Jewish Current Issues

Disproportionate Response

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has published the text and video of the address by British Col. Richard Kemp on “Hamas, the Gaza War and Accountability under International Law”: 

So what did the IDF do in Gaza to meet their obligation to operate within the laws of war?  When possible the IDF gave at least four hours’ notice to civilians to leave areas targeted for attack. . . .

In the latter stages of Cast Lead the IDF unilaterally announced a daily three-hour cease fire.  The IDF dropped over 900,000 leaflets warning the population of impending attacks to allow them to leave designated areas.   A complete air squadron was dedicated to this task alone. . . .  

The IDF phoned over 30,000 Palestinian households in Gaza, urging them in Arabic to leave homes where Hamas might have stashed weapons or be preparing to fight.  Similar messages were passed in Arabic on Israeli radio broadcasts warning the civilian population of forthcoming operations. . . .

By taking these actions and many other significant measures during Operation Cast Lead the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other Army in the history of warfare.

All of this in connection with a war against a terrorist state that had been firing thousands of rockets toward Israeli civilians, and which hid behind and among civilians (in schools, mosques and hospitals) when the IDF finally reacted.

Ron Dermer and Michael Oren Interviews

From a fascinating interview in the Jerusalem Post with Ron Dermer, Benjamin Netanyahu's director of policy planning and one of his closest advisers (and co-author with Natan Sharansky of “The Case for Democracy”), followed by a six-minute video of a Jeffrey Goldberg interview of Michael Oren (Israel's ambassador-designate to the US) on why he moved from the U.S. to Israel and "what this Jewish experience is about."

Once someone said that Netanyahu is surrounded by people who are religious, English speaking and neo-cons, so definitely the only one who might fit all three categories is myself, and I don't know if I am a neo-con.

The Prime Minister is someone who has a great affinity for the US, I think a great love for America. He sees it as the embodiment of certain ideals. The old clichés of carrying the torch of freedom around the world. If you know history, you know it is not a cliché, very real. I think he connects to it.

I think the people who were born and raised in the US and came here, are very different than a lot of the immigrants who came from other countries. Because we were not running away from anything. Those from the US tend to be some of the most idealistic immigrants. Not that the others aren't, but you don't face anti-Semitism in the US. I don't know if you did, but I didn't. I felt at home in the US.

So when you come here you are doing it because you are very idealistic and trying to contribute something and be part of this collective destiny of the Jewish people taking place in Israel.

Two or three years ago was the first time in some 19 centuries that the largest Jewish community in the world was in Israel. Sometimes miracles happen. It is very hard not to see what has happened in the State of Israel, to turn a blind eye to it. When the state was established, five percent of the world's Jews lived in Israel. Today, 45 percent of world's Jews live here. It is the single largest Jewish community in the world. So this historical process is happening, and we are in it. We are part of that historical process.

 

The Coming US Peace Plan

Earlier this month, George Mitchell held a press briefing about his efforts to achieve a “comprehensive peace” in the Middle East, noting he had made four trips to meet with Israel and over a dozen Arab countries, and saying he intended “to bring these discussions to a very early conclusion.” 

Asked if EU diplomat Javier Solana was correct that the U.S. would “announce its vision for peace in the Middle East before the end of July,” Mitchell responded as follows:

As I said earlier, we’re going to move as promptly as possible. And in my opening remarks, I said that we hope to conclude the discussions in which we’re now engaged very soon. To me, it’s a matter of weeks, not many months, so he may well be right. But we’re going to see how well we can proceed. . . . [S]o I’ll call him when we’re ready and he can announce that, and then you can have the results then. (Laughter.)

The noteworthy part of that response is Mitchell did not deny that an American peace plan is coming -- soon.

Continue reading at Contentions.

POSTSCRIPT (July 1, 2009): Thank you to Omri Ceren of Mere Rhetoric for his provocative post on my post. Thanks too to the many commenters at Contentions for an interesting thread – in particular for the following comments, reprinted here not because I necessarily agree with them but because they are thought-provoking:

Ian: “[A] ‘peace process’ that . . . sees every empirical indication that peace cannot rationally be achieved as a signal for a more comprehensive process with more comprehensively one-sided concessions that effectively reward the very violent behavior that the “peace process’ is supposedly attempting to eliminate, is a strategy so contradictory and illogical in its basic assumptions that its failure is preordained."

