How Donald Trump is bringing hope to the 'peace process'
After eight years in which
most Israelis felt that they weren't getting a fair hearing at the White House, and in which Israel's Prime Minister looked
more uncomfortable with each trip to the United States, times have changed. In a White House meeting earlier this week, President Trump allowed Netanyahu to say what nearly all Israelis believe and what former President Hussein
Obama would never allow to be heard.
Despite his international protestations, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (like Yasir Arafat before him), has consistently denied
that the Jews have a historic connection to the Temple Mount. Far more
than arcane arguments over historical minutiae, the Arafat-Abbas
tradition of denying a longstanding Jewish link to Jerusalem is the
Palestinian’s inimitable way of saying that the Jews are simply the latest wave of Crusaders,
that Israel is nothing but a colonialist presence in the Middle East.
Just as the crusaders and colonialists of the past ultimately departed,
the argument goes, so too will the Jews.
The
belief that President Abbas sees the two-state solution as a
steppingstone to a one – Arab – state solution leaves many Israelis
cynical about the peace process and tiring of the rhetoric about two
states. Mr. Trump may have shifted that momentum.
President Trump afforded Prime Minister Netanyahu an opportunity to assert –
despite American denials – that Palestinian schools’ textbooks
teach Palestinian children to hate Jews. Israelis wholeheartedly believe that accusation to be true. They know of the Fatah Party’s
incendiary boast on Facebook that it had killed 11,000 Israelis and that the Palestinian Authority
recently named its
fourth
school for Salah Khalaf, mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre
of Israeli athletes. While President Barack Obama obliquely
acknowledged
in his eulogy for Shimon Peres, the former Israeli president and prime
minister, that “Arab youth are taught to hate Israel from an early age,”
Mr. Trump gave Mr. Netanyahu a stage from which to make the accusation
explicit.
Obama's eulogy for Shimon Peres - perhaps his first acknowledgment of mainstream 'Palestinian' hate for Israelis and Jews -
came on September 30, 2016, nearly at the end of Obama's term, and at a point where it was likely designed to help Hillary Clinton's election prospects and not a sincere empathy with Israel's plight.
Daniel Gordis believes that Trump's openness to hear the Israeli point of view can only help the 'peace process.'
Outward
appearances of confidence notwithstanding, Palestinian leaders
undoubtedly understand that the jig is up – gone (for now) are the days
in which they can tell the world one story and their people another.
That actually gives Israelis hope that – if the Palestinians want
political sovereignty – the Palestinian Authority will have to lay the
groundwork by forging an entirely different narrative about Israel and
Jews.
There
is still no reason to assume that President Trump and Prime Minister
Netanyahu can forge a deal. Mr. Trump’s White House is in disarray, Mr.
Netanyahu is under investigation for corruption and politically
weakened, Mr. Kushner has not a day of diplomatic experience, the other
Arab countries that Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu hope will be part of an
agreement may or may not cooperate and Palestinian hatred of Jews may be
too deeply entrenched.
Yet
there is at least cause for a glimmer of hope. On Wednesday, whatever
ambivalences about Mr. Trump many Israelis have, they heard from a
United States president sympathetic to their story, sensitive to their
fears of Iran and committed to their safety. That may matter a great
deal. For Israelis who feel safe and protected are infinitely more
likely to make accommodations for peace.
Gordis is right that it's highly unlikely (to say the least) that Trump and Netanyahu can forge a deal. Not now and not in the next eight years. But that has nothing to do with investigations, disarray or weak political positions. Rather, it's because the 'Palestinians' have yet to give any indication that they are ready to accept a Jewish state of any size, shape or form, and that creating a 'Palestinian' state (God Forbid) will not be the end of the conflict, but rather moving on to a new stage against a much weakened Israel.
Don't expect it to happen in your lifetime or mine.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Daniel Gordis, Donald Trump, Palestinian education to hatred, Palestinian state, two-state solution
Al-Qaeda now just across the border in Syria
What could go wrong?
Labels: al-Qaeda, Daniel Gordis, Golan Heights, Quneitra, Syrian uprising
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.
Labels: Alan Dershowitz, Bret Stephens, Caroline Glick, Daniel Gordis, J Street, pro-Israel pro-peace, Richard Landes, University of Pennsylvania
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
I will be traveling much of the day today but will try to check in again before the Sabbath starts (I am heading back to Boston). If things go well, I might actually be there mid-day.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Friday, August 24.
1) Room for Debate -Supporting Israel
In its ongoing feature, Room for Debate, The New York Times now asks Has Support for Israel Hurt U.S. Credibility?
The contributors are Aaron David Miller, Rashid Khalidi, Michell Dunn, Daoud Kuttab, Daniel Gordis, and Dylan Williams. For the full answers and association of the authors check out the links.
The U.S. Can Still Pursue Peace by Aaron David Miller
Both are wrong. The reality is that the pro-Israeli community in America does have a powerful voice but not a veto. And a strong American president with a smart strategy and buy-in from the Arabs and Israelis can trump domestic politics every time.
