Skipping the Party

An overcast, lugubrious day in Jerusalem. My business took me to the Knesset. The center of town is nearly abandoned. Jerusalemites know what to expect when the President of the United States comes to visit and the police bar them from entering their own downtown.
Jerusalem looks eerily like a museum piece or a movie set, the stage for somebody else’s illusions with ourselves as minor walk-on characters.
Almost everyone stayed away. The city looks eerily like a museum piece or a movie set, the stage for somebody else’s illusions with ourselves as minor walk-on characters. Somewhere over our heads, about at the elevation of the police helicopter circling endlessly above, someone is staging a tawdry piece of theater. Ostensibly it’s about us, we’re certainly paying for it (in more ways than one), but it’s not actually meant for the real people down here on the ground.

The sense of detachment intensified as I passed security and entered the Knesset. The Knesset is festooned with flags—American and Israeli flags on alternate flagpoles. Once upon a time this sight, in this place, would have given me a thrill. Now I am aware mainly of a hole in the heart where the thrill would have been. I haven’t been able to summon a thrill at the sight of an Israeli flag since February 2005, when the Disengagement Law passed the Knesset. I am reminded of stories people told me back in the Old Country, people who couldn’t find it within themselves to be proud of the American flag as long as the Vietnam war was going on (From the time I could form a professional judgment I felt differently. To keep the Viet Cong away from South Vietnam and the Khmer Rouge away from the Cambodians was a cause worth fighting for, botched beyond retrieval by “experts” who had no comprehension of their job, the price paid by hapless and innocent millions).
George Bush is coming to visit a country with a fool (“history is meaningless!”) for president, a crook for prime minister, and a governing elite on the skids, unworthy guardians of the Jewish people and its inheritence. They have thrown themselves a party at public expense and invited the President of the United States to dress it up.

It shouldn’t be this way. The President of the United States ought to come to Jerusalem, the seat of David’s throne and the capital of the Jewish state, as a pilgrim and not as a celebrity. If his hosts knew what and whom they ought to represent, even the pilgrimage of the greatest potentate in the world would not seem like so much, but only homage—spiritual, not political—where homage is due.
It shouldn’t be this way. The President of the United States ought to come to Jerusalem, the seat of David’s throne and the capital of the Jewish state, as a pilgrim and not as a celebrity.

Eric Yoffie's Presumptuousness

And just who does Rabbi Eric Yoffie think he is to decide who may or may not speak up for Israel?

I deeply regret that I didn't think up the headline of Richard Baehr’s article on the conservative website American Thinker--"Rabbi Yoffie Excommunicates Pastor Hagee." Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, thinks that Evangelical Christians’ support is bad for Israel.  He thinks Pastor Hagee and similar enthusiasts for Israel should be ostracized by Jews in Israel and the United States:  Jews should neither attend Hagee’s events in support of Israel, nor invite Evangelicals like Hagee to demonstrate their support of Israel.
Yoffie wants Hagee out of debates regarding Israel’s future because Hagee is likely to be an effective and committed advocate of views that Yoffie doesn’t like.

Yoffie’s attitude is insufferable on at least two levels.  First of all, because of its blatant bias.  It’s not as if Yoffie thinks that Pastor Hagee is actually out to harm Jews or Israel.  No, he wants Hagee out of debates regarding Israel’s future because Hagee is likely to be an effective and committed advocate of views that Yoffie doesn’t like.  For Hagee believes that Israel should be the state of the Jews and that the Jews should control Eretz Yisrael.  Such views do not jive with the “two-state solution” that Yoffie prefers.  Yoffie would like to pretend that his views represent a consensus, but rather than argue for them he prefers to leave challenging interlocutors like Hagee out of the debating hall, in the cold.  Yoffie’s position is  intellectually dishonest. 

Now I happen to agree with the elements of Pastor Hagee’s positions cited above.  To be consistent, Yoffie has to regard me and people like me as a threat to Israel’s well-being.  If people’s views are what disqualify them from participation in the debate, then it cannot matter that I am Jewish, live in Israel, have Israeli citizenship, have sons that do reserve duty, and vote.  I’m as big a threat to Israel as Pastor Hagee is, and in Yoffie’s world view Israel would be better off if I were to just disappear.  Perhaps I’m fortunate that Yoffie lives in New Jersey and is not Prime Minister of Israel or head of its secret service. 

