Trump, be a mentsh

Posted on November 18, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

I spent almost all of Tuesday in Jerusalem. It was a lovely day, the bus and light rail connections were quick and convenient, and – thanks to getting off the light rail at the wrong stop – we walked through the Arab market in the Old City for the first time in years. My wife and I went to the Kotel (the Western Wall), and walking back to the city center we happened to pass the American Consulate at 18 Agron St. It made me think.

Although the Consulate provides services to Americans who live in Jerusalem and Judea/Samaria (and Gaza, if there are any Americans there!), its main mission seems to be to serve as the contact point for the US and the Palestinians. Its website touts cultural and educational opportunities for Palestinians only. Indeed, it has been called the “American Embassy to Palestine.” Its mission statement makes this clear:

The U.S. diplomatic presence in Jerusalem, first established in 1844, was designated a Consulate General in 1928. It now represents the United States in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip as an independent mission, with the Consul General serving as chief of mission. We also provide services to American citizens in this district. [my emphasis]

18 Agron St. is on the western side of the Green Line, in the part of Jerusalem that has been under Israeli control since 1948. One would think that a better location for an “Embassy to Palestine” would be in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority. But there it is, in western Jerusalem.

The US State Department does not think any part of Jerusalem, eastern or western, belongs to Israel. As explained in the link, this dates to General Assembly resolutions passed in 1947 (181) and 1949 (303), which called for UN administration of Jerusalem as a corpus separatum. Such resolutions are non-binding, and so far from reality as to be meaningless today. It would at least make sense for the State Department to insist that ownership of eastern Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations between Israel and the PA under the Oslo accords; but the stubborn refusal to admit that Israel is sovereign in western Jerusalem is ludicrous. And the Obama Administration has more than once gone to great lengths to avoid saying that any part of Jerusalem is in Israel.

But it is even worse than that. ‘Palestine’, which is not a state and does not have any claim to western Jerusalem (and only an aspiration to eastern Jerusalem), has a de facto US Embassy there; the real state of Israel, whose seat of government is in Jerusalem, is not permitted to have one. No other country has had its capital denied like this. Only Israel. Only the Jewish state.

The US Congress tried to remedy the situation by passing the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 which states that the embassy should be moved to Jerusalem “no later than May 31, 1999.” Every six months hence the President can ask for a waiver if it is “necessary to protect the national security interests of the United States.” As everyone knows, Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama all regularly availed themselves of this provision. It isn’t clear why making the Palestinians mad would damage US national security, but three presidents at least pretended to think so.

Interestingly, the law also says that it US policy that,

(1) Jerusalem should remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected;

(2) Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel;

But the administrations – especially Obama’s – have not abided by these provisions either. The waiver provision specifically applies only to moving the embassy, so it appears that the administration is in violation of the law by maintaining the corpus separatum policy. Unfortunately, no penalty was legislated, and nobody will arrest them.

Donald Trump, who promised during his campaign that he would move the embassy like all the other presidents since Clinton, has a historic opportunity to end this charade. As in other similar situations – for example, the Temple Mount – the Palestinians establish a precedent by blackmail and actual violence, and then transform the subsequent capitulation into a status quo. From them on, a violation of the status quo becomes unthinkable.

But if anyone can think the unthinkable, it’s Trump. Today support for the Palestinians in the Middle East is at a low ebb, and repercussions would be minimal. All he would have to do is not request a waiver and instruct the State Department to go ahead with the move. It would be interesting indeed to listen as those opposed try to explain or justify their opposition. They certainly can’t do it with appeals to law or logic.

Those who argue that it is a practical necessity to keep the embassy where it is to appease the Palestinians don’t understand them. Nothing short of unconditional surrender can appease the Palestinians. Concessions don’t bring peace, but rather terrorism and demands for more concessions. The best way to reduce violence is to resist blackmail and insist that the world recognize the true narrative, rather than Palestinian fictions.

The truth is that Jerusalem is our capital and has been the capital of Israel since her founding, and has been in a sense the capital city of the Jewish people for thousands of years, whether we controlled it or not.

Trump has a chance to rise to this occasion, end the hypocrisy of three administrations and become a hero to the Jewish people. He can and should affirm his administration’s support of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, and fulfill all of its provisions, both in policy and by his actions.

Don’t miss this opportunity, Mr. Trump. Be a mentsh.

Posted in Israel and Palestinian Arabs, US-Israel Relations | 3 Comments

The Tribe of Barack

Posted on November 16, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

News item:

On Monday, the American Jewish Committee and the Islamic Society of North America launched the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council, a group of religious and business leaders from both communities who will help draft domestic policy legislation and advocate on issues of shared concern.

The ADL is planning to increase its efforts to provide support for legal and legislative efforts in the fight against anti-Muslim bigotry.

And the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Muslim Leadership Initiative, which educates young Muslim leaders about Judaism and Israel, held a retreat over the weekend titled “Living in Trump’s America: Muslim Vulnerability and Jewish Echoes.”

“What’s happened as a result of the poisonous atmosphere that Trump has created is that American Muslims are desperate for allies,” said Yossi Klein Halevi, the Muslim Leadership Initiative’s co-director. “And the argument that MLI has made to the Muslim community — which is that the Jews are, at least in theory, natural allies for embattled Muslims — now has become compelling.”

This isn’t just a bad idea, it’s a terrible one. Here’s why:

  1. Although there certainly are cases of “anti-Muslim bigotry” (still far fewer than anti-Jewish ones), organizations like ISNA tend to characterize any criticism of Islamic ideology as “bigotry,” and lump it together with aggression against Muslims, vandalism of mosques, and so forth. This undercuts arguments against Islam as an ideology, and delegitimizes those that make such arguments. The islamophobia.org website, for example, lists Daniel Pipes, Steven Emerson, Zuhdi Jasser and many more who are critical of the ideology (but do not hate Muslims) as “well-known Islamophobes.” Insofar as this cooperation lends authority to this characterization, it weakens our ability to describe and combat the anti-Western jihad.
  2. Today’s Jew-hatred, especially that which comes from the Left and on college campuses, has metamorphosed into anti-Zionism, where the Jew Among Nations replaces the individual Jew as the target. Insofar as anti-Zionism is almost universal among Muslims, it will become harder for the Jewish partners to oppose what is called “the new antisemitism.”
  3. Most importantly, as Halevi makes explicit (but is certainly implicit in the AJC-ISNA initiative), it is highly partisan. It is clearly a reaction to Trump, and will be perceived as anti-Trump. It’s part of the “resistance” to Trump that the disappointed Left is already engaged in. Is it really a good idea for the American Jewish community as such to place itself in direct opposition to the administration before it even takes office?