Miller argues that American support for Israel does not diminish America's influence in the Middle East.
America Has Shown Which Side It’s On by Rashid Khalidi
Israelis know it. Palestinians know it. The whole world knows it. The absence of any American sense of fair play where Palestinian-Israeli issues are concerned is no secret. In fact, it will keep the U.S. from ever being a disinterested intermediary in the Middle East.
Well I wouldn't have expected anything else.
Israel and the U.S. Are Natural Allies by Daniel Gordis
In Palestinian discourse, even the Temple is “alleged.” Compare that stance to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s politically risky acknowledgement of Palestinian rights to a sovereign national homeland. The peace process is utterly dead not because of America’s values, but because of the Palestinians’. Only when American presidents of both parties insist that the Palestinians take responsibility for their future will we know that America has gotten serious about playing a constructive role in the Middle East.
This is the best answer. It turns the question around. The problem isn't American ties with Israel as assumed by the questioner, but the failure of the United States to live up to its principles.
Obama’s Fumble Cost the U.S. Its Standing by Michelle Dunne
Thus an ill-considered effort to gain greater influence in the Middle East by distancing the United States from Israel left the president in a position in which Israelis neither love nor fear him. Arabs, to boot, are extremely disappointed in Obama and inclined not to take him seriously. If Obama wins a second term, he will have to try to rebuild his credibility in the Middle East. Meanwhile, whether or not to strike Iran, or to support Israel in doing so, is not a decision that the United States should back into simply because the Obama administration has mishandled Israel.
Dunne got the sequence of events wrong in the previous paragraph, but insists that it's the daylight the Obama administration put between it and Israel that hurt America's influence.
Obama’s Promise, Broken Time and Again by Daoud Kuttab
Obama’s backsliding began three months after the Cairo speech. After having demanded a total Israeli settlement freeze, the U.S. president buckled under pressure from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and left the Palestinian leader hanging.
Kuttab defends Abbas's instransigence and of course blames the Israel lobby. Obama eventually got a more extensive freeze than any previous president had gotten and Abbas still refused to negotiate until the freeze was nearly over. This is cynical and misleading.
An Ally to Israel, but Not Unquestioning by Richard Land
America can exert significant influence in the Middle East and may be the only “honest broker” with sufficient trust from both sides and the power to make any agreements reached enforceable.
However, the Islamists who want to erase Israel’s existence will forever find America unalterably opposed to their goal.
Land's arguing that the United States needs to be an honest broker and seems to be saying that it is and has been.
Pro-Israel Groups Limit the President’s Options by Dylan Williams
Some U.S. pro-Israel advocacy groups whose policy positions are now markedly to the right of most American Jews are leveraging decades of political relationships to convince policy-makers that no progress can be made on the Israeli-Palestinian front until all concerns over Iran’s nuclear program are fully resolved. The result is to tie the president’s hands, taking powerful diplomatic options off the table that could significantly enhance multilateral pressure on Iran.
This is kind of interesting. Does the title suggest that J-Street (Williams' organization) is not pro-Israel? Williams' argument is a straw man. As former General Yaalon tweeted yesterday, "Anyone who thinks there's a connection between the Iranian issue and the Palestinian issue is mistaken and misleading."
Of seven essays, only two argued America's alliance with Israel hurt American interests. It's actually a better result than I would have expected from the New York Times. Only one participant though argued that the Times was asking the wrong question. Maybe I should just be happy that a clear majority argued "no."
2) The secular settlers
Last week, Jodi Rudoren of the New York Times wrote a flattering portrait of Dani Dayan, A Settler Leader, Worldly and Pragmatic.
TOURING the settlements with Mr. Dayan is like attending a family reunion with a proud patriarch. At a plastics factory where Jewish and Arab workers take occasional field trips together, he said, “We are much less prejudiced toward Palestinians than Israeli society as a whole.” Leaving the college in Ariel, Mr. Dayan declared, “This is exactly what I want for Judea and Samaria: it’s a university that has some ideological tone, but it’s 21st-century, and it’s integral to the fabric of Israeli society.” Sampling robust reds at the Psagot winery, he mused, “This is my dream: to make a combination of mission, ideology, good life — that’s what makes life here permanent.”
Standing on a lookout point in Elie, Mr. Dayan surveyed his empire, the red-roof settlements that dot the hills in every direction.
“When I hear Israeli politicians say there are isolated settlements that should be removed, I know they have never visited here,” he said. “I got to fulfill the dream of 100 generations. Today, it’s a day-to-day fact.”
Dayan sees his residence in the Shomron as a factor in protecting his secular and cultured way of life.
I don't know if it's a coincidence but this week The Algemeiner interviewed Ayelet Shaked, who is secular but is running for a position in the Ha-bayit Ha-Yehudi primaries. (h/t Jewtastic) Ha-bayit Ha-Yehudi is the newest iteration of what used to be the National Religious Party. When asked how she would react to someone who objected to a secular Israeli's presence in the leadership of a religious party, this is how she responded.