Which brings us to the second level on which Yoffie’s position is outrageous:  Who does he think he is anyway?

Long ago, American Jews used to debate whether they had a right to speak out on Israeli foreign policy.  After all, the argument went, American Jews were there, in the goldeneh medineh, and not here in Israel.  It wasn’t their lives and sons at stake.  Such decisions were best left for Israeli Jews to settle at the ballot box. 

That sentiment is long gone.  Partisans of unilateral retreat and pursuers of the will-o-the-wisp of a democratic
In our debates in Israel Yoffie is an outsider. He participates in our debates on sufferance. The last thing he should assume is that he has the right to decide whom to let into our debating hall.
Palestine have no problem lecturing Israelis ad nauseam, and using their influence to induce the American government to pressure Israel to act in ways most Israelis now think is against their country's best interests. 

Now in fact, I think American Jews have the right to talk about whatever they want.  It’s a free country.  Yoffie has solid Zionist credentials, having done much to legitimize Zionism among American reform Jews as head of the Association of Reform Zionists of America.  Nonetheless, if anyone has a right at this late date to pass on the propriety of participation, even as a kibitzer, in Israel’s critical debates, it’s me, a Jew in Israel, and not Eric Yoffie of New Jersey.

Yoffie seems to think that because he was born Jewish he was also born with a right Pastor Hagee doesn’t share, the right to nag me about my illiberality, inhumanity and violations of human rights.  Well, Yoffie's wrong.  A Zionist Yoffie may be, but in our debates in Israel he is an outsider. He doesn’t live here and nothing really vital to him is at stake.  He participates in our debates on sufferance.  The last thing Yoffie should assume is that he has the right to decide whom to let into our debating hall.

So why am I willing to tolerate Yoffie's presence in the debate?  First of all, because even though I am (apparently) a benighted warmonger whose opinions harm Israel, I am a more genuine liberal than Eric Yoffie.  I don’t seek to exclude people from debates simply because they disagree with me.

And second of all, because there are other Israeli Jews who want Yoffie in on the debate.  I have bitter
Pastor Hagee and Christian supporters of Israel are going to remain in the debate because I say so. I want them in the debating hall. Together with Amos Oz and Ehud Olmert, I own the hall. And I am going to seat Pastor Hagee in the first row.
disagreements with these Jews.  I think they are running the country to ruin.  I think they violated the rights of their fellow citizens during disengagement, thereby compromising the legitimacy of the Israeli state.  But they are here, their sons serve, they vote, and I owe them the courtesy of listening to Eric Yoffie.

And that is why Pastor Hagee and Christian supporters of Israel are going to remain in the debate, whether Eric Yoffie likes it or not:  because I say so.  I think Evangelical Christians' views on Israeli foreign policy are right where Yoffie’s are wrong, I think these Christians' Zionism is worthy of respect, that they have valuable contributions to make to Israel’s survival both in Washington and Jerusalem, and I want them in the debating hall.  Together with Amos Oz and Ehud Olmert, I own the hall.  And I am going to seat Pastor Hagee in the first row.  Shift over a seat, Yoffie, and let the man sit down.

Ecraser L'Infame!

The Winograd Report will be ignored by the politicians.  The proper public response is to wipe out the parties responsible at the polls, whenever they take place.

How wonderful that Israel's government has prepared in advance for every possible scenario and constructed lines of defense against every possible threat.  No, of course I don't mean the events on the Gaza border last week, which could have a decisive impact on Israel's future, first and foremost on the welfare of the unfortunate residents
The tragedy of the whole Winograd Report affair is that it exists at all. In any other democratic country the new government elected in the aftermath of the war would long be busy executing its public mandate.
of Sderot and the Western Negev, so near to Hamastan and Sinai, so far from the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem and the Defense Minister's office in Tel Aviv.  Gaza, after all,  proved once more, if proof were needed, that our fearless leaders cannot see much farther than the end of their nose, are devoid of courage or character, and that nothing they say ("Gaza will be blockaded!") needs to be taken seriously.  Or maybe Hamas just took them by surprise while they were busy with more important things:  Neutralizing the anticipated effects of the Winograd Commission's report, to be published today, and ensuring their continuation in office.

