What If Israel Ceases to Be a Democracy?

Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic asks: What If Israel Ceases to Be a Democracy?

Is it actually possible that one day Israelis -- Jewish Israelis -- would choose to give up democracy in order to maintain Israel's Jewish voting majority? Some people, of course, argue that Israel has ceased to be a democracy, because there is nothing temporary about the 43-year-old occupation of the West Bank. I believe it is premature to talk about the end of Israel as a democratic state -- mainly because the disposition of the West Bank is still undecided -- but I can't say that the thought hasn't crossed my mind that one day Israelis will make the conscious, active decision to preserve the state's Jewish character instead of its democratic character (I use the word "Jewish" in the demographic sense, not the moral sense, obviously).

As I wrote last week, there's very little Israel's right-wing government has done in the past year or so to suggest that it is willing to wean itself from its addiction to West Bank settlements, and the expansion of settlements bodes ill for the creation of a Palestinian state -- and the absence of Palestinian statehood means that Israel will one day soon confront this crucial question concerning its democratic nature: Will it grant West Bank Arabs the right to vote, or will it deny them the vote? If it grants them the vote, this will be the end of Israel as a Jewish state; if it denies them the vote in perpetuity, it will cease to be a democratic state.

And David Remnick of the New Yorker says I can't take the occupation any more.

A new generation of Jews is growing up in the US. Their relationship with Israel is becoming less patient and more problematic. They see what has happened with the Rabbinical Letter [proscribing rental and sale of property to Arabs -- DR], for example. How long can you expect that they’ll love unconditionally the place called Israel [sic]? You’ve got a problem. You have the status of an occupier since 1967. It’s been happening for so long that even people like me, who understand that not only one side is responsible for the conflict and that the Palestinians missed an historic opportunity for peace in 2000, can’t take it anymore.

“The US administration is trying out of good will to get a peace process moving and in return Israel lays out conditions like the release Jonathan Pollard. Sorry, it can’t go on this way. The Jewish community is not just a nice breakfast at the Regency. You think it’s bad that a US President is trying to make an effort to promote peace? That’s what’s hurting your feelings? Give me a break, you’ve got bigger problems. A shopping list in exchange for a two month moratorium on settlement construction? Jesus [sic].

Earlier this year, Yosi Even-Kama, an Israeli student at the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, produced his final project about the destruction of Israeli democracy through a right-wing revolt.

The controversial final project of a graduate of the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design has Israel's religious community up in arms. Yossi Even-Kama's "State of Judea" exhibit, which has been posted on Facebook and picked up by various religious websites, is a fictional depiction of the gradual death of Israeli democracy in the years 2020-2023 and the establishment of a religious, anti-democratic state in its place.

I'm not so sure that Even-Kama's scenario is the most likely - there certainly seem to be strong anti-democratic figures in Israel today who are not religious (like Avigdor Lieberman, surely the worst foreign minister Israel has ever had). But if Israel does abandon democracy, the extreme right-wing religious Zionists will probably also play a part.

Last summer, when I was visiting Israel, a right-wing group called Im Tirtzu attacked Israeli higher education for its supposed anti-Zionist bias. They sent a letter to the president of Ben Gurion University demanding that she change certain supposedly anti-Zionist academic programs within thirty days, and advising potential donors not to contribute to the university.

The Im Tirtzu Zionist movement is threatening to deter philanthropists from donating to the Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba if it doesn't change its "anti-Zionist bias in the Politics and Government Department."

The movement sent a letter to University President Prof. Rebecca Carmi threatening to ask donors to deposit their funds to a trust fund managed by a lawyer should the university fail to meet their demands within 30 days, and replace some of the staff and change the study program.

Im Tirtzu claims that the university employs more leftists that rightists in its academic staff. According to the activists, President Carmi allowed "the academic dictatorship to gain control of academic freedom and considerably limit intellectual pluralism."

Im Tirtzu director Ronen Shoval and Erez Tadmor, head of the movement's policy and PR department presented data from a report the movement issued which found a "post-Zionist bias" in the political science faculties in various Israeli universities.

According to the report, nine out of 11 academic staff members in the Ben-Gurion Politics and Government Department are involved in political activity which champions "radical Left" agendas. It is stated that three out of 6 doctoral candidates signed a petition supporting Dr. Neve Gordon who called for a boycott of Israel. "We implore you to put and end of the anti-Zionist bias and the exclusion of Zionist students and researchers from the department."

The Zionist movement also threatened to urge students to leave the university. "We shall employ all legal means at our disposal to bring this information to the attention of current and future students as well as elements supporting the university in Israel and aboard," it was stated.

"We want them to take the report seriously, check the claims and stop burying their heads in the sand thinking all is permitted to them," Tadmor told Ynet. "Their dismissive attitude attests to the severity of the problem. I don't want them to fire lecturers. I find it unreasonable that 90% of the senior staff are radical left-wingers just as it is unreasonable for a workplace to have a complete majority of men. It's obvious there is discrimination."

The Ben-Gurion University stated in response: "The university is not in a habit of holding periodical examinations of its staff members' political positions. Such a demand and a demand to "balance" the staff members' political views is extremely reminiscent of McCarthyism and goes against the democratic principles on which the State of Israel was founded. Can it be conceived that a university or any other institution fire or hire employees on the basis of their political opinions?"

The Israeli education minister, Gideon Saar, appeared to support at least in part the agenda of Im Tirtzu. He attended a conference earlier in the year organized by the group and said that he would take their report seriously. In remarks he made to the Knesset in late June, 2010, he stated the following:

Sa'ar said: "I think that the Im Tirtzu report is important in the sense that it generates public debate. It is important to examine the issues raised in the report." In his statements to the plenum [of the Knesset], Sa'ar referred specifically to professors who have backed calls to boycott Israeli universities.

"This is something that is impossible to accept," Sa'ar said. "I have already spoken about this with the head of the Higher Education Council's planning and budgeting committee [Manuel Trajtenberg], and there will be measures taken vis-a-vis the heads of these institutions. This matter is on our agenda - and we plan on taking action over the course of the summer."

Ariel seemed to understand Sa'ar as saying he plans to investigate the charges. His office released a statement reading: "The education minister said that he plans on thoroughly probing the charges made by Im Tirtzu this coming summer."

A spokesperson for Trajtenberg refused to comment when reached by Haaretz, deferring to Sa'ar's office.

"It would behoove the education minister to ignore the report, which emits an aroma of McCarthyism," said Professor Yossi Ben-Artzi, the rector of the University of Haifa. "I hope he will understand the gravity of the very fact of monitoring and informing on lecturers, and of whether he even needs to take seriously an organization like Im Tirtzu, which causes incitement." Earlier this year Sa'ar took part in a conference organized by Im Tirtzu. "I place great importance in this gathering," he said. "Campus activism is hugely vital, and this is what you are doing. For this, you will be blessed." "I very much appreciate this work, which gives expression to an authentic Zeitgeist felt by the public and is much needed on our campuses," Sa'ar said of Im Tirtzu. "I came to tell you: God speed.

Sa'ar on the other hand did oppose the ultimatum given to Ben-Gurion University by Im Tirtzu:

Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar's office stated that, "Regardless of the claims relating to pluralism within Israeli academia and other issues, Education Minister and Chairman of the Committee for Higher Education Gideon Sa'ar discounts any move that is liable to harm donations to universities in Israel and their conditions."

Even paranoids have enemies....

Wikileaks has posted a July, 2009 cable from the American Embassy in Abu Dhabi to the State Department, which doesn't have the "Ahmedinejad is Hitler" quote but does have many interesting statements by and about Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ in the cable). This cable refers to a dinner meeting held on July 15, 2009 between Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) and Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan (ABZ). [I am starting to wonder if there was an editing error in the Times' story on the July, 2009 cables about meetings with Mohammed bin Zayed - it will be interesting to see if some corroboration appears for the quote].

