The Republic of Dissent

Primus inter pares

From Kevin Jon Heller:

Fortunately — though I know this comes as a shock to the US, which likes to pretend that it is primus inter pares — the US doesn’t get to unilaterally determine whether Palestine is a state. Nor does Israel (and note that that Rice’s “direct negotiations” lament is simply designed to give Israel a veto over Palestinian statehood by continuing to avoid negotiating in good faith).

My suggestion: at all future UN meetings, [Ambassador Susan] Rice should avoid turning her head toward the seat with the State of Palestine placard.  That will make it much easier for her to pretend that more than 70% of the world’s states didn’t recently vote to recognize Palestinian statehood.

Bien envoyé mais c'est plus compliqué !

Women and rape victims

Fascinating point from Merav Michaeli on the case that made international headlines about a case of rape by deception in Israel  which turned out to be false by an 'Arab' of an 'Israeli Jewish' woman:

We women are educated from the beginning not to listen to ourselves, not to believe ourselves and certainly not to believe women who say they have been raped.(...) we should know better. After all, every woman knows on the deepest level that there is no such thing as going up on the roof of a construction site in the middle of the day with a man you just met for wild sex and then lodging a complaint against him.
We must no longer fall into these places. Our only way to protect ourselves from men closing ranks in cases of sexual assault and harassment by accusing the victim of "consent" and vindictiveness is to believe in each other. Always to believe in each other. For each of us to remember the reality of our lives and to know that we are all real victims.
We must have faith in each other that is beyond the shadow of a doubt. That is the true meaning of believing in ourselves.

Own goal

The statement of the day from Gideon Rachman:

It would be a classic Israeli own goal, if their assault on the Gaza ships sank the choices of a new resolution on Iran.

Multifaceted identity question

It's hard for me to dismiss Tony Judt because I respect him even when I disagree with his position. So when he writes the following, it makes me pensive and a little bit uneasy, which isn't necessary a bad thing:

Some years ago I attended a gala benefit dinner in Manhattan for prominent celebrities in the arts and journalism. Halfway through the ceremonies, a middle-aged man leaned across the table and glared at me: “Are you Tony Judt? You really must stop writing these terrible things about Israel!” Primed for such interrogations, I asked him what was so terrible about what I had written. “I don’t know. You may be right—I’ve never been to Israel. But we Jews must stick together: we may need Israel one day.” The return of eliminationist anti-Semitism was just a matter of time: New York might become unlivable.
I find it odd—and told him so—that American Jews should have taken out a territorial insurance policy in the Middle East lest we find ourselves back in Poland in 1942. But even more curious was the setting for this exchange: the overwhelming majority of the awardees that evening were Jewish. Jews in America are more successful, integrated, respected, and influential than at any place or time in the history of the community. Why then is contemporary Jewish identity in the US so obsessively attached to the recollection—and anticipation—of its own disappearance?
Had Hitler never happened, Judaism might indeed have fallen into deliquescence. With the breakdown of Jewish isolation in the course of the later nineteenth century throughout much of Europe, the religious, communitarian, and ritualistic boundaries of Judaism were eroding: centuries of ignorance and mutually enforced separation were coming to a close. Assimilation—by migration, marriage, and cultural dilution—was well underway.

Banning Lady Gaga

It's been a long time since I read an op-ed as superfluous as Bret Stephens's in the Wall Street Journal. Sugary excerpt:

Which brings me back to the settlements. There may well be good reasons for Israel to dismantle many of them, assuming that such an act is met with reciprocal and credible Palestinian commitments to suppress terrorism and religious incitement, and accept Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state. But to imagine that the settlements account for even a fraction of the rage that has inhabited the radical Muslim mind since the days of Qutb is fantasy: The settlements are merely the latest politically convenient cover behind which lies a universe of hatred. If the administration's aim is to appease our enemies, it will get more mileage out of banning Lady Gaga than by applying the screws on Israel. It should go without saying that it ought to do neither.

Stephens shows that some people who have nothing to say shouldn't try to write about important and serious subjects when they aren't able to make valid points without using faulty, but flashy reasoning and without highlighting properly the context.  Stephens's op-ed is ridiculous because he trivialized an important subject to hide the fact that he has nothing to say, that he has no arguments, but just a few die-hard convictions. It's a pity, because better arguments can be used to support his position.

Defending Israel well

Norman Geras on the recent crisis between the US and Israel:

Defending Israel against hateful and slanderous attacks is an almost daily necessity in these times, but I part company with those of Israel's friends unable to see, in the round, where the Israeli government is acting unjustly and against the interests of its own people.

The question that I ask myself is whether it is still possible to be rational on this issue and to focus on the/a just end. I think that it is becoming increasingly impossible. I don't believe that Obama can be a peacemaker here because of the context and because of who he is perceived to be when he is solely a normal president American.

The power and seductiveness of Apocalypse politics

Juan Cole on the new delusion of Ahmadinejad:

Not only is Ahmadinejad the Iranian equivalent of a truther, he is also the mirror image of the Christian Zionists. That brand of evangelicals in the US believes that the establishment of Israel throughout geographical Palestine, i.e. the complete annexation of the West Bank and perhaps the expulsion of its Palestinian residents, will hasten the return of Christ.
Ahmadinejad holds the opposite. It is in his view the collapse of what he calls the Zionist regime and the emergence of a state for all Palestinians, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, that will provoke the Promised One to come. In Shiite Islam, the promised one is the return of the 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, the lineal descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. In Muslim folk belief it is sometimes alleged that when the Mahdi comes, Jesus will also return, and they will join forces to prepare the world for the Judgment Day.

