Jewish Current Issues

Angels in Music -- Send Me

Last night, the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese, the Jewish Music Commission of Los Angeles, and the Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church held their Fifth Annual Interfaith Concert. 

This year's theme was "Angels in Theology, Art and Music."  Four choirs performed:  The Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church Chancel Choir, the Choral Society of Southern California, the Los Angeles Zimriyah Chorale, and the Los Angeles Vocal and Instrumental Ensemble (La Vie).

If you click here, you can watch and listen to "Send Me" ("Then I said to Adonai, 'here I am, here I am -- Send me'") composed by Rabbi Moshe Rothblum, performed by the combined choirs in Hebrew, with a stirring solo by Cantor Ira Bigeleisen.  The conductor is the great Nick Strimple, whose gesture at the end captures the moment.

It is three-and-a-half minutes -- do not skip it. 

Kenneth Levin on Condoleezza Rice

Kenneth Levin, author of “The Oslo Syndrome,” has an interview in FrontPage Magazine that is worth reading in its entirety (hat tip:  Anne Lieberman).  Here are his thoughts on Condoleezza Rice’s actions regarding Israel:

Secretary of State Rice has been a major architect of the current disastrous situation.

She pushed for allowing Hamas to participate in the January, 2006 Palestinian elections despite its refusal to accept previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements, and so set the stage for Hamas's election victory.

She pushed for Israel's leaving the Philadelphi route and handing control and monitoring of the border to Egypt, leading to uncontrolled smuggling of arms into Gaza by terrorist organizations as well as the movement of terrorist operatives out of Gaza for training in Iran or by Iranian agents elsewhere and then back into Gaza to ply their newly learned skills against Israel.

She now pushes for final status talks even in the absence of a Palestinian partner that recognizes Israel's right to exist [as a Jewish state].

Certainly, the embrace of Mahmoud Abbas as a "peace partner" and the insistence that Israel recognize him as such and negotiate a final status "peace" agreement with him reflect Bush Administration betrayal of its own principles . . . . Abbas has criticized Palestinian terror in recent years but, as he explicitly states, only because he regards it as currently an ineffective tool. He makes clear that he has no moral compunctions against the Palestinians' terror war and has recently stated that he foresees future "resistance" if Palestinian demands are not met.

He has recently spoken proudly of his own terrorist past and of the trail blazed by Palestinian terrorism. He declared three days of mourning for the recently deceased arch-terrorist George Habash. He continues to use the media and schools under his control to indoctrinate Palestinians, particularly Palestinian children, to pursue Israel's destruction.

The embrace of Abbas, and insistence that Israel likewise embrace him and make concessions to him, are the antithesis of the principles declared by the Bush Administration as it embarked on the war forced upon America by the 9/11 attacks.

If Ariel Sharon were able to speak, he would know what to say about Rice's actions since his stroke.

Unspeakable Evil in Jerusalem

Jewish religious school students pray near the scene of a shooting attack in Jerusalem, March 7, 2008. A Palestinian gunman opened fire in a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem on Thursday, killing at least eight people and wounding about 10.  REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun.

The names of four of the murdered students have been released:  Neria Cohen, 15, Yonatan Yitzhak Eldar, 16, Yonadav Haim Hirschfeld, 19, and Yohai Lifshitz, 18.  Not one of them even twenty years old. 

Here is the report from the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

A Palestinian terrorist infiltrated the Mercaz Harav rabbinical seminary on Thursday evening and opened fire on a crowded library and study hall, killing eight people and wounding 11 others. . . . [T]he yeshiva students -- mostly teenagers -- had returned from prayers at the Western Wall. They were about to begin a party celebrating the beginning of the month of Adar -- a month of joy marked by the Purim holiday.

Gaza's streets filled with joyous crowds of thousands on Thursday evening following the terror attack . . . .  In mosques in Gaza City and northern Gaza, many residents went to perform the prayers of thanksgiving.  Armed men fired in the air in celebration and others passed out sweets to passersby.

“They deliberately target Jewish teenagers in a religious school for slaughter and then they rejoice on the streets. What unspeakable evil is here.” -- Melanie Phillips

Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz’s correspondent, writes that:

[T]he terrorist demonstrated he could carry out an attack that required prior intelligence gathering. This was not an accidental arrival at some city's commercial center and the setting off an explosive charge, but entering one of Jerusalem's religious neighborhoods and penetrating a yeshiva, which the Palestinians see as a prestigious target.

