Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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One of the best known and most useful lines in the analysis of things political and military comes from Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian general who died in 1831. His treatise “On War” contains the phrase that still guides realists, “War is the continuation of Politik by other means” Politik can be translated as “policy” or “politics.” The terms may be close cousins, but they have different implications. Americans and others schooled by images of overwhelming power, enormous numbers of military and civilian casualties, and demands for unc...
Settlers and the ultra-Orthodox are important minorities in Israeli politics. Both are somewhere on the fringe of key decision-makers, but must be taken into consideration even if not part of the A-team. There is no precise measure of either group. “Settlers” are both more and less the people living in post-1967 neighborhoods of Jerusalem and elsewhere over the 1967 borders. Many, most, or the overwhelming majority of the people living in those locales chose their residence for any number of prosaic reasons, with no thought of making a pol...
There is a long tradition, no less prominent in Judaism than in other cultures, of voluntary service and donations collected for the benefit of the needy or some other public purpose. There is also a long list of eleemosynary organizations that have gone bad, with leaders using the resources collected for their own enrichment. The schnorer is an established character is Jewish myth and humor. The man or woman who asks for money, some of which may be for him/herself, but is skilled in telling a story that warms the heart and opens the wallet....
The people of Israel have survived worse than the threats currently being made by Palestinians, John Kerry and Thomas Friedman. The betting is that Israel and Palestine will agree to continue talking for another year, if only to avoid a frontal insult to the American administration. Kerry and Friedman do not appear inclined to comprehend the threats faced by Israel and many others from the various streams of Islam, now at one of their historic feverish highs in both Syria and Egypt. Perhaps they should turn to something that may be easier,...
By Ira Sharkansky Slogans of the left are that Israeli occupation of Palestinian land cannot last, or alternatively, that the international community will not tolerate the lack of agreement between Israel and an independent State of Palestine. It has lasted for coming onto 66 or 47 years, depending on whether you begin at 1948 or 1967. Those who say it can’t last, and must be interrupted by an agreement with Palestine overlook two things: • The impossibility of predicting the future, perhaps especially amidst the turmoil currently app...
Meyer Lansky and Jonathan Pollard are both significant for what they say about US-Israel relations. Lansky was a gangster, a good American, and a good Zionist. He worked his underworld connections in behalf of U.S. efforts in World War II, the movement of refugees from Europe to Israel, and arms shipments to Israel at a crucial time. Israelis quarrel as to whether the country should have given in to U.S. demands to extradite him, despite claims of achieving sanctuary in Israel under the Law of Return, but we’ve pretty much stopped arguing a...
There ain’t much that is new under the sun. Israelis, Diaspora Jews and others who are concerned with us should have ceased hoping years ago for the kind of peace that prevails between the US and Canada, or among the countries of Western Europe. Something like the U.S. border with Mexico might be attainable. That is, a fenced or patrolled border; lines on the outside of people wanting to pass inspection in order to enter; conditions on the other side significantly less than desirable; and the economy on the good side profiting from joint v...
The latest Palestinian threat to leave the negotiations and turn to the international community to give it what it wants comes after the passage in the Israeli government of a proposal to attach the Jordan Valley to Israel. The principal promoter of the proposal is MK Miri Regev, one of the most outspoken of the parliamentarians in the right wing of the Likud delegation. Most likely this will join several other efforts of Israeli politicians to threaten Palestinians and Israeli Arabs with something approaching an apocalypse. Remember the...
Was Jesus a Palestinian? That is the latest historical claim of Mahoud Abbas. The status of Abbas is its own problem, due to his term as president of the Palestine. National Authority having run out in January 2009, and there being no subsequent election. His claim about Jesus is even more problematic. While the reliable documentation is sparse, most agree that he was born to a Jewish mother in what was then Judea, three or four years before or after the beginning of what became the Common Era. The area did not become “Syria Palaestina” unt...
We are now more busy than usual. Perhaps various groups of activists had been sidelined by the storm, which is still evident in piles of tree trash that block sidewalks. Whatever the cause for the pause, there were Saturday night demonstrations in behalf of legalized marijuana, or at least easier access to the refined weed sold by drug stores with prescriptions for the relief of pain. Gays and lesbians had their demonstration, perhaps leaving some loyal to both gays and marijuana wondering whether to parade for one or the other. The best-known...
By Ira Sharkansky What we can call the Jewish itch is the aspiration for better and more. It is not present in all Jews. We also have those who accept the status quo in the public condition or their personal situation, without question or ambition. The aspiration for better and more is also not exclusive to the Jews. It can be found in all racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural groups. Yet it appears to occur with a higher incidence among Jews. It was apparent in the creation of the Hebrew Bible, the literary beauty apparent in some of its...
One cannot help but be impressed with the focus of the Obama administration with the Middle East, despite expectations that the region would be left to its own miserable self. Both Kerry and Obama have spent time with the Saban Forum, trying again to convince Jewish doubters about Iran and Palestine. Kerry has come eight times as secretary of state. Talks with the Palestinians ought to be described as the Kerry talks, given his role in getting them started, his tireless prodding of the principals, and his persistent claims of progress. Each...
