Category Archives: Israel and Palestine

In The Black Night – A Poem for Parashat Vayishlach

09 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in Divrei Torah, Ethics, Israel and Palestine, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry

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In the black night / the river runs cold / slowly passing me by / over formerly sharp edged stones / worn smooth by centuries of churning, / as if through earthy veins – / and I Jacob, alone, / shiver and wait / to meet my brother / and daylight.

Will there be war? / And will the angels carry my soul / up the rungs of the ladder / leaving my blood / to soak the earthly crust?

A presence!? / And I struggle yet again / as if in my mother’s womb / and in my dreams.

We played together as children once, / my brother Esau and me / as innocents, / and I confess tonight / how I wronged him / and wrenched from him his birthright / as this Being has done to me / between my thighs.

I was so young / driven by ego and need, / blinded by ambition, / my mother’s dreams / and my father’s silence.

I so craved to be first born / adored by my father, / to assume his place when he died / that my name be remembered / and define a people.

How Esau suffered and wailed / and I didn’t care. / Whatever his dreams / they were nothing to me – / my heart was hard – / his life be damned!

But, after all these years / I’ve learned that Esau and I / each alone is a palga gufa – a half soul / without the other – / torn away / as two souls separated at creation / seeking reunification / in a sea of souls – / the yin missing the yang – / the dark and light never to touch – / the mind divorced from body – / the soul in exile – / without a beating bleating heart / to witness – / and no access to the thirty-two paths / to carry us together / up the ladder / and through the spheres.

It’s come to this! / To struggle again – / To live or die.

Tonight / I’m ready for death / or submission.

Compassionate One: / protect Esau and your servant – / my brother and me / as one – / and return us to each other.

El na r’fa na lanu! / Grant us peace and rest! / I’m very tired!

“The International Delegitimization Campaign against Israel and the Urgent Need of a Comprehensive Two-State, End-of-Conflict Peace Agreement”

07 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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“I decided to write this paper because I have of late been asked questions from both Jews and non-Jews that until recently I had never heard before, questions that call into question the very legitimacy of the State of Israel. I have seen nothing in print that can serve as a comprehensive primer, fact sheet, briefing and background paper that can assist rabbis, Jewish leaders, college and university students and faculty, and our friends in the interfaith community, in dealing effectively with the complexities and nuances that underlie the growing international movement to delegitimize Israel.”

So begins my article (CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly, Fall 2011, pages 90-109) that can be accessed on Temple Israel of Hollywood’s Web-site – See About Us – Then Clergy – Then Clergy Writings – Then Rabbi Rosove’s Writings (www.tioh.org – http://www.tioh.org/about-us/clergy/aboutus-clergy-clergystudy.)

In this piece I address the following questions and themes:

  • What Is the Delegitimization Movement and What Does It Seek to Do?
  • Why Israel Is Not an Apartheid State Despite Claims by the Delegitimization Network
  • The United Nations General Assembly: The Central International Arena of Delegitimization Efforts
  • Other Delegitimizing Actions (The UN Resolution on “Zionism as Racism”; The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; Palestinian school textbooks; Official Palestinian maps; The Israel Lobby by John Meersheimer and Stephen Walt; Israel’s security barrier; International boycott of Israel; Israel as the “greatest threat to world peace”; The UN’s Goldstone Report)
  • We Cannot Deny That Israel Is an Imperfect Democracy
  • The Settlements
  • Legitimate Criticism vs Delegitimization: Embrace Loving Critics and Distance Delegitimizers
  • Jewish Organizational Perspectives: Who Is Really In and Out of the Pro-Israel Camp (a review of 14 major American Jewish organizations and their respective positions Israel)
  • Why Settling the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Is Strategically and Morally Necessary Now Before It Is Too Late
  • What Do We do Now?