Yoni Tidi writes that the attack is “a stab at the heart of religious Zionism:”

If you don't understand the ramifications of this targeted attack, let me give you some background.  Mercaz Harav Yeshiva is considered the leading national-religious yeshiva in Israel, with hundreds of elite students. Among its thousands of graduates are leading public figures including senior rabbis and IDF officers. It was founded in 1924 by mandatory Palestine's first chief rabbi, Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook.

Calev Ben-David concludes in The Jerusalem Post that it is “An Assault on the Heart of Zionism:”

In striking the flagship institution of the religious Zionist movement, a Jerusalem landmark whose history is linked with the founding and fulfillment of the Jewish national home in the Land of Israel, the gunman aimed his weapon at the heart of the Zionist enterprise.

If the goal was to outrage the general public and to inflame that particular segment of it most skeptical of the possibility of Israel one day coming to terms with its most immediate Arab neighbors, then the bullets struck home with deadly and accurate force.

. . . [T]he impact of this incident will be profound.

This will be a sharp blow for those Israelis, especially Jerusalemites, who have allowed themselves to let their psychological guard down since the second intifada petered out. That the gunman was able to carry out this operation in the heart of a crowded Jerusalem neighborhood, some distance away from the Arab neighborhoods of the capital, will raise serious questions about assumptions made since the construction of the West Bank security barrier.

The Olmert government, which until now has been able to contain political fallout from the rocket fire on Sderot and Ashkelon in part because of the absence of major attacks elsewhere in the country, will now find its margin of error -- and survival -- dramatically narrowed.

The efforts by both Jerusalem and Washington to renew the negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, interrupted by the fighting in Gaza, will now be officially put on hold, and picking up the pieces in the wake of this outrage will not be easy.

The grief and fury in particular of the religious-Zionist sector will be beyond measure at this violent desecration of the cradle of their movement. The current efforts by the government to reach an accommodation with the settler leadership on the removal of outposts will have been in vain for the time being, as any spirit of compromise will be buried with the victims of this atrocity.

Anne Lieberman’s eloquent prayer expresses what must be in the hearts of all who choose life:

I am but a small person and I don't know how to hold my hot anger, my deep sorrow and my faith in You -- all together in the limited space of my being.

Rationalization is not available. Anger is not a whole answer. I don't see any way forward but to carry on with the commands we have received.

What Would the U.S. Do?

Jerry Rapp, in a letter to the New York Times published yesterday, made a good point about Gaza:

[T]he bottom line that remains is that a sovereign, democratic nation unilaterally withdrew from a disputed territory, handing same to its adversaries without any preconditions.

The response was an essentially nonstop barrage of thousands of rockets aimed at its civilians who do not reside in disputed territory. And many of these rockets were launched before Hamas took control of Gaza.

How would any other country on the planet react to such a provocation? Think, for example, of Russia or China or the United States.

What was Gaza like after the disengagement and before Hamas took control?  Here is the JCI post from January 15, 2006:

Five months after the Gaza withdrawal and Olmert’s great expectations, there is no longer any “occupation” of Gaza.  The area has been cleansed of all 8,000 obstacles to peace, leaving the remaining inhabitants free to demonstrate their readiness to live “side by side, in peace and security” with Israel.   

And Gaza has been turned into -- take your choice -- “anarchy” “chaos” “mayhem.” 

Armed militias roam the streets; public figures are assassinated; “clans” engage in gunfights; kidnappings are common; public buildings are stormed by armed demonstrators; weapons smuggling has quadrupled (including rocket-propelled grenades, “tons of explosives,” and anti-aircraft missiles); rockets strike in or near Israeli cities and close to strategic targets (despite the “security zone” created in the area where settlements once stood); terrorists stream across an essentially un-policed border with Egypt; an “election” is scheduled between a terrorist organization and a corrupt ruling party that promised three years ago to dismantle it and didn’t (and maintains its own “loosely-linked” terrorist group as well).

Given a state, they created a reverse Leviathan -- back to a state of nature in five months. 

The party that was given a state in Gaza and created a reverse Leviathan now resides in the rump state of Ramallah and is Israel’s “peace partner.”  The “innocent people” of Gaza elected Hamas to run their government, and now cheer it on as it continues to fulfill its campaign promises with daily rockets on Israel. I wonder what Russia, China or the U.S. would do.