YM: If one of them were to contact you, what would you say to him?
AS: First of all it’s his right and I respect that. Even though we may have different views we need to respect each other. Nevertheless I would tell him that if we want to have a large party to the right of Netanyahu, one that is based on the Bible and Jewish values, then the party needs to be opened to secular and traditional Jews that identify with the values of the religious Zionist community.
I truly believe that if they open their heart and open their mind to cooperate with other people that share the same values, then we can have a big party. Otherwise the party will continue with three mandates.
3) Questions of Iran
A week and a half ago Shmuel Rosner published The analytical approach to deciding if you support an Israeli attack on Iran. Though I guess that Rosner is a skeptic about attacking Iran he seemed to have covered most bases.
Charles Krauthammer uses the Cordesman criteria to address some of the questions. Krauthammer begins his column with:
Either Israel is engaged in the most elaborate ruse since the Trojan horse or it is on the cusp of a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Given that an essential aspect of a strike on Iran is surprise, I've wondered the same thing. If Israel attacks Iran no one will be surprised (except in the context of the paradox of the unexpected hanging) and if the planes are detected while on their way, the attack would have to be aborted. However unlikely it is, it makes me wonder if Israel has a plan to disable or destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities without a direct military attack.
Krauthammer summarizes Cordesman's approach:
1. “Clear U.S. red lines.”
It’s time to end the ambiguity about American intentions. Establish real limits on negotiations — to convince Iran that the only alternative to a deal is preemptive strikes and to persuade Israel to stay its hand.
2. “Make it clear to Iran that it has no successful options.”
Either its program must be abandoned in a negotiated deal (see No. 1 above) on generous terms from the West (see No. 3 below), or its facilities will be physically destroyed. Ostentatiously let Iran know about the range and power of our capacities — how deep and extensive a campaign we could conduct, extending beyond just nuclear facilities to military-industrial targets, refineries, power grids and other concentrations of regime power.
3. Give Iran a face-saving way out.
Offer Iran the most generous possible terms — economic, diplomatic and political. End of sanctions, assistance in economic and energy development, trade incentives and a regional security architecture. Even Russian nuclear fuel.
Former head of Israel's military intelligence, Amos Yadlin (who also was one of the pilots who destroyed the Iraqi reactor in 1981) offers different criteria.
Only by framing a nuclear-armed Iran as an impermissible threat to the national interests of the United States and its allies in the Persian Gulf can President Obama bridge this gap between Israeli creed and need. He must convince Israel, Iran, Russia and even Saudi Arabia that the U.S. military option is credible and effective.
A gesture directly from Obama could do it. The U.S. president should visit Israel and tell its leadership -- and, more important, its people -- that preventing a nuclear Iran is a U.S. interest, and if we have to resort to military action, we will.
This message, delivered by the president of the United States to the Israeli Knesset, would be far more effective than U.S. officials' attempts to convey the same sentiment behind closed doors. The administration should also take five immediate steps to convince allies and adversaries alike that military action is real, imminent and doable - which are key to making it less likely.
Yadlin offers a total of five actions for the United States to take, but only agrees with Cordesman on the first about establishing a nuclear Iran as an American red line. That might be because Yadlin's focus is more about reassuring Israel than in challenging Iran.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Barack Hussein Obama, Daniel Gordis, Iranian nuclear threat, J Street, Middle East Media Sampler, New York Times, Rashid Khalidi, revenants, Soccer Dad, US support for Israel
Giulio Meotti's blasts Daniel Gordis for supporting ethnic cleansing of Jews
I wasn't the only one who was upset to see Daniel Gordis joining the Leftists to urge Prime Minister Netanyahu to bury the Levy report. So was Giulio Meotti, who was published an
open letter to Gordis.
Here's some of it. Daniel, isn't ethnic cleansing of Jews from Judea and Samaria, using political, diplomatic and economic pressure - such as denying them government land, forbidding building, abolishing town planning - illegal, constituting a breach of the settlers' human rights, as well as a betrayal of Judaism?
Unfortunately, even important Jewish intellectuals like you are sending out the message that the blood of those living on the wrong side of an imaginary line on a map is not as red as that coursing in the veins of their fellow countrymen in Tel Aviv.
Daniel, where the Israeli media will stop to use the dehumanizing, dejudaizing language to distinguish between Jewish and Arab residents of Judea/Samaria? The "settlers" are not even qualified by the adjective "Jewish", while the Palestinians are "local residents". A "settler", of course, is meant to suggest an alien interloper who will be sent back where he came from; a "local resident" is supposedly an indigenous citizen.
Daniel, why do you repeat the canard that without Israeli concessions, the "Palestinian problem" will never be resolved and the Arab-Israel conflict will continue ad infinitum? It's like Hitler Big Lie. For the Islamic world everything Jewish is “illegal”. Everything is “stolen land”.
