June 2007

Is the Jewish People enough of a collective actor that one can seriously discuss formulating policy for it? In the present day, I’m not so sure–but Prof. Yehezkel Dror sure thinks so. He kinda has to–he gets paid because he was able to convince the Jewish Agency and assorted donors that such policy was possible, and that he was the one to develop the Institute that would lead in its creation.

Now I respect Dr. Dror. He’s a brilliant man, and a strong visionary for his time. Thing is, his time has passed, and unfortunately he has led the Institute in such a way that it’s time is near passsed as well. Dror himself is late in his years, and for all of his wisdom (I’ve read his books and papers and have been inspired by them), he is unable to comprehend the way the world is being transformed by the Information Age. (For example, I doubt he has a Facebook account).

And this same limitation has been projected upon his Institute: I was shocked, when visiting, how few young scholars they attract, and how few women. Their “Alternative Futures” vision papers are nice sketches by the older generation–but are nearly irrelevant considering the huge transformations being undergone by Humanity as a whole as information-age technology opens new doors and closes old windows.

If Dror would venture out, I’d love him to come by the PresenTense Institute for Creative Zionism, where we’ve brought together young folks from around the world who have skipped policy and focused on action.  Sure, we’re limited by the fact that we made a strategic decision to self-finance through sponsorship packages that involve consulting projects–a fee-for-service mentality that keeps us lean and mean–but we’re working on it. If Dror would come by he’d learn a thing or two about the role of the arts in next-generation communication, and how Internet strategy has to be blended into the foundations of any project if that project is to grow and succeed. Too bad the Jewish People do not have the Policy Planning Institute that they deserve.

Take a trip over to CreativeZionism.com for YouTube videos of a recent lecture by Tsvi Bisk about the Jewish future. While there check out some of the other amazing talks from the Summer Institute for Creative Zionism and some entertaining acapella as well.

So I officially hate the pride parade. I had the worst traveling day yesterday getting to work, every street I tried going down was closed and there was nothing I could do. The buses shut down and the way I was walking to work went straight down King David Street. I got to work three hours late. Oh well, that wasn’t what I was going to write about..

I have had a number of discussions with my co-workers as well as friends about the pride parade which has just passed. Most of my friends who were against having it gave the reason that Jerusalem is the holy city, why don’t they just go do that in Tel Aviv? The way I respond to them is as follows: whether we like it or not, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and all of its citizens. It’s the capital of the Haredim, the capital of the Hilonim, the gays and the straights, and yes even the Arab citizens of Israel; it’s their capital too.

As long as this crazy city remains our capital, then it must remain open to all of its citizens. I understand the monumental significance of Jerusalem to us as a Jewish State and people, but nevertheless, we still live in a free and democratic society where indivual or group freedom of expression must be maintained.

What do you do when you are the General Manager of a popular Arabic satellite television channel if you understand the real reasons so many Palestinians live in misery? The station you manage, the popular weekly news magazine you once edited, indeed your entire career as a highly successful and respected journalist in the Arab world has been for organizations who featured blaming Israel for the plight of the Palestinians. Now it’s time to tell the world, honestly and truthfully, that what the Arabs have done to their Palestinian brethren is far worse and that Israel’s Palestinian-Arab minority actually fares pretty well. How do you do it?

I suppose this was the challenge facing Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, the Dubai-based General Manager of al-Arabiya. On June 9 he wrote an amazing piece in Asharq Al-Awsat, the news magazine where he was once Editor-in-Chief. The first paragraph is doctrinaire: praising the fairness of the Palestinian cause and condemning occupation. The rest of it, though, is a revelation considering the source and is very much part of the sea change in Arab thinking I have been blogging about. Here are some excerpts:

What is happening in Lebanon’s Nahr al Bared camp today is just one such example where battles have raised an overwhelming number of questions: who are these people? How long have they lived in the camp and how? What are their rights?

[…]

Some Arab countries “hosting” refugees ban them from leaving [camps], from occupying a large number of positions and deny them any other legal rights. Some of them have to jump over walls and sneak out to complete their chores or to breathe and experience the outside world. One can imagine these randomly and poorly built houses during the winter chill and sweltering heat of the summer among the sewage and insufficient services. It is a shame.