Why do I have the feeling that Iran is going to be a Nuclear state no matter was the US and its allies does? May be it is because there is nothing or rather few things that states can do, no matter how powerful they are collectively when another one who cannot be bribed has decided that it was the right afforded to them by God or whatever else to get a nuclear bomb and even welcomes confrontation for nationalistic or religious reasons,

Manly fights and the obsession with trees

Hum is the only word that comes to my mind when I read this for I feel that Eric Fingerhurt is onto something, but I'm not sure if he is right, though I can say that he isn't totally wrong when he writes this (hat tip: Smuel Rosner):

In fact, the whole Wieseltier-Sullivan episode has served to illustrate an emerging trend among critics of Israel: Their eagerness to allege that they've been accused of being an anti-Semite. I do agree that some of Israel's defenders are too quick to throw out charges of anti-Semitism or "self-hating Jew," and that's lamentable and a problem. But it seems that among many of Israel's critics, claiming that you've been accused of being an anti-Semite has become some sort of bizarre badge of honor. And quite a few of those that have allegedly been accused of being an anti-Semite, according to Wieseltier's critics, either were never smeared with such a term or were only accused of making a specific problematic remark and not tarred with some broad brush of disliking Jews, as they claim.

The one thing I know is that through the Wieseltier-Sullivan episode, it was obvious that when it comes to some issues, people would rather focus on the trees because they they cannot/do not want to see the forest. That is the reason why that episode was so boring to me, because it was a childish and distracting soap opera between two manly men who cannot get over their egos and admit that they have trouble not demonizing people who are not like them.

The Al Jazeera effect

Noah Bonsey and Jeff Koogler on the increasing influence of Al Jazeera on Mideast politics ore especially the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:

For Americans seeking to understand Al Jazeera’s role in shaping public opinion, it is perhaps useful to compare the channel to Fox News or MSNBC. Al Jazeera largely reports the facts, but in choosing which stories to highlight and which guests to invite on regularly, it betrays a certain political perspective. Of course, whereas Fox News and MSNBC operate in a highly competitive media environment, Al Jazeera is the main source of news for a majority of Palestinians and is the most popular television channel in the Arab world. This maximizes its influence. Indeed, Al Jazeera’s dominance of the Arab media makes it a political force unto itself. In no place is this more true than in the Palestinian arena, where it focuses much of its news coverage and where its market share is particularly strong.

No wonder, the Obama administration has chosen to have closer ties with Al Jazeera through   détente rather than conflict and confrontation.

Israel as a European country

I would have taken the following statement seriously if it had come from a political leader other than Berlusconi:

My greatest desire, as long as I am a protagonist in politics, is to bring Israel into membership of the European Union.

Assuming that it were possible, why would Israel join the EU? To be protected by it? Right, let's be serious!

Different realities

The following criticism of Bernard Kouchner (French foreign minister) by Evelyn Gordon,  shows how wide a gap there is between Americans and the French on the Israel-Palestine Question for Kouchner in France is considered to be pro-Israel when here in the US, he is considered as a leftist ideologue who doesn't understand facts and hate force even though he supported war in Iraq, supports the one in Afghanistan and has somewhat of a tough stand on Iran (less tough than Sarkozy's); that being said, I agree that he has been a terrible foreign minister in part because he is too emotive and too willing to take criticisms as attacks on his sublime aura; I have the feeling that Kouchner likes too much the role of the martyr, he liked being the martyr of the socialists throughout much of his career and now he is enjoying being the one of Sarkozysm:

Bernard Kouchner is “hurt” and “shocked” by Israelis’ “vanished” desire for peace. Israelis of all political stripes would undoubtedly be equally shocked at the French foreign minister’s ignorance — and at his willingness to hurl false accusations without even a minimal effort to check his facts. (...) But Kouchner couldn’t be bothered with the facts; he preferred to simply accuse Israelis of not wanting peace. Perhaps it’s his background as a human-rights activist showing: hurling accusations at Israel without checking the facts is practically de rigueur among human-rights organizations these days.

Speechless

I don't know what to say/feel or even how to react when I read this although I know that something isn't quite right, however I'm still thinking about Mary-Kay Wilmers's words and I have to find more about her (hat tip: Norm Geras) :

I just think we get worked up about the wrong things, and there is more wrong on one side. What Cherie Blair said about being a suicide bomber if she’d been brought up in Gaza, I can absolutely see that point.

Ambivalences, equivocations, and simplifications

Bombastic sugary excerpt from a letter written by Vanessa Redgrave, Julian Schnabel and Martin Sherman in the New York Review of Books (Hat tip: Norm Geras):

A group of prominent filmmakers has protested the Toronto Film Festival's choice of Tel Aviv, in its "City to City" section showcasing films from and about a particular city, as "a propaganda campaign on behalf of...an apartheid regime." Their letter declared that the signatories were not protesting against the Israeli filmmakers who were included or their films. Their stand seems to us to be improperly thought out and to have distressing implications.
The protesters use the term "apartheid regime." We oppose the current Israeli government, but it is a government. Freely elected. Not a regime. Words matter.
In their letter the protesters say that "Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages." True. Just as much of America is built on obliterated Indian property. Are they implying that Tel Aviv should not exist? At least not in its present form? Which would mean that the State of Israel (the original State of Israel, not including the occupied territories) should not exist. Thousands of Palestinians have died through the years because the Israeli government, military, and part of the population fervently believe that the Arab states and, indeed, much of the world do not want Israel to exist. How then are we halting this never-ending cycle of violence by promoting the very fears that cause it?

