When is occupation 'occupation'?
Northwestern University law professor Eugene Kontorovich points out some of the
hypocrisy in the way that the French government (25% shareholder) is relating to the Israeli 'occupation' of Judea and Samaria, as compared with how it relates to the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara and the Turkish occupation of Cyprus.
On Wednesday the CEO of the French telecom firm Orange announced that
he sought to “drop” his business in Israel, done through an Israeli
subsidiary. Speaking at a meeting in Cairo, he emphasized that this was
action was mostly to win the “trust”
of Arab countries. But there was also a suggestion that this is because
the Israeli affiliate has some cellular antennae across the Green Line.
The French Ambassador to the U.S., (and formerly Israel), defended the Orange CEO’s statement on Twitter:‘
“4th Geneva convention : settlement policy in occupied territories is illegal. It is illegal to contribute to it in any way.”
That
statement is entirely baseless. Even if settlements are illegal, there
is no ban on business in the territories, or with settlers. Certainly
there is no tertiary obligation to not do business with businesses that
have some tangential business in such territory. All this is
demonstrated extensively in my new paper, some of which I tried to share
with Amb. Araud.
...
The Orange incident, and the Ambassador’s legal claim, are also bad
news for a number of French companies, like the oil giant Total, which
is active in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara against the vociferous protests of the indigenous Sawahari people. (There are many other examples, like Michelin in Turkish-occupied Cyprus.)
The French government has never criticized any of these controversial
activities in any way. But if the Ambassador’s legal claim is right, he
has provided the basis for war crimes prosecutions of France’s leading
executives.
Amb. Araud responded to my question
by revealing that he had no idea one of his country’s largest companies
was engaged in an major project that, by his account, is a war crime.
The Ambassador, after blocking me, revealed that his international law claims are not really about international law:
I
speak of one occupied territory. I am answered on other territories. I
conclude that everybody agrees on what I say on the former.
In other words, no fairs to cite precedents and practice. But of course, if you are talking about international law, “other territories” are entirely relevant. First, for something to be law, it has to be a rule that applies to similar situations. And for it to be international, well, those situations will involve different countries.
So we have a diplomat blocking a university professor on Twitter for pointing out that he was mistaken. And
not for the
first time, we have proof that those who oppose the Israeli 'occupation' of Judea and Samaria are incapable of passing
Natan Sharansky's 3D test.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: anti-Semitism, French anti-Semitism, Morocco, Natan Sharansky, occupation, Orange, Turkish occupation of Cyprus, Western Sahara
Ouch! Sharansky: 'US suffering from tragic loss of moral self-confidence'
With the possible exception of Elie Wiesel, there may be no one alive today who is more qualified to speak as the moral conscience of contemporary government than Natan Sharansky. In a Washington Post op-ed, Sharansky makes a
biting comparison between American negotiations with Iran over its nuclear capability and American negotiations with the Soviet Union 40 years ago (Hat Tip:
Memeorandum).
Reality
is complicated, and the use of historical analogies is always somewhat
limited. But even this superficial comparison shows that what the United
States saw fit to demand back then from the most powerful and dangerous
competitor it had ever known is now considered beyond the pale in its
dealings with Iran.
Why the dramatic shift? One could suggest a
simple answer: Today there is something the United States wants badly
from Iran, leaving Washington and its allies with little bargaining
power to demand additional concessions. Yet in fact Iran has at least as
many reasons to hope for a deal. For Tehran, the lifting of sanctions
could spell the difference between bankruptcy and becoming a regional
economic superpower, and in slowing down its arms race it could avoid a
military attack.
I am afraid that the real reason for the U.S.
stance is not its assessment, however incorrect, of the two sides’
respective interests but rather a tragic loss of moral self-confidence.
While negotiating with the Soviet Union, U.S. administrations of all
stripes felt certain of the moral superiority of their political system
over the Soviet one. They felt they were speaking in the name of their
people and the free world as a whole, while the leaders of the Soviet
regime could speak for no one but themselves and the declining number of
true believers still loyal to their ideology.
But in
today’s postmodern world, when asserting the superiority of liberal
democracy over other regimes seems like the quaint relic of a
colonialist past, even the United States appears to have lost the
courage of its convictions.