Some of the more interesting details:

From the summary: "He [MBZ] painted to a nuclear Iran as an existential threat to the UAE and invoked the well being of his grandchildren while urging the U.S. to act quickly. MBZ asked for close coordination between the U.S. and UAE to deal with the Iranian threat."

On the Iranian threat: "MBZ described a nuclear armed Iran as absolutely untenable. He pointed to Iran's relentless ambitions to restore regional hegemony as evidenced by destabilizing interference in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Palestine. He believes that 'all hell will break loose' if Iran attains the bomb, with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey developing their own nuclear weapons capability and Iran instigating Sunni - Shia conflict throughout the world. He said Iran is surrounding Israel - driven by ideological conviction - and will threaten Israel's existence should it go nuclear. At the same time, he described Iran's ambitions as reflecting a desire to restore Persia's great-power status, rather than driven by religious convictions." [Emphasis mine - RL]

On war with Iran: "While careful not to suQY.JQoWoRth [word is garbled on Wikileaks site] Iran, MBZ described a near term conventional war with Iran as clearly preferable to the long term consequences of a nuclear armed Iran. Without timely and decisive action by the United States, MBZ believes that Israel will strike Iran, causing Iran to launch missile attacks - including hits on the UAE - and to unleash terror attacks worldwide. In his view, 'the map of the Middle East' would change. He expects widespread civilian conflict to erupt as Iran sparks Sunni - Shia violence worldwide (including the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia which he sees as the greatest vulnerability, along with Iraq, in the Arab world). He speculated that such an event could unfold within six months time and resolved that the UAE is prepared to defend itself. He believes that an Israeli strike will not be successful in stopping Iran's nuclear program, and therefore we need to plan."

On why Israeli-Palestinian agreement is important in this context: "MBZ suggested that the key to containing Iran revolves around progress in the Israel/Palestine issue. He argued that it will be essential to bring Arab public opinion on board in any conflict with Iran and roughly 80% of the public is amenable to persuasion. To win them over, the U.S. should quickly bring about a two state solution over the objections of the Netanyahu government. He suggested working with moderate Palestinians that support the road map, and forget about the others as there is no time to waste." This is interesting to me - what he is suggesting is that when it comes to Iran, the I/P conflict isn't important in and of itself, but rather for the purpose of gaining the support of Arab public opinion in any action against Iran. As long as the I/P conflict exists, Iran can exploit it in order to gain the support of Arab public opinion.

Another July, 2009 cable, recounts the 7/19/09 Gulf Security Dialogue working dinner hosted by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed. More relevant remarks on Iran:

"MbZ reiterated his belief that an Israeli pre-emptive strike against Iran was increasingly likely, saying he was convinced the Netanyahu government was prepared to act against Iran, and that he agreed with Israeli intelligence assessments regarding how close Tehran is to achieving its nuclear ambitions. The Iranian response to a pre-emptive strike, predicted MbZ, would be attacks on U.S. allies in the region, foremost among them the UAE; Iran may also unleash terrorist cells against western interests around the world. ASD Vershbow explained that the USG assessment differed in timeframe -- we do not anticipate military confrontation with Iran before the end of 2009 -- stressing, however, that denying Iran's nuclear ambitions and stemming its efforts to achieve regional hegemony were foremost among U.S. international security concerns." We have now arrived almost at the end of 2010, and there still has been no military confrontation with Iran.

"Ahmedinejad is Hitler" - Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi

On the other hand, the Wikileaks documents do reveal a fascinating group of Middle Eastern nations that agree on the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran: Israel (of course), the king of Bahrain (which is the base for the U.S. Fifth Fleet), king Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who implored the U.S. to "cut off the head of the snake," and military leaders from the United Arab Emirates (the defense chief, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi called Ahmedinejad "Hitler" in July 2009). See the short discussion by Jeffrey Goldberg - "The Saudis are Neocons."

I looked for the full text of the document that details the words of the Crown Prince about Ahmedinejad, but it doesn't appear that the Times has published it yet.

Update on November 29: a commenter provided the reference - it's in the July 23, 2009, cable from the Abu Dhabi embassy (http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/07/09ABUDHABI754.html), in the section entitled "Afghanistan - Neighbors Not Doing Enough." I missed seeing because of that headline. Here's the full text:

MbZ criticized other regional leaders for playing both sides and for "dating" Iran. MbZ compared the current situation to pre-WWII Europe saying, "Ahmedinejad is Hitler," and neighboring capitals believe erroneously that they can prevent Iranian retaliation by playing nice or signing agreements with Tehran. "They think the are backing the winning horse," MbZ explained, emphasizing that if they think that by appeasing Iran they will avoid Iranian retaliation "then they are seriously mistaken, Sir."

Is there law in Israel? -- הלכו לתרבות הרעה

Two examples of disregard of the law in Jerusalem that I just encountered tonight, and about which I'm still fuming:

I was walking in Gan Sacher [a big public park where people play soccer, run, ride bicycles, etc.] with friends, and we sat down to watch a soccer game. Suddenly, behind us flames shot up in the air. It turned out to be a group of young, irresponsible men from a yeshiva, who were building a bonfire inside a ring of trees, without any circle of stones to indicate that this was a legitimate place to build a fire. It's the middle of the hot, dry summer in Israel and very dangerous to light a fire anywhere near possible tinder. My friend went and called the police and the fire department, but the fire kept burning higher as the yeshiva guys put more kindling on it.

I went over and started to talk to them. Another woman had preceded me, one of the people who was involved in the soccer game. I heard that they were speaking English (they were Americans) and started to talk to them in English to tell them that it was illegal and dangerous to make a fire in this place. One of the younger, even more irresponsible yeshiva kids said, "there is no law in Israel!" I yelled at him and told him that of course there is law in Israel. His friends got involved in the argument. Finally, one of the supposedly adult staff came over, and conceded that they should not continue to feed the fire. He said that they would go and get water bottles to put it out.

I continued to yell and ask them what did they learn in their yeshiva - didn't the Talmud talk about "loving your neighbor as yourself" and "be careful for your lives"? One of the adult staff said to me - "Don't start talking about the Talmud."Apparently, the Torah and Talmud only belong to the haredim, and not to any other Jews. As of when we left, no one was bringing water bottles, and neither the fire department nor the police had arrived.

My friends and I hailed a taxi to get home (from Panorama Taxis) - it dropped them off first, and then came to my street. I was looking at the meter, and suddenly in was 4.5 shekels more than it had been. I protested and the cab driver said - "this is for the third passenger." I protested that I had never heard of such a thing. He called his dispatcher and said - "Isn't it true that it's more for the third passenger?" The dispatcher said yes. I then looked at the receipt, and it didn't say anything about a third passenger - instead it said "telephone" - as if we had ordered the taxi by telephone (which does in fact cost more). The driver said, "Oh, it's the same amount of money." I paid him and then got out and told him that he and his company were thieves. He drove off. I just looked it up and saw nothing on the official site of the Jerusalem municipality about a special extra fare for three passengers.

Sponsor of Flotilla Tied to Elite of Turkey

The New York Times has just published a good investigative report on the IHH - the Turkish charity behind the Gaza flotilla that included the Mavi Marmara - Sponsor of Flotilla Tied to Elite of Turkey.

Apparently the IHH and the ruling party in Turkey, the AK (Justice and Development Party) are very close, and the Turkish government was closely following events on the flotilla. The Turkish government could have ordered the flotilla not to go to Gaza, but did not.

ISTANBUL — The Turkish charity that led the flotilla involved in a deadly Israeli raid has extensive connections with Turkey’s political elite, and the group’s efforts to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza received support at the top levels of the governing party, Turkish diplomats and government officials said.