I have the sick feeling that defending just causes too often give people the permission not so much to use words without weighing their meaning, but assertions without verifying their veracity or without caring about their truthiness precisely because they are defending a cause, which they feel is noble. But again, do you have a decent chance to be heard and to make a difference in the current environment if you don't shout, provoke, or are just fanatically/religiously inflexible ? Of course words matter, but so does every little thing that pollutes capital debates by making them about who is good rather than about what is right and what should be done.

It's so easy to divide that it's scary

Well, I just got to go one thing to say after reading this article from Leon Wieseltier, boom boom; no I will say more, is it just me but don't culturalism and ethnicization bring the worst in people?:

Jewish self-hatred is another term for Jewish anti-Semitism, for the internalization of the standpoint of the enemy; and this is a genuinely grave charge. Jews who fling it about for political ends are desperate and disgraceful. And they are some of the same people who are outraged when right-wing African Americans are smeared as Uncle Toms.So I wish to attest--I have placed my hand on my copy of The Zionist Idea--that Rahm Emanuel is not a self-hating Jew. I know this. I have never met David Axelrod, but I am aware of no grounds for the suspicion that he has committed "race treason." (I take that charming phrase, which sounds like it was translated from Treitschke, from David Mamet's thuggish book The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred, and the Jews. Mamet is another one of the Most Jewish Jews of All.) Differing with Benjamin Netanyahu does not yet make you a bad Jew. If Emanuel is a self-hating Jew because he believes that Israeli settlement in the West Bank should finally cease, then I, too, am a self-hating Jew. Perhaps you will agree, friends, that this is not very plausible.

The level of the political debate in America part II

Hat tip Harry's Place

Anticipated catastrophes

David Grossman on life in Israel, catastrophes and the impossibility of long-term planning (hat tip: Norm Geras)

The main theme is the acuteness of life here in Israel. And even if a catastrophe like the death of a son does not befall you, one feels this immediate effect of political events on one's own personality. Many deny this reality, they simply ignore it. But at some point you are caught up by reality -- at the latest when your boys reach puberty, and the shadow of the army starts to fall on them. An international TV program once interviewed a young Israeli couple and asked how many children they wanted to have. The beautiful bride said immediately: "Three." And the interviewer asked: "Why three?" And she said with a smile: "So that if one of them is killed in a war or in terror we shall still have two left."(...) The option of personal catastrophe is connected to the special fate of this country. As I fear for my children, all my life I lived with this fear of what happens if a catastrophe occurs in Israel. The question of whether we shall exist here in the future, whether we will still live here within a few decades time, prevails subconsciously in the mind of most Israelis.

Attention grabber

Ah, ah, ah, and ah:

Say what you like about Nicolas Sarkozy, he certainly knows how to capture your attention.  At a meeting in the Elysée Palace last week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it appears that the French president recommended in no uncertain terms that Avigdor Lieberman, the hardline foreign minister, should be dropped from the Israeli cabinet and replaced with Tzipi Livni, the less abrasive opposition leader.

Powerful narrative, useful resentment, and change

ahhhhh...the beauty of perceived powerlessness:

Most Middle Eastern states have very little incentive to work towards a two-state solution.  Within many Arab countries, domestic resentment can be channeled into anger at the Israelis and symbolic support for the Palestinians.  Why would governments in the region want to turn off that very useful spigot?

The art of discussing complex and explosive subjects

hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm:

Still another obvious reason why one might pick Israel out for particular criticism without, for that, being an antisemite, is that Israel, unlike, say, Sudan, purports to be a member of that abstract community of civilized nations that we call 'the West'. Israel is a product of the Enlightenment: it is a multiparty democracy; it has its own Rousseau Society; it produces books about multiculturalism; it sends contestants to the Eurovision song contest; etc. None of these things is true of Sudan. For better or for worse, this means that Israel is held up to different standards. My questioner wants to know why critics of Israel do not turn their attention to Myanmar or Sudan. I want to say: what a fine comparison class! One may indeed ask how much remains of the decent, liberal, humanist legacy of Israeli society when these are the countries that suggest themselves for comparison.

Something about this line of reasoning bugs me and I just can't put my finger on it, no I can't, I just can't express as satisfactorily as I would like. I think it has to do that the argument starts in the gutter and never gets out of it.

There isn't such a thing as a racist nation

Bradley Burston confesses his biases and his suspicions against Germany in Haaretz. He admits that although that his feelings against Germany aren’t rational, he can’t help, but wonder whether there is something intrinsic within that country, which leads to racism and to genocide:

I have had the true pleasure of getting to know many Germans who have visited and worked here in Israel. I found them to be lovely people, people of humor and intellect and sensitivity, of ethics and good-heartedness. They're no different from anyone else.
Yet, somewhere very deep inside, I still blame their country for what happened to my people. And if I blame their country, I blame them too.
The perceptive will note that in trying not to forget, I have managed not to forgive. Moreover, I don't believe that I am alone in this.
All those years ago, when I was learning to drive, there were adults who insisted that they would never buy a German car, never use a German camera, never fly Lufthansa. "The Volkswagen was Hitler's baby," they would tell me. "Mercedes? The fuhrer rode them in parades. Porsche? Ferdinand Porsche designed the Beetle." (…) I know all this, and yet my suspicion of Germany, my inability to reconcile, remain. They surfaced this week, when I went to see Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others), the Oscar-winning German film, which suggested to me that in some respects the East German regime, formally the antithesis of Nazism, was in fact its direct heir. (…) Is there something cultural about Germany that allowed Nazism to construct a genocide apparatus of unrivaled efficacy? Perhaps. But that is a question for Germans to address.