The Show Must Go On

Israeli first graders lie on the floor of their classroom during a drill simulating a warning siren for incoming rockets in the southern city of Ashkelon March 3, 2008. Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip on Monday after a U.S. appeal to end days of fighting that killed more than 100 Palestinians, and rescue peace talks.  The Hamas Islamists who control the coastal enclave declared "victory" and vowed to continue firing rockets into Israel, launching one into Ashkelon shortly after the troops withdrew, wounding one person. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

Moshe Arens, writing in Haaretz today:

The victory parades in Gaza as soon as the Israel Defense Forces withdrew were only to be expected. Like Hezbollah in the Second Lebanon War, whoever gets in the last barrage of rockets is the victor in the eyes of Middle East spectators. And not only in their eyes.

It was another blow to Israel's deterrence. All the talk about the damage that has been inflicted on Hamas does not begin to equal its perception that it has won its contest with the IDF and the encouragement it will draw from this to engage in further attacks against Israeli civilians.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met with the press Monday and described how important the “peace process” is.  It is so important it does not matter if the Palestinians do not meet their obligations; it is so important it must continue even if they are no longer expected to meet them; and it is so important that literally nothing can affect it:

We could have waited on the first phase of the Roadmap forever, waiting for the Palestinians to give an answer and to act against terrorism, but we decided to promote the peace process. . . .

I said clearly in Annapolis, as I said in Paris, that the success of this peace process depends on the determination of the leaders of both sides not to let the goings-on outside of the negotiating room enter the negotiating room. . . .

I met with Abu Ala the same day there was a suicide bombing in an Israeli mall in the Negev, in Dimona, in which one Israeli was killed. Some members of the government coalition called on me to stop the negotiations because it's not wise or it doesn't represent the interests of Israel to continue negotiations under terror.

And last week I had two meetings with Abu Ala -- one on Wednesday, the same time when I received the information that an Israeli was killed at the Sapir College campus near Sderot. And the next day we had another meeting, on the day of the funeral. . . .

And stopping the negotiations is against the Annapolis understanding. I think that cessation of negotiations is a mistake. I think that it shows weakness, of course, but I think that it shows Hamas that by using terror they can control, from Gaza, the acts of the legitimate government and Abu Mazen in Ramallah, and more. . . .

So, clearly, I don't expect Abu Ala and Abu Mazen to support Israel’s acts. I am not trying to push my luck. I really understand the sensitivity. . . .

I know that they cannot control the Gaza Strip; I know that. I don't expect them to control the Gaza Strip, I don't expect them to change the situation in the Gaza Strip, unfortunately, but this is the reality, and we decided to live with this reality.

The “peace process” is a “negotiation” with Palestinian “leaders” who are unable to implement anything they promise, who failed to implement what they promised before, and who have yet to dismantle even their own “loosely-linked” terrorists, but the process must continue while Palestinian rockets fall on Israeli cities, and Israeli strikes against Palestinian terrorists must cease lest the process not go on, because the show must go on. 

Gaza and Hamas, Condi and Clouseau

U.S. law prohibits the State Department from negotiating with Hamas, but apparently does not prohibit it from helping others do it:

Parallel to the fighting, there has been a diplomatic effort between Egypt and Israel, aided by the European Union and the United States, to negotiate a deal with Hamas.

The idea, European and Israeli diplomats say, is to offer to reopen the Gaza-Egyptian border at Rafah under renewed European monitoring, allow Gazan exports through Rafah, push the Egyptians to patrol the border better, release a captured Israeli soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, and arrange a cease-fire in Gaza, if Hamas promises to stop the rocket attacks.

Even a cease-fire would allow Hamas to continue to build up what is essentially a Palestinian Army on the Hezbollah model.

Such a deal:  renewed European “monitoring” (remind me again why it stopped and must be “renewed”); “pushing” the Egyptians to patrol the border “better” (remind me again why they haven’t effectively patrolled it so far, and why they must be “pushed”); and a Hamas “promise” (BFD) to stop rocket attacks -- for the time being. And for this they would get a cease-fire, analyzed by an Israeli commenter (Ginzy) at The Spine:

What do you think Hamas would do during a cease fire?  Figure out better ways to take out the garbage & beautify Gaza City?  Look what Hezbollah did during the 6 years of "quiet" along the northern border and guess what they have been doing since Lebanon 2. . . .

