December 2007

Galei Tzahal reported today that there is going to be a new probe into the situation of Jonathan Pollard, vis a vis whether Israel is doing enough to get him released. When I looked up this report on the Jerusalem Post website, though, there was a more interesting notice to be found out that bottom of the article:

“Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided that Paris Square in the center of Jerusalem would be renamed Jonathan Pollard Square, Channel 10 reported.”
Paris Square (aka French Square) is at the intersection of Ben Maimon, Ramban, Agron, Keren Hayesod and King George streets in Jerusalem. It is commonly used for protests, which I see because I walk past it a minimum of twice daily. On Fridays, you can usually find Women in Black calling for an end to the occupation. The last few months in the morning it was the location of numerous teachers’ protests. Once a week, there is some sort of coalition of vegetarians that calls for an end to my meat-eating ways via their banners that read “Meat is Murder.” All this is because it is a highly visible square very near to the Prime Minister’s residence. It’s also a testament to the active protest culture in this country.
According to Arutz 7, the name change is going to happen this January 7th, at 2:30 pm, while George Bush is in town.

I don’t know for sure if this was really initiated by Ehud Olmert, as jpost reported. If so, it seems like a pretty cheap trick to score some points. I mean, I can’t really think of anything that Ehud Olmert has done to put Jonathan Pollard on the agenda (regardless of whether I think that’s a good thing or not.) It seems funny that he would make this change, unless of course he feels that it will serve as a good reminder every time he drives past it.

A quick check on wikipedia told me that this is not the first time the square has been renamed. Previous names include “The Republic Square” and “The Kings Square.” And apparently France donated a 27 meter replica of the Eiffel Tower that was supposed to be placed there this year, though I cannot claim to have seen it. Perhaps now we’ll get a 27 meter statue of Jonathan Pollard. Though my guess is that, considering who we’re dealing with, we’re more likely to see a 27 meter statue of Ehud Olmert flipping us the bird.

Spurred on by reports in Haaretz that Condoleeza Rice “tends to compare the Israeli occupation in the territories to the racial segregation that used to be the norm in the American South,” Marxist icon Lenni Brenner just posted Jabotinsky’s “Iron Wall” as an explanation of why Israel will always be a colonial, apartheid, regime. Brenner, author of “Zionism in the Age of Dictators,” seems to imply that Jabotinsky’s use of the word colonialism and his focus on the wall describes a plan to apartheid Palestinians in the Land of Israel.

In actuality, the Iron Wall concept is a fairly intuitive political strategy and representative of very much the opposite of what Brenner implies: Jabotinsky recognized that the Arabs living in Israel had just as much right to the land as the returning Jews, by dint of their domicile. Further, he recognized that there was no chance of a peaceful acceptance on their part of Jewish immigration–why in the world should they accept a people clearly aiming to become a majority (almost alone in this position at the time, history has surely spoken by now). He therefore saw the period of Zionist establishment as a competition between two people, and insisted that the Jews must remain as strong as an Iron Wall in their right to the land. He envisioned compromise, but only once that compromise was seen by the Arabs as part of a peaceful coexistence, and not merely a means to end.

…This does not mean that there cannot be any agreement with the Palestine Arabs. What is impossible is a voluntary agreement. As long as the Arabs feel that there is the least hope of getting rid of us, they will refuse to give up this hope in return for either kind words or for bread and butter, because they are not a rabble, but a living people. And when a living people yields in matters of such a vital character it is only when there is no longer any hope of getting rid of us, because they can make no breach in the iron wall. Not till then will they drop their extremist leaders whose watchword is “Never!” And the leadership will pass to the moderate groups, who will approach us with a proposal that we should both agree to mutual concessions. Then we may expect them to discuss honestly practical questions, such as a guarantee against Arab displacement, or equal rights for Arab citizens, or Arab national integrity.

And when that happens, I am convinced that we Jews will be found ready to give them satisfactory guarantees, so that both peoples can live together in peace, like good neighbours.

Remember (I doubt that Brenner does) that Jabotinsky explicitly envisioned a state that guarded Arabic and Hebrew as national languages, that featured an Arab Prime Minister when a Jew was President, and Vice Versa. This was not propaganda–he actually proposed this as policy for the state. Finally, the use of the “c” word, as Brenner calls it, being colonialism, is less of the big red letter of guilt that Brenner imagines it, and more of a characteristic of speech at the time. Jabotinsky, writing to the West, called it colonization. At the same time everyone knew it was Shivat Zion, a return very different in nature than a colonization.

The Modern Language Association’s Radical Caucus aims to pass resolutions condemning campus pro-Israel groups but is rebuffed by the broader Delegate Assembly.

Haaretz’s editor-in-chief says Israel “wants to be raped.” Not sure which Israel he’s talking about. Not mine.