The charity, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, often called I.H.H., has come under attack in Israel and the West for offering financial support to groups accused of terrorism. But in Turkey the group has helped Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan shore up support from conservative Muslims ahead of critical elections next year and improve Turkey’s standing and influence in the Arab world.

According to a senior Turkish official close to the government, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the issue, as many as 10 Parliament members from Mr. Erdogan’s governing Justice and Development Party were considering boarding the Mavi Marmara, the ship where the deadly raid occurred, but were warned off at the last minute by senior Foreign Ministry officials concerned that their presence might escalate tensions too much.

When leaders of the charity returned home after nine Turks died in the Israeli raid, they were warmly embraced by top Turkish officials, said Huseyin Oruc, deputy director of the charity, who was aboard the flotilla.

“When we flew back to Turkey, I was afraid we would be in trouble for what happened, but the first thing we saw when the plane’s door opened in Istanbul was Bulent Arinc, the deputy prime minister, in tears,” he said in an interview. “We have good coordination with Mr. Erdogan,” he added. “But I am not sure he is happy with us now.”

The raid has caused a rupture between Turkey and Israel, and heightened alarm in the United States and Europe that Turkey, a large Muslim country and a major NATO member, is shifting allegiance toward the Arab world. Turkey has warned that its cooperative ties to Israel could be irreparably damaged unless the Israelis apologize and accept an international investigation, steps Israel has so far refused to take.

The charity’s mission, political analysts said, has advanced Mr. Erdogan’s aim of shifting Turkey’s focus to the Muslim east when its prospects for joining the European Union are dim.

The government “could have stopped the ship if it wanted to, but the mission to Gaza served both the I.H.H. and the government by making both heroes at home and in the Arab world,” said Ercan Citlioglu, a terrorism expert at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul....

“How can such a large country as Turkey, with interests in four continents, and with an export- and investment-driven economy requiring extra caution all around the globe, be dragged to the brink of war by a nongovernmental organization?” asked Semih Idiz, a columnist for the Hurriyet Daily News in Turkey, in a June 7 editorial. The answer, he added, is that the charity is a “GNGO” — a “governmental-nongovernmental-organization.”

Many of the 21 people listed on the charity’s board have or had close links to the AK Party. In January, Murat Mercan, chairman of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a senior party official, joined an overland aid convoy to Gaza organized by the charity that tried to force its way through the Rafah crossing from Egypt to Gaza.

A trustee of the charity, Ali Yandir, is a senior manager at the Istanbul City Municipality Transportation Corporation. The corporation controls Istanbul Fast Ferries, which sold the Mavi Marmara, with a capacity for 1,090 passengers, to the charity for about $1.8 million. In 2004, Mr. Yandir was an AK Party candidate for the mayor’s office in Istanbul’s Esenler District.

The charity’s board includes Zeyid Aslan, an AK Party member of Parliament and the acting head of the Turkey-Palestine Interparliamentary Friendship Group; Ahmet Faruk Unsal, an AK Party member of Parliament from 2002 to 2007; and Mehmet Emin Sen, a former AK Party mayor in the central Anatolian township of Mihalgazi.

Those ties partly reflect the common agenda of the party and the charity. Both are involved in relief work among the poor and are bound by a common Islamic ideology. Many of the 60,000 people the charity claims as members come from the religious merchant class that helped Mr. Erdogan sweep to power....

Your tax dollars at work

Tax-Exempt Funds Aiding West Bank Settlements - An important article in the New York Times abut how Americans have sent tax-deductible contributions to settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem at the same time as the U.S. government has consistently viewed the settlements as an obstacle to peace. See the graphic below of the groups who have sent money and volunteers to the settlements.

The Two Sides of a Barbed-Wire Fence

Good column today by Nicholas Kristof on the Israeli occupation, especially what's happening in the southern Hebron hills area: The Two Sides of a Barbed-Wire Fence.

As he ends his article: "Israel has a point when it argues that relinquishing the West Bank would raise real security concerns. But we must not lose sight of the most basic fact about the occupation: It’s wrong."

Fire in Silwan, East Jerusalem

Earlier tonight a helicopter started to circle around somewhere nearby, and I kept hearing the sounds of ambulances. When my neighbor came home, I went out to talk to her and we saw the helicopter coming in our direction with searchlights aimed from it towards the north, towards the Old City. It's not normal to hear helicopters flying around in Jerusalem - it's usually a sign that something unusual is happening. During the day, if I hear them when I'm at the National Library, which is near the main government buildings, it's probably because of some dignitary visiting the city or possibly because of a big demonstration.

I went to the Hebrew website of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, and found an article that revealed the reason for the helicopter. What follows is my translation.

Fire in Silwan: They are abusing the residents of the house of Abu Nab

Left-wing activists and residents in the east Jerusalem neighborhood told Ynet that the violent disturbances began when guards broke into the house of Abu Nab, which right-wing activists have threatened to clear out soon. “They fired in every direction,” they said.

The violent confrontations that broke out tonight in Silwan in east Jerusalem perhaps hint at the disturbances which are likely to flame up if right-wing activists execute their threats to clear out the house of Abu Nab themselves; in the past the house was a synagogue. In the confrontations six policemen and four security guards were lightly injured. According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), tens of Palestinians were injured by inhaling smoke.

According to left-wing activists and Arab residents in Silwan, tonight’s events began after private security guards came into the new “House of Contention,” the house of Abu Nab. According to the residents, the security guards attempted to break into the house, and when they found it locked, they began to fire tear gas inside it. In the end, they succeeded in breaking past the doors, and a few minutes, many residents of the village began to confront them.

Avner, one of the leftwing activists who is in contact with the Arab residents, said to Ynet that this was a provocation by the police, who are trying to inflame the area to prevent the evacuation of Beit Yehonatan. “The residents there were dragged into a violent confrontation, the police and Border Police have been wandering around in the last few days and trying to incite the area after the quiet demonstration we held in the place on last Friday,” he said.

Nasrin Elian from ACRI said that “The security guards from the settlers confronted the residents, in the context of the threat of MK Uri Ariel, that if the house of Abu Nab isn’t cleared by July 4, they will clear it out by themselves. What happened is that once again there were provocations by the security guards near Beit Yehonatan and Beit Ha-Dvash. Many young people gathered together, and the guards began to fire in all directions. Everyone who came near to the house, they shot in his direction.”

Elian also said that the security forces fired tear gas into the house of Abu Nab. “All of the residents, about 40 people, were suffocating and went outside, among them a girl of five who fainted and lost consciousness, and a pregnant woman who also fainted. There was a helicopter in the air with a light beam that lit in every direction, and the ambulances were coming back and forth loading injured people. The residents report about tens of injured, among them two severely.” The police report that they do not know about the injured.

The chairman of the Meretz faction in the Jerusalem city council, Joseph (Pepe) Alalu, who resigned from the coalition after the mayor, Nir Barkat, advanced the King’s Garden plans, blamed him for the disturbances: “When the hammer throws a stone in the water, after that even a hundred wise men can’t take it out from there. We knew, we warned, and the thing that is the worst is that even Nir Barkat knows the sensitivity of the situation. The residents of Silwan, at the moment that the discussions began about the plan, saw themselves deceived again and again. They proposed their own plan, but the municipality did not deal with it at all. It’s a shame that because of a plan like this disturbances have begun now.”

See also the report in Haaretz: East Jerusalem fracas.

Hagit Ofran of Peace Now just reported on these events in Silwan in an article in the Huffington Post - her report covers a wide range of what's been happening in east Jerusalem, the provocations of the settlers and the Wild West actions of the Border Police.

Old City of Jerusalem - June 24, 2010, part 1

My record of a trip I took Thursday to the Old City, complete with photos.