We have yet to see the full
consequences of this moral diffidence, but one thing is clear: The loss
of America’s self-assured global leadership threatens not only the
United States and Israel but also the people of Iran and a growing
number of others living under Tehran’s increasingly emboldened rule.
Although the hour is growing late, there is still time to change course —
before the effects grow more catastrophic still.
Read the whole thing.
I often wonder if Americans have really bought into the moral diffidence of their current government, or whether that lack of conviction is the sole province of those currently running its government. Certainly, the fact that Obama was reelected in 2012 would seem to indicate that the American people have bought into his agenda of degrading America and making it no better than any other nation. And I worry that with all of the illegal immigrants Obama has made citizens, many of whom either have no clue what being an American is about, or wish to destroy what America was, another Obama-like leader will be elected in a year and a half.
As an American ex-pat and as a lover and admirer of all America represented until January 20, 2009, I can only hope and pray that Americans will see the light and elect a different kind of leadership in November 2016.
Labels: American exceptionalism, Barack Hussein Obama, degrading US military capabilities, Iranian nuclear threat, moral conscience, Natan Sharansky, Soviet Union, US presidential campaign 2016
'Women of the Wall' to be moved to Robinson's arch?
Haaretz is reporting that new cabinet secretary Avichai Mandelblit (if the name sounds familiar,
it should) will present a plan at Sunday's cabinet meeting that would move the 'Women of the Wall' out of the main prayer area and give them a
separate spot near Robinson's arch. The plan should also sound familiar....
Mendelblit, who headed a committee tasked with ironing out details of
the plan, including setting a timetable for implementation, is expected
to propose a 400-square-meter space for egalitarian worship, with no
rabbinical supervision, at Robinson’s Arch. There, women would be
permitted to read from the Torah and wear prayer shawls.
Haaretz
has learned that Mendelblit’s plan follows in the footsteps of his
predecessor, Zvi Hauser, also a member of the current committee. Some
years ago, Hauser suggested that the government set up space for
egalitarian worship in the area known as the “Southern Wall” — an
extension of the main prayer plaza that is separate from it and that is
located in the same archaeological park housing Robinson’s Arch, a
Herodian-era street and other archaeological artifacts. Today, the area
of worship contains a small wooden platform built for the Women of the
Wall roughly a decade ago, which the group said did not meet their
demand to be allowed to worship freely at the Western Wall.
Mendelblit
is expected to suggest that the area set aside for worship be expanded,
that it be open for prayer 24 hours a day, and that an ark with Torah
scrolls be placed there for use by non-Orthodox groups. His proposal
differs from Sharansky’s, which suggested that the egalitarian worship
area occupy most of the archaeological park and allow access to the
stones of the Western Wall. Although Sharansky’s plan garnered praise,
the archaeologists who run the site firmly opposed it, while others took
issue with construction work at the sacred site. Mendelblit’s proposal,
which involves only part of the area, gives non-Orthodox worshippers
minimal access to the Western Wall stones.
The
new plan sets a precedent — it provides government recognition for
non-Orthodox movements within Judaism — but the major problem is its
timing. The various sides in the dispute have already expressed their
views on Sharansky’s plan. Most agreed to accept that plan even though
it included physical changes to the entire Western Wall plaza — and this
after the Jerusalem District Court ruled Women of the Wall could
worship in the women’s section almost unimpeded.
Judge
Sobel’s ruling has not been enforced in recent months because of
ultra-Orthodox protests against Women of the Wall, but the women’s
rights group is unlikely back down from its demand to worship in the
women’s section now that the ruling has been handed down. Women of the
Wall had expressed reservations about Sharansky’s plan, which is broader
than the one Mendelblit is expected to unveil, meaning it probably
won’t accept the Hauser-Mendelblit proposal either. The Reform Movement
in Israel and the United States will almost certainly not accept it. It
is not clear how the Conservative Movement, which for all practical
purposes runs the Southern Wall area, will respond to the plan, which
expands and improves the worship options in the area.
Read the whole thing. No, this plan won't be accepted. The whole point of 'Women of the Wall' is to be seen. This would put them out of sight of the worshipers at the Kotel Plaza.
Labels: Kotel plaza, Natan Sharansky, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Western Wall, Women of the Wall
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Sunday, October 28.
