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Israel for Dummies

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I don’t pretend to be an expert on Middle East politics.  I usually rely on the perspective of Steve Clemons at The Washington Note, who provides candid, unvarnished commentary on the complicated issues in that region.  Since December of 2008, I have been following the accomplishments of Jeremy Ben-Ami, the Executive Director of J Street, which he describes as “the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement”.

Concern over the threat to Israel from Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been a hot topic during this election year.  Nevertheless, on February 27, Andrew Jones wrote a piece for The Raw Story, which included some disclosures published by Wikileaks concerning Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts:

Growing concerns over Iran’s nuclear facilities may prove to be all for naught.  Officials from the global intelligence company Stratfor allegedly discussed that Israel may have already destroyed the Iranian nuclear facility, according to one of the emails released by Wikileaks Monday.

In one of the over five million emails leaked, the conversation centered on Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak praising the news of deadly munitions blasts at a base of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.

“I think this is a diversion.  The Israelis already destroyed all the Iranian nuclear infrastructure on the ground weeks ago,” one intelligence official wrote in an email dated November 14, 2011. “The current ‘let’s bomb Iran’ campaign was ordered by the EU leaders to divert the public attention from their at home financial problems.  It plays also well for the US since Pakistan, Russia and N. Korea are mentioned in the report. ”

This scenario makes sense.  Iran would not likely admit to having been humiliated by Israel .  Beyond that, the European Union plutocrats would enjoy nothing more than a decent sideshow to distract attention from their economic austerity fiasco.

For years, I have been waiting for someone to write a book called Israel for Dummies.  Too many American teevee pundits seem completely ignorant about Israel’s internal political strife and its impact on the prospects for peace with the Palestinians.  It appears as though someone has finally written that book.  I recently came across a great piece written by Noah Millman for The American Conservative.  Mr. Millman wrote a review of a new book entitled, The Unmasking of Israel by Gershom Gorenberg.  As Millman explains, the book takes us back to the early days of Israel, with David Ben-Gurion at the helm, bringing us to the present-day, never-ending conflict with the Palestinians.  Here are some highlights from Noah Millman’s book review:

Rather, the thrust of the book, as the title states, is to demonstrate that the series of decisions made during and after the 1967 War that resulted in the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza set in motion a process that has progressively “unmade” the State of Israel.  Indeed, the progressive expansion of the settlement enterprise has so eroded the foundations of the signature achievement of political Zionism – Israel as we now know it – that not merely a “Jewish democratic state” but the state as such is now imperiled.

*   *   *

Since 1967, Gorenberg relates, the settlement enterprise has undermined the Israeli state top to bottom.  It has fostered secrecy and corruption in government.

*   *   *

Again the story is familiar.  Less so is the framing. Gorenberg, though he is outraged by the plight of the Palestinians, is not really writing about that plight.  Nor is he writing from an anti-Zionist perspective.  Rather, he is writing from a deeply Zionist point of view.  Zionism, we tend to forget, was not a self-defense movement.  It was a nationalist movement. Nationalism tells a people a story about what it means to be free – that being free means being part of a self-conscious, self-governing, sovereign, and independent collective.  Losing consciousness of one’s national group, being governed by other groups, failing to achieve independence and sovereignty on par with other nations – these are signs of unfreedom.  Of immaturity. The Jews before Zionism were, from the perspective of this narrative, either an exceptionally immature nation or not a nation at all.  The goal of Zionism was not simply – or even primarily – to provide for a “safe haven” for Jews fleeing persecution by the Czar or the Nazis.  The goal was the spiritual rejuvenation of the Jewish people by molding them into a nation like other nations and achieving independent statehood.

This is a narrative frame that, in broad strokes, Gorenberg accepts, which is why he is properly seen as a Zionist.  Indeed, the whole argument of the book is that by holding onto and settling the territories captured in 1967, Israel has reverted to a mode of existence that Zionism was supposed to help the Jews grow out of. By undermining the authority of the state, the settlement enterprise has revived modes of being and of argument that, from Gorenberg’s perspective, the Jewish people should have grown out of when they acquired the power and responsibility of a state. Indeed, that was the whole point, from a moral perspective, of acquiring state power in the first place.  The settlement enterprise doesn’t just undermine the moral case for Israel because it’s an injustice (plenty of states have perpetrated injustices – indeed, far worse injustices – without undermining the case for statehood as such) but because it is evidence that Zionism failed in what was arguably its primary objective.