I began the day by eating breakfast with an old friend whom I had not really talked to for about ten years. (I still have friends in Jerusalem that I met when I lived here in the late 1980s). From her house, I went to the Old City, via Jaffa Road. I took the #18 bus along Emek Refaim, up King David St., and then and got off at the stop in front of the Iriya (the Jerusalem Municipality or town hall). Downtown Jerusalem is a mess because there is lots of construction for a light rail system that is being built very slowly. The main streets are all torn up and laying the tracks is going torturously slowly.

On Jaffa Rd., I stopped at the Bible Society and bought 20 copies of the National Geographic Jerusalem map from 1996 that I had tried to get from NG itself last year, without success, for my Jerusalem class. I don’t understand why the Bible Society here managed to get so many copies while NG itself possesses none. I Had a pleasant conversation with two women working there, one from Denmark, one from Finland. [The Bible Society is worldwide – they translate the Bible into as many languages as possible for purposes of proselytization. The Bible Society store in Jerusalem has lots of good scholarly books] on the Bible.

 Google Map of Kikar Zahal (Army square)

I then set out for the Old City – I crossed the street at Kikar Zahal [Zahal Square], and walked down the way to Jaffa Gate. They are actually renovating the park at Zahal Square – it’s been a mess for quite a while, but today workers were not only mowing the grass, but even edging it to make it look neater! 

 Archaeological garden at Kikar Zahal.

The walkway has been improved by the addition of several large trees to give additional shade. It’s actually quite handsome now.

As I got closer to Jaffa Gate itself I saw that the gate itself has been renovated – it’s been cleaned up and looks much nicer. Then I realized that I had to walk through the gate itself – the road into Umar ibn Al-Khattab Square has been blocked off because they’re doing construction in the square, so it’s a hideous mess. 

Jaffa Gate

I skirted around the construction, saying no to several shopkeepers who wanted me to come into their shops and buy something. One of them poked me on the shoulder to get my attention, which really pissed me off. I guess my patience level has been pretty low recently.

I walked along Armenian Patriarchate Road, past some Armenian shops, and turned into the area of the Armenian quarter occupied by an Armenian seminary. I walked around some, but it wasn’t very interesting. The Armenian museum was closed. There has been an Armenian community in Jerusalem for a very long time, but the community increased in size in the early twentieth century with refugees who came to Jerusalem after escaping from the genocide inflicted by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

Garden next to the Armenian Seminary.

I continued down this road and arrived at Zion Gate, where I exited and went into Mt. Zion. I went into a church that I don’t think I’ve been into before, the Church of the Dormition. It’s modern but has some nice mosaics. (“Dormition” means “Sleep” and refers to the death of Mary, the mother of Jesus).

Church of the Dormition - notice the mosaic on the ceiling of the apse of Mary and Jesus.

I then went into the room of the Last Supper (or the supposed room – I don’t see how it could actually have been the room, since from the architectural details it’s from the Crusader period; then during the Ottoman period it was turned into a mosque – the niche pointing to the qibla [direction to Mecca] is still there).

It was too full of tourists, so I left, and found some stairs going up to the roof. I cannot resist going up stairs to roofs in the Old City because the views tend to be so interesting. This one was too, giving a great view of the valley between the Old City and the Tayelet [the Promenade].

It also gives quite a view of part of the Separation Wall, cutting through the Arab suburb of Abu Dis.

View from the roof of the room of the Last Supper. We are looking across the valley to the Tayelet.

Roof of the room of the Last Supper

The Separation Wall at Abu Dis, an Arab suburb of Jerusalem.

Bitterness

This is an email that I sent to some friends about my feelings during this visit to Israel:

I know I haven't written anything to people about Israel, other than a few Facebook updates (all they said was that I had arrived and have watched some soccer games - the World Cup is definitely the most important public event going on now). I guess I've been feeling a bit depressed about the situation here. It just seems like such a mess.

When I arrived the immediate issue was of a court case involving a Haredi community in the West Bank where they were accused of discriminating against Sephardi girls in admission to the local school (state-funded by the way). The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the discrimination was illegal, and then took the further step to order the Haredi Ashkenazi parents who had taken their daughters out of the school (in protest of the order to integrate it) - to go to jail for two weeks, both mothers and fathers. That happened a week ago. Most of the fathers went to jail, but none of the mothers, and today the court ruled that most of the mothers won't have to go to jail. In reaction to the ruling, there were extraordinarily large Haredi demonstrations all over Israel, including one of 100,000 people in Jerusalem! (Fortunately, I was nowhere near it).

And then there's the whole business with the flotilla and its aftermath. Everything I've read in the Israeli press about the makeup of the Israeli inquiry commission suggests that it's a joke, that the government set up this commission simply to mollify the U.S. (which actually isn't working, since the U.S. is still calling for an international inquiry). Israel has now been forced to lighten the blockade on Gaza because of international pressure, which is obviously better for the people of Gaza but makes the Israeli government look weak, which it is. And more flotillas are on their way, from Lebanon and Iran. Who knows how the incompetent Israeli government will deal with them - not well, I imagine.

See these articles on the planned flotillas: Lebanon has just told Israel that it will be "fully responsible" if Israel attacks the boats that will be coming from there. Iran is also sending a boat to break the blockade.

Iran said Tuesday it would send a blockade-busting ship carrying aid and pro-Palestinian activists to Gaza, fueling concern in Israel, where commandos were training for another possible confrontation at sea.

Israel warned archenemy Iran to drop the plan. The Iranian announcement came days after Israel eased its three-year-old blockade of Gaza under international pressure following its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla last month.

"No one in their right mind can believe that a ship sent by the ayatollahs and their Revolutionary Guards has anything to do with humanitarian aid," said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor. "I don't think there is one single country in this region and beyond that would let such an ayatollah ship come near its coasts."

Security officials said the prospect of an Iranian boat headed for Gaza had Israel deeply worried, and that naval commandos were training for the possibility of taking on a vessel with a suicide bomber on board. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose operational details.

Maybe I'm just being negative, but it certainly seems to me that if there is an armed encounter with the Iranian ship, it could be the beginning of a war.

From here it seems that Iran, Hizbollah, and Hamas are just getting stronger politically (and militarily). Honestly, I think a war with one or all of them is inevitable - I don't know when or how it will begin, but I think there will soon be a pretty terrible war. I was hoping that my anxious feelings about war were just projections from far away, but the reality here is bad, and it doesn't seem to me that the current government has the wisdom to deal with a real war.

From here it also seems that Israel is getting more and more isolated politically, in part due to the stupid right-wing government which can't even manage not to antagonize the U.S. government (today the Jerusalem municipality just announced its plans to tear down 22 Palestinian homes in Silwan, which is just down the hill from the Dung Gate, and build an archaeological park there - the U.S. government immediately protested).

The right-wing government also seems to view the simple exercise of certain civil rights as anti-Israel (or maybe the exercise by certain people of those civil rights). I was watching the news last night, and one of the stories was about a conference at Ben Gurion University in the Negev held to deal with the legal problems of the Bedouin in the Negev - many of their villages are unrecognized by the state and therefore get no state services, including running water and electricity. The conference was intended to help people learn about the relevant laws and how to file court cases. The local prosecutor's office accused Ben Gurion of anti-state activity and threatened legal action against the university for doing something entirely legal!

A few thoughts

Some thoughts, in no particular order:

On Friday night, I went to Kol Haneshama for Shabbat services, and then over to a friend's house for dinner. After dinner, we sat and watched the England vs. Algeria soccer game (this is a very hiloni [secular] Israeli thing to do on a Friday night....). I had never watched a soccer game before in my life, and found that I enjoyed it!