1) The European Left and Israel
The New York Times has an extensive essay by Colin Shindler, The European Left and Its Trouble With Jews.
The old left in Europe was forged in the struggle against local
fascists in the 1930s. Most of Europe experienced a brutal Nazi
occupation and bore witness to the atrocities of the Holocaust. The
European left strongly identified with Jewish suffering and therefore
welcomed the birth of the state of Israel in 1948. Some viewed the
struggle for Israel in the same light as the fight for freedom in the
Spanish Civil War.
But the succeeding generation of the European left did not see things
this way. Its frame of reference was the anticolonial struggle — in
Vietnam, South Africa, Rhodesia and a host of other places. Its hallowed
icon was not the soldier of the International Brigades who fought
against Franco in Spain, but Che Guevara — whose image adorned countless
student bedrooms. Anticolonialism further influenced myriad causes,
from America’s Black Panthers in the 1960s to Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian
revolution in Venezuela today.
It began with Israel’s exclusion from the ranks of the nonaligned
nations more than 50 years ago, when Arab states refused to attend a
1955 nonaligned conference in Indonesia if an Israeli delegate was
present. The Jewish state was snubbed in favor of such feudal kingdoms
as Saudi Arabia, Libya and Yemen. And Israel’s collusion with imperial
powers like Britain and France during the Suez crisis the following year
cemented its ostracism.
Though some version of the words "settlement" or "settler" appear three
times, Shindler writes, "Such Israelophobia, enunciated by sections of
the European left,
dovetailed neatly with the rise of Islamism among Palestinians and
throughout the Arab world."
I suspect that I wouldn't agree with everything Shindler believes, but
compared to the usual fare of the New York Times, this essay is
refreshing. The invective directed towards Israel by the regular and
guest columnists at the New York Times is appalling. The idea that the
unthinking calumny directed towards Israel is feeding such hatred is an
important one. It would be nice if it made Thomas Friedman or Roger
Cohen rethink their worldviews, but that would be asking too much.
2) Buying peace from a tyrant
After dismissing the significance of a recent report that PM Netanyahu
is negotiating peace with Syria, Natan Sharansky writes in Trying to buy peace from the Syrian tyrant:
Attempts to overcome my “resistance to peace” continued, and soon
after I joined Barak’s government as interior minister, I was approached
by a major American Jewish philanthropist who had been instrumental in
arranging private talks between Israelis and Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian
Liberation Organization. He offered to take me to Paris to meet an
up-and-coming Arab leader. This man’s views, the American assured me,
were close to my own. An intellectual and trained physician who uses the
Internet, this man was also a believer in freedom, a seeker of peace
and a determined bridge-builder. Plus, he was destined to become the
next president of his country. Would this young leader, I asked, come to
power by a democratic process, and would he agree in advance to govern
by democratic rules? Of course not, came the reply; he will be appointed
by his father, Hafez al-Assad. But once in power, he will lead Syria to
a democratic future.
For a contrast read Barry Rubin's The West's deaf ears for real Arab moderates.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, European anti-Semitism, Golan Heights, Middle East Media Sampler, Natan Sharansky, Soccer Dad, Syria
What Hamas really wants
Evelyn Gordon quotes
Leftist Gershon Baskin, who acted as a go-between with Hamas in the terrorists for Gilad trade.
In the early days of the official negotiations I was asked to inform Hamas that once Shalit was no longer in Gaza Israel would allow major economic development and infrastructure projects to be implemented there. Some in Israel believed this could serve as an incentive to the Hamas leaders to advance the deal. It was not. To the contrary: that proposal was essentially ignored. At no point in those talks did my Hamas interlocutors express any real interest in pursuing that discussion. My hunch – that economic issues would not excite Hamas leaders to make compromises – proved to be correct.
Gordon comments:
In other words, Hamas couldn’t care less about improving ordinary Palestinians’ lives by easing the blockade of Gaza. Indeed, it was so indifferent to this goal it completely ignored an Israeli offer to do so. Instead, it focused solely on trying to get Israel to release the maximum number of the most murderous terrorists it possibly could –for instance, the men who orchestrated deadly suicide bombings on a Passover seder in Netanya, a Jerusalem pizzeria and buses in Jerusalem and Haifa (those four attacks alone killed 73 Israelis). In short, faced with a choice between improving its people’s lives and improving its ability to murder Israelis by freeing the most accomplished killers, it unhesitatingly chose the latter.