J.E. Dyer: “The Obama administration’s proposals for the global good have been sinking like rocks wherever he makes them. He has been rebuffed not just by Russia, China, and Iran but by our allies in Europe. The likelihood is strong that we will see more dismissals in Latin America in the not-too-distant future. If Bibi has to stonewall a bad deal urged on him by Obama, he will be in a broad and growing company.”

Adam: “Nobody believes in any of these peace plans anymore -- they’re like blessings before meals that everyone has forgotten the words to. . . . The Israelis should just hunker down, give the required affirmations in sufficiently vague and hedged language, and prepare for the post-American era by forging alliances with other countries concerned about the vacuum Obama’s foreign policy is opening up -- first of all India, but who knows what else might be possible as other countries wake up to the new multi-polar situation? If we learned one thing from Obama’s response to the Iranian intifada, it’s that America won’t be “meddling” on the side of freedom or allies -- we should stop complaining about it, and start developing new ways of thinking about the world with a big hole (soon to be filled) where America used to be.”

Rick: “The IDF is dramatically more powerful than in 2001. . . Israel’s economy is much stronger and diverse. They might pass Germany, France and the UK in per capita incomes by 2012 if pre-recession growth returns, as it will eventually. Military spending as a % of GDP is lower and the wall has all but ended suicide bombs. I understand you want the USA as a staunch ally as under Bush; however Israel is well positioned to deal with a weak USA President.”

Rick: “At this time polls show Israelis do think Obama IS anti-Israel and have good reason to think so. I happen to think it’s more a matter of gross incompetence due in part to his lifelong radical left background and in part his arrogance and in part his total lack of experience. His strangely rigid position on settlements provided Netanyahu the circumstances to unite Israeli public opinion behind his coalition while rendering Kadima to near isolation. Obama also provided Abbas the excuse to do nothing. He can’t do anything anyway but that’s a different issue. Netanyahu has run a clinic on political maneuvering on the incompetent Obama. He drew a line in the sand for no reason and drew it in the wrong place anyway. He’s been inept.”

Responding, Yet Again, to Tony Judt

Three good letters in today’s New York Times, responding to Tony Judt’s tendentious June 22 op-ed:

Israelis settled in the West Bank because it was deemed part of the historic home of the Jewish people and because the Arabs and the Palestinians rejected opportunities for peace with Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967. The territory in legal terms was undecided because the Palestinians from 1947 rejected the United Nations resolution dividing the land into Arab and Jewish states.

Saying — as Mr. Judt does — that Israel will never give up the settlements ignores the fact that former Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to dismantle 80 percent of the settlements at Camp David; that his successor, Ariel Sharon, dismantled all of the settlements in Gaza; and that Israeli leaders have repeatedly indicated that most of the settlements will go if there is peace, and those held will be part of a swap for Israeli territory.

Settlements are not an obstacle to peace if there is serious peacemaking, peace-teaching and compromise from the other side. As for fictions — as Mr. Judt has made clear in his writings, his problem is not with Israeli settlements, but with Israel’s very existence as a Jewish state.

Abraham H. Foxman
National Director
Anti-Defamation League
New York, June 22, 2009

Tony Judt misleads in many ways, among them by implying that the West Bank was captured by Israel in 1967 from some Palestinian country and not Jordan (which does not seek its return), and contending that Yigal Amir was inspired to assassinate Yitzhak Rabin by “rabbinical” influence at Bar-Ilan University (Mr. Amir has stated clearly otherwise).

Most egregious, though, is Mr. Judt’s amazing objection to demilitarizing any Palestinian state established in the West Bank, because it would “have no means of defending itself against aggression.” Considering how the Palestinians in a militarized Gaza responded to Israel’s withdrawal from that territory, raining thousands of rockets onto Israeli cities, for Israel to help establish a weaponized Arab country in its very heart, within range of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, would be to commit national suicide.