The tragedy of the whole Winograd Report affair is that it exists at all.  In any other democratic country with a Parliamentary (rather than Presidential) form of government the publication of the Winograd Report, a year and a half after a lost war, would only rate a minor headline.  The new government elected in the aftermath of the war would long be busy executing its public mandate.  The personalities criticized in the report would have long moved off the public stage, and interest in the report itself would mainly be confined to technocrats and military professionals.

I greatly doubt that the Winograd Report will change much.  The plain fact is that neither Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak nor Eli Yishai of Shas want to face the public, so the public can go hang as far as they're concerned.  The main onus for the continuation of the Olmert government rests of course on Barak.  Most of the country wants Olmert out, but Barak isn't willing to let this happen until he's sure he can take Olmert's place.  This is now unlikely to occur in the foreseeable future. 

Hamas has just proved that Barak can neither foresee their strategy nor deter them effectively.  This will become increasingly evident to the public at large in the ensuing weeks.  More than ever, the real response to Hamas is a large-scale offensive into Gaza, but this Barak will not initiate.  He may not be competent but he's also not a fool.  He wants a victory not another bloodbath with an uncertain outcome as in Lebanon, and he's not likely to attain anything but a bloodbath under the rules of combat Israel's legal system will dictate to him.  So he will do nothing and, like Olmert, become another failed politician taking refuge in his posh office from the public's ire.

The case of Eli Yishai, the head of Shas, is slightly different.  Yishai too can throw Olmert out of office if he wants.  If asked, "well, why don't you do it!?" he can give an answer that should give pause to any interlocutor:  "And if I do so, will things be any better after elections?"  Binyamin Netanyahu and the Likud are saying all the right things about Gaza and Iran—for now.  The public at large now speaks from Netanyahu's mouth, but will Netanyahu actually do what he says once elected?  One hopes so, but one can at least understand Yishai's unwillingness to gamble on the uncertain possibility that the future will be better.

Nevertheless Yishai's calculus is mistaken.  Even if the Prime Minister who failed in Lebanon were from the Israeli
object of all—protesting company commanders, parents of the fallen, and millions of ordinary Israeli citizens, right or left, religious or secular—should be to wipe out the parties now constituting the Olmert government at the polls. There is a reasonable political alternative for every one of them.
Right—Menahem Begin comes to mind—he would be morally obligated to take the blame and resign (as Begin did).  The issue at stake is not just the government's policy but the integrity of Israel's democracy.  Principle requires that those who fail take responsibility for their failures.

During the Dreyfus affair in France, one of the rallying cries of Dreyfus' supporters was "ecraser l'infame!"—erase the infamy.  From today until the next elections, whenever they take place, this should become the rallying cry of all the groups now calling, in vain, for a change of government.  The object of all—protesting company commanders, parents of the fallen, and millions of ordinary Israeli citizens, right or left, religious or secular—should be to wipe out the parties now constituting the Olmert government at the polls.  There is a reasonable political alternative for every one of them.  Leftists can vote for Meretz or Uzi Dayan.  Rightists and the orthodox have a plethora of choices.  The voters need to send Israeli politicians a message:  There are worse things than submitting to the verdict of the people when the great majority of people demand it.  You might be condemned, not merely to opposition, but to the street outside the Knesset, and for keeps.

A "Reasonable Decision?"

The most remarkable finding of the Winograd Commission is that the government's decision to launch the final ground assault in the concluding 60 hours of the war, sacrificing the lives of 33 soldiers in the process, was "reasonable" even "unavoidable."  This is the political headline today and ensures that Ehud Olmert will remain in power until he makes another mistake Israelis recognize as egregious and unforgivable (such a mistake may materialize in Gaza sooner than anyone suspects).

I find this manner of presenting the decision astounding and substantially incomplete.  In the narrowest of senses the verdict is, strictly speaking, correct.  On the night of August 11 2006, it was clear that the UN was about to adopt a resolution ending the war that was largely unfavorable to Israel.  Moreover, the only way to ensure that those parts of the resolution favorable to Israel--those calling for the establishment of an international force along the border--were implemented depended on the Israeli army siezing the positions where the international force was to be stationed, so it could turn them over to the UN.  Hizbollah clearly wasn't about to cooperate voluntarily.  So yes, given the circumstances, the decision made some diplomatic and military sense.

But to say no more than that is a misrepresentation.  In evaluating the decision to launch the assault, one cannot say that the decision to launch was reasonable under the circumstances without analyzing how Israel got itself entangled in such "circumstances."  After all, the assault was launched in under the worst possible military conditions--under a deadline, when the enemy was totally alert and expecting it and in a position to exact the highest possible price in Israeli lives.  None of this need have happened.

UN Resolution 1701 was the product of the sharp erosion of Israeli prestige by a month of futile fighting.  Israel had many options at the start of the war, but it frittered them away.  By the time the decision to launch the ground assault was taken, Israel had boxed itself into a diplomatic and military trap, in which it had no good options left, only the bad one of launching an assault in the worst conditions and for an objective of doubtful value.  Only in that narrow sense was the decision "reasonable"--in light of the record of failure that had brought Israel to such a pass.

In March 1939, four months after the Munich debacle, Hitler's Germany swallowed what was left of Czechoslovakia.  Only then did the British Prime Minister, Nevile Chamberlain, wake up and realize his country's true situation.  He did a volte-face and extended a British military guarantee to Poland, thereby making war certain.  Of this Winston Churchill writes in his memoirs:  "Here was decision at last, taken at the worst possible moment and on the least satisfactory ground" [The Gathering Storm, p. 347].  Of course Churchill congratulated Chamberlain at the time.  Of course the decision was "reasonable," even "unavoidable" under the circumstances.  But it cannot be seen apart from the folly that created the circumstances.  It was produced by previous failures and did not rectify them.  Neither did the Olmert government's decision to launch the final assault of the Second Lebanon War. 

The Gaza Border is Open

The most significant fact about the demolition of Gaza's border fence with Egypt is that the Egyptians can no longer keep ordinary Gazans bottled up.

Well, well.  Perhaps there’s some comfort in recognizing that Israel isn’t the only government to be out-dared by the Hamas.  Israel’s siege of Gaza was half-hearted and half-witted, but it definitely had some effect. 
First, if Israel had a demographic problem in Gaza, that demographic problem has just been reduced by 200,000. Second, Hamastan has just annexed Egyptian Rafiah.
In response Hamas thought up a brilliant solution—violent, harsh and simple.  Access between Gaza and Egypt is now quite open.  It was pretty open beforehand, and completely open to the smuggling of arms and munitions, but at least when the fence was up the Egyptians had some control over the rate of flow of arms and terrorists into the area.  Now they don’t even have that.

Moreover, it’s hard to see what the Egyptians can do about it.  I doubt they have the manpower to put the Gaza border back together and police it.  In part this is because of Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt, which limits the number of Egyptian soldiers and policemen on the border.  The Egyptians have been agitating for a long time to get Israel to let them increase their forces on the border, but some vestige of the sense of self-preservation has kept Israel from agreeing to any but the most limited increase.  Who knows?  In a few days we may hear Ehud Barak musing about how a bigger Egyptian army on Israel’s border would be in Israel’s interest.  Let’s hope he doesn’t listen to himself.  Somehow I doubt that any large new accession of Egyptian soldiers on Israel’s border is going to concern itself primarily with Palestinians.

In one sense, the demolition of the border fence makes life easier for Hamas.  They can now drive explosives into Gaza by the truckload without messing with those cramped and claustrophobic tunnels.  There is a vast new commerce in cigarettes and gasoline for them to tax.  If I seem a bit cavalier about this, it’s because I really don’t think the new development will pose vast new security threats for Israel.  The vast security threats were going to happen anyhow.  They’ll just happen faster.

Yet it seems to me—it’s still too early to say—that the main political implications of the demise of the Gaza border arise from the fact that its most important function was not to keep arms and terrorists out of Gaza, but to keep Gazans in, something that was important to both Hamas and Egypt.  Egypt’s policy, as evidenced by its actions over the past several months, seemed to be to judiciously feed terrorists and arms into Gaza while keeping the exit from that cauldron of human misery firmly plugged. The plug has just been blown halfway across the Sinai Peninsula.
Israel’s humanitarian problem with Gaza is now dwarfed by an Egyptian one. It’s hard to see how the Egyptians can induce the Gazans to return to their prison by any means the world will consider acceptable.

The presence of 200,000 Gazans in Egyptian Rafiah has two main implications, seemingly diametrically opposed, but both true.  First, if Israel had a demographic problem in Gaza, or seemed likely to if it reconquered the area, that demographic problem has just been reduced by 200,000.  Second, Hamastan has just annexed Egyptian Rafiah.  Gazans can now flood freely into Egypt and from there, given enough pluck and determination, anywhere they please.  Israel’s humanitarian problem with Gaza is now dwarfed by an Egyptian one.  It’s hard to see how the Egyptians can induce the Gazans to return to their prison by any means the world will consider acceptable.

I smell an opportunity here.

What if Israel were to discreetly offer a one-time reward of $5,000 per person, plus reimbursement of travel expenses, to any Palestinian family from Gaza that presents itself at an Israeli consulate in any country with which Israel has relations?  You could take fingerprints to ensure nobody picked up his reward twice.  True, they might pick up the reward and go back to Gaza, but it’s hard to imagine anybody voluntarily going back to Gaza once he’d made the decision to escape.  Israel might ask for the good services of Christian allies in America to make the reward available in countries where Israel doesn’t have diplomatic relations.  There are several large nations which are a) Islamic, b) poor (so those thousands of dollars let one live like a king), and c) have visa rules thatcan be made flexible with cash.  They shall remain nameless, but they know who they are. 
What if Israel were to discreetly offer a one-time reward of $5,000 per person, plus reimbursement of travel expenses, to any Palestinian family from Gaza that presents itself at an Israeli consulate?

Egypt and Hamas could have prevented this solution by limiting exit from Gaza, but they really can’t do that anymore. Moreover, Egypt has suddenly acquired a huge new interest in moving Palestinians on.  It really ought to be Egypt offering that $5,000 reward from its embassies around the world, but I don’t expect them to see that.

The exodus of Palestinians from Gaza could go on for a long time and involve quite large numbers.  All that would be necessary is for Israel to continue to make life in Gaza intolerable, for which Hamas can be relied upon to provide an excuse.  It could come to the point where Palestinian residents of Judaea and Samaria, where life is hardly a picnic, became envious.  Israel could then consider what it might do to assuage that envy by including them in the reward. 

It would be naive to suppose that this policy could “solve” the Palestinian problem, lock, stock and barrel.  It won’t.  But it would change everyone’s calculus—Hamas’, other Palestinians’, Egypt’s, America’s, the Arab world’s—in ways that would be beneficial to Israel.  It’s hard to think of another policy that would accomplish this equally well.  If it works, it would be well worth the price.  Something to think about.

The Malefactors

Malefactors in high office keep Sderot on the rack.  But today I want to concentrate on "malefactors" much further down the totem pole.

I’ll keep my comment on the day’s headlines short.  100 rockets were fired at Sderot, Ashkelon and the Israeli settlements (Hamas’ term, we’d better get used to it) in the Western Negev in the last 48 hours.  Not one of them struck Olmert’s back yard, or Barak’s office at Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv.  End of story, end of comment.
100 rockets were fired at Sderot in the last 48 hours. Not one of them struck Olmert’s back yard, or Barak’s office. End of story.

I have far more disturbing news to report.  Today I drove down with our attorney to Ramat Gan.  A new, cult-like phenomenon is sweeping the city’s public high schools.  Parents are concerned.  School principals are more than concerned.  They are doing everything in their power, and often things well beyond their legal powers, to suppress the phenomenon or at least keep it out of their schools.  The mayor of Ramat Gan, Tzvi Bar, literally had a temper tantrum when confronted with the phenomenon, which he fears will lead to the corruption of young morals and the spread of draft-dodging.  He has instructed school officials in his town to crack down hard.  Students involved in the phenomenon have been threatened with suspension if they don’t abandon the practice, at least while in school, and in one case a parent who works for the city was threatened with dismissal if his son continues to be involved.

The dread cult phenomenon is mincha, the afternoon prayer Orthodox Jews recite every day.
A new, cult-like phenomenon is sweeping Ramat Gan's high schools

The statistics are ominous.  In Bleich High School, an elite school featured in the news before every election for the straw poll its seniors conduct, 45 kids reportedly gather for mincha every afternoon.  In the school whose students we met today the number reached 40 before the principal started locking classrooms where his students gathered to pray and threatening them with suspension.  Our information is that this is going on in every high school in town.

Why is this so shocking?  Ramat Gan has public high schools that are defined as Orthodox.  They are part of the official Religious Education Stream run by Israel’s Education Ministry.  We’re not talking about them.  These are ordinary high schools, unbranded, which Israelis have learned to term, er, secular.  Turns out that’s a misnomer.

Ordinary high schools in Israel are termed “state” schools.  Nowhere are they defined as secular per se.  Religion is not formally practiced or taught, but nowhere does the law say that liberty of religious conscience can be constrained within their precincts (That’s not the case with religious schools.  To attend one you have to observe an Orthodox lifestyle, which is why they can’t be for everyone).  Israel has not copied the United States’ silly legal doctrine that church and state are so separate that even private prayer cannot be tolerated in public schools. (To maintain this position consistently, you'd also have to outlaw private prayer in public parks.)  The prejudice against religious observance within these Israeli schools is simply that, a prejudice. 

Next week the principal of the school whose students we met with, as well as Mayor Bar, will get a lawyer’s letter warning them to cease and desist violating their students’ fundamental rights, and not to try to apply sanctions (such as threats of suspension) to students who insist on exercising them.  The letters will be ignored, and the next step will be to go to court, where it’s hard to see that the school or City Hall have a legal leg to stand on.  Stay tuned.

For me, the important aspect of the phenomenon has nothing to do with its legal aspect.  A few months ago a left-wing policy institute, the Israel Democracy Institute, published a survey showing that 33% of Israelis consider themselves Orthodox and 47% consider themselves traditional.  Only 20% describe themselves as secular, half as many as 30 years ago. The trend toward observance is even more pronounced in the younger age groups. 

About 35-40% of Jewish youths go to schools overtly defined as Orthodox, including a fair number of kids from families that define themselves "traditional."  That means that, no matter how you pitch it, a small but significant proportion of students in ordinary "state" schools are Orthodox and the majority are either Orthodox or traditional.  State schools in Israel may be run by secularists, but their students--and those students' families--are not secular.  The mincha malefactors I spoke to, composed of a minority of people from religiously observant homes and a majority of kids getting interested in religion, reflect the new trend within the general population that ordinary schools are supposed to serve.  If Ramat Gan’s school principals didn’t vigilantly police their schools for signs of religious crimethink, deterring many students, the Bleich mincha service might attract 120 students, not just 40.
If Ramat Gan’s school principals didn’t vigilantly police their schools for signs of religious crimethink, deterring many students, the Bleich mincha service might attract 120 students, not just 40.
  The Israel Policy Center will be proud if we can get the courts to quash prejudice against Judaism in the school system, and get sympathy for religion and tradition recognized as part of normal, mainstream Israeli life. 

Israel is getting more conservative and traditional, and it’s showing up in the schools.  In ten years, ordinary public schools in Israel may be “observant lite” rather than secular. Secular fanatics like the Mayor Bar and the education minister, Yuli Tamir, had just better get used to it. 

(Postscript:  It’s little appreciated that current American doctrine on the separation of church and state, to which non-Orthodox streams of Judaism in the States have learned to attribute a kind of holiness, is exactly opposed to the original intent of the first clause of the First Amendment.  Fact:  the phrase, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion . . .” was put there to prevent the Federal government from messing with official, established state churches.  But there’s no telling what will happen to your constitution once judges sink their teeth into it).