A Question for the Government of Israel

.

190 last Friday.

Maybe a MK could table of parliamentary question?

^

A Frank Letter

My letter in today's Jerusalem Post Weekeend Magazine (link not yet available):

Dara Frank, who heads a group that believes "that Israelis and Palestinians need to understand each other on a deeper level" and whose "trips are kept as balanced and as non-political as possible...[w]hile politics cannot be avoided" (from its website), writes about the first Bible Marathon from Rosh Ha'ayin to Shiloh in such a way as to imply, subtly yet determinedly, that one run is a violation of human rights while a parallel Palestine Marathon "ignores the area's complex political situation" (Running history, May 15).

But she then makes a u-turn and accuses the Bible Marathon of refusing "to comment of the reality of the current political situation with the Palestinans" and "promoting the rhetoric of the Jewish people's undeniable connection to the land" on a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' approach.

I think that Jews and pro-Zionists of other religions, in running such a marathon, are expressing support for the human rights of a people who have the right to reconstitute their national home in the land to which they have an historic connection as decided over nine decades ago in international law.  That was when the race was won.

^

Celebrating America's Independence on June 4

The flags were marched in

and the crowd collected

and wine was available (we needed to open it ourselves which took care of any problems)

and Yesha reps were present, including Elie Pieprz, Miri Maoz-Ovadia and yours truly

all at the celebration of America's Independence Day on ... June 4th.  Thanks to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel there were hamburgers and schwarma and salads.  There was sushi for those who indulge, both stands strictly kosher.  And I remembered to first eat the Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

As Ramadan is next month July and there is no eating or drinking then, and as since most of the guests are Muslims, being that the Consulate sees itself politically bound to the idea of facilitating the establishment of a state of Palestine, it would, I presume, be awkward to hold it then.  In Israel, the Embassy's event will be on the proper date.

This is the last time the current CG will be hosting the occasion.  Mr. Ratney mentioned "common humanity" as a major theme in his speech but, although he did name almost a dozen Arab cities in the territory for which the Consulate provides services, and did mention "Israelis" and "Jerusalem", he neglected to mention any town or community where over half a million Jews reside throughout Judea and Samaria, many thousands of them American citizens.  I hope that was an oversight.

We met the new political officer for the Jewish communities and I saw friends and acquaintances including Consulate staff, major media people, other activists, my acquaintance, Nidal Rafa, who I know since she was MK Azmi Bishara's parliamentary aide, and other assorted Jerusalemites and people from the Pal. Authority including its Prime Minister, who were present. As I have written previously about this event, the panoply of diplomats, clergy, military personnel and locals is unparalleled, at least since the British Empire left the Mandate behind.

The Consulate staff could do so much more to channel cooperation and coexistence but are shackled by the stricture of the "illegitimacy" of Jewish residency in the historic Jewish homeland.  I have chronicled the discrimination in many posts. 

I still have hope they'll see the light as well as the folly of their policies.

^

A Word on Mount Zion

On the background of the contretemps there [1; 2;] -

The Franciscans' presence in the Holy Land started in the early 13th C, when they resided in a small house in via Dolorosa.  In 1333, King Robert d'Angiò of Naples bought the Cenacle from the Sultan of Egypt and gave it to the Franciscans. In 1342, Pope Clement VI declared that the Franciscans are the official custodians of the Holy places ("Custodia Terroe Sanctoe"). This custody is still in effect to date.

From 1335 to 1551, the monastery was located in the building thought to be the site of the tomb of King David and the traditional location of the Last Supper. From 1551 until 1560, they resided in a bakery nearby. Afterwards, they relocated to another site in the city.  Only many years later did they return to Mount Zion.

The reason for that hiatus in the mid-16th century was that the Jews of the city managed to reclaim the site which originally was a synagogue built at the end of the Roman period, circa the 4th century.

My Zionism is political and I am a liberal conservative.

Therefore, I would oppose awarding the Vatican sovereignty there but if they wanted, on occasion, to use a room for prayer or, better, simple meditation​, fine. That's an offer I'd approve.

However, I would then use that situation and tell them that it will happen if they convince the Waqf to permit Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.

This has nothing to do whether King David is or is not buried there or nearby.  But that room, which I first visited in 1966, and which was highly revered by Uri Tzvi Greenberg, 

UZ Greenberg (r) at the Bar Mitzva of his son, Haim, at David's Tomb 

with Dr. Israel Eldad (far left) and Emmanuel Hanegbi (center, rear)

As a member of the Save Mt. Zion team which was founded by Shelomo Alfassa in 2005, I have no desire to yield ownership or identity yet am open to accommodation although other groups are more restrictive.

I just  wanted to clarify my position.

^

The New Water War

The Suez Canal waterway was closed to Israel, so we sent the Bat Galim in in September 1954.

Syria interfered with our water rights and Israel ended up shelling their positions in the mid-1960s.

There were the Straits of Tiran being closed in the lead up to the Six Days War.

And now, the battle to drink water at the fountains of the Temple Mount.

