Not a typical week in Israel

What's on our agenda this week?

• Israel's 60th anniversary.
• Intelligence officials are saying that various Palestinian groups are planning a major incidence of violence to spoil the celebration.
• George W. Bush is scheduled to come. We'll have to stay off the roads.
• Condoleezza Rice is already here, demanding that we be nicer to the Palestinians.
• Palestinians are seeking international help for their insistence that Israel recognize the pre-1967 borders as the starting point of any decisions about borders between the two countries. They are also saying that Israel does not allow the Palestinians to acquire enough weapons in order to show that they can govern themselves; and that Israel is wrong in coming into their cities in order to seize people it suspects of wrongdoing.

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Better late than never

The Secretary General of the United Nations has condemned Palestinians for directing their rockets against Israeli civilians, and Israel for a disproportionate response.
 
Both condemnations are appropriate. Israel's response is disproportionately light. Seven years ago the IDF should have begun sending one artillery shell into a neighborhood of Gaza for every missile that landed in an Israeli settlement.
 
Better late than never.
 
The operation began with the killing of a student at Sapir College, alongside Sderot, and the use of more accurate and powerful missiles that began landing in the city of Ashkelon. Those missiles came to Gaza from the international market, through the Sinai and nominal Egyptian control of Gaza's southern borders.

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A campaign that sizzled

We began reading in the press last week about the IDF's preparation for a Palestinian effort to break through the border from Gaza and into Israel. This was against the background of their destroying the southern border crossing, and pouring by the tens of thousands over several days into Egypt.

Palestinian aspirations were for upwards of 40,000 school children and others to join hands in a human chain from the southern to the northern boundaries of Gaza. The purpose was to call international attention to the suffering of Gaza under the Israeli blockade. Organizers said that it would be a peaceful demonstration, but the Palestinians themselves said that some groups were planning to break through into Israel.

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Laws of God vs laws of Israel

We have some relief from the Iranian president calling us a filthy germ that must be destroyed, the continued fall of rockets on Sderot, residents' demonstrations in behalf of greater protection, and mounting pressure for an operation in Gaza.
 
A member of Knesset turned our attention to earthquakes. Recent quakes have been minor. But we are on the edge of the Syrian-African rift, and there is a history of major quakes.
 
Shlomo Benizri's explanation of earthquakes is homosexuality. He urged the Knesset to debate how to end sexual relations between men, and thereby prevent earthquakes.
 
Benizri has been minister of health and minister of labor and welfare, and is prominent among the 12 member delegation in the Knesset of the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party SHAS.

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Prospects for Palestinian state gloomy

Two groups of Israelis should be celebrating the problems of their antagonists. There is not necessarily an overlap between them, but the coincidence warrants some discussion.
 
The largest group of Israelis that can celebrate is that which does not want a Palestinian state. The Palestinians have created two tiny enclaves, pretty much at war with one another.
 
The Gaza portion, under the control of Hamas, seems inclined to attach itself to Egypt for supplies, but the Egyptians are showing traditional coolness. They have erected one kind of barrier or another between themselves and the Palestinians of Gaza since 1948; and now the antipathy is made even greater by the Hamas regime and its affinity with the Muslim Brotherhood. It is those chaps we frequently see in courtroom cages while being tried for one or another kind of rebellion against the Egyptian government.

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The Gaza theater

You have probably seen pictures of families in Gaza sitting in the dark, and heard of five or more patients who have died in hospital due to the lack of electricity, as well as many thousands who are hungry.
 
It is a lovely campaign, that has already brought demands for Israel to stop the embargo of supplies to Gaza. The calls come from within Israel as well as from Europe and Arab governments, the United Nations, and humanitarian organizations.
 
The problem is that the image of suffering is in large part bluff, created by Palestinians who are exploiting an opportunity to obtain sympathy and support. Electricity continues to flow to Gaza from Israeli and Egyptian sources. Overall power is less than normally available, insofar as Palestinian officials are not using fuel still available to supplement imports of power with their own generating station. According to Israeli sources, there is enough electricity to allow the functioning of hospitals. The people who have died when life support has been shut off should be recorded as involuntary suicides for the sake of Palestine. They were killed by Palestinians in pursuit of public support.

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Ceasefire? What ceasefire?

"Wow!" is the only response possible to a headline from news.walla.co.il. "Fatah Threatens: We Will End the Cease Fire with Israel."
 
I had not noticed that there was a cease fire.
 
It did not seem like a cease fire when a gang of Palestinians, members of one of the several security forces supposedly directed by Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas, killed two Israeli hikers three weeks ago. Nor is it a cease fire that brings the IDF into cities of the West Bank, presumably controlled by Fatah, to deal with people wanted for violence against Israeli civilians.
 
Further down in the same article was the news that Abbas was threatening to resign as President of the Palestine National Authority, and end the peace process if Israel did not stop attacking fellow Palestinians in Gaza.
 
Does this mean that Israel should accept more than 50 missiles per day fired at its civilians, and not take any action?
 
Yesterday there was a report that Abbas complained to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and said that President Bush's dream of peace in the Middle East was in danger because of Israeli attacks. The report, from Palestinian sources, said that the Secretary of State would pressure the Israelis to stop the attacks.

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Virtual negotiations

I am ambivalent about writing this note.
 
One reason is that I might be wrong.
 
Another reason is that, whether I am right or wrong, or even partly right, what follows may add to the reputation of Jews as being slippery and somewhat deceitful.
 
Part of me says that is all right. Jewish history has taught us to use our brains to avoid trouble. Israel's condition is not enviable. Our enemies are vicious. By comparison, slippery and deceitful are admirable qualities.
 
My purpose is to explain, to myself and others, what is happening in the peace process.

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Arguing in favor of settlements

Once again American officials are pressing Israelis to limit the construction of housing for Jews over the pre-1967 border, and to dismantle existing settlements, especially the "illegal" ones established without the approval of the Israeli government. Without those actions, according to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others, Israel will not build confidence among the Palestinians. The lack of Palestinian confidence will threaten the peace process.

Some time ago, an American friend asked me to summarize for him the arguments in favor of the settlements.

There are no good general arguments. The devil is in the details. In my view, Israel had a right to settle, if only to pressure Palestinians and other Arabs who refused for years after 1967 to negotiate the future with Israel. Some settlements are too large and established to consider giving up. Holding others is more difficult to justify.

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American vs Israeli healthcare

If there is anything of value that I have learned in more than 40 years of studying public policy, it is the value of simplicity. If it is not simple, it probably will not work as advertised.
 
There is no better demonstration of this than the mess of health insurance provided to Americans who think that they are insured. In other words, a serious problem is not only in the 15 percent or so who have no insurance. It is in the case of who knows how many Americans whose health insurance is too complicated for those who need to benefit from the coverage.
 
One manifestation of this appears in a recent New York Times article that follows the plight of a social worker whose job is to help clients sort through their bills and the demands of care providers, pharmacies, medical laboratories, and hospitals, plus the insurance companies and government programs that are supposed to pay some of the costs under definitions too complex for many mortals. Those who suffer most are the old, poorly educated, people unfamiliar with the language, and in need of care. 

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