The toxic context of 'the Israel debate'
We have become so used to it we take it for granted, but one of the great scandals of modern politics is the way Palestinian negationism and terrorism have been facilitated by the UN and championed by the left, cloaking lethal desires to wipe out Israel in the language of human rights. Moreover, as Professor Shalom Lappin of Kings College, London testified to Britain's All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry Against Anti-Semitism, which issued its report September 2006:
This inaccurate, Manichean misreading of the conflict encourages
perverse behavior. Again and again, institutions violate their own core
ideals. Again and again, the blinding bias against Israel obscures
facts, precedents, common sense itself. Note how the libels get recycled. The UN's bias against Israel legitimizes the Muslim Student Union protest - which escalated into shouting and hooliganism, resulting in eleven arrests. Let's mobilize against anti-Israel week
We historians don't predict the future - the past is foggy enough. But
allow me one prediction. Within weeks, the Jewish world is going to be
in high dudgeon, outraged at the Anti-Israel Week activities on
campuses across North America. And, judging by the past, and the
current situation as far as I know, we will shift into temporary crisis
mode, reacting and overreacting, flailing about with little discipline,
little coordination, little strategy, little tactical gain, but much
frustration. Celebrate Green Zionism this Tu B'Shvat
Tu B'Shvat, the Jewish Arbor Day, is this Shabbat, January 30. When I
was young I preferred Israel's Independence Day because we received
blue-and-white cookies rather than yucky figs and carobs, known by the
aggressive Yiddish name "bokser." But educators should distribute
blue-and-white cookies along with Israeli fruit because Tu B'Shvat
celebrates Israel - and Zionism. The world only recently discovered
environmentalism, yet Jews have a deep relationship with nature, while
Zionism resonates with the environmental ethic. Tu B'Shvat is our
annual opportunity to show just how "green" the "blue and white"
sensibility is. Unhappy Obamaversary
A year ago, on January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was the avatar of American hope, the 'yes we can' man, promising to redeem America - and the world. A year later, his election to the presidency remains his greatest accomplishment. But his anniversary comes during a slump. His first Christmas in office was ruined by al Qaida's attempt to down a commercial jet, mocking his efforts to end the war on terror. His first New Year's Day in office marked the passing of a deadline he imposed on Iran as it gallops toward nuclear status, which the mullahs contemptuously ignored. And his first anniversary is coinciding with the stunning loss of what Democrats arrogantly called "Ted Kennedy's seat" to a Republican upstart. The Massachusetts mess reflects a national problem. Polls show independent voters abandoning Obama on an unprecedented scale, even as Democrats still support the rookie president. Anglos enraged over Galilee rape - are others numb?
My December 27 post "Galilee Rape Crisis Tests Us All" told about a teenager from Karmiel brutalized in Kishon jail. I hoped that Israel's leaders and citizens would inspire me to write a "happy ending" follow-up story - or as happy an ending as can be to a story of police brutality and incompetence, violent prisons, repeated gang rape and a 17-year-old having his ear pierced with a copper wire to mark him as his tormenters' sexual slave. Over the last two weeks, I have been moved by the love and generosity that has woven a web of caring, linking fellow Jews in Montreal, New York, Ra'anana and Jerusalem with this family in Karmiel. But I am disgusted by the Israeli bureaucracy's indifference. And I am saddened that too many of the Israeli offers of help have come in English, not Hebrew. Many in the Anglo-Israeli community are furious about this incident, which risks becoming a defining "anti-aliya" story, one that makes it harder to encourage people to move to Israel. For this family that moved from Miami full of idealism, with an older son serving in the IDF, the dreams of "Exodus" have soured into "Midnight Express," Israel-style. Their teenage son was not only physically and psychologically brutalized, they themselves feel brutalized by the system, wherein, among other insults, the police are insisting their 17-year son is actually 18. Many Anglo-Israelis identify with the family, understanding that the teen's newness to the country complicated the story. This is every Anglo immigrant's worst nightmare, with whatever traumas of dislocation being magnified exponentially by this ultimately preventable - yet increasingly familiar - mix of inexcusable police incompetence and vile, violent criminal behavior. Also, this scandal is being exposed because, with American-style standards for the criminal justice system, we - and the family - won't accept the police striking a boy on the head (especially having been warned he had suffered a previous head injury), or incompetently sending him to prison with hardened criminals. Still, the pain runs deeper than this one family's anguish. The Western aliya is an idealistic, voluntary immigration of people who often risk standard of living to improve quality of life. Israeli society's growing violence - and the growing indifference to the violence - threatens the quality of Israeli life which attracted these modern-day pioneers to the historic Jewish homeland. To be pro-Ahmadinejad is to be anti-peace