^

Arab Teenager Stabbed to Death Near Nablus

Muhammad Ahmad Hashayka/Hachaakh, 16, 

died from stab wounds sustained during a fight in the village of Talluza (a Second Temple Jewish village). But you might not hear/read about it.

Why?

Well, neither IDF soldiers, Border Policemen, "extremist settlers" nor even "hilltop youth" were invovled.

Two members of the Palestinian Authority security forces killed him on Monday during a fight.  There may be an ongoing feud there.

I wonder if the various "Solidarity With Palestine" groups will deal with it.  Or Peter Beinart. Or B'tselem.  Or Yesh Din.  Or Rabbis for Human Rights.  Or the UN.  Or ... , heck, I give up.


^

Obama the Jew

Excerpts from the astounding interview of Jeffrey Goldberg by Foreign Policy's David Rothkopf and even Obama's daughters would be astonished:

--- my comments at end:

JG:-  "I probably share a lot of his analysis of Israel’s core dilemmas. To put it crudely, the basic split on Obama is this: Is he destroying Israel, or is Israel destroying Israel? I go more with the latter than the former at the moment. If you believe the former, you despise him. If you believe the latter, you can’t quite believe that a) Israel’s government is carrying out policies that will eventually lead to the country’s dissolution, or wholesale isolation; and b) that more Israelis don’t understand that an African-American president who speaks feelingly about the moral necessity of Zionism is a friend, not a foe." 

..."He also spoke of his feelings for Israel as a personal matter. Again, it is clear criticism he has gotten for his handling of the U.S.-Israel relationship stings him. And much of it is unfair, I think, given the role the Israeli government has played in all this."

..."Netanyahu, and Sheldon Adelson, have been engaged in a clear attempt to convince Israelis, and American Jews, that the Democrats are not their friends. This is both factually wrong and stunningly shortsighted."

Obama’s impatience with Israel, and his dislike of Netanyahu, is rooted in the fact that he is a very specific kind of Jew – an intellectual, Upper West Side, social action-oriented, anguished-about-Israel liberal values Jew. This happens to be a common American Jewish archetype, more common, in fact, than the Sheldon Adelson archetype." 

If current trends continue, a civil war is coming. It will be a very civil, civil war, but it will be a civil war nonetheless, between an American Jewry that has been nurtured on the values of the Civil Rights Movement, and an Israeli Jewry that has been taught, harshly, that the Middle East is not a place of mercy. Many American Jews are probably too rosy in their understanding of the possibilities of peace and reconciliation; many Israelis, particularly those who believe that the settlement project on the West Bank is a moral success, rather than a disaster of epic proportions, don’t understand that their country is slowly growing unrecognizable to American Jews, and to would-be members of the tribe — including the one in the Oval Office — as well. 

Q.   Do you believe that U.S.-Middle East policy during the Obama years has been successful? If so, by what metric? If not, where do you think the greatest damage has been done?...These are societies struggling with modernity, torn apart by major factions seeking to cling to old, outmoded, failed, and inequitable ways. Inroads of 21st century progress — whether in some Gulf States or Israel — are often seen as threats in that respect. And many of the governments have failed altogether at governance. Having said all that, America’s relations with virtually every ally we have in the region are worse now than they were six years ago. Virtually every country is at war (except Oman). Our interventions are for naught. Terrorism is a bigger problem than ever — there are more terrorists, more attacks, more casualties, and the terrorist groups are spreading in new and more threatening ways. U.S. interests in the region — from the security of our allies to the potential threats emerging to Americans and America to our influence to our access to oil — are all in worse shape than six years ago. So, how’s Obama doing? How are the president’s views jibing with reality? Is he in your view learning?

JG   ...President Obama, as I have argued, wants to be understood as a philo-Semitic, pro-Israel president, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still sensible enough to know that further gratuitous provocation of the American president (and his party) doesn’t serve his country’s interests. (Whether the people around Netanyahu know this is another question.) But anything can happen. Israel could put forward an assertive new settlement plan that causes Obama to see red, for instance...

...If the question is: Who better understands Israel’s existential dilemma, Benjamin Netanyahu or Barack Obama, I would have to give Obama quite a bit of credit here. Last year, in an interview I conducted with Obama, he wondered aloud about the absence of an alternative to a two-state solution. “[N]obody has provided me with a clear picture of how this works in the absence of a peace deal,” he said — the “this” referring to the goal of maintaining Israel as a Jewish democracy. “If that’s the case…if there’s something you know you have to do, even if it’s difficult or unpleasant, you might as well just go ahead and do it, because waiting isn’t going to help. When I have a conversation with Bibi, that’s the essence of my conversation: If not now, when? And if not you, Mr. Prime Minister, then who? How does this get resolved?”