(Rabbi) Avi Shafran
Director of Public Affairs
Agudath Israel of America
New York, June 22, 2009

Tony Judt didn’t answer my most basic question: Why does a future Palestinian state have to be free of Jews? If Arabs can live in Israel, why can’t Jews live in Palestine?

By refusing to answer this question, he and all the proponents of a settlement freeze turn the settlement argument into a facade. Because if the settlements don’t have to be removed, then why waste time arguing about what is a settlement, where are the boundaries, what is natural growth?

Making Jews, and only Jews, leave their homes is ethnic cleansing. Isn’t this exactly what Israel’s critics accuse it of?

Jonathan D. Reich
Lakeland, Fla., June 23, 2009

Shabbat In and Out of Shul

From “Q&A:  Christopher Hitchens” in the July/August issue of The Walrus Magazine:  a variation on the old saying that Jews may not attend shul, but they want the shul they don’t attend to be Orthodox:

 

[I]n America, religion is a voluntary association and it can’t have state financing. If you want a church, you have to build it yourself, and the schools that go along with it. . . . Everybody knows it’s true about the Jews, who are the most secular people in America. But they don’t neglect the idea of the synagogue, even if it’s only a reform one. They may not even go, but they keep it going.

 

Here are some things to read or watch after you get home from shul tomorrow:  Rob Eshman in The Jewish Journal on the missing Palestinian speech; a four-minute video from The Forward of the 60^th Anniversary Memorial Service at the West Point Jewish Chapel, commemorating Col. David “Mickey” Marcus and the North American volunteers who gave their lives in Israel’s War of Independence in 1948; David Wolpe in "The Jewish Week" on “Catching Wisdom.”

 

Shabbat Shalom.

Is Dennis Ross On, Off or Under the Bus?

To fully appreciate the colloquy at the State Department press conference yesterday regarding the status of Dennis Ross, who Haaretz has reported will “abruptly be relieved of his duties” and “reassigned to another position in the White House,” you need to recall an apocryphal lawyer story -- and then imagine what the working conditions must have been like for Soviet press spokesmen, who could be fired and shipped off somewhere if they actually answered the questions of the Western press.

 

The story involves a lawyer cross-examining a defendant and asking whether the defendant did “X.”  The defendant emphatically says “No.”  The lawyer asks whether he did “Y,” and the defendant says, even more forcefully, “Absolutely not.”  The lawyer asks finally if he did “Z,” and the defendant says “I refuse to answer that question on grounds it may incriminate me.”

 

Now read this:

 

QUESTION: . . . [T]here are a lot of reports about Dennis Ross based on one specific report in an Israeli newspaper. What’s his status? Has he been fired?

MR. KELLY: He has not been fired.

QUESTION: Is he being ousted?

MR. KELLY: He is not being ousted.

QUESTION: Is there an abrupt change to his responsibilities?

MR. KELLY: I – there is --

QUESTION: Is he being reassigned?

MR. KELLY: Look, he’s in the building today. I was in his office today. He’s working very hard on the same issues that we’ve been discussing the last, whatever it is, 15 minutes. And you know, if and when there is some kind of personnel announcement, I’ll be happy to let you know.

QUESTION: Isn’t it – isn’t he being reassigned to another position at the White House?

MR. KELLY: Anything is possible. I could be fired today too, I mean, if you guys keep probing me on this.

QUESTION: Isn’t it true that he’s being – isn’t it true that he’s being reassigned to another position at the White House?

MR. KELLY: Like I said, I have – there – I have no personnel announcements. . . .  He is – as I say, he is working very hard. He worked hard throughout the weekend, and he’s continuing to do his job today.

QUESTION: Has the book that he and David Makovsky published recently caused any problems for him internally in this Administration that you’re aware?

MR. KELLY: No, no. It’s a very good book, by the way. I started reading it over the weekend.

QUESTION: Was there any --

QUESTION: Oh, so you’re doing reviews from the podium.

QUESTION: Was there any concern about this book --

MR. KELLY: It probably was inappropriate, but there it is. It’s out there.

QUESTION: Was there any concern about his authorship of this book of some of the opinions that he and his coauthor expressed in the book --

MR. KELLY: No.

QUESTION: -- during the time leading up to his appointment?

MR. KELLY: No, not at all.

QUESTION: Why not?

