Weaving together Jewish thought, Jewish law and her personal experiences Crossing the Rubicon has put together a very moving post on the Schiavo case. I (and everyone else) can nobly say "I wouldn't want that kind of treatment" or "I believe that we must maintain life at all costs." But I never (thank G-d) had to make such a decision. She once was in the position to make a similar choice.
(via Instapundit) Right Wing News has put together a very useful FAQ about the Schiavo case. Unfortunately there's been a lot of misinformation about the case and it's important to get our facts straight. He introduces some uncertainties that aren't usually amplified but otherwise this seems consistent with what we know from the MSM.
It shows that the sequence I outlined earlier was not correct. Apparently the nastiness is over money, not whether or not to believe there was any hope she would recover, as I had speculated.
In case you thought that the tsunami was a natural disaster and tragedy, Palestinian Media Watch reported that in Sheik Ibrahim Madiras's Friday sermon, on PA TV Jan. 7, 2005, he said:
"The Muslim remembers, how the Jews corrupted the land... Oh Muslims! The Jews are Jews. Their character and custom are the corruption and destruction of this land. We keep warning you: the Jews are a cancer that spreads inside the body of the Islamic and Arab nation.... They invest in the East Asian countries, which were destroyed [by the Tsunami] because of the Jewish and American corruption and destruction."
" The second possibility is that it was some kind of human intervention that destabilized the tectonic plates, an intervention that is caused only in nuclear experiments and explosions. What strengthens this direction [of thought] are the tectonic plates [under] Indian soil [ sic ], since in the recent few months, India conducted over seven nuclear tests to strengthen its nuclear program against the Pakistani [nuclear program]."[Various] reports have proven that the tectonic plates in India and Australia collided with the tectonic plates of Europe and Asia. [It has also been proven] that India recently obtained high[-level] nuclear technology, and a number of Israeli nuclear experts and several American research centers were [involved in preparing this].
"The three most recent tests appeared to be genuine American and Israeli preparations to act together with India to test a way to liquidate humanity. In the[ir] most recent test, they began destroying entire cities over extensive areas. Although the nuclear explosions were carried out in desert lands, tens of thousands of kilometers away from populated areas, they had a direct effect on these areas.
Or maybe, according to a more recent prediction by a Palesitnian Koranic scholar, Allah's just practicing:
A thorough analysis of the Koran reveals that the US will cease to exist in the year 2007, according to research published by Palestinian scholar Ziad Silwadi.The study, which has caught the attention of millions of Muslims worldwide, is based on in-depth interpretations of various verses in the Koran. It predicts that the US will be hit by a tsunami larger than that which recently struck southeast Asia.
"The tsunami waves are a minor rehearsal in comparison with what awaits the US in 2007," the researcher concluded in his study. "The Holy Koran warns against the Omnipotent Allah's force. A great sin will cause a huge flood in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans."
As I've noted before, OLAF, the investigative arm of the EU, couldn't establish that the EU's contributions to the PA helped finance terror. Funny, but the PA's own finance ministry now boasts that it had cut corruption by 27%. What does that say about the investigative powers of the EU? Closer to Clouseau than to Holmes.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.
A number of bloggers ( including Volokh Conspiracy, Secular Blasphemy) have noted that there is a section of Idaho where, if you commit a serious crime, you could very well get away without a felony conviction due to a poorly written statue.
Of course, if the author of this offbeat paper, Brian Kalt, is correct, you still may not be able to get away with murder.
Fortunately, Secular Blasphemy has another useful bit of information. Flee to Norway.
to Crossing the Rubicon2. Beautiful pictures from Hawaii. Two good posts about Israel. I need to write about the Podhoretz article and probably a letter to Commentary. But I have ideas for a few longer posts and have to find the time.
And thanks for plugging the "Purim Carnival."
While were at it, this week's Haveil Havalim is at Critical Mastiff. Please send him your nominations of Israel and Jewish related posts at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com or at the host's e-mail of orendog at yahoo dot com.
If there is a central issue in the Terry Schiavo case it is this comment quoted by Kesher Talk:
It all hinges on whether the feeding tube is simply nutrition and water, or whether it should be regarded as medicineMany of us who opposed the removal of Terry Schiavo's feeding tube see nutrition as being the equivalent of air to breathe. Cut off her nutrition and it's the same as cutting off her air. You might as well put a pillow over her face. For those who champioined the removal of her feeding tube it's a medical decision; no different from a respirator for someone whose lungs are failing.
Great Falls, Va.: Isn't it unfair to call this situation a case of "medical care.'? Food and water are among the most basic needs of a human being. And as any RN can tell you, it takes very little to learn how to use a feeding tube and such a person requires no special diet. If food and water are as basic a necessity to life as the air we breath, why not suffocate Ms. Schiavo and get it over with more quickly? Death by starvation is one of the most cruel ways to go.Lawrence Frolik: The American Medical Association has ruled that the artificial provision of nutrition and hydration are a form of medical treatment. And since she does not feel pain, it does not seem cruel. As for suffocating her, that would be criminal homicide.
Terri is given food and water through tubes. Is disconnecting a feeding tube the same as ending life support?Yes, under Florida law, which governs the ability of each person to determine, or to appoint someone to determine, whether each of us should receive what the Legislature terms "life-prolonging medical procedures." The Legislature has explained:
The Legislature recognizes that for some the administration of life-prolonging medical procedures may result in only a precarious and burdensome existence. In order to ensure that the rights and intentions of a person may be respected even after he or she is no longer able to participate actively in decisions concerning himself or herself, and to encourage communication among such patient, his or her family, and his or her physician, the Legislature declares that the laws of this state recognize the right of a competent adult to make an advance directive instructing his or her physician to provide, withhold, or withdraw life-prolonging procedures, or to designate another to make the treatment decision for him or her in the event that such person should become incapacitated and unable to personally direct his or her medical care.
§ 765.102(3), Florida Statutes.The Legislature has also defined what is a "life-prolonging procedure":
"Life-prolonging procedure" means any medical procedure, treatment, or intervention, including artificially provided sustenance and hydration, which sustains, restores, or supplants a spontaneous vital function. The term does not include the administration of medication or performance of medical procedure, when such medication or procedure is deemed necessary to provide comfort care or to alleviate pain.
§ 765.101(10), Florida Statutes (italics added by me).
It is important to note that Jewish law clearly distinguishes between terminal illness and progressively debilitating illness (a distinction that is often ignored in secular ethics discussions).(Read the whole article. Jewish law does allow a measure of personal autonomy whether to accept or refuse treatment. But not in this case. Halachically a living will asking to be denied extraordinary measures would have no force.)An incurable illness which will likely result in the death of the patient within one year is considered terminal with respect to Jewish law. A patient with such an illness or condition is called a "chayay sha'ah,"16 -- one whose life is "timed" or "time-limited." One who is expected to survive beyond a year is considered a "chayay olam" -- one whose life is considered "eternal" in the sense that their life expectancy is presumed indefinite and not limited.
Thus, in halacha, persistent vegetative state and Alzheimer's disease are not terminal conditions, per se, despite the fact that they are progressive, irreversible and inevitably result in death. Halacha insists that patients with these illnesses deserve the same full range of treatment that is made available to any other patient. They are not "terminal" (until the very end stages of their illnesses) and must be aggressively treated without regard to the apparent "futility" of their lives.
My case, and that of countless other people who have made that decision, differs from that of Terri Schiavo in two important ways. First, the early death of my mother was certain, but no one could say that Ms. Schiavo would die soon or possibly at any time before she might die of old age. Second, all the relevant family members agreed on the decision about my mother, but family members are deeply divided about Terri.These differences are of decisive importance. When death will occur soon and inevitably, the patient does not starve to death when life support ends. Since there was no chance of our mother living more than a few more days, what my sister and I did could not be called murder. When death will not occur soon, or perhaps for many years, and when there is a chance, even a very small one, that recovery is possible, people who authorize the withdrawal of life support are playing God.
Looks like I've "let down" some fellow right-of-center bloggers with my views on the Schiavo case. Nevertheless, I'll let my post on the affair continue to stand for itself.Hube's Cube's commenters still saw the possibility of opportunism. But I suspect in this day and age politicians would poll about anything and everything. Either the Republicans knew the risks or they didn't care. (I realize that, to some, that makes what the Republicans did even more outrageous.)That being said, there seems to an inherent contradiction espoused by some on the left that Pres. Bush and Republicans in Congress that they're engaging in "political opportunism" and "trafficking in human misery" by getting involved in the Schiavo matter. But, if, as columnist Robert Scheer notes, "70% of Americans polled nationally called congressional intervention in the Schiavo case inappropriate, with 58% holding that view "strongly," how then can the president and Congress be "opportunistic?"
Although I am conflicted about what is going on. I'm not as critical of the Republican politicians as Charles Krauthammer ( a member of the President's council on bio-ethics) is. If there's one group whose views truly disturb me it is that of the medical ethicists.
An excellent article in the Washington Post tells us:
Because the brain performs so many functions, Veatch and others said, the ongoing challenge facing scientists and ethicists is to determine which of those functions add up to a life.What's wrong with this?
If you surveyed the avalanche of TV and print commentary that descended upon us this week, you found social conservatives would start the discussion with a moral argument about the sanctity of life, and then social liberals would immediately start talking about jurisdictions, legalisms, politics and procedures. They were more comfortable talking about at what level the decision should be taken than what the decision should be.Then, if social conservatives tried to push their moral claims, you'd find liberals accusing them of turning this country into a theocracy - which is an effort to cast all moral arguments beyond the realm of polite conversation.
Once moral argument is abandoned, there are no ethical checks, no universal standards, and everything is left to the convenience and sentiments of the individual survivors.
What I'm describing here is the clash of two serious but flawed arguments. The socially conservative argument has tremendous moral force, but doesn't accord with the reality we see when we walk through a hospice. The socially liberal argument is pragmatic, but lacks moral force.
This problem of medial ethics is illustrated by the comments of Lawrence Frolik cited above:
The American Medical Association has ruled that the artificial provision of nutrition and hydration are a form of medical treatment. And since she does not feel pain, it does not seem cruel. As for suffocating her, that would be criminal homicide.
There already was such an article in the Jewish Observer a few months ago. It described several cases in which Orthodox patients had DNR orders entered on their charts without their consent or authorization and against the unanimous wishes of their families. In some cases, Agudath Israel went to court against the hospital to have the DNR order removed. Several families were pressured to remove various forms of life-sustaining treatment, on the argument that the patient was a “vegetable.” Some of these so-called vegetables walked out of the hospital on their own, in one case only four days after being designated a “vegetable.”
Today Clarity and Resolve tells us how well The New Abbas (same as the old boss) is facing down the terrorists in his midst. What's he doing? He's integrating them into his police force. How fortunate is Israel. I suppose that New York would have been a lot safer if the city had recruited John Gotti's gunsels into the NYPD instead of seeking to prosecute him and put him out of business. (That's not to say that there weren't corrupt cops. Just that systematically recruiting the bad guys into your police force is probably not a way to "increase the peace.") And I think that the picture that Patrick the Kafir included is worth a thousand words.
(Speaking of pictures look at how Hamas celebrates the yahrzeits of Yassin and Rantisi. Courtesy of It's almost supernatural.)
In other news, (thanks to the ever vigilant Malka Young) DM Mofaz is apparently at the end of his patience with the PA as Israel apparently has intelligence indicating that Palestinian security services are smuggling missiles into Gaza. (Yeah, joining the security services really seems to reform these guys.)
Mofaz also told ministers that Palestinian Authority military intelligence agents were involved in recent attempts to smuggle anti-aircraft missiles into Gaza.He told the weekly cabinet meeting that Strela missiles may have been smuggled into the Gaza Strip from Egypt through tunnels, despite the fact that the PA has recently acted against such infrastructure and exposed about 20 tunnels.