Netanyahu is correct to note that the region is in turmoil and that the Palestinian polity is weak. But this shouldn’t stop him from creating conditions on the ground — the removal of far-flung settlements, for instance — that could give hope to moderate Palestinians by showing that the Israelis are committed to eventually allowing them to create a state. What Obama sees — and what frustrates him (and a large number of American Jews) — is an Israel that is burying its head in the sand. There is still time to arrange the birth of a Palestinian state in an orderly fashion, in a manner that allows the Israelis to set many of the security terms of this new state’s creation. No good can come of this continued waiting. There is a tipping point ahead — one day soon, Israel will be defined across most of the world as an apartheid state, unless it steps away from the status quo. So, to the question of whether Obama doesn’t understand Middle East reality, I would answer that, in the case of Israel, he is grappling with some of the core challenges to its existence, challenges Netanyahu is avoiding.  This is not to say that the Obama administration hasn’t made mistakes in its management of the Israel file or that the president has a sufficiently cynical, or realistic, view of the nature of those who oppose Israel’s existence. As a hyper-rational person, he doesn’t seem to fully understand — as was on display in my latest interview with him — that anti-Semites actually believe the dangerous and idiotic things they say.

Is Obama "Jewish"?  Is Goldberg?  What type of argument or context is this?  Is Goldberg insane?  This is but the dilution of Jewishness.

At least Goldberg published Yossi Kuperwasser's contra to Obama at The Atlantic.

Excerpts:

President Obama’s anger toward Netanyahu is misplaced, especially given his extraordinary lack of criticism of Palestinians for far more egregious behavior. The Palestinians, after all, are the ones who refused to accept the president’s formula for extending the peace negotiations...Rather than recognizing how fundamentally different Palestinian political culture is, the president offered slogans about how Palestinian youth are just like any other in the world. This is a classic example of the mirror-imaging—the projection of his own values onto another culture—that has plagued most of his foreign policy...So why does Obama pick on Netanyahu and not on Abbas? The most likely reason is directly related to a conflict in the West between two schools of thought, both dedicated to defending democratic and Judeo-Christian values: Optimism and realism. Obama is a remarkable proponent for the optimist approach—he fundamentally believes in human decency, and therefore in dialogue and engagement as the best way to overcome conflict. He is also motivated by guilt over the West’s collective sins, which led, he believes, to the current impoverishment of Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular. He believes that humility and concessions can salve the wound, and Islamists can be convinced to accept a global civil society. “If we’re nice to them, they’ll be nice to us,” Obama thinks.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, is a realist. Due in part to Israel’s tumultuous neighborhood, he has a much more skeptical attitude of Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian President Rouhani’s government. Netanyahu does not see these groups as potential moderates, willing to play by the international community’s rules; instead, he acknowledges their radicalism, and their intent to undermine a world order they consider a humiliating insult to Islam...The prime minister’s insistence on the dangers of the optimist approach threatens to expose the inherent weakness of Obama’s worldview and challenge the president’s assumption that his policy necessarily leads to the best possible solutions. For Netanyahu and almost everybody in Israel, as well as pragmatic Arabs, the president’s readiness to assume responsibility for Iran’s future nuclear weapons, as he told Jeffrey Goldberg, is no comfort. The realists are not playing a blame game; they are trying to save their lives and their civilization. To those who face an existential threat, Obama’s argument sounds appalling...Does it make sense for Israel—in the face of an aggressive Iran, the rise of Islamic terror organizations across the Middle East, and the fragmentation of Arab states—to deliver strategic areas to the fragile and corrupt PA, just to see them fall to extremists?

Should Israel at this moment aid in the creation of a Palestinian state, half of which is already controlled by extremists who last summer rained down thousands of rockets on Israel, while its leaders urge their people to reject Israel as the sovereign nation-state of the Jewish people? Should it aid a movement that follows these five pillars: 1) There is no such thing as the Jewish people; 2) The Jews have no history of sovereignty in the land of Israel, so the Jewish state’s demise is inevitable and justified; 3) The struggle against Israel by all means is legitimate, and the means should be based simply on cost-benefit analysis; 4) The Jews in general, and Zionists in particular, are the worst creatures ever created; And 5) because the Palestinians are victims, they should not be held responsible or accountable for any obstacles they may throw up to peace?...

...while Obama and the optimists offer their critiques, Netanyahu and the realists will be on the ground, living with the consequences the optimists have wrought.

_________________

UPDATE

In Obama's interview with Ilana Dayan, he said this:

...[Netanyahu's] statements have suggested that there is the possibility of a Palestinian state, but it has so many caveats, so many conditions, that it is not realistic to think that those conditions would be met any time in the near future.  And so the danger here is that Israel as a whole loses credibility. 

But why?  If he is legtimately concerned about Israel's future, he can't make caveats?   And why not come down on the Pal. Authority?

And on Iran, he said there:

everybody said, this isn’t going to work.  They’re going to cheat.  They’re not going to abide by it. And yet, over a year and a half later, we know that they have abided by the letter of it.