A common theme I have heard from a number Sderot residents is that they understand that if the IDF goes into Gaza in a big way (having learned the lessons from Lebanon 2) there will be a veritable fire storm of rocket fire . . . But they are willing to put up with that IF the IDF does the job that it is supposed to do and end the capability to launch rockets at them. . . .

Yes it's going to be messy and yes it's going to be bloody.  But this is the price that is paid for a policy that was steeped in well meaning naivete from do-gooders here and especially abroad.  And this is the price that is being paid for not responding forcefully to the first post-"disengagement" rocket that was fired from Gaza . . .

Over at MESH (Middle East Strategy at Harvard), Chuck Freilich notes what will eventually emerge from the Olmert-Rice-Livni “cease-fire” in the north:

[A]nother round [of war] is highly likely, sooner or later, if only because the battle against Israel is Hezbollah’s raison d’etre. . . .   Hezbollah is first and foremost a jihadist organization, an Iranian proxy, committed to Israel’s destruction. So another round is a matter of timing and the pretext will be found.

One of the possibilities that worries me is that the next round may take place a few years from now when Iran already has a nuclear capability, which will be an entirely different ballgame. . . .

Hezbollah has fully redeployed north of the Litani and is gradually doing so in the south as well. It appears to have fully restored its capabilities within the towns in the south -- actually, far more than restored -- but is limited in its ability to redeploy and build up its positions in the open areas in between, where UNIFIL patrols. Moreover, there are already signs that the contributing countries are getting tired and may reduce their forces.

No one in Israel wants a war now, but it is better than losing a war later, when there are fully-armed Iranian satellites on both Israel’s southern and northern borders, when Iran possesses nuclear weapons, and when President Obama is off meeting with Iran and Syria to negotiate his disengagement from Iraq. 

If there is a cease-fire that simply puts off the fight until a later day, Israel will have lost another war even before fighting it.  The consequences will extend far beyond the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” as Dan Diker convincingly argues in his important post at Power Line:

The West must understand that the ongoing rocket war Hamas has been waging against Israel and a possible major escalation now appears to be the Gaza chapter of Iran’s ongoing war against the West. . . .

Igniting Gaza focuses international attention away from Iran’s nuclear program at a critical time.  Tehran can now buy many valuable months as it races to complete its atomic program while the international community . . . will be busy trying to broker an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians . . . . 

If Hamas is allowed to survive an Israeli counteroffensive militarily or politically, the results will be far reaching for US led war on terror both in and beyond the region in Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan , Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Gulf, and Saudi Arabia for starters. . . .   

The United States and the Western Alliance would be best served by lending full support to Israel as it may now be forced to send its mostly reserve army into battle to defeat Iranian proxies Hamas and Palestinian Jihad . . .

This week, Condoleezza Rice arrives in the Middle East for her umpteenth trip to create a legacy.   Like Inspector Clouseau focusing on the illegal “minkey” while behind him the bank is being robbed, she will be focusing on getting a cease fire so she can renew her increasingly ludicrous "peace process."

An Email from Sderot

American filmmaker Laura Bialis, who has been living in Sderot making a documentary for the Foundation for Documentary Projects, emailed me an excerpt from the last 36 hours of her journal:

Friday, 10:00AM:  I say (out loud) that we are lucky for no Tzeva Adom [Color Red Alert] this morning. A half an hour later, we are getting ready to leave the house: Tzeva Adom, Tzeva Adom. We run into the shelter. This time, we hear the whistle. Avi always told me that the scariest moment is when you can hear the whistle, because it means it is landing right near you. After the whistle, a huge boom that rattles the house. We run out to the street, all the neighbors have come out and everybody yells, "Where did it fall?" People are running around looking. We finally realize it has fallen across the street on the back side of our house. Luckily there are no homes there, just an open field.

Friday, 4:30PM:  Right before Shabbat. Avi's brother and his family stop by to visit. His 8-year-old twin nieces are chasing our cat around our backyard and playing catch with grapefruits they picked from the trees. . . . All of the sudden, a huge boom. It was a qassam WITHOUT the Tzeva Adom warning -- one of the scariest things possible. Then it starts: Tzeva Adom, Tzeva Adom. We run into the shelter. More explosions. Close.

Friday, 8:00PM: Shabbat dinner at Avi's parents. Avi is really depressed and angry. He keeps asking, "Is this a way to live? Why? Why?" He doesn't usually get this worked up, but something about seeing his nieces exposed to the danger makes him sad. He can't eat.

