Hypocrisy!
Dear Ms. Trine Lilleng, You were an unknown Norwegian diplomat till this month. No longer. As first secretary in the Norwegian Embassy in Saudi Arabia, you recently sent out an email on your office account in which you declared: "The grandchildren of Holocaust survivors from World War II are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them by Nazi Germany." Accompanying your text were photos, with an emphasis on children, seeking to juxtapose the Holocaust with the recent Israeli military operation in Gaza. Clearly, you are miscast in your role as a diplomat, all the more so of a nation that has sought to play a mediating role in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Shame!
There's an interesting juxtaposition this month. As Israel pursues its military operation against Hamas, preparations are under way around the world for Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27. The two are not disconnected. Israel's policy should be scrutinized like any other state's, and the loss of any innocent life should be mourned. But some of Israel's fiercest critics go far beyond the limits of what might be termed rational debate. They have obscenely tried to turn the Holocaust on its head, portraying Israel as committing Nazi-like crimes - the ultimate libel against the Jewish state. Take Hamas at its word
There's the story of the mother determined that her five-year-old child should one day be headed for a top college. She decided to pump him with new vocabulary words at every opportunity. When little Charlie came home from school one day, his mother promptly asked, "Charlie, what's the difference between ignorance and indifference?" Totally uninterested, he shrugged his shoulders and muttered, "I don't know and I don't care." At times, that's the sense I get about today's response to Hamas. It's as if there is an ignorance - perhaps a willful ignorance, perhaps just intellectual laziness - about what Hamas, which rules Gaza, really means. No, it is not just another political party in some far-off place, but something far more ominous. Why Israel had no choice
Israel's military operation against Hamas targets in Gaza should have come as no surprise. The handwriting was on the wall. No more than any other country, Israel could not tolerate a terrorist regime on its border that was launching repeated rocket and mortar attacks - 200 in the last week alone - against Israeli towns and villages. Some context is needed. Israel, which entered Gaza in 1967 after a successful war of self-defense, left the region unilaterally in 2005. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced down strong domestic opposition, indeed active resistance, to remove Israeli troops and civilians. He announced that Israel had no claims on Gaza and wished to see it become part of a peaceful Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. This was the first chance in Gaza's history for its residents to govern their own affairs - something too many of Israel's detractors conveniently forget. Immediately prior to Israel's presence, Gaza had been under Egyptian military rule for two decades, during which there was never, not for a moment, discussion of independence. Ten worst news stories of 2008
This year, it wasn't difficult to identify candidates for the worst new stories. The challenge was limiting them to ten. Here's my list: An ethical meltdown An Israeli prime minister compelled to leave office, on the heels of an Israeli president who was obliged to leave his post under a cloud in 2007, sent another disturbing message that all is not well in Israeli politics. The Bernie Madoff story, embodying greed and fraud to the Nth degree, inflicted more harm this year on the Jewish world than all of our external enemies combined. And the front-page stories on the accusations against Agriprocessors, the kosher meat plant in Iowa charged with massive labor violations, triggered shock and embarrassment. For a people whose mission statement puts a moral code front and center, clearly, there's remedial work to be done. Targeting Jews - again
Once again, Jews have been targeted simply for being Jews. This time, the victims were in Mumbai. Though some in the media were slow to identify what should have been obvious - the New York Times speculated that it might have been an "accidental hostage scene"- they weren't killed randomly. They were sought out in a carefully planned operation. The jihadist murderers were looking for Jews, and found them. A window into Israel's soul
If all we knew about Israel came from the media, which seems to have an aversion to upbeat stories, how would the country be portrayed? Images of war, conflict, corruption, and domestic fault lines would dominate. And if all we knew about Israel came from international organizations, which make a habit of singling it out for vilification - especially each November, when Israel's very creation becomes an annual target for its enemies at the UN - what would we see? A nonstop litany of accusations of every conceivable evil known to humankind. For many, these are the only sources of information about Israel. A Jewish political platform
It's election season. So it's the perfect time to set forth my political platform. It's the platform I'd present if we had, let's call them, Jewish elections. First, let's get really serious about seeking to engage young Jews. Birthright has been an extraordinary success. But alone, it can't carry the Jewish future. We need to retool from top to bottom. We need to find language with which to speak to young Jews, too many of whom are drifting off the reservation. Strikingly, many are seeking community, spirituality and connection, yet claiming they can't find it in the Jewish world. How unfortunate! It's all there, but sometimes too opaque, too unreachable, too diluted. Leaders and leadership: Is something missing?
It's become an energizing habit of mine to attend the annual Summer University organized by the European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS). Hundreds of young people from across Europe gather in a picturesque spot for a week of studying and socializing. This year, I addressed the students on the subject of leadership. When I asked them to identify individuals currently in the public arena - elected officials, moral voices, persons of conscience - whom they admired, there was a moment's silence. Then came a torrent of names. But when put to a vote, only four people enjoyed any widespread support. Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama ranked at the top, followed by Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. Why are Palestinian refugees different from all other refugees?
Why indeed? Tragically, there have been countless refugees in the annals of history. Many have fled political persecution, religious harassment, racial or ethnic targeting, or gender or sexual discrimination. It's happened in just about every era. In the twentieth century alone, tens of millions of refugees, if not more, were compelled to find new homes - victims of world wars, border adjustments, population transfers, political demagoguery, and social pathologies. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne codified the population exchange of Greeks and Turks, totaling more than 1.5 million people. Ancestral homes were wiped out on both sides. |
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