Israel's Ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon, responding Sunday to a controversy surrounding American policy on the Middle East, said that President George W. Bush unequivocally supports Israel's stance that major West Bank settlement blocs are to be part of the Jewish state under a future peace treaty.This is no small matter. With publications like the Washington Post writing editorials like "Freeze this Settlement":
On Friday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer strongly denied a Yedioth Aharonoth report quoting the him as having stated that, contrary to Israeli statements, no understandings had been reached between Israel and the Bush administration over the future status of the settlement blocs.
...
Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, however, decided later Sunday that there would be no criminal probe into how the ambassador's comments were leaked.
PRESIDENT BUSH didn't leave much room for doubt about his position on Israeli settlement construction when he last addressed the issue. The government of Ariel Sharon "must freeze settlement activity," the president said in a speech to European leaders in Brussels in February. Moreover, he added, a Palestinian state "of scattered territories will not work." The large settlement expansion announced by Mr. Sharon's government this week grossly violates both those principles. Construction of the 3,500 new homes between the existing West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim and East Jerusalem, on what is now barren land, would contravene previous Israeli commitments to the Bush administration and the U.S.-sponsored "road map" for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. By sealing off Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods from the West Bank as well as a key north-south corridor, it also would make a contiguous Palestinian state practically impossible.This of course is an outright falsehood as this map from the Washington Institute for Near East Peace makes clear. Connecting Maale Adumim to Yerushalayim will not make a "contiguous Palestinian state practically impossible." But when someone from official Israel - or Israel's media - undermines Israel's position that action supports this kind of falsehood that only makes Israel's position harder to defend and effectively legitimizes terror against Israel. (Thanks again to It's almost supernatural.)
Jack Englehard made a fascinating observation in his essay "Destruction Day":
The Talmud -- again by the way -- was the first blog. Those sages were bloggers. Sparkling wisdom throughout, but sometimes random riffs and asides (like today's Internet blogs), yet it all falls into place, distills, and somehow reaches marvelous coherence and finds the Source from which everything begins and ends. Shlomo was right. There is nothing new under the sun.
It’s all going to work out. I’ve been studying T’hilim (Psalms) and Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), and King David was also persecuted. He kept this “blog” diary, in which he wrote his thoughts, fears and prayers. Afterwards, a hundred and fifty of them were found and collected, and today that’s what we call T’hilim. In chapter 7, 16 King David wrote that the evil one will fall into his own trap, and in the end of Chapter 34, he reassures us that if we go with G-d, G-d will save us and punish the wicked.Yes, King David wrote an ancient blog, and so did his son, Shlomo. Shlomo was actually quite a blogger, Kohelet, Mishlei and Shir Hashirim. I guess that he had the state of the art laptop of his day. I wonder how many hits a week he got; a lot more than my blogs get for sure.
Most people if asked to identify a character trait in one of the players in the Purim drama that drove the story would probably point to Haman's arrogance or pride. It was his pride that made him feel that nothing was worth it as long as Mordechai didn't bow down to him. And subsequently that's what caused him to overreach and seek revenge against all of the Jews. That brought him into conflict with the Queen that led to his ultimate undoing.
But in more recent years, I started focusing on another trait possessed by a different player that was the linchpin for the story. That is the paranoia of Achashveirosh.
The Midrash chides Achashveirosh for his inconsistency. First he kills his wife at the behest of his advisor; later he kills his advisor at the behest of his wife. But in both cases he was really consistent. First Haman and later Esther successfully appealed to the king's paranoia and it is what allowed the the Jews of Persian empire (if not the whole world!) to escape their fate.
I first started thinking about the king's paranoia when I started reflecting on the King's decree that no one may enter his inner chamber without being called. Any person attempting to do so was necessarily assumed to be an enemy and his life was forfeit; unless the king pardoned him. I thought that extraordinary. (I'll admit, my brother disagrees with me. He didn't think that such edicts were necessarily so unusual in that time. Kings had many enemies. But even if such a law were not remarkable it doesn't mean that Achashveirosh wasn't paranoid.)
Achashveirosh's ascension to the throne was a reason perhaps he was paranoid. He was a commoner who apparently took advantage of marrying the daughter of a slain regent to claim the throne. In essence his claim to legitimacy stemmed from his wife.
When Vashti refused his summons, the medrash tells us that she not only refused she insulted him and said that her royal father, Belshatzar, could drink more than a thousand men but when her husband, Achashveirosh, got drunk at first beer. This wasn't just an insult against her husband it was a reminder of his lowly origins.
Haman realized an opening. Rashi tells us that Haman was not necessarily one of the king's closest advisors, but after he told the king to kill Vashti, his status was elevated. Haman addressed the king's insecurity and went so far as to say that Vashti's rebellion would encourage all the women of the empire to challenge their husbands' authority. He told the king that it was necessary to put an end to such a possibility and kill Vashti. That would re-establish the king's authority.
Of course, after Achasveirosh killed Vashti, he had a new problem. His legitimacy stemmed from her status. Now he lacked a claim to the throne.
In order to find a new wife he ordered every eligible woman to come to the palace. The one he eventually chose, Esther, had an interesting quality.
The Gemora (Megila 13:A) comments on Esther 2:15, "...Esther found favor in the eyes of all who saw her" that Esther appeared to each person in the kingdom as if she was his/her nationality. In short everyone identified with her. This is what made her ideal in the eyes of Achashveirosh. He could no longer make a royal claim to the throne; but through marrying Esther he could make a popular claim. By not identifying her nationality Esther made this quality possible.
However in order to save the Jews Esther had to embark on a risky strategy. First she defied the king's decree and entered his inner sanctum without being summoned. When the king pardoned her (according the Midrash with Divine intervention) she then asked that the king and Haman would come to a party she was making. One of the reasons cited by the Talmud (Megialla 14:B) was to arouse suspicion in the eyes of Achashveirosh that maybe she and Haman were plotting; not a safe strategy when dealing with a paranoic, but necessary in order to cast suspicion on Haman.
After the first party Haman is quite self-satisfied but then he sees Mordechai who refuses to bow to him and immediately he is overtaken by anger. Egged on by his supporters, Haman sets out to build a gallows with the purpose of hanging Mordecha one he gets the sanction of the king.
But that night everything turns around. The king can't sleep. According to the Midrash Rabba the king dreamt that Haman was seeking to kill him. This is hidden Divine intervention to help Esther bring her plan to a successful conclusion.
An alternative mentioned in the Talmud, (Megilla 16:B) explicitly connects to the notion that Esther's invitation of Haman to the intimate party with the king made the king think, "What prompted Esther to invite Haman to the party ... maybe they are plotting to kill me. Is there someone who has done me a favor that I have not repaid that no one will come forward to tell me of plots against me." With that he called for the chronicles to be brought before him.
When the chronicles are read before Achashveirosh he realizes that Mordechai has saved his life and has not been repaid. He asks who is in the courtyard and Haman is there.
He asks his advisor to advise him; how best can he honor someone who had done him a favor. Think of this as a Rorschach test. The king not only is seeking advice but asking Haman how he views himself. Haman fails spectacularly.
Haman advises the king to dress the person in royal clothes and have him ride on the royal horse and have a footman calling out: This is what is done to the one whom the King wishes to honor.
Achashveirosh must be amazed at Hanan's audacity. This was the man he was dreaming was seeking to kill him. This was the man who was apparently a special confidant of the queen too; possibly involved in a conspiracy with the Esther. And here he was declaring his naked ambition to be king.
The king quickly tossed cold water on those ambitions and told Haman to give the complete treatment to Mordechai! And as an added kicker says: Don't leave out a single detail from all you have mentioned.
That night is the second party and the stage is set for Esther to consummate her plan. (Haman's downfall is presaged in a conversation he has with his supporters that day.)
At some point at the second party, Achashveirosh asks Esther again: What may I do for you? And Esther tells the king that Haman wishes to kill her and her people. The king is furious and what happens?
1) Haman falls ( or is pushed - Megilla 16:B) onto Esther's bed further inflaming the king's suspicion. ("Are you to conquer the queen with me in the house?")
2) Charvona - possibly a conspirator of Haman's who now wishes to be in the king's good graces (Megillah 16:B) - helpfully points out that Haman has built a gallows to hang the man, Mordechai, who had saved the king's life.
Achashveirosh didn't need to hear anymore and ordered Haman hanged.
So Achashveirosh did kill his queen at the behest of his friend and later his friend at the behest of his queen. But in both cases the action was taken in response to a fear for the loss of his position and possibly his life. Vashti was killed and Esther was elevated to a position where she could help because Haman exploited the king's fears. Esther even more masterfully and at great risk to herself manipulated those fears again to defeat Haman. In both cases it was the king's blessed paranoia through which salvation was brought to the Jews.
Foreward: Welcome to Haveil Havalim #15, the Purim Carnival for the Jewish year 5765. I have updated and edited this without clear demarcations. I have also added to it several times since I first posted it. (i.e. the content is rather disorganized.) As befitting something having to do with Purim, I'll have it finished once Purim is over! (Though there's still some time left for those in ancient walled cities.) So without further ado here's Haveil Havalim, the Purim edition:
Mirty Gets Married provides us with, among other things, the Unitarian view of Purim as well as her own take on the holiday. Purim easy? Try making 30 sets of Shalach Manos for your children's teachers and friends! And delivering them! Especially on a Friday when the Seudah (festival meal) is at 11 AM!
Not quite perfect introduces us to fractal art via a Digital Hamentashen. This reminds me of an article in the WSJ years ago about mathematical topologists. The article informed us that topologists claim that doughnuts and coffee cups are topologically equivalent. Someone then noted wryly that topologists can't tell the two items apart.
Mystical Paths (re-)suggests a worthy organization to support with your gifts of Matanot Le'evyonim on Purim in Matanot Le'evyonim - Gifts for the Poor.
Critical Mastiff draws a contemporary lesson from Mordechai's refusal to bow.
Out of step Jew tells the ongoing saga of Reb Yankele Doniel to the music of the Naarei Chof. ( Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4 and Part5) I love the lyrics:
Well, the Vilna girls are smartI tell people that I married my wife for her sefarim (i.e. Jewish books).
I really dig those books they read
DovBear has kindly grouped together links to all 9 parts of his Purim Shpiel in which he compares President Bush (unfavorably) to King Achashveirosh. In the spirit of Jblogger comity I will withhold my retort.
Neither Here nor There pokes fun of Israel's government.
Bloghead asks for the best Purim blogs and (courtesy of DovBear) points us to OnlyTzaras. A commenter points to the always excellent Bangitout.com. Life-of-Rubin, in the spirit of the day, introduces us to a new Jewish musical artist.
I am not done yet, I plan to post more tonight. I hope this whets your appetite for more (vain) Purim blogging fun!
Shiloh Musings invites you to Shiloh - home of Eli and Samuel - for Purim. Actually she invited you as the post is a repeat of last year's.
Thanks to blogdigger I discovered that Hawaii for Purim is also an option. (Though not as spiritually uplifting as Shiloh is!)
An e-mail from my brother in Israel pointed me to Modern Orthodoxisms at the AJHistory blog. Also at AJHistory is how the blogger will celebrate Purim.
Velveteen Rabbi has her thoughts on Purim - including a link here, thanks - and a number of links around the web.
Sha! considers the "retirements" of a number of modern day Hamans. And celebrates their absence.
Jewlicious compares Purim to St. Patrick's day. Plus the lowdown on some Purim movies.
Boker Tov Boulder not only has a Dvar Torah by R' Gavriel Goldfeder but also a link to plenty of "light bulb' jokes. I guess you could say it has Purim and Torah.
Israelly Cool! wishes all a happy Purim, directs those who would like to know more about Purim to appropriate websites and in the spirit of the day provides us with a number of Purim pickup lines. Guys: this is a warning - don't try them if you're married or drunk. I'm not sure they'd work if you're single and sober either.
Rishon-Rishon gives us a summary of the Megillah (scroll of) Esther as well as some of the laws and customs of Purim and, as his wont, provides plenty of textual background too.
Congregation Ahavas Yisroel of Kew Gardens Hills gives a rundown of the proper procedures for having a Purim Seudah (feast) tomorrow - or later today! And may I mention that CAYKGH is right accross the street from Etz Chaim whose Rabbi is one of my best friends! (Warning: your times may be different.)