Nor is there any shortage of other evidence regarding Hamas’ utter indifference to its people’s welfare. It has barred aid shipments from entering Gaza; it banned Israeli imports after Israel eased the blockade last year, hence ensuring Gaza remained deprived; it shut down Gaza’s major power plant rather than pay for the fuel; it barred high school students from using the scholarships they won for study abroad; and the list could go on and on.
Hence, the idea Hamas will suddenly decide to change course and cooperate with Israel on easing the blockade is ludicrous. And the idea other Islamist governments will moderate once they gain power is liable to prove equally so.
It's always been that way, and not just with Hamas but even with Fatah. Back in the mid-to-late '90's, I heard Natan Sharansky speak at an alumni event for Bir Zeit on the Hudson. Sharansky had just finished a term as Minister of Industry and Trade in the Rabin government. He said that every time they tried to talk to the 'Palestinian Authority' about economic development, they would change the subject to gaining control over more land and getting more weapons. They weren't interested in anything that would make their 'state' viable for the long term without massive economic aid.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Labels: Gaza blockade, Hamas, Natan Sharansky, Palestinian Authority
Anti-Semitism at Daily Kos
The picture at the top of this post is a screen capture of a Daily Kos page for which
one of my own readers was banned from the site. There are certain things that the Leftist blog just won't let you do or say, and questioning the 'Palestinian' narrative is one of them.
Last Thursday (wee hours of Friday morning here in Israel) a diary was posted at Daily Kos that enumerated hundreds of cases of anti-Semitic comments being let through by the moderators at the Left's second most important blog (after HuffPo). Anti-Semitism at DKos has been
documented before, but what's different about this post is that (a) it was posted on DKos itself and (b) it is
signed by dozens of DKos posters. Here are some of the things they cite.
At times, the community has widespread consensus about a poster. Nonetheless, such posters often remain, despite consensus. One poster has repeatedly spewed bigoted comments, throughout his years at this site. This poster claimed that a "Jewish gene" exists, that Jews control the media and that antisemitism represents a better bigotry because antisemites envy Jews. This poster has also excused a bigot's antisemitic statements because the bigot probably "[felt] threatened by Jewish people." Community members have often presented this poster's history to the community. Despite this record, the poster remains a Daily Kos member with trusted user status.
Another poster who still remains asserted that Jewish law causes antisemitism. He then promoted Jewish antisemite, Israel Shahak. For reference, David Duke dedicated a book to Shahak. The poster also proclaimed that Shahak's antisemitic ideas are, in fact, widely-held notions about Jews (we certainly hope not). This poster graduated to repeated and continual uprates of other posters' antisemitic comments before finally espousing the notion that "justifiable antisemitism" exists.
...
Antisemites regularly claim that Jews control the media in order to achieve their nefarious purposes. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion promoted this false notion. One comment in which a poster stated that the owners of the New York Daily News are Jewish and therefore could not be trusted, presented a straight-forward example. Another commenter contended that "Israel" writes our media's scripts. A third wrote of a media "overly influenced by Jewish interests." A comment, packed with a litany of antisemitic memes, decried the "2% of the population that control the banks, corporate boards and the udeo-fascist, foreign- owned [sic] media." Even with the usual uprates, these show instances of community moderation working. By contrast, even a comment complete with the greatest hits of antisemitism, i.e. "the brooksIsraeli propaganda" media, "Judeo-hitlerian anglo-fascist entity," Israel as "pigland" and a desire to seize property of all "dual citizens," garnered multiple uprates. That this second comment remains visible exemplifies how community moderation of antisemitism often fails. Negative resistance often thwarts Jewish posters' attempts at community moderation of antisemitic comments.
When Oliver Stone stated that "Jewish control of the media is preventing an open discussion of the Holocaust," there was condemnation of his remarks. In addition to the media control meme, Stone also used the language of Holocaust deniers. He said we should allow "open debate" on the Holocaust and ranted about the "Jewish lobby." However, there were plenty of site users who excused, obfuscated, dismissed or flat-out agreed with Stone. Understandably, many Jewish site members were horrified and distressed that the hide ratings seemed to be few and far between.