MR. KELLY: Well, I mean, Mr. Ross is – I mean, he is in the Administration now. He is a very close advisor of the Secretary on a number of issues related to Iran and the region. But he also came out of the academic community, and he’s entitled – he was entitled to his opinion. He wrote the book before he came on board here.

QUESTION: But I mean, his opinion in his book and everything notwithstanding, are you saying that Dennis Ross is not being reassigned to another position at the White House?

MR. KELLY: I’m saying he’s working very hard here at the State Department.

QUESTION: Well, you’re not saying no.

MR. KELLY: I’m saying he’s working very hard here at the State Department. . . .

QUESTION: No one is questioning that he works very hard.

(Laughter.)

QUESTION: But yes or no? I mean, is he being reassigned to --

MR. KELLY: I – you know, I don’t have a crystal ball. I can’t predict what’s going to happen tomorrow.

QUESTION: You can’t predict till tomorrow when you’re going to announce it?

MR. KELLY: I may be reassigned, God knows where, tomorrow. I don’t know. . . . And I can be. I signed something saying I was worldwide available. So I can – at any time, I can be shipped off somewhere.

We can probably rule out Gitmo.  That would contradict our deepest values.

More on Ross's transfer here and here and here. Soccer Dad had a perceptive analysis here. More discussion here.

George Will at the Claremont Dinner

George F. Will was the featured speaker at the dinner Monday evening at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, in celebration of the Claremont Review of Books.  Will received the Salvatori Prize in the American Founding, and gave a masterful speech that included a mixture of political insight, conservative philosophy, humor and baseball stories. 

After the speech, he took a few questions, including one that led him to reflect on President Obama’s apparent belief that disharmony among nations results from misunderstandings that can be cured by dialogue and communication (and the force of his own personality) -- a view that Will characterized as reflecting a 1930s approach to foreign policy: 

We’ve seen this in his treatment of Israel in that remarkable speech, the atmospherics of which were fine, the specifics appalling. 

I mean, in the 61 years since Israel was founded on one-sixth of one percent of land in that area described as land of the Arab world, there has not been a moment of peace for Israel, not as peace is properly understood. 

How many Americans understand that when Israel was founded in 1948, no Palestinian state was invaded, no Palestinian state was destroyed?  There had not been a Palestinian geographic entity since between the departure of the Romans and the arrival of British rule.

How many know that the West Bank, referred to by the President as “occupied territory,” inferentially as occupied Palestinian territory, is under international law [an] unallocated portion of the Palestine Mandate rightfully occupied by Israel, because it occupied it in repelling aggression that came from that territory in 1967.  [Applause].

How the President believes that if we return to the 1967 borders, the antipathy to Israel, which predated the 1967 borders, will disappear, I do not know.

It would help if he . . .  spent some time [there].  George W. Bush, for all his defects, went to Israel shortly before he was elected and was squired around by another rancher named Arik Sharon.  He took him up in a helicopter, to where Israel was at one point nine miles wide, and George W. Bush came home and said “My God, in Texas we have driveways longer than that.”  [Laughter].  He sort of got the picture.

I remember -- if I could go back to an autobiographical moment -- in 1979 I was invited to talk to the B’nai Brith of Beverly Hills – not a nest of conservatives – and they said “Who should be the Republican nominee?”  And I said, pick Howard Baker, George Bush, Ronald Reagan.  And they said “Well, who would be best for Israel?”  And I responded “Of course it would be Ronald Reagan.”  They said “Why?” 

I said -- “Two reasons:  he believes in aircraft carriers.  He believes in the projection of American power.  Second, he is a romantic.  He’s got the story of Israel, plucky little Israel.” 

You need both.  You need aircraft carriers and you need to appreciate the fact that Israel is an embattled salient of our values in a bad neighborhood.  [Applause].  It is unworthy of the United States to aspire to be even-handed between those who would destroy and those who would preserve the only democracy in that region.  [Applause].

Will was speaking extemporaneously, without notes, to an unanticipated question.  His comments are worth listening to, and you can do so here.

