Western morality and Islamic jihad

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

Two Palestinian terrorists stabbed and moderately injured a member of Israel’s Kfir brigade in Hevron Thursday. One was killed immediately; the other was lying wounded on the ground.

Some time later the wounded terrorist was killed by a shot to the head by another soldier. This was caught on video by several witnesses. The soldier has been arrested and may be charged with murder, on the grounds that the terrorist was already ‘neutralized’ and no danger to anyone. The soldier argues that the terrorist was moving (this is visible on the video) and that he believed that he was wearing a suicide belt which he could have detonated at any moment.

On a second video, recorded some time before the shooting, a voice is heard ordering that no one (medical personnel were present) should touch the terrorist until the demolition expert arrives, since he may be wearing a suicide belt. The terrorist is seen wearing a heavy jacket on a hot day, which supports the soldier’s defense.

Some Israeli politicians, including the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense have made statements sharply critical of the shooting. PM Netanyahu said that what occurred “didn’t represent the values of the IDF.”

Several officers who were present have been reprimanded for not ensuring that the terrorist received prompt medical attention.

Those are the facts in broad outline.

I want to look at this from several points of view. First, as it relates to the demonization of the IDF, which has been accused of ‘executing’ Palestinians and even planting knives on their bodies to justify killing them. Second, the moral aspect.

Now that the soldier has been arrested – and his supporters say, tried by politicians in the media – there are two possible outcomes, both bad. He can be convicted and punished severely, in which case those who claim that the IDF murders Palestinians will be vindicated, and the ‘fact’ that the IDF kills terrorists after they have ceased being a threat will become part of the conventional wisdom. Or, he could be exonerated or only lightly punished, in which case they will say that a corrupt system has whitewashed a clear case of murder.

Need I say that the officials who made public statements based on the initial video should have known better? It isn’t the first time: when 12 year old Muhammad al-Dura was allegedly shot by IDF soldiers in September 2000, the IDF was quick to apologize. Later it turned out that the incident was probably the most damaging case of a ‘Pallywood’ production ever; al-Dura was probably not shot at all by anyone, and could not possibly have been shot by the IDF.

It seems that some of our leadership is so concerned about Israel’s image in foreign media that they tend to jump at the chance to agree that we are as bad as they say we are and beg forgiveness. It should be obvious that this is a losing strategy.

It’s also necessary to blame the foreign-funded B’Tselem NGO which publicized the video and inflamed the Israeli and foreign media. Had they simply turned it over to the army the incident would have been investigated and the soldier punished (or not). B’Tselem insured that it would become an international scandal.

***

The moral aspects of the case are more interesting. If the soldier had good reason to believe that the wounded terrorist had a suicide belt or weapon under his heavy jacket and was capable of using it, then he would have been justified in shooting. I expect that this will be discussed and re-discussed in the near future. But what if he didn’t believe this? Is there any way in which his action could be justified? IDF rules of engagement say no. According to protocol, once a terrorist is neutralized, he should be given medical treatment, not killed.

I think rules of engagement like this are a mistake. I think that we (the West) have adopted an inappropriate set of moral standards. Let me explain.

Everyone knows that moral judgments are different from factual ones, which can be compared to reality as we experience it. Moral judgments are based on standards that a culture develops in an evolutionary way, and different cultures develop different standards. What is admirable for an ISIS fighter may not be acceptable for an American or an Israeli. This doesn’t mean that the various standards and cultures are equal – some of them produce happiness and reduce suffering, while others do the opposite.

Moral rules have some limitations. A moral system becomes incoherent when following it leads to the destruction of the culture that created it. A moral rule that forbade having children could not be maintained – either the rule would be disobeyed or the culture that promulgated it would disappear.

Western culture and its moral systems have changed greatly in the decades after WWII, in part as a result of the trauma of the two world wars. Suddenly nationalism or any kind of ethnic particularism are looked at as dangerous and evil. Tolerance and appreciation of other cultures, even when their mores and behavior place them in opposition to our moral principles, is good. ‘Racism’, defined as oppression of one culture by another (and there are specific rules about who can be an oppressor and who a victim) is the greatest sin.

Part of this revolution in thinking is a wholly new way of looking at conflict, which would have been incomprehensible in years past. The idea is that conflict is simply a result of imperfect communication and lack of empathy; and that therefore the best response to an attack is to prevent the attacker from hurting you while hurting him as little as possible. Meanwhile, a solution has to come from improving communication which will inevitably lead to understanding of each side’s point of view and thence to successful compromise.