Read the whole thing. There are dozens of linked comments in the post (I don't have the time to follow all those links), and 1650 comments (at this writing) on the post itself. The post must have taken hours (and days) to write.
But anti-Semitism in the political Left is a known phenomenon. What goes on at DKos also goes on at
HuffPo, Salon and other Leftist sites. And since much of the anti-Semitism is stepping over the line from legitimate criticism of Israel to illegitimate criticism, perhaps they ought to consider former Prisoner-of-Conscience Natan Sharansky's
3-D test for anti-Semitism.
The first “D” is the test of demonization — as noted in the State Department report. Jews have been demonized for centuries as the embodiment of evil, whether in the theological form of a collective accusation of deicide or in the generalized depiction of Jews as money-grubbing Shylocks. Today we must take note when the Jewish state or its leaders are being demonized, with their actions being blown out of all rational proportion.
For example, the comparisons of Israelis to Nazis and of the Palestinian refugee camps to Auschwitz — comparisons heard frequently throughout Europe and on North American university campuses — are clearly antisemitic. Those who draw such analogies either are deliberately ignorant regarding Nazi Germany or, more commonly, are deliberately depicting modern-day Israel as the embodiment of evil.
The second “D” is the test of double standards. From discriminatory laws many nations enacted against Jews to the tendency to judge their behavior by a different yardstick, this differential treatment of Jews was always a clear sign of antisemitism. Similarly, today we must ask whether criticism of Israel is being applied selectively. In other words, do similar policies pursued by other governments produce similar criticism?
It is antisemitic discrimination, for instance, when Israel is singled out for condemnation by the United Nations for perceived human rights abuses while proven obliterators of human rights on a massive scale — like China, Iran, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Syria, to name just a few — are not even mentioned. Likewise, it is antisemitism when Israel’s Magen David Adom, alone among the world’s ambulance services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross.
The third “D” is the test of delegitimization. Traditionally, antisemites denied the legitimacy of the Jewish religion, the Jewish people, or both. Today, they attempt to deny the legitimacy of the Jewish state, presenting it as, among other things, the prime remnant of imperialist colonialism.
While criticism of an Israeli policy may not be antisemitic, the denial of Israel’s right to exist is always antisemitic. If other peoples, including 21 Arab Muslim States — and particularly the many states created in the postcolonial period following World War II — have the right to live securely in their homelands, then the Jewish people has that right as well, particularly given the sanction of the United Nations in setting up and recognizing the country at its founding. Questioning that legitimacy is pure antisemitism.
Sharansky wrote those words in 2005 and I first linked them in 2010. They remain as relevant as ever today. Perhaps the honest elements of the political Left ought to consider adopting them as guidelines.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Leftist anti-Semitism, Natan Sharansky
Liveblog - Closing session of President's Conference
This is a liveblog of the
final session of the President's conference Tomorrow2011. Prime Minister Netanyahu is now speaking. He opens with Gilad Shalit. Hamas gave notice today that it will not allow the Red Cross to visit Gilad Shalit and therefore Netanyahu is changing the policy and all the great conditions the terrorists get in Israeli jail will be stopped. Just compliance with Israeli and international law. For example, terrorists in Israeli jails for murder of innocent Israelis will no longer be allowed to register for university degrees.
He also wishes to think American, French, Italian and other leaders who demanded that the Red Cross be allowed to visit Gilad Shalit. He believes that if we unify and continue to pressure Hamas, he is certain that we will advance Gilad Shalit's freedom until he returns home.
Peres told him to think about Israel's future. He sees it as regional economic power and world technological power living at peace with its neighbors. He is speaking about each of those elements.
Unemployment 5.8% - lowest in 15 years. 5% growth rate every year since 2004 except 2008.
He talked about railroads.
He talked about where we're investing in technology.
Talked about
education reform - giving teachers merit-based compensation.