Really????   The NYTimes doesn't think so.  And more here:

Iran’s Stock of Less than Five Percent Low Enriched UraniumJune 2015 UpdateBy David Albright and Serena Kelleher-Vergantini

From January 20, 2014 and into May 2015 Iran produced about 4,000 kilograms of 3.5 percent low enriched uranium (LEU) hexafluoride. Under the Joint Plan of Action (JPA), Iran has committed to convert all newly produced 3.5 percent LEU hexafluoride into oxide form. As of May 2015, it has fed a total of 2,720 kilograms of this type of LEU into the conversion process at the Enriched UO2 Powder Plant (EUPP) and produced only about 150 kilograms of LEU dioxide. It has not fed any LEU hexafluoride into the plant since November 2014. Thus, Iran has fallen behind in its pledge to convert its newly produced LEU hexafluoride into oxide form. There are legitimate questions about whether Iran can produce all the requisite LEU oxide...By the end of June, in order to meet its commitment under the JPA, Iran must finish converting the 2,720 kg of LEU into oxide and introduce into the EUPP, and convert into oxide, 1,106 kg of 3.5 percent LEU hexafluoride produced over the last several months (plus the few hundred kilograms of LEU to be produced in late May and June 2015). Thus, Iran hasclearly fallen behind in its pledge under the JPA.

And there also was this:

I will tell you this.  When I’m with Bibi, we have good conversations.  They’re tough, they’re forceful, we disagree, but I enjoy jousting with him, I do.

^ 

NYTimes Op-ed Protests Transfer of Sacred Site

No, not the handing over of the Temple Mount precincts totally to the Muslim Waqf.

Not at all, although "Jewish" does sneak in.

Here:

Selling Off Apache Holy Land

ABOUT an hour east of Phoenix, near a mining town called Superior, men, women and children of the San Carlos Apache tribe have been camped out at a place called Oak Flat for more than three months, protesting the latest assault on their culture.

Three hundred people, mostly Apache, marched 44 miles from tribal headquarters to begin this occupation on Feb. 9. The campground lies at the core of an ancient Apache holy place, where coming-of-age ceremonies, especially for girls, have been performed for many generations, along with traditional acorn gathering. It belongs to the public, under the multiple-use mandate of the Forest Service, and has had special protections since 1955, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower decreed the area closed to mining — which, like cattle grazing, is otherwise common in national forests — because of its cultural and natural value. President Richard M. Nixon’s Interior Department in 1971 renewed this ban.

Despite these protections, in December 2014, Congress promised to hand the title for Oak Flat over to a private, Australian-British mining concern...Congress has handed over a sacred Native American site to a foreign-owned company for what may be the first time in our nation’s history.

The Apache are occupying Oak Flat to protest this action — to them, a sacrilegious and craven sell-off of a place “where Apaches go to pray,” in the words of the San Carlos Apache tribal chairman, Terry Rambler. The site will doubtless be destroyed for any purpose other than mining; Resolution Copper Mining will hollow out a vast chamber that, when it caves in, will leave a two-mile-wide, 1,000-foot-deep pit...

...“Why is this place sacred?” said Wendsler Nosie Sr., a former chairman of the San Carlos Apache, in a recent interview with Cronkite News. “No difference to Mount Sinai. How the holy spirit came to be.” If you don’t want to take his word for it, the archaeological record at Oak Flat contains abundant evidence that the Apache have been here “since well before recorded history,” according to congressional testimony by the Society for American Archaeology.

If Oak Flat were a Christian holy site, or for that matter Jewish or Muslim, no senator who wished to remain in office would dare to sneak a backdoor deal for its destruction into a spending bill — no matter what mining-company profits or jobs might result. But this is Indian religion. Clearly the Arizona congressional delegation isn’t afraid of a couple of million conquered natives.

If only the NYTimes would allow an op-ed that would express pro-Jewish rights on the Temple Mount.

Ah, but by then, Messiah would have come.

^

Shiloh and War in the South China Sea

Well, the USS Shiloh:

War Clouds Over South China Sea As U.S. Declares Right To Waters And U.S. Warship Arrives At Subic

The drumbeat of war on distant horizons is reverberating through Southeast Asia with increasingly strong declarations of U.S. determination to stop the Chinese from expanding their writ over the South China Sea, notably islands claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.

While Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was in Singapore vowing that U.S. planes and ships would go wherever they wanted in international waters WAT -0.71%, the U.S. navy missile cruiser Shiloh was hoving into view at the historic Subic Bay port northwest of Manila.

Reports of Carter’s tough remarks at a gathering of defense ministers and the Shiloh’s visit to Subic Bay, the largest U.S. navy base before the Americans were forced to give it all up more than 20 years ago, were couched in euphemisms that scarcely masked the impression of spiraling tensions. “We want a peaceful resolution of all disputes,” Carter began. “A routine port call,” said a Philippine navy spokesman when asked what the Shiloh was doing at Subic Bay, in the once roaring American base town of Olongapo.

How far is the South China Sea from the United States and how far is the 'West Bank' (Judea and Samaria) from Israel?

^

Correcting A Book Review

Found some errors or rather incomplete information and omissions in a book review:

1.  "It was Lehi that began the terror war against the British in 1940".

Well, if one starts in 1940, correct. But if you want to be historically correct, the blowing up of British objects like phone booths and post-offices and the assassination of British police office (engaged in torturing Jewish prisoners), then it started in 1939 after the publication of the British White Paper in May:

After Raziel's arrest, Hanoch Kalai, his deputy, was appointed Commander in Chief. Avraham Stern, who was then in Poland, was summoned back to Palestine and appointed head of the Information Department. The other members of the General Headquarters remained in their positions. At the first meeting of the General Headquarters under Kalai, it was decided to launch a second front against the British administration in retaliation for the publication of the White Paper. In accordance with Irgun procedure, the jailed commander was not consulted, and Raziel did not take part in decision-making.

