Lies, Damn Lies, and J Street. By Janet Tassel.

Lies, Damn Lies, and J Street. By Janet Tassel. American Thinker, March 16, 2014. Also at Heritage Florida Jewish News.

Putin: The Mask Comes Off, But Will Anybody Care? By Walter Russell Mead.

Putin: The Mask Comes Off, But Will Anybody Care? By Walter Russell Mead. The American Interest, March 15, 2014.

Bill Maher Calls God a “Psychotic Mass Murderer.”

This May Be Bill Maher’s Most Intense Rant Against Religions – All of Them – Yet. By Carol Hartsell. The Huffington Post, March 15, 2014. Video at YouTube.

Bill Maher Calls God a “Psychotic Mass Murderer.” By Rebecca Savastio. Liberty Voice, March 15, 2014.

Bill Maher Absolutely Trashes the Bible and “Psychotic Mass Murderer” God. By Andrew Kirell. Mediaite, March 14, 2014.

Bill Maher and Guests Rail Against “Complacent and Smug” American Exceptionalism. By Matt Wilstein.

Bill Maher and Guests Rail Against “Complacent and Smug” American Exceptionalism. By Matt Wilstein. With Video. Mediaite, March 15, 2014. YouTube.

Liberals Outraged by Cadillac Ad. By Rush Limbaugh. NJBR, March 7, 2014.

New Diet, Sexual Attraction May Have Spurred Europeans’ Lighter Skin. By Michael Balter.

New Diet, Sexual Attraction May Have Spurred Europeans’ Lighter Skin. By Michael Balter. Science Now, March 10, 2014.

Direct evidence for positive selection of skin, hair, and eye pigmentation in Europeans during the last 5,000 y. By Sandra Wilde et al. PNAS, Early Edition, March 5, 2014.

How Farming Reshaped Our Genomes. By Michael Balter. Science Now, January 26, 2014.

The Timing of Pigmentation Lightening in Europeans. Sandra Beleza et al. Molecular Biology and Evolution, Vol. 30, No. 1 (January 2013).

Ancient Hunter-Gatherers Kept In Touch. By Michael Balter. Science Now, June 28, 2012.

Israelis Don’t Care That We Hate Them. But They’d Like to Know Why. By Brendan O’Neill.

Israelis don’t care that we hate them. But they’d like to know why. By Brendan O’Neill. The Spectator, March 15, 2014.

Love-Hate Relationship. By Liat Collins. Jerusalem Post, March 20, 2014.


O’Neill:

Israel is a rogue state for the right-on. It’s the state that it’s super hip to hate. But why? Israel-bashers will say, “Duh, it's because of its crazy military antics,” but that doesn’t add up. Israel’s militarism today is of a far smaller order than it was during the Six-Day War of 1967, and back then most Westerners, including radical leftists, supported the Zionist project.

 

The most interesting explanation I hear for Israel’s unpopularity among latte-sippers comes from Richard Pater, a political analyst from Radlett who has lived in Israel for the past 15 years. (Israel has loads of Jews from boring bits of Britain who have taken the quite wise decision to act on their right to migrate to this far warmer, more exotic part of the world.) “The lesson many in the West took from the Holocaust is that nationalism is bad; the message Jews took from it is that nationalism is necessary.”

 

This cuts to the heart of today’s fashionable disdain for little Israel. What many Westerners seem to find most nauseating is that Israel is cocky, confident and committed to preserving its national sovereign rights against all-comers. In short, it’s a lot like we used to be before relativism and anti-modernism. I think that Israel reminds us of our older selves, our pre-EU, pre-green days, when we, too, believed in borders, sovereignty, progress, growth.

 

Now that it’s de rigueur in the right-thinking sections of western society to be post- nationalist and multicultural, to be fashionably uncertain about one’s national identity, the sight of a border-fortifying state offends and outrages us. In the words of George Gilder, author of The Israel Test, Israel is now hated more for its virtues than for its political or militaristic vices. It’s hated for remaining devoted to “freedom and capitalism” when we’re all supposed to be snooty about such things.

 

If Israel is unofficially being made into a pariah state, it isn’t because of its foreignness, or even necessarily its Jewishness, but rather because it is too western for our liking. We loathe it because we loathe ourselves.