As an aside:  Be sure to read the Comment stream following Millman’s piece.  It included some astute remarks and a good debate.

One American’s experience in attempting to get a better understanding of the Israeli – Palestinian conflict was chronicled on the Al Jazeera website.  Punk rock icon, Jello Biafra of The Dead Kennedys discussed his decision to cancel a show he was scheduled to perform at the Barby Club in Tel Aviv with his new band (Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine).  His bandmates had decided to boycott Israel in order to support the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movementWikipedia lists this explanation of the BDS movement’s three main goals:

  1. Freeing all Palestinian territories from Israeli influence since 1967 and dismantling the Israeli West Bank barrier;
  2. Acting towards the rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel; and
  3. Promoting the interests of Arab Palestinian refugees in reference to the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948.

Jello Biafra’s account of what followed his decision to cancel the Tel Aviv gig made for some interesting reading:

So with the rollercoaster still in my stomach and my head, I flew solo to Israel instead.  The mission:  to check things out myself and hopefully at least get closer to some kind of conclusion on whether artists boycotting Israel, especially me, was really the best way to help the Palestinian people.

*   *   *

I also got an invitation from a self-proclaimed fan to “come meet the Israeli right” and see the settlements through their eyes, complete with a wine-tasting party.

Many people I met on my trip to Israel feel that the boycott has damaged the Israeli opposition more than it has anyone else and “helped silence the peace camp in Israel”.  A veteran journalist I met later told me, “the best way to contribute to peace is to try and work to understand both sides” and that he felt that boycotts strengthen extremists by keeping people apart.

*   *   *

One of the few things both Israelis and Palestinians seem to agree on is that one of the main obstacles to peace these days is the settlers.

Today the illegal settlements are completely out of control, with 300,000 settlers planted across the Green Line in the West Bank and another 200,000 beyond the Green Line in East Jerusalem. Borders are creatively moved and enforced by the infamous wall, started by the ideas of Yitzhak Rabin and greatly expanded by Ariel Sharon.  It’s a black eye on the face of Israel’s reputation today, considered so even among many of Israel’s citizens and supporters.

Some people told me that if the wall had been built along the Green Line, it might have actually worked.  But Sharon then used it as a land grab, creatively and maniacally routing it through the middle of Palestinian towns, Palestinian farmland and across Palestinian roads, in a deliberate attempt to make the West Bank such a splattered Swiss-cheese hodgepodge of impassable walls and checkpoints that a free Palestinian state could never get off the ground.

Any fantasy that Palestinians could one day be broken down to stay on “their side” of the wall and live happily ever after is ridiculous.  It flies in the face of all human instinct and human rights. It is never going to happen.  Like the Berlin Wall, it is destined to fall sooner rather than later.

*   *   *

A boycott of products made in settlements has begun inside Israel.  There is also a growing boycott by artists refusing to cross the Green Line and perform for the settlers.  A fancy venue has opened in one of the largest settlements in Ariel.  Many artists refuse to perform there.

*   *   *

Yet bringing down this regime by boycott may be a much higher mountain to climb than the boycott of South Africa.  The 1985 musician boycott of Sun City (a posh, government-owned golf resort and casino in South Africa) was just a promotional tool for the financial boycott, where banks, universities and corporations caved into pressure to pull their investments out of South Africa and broke the back of the white apartheid regime.

*   *   *

I am not saying the same tactics that brought down apartheid South Africa can’t be done.  I am just saying that there are different and heavier obstacles this time and people need to be ready for them.

South Africa never had anything like the AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) lobby, which is now considered more of a lobby for Likud than for the Israeli people.  Nevertheless, they have a stranglehold over almost every member of Congress of both parties, using Joe McCarthy-type tactics to smear anyone they don’t like as anti-Jewish – and get them voted out of office.