The first operations directed against the British took place in Jerusalem. On June 2, 1939, Irgun fighters blew up three telephone network junctions. Close to 1,750 telephones were cut off, including some serving the army and the police. On the same day, a mine exploded near the Old City wall, killing five Arabs and injuring many more. After the Jerusalem operations, telephone network junctions were also blown up in Tel Aviv, and the railway line between Tel Aviv and Lydda was attacked.

Four days later the Irgun fighters again launched an attack on British targets. This time they damaged eight telephone network junctions, and dozens of public telephone structures. They also destroyed four of the British Electricity Corporation transformers, plunging the city into darkness. In all, they attacked 23 sites and dozens of fighters took part in the operation.

And  Cairns and a colleague, Ronald Barker, were assassinated by an Irgun land mine on 26 August 1939 in Rehavia, Jerusalem, on the orders of then Irgun leader Hanoch Kalai.

2.  "a poem written by Stern, which would become Lehi’s anthem". 

True.  But it was first the Irgun's anthem until Stern split off.  The Irgun then adopted the thrid stanza of the Betar anthem.

3.  "Stern was killed by the British in 1941".

February 1942.  Raziel was killed, in Iraq, in 1941.

4.  "after a successful British counter-terror operation, in which most of the Zionist leadership was rounded up, Ben-Gurion called off the Haganah". 

Even before that operation, the 'Black Sabbath', Chaim Weizmann had been demanding the Hagana halt it terror campaign.  B-G opposed it and he and Moshe Sneh left for Europe to fight for its continuation.  There was a July 30th operation in Tel Aviv but that didn't affect the decision to halt the United Resistance Movement actions by the Hagana and Palmach as on August 22, Palyam frogmen attached a limpet mine to the side of the British cargo ship Empire Rival, which had been used to deport Jewish immigrants to Cyprus. A hole was blown in the ship's side.

5.  "A total of 141 British soldiers and police and 40 terrorists died between August 1945 and August 1947, he writes, “including those executed or who committed suicide awaiting execution.” 

That is quite a narrow time-frame.

The official May 15, 1948 White Paper reads:

Since the war, 338 British subjects had been killed in Palestine, while the military forces there had cost the British taxpayer 100 million pounds.

^

The Unworthiness of Sternhell

Ze'ev Sternhell gets it backwards but still correct when he writes:

After Prime Minister Levi Eshkol’s modest liberalization in 1963, it seemed the days of conquering the land had ended. But the Six-Day War halted the attempts to ratchet down the conquering nationalism and gradually shift to a situation in which tribal particularism could be tamed by the universal principles of democracy.

I have always posited that the 1948 war was but stage one and that the war of 1967 was but a continuation of Zionism's liberation struggle.

This perspective may sound harsh, and Strenhell certainly does his best to besmirch and deprecate Zionism and the intrinsic connection between the Jewish People and the Jewish Homeland, a reality that even fifty-one member countries – the entire League of Nations – unanimously decided and made into international law on July 24, 1922 as declared:

“Whereas recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.

and its territory was defined in September 1922, after Britain stole TransJordan as laid out in Article 25 of the “Mandate for Palestine” which entitled the Mandatory to change the terms of the Mandate in the territory east of the Jordan River "temporarily":

“In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provision of this Mandate as he may consider..." 

as so:

On the North it is bounded by the French Mandated Territories of Syria and Lebanon, on the East by Syria and Trans-Jordan, on the South-west by the Egyptian province of Sinai, on the South-east by the Gulf of Aqaba and on the West by the Mediterranean.

So Sternhell's "claim of colonialism", if correct, which it isn't, would define all of the state of Israel as an unworthy project. 

Worse, he attacks by applying abnormality of Zionism:

all Zionism’s goals had been attained within the existing borders. But even that tiny spark of normalization was obliterated by the great victory of ‘67.

Of course, a little matter of the local Arabs not recognizing, never having recognized and so far, still refusing to recognize any border acceptable to them does not configurate his thinking (and I apply that term hesitantly), not to mention the Arab terror.  It's all Israel's/the Jews' fault.  

We took, he implies, what wasn't ours.  The Arabs-who-refer-to-themselves-as-'Palestinans' were, he would have us assume, an equal people, with equal political rights, with an equal national heritage and possessed an entity akin to a state.  And this is a university professor.

So unworthy.

Even hellish.

^

What Will The Concessionists Say Now?

[after a decade of blogging, I tend to write/comment

concisely, pithily and to the point.

why waste your time and mine?]

______________________________________________________

One of the central points of those who support the policy that Israel should withdraw from the territories of its historic homeland, yield, surrender and concede and partition land, is that the US will come to our assistance if Israel is threatened.

And you believe that?  That if it would want to, it could?  In time?

