Saturday, January 08, 2005

How The Arab Street Views Terrorism (Warning: May Shock the Squeamish)

In light of all this talk about what is and what is not a terrorist
act, a new poll shows, among many other frightening things, that the
average joe in the Arab world does not have time for fancy-schmancy
liberal European distinctions between Jews in settlements and Jews
within the Green Line. Scarily enough, they don't have time for the
even more fancy-schmancy distinctions between Jews within the Green
Line and Jews anywhere else in the world either. The poll appears to
show that most of the Arab world supports the murder of innocent
Jewish people, no matter where they are, despite the way the poll's
author, a Jordanian, attempts to spin the results.

Some results of the poll can be found at:

http://opendemocracy.net/debates/article-2-103-2298.jsp

Hopefully, Europeans who love to blame Israelis for Europe's
antisemitism problems will take note of this poll and put the blame in
the right place.

The Arabs need to dig themselves out of this, and we as Americans must find a way to help them. Numbers like these are not simple politics, as the author of the poll suggests. Numbers like these suggest that these views are at least a little entrenched.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

Sharansky for Prime Minister

It was a something of a shock in 2003 when the Jerusalem Post endorsed Natan Sharansky, then head of the Yisrael B'Aliyah party, for Prime Minister, but it was the right call.

While President Bush's pro-democracy statements are difficult to take seriously because of the gross incompetence of his administration's handling of Iraq, Natan Sharansky's are tried and true. And his critique of Oslo and Israel's attitude toward the Palestinians, restated in Thursday's Ha'aretz, are very close to my own.

In 2001, when I was finishing out my four years at Vassar College, I had a weekly column in the school newspaper. What I never liked about Oslo was exactly what Sharansky disliked about it; Yasir Arafat was going to be the Palestinian leader. But it wasn't only because Arafat had so much blood on his hands. It was because he was a despot, and because the Palestinian Authority would become a dictatorship under his rule. And when I asked an Israeli high up in the Consulate about what Israel was doing to ensure that the Palestinians developed a democracy, I got the standard answer. Israel really didn't care, I was told. It's up to them how they run their nation. Israel just wanted to be rid of them.

This made me unhappy, because I knew deep down that even if the Oslo process produced an agreement, it was not likely to endure for long if it was a cold peace, a peace where Israelis and Palestinians did not care about what happened to the other. Israel cannot afford a despotic Palestine, and cannot afford to have with the Palestinians what they have with the Egyptians.

So when I got back to Vassar (I had asked the question during an information session at the National Model United Nations conference, where I was participating as a teaching assistant/assistant coach for Vassar's team), I wrote a column about it. The column was also a plug for a conference at Vassar that I helped put together.

Here's the column, from the April 27, 2001 edition of Vassar's Miscellany News (with minor copy edits):

On Tuesday, April 24, in Rocky 300, there will be a panel on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that will include prominent, non-governmental affiliated panelists from both sides. I urge all of you to come. As one of the organizers of the panel, I had, like others, envisioned it as an educational endeavor. But after hearing both Israeli and Jordanian foreign officials speak on the peace process at the National Model United Nations conference down in New York City this week, I don't think the combination of professors, writers, and clergy that we will have with us this week could do worse than the high-ranking public servants that I observed and questioned this week.

How bad was it? Well, I'll characterize my feelings by saying that my previous enthusiasm for the peace process has officially finished dying a slow and painful death.

The Israeli representative gave his talk, and it was pretty much what I expected. No negotiation until Arafat puts a stop to Palestinian violence, blah, blah, blah. I asked him this question: "Sir, people say that Arafat has become very marginalized lately, and this is at least in part because he runs the Palestinian National Authority as a corrupt dictatorship. What is Israel doing, and what is being done within the peace process context, to ensure that the Palestinians have at least some small chance to develop a democracy?" His answer startled me.

"Well," he said, "We're just interested in making peace. We don't want to impede on the sovereignty of a new Palestinian state. And with regard to the Arab world, we can't wait for democracy. We're going to negotiate with whomever is in charge."

Sovereignty? The Israelis are worried about Palestinian sovereignty? A border state is about to be created from the old territories, and the Israelis don't care what kind of government it has? This is your "cold" peace, which is not peace at all. This is what happens when negotiations sink to the lowest common denominator and peace becomes a euphemism for the much lesser accomplishment of ceasing hostilities. It's like saying that if Mrs. Smith places Timmy and Tommy at opposite ends of the class so that they can't fight, it means that they'll become friends and won't fight after school. Separation is no permanent solution. At the very best, it could be part of an overall solution to eventually unite both peoples if it was accompanied by educational and infrastructural mandates to eliminate the hate that exists toward Jews and Israel in the Palestinian and Arab worlds and strengthen the programs that exist in Israeli schools. But it's clear that right now, neither side is thinking along those lines.