*   *   *

I will not perform in Israel unless it is a pro-human rights, anti-occupation event that does not violate the spirit of the boycott.  Each artist must decide this for themselves. I am staying away for now, but am also really creeped out by the attitudes of some of the boycott hardliners, and hope someday to find a way to contribute something positive here.  I will not march or sign on with anyone who is more interested in making threats than making friends.

As for the Arab Spring, I cross my fingers on one hand and bite my nails with the other.

I have a lot to learn and a long way to go.

We all have a lot to learn.  Jello Biafra’s humility is refreshing.  If only our politicians were so humble  .  .  .


 

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Time For Sanity

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Amid all of the television news specials, turgid essays and grim pictorials we have seen on the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks – there have been a few encouraging glimpses of sanity.  Several commentators have pointed out that Osama Bin Laden got exactly what he wanted when America reacted to that tragedy by spending trillions on military assaults, which ended up killing unknown thousands of innocent Muslims – also known as “collateral damage”.

How many otherwise peace-loving Muslims will be attracted to Islamist extremism because of outrage over a “war on terror” they perceive as a “war on Islam”?  How badly has our economy been damaged because a military invasion of Iraq was sold as an effective way to prevent another 9/11?

Another tragic change Bin Laden brought to America was the inflammation of a pre-existing National Security Gestapo, which had always been hell-bent on having its way – individual freedom and privacy be damned!  We have witnessed how Barack Obama has been more than happy to accommodate those forces – many of which are private contractors – deliberately placed out of the reach of that pesky Freedom of Information Act.

How did we get to this deteriorated situation?  The mass media bear a large share of the responsibility.  Their need to out-sensationalize the competition helped fuel a consensual mindset, ginned-up with rage and ready to support whatever junta could strike back at our enemy with unrestrained force.  We were told that this enemy was terrorism itself – a tactic.  Our government had declared war against a tactic.  Anyone who questioned that battle was characterized as weak or unpatriotic.

It is only now – ten years after the tragedy – when people are willing to take a rational look at how our political leaders and our media establishment reacted to (or took advantage of) these events.

Spencer Ackerman wrote an article for Wired with the title, “How to Defeat Terrorism:  Refuse to Be Terrorized”.  In the political world, the refusal to be terrorized requires the courage to stand up to intimidation and accusations of being “weak on terror”.  In fact, our political leaders have been rendered weak from terror.  That weakness has resulted in significant deterioration of our personal liberties as well as capitulation to those lobbyists and pressure groups demanding unlimited expenditures in the name of “homeland security”.  Spencer Ackerman provided this explanation:

Look at the charts that Danger Room’s Lena Groeger compiled.  She tallies $6.6 trillion in defense spending after 9/11.  There is nothing that al-Qaida could possibly do to justify even a slice of such a monster expenditure.  Why did it happen?

Former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke has an answer.  “There’s going to be a terrorist strike some day,” Clarke told Frontline for its “Top Secret America” documentary this week.  “And when there is, if you’ve reduced the terrorism budget, the other party, whoever the other party is at the time, is going to say that you were responsible for the terrorist strike because you cut back the budget.  And so it’s a very, very risky thing to do.”

*   *   *

It’s much harder to be the one to stand up and say the threat of terrorism is too minor for such expanded surveillance, and the government needs to stop.  When libertarian Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) made precisely that case, Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) subjected him to cheap, hypocritical demagoguery.

The only way this changes is if citizens change the political incentives for politicians.  Two-bit terrorists will always be around, sadly.  But when the Harry Reids get major political blow-back for attacking the Rand Pauls, then – and only then – will the 9/11 Era be truly over.

Another important theme of Ackerman’s essay is the absence of an “end game” for this war on terror.  After conceding that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta may be entirely justified in claiming that al-Qaida is on the verge of strategic collapse, Ackerman emphasizes that “it would be foolish” to relent at this point:

But all of that is only justifiable if the new U.S. Shadow Warsundeclared, largely covert wars in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond – actually end soon.

