Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Every once in a while someone new starts reading my notes, and responds with an expression of frustration. Usually it’s something like, “Dammit, what’s your solution?” Read my lips. There ain’t any. In politics one should never say never, but in this case there is close to a century of efforts circling back on similar ideas, with the same failure to bring the sides closer together. Is it time to plant a tombstone for the Two-State Solution? Who’s to blame? That’s a question too complex to answer. It resembles the question, “Do you believe in...
Islam is a problem for the faithful, as well as for the rest of us. Its 1600 years of accumulated doctrines may not differ in essence from what Jews have accumulated in 2500 years or Christians in 2100 years. What is problematic, however, are all those Muslims stuck in a cycle of warfare against heresy and non-believers. It’s the same problem that produced centuries of killing among Christians from their earliest period, and hopefully has petered out in its last bastion of Northern Ireland. Jews have avoided killing one another over a...
Relax? Impossible. Too much is threatening. Daesh, whatever that is, is chopping heads and managing to evade the U.S. air campaign (along with a few other participants providing 10 percent of the airstrikes), and imposing its draconian Islam across much of Syria and Iraq. Hamas says that it intends to do throughout Palestine what Daesh is doing in Syria and Iraq. More modest Palestinians are demanding international recognition for something that would shrink and threaten Israel. Sweden’s prime minister and the British Parliament are talking abo...
What do the 1861 attack on Fort Sumter, Germany’s 1941 attack on Russia, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11 have in common? They represent an adversary’s error that brought upon it a greater power, and—in the case of the first three—eventual destruction. We’re still seeing the playing out of 9/11, principally now in Iraq and Syria. The end game has not been reached. Moreover, insofar as this is the first of the examples where organized states are dealing with non-state violence fueled by religious fanaticism, it may not end in anything like a surrender...
Does something smell especially bad? Or is it just the normal smell of political infighting and mutual accusation? Front and center is Martin Indyk, his past and present roles as a leading figure in the Brookings Institution, Qatar’s multi-million dollar gifts to Brookings, the failure of Indyk to broker a deal between Israel and Palestinians, and the blame that Indyk has directed against Prime Minister Netanyahu. Qatar has received headlines for its financial support of Hamas, the desire of Indyk’s bosses to include Qatar and Turkey among the...
Not all the religious fanatics are Muslims. One can think of candidates under the umbrella of Christianity, but here our concern is Jews. Two cases recently in the headlines provoke shame or something else, depending on one’s sense of responsibility or cynicism. One is a bearded, well-coiffured man whose trial on sexual exploitation and slavery ended after four years of delays. There were guilty verdicts for rape and other varieties of sexual exploitation involving several wives and lots of children, but the court could not find sufficient e...
Wednesday morning we woke to our neighborhood in the headlines. My inbox included two notes from overseas inquiring about our safety. “Activists” (“terrorists” is on the other edge of the politically correct; “thieves’ or “vandals” may be correct in this instance) from Isaweea torched the French Hill gas station and looted its store. The station manager and employees are Arabs, and they will suffer at least a temporary loss of work. Likewise the Palestinians who work in Jewish industries that the worthies of the world boycott on account of inju...
Policymakers aspire to clarity. It is easiest to define and defend one’s actions according to fixed lines. Government benefits should go to individuals who meet certain criteria. Giving discretion to the people who carry out policy is problematic. It facilitates favoritism and brings charges of discrimination. Yet some issues do not lend themselves to clear lines, and some of those who implement policy should have discretion. Physicians make some decisions according to widely accepted criteria, but are entitled to use the judgment they have bee...
The Israeli public is unhappy with how the Gaza operation has ended. “Ended” is, of course, problematic, as is the expectation for a month-long cease fire. The prime minister, defense minister, and head of the IDF held a joint press conference, in which they defended themselves against those claiming that the war ought to have continued to a more complete victory. Netanyahu’s line is that the complete defeat of a terrorist organization is not easy. He didn’t say “impossible,” but something near that was apparent. Israelis argue as to whether...
We’re at a junction, as complex as any where two or three major highways come together, with too many signs to be anything other than confusing. On Tuesday we were still in a limping forward cease fire, with confusing signals from Palestinians and Israelis about their willingness to accept the imperfect, along with threats about what could happen. Mahmoud Abbas has been maneuvering for a role in Gaza. He is the most prominent of Palestinians saying that the unity Palestine National Authority must accept what the the Egyptians have offered, a...
As I look around me this mid-August morning in 2014 I see a number of crap shoots, or games of chance. We can argue what historical events they reflect. Among the candidates are the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Arab Spring that began toward the end of 2010 with a promise of democracy but now unraveled to barbarism, or the spread of independence throughout the Third World after World War II and then the conquest of the UN General Assembly and several ancillary bodies by governments that barely—if at all—meet the criteria of being civ...
Lots of questions Why Hamas attacked in the first place? Why it continues to attack, especially from within the time frame of the cease fire that it requested? Why has the US sided with the most radical of the Muslim governments? Why has the Israeli government dithered about escalating beyond goals not likely to achieve lasting quiet? There are no clear answers to any of these questions. The fog of war surrounds us, and we should not expect any of the players to be candid about their aims or capacities. Hamas’ motives are the most i...
