The Deep Rift Between Jim Baker's "Jewboys"

Back in the late 80's and early 90's they were called, "Baker's Jewboys" -- the policy team of Dennis Ross, Aaron Miller, and Dan Kurtzer that helped orchestrate the modestly successful Middle East policy of George H. W. Bush, culminating in the Madrid Conference. The trio were reviled by elements of the Jewish community as self-hating Jews that betrayed Israel (I remember them being called "court Jews" by some Israelis.) Members of the Zionist tribe could understand a Texas goy like Jim Baker pressuring Shamir over the loan guarantees...but how could he be aided and abetted by a team of Jewish policy experts?

At the time, Dan Kurtzer was my neighbor and fellow congregant in the Kemp Mill Synagogue, a breakaway shul that had rented a suburban house for services. Dan is a modern orthodox Jew, a former dean at Yeshiva University, and would become in the nineties -- after Ross cut him out of the peace process, according to Miller -- a distinguished US ambassador to Egypt and Israel. His ambassadorial residence in Cairo was strictly kosher, and I was privileged to visit him when he took up residence as ambassador in Herzeliyah. Dan is deeply committed to the Jewish state. At the time of his tzuris with elements in the American Jewish community, his middle son was studying in a West Bank yeshiva. Kurtzer was not exactly the poster-child for the "Self-hating Jew Club." But in this country if you don't kow-tow to the Israel Lobby and the often self-destructive policies of the Israeli government, you are liable to be called "a self-hating Jew" by pork-eating ignoramuses who mistake ethnic chauvinism for Judaism.

Ross, Miller, and Kurtzer have now all published post mortems for their failed efforts to secure Middle East peace. You would think that these three folks would be pretty much in agreement over who was responsible, right? Guess again. Whereas Ross's book, The Missing Peace, is, in my opinion, a self-serving memoir that places the blame squarely on Arafat and the Palestinians, the books by Kurtzer and Miller, while not absolving Arafat of responsibility, place much of the blame on the Americans, especially Clinton (and Ross), for playing favorites. America became under Clinton, to use the title of Aaron Miller's 2005 op-ed for which he was excoriated, "Israel's Lawyer." If there is any hope for a renewed diplomatic process, both Miller and Kurtzer conclude in their respective books that America must become the honest broker it was during the administration of George H. W. Bush. (Well, relative to the Clinton administration, anyway.)

One example: In Kurtzer's Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace (co-authored with Scott Lasensky) we learn that future US policy should be to

"Build a diverse and experienced negotiating team steeped in regional and functional expertise; encourage open debate and collaboration within the government. A dysfunctional policy process should not be tolerated"

It is clear from Kurtzer and Lasensky's "commentary" that the above lesson was learned well by Jim Baker but entirely missed by Clinton's secretaries of state, Christopher and Albright. Ross, who was appointed to be a special Middle East coordinator by Clinton, did not encourage debate and collaboration. The Clinton policy team is accused by Kurtzer and Lasensky of being "dysfunctional," without any knowledge in Arab culture, a serious drawback especially at Camp David II.

"There was no expert on our team on Islam or Muslim perspectives," said a former Clinton administration official, "[so] when it came to dealing with Jerusalem, there's some very embarrassing episodes that betrayed our lack of knowledge or bias."

Aaron Miller, in his intriguing new book, The Much Too Promised Land makes a similar accusation against the Clinton policy team (of which he was a member). He waxes nostalgiac about Bush 41 and Secretary Baker, as he criticizes the Clinton administration. And why? Simply because the US, under Clinton and Ross, acted as "Israel's lawyer", abandoning all pretence at being an honest broker. In not-so-diplomatic language, he castigates Ross's "driving ambition to succeed and to exert control." Most significantly, he blames Ross for cutting Kurtzer out of the peace-process team in 1994.

Dan's departure in my view was a major loss. We needed his honesty, balance, and creativity, particularly in the mid-1990's and in the run-up to Camp David."

Miller sums up to my mind the fundamental problem of Ross's approach as follows:

Dennis, like myself, had a inherent tendency to see the world of Arab-Israeli politics first from Israel's vantage point rather than from that of the Palestinians. Not that he didn't understand Arab or Palestinian sensitivities. But his own strong Jewish identity, and his commitment to Israel's security combined with something else: a deep conviction that if you couldn't gain Israel's confidence, you have zero chance of erecting any kind of peace process. And to Dennis, achieving this goal required a degree of coordination with the Israeli's, sensitivity toward their substantive concerns, and public defense of their positions. Baker's good judgment and toughness balanced and controlled this inclination, which was not the case under Clinton.

In subsequent posts, I will be citing more from the books by Kurtzer and Lasensky, and by Aaron Miller. There are must-reads for my readers, especially for American Jewish liberals who cheered the American involvement in the peace process. Miller's book, in particular, is the most important book yet to be written on American's attempts to broker mideast peace, (And, by the way, the book is highly entertaining. I found myself laughing out loud occasionally.)

For when you get down to it, the peace-process team under two US presidents was composed of three talented individuals, all Jews, and all liberal Zionists.

Now we know -- from Kurtzer and from Miller, two-thirds of the trio -- that America, Israel, and the Palestinians would have been better served by a more diverse team.

Apparently, Dennis Ross, whose failure was spectacular, still doesn't get it.

The State Department's Trivialization of Anti-Semitism

Why the US Department of State wastes US taxpayers' money preparing a sloppy report on global anti-semitism is beyond me. Well, it is not beyond me; Jewish organizations lobby Congress, and Congress earmarks the money for the Dept. of State, all part of the propaganda war for Israel.

The report reinforces what we all know: that the so-called "new anti-semitism" is almost always disguised anti-Israelism, and that when the body count of Palestinians rises, so do incidents of anti-semitism throughout the world. That is why during the 1990s, anti-semitism waned, and during the 2000's, and especially during times of conflict, anti-semitism rose. Of course, there is still anti-semitism that is only tangentially linked to Israel, if at all, e.g., in Russia, and among the rightwing. But most anti-semitism is a front for anti-Zionism, and not vice-versa.

The State Department report looks like it could have been composed by Phyllis Chesler; even Abe Foxman's ADL would have been produced something more nuanced. We are treated to the familiar false dichotomy between "legitimate criticism of Israel's policies" (although we are never given examples) and illegitimate criticism of Zionism or Jewish self-determination, as if to be an anti-Zionist makes you an anti-semite.

If you believe that, then you have trivialized anti-semitism and inter alia you are guilty of rabid anti-Palestinianism, because Palestinians (understandably) oppose Zionism. (And yet it is considered legitimate for Israelis to oppose the return of the Palestinian refugees; nobody calls that a thwarting of Palestinian nationalist aspirations.) But of course, requiring the Palestinians to accept Israel as legitimate, and if not, they will be branded as anti-semites, is part of the double-standard employed by those who claim that the Jews have a right to a state of their own in Palestine at the expense of the native Palestinians.

The State Department, not surprisingly, bashes the UN for its imbalanced treatment of Israel; of course, it doesn't view United States's support of Israel as lopsided. Still, the report makes it very clear that it is not accusing the member-nations of the UN as harboring anti-semitic motives, but rather that it plays in the hands of antisemites. Of course, this distinction is missed entirely by David Harris of the American Jewish Comittee who writes

"By exposing the use of anti-Jewish tropes and anti-Israel measures by government and non-governmental bodies, especially in the UN, the report makes it clear that anti-Semitism is not simply found in crude and uneducated circles. It can be found in some of the world's most respected institutions," said Harris.

The State Department report does not say or imply that anti-Semitism is found in the United Nations. But that doesn't matter to David Harris, who wishes to demonize the United Nations as part of "Israel advocacy."

The State Department has adopted the European Union working definition of antisemitism, which considers as antisemitic "comparisons of Israel with Nazi Germany." So, according to this definition, for example, it is antisemitic to point out that the Israel government adopted the Nuremberg racial definition of 'Who is a Jew" for the purpose of establishing Jewish descent. Now, it may be outrageous and ridiculous to compare actions of the state of Israel with that of the Nazis. But why is that anti-semitic?

The report considers the charge of "dual loyalty" on the same par as the charge of "blood libel." Now, I know many Jews who are openly more loyal to the state of Israel than to the country of which they are citizens, and they are proud of that loyalty. But I don't know of any Jews who use the blood of Christian children for their matzot. By considering both of these charges "libels" the report demeans and trivializes the "blood libel" charge.

But more than that -- when there was no Jewish state, then it made sense to consider "dual loyalty" to be an anti-semitic canard. But when Zionists themselves have made the argument that Israel is the homeland of all the Jews -- not the spiritual homeland but the actual homeland -- when Zionists from David Ben-Gurion to A. B. Yehoshua have claimed that you cannot be a complete Jew in the diaspora, and that the state of Israel is the nation state of the Jews, then this Zionist demand is not for dual loyalty, but for sole loyalty to the state of Israel.

When will anti-Israelism be legitimately considered as anti-semitism? When the state of Israel becomes a nation-state of the Israeli nation, composed of various religions and ethnicities. Until that time, the Zionists can't have it both ways. They cannot claim that all Jews are citizens of the state of Israel in potentia by virtue of their religio-ethnic affiliation, and simultaneously claim that world Jewry cannot be judged by the actions of Israeli Jews.