Unfortunately, too many people felt the way that Burston feels about Germany. After the Berlin Wall feel, Margaret Thatcher did everything that he could to derail the reunification of Germany because she thought that it was a dangerous and bellicose nation. French President, François Mitterrand shared her aversion, and only supported the German Reunification by making a bargaining with Helmut Kohl, the German Chancellor on European integration  to create the common market and a common currency in order to avoid Germany from becoming the only superpower in Europe. I may be incredibly naïve, I don’t think that German racism is different from other kind of racism and although, I believe that countries have cultural tendencies, I don’t believe that they determine their identities. People and culture change and history modifies behavior and societies. I’ve never viewed the Shoah as solely as part of Germany history and as a tragedy for which only Germans are responsible. After all, the Shoah happened because the world allowed it to happen and it cannot be disconnected from the European and the American history of anti-Semitism. After all, few people stood up when the Nazis were taking families from European cities to butcher them in concentration camps. Nations are made of people and although there is such a thing as human nature for after all, human beings tend to repeat certain kind of behaviors, existence precedes essence and the identity of a nation, and people evolve and change as they learn from their experience, their mistakes, and their tragic and horrific history.

Women refugees in Israel

Haaretz has an article on African women who seek asylum in Israel for fear of being persecuted in their home country. The article is fascinating because it shows that how difficult life still is for women in many parts of the world and another side of Israel that is rarely shown. Sugary excerpt:

T. spent a year and five months in Cairo. The day came when she could no longer hold her story in and gave an interview to a Web site that is read all over Africa (allAfrica.com) about the cruelty entailed in FGM [female genital mutilation], which in her view is intended to terrorize women. Two days after the interview was posted on the site she received an e-mail from her husband stating that he knew where she was and would get to her. T. understood that she was in danger and fled to Israel. After her first request for asylum was rejected, she submitted a new one, but even before it could be considered she was rearrested. After being released recently, she is now waiting for a decision to be made in her case.

Voting for a French Fascist

Haaretz published an article last weekend on some French Jews who are tempted to vote for Jean-Marie Le Pen, the French far right candidate, which has argued that the Gas chambers were a small detail of the Second World War history and which believes that Iran is entitled to possess the Nuclear bomb. Daniel Ben-Simon, the author of the article argues that the cause of this vote is the increased anti-Semitic violence and the desire to restrain “Muslim immigration.” Sugary excerpt:

While the state has not admitted to the growth of extremist elements in the Muslim community, Le Pen more forcefully emphasizes his well-known opinions: Muslims, or most Muslims, should go back to their countries of origin. The enemy of my enemy has suddenly become a friend. A Jewish doctor in this picturesque town said a few days ago that many of his friends intended to vote for Le Pen. "Of course, because he is the best for the Jews of France," he said. A friend of his, an economics professor who took part in the conversation, conceded that although things had improved, most of the Jews of Aix-en-Provence would vote either for the right-wing candidate Nicolas Sarkozy or Le Pen. "I have a feeling that Le Pen will do very well in the coming elections," he said.

I don't believe that a sizeable minority of Jews will For Jean-Marie Le Pen for although he has soften his stand on Islam and Muslims immigration in order to attract the vote of French Muslims, but he hasn't never refuted his past views of the Shoah and his members are still notable for their anti-Semitism.

Doubting loyalty

Stephen Pollard is lamenting in the Telegraph that his loyalty to England national soccer football team for its match with Israel tomorrow is doubted simply because he is Jewish:

It seems Norman Tebbit may have been on to something when he identified his "cricket test" in 1990. As he put it at the time: "A large proportion of Britain's Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. Which side do they cheer for? It's an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?" He was questioning the integration of fans who wanted England to lose and were explicitly cheering on the foreign opponents. I'm an Englishman; I want England to win. But I hear echoes of the Tebbit test when people ask me which team I will be supporting when we play in Tel Aviv tomorrow. They are making (albeit unconsciously) an interesting point. They are assuming that, as a Jew, I am somehow not as English as they are. While their loyalty to the team is implicit, mine is - for no other reason than my Jewishness - open to question.

Their assumption is based on the latest incarnation of the medieval trope of the Wandering Jew, renewed in the 20th century in Fritz Hippler's 1940 Nazi film, The Eternal Jew, and in Stalin's labelling of Jews as "rootless cosmopolitans". In such portrayals, Jews remain loyal only to themselves and their tribe, wherever they happen to live, and scheme to undermine the state to their own nefarious ends.

The US and the Middle East

Leon Hadar argues in an article that the US's lack of involvement in the Israel- Palestinian peace process is a sign of the erosion of its power in the region and of its increasing inability to contribute to stabilization of the region.