The short answer to the question heading this note is “No.” There are too many Muslims in the world, having weight in international forums, with the U.S. and E.U. inclined to go along with them. The ascendance of radicalism among Muslims makes any of their governments reluctant to challenge a hard line against Israel. All that is true, but within those constraints, there is wiggle room for Israel and its friends. Governments of Muslim countries routinely demand anti-Israel declarations in the U.N. and other bodies, and press governments of the...
There are far more questions than answers. There may be a new country being formed. It won’t be a welcome addition, as judged by the various governments sending units of their armed forces to attempt an abortion. Those associated with the movement, variously called the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) or more simply the Islamic State (IS), are talking about a caliphate that will begin with large parts of Iraq and Syria, and eventually control the world. So far the record of the new regime is barbaric, proud of shooting p...
Things have escalated in the south to the point where the IDF is now pursuing an “operation.” The Hebrew word touches more buttons than the official English translation, “Protective edge.” Alternative translations that might touch different buttons, are “Strong rock” “Impregnable rock,” or “Impregnable fortress.” In IDF parlance, a named operation is less than a war, but more than a limited response to a limited attack. Yesterday saw more than 80 missiles fired toward Israel. As usual, the vast majority landed on empty land. IDF responses--more...
Israeli governments have long recognized the need to tread carefully in pursuit of national security. Greater powers have a limited tolerance for Israel daring to approach what they do in defense of their own interests. Part of the balance is the considerable power of the Israeli military that can threaten any state that would overstep vaguely defined lines. The latest examples of Israeli balance between its security and others’ tolerance have been emerging as Israeli forces seek the three kidnapped young civilians, and do what they can to w...
Life on the borders of cultures has been brought again to the fore in the crisis of three boys. We are seeing how far apart we are from Palestinians who celebrate the kidnapping, compare it to Israel’s imprisonment of their heroes who we see as murderers. And how far apart we are from Americans and other westerners who criticize us for overreacting against Palestinians, and cannot see what we do in the preaching and actions of Muslims. Cultures are fuzzy, and the borders between them are not impenetrable to some degree of understanding and s...
“Messiah” may be a stretch. The word implies something from another world, associated with the Almighty, and meant to create some kind of paradise for those who are favored. Writing from Jerusalem on the subject is especially dicey, given that we are within walking distance of the places where the world’s primary claimant to the title was born and died. Beginning it with a small “m” might convey a more modest intention, of a political figure who will make things better, provide a new alternative, shake up the tired folks currently running thing...
The attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, resulting in four deaths including those of a visiting Israeli couple, has elevated once again the issue of anti-Semitism. It comes against the background of recent studies of the subject, including one based on questions about attitudes toward Jews in various countries, another on Jews’ sense of threat, and yet another that examined actual attacks attributed to anti-Semitism. The findings support those who would emphasize the continued threat against Jews, as well as those who argue that the f...
John Kerry regrets his use of the word apartheid in connection with Israel, but his half-hearted apology, which included a reiteration of his accusation against Israel’s leadership as well as that of the Palestinians for not having the courage to do what he thought was right, put him squarely with the Jewish and international left that thinks Israel has no choice but to cave in to Palestinians or to absorb them. Apartheid will come, in Kerry’s view like that of Jimmy Carter, when Israel has to protect itself from the Palestinians who have bec...
Palestinians of Hamas Gaza and Fatah West Bank have announced the end of their dispute. They claim it gives them added strength to deal with Israel. Bibi is claiming that it provides the exit from the peace process. At least temporarily, the U.S. is siding with Israel in accepting a suspension of meetings between negotiators. The critical questions are: How pragmatic is Hamas? And can Israel or the U.S. negotiate with certified terrorists? Israel has negotiated with Hamas, as well as with Hezbollah, but only on limited issues with respect to...
Let’s call it what it is. The U.S. has used its muscle to get Israelis and Palestinians to discussions that neither of them wanted. Both sides speak and deal with one another all the time. It’s part of living side-by-side, with pockets of one inside the other, and no clear boundaries. Arabs with Israeli citizenship ponder their identities and loyalties. Some Israeli Jews with more than one passport question the validity of Arab/Palestinian divided loyalties, without considering their own situation. What defies solution is a general agr...
Guess what? There is another proposal for solving Israel’s problem with the Palestinians. Michael Oren, recently Israeli ambassador to the US, has proposed that Israel recognize the impossibility of reaching a deal with the Palestinians, define its borders, withdraw from the rest of the West Bank, and hope for the best. Oren was trashed by the hosts of a popular discussion program for not being at all sure that the international community would accept something the Palestinians would be likely to reject. All this suggests that the end of O...
John Kerry’s peace process is dying. Or it was born dead, despite having parents who praised its prospects. The fault is not Israel’s, nor Palestine’s, but John Kerry’s. Or maybe Barack Obama’s, due to his appointing a visionary for a job that is supposed to be serious. Kerry’s various ideas join the collection amassed since the 1930s, resembling the jumble of the Jewish graveyard of Prague, with stones leaning one on the other and hardly room to set foot among them. An item in the Washington Post called the process a fool’s errand. Israe...
Israelis have been seeking accommodation for decades, depending on when you start counting, first with Arabs and later with Palestinians. It is common, and perhaps justified, for Israelis and our friends to blame the Arabs for intransigence as well as violence. That is a cultural perspective, one that sees Israelis with a prior claim, earned by purchase, settlement, military success and development, enhanced by attitudes and behaviors that value human life and oppose bloodshed as a means of settling disputes. Those are not, alas, the Muslim...