[…]

Our insistence to lock the Palestinians in camps and treat them like animals in the name of preserving the issue is far worse a crime than Israel stealing land and causing the displacement of people. The 60 year-old camps only signify our inhumanity and double standards. Israel can claim that it treats the Palestinians better than their Arab brothers do. It gives citizenship to the Palestinians of 1948 as well as the right to work and the right to lead a somewhat normal life

OK, the bit about Israel “stealing land” is traditional Arab rhetoric without historical basis, but the rest, a stinging indictment of the Arab treatment of Palestinian refugees and the 60 year perpetuation of their refugee status for political reasons is right on the mark. It’s something I would expect from an Israeli writer. It is tremendously powerful coming from Mr. Al-Rashed.

The discussion of controversial remarks made by Avraham Burg in a Haaretz interview continues in today’s Haaretz with an article by AB Yehoshua. Be sure to check it out

Check out the PresenTense Institute for Creative Zionism post on the Jacob Ner-David talk today, which was absolutely awesome.

In addition, we were lucky enough to have Karen Rubinstein, the director of the American Zionist Movement, in attendance tonight. Karen is here in Jerusalem with lots of the other Zionist movement folks for the Va’ad HaPoalim — or the Actions Committee of the World Zionist Organization. Good luck to them.

While they’re there, we’re here–that is, a number of BoZ bloggers are attending the Institute as either organizers, fellows or members. Want to hear more? Read the PICZ blog.

And want to come? Well Thursday is your lucky day! It’s our last day open to the general community — and we’re having a great networking get together with live music played by PICZ Fellows. Come on down–email us for directions: info - at- creativezionism.com

Here are excerpts from an op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times written by Dr. Fouad Ajami, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies:

The Palestinian ruin was a long time in coming. No other national movement has had the indulgence granted the Palestinians over the last half-century, and the results can be seen in the bravado and the senseless violence, in the inability of a people to come to terms with their condition and their needs.

The life of a Palestinian is one of squalor and misery, yet his leaders play the international game as though they were powers. An accommodation with Israel is imperative — if only out of economic self-interest and political necessity…

…it was too much to ask of Mr. Arafat to return to his people with a decent and generous compromise, to bid farewell to the legend that the Palestinians could have it all “from the river to the sea.” It was safer for him to stay with the political myths of his people than to settle down for the more difficult work of statehood and political rescue.

For their part, the Arab states have only compounded the Palestinian misery. The Arab cavalry was always on the way, the Arab treasure was always a day away, and there was thus no need for the Palestinians to pay tribute to necessity. In recent years, the choice was starkly posed: it was either statehood or a starring role on Al Jazeera, and the young “boys of the stones” and their leaders opted for the latter.

[…]

For decades, Arab society granted the Palestinians everything and nothing at the same time. The Arab states built worlds of their own, had their own priorities, dreaded and loathed the Palestinians as outsiders and agitators, but left them to the illusion that Palestine was an all-consuming Arab concern.

Now the Palestinians should know better. The center of Arab politics has shifted from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, a great political windfall has come to the lands of the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula, vast new wealth due to the recent rises in oil prices, while misery overwhelms the Palestinians. No Arabs wait for Palestine anymore; they have left the Palestinians to the ruin of their own history.

The rise of Hamas in Gaza should concentrate the minds of the custodians of power in the Arab world. Palestine, their old alibi, the cause with which they diverted the attention of their populations from troubles at home, has become a nightmare in its own right. An Arab debt is owed the Palestinians — the gift of truth and candor as well as material help.

Arab poets used to write reverential verse in praise of the boys of the stones and the suicide bombers. Now the poetry has subsided, replaced by a silent recognition of the malady that afflicts the Palestinians. Except among the most bigoted and willful of Arabs, there is growing acknowledgment of the depth of the Palestinian crisis. And aside from a handful of the most romantic of Israelis, there is a recognition in that society, as well, of the malignancy of the national movement a stone’s throw away.