Of course, all ethnic and religious generalizations are morally pernicious, and neither Israelis nor Palestinians should suffer for the sins of their leaders, or their terrorists (often the same.) Anti-semitism is hideous bigotry, as is anti-Arabism, and all sorts of racial and ethnic prejudice. But Zionism, which was the biggest beneficiary of modern anti-semitism, from the Dreyfus affair through the Russian pogroms, through the German holocaust, through the communist Judaeophobia, and through the Arab antisemitism that drove out the Arab Jews "back to their real homeland," cannot wash its hands of the responsibility for some of the "new anti-Semitism" no more than the United States, by virtue of its horrendous foreign policy under the current president, can wash its hands of its responsibility for anti-Americanism around the globe.

If you believe that anti-semitism is not fueled by the actions of Israel (a lot more so than by the actions of the UN General Assembly), then you insult Zionism and Israel. For you claim, against Zionism, that a Jewish state does not empower Jews, that it is not an agent in world history, that the Jews are not now masters of their destiny. You say that Israel's actions have no effect on others, that the Jews are as passive, marginal, and as weak, as they were, according to Zionism, during the period of exile.

What does the State Department's accusation against the UN remind me of? Of the pathetic attempt to attribute Palestinian hatred of Israelis to, ribono shel olam, their friggin' textbooks. As if the checkpoints, the closures, the wall, the mass arrests and imprisonments, the expulsions, the settlements, the massive expropriation of land, have no effect on Palestinian attitudes towards their occupiers.

It's their bloody textbooks! Without them, they would fight among themselves to be our hewers of wood and drawers of water!

Even by its own standards the State Department fails to make a convincing case against the United Nations. For it has to show not that the UN singles out Israel for criticism when there are worse human rights violators. It has to show that it singles out Israel for criticism when there are other putative Western democracies doing the same thing that Israel does. You see, the European Union's working definition of anti-semitism doesn't just refer to double-standards; it refers to double-standards with reference to democratic nations. And so the evidence supplied in the State Department's report about the UN's failing to criticize the Sudan over Darfur has no relevance at all to the double-standard criterion for anti-semitism adopted by the Europeans. Now, it may be that if the US occupies and creates American settlements in Iraq on a longeterm basis, and this is not equally criticized by the UN, then there will be a case for the charge of anti-semitism.

The report gets worse: The British boycott against Israeli academic universities is considered antisemitic because some of the boycotters compared Israel's actions to those of the Nazis. The boycott of Israel by the Canadian Union of Public Employees is cited as an example of antisemitic demonization of Israel because the union's resolution refers to "Israeli apartheid." So if you suggest that Israel's policies constitute apartheid, you are, according to the State Department, anti-semitic. (Well, I guess some Haaretz writers are anti-semitic...hang on, didn't Ehud Olmert say that Israel would become apartheid if it didn't evacuate the territories?) A cartoon published in the Guardian is considered antisemitic because it uses the Star of David, which, as any idiot knows, is a symbol of the modern State of Israel.

To deny that the Jewish people have a right to an ethnic-state of their own in a land claimed by others is not anti-semitism, classical or new. It is anti-Zionism, or to be precise, anti-political-Zionism. To call that anti-semitism is to trivialize and cheapen anti-semitism, as it is to libel the many people, Jews and non-Jews, who opposed and oppose political Zionism because it is bad for the Jews.

Now that's what I would call anti-semitism.

And what about the double-standard of spending thousands of dollars on producing a report about anti-semitism, with nary a dollar spent on Islamophobia, or Arab-bashing?

Walt and Mearsheimer, take note.

Selling Purim to Jewish Progessives

Purim is a three-day affair in Jerusalem this year. However you look at it, the holiday is not exactly a favorite among Jewish progressives. The Megillah/Scroll of Esther celebrates a victory of the Jews over Haman, his sons, and a whole bunch of people inside and outside the Persian capital of Shushan who had it in for the Jews. OK, so the Jews did not take spoils, certainly an advance over today's IDF (which explicitly prohibits taking spoils, and has prosecuted a few soldiers for it, but where taking "souvenirs" is widespread, if I can believe the reports of soldiers in my family and in the group "Breaking the Silence")

Ah, but let's leave the IDF out of this one, shall we?

It's not just the Scroll of Esther that discomfits progressives; it's the Amalek thing; it's the Barukh Goldstein thing; it's the Hanan Porat "Purim Sameah" ("Happy Purim") thing (That's what the Gush Emunim leader allegedly said when he heard about the Goldstein massacre, though he claims that he was not celebrating Goldstein, but urging people to continue with the holiday, despite the horrible thing that had happened.) It's the primitive customs associated with reading the megillah, like making deafening noise when the villain Haman's name is mentioned, or getting stone drunk.

The stone-drunk business reminds me of a story. Once my family was invited to the Ner Israel Yeshiva in Baltimore for the festive meal on Purim. I thought, well, what could possibly go wrong? It's a happy holiday, and the yeshiva students at least know what they are doing. Well, when my children saw drunken yeshiva students vomiting on the lawn outside the yeshiva, my only consolation was that wouldn't want to go back and enroll in the joint. And they didn't, although they did go to some modern orthodox Israeli yeshivot.

All I know is that Maimonides, not exactly a liberal, would be aghast at how the holiday has been turned -- by some -- into a drunken orgy of Jewish ethnic particularism.

So...here's my attempt to sell Purim to progressives a bit late for this year, but not for next year.

Consider the following:

The Scroll of Esther is not history. I mean, there probably never was an Esther or a Mordecai or Haman. The story of Purim is part of the Jewish collective memory, which means that it never happened. So don't worry about innocents being killed, because according to the story, no innocents were killed. According to the story, all of them were implicitly guilty, including the sons of Haman. Is that a primitive, tribalistic morality? Of course. But it helps a bit to realize that we are in the realm of fantasy. I can't shed tears over the death of Orcs either.

Once the book is understood as a fable written two thousand years ago, there are two possible ways of responding to it: by reading it literally as representing a morality that gets a B-(after all, Haman is indeed a villain that turns a personal slight into a call for genocide), or by reading into it, against the grain of the story, our own moral imperatives. I adopt both readings, but I prefer the latter. For one thing, I am doing what my medieval Jewish culture heroes, the rationalist philosophers, always did -- providing non-literal interpretations of scripture that were in tune with their own views.

James Kugel has argued pursuasively that if you detach the Bible from its classical interpreters -- which is what Protestant Judaism and modern Biblical criticism attempts to do -- then the book you are left with is pretty mediocre as literature, and only partly agreeable as ethics. The Bible has always undergone a process of interpretation, of mediation, because none of the classic readers could relate to it as a document produced in a certain time and place.

So for me to relate to the Scroll of Esther, and to the Purim holiday in general, I emphasize (and distort) those points that are congenial to my ethics and worldview, and just forget about the rest. I don't drink on Purim; if I am really feeling frum/religious, I will have a shot of scotch before I go to bed, whereupon I will not be able to distinguish between "Cursed be Haman" and "Blessed be Mordecai". I will have a good time with my grandchildren, and pick a prayer service where there is a lot of decorum and the scroll is read in a respectful manner, without all the lunacy of the vulgar plebs (amkha, in Hebrew).

And, of course, I will overeat, give baked goods that my friends will regift and throw away, and distribute a modest (i.e., token) amount of charity.

I will read the story of Esther as a fictional fantasy about how my people, through political wisdom and without religious fanaticism, or the help of a Deus ex machina, triumphed over the enemies who wished to destroy us because we were different from them. And that is a message which I will apply not only to my people, but to all beleaguered peoples who are in danger of having their identity and culture -- and physical welfare-- destroyed by bad people in power, in the name of culture and ethnic homogeneity.

Because if what Haman wished to do to the Jews was wrong, then it is also wrong when anybody wishes to do this to any group.

Just wait till you hear what I do with the Haggadah!

Obama's Speech on Race and Racism

Several months ago, when I knew very little about Barack Obama I became friends with one of his major fundraisers, a Jewish lawyer living in DC, who has known Obama since their days together at Harvard law school. After a Shabbat lunch, in which I surprised my host with my opinions on Israel, he said, "Jerry, you are not a Clinton supporter; you are a Obama supporter." So I became an Obama supporter.

Shortly after that, I wrote a post called "Why I Still Support Obama." The fact that Obama was making a lot of so-called "pro-Israel" supporters nervous was sufficient reason for me to support him. Then the slurs and the rumours came, and I decided to contribute to the campaign.

Last night, in my Jerusalem apartment, I read Obama's speech on race in America, and I was blown away. I have not heard any presidential candidate, or an president, for that matter, give a speech like that in decades. I certainly have not heard any speech of that intellectual calibre by an Israeli politician.

It took political courage for Obama not to reject his pastor. Nor should he have. Sure, Pastor Wright has said some outrageous things for many Americans, but at the same time, he has done tremendous things for his community and in his personal dealings, and, according to Obama, has never discriminated between white and black. He was a mentor for Obama, and Obama was able -- as we all should be -- to filter out the stuff that he did not agree with and indeed condemned. If I didn't have that ability, I would have ceased going to Young Israel synagogues a long time ago.

Morality and people are complex. That is something I have learned repeatedly over the years. As an orthodox Jew I associate with some people who, on the one hand, adhere to a mafia-morality that is deeply offensive to me, but on the other hand, live exemplary personal lives.

Such is my former neighbor from the Jewish Quarter in the Old City, a close friend of our family, who was a big supporter of Meir Kahane. He and I used to have shouting matches in which he would say some pretty awful things of "The-only-good-Arab-is-a-dead-Arab" variety (I won't repeat what I said.)

One day, I ran into him as he was leaving an grocery store owned by an Arab. There was a bigger grocery store owned by a Jew that was closer to our homes. I turned to my neighbor and said, "Hey, I thought you were the guy who wanted to drive out all the Arabs...so why aren't you buying from Reuven's store?" He looked at me and said,

Reuven? He's a gonif. Imad? He's a mentsch.