Earlier this week I went to the last night of the Festival of Light that was held in the Old City. This was an exhibit of light installations held mostly in the Jewish and Armenian quarters, and along the northern wall of the Old City - at the Damascus Gate and then inside Zedekiah's Cave (actually probably an ancient rock quarry). It was beautiful, especially the one at the Damascus Gate. Below is a photo I took last summer of the Damascus Gate, which gives the basic scene, but not an appreciation of all the people going in and out of it all the time. It's the main entrance to the Old City from Arab east Jerusalem.

From East Jerusalem

As I was watching the light show against the walls, along with a variety of Israeli and foreign tourists, there were others also participating in the scene - sometimes watching the light show, sometimes simply participating in their own lives. To my right there was an Arab family - a couple of women in long dresses and hijab, with a couple of children around them, chatting. To my left, an Arab family sat on the stairs, watching the light show - two kids, including one boy who was very restless. The boy ran down a couple of times into the center of the square before the gate, and bought two little plastic lights. At the stand before the gate, the teenagers who were selling them kept throwing them up into the air as the light show went on. Orthodox Jewish men periodically walked down the stairs and into the Damascus Gate, or came out of it and went up the stairs.

IHH Leader Urges Men to Throw Israelis Overboard 30 May 2010

On the front page of the Haaretz website, a new video from the Israeli foreign ministry about the preparations made on the Mavi Marmara for the Israeli commandos: YouTube - Evidence: IHH Leader Urges Men to Throw Israelis Overboard 30 May 2010.



So much for peaceful humanitarians.

The Foreign Ministry released a new video on Friday in which the leader of the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, Bulent Yildirim, is seen on board the Gaza flotilla's ship the Mavi Marmara, telling dozens of activists to throw Israeli commandos overboard if they attempt to board the ship.

"If they board our ship, we will throw them into the sea, Allah willing!" says Yildirim, the head of the Turkish pro-Palestinian group that sent an aid flotilla to Gaza last month.
The video was shot on board the Mavi Marmara on May 30 by one of the passengers before the Israel Defense Forces raided the ship and killed nine Turkish activists during clashes.

"If we show fear, they will win once again….we don't want to be recorded in Allah's book as cowards," says Yildirim in the video, as dozens of passengers are seen chanting ""millions of martyrs marching to Gaza!"

"They (Israel) are so weak that for 4-5 days they have been engaging in propaganda (against us)…they have been humiliated in front of the whole world… now they are saying that they will launch a fleet (against us)… that they will send the commandos here (to the ship)."

"And we say: 'If you send the commandos, we will throw you down from here and you will be humiliated in front of the whole world," Yildirim tells the passengers.

On Wednesday, Israel added the IHH to its terror watch list following the events of the Gaza-bound flotilla.

IHH told members of the European Parliament it has assembled six ships for its next flotilla and asked others to join its effort to break through Israel's blockade of Gaza.

Arrival in Israel

I arrived in Israel yesterday afternoon around 5:00 p.m. Israel time. One of the things that has always puzzled me about my reaction to flying here is why the amount of time between when I land and the next day always seems absurdly short. I was finally awake enough yesterday to figure it out (after 23 years of flying to and from Israel). Coming from the U.S. east coast to Israel we lose seven hours (because of the difference in time). Yesterday, to my perception, was ridiculously short - only 17 hours long instead of 24. So it wasn't natural suddenly for it to be June 16 instead of June 15. Does that make sense? Well, maybe I'm still not that awake.

A few news items, from the particular to the general:

1) the Jerusalem Pool, an institution in the Emek Refaim neighborhood of Jerusalem (near where I'm staying in Baka), has been threatened with closure by its owners, who want to sell the land to developers who will build a big apartment building plus parking lot in the space. Apparently, however, that plan has been stopped because the owners signed an agreement when they first bought the location that specifies the land can only be used for a pool. The pool was closed over the winter months, requiring regular pool-goers to go to alternate locations, like the Hebrew University pool or the Kibbutz Ramat Rahel pool, both of which are less convenient to people who live in southern Jerusalem. It's open now for swimming, but one can buy only a monthly subscription (instead of the previous yearly ones), and the future of the pool is in doubt.

2) religious news: in the Haredi settlement of Immanuel, parents are fighting an Israeli court ruling that requires the local Bais Yaakov school for girls to admit Ashkenazic and Sephardic students equally. The Israeli Supreme Court ruling came down today that if the parents don't agree to send their daughters to the school, the parents themselves will be sent to jail. For some supportive opinions in the Israeli press, see the translations on False Messiah.

The Israeli high court also decided today to strike down the provision in the state budget that gives income stipends to kollel students (these are married men with children studying in yeshiva), without giving equivalent stipends to students in other educational frameworks, like colleges and universities.

These two court judgments strike at the racism of the Ashkenazic Haredi community and at the support the supposedly secular state gives to the Haredim above all others. The second decision, if it is actually put into practice (and not circumvented by a weak coalition government that needs the Haredi parties to survive) would signal a real revolution in the relationship between the state and the Haredi community, since it would cut off the main support given to men who refuse to work on the pretext that they have to study Torah full time. Instead of taking responsibility for making sure that they can support their families and study Torah, the Haredi community has blackmailed successive Israeli coalition governments into giving these men stipends, at the expense of the secular and religious working public.

3. On the plane here, I read through some articles in the Hebrew Yediot Aharonot about the makeup of the Israeli inquiry commission into the Gaza flotilla fiasco (linked article is from Haaretz - I wasn't able to find the Yediot article). Yediot, which is hardly the most left-wing of Israeli newspapers, wrote scathingly about the three Israelis appointed to the commission, pointing to the age of two of the three (one in his 80s, another in his 90s), and writing about former Supreme Court justice Turkel, aged 75 (who is heading the inquiry panel) that in his court judgments he tended to go very slowly and be deferential to the government.

Going to Israel

I'm sitting here in the Newark airport, waiting for my flight to Israel. I'll be there for about 5 weeks, until July 21, when I fly to Riga, Latvia and then to Tartu, Estonia for the international SBL. It will be interesting to hear from my friends what their reactions are to the Gaza flotilla and the Israeli interception. It's always hard to get an impression of what's going in Israel simply by reading the press - even reading the Israeli press online one only gets a partial picture.

I bought a camcorder a few days ago so I could make some short movies about the Old City and the rest of Jerusalem - I'd like to give the students in my Jerusalem class an appreciation for the lived reality of Jerusalem, not just the books and articles about it that we'll be reading. Last year I put a lot of my photos up on Picasa, which I think helped in giving them a better impression of the reality of the city, but I hope that short videos will be more helpful. I'm also thinking of going on a tour of the Separation Wall in Jerusalem (there's a group called Ir Amim which does those tours) and it would be useful to have some video clips in addition to still photos.

How the flotilla bound for Gaza Strip sailed into death at sea

This article from the Times of London (June 1: How the flotilla bound for Gaza Strip sailed into death at sea) seems to be a good account of what actually happened once the Israeli commandos rushed the Mavi Marmara. The New York Times has published a similar article, and the footage taken by the IDF and the flotilla members corroborates what both articles say.

Before the Gaza Freedom Flotilla steamed out of Cyprus laden with thousands of tons of aid for the blockaded Gaza Strip, some of the passengers on a Turkish-flagged cruise ship spoke to news crews filming their departure.

“We are now waiting for one of two good things — either to reach Gaza or achieve martyrdom,” said one woman in a headscarf. After a night of bloodshed on the high seas on Monday, at least nine of her fellow passengers, most of them believed to be Turks, had achieved the latter.

The shockwaves from the Israeli commando raid on the Mavi Marmara passenger ferry were still reverberating around the world last night, as Israel scrambled to defend its battered reputation. Already damaged after the Gaza war and a fumbled Mossad assassination of a Hamas militant in Dubai, it faced even tougher scrutiny as it began to examine what happened, and why.