Conclusion of the article:

“An old UJA advertisement once read “We never promised you a rose garden.” Anyone with eyes wide open understands the truth of this statement. Indeed, the situation between Israelis and Palestinians and within their respective societies is complex and difficult. Nevertheless, unless this conflict is settled, I fear for the Zionist enterprise altogether. In the 1970s there was an American Zionist movement called B’reira (“There is an  alternative”) and that alternative is a two-state solution. That message is even more to the point today.”

64 Years Ago Today – Now What?

29 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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On November 29, 1947, 64 years ago today, the United Nations General Assembly adopted by 33 votes against 13 (with 10 abstentions) the “Palestine Partition Plan” advocating a two-state solution to the Arab-Jewish conflict, one Jewish and one Arab. The Jews were exuberant. The Arabs rejected the plan. Nearly six months later Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel: “…AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, (WE) HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL.” The next day 7 Arab armies attacked Israel killing 6000 Jews, 1% of the entire Jewish population.

The borders proposed by the UN Partition Plan gave the Jewish minority 55% of the country, though half was the Negev desert, and in that portion 50% were Arabs.

Once the War of Independence began, Ben-Gurion promoted “Plan Dalet” as a strategic necessity and as a solution to two problems: it added 22% more land to the Jewish State and drove out much of the Arab population.

The myth that Arabs fled because their leaders told them that the Jews would rape and kill them is only partly true. The Haganah also drove out many thousands of Arabs. In the end only a small part of the Arab population remained in the new State of Israel and they became citizens. That number has now grown to 1.5 million inside the Green Line.

The question debated in Israel today concerns the meaning of a “Jewish State.” Israeli right wingers reject a two-state solution and claim that the “Jewish State” belongs exclusively to Jews regardless of the fact that thousands of Arabs have lived there for centuries. Most Israelis support a two-states for two-peoples solution, affirm the democratic character of the Jewish State and believe that all its citizens (Arabs included) have equal rights under the law according to the Declaration of Independence.

In a recent piece on this 64th anniversary since the UN Partition plan, the Israeli journalist and peace activist, Uri Avnery wrote:

“THE 1947 partition plan was an exceptionally intelligent document. Its details are obsolete now, but its basic idea is as relevant today as it was 64 years ago: two nations are living in this country [and] they cannot live together in one state without a continuous civil war. They can live together in two states. The two states must establish close ties between each other. Ben-Gurion was determined to prevent the founding of the Arab Palestinian state, and with the help of King Abdullah of Transjordan he succeeded. All his successors, with the possible exception of Yitzhak Rabin, have followed this line. We have paid – and are still paying – a heavy price for this folly. On the 64th anniversary of this historic event, we ought to go back to its basic principle: Israel and Palestine; Two States for Two Peoples.”

Such, of course, is more easily said than done. To shine a light on the essence of the problem I recommend three important articles:

[1] An opinion piece in Al Jazeera (September 30, 2011) by Sari Nusseibeh, Professor of Philosophy and President of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem entitled “Why Israel can’t be a ‘Jewish State’” – www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion (once on the site, type in the title of the article in “Search” and it will come up). Nusseibeh is considered a leading Palestinian “moderate” (after reading this peace one has to ask what “moderate” means!”

[2] A to Nusseibeh’s piece by his friend, Uri Avnery (noted above), an Israeli journalist, peace activist, former member of the Knesset, and leader of Gush Shalom, called “We are a People – A Response to Sari Nusseibeh” http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/we-are-a-people-a-response-to-sari-nusseibeh-1.389543. As a member of Israel’s left wing peace camp, Avnery is not hopeful for a settlement anytime soon not because of Israel’s right wing extremist government, but rather because the Palestinian identity and narrative has led them to regard Jews as nothing more than a religion and not a people.