While this might make sense (sometimes) within a Western culture, it often fails when we confront a different culture. For example, how can we ‘understand’ the radical Islamist’s belief that the only morally acceptable options for a Jew or Christian are to convert to Islam, accept dhimmitude, or die? How can we empathize or walk in his shoes, so to speak?

Nevertheless, we have developed a set of international institutions – the UN is a primary example – that are based on this concept, and a set of rules for behavior as well. Both the institutions and rules fail when they are applied to cultures that do not accept their basic premises.

In particular, rules of warfare based on the behavior of relatively civilized nations give an advantage to those who fight by violating them. Such groups deliberately attack civilian populations, use their own as human shields and seek to terrorize their enemies with an excess of brutality. Indeed, the various jihadist organizations have carefully studied the West and its moral principles and have developed a system of warfare that exploits them to negate the West’s technological, organizational and logistic superiority.

The Islamic jihad against the West has not been taken as seriously as it should because of the relative lack of technological sophistication of its weapons (at least, until Iran’s nuclear development bears fruit). Instead of total war in which the combatants enlist the greater part of their economies and build huge well-equipped armies, today’s conflict is of lower intensity. But unlike the great wars of the 20th century in which the sides were exhausted after a few years, it will go on for decades.

Some of the jihad’s best strategic offensives haven’t even been strictly military. The recent successful invasion of Europe is an important battle that the jihad has won, even if the West doesn’t realize it yet. A great part of the reason for its success is that it is taking advantage of a moral code in which migrants – invaders – are provided with benefits instead of being expelled.

Western moral principles in general, and the view of conflict that we have based our rules of engagement upon, have turned out to be what I called incoherent. If we follow them, they will lead to the destruction of our culture, just as surely as if we made it immoral to have children. They are therefore not acceptable guides for behavior.

In order to survive, we must adopt a different world-view, one that – just as a small example – embraces the Talmudic principle that “when they rise up to kill you, come and kill them first” and rejects the idea that “terrorists are people too.”

Survival will require a more particularistic world-view in which our culture is considered more worthy of continuing than theirs. In this view, enemies are enemies, people to fight, not empathize with. If they try to kill our civilian populations, we must kill theirs too. Deterrence comes from fear, and fear is created by disproportionate responses, not offers to surrender territory. Honor – a concept that has been all but forgotten by the West – is of supreme importance to the jihadists, and we must maintain ours. A man or a nation without honor becomes a target. Killing terrorists who have tried to murder our people, whether on the spot (preferable) or with a sure and speedy death penalty, is a way of preserving our honor.

This kind of moral system is not barbarism. It was commonly accepted several decades ago, and would have been recognized by Churchill, Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Thatcher. The ‘evolution’ of what we call morality since their day, which has brought us multiculturalism, post-colonialism, the insane political correctness in our universities, the UN Human Rights Commission, B’Tselem and Peace Now, has failed to stand against the assault of the Islamic jihad. It will not protect our culture, but rather will lead to its destruction at the hands of the true barbarians at our gates.

It’s time for a massive rethinking. Is it even possible that the West can turn itself around, can re-embrace the values that defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan? And can it change attitudes and behavior in time to save itself? I have no idea.

But I suggest we start here in Israel by dropping the charges against the soldier who simply did the job of every soldier from the beginning of warfare: he killed the enemy.

Posted in Terrorism, War | 3 Comments

Tolerance and terrorism

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

So there was a bloody terrorist attack – two bloody terrorist attacks – in Brussels on Tuesday. Dozens murdered, more injured seriously. The Islamic State took responsibility, and threatened more attacks.

The overwhelming feeling one gets is a combination of depression and boredom. Oh no, not again. Since 9/11, terrorism has been followed immediately by outrage, sometimes even by military action that may or may not be targeted accurately. After a while things go back to normal. But the enemy is never named. And nothing changes. The jihadists regroup and return.

Is anything different today? Will anything be different for the European leadership, now that the foolishly-named ‘capital of Europe’ has been struck? “Europe is at war” said the headline on Wednesday’s newspaper. But I doubt that they think so.

I’m sure that security will be beefed up. They will arrest IS sympathizers and activists. Maybe they will support air attacks against the IS in Syria. But as an EU statement issued after the attacks indicates, a change in the suicidal worldview that has led to more and more terrorism is not in the offing:

… This latest attack only strengthens our resolve to defend the European values and tolerance from the attacks of the intolerant. We will be united and firm in the fight against hatred, violent extremism and terrorism.

It isn’t “European values and tolerance” that is under attack, and the attacker isn’t “the intolerant.” Europe does not need to declare war on “hatred, violent extremism and terrorism.”