I’ve written a lot about American Jews, specifically the liberal non-Orthodox community. The majority have always been ambivalent about Zionism and Israel. Until recently, they fiercely held to the belief  that they are not discriminated against in America and are perfectly safe from anti-Jewish violence. J Street’s Jeremy Ben Ami, said back in 2009 that his young staff is “baffled by the notion of ‘Israel as the place you can always count on when they come to get you.’” Ben Ami and staff are still doing their best to force Israel into an indefensible corner, but I wonder if they would still be “baffled” today if asked whether they worry about someone coming to get them.

Anti-Jewish expression has exploded since Ben Ami made his remark, both from the Left where Students for Justice in Palestine and similar groups have tried to intimidate Jewish students, and the Right, where the so-called “alt-right” has waged a vicious (but entirely virtual) social media campaign aimed at Jewish journalists and others, putatively in support of Donald Trump, but becoming an end in itself.

So far there has been very little actual anti-Jewish violence in the US. But especially with the advent of the alt-right, many liberal Jews are fearful (or at least saying that they are fearful) of violent anti-Jewish behavior. Some have taken to heart the accusations of Trump’s opponents that he is too tolerant of anti-Jewish elements among his supporters, that he will elevate them to positions of power, or even that he is anti-Jewish himself. Those that are panicking to the point of thinking about fleeing the country tend to think more about Canada than Israel.

These Jews, as my wife put it, have long since decided what tribe they belong to, and it is the Tribe of Barack [Obama], not the Tribe of Jacob. So it is natural that they find common ground with Muslims, who have been trying for some time to be seen as a persecuted minority and who now may actually be becoming one. The arrangement benefits the Jews, who can now congratulate themselves on their tolerance (even for those who hate their homeland), and the Muslims, who can raise the profile of “Islamophobia” in order to attain their objective of making it impossible for anyone to criticize their ideology.

Liberal Jews will fight “Islamophobia” tooth and nail even when it doesn’t exist, as the ADL has been doing for some time. But I doubt the Jewish members of the Advisory Council will find the Muslims there for them when it comes to anti-Jewish (and especially anti-Israel) activity from Muslim sources.

The crunch will come the next time Israel finds it necessary to defend herself from aggression, either from Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, or the PLO. The Muslims will demand that their Jewish allies join them in condemning Israel as a criminal state that should never have been established, and the liberal Jews will have to choose between their new friends and the tiresome Israelis, who as usual have brought it all on themselves by not surrendering to their enemies. Does anyone doubt where the members of the Tribe of Barack will stand? I don’t.

But the Tribe is making a mistake. As a Diaspora community, safety lies in keeping a low profile and getting along with the people who hold the real power. Jews in America have fooled themselves into thinking that they are like anybody else. That they have a right to speak out. That they have a right to become prosperous and even to obtain some power for themselves. That they have a right to be left alone.

It’s an illusion. American Jews are caught between an increasingly anti-Jewish Left and an openly Jew-hating alt-right. The golden age of American Jewry is over, and the tenuous existence that Jews have known for centuries, living as guests in someone else’s home, has returned. Living in the Diaspora means always being dependent on the good will of your hosts. It means that Jewish prosperity and safety are contingent. The structures in Diaspora society that have protected individual rights (at least those of middle-class whites) will continue to work until they don’t, and when they stop working, the Jews will be the first to find out. A tiny minority (less than 2%) of Americans are Jewish, and a tiny minority can’t dictate to the majority. Muslims are even fewer. Best to avoid the “resistance” and try to be on the side of the majority.

Does this sound like living in the Diaspora implies that you must compromise your self-respect? That is exactly what it means. Liberal Jews backed and admired Obama despite the Occupy movement’s anti-Jewish slant. Now discretion would call for them to back Trump despite his alt-right supporters. Will they? Probably not, but it would be the safest strategy.

There is actually another solution. Why continue living in the Diaspora where your existence is contingent, you lose your self-respect, and you end up making coalitions with the enemies of your people? This was the argument of the 19th century Zionists, and it’s an even better one today when there is a Jewish state.

Posted in American Jews, American politics, Jew Hatred, Zionism | Comments Off on The Tribe of Barack

President Trump

Posted on November 11, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

It’s Wednesday morning, and the American presidential election has just been decided. Honestly, I didn’t expect this result. I didn’t underestimate Trump’s appeal, but I failed to realize just how much the voters disliked Clinton. Of course working-class people overwhelmingly chose Trump, but I think many others – Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans – who would have voted for Hillary couldn’t stomach the tawdry revelations of influence-peddling by the Clintons. “If it’s between a shithead and a Secretary of State who sold out her country, I’ll take the shithead,” said a friend.

So much for my very unprofessional analysis – the professionals will be dissecting this election into the future, as they did with the Brexit vote, and Menachem Begin’s 1977 upset victory in Israel (not to compare Trump with Begin)!

This election will be of great importance to Americans in countless ways. But what does it mean for Israel?

The only real answer is “who knows?” Trump is not famous for consistency, and he will be learning the rules and the players as he goes. But a position paper on US-Israel relations released last week by his “Israel Advisory Committee” was remarkably positive. Among other things, it makes clear that Trump would not support any efforts to impose a solution on Israel and the Palestinians via the UN; it calls for “defensible borders” and rejects pressuring Israel to “withdraw to borders that make attacks and conflict more likely;” and it states that

The U.S. will recognize Jerusalem as the eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish state and Mr. Trump’s Administration will move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

Yes, they all say that. But maybe he is the first to mean it. The document is not signed by Trump and it isn’t clear if its authors will have positions in his administration. But it is certain that his intentions will be tested quickly.