[3] A blog by Bernard Avishai, an American-Israeli journalist and contributing Editor to the Harvard Business Review, taken from a much longer Atlantic article (November 23, 2011) (subscription only) called “The Return of ‘The Right.’” Avishai recasts the conflict based on the necessity for mutual understanding of the Israeli and Palestinian narratives – http://bernardavishai.blogspot.com/2011/11/return-of-right.html

As I ponder the complexity, intractability and politicization of this conflict I am reminded of what President John F. Kennedy said relative to the Soviet and American nuclear arms race – “This is not rocket science. These problems were made by human beings and they can be solved by human beings.”

Amen!

Israel at its Best!!!!!

21 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism

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This past week, as President of the regional board of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA) along with our ARZA Regional Director Jerry Krautman, we welcomed Alex Cicelsky from Israel who is on a national speaking tour sponsored by ARZA. That hour was so exciting and inspiring that I wanted to tell you about Alex and the ground-breaking environmental work being done on Kibbutz Lotan.

Alex is a senior staff member and founder of the “Center for Creative Ecology” (CfCE) and a founder of Kibbutz Lotan, one of two Reform Kibbutzim in the Arava about 60 miles north of the southern city of Eilat. The Kibbutz was founded in 1983, has 200 members with 60 children and is a cross-generational community. The Kibbutz has become a nationally and internationally recognized center for developing cutting-edge environmental technologies and projects.

Originally from New York State, Alex made aliyah in 1982. He studied international agriculture at Cornel University’s School of Agriculture and is an expert in soil and water sciences, desert architecture, and green technologies. He is engaged actively with the Global Ecovillage Network of which Kibbutz Lotan is a member.

Kibbutz Lotan is a remarkable example of what can be done in Israel when smart, motivated, principled, courageous, and inspired people (backed by the Reform movement) join together in common cause. The Kibbutz grows dates, has a dairy of 250 cows and is developing a goat dairy. Most significantly, it is a center for eco-tourism, has a nature and bird reserve which offers rest and food for millions of annually migrating birds, and is constructing its own wetland in the middle of the desert for treating the community’s waste water. Lotan has developed numerous desert energy technologies, designed green architecture for the severe desert climate, water management systems, and desert agriculture. It is a center, as well, for environmental education and peace-building in association with “Friends of the Earth,” drawing together Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian youth in a regional network of natural builders and organic gardeners that include the Yesh Meayin Eco-Education Farm and the Marda Palestine Permaculture Education Center.

The Kibbutz built a youth center comprised of 10 desert dormitory structures (25 more units are planned at $25K/unit) that welcomed last summer 600 National Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY – the American Reform youth movement). Any American university student can earn 16 course credits for a semester of living and working at Lotan, and post-university green apprenticeships are available. Lotan has also developed materials on how to make “green” businesses anywhere in the world.

Lotan is internationally recognized as a leading ecological center and has received monetary support from the European Union (EU) for its water recycling systems, funds from the Jewish National Fund (JNF) for its “Bird Hide” structure built from recycled waste and the nature reserve giving food, shelter and water to migrating birds) and is recognized for its programs to build bridges between Arabs and Jews. For example, it led the building of the Bustan-Medwed Wadi El Naam Health Clinic that serviced the Bedouins living in unrecognized villages that lacked health care.

Alex explained that Kibbutz Lotan’s mission is to fulfill Judaism’s core values of “tilling and protecting” the earth citing the famous Midrash from Kohelet Rabba 7:28: “Upon presenting the wonder of creation to Adam, God said: ‘See my works, how fine and excellent they are! Now all that I created, for you I created. Think upon this, and do not corrupt and desolate my world; for if you corrupt it, there is no one to set it right after you.’”

I was deeply impressed, inspired and proud of what Alex and Kibbutz Lotan have created. It is but one example of how Israel’s Reform movement is breaking new ground and fulfilling the promise of the Jewish State and the Jewish people to be an or lagoyim, a light unto the nations.