The truth is that whether they know it or not, all of the non-Muslim world is at war, a war being fought by unconventional means, but a war nevertheless. The enemy is a loose confederation of Muslim groups, from militias to nations, that agree on little other than that the entire world should be ruled by Islam, and that jihad is the way to bring this about. It is entirely correct to call it a war of Islamic conquest.

It has nothing to do with intolerance. It has everything to do with jihadist Muslims wanting to rule over non-Muslims and to take their property (incidentally including humans as property). The goal of Muslim domination is spelled out in the Qur’an and other Islamic texts. The jihadists are trying to implement these prescriptions.

There is a seam, an interface between Islam and not-Islam, which runs through the world. It is found in China, the Philippines and much of southeast Asia, India-Pakistan, the Caucasus, much of Africa, of course Israel, and now Europe. Everywhere along this seam there are regular flare-ups of violence. Of course there is also intra-Muslim strife, but – as Iranian support for Hamas shows – there is often cooperation between disparate groups when there is a common non-Muslim enemy.

Israel is very much on the front line of this war. Her location is highly strategic; she is considered a Western outpost in a region that by rights should be Muslim. She has become symbolic of the struggle since the Crusades. Many Muslims live in the territory Israel controls – that Jews control – a situation that is intolerable for them.

This is a tough war for our side to fight, because it takes different forms in different places, and the enemy does not follow the traditional rules or have a centralized command structure.  But in general there are two strategic principles that we must apply: one is disproportionate pushback against violent attempts to extend Muslim sovereignty and the other is cutting the heads off snakes. Let me explain.

Disproportionate pushback means preventing successes that whet the appetites of the jihadists for more. Because their objective is domination, it isn’t possible to defuse their violence by appeasement. This something that Israel has (I hope) learned through her experience with the ‘Palestinian’ incarnation of the jihad. This is why I advocate building in the territories as a response to terrorism, as well as collective punishments for collective crimes. We need to teach the lesson that if you hurt us, expect to be hurt worse.

Cutting the heads off snakes (an expression used by a previous king of Saudi Arabia to refer to Iran) is the idea that there are foci of Islamic jihad – individuals, groups and even nations – that initiate, develop, promote, support, arm and fund the multiplicitous hands of jihad, and that they should be extirpated. So targeted assassinations of individuals like bin Laden or Mugniyeh, the elimination of jihadist organizations like Hezbollah, and the destruction of Iran’s nuclear capability and promotion of regime change there, are all indicated.

Some of these techniques have been used by Israel, the US, and even Russia with varying degrees of consistency and success. The US has never defined the enemy and has inconsistently mixed military action together with appeasement. Europe, though, has almost always taken the path of appeasement.

Both Europe and some circles in the US have been prepared to sacrifice Israel to the jihadists, on the remarkably stupid assumption that that they can protect themselves by doing so. A combination of this tendency to appeasement with the antisemitism that has characterized Europe for millennia has resulted in Europe actually cooperating with Israel’s enemies by financing subversive activities in Israel, supporting BDS by requiring labeling of products from across the Green Line, and trying to force Israel to withdraw to non-defensible  boundaries.

The EU Foreign Minister, Federica Mogherini, who was visiting Jordan when the Brussels attacks happened, burst into tears at a press conference with her Jordanian counterpart. “It’s also a very sad day for Europe, as Europe and its capital are suffering the same pain that this region has known and knows every single day, be it in Syria, be it elsewhere,” she said. Does she understand that her pain is caused by exactly the same elements that she criticizes Israel for opposing? Those like Mogherini, who believe that the greatest evil in the world is “intolerance,” also believe that Israel is attacked by terrorists because it is not sufficiently tolerant of Palestinian Arabs. She thinks we deserve what we get.

After the Brussels attacks, will the Europeans begin to take strong measures against terrorism, like profiling at airports and railway stations, controlling their borders, or setting up checkpoints near known terrorist neighborhoods?

Probably not. That would make them intolerant like us.

Posted in Europe and Israel, Islam, Terrorism, War | 3 Comments

The Israeli Left is a Potemkin Village

Posted on March 20, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

Recent charges that the NGO Breaking the Silence has engaged in espionage in addition to its ‘normal’ activity of collecting and disseminating unverifiable information to embarrass the IDF have stirred a hornet’s nest on the Left.

Someone hearing about the affair from outside of Israel probably gets the impression that the nation is bitterly divided. It is not. Israelis overwhelmingly oppose the activities of BTS and other left-wing organizations.

The NY Times columnist Thomas Freidman likes to talk to taxi drivers to hear the views of the man in the street (or behind the wheel). My guess is that 99 out of 100 Jewish Israeli taxi drivers will tell you that hanging is too good for BTS, B’Tselem, etc. Even some of the Arab ones would agree.