Then he talks about peace. Peace is possible and it's within our reach but to get there we have to deal with the core issue that has stood in the way. The core issue of the conflict is that the 'Palestinians' won't recognize Israel. Abu Mazen must do what Bibi did and say to the 'Palestinians' "I will accept the Jewish state." (He'd be killed the next morning. This won't happen). Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people. He hopes that the 'Palestinians' will do it - accept the Jewish state and let's make peace once and for all. Applause kind of tepid.
Sharansky next up. He expands on a lot of this morning's themes. Says those who belong in the tent are those who support a Jewish democratic state. People want to be free and they want to belong and the challenge is whether those two can work together or be threat to each other.
For Jews freedom and identity always go together.
Moderator now speaking. 3800 people here - 1800 of them from abroad.
Peres is up next. He thanks everyone for coming. He has an advantage because he is older than all of us and he remembers the early days of the State. He's rambling - now he's talking about a meeting between Ben Gurion and DeGaulle.
Now he says that he wants the 'Palestinian state' to be the first Arab state to enjoy democracy and to live in freedom and peace like we do. (Maybe it's time to put up that Peres as astronaut picture again...).
We pray for Jordanian security and independence and freedom.
Numerically we should have lost every war.
Now he's repeating a lot of things he said this morning.
And now he's rambling about peace in Hebrew.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Natan Sharansky, Shimon Peres
Liveblog - Interview with Natan Sharansky
I'm sitting in a bloggers' session with Natan Sharansky. Sharansky is currently the chairman of the Jewish Agency. It's all questions. First question has Sharansky saying that without Jewish education we have no Jewish identity and no olim (immigrants).
He says he has nothing to do with who is a Jew. Jewish Agency deals with who is a citizen and not who is a Jew. As of two weeks ago, the Jewish Agency reached an accommodation with the Chief Rabbinate regarding conversions in the US where if the Rabbinate has a question, the Jewish Agency will check and will have the final say over whether there's a real community structure that did the conversion.
Sharansky is asked by an LA Jewish Journal reporter about his statement that postwar Germany fastest growing community and will be the fastest (other than the Holocaust) to disappear. He says that this community is very spread out and they have little Jewish identity. He said that the German government gave them financial incentives to spread out and that this is bad for their Jewish identity. This is a major challenge for Israel how to avoid the catastrophe of having them disappear in 10-20 years. The way to do this is to bring as many as possible to Israel.
I asked him about the democratization. He says that in 2003 he said that just as it happened in Japan and Eastern Europe it will happen in the Arab world. He says that the people are doing it without reading his book. They want to speak their minds freely. They don't want to live in fear. What will the direction be? Will they become an organized force? Which way will they go? No one knows. But the desire not to live in fear is what unites the Middle East.
Joe Hyams of Honest Reporting asks what we can do as front line elements against the delegitimization campaign - what can the Jewish Agency do to help us? Sharansky says that the Jewish Agency is trying to build a physical and spiritual connection for every Jew with the State of Israel. That's more than just the internet - it means bringing people to Israel. He gives a shout-out to Yelena Bonner who passed away over the weekend and talks about how he gave press conferences with her and Andrei Sakharov in his Moscow apartment, but today we bloggers reach many more people. He says that we have to excite people about the encounter between Israel and the Jewish people. It's good to fight the delegitimization of Israel through the media. He mentions a story where the New York Times refused to publish something and it was published by blogs instead. Using blogs lets us get a message through that might not make it through the mainstream media.
He's asked how to communicate that we are a people, a religion and a place. How do we make that more acceptable because it's unlike any other nation. He says there's no elevator speech to get this message across. He says that his own situation was unique and in 1967 he discovered both his identity and his religion together. He says that you have to have values that make your life worth more than physical survival. He says that the Arabs have both religion and identity but want freedom. In Europe, they have erased their identity. They are trying to recover it. We have something the rest of the world wants - we have religion, identity and freedom.
Mark Rosenberg of Nefesh b'Nefesh asks how to answer Peter Beinart. Sharansky says that the fact that it caused such a big debate is positive. But he thinks it's wrong to say that the more connected you are with Israel, the more likely you will abandon your Jewishness because it contradicts being liberal (as Beinart argues). Most of the Jews who have come to Israel on Israel experience (Birthright) programs have been liberal Jews. Hundreds of Jews have been influenced by these programs and they show how wrong Beinart is. The key is how to make them excited about being Jewish. That's the challenge and it's being partially filled by the Jewish Agency. But it has to be sold by people who are at least 30 years younger than he is.
