Alan Dershowitz still doesn't get it

My criticisms here of the piece Alan Dershowitz wrote in the Wall Street Journal appear to be making some waves across the pond. Dershowitz has now written a lengthy defence of himself against me on his JPost blog Double Standard Watch. I had said that he had failed to address the most egregious aspects of Obama's extreme hostility towards Israel, and that this was undoubtedly because, like most American Jews, he was incapable of admitting that a Democratic President could be so vicious towards it.

In his reply, Dershowitz not only shows that he still doesn't 'get it' but also that he doesn't appear to have understood what I wrote.

An Israeli attack on Iran should serve Israeli security, not US timetable

Regardless of the motive, it is former US president George W. Bush who overthrew Saddam Hussein's Sunni regime and replaced it with one led by the Shi'ites, a regime under the influence of Iran. It was Bush, not Obama, who opened the way for an Iranian military presence and threat along the Saudi and Kuwaiti borders. It was Bush who, facing a never-ending quagmire reminiscent of Vietnam finally turned to his main opponent in Iraq, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and asked it to control the Iraqi militias and allow the US to withdraw "with dignity."

Bush, in turn, rewarded Ahmadinejad with diplomatic recognition, a first-ever US interest section in Teheran. Iran, emboldened by Bush's weakness and dependency, challenged US interests in other areas of the region, missionizing in the Saudi Peninsula, in Egypt, and even far-off Morocco. Through its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza Iran took on the IDF in Israel's north and south. If Bush did not directly create the Iranian juggernaut, then he certainly contributed to the emerging confidence Iran displays today in defying American interests in the world and in suppressing its own citizenry.

A late night pitch for Shavuot

I just read a news story where US President Barack Obama said he's a night owl. As opposed to his predecessor, who was known as an 'early riser and usually in bed by 10pm', Obama often stays up past midnight going through a big stack of material he's taken into the White House residence.

This hardly seems newsworthy, but it got me thinking about the holiday of Shavuot, which begins this Thursday night.

Shavuot commemorates the anniversary of the day God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai. According to a story in the Midrash, the night before the Torah was given, the Israelites retired early to be well-rested for the momentous day ahead, but they overslept and Moses had to wake them up because God was already waiting on the mountaintop. To rectify ("Le'taken', in Hebrew) this flaw in the national character, many Jews stay up all night to learn Torah in what is know as Tikkun Leil Shavuot.

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem (Day)

When I was a kid growing up in northern California, I used to collect buttons. You know, the kind you pin on your shirt or jacket with cute little phrases on them like: 'I was crooked, till I went straight' (from my orthodontist when the braces finally came off) or my mom's favorite which simply said: 'Go ask your father'.

When my older sister came back from a summer in Israel she brought me a button with a picture of the Western Wall and its surroundings on it which said in bold letters, "JERUSALEM IS ONE!" Honestly, when I got that pin I had no idea what it meant. I just put it in the shoe box with the others.

This week (Thursday night-Friday) is Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day), but outside the capital, this important day goes by virtually unnoticed.

American appeasement and the Iranian bomb

Saudi King Abdullah took the US president sternly to task over his emerging policy on Iran, Syria and Iraq, accusing him of giving the Islamic Republic free rein for its nuclear, expansionist and terrorism-sponsoring Middle East policies. (Source: http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6012)

In 2003 President Bush invaded Iraq and completely upset the balance of power in the Middle East. Iraq under Saddam's Sunni regime was enemy and deterrent to Iranian hegemonic ambitions. By replacing Iraq's Sunni regime with one under Shi'ite control, Bush removed the single strategic threat, deterrent to Iranian ambitions. With the removal of Saddam, for all practical purposes the Persian threat to the Arabian Peninsula jumped from the Iraqi to the Saudi border.