The recent Pew survey of political and religious attitudes in Israel found that only 8% of Israeli Jews self-identify as part of the Left; the rest place themselves in the center (55%) or on the right (37%).

Those who find it hard to understand how it can be that Benjamin Netanyahu – a moderate and a centrist despite what the NY Times and the Guardian like to write – has been Prime Minister longer than anyone else, even Ben-Gurion, can relax now. It’s because Israelis vote for him.

Nevertheless, this 8% has remarkable power inside Israel, as well as the ability to project its voice to the world. The Left absolutely dominates the creative and performing arts here. Exhibitions feature their work, prizes and grants are given to them by committees made up of their ideological twins. Their films and books picture Israel to the world. Try making a right-wing film in Israel! The universities, at least in the humanities and social sciences, are solidly packed with leftist instructors. These academics serve as visiting professors at universities in the US and Europe on a regular basis.

All but one of the TV stations, plus the state-operated radio service and even Army Radio lean leftward (which is one of the reasons the BTS exposé, on Israel’s TV Channel 2, was so shocking).

Israel’s ‘newspaper of record’, whose English Internet edition is read by diplomats and foreign journalists around the world, is the extremist Ha’aretz. Its print circulation in Hebrew is minimal; the center-left Yediot Aharonot and the center-right Israel Hayom together reach 17 times as many Israelis than Ha’aretz. Regular columnists in Ha’aretz include Gideon Levy and Amira Hass, who bash Israel consistently, as well as a legion of less well-known but equally anti-state writers.

These and others contribute op-eds in English to publications like the NY Times and are interviewed on NPR in the US and the BBC in the UK. Sometimes one of these outlets will present a discussion between an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian; the Israeli is almost always a leftist academic or journalist. If a right-wing person is interviewed, he or she will be presented as extreme and not be allowed to be persuasive.

Finally, there are the numerous leftist NGOs like BTS and B’Tselem and publications like +972 Magazine, which in engage in anti-Israel propaganda within Israel and abroad, legal activities against the state and the IDF, and which cooperate with anti-Israel politicians and UN officials. While they are staffed by Israelis and registered as Israeli organizations, they get the greatest part of their funding from foreign sources, especially the European Union and individual European governments.

All of these, in addition to their ability to throw obstacles in the path of the government in Israel, have a huge information footprint outside of Israel. So it is no wonder that people think that many Israelis are on the Left.

They are not. The Left in Israel is dying, strangled by the reality of the Second and Third Intifadas, the hostility of Hamas, and the knowledge that no concession to the Arabs can end the threat from Iran, Hezbollah and Da’esh. The kibbutzim, formerly leftist strongholds, have become mere neighborhoods. The Army, formerly led by left-wing (but still Zionist) kibbutzniks now has more and more young officers who wear knitted kipot. They will move up the ladder to the top spots.

The Left is increasingly composed of aging ideologues and bitter anti-state extremists. It is on life support with money flowing from Europe. If that stopped – and attempts are being made to at least control it – Israel would look quite different from outside.

A correspondent recently wrote to me saying that he was worried by the lack of a will to fight and pointed to the “rot of left-liberalism” weakening Israel and the West and even “moral decay” in Israel. He pointed to the remark by Ehud Olmert that “Israel is tired of fighting…” that I quoted in a recent post about Israel’s response to the Iranian threat.

I would like to assure him that at least in the case of Israel, he should not be too quick to think that the culture as a whole is decadent, just because the ‘rotten’ Left has such a loud voice. Unlike Europe and the US, the real Israel is getting stronger, psychologically as well as militarily.

The Israeli Left is a Potemkin village, a Hollywood set. There is no substance, only surface. Don’t let its big mouth fool you.

Posted in Europe and Israel, Israeli Society, Media | 1 Comment

Leave AIPAC out of it

Posted on March 18, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

Led by Rabbis Rick Jacobs and Eric Yoffie, the Reform Movement is talking about taking some kind of action – perhaps a walkout – at the AIPAC convention to protest the appearance of Donald Trump.

If they do, it will be unfortunate for Israel and for American Jews.

AIPAC is an organization intended to lobby the US Congress and Executive branch in favor of Israel. It is not supposed to favor any political party, either in Israel or the US. Its objective is to promote the policies of the State of Israel.

For that reason, it has invited all the presidential candidates to speak at its convention. The goal is for both Americans who care about Israel and the candidates themselves to learn about each others’ concerns and attitudes. That will clearly benefit Israel.