*   *   *

When Barack Obama ran for president, his national security team told me, in an extensive series of interviews, that a major focus of his presidency would be to confront what they called the “politics of fear” – the national-security freakout that led to counterproductive post-9/11 moves like invading Iraq.  But since coming to power, Obama has accommodated himself to the politics of fear far more than he’s confronted it.

*   *   *

Only when citizens make it acceptable for politicians to recognize that the threat of terrorism isn’t so significant can the country finally get what it really needs, 10 years later:  closure.

President Obama created a new challenge for himself:  By killing off Bogeyman Bin Laden and with the imminent destruction of the world’s largest terrorist organization, he is now faced with the duty to lead America out of this dark age of terrorphobia.


 

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A Failure We Won’t Forget

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January 15, 2009

With less than a week before the end of George Bush’s Presidency, we are seeing numerous retrospectives on the successes and failures of the Bush Administration.  Of course, the failures have been plentiful and catastrophic.  Quite a bit of attention has been focused on the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina.  The use of warrantless wiretaps has become a rallying cry for those calling for the prosecution of Bush Administration officials.  The politicization of the Justice Department is back in the news with the disclosure that a former Justice Department official, Bradley Schlozman, refused to hire attorneys he considered too liberal.  The Administration’s use of torture at Guantanamo is also in the headlines with the revelation by Susan Crawford that Mohammed al-Qahtani (a man alleged to have been the would-be twentieth hijacker from September 11, 2001) was tortured.  Crawford explained that as a result of the treatment of this prisoner, she would be unable to bring him to trial.  Crawford is a former Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, who in 2007, was appointed to the position of convening authority for military commissions.  In that post, she is the top Bush Administration official overseeing the military trials of suspects held at Guantanamo.

As we reach the end of his second term in office, we cannot help but realize that George W. Bush, as Commander in Chief of our armed forces, never caught America’s worst enemy:  Osama bin Laden.  Despite the cowboy posturing, the “wanted: dead or alive” rhetoric and the numerous assurances to the contrary, George Bush has been unable to capture or kill bin Laden.  Once bin Laden escaped from the battle of Tora Bora, fleeing into the mountainous region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, many observers believed Bush had lost his chance at bringing this villain to justice.  These critics turned out to be right.  Some of my friends believe that Bush never really wanted to catch bin Laden.  Under that theory, bin Laden was more valuable as a “bogeyman”, who could be used to justify the infringements on our liberties and the “harsh interrogation methods” employed by the Bush Administration.  Regardless of whether such theories are true or not, Bush’s pursuit of Osama bin Laden has become yet another abject failure of this administration’s legacy.  If the al-Qaeda attack against the United States had taken place at a later time during Bush’s tenure, he could invoke the excuse that he “didn’t have enough time” to catch bin Laden.  As it turned out, Bush had seven years and four months to capture or kill bin Laden, yet he failed to do either.

In a villa somewhere in western Pakistan, bin Laden is probably watching an American cable newscast and chuckling with delight about his victory over George Bush.  Bush never got him, nor will he ever have a chance at it again.  He must enjoy watching the video clips of Bush doing his little bounce, squinting in attempt to make a tough, cowboy face, cranking up the faux Texas accent, and making some hollow threat to “get bin Laden”.  In his latest audio message, bin Laden taunts President Bush by emphasizing the harsh reality that Bush has been unable to catch him.  As reported by Khaled Wassef and Tucker Reals of CBS News, bin Laden’s newest discourse includes a dig at Bush’s low approval rating:

“Can America keep up the war with us for more decades to come?  All reports and analysis indicate that this is not possible. In fact, 75 percent of American people are happy with the departure of the president who got them into wars they could not possibly win.”

Bin Laden goes on to say President Bush “drowned” the American people in economic woes and “left his successor a difficult legacy, and left him one of two bitter choices … The worst heritage is when a man inherits a long guerrilla warfare with a persevering, patient enemy – a war that is funded by usury.  If he (Obama) withdraws from the war, that would be a military defeat, and if he goes on with it, he’ll drown in economic crisis.”

As President Bush and his minions struggle to re-define the Bush Legacy, we have America’s worst enemy providing an assessment of the Bush years in terms that are painfully close to the truth.  Heckuva’ job, Bushey!