Clarity and Resolve treats to a picture of two Israeli soldiers treating themselves to Hamentaschen and sends Purim wishes his Jewish friends and readers.
I'm not done yet. I'm still working on my Purim post. I hope to finish it after Shabbos. And while you won't be reading this until after Purim (in all likelihood) I have a Purim Torah riddle. I'll leave posting open until Sunday. If you see anymore good Purim posts, please send them my way at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.
Where is the the smallest baker mentioned?
Esther 8:8 "..v'nachtom b'tabaas ha-melech"
Literally that means: "... and sealed with the king's ring." But the word "nachtom" in Hebrew also means "baker".
Finally, I have up my contribution to the Purim Carnival "Blessed Paranoia."
Also, I've discovered belatedly that parshablog has his Purim posts up. He helpfully indexed them here.
Kesher Talk also has a collection of Purim related post.
We'd like to welcome two new hosts in the coming weeks:
Haveil Havalim #16 is scheduled to be hosted by CriticalMastiff on April 3. e-mail him from now until April 2 at orendog at yahoo dot com.
Haveil Havalim #17 is scheduled to be hosted by MysticalPaths on April 10. e-mail him at akivam at gmail dot com.
Thanks guys for being willing to take on Haveil Havalim. And Thank you all for reading. I must stress that I don't agree with everything I've linked to. But I think there's something nice about knowing how different people feel about Purim.
Continue reading to see the list of past hosts.
#14 Multiple Mentality
#13 IsraPundit
#12 DovBear
#11 Kesher Talk
#10 Biur Chametz
#9 Soccer Dad
#8 It's Almost Supernatural
#7 Bloghead
#6 Willow Tree.
#5 Crossing the Rubicon2
#4 Dov Bear
#3 Biur Chametz
I was really impressed with yesterday's NY Times editorial, "One Step Back in the Mideast":
Maybe President Mahmoud Abbas doesn't quite get it yet but this new era of hope in the Middle East means he needs to restrain his instincts to excuse the terror against Israel.
In his recent meeting in Cairo with the leaders of terrorist groups Mr. Abbas failed to get them to give up their terror as anything more than a temporary measure.
Many Israelis have criticized this lack of resolve and rightly accused the Palestinian terror organizations of being insincere and seeking a chance to regroup rather than a commitment to the political process. One of the fundamental premises of the peace process that started over eleven years ago was that Israel would cede land to the Palestinians and the Palestinians would forswear terror as a means of achieving statehood. In subsequent years we saw the former but nothing of the latter. If Mr. Abbas fails to dismantle the terror groups he is making a mockery of the bargain the PLO made with Israel allowing it an opportunity to escape its terrorist past and embrace a legitimate future.
We never expected that terror would end overnight, but eleven years is plenty of time to usher in an era of understanding and changing a movement's focus from terror to politics. Mr. Abbas's cynical claims of having fulfilled his obligations as he asks Israel to cede to him more land and release more terrorists from prison may play well in the Arab street but it can hardly inspire confidence in the Israeli public or those of us who are serious about peace.
Mr. Abbas is attempting to evade responsibility much as his predecessor, Yasser Arafat did. The Palstinians who supported the terror in polls have no one to complain to when Israel claims more land as its own. If the Palestinians hadn't resorted to terror every time they were unsatisfied with Israeli concessions they would have had a state by now and Ariel Sharon likely would not now be Prime Minister.
Mr. Abbas deserves credit for talking a good game and decrying the use of violence. He now needs to back up his words with strong actions and show that he means them.
An Associated Press story tells us, "Palestinian Fugitives Celebrate Handover":
The poor man. But, pray tell, what acts of terror did he commit? The AP doesn't tell us.
Tulkarem was the second of five Palestinian towns to be handed over to Palestinian control, a sign that Mideast peacemaking is inching forward. However, the handover, sealed by a ceremonial handshake between Palestinian and Israeli field commanders, was seen by residents as only a small step on the road to peace.
But for militants, especially those sought by Israeli security, it meant they can finally come out of hiding. During four years of violence, Israeli forces have made hundreds of forays into Palestinian towns and villages, arresting thousands of suspects — and killed dozens of others in airstrikes.
"For the first time in 2 1/2 years, I feel at ease," said Hosni Abu Zgheib, 30, of the violent Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, loosely affiliated with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' ruling Fatah (news - web sites) Party.
Abu Zgheib, a father of three, said he spent little time at home in the last two years, constantly moving from one safe house to another and making occasional visits to see his daughters.
Every July, Israeli Michael Goldschmidt, a settler farmer in the Gaza strip, and his Palestinian workers pull up hundreds of thousands of amaryllis bulbs from the sandy soil for export to the United States.I realize that this a different author, but again I wonder what illegal activity the Al Aqsa Brigades gunman engaged in.
This year, though, when July comes, Mr. Goldschmidt will have to uproot his family instead. They'll be relocating to Israel as part of the government's planned withdrawal from the coastal territory.A founder of the Ganei Tal settlement who was born in South Africa, Goldschmidt owns five of a total of 1,000 acres of hothouses belonging to Gaza settlers. But with the government's planned withdrawal looming, change is in the air. Goldschmidt's land, and the property of many other Israeli farmers, now hangs in the balance as Israel and the Palestinian Authority decide what to do with them.
While Israel weighs the geopolitics and security issues associated with leaving the Gaza Strip, it is farmers like Goldschmidt who are feeling the lifestyle and value system they have built up coming to an abrupt - and in their view, unjust - end. For them, Gaza is the place where they came as pioneers as early as the 1970s, where they raised their children. It's a place settlers say they have exclusive ownership rights to, derived from Joshua 15 in the Bible. The settlements contravene international law, except as interpreted by Israel.
Michael Getler, the ombudsman of the Washington Post (i.e. the guy whose job it is to justify questionable news judgments that the reporters and editors make, wrote:
Some readers wrote to take issue with a story on Page A13 Monday by Jerusalem correspondent Molly Moore, reporting on action by the Israeli cabinet with regard to dismantling West Bank settlements under the terms of the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan.So Moore's story was accurate because it illustrated that Israel was in breach of the Road Map.The critics compared Moore's coverage unfavorably with that of the Associated Press and the New York Times, both of which reported that the cabinet affirmed it would dismantle 24 illegal West Bank settlements but did not say when that would happen. Moore's story reversed the sequence in the lead, reporting that the cabinet delayed action while acknowledging that evacuation of these outposts is required. She didn't use any numbers in the lead. I saw nothing wrong with this and Assistant Managing Editor David Hoffman points out that the cabinet statement doesn't mention any specific number of settlements. He also notes that there is a dispute about the number of unauthorized outposts established since March 2001 that fall under this requirement; the Israeli Defense Forces says there are 24, the activist group Peace Now says 51, and a special investigator appointed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recently said there are 105 such outposts that should be dismantled regardless of when they were established.
The only flaw in Moore's account, as I see it, is that the sole figure included is the one asserting that there are 105 such illegal settlements.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas won pledges Thursday from Islamic militant organizations to extend the suspension of attacks on Israel until the end of this year if the lull in violence continues, but he failed to persuade them to agree to a formal cease-fire.In an accord reached during three days of meetings outside Cairo, the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and other Palestinian militant groups said their pledge not to resort to violence would depend on whether Israel honored its commitment to withdraw its troops from all Palestinian cities in the West Bank and release significant numbers of Palestinian prisoners.
"What was agreed upon today is calm until the end of this year, as maximum period of time, in exchange for an Israeli commitment to withdraw from cities and release prisoners," Mohammad Nazzal, a senior Hamas official, told reporters after the meetings.
He knows that he can’t begin the process from the end – namely to collect arms, arrest people and put them on trial. And so he has opted for a path of persuasion.But the Post article doesn't say that. That would provide a context for understanding why Abbas isn't sticking by the Road Map. However, Moore's article, nowhere, gives any indication that Abbas, by not disarming and disabling the terror groups, is failing in his primary obligation in the road map. And, by the way, the understandings of Hamas are presented as normative. (i.e. as long as Israel does what we say Israel must do we won't attack.)You must remember Abu Mazen has problems from within the Fatah ranks, and in fact faces several central oppositions: Hamas, which activates and ceases terror at will, and the opposition from within.
Therefore he has not started at the end but he has opted for the rout of calm and persuasion and so far Hamas is going along with him.
If he continues on this path and also brings to justice those who perpetuate terror, which he didn't do with Islamic Jihad who claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing at the Tel Aviv nightclub, I believe there is a chance he would succeed in holding up. That is providing no large-scale terror act is carried out until July. Hamas also seeks calm, it senses it on the street and it supports it at present.
The New York Times today is bothered by the fact that Justice Scalia objected to the fact that the Supreme Court even heard the case of the constitutionality of executing minors:
Justice Scalia dissented bitterly in this month's juvenile death penalty case. Reasonable minds may ask, as he did, whether the majority opinion relied too heavily on the norms of international law in deciding what punishment does not meet modern standards of decency. But Justice Scalia disagreed not merely with the majority's conclusion that offenders cannot be executed for crimes committed when they were under the age of 18, but with the very fact that the court was even considering the question. "By what conceivable warrant can nine lawyers presume to be the authoritative conscience of the nation?" he asked.But just the other day, the Times felt that all had been done judicially in considering the Schiavo case:
They also challenged the careful decisions by Florida's trial and appellate courts, based largely on the testimony of her husband that their daughter would have chosen to die rather than live indefinitely in such condition.I agree with the Times that Congress getting involved is a bad thing. Not because I don't think that they're being noble, but because I really don't want a Democratic Congress interfering in things that I hold dear. Once a boundary is breached - no matter how worthy the cause - there is no end to the mischief that can be done.
Multiple Mentality has posted a wonderful new Haveil Havalim, Haveil Havalim #14. Full of good kosher blogginess!
In honor of Purim this week's Haveil Havalim will be a bit different. Send me your Purim related posts and I'll try to post a special Purim edition no later than Thursday night. What I'm most looking for is a different take on the Purim story. But regular Purim Torah, or other observations are welcome too.
For an example of the former see Dov Bear's fractured Megilla for the latter see Biur Chametz's investigation into the ties between Karpas, (usually associated with Passover but not Alvin) and Purim. Or something of your own. Let's make HH #15 a real treat for everyone to have Frelich bloggy Purim!
Send me your entries at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.
UPDATE: Kesher Talk remembers the origin of Haveil Havalim. It was a variation on Carnival of the Vanities. So she brings up back to our roots by referring to this week's Haveil Havalim as a Purim Carnival! Plus she has a link to a likely candidate for the Purim Haveil Havalim!
Continue reading to see the list of past hosts.
#13 IsraPundit
#12 DovBear
#11 Kesher Talk
#10 Biur Chametz
#9 Soccer Dad
#8 It's Almost Supernatural
#7 Bloghead
#6 Willow Tree.
#5 Crossing the Rubicon2
#4 Dov Bear
#3 Biur Chametz
Contrary to a report that appeared last year in the German newspaper Die Welt the European anti-fraud organization, OLAF reported this week that it found no conclusive evidence that European aid was used to fund terror:
The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) has closed its investigation into the European Commission’s Direct Assistance to the Palestinian Authority’s budget. On the basis of the information currently available to OLAF, the investigation has found no conclusive evidence of support of armed attacks or unlawful activities financed by the European Commission’s contributions to the budget. However, the possibility of misuse of the Palestinian Authority’s budget and other resources, cannot be excluded, due to the fact that the internal and external audit capacity in the Palestinian Authority is still underdeveloped.
Palestinian Cabinet minister Hassan Abu Libdeh welcomed the findings."These accusations have caused great harm to the Palestinian image and Palestinian interests. Several countries either reduced (aid) or transferred through a third party, but now it is clear that these accusations were untrue," he said.
However, the possibility of misuse of the Palestinian Authority’s budget and other resources, cannot be excluded, due to the fact that the internal and external audit capacity in the Palestinian Authority is still underdeveloped.Besides Israel has found documentation of this sort of corruption. Did OLAF look at Israel's evidence? I suspect not.