Does Israel Have a Right to Exist as a Jewish State? By Ali Abunimah.

Does Israel Have a Right to Exist as a Jewish State?: An excerpt from Ali Abunimah’s “The Battle for Justice in Palestine.” By Ali Abunimah. Mondoweiss, March 14, 2014.

Reclaiming Self-Determination. By Ali Abunimah. Al-Shabaka, May 21, 2010. PDF. Also here.

M.J. Rosenberg’s Critique of BDS Movement and Ali Abunimah’s Book “The Battle for Justice in Palestine.” Partners for Progressive Israel, March 19, 2014.

Blaming Kerry for Palestinian Rejectionism. By Jonathan S. Tobin.

Blaming Kerry for Palestinian Rejectionism. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, March 13, 2014.

Kerry’s Unprepared for the Palestinian “No.” By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, March 14, 2014.

Fatah Central Committee Member Abbas Zaki: Allah Will Gather Israelis so Palestinians Can Kill Them. By Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik.

Allah will gather Israelis so Palestinians can kill them, says senior Palestinian official Abbas Zaki. By Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik. Palestinian Media Watch, March 13, 2014. Video at YouTube.

BDS Bullies at Galway University. By Alan Johnson.

BDS Bullies at Galway University. By Alan Johnson. The Times of Israel, March 10, 2014. Video at YouTube.

The Apartheid Smear. By Alan Johnson. BICOM, February 2014.

BDS in Galway: “You’re f-ing Zionist, f-ing pricks, get the f–k off our campus.” By William A. Jacobson. Legal Insurrection, March 7, 2014.

Will Galway Univ. anti-Israel F-bomber get away with shout down? By William A. Jacobson. Legal Insurrection, March 12, 2014.

Why Make Light of PLO Non-Recognition of Israel? By Caroline Glick.

Why Make Light of PLO Non-Recognition of Israel? By Caroline Glick. Real Clear World, March 12, 2014. Also at the Jerusalem Post.

Why the Kerry Middle East Peace Framework Will Fail. By Rabbi Michael Lerner.

Why the Kerry Middle East Peace Framework Will Fail. By Rabbi Michael Lerner. The Huffington Post, March 11, 2014.

The Futile Search for Middle East Solutions. By Jonathan S. Tobin.

The Futile Search for Middle East Solutions. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, March 10, 2014.

Why Abbas Will (Again) Say No. By Khaled Abu Toameh. Gatestone Institute, March 11, 2014.

Tobin:

In today’s Mosaic Magazine, author Hillel Halkin provides yet another entry in the growing list of proposed “solutions” to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Put forward as a response to Yoav Sorek’s Mosaic essay in which that writer essentially called upon Israel to annul the Oslo peace process and establish what might be termed a one-state proposal. Unlike most such ideas put forward by Israel’s enemies which amount to nothing more than replacing the one Jewish state with one more Arab one, Sorek’s idea — which was endorsed here by Tom Wilson — is rooted in extending Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank but within a context in which it is understood that the country will remain a Jewish state.

 

Both Sorek’s proposal and that put forward by Caroline Glick in her new book (which was given a persuasive endorsement by Seth Lipsky in the New York Sun) take it as a given that the two-state solution that has been sought in vain during the 20 years since the Oslo Accords were signed will never succeed. Halkin doesn’t disagree on that point but is less sanguine than either Sorek or Glick about Israel’s ability to incorporate the large Arab population of the West Bank into Israel. In response he offers a compromise that is neither a pure one- or two-solution. He calls it “two-state minus” in which a Jewish state would co-exist alongside a Palestinian one in the territory that is now controlled by Israel. The majority status of the two peoples in their enclaves would be protected but both Jews and Arabs living in the two states would be free to choose either nationality no matter where they lived as well as to travel and work in either sector. He likens it to the way the nation states of the European Union retain their individual sovereignty while having that power restrained by their mutual obligations.

 

But while it sounds nice it is no more realistic than any other “solution” out on the market. Like the advocates of the other two state concepts, Halkin’s idea rests on the assumption that the Palestinians will be satisfied with anything less than the end of Jewish sovereignty in any form over any part of the country. Until the Palestinians embrace the reality of Israel’s permanence and renounce their century-old war on Zionism, the only viable scenario is one that manages the conflict rather than solving it.