While the Israeli diplomat highlighted the absence of long-term thinking among Israeli peacemakers, the Jordanian diplomat, who was educated in the West like many members of the Arab aristocracy, highlighted the fundamental problem that results when elites fail to remember that foreign policy is supposed to be conducted on behalf of their peoples, rather than on behalf of themselves. There were two things he said that were particularly telling. The first prompted my question which, in turn, prompted the second. In a short speech, the Jordanian nobly announced that when he had visited Israel about 20 years ago, he had been startled by the country's development and had become convinced that Israel was in the Middle East to stay.

I raised my hand. "Sir," I said, "I can't tell you how happy I am that you've personally decided to recognize Israel as a geographic reality. Unfortunately, the refugees tend to disagree with you. Many of them see Israel as the Zionist enemy, and yet, they want to return and live there, citing UN Resolution 194, which predicates the right of return on the desire to live in peace. Why should the Israeli government accept them?"

"Well," he said, "I think this is an issue that the Israeli public is afraid of, but you know, government inevitably progresses and eventually leaders have to make decisions and pull the people along with them. I think that this is eventually what will happen with the Israeli government. Barak was an example of that."

In truth, he wasn't too far off the mark. The problem was that he was describing the way Arab leaders traditionally do business. Foreign policy is conducted by the people at the top with no input from the population themselves. It is then handed to the people. Barak was an example of that; he acted like an Arab leader rather than as a representative of a democracy when he tried to craft an agreement with Arafat at Camp David without public or parliamentary support. He was, in a manner of speaking, guilty of what Israel and the United States often accuse Arafat of doing - not preparing his people for peace. Like Arab leaders, he did little internally to secure the blessing of his population before he put most of the sacred cows of the Jewish people on the table. For this, he lost his job.

The peace process has turned into a race to the bottom; in the frenzy to end violence for a while, both sides have become blind to the larger picture. If the Israelis think democracy in the Arab world is not an essential element of peace, they are setting themselves up for more strife and suffering in the future. And as long as Arab leaders persist in their belief that peace can be made for those who desire no such thing, they will find themselves at continued odds with the State of Israel. Until both sides state recognizing the conflict as something mroe than an issue of ceasing hostilities, peace will not be anywhere near the horizon.

Sunday, January 02, 2005

Sri Lanka is NOT rejecting aid from Israel

In a blow to anti-Zionists everywhere, Sri Lanka is not putting the views of anti-Zionists above saving the lives of its own people.

I now have it on pretty good authority that Sri Lanka is indeed gratefully accepting Israeli help.

Now, why would the BBC and so many others misreport this story?

See below, a letter that was sent to synagogue Presidents across the US.

Dear Fellow presidents,

I have just seen a link sent to us all to a BBC story that Sri Lanka has
rejected help from Israel. Please be aware, my husband works for Magen David
Adom USA and that Sri Lanka (and the other countries) are indeed accepting
help from Israel. Israel is coordinating their efforts with the IRC to
ensure that the most effective help will arrive in a timely way. They have
already sent medical supplies and teams of doctors and others to help in
rescue efforts. Despite what you have read (and really folks, how often do
the papers, especially the BBC get it wrong!!) Israel is sending help and it
is very gratefully being accepted.

If possible, please let your congregations know that what they have read is
definitely incorrect.

Cynthia Palmer-Kenzer
President
Kehillat Shalomm (40)
Skokie, IL

Sri Lanka and Israel scandal - A Lot of Hot Air?

The more I look at this Sri Lanka-Israel story, the more I'm convinced that it's nonsense, and that Sri Lanka refused the IDF team becauuse they simply had too many requests to deal with. A inquiry to Honestreporting came back with a tentative answer that this is probably what is going on.

The only question is why the story was reported as if this was a diplomatic incident.

Tsunamis and Politics

The Tsunami story is undoubtedly the story of 2004 and should become one of the major stories of 2005. It has to be; a natural disaster that causes the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people must be a major priority.

Donations can go to a number of a organizations; I recommend the American Jewish World Service, which has long specialized in providing help to the developing world.

Around the world, there are a number of other possibilities:

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
The B'nai Brith is also helping.
In the UK: World Jewish Aid

When I wrote a couple of days ago that certain people care more about hating Israel than loving their own, some mistook me to mean Muslims. I made no such statement, and regret any misunderstanding.

Anyone who refuses Israeli government aid for political reasons is in this category. Anyone in the West who supports nonsense like this on anti-Zionist grounds . . . don't come near me for a while, because right now, I don't much feel like talking to you.

I am holding off any more comment because I want to find out more about this story before I say anything else. Something about this seems reporter created.