One litmus test will be whether he will stand up against the State Department’s irrational and anti-Jewish position that no part of Jerusalem belongs to Israel, move the embassy, and issue an order that State shall recognize (at the very least) western Jerusalem as an integral part of Israel. If the embassy move does not begin within the first 100 days of his administration, it will signal that we should not expect much from Trump on other matters.

Now would be the time to take this step, when the conservative Sunni Arab states are minimally hostile to Israel and when plentiful oil has made their economic influence in the US ebb. Trump would be missing an opportunity to improve relations with Israel and congressional conservatives if he does not take advantage of this.

Regarding Iran, the document calls for the US to “counteract Iran’s ongoing violations” of the nuclear deal with new sanctions, but does not – as Trump has said he would – repudiate it. The Obama Administration appeases Iran time after time because the unsigned ‘deal’ is its baby, and would be embarrassed if the Iranians publically denounced it. But it isn’t part of Trump’s legacy. He owes the Iranian regime nothing.

The Obama Administration, since its inception, has fed friendly media with suggestions that Israel and in particular the Netanyahu government, is responsible for the continuation of the conflict with the Palestinians. It adopted the phony “pro-Israel” J Street organization as a favored voice among Jewish organizations, inviting it to the White House while spurning groups like the Zionist Organization of America. If the document is even partially representative of Trump’s thinking, the anti-Israel psychological warfare campaign will lose its impetus. Had Clinton been elected, it is unlikely that any of the above would have changed.

Either Barack Obama personally hates Bibi Netanyahu, or he found it useful to pretend antipathy in order to achieve his goals. Either way, his disrespect and even contempt for Israel’s Prime Minister – which he expressed on numerous occasions – damaged relations between our nations and reflected badly on the American presidency itself. Trump has no reason to behave this way.

Americans concerned about the lack of recognition of the jihad, both military and psychological-political, being waged against the West and its values by radical Islam have been boiled like the proverbial frog in the pot for eight years. Regardless of his precise positions on the relationship between America and the Islamic world, Trump’s rejection of political correctness and limitations on speech will be a breath of fresh air for discourse about the Middle East. After two terms of Obama-speak, one has to look forward to Trump’s more direct language.

It is generally thought that Barack Obama will take some kind of action in the lame duck period which begins today to bring about an Israeli withdrawal from the territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Trump’s victory doesn’t make this impossible, but it may be that Obama will be less likely to do something that clearly goes against the spirit of the wishes of the American people. Trump may be able to embarrass him by publicly asking him to refrain. If Obama does go ahead, it will be proof positive of his bias and hostility – just like another former president, Jimmy Carter.

As with any president – in fact, even more so because of his relative inexperience and (one must admit) ignorance of foreign affairs, a great deal will depend on Trump’s choice of confidants and advisors. And I expect that he will become more serious and careful as the mantle of responsibility settles on his shoulders.

This election campaign was viciously fought, certainly more so than any other in my lifetime. I don’t recall an election in which candidates were accused of murder and rape! Trump’s success as President or lack thereof will be felt throughout the world, and especially here in Israel. And that will depend on both sides understanding that the campaign is over, and that from here on it’s necessary and appropriate for them to work together for everyone’s good. Trump made a good start in his victory speech. Now it’s up to his opponents.

Posted in American politics, US-Israel Relations | 2 Comments

The Reform Movement vs. Bibi Netanyahu

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal
Non-Orthodox rabbis and Women of the Wall at the Kotel, 2 November 2016. Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the URJ is the tall man near the center; to his left is Anat Hoffman.

Non-Orthodox rabbis and Women of the Wall at the Kotel, 2 November 2016. Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the URJ is the tall man near the center; to his left is Anat Hoffman.

Last week saw a protest by Reform and Conservative Jews, both American and Israeli, in support of the Women of the Wall, at the Kotel (Western Wall).  The demonstrators were protesting the fact that an agreement that the government, the Women of the Wall and the non-Orthodox movements in Israel reached ten months ago had still not been implemented. The agreement would have enabled women-only and mixed-gender Torah services at Robinson’s Arch, a location at the southern end of the Kotel near the archaeological park. But the government has not fulfilled the deal due to pressure from the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties in the coalition.

The protest was led by American rabbis Rick Jacobs of the Union for Reform Judaism, and Steven Wernick of the United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism, as well as Yizhar Hess of Israel’s Masorti (conservative) movement. Jacobs is by far the most important player; the URJ is the 800-pound gorilla of American liberal Judaism with about 750,000 members.

The rabbis and others carried sifrei torah (Torah scrolls) into the women’s section where the Women of the Wall held a service in defiance of the rules of the Orthodox authorities, which do not allow women to carry or read from Torahs. According to participants, they did not expect to be allowed into the plaza in front of the Kotel with the Torahs. But they easily pushed past ushers and entered, where they were confronted by counter-protesters.

Although there was no bloodshed, the level of violence was higher than at previous confrontations, and the presence of officials of the American non-Orthodox movements (who were in Israel for a meeting of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors) raised the profile of the event. The sight of some Jews (video) trying to tear sifrei torah out of the hands of the others was highly disturbing. At one point, Hess was knocked down by counter-demonstrators.

I am a member of a Masorti congregation in Israel, and I believe in egalitarian worship. I believe that women should be allowed to hold and read from sifrei torah. They do it every Shabbat in my synagogue. I think the government should keep its word and implement the agreement to make a place for mixed worship at the Kotel. But I think my movement made a serious error when it chose to participate in this demonstration. I believe the Masorti movement – and the Women of the Wall as well – have been co-opted into a struggle whose goals are primarily political, anti-government and even anti-Zionist.

For some years the URJ has been engaged in a campaign, which it presents as analogous to the American civil rights struggle, to make Israel more ‘democratic’ and ‘pluralistic’. The goal in Israel is to obtain government financial support for alternative forms of Judaism, where only Orthodox institutions now receive such support, to allow their conversions and marriages to be recognized, and so on.