I am not forgiving my neighbor his racism. And I don't want to excuse my own moral failings. But people are complicated -- and we are all have to learn from the other's strengths and weaknesses without compromising our values.

Still, having written the above, I think that if a person does not just say outrageous things occasionally, but makes them his/her trademark, I would learn to stay away from the guy, no matter what his/her other virtues are. That wasn't true of my neighbor, and that wasn't true of Pastor Wright. It was true of Louis Farrakhan (though notice how he toned down the rhetoric in the last few years) and it is becoming increasingly true of folks like Alan Dershowitz, who cannot open their mouths without saying something morally outrageous (Cf. his reaction to the Spitzer case here. If there ever was a mafia-moralist,that would be Dershowitz, who feels called upon to defend his former research assistant.) There comes a time when one's supply of charity is exhausted.

But even then, one can hope for their teshuvah.

Planning for a Purim Pogrom and Police Passivity

Sunday's pogrom against the Jerusalem residents of Jabel Mukaber, a Palestinian neighborhood of "united and undivided" Jerusalem, was announced last week by its organizers in posters and leaflets. To be precise, the organizations behind the pogrom announced that they were going to hold a demonstration at 5 pm on Sunday, and from the demonstration would go to the house of the Palestinian who gunned down eight yeshiva students and tear it down. (As is well-known, Arab terrorists get their houses torn down, whereas Jewish terrorists get monuments built in their honor; the loonies of the right were protesting the government's delay in tearing down the house, which will occur once the court gives its ok to collectively punishing innocents. It will.)

After the right-wingers distributed leaflets last week announcing their action, one of the organizers, Nadia Matar, threw dust in the eyes of the public by saying that they would only hold a demonstration. After all, she said, if we wanted to tear down somebody's house, we would do it, and not announce it in the media.

Well, the demonstration was held (without a permit), and then the demonstrators went to Jabel Mukaber and decided to let the government tear down the murderer's house, while they would just smash cars and windows of as many Arab houses as they could. After all, if you an Arab, you are of the seed of Amalek (well, metaphorically speaking, anyway), and there is a commandment to destroy you, right?

Didn't we read about it last Shabbat in Shul?

In the hate poster the organizers declare their intention "to destroy the house of the murderer and to drive out his family and his supporters". They then go on to rant about the Arab fifth column living in the state of Israel.

By the way, I received the image of the leaflet from Prof. Eliot Horowitz, who has studied Jewish violence (and the Jewish desire to cause violence) to gentiles during the Purim holiday in his book, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence. The last line of the leaflet quotes Esther 9:1 , "...whereas it was reversed -- the Jews ruled over those who hated them."

The Jerusalem police, who were supposed to protect the Palestinian inhabitants of Jerusalem, were unable to prevent the pogrom while it happened, although they did arrest twenty-two pogromists. The police spokesman, I believe, said that they were surprised by the violent actions of the protesters.

Considering that everybody in the country knew about the planned pogram, which had been publicized in all the media, that's pretty funny. I am glad that the police of the Jewish state know how to tell a good Purim joke!

Another Method of Stealing Land From the Arabs

The theft of Arab land by Jewish settlers has been going on for over a century, but as Uri Zohar used to sing, 'Ha-rosh ha-yehudi mamzi lanu patentim" ("The yiddishe kopf invents new devices"), and I am always intrigued by the methods used to steal land belonging to individual Palestinians and the Palestinian people.

This land theft is at the heart of the Zionist enterprise and, in my opinion, will be the ultimate reason why that enterprise will fail. Call me a religious fanatic, but I believe that over the long term (sometimes a very long term), justice is done, especially when the injustice is blatant. I believe in a God of vengeance, and that God (through natural processes) uprights the apple cart when it has been overturned by the rotten apples. OK, so it didn't work with other native peoples. But who says that the crimes against the Native Americans will not come back to haunt America, until some modicum of justice is done?

But enough of theology.

This land grab method is rather simple: a settlement sees what lands it wishes to take over, allots the land to one of its members for land use, prevents the Arabs owner from cultivating the land, and then after a few years claims ownership of the land, on the grounds that it had not been cultivated by its Arab owners. Lack of cultivation was one of the tricks used by the infamous Peliah Albeck to declare private land "public land" and parcel it out to the yuppie community of Efrat.

Read about it here in Haaretz

Court case reveals how settlers illegally grab W. Bank lands

By Meron Rapoport

West Bank settlements have expanded their jurisdictions by taking control of private Palestinian land and allocating it to settlers. The land takeover - which the Civil Administration calls "theft" - has occured in an orderly manner, without any official authorization.

The method of taking over land is being publicized for the first time, based on testimony from a hearing on an appeal filed by a Kedumim resident, Michael Lesence, against a Civil Administration order to vacate 35 dunams (almost 9 acres) near the Mitzpe Yishai neighborhood of the settlement. Official records show the land as belonging to Palestinians from Kafr Qaddum.

Lesence's lawyer, Doron Nir Zvi, admitted at the hearing that the land in question was private Palestinian property. However, Lesence claims ownership on the grounds that he has been working the land for more than a decade, after he received it in an orderly procedure, complete with a signed agreement, from the heads of the Kedumim local council.

Affidavits from Civil Administration officials stated that Lesence began cultivating the land only in the past six months.

Attorneys Michael Sfard and Shlomi Zecharia, who represent the Palestinian landowners on behalf of Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights, insist their clients continued to work the land, and that the army and settlers from Kedumim are denying their access to it.

Kedumim residents who testified before the board said that the Palestinian have no problem reaching their lands. However, a visit to the area reveals a different picture: The guard at Mitzpe Yishai announced that "it is forbidden to allow Arabs in" to the lands abutting the neighborhood. After the Palestinians approached their property on foot, an army patrol arrived and moved them off. When the commander was told they have Civil Administration documents proving they own the land, the commander replied: "Documents don't interest me."

The land-takeover method was developed in Kedumim and neighboring settlements during the mid-1990s, after the Oslo Accords, and continues to this day.

Zeev Mushinsky, the "land coordinator" at the Kedumim local council, testified as to how it works: Council employees, Mushinsky in this case, would map the "abandoned lands" around the settlements, even if they were outside the council's jurisdiction, with the aim of taking them over. The council would "allocate" the lands to settlers, who would sign an official form stating that they have no ownership claim on the m, and that the council is entitled to evict them whenever it sees fit, in return for compensating them solely for their investment in cultivating the land.

Kedumim's former security chief, Michael Bar-Neder, testified that the land "allocation" was followed by an effort to expand the settlement. Bar-Neder said that once the settlers seized the lands, an application would be made to the military commander to declare them state-owned, since under the law covering the West Bank, anyone who does not cultivate his land for three years forfeits ownership of it.

The March to Folly in Gaza

Israel lost the war in Lebanon before it started; it has now lost the war in Gaza before it started. There is no way that Israel can stop the Kassam and Grad Katyusha rockets from being fired because they are highly portable. It can, of course, do damage to missile-factories and to launchers, but unless it were to sit in Gaza for months, perhaps, years, it could not end the missiles.

It can reduce the level of fighting to a relatively low-level conflict, which is in its interest. As long as Kassams are being lobbed at Sderot on a relatively infrequent basis, Olmert has no pressure to include Hamas or Gaza in peace negotiations. Of course, he will be voted out of office, but that is inevitable anyway; Sharon is the only prime minister in recent memory who was not voted out of office.

It seems that the military strategy is to kill a lot of civilians, but not too many, and then to lie about it. That makes the Palestinians hurt (deterrence) while keeping the world off Israel's back. Thus Gabi Ashkenazi said that 90% of the Palestinian casualties were militants. B'Tselem has said that it is close to 50%. In cases like these, the IDF lies for the sake of Israel's image.

If Israel wants to stop the Kassams -- and I sincerely doubt it -- then they will have to pay a diplomatic price to Hamas, just as they had to pay a diplomatic price to Hizbollah. The price will be lower, and the talk will be quiet, but it will be there. Tzipi Livni can go around saying that there will be no compromise with Hamas -- fine and dandy -- but there will be in the future, just as there has been in the past.

Israel must enter into agreements with Hamas just as they have entered into agreements with Hizbollah. Call them "understandings"; call them what you will, but as long as Hamas has the power and support that it does, then it is a player.

What we are seeing in Gaza is what we have seen in Iraq. Although the Iraqis were upset with Saddam Hussein, and very upset with the anarchy of the occupation, they blame the foreign occupiers in addition to blaming rival sectarian groups. Israel is in a no-win situation, the same no-win situation she has been in since the failure of Oslo (and before.) Both sides may take a pause from the fighting and lick their wounds. But as long as the Kassams are being fired, and as long as Israel fails to stop them militarily, the Israeli public will not accept Olmert's excuses. Killing Palestinians makes most Israelis I know feel good -- revenge is a natural emotion -- but not stopping the Kassams make them feel worse. Being shelled by little pishers like the Palestinians (or the Hizbollah) drives them crazy, the same way that being stung by mosquitoes drive elephants crazy. And killing Palestinians, though it helps to ease the pain, just doesn't heal the wounds of national pride. That is why the Israeli public believes that Israel lost the second Lebanon war, despite Israel's rampant destruction of Lebanon. True, the two situations are not the same, and Israel had less understanding from the world about Lebanon than it does about Gaza. But that understanding will evaporate quickly. When it comes to Israel, the line about "disproportionate use of force" is now hardwired into every diplomat's brain.