The mainstream in Israel had made its way to a broad acceptance of Palestinian statehood…

Dr. Ajami is nothing if not pessimistic. The U.S. and Prime Minister Olmert pin their hopes on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whom Dr. Ajami calls “a decent man”. Still, he sees far too little difference between Hamas and Fatah and sees Abbas as having far too little power to see any salvation for the Palestinian people.

I fear Dr. Ajami is right. However, as I said in my previous post quoting Saeb Erekat, I am seeing more and more Arab voices who are seeing the situation for what it really is. The only hope is for a change not only in Palestinian thinking but across the wider Arab world.

Has anyone else noticed this? There is a real sea change in the discussion of Palestinian suffering in the wake of recent events in Lebanon and Gaza. Yes, I know the expression ’sea change’ is grossly overused, but I do mean it in the way Shakespeare first used it: a truly profound change.

For years various Israeli and pro-Israel writers, myself included, have pointed out that the Palestinians could have had a prosperous, independent state years ago. We have pointed out that entirely for political reasons the Palestinian people have endured suffering and oppression not so much at Israel’s hands but rather at the hands of their fellow Arabs and their own leadership. When Israeli actions have harmed the Palestinian populace they were almost always as a result of the need to protect Israeli citizens from Palestinian terrorist attacks.

What is truly new is the significant number of Arab and even Palestinian writers and commentators who are suddenly seeing Palestinian suffering in the same way or perhaps are finally publicly willing to admit that it really isn’t all Israel’s fault. I will be making quite a number of postings featuring Arab and Palestinian voices on the subject of the exploitation of the Palestinian people in coming days.

Let me begin with someone who is well known to most people who have followed the conflict in the region in recent years. Saeb Erekat was the Palestinian negotiator during past peace talks and is a prominent Fatah member. Here is part of an interview he gave to Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s Late Edition on June 17:

I will tell you something, Wolf. I think — there is a saying in my mind that this region has never missed an opportunity to exploit Palestinians without exploiting them. I really believe that we are being exploited. I really believe that is what happening in Nahr el-Bared in northern Lebanon, it is part of what is happening in Gaza, what is happening in the bigger picture in this region.

Now, Wolf, do I have evidence to refer to this country or to this group or that? No, I don’t. But I know when I see the streets of Gaza, when I see these gunmen, when I see these hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when President Abbas could not pay salaries for our police forces, when our police forces did not have bullets or guns to maintain the rule of law and public order, where did these hundreds of millions of dollars, where did these guns and arms and state-of-art machine guns and heavy equipment come from? I don’t have any evidence, and without evidence, I will not name anybody. But all I can tell you, Gaza is very — the poorest area on Earth. Gaza doesn’t have the means for these hundreds of millions of dollars and these weapons and equipment.

And I believe what is happening in this region is being now played in the streets of Gaza and the streets of Nahr el-Bared in my name, in the name of the Palestinians. We are being exploited again.

I’ll say what Mr. Erekat was unwilling to say: Iran and Syria, plus radical jihadists and Islamists, both home grown and foreign. That’s who is exploiting and oppressing the Palestinians this time. Others in the Arab world have done the same when it was convenient for them with the Palestinians as the perpetual victims for nearly 60 years.

It is easy for Israel’s detractors to dismiss me as a Zionist, as the daughter of an Israeli, as a biased voice. How do you dismiss Saeb Erekat, an ardent Palestinian nationalist who has argued the Palestinian cause for years, and others like him? I don’t think you can.

The question that remains is whether or not this sort of change of Arab perspective will last. If not then we’re back at square one. If so then this is a true sea change in Arab thinking . It offers the real possibility of Arabs and Israelis, specifically Palestinians and Israelis, finding common ground to stand together against a common enemy that threatens us both.

Am I dreaming? Maybe. We’ll see.

The U.N. is issuing a permanent indictment for human rights violations. Is this about genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan? Nope, genocide in Sudan is no big deal Child slavery in China? Nope, that’s fine too. All the bloodshed in Somalia? Surely you jest. Nope, the one country being singled out is Israel according to U.N. Watch.