For more information on Kibbutz Lotan and Alex’s work, you can go to Lotan’s website, www.kibbutzlotan.com, Facebook (lotan.kibbutz and lotan.ga), and Youtube (kibbutzlotan). If you wish to assist the Kibbutz, you can send contributions to ARZA (Association of Reform Zionists of America) and direct the gift to Kibbutz Lotan at ARZA, 633 Third Avenue, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10017 (212-650-4280).

Why I Declined to be on the Host Committee for AIPAC in Los Angeles

18 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism

≈ 3 Comments

I was invited to become a member of the Host Committee for a Gala Fundraising event sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Los Angeles in February, 2012. I have declined the invitation, with a heavy heart, and when the Southern Pacific Synagogue Initiative Director of AIPAC invited me to speak with him about why, I wrote this letter and welcomed a follow-up conversation with him. I wanted you to see an edited version of that letter.

Dear Judah:

I welcome the opportunity to meet and begin a conversation with you. Thank you for the offer and outreach.

By way of introduction, my involvement with AIPAC goes back to the 1980s. I was very friendly with Tom Dine (one of the first Executive Directors of AIPAC) who was a congregant when I served at Washington Hebrew Congregation in D.C. in the mid-80s. I have always been respectful and appreciative of AIPAC and its multitude of contributions to the security of the State of Israel through its advocacy in Washington.

One issue for me which keeps me from signing on as a member of the host committee is that too many people involved with AIPAC have become intolerant of American Jewish diversity and uncritical of Israel’s government policies that are undemocratic and reflective of extremist nationalism. For AIPAC (and for that matter, for any pro-Israel Jewish organization) to say nothing is essentially to give tacit support to those undemocratic forces within the government and Israeli society that run counter to the principles articulated in Israel’s own Declaration of Independence calling for a just, democratic society that includes all citizens of the Jewish State.

That is not the only difficulty I have, however. The refusal of AIPAC leadership to meet with J Street leadership, to join together as two pro-Israel organizations when there is consensus on a particular issue, or even to enter into a public debate with J Street President Jeremy ben-Ami about the differences between AIPAC and J Street in their respective approaches to American Jewish politics in Washington, D.C. vis a vis Israel does not serve the cause of Israel as a vital democracy and adds fuel to the flames of many Republican leaders in Congress and their Jewish pro-Israel supporters who seek to make Israel a wedge issue in American politics for political gain. This has never before happened in the 63 year history of the State of Israel vis a vis the American Jewish community.

I believe AIPAC could do much to change this negative and divisive atmosphere by addressing these undemocratic and intolerant trends directly and publicly, but it declines to do so. Remaining quiet is not good for Israel or for the American Jewish community.

Having said this, please understand my own Zionist and pro-Israel background and thinking. I am a national Vice President of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA), supportive of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism (IMPJ), am a member of the Advisory Board of the Daniels Center of Tel Aviv, and have assisted as a congregational rabbi at my own synagogue in helping our Israeli Reform brothers and sisters build two Reform synagogue centers in Israel (Kehillat Mevasseret Zion and Congregation Darchei Noam in Ramat Hasharon). I take missions of my congregants to Israel every two or three years. My synagogue Day School has a 3 year exchange program with the Tzahalah Elementary School (in north Tel Aviv) as part of the LA-Tel Aviv partnership. I have raised millions of dollars for State of Israel Bonds. And I am an active member of the Rabbinic Cabinet of J Street, though I have not always agreed with every position that J Street has taken.

J Street, in my view, is essentially correct in its approach to Congress and Israel, that we American Jews have both a duty to support Israel as a pluralistic democracy that champions human rights and civil liberties, as well as supporting all efforts that will bring about an end-of-conflict solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that results in two-states for two-peoples living side by side in peace and security. I agree with J Street’s position, as well, that pro-Israel American Jewish supporters must be free to criticize Israel’s government (arguably the most right-wing extremist government in the history of the Jewish State) without fear of being placed in cherem (excommunication and pariah status) when it acts in ways that we, as American Zionists and lovers of the Jewish State, believe do not support a peaceful and secure two-state resolution and compromise with the Palestinians.