 

Sorek and especially Glick, who writes with her characteristic clarity about the fatal mistakes of Israel’s leaders, perform a valuable service in debunking many of the false assumptions about the conflict that are the foundation of the two-state idea. Both rightly point out that Arab rejectionism is not based on anger about Israel’s occupation of territory in June 1967 but on their belief that Zionism is illegitimate. As Sorek writes about the Israeli embrace of Oslo, “In embracing the Palestinian national movement as its partner, Israel pretended not to see that, absent its fundamental objection to the existence of the Jewish state, there was no Palestinian national movement.” The reckless pursuit of peace on these false terms led to the abandonment of Israel’s claim to its own rights in the dispute, a form of unilateral moral disarmament that has helped legitimize the arguments of anti-Zionists, which have grown louder and more vituperative despite the Jewish state’s sacrifices at Oslo and in the Gaza withdrawal. They also call into question the conventional wisdom that the growth rates of the two peoples will inevitably lead to an Arab majority West of the Jordan, based as it is on unreliable population data and projections that may not be accurate.

 

But it is hard to argue with Halkin’s dismissal of their assumptions that, with patience and creative energy, the population of the West Bank can be integrated into a democratic Israel without fatally undermining the democratic and Jewish nature of the state. Indeed, the same factors that render the two-state solution a forlorn hope for peace also undermine the notion that the Palestinian Arabs will ever accept permanent minority status in a Jewish state even if they were never able to out reproduce the Jews. Some form of separation is inevitable.

 

Even more to the point, those who imagine that the Oslo genie can be put back into the bottle at this late point are mistaken. Israel’s predicament is that it can’t go back to the situation that preceded Oslo or that of the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War when it might have been theoretically possible (if still unlikely) for Israel to annex the West Bank in some manner or to give somehow give some of it back to Jordan. By bringing back Yasir Arafat to the country and giving his Fatah movement control over the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s leaders implicitly recognized the right of the Palestinians to self governance in some part of the country and made it only a matter of time until some sort of Palestinian state was going to be created. Though the reality of the PA under the reign of Yasir Arafat and then Mahmoud Abbas and his Hamas rivals makes that acceptance look like a self-destructive delusional nightmare, it can’t be walked back. The U.S. and Europe may vainly rail at Russia’s annexation of the Crimea in contravention to international law, an Israeli annexation of the West Bank (which, in contrast to Russia’s aggression, Israel could, contrary to conventional wisdom, make a reasonable case for under international law) would never be accepted by the rest of the world, including Israel’s vital American ally. Israel hasn’t the strength to resist the rest of the world in that matter. Nor, it should be pointed, do most Israelis have much appetite for such an idea. In spite of the fact that Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza was a disaster, only a minority of Israelis would favor a plan to reassert their control’s permanent control of the area.

 

Sorek and Glick are right about the dangers of the two-state solution under the current circumstances and Halkin is right that a one-state solution in which the one state is a Jewish state of Israel is a fantasy. Other one-state proposals are merely thinly veiled programs for the eradication of the Jewish homeland and/or genocide of its population.

 

So where does that leave Israel and its government? In a difficult position where it stands to be criticized from the left for doing too little to achieve peace and to be blasted by the right for both countenancing a retreat from the country’s vital interests and the rights of the Jewish people. While the former critics are mistaken and the latter have a point, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu hasn’t the luxury of pontificating from the sidelines. Instead he is left to try and do the only thing any Israeli government can do: manage the conflict until the other side comes to its senses and is willing to make a permanent peace on reasonable terms.

 

In the absence of that sea change in Palestinian public opinion that will make it possible for Abbas or one of his successors to recognize Israel as a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn and to give up the hope of a “right of return” on the part of the 1948 refugees, talk of a solution of any kind is a waste of time. And though Israel has been told for the past 46 years that the status quo isn’t viable, that has proven to be equally mistaken. As unsatisfying as merely preserving the current unsatisfactory arrangement may be for both sides, doing so in a manner which limits the bloodshed and the involvement of the two peoples in each other’s lives is undoubtedly preferable to giving in to the temptation to replicate Gaza in the West Bank or to imagine that Israel can annex the territories without a terrible cost.