History is dynamic, not predetermined. There are crossroads in the life of nations, and 2010 could be such a moment for Iran. With the international community looking weakened and the rule of international law being mocked, this could be the year the Iranian nuclear project passes its point of no return, and this ugly repressive regime is strengthened. Alternatively, in 2010 the Green Movement of Iranian students and dissidents could save the world - and the Iranian people - from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's grip. People of conscience throughout the world cannot stand by. We can make a difference, we must make a difference. That was the theme of an extraordinary press breakfast held at the King David Hotel in the final days of 2009, just short of US President Barack Obama's deadline for the Iranian mullahocracy. Professor Irwin Cotler, the human rights champion, Canadian Parliamentarian and former justice minister and attorney general, presented his "Responsibility to Prevent" petition demanding the international community fulfill its legally mandated responsibility and punish Ahmadinejad's Iran for inciting to genocide, sponsoring state terrorism, illegally pursuing atomic weapons, and oppressing its own people. Cotler denounced the "culture of impunity," whereby Iran has defied international law. He said Iran presents "a clear and present danger to international peace and security, to Middle East stability, as well as to its own people" - and must be sanctioned. An impressive array of human rights activists and jurists reinforced Professor Cotler's detailed, tightly-reasoned legal plea. Professor Suzanne Last Stone of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law noted this was "not a policy matter, but a legal obligation." The countries of the world have signed treaties obligating them to act against these crimes with "specific remedies." Calling in from Boston at 2 a.m., Professor Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard Law School emphasized that "The crime has already been committed," saying "This it the time, this is the moment, this is the true test" for the international community. "History will judge us all," Professor Dershowitz warned, if we are silent, and thus "complicit in this evil." Galilee 'rape nightmare' tests us all
The Jerusalem Post recently featured a sickening story about a 17-year-old from Karmiel arrested for public urination who was beaten by the police, then brutalized in prison, enduring repeated rapes and having his ear pierced with a copper wire to denote his enslavement to his tormentors. The youth's family, who made aliya from Miami three years ago full of idealism, is devastated. "We came with a dream," the victim's stepfather said. "We were prepared to work in a tomato field if we had to. But now we are absolutely going to leave." The heartbroken mother asked, "How could this happen in Israel?" Yes, sadly, horrible things can happen in Israel. It is a normal state; a modern, increasingly anonymous society with police who can overstep the bounds, with overcrowded and undersupervised prisons, and hardened criminals who can be unspeakably brutal. Such a tragic chain of circumstances could have happened in Miami or Madrid, let alone Moscow or Mumbai. But acknowledging the sad realities of modern life that occasionally conspire to ruin individual lives is not enough. This horrific incident poses a challenge to every Israeli citizen and every Israeli leader. So far, the Post reported, the only official comment came from the Justice Ministry's Police Investigations Department whose spokeswoman declared, ever so blandly: "We have received the complaint. An investigation has been launched." The rules of modern society require such passive, non-judgmental, bureaucratic-speak from the "responsible authorities." Police officers also deserve due process, the presumption of innocence, and an opportunity to defend themselves properly without being convicted hysterically in the court of public opinion. Still, just as the punishment this youth suffered did not fit the crime, the official sentiment expressed does not suit the sin. Every person who hears this story and cares about Israel should compensate for the bland bureaucratese of this representative of the state, and try to help this family heal. The onus is on us to improvise an uniquely Israeli response to try healing this family's broken hearts, making them feel they are absolutely going to stay. And this has to be done while respecting the family's anonymity, allowing their suffering son the space he needs to recover physically and psychologically. Branding the '00's: Israel's decade of death and disengagement
As we approach 2010, we should say good riddance to this past decade. For Israel, this decade began with great hopes of peace that Palestinian suicide bombers blew to bits. What quickly became a Decade of Death ends on an upturn, as a Decade of Disengagement. On January 1, 2000, thrilled that their TVs and computers worked despite Y2K Millennium Bug warnings, millions welcomed the new decade watching a seemingly inspiring scene in Bethlehem. The Palestinian Authority celebrated what reporters called "a new dawn," by releasing 2000 doves into the air. The doves were probably pigeons. And the fireworks shot off immediately thereafter terrified the birds. Many plunged to their deaths in Manger Square to the sounds of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy." Ma'ad Abu-Ghazalah, a Palestinian-American witnessing the scene, noted the irony that the birds' value as symbols of peace caused their deaths. Bethlehem residents responded: "The PA doesn't respect its own people! Why do you expect them to respect a few pigeons?" Nine months later, Yasser Arafat's PA showed even more contempt for its own people - and its neighbors - by launching what Palestinians called "the Intifada," and what we should call Arafat's War of Terror against the Peace Process. With Arafat's War in September 2000, terrorism became one of the decade's defining forces. In a cruel betrayal that still haunts Israel, the world blamed Israel for the Palestinian turn from negotiations to terror - and condemned every Israeli response to the violence. Even worse, for months Israel failed to protect its citizens on the streets and in cafes, on buses and at bat mitzvahs. The violence peaked in March 2002, when terrorists slaughtered 134 innocents, including 30 celebrating a Passover Seder. Israelis remember the sick feeling from those days, desperately calling in loved ones after each massacre, guiltily relieved that it was someone else's life that had been shattered - this time. Can we stop being so polite about anti-Semitism?