No Jews Allowed In Rick Warren’s Heaven

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December 22, 2008

There has been quite a bit of attention focused on Barack Obama’s choice of conservative evangelical minister, Rick Warren, to deliver the invocation at the Presidential inauguration ceremony on January 20.  Most of the outrage over that choice stems from the fact that Warren was actively involved in promoting Proposition 8, the controversial California ballot initiative banning same-sex marriages.

A large number of objections to Warren’s participation in this historic ceremony are coming from Hollywood.  As Tina Daunt reported in the December 20 Los Angeles Times, the entertainment community’s reaction to Warren’s role in the inaugural was “swift, angry and bitter”.  Her article quoted Hollywood publicist, Howard Bragman who said the following about Barack Obama:

“What he didn’t realize was how much untapped energy there was in the gay and lesbian community because of the passage of Prop. 8,” said Bragman. “Obama didn’t realize, after all the support he got from the gay and lesbian community, we feel betrayed right now.”

Meanwhile, back at the nation’s capitol, Barney Frank, the openly gay Senator from Massachusetts, had much to say about Warren’s role in the inaugural ceremony.  As Jason Blum reported on December 21 at the Bloomberg website, Senator Frank said this about the inclusion of Warren in the event:

“Giving that kind of mark of approval and honor to someone who has frankly spoken in ways I and many others have found personally very offensive, I thought that was a mistake for the president-elect to do.”

I particularly enjoyed the piece written by Christopher Hitchens for Slate on December 19.  I thought the televangelist lobby would have been run out of Washington in the wake of the 2008 elections.  Chris Hitchens appears to be sharing my disappointment over that group’s enduring presence on Capitol Hill, despite the efforts of many to preserve the separation of church and state.  The most impressive point made in this article concerned Warren’s insistence that there are no Jews allowed in heaven:

It is a fact that Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., was present at a meeting of the Aspen Institute not long ago and was asked by Lynda Resnick — she of the pomegranate-juice dynasty — if a Jew like herself could expect to be admitted to paradise.  Warren publicly told her no.

Similarly, Time magazine’s Joe Klein had this to say in his December 16 posting on his Swampland blog at Time.com, concerning Warren’s insistence that Jews can’t go to heaven:

I am not a big fan of Rick Warren’s.  He thinks I’m going to hell.  He said so in mixed company, at an Aspen Institute forum.  He was asked if Jews were going to hell.  He said yes.  He can go ahead and feed every poor child in Africa and I’m still going to think he’s a fool for believing that.  Reverend Rick is also not too big on gay or women’s rights.  (Indeed, if Jews–and all other non born-again Christians–homosexuals, feminists, and anyone who has either had an abortion, performed an abortion or reluctantly agrees that it’s none of our business who has abortions  …  if all those people are going to hell, then heaven’s got to be about as interesting as linoleum.)

Regardless of the controversies over Proposition 8 and same-sex marriage, is it really appropriate to have a man deliver the invocation at the Presidential inauguration ceremony, when that man professes that Jews are not allowed into heaven?  Does Warren believe that there is a big “No Jews Allowed” sign at the pearly gates?  Has heaven been getting away with something that American country clubs have not been able to do, since the 1970s?

There is obviously plenty wrong with having someone of Warren’s ilk speaking at the Presidential inauguration.  Gay weddings constitute just one of many issues these characters have on their list of things to not tolerate.  Chris Hitchens suggested three questions to be asked of the Obama transition team, before the inauguration proceeds:

— Will Warren be invited to the solemn ceremony of inauguration without being asked to repudiate what he has directly said to deny salvation to Jews?

— Will he be giving a national invocation without disowning what his mentor said about civil rights and what his leading supporter says about Mormons?

— Will the American people be prayed into the next administration, which will be confronted by a possible nuclear Iran and an already nuclear Pakistan, by a half-educated pulpit-pounder raised in the belief that the Armageddon solution is one to be anticipated with positive glee?

Remember John McCain’s old expression, “agents of intolerance”?  Who would have thought that one such agent would deliver the invocation when Barack Obama is sworn in as our next President?