Consider the implications of recent developments from this report:

The White House Treats a Foreign Policy Disaster Like a Political Crisis

Nearly one year after the ISIS hordes charged screaming over the Syrian border and sacked Mosul, they’ve repeated the feat in Ramadi – the capital of the restive Anbar province, and a city located just 70 miles from Baghdad. Simultaneously, ISIS forces launched an offensive to the north and captured the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. In the face of this humiliation more than nine months after the start of renewed coalition bombing missions over Iraq, the White House dubiously continued to insist that everything was going according to plan. Except, there never was any plan.

“Look, there were several things that surprised us about ISIL,” outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey told PBS reporter Martin Smith in a recent exit interview. “The degree to which they were able to form their own coalition, both inside of Syria — and inside of northwestern Iraq; the military capability that they exhibited — the collapse of the Iraq Security Forces. Yeah, in those initial days, there were a few surprises.”

Are you sure America can perform militarily if Israel requires help if we retreat from the hills of Samaria and Judea?  In time?  Adequately and resolutely?

^

Did Netanyahu Off the NYTimes?

Did I read that correctly?

Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu berated the New York Times for its coverage of Israel?

That the paper was engaged in meddling in Israel's affairs with a critical editorial, angrily telling the US daily to “know your place”?

Did he blast an “impolite” editorial in the New York Times last week which he said “literally gave orders to the United States”?

Did he say in a televised speech in Jerusalem, “As a newspaper, you [the New York Times] should know your place”?  And "You are meddling in Israel’s affairs by writing something like this. By publishing this editorial, you are overstepping the limits of freedom”?

No.  I did not.

Someone else:

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday accused the New York Times of meddling in Turkey’s affairs with a critical editorial, angrily telling the US daily to “know your place”.

In a growing controversy over media rights in Turkey ahead of 7 June legislative polls, Erdogan blasted an “impolite” editorial in the New York Times last week which he said “literally gave orders to the United States”.

“As a newspaper, you [the New York Times] should know your place,” he said in a televised speech in Istanbul.

“You are meddling in Turkey’s affairs by writing something like this. By publishing this editorial, you are overstepping the limits of freedom,” he said.

Of course, it would have been nice but we're so polite.

^

When A Soldier Goes On TV

On May 14, I participated as an audience observer in Tim Sebastian's New Arab Debates' series in Jerusalem on the question "MOTION: The occupation is destroying Israel".
It has made some waves if only, unfortunately, due to a soldier sympathetic to "Breaking the Silence" who asked a question about which Gideon Levy wrote a column.  The video:

I even managed to ask a question, at 18:50.

And Tim shook my hand after the show, recalling my appearance on his HardTalk program, back in May 2003.

Getting back to the soldier, Shachar Berrin

Levy has him speaking so:

“...Just the other week, when some Border Police soldiers were rough with Christian tourists, another soldier, a colleague, said she couldn’t believe what they were doing: ‘I mean, come on, they are people, not Palestinians.’ I think that resonates throughout the occupied territories. I serve in the Jordan Valley, and we see every day how soldiers… look at these people not as human beings, not as someone who is equal, but someone who is less than them. And to think that we can just leave the racism and the xenophobia – that they will only be racist when they humiliate Palestinians – of course not… I think that once you are conditioned to think something, you bring it back with you and that it deeply affects Israeli society and causes it, as our president says, to be more racist.”

At his Facebook page, Dani Dayan relates to the fuss and that in his first part, the soldier made unsupported claims, painting with a wide swash of accusation, that most of the army is evil and thn withdrew to make a claim about kicking kids away and not all to shoot, if being bothered.  But Haartz pushed on, and today has an editorial on it.  It's main point:

that same damage from the occupation, against which Berrin warned, pursued him to a conference hall in Jerusalem and then sent him to prison for a week. In the words of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, “The soldier was tried for speaking to the media without authorization and approval, as required by army orders.” Or, put more simply, the soldier was tried and jailed for telling the truth, contrary to the army’s orders.

That formulation is, of course, a perversion.  The rule of not talking to the press applies to all ranks, in all situations and has nothing to do with the topic and certainly not with any so-called 'occupation'. If we take the Haaretz logic to its conclusion, the Bat Ayin soldier, Eldad Sela, who revealed, it is charged, army plans to dismantle outposts, was also simply expressing the truth and is unjustly being punished?  And by the way, he is accused of espionage, a much more severe punishable crime.  Or is only anti-occupation actions and words to be granted a special treatment of unlimited liberty?