AIPAC has had victories and defeats. But it is essential that Israel have a voice in Washington. Our enemies have powerful lobbies. We need one too.

In recent years, support for Israel in America has become more and more a partisan affair. This is not good for Israel, because the issue does not align with the liberal/conservative divide in US politics, and traditionally Israel had supporters on both sides. Making it partisan makes it subject to the same gridlock that affects so many issues today.

Although the administration and its friendly media blame PM Netanyahu, there is no doubt that this is part of the deliberate policy to fracture relations between Israel and the American people and Congress that has been in effect since President Obama’s inauguration in 2009 (if you aren’t sure who is to blame, just ask yourself who benefits from the poor relationship).

The threat of a walkout or other demonstration at AIPAC puts pressure on the organization to take a partisan stance (dis-inviting Trump, even if it has to dis-invite all the candidates, would be a highly partisan move). An actual demonstration sends the message that AIPAC is ‘supporting’ Trump by letting him speak.

The actions of the Reform movement have already damaged AIPAC, and therefore hurt Israel. But this is less important to the leaders of the Reform Movement than the need to strike a blow against Trump. Rabbi Yoffie admits it:

Might protests at AIPAC hurt Israel’s cause? They might. Will an ongoing, organized Jewish effort to battle Trump’s bigotry adversely impact Jewish security and well-being in America? If Trump is elected President, it could. But no matter.

No matter?

The Reform Movement has already demonstrated its willingness to push Israeli concerns aside to serve its own goals. It refused to take a position on the pernicious nuclear deal with Iran in order to stay on the good side of its friends in the Obama Administration. Now it wants to sabotage AIPAC.

Here is news for Rabbis Yoffie and Jacobs: although you believe it will be Gotterdammerung if Trump is elected, life over here will go on. Israel needs to continue to deal with the US administration no matter who is elected. You are not doing us a favor by using AIPAC for your political purposes.

If you want to demonstrate against Trump, fine. Go to Trump rallies and protest, organize your own anti-Trump groups. Buy full-page ads in the NY Times. Give interviews to NPR. Vote against Trump in primaries. Vote for Hillary or Bernie in the general election.

Just leave AIPAC out of it.

Posted in American Jews, American politics | 4 Comments

Crying in Tehran

Posted on March 18, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

Anyone who has ever tried to babysit a group of Israeli kids knows the expression translated as “this will end in crying.” Sometimes you just know that there will not be a good ending for certain kinds of behavior. Maybe a boy can pinch his big sister and run away once or twice, but ultimately she is going to catch him…and it will end in crying.

I am beginning to think that the Iranian campaign against Israel is in this category. There will come a time when the Iranian regime’s assistance to Hamas, its massive military presence in the form of Hezbollah on our northern border, its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, its sponsorship of worldwide terrorism against Israeli and Jewish targets, and its continuing trumpeting that our nation will be destroyed, can no longer be ignored.

What is a real existential threat? It’s when someone says that he is going to kill you, you believe him, and you know that he has a weapon capable of doing it. Iran has met two out of three of these conditions. The only part we’re unsure about is whether it has the ability to carry out its threats.

The only reasonable response to an existential threat is to strike the enemy hard enough to eliminate the threat. That could mean bringing down a regime, destroying its military capabilities, or both. If there is no other option, it could mean a massive strategic attack that would also cause a large number of civilian casualties and damage.

Such a threat means your back is against the wall. It means you fight or die. It means that you do whatever is necessary to win because if you lose you are finished. It means that what the EU or Barack Obama think are irrelevant (unless you think they will intervene militarily).

No, Iran is not at that point yet. We don’t think the regime has deliverable nuclear weapons yet and we think we can handle whatever Hezbollah and Hamas can throw at us.

Even a coordinated attack including missile barrages from Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran, along with incursions in both the North and South via attack tunnels, plus numerous terror attacks from the PA and local ‘sleepers’ could be repulsed. We would suffer painfully, but we would prevail. Probably southern Lebanon and Gaza would end up looking like the surface of the Moon when it was over. Iran would lose its developing nuclear capability, too. That’s why it isn’t attacking us today.

But some things could change the equation. One would be Iran’s acquisition of deliverable nuclear weapons. This could happen tomorrow, and is almost certain to happen within a few years unless the regime is overthrown, which seems unlikely.

Another would be the establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. That would mean that in addition to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, we would be fighting an American-trained and equipped PLO army on our eastern border, and that border would be right next to our most critical infrastructure.

A takeover of Egypt by Islamic extremists could also upset the balance. Although it might take a while before Egypt became a danger itself, an open Egyptian border to Gaza could multiply the threat from Hamas. There is also the possibility of the king of Jordan being overthrown, either by IS or Iran-backed radicals. There are probably other scenarios that would have the same effect.