On Wednesday, 490 parliamentarians, diplomats, government officials, activists, academics, community leaders and clerics from 50 countries gathered at the Knesset for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' two-day Global Forum against Anti-Semitism. While unhappy about missing two days of Hanukkah vacation with my kids, having attended two previous Forums I know I am going to enjoy myself. I will meet interesting, insightful idealists, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who care about fighting injustice. I will reunite with friends from the earlier conferences. We will eat lavish dinners, listen to compelling presentations, and hopefully make useful suggestions. Still, I will feel guilty. Fighting anti-Semitism should neither be so much fun nor so routine. I understand that an event hosting dignitaries must be elegant, and the Foreign Ministry under the leadership of Aviva Raz-Shechter and her under-funded Department for Combating Anti-Semitism do a great job hosting. But as we politely follow academic and diplomatic protocols at our sessions and cocktails, I will occasionally think of a beheaded Daniel Pearl, a tortured Ilan Halimi, rotting in their graves. Daniel Pearl, a 39-year-old, Stanford educated Wall Street Journal reporter, was kidnapped and slaughtered, his head cut off and his body hacked into ten pieces by Islamists in Pakistan in February 2002. Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old French salesman, was kidnapped in January 2006 by an anti-Semitic gang, tortured for three weeks, then dumped with burns on 80 percent of his body, which he did not survive. I will also remember the hundreds of Israelis murdered by Palestinian suicide bombers perverted by the torrent of harsh anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli images emanating from Palestinian mosques, Palestinian leaders and the Arab media. And I will recall Elie Wiesel's teaching during the Palestinian terror wave that sometimes, the most rational response to evil is anger. The double double standard
Allow me a personal note - I hate this topic. I take no joy in pointing out the ugly anti-Semitism afflicting our world today. That the problem is so serious it merits an inquiry of Canadian Parliamentarians violates the post-Auschwitz covenant the world made with the Jewish people after the Holocaust - and into which I was born in 1961. This was supposed to be yesterday's problem, a stale relic of the old world in Europe. And yet, today, in the New World of the Americas, too many (not all) Jews feel tense on campus, especially if they dare to be pro-Israel. Today, in the New World, my kids - and others - have had to pass through security guards or other elaborate security systems to enter their Jewish day schools, in Westmount, in Cote St. Luc, otherwise among the world's safest neighborhoods. Today, in the New World, synagogues have been defaced, graves desecrated, people harassed, for the sole crime of being Jewish. So, I thank you for taking the time to explore this problem. I wish you not only Godspeed but real speed. Please complete your work quickly, solve this problem clearly, and make your commission and this whole topic irrelevant, anachronistic - an unpleasant ghost from the past - as swiftly as possible. Alas, it won't be so easy. Although this commission has not even issued any recommendations, you are being falsely accused of squelching genuine criticism of Israel and support for Palestinians by invoking the powerful pejorative term "anti-Semitism." Your critics want us to believe that we cannot distinguish between being critical of Israel and anti-Semitic. They hide their ugly bigotry behind some of the noblest impulses in Canada and the world today, namely the fight against racism. Too many anti-Semites today cross the line while obscuring the line, camouflaging rank bigotry, an aggressive Jew hatred, behind a smokescreen of human rights rhetoric. |
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