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Obama, Israel and Anti-Semitism

Selections from the troubling Obama interview

"And when I am then required to come to Israel’s defense internationally, when there is anti-Semitism out there, when there is anti-Israeli policy that is based not on the particulars of the Palestinian cause but [is] based simply on hostility, I have to make sure that I am entirely credible in speaking out against those things, and that requires me then to also be honest with friends about how I view these issues...
...he was adamant that he would not allow the Jewish right, and the Republican Party, to automatically define criticism of the Netanyahu government’s policies as anti-Israel or anti-Semitic...
I also raised another concern—one that the president didn’t seem to fully share. It’s been my belief that it is difficult to negotiate with parties that are captive to a conspiratorial anti-Semitic worldview not because they hold offensive views, but because they hold ridiculous views. As Walter Russell Mead and others have explained, anti-Semites have difficulty understanding the world as it actually works, and don’t comprehend cause-and-effect in politics and economics. Though I would like to see a solid nuclear deal (it is preferable to the alternatives) I don’t believe that the regime with which Obama is negotiating can be counted on to be entirely rational."
...I interjected by suggesting that anti-Semitic European leaders made irrational decisions, to which Obama responded, “They may make irrational decisions with respect to discrimination, with respect to trying to use anti-Semitic rhetoric as an organizing tool. At the margins, where the costs are low, they may pursue policies based on hatred as opposed to self-interest. But the costs here are not low, and what we’ve been very clear [about] to the Iranian regime over the past six years is that we will continue to ratchet up the costs, not simply for their anti-Semitism, but also for whatever expansionist ambitions they may have. That’s what the sanctions represent. That’s what the military option I’ve made clear I preserve represents. And so I think it is not at all contradictory to say that there are deep strains of anti-Semitism in the core regime, but that they also are interested in maintaining power, having some semblance of legitimacy inside their own country, which requires that they get themselves out of what is a deep economic rut that we’ve put them in, and on that basis they are then willing and prepared potentially to strike an agreement on their nuclear program.”
On Israel, Obama endorsed, in moving terms, the underlying rationale for the existence of  a Jewish state, making a direct connection between the battle for African American equality and the fight for Jewish national equality. “There’s a direct line between supporting the right of the Jewish people to have a homeland and to feel safe and free of discrimination and persecution, and the right of African Americans to vote and have equal protection under the law,” he said. “These things are indivisible in my mind.”
In discussing the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe, he was quite clear in his condemnation of what has become a common trope—that anti-Zionism, the belief that the Jews should not have a state of their own in at least part of their ancestral homeland, is unrelated to anti-Jewish hostility. He gave me his own parameters for judging whether a person is simply critical of certain Israeli policies or harboring more prejudicial feelings.
“Do you think that Israel has a right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people, and are you aware of the particular circumstances of Jewish history that might prompt that need and desire?” he said, in defining the questions that he believes should be asked. “And if your answer is no, if your notion is somehow that that history doesn’t matter, then that’s a problem, in my mind. If, on the other hand, you acknowledge the justness of the Jewish homeland, you acknowledge the active presence of anti-Semitism—that it’s not just something in the past, but it is current—if you acknowledge that there are people and nations that, if convenient, would do the Jewish people harm because of a warped ideology. If you acknowledge those things, then you should be able to align yourself with Israel where its security is at stake, you should be able to align yourself with Israel when it comes to making sure that it is not held to a double standard in international fora, you should align yourself with Israel when it comes to making sure that it is not isolated.”...

Read it all.

If you can.

Or read this.

“Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” is within President Obama’s own State Department definition of anti-Semitism. 

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P.S.


From Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:  5 important observations:

#1. "Prime Minister Netanyahu said a Palestinian state would not happen under his watch".  This is the SAME thing Mr. Obama HIMSELF said last week (Al Arabiya 15 May 2015): "And what I think at this point, realistically, we can do is to try to rebuild trust -- not through a big overarching deal, which I don't think isprobably possible in the next year, given the makeup of the Netanyahu government, given the challenges I think that exist for President Abbas."

#2.  The gaping flaws indicated by Iran in the developing Iran nuclear deal require a 5 second attention span to raise - Goldberg declines to mention any of them:
a. Inspection regime to exclude any serious inspection of Iranian military sites that may conceal nuclear program.b. Inspection regime inside nuclear facilities to exclude live monitoring (prohibit video feeds that might provide images of Iranian nuclear scientists)c. Ongoing development and construction of advanced centrifuges to slash break-out time permitted.d. Ongoing development, construction and even deployment of delivery systems for nuclear weapons permitted.

#3. The "rationality" argument vis-à-vis Iranian policy is fundamentally flawed by the refusal to address  Iranian Twelver messianism:
Consider Bernard Lewis The Wall Street Journal Aug. 8, 2006:  “In this context, mutual assured destruction, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, would have no meaning. At the end of time, there will be general destruction anyway. What will matter will be the final destination of the dead -- hell for the infidels, and heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint; it is an inducement.”

#4. A profoundly bizarre claim: "They [Iran]  are not a threat to the region because of their hardware. "

#5. A disturbing  remark hinting at a policy of relying on Iran in the neighborhood:  "How do we find effective partners to govern in those parts of Iraq that right now are ungovernable and effectively defeat ISIL, not just in Iraq but in Syria?"

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Jerusalem As A Nincompoop's Non-Capital

 A professor emeritus of geography, Gideon Biger, wrote this:

Once again Jerusalem Day arrived, and once again the prime minister repeated the clichéd mantra: “Jerusalem was and is the capital city of the Jewish people only.”
Is that really so – or is Benjamin Netanyahu, known for historic declarations that do not always accord with the historical truth, once again mistaken and misleading the masses?
Jerusalem, according to scientific research, has existed for about 4,000 years. During the first 1,000 years it had no connection to the Jewish people. Even in the Bible, the Book of Genesis tells about Melchizedek, the king of Salem, who came out to bless Abraham, who had no connection to Jerusalem. During the time of the patriarchs, Jerusalem did not figure in their activity at all. Even when the Israelites were in Egypt, Jerusalem was never mentioned, and when they wandered in the desert they spoke about the Land of Canaan – but not about Jerusalem.
The conquest of "the land" by Joshua, son of Nun, did not include taking over Jerusalem. It was actually the king of Jerusalem who organized the coalition of five monarchs against Joshua, and at the time the city was apparently the capital of another nation, not the Israelites.
The conquest of Jerusalem by the tribe of Judah, following the death of Joshua, led to the burning of the city rather than to settlement of the tribe there. Later on it was inhabited by the Jebusites, and only 1,000 years after its establishment did King David capture the city and turn it into his capital...

There's more here.

Some comments from friends of mine:

What a staggeringly dumb article.


Come On.  Everyone knows the Capital of the Jews is Boca Raton


"During the time of the patriarchs, Jerusalem did not figure in their activity at all." Are there alternative theories about where Mt Moriah was? Some traditions have an alternative site near Mecca. So yeah - checkmate.


Which is where Abraham offered his son Yishmael as a sacrifice to God.


so David conquered Jerusalem only 3000 years ago. Jews were here through all that time except for periods when various conquerors specifically prevented Jews from being here, as after the crushing of the Bar Kokhba revolt, in the period after Constantine up to the Arab conquest [see, the Arabs did something good, they let Jews come back to Jerusalem] and during the Crusader period. Again, since 1000  BCE, Jews/Israelites were always here except when specifically excluded.

As to the Temple Mount, it is identified in the Bible as Mt Zion. Today's Mt Zion outside the Zion Gate takes its name from a Byzantine church there called the Nea Sion [its ruins are next to the parking lot in the Jewish Quarter]. This is not the original Mt Zion. As to Mt Moriah I don't think anybody knows where it is/was.   The practice of naming Mt Zion/Temple Mt/ as Mt  Moriah started with the Talmud, not the Bible.


Ridiculous.  By this standard, nobody on earth has a valid capital city.


Did Biger get paid to write this?


Embarrassingly stupid. Perhaps he can explain why it appears 669 times in the Tanakh (not counting other equivalent references such as Zion).



How long has Paris  been capital of the French? 2000 years ago, Paris was called Lutetia and was small settlement on a mud spit in the middle of the Seine river. It may have become the capital about 1000 years ago, roughly speaking. But 2000 years ago nobody called the country France, it was just Gaul. Cairo did not exist 2000 years ago. Damascus did exist 2000 years ago, but the people there did not speak Arabic and were not Arabs (there were probably some Arabs around). There was no Tunis and no Algiers.


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But Weren't the "Pals." Here First?

The ancient acqueduct was built under the villages?

Word for word:

Press Release
Thursday, May 21, 2015

“With Joy Shall Ye Draw Water…”
A Section of Ancient Jerusalem’s Lower Aqueduct was Exposed in the Eastern Jerusalem Neighborhood of Umm Tuba

A section of Jerusalem’s Lower Aqueduct, which conveyed water to the city more than 2,000 years ago, was exposed in the Umm Tuba quarter (near Har Homa) during the construction of a sewer line in the neighborhood by the Gihon Company. This line is just part of an extensive project directed by Zohar Yinon, CEO of the Gihon Company Ltd, to install a modern sewer system for the benefit of the residents of Umm Tuba and Sur Bahar.

The Israel Antiquities Authority conducted an archaeological excavation there following the discovery of the aqueduct. According to Ya’akov Billig, the excavation director,“The Lower Aqueduct to Jerusalem, which the Hasmonean kings constructed more than two thousand years ago in order to provide water to Jerusalem, operated intermittently until about one hundred years ago. The aqueduct begins at the ‘En ‘Eitam spring, near Solomon’s Pools south of Bethlehem, and is approximately 21 kilometers long. Despite its length, it flows along a very gentle downward slope whereby the water level falls just one meter per kilometer of distance. At first, the water was conveyed inside an open channel and about 500 years ago, during the Ottoman period, a terra cotta pipe was installed inside the channel in order to better protect the water”.

The aqueduct’s route was built in open areas in the past, but with the expansion of Jerusalem in the modern era, it now runs through a number of neighborhoods: Umm Tuba, Sur Bahar, East Talpiot and Abu Tor. Since this is one of Jerusalem’s principal sources of water, the city’s rulers took care to preserve it for some two thousand years, until it was replaced about a century ago by a modern electrically operated system. Due to its historical and archaeological importance, the Israel Antiquities Authority is taking steps to prevent any damage to the aqueduct, and is working to expose sections of its remains, study them and make them accessible to the general public.

The Umm Tuba section of the aqueduct was documented, studied, and covered up again for the sake of future generations. 

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GraphicZionism: Jewish Footsteps

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(with thanks)

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