And, having upset the balance between Sunni and Sh'ia inside Iraq, Bush set the stage for continuing sectarian strife in that country. Under these conditions the US grew increasingly dependent on Iran to control their Shi'ite militias. In the end Bush needed Iran to provide the fig leaf of an apparently successful "surge" which allowed the US to exit the quagmire with at least the appearance of dignity. For services rendered Bush compensated the Iranian president with the long-sought prize of US recognition of Islamic Republic legitimacy: Bush opened a State Department interest section in Teheran bringing to an end America's thirty year policy of containing the threat of the Iranian revolution.

61 more things I love about Israel

Inspired by last year's 60 Things I Love About Israel (also on JPost), without further ado, here are 61 more things I love about Israel.

1. I love that even though I may not have spoken with someone since the Ben-Gurion Administration, he will call me to check that I have somewhere to go for Passover Seder.
2. I love how you can bring your dog into any cafe to walk around and no one bats an eyelash.
3. I love the social norm that allows us to double-dip in peace without neurotic fear of contracting the West Nile virus. Take your Purel bottle and stick it somewhere.
4. I love that you could take a homeless person with no marketable skills, put them behind the counter of Aroma, and they'd immediately be qualified to make a little foam heart in your cafe hafuch [cappuccino].

Dear Senator George Mitchell

The author is head of the Genocide Prevention Program at Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine and associate director at Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem and head of World Genocide Situation Room at GENOCIDE PREVENTION NOW (GPN). The opinions are those of the author alone and do not represent those he is affiliated with.  

Dear Senator Mitchell

I am a medical researcher whose background includes more than 30 years of work in epidemiology and environmental toxicology and injury prevention with Palestinians, Jordanians, and Egyptians and the design and supervision of joint projects in asthma in Gazan refugee camps. I have worked with the US CDC and USAID MERC on these projects. Currently, I am doing work to apply the tools of prediction and prevention to genocide and genocidal terror, with an emphasis on the role of state-sponsored hate language and incitement. Sadly, the wars and terror in the region have compelled me to move from the epidemiology of peacetime exposures to those having to do with genocide, genocidal terror, violence, war and mass atrocities.

Like many Israelis who supported the Oslo Accords, I have been mugged by reality. We have discovered that "land for peace" has morphed into "territory for terror." Like many who have thought long and hard about the troubles in our region, I have concluded that we have to stop talking about "the peace process" - a nebulous term, and use something more binding: respect for life, live and let live and human dignity for all. The "peace process" has resulted in thousands of Israeli and Palestinian deaths.

Israel and the end of Zionism

For the second time in little more than a year an influential Israeli politician appears intent on turning Israel's Law of Return into a political football. This week Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit suggested revising or abolishing the Law. In December 2007, Knesset Constitution and Law Committee chairman Menachem Ben-Sasson decided he would rush a constitution through his committee in time for Israel's Independence Day. A key element of the new constitution was a modification of the Law of Return to conform to Halacha. As if all Jews living today, in Israel and the Diaspora, are Orthodox and share a single set of beliefs, rituals and traditions.

An open letter to Alan Dershowitz

Dear Alan,

We begin by affirming our high esteem for you, both as a legal scholar and a powerful voice against anti-Semitism. We also appreciate that as a parent of a Hampshire College alumnus, you are part of a community that we hold dear. Nonetheless, we are saddened and frustrated by your recent column in the Jerusalem Post and elsewhere and by your many comments in the press, which present information about the actions of the Hampshire College Board of Trustees that is simply not true. Hampshire College did not divest from Israel or take the action it did because of Israel's relationship with the Palestinians or its presence on the West Bank.

India is a wake-up call to the world

Despite the dark mood ushered in by the tragic events of the past three harrowing nights and the strongly condemnable dastardly attacks by the cowards of the narrow-alleys of humanity's bigoted lot on India's gateway of world trade - Mumbai, I remain thankful for many things. First among them is India's strong leadership exemplified by the inspiring and forthright speech by Sardar Manmohan Singh - our beloved Prime Minister!

It is quite easy for anybody - journalists and political commentators in the confines of their cozy drawing rooms, the opposition, heads of states and heads of intelligence - to criticize the rescue operations carried out by Indian forces and denounce them as 'inaction' and  even 'over-action' - but could they have done it better?