat and author, and Bret Stephens,
Pulitzer prize winning columnist for The Wall Street Journal.
Let's go to the videotape. More after the video.
At issue is a March 27 event sponsored by the Jewish Federation of
Greater Philadelphia and by the local Hillel, titled “What It Means To
Be Pro-Israel.” The answer to the question, at least in the eyes of the
organizers, is revealed in the event’s content: It will feature a
screening of a full-length anti-J-Street documentary and a panel made up
mainly of critics of the organization.
The upcoming event has sparked an angry debate within
the Philadelphia community, the nation’s fourth largest, and has
brought to the surface accusations against the Jewish federation’s
leadership and its decision-making process. “Political views on the
right are listened to more, because the few people donating large
amounts of dollars are on that political side,” said Jill Zipin, a
community activist who has protested the decision to sponsor the event.
“The Jewish federation shouldn’t be a tent of one Jewish donor.”
Panelists at the event, which will take place on the
University of Pennsylvania campus, include Harvard law professor Alan
Dershowitz, a staunch defender of Israel and just as staunch a critic of
J Street; Charles Jacobs, who heads the group that produced the
anti-J-Street film, and Sara Greenberg, a Harvard University graduate
student who has been active in fighting attempts to boycott Israel.
Supporters of J Street have taken issue with the
makeup of the panel and, more importantly, with the movie that will be
the evening’s centerpiece. The J Street Challenge,
released earlier this year, is a documentary aimed, according to the
film’s official synopsis, at “examining and debating J Street’s message
and its leaders.” It does so through clips from speeches of the lobby’s
leaders and a series of interviews with experts, almost all of them
known as leading critics of the group. Speakers in the movie
accuse J Street of “dividing the Jewish community,” of being
“imperialistic” and of manifesting “arrogance” in their views on Middle
East peace. The J Street Challenge was produced by Americans for Peace
and Tolerance, a not-for-profit organization devoted to fighting Islamic
extremism.
Here's an interview of Caroline Glick by Newsmax's Steve Maltzberg. They're talking about Caroline's new book (which I believe is officially published today) and about President Hussein Obama's demand that Israel create a 'peace deal.'
Caroline Glick previews her new book, The Israeli Solution, which will be published next week.
Israel’s fervent and committed supporters at AIPAC have been told
that Israel needs a Palestinian state more than the PLO does. Only by
bringing such a state into existence in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem can
Israel get the Palestinian demographic albatross off its neck.
These committed supporters of the Jewish state have been sternly
lectured that Israel is doomed if it doesn’t give the Palestinians an
outlet for their political impulses outside of Israel, because within a
year or two there will be more Palestinians than Israelis west of the
Jordan.
In my book, I show that the demographic time bomb is a dud, and a malicious one at that.
In 1997, the head of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics Hassan Abu Libdeh told The New York Times that he was carrying out a census which would serve as a “civil intifada,” that is, as a statistical terror assault.
And he was right. The goal of terrorism is to force a target
population to take actions it otherwise would not have taken. The goal
of statistical warfare is to manipulate numbers to coerce a target
society into taking actions that it would otherwise not take.
The Palestinian census claimed that by 2015, Arabs would be the
majority west of the Jordan River. And once Jews were the minority, the
Arabs could destroy Israel just by demanding the vote.
The Clinton administration, the US Jewish leadership and the Israeli
Left rushed to embrace the findings, even though they were totally
inconsistent with annual Palestinian population surveys the Israeli
military government conducted from 1967 through 1996.
All crowed that true, the PLO still supports terrorism, but if Israel
didn’t cough up the territories, it would be demographically
overwhelmed.
...
In The Israeli Solution, I fill in the blanks that plague the American discourse on Israel and the Palestinians.
I provide a 360-degree analysis of a policy that I call The Israeli
One-State Plan. That plan involves applying Israeli law – and through it
Israeli sovereignty – throughout all of Judea and Samaria.
I divide the discussion into three parts. Part One provides the
90-year history of failure that has attended the two-state model, from
the end of World War I through the present day. I also show how the US’s
embrace of the two-state model has worked to blind US policymakers from
both parties to the realities of the region and so guaranteed the
failure of US Middle East policies.
Part Two presents the case for Israeli sovereignty from the
perspectives of demography, international law, history and civil
liberties.
Far from transforming the areas into a race-based state, as Israel’s
opponents threaten, such a move by Israel will free the Palestinians
from life under the PLO’s terror supporting kleptocracy and provide them
with full civil and legal rights as permanent residents of Israel.
They will also have the right to apply for Israeli citizenship.