The Next Phase of World War IV

J. E. Dyer has posted the first of a multi-part series on the realignment developing in the Middle East, including “an incipient hegemonic axis of Iran, Russia, Syria, and potentially even Turkey,” which she sees as “The Next Phase of World War IV” (the reference is to Norman Podhoretz’s construct of the next worldwide conflict following the Cold War, which was World War III). 

 

It is worth reading in its entirety, but here is part of her discussion of the significance of the “deafening silence” of the State Department regarding the U.S. commitments to Israel in the April 14, 2004 Bush letter to Ariel Sharon, which formally assured Israel of defensible borders, noted that there would not be a return to the 1967 borders, and stated that the major settlements would realistically be retained by Israel:

 

In Western opinion journalism, the settlements are usually discussed in terms of Palestinian political objection, anger, “fairness,” and a list of other perspectives ranging from the moral to the emotional.  But the significance of the West Bank settlements to Israel is military, and integral to national defense – and the entire Middle East is well aware of that.  Intransigence in opposing the Israeli stance on the West Bank settlements is intransigence in opposing the security of Israel.  That is the case even if it is not meant to be. 

 

If Obama does not understand the importance of the summits east of Jerusalem to Israel’s national security, then he is alone among the actors in this Middle Eastern drama in that lack of understanding.  The other players know full well that in making the settlements the point of contention between the US and Israel, Obama is actually putting Israel’s military defensibility in question.

 

The State Department has now refused 21 times to answer whether the Obama administration stands behind the Bush letter.  Dyer’s post makes it clear this “persistent refusal” is perhaps “one of the most important developments” in the next phase of a conflict that extends far beyond Israel.    

Twenty-One Times -- and Counting

The State Department has now refused 21 times in the last week to answer a straightforward question:  is the U.S. bound by the letter President Bush provided Israel as part of the Gaza disengagement deal, which was explicitly relied upon by the Israeli Knesset in voting to approve the removal of every settlement and soldier from Gaza?

 

The first refusal occurred on May 27, as Department Spokesman Ian Kelly promised to post a written answer to the question and then did not.  The next seven refusals occurred on June 1, as Deputy Spokesman Robert Wood repeatedly declined to answer the question.  The next day, Wood refused another 11 times.  And yesterday Philip J. Crowley, Assistant Secretary of State, added refusal Number 20 and 21:

QUESTION: . . . You may be aware that the former chief of staff of then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon published a letter – published an opinion piece which seems to suggest that they have a different understanding of what their Roadmap obligations are. And of course, there is this ongoing debate about the letter sent – exchanged between President Bush and –

MR. CROWLEY: I suspect there is an ongoing debate in this room, but not necessarily outside of this room. (Laughter.) I mean, we are focused on commitments that both sides have made in the Roadmap. The President and the Secretary have been very clear on the obligations that both sides have. We’ve had several meetings with Israeli officials in recent days. We do not believe there is any confusion about the nature of those obligations.

QUESTION: So is the U.S. Administration bound by the Bush letter?

MR. CROWLEY: We are focused on the Roadmap and the obligations that both Israel and the Palestinians have said that they will undertake, and we’re going to hold both of them to them – to that.

QUESTION: So it means you are not bound?

MR. CROWLEY: I would suggest that you keep focusing on the Roadmap.

The Obama administration apparently believes Israel and the Palestinian Authority are bound by the Roadmap, but that the United States has no obligations of its own with respect to it. 

As I tried to demonstrate at the time of the disengage-ment, the purpose of the 2004 exchange of letters between Sharon and Bush was to insure that:  (1) there was an agreement between the U.S. and Israel on the principles governing the later negotiation of final status issues under the Roadmap (including settlements, borders and refugees); and (2) in exchange for Israel undertaking the extraordinary political, social and economic costs of the disengagement – and the even greater military and strategic risks in turning over Gaza to the Palestinian Authority – the U.S. would adhere to those principles.

Since Israel met its obligations under the disengagement deal, the U.S. can no more rescind its agreement and commitment than it can restore the lost world of Gush Katif, or the lost security of southern Israel, or the lives that thousands of rockets traumatized, or the property that was destroyed. 

Israel ended up having to fight a war in Gaza because of the disengagement.  The least the United States can do is meet its own obligations.