Friday, 10:00PM:  We can hear singing and cheering. . . We see six hundred young people from a group called "Lev Ehad (One heart.)" They hold Israeli flags and walk through the streets of Sderot singing, clapping, and cheering, to show solidarity.  It’s an amazing sight.

Friday, 10:30PM:  We are driving home. We have the radio tuned to 104fm, where after 9PM there is silence, but the Tzeva Adom is broadcast -- supposedly a couple of seconds before you can hear the loudspeakers. We stop the car and run up the walkway to the nearest house. We bang on the door. Nobody home. We get close to the wall of the house, just in case. For the first time I am afraid, I can hear my own heart beating. Something about the process of trying to run and not knowing where to go.

Friday, Midnight:  We are sitting in our house drinking coffee with Robbie and Lavi . . . They are talking about how upsetting it is that seven years of rockets and the government doesn't care, but now that rockets hit Askhelon, it’s suddenly not okay anymore. Robbie says it is because of who live here -- Mizrachim (Jews from Arab countries) not Askenazim. Poor people. The government doesn't care about the people of Sderot -- but Askhelon is now the limit.   Avi talks about his new song. Its called, "Sushi in Japan." I presume it is about Olmert, eating his sushi.

Saturday, 2:00AM:  Tzeva adom. This is strange -- doesn't usually happen at this hour. We run to the shelter. Can't hear a boom. Maybe it’s too far. I get back in bed and try to sleep. I hear helicopters.

Saturday, 5:00AM:  Tzeva Adom.

Saturday, sometime between 5 and 7AM:  One or two Tzeva Adoms. I don't remember. I don't get up, I don't wake up. I just stay in bed. Screw it all. If they want to bomb me, go ahead.

Saturday, 7:30AM:  Tzeva Adom. We wake up and run to the shelter. I am so tired I can't even stand up. Get back in bed. I can hear gunfire. Really loud gunfire . . . like a machine gun.   It is from a tank or a helicopter or something.

Saturday, 9:30AM:  Tzeva Adom. Okay, maybe it’s time to get up. I hear airplanes -- really loud. Must be F-16's.

Saturday, Noon:  Helicopters.  I get online. I can't help it. What does it say in the news. Thirty-three qassams from yesterday until now. Twenty-six people killed in Gaza, including some civilians. Several IDF soldiers injured.

I look at the press from the West and get very angry. It’s mostly about their injuries. Another article about Palestinian protests about our attacks. This is ridiculous. If there were no rockets raining on us the IDF wouldn't have anything to do there. I don't like the way we are portrayed. We don't want this war.  They are dragging us in. What can we do? There are rockets raining on us daily. 

But in the media we look like the aggressors. It feels so unfair to be sitting here and reading that. My entire perspective has changed. I used to think that Israel needed to take care of how it looked to the Western World -- that we can't look like monsters. Now I know it doesn't matter. They will paint us however they want. I just can't read the news anymore, it makes me too angry. We need to move forward with our lives, protect ourselves. The government has a responsibility to protect its people. The question is, what is the best way to do that?

Saturday, 2pm:  Tzeva Adom. I'm alone in the house, I run to the shelter.

Saturday, 3pm:  Tzeva Adom. I stay at my desk. This is ridiculous.

Saturday, 7pm:  The news. Two Israeli soldiers killed. 45 Palestinians.

As I am writing this, more helicopters. More guns. Very depressed.

Israeli men survey the damage after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza landed in the southern Israeli town of Sderot March 1, 2008.  REUTERS/Ammar Awad.

An Israeli rescue worker stands in an apartment that was struck by a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza, in the coastal city of Ashkelon March 1, 2008. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

A local resident attends a protest calling for Israel's government to take action to stop rocket attacks in the coastal city of Ashkelon March 1, 2008.  REUTERS/Amir Cohen

An Israeli man stands on the scene after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza landed in Kibbutz Gevim near the southern town of Sderot March 2, 2008. REUTERS/Gil Cohen Magen Israelis take cover in a shelter during a rocket attack in Kibbutz Gevim near the southern town of Sderot March 2, 2008. REUTERS/Gil Cohen Magen An Israeli woman is evacuated from the scene after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza landed in the southern town of Sderot March 2, 2008. REUTERS/Ammar Awad An Israeli woman reacts on the scene after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza landed in the southern town of Sderot March 2, 2008. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun