Are We "In" or Are We Out?

The Jerusalem Post reports:-

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plans for the division of the West Bank involve the dismantling and relocation of 20 to 30 settlements, and not the previously assumed evacuation of the vast majority of the settlements on the far side of the security barrier, the prime minister's adviser for settlements, Uzi Keren, has told The Jerusalem Post...

...For example, Keren said he did not envisage "the Beit El group" of settlements north of Jerusalem being relinquished. Asked whether this "Beit El group" included settlements further north such as Ofra and even Shilo, he said he did not see them being given up and that "there's room to maneuver."

By contrast, more isolated settlements such as Har Bracha, south of Nablus, would be "replicated" - required to relocate to within an existing settlement bloc or to sovereign Israel. From Har Bracha eastward to Karnei Shomron, which is inside a settlement bloc that is set to be retained, for instance, was a distance of only seven kilometers, he noted...

...The comments by Keren - whose role as prime ministerial adviser on settlement affairs involves a responsibility for Israeli population settlement in the Negev, Galilee and rest of the "periphery" as well as beyond the Green Line - confirm a report in last Friday's Post which quoted sources in Kadima branding the 70,000 figure an exaggeration.

Glick (and Friends) vs. Olmert's Plan

The Center for Security ad against convergence, er, dimunition.

What ad?

Read:-

(Washington, D.C.): The Center for Security Policy today began a television advertising campaign concerning Israel's proposed surrender of most of the West Bank and parts of Jerusalem to terrorists like al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The ad recalls the consequences for Israel and for U.S. interests of previous Israeli retreats from southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and urges Americans' representatives in Washington to oppose further territorial concessions to our enemies.

The Center's ad campaign is timed to coincide with the visit to Washington next week by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Mr. Olmert will be pitching his so-called "Convergence Plan" for the West Bank to President Bush in an Oval Office meeting on Tuesday. Among other activities during his U.S. visit, he will also be holding meetings at the Pentagon on Monday and addressing a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.

The ad draws on an analysis of the convergence plan authored by the Center's Senior Mideast Fellow, Caroline Glick. A summary of its main findings can be found by clicking here. Ms. Glick is also the Deputy Managing Editor of and a columnist for the Jerusalem Post.

Super. The counter-campaign begins, and good luck to the demo organized by Buddy.

And Just Who is "Judea Samaria"?

From the Jerusalem Post:-

The report that shots were fired late Monday morning at a Jewish worker in the West Bank settlement Eli turned out to be false, Judea Samaria reported.

That reminds me of the stories about Shiloh, when the newspapers report "located in Judea and Samaria". Hey, it's either/or.

Israel Supreme Court Goes Supine

The High Court of Justice will not intervene to halt illegal Arab construction in Jerusalem.

Hebrew text here, at my Hebrew language blog.

Count the Times Olmert Fibs about his Policies

From the Wolf Blitzer CNN interview:-

BLITZER: You and your coalition government have supported a plan over the next several years to begin a unilateral disengagement or withdrawal from parts of the West Bank, just as Israel withdrew from Gaza, as you know. Many, including President Abbas, many in Europe, even here in the United States, are condemning this. The French foreign minister said on Wednesday, "It's unacceptable that a border declared unilaterally would be accepted by the world." How committed are you to this unilateral disengagement from the West Bank, sort of along the lines of the wall that Israel has been and is constructing?

OLMERT: I met yesterday afternoon with the French foreign minister. He's a very pleasant gentleman, and I don't remember him saying the same things about these ideas that you just now quoted. But I understand, and this is very natural, that there are many who prefer negotiations.

I'll share with you my desire. I also prefer negotiations. There is nothing that I'd love to do more than negotiate with Palestinians. This is my desire. This is my dream. This is my mission.

I was elected prime minister of Israel on that sole agenda, that I'm prepared to negotiate with the Palestinians in order to advance further agreements that will lead Israel into a new phase of understanding with the Palestinians, that I will help Israel ultimately have borders that we don't have for so many years, and I will separate us from the Palestinians so that we will live our lives and they will live their lives alongside the state of Israel in their own independent state.

There is nothing that I want more. There is nothing that I will devote my time and energies more than to try and establish the basis for negotiations between us and the Palestinians.

What we said, which was taken and blown out of any proportion, is that if, unfortunately, Palestinians would not mature to the point where they can negotiate with us, largely because their government is a terrorist government and they are unwilling and unable to accept the basic, fundamental principles that were set by the Quartet, by the U.S. president, by the Europeans, and therefore, we may not be able to conduct negotiations, then the question will be, what are we going to do? Wait until the Palestinians will change? How long? One year, two years, three years, five years, 10 years? And in the meantime, what? More terror, more innocent people killed, more victims, more blood, more suffering, more pain?

Or shall we try to do something, certainly not unilaterally, but through negotiations with our friends, with the most important powers of the world, with the U.S. president, with the Europeans, with Egypt, with Jordan? And we'll try to establish a basis upon which an understanding of our future borders can be reached. And that's what I will be trying to do.

BLITZER: The former president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, wrote an article in the newspaper USA Today on Tuesday in which he said this. He said, "It is inconceivable that any Palestinian Arab leader or any objective member of the international community could accept this illegal action as a permanent solution to the continuing altercation in the Middle East. This confiscation of land is to be carried out without resorting to peace talks with the Palestinians and in direct contravention of the road map for peace, which President Bush helped to initiate and has strongly supported." Jimmy Carter strongly condemning any unilateral Israeli drawing of lines on the West Bank.

OLMERT: I have enormous respect for President Carter, who come to visit me every now and then. When he's in Israel, I think some of his statements are different than the ones that he writes when he's far away. But I think that the basic point is this: Shall we negotiate with a terrorist government? I don't know that there is one serious American representative that will advise Israel to sit with a terrorist government and negotiate with them.

I'm proud of your president, President George W. Bush, who has the courage and the determination to lead the world into the fight against terrorists across the world. I share with him entirely this position. And I'm not certain that I share the position, the implicit position, of President Carter that we should negotiate with a terrorist government.

Tsk, Tsk

That's not the way "our" Esther should be learning Kabbalah.

Beggers - Be Choosey

In Israel, we're so helpful to each other.

The little sign under the bigger "Exit" sign reads:-

Beggers ahead.
Please get small change ready.

(Kippah Tip: MR)

Off We Go

Blogging can be a stroll along a tortuous path.

For example, checking the Weddings section of the NYTimes (I find the couples announced so interesting), I found a wedding story and who performed the wedding?

The two were married on May 13 by Rabbi Susan Talve in Graham Chapel at Washington University

.

Curiousity got me and I decided to check out the Rabbi.

I found her here:-

Rabbi Susan Talve

Susan Talve is the founding rabbi of Central Reform Congregation, the only Jewish congregation in the City of St. Louis. She performs life cycle events, leads worship services for the seven hundred plus households that comprise the congregation, and is actively involved in the teaching of young and adult members. She also teaches courses on Jewish life and thought in both the Jewish and non-Jewish community.

A past president of the St. Louis Rabbinical Association, she was ordained by Hebrew Union College in Cincinnat in 1981, where she earned a Master’s Degree in Hebrew Letters.

She also signed the Brit Shalom v'Tzedek petition. Which petition? The one that

demanded that the U.S. government not withhold aid to the Hamas-controlled government of the Palestinian Authority. This petition is BTvS’s response to the Ros-Lehtinen/Lantos Bill, HR4681, which would deny U.S. funds to the PA unless Hamas relents on its commitment to the destruction of Israel and the extermination of the Jewish people.

Her husband seems to be a very interesting Jewish soul.

Okay, my politics and Judaism practices are not parallel to hers but it was this line bothered me:-

"...Central Reform Congregation, the only Jewish congregation in the City of St. Louis."

It's also here.

So, I went to here and found a list of at least two dozen synagogues which purport to be in St. Louis, including the Rabbi's.

So, I'm going to e-mail her and ask if a mistake was made or perhaps I'm not familiar with St. Louis. Is the "City" a specific geographical location, like in London?

Update to be published later.