Although only some 8% of Israeli Jews are affiliated with non-Orthodox synagogues, probably a majority would not object to ending the ultra-Orthodox monopoly on everything related to Judaism. It is not an exaggeration to say that this monopoly is one of the most corrupt, hypocritical, unproductive and undemocratic institutions in the state. It seems reasonable for the Israeli branches of the non-Orthodox movements to try to change the government’s policy in their favor.

But a campaign is also being waged in the US, aimed at American Jews. Here it has two goals: first, to pressure the Israeli government to act on behalf of the non-Orthodox movements in Israel; and second, to embarrass the government and PM in order to achieve the political goals of the Obama Administration in the US, to which the URJ is closely tied.

Consider that the URJ President, Rabbi Jacobs, had an activist role – more than just a membership – in the phony “pro-Israel” J Street, and the extreme left-wing New Israel Fund before taking office, although pressure from pro-Israel elements forced him to put these activities on hiatus when he became president. In addition, Jacobs proudly described his participation in a demonstration against the Jewish presence in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem in a Yom Kippur sermon delivered at his congregation (details can be found here). When the Council of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations voted to not admit J Street as a member, the URJ threatened to quit. More recently, the URJ chose not to take a position on President Obama’s Iran deal. Rabbi Jacobs and other spokespersons for the movement are solidly behind the two-state fantasy.

Jacobs has made it clear on several occasions that he and his organization have the right, indeed the duty, to try to change Israel in order to make it better fit their vision of what a Jewish state should be.

The Women of the Wall are now led by Anat Hoffman, an organizer employed by the URJ. Although the group’s original goal was to get the rules changed to allow a woman-only minyan to pray in the women’s section of the Kotel with sifrei torah, Hoffman and the movements broadened the demands to include mixed-gender services, and negotiated the move to Robinson’s arch. Phyllis Chesler, a member of the original group referred to this development as a “betrayal of our mission, our legal and halachic foundation, our mandate, our vision.” Hoffman has also used confrontational tactics, which attract publicity to her cause, but harden opposition from the Orthodox.

The language used by URJ spokespersons in the US is highly inflammatory. Israel – not just the Orthodox establishment, but the PM, the government and by extension the nation as a whole – is accused of “delegitimizing” the non-Orthodox community throughout the world (and especially in America). The presentation of the issues as a civil rights struggle was eagerly accepted by American liberals, for whom the civil rights movement of the 1960s is still at the forefront of their consciousness.

I recall an American Reform Jew angrily telling me that he would never again support Israel in any way after his rabbi gave a sermon comparing bus lines in Haredi neighborhoods where women were forced to ride in the back, to the segregated south. A woman who objected was called “the Israeli Rosa Parks.” Never mind that these buses created outrage in the non-Haredi community and that the Israeli Supreme Court outlawed the practice. That was it for this man as far as Israel was concerned!

The controversy over a proposed law about who will be permitted to officiate over conversions in Israel (conversions overseas were not affected) was also taken up as a cause by the URJ, as was a law to require foreign-funded NGOs to report the sources of their funding, and a proposal to define the “Jewishness” of the state. Even Hillary Clinton joined in the criticism of “anti-democratic” trends in Israel at one point.

Here are the recent words of Rabbi Eric Yoffie, former URJ President, concerning the Kotel controversy:

The leaders of Diaspora Jewry love Israel, embrace the Zionist cause, and fight for Israel’s legitimacy in the world. They do this because they must — because no matter where they reside physically, Israel, warts and all, is for them both home and holiness. But incredibly, in return for their devotion, the government of Israel thumbs its collective nose at Diaspora concerns, dismissing with contempt the religious legitimacy of millions of Diaspora Jews.

Leaving aside the reasonable doubt that the URJ in fact embraces the Zionist cause – as shown by its closeness with J Street and failure to stand with Israel on the Iran deal – there is the fact that Diaspora Jews are not “delegitimized.” They are not prevented from worshiping at the Kotel. They are only asked to follow the local customs – admittedly different from their own – when they come to Israel and visit the Kotel. While the government is obligated to implement the compromise solution it agreed to, the reaction of the URJ and its followers is exaggerated and seems more intended to bring about confrontation than cooperation.

One indication of the political motivation of the protestors is that after PM Netanyahu asked movement leaders  beforehand to “show patience and tolerance” and not to provoke a confrontation, they did it anyway. They had waited long enough, and in the words of Rabbi Yoffie, the government was “stonewalling.”

But in response to a petition by the movements, the Supreme Court has given the government until November 17 – that’s less than two weeks from today – to explain why it hasn’t implemented the agreement! So why was it necessary to provoke a confrontation? And why disrespect the PM?

Netanyahu is in a difficult spot, with the Haredi parties threatening to block his initiatives or even bring down the coalition. There are far more important things on his agenda, such as the forthcoming anti-Israel initiative from lame-duck Obama. You can understand that he asked for patience on an issue that concerns only a small number of Israelis and an American movement that has not exactly been supportive of him. Just wait a couple of weeks and the Court will solve everyone’s problem.

But the URJ and its followers don’t care. Whose side are they on?

Update [2129 IST]: It should be clear that I view the Women of the Wall as having a legitimate grievance, as do the non-Orthodox movements in Israel.

My problem is with the American movements (particularly the URJ which I believe is the instigator) that are using these issues — and the Women of the Wall — to push a left-wing political agenda and to attack the government and the PM.

Posted in American Jews, Israeli Politics, Israeli Society | 1 Comment

Bringing Israel’s Supreme Court into the 21st Century

Posted on November 4, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

The latest battle in Israel’s ongoing struggle to define itself is being fought over the way Supreme Court justices are selected. The 15 justices are appointed by a judicial selection committee of 9 members:

  • The Minister of Justice, who chairs the committee,
  • One additional cabinet minister, chosen by the cabinet (i.e., the government),
  • Two Knesset members, one from the coalition and one from the opposition,
  • Two members of the Bar Association, selected by the association, and
  • Three current justices of the Supreme Court, including the President of the Court (Chief Justice).

Presently, a super-majority of 7 committee members is required to approve a candidate. This gives the existing court justices a veto power, and – since the Court and the Bar Association lean leftward – gives left-of-center candidates a significant advantage. It also means that the Court is self-selecting and unaccountable.