Olmert and Bush

In an op-ed in Haaretz, Bradley Burston argues that Ehud Olmert has metamorphosed into George Bush. Sugary excerpt:

In the depth of their incompetence, their inability to learn from experience, their jittery insecurity over lack of military background, Olmert and Bush have merged into a force of dangerous impotence.
Together, they have given new meaning to the concept of non-partisanship: no one wants them. In either party. With critical decisions to be made, with the lives of large numbers of soldiers and civilians weighing in the balance, they do as little as possible, change as little as possible, lead as little as possible.

I think that Burston is being unfair to both Olmert and Bush by linking them together when their personalities and political situation are different.

Attacking Iran

Yossi Melman explores, in Haarezt, the possibility and the feasibility of military strike on Iraq either by the United States or by Israel. Richard Perle is quoted in the article as saying, “I have no doubt that if it becomes apparent to President Bush that during his term Iran will achieve nuclear weapons, he will not hesitate to order a strike.” Scary, very scary.

The right to become a grandmother

This story blows me away because it raises important questions about who has the right to decide whether to bring a child into this world. An Israeli court has ruled that Rachel Cohen, the mother of a dead soldier has the right to get the sperm from her dead son in order to impregnate a woman of her choice in order to become a grandmother. While I understand the desire of a mother to want a grandchild from her deceased son, I wonder about the ethics of bringing a child in these conditions especially given the fact that the mother would have never known the father who in turn would have never given his consent.

Being full of it

I just read Daniel Johnson's review of David Pryce-Jones's “Betrayal:  France, the Arabs, and the Jews,” whose main thesis is France's history shows that its foreign policy is pro-Arab because it is anti-Semitic. Johnson’s review which is just filled with grandiose and unreal assertions, which people with no culture would believe to be true because it would difficult for them to imagine that it is possible to make things up and to still be published. Money quote:

Only now, when the country is in the grip of an Islamist jihad, has Chirac acknowledged that anti-Semitism - the existence of which in France he had long denied - is so serious that 'an attack against a French Jew is an attack against France'. It is David Pryce-Jones's great merit to have documented the conflict between this affirmation of the rights of French Jews at home and their denial abroad by French foreign policy. Whether the French public will heed this English indictment of their political class is more than doubtful, but Betrayal should resonate among those for whom Zola is still not a footballer but the author of J'accuse.

Food for thought: Is Holocaust denial just about ignorance?

“Western leaders today who say they are shocked by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's conference this week denying the Holocaust need to wake up to that reality. For the majority of Muslims in the world, the Holocaust is not a major historical event that they deny. We simply do not know it ever happened because we were never informed of it. […]For generations, the leaders of these so-called Muslim countries have been spoon-feeding their populations a constant diet of propaganda similar to the one that generations of Germans (and other Europeans) were fed — that Jews are vermin and should be dealt with as such? In Europe, the logical conclusion was the Holocaust. If Ahmadinejad has his way, he shall not want for compliant Muslims ready to act on his wish.” Ayaan Hirsi Ali, “Why they deny the Holocaust.”

The video du jour: David Duke and the marketing of hate

I watched Wolf Blitzer facing David Duke yesterday and I thought that some things just never changed and I wondered how Blitzer kept his cool. Are we ever going to pass the point when people such as Duke are able to make such hateful claims as the one that Jews control the United States and the media and to find an audience? I doubt that David Duke believes his own claims; I think that as a savvy marketer, he knows that it is still possible today to make money with anti-Semitic propaganda and to argue, as too many people have since the beginning of times, that Jews are secretly ruling the world and are therefore responsible for everything wrong that is happening within it.

Scum on top of scum

“If the holocaust is questioned officially, then the existence of the Zionist regime will also be questioned,” Manuchehr Mottaki, Iranian Foreign Minister.

Unmasking extremists

“Here’s an easy way to tell an extremist on Israel/Palestine issues: Just ask that person if he or she can list at least three terrible errors his/her side has made in this struggle, errors that deserve moral condemnation. If they can’t, chances are that no amount of evidence or moral reasoning is ever going to open their minds.” Michael Lerner, “Thank you, Jimmy Carter.”

Ségolène Royal, anti-Semitism, and Israel

I just read this disturbing (and biased) post on Bullwinkle blog written by Maggie about Ségolène Royal and her supposed anti-Semitism and I think that it shows how easy it is to jump on a French politician without knowing or wanting to know the fact. Contrary to what is implied in the post, the supposed incident had nothing to do with anti-Semitism and the supposed preference of France for Arabs, but it simply had to do with a problem of translation. The French Ambassador to Lebanon who was present when the Hezbollah member of parliament made that hateful remark about Israel and he didn’t leave either, which means that he didn’t hear and more importantly, Ségolène Royal made the strong point that Israel was not entity, but a state, which had the right to defend herself. I would also inform Maggie that during the debate with her socialist rivals, Madame Royal was the only one who was against allowing Iran even to get nuclear energy for civilian purposes because she believed that Iran shouldn’t be trusted given the threats of Ahmadinejad against Israel. The best proof that whoever wrote this biased post on Ségolène Royal just wanted to make a hateful and prejudicial point about the French is that she dined Tzipi Livni last night and met with Ehud Olmert today. Therefore, unless the argument is Livni and Olmert are less concerned about anti-Semitism than Maggie is and that they are, to use an expression, which I despise, self-hating Jews, this whole affair is much ado about nothing.