 

That is not the sort of thing most people want to hear since they prefer to believe that all problems are soluble, especially those related to life and death. But it is nonetheless true.

The Palestinian Narrative: The Missing Link in the “Peace Process.” By Eric R. Mandel.

The Palestinian narrative: The missing link in the “peace process.” By Eric R. Mandel. Jerusalem Post, March 10, 2014.

Bashing Netanyahu Won’t Bring Peace Any Closer. By Jeff Jacoby. NJBR, March 8, 2014.

Why Can’t the Palestinians Recognize the Jewish State? By Ahmad Samih Khalidi. Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Summer 2011).


Mandel:

Is a lasting Israel-Palestinian peace achievable if only one side accepts the legitimacy of the other’s narrative?

 

“When you say ‘accept Israel as a Jewish state,’ you are asking me to change my narrative.” – Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat.

 

“Every state has created narratives which help its citizen to identify with national culture. These narratives are the foundation on which the state is built.” – Erica Mukherjee, Perspectives on Global Issues.

 

Secretary of State Kerry’s well-meaning attempt to forge a framework agreement between the Israeli and Palestinian governments is based on the conventional Western perspective of conflict resolution. Western democratic nations that sign treaties overwhelmingly respect the words on the paper they sign.

 

But what happens when western democracies ask a democratic nation to sign a western- style treaty with an adversary that values tribe and clan over the nation-state? What happens when one party’s narrative is almost totally based on the negation of the other? While the media look through conventional glasses at the prospects for an Israeli- Palestinian framework agreement and pose certain questions, the view for those truly interested in a lasting peace should be through a more nuanced lens. Such an analysis raises questions that are more difficult.

 

Is a lasting Israel-Palestinian peace achievable if only one side accepts the legitimacy of the other’s narrative? To begin to resolve the conflict, American and Israeli negotiators should consider a western-style treaty only with concurrent recognition of the narratives of both parties. Diplomatic maneuvering, no matter how well meaning, can not lead to a lasting peace in this region without addressing the fundamental narratives of the adversaries.

 

For the sake of peace, would Israel be willing to express compassion and remorse publicly for the suffering of Palestinians without accepting primary responsibility? Would they acknowledge that there is merit to the Arab world’s disillusionment with the West because of the broken promises made to them by the British and French 100 years ago? Can Israelis, for the possibility of a genuine peace, acknowledge understanding and compassion for the descendants of Palestinian Arab refugees who have been used as pawns by autocratic Arab regimes? Convincing the Israelis would be the easy part. Most of the heavy lifting must come from the Arab side, which considers itself the victim of an illegitimate Zionist movement.

 

It is essential to understand how Palestinian Arabs think and what they believe. The Palestinian Arab national identity is almost exclusively defined by negating the Israeli narrative, including Israel’s legitimate right to exist as a Jewish state, with precious few positive Palestinian nationalistic qualities.

 

Palestinian Arabs mark their historical time by memorializing what others perpetrated upon them. The quintessential narrative marked in time is the “Nakba,” the catastrophe of the creation of the State of Israel.

 

Delegitimizing Jewish historical connections to the land extends from mosques to school textbooks, from the PA press to the PA leadership.

 

They view the Jewish historical narrative as at best exaggerated, but more likely fabricated.

 

On a recent trip to the Middle East, I interviewed members of the PA, PLO, Hamas, the Jordanian Parliament, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

They all shared the same talking points about the Jews living in Israel. Uniformly, Israel is considered a colonialist enterprise – illegally imposed, and populated by foreigners with no legitimate right to the land. Almost all believe that Israel continually commits “war crimes,” targets Arab civilians, and oppresses defenseless native Palestinians.

 

Violence committed against Jewish civilians is rationalized as the only legitimate avenue available to an oppressed people.

 

This troubling narrative is not confined to Hamas, but is part of the DNA of Palestinian Arabs whether they reside in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Judea, or Samaria.

 

Compounding the problem is the western belief that all peoples of the world share its universalistic perspective. It is certainly true that Palestinians want to feed their families and prosper, but the West simply cannot comprehend that any people in the 21st century would choose self-defeating options over economic opportunity.

 

If choosing a better life means giving up on the goal of erasing Israel from the map, then unfortunately too many would choose ideology over prosperity.