We have a tape of Mr. Jabali indicating that he providesHamas terrorists support. He puts them into his own security forces. We have Mr. Dahlan. Mr. Dahlan met with Mr. Deif who is the Hamas leader right around the time of the Ungar murder. And we have information that he was given a green light to specifically conduct terrorist activities in June of 1996. We’ve asked to depose Mr. Rajoub. His men, men under his control, were the ones who gave the fake PA police documents to the actual murder[er]s of the Ungars. They’re the ones who
supervised the Tzurif gang, the actual gang that was involved in killing the Ungars. We’ve asked to depose Tawiq Tarrari. He gave money. It’s been proven and documented that he gave money and weapons for specific terrorist attacks during this period of time. Mr. Al-Hindi has been accused and has documents of his same activities. Mr. Boughati is a mastermind of a series of activities during this entire period of time. Mr. Arafat, he is not just a person who happens to be a Palestinian Authority, but he himself has a direct hand in various forms of terrorism, and more specifically his signature itself was on a piece of paper indicating approval for the killing of Americans after the fact. He
rewarded Palestinian terrorists in the form of compensation, financial compensation, Americans.
European shares end flat
European shares ended little changed on Thursday as hopes for a cancer pill lifted drugmakers Novartis and Schering, but oil prices at new record highs and weak insurers restrained the advance.
European shares edged higher on Friday as near-record crude oil prices lifted oil producers, but gains were muted by fears that higher fuel costs will crimp consumer spending and corporate profits.
Earlier I had noted that Mere Rhetoric had found himself a response for a search of "Jewish Girls Gone Wild". Because I used that term I became the second response in a similar Google search. Not the company I wish to keep.
I may regret this, but inspired by Biur Chametz (as ripped off by DovBear) I'm going to recommend a change of pace for the March 27 edition of Haveil Havalim.
Send me your entries dhgerstman at hotmail dot com - whether you've blogged it or not - about Purim. What I'm looking for is something creative: How would you have blogged about the news of the Purim story as it happened? Chayyei Sarah might have written about how it was wrong for the King to exploit single women. Biur Chametz might have written about the joys of knowing 70 languages. Dov Bear might have complained about all the pro-King Jews despite his obvious antisemitism. I would have complained about the media coverage and how it made Haman seem like a misguided but hardly evil man. Creativity is encouraged. Creative anachronism is especially encouraged. I'll try to have them up early next week - i.e. before Sunday - hopefully (depending on obligations) Wednesday or Thursday night for your Purim fun.
Though you need not have blogged the item, I'll still, of course, link to your blog (so both people who read Soccer Dad will consider paying you a visit.)
Alternatively, I you have an offbeat Dvar Torah, Purim Torah or observation about the Megillah I'd use that.
Send me your blogname and URL. If you are linking to a specific post send the post's name and the post's URL too.
Future Hosts:
Haveil Havalim #16 - April 3, 2005 - Critical Mastiff. e-mail him with your (self) nominations until April 2, 2005 at orendog at yahoo dot com
I was going through my referrals yesterday when I came upon a link to a google search for "baltimore sun editorial, ehrlich." Soccer Dad was the the tenth entry.
No big deal.
Here's the funny thing, the search was performed by someone from the Tribune company. The Chicago Tribune now owns the Baltimore Sun. Is someone corporate checking up on the blogosphere's opinion of the Sun?
On Friday the Washington Post reported:
The District and its surroundings are among the dirtier regions of the country, but 70 percent of the pollution on the worst summer days arrives from coal-fired power plants and heavy industry farther west. The new rule is expected to produce gradual improvement, but meeting the new standards will be difficult without further measures, including reducing pollution from vehicles, officials have said.Now I realize that in the first paragraph quoted above there's a qualification about auto emissions, but the estimated benefits of the new EPA rule are pretty impressive by themselves.Nitrogen oxides react with sunlight in warm air to make ground-level ozone, also known as smog, which causes respiratory problems and damages crops. Sulfur dioxide makes acid rain, which has been wreaking environmental havoc in the East for many years. Both pollutants are key contributors to fine particulate soot, which causes a variety of respiratory ailments and contributes to the haze that has increasingly marred views in some of the nation's most pristine areas.
Under the rule, sulfur dioxide pollution is expected to decline by 73 percent over the next decade, compared with 2003 levels, EPA officials said. Oxides of nitrogen are expected to drop by 61 percent.
All told, the EPA calculated, the rule will prevent 17,000 premature deaths; 1.7 million lost workdays; 500,000 lost school days; 22,000 non-fatal heart attacks; and 12,300 hospital admissions annually by 2015.
In all the back and forth, it is possible to lose sight of the fact that Maryland's air quality is poor and unhealthful and that vehicle exhaust is one of the principal culprits. That's why the General Assembly should enact the Clean Cars Act.
Did you know that yesterday was International PI day? Why? Because:
"It's Pi Day because the date is 3/14 -- the first three digits of Pi," said Howard Greenspan, who oversaw a Pi Day Party online with a Pi drop at MathematiciansPictures.com, a Web site that sells Pi paraphernalia."This is the perfect holiday to celebrate in cyberspace," Greenspan told Reuters in a telephone interview from Toronto.
"We dropped the giant Pi online at 1:59 p.m. Eastern time," Greenspan said, noting that "3.14159 are the first six digits of Pi."
In his blog, Daniel Pipes references an article in the Forward about how the Israeli government is now seeking out leftwing groups to get support for its policies in the United States.
Sure enough APN is now hosting an "Ambassadors' Forum" featuring Israel's ambassador Danny Ayalon, Egypt's ambassador, Jordan's ambassador and the PLO's ambassador, Hasan Abdel Rahman.
For the better part of 4 and a half years Americans who supported Israel had to fight the likes of APN who would question every move that Israel made, giving comfort to Israel's enemies.
Why even as Israel's ambassador graces a forum hosted by APN there's an article up on the APN criticizing, not Arab terror, but Israel's response to it, the security fence. It links to organizations like PASSIA and IPCRI but not to the IDF. In other words it has a greater interest in giving a voice to Israel's critics (and enemies) than Israel's defenders.
APN has recently redesigned its website; articles supporting Arafat are "disappeared." How convenient.
At least if the government wants to make its case for disengagement it should go to the likes of Charles Krauthammer. I don't understand why he has suddenly stopped questioning the goodwill or sincerity of the Palestinians, but at least he defended Israel when the NY Times and Washington Post were blasting it. But to go to these people who have consistently argued "A Secure Israel through Peace" instead of the proven "Peace through security" and have favored the likes of Arafat and Assad over Netanyahu and Sharon is an insult to those of us who defended Israel's while it strove to defend itself since the Oslo War escalated in September 2000.
I did a quick search on the PLO's ambassador, Hasan Abdel Rahman. He had a forum with the Washington Post in October 2000, here's what he had to say then:
Hasan Abdel Rahman: There is no doubt that the conditions that the Palestinian people are living in are very difficult, both inside and outside the homeland, whether under occupation or as refugees. There was a hope, after so many years of deprivation and uprooting, that the peace process would bring a qualitative improvement to the lives of the Palestinian people and end those decades of expulsion and refugee life and allow them to live a dignified and free life. But after seven years of peace process the average Palestinian's life has not changed. On the contrary, except in certain circumstances, it has worsened. The Israeli occupation continued and the humiliation of the Palestinians persisted. Israel continued to behave toward the Palestinians as an occupying power, notwithstanding the agreements we had with signed with them. These conditions were tolerated, as long as there was a hope that the final status negotiations would change them.But in the last few months, Israeli behavior around the negotiating table did not support this hope that Palestinians had. On the contrary, Israelis wanted to have sovereignty in Jerusalem over al-Aqsa mosque and al-Haran Shareef. Out of the 22 percent of historic Palestine that the Palestinians wanted for their new homeland, Israel wanted 11 percent. Also Israel did not want to accept any legal or moral responsibility for millions of Palestinian refugees in West Bank and Gaza and Arab countries. This is what created the frustrated.
The straw that broke the camel's back was Mr. Sharon's provocative visit to al-Haran Shareef.
In other words Israeli attempts to maintain its security in the face of continued terrorist threats is "a threat" to the peace process. Not Abbas's failure to live up to his obligation to fight Hamas.)
Addressing the Palestinian parliament, Abbas voiced his toughest criticism of Israel since agreeing a cease-fire with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) a month ago. Israel froze peace moves after a Palestinian suicide bombing on Feb. 25."The Israeli delay in implementing the commitments constitutes a threat to what we have succeeded in achieving and gives excuses to those who are plotting to sabotage the entire peace process," Abbas said, in a copy of the speech obtained in advance by Reuters.
What next? Sharon speaking for the International Solidarity Movement?We're really not too far from that point right now.
I've wanted to post about the Siyum Ha-Shas nearly 2 weeks ago. I took my two older sons to the Convention Center in downtown Baltimore. The whole idea of hooking up venues around the globe to participate in a single event such as this is quite impressive. (7 1/2 years ago New York magazine termed the tickets for the Siyum in MSG as the "hardest tickets to score" - or some similar language - at that time.)
Unlike last time though, I felt that I had a part in this Siyum. Unlike Cosmic X who's finishing the whole Shas - Talmud - a little late, I fell behind during Shabbos - the second tractate - and dropped out during Eruvin - the third. I just didn't have the dedication. Still I did participate in the process for a time.
Crossing the Rubicon has links to a variety of articles on the topic. via Destination Jerusalem we can find an excerpt of "From September 11 to the Daf Yomi" at Chareidi Wannabe. (The complete story was in the Siyum program and a recent issue of Jewish Observer.)
My Obiter Dicta expresses his conflict over learning Daf Yomi and concludes with beautiful thoughts from his brother. Biur Chametz has the goods on Halacha Yomi.
Point of Pinchas who took the famous "Siyum Hashas" photo from Route 3 in NJ links to his collection of photos.
I've started doing Daf with my 12 and 11 year old boys. Judith at Kesher Talk has started doing Daf too. In fact everyone seems to be doing Daf :-)!
For insights on the Daf don't miss Parshablog or A-Daf-A-Day.
UPDATE: For the past week, I've had the pleasure of doing Daf with my brother (as well as my two sons.) Some of my best learning I did with my brother 25 or so years ago. We learned the last three perakim of Berachos and the last perek of Pesachim with Rashi, Rash and Mishneh Brurah. It's wonderful to see the progression from opinions of the Tanaim and Amoraim to the eventual practical Halacha. To this day I insist on using Siddurim and Bentchers that have the special prayer for the host.
That prayer appears in many more publications now; but was still a novelty 25 years ago.
Also 25 years ago my brother kept asking me, "It's a beautiful possuk (passage from the Bible) where do we say it?" The answer, invariably was "V'Yitain Lecho", a prayer many, but not all, say after Shabbos. I didn't say it then. But on Wednesday night (I think) I proudly pointed to my brother the possuk from "V'Yitain Lecho."
Also thanks to Presence for Blogdigger. I found some of these sites by a Blogdigger search on "Daf Yomi."
Don't blame me. He started it.
I know it's dated, but I wrote it a few years ago. Alas certain aspects of it still seem relevant:
Archaeologists recently found the following shard with news from the Shushan
Times during the time of the miracle of Purim. Under the masthead is a slogan "All the news that's fit to spin."
At the urging of the Clinton Administration, representatives of the Persian Jewish Community and of Haman the Amalekite sat down to negotiate a peaceful settlement of their conflict.
"We want to encourage moderates in both camps," said Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, "we are looking for a solution that allows each side to maintain its dignity and achieve its aspirations."
The Amalekites are seeking to annihilate all the Jews in the Persian Empire; the Jews are seeking for the right to defend themselves.
Vaissassa, son of Haman as well as the chief spokesman for the Amalekites expressed skepticism at the administration's efforts, "The Jewish demands for survival are incompatible with the Amalekite people of the Persian Empire."