The Israeli Supreme Court has far more power than the US Supreme Court. Rules about justiciability (what matters are in the purview of the Court) and standing (who can petition the court) are far looser than in other democracies; any citizen can petition the Court about any action of the government. It can throw out a law passed by the Knesset even if there’s no litigation about it. Or it can let it be known before a bill is passed that it will not approve it in its present form, and thereby force changes.

The Court greatly expanded its role and its power as a result of the activities of Aharon Barak, who was a justice from 1978-95, and its President from 1995-2006. The American jurist Richard Posner explains just how much power Barak placed in the hands of the Court (his hands!) in a review of one of Barak’s books. It is eye-opening.

Many Israelis feel that that it is unacceptable that in a democratic country so much power is held by an institution that is almost entirely not accountable to the people or its elected representatives. On the other hand, there is great respect for the Court and for the importance of having an independent judiciary and a rule of law.

The present Minister of Justice, Ayelet Shaked, has submitted a bill to the Knesset to change the rules so that only a simple majority of 5 members will be required. This would eliminate the veto power held by the current justices.

I used the expressions ‘right’ and ‘left’ above, but that isn’t the whole story. The disagreement is about much more than the desire of politicians to have a court that will take their side about issues like the development of Israel’s gas reserves, drafting Haredim, or the settlement enterprise. It is about the most basic principle of all: what kind of state will we have?  Most will say that it is a Jewish and democratic state, but ideas of what this means in practice diverge widely.

Israel doesn’t have a constitution; instead it has a number of Basic Laws that partially define the nature of the state. There has been a great deal of discussion about what constitutes the Jewish aspect of the state, and recently there was a controversial attempt to introduce a Basic Law that would specify its precise meaning. The Supreme Court was a silent partner in all discussions about the law, because it was clear to all parties that the court would immediately test it – and probably find any non-vacuous version inconsistent with the existing Basic Laws. Various versions of the law were discussed, but so far nothing has been passed. If such a law does pass, chances are that it will be less ambitious than the earlier versions.

Is it an appropriate role for a court to judge the state’s self-definition? Or is this something that should be left to the representatives of the people?

The Amona settlement decision is another situation in which the ideological bent of the Court may have played a role. The settlement of Amona was declared to have encroached on land which was owned by Palestinians, and ordered by a court (and the order approved by the Supreme Court) to be demolished. The Knesset, looking for a compromise, proposed that the Palestinians be compensated and the buildings allowed to remain. But the Attorney General indicated that the Court would find such a solution “unconstitutional.”

The case was very complicated, as are all land ownership issues in Israel. The settlement had been there for several years and the Palestinians had not worked the land in question. The case was brought by a left-wing, foreign-funded NGO (“Yesh Din”) on their behalf. Could there really be no option other than destroying the settlement?

Something is backwards here. In a democracy, the power to govern ultimately resides with the people. In a modern state they express their will through their elected representatives. It is important that the rights of minorities be respected, but it is the majority that decides. But in Israel, the Supreme Court is not selected or even confirmed by the representatives of the people. There are no checks and balances – there is no way the Knesset can appeal or override a court decision. It is both totally independent and all-powerful.

And unfortunately, it leans in one direction. It values a European vision of democracy, universalism over nationalism, a “state of its citizens” over the more conservative, Zionist idea of a state that belongs to the Jewish people. When the Court believes that Zionism and minority rights conflict, it chooses minority rights.

Today there is a struggle between the remnants of the secular, Ashkenazi, universalist, dovish, elite that once ran the country, and the more religious, more Mizrachi, nationalist and hawkish population that is now the majority, and which elects right-wing candidates to the Knesset. It is being played out in the arena of arts and culture, where Miri Regev is challenging the old establishment; it is also happening in the academic world, where Naftali Bennett as Minister of Education is trying to rein in the excesses of the professorate. In the last few days we’ve seen yet another cultural struggle, this one over the new Public Broadcasting Corporation, which Likud politicians say has been co-opted by the left-wing journalists that overwhelmingly dominate the media.

All of these elites have maintained their control of these realms because they are self-selecting. They complain about “political interference” and “undemocratic” actions by the ministers that are trying to change them, but in reality it is the politics of today’s Israel that is trying to “interfere” with institutions that are run according to the politics of the 1960s.

The Supreme Court is the most important and powerful institution in the state that is still firmly in the hands of the old left-wing elite. Even if you think it is a benevolent despot, it is still a despot. Shaked’s bill to end its incestuous means of reproduction is a good start to bringing it in line with the rest of the nation.

Posted in Israeli Politics | 1 Comment

How not to stabilize the Middle East

Posted on October 31, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

My very first blog post almost exactly 10 years ago was about the just-released Iraq Study Group Report, co-authored by Lee Hamilton and James Baker. What struck me about it was how it asserted that the way to solve the problems of the Middle East in general and the impasse facing the US in Iraq in particular was to achieve a “comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace on all fronts,” by direct American involvement. It seemed to me a thunderous non-sequitur. What did Israel have to do with the ambitions of the various players in Iraq?

The commission recommended that the US “engage” with Syria and Iran, who were arming and encouraging the insurgencies that were killing Iraqis and Americans. The US, it said, should use carrots as well as sticks to persuade them to stop trying to destabilize Iraq and instead become part of an international “support group” for that suffering country. And one of the major carrots was Israel.

Syria was key to the plan. Baker and Hamilton (and their then little-known associate Ben Rhodes, now a top Obama advisor) believed that if Israel would cede the Golan Heights to Syria, Syria would cooperate in enforcing the toothless UNSC resolution 1701, which called for an end to arming Hezbollah, with which Israel had just fought a vicious little war. Syria could also be convinced, they said, to stop trying to subvert the government of Lebanon, whose officials – including President Rafik Hariri – it had been systematically murdering. Syria would also help convince Hamas to recognize Israel’s right to exist (!) and to unite with the Palestinian Authority, which would rule a unified ‘Palestine’ in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. At long last, the Israeli-Arab conflict would be over, and at the same time the grateful Arabs and Iranians would allow the US to exit Iraq with honor.