Ahmadinejad's letter to America

Ahmadinejad loves to write letters, I still haven't finished reading the long, long, long letter he wrote to President last summer, but at least this new letter is shorter and less confusing. He calls on Noble Americans to withdraw from Iraq. Money quote:

Is there not a better approach to governance?

Is it not possible to put wealth and power in the service of peace, stability, prosperity and the happiness of all peoples through a commitment to justice and respect for the rights of all nations, instead of aggression and war?

We all condemn terrorism, because its victims are the innocent.

But, can terrorism be contained and eradicated through war, destruction and the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocents?

If that were possible, then why has the problem not been resolved?

The sad experience of invading Iraq is before us all.

What has blind support for the Zionists by the US administration brought for the American people? It is regrettable that for the US administration, the interests of these occupiers supersedes the interests of the American people and of the other nations of the world.

What have the Zionists done for the American people that the US administration considers itself obliged to blindly support these infamous aggressors? Is it not because they have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors?

My reaction to this letter is that we live in a dangerous for the US when the leader of Islamic theocracy can confidently give lessons of governance to a great democracy like the United States? Has the US lost the moral high ground and if it has, how does it get back because it is imperative for it to get it back if it has indeed lost it.

The end of the cedar revolution?

Juan Cole argues that the assassination of Pierre Gemayel is yet another example of the Bush's foreign policy and of its "dishonest rhetoric of democratization". Money quote:

The problem is that when you crush the Pushtuns of Afghanistan, who traditionally ruled the country, they have means of hitting back (ask the Canadian troops in Qandahar). When you crush the Sunni Arabs of Iraq, who had traditionally ruled they have ways of organizing a guerrilla movement and acting as spoilers of Bush's new Kurdish-Shiite axis in Baghdad. When you crush Hamas even after they won the elections in early 2006, they have means of continuing to struggle.
In Lebanon, Bush egged on the pro-Hariri movement against the Syrians and their allies. Then he egged on Israel to bomb the Shiites of southern Lebanon (and, mysteriously, the rest of Lebanon, too). So he tried to create the March 14th alliance around Hariri as the winners who take all in Lebanon.
So obviously there will be trouble about this. Everything Bush touches turns to ashes, bombings, assassinations. He doesn't know how to compromise and he doesn't know how to influence his neo-colonial possessions so that they can compromise.

I wonder if what is happening right now wasn't unavoidable given the fact that the only thing, which the Lebanon War conflict accomplish was the weakening of the Siniora Government and through it the empowerment of Syria, Hezbollah, and Iran. The problem is that there are no course of action, which can temperate the situation, which doesn't involve the eating of humble pie by the administration. However, we know from experience that humility isn't something, which this administration is good at demonstrating, especially when it still has the ability of framing the debate in absolute terms to avoid making the difficult decision of bargaining with the devil to avoid the explosion of the region.

Food for thought: justifying the unjustifiable

“I had a lot of sympathy for anyone who opposed Israel, (…)I wrote letters to anyone who was tough against the Israelis - David Irving, Paul Findley, the PLO. […] I don't feel I have done anything wrong, to be honest. At the time I was of the belief he [Irving] was anti-Zionist, being smeared for nothing more then being anti-Zionist. […] The pro-Israeli lobby often accused people of anti-Semitism and smear tactics against groups and individuals is well known. I condemn anti-Semitism as strongly as I condemn Zionism (in my opinion they are both racist ideologies). I also believe that anyone who denies the Holocaust is wrong (I don't think they should be put behind bars for it though).” Asghar Bukhari, a founder member of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, a British Muslim civil rights group, defending himself after it was discovered that he sent money to  David Irving, Holocaust denier and urged others to do so.

The video du Samedi: Gay Pride in Jerusalem

I talked at the beginning of the week about the violent protests in Israel against the Gay Pride March, which happened yesterday. Here is a report in Russian and Hebrew about the march, which shows that there was nothing to be scared of. Jerusalem didn't become less of a sacred city because of its Gay Pride, but it became a more tolerant, more accepting and more human one.

The videos du jour: hate, fanaticism, and humor

The first video shows some of the anti-gay pride riots which took place last weekend. The second is a clip from Bill Maher's show real time in the summer at the time when the gay pride march was supposed to take place (it was postponed due to the Lebanon war).  Both clips show how religion can be used to excuse the inexcusable and to justify hate and violence.

Gay pride and Israel

There is going to be a gay pride in Jerusalem this week if the Israelis authorities or its organizers don't bow down to pressure and to threats of violence of extremists groups. Throughout the weekend, ultra Orthodox Jews have rioted to protest the forthcoming gay pride and the decision by Israel's Attorney General not to forbid the march. They have allied themselves with Christian and Muslim leaders to deplore the fact that gays are allowed to march in one of the holiest places on earth. To me that the fact that some argue that a gay pride march is too sinful for Jerusalem is disturbing because it implies that being gay is tantamount to being dirty and unholy. Yair Sheleg made this unconvincing and disturbing point in an article in Haaretz:

...what is important now is not necessarily cancellation of the parade, but some gesture from "the community" to indicate that it recognizes the special nature of Jerusalem, the nature of its public domain which differs from that of Tel Aviv, and the need to consider the feelings of those who oppose the event. For example, a public expression of limits that parade organizers will impose on themselves, or the replacement of the parade with a rally, or the relocation of the event to the government ministries complex.