What I am trying to say is that the situation is unstable. Any balance of power is temporary. And if – more likely, when – it tips against us, we will have no choice but to act to neutralize the threats. Once that happens, the usual constraints on action will be gone. It won’t be a limited ‘mowing the grass’ operation and it may not be possible to employ the kind of tactics to minimize collateral damage that we have used in the past.

The greatest challenge will be to our leadership, which will have to overcome habits developed during decades of deterring or managing conflict. If you doubt the importance of this, consider the 2006 Second Lebanon War, in which Israel was in a far better position vs. Hezbollah than today, and even had a tacit green light from the Bush Administration and the Sunni Arabs to finish off Hezbollah. But the team of Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, Amir Peretz and Dan Halutz were not up to the job – and their military failure was followed by a diplomatic one, as the toothless UN Security Council resolution 1701 that they negotiated did not disarm Hezbollah or prevent the massive buildup that threatens war today.

Until recently, many Israelis felt that their leaders were too concerned about security, and wanted their government to place more emphasis on social and economic issues. As Olmert unfortunately put it at a speech to the Israel Policy Forum in 2005, “We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies…” Before the last election, PM Netanyahu was accused of making too much of a fuss about the weaknesses of the Iran deal.

But the lack of day-to-day personal security as well as revelations about how damaging the Iran deal has actually been have focused attention on security issues in general, including the broader strategic ones. If there were an election next week, it’s not likely that the candidates would base their campaigns on who would do a better job reducing the price of apartments.

No politician wants to be in the position of Golda Meir, who made the wrong decision in 1973 and did not preempt (or even prepare for) the Yom Kippur war, or Olmert, who bumbled his way to blowing an opportunity that, in hindsight, might have made the picture look very different today. So these issues are very much at the forefront of our leaders’ minds.

I don’t think the folks sitting in Tehran understand us, and I think they are listening to their own braggadocio a little too much, because they don’t seem to grasp how dangerous it is for them to continue on their aggressive path. Sooner or later it will reach the point that we see them as a true existential threat. Then we will have no options except to preempt that threat.

It will end in crying.

Posted in Iran, War | 1 Comment

The saddest story in today’s news

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal
Tzvika Cohen and his son Moshe

Tzvika Cohen and his son Moshe

Every morning I take a short walk to pick up my newspaper. It makes me feel a part of the country to read a Hebrew newspaper, and it helps to improve my Hebrew.

Today I read about Putin announcing his plan to withdraw his troops from Syria. I read about a plan to turn over most security in Jericho and Ramallah to the Palestinian Authority, which the Prime Minister says never got off the ground. And I read about the development of a system to locate and destroy Hamas’ attack tunnels near the border with Gaza. That last was especially good news.

Then I got to page 9 (Hebrew link).

Moshe Cohen went up to the Torah for his bar mitzvah today in a synagogue in Ma’ale Adumim. Moshe’s father, Tzvika, was not there. He was in Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, anesthetized and on a respirator as he has been since Saadi Ali Abu Hammad, who worked with Tzvika at the mall and who drank coffee together with Tzvika, lay in wait for him and brutally attacked him with an ax. The security camera video, which I am not linking here, shows the terrorist striking him over and over again as he tries to get up. The extreme viciousness of the attack was shocking.

Abu Hammad gave himself up and was arrested. The Palestinian Authority, with the help of Iran, will pay him a salary while he is in prison.

The family cancelled a party that they had planned for Moshe, but did not ask to postpone his aliyah.

And now for the part that is almost impossible to write. After the Bar Mitzvah, Moshe went to the hospital to visit his father. Tzvika’s doctors have tried to wean him off the respirator with no success. He has not responded to attempts to wake him or communicate with him.

I would like to write that a miracle happened and that when Moshe called to his father and told him that he was bar mitzvah, he smiled or even moved his finger. But he didn’t. Moshe kept trying until he broke down in tears.

Posted in Terrorism | Comments Off on The saddest story in today’s news

Two peoples divided by a common religion

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

The just-released Pew Survey (“Israel’s Religiously Divided Society”) contains some fascinating data. While most commentators are making a big deal over the fact that about half of Jewish Israelis agreed that “Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel” – a stupid question because it doesn’t distinguish between Arab citizens of Israel and residents of Judea and Samaria, or whether ‘transfer’ is at gunpoint or voluntary with compensation, or many other things – I was more interested in its comparison between Israeli and American Jews.