The plan failed to take into account several things, including Israel’s instinct for self-preservation, Palestinian rejectionism, Iranian expansionism, the rise of Da’esh, the increased insecurity of the conservative Sunni nations over Iran’s nuclear program, the implosion of Syria, and Russia’s aggressive move into the region.

Nevertheless, the Barack Obama Administration adopted a modified version of the plan.

The original plan called for the Iranian nuclear program to be managed by the existing international framework, the IAEA. But the price demanded by Iran to “engage” with the West was the removal of sanctions, a massive infusion of cash, and what was essentially a green light to go ahead with its nuclear program with only minor limitations – and even those are impossible to enforce if Iran cares to violate them.

The significance of the transformation of Russia into a major player in the Middle East has not been recognized by some, who continue to argue that the US is militarily superior in the region. However the introduction of advanced Russian air defense systems to Crimea and Syria, combined with the lack of will by the US to take risks has allowed Russia to consolidate itself as the major player here. So while the original plan called for the US to call the shots in Syria and Iraq, that is now impossible. The Russians are in the driver’s seat.

The chaotic power vacuum that rules in Iraq and Syria is being filled by Iran, with Russian support. The Russians are holding the Turks and the US at bay while their Iranian ally rolls up Da’esh in Iraq and consolidates its control there. The Russians are also assisting Iranian puppet Bashar al-Assad to hold onto at least part of what used to be Syria. When Da’esh is finally evicted from its major strongholds, the jihad is expected to metastasize into less formal terrorism around the world.

The American plan to stabilize Iraq has exploded into atoms, and the human toll has been immense. But what seems to be left is the desire to feed Israel to her enemies.

Although the idea that Israel would surrender the Golan to some remnant of Syria seems insane, the administration had not given it up as recently as April 2016.

The PLO and Hamas are still at odds, and it has become even clearer than before that no viable Palestinian leader would be prepared to give up the demand for the right of return, or to admit that Israel is the state of the Jewish people. The Palestinian Authority has become, if possible, even more corrupt and incompetent in providing services to its population, and will soon be gripped by a major power struggle with the exit of Mahmoud Abbas from the presidency.

But the US administration still pursues partition fantasies, and even interfered in elections in Israel in 2015 to try to bring a more compliant government into power. It is thought that Obama is planning some kind of diplomatic offensive against Israel after the US election, ranging from a Rose Garden speech setting out “parameters” for an Israel-PA agreement all the way to support of a Security Council resolution establishing parameters or outlawing settlements.

The US prevented Israel from taking military action against the Iranian nuclear program in recent years. Now the JCPOA (the nuclear deal between Iran and the West) would make it very difficult diplomatically for Israel to do it, even if she were not worried that the US would reveal or even physically interfere with an operation to bomb or otherwise destroy Iranian facilities.

Although Israel’s government claims to have good relations with Russia, there is a serious divergence of interests due to Russia’s alliance with Iran. Israel is very concerned that Iran will transfer game-changing weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and bombed weapons convoys and other targets in Syria in the past to prevent that. It is not clear today to what extent Israel’s “coordination” with Russia gives her freedom to act against such threats.

American policies have not stabilized Iraq, not prevented Iran from expanding its influence there, and not deterred Assad from pursuing his almost genocidal war in Syria. They have destroyed American influence and allowed Russia to become the most important power in the Middle East. They have enabled Iran to come close to achieving its goal of creating a “Shiite crescent” of control from Tehran all the way to the Mediterranean. They have financed Iran’s worldwide terrorism and local aggression. They have greatly increased the risk of war and terrorism against Israel. And it looks like Obama hasn’t even finished with Israel.

Back in 2006, I wondered if the introduction of Israel into the plan to fix Iraq wasn’t disingenuous. I wondered if anti-Zionists like Baker weren’t hitching a ride on the Iraq problem in order to get their own pet project – the reversal of the results of the 1967 war – carried out.

Now that we’ve seen the total failure of the overall plan combined with the persistence and care with which the pressure against Israel has been applied, I’m wondering if it’s more than a pet project but rather a top priority goal of the administration?

Posted in Middle East politics, US-Israel Relations, War | 2 Comments

The British betrayal of the Jewish people

Posted on October 28, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

Today the “discovery” of Jew-hatred among British politicians, particularly in the Labour Party, is news. But the relationship of the Jews to Albion, since the citizens of York wiped out their Jewish community in 1190, hasn’t been smooth.

Recently, I read a review by Sheree Roth of a neglected 1938 book, William B. Ziff’s The Rape of Palestine. Although Roth is primarily concerned with the (very important and persuasive) evidence in Ziff’s book refuting the Arab claim to be the “original” or “indigenous” inhabitants of the Land of Israel, the book is primarily concerned with the history of the British Mandatory power over Palestine. The book is available at Amazon (though currently out of stock), but its copyright has lapsed and someone has placed the entire text here for our enjoyment.

The British betrayal of the Jewish people must be reckoned as one of the great crimes of the 20th century. Entrusted with the Mandate to ultimately make possible a Jewish National Home, Britain instead fought its realization tooth and nail, ultimately becoming complicit in the Nazi Holocaust. Even after the war, when the evil consequences of its policies should have been clear, when Germany herself began to recognize her obligation to what was left of the Jewish people, Britain continued to fight against the establishment of a Jewish state, battling attempts to resettle Jewish refugees, even arming and providing military advisors to the Arab armies that in 1948 tried to finish the job Hitler started.

Everyone knows about the series of White Papers issued by the Mandatory Government, which progressively limited Jewish immigration, culminating in the MacDonald White Paper of 1939 which – just as the furnaces of the Holocaust were about to be lit – effectively closed the doors of Palestine to Jews and doomed millions to destruction.