 

Israel may be a reality, but to most Palestinians, it is not one that can be accepted for the long-term. That is why the United States and Israel must insist on an acknowledgment of the rights of the Jewish people to a homeland in whatever dimension are agreed to by the parties themselves. This would be one of three game-changing events, if published in Arabic and articulated publicly by their leaders.

 

The second game-changer would be if the international community could acknowledge that Israel has legitimate rights beyond the Green Line.

 

It must be acknowledged that Israel has been willing to relinquish almost all of its legal territorial rights in Judea and Samaria over the past 65 years for a lasting peace. Without this acknowledgment, Israel will continue to be branded a “thief,” forced to return stolen land. If not acknowledged, anything Israel retains in a future land swap will be viewed throughout the Arab and Muslim world as illegitimately gained territory. Occupation of disputed territory from a defensive war is not an outdated theory; it is an essential ingredient for a sustainable peace.

 

The third game-changer is the preparation of the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab world for compromise. America must insist on clear and unambiguous public statements in Arabic on all of the lighting-rod issues.

 

If Palestinian Arabs and their supporters are unwilling or unable to accept these three public pronouncements, then the negotiation should transition to how best to improve the lives of Palestinians without endangering Israeli security.

 

Israel and the West need to reset their clocks to Islamic time and think in decades and centuries. Americans and Israelis cannot succumb to the false narrative that this is the last best time for Israel to negotiate with its adversaries.

 

Imposing artificial timelines tilts the negotiation playing field toward an Arab advantage.

 

We will know when the Palestinians and Arab worlds are ready to embark upon a path to true peace when Arab leaders prepare their people for compromise and end the incitement to delegitimize the Israeli narrative. Until then, negotiate not only on territory, but also on accepting the other’s narrative.

Ralph Peters: The Islamic World is a “Failed Civilization.”

Strategist Ralph Peters: Islamic World a “Failed Civilization.” Interviewed by Steve Malzberg. Video. Newsmax, March 10, 2014.

Middle East Genocide. By Ralph Peters. NJBR, June 3, 2013. With related articles and video.


Newsmax:

The perplexing disappearance of a packed Malaysian Airlines jet has all the earmarks of terrorism, Fox News strategic analyst Ralph Peters says.

 

“The indicators are sure there. It looks like a terrorist act. We may find out it wasn't, but there is plenty of motivation,” Peters told The Steve Malzberg Show on Newsmax TV.

 

“The Chinese have been just savage in their repression of the Uyghur Muslim minority in northwestern China . . . So, that is one possibility, the Uyghur Muslim activists,” Peters said Monday.

 

The jet, flying from Kuala Lumpur to Bejing, suddenly vanished Saturday as it flew over the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam. Investigators have so far found no traces of it in the water.

 

While various theories abound — including the possibility of an electrical problem or a suicide dive by the pilot — terrorism remains the top possibility, said Peters, author of the acclaimed Civil War novel Hell or Richmond.

 

“China is not immune to Islamic terrorism,” he said.

 

“This problem is not going to go away in our lifetimes, primarily because the Islamic world is so utterly broken, such a failed civilization that is going to continue to generate terrorists.”

Caroline Glick Interviewed by Mark Levin on The Israeli Solution.

Caroline Glick on The Israeli Solution. Interviewed by Mark Levin. Audio. WesternFreePress, March 8, 2014. YouTube.

The Israeli Solution. By Janet Tassel. American Thinker, March 2, 2014.

One State for Two Peoples? By Yonoson Rosenblum. Mishpacha, February 26, 2014. Also here.

Sex’s Feel-Good Evolution: Charles Darwin’s Erotic Shocker. By David A. Rosenbaum.

Sex’s feel-good evolution: Charles Darwin’s erotic shocker. By David A. Rosenbaum. Salon, March 9, 2014.

Time to Put and End to the Fantasy of a Palestinian People. By Mordechai Kedar.

Time to put an end to the fantasy of a Palestinian people. By Mordechai Kedar. i24 News, March 8, 2014.

Small Homogeneous States Only Solution for Middle East. By Mordechai Kedar. IMRA, April 1. 2011.

Imagining a Remapped Middle East. By Robin Wright. NJBR, September 29, 2013.