Hatach, spokesman for Mordechai the Jew claims that the Jews have made all the concessions they safely can.
State Department spokesman James Rubin asked that the Jews show more flexibility in their negotiating position.
Batya Medad of Shiloh Musings reprints her recollection of her brush with death at the hands of a terrorist:
1996 - Flora Yechiel was killed when an Arab drove his vehicle onto the sidewalk at the “Trampiada” hitchhiking post in Jerusalem’s French Hill neighborhood. The terrorist was shot dead.Generally, I force myself to avoid these announcements in the news digest I read daily. They’re depressing, always about death, murder, terrorism. Unfortunately, this time I failed; it somehow caught my eye. You may not know it, but seconds before the terrorist rammed his car into Flora Yechiel, HaYa”D, he drove it over my left foot and knocked me down.
It is not certain, and may never be, why Ahmed Hamideh drove his car today into a crowd of people at a bus stop on Jerusalem's northern edge, killing one person and injuring 22.Long skid marks at the scene suggest that the 36-year-old Hamideh, an American of Palestinian origin, had tried to brake, and police investigators now say they think he somehow lost control of his rented car. Two armed bystanders, seeing bodies on the street and a man who appeared to be an Arab leaving the car, believed otherwise. They shot him dead on the spot.
So jittery are Israeli nerves a day after Palestinian extremists set off bombs on a Jerusalem bus and amidst a crowd of hitchhiking soldiers in Ashqelon that hundreds of policemen converged on the bus stop and brought afternoon rush-hour traffic to a halt. Police munitions experts, presuming another terrorist strike, searched Hamideh's small Fiat for explosives. They found groceries meant for his nephews in the West Bank.
As the nation buried the bombing victims today -- the toll having risen to 27 overnight -- a palpable sense of anxiety prevailed here. Had Hamideh done what he did on another day, said Hebrew University law professor Mordechai Kremnitzer, he probably would have lived to explain what happened. Today, Kremnitzer said, "people are afraid."
But Internal Security Minister Moshe Shahal said it now looks as if the driver intentionally slammed his rented car into the crowd. "It's not final but I have the latest assessment from the checks done by police. The tendency is to see yesterday's incident as an attack," Shahal told Israel Radio. "And that is based on information in the hands of the police concerning the man himself, things he said, his background and technical checks of the route the car took."Jerusalem Police Chief Arye Amit told reporters: "Most of the signs rule out a traffic accident. The car and brakes were in working order. One of the skid marks we saw yesterday apparently did not come from this car."
Special correspondent Kathryn Wexler reported from Los Angeles:The effort they went to to show that the only intentional violence that day came from "jittery" Israelis. (If an Israeli killed an Arab, regardless of the circumstances they'd have done all they could to show that it was intentional.)Friends and relatives mourned the death of Hamideh today, and called him a devout and peace-loving Muslim.
They said Hamideh, who immigrated to the United States 19 years ago and lived in Los Angeles, had gone to the West Bank last summer, partly to seek a wife.
Relatives described themselves as anti-fundamentalist and supportive of the peace efforts of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
"He didn't go there to cause trouble. He never caused trouble in his life," said Geman Hamideh, a cousin.
The Islamic militant group Hamas said today that an Arab American who rammed his car into a crowd at a Jerusalem bus stop on Monday was a member of its military wing and was avenging the death of Palestinian militant Fathi Shqaqi.
And the Jerusalem Post (courtesy of the invaluable resource, IRIS) after noting that the government did all it could to downplay the possibility that Hamideh had perpetrated a terror attack concluded like this:
Whether continued terrorism is an indication that the Oslo process is a failure - as the opposition believes - or nothing more than the sputterings of a dying, old-fashioned movement - as the government maintains - should be the subject of a legitimate, momentous public debate. But to deny the facts of terrorism, and to try to whitewash incidents because they might tend to reinforce one set of arguments or another is to endanger the nation's morale and its faith in government more than all the acts of terrorism can ever hope to do.
The reports gave rise to new questions. If Hamida was slain vigilante-style by Jewish settlers, how many bullets did they pump into his body? And if he was a drug addict, did an autopsy show traces of drug ingestion? These questions may never be answered, however, if Israeli authorities persist in refusing to relinquish Hamida's body to his family.
When Kweisi Mfume resigned as president of the NAACP I immediately assumed it was to run for the Senate seat of Paul Sarbanes. I suspect - but obviously have no proof - that he was tipped off that the seat would be available and that was his impetus for leaving. I know that tensions of Julian Bond were cited as a reason, but I think that was window dressing. I wish I had written then that I expected Sarbanes to resign
The Hedgehog Report initially thought that Martin O'Malley would seek the seat. But that's been rejected. (It pays to follow The Hedgehog Report about the upcoming Maryland races. He's well informed on Maryland's political landscape.)
So Mfume will run and win the Demcoratic nomination. This is his seat for the taking and I can't imagine that any of Maryland's congressmen would be competitive against him. There used to be widespread speculation that Ben Cardin would try for Governor. That still hasn't materialized and I suspect that he really doesn't have any widespread statewide support or name recognition. If Mfume runs I doubt that Winn would run and am certain that Cummings, Mfume's successor, wouldn't dare run. I guess that Van Hollen and Ruppersburger would be possibilities to run. But Van Hollen is a first termer and Ruppersburger, who would have crossover appeal in the general election is probably not liberal enough to win the primary.
Sen. Mfume? Alas, I think it is a real possibility. When he runs he will be lionized for turning around the NAACP. His rags to riches story will be highlighted. And the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post won't make any effort to bring less savory aspects of his record, such as his declaration of a "sacred covenant" between the Congressional Black Caucus and Louis Farrakhan. Not a pleasant thought. But this is the people's republic of Maryland. Sigh.
UPDATE: According to the Hedgehog report (citing WJZ-TV/ AP), Wynn is out.
UPDATE: Though I hadn't given it much thought, this probably is bad news for Ehrlich. No doubt Mfume will run on the same ticket as the Demcratic candidate for Governor. Little doubt that Mfume will give a boost to his party mate, especially in Baltimore City and PG County. (Yes I know the Democratic candidate for governor will win those jurisdictions anyway. But I suspect that Mfume will encourage more people to vote who ordinarily wouldn't.)
Haveil Havalim #13 is up at Israpundit. Please check it out and read fascinating posts from around the Jewish and Israel related blogosphere!
Multiple Menality Mentality plans to host Haveil Havlim #14, March 20, 2004. Pleast e-mail your (self) nominations to thelistener@gmail.com or, send them here to dhgerstman at hotmail dot com this week.
If you are a blogger and wish to host Haveil Havalim, please inform me at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.
Continue reading to see previous editions.
#12 DovBear
#11 Kesher Talk
#10 Biur Chametz
#9 Soccer Dad
#8 It's Almost Supernatural
#7 Bloghead
#6 Willow Tree.
#5 Crossing the Rubicon2
#4 Dov Bear
#3 Biur Chametz
Daniel Williams of the Washington Post profiled Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Wednesday. What's shocking about the profile - it appeared in the news, not style, section of the paper - is that it gives Aboul Gheit a megaphone without criticism. The point of the article is to show how a moderate friend of the US is at odds with the American President. (This is also odd because the Post, editorially, has not been shy about criticizing the president for failing to push Egypt enough; now it presents an unfiltered defense of Egypt's authorotarian government.) Some excerpts and comments:
As for Lebanon, Aboul Gheit noted something that Bush did not: Tuesday's huge pro-Syrian demonstration mounted by Hezbollah, the Lebanese group that the State Department labels a terrorist organization. The rally showed that "there are other trends in society," Aboul Gheit said, warning that U.S. pressure might lead ethnically and religiously divided Lebanon into chaos.I guess he's a "realist."
"I think Egypt is a lighthouse for the Middle East. The need for Egypt to be a friend of the United States is something I'm sure people in Washington value very much. We are not subject to any kind of pressure."And that $2 billion a year is something that Egypt values very much. Helps pay the salary of a well compensated diplomat when millions are living in squalor.
Aboul Gheit expressed irritation at reports that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice canceled a trip to Egypt because of its slow pace of reform. She called off a trip to the region, not just to Egypt, he insisted.At the conclusion of the interview, he took issue with notions that Egypt is a police state. He did a pantomime of a pedestrian looking over his shoulder in fear, then led a reporter by the hand to his office window.
Rice had registered her "very strong concerns" about the detention of Ayman Nour, the leader of an opposition party, when she met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Tuesday in Washington.
A new Doubting Thomas is up.
Interesting nature posts
At Secular Blasphemy
A link from Crossing the Rubicon2 to this. (A reminder - those daily photos from NASA are amazing!)
Frank Roylance's Weather Blog has a link to the gallery of the Space Telescope Science Institute with the pictures from the Hubble Space telescope.
Early Entries for best post by a Jewish Blogger
Food is Love by Treppenwitz
Speak the Language of the Hebrewman by Biur Chametz
And what day is complete without a letter to the editor by my mother-in-law? I never really discussed the intricacies of eminent domain with her so I wasn't familiar with her views on the subject. Nice job Mom.
Finaly, the hits just keep on coming. At the suggestion of Baltiblogs administration, I added sitemeter to the individual archive page of Soccer Dad and I'm getting many more hits now. I'm wondering if that's a legitimate measure of my traffic. It appears that many people are finding me by accident. I was expecting a big boost from yesterday's Carnival of the Vanities at Solomoniabut it doesn't seem to have materialized. Still by placing the sitemeter code on individual archive pages I've picked up hits to individual entries, not just my main page.
Here are excerpts from a surprising NY Times editorial from March 1996.
Choosing Mr. Arafat in the first place was one of several distressing signs that the Palestinian Arabs were not yet ready for running their own country, which would require them to guarantee the rights and security of neighboring Israel. Late last month and earlier this month, Palestinian terrorists went on a terror spree that left 60 Israelis dead.Mr. Arafat has been accused by the Israelis of fomenting terror since he returned from exile in 1994. He has denied any wrongdoing, but Palestinian terrorists with ties to Arafat have been implicated in terror since 1994 and he has not made any effort to restrain the terror.
An international review this summer is supposed to determine whether Palestinians have met the standards of governance and interethnic harmony that would justify granting it independence under a timetable set by the Security Council. It's been clear lately that Palesitnian leaders have failed the test. But the Palestinian Arabs could take a big step toward countering that impression by choosing a new prime minister who is not tainted by his actions during terror attacks against Israelis and who could serve as a moderating, uniting influence in the divided province.
Hube's Cube noticed something that bothered me too:
With that being said, do you think it would be acceptable for a white general manager to recruit only white players, and to bill his team as a haven for whites only, in an attempt to recruit the top white players?
If there are little girls out there who want to dress up a little-girl doll in little-girl clothes -- one set of outfits for weekdays and one for Shabbos-- and play Purim and Birthday Party or whatever, and have their dolls wear matching Magen David bracelets, then I say: Bless you, little ones.I remember going to a department store a few years ago and seeing a display of a young girl, maybe 10, about the same age my daughter was then, dressed in shorts and a "belly" shirt and thinking that she looked an awful lot like a streetwalker. (I expressed this to my wife who agreed.) Where has innocence gone?Enjoy your childhood while you still have it. Chayyei Sarah will not make fun of you for it. In fact, scoot over. I know a five-year-old who wants to play.
I'm not going to blog at length about this because I've got other stuff I need to be doing right now. My only immediate thought is that I think there would be fewer misunderstandings about what tzniut really is if, instead of translating it as "modesty," which doesn't truly capture what it's all about, we translated it as "dignity." I think "dignity" is a more honest representation of the idea of tzniut, and more understandable to the world at large.
I saw that people got directed to Mere Rhetoric searching for "Jewish girl gone wild."
Not to be outdone, DovBear encounters another group of JGGW.
That would suggest that Chassidic women may not be nearly as naive as Dov Bear originally thought.
Braindrops argues that it doesn't really matter how vile Mahmoud Abbas or his government are. The fact that they're embracing democracy will eventually force the PA to become moderate in its dealings with Israel.