But Ziff explains how, long before 1939, British authorities used every bureaucratic device possible to reduce the number of Jews allowed into the country, while completely overlooking the uncontrolled immigration of Arabs who flocked in to take advantage of the jobs created by the Zionists. “Illegal” Jews were hunted down and punished. Roth quotes Ziff,

Hunting “illegal” Jews became a major game, with illegal Arab newcomers enlisting gleefully in the chase. Savage Bedouins joined in under promise of a reward for any Jewish man, woman, or child they could catch. Palestine was under a virtual reign of terror. Anyone who could not immediately prove his citizenship, or produce his or her certificate of entry, was tracked down, jailed, and brutally beaten. …

A fair example is the case of a woman and six small children, who had arrived legally with the proper passport and visa from Turkestan. On the way, her husband had been killed at a railway station. The whole family was arrested on the grounds that the passport provided not for a woman and six children but for a man, a woman and six children. On this pretext the woman and her children were ordered to prison. [pp. 245-6]

Not only did the authorities try to prevent Jews from arriving, they viciously discriminated against the ones that were already here. The Jewish population was heavily taxed (as they do today, the Arabs tended to favor informal business practices that avoided taxation), but the revenues, which Ziff tells us were plentiful thanks to Jewish enterprise, were either retained by the government for its own purposes or used almost entirely to benefit the Arab sector.  The government school system,

…is purely Arab in character. The language of instruction is Arabic . Hebrew is not even taught as a foreign tongue. When in 1937 a rumor circulated that the study of Hebrew was to be introduced, it only evoked incredulity and rendered the Government’s hasty denial superfluous. “Apart from scientific subjects,” the Peel Commission acknowledges, “the curriculum is almost wholly devoted to the literature, history and tradition of the Arabs; and all the school masters from the humblest village teacher to the head of the Government Arab college, are Arabs.” School masters in Palestine appear to have been recruited from the ranks of the most exaggerated pan-Arab agitators. The result, as Lord Peel candidly admits, is to turn the children out as violent “Arab patriots .” “The schools,” he tells us, “have become seminaries of Arab nationalism.” [p. 310]

Jewish schools were built and supported mostly by overseas donors. “During the whole period of British occupation there has never been a single Jewish school built in Palestine out of the public funds,” Ziff reports. Health and sanitation expenditures were allocated similarly. Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem paid full price for its water while Arab hospitals were supplied at no charge. Jews were severely discriminated against for government jobs, and if a Jew did manage to get hired, for promotions. Telegraph messages were only accepted in English or Arabic, until the international commission governing mandates forced the postal service to accept Hebrew messages; but equipment was only installed in a few cities making it worthless in practice. Government employees were required to be fluent in English and Arabic but not in Hebrew, and many did not speak or understand the language. [chap. VII].

The law enforcement and court system were corrupt and biased. Almost all court records were kept in Arabic [p. 326], which makes sense since almost all magistrates, notaries and prosecutors were Arabs. Prison conditions were unspeakable, so bad that prisoners released after a few years were often crippled for life by starvation rations. Justice was anything but blind: Ziff tells of a case of a Jewish watchman at Bat Galim (near Haifa) sentenced to prison for attempted murder, after he wounded an Arab – who was among a gang attacking the settlement. Meanwhile, a Bedouin who took part in the murder of a Jewish boy and girl received a light sentence because the murder was committed consequent to raping the girl, and therefore unintentional (the boy was killed trying to defend her)! Four other Bedouins, who also raped the girl, were set  free [pp. 330-1].

I’ve only scratched the surface, but it should be clear that the administration of the Mandate by the “civilized” nation of Great Britain was as ugly as any colonial enterprise, and particularly evil because of the discriminatory way it treated a part of the native population – indeed, the ones the Mandate was intended to benefit. The question is “why?” Why was it so important to the British to prevent Jewish immigration and to support the Arab community in opposition to the Jews?

The common understanding is that the British did not want an independent state to arise in Palestine, which sits in a critical position as the gateway to the “Jewel in the Crown of the British Empire,” India. Possibly they felt that even if they had to accept an independent state, an Arab one – like the British client monarchies of Jordan, Iraq and Egypt – would be more controllable than a democratic Jewish state. They also wanted to stay on the good side of the Arab oil-producing nations, as oil had become much more important as a strategic commodity after WWI.

One problem with this theory is that by 1947 there was no longer a need for a gateway to India, now independent. But Britain fought as hard as ever during the last year of the Mandate to prevent Jews from reaching Palestine. Jews were kept in “internment camps,” some of them on the sites of former Nazi concentration camps, to hold Jewish displaced persons. Although US President Truman wanted to allow them to go to Palestine, the British refused. As mentioned above, they armed and even provided officers to the invading Arab nations – despite their clearly genocidal goals – during Israel’s War of Independence.

What about oil? The fact is that the importance of Arab oil during that period was minimal. In 1945, the five top oil-producers were the US (65.8%), Venezuela (13.2%), USSR (5.5%), Iran (4.9%) and Mexico (1.8%). Iraq was in 7th place with 1.3%, and Saudi Arabia 11th with 0.8%. By 1948, Saudi Arabia had moved up to 5th place, with 4.1%. All of these sources with the exception of the USSR were strongly in the Western (i.e., American) orbit. There was no OPEC in those days, either. It is a stretch to think that Britain needed to be concerned about offending Arab oil producers during the mandate period, even after 1945. Arab oil was a potent political force in the 1970s, but it had not yet become one in 1948.

No, there is another reason that Britain betrayed the Jewish people, and it is that with some very notable exceptions such as Winston Churchill, Jew-hatred was rampant in its military, its Foreign Office,  and its ruling classes in general. For example, the commander of British forces in Palestine from 1946-7 was Gen. Evelyn Hugh Barker. Barker famously wrote to his Arab mistress regarding Jews that

Yes, I loathe the lot – whether they be Zionists or not. Why should we be afraid of saying we hate them. Its time this damned race knew what we think of them – loathsome people.

Barker favored the death penalty for “Zionist guerrillas,” and applied it whenever he could. He suggested that the reason there was so much unrest was that previous administrations hadn’t hanged enough Jews. After the bombing of the King David Hotel, he issued an order that read in part,

I am determined that [the Jews] shall suffer punishment and be made aware of the contempt and loathing with which we regard their conduct. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by the hypocritical sympathy shown by their leaders and representative bodies, or by their protests that they are in no way responsible for these acts … I have decided that with effect on receipt of this letter you will put out of bounds to all ranks all Jewish establishments, restaurants, shop, and private dwellings. No British soldier is to have social intercourse with any Jew. … I appreciate that these measures will inflict some hardship on the troops, yet I am certain that if my reasons are fully explained to them they will understand their propriety and will be punishing the Jews in a way the race dislikes as much as any, by striking at their pockets and showing our contempt of them.