Israel had denounced the Gaza flotilla as a publicity stunt to “humiliate” the Jewish state by publicly breaching its three-year siege of the Gaza Strip, where the Islamist movement Hamas holds sway. Determined to halt the six ships full of international activists — including several MEPs, an Irish Nobel peace laureate, a survivor of the Holocaust and volunteers from America, Iran and Indonesia — three Israeli missile boats slipped out of the northern port of Haifa at about 9pm to intercept the fleet in international waters.

Hours later, Greta Berlin, one of the Gaza fleet’s organisers, received a final message from the ships as the Israeli Navy hove into view: “All is calm, the Israeli warships are on our bow, let’s sleep.”

Over a loudspeaker, an Israeli naval officer warned the ships in English that they were in breach of the Israeli blockade of Gaza — deemed a “hostile entity” by the Knesset following the Hamas takeover. He ordered them to surrender their aid to the Israeli Navy, which would take it to the port of Ashdod and transfer it on lorries across the Israeli-controlled crossing with Gaza.

The captains of the ships said that they intended to deliver their 10,000 tons of aid directly to Gaza. Shortly afterwards, a Twitter message appeared from the Challenger 1, with 16 activists on board, including two Britons: “Intervention is imminent”.

At about 4am, Israeli Navy Seals from the elite Flotilla 13 unit were sent in three helicopters and in Zodiac assault craft to board the vessels. They had trained hard for the mission, but were expecting minor resistance. The plan was to land on the top deck of the Turkish ferry, rush the bridge and take control.

The Gaza fleet’s co-ordinators had said their colleagues on the five other ships had been schooled in non-violent resistance, including linking arms round the ships’ wheelhouses, locking engine rooms and filming the Israeli forces. “The passengers were waving white flags, not clubs,” the Free Gaza group said in a statement later.

However, some of the hundreds of passengers on the Mavi Marmara had other ideas. As the Israeli Navy Seals rappelled, one by one, on to the upper deck of the ship, it was no longer clear exactly who was ambushing whom.

“They beat us with metal sticks and knives,” said one of the Israeli commandos, who hit the deck only to find a mob of furious demonstrators, rather than political protesters, armed with iron bars, baseball bats, knives, petrol bombs and stun grenades. An Israeli military night-vision video released after the chaotic storming showed the first soldier being overwhelmed as he landed, then pitched on to a lower deck by the crowd.

Still the Israeli soldiers kept coming, in a single vertical line, to be set upon. Video footage from the activists showed stunned soldiers being pummelled, one of them reeling for cover from the blows in a hatchway.

Meanwhile, other commandos were trying to scale the ship’s sides, but were having their hands beaten by activists determined to repel the boarders. According to the army, it was a “lynching,” with the passengers trying to break the soldiers’ arms and legs and beating them about the head.

Overwhelmed, some of the elite forces started losing their sidearms to the crowd. Others had their helmets and body armour pulled off them as they were hurled from deck to deck. Some of the Israeli soldiers had to dive into the sea to save themselves.

“They jumped me, hit me with clubs and bottles and stole my rifle,” one commando said. “I pulled out my pistol and had no choice but to shoot.”

An Israeli journalist on the missile boats said that the soldiers had been carrying anti-riot paintball guns to disperse the crowd, as well as pistols. These appeared to have little effect and the order was eventually given to resort to live rounds.

“There was live fire at some point against us,” a commando said. That was when the gunfire erupted at terrifyingly close quarters. When it was over, two hours into the operation, at least nine passengers were dead, dozens more were wounded and Israel stood in the glare of international condemnation as rioters tried to storm its consulate in Istanbul and its ambassadors across Europe were summoned to explain themselves.

Israel said that seven of its soldiers had been wounded, two of them seriously, in the pre-dawn mêlée. Critics said that they had used the wrong forces, pitching crack commandos who are used to storming weapons-smuggling ships into what was, essentially, a sea-borne riot.

Accused by European leaders of using disproportionate force — a charge reminiscent of the Gaza conflict and the subsequent UN inquiry — Israel rushed to defend its actions, saying that IHH, the Turkish Islamic charity that chartered the ferry, had links to Hamas and even al-Qaeda.

“There was extreme violence from the moment that our forces reached the ship. It was premeditated and included weapons, iron bars, knives and at a certain stage firearms, perhaps in some cases weapons that were snatched from soldiers,” said Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli Chief of Staff. But there was no explanation for the intelligence failure that led him to send his men armed primarily with paintball guns to face such a belligerent mob.

Last night the subdued flotilla was being towed into the sealed-off port of Ashdod, to await processing by the police. Those who agreed to deportation were to be escorted to the borders, while those who did not – including the Challenger 1’s two British passengers – were being taken to jail.

In hospital beds across Israel, wounded passengers spent the night under heavy guard by military police officers, still far from Gaza.

Note the highlighted words - it's clear that not all the passengers on the boat intended to resist non-violently.

To see the videos from the IDF - YouTube channel of the IDF Spokesman's Office.

What to think about the Gaza flotilla disaster?

The analysis by Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel in Haaretz strikes me as accurate and depressing - Hubris on the high seas. It highlights the stupidity and blinkered consciousness of those at the top of the Israeli government - Netanyahu and Barak. The Israeli naval commandos were not prepared for what they encountered on the Mavi Marmara - a mixture of genuine peace activists and thugs prepared to use violence against the commandos. They didn't train for that possibility. The Israeli military didn't correctly assess who was on that boat (those connected to the IHH, the Turkish Islamist charity that chartered the boat) and what their motivations were (those who said before they sailed that they wanted to be martyrs).

The Israeli government is led by people who do not understand that in addition to defending Israel from its actual enemies (Hamas or Hezbollah), they have to understand whose Israel's real friends are, and who might be somewhere inbetween (Turkey, before this week's fiasco). Netanyahu, despite his claim that he supports a Palestinian state alongside Israel, strikes me as someone who still thinks that he can hold onto all of the West Bank and Jerusalem through some kind of trickery to fool the whole world. I can't believe that, despite Obama's unwillingness to unequivocally condemn the Israeli actions this week, he will not eventually tire entirely of Netanyahu and his machinations. (He clearly is already very tired of Netanyahu, but he hasn't yet figured out how to effectively pressure him - I think that Bill Clinton was better at it, when he forced Netanyahu into the Hebron Protocol in 1997, which delivered most of Hebron to the Palestinian Authority, and also forced him to agree to the Wye River Memorandum in 1998).

In all of the upset this week about the Gaza flotilla, one very important thing that happened a couple of weeks ago seems to have been forgotten - that when the international conference on nuclear non-proliferation occurred a couple of weeks ago (attended by those nations who had signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which Israel has not signed), its final communique condemned Israel, not Iran. One of the things that Netanyahu was going to discuss with Obama this week, before he aborted his trip to Washington, was this very communique. Now he's lost his chance because of his own stupidity.

Israel does face real enemies - not only Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, but people like the leaders of the Gaza flotilla whose goal is to destroy Israel (see Greta Berlin's comments). The United States is Israel's real friend, and despite Israel's latest stupidity, most people in this country still support Israel. Will that continue to be true if Netanyahu continues to do what he can to alienate the President of the United States in the name of Israeli security?

Update (later on June 5): See Helene Cooper's article in tomorrow's New York Times, which expresses just what I was trying to get at in this blogpost. She quotes Anthony Cordesman as saying:

Recent Israeli governments, particularly the one led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Cordesman argued, have ignored the national security concerns of its biggest benefactor, the United States, and instead have taken steps that damage American interests abroad.