Reform at the U.N.? Absolutely! The U.N. will no longer say bad things about third world dictators. Cuba and Belarus will no longer be considered to be violating human rights at all. Soon such fine upstanding nations as Sudan, Congo, and Haiti will be exempt from criticism. The UN Watch article continues:

At the same time, the proposal eliminates the experts charged with reporting on violations by Cuba and Belarus, despite the latest reports of massive violations by both regimes. As for the experts on other countries — on Burundi, Cambodia, North Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Burma, Somalia and Sudan — all of these may soon be eliminated, as threatened by the Council majority comprised of dictatorships and other Third World countries, under a gradual “review” process. Pending their fate, all experts will be subjected to a new “Code of Conduct,” submitted by Algeria in the name of the African group, designed to intimidate and restrict the independence of the human rights experts.

Now that the U.N. is getting rid of those pesky human rights experts they can concentrate on villification of Israel full time. What reform! What progress!

Yael K., writing in her Step-by-Step blog describes the latest U.N. outrage as:

…the latest biased and crazy and, to be quite honest, criminal behavior of the U.N. They are not condemning Darfur for genocide, they are removing Cuba and Belarus from censure despite their continued violations, and they are placing Israel under permanent indictment under a Special Agenda item. They have a special agenda, let me tell you.

Why does anyone take the U.N. seriously? It is time to disband the organization and replace it with one limited to democratic nations that respect human rights. Israel would qualify easily. Most of the current members of the U.N. Human Rights Council would not.

Three signs the baseball game you are attending is taking place in Israel:

Heard from the coach:  “Nice catch, Yosef!”
Stadium Sponsor:  HODS – Halachic Organ Donor Society
Crowd-member’s t-shirt: “Kosher; but extremely unorthodox.”

I was amazed by how much I enjoyed today’s little league game in Jerusalem, particularly because there was nothing Jerusalem – or even Israel – about it.  In fact, I’d be willing to assume that had a little leage parent from a heavily Jewish area of America [far be it from me to insert Teaneck here] woken up to find herself in the middle of the stadium today, she might not have noticed she’d ever left home.  Typically, I would not be seen at such an event.

Unlike the seemingly typical American Olah, I aggressively obscure my American identity when in public, be it by assuming a more Israeli accent (if I don’t pass as Israeli, I’m often asked if I’m British or French) to actively avoiding social events and establishments known to be dominated by the Anglo community.  It’s not that I’m embarrassed of my background – far from it! – but I see nothing productive about being physically in Israel whilst committing myself to the social periphery.

I realize that being an immigrant is extremely difficult and, like all immigrant groups, so too are American Olim entitled to the comforts and familiarities – physical, social and cultural – of our upbringing.  I’m as guilty of “importing” nosh, make-up and toiletries as the next Olah.  But surely, there is a limit!

A few months ago, on an enrichment day with work, I met another American Oleh who was extremely interested in where I was from.  “Jerusalem,” I said, to which he replied, “But before that?”  Familiar with the routine, I continued with the rhetoric:  “I guess I’m just extremely forward looking,” I responded.  “Well,” he returned, “I’ve been here for over ten years, and I still tell people Minneapolis is my home.”  His “predicament,” from my perspective, was clear:  “Then you’re living in the wrong place.”

Yes, I’m critical of Anglos who have made the physical shift, but are blissful in their ignorance of (or abstinence from) local culture; so too am I critical of those who proudly declare their successful integration into Israeli society, as evidenced by their consumption of Hummus and a semi-monthly visit to the Shuk.

Because moving to Israel should be more than just physical relocation; the Zionism American Jews espouse demands more than that.  It doesn’t take a committed Zionist to realize that Israeli society is lacking, sorely lacking.  And I’m critical of American Olim because – unjustly? – I expect more from them.  For when all is said and done, I’m also an elitist [after all, I am still an American] and I believe that American social, cultural, and intellectual values put American Olim in a unique position to make a much-needed difference here.

I believe that American Olim can begin to fill what is lacking in Israeli society and thereby bring Israel closer to its moral promise.  American Olim – and American Zionists abroad – can promise a better Israel.  But not from a distance – not without first becoming fluent in Israeli language, society and culture.

It’s time for American Zionists to assume this responsibility, to leave the dug-out and step up to the plate.

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