Not Hashomer Hatzair — but HaShomer, the old-school father of all Jewish empowerment organizations in the Land of Israel. It seems there is good reason, too:

On a hill overlooking the Lower Galilee town of Kiryat Tivon, some 40 teenagers and adults were working to rebuild fences around grazing land that had been cut by persons unknown. Just a few kilometers away, a statue of Alexander Zaid, who founded the Shomer self-defense organization in the early 20th century, was recently toppled and destroyed. The workers were from New Shomer, whose members see themselves as Zaid’s successors in protecting the grazing lands of the Lower Galilee and the Jezreel Valley.

Their struggle highlights the conflict between Jewish and Arab herders in the area. Because of the increasing numbers of both Jewish and Bedouin ranchers and the decrease in grazing land, disputes have been on the rise between them in recent years. Herds invade neighboring pastures, fences are cut and fires started. Many Jewish cattle farmers say that the authorities, especially the police, are not doing enough to protect them from Bedouin herders, and therefore they have to protect themselves. New Shomer, made up mainly of farmers, is a way for them to do so.

While I like the idea of a revival for sentimental reasons, it’s kinda sad the government doesn’t solve this. That’s why we have a government, no?

Eric Yoffe, head of the Reform Movement, speaks to a major American Muslim group.

Michael Schwartz (from Rabbis for Human Rights) wrote an interesting piece today in Haaretz about the separation barrier that runs through Jerusalem. He talks about some of the Halachic and historical connotations of walls, such as putting up a railing on a rooftop or putting a stumbling block before the blind. He also talks about the construction of the walls of Jerusalem in the time of Nechemia as the act which established the second Jewish commonwealth. I thought this was the most interesting comparison he made.
It’s funny that I had never thought about this new wall as being at all related to the walls of the Old City. But they do seem akin, since both were built to defend the city. Nechemia eventually also used the walls he built to insulate the Jews from foreign influence, keeping merchants out of the city on Shabbat.
The walls of Jerusalem have other Halachic ramifications too - if you can see them from your house, you are supposed to celebrate Purim on the 15th of Adar; certain Temple offerings must be eating within the walls of Jerusalem; and certain ritually impure people cannot enter into the walls.
I think this raises interesting questions about the goals of the new wall. There are many varied opinions on this question and these perspectives have been argued many times. Is the wall simply for security? Is it a political land grab? Is it meant to strengthen the Jewish character of Israel? Or is it meant to keep out strangers and be oppressive? It’s almost comforting to be reminded that this issue is 2500 years old. And it’s yet another reason why I think that Ezra/Nechemia is such an interesting and pertinent book to Modern Israel.

If a phone company (say Bezeq) were to declare that only Bezeq phone lines can be used in Israel, and that they alone will set the price for those phone lines, would the market accept that? Of course not—as has been proven in recent years.

So why we should we accept that only members of labor unions can be hired for specific jobs, and that every worker must be paid according to a unionized payscale?

If a labor union maintains a monopoly on all labor to be provided across an entire sector of the economy, and also sets the wages to be paid across that entire sector, then it should be treated as a corporation or cartel that creates a monopoly on products provided across an entire sector and sets the prices to be paid across the entire sector. Labor is the product, and wages is the product price.

Labor unions should ensure humane treatment of employees, fair firing practices, timely payment of wages, accessibility of information, non-discrimination, and other basic rights in the employment framework. However, once a union restricts employment eligibility and regulates employee wages, it turns itself into an anti-competitive monopoly.  

In Israel, this problem is nowhere more pronounced than in the market for professors. Professors are highly skilled workers whose compensation should be determined by merit. However, the anti-competitive professors’ union prevents non-union members from being hired as senior professors, and regulates the salary of every professor. Professor Zvi Hacohen, head of the professors union, has expressed absolute opposition to personal contracts for professors, even if used only in rare cases to stop the brain drain (see article here).

To slow the brain drain and improve quality of teaching at Israeli universities, Israel must enable universities to attract star professors. Israeli professors are fighting attempts by the universities to use meritocratic pay to slow the brain drain. In controlling wages and restricting employment eligibility to union members, the Israeli professors union has become one of the main obstacles to reversing the brain drain.    

It is neverendingly amusing to read Iranian news. I usually avoid posting articles because they reach a level of ridiculous that robs words. In this case thought, it wasn’t the article citing a depressing study by the “Israeli Zionism Institute” that grabbed my attention, but rather the poll that accompanied it on the Iranian Press website. It reads:

In view of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran the Israeli lobby will—–:

A) Resort to military action
B) Recoil from their position
C) Stick to more sanctions

I invite BoZ readers to tell us who they’d vote for (and feel free to add in a D like: Vote for Hillary Clinton or Conquer Syria)….

Sometimes it seems like Israel can never be right. It’s amazing the bent logic used to arrive at anti-Israel conclusions.
Today in the news, (Hebrew only) there was a report on a Masters student in Hebrew University, Tal Nitzan, who claims that Israeli soldiers are racist. The proof? They don’t rape Palestinians. The illogic goes that Israeli soldiers worry if they rape a Palestinian woman and have a child, the child will be a Palestinian. Furthermore, they don’t consider Palestinian women to be human, so rape is not an option. The author writes that all conquering armies participate in rape, so if Israel does not, it must be for some racist reason.
Can I get a collective “What the Hell?”

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