Obama, Israel, and the Jews

The New York Times ran an article yesterday about Barack Obama and the Jews. I have started reading the "disclaimers" of the Obama campaign spokespeople very carefully. Here's one:

The candidate’s Israel advisers are three former staff members to President Bill Clinton: Dennis Ross, a top Mideast adviser; Anthony Lake, national security adviser and Susan Rice, assistant secretary of state. Other advisers on Israeli and Mideast matters are Mr. Wexler; Dan Shapiro, formerly of the Clinton national security council, and Eric Lynn, a former Congressional aide. (All but Ms. Rice are Jewish.)

No mention of Rob Malley, right? But there shouldn't be, because Malley is not an "advisor on Israel," but on Middle East/Palestine. I am sure that my friend Marc Zell, co-chairman of "Republicans Abroad in Israel" and cited in the Times article in another connection (and a terrific Mikado in last January's production in Jerusalem), will not sleep better at night.

And how's this one:

Mr. Malley has communicated with the campaign by e-mail but has never spoken to Mr. Obama, a campaign spokesman said.

Now the Israel Lobby can rest assured that one of Obama's Middle East advisors is only emailing his advice, rather than meeting him with Ohio.

Malley no doubt is and will be an advisor to Obama as he was to Clinton. So what? He will be one of many, and his focus probably won't be Israel-Palestine, which is not his main area of specialization. But his views will be solicited, presumably. And that brings a ray of hope to America's Middle East policy.

Ribono shel olam, I am starting to talk like Obama!

Israel's Latest (Publicized) Abu Ghraib Affair

So Israeli telejournalist Ilana Dayan does a "Fact" (Uvdah) segment about how Israeli soldiers in an elite unite tortured and abused Palestinians. That produces a Haaretz editorial and little else, not even a lot of talkbacks. Most Israelis I know consider the Palestinians to be inferior; they don't really care about the abuse. Those who do care will tell themselves that these are a few bad apples and that the IDF is the most moral army in the world.

What they don't get is that the most moral army in the world inevitably commits acts of immorality against occupied populations. So even if we allow that the IDF deserves that title (funny, I missed the awards competition), that doesn't mean that the IDF doesn't commit despicable acts on an hourly basis.

Please watch the broadcast show here.

Still, why is it that we don't hear more of human rights abuse? After all, Israel is a small country and many of our children serve in the IDF. If this sort of abuse were widespread, then wouldn't we hear more about it?

Not necessarily. In fact, here are some of the reasons we don't.

First, soldiers have the attitude that what happens in the West Bank stays in the West Bank. They don't come home and talk to their families and friends about things they are ashamed of -- if indeed they are ashamed of it. Most soldiers do what they are told to do and don't pause to consider what they are doing when they are doing it. By the time they leave the army and have time to think on their experiences, they are smoking grass in India, or trekking in South America, and trying to move on with their lives.

Second, much of what is considered human rights abuse falls under the category of "necessary, if regrettable, deterrence." There are operational reasons why soldiers, like police officers, have to infringe upon human rights. I am not saying that these are extreme cases, but it is difficult to draw the line between what is militarily necessary or not, and that line is not drawn by you. So you don't even realize that some of what you are doing is abuse.

Third, soldiers get desensitized quickly. The first time they are asked to abuse civilians, some are shocked. But after repetition, and when boredom sets in, they need to up the ante.

Fourth, some human rights infringement are deemed militarily necessary. So if you want to be a good soldier, you have to obey orders and follow procedures, even if that means that a pregnant women will die in childbirth at a roadblock. You are then told that these things are unfortunate, but without that roadbock, Jews may die. Etc.

But, to my mind, the biggest reason why most Israeli soldiers do not talk about their human rights abuse is because they consider Palestinians to be inferior losers.Hence, they will do things to them that they would not do to even their enemies who happen to be Jewish. They do not see the Palestinians as themselves; they are incapable of placing themselves in the shoes of the Palestinians.

At the Breaking the Silence event in Washington, DC, Adam Harmon, who defended the morality of the IDF, made a telling comment that revealed the depth of his insensitivity to Palestinian humanity. He said something to this effect:

I can understand how the Palestinian civilians can feel deeply frustrated by the roadblocks. But I can't understand how they feel humiliated. We did nothing to humiliate them. We certainly did not intend to humiliate them.

That line, uttered by a genuinely likable guy, explains why you don't hear more of the IDF abusing soldiers. Most soldiers like Harmon don't understand that a long-term occupation is BY ITS VERY NATURE a humiliating experience. Even if the IDF soldiers handed out checks to the Palestinians at the checkpoints, or flowers, or free nargila, they would still be humiliating them because they control their lives. The occupation robs the occupied of their dignity, of their value.

Harmon, I add parenthentically, was born in New Hampshire. Apparently, he has never heard of that state's motto, "Live free or die." Taking away a person's freedom is worse than death. And that is what the Israelis have done to the Palestinians in Gaza and on the West Bank. They have robbed them of their freedom. No matter what the Israelis intentions may be -- and I am willing to grant that their intentions are honorable, for the most part -- they have inevitably humiliated the Palestinians.

In a sense, Ilana Dayan and Haaretz take they easy way out. By publicizing yet another Israeli "Abu Ghreib" they desensitive the Israeli public to the humiliation that is inherent in the occupation, any occupation. The expose becomes a new Jewish ritual of self-condemnation that lasts, if it is present at all, for a few minutes. The truth is that in Israel, few give lip-service even to their shock.

So why am I writing this? Two reasons:

First, over time, I believe, people's minds can change. Even hearts of stone can be eroded. The Israeli spin was once universally accepted in the West, even by most intellectuals. Now, can one think of a single serious non-Jewish intellectual who buys it? The first time I read Said's The Question of Palestine, I dismissed him out of hand as a Palestinian Dershowitz. (That was in my liberal Zionist phaze.) We don't need polemicists, I thought, we need thoughtful moderates. Ditto for Chomsky. I was stuck in the Zionist liberal middle. It took an intifada to push me over to the real middle.

Second, even if nothing happens, even if no hearts are changed, even if things get worse...I will have done what I think God wants us to do. If you don't know what I am talking about, read about it in that book by the other Jeremiah.

Here is the Haaretz editorial. Well-worth a read, even though the headline could have been written -- and should have been written -- every day for the last forty years.

Something bad is happening to us

Three years ago, the CBS television network broadcast photos of American soldiers abusing prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The horrifying pictures led to the trials of eight soldiers, dismissals and a storm of outrage in America. At the trial of one prison guard, who was sentenced to eight years in jail, a psychologist gave his evaluation: that the man was an entirely ordinary person, without any particular violent tendencies, who served as a guard for many years in civilian life but never behaved sadistically toward American prisoners. The situation of occupier and occupied, as opposed to that of citizen versus citizen, causes ordinary people to become violent and lose restraint. At Abu Ghraib, the trial found, there was institutionalized contempt at every level. The prison guards understood that "this is the way to behave here."

Last night, the investigative television program "Fact" broadcast pictures of our own Abu Ghraib affair. It is doubtful whether a country that has grown used to 40 years of occupation, and the stories that accompany it, will be shocked. We have become accustomed to treating the Palestinians as inferior people. Generations come and go, and new soldiers abuse the residents of occupied Hebron in almost the same manner. Stories similar to those broadcast last night were exposed by the Breaking the Silence group three years ago. The saying "occupation corrupts" has become a slogan of the left instead of a warning signal to everyone.

This time, it was regular soldiers in the Kfir Brigade. They exposed their backsides and sexual organs to Palestinians, pressed an electric heater to the face of a young boy, beat young boys senseless, recorded everything on their mobile phones and sent it to their friends. One of their "mischievous acts" was to test how long a Palestinian who was being choked could survive without breathing. When he passed out, the experiment was stopped. The soldiers described activities to "break the routine" that consisted entirely of abuse. It was enough for a boy "to look at us the wrong way" for him to be beaten.

Earlier, at the trial of First Lieutenant Yaakov Gigi, officers spoke of burnout, of "something bad happening to the brigade," of a Wild West, of a moral crisis. The commander of the brigade, Colonel Itai Virov, said "we failed on several parameters." His words reflect a denial of the depth of the failure. This continuing routine, far from the eyes of the commanders, must lead to a series of investigations, and perhaps to dismissals as well. It is unconscionable for the head of the Hebron Brigade, the division commander, the GOC Central Command and even the chief of staff to ignore the ongoing behavior of soldiers in the brigade responsible for routine security in the West Bank. Colonel Virov admitted that there was a conspiracy of silence in the brigade - in other words, a norm of abuse and its concealment. To change norms, one has to shock and be shocked, not be satisfied with a few imprisonments and empty words about a loss of values.

Perfectly ordinary people, as the American psychologist said of the Abu Ghraib abusers, are capable of behaving like monsters when they receive a message from the top that it is permissible to abuse, beat, choke, burn, make people miserable and generally do anything that man's evil genius is capable of inventing to others who are under their control. Something bad is happening to us, they are saying in the Kfir Brigade. That "something" is the occupation.

Will Obama Takes Us Back to the Failed "Peace Process" Strategy of Dennis Ross?

Because of all the brouhaha over Barack Obama's Middle East advisors, Haaretz correspondant Shmuel Rosner went to interview Samantha Power, one of Obama's top foreign policy advisors. Power spent most of the time defending herself and Obama from the Israel "supporters" who are nervous that Obama will not continue the US policy of assisting Israel to commit national suicide. The article is here.