If you are interested, please read my Rosh Hashanah morning sermon this past High Holiday season which is posted on my synagogue’s web-site (www.tioh.org) to learn what is behind my thinking about Israel, her security and liberal Zionist values.

This is why I have declined to be an active supporter of AIPAC, though again, I am grateful and appreciative of AIPAC for its many years of past advocacy for Israel in our nation’s capital. If you feel comfortable I ask that you share this letter with AIPAC leadership in Washington, D.C.

L’shalom,

Rabbi John Rosove

Release Marwan Barghouti – By Avinoam Bar-Yosef – International Herald Tribune

09 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism

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Last week I wrote about two photographs I have in my drawer – one with former President George W. Bush who I met in 2000 in the run-up to the Presidential “selection” and the other with jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti who I met in Ramallah in 1998. I will never hang my photo with Bush on my wall as the blood on his hands in Iraq to me is a source of profound shame to the United States. The one with Mr. Barghouti, also with blood on his hands from his leadership in the 2nd Intifada, I may hang one day – and hopefully will be able to do so if his release from prison eventually leads to a two-states for two-peoples final resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with him as President of Palestine. Here is an excellent piece published yesterday on Mr. Barghouti in the International Herald Tribune.

Op-Ed Contributor

Release Marwan Barghouti

By AVINOAM BAR-YOSEF
Published: November 8, 2011

When Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently called on Israel to release more Palestinian prisoners in advance of any possible negotiations, he was setting a condition that he probably knew Israel would balk at. One of the prisoners on his list, Ahmed Saadat, is accused of killing an Israeli minister. More significantly, another one, if released, would most likely soon take Abbas’s place.

Related in News

·         Times Topic: Marwan Barghouti

That has not escaped Israeli leaders. In fact, freeing Marwan Barghouti, who is regarded as the sole Palestinian leader who enjoys the full trust of Fatah and the Palestinian public, is said to have figured prominently in high-level Israeli consultations as a means of retaliating against Abbas for his bid for Palestinian statehood at the United Nations, and as a way of ushering in a new and less corrupt generation of Palestinian leaders.

The Israeli peace camp has often called for the release of Barghouti, but the security establishment has strongly opposed it. The 52-year-old, life-long activist is held responsible by Israel for directing many attacks and suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, and he was sentenced in 2004 to five life sentences.

But in his earlier years as a Palestinian student leader and then member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, he also opened channels not only with the Israeli left, but also with the Israeli center-right, because he believed that an agreement could not be achieved with only the “peaceniks.”

I knew him well in those years, before he turned militant. He speaks Hebrew, and never denied the right of the Jewish people to a Jewish state. And while he always made clear to his counterparts that a Palestinian state would have an Islamic character, and was proud of being a Muslim, he also expressed contempt for Islamic fundamentalists.

Above all, he has never been associated with the corruption of the Palestinian establishment that formed around Yasser Arafat. While a student at Ramallah’s Birzeit University, his main efforts were invested in the refugee camps: social work, aid to the ill and the poor, cleaning the streets.

In 1987 he was deported by the late Yitzhak Rabin, then minister of defense, because of his role in preparing the first, less violent, intifada. Barghouti spent seven years in exile, keeping his distance from Arafat’s corrupted entourage in Tunis. He was allowed back in 1994, under the Oslo Accords signed by the same Rabin, and in 1996 elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council, where he was a strong critic of the corruption in Fatah. In 1995 he was among the founders of Tanzim, an armed, grassroots offshoot which played a significant role in the second intifada, far more violent than the first.

So why would Israelis, including some from the intelligence community, seriously consider releasing Barghouti?

For one thing, he and Tanzim represent the next generation of secular Palestinian leaders. One of the biggest mistakes of the Israeli establishment and American envoys over the past two years has been their failure to open back channels to Tanzim, a group also ignored by Abbas and his officials.