Peace can only be true if the Jews are no longer characterized as foreign occupiers, but as native sons who have returned home.
Destroy the outposts and you will see the domino effect: all Israel will be in lethal danger. "The colonist" is a very tiny figure in the Middle Eastern conflict, but for many reasons the civilization's future lies on his shoulders.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Daniel Gordis, Giulio Meotti, Levy Report
Say it ain't so: 40 prominent US Jews urge Netanyahu to bury Levy report
If you're wondering the extent to which the 'two-state solution' has become an article of faith, I was shocked to find Daniel Gordis among 40 'US Jews' (that's in scare quotes because Gordis is technically an Israeli, and the letter also included Edgar Bronfman, who is Canadian) who signed a letter urging Prime Minister Netanyahu to
bury the Levy report.
More than 40 prominent American Jewish leaders and philanthropists sent a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Sunday in which they implored him not to approve the judicial report that says Jews may settle freely in Judea and Samaria.
"As strong advocates for Israel’s security and well-being as a Jewish and democratic state, we are deeply concerned about the recent findings of government commission led by Supreme Court Justice (Ret.) Edmond Levy,” the letter said.
"We fear that this report, if approved, will place the two-state solution, and the prestige of Israel as a democratic member of the international community, in peril.”
The letter's signatories letter include philanthropists Charles Bronfman and Lester Crown; Marvin Lender, Former National Chairman of UJA; Rabbi Daniel Gordis, President of the Shalem Center; Deborah Lipstadt, an expert on Holocaust studies at Emory University; Bernard Nussbaum, former White House Counsel; Thomas Dine, a former executive director of AIPAC; E. Robert Goodkind, a former president of the American Jewish Committee; Richard Pearlstone, former chairman of the Jewish Agency; and Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
The Levy Committee's report determines that Israel cannot be characterized as "an occupier" of Judea and Samaria because the territory never legally belonged to Jordan before Israel regained it in 1967.
The letter was initiated by the Israel Policy Forum (IPF), which was attacked in 2007 by veteran Jewish leader and columnist Isi Liebler as a group that "delegitimizes" Israeli policies.
I'm deeply disappointed to see Gordis on there, but while many of these people are considered prominent 'thinkers' I wouldn't characterize most of them as leaders of the Jewish community (unless being wealthy makes you a leader).
JPost adds:
But in their letter to Netanyahu on Sunday, the US Jewish leaders said they were concerned that approval of the report would “place the two-state solution, and the prestige of Israel as a democratic member of the international community, in peril.”
The letter added, “At this moment, it is more critical than ever that Israel strengthen its claim in the international community that it is committed to a two-state vision, which is, in turn, central to Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state.”
...
In their letter, the US Jews called on Netanyahu to take a stand against the report. “Securing Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state requires diplomatic and political leadership, not legal maneuverings,” they said.
They asked him to “ensure that adoption of this report does not take place,” the letter stated.
Signatories to the letter included: Michael Berenbaum, former Project Director of the US Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC; Charles R. Bronfman, philantrhopist; Lester Crown, Chairman of Henry Crown & Co.; Thomas A. Dine, Former Executive Director of AIPAC; Rabbi David Ellenson, President, Hebrew Union College –Jewish Institute of Religion; Peter A. Joseph, Chairman, Israel Policy Forum; and Richard Pearlstone, Former Chairman, Jewish Agency.
Again, most of these people are not recognized leaders of the Jewish community.
What this letter shows is how wedded the American Jewish community is to the 'two-state solution' and how they have lost any ability to think of alternatives outside the box. When the community's supposed original thinkers have a knee jerk reaction of rejecting anything that varies from the conventional wisdom, something is really wrong.
At the President's Conference last month, Caroline Glick mentioned that she is working on a book that argues in favor of Israel annexing all of Judea and Samaria. While some people may fear that solution (because they have bought into the demographic lies that claim that annexing all that land would mean that we would either no longer be a Jewish state or no longer be a democratic state), Caroline's book probably will stand a chance of being the first to prompt a serious reevaluation of the two-state paradigm since the 90's. The sooner she can get it out, the better.
Labels: Caroline Glick, Daniel Gordis, Levy Report, two-state solution
Martin Sherman eviscerates Peter Beinart
Martin Sherman counts some of the
lies and half truths espoused by Peter Beinart in his debate with Daniel Gordis in New York two weeks ago.
In the opening minutes of his address, Beinart berated the government for assisting in the construction of a cultural center in Kiryat Arba, which he dubbed “one of the most radical and remote settlements in the West Bank.”
Radical? But wasn’t it endorsed by a revered Labor leader, the author of the policy of “territorial concessions,” as a “place to which we have returned never to leave”?
Indeed, wasn’t it David Ben- Gurion who in 1970 declared, “We will make a great and awful mistake if we fail to settle Hebron, neighbor and predecessor of Jerusalem, with a large Jewish settlement, constantly growing and expanding, very soon.”?