Dr. Abbas may have only the most nefarious plans for the sons of Isaac. If I read the situation correctly, though, that shouldn't matter, even if it's true. What he's being forced to do is to liberate his society. If this sociological experiment is successful, then the almost automatic redirection of aggressive impulses into more productive endeavours ensues. In addition to ultimately adding to the number of people looking for a cure for cancer, this implies a lessening of the influence of leaders with more malignant intentions.Or, in a briefer sense, peace.
I'm not suggesting that this process will definitely work. (It seems to have cooled down the flames between England and France, which burned fairly brightly over the years.) My point is only to demonstrate why I think certain objections are less relevant than they appear.
For example, as recently as February 20, Ikrima Sabri, Mufti of Jerusalem, appeared on Al-Majd satellite TV to comment on the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, and said: “Anyone who studies The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and specifically the Talmud will discover that one of the goals of these Protocols is to cause confusion in the world and to undermine security throughout the world.”
This week's Haveil Havalim is up at DovBear. The host really dove into the Jewish blogosphere and his efforts bore quite a bit of fruit. (Hopefully none of it forbidden.)
Future Editions of Haveil Havalim
#13 March 13, 2005 - Israpundit has agreed to host Haveil Havlim #12 please forward (self) nominations to israpundit at yahoo dot com or to me at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com or for complete instructions go to Israpundit.
#14 March 20, 2005 - Multiple Menality plans to host Haveil Havlim #13. Pleast e-mail your (self) nominations to thelistener@gmail.com or, send them here to dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.
#11 Kesher Talk
#10 Biur Chametz
#9 Soccer Dad
#8 It's Almost Supernatural
#7 Bloghead
#6 Willow Tree.
#5 Crossing the Rubicon2
#4 Dov Bear
#3 Biur Chametz
Friday's NY Times featured "Saudis Join Call for Syrian Force to Quit Lebanon" that tells us, among other things:
The opposition has struggled to woo Hezbollah, a Shiite party labeled a terrorist band by Washington, with little success. Hezbollah is perhaps the best organized party in Lebanon and derives much prestige from having fought Israeli occupation there during the 1980's and 90's.What's negative about Hezbollah? That it's been "labeled a terrorist band." What's positive? That it "fought Israeli occupation."
On Wednesday, opposition leaders met with Hezbollah officials to coax the group to join their effort, but to little avail. While not openly advocating continued Syrian dominance of Lebanon, Hezbollah, which relies on Syria and Iran for its support, says it is trying to maintain a dialogue between the Syrian-backed government and the opposition."Syrian dominance"? Why not "occupation?"
Fun stuff.
I enjoyed this news story. More importantly I loved the first comment. It was worth $6 million :-) Of course VodkaPundit has more profound concerns.
Yahoo! is celebrating its tenth anniversary. Cool nostalgia. It reminds you of what was once big. Even if it is no longer.
Pontiac is sponsoring a contest. Take a picture of a G6 and send it in and you could win $1 million! Deadline is 3/18/05
More serious stuff.
ParshaBlog links to this article describing those who deny archaeological evidence of Israel's Jewish past. I don't know if ParshaBlog intended a political implication. I just find it interesting that (unless one's name is Mahmoud Abbas) Holocaust denial - roughly a decade of Jewish history - is seen a sure sign of antisemitism but denying 2000+ years of Jewish history qualifies one as a partner for peace.
Clarity and Resolve observes one of the ways that Mahmoud Abbas seeks to legitimize terror. By co-opting the terror groups. Another tactic is by making prisoner releases an essential "confidence building measure." All violence in response to "occupation" is legitimate and many elements of any peace agreement is tied to that perverse premise. Alas many in the West abet this attitude by repeating as catechism "the inadmissability of taking territory by force" and ignoring the illegitimacy of a national movement that denies another nation's right to exist. Of course this leads to a Stark Contrast in the way the populations of each side views peace.
That's it for now. Shabbos is coming.
I read "Al Aksa's new attack methods" by Matthew Guttman and Arieh O'Sullivan. At the end of the article I read they wrote:
But when prodded on Al Aksa's possession of rockets, Zubeidi did not deny that the rejectionist groups in the northern West Bank seek to develop alternatives to suicide attacks."Our diplomacy at the Hague was 100 times more valuable than all the rockets fired from Gaza," Zubeidi said.
Consider also last week's editorial in the Baltimore Sun, "The Right Move":
ISRAEL'S DECISION to suspend its policy of demolishing the homes of terrorists' families is a welcome, if overdue, action. Israel's claims that demolitions would deter terrorist attacks have been suspect for years. In fact, a recent Israeli defense review found that house demolitions caused more harm to Israel because they incited hatred and hostility among Palestinians. That review led to last week's policy change. But collective punishment has never been a useful or humane practice.The editorial is largely based on a report from B'Tselem and by a review of the policy by the army.
Fadi had already filmed the video tape that was to be played after his suicide attack. He and his brother surrendered themselves, it was revealed, under pressure from family members, who feared that their homes would be destroyed by Israel in retaliation for the planned bombing..
Only four months ago, on November 7, the IDF Spokesman wrote to B'Tselem, which was in the advanced stages of preparing a report on house demolitions, that "the IDF reckons that house demolition is an efficient measure that serves as a deterrent factor against terror." The committee had already begun its work when the letter was drafted.
It is similarly encouraging that the terrorists who attacked a Tel Aviv nightclub on Friday, killing five Israelis, have not yet managed to completely scuttle the new peace dynamic between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Israel contends that those terrorists were sponsored by Syria, but its soldiers reported discovering an explosives-filled car in the West Bank yesterday. The good news is that the leaders on both sides did not instantly retreat to familiar corners in angry rejectionism. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, have proved they can work together to thwart terrorism and deny terrorists an instant veto over progress toward a negotiated peace.Subsequent discoveries show that terror against Israel is still being plotted and Mahmoud Abbas despite his anger still hasn't acted against the terror groups. So why an Israeli response would be characterized as "angry rejectionism" is beyond me. If Israel responds it will be out of necessity, fulfilling a state's most important obligation to its citizens: defending their lives.
Mr. Sharon's plan isn't perfect. Through it, he has secured a stronger hold on the West Bank and built a security barrier that looks disturbingly like a fortified border even though this territory remains in dispute and subject to a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Mr. Bush said that Israel "must freeze settlement activity," something it has never done; he said that a Palestinian state "of scattered territories," which Mr. Sharon has long envisaged, "will not work."Of course anyone familiar with the maps knows that the fence will now enclose no more than about 3% of Judea and Samaria, contiguity won't be a problem. The only problem will be terror.
Crossing the Rubicon2 quotes from a book review:
The late Edward Said’s Orientalism, published in 1978 and an ongoing campus best-seller since, fatally tarnished the designation “Orientalist,” an honorific title previously embraced by scholars of the Eastern Muslim world.
Charles Krauthammer is my favorite columnist and has been for over twenty years now. I've found that I agree with him most of the time and that even if I disagree with him I usually can fathom his arguments.
Not so this past Friday's, "Israel Draws the Line".
What bothered me specifically about the column, I'll discuss later. But the general problem with the article is that it seems so far afield from Krauthammer's usual keen eye when analyzing the Middle East, that I'd to explore a number of Krauthammer's past columns and see (if I can) the evolution of the article.
Dr. Krauthammer, himself, has undergone a fascinating political transformation over the past 30 years or so. In the 70's he got a job in the Carter administration in the field of public health. From there he became a speech writer for Vice President Mondale. In the 80's he started writing columns for Time Magazine and the Washington Post. He also became an contributing editor to the New Republic. As time went on his views which were generally hawkish in the arena of foreign affairs translated to a more conservative views in domestic politics. His transformation led him in the 90's to start contributing to the Weekly Standard. (I believe his name is still on the masthead of TNR but I don't think he writes for it much anymore.)
One way that Krauthammer has not changed has been rock solid support of Israel and his belief that terror must not be rewarded. I don't believe he's any less a supporter of Israel based on his most recent column. But it appears that he threw all caution to the wind when he endorsed the Gaza disengagement plan. And by doing that I believe that he's gravely mistaken.
Enough background.
Consider what Krauthammer wrote March 14, 1988 in the New Republic, "No Exit." Nearly 17 years ago here's what Krauthammer wrote Israel must do to fight the violence of the then-few month old "intifada":
However wrenching the current situation, the first responsibility of a statesman is to keep his head. And the first responsibility of Israel's friends is to consider consequences.There is no quick solution to the current rioting. All the unilateral steps advocated threaten to make things much worse. No one wants tragedy, but tragedy is still preferable to catastrophe. Over two millennia Jews have acquired a tragic sense of history. But in the current panic, that tradition is being challenged, indeed overwhelmed, by a contending apocalyptic, messianic tendency commanding immediate action at any cost.
THE LOGIC of Israel's current occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is the following: If Israel is to give up territory, it must get something in return. If it flees in panic, it gets nothing. What Israel gets must be peace. And that peace must be secure. Thus there are three requirements for any Israeli action regarding the territories. 1) There must exist an Arab negotiating partner. 2) That partner must offer recognition and peace and be willing to say that whatever settlement is reached marks the end of Arab-Israeli wars. And 3) that Arab partner must be willing to take responsibility for control of the territories and not merely serve as cover or conduit for control by a party that rejects Israel's existence and seeks control of the West Bank as a first stage in an endless war on Zionism.
So long as these conditions do not exist, Israel has no choice but to patrol Nablus. For Israel to give up the territories in the absence of these conditions is to collaborate in its own destruction. Israel might take steps to encourage these conditions. History, however, does not make one sanguine about the prospect of Jews doing much to attenuate the desire of others to destroy them. But we do have one encouraging and instructive counterexample: Egypt. The lesson of Camp dAvid is that Israel did not win recognition and peace with its unilateral withdrawal from Sinai in 1957, which was backed by wholly illusory "guarantees" from the great powers. It won recognition and peace after four lost wars convinced Egypt that Israel was a fact, and after Israel conceded territories, but only in return for contractual peace.
The Islamic heartland has gone through its period of decolonization. From Morocco to Pakistan these countries threw off European imperialism in a process that began earlier in the century and may be said to have culminated with the revolution in Iran. What we are seeing now is the further evolution of the Islamic awakening: the demand for local hegemony by Moslem populations at the borders of the Islamic heartland.Perhaps then, one reason Krauthammer sees a new opportunity for Israel is the retreat of the Islamic assertiveness that was ascendant fifteen years ago.This demand is not without irony. In insisting upon self-determination, the activists demand what the Islamic world refuses to grant any of its ethnic and religious subgroups: neither its Kurds nor its Armenians nor its blacks (in southern Sudan, for example) are permitted sovereignty and territorial control over those lands in which they constitute a local majority.
Self-determination for whom? The Kashmiris are a minority within India. Kosovo Albanians are a minority within Yugoslavia. They demand political control of the subunit, Kashmir and Kosovo, where they constitute the local majority. But why does self-determination stop there? Will they grant similar autonomy, let alone independence, to the smaller groups within these territories? The Hindus of Kashmir and the Serbs and Montenegrins of Kosovo are hardly likely to enjoy very many civil rights, letalone national rights, under the rule of the separatists. (A reality that in the last decade has induced one-fifth of the non-Albanian population of Kosovo to flee.)
There is something arbitrary and nonreciprocal about these demands for independence. Nagorno-Karabakh is an overwhelmingly (Christian) Armenian province within Azerbaijan. It is demanding from Azerbaijan what Azerbaijan is demanding from the Soviet Union: freedom. Azerbaijan not only rejects that demand. It is prepared to go to war with Armenia to back that rejection.
What is being pursued, therefore, is not Wilsonian self-determination (though many of these intifadas have adopted its language), because in the Islamic world self-determination is permitted only to Moslems. What instead is being pursued is a pan-Islamic demand for sovereignty over any territory where Moslems form a local majority.