Power is not the Obama advisor on the Middle East, but she could be in line for a cabinet position, and so she managed to say the sorts of things that one expects from somebody who wishes not to offend the Israel lobby. But one statement caught my eye and lit a big red light:

Asked who is to blame for there being no agreement yet, Power says there is no point expanding on that, but emphasizes that "I've never blamed Israel for the failed talks" (at Camp David). But precisely how should these talks be handled, and what should the goal be? She's no expert on that, she says, and suggests calling Dan (Shapiro), the campaign's adviser on the Middle East, or Dennis (Ross), who also advises Obama (advises - but is not an advisor).

So have we now moved from Rob Malley to Dennis Ross, neither of whom are "advisors" but both of whom have advised Obama?

Dennis Ross, in case you missed it, was the chief architect of the Middle East peace process that ended in the Camp David fiasco. Of course he shouldn't be blamed for all of the failure -- there is enough blame to go around. But his lack of sensitivity to the Palestinian position, specifically, a lack of sensitivity to the political realities of the Palestinian negotiators, while having heaps of sensitivity for the Israeli side, doomed the talks to failure. What the US needed heading its Middle East peace process team was an honest broker, not an American Peace Now-nik.

Dennis Ross, I hasten to add, is a brilliant diplomat who is well-versed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and who desires nothing more than to see both sides live in peace. He, as well as the rest of liberal Zionists at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, should be heard in any administration. But they are clearly partisan, and their partisanship should be recognized as such. I found Ross's The Missing Peace to be a highly tendentious and self-serving presentation of Camp David. I don't need to read Norman Finkelstein's monograph on Ross's book to come to that conclusion. Of course Ross blamed Arafat because of where Ross was coming from. From a historical perspective, Arafat was considerably more important to the prospect of peace than was Ehud Barak, one of Israel's many recyclable/disposable general-politicians. Arafat was the Palestinian Ben-Gurion and Begin wrapped up in one, and, for all his well-documented flaws, he could have delivered the goods. But Ross, because he is a liberal Zionist, could only be impressed by Barak's "generous offers" and by Arafat's intransigence and unhelpful adherence to "principle."

I didn't realize Ross's fundamental biases until I read the Missing Peace. It is apparent already from the book's back jacket, where the blurbs are all written by Zionists or pro-Israel Secretaries of State. My suspicions increased when Ross purportedly presents the Israeli and the Palestinian narratives, itself a relatively easy task. He discharges the Israeli narrative (which, because it is Zionistic, takes in the sweep of Jewish history) fairly well, but then doesn't so much present the Palestinian narrative (which begins with the Jebusites), but rather analyzes the beginning of Palestinian and Arab nationalism. Hence, the asymmetry of his presentation is clear from the first chapter. And, indeed, it colors his central thesis that the Israelis in their negotiation have been motivated by pragmatic, security reasons (hence, they are able to compromise more), whereas the Palestinians have been motivated by principle, which makes them more intransigent (like the rightwing Zionists.)Ross's embrace of pragmatism over principle reveals the deep influence of the Mapai mindset on him, as much as a negotiator's desire for compromise. One tends to think that Ross would have appreciated more an Arafat accepting Barak's "generous offers" at Camp David as a tactical ploy than somebody who actually believed what he was signing. After all, he praised Ben-Gurion's pragmatism in accepting partition even though Ben-Gurion never gave up the Jewish state's claim to all of Palestine (as Arafat was asked to do.) Ben-Gurion was never asked, nor would he have agreed, to recognize the right of the Palestinians to a state. Of course, partition gave Ben-Gurion much more than Camp David, Taba, or Geneva would have given Arafat.

But all this is history. Dennis Ross failed badly, and after he failed, he came out of the closet as an Israel-apologist, albeit of the liberal Zionist variety. Let him stay in the think tanks, emerging every once in a while to chart strategic options for the Jewish people. Negotiations are not his strong suit.

I don't believe Barack Obama will break out of the "pro-Israel" model that US presidents have adopted since Kennedy. But God helps us if he goes back to the failed policies of the Oslo-Camp David period, where the Mapai-style principle of pragmatism trumped all other principles -- and ended up the most impractical principle of all.

Checkpoints Don't Kill People -- People Kill People

Checkpoints, Israelis and their defenders concede, cause major discomfort for Palestinians. But they are justifiable because a) they save lives, and b) Palestinians share some sort of collective reponsibility for their terrorists, whom they hail as martyrs.

The common responses to these arguments are that a) an occupying army is responsible for the welfare of the occupied people, and that b) the measures it takes to ensure the security of its own population cannot be disproportionate to the pain and suffering it causes to the occupied population. Or to be blunt - saving the lives of your people does not override destroying the lives of an occupied people, if the measures you take are disproportionate.

There will be arguments, obviously, over what is disproportionate, but those arguments should not be held hostage to the sensitivities of the people making them. That is why we need a stronger system of international human rights law and its enforcement, not a weaker one. I am always more sensitive to my pain than to yours.

Haaretz reported yesterday that an Arab woman died because soldiers would not let her reach an ambulance to take her to a hospital. Instead, she was taken back to her village to die. The IDF spokesman said that the husband should have informed the "local military coordination office for humanitarian cases" that an ambulance was arriving. In other words, the soldiers at the checkpoint did not have the authority -- or the desire -- to let the woman through. Read about it here.

More Palestinians have died because of Israeli checkpoints than have Sderot residents because of Kassams. In the last year alone, there was a sharp rise in such incidents, despite the fact that there were no successful suicide bombings So in 2007 ten sick Palestinians died because of checkpoints in order to save -- possibly -- the lives of Israeli citizens. See here I counted ten on B'Tselem's website. And I am not talking of lives ruined or livelihoods destroyed. I am talking about physical deaths.

Some of my readers say that these deaths were not intentional. But they were. Because these people were intentionally prevented from getting medical care. It doesn't matter, either legally or morally, whether other lives could have been saved. It doesn't matter, either legally or morally, that ambulances have been used to smuggle weapons in less than a tenth of a per cent of ambulance use by Palestinians. So don't bother to remind me about it. Certain things cannot be done. I could reduce the murder rate in Washington DC by 98% if I clamped down a dusk to dawn curfew every night and shot violaters on sight. Does that give me the right to do that?

Some of my readers will, say, "Look, war is hell; it's us or them; life is tough, get over it." To those readers I say, "Fine -- as long as you have no problem with the morality of the suicide bombers beyond the fact that they are killing your family." I understand the tribalism that motivates that. I love watching the Godfather.

What really nauseates me are the people who have no problem with wiping out neighborhoods in Gaza -- such as the current Israeli minister of the interior Meir Shitrit -- and then try to claim the moral high-ground. Look, if your morality is "It's us or them", then when they blow up our babies, they are not being immoral -- they are just doing what we are doing.

There should be no illusions.

That's one of the few things I like about the New Republic's Marty Peretz. His morality boils down to "Do it to them before they do it to us." He knows that the Occupation is hell on the Palestinians, but that's their tough luck. Or as he puts it in an interview with Haaretz here

I'm not under the impression that Israeli occupation is kind and sweet. No occupation is kind or sweet. But bad things happen everywhere.

Ah, to be able to talk like John Wayne and still be Jewish, what a rush that must give Peretz! It may not make up for TNR's flaccid circulation, but it sure beats Viagra.

Justice, equity, fairness, self-determination, democracy -- those things don't make much of a difference to tough Jews of Peretz's generation. And I mean, "of his generation". Because they are, thank God, a dying breed. Oh, sure, the young modern orthodox neocons are around, but they are about to be sent to think-tank (and blogger) hell, come the Obama election.

There is change in the air, and I am not just referring to TNR's plummeting readership. Let's put it this way....if I wanted to sound like Peretz, this is what I'd say:

Marty, Israel's bleeding, and you won't be able to stop it. The younger Jewish generation won't really be affected by Birthright, and in your lifetime you will see the only hardcore Zionists go Republican. The problem is not that "all occupations are not nice."The problem is that the longest Occupation in modern history --Tibet's problems will be solved before Israel's -- will catch up with Israel, and unless it is able to extricate itself from its suicidal death-wish -- which you, and other of your ilk, support -- it will plunge further into the chaos.

Then, Marty, you can erect your Museum of Zionism, commemorate the New Masada, as you sit by the waters of Washington and rail against the anti-Semites and the self-hating Jews that were responsible for destroying the third commonwealth. And you will weep over the decline of the the only sort of Judaism you understand (besides gastronomic Judaism)...."neofascist Judaism," "tough guy" Judaism, "'goyische' Judaism."

In short, the Judaism of the qena'im, the Zealots.

You've won before in Jewish history, Marty.

But never for long, thank God.

"Breaking the Silence" at the Washington DC JCC.

Last night, the Israeli veteran's organization "Breaking the Silence," in the US for their annual tour, took part in a dialogue entitled, "What Makes an Army Jewish? Ethics and Tradition: the IDF in an Age of Checkpoints, Village Sweeps and Targeted Killings." For the advertisement and blurbs on the participants, please press here.

The evening was a "trialogue" between Yehuda Shaul, of Breaking the Silence, Adam Harmon, an American Israeli who presented the IDF party line, and Avi West, a local educator, who both faciliated the discussion and presented a Jewish viewpoint.The audience, quite diverse in their viewpoints, behaved in a dignified and civilized fashion.

Because of the time constraints of the dialogue format, Yehuda was not able to develop the BTS message in the way that he usually does, nor could he show more than a few slides. He went for understatement, and in that he succeeded. His counterpart Harmon, a nice enough fellow, and quite respectful of Yehuda, seems not to have read an Israeli newspaper in his life. (One computer slide that Yehuda did show was an article in Yediot that said that according to an internal IDF memo, a quarter of the soliders at checkpoints had abused Palestinians; this was after Harmon had implied that the abusers were only a few bad apples.)

The importance of the evening lay not so much in the message, but in the fact that it took place at all. One of the organizers told me that Shaul's appearance had not been easy to pull off. The DC JCC would not have Yehuda speak on his own, i.e., withough "balance". But as depressing as that may sound, I thought that in the end, the dialogue format worked to BTS's advantage. The evening gave them much-needed respectability in the mainstream Jewish community. What the audience heard was two reservists discussing their Army experiences, and one of them, Shaul, raising disturbing questions. In fact, Shaul repeated his signature line: " We are not here to provide answers; we want people to raise questions." That is a very troubling line for American Jews, who want to believe that there is hope, and that Israel army is capable of cleaning up its act. The truth is that any long-term military occupation inevitably leads to dehumanization of the occupied, to abuse, to immoral and inappropriate behavior. I stress, "inevitable". Of coures, for the liberal-hawk-neocons in the audience, "morality" is a luxury that Israel cannot afford. (Harmon, by the way, as not of their number. He was of the "The IDF-is the Most-Moral-Army-in-the-World" school.) It will be harder to demonize "Breaking the Silence" now that they have appeared in tandem with mainstream speakers in Jewish spaces.

During the Q&A, an older gentlemen with a British accent referred repeatedly to the situation in the Occupied Territories as a "nightmare." He offered no hope of peace, security, or even stability. He just spoke of the nightmare.

He got the message. Will others?

The Rob Malley Affair -- Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, Sandy Berger, Aaron Miller, and Dan Kurtzer Respond To Martin Peretz et al.

Dan Fleshler posted a letter on Realistic Dove which is a must-read. The letter is from the entire Clinton Israel-Palestinian peace-process team defending former Clinton Middle East advisor Robert Malley from the slurs and defamations of republicans and gruff old liberal-hawks like the New Republic's publisher, Martin Peretz.

Malley, as you may know, co-wrote a highly influential analysis of Camp David in the New York Review of Books that challenged the Israeli spin. The article, which drew front-page coverage in Israel, also provoked a bigoted and embarrassing response from Ehud Barak and Benny Morris. That was quite nice collateral damage.

OK, so you don't have to agree with Malley. Ross didn't, and he wrote a respectful letter to the NYRB about it. But from there to write, as Marty Peretz did,

Malley, who has written several deceitful articles in The New York Review of Books, is a rabid hater of Israel. No question about it

shows how delusional Peretz is. Look, I feel sorry for Peretz; he has run the New Republic into the ground, the readership is at an all-time low, and his support for Obama is apparently motivated by his hatred for the Clintons. He will lose, and lose big, if Obama wins. And now he is getting dissed by the entire Clinton Middle East team -- and rightfully so.

I had lunch with Malley last Shabbat. He seemed to be miffed by the attacks, although he is old enough to know that anybody who deviates a bit from the Israel orthodoxy will be considered by the a.k.'s "a rabid hater of Israel." It would be inappropriate for me to blog about what we discussed around the Shabbat table. But this much I will say: I gave Malley every opportunity I could to criticize Dennis Ross's handling of the Clinton peace process, or his performance at Camp David. I raised what I thought were obvious questions about US bias towards the liberal-Zionist position and the failure of the US to be an honest broker. He did not take the bait. On the contrary, somewhat to my surprise, he refused to be drawn in. He disagreed with Ross, whom he considers a friend, but he consistently took the high road. And I don't think he was just playing the diplomat, either. That reflects a certain nobility of character that makes Peretz's scurrilous attack all the more demeaning for Peretz.

Malley now works at a Washington think-tank called the International Crisis Group. In the weeks to come I will comment on some of their position-papers on Israel-Palestine. Some are well-worth reading.

Well, there are Rob Malley's in this world, and then there are Marty Peretzes.

I try to stand with the former.

Oh, heck, I'll save you all a click. Here is the letter:

Over the past several weeks, a series of vicious, personal attacks have been launched against one of our colleagues, Robert Malley, who served as President Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs. They claim that he harbours an anti-Israeli agenda and has sought to undermine Israel's security. These attacks are unfair, inappropriate and wrong. They are an effort to undermine the credibility of a talented public servant who has worked tirelessly over the years to promote Arab-Israeli peace and US national interests. They must stop.

We have real differences among us about how best to conduct US policy toward the Middle East and what is the right way to build a lasting two-state solution that protects Israel's security. But whatever differences do exist, there is no disagreement among us on one core issue that transcends partisan or other divides: that the US should not and will not do anything to undermine Israel's safety or the special relationship between our two nations. We have worked with Rob closely over the years and have no doubt he shares this view and has acted consistent with it.

We face a critical period in the Middle East that demands sustained, determined and far-sighted engagement by the United States. It is not a time for scurrilous attacks against someone who deserves our respect.

The letter is signed by Sandy Berger, Den Kurtzer, Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, and Aaron Miller.

Norman Finkelstein at the Oxford Union -- Postscript

The siege in Gaza is tightening, human rights abuses continue daily, Hamas promises more suicide bombings, and I am still blogging about...Norman Finkelstein at the Oxford Union?

All right, my justification is that my reporting on the Oxford Union debates has been, to my knowledge, the most accurate account on the web, thanks to my informed source there. And so when a Jewish journal smears Finkelstein (one of the Jewish establishment's favorite targets), I don't think they should get away it.

Richard Silverstein pointed out to me that the Forwards' blog published the following:

FINKELSTEIN’S FLIP-FLOP: It was an odd debate — from the topic to the choice of panelists. To the chagrin of many in Britain’s Jewish community, the Oxford Union — the once-venerable and now-sensationalistic debating society — decided to take up the following proposition: “This House believes that the State of Israel has a right to exist.” As if debating whether or not a sovereign state has the right to exist weren’t bad enough, the Oxford Union selected two fierce critics of Israel to defend the proposition, including “Holocaust Industry” author and Hezbollah booster Norman Finkelstein. Unsurprisingly, Finkelstein proved to be a poor advocate for Israel, voting at the debate’s conclusion against the proposition he had been tasked with defending. London’s Jewish Chronicle has the story.

The Jewish Chronicle's story, to which the Forwards refers, is here. It claims that Finkelstein supported the motion that Israel has the right to exist and then voted against it. It also claims that Ilan Pappe and Ghada Karmi voted against the resolution. Pappe must have sent in an absentee ballot, because he wasn't even present at the debate (nor, apparently were the authors of the Jewish Chronicle piece, Bernard Josephs and Leon Symons, who surely would have known that.) Pappe was supposed to have been present, but he begged off at the last minute and was replaced by a Palestinian lawyer.

Finkelstein argued in favor of Israel's right to exist on the grounds that it had international recognition. He had no intention of voting, and he left the auditorium without voting, or at least not intending to. As explained by my source at Oxford:

The voting system works as follows. The main enty and exit has a bar down the middle of it, with a door either side of it. Above the door to the left of the bar it says something like 'nay'; above the door to the right of the bar it says something like 'aye'. If you exit to the left, that counts as you voting against the motion, and the opposite is true if you exit to the right. (I may have got the two sides the wrong way around as to which is aye and which is nay).

You vote simply by virtue of exiting through a particular side of the bar. A union official at each side keeps a tally. If you want to abstain, you have to tell the official as you exit. So unless [Finkelstein] told the union official at the door that he wanted to abstain, if Finkelstein exited then he necessarily (whether he meant to or not) voted one way or the other.

In fact, Finkelstein wasn't aware of any of this arcane Oxford tradition, much less that he voted with his feet, until I contacted him about it a few days ago. Maybe he should have been, but he was seen walking out talking with students and entirely preoccupied with the debate.

But when it comes to the Jewish media reporting on Norman Finkelstein, who cares about accuracy? Or fairness?

Israeli MK proposes bill to expel Palestinians from Hebron

Aryeh Eldad, a rightwing member of the Israeli Knesset, presented a private-member's bill on Monday calling for the expulsion of the Palestinians from Hebron. Bill no. 3361/17/פ can be downloaded at the Knesset website here

Here are some snippets from the explanation of the law:

"The aim of the law is to lead to a better security, political, and economic reality for Israel and for the occupied territories."

Please note that Eldad, one of the Greater Israel proponents, calls Judea and Samaria the "occupied territories." I will reveal the reason for this later in the post.

"The price paid by the State of Israel for the continuation of Arab settlement in Hebron is enormous. From the security standpoint, a great array of personnel and economic measures are needed to ensure the security of the Israeli citizens living legally in the city. These security measures include a system of separation between the Jewish and Arab populations, which restricts systematically the lives of the Israeli citizens. The closure of most of the city to Israeli citizens constitutes a serious infringment of the their human rights and the status of Israel in the eyes of the Jewish world."

Etc., etc.

The bill instructs the Israeli government to evacuate all the Palestinians from Hebron, as well as the Palestinian Authority's offices, etc., to seize all real estate from the Palestinians, including infrastructure.

Who will pay for all this? Why, the Palestinians of course.

The Palestinian inhabitants are entitled to compensation and to be resettled elsewhere, according to the decision of the Israeli government. The Israeli government is entitled to substract this payment from the payments that it collects on behalf of the Palestinians."

Etc., etc., etc.

So what is this about? Well, Eldad is in the running for the coveted award of the MOST IMMATURE MEMBER OF THE KNESSET. It seems that he took his bill word-for-word from Yossi Beilin's bill, which called for the evacuation of the Jewish settlers from Hebron, and just substituted "Palestinian Arab" for "settlers".

So careless was he about his "ma'aseh kundas" (youthful prank) that he didn't change Beilin's use of the term "occupied territories" to the ultranationalist "Judea and Samaria." That is a mistake that his glatt kosher fascist father, Israel Eldad, would never have committed.

Or perhaps Eldad fils views Hebron today as occupied territory...occupied by the Palestinians.

His bill does change Beilin's reference to the massacre of Barukh Goldstein to the massacres of Arab terrorists from 1929 until today. So he wasn't entirely asleep.

I suppose that most people's response will be: nu, big deal. This is Eldad, and even he is not serious about the bill; it's just a dig at Beilin's bill.

I mean, who can get upset about an Israeli member of parliament calling for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes?

It's not as if that hasn't happened in the past.

Daniel Kurzter: Looking at Process in the Arab-Israeli Negotiations

Dan Kurtzer, a former US ambassador to Egypt and to Israel, and currently at Princeton, is one of the most level-headed Americans when thinking about Israel/Palestine. When he was ambassador he had to be careful about expressing his opinions. Now he is his own man, and, indeed, a man to watch. On a personal note, he is a former neighbor and fellow synagogue member.

I have reproduced in full his piece in the Lebanese Daily Star that appeared today. At first glance it may appear to be just another exercise in diplomatic non-speak. But a careful reading will show Kurtzer's sensitivity to the "asymmetry" of the power-relations between Israel and the Palestinians, and the need for the US (and others) to take a more proactive stance that they did during the Oslo period. "Letting the parties negotiate the peace without outside interference" -- the mantra of the Israelis, who have everything to fear from such interference -- is heartily rejected here.

The article can be read here

Looking At Process In The Arab-israeli Negotiations

By Daniel Kurtzer

In The Daily Star (Lebanon), Opinion February 5, 2008

With the resumption of the Middle East peace process after Annapolis, the focus has turned to the substantive divide between the parties regarding the core issues of territory and boundaries, security, Jerusalem and refugees. Different ways have been suggested to approach these issues: for example, trying to reach agreement on a declaration of principles; trying to reach a full agreement and then putting it on the shelf until the time is ripe for implementation; or trying for a full agreement and implementation in phases, to begin immediately.

Less attention has been devoted to questions related to the negotiation process - for example, how to structure the negotiations, and what should be the role of the United States and other outside parties. If the past teaches us anything, however, it is that negotiation issues can often be as important as substantive issues in determining the success or failure of the peace process. A study of past negotiations, as we have learned, can be quite revealing and instructive.

Over the past 18 months, I directed a study group of the United States Institute of Peace that assessed US negotiating behavior in the peace process since the end of the Cold War. Our study group - composed of professors William Quandt, Steven Spiegel and Shibley Telhami - interviewed more than 100 current and former officials and analysts from the US and the region. The results will be published in mid-February in a book I have co-authored with Scott Lasensky entitled "Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East."

During the period of active negotiations, 1993 to 2000, the US administration failed to exercise its role effectively in several important respects. American officials failed to understand and deal with key asymmetries in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. While the US paid attention to Israeli security requirements, less attention was devoted to Palestinian political requirements. The US did not find a way to compensate for Palestinian political weakness. This was demonstrated by the fact that this was the first time in history a people under occupation was expected both to negotiate its own way out from under occupation while creating a viable, democratic and independent state.

The US also failed to set up a monitoring system to hold the parties accountable for fulfilling their commitments and implementing agreements. American officials dedicated significant attention to keeping the process alive, even though the behavior of the two sides - settlement activity, limitations on mobility, violence and terrorism and governance weakness - weighted the process down and destroyed mutual confidence and trust.

Since 2000, the US has been almost absent from peacemaking altogether. Rhetoric has replaced diplomacy and little has been done to create or exploit opportunities for progress.

If the US is to be more successful in supporting the peace process after Annapolis, several policy initiatives and changes need to be implemented.

First, the American president must make clear that an Arab-Israel peace settlement is a vital US national interest, not a favor Washington is doing for the parties. We must avoid the false dichotomy embodied in the statement that "we cannot want peace more than the parties." The parties need peace, and the US needs there to be peace.

Second, there is a critical need for effective monitoring and for holding the parties accountable with regard to whatever they have committed to do. There must be consequences for bad behavior lest the parties accustom themselves to not carrying out their obligations.

Third, the US can and must carry out diplomacy more effectively and make better use of its "diplomatic toolbox." The US must have a peace team that is experienced and has a deep understanding of the region. More reliance must be put on our representatives in the field who are on the job every day. A special envoy might be necessary, but our study found that, with the right policy, the question of an envoy will sort itself out - better a policy without an envoy than an envoy without a policy.

Fourth, the US needs to do homework, to lock in the gains of previous negotiations and to be ready to do what is necessary - and what has proved beneficial in the past - to assist the parties on substance with creative ideas to bridge differences. The US also has an array of tools, including economic and other incentives, which, if deployed wisely, can make a difference in the negotiating process.

Just as we have done with respect to the US role - that is, analyze weaknesses and failures in an effort to learn lessons from the past - Israelis and Palestinians should consider doing the same. The substantive issues are challenging and require deft and agile diplomacy that benefits from a proper evaluation of what has succeeded or failed in the past.

The Philadelphia Story , But Not on Shabbat -- "Breaking the Silence" Is Coming to Philly, Feb. 9-24

The Israeli High Court Strikes Again

Not surprisingly, the Israeli High Court rejected the petitions of the human rights groups Gisha and Adalah to compel the state to restore power and fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip. Read about it here.

The High Court is, of course, the Court of the Occupier, and has always reserved the right to rule in favor of the claims of the Occupier. As the Israeli High Court, it rules in what it considers to be the interest of the State, and not the interest of justice or human rights. That is to be expected, of course, and I see nothing wrong with that. That is why there are transnational courts like the International Criminal Court in the Hague, courts which transcend, or should transcend, national interests.

Still, it is instructive to look at the Court's reasoning to illustrate what the Justice of Occupation sounds like. Thus:

"The Gaza Strip is controled by a murderous terror organization, which works tirelessly to harm Israel and its citizens, and breaks every possible rule of international justice in its violent actions against men, women and children," Justice Beinisch wrote.

This sort of emotional rhetoric, characteristic of Beinisch (in her fights with Daniel Friedman), is demeaning of the High Court. Even allowing that Hamas is a terrorist organization, not a single human rights organization or international law body has claimed that it "breaks every possible rule of international justice," even when it has been criticized, as has been Israel, for targeting civilians. Beinisch doesn't mention Hamas offers' of cease-fires and hudnas, or its unilateral cease-firings when targeted assassinations continue, or for that matter, the siege of Gaza which began, unprovoked by any Kassam rockets, after democratic elections.

Beinisch wrote that in war, civilians were the first to suffer.

However in the actions against Israel, civilians were the intended target.The High Court of Justice said Israel was not required to transfer unlimited supplies of goods and fuel, but only to fulfill its obligations by international law.

They said that this is the case, because Israel has not had effective control of the Gaza Strip since the disengagement.

First of all, in Israel's siege against Gaza, civilians are the intended target and understandably so. By targeting civilians, Israel wishes to advance its security goals of protecting its citizens. The thinking is that if life becomes miserable for the Gazans, they will rise up against Hamas. So Israel's targets civilians in order to further its political and security goals.

That is no different from what Hamas does, as any non-partisan will agree.

Beinisch ought to go back to reading her Just War theory, especially the theory of double effect. Her logic justifies the actions of the suicide bomber who expresses regret for the civilians he blows up, but who blames the actions of the enemy for what he is doing. His intention is not to spread terror, he says, but to liberate his people and to inflict a blow on the Occupier. The argument is a bad one, whether it is used by Hamas or by Israel, as the human rights organizations tell us.

Israel possesses no less "effective" control over Gaza than it did before its troop redeployment. Hence it is still the occupying power and responsible for the well-being of the civilian population, under the fourth Geneva Convention.

Why doesn't the High Court's ruling surprise me? As Hebrew U Law Professor David Kretzmer pointed out in his ground-breaking study, The Justice of Occupation, the High Court sees its role as defending the security of the State of Israel, even when that violates human rights and international human rights law. True, it reins in the goverment occasionally, but only when it thinks that it knows better than the government how to meet Israel's security needs.

Norm, Ted, Michel, and Ghada at the Oxford Union

My blogger friend Richard Silverstein once advised me to stick with a story. So since I wrote on Norman Finkelstein at the Oxford Union last Fall -- his invitation, his disinvitation (which I called "disinvitement"), and his reinvitation, I thought I would report to my readers about his appearance there last Thursday night.

The only problem is that I don't live in Oxford, and as far I know, there is no podcast of the event. And even were I to attend Oxford, wouldn't I be morally bound to heed the advice of the anonymous "Zionist Federation official" who was quoted in the Jerusalem Post as having said, "All Oxford students with sense should stay away from this farce."

Oh, I forgot to mention that the "farce" was the debate, "This House believes that the State of Israel has a right to exist." Arguing in favor were Norman Finkelstein and Ted Honderich, a prominent British philosopher who has argued that Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians are morally justifiable. Arguing against were to have been Ghada Karmi and Ilan Pappe, but the latter bowed out and was replaced by Michel Massih, a Palestinian barrister.