Defending the Defamers

The anti-Israel Lobbyists have a new defender who writes:-

The nasty campaign waged against John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt has itself provided an excellent example of the bullying tactics used by the lobby and its supporters. The wide attention their argument has received shows that, in this case, those efforts have not entirely succeeded. Despite its many flaws, their essay has performed a very useful service in forcing into the open a subject that has for too long remained taboo.

And this:-

Not since Foreign Affairs magazine published Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations?" in 1993 has an academic essay detonated with such force as "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy," by professors John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Published in the March 23, 2006, issue of the London Review of Books and posted as a "working paper" on the Kennedy School's Web site, the report has been debated in the coffeehouses of Cairo and in the editorial offices of Haaretz. It's been called "smelly" (Christopher Hitchens), "nutty" (Max Boot), "conspiratorial" (the Anti-Defamation League), "oddly amateurish" (the Forward), and "brave" (Philip Weiss in The Nation). It's prompted intense speculation over why The New York Times has given it so little attention and why The Atlantic Monthly, which originally commissioned the essay, rejected it.

He is Michael Massing and he published a long essay here.

And where else?

Oops, Missed My Second Anniversary

My first postings were done on May 17, 2004.

Sorry I forgot to remind myself and you.

A Lot Better than Getting Blown Up

A new message has been delivered to the Arabs of Gaza:-

Gaza Residents Will Gain New Resource for U.S. Programs, Services
Visa, scholarship, other information to be available through interactive website

Washington -- Palestinians in the Gaza Strip with Internet access will have a new resource on May 22 to find out how to obtain U.S. visas, participate in online web chats, and receive other information provided by the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem.

The new Web site is a "virtual presence post" through which U.S. diplomats can reach out to the Gaza community, which is beyond the physical reach of the mission in Jerusalem.

As part of the consulate's efforts to broaden and deepen its engagement with Palestinian people living in Gaza, the Web site will provide information on how to apply for visas and scholarship and grant opportunities in the United States, will also focus on American activities in Gaza and would serve as a medium for dialogue between the consulate and local Palestinians.

For example, officials will field questions on the site from Palestinians living in Gaza on a broad range of subjects each month, in an effort to encourage a positive and vibrant dialogue and to improve understanding between Palestinians and Americans.

Virtual presence posts originally were used by U.S. diplomats to reach out to remote regions in Russia; the program has since expanded to other areas around the world where the American government has no physical presence.

This is so nice. Really.

I mean the last time American diplomats tried to travel to Gaza, you know what happened.

You don't. Read here then.

And What About the Pyramids in Egypt?

The London Times is reporting:-

Pyramid is giant farming clock

THE archeologist Bob Benfer will never forget the moment when he realised that a pyramid he had unearthed high in the Andes was the New World’s oldest alarm clock.

On a barren hillside just north of Lima, he had found an observatory more than 4,000 years old that had been built by a lost civilisation with astonishing sophistication.

The oldest astronomical observatory in the Americas, it told farmers exactly when to sow their crops. Its discovery has provided startling clues to the way in which early man learnt to cultivate his fields.

“I was staring up at a statue on a ridge above the temple and realised it all aligned with the stars — it was an amazing moment,” the bearded scientist said last week.

“This alignment meant that at dawn at every winter solstice 4,200 years ago, key stars would appear in line with the temple and alert priests that river flooding was due and it was time to start planting crops. It was laid out as a wake-up call to the community.”

The 20-acre site is dominated by two buildings. The northern pyramid, which Benfer has called the Temple of the Fox after a painting of the animal, is built around a priests’ platform.

This points at 114 degrees directly to an 8ft tall carved head on a mountain ridge nearly 200ft away. On December 21 each year, just before the local River Chillon starts flooding, a constellation known to Andeans as the fox swings into the sightline. According to Andean myth, the fox is the creature that taught farmers how to cultivate plants.

Well, then what purpose did the Egyptians pyramids serve if they were located in a desert valley?

Shaving To Make Her Happy

Rabbi Mordechasi Eliyahu's weekly portion sheet, "Kol Tzofayich" #356, (which can be read here) contains an episodal anecdote that will twitch your toes.

Incidentally to a discussion on shaving for/on Lag B'Omer, Rav Eliyahu recalls a Talmid Chacham [scholar] who was used to shaving with an electric razor but on the day following his wedding, he stopped shaving. Two days later, his wife asked him, "why aren't you shaving?" and he repleid, "a Chatan [newly-wedded man] is forbidden to do 'Melacha' 'work', and therefore, I am not shaving."

The wife continued, "what type a newly created laws are you making?" and she went to Rav Eliyahu to complain. He asked her, "do you pay special attention to the need for your husband to shave (i.e., is she insistent that he shave)?" and when she replied in the affirmative, he called the scholar to him.

He then told him he is obligated to make his wife happy during the seven day post-wedding period [even though they would not be physical after the first intercourse do to Jewish laws of purity] and that what was meant by a Chatan being free from doing work was for the purpose of making his wife happy and since his wife is happy when he shaves, then he is obligated to do so.

That's a smart Rabbi.

Even DovBer would agree, methinks.

Isn't This a Piece of Mixed-up Writing?

The NYTimes (here) carried this Reuters report (here):-

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike in Gaza killed four Palestinians, including a top Islamic Jihad militant, on Saturday, prompting calls of revenge by the armed group to continue targeting Israel in rocket attacks.

The missile strike occurred hours after Palestinian General Intelligence chief Tareq Abu Rajab was brought to Israel to treat wounds sustained in an explosion in an elevator at his Gaza Strip headquarters.

His ally President Mahmoud Abbas called the blast, which killed one of Abu Rajab's aides and wounded 10 people, an assassination bid.

If confirmed as a targeted attack, it would mark the highest-profile internal assassination attempt in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and could worsen enflamed tensions between loyalists of Abbas's Fatah group and Hamas supporters.

Now, what is the it in the last paragraph referring to - the Israeli air strike or the explosion in the elevator?

I think Reuters should have put out a better-structured piece which would have made things much clearer, at least to me.

More on the Mearsheimer & Walt Business

The report on the Israel Lobby by John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt first appeared as a short version on the Internet at the London Review of Books and there have been letters aplenty.

This latest issue has a letter from someone who claims he was basically misused and the response.

First this from Vol. 28 No. 10
Cover date: 25 May 2006:-

The Israel Lobby
From Philip Zelikow

In their essay ‘The Israel Lobby’, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt invoke comments made by me as evidence for a controversial assertion of their own concerning the motives for the US invasion of Iraq (LRB, 23 March):

Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical . . . The war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure. According to Philip Zelikow, a former member of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and now a counsellor to Condoleezza Rice, the ‘real threat’ from Iraq was not a threat to the United States. The ‘unstated threat’ was the ‘threat against Israel’, Zelikow told an audience at the University of Virginia in September 2002. ‘The American government,’ he added, ‘doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.’

Readers may find it interesting to know what I actually said and how Mearsheimer and Walt appear to have misused my comments.

My talk was on 10 September 2002 at a 9/11 anniversary symposium. I argued that possession of nuclear (or biological) weapons by Saddam Hussein would be very dangerous. Reflecting on my White House work during the Gulf War in 1990-91, I did point out that I believed then, and later, that the most likely direct target of an Iraqi WMD attack would be Israel, but that policymakers had no wish to emphasise this. That said, any US or European government, in 1991 or later, would rightly have regarded an Iraqi nuclear attack on Israel – or on any other country – as a horrific prospect they would do much to prevent.

Neither of these conclusions – that Saddam’s possession of nuclear weapons would be dangerous, or that Israel might be most directly threatened by such weapons – was especially remarkable. These things were understood in 1991. Iraq tried very hard to pull Israel into that war and its politics, ultimately even bombarding Israel with ballistic missiles. The coalition laboured successfully to thwart Saddam and keep Israel out of that war.

None of this, though, bore on the question of what to do about a possible Iraqi WMD programme in 2002. On that issue – whether or when the US ought to go to war with Iraq – I expressed no view in my September 2002 talk, or on any other public occasion during those years.

Nor did I try to explain why the Bush administration went to war, either in 2002 or after the invasion in 2003 or 2004. And in those years I had little special knowledge of those motives. My work on the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (from which I resigned in February 2003) had not involved Iraq.

So how did my views wind up in Mearsheimer and Walt’s essay as evidence that Bush went to war in part for Israel? In 2004, local reports of my September 2002 comments were discovered by the Inter Press Service. To put it mildly, that body has a strong political point of view. It circulated on the web an article headlined ‘War Launched to Protect Israel – Bush Adviser’. Without any evidence other than the old September 2002 quotes, the article’s lead was: ‘Iraq under Saddam Hussein did not pose a threat to the United States but it did to Israel, which is one reason why Washington invaded the Arab country, according to a speech made by a member of a top-level White House intelligence group.’ The claim has bounced around the internet ever since. Mearsheimer and Walt cite this article, which they found in Asia Times Online, as their source for my comments.

The original slur did not deserve a response, but the situation is different when it is repeated by two accredited scholars, and endorsed by publication in the LRB. The claim still has three holes. First, like most of the world, I did think that, if Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons, this would endanger the interests of America and the world in several ways, including the direct threat of a possible strike on Israel. Second, I did not state an opinion about whether this should be a cause for war in 2002-03. Third, I did not state an opinion – or even have any special knowledge – about the motives of the Bush administration in going to war in 2003.

I hope that readers will contrast these points with what Mearsheimer and Walt wrote in the passage quoted above. Readers will also notice that the passage leads with a reference to the ‘Lobby’, of which I am clearly presumed to be a part. There is no evidence for that either.

Philip Zelikow
Washington DC

and then this:-

From John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt

Philip Zelikow claims he did not say in September 2002 that the present war in Iraq was motivated in good part by concerns about Israel’s security. He suggests that our reference to his remarks came from an unreliable source and says we ‘misused’ his comments. He implies that he was talking mainly about the 1990-91 Gulf War, not the US decision to invade Iraq in March 2003. Furthermore, he maintains that he ‘expressed no view’ on ‘whether or when the US ought to go to war with Iraq’. None of these assertions is correct.

Emad Mekay, who wrote the Asia Times Online article we referenced, is a well-regarded journalist who worked for Reuters and the New York Times before moving to Inter Press Service, a legitimate news agency. He did not rely on ‘local reports’ in writing his story, but had access to a complete and unimpeachable record of Zelikow’s talk. He repeatedly tried to contact Zelikow while writing his story, but his inquiries were not returned.

Below are excerpts from Zelikow’s remarks about Iraq on 10 September 2002 (we have the full text). It shows that 1. he was focusing on the possibility of war with Iraq in 2002-03, not the 1990-91 Gulf War; 2. he supported a new war with Iraq; and 3. he believed Iraq was an imminent threat to Israel, but not to the United States.

Finally. . . I wanted to offer some comments on Iraq. . . . I beg your patience, but I think there are some points that are worth making that aren’t being made by either side in the current debate.

The Iraq situation this administration inherited is and has been unsustainable. Ever since 1996 the Iraqi situation has basically unravelled. . . . So then the real question is, OK, what are you going to do about it? How are you going to end up fixing it? And if you don’t like the administration’s approach, what’s the recommended alternative?

Another thing Americans absorb, and this administration especially, is the lesson of Afghanistan. Because remember we knew that international terrorist groups were plotting to kill Americans in a sanctuary called Afghanistan. . . [I]n retrospect, it is perfectly clear that only . . . an [American] invasion could reliably have pre-empted the 9/11 attacks, which relied on people who were being trained in that sanctuary . . . So what lesson does one take from that with respect to Iraq? Well you can see the lesson this administration has taken from that example. And so contemplate what lesson you take.

Third. The unstated threat. And here I criticise the [Bush] administration a little, because the argument that they make over and over again is that this is about a threat to the United States. And then everybody says: ‘Show me an imminent threat from Iraq to America. Show me, why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us?’ So I’ll tell you what I think the real threat is, and actually has been since 1990. It’s the threat against Israel. And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it’s not a popular sell.

Now . . . if the danger is a biological weapon handed to Hamas, then what’s the American alternative then? Especially if those weapons have developed to the point where they now can deter us from attacking them, because they really can retaliate against us, by then. Play out those scenarios . . . Don’t look at the ties between Iraq and al-Qaida, but then ask yourself the question: ‘Gee, is Iraq tied to Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the people who are carrying out suicide bombings in Israel?’ Easy question to answer, and the evidence is abundant.