Ziff’s book, full of details about the countless humiliations and punishments with which the British military and colonial service afflicted the Jews of the yishuv, suggests that there were many Barkers, large and small, in their ranks. And this, at bottom, is the reason Britain fought so hard against the creation of a Jewish state. Not oil, not access to India. Just Jew-hatred.

Are things different today, in Britain or anywhere else that irrational anti-Israel expression is found?

Posted in Jew Hatred, Middle East politics, Zionism | 1 Comment

Are Palestinians “People of Color?”

Posted on October 24, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

I admit it. When I see the expression “person of color” used seriously, I stop reading. It is an indication that the writer is a fool, and probably a knave.

What does it mean? It has been around since the 1790s, but only recently has gained its present ideologically loaded meaning of “person belonging to an ethnic group that is or has been enslaved, colonized, persecuted or insulted by people of European ancestry.”

There are implications that flow from the status of being a POC. On the one hand, a POC is seen to be fragile, needing to be protected from present-day “white” oppression or compensated for prior oppression. On American college campuses, POCs demand “safe spaces” where they can be safe from demeaning micro-aggressions that “white” students, no matter how high their level of racial consciousness is, cannot seem to stop committing. Reparations, affirmative action and other benefits are also assumed to be due to POCs in order to redress historical wrongs and to overcome existing bias.

On the other hand, POCs may express their rage at being oppressed in aggressive ways, and non-POCs are expected to understand this, and even accept it.

American intellectual circles are obsessed by the concepts of oppression and victimhood, having added everything imaginable to the mix in addition to color and ethnicity. Thus it is also possible to be victimized on the basis of biological gender or the practically infinite variations of gender consciousness or sexual preference; or on the basis of religion, age, disability, poverty or employment status. I am sure I’ve missed some. The ways the various forms of oppression interact is called “intersectionality,” so papers are written about precisely how much worse it is to be an LGBT POC than an LGBT white.

The problem is that there is nothing about a person that makes them a POC except that they feel like one. I’ll start by noting that there is no scientific basis for the concept of “race,” and that even if there were, it has little to do with who gets to be a POC. Who could be closer genetically than Israeli Jews and Palestinians? The average percentage of melanin in the skin of Israeli Jews is probably higher than that of Palestinian Arabs, but skin color has nothing to do with being a POC.

To tell if someone is a POC, you ask if he is or was oppressed because of who he is. A Chinese man who came to the US in the 19th century to work on the railroad was almost certainly a POC. His great-grandchildren who make six-figure salaries in Silicon Valley, maybe not so much. But their kids, who go to Berkeley and suffer from micro-aggressions when someone insensitively asks them “where are you from?” – they are POCs.

In other words, POC is defined in terms of oppression, which means that arguing that someone is oppressed because they are a POC is a circular argument.

Palestinians insist that they are POCs, and expect solidarity from other POCs like American blacks. This is because “they are both colonized peoples” – so say the descendents of the Arab colonialists who swarmed over the Middle East and much of Europe, and of the traders that captured hundreds of thousands of Africans and shipped them off to the New World to be slaves! Interestingly the Movement for Black Lives doesn’t find this cognitively dissonant at all.

It is assumed that there is a commonality, a “whiteness,” to the oppressors of all the various groups of POCs. “Whiteness” (or white, hetero, male, cis-ness when the gender concepts are included) is as poorly defined as that of POC. It simply means the powerful other that is oppressing the various classes of victims. This supports the idea that American blacks and Palestinians have something in common, namely that they are oppressed by “white people.” When this concept is analyzed, it turns out to have no content, because “white,” like POC, is circularly defined, in this case as an oppressor.

The concepts of colonizer and colonized, popularized by Frantz Fanon’s 1961 book The Wretched of the Earth, are embedded in the concept of POC. Who else in recent times is a colonizer but a white European? It’s unfortunate that Fanon also suggested that violent resistance to colonization is justified, because this seems to have given rise to the idea that in a conflict between POCs and non-POCs, the POCs are allowed to be violent (and the colonizers not). Certainly the Palestinians claim this all the time.

But if being a POC has to do with being colonized and subjugated, who in history was more colonized than the people of Judea, invaded successively by Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans (the ones who decided to call it “Syria Palaestina” after trying to ethnically cleanse the Jews in 135 CE), Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Mamluks, Ottomans and the British?

Indeed, the idea that Palestinians are colonized depends entirely on the fake history promulgated by the Arabs and their supporters. Their narrative tells us that their “people” lived in “Palestine” for hundreds or even thousands of years, before the European Zionists came along and threw them out. In reality, with the exception of the very small number that were descendants of the Arab colonizers of the 7th century (and those who were descended from Jews that the Romans missed in 135), most Palestinian Arabs came to the land in the 19th and 20th centuries as economic migrants.

This explains why there is so little specifically “Palestinian” content to their culture, which is much the same as that of the Arabs in the surrounding region. There is no language called “Palestinian,” and no unique religion. What true Palestinianism that exists comes from their conflict with the Jewish residents of the land in the past hundred years or so. Thus the Palestinian national poet, Mahmoud Darwish, recently the subject of a controversy when his works were read at an event paid for by Israel’s Culture Ministry, was notable for his expression of Palestinian rage against the Jewish oppressors.

I submit that the American obsession with race and victimhood in general is a terrible idea, whose time should have passed long ago. The idea that POCs owe each other solidarity in the face of common “white” oppression is also nonsense. It should be obvious that there is absolutely nothing in common between the experience of American blacks and Palestinian Arabs.

The answer to the question posed by the title of this piece, therefore, is that it is a non-question. It might be a shock to students and faculty, but not everything is about race or gender.

Posted in Academia, American society, Israel and Palestinian Arabs | Comments Off on Are Palestinians “People of Color?”