Ellen Horowitz went further in the Jerusalem Post in arguing that tolerance is leading to tyranny and is forcing decent people to accept the unacceptable. Money quote:

IT WAS always cute when one of my young children would jump out of the bathtub and run around the house naked with underwear on his head. But it's a pathetic, tragic and obscene display when a fully-grown adult demands the right to do the same in public.

Regardless of its internal agenda, the pride movement's peculiar parades have successfully reduced self-expression and freedom to nothing more than a promotion of voyeurism, hedonism, narcissism and exhibitionism.

Homophobia is a misnomer, because we're not afraid of the gay community - we're afraid for them.

Homosexuals, lesbians, and gender-confused individuals face an unusual and complex battery of challenges. They're deserving of our understanding, involvement and support. But the gay pride movement's agenda, with its brazen militant approach to sexuality and political/social issues, arouses more outrage than sympathy from a lot of us.

Enforcing the principles of I'm OK, you're OK and letting it all hang out may be acceptable for San Francisco; but being self-aware, a little self-conscious and in awe of where one is standing is the appropriate way to approach Jerusalem.

It is always sad when the only way when a group of people which faith and religion usually separate come together because of hate or rather because their common intolerance. The most important question that this issue poses isn't really one of tolerance, but one of humanity and its relationship to the sacred. It is impossible to argue that gays are citizens like everyone else and then to argue that by their expression of their rights, no matter how eccentric, is a provocation. Israel is not a theocracy. It is a democracy and in democracy, there shouldn't be any second class citizens.

Gay Bashing in Israel

Many people protested against a gay pride parade, which is going to take place in Jerusalem. But of course, the facts that people don't think that gay should march in the streets isn't a surprise given that the same thing has happened in cities such as Moscowand Johannesburg. However, what I found outrageous are the arguments used by the protested especially one of them, Moshe Sternbush who is the head of the Eidah Hareidit Rabbinical Court:

We must protest against the filth [coming to] Jerusalem[...] (the march) could lead, Heaven forbid, to the death of tens of thousands... We don't need a public inquiry to know why the war in Lebanon occurred and why we failed: Because of the abominations in the Holy Land.

It is always sad to realize that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are not the only people to point the finger at gays and others for the failures and the catastrophes of the whole society.

The photo du jour: Moshe Katsav and disgrace

Who is the man standing next to Colin Powell? Moshe Katsav, the president of Israel who is involved in a sex scandal who is threatening his presidency. He may be indicted of rape and of sexual assault of two women who worked for him while he was the minister of tourism. In Israel, the president has few powers, but plays an important moral and ceremonial role. Can a man who is accused and who may be indicted for a crime as disgusting as rape can remain at the head of the State of Israel? My answer would be no. It is true that Katsav has insisted on his innocence and that he must be given the benefit of the doubt, but given the moral aspects of his function, he should do the right thing for Israel and resign.

Food for thought: The Shoah and "Arabs"

“Yet when Arab leaders and their people deny the Holocaust, they deny their own history as well -- the lost history of the Holocaust in Arab lands. It took me four years of research -- scouring dozens of archives and conducting scores of interviews in 11 countries -- to unearth this history, one that reveals complicity and indifference on the part of some Arabs during the Holocaust, but also heroism on the part of others who took great risks to save Jewish lives.

Neither Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to Holocaust victims, nor any other Holocaust memorial has ever recognized an Arab rescuer. It is time for that to change. It is also time for Arabs to recall and embrace these episodes in their history. That may not change the minds of the most radical Arab leaders or populations, but for some it could make the Holocaust a source of pride, worthy of remembrance -- rather than avoidance or denial.

The Holocaust was an Arab story, too. […] Arabs welcomed Jews into their homes, guarded Jews' valuables so Germans could not confiscate them, shared with Jews their meager rations and warned Jewish leaders of coming SS raids. The sultan of Morocco and the bey of Tunis provided moral support and, at times, practical help to Jewish subjects. In Vichy-controlled Algiers, mosque preachers gave Friday sermons forbidding believers from serving as conservators of confiscated Jewish property. In the words of Yaacov Zrivy, from a small town near Sfax, Tunisia, "The Arabs watched over the Jews."” Robert Satloff, author, “Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands.”

The photo du jour

The pic shows Condi Rice meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni yesterday in New York. There is something, which both fascinating and perplexing about this photo. I just can't put my fingers on it.

Belated and meaningless Regrets

Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, admitted yesterday that he regretted kidnapping the two Israelis soldiers and starting a war, which only destructive both the Israelis and Lebanese people. For Nasrallah’s regrets to become meaningful, he must learn from his “mistake” and change the nihilist’s view of Hezbollah, which makes its militants believe that having the destruction of Lebanon is worth a draw or a not only fruitless, but bitter victory against Israel. The problem is that politics isn’t always about facts and reality, but about passion and idealism even when they are destructive.

Giving up or Growing up?

Michael Totten tells us that Israel has finally realized that it can't disarm Hezbollah with force. Is this realization going to lead it to implement a new strategy, which may be political unpopular in the short-term, but more effective in the long term or rather to continue the same old strategy in the hope that its ineffectiveness leads to a more spectacular failure? John Robb from Global Guerillas gives us some idea of what future wars will look like and by reading his post, it is easy to understand why winning a war against organizations like Hezbollah will get more complicated and why new and more innovative strategies are necessary.