The Arab Collapse. By Ralph Peters. NJBR, May 20, 2013.


Kedar [fantasy]: 

Despite the benefits of this ambiguous situation, Israel should adopt a clearer policy: Since the PLO has not abandoned its plan to destroy Israel, it must end the dream of establishing a state under the rule of this organization. The Hamas movement began the process in Gaza, and Israel must continue it in Judea and Samaria in order to establish seven city-states and to leave the rural areas under Israeli control.

The seven city-states will free most of the Arab population in Judea and Samaria from Israeli control and Israel can offer citizenship to residents of the rural space. These city-states based on local clans will be real entities and not the fantasies of some Palestinian intellectuals and tired Israeli souls regarding the existence of a single united Palestinian people in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria.

The Palestinian people exist just as the Syrian people do, the Iraqi, Libyan or Sudanese people. The social reality in the Middle East is rooted in the culture of the tribe, the ethnic group (Arabs, Kurds, etc.), the religious group (Muslims, Druze, Alawites, Christians, etc.) and sectarian group (Sunni, Shia, etc.). Only countries based on one homogeneous group can survive in this area, and provide their citizens with a reasonable life.

Israel must base its policy on reality, not on dreams and fantasies of a new Middle East.

Naftali Bennett: Palestinians Need to Recognize Israel as a Jewish State.

Israeli minister: Palestinians need to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Naftali Bennett interviewed by Fareed Zakaria. Fareed Zakaria GPS, March 8, 2014. Additional transcript here.

Russia Has Already Lost the War. By Chrystia Freeland.

Russia Has Already Lost the War. By Chrystia Freeland. New York Times, March 7, 2014.

Cut Off the Russian Oligarchs and They’ll Dump Putin. By Garry Kasparov.

Cut Off the Russian Oligarchs and They’ll Dump Putin. By Garry Kasparov. The Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2014.

Vikings, Season 2 Episode 1: Brother’s War.

Vikings, Season 2 Episode 1: Brother’s War. Video. Daryl Dixon, March 7, 2014. YouTube. History Channel.

Were the Vikings Really So Bloodthirsty? By Tom de Castella.

Were the Vikings really so bloodthirsty? By Tom de Castella. BBC News Magazine, March 5, 2014.

Decapitated bodies found in Dorset burial pit were executed Vikings. Mirror, March 11, 2010.

Archaeologists uncover headless corpses of 51 Vikings executed by Saxons in Dorset killing field. By David Derbyshire. Mail Online, March 12, 2010.

The Viking death squads who got a taste of their own medicine: Mass grave shows how the Anglo-Saxons hit back at invaders. By Tamara Cohen. Mail Online, January 25, 2012.

Mass grave belonged to Viking mercenaries. Nick Collins. The Telegraph, January 25, 2012.

Viking mass grave linked to elite killers of the medieval world. University of Cambridge, January 25, 2012.

“Given to the Ground”: A Viking Age Mass Grave on Ridgeway Hill, Weymouth. Oxford Archaeology.

Mass Grave of Beheaded Vikings Discovered. Video. BBC News, March 16, 2010. YouTube.




BBC Blood of the Vikings. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Video. YouTube.

A Baleful Peace Process. By Reuel Marc Gerecht.

A Baleful Peace Process. By Reuel Marc Gerecht. The Weekly Standard, March 17, 2014. Also here.

Israel Today: A Society Without a Center. By Carlo Strenger.

Israel today: a society without a center. By Carlo Strenger. Haaretz, March 7, 2014.

The struggle for Israel’s soul: Human rights vs. rampant nationalism. By Carlo Strenger. Haaretz, January 22, 2014.

If I were an American Jew, I’d worry about Israel’s racist cancer. By Daniel Blatman. Haaretz, March 7, 2014.

Strenger (The struggle):

The conflict between the center-left and the ultranationalist right isn’t about risk management.


Economy Minister Naftali Bennett recently claimed that Israel shouldn’t worry about the implications of the occupation on its economy. Israel, he said, survived earlier boycotts and would survive future ones.

 

His view on the creation of a Palestinian state was different. Israel’s economy wouldn’t survive the constant shelling of Tel Aviv and Herzliya from a Palestinian state, or the shooting down of airliners flying into Ben-Gurion Airport by a terrorist waiting in the Judean Hills, Bennnett said.