Yes, there are a lot of other problems in the world . . . My view, by the way, is the more you examine these other problems and try to put together a comprehensive strategy for America and the Middle East, the more I’m driven to the conclusion that it’s better for us to deal with Iraq sooner rather than later. Because those other problems don’t get easier . . . And the Iraq problem is a peculiar combination at the moment, of being exceptionally dangerous at a time when Iraq is exceptionally weak militarily. Now that’s an appealing combination for immediate action . . . But . . . if we wait two years, and then there’s another major terrorist attack against the United States, does it then become easier to act against Iraq, even though the terrorist attack didn’t come from Iraq? No. . . . [A]t this moment, because of the time we bought in the war against terror, it actually makes it easier to go about Iraq now, than waiting a year or two until the war against terror gets harder again.

In sum, it is Zelikow, not us, who is attempting to rewrite history. He was admirably candid in 2002, but not in 2006.

John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt

Things can get complicated.

Jacqueline Rose Snipped

I met (well, sort of) Professor Rose at the last Limmud Conference in Nottingham. I asked what I tried to formulate as a pointed question regarding Jabotinsky, of which I know much, within the context of Rose's book on Zionism which, unfortunately, I know little as I haven't read it but just the reviews and subsequent brouhaha.

Looking about the Web, I found this letter which should be reproduced:-

Questions of Zion

Sir, – May I dispute Nicholas Jacobs’s belief, expressed in his letter (April 28), that Jacqueline Rose, in her book The Question of Zion, makes an "interesting and original" suggestion? Her suggestion was that "suppressed and unmastered Jewish shame at the Holocaust having been allowed to happen" empowers "some Israeli Jews in attacking and demonizing Palestinians".

"Such ideas", Mr Jacobs writes, "surely have to be addressed." Let’s start with the idea that Professor Rose has been original. Her views are standard cant among a certain tranche of bien-pensant opinion. (The word "tranche" is appropriate, since it recalls the "serialization" – Sartre’s term – used by the Nazis in giving temporary privileges to Kapos, who then assisted in the disciplining and destruction of, in particular, other Jews. Mátyás Rákosi’s "salami tactics" in Hungary were of the same order, though Sartre never mentioned them.)

Rose’s "originality" was trumped, with a greater depth of insight and range of instances, by Georgi M. Derluguian in his Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. He demonstrates how not a few of the smaller republics of the ex-USSR reacted to its break-up with the reawakening of violent ethnic self-assertion and irredentism; for example, the Chechens, whose parents and grandparents had been forcibly deported, brutalized and often murdered by Stalin. Who can know whether its quondam satellites’ hostility to Russia was due to the "shame" attributed to Jews or to a version of never-againism?

Jacqueline Rose imputes unique self-centredness and lack of control (a mutation of the old charge against wailing, hand-waving Jews) to the Israelis whom she demonizes. Their "shame" is rather too confidently specified, perhaps because it is integral to her preconceptions. In The Freudian Slip, Sebastiano Timpanaro raised the question of why Freud so regularly "discovered" that bourgeois guilt was exclusively sexual. Might it not just as well have derived from shame at the exploitation of the working class? Smiles at this come a little too quickly.

Elsewhere in the issue of April 28, Desmond M. Clarke praises Descartes’s originality in denouncing formal explanations based on a "redescription of the reality to be explained". The confident search for group or personal motives, based on a single-track ideology, recalls the game of Hemingway’s friends the Murphys, who buried treasure in the sand, so that their children might have the thrill of discovering it. The ideologist, Left and Right, roots out evidence already buried in his/her own theory/religion, and makes out that it is a "scientific" finding with empirical credentials.

Mr Jacobs goes further than Professor Rose, by insisting that Israel "constitutes a lethal danger not only to itself and its perceived enemies, but also to the wider world". Here comes that old "merited" pariahdom attached to the deicides.

The dangling unseen rider is that the Jews were really responsible for (since they failed to stop) the Holocaust and – dangling further down – that since they can’t "master" their own shame/guilt, they are a worldwide menace (led by the Elders of Zion, who else?).

René Girard’s "scapegoat mechanism" does a double job here: it exonerates those who were responsible, one way or another (if only for rejecting Jewish immigration before, during and after the Second World War) and makes the victims deserve their (and Israel’s abandonment. Ken Livingstone’s meta-Freudian slip, when he accused a Jew of having been a concentration camp guard, is another mutation of a very old trick. The Jews can hardly blame anyone else if they will go around massacring themselves.

None of this entails that Israel has never been cruel or crass, or that I am a Zionist (yes, I do notice my own tendency to make a separate peace), but it does suggest why the world is seen to be pink when seen through Rose-tinted spectacles.

FREDERIC RAPHAEL
Lagardelle, 24170 St Laurent-la-Vallée, France.

As I have always maintained, if there is a "Holocaust connection", it is that of the links between the Arabs of Palestine and their leader, the Mufti Haj Amin El-Husseini, and German Nazism including active support for the killing of Jews in Europe and the Palestine Mandate as well as causing enough pressure on British diplomats to effectively keep the Jews in Europe where Hitler was better able to murder them.

Their violence prior to the Holocaust was an enabling factor in the post-Holocaust result of 6,000,000 murdered Jews. Had we only had a state previously, one we have full rights to in the area of the historic boundaries of the Jewish national homeland.

Shades of Mae West

Now that I have your attention -

I saw this item:-

A Palestinian was caught at an IDF checkpoint south of Nablus on Friday, in possession of an improvised pipe bomb that he had hidden inside his trousers.

When searching the man, troops also found four Molotov cocktails and a 20-centimeter knife in his bag.

The Palestinian was detained by security forces for interrogation.

An improvised pipe bomb in his trousers???

What would Mae West have said, other than -

"Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

Well, I wouldn't have been happy to see him at all and I hope they put him away for a long time.

Extradition for Gafni?

Andrew Friedman of Ynet has published this:-

Now that a formal police complaint has been filed against Gafni regarding his latest his behavior as rabbi of the Bayit Chadash community, there is a rare opportunity for religious, civil and political leaders to cut across partisan, and international, lines.

Especially in light of the apparent failure of Haifa police to act quickly on the current complaints, thus allowing Gafni/Winyarz to flee the country, Israel's legal establishment must move quickly and strongly to investigate the matter, and to determine if indeed there is enough evidence to warrant a trial.

On a political level, Prime Minister Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzippi Livni and Justice Minister Chaim Ramon must make clear that they will demand Gafni/Winyarz's extradition from the United States should such a move be necessary to bring Gafni to justice.

Chief Rabbis Yona Metzger and Shlomo Amar should also join the call for a full investigation, especially in light of the corruption allegations hanging over Metzger's head. Their support for an investigation of Gafni/Winyarz would do something to repair the damage those allegations have done to the profession of "rabbi," and would strengthen ultra-Orthodox claims to be concerned for the ethical make up of this country.

In addition, several well-known rabbinic and civic leaders in both the United States and Israel have supported Gafni/Winyarz for years, and consistently defended him against his many accusers. Now, individuals such as Jacob Ner-David, a Jerusalem-based social activist and entrepreneur, U.S. rabbis Joseph Telushkin, Arthur Waskow and others, must join the call for Gafni to be returned Israel to stand trial, should legal authorities find sufficient basis for such. As individuals who have defended Gafni for many years, their names have also now been called into question.

Some items in his commentary are explained here in this additional report:-

Rabbi Gafni accused of sexual assault

Three women file complaint with Haifa police against modern-Orthodox rabbi, claiming he sexually harassed them during Torah lessons, promised to marry them; Gafni meanwhile flees country to US

Three young women in their twenties who reside in the heart of Israel filed a complaint several days ago with Haifa police against Rabbi Mordechai Gafni, claiming he sexually harassed them during Torah lessons conducted at his Jaffa center.

The women's attorney, Tami Olman, told Ynet that the police did not take the allegations seriously, allowing the rabbi to meanwhile leave the country.

Haifa police officials admitted they have collected the complainants' testimonies, in which they claim the rabbi promised each of them separately he would marry her if she had sex with him. Some of the women were Gafni's students.

According to Attorney Olman, the complainants accused Gafni of rape, sexual harassment and indecent assault and notified police that once the rabbi learns of the complaint against him he is likely to try to flee the country. However, Olman said, no measures have been taken to prevent Gafni's departure.

To make matters worse, Olman said that once in the United States, Rabbi Gafni sent a letter addressed to his congregation in which he apologized to its members for what he had done.

In a letter Attorney Olman sent to the officer in charge of the investigation, she stated: "It is curious that the suspect, whom you said there was no hurry to interrogate, confessed to the allegations against him in a letter from the United States, after he fled the Israel Police's 'effective investigation'… the manner in which this affair has been handled does no honor to the police, to say the least."

Olman also said she intends to demand that an investigation be launched against the relevant elements at the Haifa police who neglected the treatment of the complaint.

Chief superintendent of the Haifa police Ahuva Tomer told Ynet in response that although the complaint itself was not filed with the Haifa police, officers at the station were willing to make an exception and collect the testimonies in Haifa, in order to save the women the trip to Tel Aviv.

Dr. Joseph Lerner, O"H

Joe Lerner, Dr. Jospeh Lerner, died last week.

I was well acquainted with him having discussed with him aspects of Hasbara, that mecurial element that Israel never seems to properly grasp and then, within the framework of his assistance to Israel's Media Watch, working together on a few projects. We used to meet either at the office then or at the post office just off Agripas Street.

Aaron Lerner, his son, put out this eulogy that he delivered for his late father and, as I didn't get to make a shiva call (I'm having problems with my right knee), I thought this should be posted here as well:-

18 May 2006

From the eulogy presented by Aaron Lerner at the funeral of his father, Dr. Joseph Lerner, founder and Co-Director of IMRA, last Sunday in Jerusalem:

My father, Dr. Joseph Lerner, was a loving father, friend and colleague.

Though my father held the highest super-grade rank in the United States Government that one could hold without being a political appointee, I cannot recall even once that he didn't have time to spend with us.

For Joe Lerner family came first.

My loving father also was an activists' activist - he wasn't just an eitza
(advice) giver - he was an eitza implementer.

In America, Joe Lerner was, among other things, an adamant media critic - so much so that when my parents made Aliyah, the Ombudsman of the Washington Post wrote a column on the editorial page of the Washington Post titled "Last Call from Joe Lerner" that wished him well in Israel.

Here in Israel my father was an eitza implementer and facilitator: both advising and funding such important projects as: Peace Watch, Israel's Media Watch
and the Association for Missing Soldiers.

And of course - IMRA - a hasbarah project that I have had the pleasure and honor to work on together with my parents over these many years as our shared "hobby".

I thank God that my father had all his intellectual power to the very end.

Just days before he became ill he briefed a group of 36 visiting Swedish journalists in Jerusalem on Arab-Israeli affairs and working with a leading Washington attorney succeeded (after a 33 year effort )for the first time in having the chief executive officers of the top six U.S. oil companies asked at a Congressional Committee hearing about their position on the OPEC Cartel. As a result of their responses, legal action is being considered against them.

It is my fervent hope that we can live up to the sterling example that my father set as a loving husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)

Mazal Tov Ruby & Mindy

Anyone recall Ruby Harris, from the Diaspora Yeshiva Band?

Well, if you're in Chicago, maybe you'd like to go to a Shalom Zachor.

Ruby is an old friend of my wife and I know him, oh, more than 30 years shall we say.

Here's the notice we received:

Mazel Tov!
On Wednesday, May 17 (Motzoi Lag B’Omer) Ruby & Mindy (mostly Mindy) Harris
Had a boy! He’s 8lb, 11oz, very colorful, and sleeps a lot.

The Shalom Zachor is Friday nite at 10 at our house @ 6645 N. California, Chicago.
The Bris is Wednesday at 11:30 at KINS, 2800 W. Northshore (corner of California)
with a meal following.

Sharon, Daniel, Leah, Eden and Benjamin are very excited.
Love, Ruby & Mindy