Chirac did the right thing, will the French haters admit it?

The New York Times titled one of its editorials a few days ago “Waiting for Jacques” and today, Jacques Chirac not only came but he did the right thing. He increased the French presence in UNIFIL from a ridiculous 400 to 2000. So I am waiting for those who bashed France by talking of surrender and of cowardice to recognize the fact that Chirac has done something that needs to be praised and that France's decision to become a significant part of UNIFIL no matter how it came about was moral and responsible. So to all the French bashers, do you have the guts to admit that France is a great country or  does your courage limits itself to mock the importance that France place on finesse and complexity? I am waiting for Kevin Drum and Captain Ed to have some good things to say about France now.

Food for thought (II)

“Israel is often thought of, in the West, as an unhinged fanatically right-wing country, like the U.S. on speed. Israel is far more ‘European,’ though, than it is ‘American.’ If Israel were not constantly under fire and constantly embroiled in conflict with eliminationist enemies, Israel would resemble a Jewish France or even Sweden of the Levant. The country was founded by democratic Labor Party socialists, and only rather recently has become more capitalist and complex.” Michael Totten

Because I could not stop for Death...

Apparently, Michael Totten was right, today is just another Tuesday and not doomsday. Israel still exists and the world doesn’t have to brace itself for Armageddon. Well, we still have a few more  hours to go before the day is over, but I have the feeling that because Israelis and the rest of us have so much to live for, Death took a vacation, and Armageddon is for another day. I am not ready to die until the Sox pay back the Yankees by sweeping them at Yankee stadium. More seriously, why are people so prone to believe in the end of the world? Do they really think that there is another life after this one? Well they are wrong, this world is all that we got so we better fix it and make the most of the time that we have.

Food for thought

“I am about to let you in on a few secrets, but I'm far from sure that this is the smartest thing I can do. In fact, it may be one of the dumbest. Because I can tell another story when the war is still in the background and so wrap up another week, then wait for things to return to normal and go back to dealing with marginal matters like racism, discrimination, xenophobia and the difficulty of coping as an Arab in the Jewish state. [...]  it's like this: I was against the war, but after it started I wanted the army to lose, or at least not to feel victorious. My hands tremble as I write, but in this war I was against Israel - make no mistake - my country. This has nothing to do with the other side, it has nothing to do with what I think about the side that fought in this round against the IDF. It's true that I would prefer that the IDF, that the State of Israel lose without the consequence being that soldiers die. I would like to see it lose in arm-wrestling. Rows of tables in which soldiers from both sides sit and arm-wrestle. I would prefer a loss by penalty kicks.” Sayed Kashua.

“Uri, my love. All your short life, we have all learned from you, from the strength and determination to go your own way.[...]You were the leftie of your battalion and you were respected for it, because you stood your ground, without giving up even one of your military assignments ... won't say anything now about the war you were killed in. We, our family, have already lost in this war. The state of Israel will have its own reckoning ...

Uri was such an Israeli child; even his name was very Israeli and Hebrew. He was the essence of Israeli-ness as I would want it to be. An Israeli-ness that has almost been forgotten, that is something of a curiosity. And he was a person so full of values. That word has been so eroded and has become ridiculed in recent years. In our crazy, cruel and cynical world, it's not 'cool' to have values, or to be a humanist, or to be truly sensitive to the suffering of the other, even if that other is your enemy on the battlefield.

However, I learned from Uri that it is both possible and necessary to be all that. We have to guard ourselves, by defending ourselves both physically and morally. We have to guard ourselves from might and simplistic thinking, from the corruption that is in cynicism, from the pollution of the heart and the ill-treatment of humans, which are the biggest curse of those living in a disastrous region like ours. ” David Grossman writing about the Death of his son Uri in the Israeli-Lebanon Conflict in The Observer.

It isn't Surrender, it's local politics : France, UNIFIL, and Lebanon

France has declined to contribute a high number of troops to the UNIFIL, the UN force, which is going to make sure that the cease-fire holds as required by resolution 1701. The problem with the French refusal is that they were one of the sponsors of this resolution and that they signaled they would be willing to play a major role in the policing of the cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel. Captain ED argued that this is just another French surrender, and writes that, "Since World War I, the French have shown a great capacity to demand action and little stomach for providing it. In this manner, they mirror almost perfectly the UN itself." He is of course wrong for I believe that the French ambiguity has more to do with politics than with perfidy or cowardice. Chirac is very weak politically. Next year, the French will choose a new president (it is almost a certainty that Chirac won’t run and even if he did, he would lose). Chirac used all of France's diplomatic might because he could do it since he had public support. The problem with contributing a large number of troops is that many soldiers may die and that Chirac, the comatose Villepin government, and the French right would pay a heavy political price, which could cost them both the presidential and the legislative elections. What Chirac is trying to do by arguing that there isn't a clear mandate that would make the UNIFIL effective is to get some cover by forcing the UN either to give it more power or to accept France's refusal. Things may change if this decision becomes unpopular in France and if a consensus is then developed in the French political class, which makes it clear that it is in the national interest of France to send more troops to Lebanon. Such a consensus would depoliticize the issue and make sure that if a tragedy were to happen, it would used to make the political point that the Right's foreign policy is unrealistic and ineffective. The ironic is that Chirac is in the same position as President Bush in his own country, he has moral clarity, but no moral authority as Tom Friedman would say.