 

His concern about what would happen if radical jihadist terror groups infiltrated the Palestinian state isn’t to be taken lightly, and these concerns play an important role in the negotiations with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Given the chaos in Syria and Al-Qaida’s role there – often literally at the Israeli border – it would be preposterous to dismiss Bennett’s scenario out of hand.

 

Then again, I see no reason to take Bennett’s assessment of the future as authoritative. Consider, for example, the six former chiefs of the Shin Bet security service interviewed in the documentary “The Gatekeepers.” They’re likely to be at least as informed as Bennett about the risks in establishing a Palestinian state, yet they’re all convinced that Israel’s only way to survive is to end the occupation.

 

There was some hope that Bennett, a successful startup entrepreneur, would put a modicum of sanity into the national-religious way of thinking. Alas, we were wrong. After all, a few months ago, he suggested that Israel rupture ties with the European Union, Israel’s largest trading partner, over the EU’s guidelines prohibiting any EU grants, loans or prizes from going to activities of Israeli entities in the West Bank, Golan Heights or East Jerusalem. That was an unbecoming statement for a government minister.

 

Bennett’s propensity for populist hyperbole may make him popular in his ultranationalist constituency, but very few others are likely to take him seriously when he talks about the impact of a boycott by the free world on Israel’s economy. Instead of Bennett’s tirades, I prefer the judgment of the many leading businesspeople who are warning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the consequences of continuing the occupation.

 

But let’s face it. In a place as volatile as the Middle East, the certainties are even fewer than in calmer regions – and even in the United States and Europe almost nobody foresaw the economic meltdown of 2007/8. In the end, the conflict between Bennett and the Israeli ultranationalist right on the one hand, and the center-left on the other, isn’t about risk management. It’s a struggle for Israel’s soul.

 

Bennett is enamored with a mythical Israel that relies on itself and God’s guidance alone. He dreams of reestablishing the Kingdom of David and Solomon, which he imagines as mighty and impressive. And he disdains the virtues of prudence and diplomacy as well as consideration of the rights of non-Jews.

 

The story of Masada is an inspiration for him. Bar Kochba, the leader of the revolt against Rome that led to the death of 600,000 Jews in the second century C.E., is a story of heroism for him. Hence we can slap Uncle Sam in the face and tell the EU to leave us alone; Jews no longer need to listen to anybody.

 

Jewish liberals in Israel and in the Diaspora look at this war-mongering mythology with surprise and sometimes shock. They know that the Kingdom of David and Solomon was nothing but an extended tribal chiefdom, and that there is very little to be learned about modern statecraft from Israel’s kings.

 

They know that Bar Kochba was a fool who brought nothing but suffering to the Jewish people. If anything, they want to connect to the humanist-ethical element in the Jewish tradition, not to the stories of misguided pseudo-heroism.

 

In addition, they know that the idea of an Israel that doesn’t depend on anybody is an adolescent fantasy. They know that Israel’s alliance with the West is a vital strategic asset, and that Israel couldn’t survive long without the backing of the United States.

 

But the alliance with the West isn’t just a matter of prudence and economic interest, it’s an expression of core values. Jewish liberals care about Israel’s soul. We recoil from Bennett’s vision of a brutal country that cares about nothing but itself. We feel morally bound by the story of Jewish suffering to a simple conclusion: We have known what it’s like to be devoid of rights, trampled on, disowned and displaced.

 

And Jewish liberals ranging from René Cassin, who was instrumental in crafting the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to the founders of the Anti-Defamation League, have been involved in the causes of liberty, equality and human rights around the globe. As Jews we want to fight injustice, not perpetrate it.

 

We care about Israel’s security as much as Bennett does. But when we look at the sheer brutishness of the behavior of many settlers, the callousness of their disregard for Palestinians, we simply say: This is not Jewishness as we understand it. This is not the dream of Theodor Herzl and Ahad Ha’am, nor does it correspond to the values of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which explicitly disavows discrimination based on religion and ethnicity.