So what makes Kiryat Arba “radical” – established as it was in the era of Labor-hegemony, years before a Likud-led government was conceivable, in an era when Zionism was presumably still true to its liberal-humanistic principles, allegedly so dear to Beinart’s heart?
Moreover, what makes it “remote”– barely 24 km. from the Malha shopping mall in Jerusalem, roughly the same distance from London’s Whitechapel to Heathrow Airport – and considerably less than the distance from the US Capitol to Dulles International Airport in Washington? How “remote” is that?
...
Nowhere could the unfortunate audience get the sense that “radical, remote” Kiryat Arba was created under the Labor Party, and situated so close to Israel’s capital that both could easily fit within the confines of many Western cities. Nowhere could they get the sense that the development of the Jewish presence in Hebron was not some deranged initiative of renegade right-wing religious radicals, but a reflection of the vision of the founders of state – even those who embraced the “land-for-peace” formula.
It is thus a great pity that Gordis did not seize the opportunity to rectify this – along with many other contextual lacunae and factual lapses in Beinart’s presentation. After all, as one of participants remarked, she came because “as a Jew invested in Israel, I thought it’d be an opportunity to educate myself.”
And there was much need to “educate” the attendees in light of Beinart’s cavalier attitude toward the truth – with regard to both what he said and what he didn’t.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Daniel Gordis, Peter Beinart, Zionism
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Sunday, May 6.
1) Petering out
Last week Peter Beinart debated Daniel Gordis over the "Crisis in Zionism."
Elder of Ziyon picks up on one of Gordis's lines to suggest a "tweet" to promote a true understanding of Israel and its history.
Challah Hu Akbar picked up on a line stated by Beinart, but doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I agree with Challah's friend who's quoted. Israel's critics, like Beinart, often mis-characterize statements and events in order to create a framework for criticizing Israel.
Gary Rosenblatt was happy that the debate was civil.
This is kind of astonishing. This shouldn't be a debate at all. Beinart represents a fringe viewpoint in America generally and the Jewish community specifically. If he hadn't taken an anti-Israel stand, no one would pay attention to him. But it's been a good career move for Beinart. He got a book deal and gets to edit columns (mostly) devoted to bashing Israel at the Daily Beast.
The "Crisis of Zionism" hasn't been nearly as good for Times Books, which, incredibly, lists the book as a "top seller." (h/t Barry Rubin) Jonathan Tobin wrote the other day:
According to BookScan, the respected service that tabulates point-of-sales purchases of books at stores around the nation, Beinart’s much-hyped effort is a flop. Reliable sources tell us that BookScan, which is believed to capture the figures that represent about 60 percent of the book buying in the nation, has tabulated that as of this week Beinart had only sold 2,845 copies of The Crisis of Zionism. Because books that sell thousands more than that number are considered by publishers to be busts, Beinart’s ballyhooed cri-de-coeur must be considered a colossal flop. And considering that Beinart is believed to have received an advance of several hundred thousand dollars for it, one imagines that the brass at Times Books — the partnership between Henry Holt and the New York Times that published Crisis — are kicking themselves for being duped into believing the market for post-Zionist carping extended beyond the tiny group of people who will buy anything that takes a dim view of Israel.
Crisis’s current Amazon rating is 2,530. That might not be considered embarrassing for a run-of-the-mill non-fiction book. But it’s a terrible ranking for a book whose author has been feted on broadcast and cable networks in the kind of public relations blitz orchestrated by his publisher normally reserved for a blockbuster.
If I wrote a book and benefited from the level of promotion that Peter Beinart enjoys, I probably could sell 2,845 copies too!
Emanuele Ottolenghi quotes a strong argument against the demographic argument made by Beinart (and many other critics of Israel.)
Demographic developments undoubtedly are a source of long-term Israeli anxiety. But they are not the type of immediate threat that spurs risky political decisions. Moreover, the binary choice Palestinians, Americans, and even some Israelis posit—either a negotiated two-state outcome or the impossibility of a Jewish, democratic state—assumes dramatic and irreversible changes that Israel would not be able to counter. Yet Israel possesses a variety of potential responses. Already, by unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza, former prime minister Ariel Sharon transformed the numbers game, effectively removing 1.5 million Palestinians from the Israeli equation. The current or a future government could unilaterally conduct further territorial withdrawals from the West Bank, allowing, as in the case of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s West Bank government, or compelling, as happened in Gaza, large numbers of Palestinians to rule themselves and mitigating the demographic peril. The options, in other words, are not necessarily limited to a two-state solution, an apartheid regime, or the end of the Jewish state.
The source of this argument are not "Likudniks" or other Zionists but Robert Malley and Ali Agha writing in the New York Review of Books.
2) The margin
Last week I wrote about the New York Times report on Methodist vote not to divest from Israel. Walter Russell Mead observed something I had missed. (via memeorandum)
The insidious Israel Lobby has struck again. It somehow managed to infiltrate the United Methodist Church and convince the Methodists, by an overwhelming 2-to-1 margin, to vote against ending investments in companies involved in Israel’s enforcement of its control of the occupied territories. According to the New York Times, the Methodists’ decision follows similar repudiations by the Lutherans and Episcopalians.
One might have expected the Times to emphasize the lopsided nature of the vote and consider what it might say about the way Israel is perceived by American Christians. Instead, it buried any mention of the 2-to-1 margin until the penultimate paragraph, after devoting considerable ink to a wider discussion of the BDS (boycott/divestment/sanction) movement. The movement, we should add, has been remarkably unsuccessful.
Even the margin was reported in the context of the BDS movement:
In two separate votes, divestment was defeated by a 2-to-1 ratio. Susanne Hoder, a Methodist from Rhode Island and a spokeswoman for a group for divestment, the United Methodist Kairos Response, said: “Though we did not get the decision we hoped for, we have succeeded in raising awareness about the persecution of Palestinian Christians and Muslims. We have awakened the conscience of the churches and pointed out the inconsistency between our words and our actions.”
Ms. Hoder said that four geographic regions, or “annual conferences,” of the Methodist Church — Northern Illinois, California Pacific, New York and West Ohio — had already voted to pull out their own investments. “We expect that more United Methodist conferences will do this,” she said.
3) The hunger meme
Last week I criticized Jodi Rudoren's Palestinian Resistance Shifts to Hunger Strikes.
Leo Rennert observed (via memeorandum):
Prisoner complaints, Rudoren writes, also are aimed at Israel's use of renewable periods of administrative detention without actual trial. But this is a tactic not unknown in the West, including the United States, when resort to full trials would jeopardize valuable intelligence sources inside terrorist camps. In the meantime, the prisoners in Israeli jails have access to their own lawyers and to reviews by Israeli courts. In fact, as Rudoren eventually acknowledges, two hunger strikers just appeared before the Israeli Supreme Court to challenge their detentions.
So much for how Israel treats prison inmates. And what about all those non-violent tactics embraced by the Palestinians? Again, readers have to wait until they get to the jump page to find that 300 women marched in Ramallah, chanting "Down with the olive branch, long live the rifle." Not exactly a call to non-violence. But Palestinian sins are regularly forgiven in the pages of the New York Times.
And what about the extent of this new, supposedly "non-violent" movement spawned by the hunger strikers? Again, readers have to slog through lots of hype and puffery before Rudoren admits that "so far, the solidarity demonstrations have been small."
Barry Rubin concluded:
In other words, this is not a news article but a work of political propaganda that could have been produced by a Palestinian public relations firm or an American Jewish group that acts as a Palestinian public relations firm. The purpose of this article is not to report or explain what is happening but to elicit sympathy and support for — shall I say it? well, it happens to be true — terrorist murderers or would-be murderers who were foiled despite their best efforts.
Let me again add that there is nothing “liberal” or “conservative” about these facts. Nothing at all. Pretending otherwise is another propagandistic thought-control effort to get people to deny reality in the guise of opposing horrible right-wingers. It comes from the type of people who can ignore the persecution of Christians in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, the Gaza Strip, and other places in the Middle East while fabricating and highlighting claims that Israel is making Palestinian Christians flee.
4) An observation
The three items above show a disturbing trend among a certain segment of the intellectual and journalistic elite in this country. Regardless of their shallowness or shabbiness criticisms and condemnations of Israel are taken as a sign of one's moral seriousness and sophistication. When the critic, like Peter Beinart, claims to be a Zionist the argument is prized even more.
Labels: BDS, Daniel Gordis, Israel Lobby, Jodi Rudoren, liberal media bias, Middle East Media Sampler, New York Times, Palestinian prisoners, Peter Beinart, Soccer Dad, Zionism
Video: Daniel Gordis v. Peter Beinart on the 'crisis' in Zionism
Here's a debate that took place on Wednesday in New York between Daniel Gordis and Peter Beinart about the 'crisis' in Zionism.
This is quite long and I have not watched it yet.
Let's go to the videotape.
Labels: Daniel Gordis, Peter Beinart, Zionism
Daniel Gordis: Beinart's right: There is a crisis between American Jews and Israel
Daniel Gordis writes that Peter Beinart (pictured) is right: There is a crisis between American Jews and Israel.
But not quite the one Beinart thinks there is (Hat Tip:
Ricky G).
Beinart’s problem, most fundamentally, is that the American liberalism with which he is so infatuated does not comfortably have a place for Jewish ethnic nationalism.
Throughout the book, the words “liberal” or “democratic” are always positives. And what means “negative” or “shameful”? In Beinart’s book, the word is “tribal.” Every time he uses the word “tribal,” he means “distasteful.” “Liberalism was out,” he laments early in the book, and “tribalism was in.” Or “ethically, the ADL and AJC are caught between the liberalism that defined organized American Jewish life before 1967 and the tribalism that has dominated it since.” “Among younger non-Orthodox Jews,” he later says smugly, “tribalism is in steep decline.” What is wrong with the settlers is that they have “tribal privilege” much “like the British in India, Serbs in Kosovo, and whites in the segregated South.”
Really? Israel, in which Beduin women graduate from medical school, is like the segregated South? Surely Beinart knows better. So why the relentless attack?
BEINART’S PROBLEM isn’t really with Israel. It’s with Judaism. Bottom line, what troubles Beinart isn’t what’s happened to Zionism. What troubles him is the dimension of Jewish life that he can’t abide, but of which Zionism insists on reminding him. And that element is the undeniable fact that Judaism is tribal.
...
Beinart’s real problem is that Israel is not, and was never meant to be, a felafel-eating, Hebrew speaking version of the United States. It is not ethnic-neutral. It was created, and our children die for it, not simply so there can be another democracy in the Middle East. Is one more democracy worth my soldier son’s risking his life? No, it’s not. Israel is about the revitalization of the Jewish people. It is, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, “of the Jews, by the Jews and for the Jews,” all while protecting and honoring those who are not Jewish. Are we perfect? Hardly. But do we aspire to America’s ideal of a democracy? Not at all. We’re about something very different.
As Beinart himself admits, his cadre of mostly young American Jews is essentially Jewishly illiterate. They know nothing of Judaism’s intellectual depth, can say nothing about the classical Jewish canon, have no sense of what great ideas Judaism has brought to the world. They are thus utterly incapable of articulating what a Jewish state not committed to America’s ideals might be about. Confused and disappointed, they grow ashamed of us. For us to fit their universalistic world, in which nothing Jewish is of supreme value, they need us to be perfect. When we’re not, they cannot abide us.
...
It is no accident that Beinart’s book is among the most discussed – and reviled – in recent memory. For the book is not really about Israel. It is about the unsustainable new Judaism of which he is a selfappointed prophet, and to which, sadly, many young American Jews seem to be attracted, its self-consuming malignant core notwithstanding.
Read the whole thing. I think Gordis has nailed it.
Labels: Daniel Gordis, Israel's Jewish character, Peter Beinart
Room for debate?
A reminder that - assuming that I find time to post - this should not be the last post of the day. I am in Boston for the Sabbath and will stop posting when the Sabbath starts here and not when it starts in Jerusalem.
The New York Times has a feature called
Room for Debate, and Thursday's asked the question "
Can Israel survive without a 'Palestinian state'?" Of the people quoted, I found myself agreeing only with Daniel Gordis. Ronen Bregman, who is usually good on this stuff, disappoints. I thought Aaron David Miller (surprisingly) got more right than Bregman did. The rest of them aren't worth mentioning.
Yes, Israel can survive without a 'Palestinian state.' We may have to hunker down, but come January 2013, there's a good chance it will get easier.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Daniel Gordis, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, Ronen Bregman, Unilateral declaration of independence (UDI)
(Jewishly) value-free rabbis?
Here's an excerpt from a
deeply disturbing but important article by Daniel Gordis at Commentary.
Twice on Yom Ha-Zikaron, once in the evening and once again in the morning, the country’s air raid sirens sound. On sidewalks, pedestrians come to a halt and stand at attention, and even on highways, cars slow and stop; drivers and passengers alike step out of their vehicles and stand in silence until the wail of the siren abates. For two minutes each time, the state of Israel surrenders itself to the grip of utter silence and immobility. During that quiet, one feels a sense of belonging, a palpable sense of gratitude and unstated loyalty that simply defies description.
I mused on this fact as I read a recent message sent to students at the interdenominational rabbinical school at Boston’s Hebrew College, asking them to prepare themselves for Yom Ha-Zikaron by musing on the following paragraph: “For Yom Ha-Zikaron, our kavanah [intention] is to open up our communal remembrance to include losses on all sides of the conflict in Israel/Palestine. In this spirit, our framing question for Yom Ha-Zikaron is this: On this day, what do you remember and for whom do you grieve?”
It is the rare e-mail that leaves me speechless. Here, at a reputable institution training future rabbis who will shape a generation of American Jews and their attitudes to Israel, the parties were treated with equal weight and honor in the run-up to Yom Ha-Zikaron. What the students were essentially being asked was whether the losses on Israel’s side touched them any more deeply than the losses on the side of Israel’s enemies.
That is a stunning question. Obviously, there are innocent victims on the other side of any conflict. Such is the horrific nature of war. American troops killed many thousands of innocent Germans, Japanese, and others during World War II. But could one even begin to imagine President Franklin Delano Roosevelt saying to Americans, while the Second World War was raging and young American men were clawing and dying their way across Europe and the Far East, that Memorial Day ought to be devoted in part to remembering those among enemy populations who died at our hands? There is, perhaps, a place for such memories. That time is when the conflict has abated, when weapons are set aside, when healing has begun. That time did not arrive during FDR’s lifetime, and it has not yet come to Israel.
I wrote to the dean who had written this paragraph, a friend from whom I’ve learned a great deal over the years and whose commitment to Israel and Zionism is sincere. The response was immediate: “It could be that we got this one wrong, I’m not sure yet. The only thing I’m sure of is that we are trying to engage with these issues and with each other with greater openness, courage, and respect than I think has been possible in most other corners of the Jewish community here.”
The heartbreaking point was this: in the case of these rabbinical students, there is not an instinct that should be innate—the instinct to protect their own people first, or to mourn our losses first. Their instinct, instead, is to “engage.” But “engagement” is a value-free endeavor. It means setting instinctive dispositions utterly aside. And that is precisely what this emerging generation of American Jewish leaders believes it ought to do.
Why, after all, would a genuine supporter of Israel ask students to think about Yom Ha-Zikaron in such a fashion? Probably because without such an accommodation, the dean might have had to deal with a small but vocal minority of students who would be incensed at the overly particularist, Zionist, nationalist nature of Yom Ha-Zikaron, at the narrowness of a day devoted to mourning our own dead and not the dead of our enemies.
...
The final difference between these young Jewish leaders and those who preceded them is perhaps the most disturbing. This new tone in discussions about Israel is so “fair,” so “balanced,” so “even-handed” that what is entirely gone is an instinct of belonging—the visceral sense on the part of these students that they are part of a people, that the blood and the losses that were required to create the state of Israel is their blood and their loss.
...
What too many of these students do not understand is that the Jewish tradition makes a bold claim—the claim that we learn caring, and we learn love, from that which is closest to us. To love all of humanity equally is ultimately to love no one. To care about one’s enemies as much as one cares about oneself is to be no one. There needs to be priority and specificity in devotion and loyalty. Without them, we can stand for nothing. And without instinctive loyalty to the Jewish people, Jewry itself cannot survive.
...
What to do with that lexicon is a matter on which reasonable minds can differ. Israelis differ on those questions, and American Jews (and others) can, and should, as well. But when we have reached the point at which future rabbis can insist on boycotting prayer shawls made by Jews in Israel and yet are permitted to remain rabbis-in-training, something has gone horribly awry. When rabbinical students love Israel and care about Ramallah in the same way, the particularism that has been the hallmark of every functioning Jewish community in history has begun to erode. When PLO posters advocating the death of Jews are no reason not to drink a beer and sing “Happy Birthday” in that bar, we have produced a generation of future leaders whose instincts are simply not the instincts that have any chance of preserving Jewish life.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Daniel Gordis, rabbis
When expediency becomes principle
Last week, Prime Minister Netanyahu asked Secretary of State Clinton for the US to step up the pressure to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Daniel Gordis worries about the
implications of that request.
THERE ARE still conflicting accounts of what exactly Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton offered Binyamin Netanyahu in exchange for a 90-day extension of the building freeze. But many news sources, including Haaretz, claimed that the Obama administration promised not only F-35s, but increased pressure on Teheran to cease its quest for a nuclear weapon and an American commitment to fighting the growing assault on Israel’s very legitimacy – as long as Bibi cooperates.
That alleged offer makes several things clear.
First, it constitutes a tacit admission by the American administration that it has not applied anywhere near the kind of pressure on Iran that it could, if it only wanted to. Even though an Iranian nuclear weapon would put six million Jews (an “interesting” number, to be sure) in the crosshairs of a hate-mongering maniac, the US has thus far decided not to be serious about stopping Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. All that talk about Washington’s iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security has been just that.
Even more distressing, however, is the suggestion that, in exchange for the building freeze, Washington would now commit to fighting the delegitimization of Israel. Obama and Clinton have every right to try to horse-trade Netanyahu into a freeze, if they so wish. They can make the airplanes contingent upon Netanyahu’s restarting the freeze, and can legitimately apply many other conditions. That is how the game is played (though one still wonders what’s been demanded of the Palestinians).
But making the fight against delegitimization dependent on Netanyahu’s cooperation means something else altogether. For the legitimacy battle is not about one Israeli policy or another.
It is about the very survival of the Jewish state, and, therefore, it is about the very future of the Jewish people. Our enemies understand that delegitimization can destroy the Jewish state.
Do our friends not get it? Until this week, we might have thought that while America and Israel could disagree on certain policies, when it came to defending Israel’s fundamental legitimacy, there could be no doubt as to what the US would do. Now, the pretense is over. This administration will protect the Jews and their state only if the Jews accede to American demands that Washington thinks it needs to advance its own diplomatic agenda abroad. That is the sign neither of a trustworthy ally nor of a country animated by principle.
There is precedent for this, of course. FDR did nothing to bomb the tracks to Auschwitz, and he closed America’s shores to boatloads of Jewish refugees with nowhere else to go. America has turned its back on the Jewish people before; if the reports emanating from Washington this week are correct, we are growing alarmingly close to that state of affairs once again. We are not there yet, but we could well be on our way.
Yes, of course he could do more.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Daniel Gordis, Hillary Clinton