As an American-Israeli, I am often struck by the way Jews in either place don’t understand each other’s cultures and concerns. Israeli Jews don’t understand the liberal (Reform and Conservative) Judaism which so appeal to Americans, they don’t understand American politics, and they think that all American Jews are rich and stupid – especially the ones dumb enough make aliyah (ask me about the ‘American price’ in the shuk). But since Israel has very little power to affect the US, this is of no importance.

What is of great significance is the fact that ignorance in the other direction – the misconceptions of American Jews about Israel and Israelis – are dangerous, especially because they are exploited by the US administration and others who do not have Israel’s best interests at heart.

Orthodox Jews in America are 10% of the Jewish population, and hold views similar to the 22% of Israeli Jews that identify as Orthodox. But the non-Orthodox populations are very different. In Israel, most of them are “hiloni,” usually translated as ‘secular’, and about half as many identify as “masorati” or ‘traditional’ (not to be confused with the tiny Masorati movement, which is the Israeli branch of American Conservative Judaism).

The survey describes Masoratim as holding the “middle ground between Orthodoxy and secularism.” Many Mizrachi Jews put themselves in this category. Although they vary widely in their degree of observance, one example is the man who votes for the ultra-Orthodox Shas party but still drives to the football stadium on Shabbat.

Neither of these groups correspond to anything in American Jewry. Israel’s secular hilonim are overwhelmingly married to other Jews (98%), they tend to be much more knowledgeable about Jewish texts (which they learn in school), they are more likely than unaffiliated American Jews to light candles before Shabbat, keep kosher, or attend a Pesach seder – even though 60% never go to a synagogue, and 40% of them say that they do not believe in God! But 28% of them oppose allowing Reform or Conservative rabbis to perform marriages in Israel, despite the fact that 88% believe that “religion should be kept separate from government policies.”

Almost all Israeli Jews, when asked their religion chose ‘Jewish’ rather than ‘no religion’, even if they also indicated that they didn’t believe in God. And when asked what strain of Judaism they identified with, half of them said ‘Orthodox’ even if they never went to a synagogue. Only 5% identified with the Reform or Conservative movements.

In other words, Israelis are closely tied to Jewish culture and traditions, even if their degree of religious observance is minimal. They respect traditional Jewish belief and ritual, even if they dislike the religious establishment and want it to keep its hands off their lives.

In America, about half of married non-Orthodox Jews have a non-Jewish spouse. The unaffiliated American Jew is usually the assimilated Jew with no knowledge of Jewish texts or identification with Jewish traditions. And Reform Judaism has separated itself from Orthodoxy and even Conservative Judaism so much – both in practice and in philosophy (think of the Reform concept of tikkun olam as social action) – that those who insist that it is more like a different religion than a kind of Judaism have a cogent argument.

Politically, American Jews are more dovish than Israelis. They are much more likely to think a peace agreement with the Palestinians is possible and would be productive, that settlements across the Green Line hurt Israel’s security rather than help it, and that Israel’s government is not making a sincere effort to achieve peace with the Palestinians.

It’s understandable that Israelis take the more pessimistic positions that they do, given recent experience. Only 8% of Israelis self-identify as part of the Left; the rest see themselves as centrists (55%) or right-wing (37%). But American Jews are overwhelmingly liberal or progressive, and they take their cues from the administration that they strongly support, liberal media and opinion leaders.

My experience has been that with some exceptions American Jews are acutely uninformed about the realities here. Because events in Israel are not vital to them, they uncritically accept what they hear from sources they consider authoritative. PM Netanyahu also comes in for a lot of unjustified criticism from Americans, who see him as an extremist, when he is actually squarely in the center of Israeli politics.

American Jews, like other Americans, are influenced to some degree by the flood of aggressive anti-Israel propaganda from the numerous groups whose function is to demonize Israel. There is also a large group of liberal rabbis who transmit information from the small-but-vocal Israeli Left to their congregants as though it is mainstream opinion in Israel.

The Pew survey notes that some 57% of American Jews see “working for justice and equality” as part of their Jewish identity (only 27% of Israelis agree). So anything framed this way is appealing to American Jews.

The Women of the Wall is an interesting example. Started as a movement of Orthodox women who wanted to be able to pray out loud in the women’s section of the Kotel, it was co-opted by the American Reform movement, and presented as a struggle against fanatic sexism. Ironically, the Reform movement’s intervention may have derailed the partial victory of the original Women of the Wall.

The Reform Movement, which is very close to the Obama Administration, also wants political influence in Israel, which it seems to believe it deserves because of its moral superiority to Israelis. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, URJ president, announced his intention to intervene in Israel’s affairs last October when he said

… Jews who see brokenness in the treatment of Israel’s minorities, or in the way ultra-Orthodox views of Judaism are being enshrined in secular law, are being told that, when it comes to Israel, you should check your commitment to tikkun olam at the door. We will not.