“The depth of America’s moral commitment does not justify or excuse actions by an Israeli government that unnecessarily make Israel a strategic liability when it should remain an asset,” Mr. Cordesman wrote, in commentary for the centrist Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he is the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in strategy. “It is time Israel realized that it has obligations to the United States, as well as the United States to Israel, and that it become far more careful about the extent to which it tests the limits of U.S. patience and exploits the support of American Jews.”

This is what Netanyahu does not seem to understand (or maybe what he doesn't want to understand, given his own ideology and his dependence on coalition partners who are more right-wing than he is). Israel is the weaker party, and depends upon the United States for diplomatic and military support. It is in Israel's interest not to anger the U.S., especially when it comes to issues that are not crucial to Israel's survival. Settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem endanger Israel's future. If Netanyahu had the seichel that he presents himself as having, he would understand this.

Are you a "righteous Jew" or a "New Afrikaner"?

John Mearsheimer's talk yesterday at the Jerusalem Fund, The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. the New Afrikaners does make one good point: that if a Palestinian state is not created alongside Israel, increasingly the "one-state" solution will occur of its own accord, leaving Palestinians in the West Bank totally disenfranchised. This is why I support two states, and oppose the current right-wing Israeli government, which seems to be totally unwilling to recognize reality and work towards the creation of the Palestinian state. As Mearsheimer says, if a Palestinian state is not created, then the Zionist dream of a Jewish state is dead as well. These are harsh words but I do not object to this part of his talk.

I do object, however, to the antisemitic part of his talk, the part where he has decided to take the gloves off and put the Jews of America on trial.

American Jews who care deeply about Israel can be divided into three broad categories. The first two are what I call “righteous Jews” and the “new Afrikaners,” which are clearly definable groups that think about Israel and where it is headed in fundamentally different ways. The third and largest group is comprised of those Jews who care a lot about Israel, but do not have clear-cut views on how to think about Greater Israel and apartheid. Let us call this group the “great ambivalent middle.”

Righteous Jews have a powerful attachment to core liberal values. They believe that individual rights matter greatly and that they are universal, which means they apply equally to Jews and Palestinians. They could never support an apartheid Israel. They also understand that the Palestinians paid an enormous price to make it possible to create Israel in 1948. Moreover, they recognize the pain and suffering that Israel has inflicted on the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories since 1967. Finally, most righteous Jews believe that the Palestinians deserve a viable state of their own, just as the Jews deserve their own state. In essence, they believe that self-determination applies to Palestinians as well as Jews, and that the two-state solution is the best way to achieve that end. Some righteous Jews, however, favor a democratic bi-national state over the two-state solution.

To give you a better sense of what I mean when I use the term righteous Jews, let me give you some names of people and organizations that I would put in this category. The list would include Noam Chomsky, Roger Cohen, Richard Falk, Norman Finkelstein, Tony Judt, Tony Karon, Naomi Klein, MJ Rosenberg, Sara Roy, and Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss fame, just to name a few. I would also include many of the individuals associated with J Street and everyone associated with Jewish Voice for Peace, as well as distinguished international figures such as Judge Richard Goldstone. Furthermore, I would apply the label to the many American Jews who work for different human rights organizations, such as Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch.

I guess by Mearsheimer's reasoning I might qualify as a "righteous Jew," since I support a two-state solution. But who is it that Mearsheimer qualifies as "righteous Jews"? Almost all of the individuals he names are anti-Zionists (e.g., Chomsky, Falk, Finkelstein, Judt, Klein, Roy, and Weiss). Some of them (like Finkelstein and Weiss) traffic in anti-Jewish stereotypes (when William Safire, the New York Times columnist, died, Weiss engaged in the most bizarre attacks on the press, saying that not mentioning Safire's Zionist convictions in his obituaries was as a result of "Jewish power" over the press). Chomsky has defended Holocaust deniers like Robert Faurisson, and has a disgraceful record of whitewashing the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. Why would I regard these people as "righteous"? I certainly don't want to be in their company. I do not think that other American Jews should follow them.

On the other side we have the new Afrikaners, who will support Israel even if it is an apartheid state. These are individuals who will back Israel no matter what it does, because they have blind loyalty to the Jewish state. This is not to say that the new Afrikaners think that apartheid is an attractive or desirable political system, because I am sure that many of them do not. Surely some of them favor a two-state solution and some of them probably have a serious commitment to liberal values. The key point, however, is that they have an even deeper commitment to supporting Israel unreservedly. The new Afrikaners will of course try to come up with clever arguments to convince themselves and others that Israel is really not an apartheid state, and that those who say it is are anti-Semites. We are all familiar with this strategy.

I would classify most of the individuals who head the Israel lobby’s major organizations as new Afrikaners. That list would include Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, David Harris of the American Jewish Committee, Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Ronald Lauder of the World Jewish Congress, and Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America, just to name some of the more prominent ones. I would also include businessmen like Sheldon Adelson, Lester Crown, and Mortimer Zuckerman as well as media personalities like Fred Hiatt and Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal, and Martin Peretz of the New Republic. It would be easy to add more names to this list.

So even someone who supports a two-state solution can be called a "New Afrikaner" because he or she does not meet Mearsheimer's qualifications for being a good Jew? I do not like some of the people he names - Morton Klein in particular, who is extremely right-wing, or Hoenlein, who does his level best to pull the Conference of Presidents to the right as much as he can. But Foxman? Harris? Peretz? And how does he know what would they would think or do if Israel did "cross the line" into apartheid? He doesn't know. But because these people do not agree with him on Israel, he is willing to smear them as "New Afrikaners."

The key to determining whether the lobby can protect apartheid Israel over the long run is whether the great ambivalent middle sides with the new Afrikaners or the righteous Jews. The new Afrikaners have to win that fight decisively for Greater Israel to survive as a racist state.

There is no question that the present balance of power favors the new Afrikaners. When push comes to shove on issues relating to Israel, the hardliners invariably get most of those American Jews who care a lot about Israel to side with them. The righteous Jews, on the other hand, hold considerably less sway with the great ambivalent middle, at least at this point in time. This situation is due in good part to the fact that most American Jews – especially the elders in the community – have little understanding of how far down the apartheid road Israel has travelled and where it is ultimately headed. They think that the two-state solution is still a viable option and that Israel remains committed to allowing the Palestinians to have their own state. These false beliefs allow them to act as if there is little danger of Israel becoming South Africa, which makes it easy for them to side with the new Afrikaners.

This situation, however, is unsustainable over time. Once it is widely recognized that the two-state solution is dead and Greater Israel is a reality, the righteous Jews will have two choices: support apartheid or work to help create a democratic bi-national state. I believe that almost all of them will opt for the latter option, in large part because of their deep-seated commitment to liberal values, which renders any apartheid state abhorrent to them. Of course, the new Afrikaners will fiercely defend apartheid Israel, because their commitment to Israel is so unconditional that it overrides any commitment they might have to liberal values.

Mearsheimer's "righteous Jews," have in part, already made the choice he taxes them with - some of them already support the one-state solution (Chomsky, Finkelstein, Roy, and Weiss). All of the ones he names (not J-Street) already fiercely oppose Israel and its right to exist. What Mearsheimer labels "righteous" in a Jew is the willingness to see the state of Israel dismantled. He is living in a dream world if he thinks that a democratic bi-national state can be created under these conditions. And of course, missing entirely from Mearsheimer's supposedly "realist" viewpoint is any reference to the violence that Palestinians have inflicted upon Israelis. Hamas has disappeared from his world. The Palestinian-nationalist fantasy that a Jewish Temple never stood in Jerusalem doesn't exist.

The critical question, however, is: what will happen to those Jews who comprise the great ambivalent middle once it is clear to them that Israel is a full-fledged apartheid state and that facts on the ground have made a two state solution impossible? Will they side with the new Afrikaners and defend apartheid Israel, or will they ally with the righteous Jews and call for making Greater Israel a true democracy? Or will they sit silently on the sidelines?