Barghouti would also form a powerful leadership team with Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Like Barghouti, Fayyad is regarded as being above any dirty dealings. He has structured an impressively efficient bureaucracy. He is rightly courted by the Obama administration and many Israelis. It is well known that there is no love lost between him and Abbas, but the Palestinian president needs Fayyad to ensure a flow of funds from the West.

The trouble is that Fayyad is regarded by the Palestinians as a professional, as the C.E.O. of the Palestinian Authority, but not as its leader. Many experts believe that Israeli and Western negotiators should encourage cooperation between Fayyad and Barghouti. The endorsement of Tanzim would bring Fayyad and his reforms critical support from the Palestinians.

This may be why some in the Israeli leadership, those who are interested in achieving a two-state solution to the conflict, see Barghouti as a possible partner, even if his sins are not forgiven. At least he is honest, and has the trust of the Palestinian people. Abbas, after all, is Arafat’s former deputy, and hardly a saint in Jewish eyes, and at 76 he appears largely concerned now with his legacy.

To hold the peace process hostage to Barghouti’s release raises an impossible hurdle for any Israeli politician. Abbas and his associates understand this well. But even if the Israelis cannot release him now, at least they should immediately initiate a back channel to Tanzim, and allow its representatives unencumbered communication with the jailed Barghouti.

The world should understand that there is a new Israeli phenomenon: most Israelis have moved to the left when it comes to the peace process and are ready for compromise even if, for tactical reasons, they vote for the right. A majority of Israelis would support a two-state deal if it included a Palestinian state that recognized Israel as what it is, a Jewish state, and the Palestinian right of return was limited to the new Palestine, while the Jewish right of return was limited to Israel proper. They do not believe that Abbas is ready at this point to accept this.

If such an understanding could be reached with Tanzim and Fayyad, then Barghouti could be released to take his place in the landscape of Palestinian leadership.

Avinoam Bar-Yosef is the president of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute and a former chief diplomatic correspondent for the daily Maariv.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on November 9, 2011, in The International Herald Tribune with the headline: Release Marwan Barghouti.

Death Penalty for the Crime of Driving While Israeli – Bradley Burston in Haaretz

04 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism

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  • Death Penalty for the Crime of Driving While Israeli – Bradley Burston
    As of this week, my daughter’s school is now within reach of rockets from Gaza that travel farther and with far more deadly payloads than the weapons we knew just a short time ago. With blasts strong enough to shatter apartment windows seven stories in the air. My daughter is an unarmed noncombatant. That should matter. It should matter, in particular, to progressives who believe, and justly so, that the inalienable rights of human beings, children in particular, take clear precedence.
    It should matter, as well, when progressives turn a blind eye to war crimes committed against Israel. Here, Islamic Jihad’s calls of “Death to Israel” come wrapped in Iranian steel and 40 pounds of explos ives: a call for genocide. “Death to Israel” means death to Israelis. It means death to the members of my family, a family which has long worked hard and consistently and intensively for the rights of Palestinians, Muslims and Christians alike, to live in safety and sovereignty in a country of their own. Last weekend, Moshe Ami, a father and grandfather killed by an Islamic Jihad rocket, was put to death on the streets of Ashkelon for the crime of Driving While Israeli. (Ha’aretz)

Two Photographs I Cannot Now Hang on my Wall

31 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by in Israel and Palestine

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I am not one to hang photographs of myself and celebrities in my office or at home. If I were, I have two photographs that I cannot imagine hanging at this time. One is with Presidential Candidate George W. Bush and Laura Bush taken in the months preceding the 2000 election. I had joined many rabbinic colleagues in October, 2000 in a meeting with the candidate after which we had the “honor” of standing with the soon-to-be-elected Bush and his wife Laura for a photograph.