Even if all the Arabs of Judea and Samaria were to become Israeli
citizens, Israel would retain a strong two-thirds Jewish majority. And
it would avert the only real demographic threat. That is the threat
posed by a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria which would permit
millions of hostile, foreign-born Arabs from Lebanon, Jordan and Syria
to immigrate to its territory.
In Part Three, I discuss the probable responses of the Palestinians,
the larger Arab world and the EU to a decision by Israel to apply its
laws to Judea and Samaria and abandon the two-state policy model.
I also discuss how such a move will impact Israel and the United States.
Read the whole thing. Buy the book and read the whole thing. I'm still holding out hope for an autographed copy from the author.
The J Street Challenge - The Seductive Allure of Peace in our Time
Here's a trailer for a new movie that I know you're all going to want to watch. It's all about the 'pro-Israel, pro-peace' J Street, and the challenge they represent to the Jewish community. I have a few friends who are in this trailer.
Livni: Kerry first foreign diplomat to defend Israeli interests in the international arena
Israeli Justice Minister and chief negotiatorbottle washer Tzipi Livni has gone all-in with the American 'peace plan' calling those in the government who disagree with her 'hypocrites.'
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni blasted on Thursday Israeli "hypocrites"
whose actions could threaten to derail the ongoing peace process with
the Palestinians, Israel Radio cited her as saying Thursday at a
conference at Bar-Ilan University.
There are critics in the
government who claim to support peace, but in actuality use the argument
of security as a cover for ideological opposition to a peace agreement,
the chief Israeli negotiator said.
"I am ready to fight with the world on the important issues for all
of us, to convince of the righteousness of Zionism, and Israel's
security needs and preservation of the settlement in Israeli territory,"
Livini said.
However, she added that she was "not ready for us
to pay the price for the ideological minority that prefers isolated
settlement blocks."
Who is talking about 'isolated settlement blocks'? Forget for just one minute that none of the 'settlement blocks' is isolated.... Has anyone heard the 'Palestinians' concede one iota on the status of Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem? On their self-proclaimed 'right of return'? On recognizing that Israel is a Jewish state and that any deal made now will be the end of the conflict? No, no, no and no.
But if you want to see how big a fool Livni is....
Firing back at critics, Livni lauded Kerry as the first foreign diplomat to defend Israeli interests in the international arena.
Perhaps she never heard of Daniel Patrick Moynihan or John Bolton.
Without naming names, Livni said that ministers who are not prepared
to concede land are “hypocrites” – and, if they get their way, will
ultimately destroy Israel as a Jewish state.
“We all want peace. But there is a price that whoever really wants
peace must pay,” she declared, speaking at an event at the Bar Ilan
University Law Department.
“This is the choice we have: if we want to protect the Jewish,
democratic state - or the entire land of Israel, which will not be
Jewish, and will not be democratic,” she argued. The only way to keep
Israel both Jewish and democratic is through negotiations for the
creation of an Arab state in Judea and Samaria, she said.
“If we don’t come to a decision, the world will decide for us,” warned Livni, who heads the Israeli negotiating team.
Sorry Tzipi, but your beloved demographic time bomb has long since been disproved. Here's Caroline Glick.
Still today, Kerry, Livni, Lapid and their fellow travelers seek to
intimidate us by constantly telling us that continued Israeli control
over Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem will bring about Israel’s demographic
demise.
But the lie at the heart of their argument is no longer possible to ignore.
As demographic expert Yoram Ettinger wrote last week in Yisrael Hayom,
Jewish Israeli fertility rates are higher than Palestinian fertility
rates in Judea and Samaria. In 2013, the Palestinian fertility rate was
2.91 children per woman and the Israeli Jewish fertility rate was 3.04
children per woman.
Today Jews make up 62-66 percent of the population in Judea, Samaria and
sovereign Israel. With a two to one majority, a higher birthrate, and
positive immigration rates, far from being a strategic threat to
Israel’s national viability, demographics are one of Israel’s strategic
assets.
The only threat to Israel’s demographic stability is the two-state
formula. A Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem would
permit the unlimited immigration of millions of foreign Arabs into its
territory. Rather than securing Israel’s Jewish majority, a Palestinian
state would place millions of hostile Arabs on the outskirts of a rump
Israel’s major cities.
With their threat of demographic ruin losing its traction with the
public, purveyors of the two-state plan now raise the threat of economic
strangulation and ruin at every opportunity.
Indeed.
There is one Israeli hypocrite and only one in this process. His name is Binyamin Netanyahu and he's still having trouble making up his mind which side he supports. He should never have put Livni in charge of negotiations. It's time to cut her loose even if it means her party leaves the coalition.
Here's an interview with Caroline Glick that was on JPost.com on Tuesday. In the interview, Caroline discusses her upcoming book, which supports a one (Jewish)-state solution.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