He underestimates himself. For people of my generation, he's a hero.
The lady who asked about conversions before asks about Eli Yishai's proposal to put religion back on Israeli identity cards. It turns out she also blogs for HuffPo. 'Nuff said. Sharansky says that when he came to Israel, he was proud to have Jew on his identity card (in Russia, people paid to have it taken off), but he understood why it had to be taken off because it was the only compromise the government could reach on the issue. He thinks that Eli Yishai's proposal only makes sense if they are ready to accept what the Supreme Court said about conversions that's one thing. But otherwise the proposal is a non-starter (I don't believe it will happen and I think Yishai is playing populist for his voters by doing it). Sharansky would like it to be brought back but doesn't think it will happen because of the realities.
Labels: Natan Sharansky
Robert Bernstein's new baby
Some of you may recall that a few months ago
Robert Bernstein attacked Human Rights Watch - an organization that he founded - for going off course in the Middle East.
A lot of people thought that was the end of Bernstein and that he'd never be heard from again. But at 88, Bernstein has the energy of a much younger man. He's starting a
new human rights organization that will do it his way.
In late February, Bernstein launched Advancing Human Rights, a new organization meant to act as a corrective, one that hopes to return human rights to what Bernstein thinks are its forgotten fundamental principles. Among its board members are Yelena Bonner, the Soviet dissident and wife of Andrei Sakharov, and Irwin Cotler, the former Canadian minister of justice.
Natan Sharansky, the onetime jailed refusenik and human rights activist who is now chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, is an old friend of Bernstein’s. When Bernstein was head of Random House, he published Sharansky’s memoir, “Fear No Evil.” And the two share the assessment that human rights organizations have gone astray.
“It’s not every day when someone at the age of 88 realizes that the child he brought up has betrayed him, and decides to raise a new child,” Sharansky said.
The stated mandate of the new group is broader than Bernstein’s initial complaint, though it stems from it. AHR will be focused on the struggles of dissidents in closed, autocratic societies, like those in the Middle East and China. Bernstein wants the group to more closely promote those rights enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — specifically women’s rights and free speech — as opposed to the Geneva Convention and the other laws of warfare, which he thinks should be outside the purview of a human rights organization.
But underneath this new mandate, the clear motivating factor for Bernstein’s new initiative is his concern for Israel. It rises to the surface as soon as he is asked about the point of starting yet another human rights organization: Israel, as a democratic, open society, should not be under constant investigation by human rights groups, he said. The country and the way it wages war need to be better explained and defended.
Read the whole thing. Note that in this post, I don't have to talk about human rights in scare quotes.
Labels: human rights, Irwin Cotler, Natan Sharansky, Robert Bernstein, Yelena Bonner
A shuffle in the government
The government announced on Sunday that Israel's ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, will become its
ambassador to the United Nations, and that Prime Minister Netanyahu's National Security Adviser, Uzi Arad, will become Israel's ambassador to Britain. But note this:
Netanyahu had favored returning Dore Gold to his former position as ambassador to the UN, but Lieberman preferred Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky. The Foreign Minister already irked Prime Minister Netanyahu last summer by naming Meron Reuven as temporary ambassador, after Prof. Gabriella Shalev left the post.
Of course, Sharansky said last week that he had no interest in being ambassador to the United Nations....
JPost adds that Lieberman had
other candidates for the UN position, which has to make you wonder whether what he was really saying was "anyone but Dore Gold" (which seems kind of irrational given that Gold has ably performed in the position in the past).
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman have sparred over the post for nearly a year, with the prime minister wanting former ambassador Dore Gold to return to the UN and Lieberman suggesting Environment Minister Gilad Erdan and former consul-general in New York Alon Pinkas.
According to the report, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Meir Kalifi will replace Arad as national security advisor.
I know nothing about Kalifi, but I think that Dore Gold would be a great candidate for National Security Adviser.
Pinkas would have been a
disaster at the UN.
Labels: Alon Pinkas, Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, Dore Gold, Gabriella Shalev, Gilad Erdan, Meir Kalifi, Meron Reuven, Natan Sharansky, Ron Prosor, Uzi Arad