Worse, in a replay of the Arab uprising of 1936-1939, the intifada has turned most monstrously on itself. Far more Palestinians are dying at the hands of brother Palestinians than at the hands of Israelis.Krauthammer criticized President Bush for pushing Israel to stop building in Judea and Samaria and Gaza, because he argued in his November 1, 1991 Washington Post column "THE SETTLEMENTS ARE A SPUR TO PEACE":"Everyone remains terrified when he hears a knock on his door at night," writes the Palestinian newspaper Al Fajr. "This fear multiplies when he discovers that the knocker is not a{n Israeli} soldier but rather a masked {Palestinian} man, swathed completely in black from head to toe, armed with an ax or a sword, who requests that his host, or his son or daughter, come out 'for only five or ten minutes!' The next day, we hear on Israeli radio or television that a bound and disfigured body
This is how the uprising ends. Moreover, the Palestinians have not just lost the intifada. They managed to lose a second war this year, the gulf war, their proxy war against Israel and the West. They staked their political and diplomatic capital on Saddam and lost again.
In the normal course of events, a people having undone themselves yet again with their extremism, having so exhausted the patience of their friends and sponsors, having maneuvered themselves into political marginality, would have to make their own peace overtures to their enemies or fade away.
Instead, James Baker and the U.S. administration come riding in to rescue the cause at its weakest, to keep the grievance alive and to advance its demands in an international forum. Shouting "land for peace," they single-handedly revive a cause for which, as the Palestinians will tell you, no Arab state -- not Saudi Arabia, not Jordan, certainly not Syria -- really cares. And they demand that Israel, the only organic American ally in the region (meaning a country that no coup could ever shake from its friendship with the United States), gamble its existence at a conference at which that slogan is to be the centerpiece.
Why then the effort? Because, as the president never tires of saying, now is the time. There is a unique opportunity for peace. Why? Because of the gulf war. The defeat of Iraq was the defeat of Arab radicalism. That has allowed the other Arab parties to go to Madrid to talk peace.But the defeat of Iraq only allowed them to go. What propelled them to go, what moved them to act now, was a palpable sense that history may no longer be on their side. After all, the Madrid conference is convening under precisely the conditions that were offered the Palestinians 13 years ago at Camp David. In 1978 Sadat, Carter and Begin offered negotiations on Palestinian autonomy. Every Arab party rejected the offer.
Why? Because for decades the Arabs have called Israel "the Crusader state." They convinced themselves that Israelis were not a people rooted in a land to which they had returned, but, like the soldiers of the Crusades, were a collection of alien Europeans temporarily dominant but ultimately doomed by the forces of history.
If they waited and stalled and refused to accept Israel, the rejectionists calculated, historical forces would prevail. Demographic forces: The Palestinian birthrate would inundate the Jews and turn them into a minority. Economic forces: Oil would give the Arabs increasing leverage over Israel's friends and allow the Arabs to achieve technological and military superiority over Israel. In time.
No more. Palestinians have now an almost panicked sense that they might have miscalculated yet again. Two recent developments have put time on the other side. First is the huge influx of Soviet Jews into Israel that reverses the demographic trend and promises a substantial Jewish majority in greater Israel for decades to come. Second is the accelerated pace of Israeli settlement of the West Bank. "The Palestinians now realize," says Mayor Elias Freij of Bethlehem, one of the Palestinian delegates at Madrid, "that time is now on the side of Israel, which can build settlements and create facts, and that the only way out of this dilemma is face-to-face negotiations."
There can be no clearer statement that Israeli settlements are not an obstacle to peace but the very spur that is driving the Palestinians finally to the table. They know that if they don't hurry up and start talking, there will be nothing left to negotiate.
The Palestinians do not just get an embryonic state. They get an endowment too. The Palestinians were bankrupted by their unfortunate backing of Saddam Hussein in the gulf war. The Saudis and Kuwaitis, understandably miffed, cut off their mendicant brothers. Now the Palestinians not only get the occupied territories, they get Israeli (and American) collaboration in obtaining a huge cash infusion from the West to make them a going concern.While there may have been reversal of the worldwide intifada, the localized was against Israel hasn't shown much of change, even now. I don't understand what has changed so significantly that Krauthammer's observations of eleven years ago don't still stand today.Now, given the fact that the Palestinians are by far the weakest of all parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict, this is an extraordinarily generous deal for them. It is commensurately dangerous for Israel.
Israel is gambling its national security on PLO sincerity. It is gambling that after decades of unremitting duplicity, of factionalism and terrorism and war against the very idea of a Jewish state, the PLO has finally donned statesmen's suits and committed itself to live in a peace with Israel that it will honor.
I wish I could believe it. I am not encouraged by the stupefying degree to which the PLO continues to begrudge Israel a simple, unambiguous recognition of its right to exist. Instead, PLO officials reiterate old formulations that are as tepid as they are calculated. Bassam Abu-Sharif, senior aide to Yasser Arafat, concedes that the PLO covenant -- the Palestinian constitution that declares the creation of Israel "null and void" and pledges its destruction -- has been "superseded" by events. How broad-minded.
Last week, for example, when Yitzhak Rabin signed the letter recognizing the PLO in Jerusalem, he did it on live television. He wanted his people to see it. When Arafat signed his letter to Rabin recognizing Israel, he did so behind closed doors.Then, as now, peace hinges on whether the Palestinians have truly changed. Where's the evidence that that's happened, even after the death of Arafat?Why is this important? Because this whole peace adventure hinges on the PLO's having really changed, not on its signing pieces of paper. It requires that Arafat begin to undo 50 years of vicious anti-Israel propaganda and tell his people plainly that Israel has a right to exist. It requires that Arafat tell them plainly that the fighting must stop. And to say it not just once -- obliquely, in English, in a side letter to a Norwegian -- but repeatedly, directly, in Arabic, to his Palestinian constituency.
Instead, throughout his triumphal Washington tour, Arafat danced away from saying what needed to be said. On Tuesday, for example, he was asked: "Why don't you clearly call on Hamas and other Palestinians to stop their attacks on the Israelis?"e the causes of ... violence." Meaning: Give me what I demand ("accurate implementation") and there will be no further need to knife Israeli bus drivers. Till then? Well, I have signed it, have I not?
This is exactly how the "old Arafat" handled such questions: bobbing, weaving, maneuvering. This verbal slipperiness was lost on the American media, which have the historical memory of a newt. They were transfixed instead by The Handshake. Through misty eyes, theyinterpreted it as a sign of friendship, when for Arafat it was clearly a means of achieving instant equality of stature with two major heads of state, Yitzhak Rabin and Bill Clinton.
It is understandable that the media should have gone gaga over the ceremony and its cosmic historical significance. After all, television turns a new page in history every morning. It is also understandable that the Clinton administration should have gone overboard in staging the spectacle. The bells and whistles, the trumpets and cymbals were designed to help make a tentative turning point into a world historical event.
On April 4, 1997, Krauthammer showed how fraudulent Oslo had become in "Arafat killed Oslo,"
Or consider the three West Bank "redeployments" that Israel promised in the Hebron agreement (the third pact under the Oslo process). On March 7, in strict accord with Hebron and exactly on schedule, Netanyahu announced a withdrawal from 9.1 percent of West Bank territory.Eight years ago Krauthammer was warning about giving Arafat the whole of Judea, Samaria and Gaza before negotiating final status. Now he's approving the Gaza withdrawal plus a security fence that gives 97% of the those territories to Arafat's successor, before negotiating final status arrangements.Arafat went ballistic, declaring himself -- and Oslo -- betrayed because he didn't get 30 percent. The Western press meekly echoed the charge. Some journalists even appeared to validate it. NBC's Andrea Mitchell, for example, offered this on the Diane Rehm show: "The counter-argument {to charges of Palestinian violation of Oslo} would be that the Israelis were not living up to the Oslo accords because they did not withdraw adequately in this most recent withdrawal."
There is no such counter-argument. There is nothing in Oslo, nothing in the Hebron agreement, nothing anywhere that says anything about the adequacy of 9 percent or 30 percent or any percent. In fact, the official U.S. notes that explain and govern the Hebron agreement state clearly that the extent of the withdrawal is to be left entirely up to Israel. When Netanyahu announced the 9 percent withdrawal, the State Department deemed it "a serious expansion of Palestinian authority" and "a demonstration of Israel's commitment to the peace process."
Where did the 30 percent come from? Arafat made it up.
How did he get this number? Easy. Remember, Israel has pledged to make three withdrawals from the West Bank before fi\nal-status negotiations -- over Jerusalem, refugees, borders, a final peace treaty -- are completed. Do the math. Arafat figures that if he gets 30 percent in each of the three withdrawals, he's got 90 percent. Add that to what he already has now, and he pockets effectively all of the West Bank and Gaza before he negotiates the most delicate issues dear to Israel's heart,such as Jerusalem.
Clever. Make Israel give up all of its territorial chits and all its bargaining leverage before final negotiations. Obviously, Arafat would like that. But Arafat's wanting something does not make it "Oslo."
Imagine what startling, headline-grabbing news it would be if Binyamin Netanyahu, head of the most right-wing government in Israeli history, offered Yasser Arafat a final settlement of theIsrael-Palestinian conflict that embraced the principles of (1)
territorial compromise, i.e., giving up major portions of the holy "Land of Israel," (2) abandoning Jewish settlements, and (3) tacit acceptance of a Palestinian state?
Well, it happened. And if you rely on the national media of the United States for your news, you probably would have missed it. The Los Angeles Times reported it, but the New York Times did not, nor did The Washington Post. Nor did NBC, CBS or ABC. Nor the newsmagazines. Newsweek satisfied itself by reporting Arafat's rejection of the plan. The Wall Street Journal gave it two sentences -- and got the story wrong.
Yet the story was hardly obscure. It broke on the front page of the Israeli daily, Haaretz, on May 29. Indeed, Haaretz published a map of a possible territorial settlement that Netanyahu's government had in mind. It is not an official map but a reconstruction (by Haaretz defense editor Ze'ev Schiff) based on the principles for a "final settlement" enunciated at a meeting of Netanyahu's inner "security" cabinet and deliberately leaked to the press.
Netanyahu calls the plan "Allon-plus," referring to the plan of Labor Party luminary Yigal Allon, who in 1968 proposed that Israel give back to the Arabs most of the West Bank except for the Jordan Valley (nearly uninhabited desert that Israel needs to defend against land attack from the east).
Netanyahu's plan, coming 30 years later, is more generous to Israel (hence the "plus"). It has Israel absorbing some additional territory, mostly suburbs established in the intervening decades around Jerusalem and near Tel Aviv. Allon in '68 would have kept about one-third of the West Bank. Netanyahu would keep just over 50 percent.
Some critics, pointing to these percentages, say the plan is not forthcoming enough. But they miss the point, the momentousness of the principles conceded here by Likud. Likud, after all, is the "Land of Israel" party, the party whose election was greeted in the United States with teeth-gnashing anguish as the ascendancy of religious-nationalist "Greater Israel" fanaticism.
Even before Netanyahu's election, I argued that this view was a compound of nonsense and disinformation. The Netanyahu plan now proves the point. With it, Likud does the unthinkable. It lays out a territorial compromise. It leaves some Jewish settlements behind Palestinian lines, ensuring that they will eventually be razed. And it omits any mention of Likud's ritual opposition to a Palestinian state, a clear signal that it is prepared to concede this principle too. And this is its opening negotiating position!
It may seem odd to begin an examination of the meaning of Israel and the future of the Jews by contemplating the end. But, it does concentrate the mind. And it underscores the stakes. The stakes could not be higher. It is my contention that on Israel-on its existence and survival-hangs the very existence-and survival of the Jewish people. Or, to put the thesis in the negative, that the end of Israel means the end of the Jewish people. They survived destruction and exile at the hands of Babylon in 586 B.C. They survived destruction and exile at the hands of Rome in 70 A.D., and finally in 132 A.D. They cannot survive another: destruction and exile. The Third Commonwealth--modern Israel, born just 50 years ago-is the last.This thesis is, I'm sure, controversial. But whether one accepts it totally or not, here was Krauthammer pointing to what was at stake in the peace process. This article served, not to analyze the peace process as much as to illustrate the importance of it not being done so recklessly as to endanger Israel's existence.The return to Zion is now the principal drama of Jewish history. What began as an experiment has become the very heart of the Jewish people-its cultural, spiritual, and psychological center, soon to become its demographic center as well. Israel is the hinge. Upon it rest the hopes--the only hope--for Jewish continuity and survival.
I got the impression that Krauthammer was close with Netanyahu and gave him a generous (but not uncritical) send-off in "The Israeli Earthquake: What Bibi Did, What Barak Will Do". I think he got Netanyahu and Arafat right. But he botched Barak. Barak moved even further away from Krauthammer's perceived consensus as is evidenced by Barak's offer to Arafat at Camp David. Of course, the recent Israeli cabinet decision essentially validates Barak's extremism.
Barak is not very far from Netanyahu and, indeed, from the Israeli consensus in believing that the answer to these questions must be no-otherwise Israel becomes an unviable state and Palestine's creation makes Israel's demise only a question of time.How long will the honeymoon last? I give it six months. It will come to an abrupt end when the Wye withdrawals have been completed and final-status negotiations are deadlocked. Barak will take a position identical to Netanyahu's against dividing Jerusalem, against a Palestinian state with unrestricted powers, against the return of refugees to Israel, against retreating to the 1967 borders. On all of these demands the Palestinians have not moved an inch in the six years since Oslo.
That is when the crunch will come. That is when this administration-which fancies itself, against all evidence, the most pro-Israel administration in American history-will be tested. It is sure to be tested, because something has happened on the Palestinian side of this equation that has been entirely overlooked by the press and allowed to pass unmentioned by the administration: While everyone had their eyes fixed on Netanyahu, Arafat moved the goal posts.
Remember: Oslo is explicitly based on U.N. Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, which call for a return of the territories captured in 1967 in exchange for peace. But for the last few months Arafat has been going around the world saying that the new Palestinian position is to establish a state based on U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947.
That may all sound arcane. But it is not. The U.N. partition plan of 1947 created a Jewish state in part of Palestine. It was unanimously rejected by the Arab states and the Palestinians, who responded by launching a war to destroy the newly created Israel. But the Jewish state outlined in Resolution 181 was a much smaller state than the one that emerged from the war launched by the Arabs to nullify it. Not only were parts of the Galilee and the Negev given to the Arabs under this plan, but Jerusalem was an international city. To return to 181 means that not just East Jerusalem (captured in '67) would be lost to Israel, but West Jerusalem-exclusively and always Jewish-as well.
Finality does not mean that the Palestinians pledge an end to the conflict and a forswearing of violence. They pledged precisely that seven years ago on the White House lawn and have routinely used violence and the threat of violence ever since. Why, even as Camp David began, Yasser Arafat's own Fatah organization in Gaza declared "a state of general emergency and heightened alert" just to warn the Israelis of what would come if the summit failed.Of course Arafat rejected Barak's offer and started the "Aqsa intifada" a few months later. That led to Barak's downfall and Ariel Sharon's eventual election as Prime Minister. This did not make Krauthammer happy as evidenced by his February 23, 2001 column, "Israel's Phony 'National Unity'":Finality means something else. It means that Palestinian claims against Israel have come to an end. No more demands for territory, no more demands for refugee resettlement, no more demands for financial compensation.
They will get plenty of territorial, financial and other redress in any agreement, plus their own sovereign state. Indeed, Barak is prepared to give the Palestinians everything but his underwear. But in return, he must get irrevocable title to the underwear. The Camp David accords must be the last of the giving. No more claims, no more demands, no more negotiations.
Sharon did it to stay in power for more than the next few months. Without the support of Labor, he'd have to form a narrow right-wing government. In the current Knesset, however, that government would soon collapse, leading to new elections. That would bring back to power the choice of most Israelis: former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.Although, I think that Krauthammer, here, was driven mostly by his regret that Bibi didn't get another shot at being Prime Minister, his analysis of Israel's electoral dysfunction was correct.Indeed this whole election was staged to prevent the return of Netanyahu. Barak pulled a political trick -- a snap resignation that forced this election -- in order to keep Netanyahu, who was leading everybody in the polls by huge margins, off the ballot on a technicality.
The Knesset then repaired the technicality, but Netanyahu withdrew because the Knesset refused to dissolve itself. That meant whoever was elected prime minister would have to govern with a parliament elected two years ago -- before Barak's humiliation at Camp David, before Arafat's rejection of peace, before the five-month old guerrilla war that Arafat then unleashed.
The war, the terrorism, the fear and the implacable rejectionism of the Palestinians have totally changed the political culture of Israel from where it was two years ago. The left is in disarray. Its illusions of peace have been destroyed. Many even crossed over to vote for their great nemesis, Ariel Sharon.
Yet this rump Knesset -- this pre-intifada relic -- which has long outlived its legitimacy, remains. Clinging to its petty privileges, it denies any parliamentary expression for the new rightward Israeli consensus, as represented in Barak's overwhelming defeat. Hence the need for a phony, oxymoronic "national unity" government.
There is only one way this war will stop. The scenario would go like this:A lightning and massive Israeli attack on every element of Arafat's police state infrastructure -- the headquarters and commanders of his eight(!) security services, his police stations, weapons depots, training camps, communications and propaganda facilities (radio, TV, government-controlled newspapers) -- with a simultaneous attack on the headquarters and leadership of Arafat's Hamas and Islamic Jihad allies.
Arafat has given Israel war; he will now receive it. He either flees (as he did Jordan when trying to overthrow King Hussein in 1970) or is deported back to Tunis (as he was from Lebanon in 1982).
Israel does not reoccupy Palestinian cities. Israeli troops stay only the few days necessary to (1) begin building a wall of separation between Palestinian and Israeli territory and (2) evacuate the more far-flung Israeli settlements.
With a new border consolidated, Israel withdraws.
In the current bloodshed, not a single suicide bomber has come from Gaza. Why? Because there already is a wall separating Gaza from Israel. Palestinians have lobbed mortars over it, but it is difficult to send suicide bombers through it. Such a wall built between the rest of Palestine and Israel is the only way to ensure the reduction of violence that everyone claims to want.
Strike and expel. Abandon settlements and consolidate lines. Build the wall. And then? And then wait.
Wait for a Palestinian generation that will sign a peace treaty that it intends to live by.
Let's be plain about what happened at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. The president of the United States put his prestige on the line for the sake of Arab-Israeli peace and the Arab states gave him nothing. They refused to endorse Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. They spoke of their opposition to "terrorism," even as they repeatedly present their own publics with the most elaborate intellectual and religious justifications of why the killing of Jews in "Palestine" is "resistance" and not terrorism.
They did not take a single concrete action, not even a gesture, toward Israel. Egypt did not offer to return its ambassador to Israel. The Saudis threatened a boycott if Israel was even invited. And most important, the Arab states refused what Bush most desperately wanted: explicit endorsement of the American view that Yasser Arafat's time had come and passed.That would have been crucial in elevating Mahmoud Abbas, who appears to want to make peace. What did Bush do? What American presidents always do in response to such rebuffs: smile politely and say thank you.
The peacemaker cometh. Once again, euphoria is in the air. Once again, no one wants to listen to what is being said.Elections for the new Palestinian leader are on Sunday. Conveniently, this being a Palestinian election, we already know the winner. How has President-to-be Abbas been campaigning?
Dec. 30: Abbas, appearing in Jenin, is hoisted on the shoulders of Zakaria Zbeida, a notorious and wanted al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist. Abbas declares that he will protect all terrorists from Israel.
Dec. 31: Abbas reiterates his undying loyalty to Arafat's maximalist demands: complete Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines, Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital and -- the red-flag deal-breaker -- the "right of return," which would send the millions of Palestinians abroad not to their own country of Palestine but to Israel in order to destroy it demographically.
Jan. 1: Abbas declares that he will never crack down on Palestinian terrorism.
Jan. 4: Abbas calls Israel "the Zionist enemy." That phrase is so odious that only Hezbollah and Iran and others openly dedicated to the extermination of Israel use it.
What of Abbas's vaunted opposition to violence? On Jan. 2 he tells Hamas terrorists firing rockets that maim and kill Jewish villagers within Israel, "This is not the time for this kind of act." This is an interesting "renunciation" of terrorism: Not today, boys; perhaps later, when the time is right. Which was exactly Arafat's utilitarian approach to terrorism throughout the Oslo decade.
What we can say about Abbas is that while we (well, some) knew that Arafat was dedicated to perpetual war, Abbas is not. That is a start.(Actually I don't think that the Israeli flag flew at the 2003 summit designed to boost Abbas either.) This column was a fair assessment of the situation at the time. At least externally it looked like something had changed, but we'd need more evidence that it really had. That's what makes "Israel Draws the Line" so jarring.Also encouraging is the behavior of major players Egypt and Jordan. They tired of the intifada. It was a losing proposition for both. Egypt does not want a terrorist Gaza, and Jordan does not want a terrorist West Bank.
In the heavily coded language of Middle East diplomacy, Egypt has made some significant moves. It insisted on hosting the peace summit. It invited Ariel Sharon to Egypt for the first time in 23 years. Egyptian and Jordanian ambassadors will return to Tel Aviv. And if you look closely at the pictures, you see Israeli flags flying publicly alongside the Arab flags at the Sharm el-Sheik summit.
There was no Israeli flag flying at the last summit involving Israel's then-prime minister and pathetic peace mendicant, Ehud Barak, when he came begging Arafat to make peace shortly before a disgusted Israeli public could vote him out of office.
But it seems odd to me that Krauthammer is left to articulate Sharon's strategy more or less by inference and that obvious questions have yet to be asked of its advocates, let alone answered.
But in Gaza, which is also surrounded by a fence, the bloodshed has continued. Why? Because 8,200 Jews are living on the wrong side of the fence. Defending them involves enormous Israeli military deployments, great danger and no real return. Everyone knows that ultimately this island of Jews in a sea of a million Arabs will have to go.Actually it's not the Jews of Gaza that need defending. It's the Jews of Sderot and Ashkelon. As terror groups develop their missiles unhindered by an Israeli military presence, Jews outside of Gaza's fence will increasingly become targets. It's possible of course that Abbas's policemen will do the job. But the PA police didn't do the job before, so this is a leap of faith. If the lesson of withdrawal from Lebanon is any guide, the withdrawal from Gaza will allow the terror groups to flourish because they won't have to defend their home turf. Israel may create an umbrella to fight terror (via IMRA), but without troops on the ground I can't imagine that Israel's defense of the area will be complete.
This defensive barrier separating the two populations will not only prevent suicide bombers from killing hundreds of innocent civilians. It will change the entire strategic equation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The terrorism weapon that the Palestinians have brandished in the past -- and will surely brandish again at every turn in negotiations when their maximal demands go unmet -- will disappear.Except Israel's latest planned adjustment to the fence leaves Israel with just 3.3% of Judea and Samaria. This is down from the 50% figure Krauthammer saw in Netanyahu's Map. For someone who sees Judea, Samarian and Gaza chiefly as bargaining chips this is astonishing. In 7 1/2 years of bad faith, the PA has managed to get Israel to withdraw nearly completely from Judea and Samaria and what has Israel received in return? It makes no difference if the negotiator across the table from Israel is Arafat or Abbas or someone else. Where are Israel's chits that Krauthammer deemed so important just a few years ago for final status negotiations? And hasn't Israel's retreat essentially rewarded terror?
Why did Ariel Sharon do this? Did the father of the settlement movement go soft? Defeatist? No. The Israeli right has grown up and given up the false dream of Greater Israel, encompassing the Palestinian territories. And the Israeli left has grown up too, being mugged by the intifada into understanding that you do not trust the lives of your children to the word of an enemy bent on your destruction.But the biggest problem is whether the Palestinians have given up on the dream of Greater Palestine. If they acknowledge the historical Jewish rights to the land of Israel. (And reading Ha'aretz, I'm not at all certain that the Israeli left has given up their delusions.)