Of course, where there is Norman Finkelstein, there must be his Inspector Javert -- I mean, Dershowitz -- hounding him. And Alan, true to form, expressed his moral outrage in his blog

But back to our story. My Zionists readers will be pleased to know that even with the odds stacked against Israel, the proposition carried the day. Apparently, the Zionist Federation official's advice was heeded. Still, there are some liberal Zionist students at Oxford with abundant sense who attended, preferring engagement rather than boycott. One such student sent me the following report of the evening.

The debating chamber was almost full, but not as crowded as I thought it would be. In the end Ilan Pappe could not come - some university obligations I was told. In his place was a Palestinian barrister, called Michel Massih. The Union always opens its debates with student speakers. For Israel's existence, the opening student speaker was Jessica Prince, a very good Canadian debater. The Opposition student debater was called Lewis Turner - a prize winning debater.

Before any debate begins, the Union President (currently Emily Partingdon) always asks the Audience seomthing like 'does any honourable member wish to raise any business with me'. So I did, and gave a short speech based (I wasn't looking at the page as I made it so it might have been slightly different) on the text below:

"Thank you Madam President. I have a question for you which I know I am asking on behalf of many students, who like me, are absolutely baffled and disappointed by the bizarre choice of Norman Finkelstein and Ted Honderich to be the guest speakers proposing tonights motion: ‘this house supports the right of Israel to exist’.

"Both men have supported the actions of terrorist organisations intent on the destruction of Israel. Norman Finkelstein has described Hezbollah as ‘representing the hope’, while Ted Honderich has written that the use of terrorism against Israeli civilians is morally justifiable. What's more, Finkelstein has stated that (and I quote): "No, I do not support a two-state solution. I don't support states. I remain an old-fashioned communist. I see no value whatsoever in states" - and doesn't make him the most obvious candidate for tonights debate!"

"The two speakers are certainly not representative of the views of mainstream supporters of Israel’s existence, and the fact that they have been invited to, in effect, speak on our behalf, and make the case for Israel’s existence, is peculiar, and frankly insulting. That said, I do hope that both men will do what they were invited to do, and offer compelling and convincing reasons for Israel's existence.

"But to come to my question - If the Oxford Union were to invite two right-wing Zionists - say Melanie Philips and Ariel Sharon on life support - to speak for the motion ‘This House supports the existence of a Palestinian State’, then such a debate would be rightly denounced as a farce. With far left detractors of Israel making the case for its right to exist, Madam President, is tonight's debate any different?"

She answered by saying that the speakers are not representing anyone's views but their own, and that she has been having discussions with me, and that she is open to be e.mailed if anyone has any problems at any time. Immediately after she said that, someone else stood up to bring up business with her, explaining that he HAD e.maled her on this issue and had not received an reply for a week. She claimed that she invited him to a meeting, which he didn't bother coming to - he responded by saying that if she bothered to read his e.mail, she'd know that he couldn't come to it, and that she hadn't bothered to replly. In any case, what I said got a clap.

Then the debate started. Jessica began with something of a caveat, reiterating wht I had said about the Finkelstein and Honderich, and pointing out how peculiar it was that they were on her side. She got a laugh. She continued by saying that it was important to be clear on what is and what is not being debated. We are not, she explained, debating the occupation or any other Israeli policy. We are not debating what occured in 1948, and we are not debating the exact borders of the state. We are simply debating the existence of a Jewish state. She then stressed the usual points - the right to national self determination; the history of Jewish persecution; it's a democracy; the fact that no one debates the existence of Syria or saudi Arabia etc, so why always Israel?

Lewis Turner than came back by saying that you cannot divorce Israel from its racist policies. Because Israel is a zionist state, and Zionism is a necessarily racist ideology. (Law of return, demographic fears etc). Whereas, he said, if Saudi Arabia stopped persecuting homosexuals, it would remain Saudi Arabia, if Israel stopped haveing its racist law of return, it would cease to be Israel. This was the thrust of his talk.

Then, Finkelstein. He explained that the notion of an abstract right to a state is irrelevent, and meaningless; therefore what he believed on that matter is 'totally besides the point'. What matters, he explained, was that there is tremendous suffering in the area, and we had to examine the best way to end and deal with that suffering. Which was, he argued, an Israel and a Palestine. I think what he was trying to say was that if you pursue a one state solution, you risk leaving the Palestinians in the state of suffering that they are in for a far longer period of time. He several times stressed the point that 'this [ how to end their suffering] is real' and 'this is serious'. He then spoke briefly on the legal right for Israel to exist. It boiled down to: The UN said it exists, therefore it does. He also raised the question of why the two state solution hasn't happened, and blamed America and it's tiny allies like Micronesia for blocking votes in the UN. I have to say, while he didn't really speak for the motion, explaining Israel's right to exist, or rebutting the other sides argument (which is what is expected in a debate...) he wasn't as bad as I thought he would be. He also spoke vry quietly, and I'm told people at the back struggled to hear him.

In accordance with Union custom, speakers from the floor were then invited to give 2 minute speeches. The first for Israel, wearing a Palestinian and an Israeli flag around him, urged the audience to consider the implications of saying Israel should not exist - a one state solution, he argued, is a prelude to more fighting, more tensions, and potentially civil war. He then said the usual about why not ask about other countries...

The next student, speaking against Israel, accused the 'man in the flags' of being a racist. He said that one shouldn't fear the multiculturalism of a one state solution. He then said that Israel is not a democracy, because its democracy was based on having so much immigration so as to make the interests of one group marginal.

An Israeli law student then spoke. He stressed the link between Israel and the Jews throughout history - our prayers, our literature, the archeology etc.

The final speaker was a Palestinian student, who argued that Israel had neither a legal nor a moral right to exist. No legal right, because it was breaking resolution 183 [194?], and no moral right, because it had ethnically cleansed the Palestinians in 48.

Then Massih spoke. He focused on the law of return, stating that is racist, and giving a personal anecdote about how at Ben Gurion airport, he wasn't allowed back into Israel with his family when he wanted to go to Jerusalem, where he was born. He was very funny and charismatic, but had a slightly condescending and aggressive side to him as well - when a friend of mine made a point of information, to ask why, if he believes that bad policies deny a state its right to exist, he isn't concerned with the unnaceptable laws of Saudi Arabia etc, Massih pointed at him and asked 'Are you a Jew?' 'Why does that matter?', my friend replied. He went on 'Are you a Jew? Tell me, are you a Jew?' The audience was quite surprised, and I think one or two people may have mumbled shame at this point. My friend then said, 'Yes I am a Jew, but why does that matter?' and Massih replied 'Because you can go back and I cant, even though I was born there'.

Then Honderich spoke. He (somehow) managed to speak for 8 minutes wihtout talking about Israel once. Given that speakers are gven only 10 minutes overall, this was quite a problem. During those 8 minutes he tried to outline some philosophical principles - democracy, rights. But he wasn't particularly clear, and people after the debate joked about wanting to go to sleep during his talk. Someone said they thought his tatic was to bore us into submission. In any case. In the 7th minute I stood up to make a point of information. I was going to ask him to kindly finish his philophy lecture and do what he was invited to do, and explain why Israel should exist. He wouldn't take my point though. Had I thought more carefully, I would have made a point of order, and asked the President to please remind Honderich to stick to the conventions of a debate and actually debate. In any case. In the final two minutes (after the Union secretary had notified him he had only 2 minutes left) Honderich rushed through an explanation of the distinction between zionism and neo zionism. Zionism is legitimate he said - Jews have a right to national self determination, especially given their history. Neo-zionism - the settlements etc, is immoral. He concluded by saying that he supports the right of Palestinians to use terror against Israelis in historic Palestine. This statement was received with heckles of 'shame'.

Ghada Karmi was the final speaker. She was tremendously unpleasant in my opinion. She began by stating that she is totally confused about why this debate is even happening, and about why it was chosen - its madness to think that Israel has a right to exist. Karmi then spoke about the current situation in Gaza without electricity, and about how brutal the occupation was in general. I tried to make a point of information, to say that I'm an Israeli and I hate the occupation but that the occupation is not a necessary part of Israel's existence and how dare she speak of it as though it is. Anyway, she wouldn't take a single point of information throughout her talk. At one point she made a slip and spoke of the Jews replacing the Palestinian state, to which about a dozen people stood up to say 'point of inforamtion', to point out that in fact there was no Palestinian state, and that she was being ahistorical. When talking about the occupation, she also said that the settlers have their own roads because they cannot bear to look at Arabs. A student made a point of order, and asked the President to tell Karmi to retract her racist statment that all settlers are themselves racists. Karmi then clarified her point - something like: 'I am saying that Israel is a racist state'. Another funny point was when she looked to Finkelstein and Honderich and said 'I respect what you said a lot - you should be on our side but...' At which point myself and several others shoulted 'we know!' and got a laugh. Karmi finished her talk by ridiculing the notion of a Jewish connection to Israel, by explaining that the Jews were once canaanites, who then became Jews, many of whom then became Christians, and then became muslims. So all Palestinians are in fact the descendents of these canaanites, and have a stronger claim to the land than the Jews who left it. Karmi also likened the situation in Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto.

Phew. That's all, except to say that Honderich switched sides during Karmi's talk (there was a reason why but I cant remember it...) and that the vote went in Israel's favour, I am told, but only by 158 to 132. A friend of mine claimed to have seen Finkelstein walk out through the 'nay' door (against the motion)...but I'm treating "that claim" with a pinch of salt.

From the above it seems to me that the speakers didn't really speak to the question, either for or against; instead, they reverted to the one-state vs. two-state question, which had been the topic of the Fall debate. And that was as I predicted.

As for the question of Israel's "right to exist"....that is the subject for another post. Stay tuned.