The other photograph, which inspires this blog, was taken in 1998 of myself in conversation with the then leader of the West Bank’s Fatah organization, Marwan Barghouti, in his offices in Ramallah. Mr. Barghouti graciously received about 20 rabbis from Israel, the United States and Canada in a delegation of the Rabbinic Cabinet of the Association of Reform Zionists of America, the Reform Zionist organization. The then Executive Director of ARZA, and now one of my dearest friends, Rabbi Ammi Hirsch, who led our group had asked me to chair that meeting and introduce our group to Barghouti. At the time, Mr. Barghouti was a relative unknown. He was young (then 39) and small in physical stature, and Yassir Arafat still had the reigns of control. Oslo wasn’t quite yet dead and Barghouti was regarded as a “moderate” and a presumed leader of the Palestinian people

He told us that PA leader Arafat supported a two-state solution (in hindsight, I wonder), and Mr. Barghouti believed that there would eventually be a State of Palestine existing peacefully beside a State of Israel. The only two issues he told us where he believed there would be difficulties were concerning Jerusalem and refugees.

I am reminded of these photographs in light of the release this month of Gilad Shalit for 1027 Palestinian prisoners, several hundred of whom have “blood on their hands.”

Mr. Barghouti was a leader of the First and Second Intifadas, and though he supported the peace process when I met him, he later became disillusioned. After 2000 he went on to become the main figure behind the Al-Aqsa Intifada in the West Bank. He is credited with founding the Tanzim.

Mr. Barghouti was accused by Israeli authorities of directing numerous attacks and suicide bombings against Israelis. He was arrested in 2002, accused of the murder of Israeli civilians and attacks on Israeli soldiers, tried and convicted on charges of murder, and sentenced to five life sentences. Mr. Barghouti refused to present a defense to the charges brought against him, maintaining throughout that the trial was illegal and illegitimate. The Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery has called him “Palestine’s Mandela.”

When I led a group of Temple Israel leaders to Israel last November, we met with the head of the Palestine News Agency, Ma’an, in Bethlehem. He told our group that without question, Marwan Barghouti is the most popular Palestinian in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, that Israelis are speaking with him continuously, and that should he ever be released from prison he would become President of the State of Palestine once it is established and eclipse all Fatah and Hamas leaders.

It is questionable whether Barghouti supports a two-states for two-peoples resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is also questionable whether any Israeli government would release him either in advance of or as part of a peace agreement. Yet, after the release of so many Palestinian terrorists with the blood of innocent Israeli men, women and children on their hands, what possible rationale can Israel advance for not releasing Barghouti? If such a release would facilitate bringing Israel and the Palestinians to an end-of-conflict agreement, I would support releasing Barghouti in a Tel Aviv second. From inside our own history, we cannot ignore the fact that both Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir also had innocent blood on their hands and each went on to become Prime Ministers.

By the way – President George W. Bush has far more blood of innocent Iraqis on his hands than any Palestinian terrorist ever, to the tune of thousands of lives. Be assured, I will never put Bush’s photograph on my wall – but I might put Barghouti’s there if he could make peace with the State of Israel.

 

Admiral Ami Ayalon – A Sane Voice for a Two-States for Two-Peoples Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

28 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by in American Jewish Life, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism

≈ 2 Comments

It makes me feel hopeful when I hear Israeli experts and I find myself nodding in agreement with virtually everything they say. Such was the case last evening (Thursday) at a Los Angeles J Street event featuring Admiral Ami Ayalon, former Commander of Israel’s Navy and head of Shin Bet, Israel’s General Security Service, along with J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami about whom I have written before (see my Book Recommendations).

In 2003 Ami Ayalon joined with Palestinian Professor Sari Nusseibeh to develop a set of principles for a permanent agreement between Israel and the Palestinians – see http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/1273B3972DA8E47185256DD00055A0CF. Eventually, 450,000 Israelis and Palestinians signed on signaling a consensus on what is likely to be the contours of an eventual two-states for two-peoples end-of-conflict solution.