I don’t know how it played in America, but the arrogance inherent in his statement was not appreciated in Israel, which is struggling to do right by all of its minorities, including Haredim, its Arab citizens, illegal migrants, those living in neighborhoods flooded with illegal migrants, and Palestinian Arabs whose idea of politics or religion seems to be to stab Jews. And there is certainly more than enough to do in America on the question of minorities!

My message to American Jews would be that before trying to be the 800-pound gorilla you would learn about the complexity of the situation here, and the challenges that we face just to keep the state from being overrun by the surrounding barbarians. Probably a good default when you don’t understand something would be to align yourselves with the majority of Israelis, who after all have to live with the situation. And here is a hint on one specific issue: neither the government nor the opposition nor the average Israeli think the “two-state solution” is workable in the foreseeable future.

G. B. Shaw said that England and America are two countries divided by a common language. This can be taken to mean that the language is more different than it looks; but it could also mean that the common language hides deeper cultural differences, something which has always seemed to me to be true. I learned to be more careful speaking to British acquaintances in order to avoid misunderstandings.

Perhaps this would be a good lesson for American Jews as well.

Posted in American Jews, Israeli Society | 2 Comments

They Must Go (apologies to M. Kahane)

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Victor Rosenthal

I started to write this while listening to the news on the radio Tuesday evening. There were three terror attacks in three hours today, two stabbings, one shooting. At least one person is dead, more than ten wounded, half of them seriously. In one case a man pulled the Arab terrorist’s knife out of his own neck and stabbed his assailant to death. Yes, you read that right.

I’m not going to give all the details because this just happened, what’s on the Internet may be wrong, and anyway I’m sick of reading about this stuff. And the details aren’t important.

A just-released Pew survey tells us that 48% of Israeli Jews “strongly agree” or “agree” with the statement “Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel.” 46% disagree.

Now, this is an idiotic question. Are they asking about Arab citizens of Israel or Arab residents of the Palestinian Authority areas, or both? Do they mean all Arabs or just those that belong to terror groups? Do they mean ‘expelled by force’ or given compensation to move? Would they go to Jordan, the US, Europe or Gaza? Does Avigdor Lieberman’s plan to require loyalty oaths count?

Those who want to paint Israeli Jews as racist ethnic cleansers are already having a field day (maybe that’s why the question was asked this way). But before you pile on, please note that supporters of the ‘two-state solution’ want to transfer or expel Jews from Judea and Samaria. If you think it’s wrong to transfer Arabs, then explain why it is acceptable to transfer Jews.

This survey was done between October 2014 and May 2015, before the remarkably bloody Third Intifada began. Imagine if they asked the question again today, after almost half a year of daily stabbings, shootings and car ramming attacks!

Israelis overwhelmingly know that leaving Judea and Samaria would make it impossible for Israel to defend herself against terrorism or conventional attack. Two-state deals, no matter what guarantees are made, involve irrevocable concrete Israeli concessions in return for promises that can be reneged upon in a flash.

We must keep Judea and Samaria. But adding the hostile residents of the territories to our population, which is already about 20% Arab, would bring about certain instability and unending terrorism. The nation would fly apart the way Europe is flying apart.

The conclusion is obvious: Israel must assert sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and most of the Arabs must leave.

The necessity of this has been demonstrated since last September, when the Palestinian child soldiers and other terrorists began their daily rampages. There is a cold murderousness in these creatures, who post diagrams on Facebook of where to best stab you so that you will not survive, who hate you so much – and whose society, religion and culture fully validate their hate – that they consider it an honor to die in the process of killing you.

Palestinian leaders could have had all kinds of compromises, various forms of autonomy or coexistence, even a sovereign state, but they rejected them all. They wouldn’t and won’t accept anything but our disappearance. Now it’s too late. When they fashioned their children into the ‘knife generation’ and sent them out to kill, they closed the door on compromise and coexistence. It’s over. We are getting a divorce, and they are the ones moving out.

They have deluded themselves into thinking that we are like the Crusaders or the French colonists in Algeria, and if they make things hard enough we’ll go back where we came from. But where we came from is here. Their strategy has guaranteed that the only solution for us is for them to leave. And we are the stronger party.

So those who are concerned about stopping the wave of murderous terrorism and those who are looking for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have a common answer.

In the words of Meir Kahane, They Must Go. All the rest is implementation.

Posted in Israel and Palestinian Arabs | 5 Comments