I believe that most of the Jews in the great ambivalent middle will not defend apartheid Israel but will either keep quiet or side with the righteous Jews against the new Afrikaners, who will become increasingly marginalized over time. And once that happens, the lobby will be unable to provide cover for Israel’s racist policies toward the Palestinians in the way it has in the past.

Again, if the "righteous Jews" are represented by the figures he names (again, not J-Street, which is "pro-peace" and "pro-Israel"), I cannot imagine that the bulk of American Jewry will follow them. Most American Jews have enough decent self-respect not to follow the twisted ways of the so-called righteous Jews whom he names.

What Mearsheimer has done in this speech is to create a standard by which American Jews will be judged to be "good" Jews or "bad" Jews. In this, he follows in the dishonorable steps of Charles Lindbergh in September, 1941, when he made an antisemitic speech for America First which ruined his reputation. See this contemporaneous report by Time Magazine:

Hitler showed how attacks on the Jews can be used as a prime device for promoting discord, inciting bitterness, destroying tolerance and ultimately overthrowing the basic principles of civil liberties and personal freedom. Last week, continuing to divide the nation, Hero Lindbergh attacked the Jews as being one of the "three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war.'' The other two groups: the British and the Roosevelt Administration.

It is no news that Jews heartily dislike Hitler and would gladly see him frazzled. They would be less than human if they did not. Hero Lindbergh, piously declaring that "no person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany," offered U.S. Jews advice: they should suppress their natural opinion. He added: "The Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it [war] ... for they will be among the first to feel its consequences." The plain implication was that the Jews will be blamed for war if it comes and will be persecuted because of it when opportunity arises. If this was not a threat it was the next thing to it.

Next to blaming the Jews for a war (especially if lost), the most effective anti-Jew talk is to accuse Jews of having more than their share of wealth and influence. Hero Lindbergh did not accuse the Jews of financial and industrial dominance. That charge, as he may have learned from his late father-in-law, Morgan Partner Dwight Morrow, is too easily disproved. But Lindbergh did accuse the Jews of undue success in other fields: "Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our Government."

Mearsheimer has already accused the Israel Lobby of strangling all debate on the issue of Israel/Palestine in the United States - a more subtle version of the old lie that Jews control the media. Now he seems to be playing the role of Lindbergh in warning American Jews that they must follow those whom he considers "righteous" in order not to be equated with the arch-racists of apartheid South Africa. We must suppress our "natural opinion" (natural at least for most of us) to support Israel - not blindly, not in all of its actions, often critically - in order to retain our status as "righteous," and therefore, acceptable to Mearsheimer and "right-thinking" opinion.

If this is not antisemitism, then I do not know what antisemitism is. Mearsheimer has publicly crossed the line that Lindbergh crossed. May he be discredited as Lindbergh was.

For other takedowns of Mearsheimer, see:

David Schraub of The Debate Link: Mearsheimer Lists His Good Jews.

Judeosphere: John Mearsheimer Labels Jews as "The New Afrikaners"

Solomonia: Mearsheimer's List

Hussein Ibish: Mearsheimer's unhelpful, unrealistic, and disempowering message to the Palestinians.

Volokh Conspiracy: Some "realism" about John Mearsheimer

Noah Pollack: Mearsheimer makes a list

Meryl Yourish: John Mearsheimer’s speech on Jews: Echoes of the 1930s

Ken Walzer: Righteous Jews, Not So Righteous Jews and Just Damn Jews 

David Harris: Mearsheimer's Mere Slime

Gila Swirsky on the Anat Kam story

Gila Swirsky, whom I first met in Israel in 1987 as we were both protesting against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in the weekly "Women in Black" demonstrations at Paris Square in Jerusalem, has sent a letter to her mailing list about the latest big scandal to hit Israel, which you can read about in all of the Israeli newspapers today.

Friends,

This story is a testament to the Internet. And to Anat Kam, the whistleblower, who is widely regarded in Israeli security circles as a traitor and will probably soon be charged with treason.

Anat (I’ll use her first name, though I don’t know her) is a 23-year old journalist who wrote for the popular Israeli portal Walla. Some months ago, Anat did the unthinkable: she passed on information that was decidedly newsworthy, but that the Shin Bet – Israel’s security services – did not want outsiders to have. It was a”hit list” – the names of Palestinians living in the West Bank who were on the Shin Bet’s “wanted” list. And it was a copy of the Shin Bet protocol stating that if these “wanted” figures are identified during the course of a military action, permission is granted to carry out “an interception”. Nice language for execution without trial. Reports are that Anat photocopied this classified information while serving in the IDF.

Anat allegedly passed on this classified information to Uri Blau, a journalist, who published it months ago as a major scoop in Ha’aretz. Now Ha’aretz has whisked Uri away to London to protect him from the Israeli authorities, who would love to interrogate him about his informant. Meanwhile, Anat has been under house arrest and held incommunicado for at least three months.

This is a big story, but until today no Israeli newspapers could publish it because a judge issued a gag order at the Shin Bet’s request. But go ask Henry Miller about banned books. Thanks to the ban and Israel’s inability to control cyberspace, the story has taken on vastly greater proportions. Every news outlet in Israel – newspapers, radio, TV, news portals – has front-paged the story now that the gag order was lifted. It would never have received such widespread attention had the Israeli authorities not tried to hide it in the first place. And had the Internet not cloned the story through every webpage eager to expose state secrets.

This is not the first time the Israeli authorities have arrested suspects and held them incommunicado for extended periods. It happens to Palestinians all the time. The best known case of an Israeli is Mordechai Vanunu, who blew the whistle on Israel’s nuclear warfare capabilities 24 years ago and was tried behind closed doors. More recently, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Yaakov, an Israeli citizen now living in the U.S., was arrested on a visit to Israel in 2002, and a gag order placed on news of his month-long detention and interrogation. Yaakov, a key scientist in the development of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, was suspected of divulging some of Israel’s secrets, but eventually released without charge.

So Israel has managed to draw widespread international attention to a story it wanted to hush up. But why conceal the fact that the Shin Bet has a “hit list” and gives license to its commando units to carry out field executions? After all, doesn’t the U.S. do the same thing in its own so-called war against terror?

Israel, in my view, wanted to hide this information to avoid the legal and diplomatic ramifications of disclosures that its soldiers were once again breaking international law. Israel has been playing defense ever since the Gaza Campaign, trying to keep its senior politicians and officers out of European courts on charges of war crimes. Most recently (December 2009), opposition leader Zipi Livni cancelled a trip to London out of fear she would be arrested, thanks to universal jurisdiction of human rights violations. Similar arrest orders were deflected by other senior Israelis (Barak, Mofaz, and Almog). Publicity about a hit list and hit squads could only add fuel to the growing criticism of Israel and the fear among its leaders of being arrested on a visit to Europe. Not to mention the fact that Israel’s own Supreme Court outlawed such unprovoked assassinations just months ago.

But really, isn’t Israel still the “only democracy in the Middle East”? Concealing someone’s arrest and the charges against her are clearly pages from the annals of dark regimes. And the broader context is the growing McCarthyite culture inside Israel – the silencing of its critics, the squirreling away of its whistleblowers. We see this in the hate campaign against Israeli human rights organizations, which has now reached a new peak – a bill before the Knesset that would severely hamper these organizations from receiving funds from foreign states, one of their only sources of support as the Israeli government is not about to fund human rights activity.

What’s not to love about secrecy, lies, and human rights violations? Praise the whistleblowers and all those who turned on the Internet lights, making it impossible for the authorities to turn them off again.

Gila Svirsky
Jerusalem / Nahariya

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Gila Svirsky

http://www.GilaSvirsky.com