A Reader's Guide to Israeli "Settlement Activity"

Why the settlements are important.  Excerpts from two characteristically incisive comments by military and intelligence analyst J. E. Dyer at Jonathan Tobin’s contentions post yesterday:

The most consistent position from Israeli leaders . . . is that the West Bank is a holistic national defense issue, of which the settlements are an integral element. No aspect of the settlements is divorced from the question of defensible borders for Israel . . .

Without occupying the summits that look down on Israel’s eastern border, Israel can’t defend her narrow territory against attack from the East. That is the defensible borders issue with the West Bank, and was demonstrated clearly in the ‘67 war. The significance of holding these summits has only increased with time, and the expanded range of man-portable missile systems.  . . .

One thing is certain. Everyone in the Middle East understands the military/defensive value of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. They fully understand there that the beef the Palestinians have with the settlements is precisely that the settlements deny the Palestinians access to the summits that look down on Jerusalem, and the rest of Israel’s eastern border.

If Israel did, in fact, abandon that territory in terms of occupation and military defense, there is no natural or political barrier at the perimeter of the West Bank that would prevent outside support to the Palestinians there from quickly turning the threat to Israel — within 2-3 weeks — into the same level of threat posed to Israel from Lebanon, and from the other side of the Golan Heights.

There is no reason whatsoever to imagine that Jordan would (or even could) do anything to prevent the development of such a threat. If Israel did not address it promptly by reoccupying the West Bank, it could build very quickly after that into a full-blown military threat.

Why “settlement activity” is a non-issue.  Excerpts from Elliott Abrams’ April 7, 2009 article in the Washington Post:

For one thing, most settlement activity is in those major blocs that it is widely understood Israel will keep. For another, those settlements are becoming more populated, not geographically larger. . . . population growth inside settlements does not [take land that Palestinians own or use, or interfere with Palestinian mobility or agricultural activity]. For the past five years, Israel's government has largely adhered to guidelines that were discussed with the United States but never formally adopted: that there would be no new settlements, no financial incentives for Israelis to move to settlements and no new construction except in already built-up areas.

Why ceasing all Israeli “settlement activity” would unfairly affect final status issues.  Excerpt from Vel Nirtist’s May 31 article at American Thinker:

Israelis are not the only ones who build on the disputed land to accommodate for ‘natural growth,' thus "pre-judging" the outcome of diplomacy. Palestinians do, too -- and the Obama administration, to be fair or at least consistent in its concern that "facts on the ground" should not adversely affect final-status negotiations, should put equal pressure on the Palestinians to stop all their building in the West Bank, too -- for when the Palestinians build in the West Bank, they also create "facts on the ground," erecting their structures on the land which Israelis may want to be part of their state. . . .

 

Because the West Bank is a disputed territory . . . It is worth repeating yet again that before the West Bank was "occupied" by the Israelis in 1967 when they beat off the Arab aggression, it was under Jordanian occupation that started in 1948, and that prior to that it was occupied by the British who had the mandate to do so from the League of Nations; and that prior to that it was part of the Ottoman Empire. "Palestinian state" never existed, and cannot claim any territory as legitimately its own.

To recap:  (1) the major settlements are on the high ground overlooking pre-1967 Israel, and whoever holds that high ground holds the military assets necessary either to defend or attack Israel; (2) Israeli settlement activity for the last five years has been largely limited to growth within the geographical limits of those settlement blocs, which will be kept by Israel in any conceivable peace agreement; and (3) the entire West Bank is disputed territory, as to which Israel has historical and religious connections, legal claims arising out of the documents that established the British mandate, and the military necessity to insure it cannot become the staging area for the kind of attack that nearly destroyed Israel in 1967. 

Israel’s connections, claims and necessities can be negotiated by Israel in return for a Palestinian and Arab commitment to recognize Israel within defensible borders -- but to suggest that the current major settlements are “obstacles to peace,” or that stopping settlement activity within them would lead to peace, is to suggest that an Israel with defensible borders is an obstacle.  There will be no peace (even if a “peace agreement” were signed) if Israel does not have defensible borders, and the freedom to live within them.  In fact, a “peace agreement” without such borders or freedom would lead to a new war.

Which is why settlement activity will continue in the same fashion it has for the last five years.