Is this just another bit of U.N. blather, one of 21 resolutions passed so far against Israel this year, while only four resolutions condemned activities in all the other countries of the world? Or does it portend 12 months of festivities on campuses, in union halls, liberal churches and other places susceptible to the nonsense that Palestine deserves more help than anything else? It would be easier to ignore if Barack Obama and John Kerry were not part of the chorus. The U.S. was one of four western states along with Israel, Canada, and...
The best feature of the Iran deal—and maybe its only good feature—is that there is a deal, showing that the Iranians are willing to deal. The weakest points from an Israeli perspective are the Iranians, the U.S. administration, and the U.N. agency charged with inspection, none of which are particularly trustworthy. Some may object to an Israeli perspective. Primary for Americans, Europeans, Russians, and Chinese is what is good for them. Yet an Israeli perspective is legitimate in itself, especially for Israelis, and in this context may cla...
The latest incident of violence to reach the headlines, which is not to say that it is the latest incident, involved the murder of a young soldier not yet finished with basic training, while on a bus returning from sick leave. The even younger lad who stabbed him numerous times before he was overwhelmed by other passengers is 16 years old. The story he told the police involves him getting into Israel illegally, via one of the paths that Palestinians use, most of them concerned only to find work. This young man came with a knife, and apparently...
Israelis and Americans are going through a couple of bad patches with Barack Obama. The two issues are as different as they could be, but are united in reinforcing distrust of duplicity at the top. Americans’ problems are currently focusing on the limping roll out of what is linked directly to the president via its popular label of Obamacare. In particular, lots are remembering a presidential promise that they could keep their present insurance if they liked it, as they read the letters of cancellation received from their insurance companies. O...
America’s loss of dominance was inevitable. Its standing from the late ‘40s through the ‘50s could not last. The power derived from being the sole country on its feet after the most destructive war in history. The American economy thrived as a result of pent-up purchasing power from wartime full employment, the genius of sending demobilized troops to college, the skills they acquired, the economic boom associated with the babies they made, and the additional genius of foreign aid in the context of the Cold War that made the U.S. No. 1 in a wes...
Years ago, Grandma told me, for the nth time, that God helps them who help themselves. It’s a message she should have directed to the Palestinians, as well as to her lazy grandson. Once more, the Palestinians are blaming others for their problems, while their most obvious roads to progress remain unused. This time it is Khalid Amayreh, writing in what he labels “occupied East Jerusalem” about what he claims to be “institutionalized discrimination against non-Jews in Israel.” I received the article from my friend Muhammad, with whom I often dis...
By Ira Sharkansky Somewhere in the American side of my brain is a memory of hearing that America is safe only when Congress is on vacation. The feeling may not be appropriate this week, when members of Congress are trying to do something along with the White House to loosen their collective hands from the throat of the world’s largest economy, and via globalization on the rest of us. Leaving America aside for the time being, the view of danger when a legislature convenes fits Israel, especially this week when the Knesset returns from its s...
Rabbi Ovadia died at noon on Oct. 7, at the age of 93, after more than two weeks in intensive care and hourly reports of his decline, improvement, and final decline. The eulogies were scheduled to begin at 6 p.m., with burial in the small cemetery of Sanhedria about a kilometer distant. The vehicle carrying the Rabbi’s body moved at a rate of inches per hour, and had not approached the cemetery by the time I went to bed. From the time of the Rabbi’s death, the three television channels had little more than coverage of the clogged streets, occ...
It’s been almost 40 years since I moved from the U.S. to Israel. I still write about the country where I was born, had my formal education, and spent about one-third of my professional career. Internet friends, some of them not so friendly, attack me from both left and right, claiming that I do not understand their country. Although I am not current about many details, I look at a number of prominent US media each day, and I feel that enough remains from what I wrote and taught when I was in the middle of things American to be comfortable in w...
It is too early to comment with any certainty about the policy of the United States, or any other country with respect to Syria’s chemical weapons or its civil war. There are likely to be twists and turns before us heavy thinkers can pass on to other topics. Nonetheless, there are hints of interesting developments. My concern is with the United States and Barack Obama more than with the morass of Syria. His waffling was not impressive. Sending Kerry to make an impassioned speech, then making a very forceful half speech of his own before turning...
There has been a flurry of items coming to my in-box describing the latest under the heading of anti-Semitism. It is, alas, a very long story, going back at least to the beginning of the Common Era. For those who aren’t familiar with Jewish ways of recording the dates of the goyim, that’s the year 0. The current wave grows out of the post-World War II and post-Holocaust era, when Christians renounced what they had been preaching for two millennia, and Muslims quickly picked up what Christians discarded after Israel’s War of Independence. Now w...
By Ira Sharkansky On the one hand there are these considerations... On the other hand are these... In the light of these conditions, what should be the policy of the United States? Of course there is no clear or “objective” answer. Someone has to decide. Most prominently it will be the president of the United States, with inputs from White House advisers, secretaries and others from the Departments of Defense and State, plus whatever comes out of Congress, what reaches the president from interest groups and commentators in the U.S. and ove...
By Ira Sharkansky The people of Israel continue to live in a condition that is marked on the one side by the theme of the national anthem, Hope, and on the other by the national slogan, oy gevalt. Once again, this New Year has its reasons for optimism, not unblemished by worries. Life is good for most of us. Measures of health rank Israelis as one of the most long-lived of people (Jews and others), with a medical system considered among the best in the world. Hospital care does not provide the luxuries associated with private rooms enjoyed by...
