Israel Matzav

Sunday, August 07, 2011

Ron Kampeas invades Jennifer Rubin's privacy

Poor Jennifer Rubin is being picked apart by the media for writing a post two weeks ago that made what seemed like a reasonable assumption at the time - namely that the Norwegian terror attacks had been carried out by Islamists - and then leaving that post untouched until after the Sabbath ended. Ron Kampeas was particularly nasty.

In any case, the Post's ombudsman, Patrick Pexton, clears her in part because she does not work on the Sabbath:
...What compounded Rubin’s error is that she let her 5 p.m. Friday post remain uncorrected for more than 24 hours. She wrote four other unrelated blog posts that night, through about 9 p.m. Police officials in Norway at 8:33 p.m. Washington time had made their first statement that the suspect had no connection to international terrorism or Muslims. Rubin should have rechecked the facts before signing off, and Post editors should have thought about editing her post more that night.Rubin has a good defense. She is Jewish. She generally observes the Sabbath from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday; she doesn’t blog, doesn’t tweet, doesn’t respond to reader e-mails.

When she went online at 8 p.m. Saturday, her mea culpa post on Norway was the first thing she posted, although its tone also hurt her, particularly this sentence, which struck many readers as borderline racist: “There are many more jihadists than blond Norwegians out to kill Americans, and we should keep our eye on the systemic and far more potent threats that stem from an ideological war with the West.”

Rubin has a good defense. She is Jewish. She generally observes the Sabbath from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday; she doesn’t blog, doesn’t tweet, doesn’t respond to reader e-mails.
The problem with this “good defense” is that it’s anything but. This has nothing to do with Shabbat. Pexton says as much -- Rubin filed four additional posts over the next four hours, so she had time to check the facts and update her Norway post before signing off; and The Washington Post always had the ability to update the post even after she called it a night.

The issue isn’t when Shabbat started, but what Rubin did before sundown that Friday night and what the Post did afterward.

Hey Ron - did you ever hear of scheduling posts? I do it all the time.

It is entirely plausible - indeed likely - that Rubin posted those other three items within half an hour or an hour of her original post on Utoya, and then shut off her computer well before the Sabbath started, having queued the other three posts to go live on Friday night.

While I personally do not queue posts to go live after the Sabbath starts where I am located, or before the Sabbath ends where I am located, there is no prohibition of which I am aware under Jewish law from doing so.

I know that this post has nothing to do with Israel, but Jennifer Rubin is one of Israel's strongest advocates and deserves to be defended by the pro-Israel community, especially when it comes to matters of Sabbath observance.

Dan l'kaf zchut (judge another person favorably), Ron. Elul is just around the corner.

Labels: Jennifer Rubin, Ron Kampeas, Sabbath observance

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

A surprising source admits Obama has broken with past support of Israel

A surprising source - JTA's Ron Kampeas - has admitted that President Obama has broken with past American support of Israel.

I believe it represents a substantive -- if subtle -- break with his recent predecessors. The way I've put it as that while Obama's predecessors have recognized the 1967 lines as a Palestinian aspiration, Obama has embraced those lines (again, with swaps) as U.S. policy.

Now, recognizing the 1967 lines as a Palestinian aspiration -- as President George W. Bush did -- is not nothing, so I have some sympathy for the view that Republicans have overblown to a degree Obama's shift.

It is not nothing because Palestinians have plenty of aspirations, but the ones recognized by the world's single remaining superpower accrue legitimacy. Neither Bush nor Obama nor any of their predecessors (with the possible exception of -- of all presidents -- Harry Truman) recognized a Palestinian "right of return," for instance.

So Obama's embrace of "1967 lines with swaps" is substantive, it matters -- but it doesn't come out of nowhere. It should also be said that some of the parameters he embraced as U.S. policy favor Israeli positions, including a non-militarized Palestinian state and recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.

Recognizing what 'Palestinian' aspirations are is a statement of fact and is not agreeing with those aspirations, let alone making them US policy.

Kampeas goes on - after being prodded by the Jewish Democrats who hang on his every word - to point out that a Republican also called for a similar formulation: William Rogers, who was Richard Nixon's first Secretary of State.

We believe that while recognized political boundaries must be established, and agreed upon by the parties, any change in the pre-existing lines should not reflect the weight of conquest and should be confined to insubstantial alterations required for mutual security. We do not support expansionism. We believe troops must be withdrawn as the Resolution provides. We support Israel's security and the security of the Arab States as well. We are for a lasting peace that requires security for both.

Well, yes, but that's the Secretary of State and not the President. And Yehuda Avner reports in The Prime Ministers that Nixon disagreed with the Rogers Plan and urged then-Israeli ambassador to the US to work directly with the White House rather than through Rogers.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Ron Kampeas, William Rogers, Yehuda Avner, Yitzchak Rabin