 

This is why we are willing to take certain risks for the sake of salvaging Israel’s soul. We are not naïve. Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Amram Mitzna, Meir Dagan, Ami Ayalon and Yuval Diskin served Israel’s security for most of their lives, and they all have thought the occupation is a greater danger to Israel’s survival than the dangers in retreating from the West Bank.

 

I trust their judgment on matters of security. But even more I’m filled with pride that despite their keen awareness of the dangers, their concern for Israel’s soul determines their vision for Israel’s future. For without a soul, Israel will lose the strength to continue renewing and reinventing itself and make good on the promise of being the democratic homeland of the Jews.


Strenger (Israel today):

The clash of three sacred values − liberal Zionism, ultra-Orthodox continuity and romantic nationalism − is more dangerous for Israel’s survival than any external enemy.

 

Much ink has been spilled about who has benefitted from the showdown between Yesh Atid and the ultra-Orthodox Haredim. I think that beyond this issue it is important to reflect dispassionately on what recent events teach us about Israeli society.

 

Research in political psychology has shown that many groups rally around sacred values that are non-negotiable: No compromise is possible about these values without the group’s feeling that its very existence is threatened. This is why people are often willing to die for these values, and why pragmatic arguments do not motivate them to compromise but generally increase their intransigence, because their core identity is at stake.

 

Israel today has three basic forms of sacred values that have almost no common denominator.

 

Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Labor, Hatnuah and Meretz represent liberal Zionism. In their view Jewish history shows that Jews need and are entitled to a nation-state of their own. But they also think that this state must be a liberal democracy, which means that there must be strict equality before the law independent of religion, ethnicity or gender. Many commentators have questioned the wisdom of Lapid’s insistence on the Haredim’s serving in the IDF on pragmatic grounds. They have not realized that for him equality before the law is a sacred value and that without it the Zionist project is doomed.

 

For the Haredim the one sacred value is the Jewish people’s eternity (Netzah Yisrael), and for them the State of Israel is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for Jewish survival. Judaism, in their view, has survived because of only one reason: that there have always been Jews who have obeyed the laws of Judaism in the strictest manner. From their point of view Israel might disappear, but without them, the Haredim, Judaism will perish.

 

It is crucial for Haredim that young men and women be educated in a way that will make sure that they remain embedded in Haredi society and not be exposed to external influences before they have spent a long time in the Yeshiva world, are married, have children and are basically incapable of leaving Haredi society. Many secular Jews see the Haredim as nothing but parasites and do not realize that many Haredim see army service at an early age together with secular Jews as an existential threat to their sacred values.

 

Then there are the romantic nationalists for whom the State of Israel is not just the homeland of the Jews, but realizes the sacred bond between the Jewish people and the Greater Land of Israel. This idea derives from the extreme European right since the late 19th century, and is fused with messianic orthodoxy in national-religious Zionism. Democracy is secondary for romantic nationalists: If the sacred bond of people and land is endangered by the principles of liberal democracy, they are willing to sacrifice them, for example by curtailing freedom of speech for left-wingers or leaving Arab citizens with limited or no political rights.

 

The bitterness and the violent rhetoric of Israel’s political culture are largely due to this clash of three sacred values, with sometimes extreme consequences. The settler movement has already shown that it is capable of extreme violence when the two-state solution is about to be implemented. Haredim have proven that they are willing to go to prison to avoid what they see as fatal infringements on their way of life.

 

Liberal Zionism is at a disadvantage because it refrains from violence and abides with the law. Many believe that liberal Zionism’s majority in Israel balances this disadvantage – but this is an illusion. Likud is no longer liberal-Zionist but has adopted romantic nationalism. Only 48 MKs, i.e. 40 percent of the Knesset, represent liberal Zionism.

 

As a result of this clash of sacred values, growing numbers of Israelis feel they might no longer have a place in Israel without abandoning their identity. The Belzer Hasidim have declared that they will emigrate to the U.S. if forced to serve in the IDF. Ever-growing numbers of liberal-leaning Israelis leave for Berlin, New York or Los Angeles because they feel alienated by the rule of right-wing nationalism – a development encouraged by Im Tirtzu leader Ronen Shoval’s call for left-wingers to leave the country if they can’t stand the nationalist right.

 

None of these developments are to be taken lightly: At this point in history the clash of sacred values is more dangerous for Israel’s survival than any external enemy.