Last evening, Admiral Ayalon repeated the general principles and noted the following:

[1] We have gone backwards over the last three years. Pragmatic leaders in Arab countries cannot deliver what they could have delivered three years ago. There is a new Middle East, more unstable with different divisions of power. Leaders are weaker and the Arab street is stronger. Egypt has disappeared as the potential guarantor of an agreement. Turkey is no longer the ally to Israel it once was;

[2] It is time to recognize that the settlers have made it possible for Israel to be accepted de facto and de jure within the Arab world; but, it is now time to bring the settlers who live outside the main block of Jewish settlements and east of the security fence home with full compensation and deep expressions of gratitude by the Jewish people and the state of Israel for their sacrifice. These people, despite many of their extremism, are NOT our enemy. They are our people. It is time for Israel’s government to say that Israel should not build in those areas east of the fence, but within the areas that will be within Israel after an agreement (per the statement of principles), Israel has every right to continue to build and expand, and should say so;

[3] Direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will not work at this time and we should not be pushing this as an end goal nor as the determiner of whether there is progress or not towards an agreement. Rather, both sides need to come to a consensus through others around the stipulations noted in the set of principles (above);

[4] The President of the United States is the ONLY world leader who will be capable of bringing the Israelis and Palestinians to the consensus position. The Quartet and the UN are not so capable. If the President succeeds, all others will follow and there will be an international consensus. The Israelis know it and the Palestinians know it.

[5] Admiral Ayalon told us that J Street has enabled him and people like him to have a voice in America because his ideas, though representing the consensus, are not welcome by and large in the organized American Jewish community despite the vast majority of American Jews (according to all non-partisan surveys) agreeing with those ideas.

Barbara and I left this meeting feeling at once hopeful and infuriated that the common consensus shared by all except the extremists has given way to the extremist minority. When will that stop? This week’s Parashat Noach reminds us of the catastrophe that can occur when avarice, fear and hatred win the day. However, we cannot forget that the dove and the rainbow are the hope of the Jewish people and humanity as a whole.

 

A Message to our Politicians from Rashi and Genesis – from Parashat Noach

26 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by in American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Israel and Palestine

≈ 2 Comments

In viewing the behavior of some politicians and government officials in the United States, particularly those running for president in the Republican party, as well as the government of Israel, Rashi’s commentary (11th century France) on Avram towards the very end of the Torah portion Noach this week is relevant. His comments appear relative to Genesis 11:26-28, as follows:

“When Terach had lived seventy years, he begot Avram, Nahor, and Haran. Now these are the begettings of Terah: Terah begot Avram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begot Lot. Haran died in the living presence of Terah his father (al p’nei Terach aviv) in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans.”

Here is Rashi’s commentary on the above passage: “Al p’nei Terach aviv -The words al p’nei denote “during the lifetime of his father.” And the aggadic intepretation says: The words al p’nei denote that “on account of his father did he die.” For Terach complained against Avram his son before King Nimrod because Avram had crushed his [Terach] idols; and King Nimrod cast him [Avram] into a fiery furnace, while Haran sat and said to himself, “If Avram wins I shall be on his side, and if Nimrod wins I shall be on his side.” And when Avram was saved they said to Haran, ‘On whose side are you?’ Then Haran said to them, ‘I am on Avram’s side.’ Whereupon they cast him into the fiery furnace and he was burned. And that is the significance of Ur Chaldees [lit, “The fire of the Chaldees” – B’reishit Rabba]…”

What is the lesson? To our political candidates here and in Israel, stop pandering to the most extreme elements or to the winds of popular sentiment for the sake of your holding onto or winning office. Find your true voice and speak it based on reason, the facts, heart, soul, and the interest of the common good and avoid being thrown into the furnaces of whim, stupidity and short-sighted gain!