[Part one of this article can be read at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=4458.]
When interviewed on National Public Radio's show "Fresh Air" on June 11, 2002 (during his US book promotion tour), Michael Oren was asked, "Do you think that the Israeli incursions into the territories are an effective way of stopping the terrorist infrastructure?"
Oren answered, "Oh. Well, first I don't think you can stop the terrorist infrastructure. I don't think anybody reasonably thinks that you can stop terrorists solely through military means...."
Oren clearly missed it on that one. Israel has been reasonably successful in decapitating Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other terror groups.
Then he spewed the standard Israeli leftist line: "Obviously, the only long-term solution to terror is a diplomatic political solution...."
Yes, let's have Oslo 3, Oslo 4, Oslo More, More, More...
Ami Eden reported on the Forward's weblog of November 22, 2003: "This weekend I attended two lectures delivered by Michael Oren, author of Six Days of War. He made several interesting observations... Though Oren, a fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, leans right on some security issues [Eden's view], he is willing to rip the ideological excesses on that side of the political fence... He also seemed to come out in favor of dismantling isolated settlements in Gaza and the West Bank that lack anything close to popular support in Israel and serve no clear security purpose."
So, he's clearly a man of the center-left at best. Which gets down to the real question: What is Michael Oren doing at Yoram Hazony's right-wing research institute?
When Oren was asked just that in his 2002 Haaretz interview, "How did you get to the Shalem Center?" he answered, "I discovered it four years ago: a young, developing Zionist institute consisting of Princeton graduates. I liked the place, and they were looking for someone to take charge of their Middle East project. They made me a senior fellow and made numerous resources available to me, including research all over the world. Without their support, I would never have produced a book of this scope within three years."
Oren found a group of fellow Princeton graduates to fund his research. But why would they help him (a former Marxist Hashomer Hatza'ir activist with a left-wing proclivity), considering that the Shalem Center has a national (right-wing) bent to it? Hazony at one time proposed building the Shalem Center in the West Bank settlement of Eli, where he lived.
During that same Haaretz interview, Oren admitted that, "In fact, one of the Jewish critiques I received was that I am too sympathetic to Nasser. I am not complimentary to the IDF on a lot of subjects... There is a problem here. There is an historical affair that I want to understand, and what gets in the way are my views and opinions, the fact that I am a Zionist. If I want to reach understanding that is deep and balanced, I have to leap over those opinions. On every page, I stopped and asked myself whether I was writing in the most balanced way, and relatively speaking, I think I succeeded."
So, here, Oren is admitting that his left-wing opinions force him to take a "balanced" approach.
What's interesting is that this "Post-Zionist" attitude of Oren's is exactly what Yoram Hazony attacked in his May 2001 book, Jewish State: A History of Zionism and Post-Zionism. According to his publisher, Hazony's book offered an in-depth analysis of the "new historians," the revolution in the new Israeli public-school curriculum implemented under Yitzhak Rabin and other issues. He wrote about the influence of post-Jewish ideals on Israel's culture and politics, examined Israeli academia and literature, as well as the media, the legal system, the armed forces and the foreign policy establishment. It's a pity his book came out before Oren's; Hazony might have included him in it.
Another fellow traveler of the left on staff at the Shalem Center is associate fellow Yossi Klein Halevi. Formerly a follower of the radical right-wing Rabbi Meir Kahane (founder of the Kach Party), Halevi described his journey to the religious left in his 1995 book Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist: An American Story. He now regularly writes for the left-of-center Jerusalem Report.
Has Hazony's own think-tank become one of those "corrupted" Israeli academies?
As for Oren, he revealed his true intentions in his Jerusalem Post op-ed piece, when he said, "Yet the far-right need not worry. It seems highly unlikely [clearly moaning - ANP] that any Palestinian figure will be capable in the foreseeable future of marshaling the legitimacy needed to make peace with Israel, or the military power to impose that peace on the Palestinian terrorist groups that will certainly oppose it."
Truthfully, it is Oren (and others on the left) that mourn Arafat's passing. They are saddened that he didn't live long enough to "make peace with Israel," or impose " peace on the Palestinian terrorist groups that will certainly oppose it." They still believe in their messianic pipe dreams.
My proof? The Israeli left-wing Yahad-Meretz Party just voted 17-14 to send condolences to the "Palestinian nation" on the loss of its leader, Yasser Arafat.
Maybe if Arafat had lived another five, ten or 20 years? Guess what, it wouldn't have helped. The same day Oren's op-ed ran, the Jerusalem Post published an article claiming that Arafat never intended to make "peace" with Israel. Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi, said Arafat spoke to him when they met in Tunis, a few days before the PLO returned to the Gaza Strip. "I met with him in his office at around 3:00 AM," Atwan related. "The man told me, 'Listen, Abdel Bari, I know that you are opposed to the Oslo Accords, but you must always remember what I'm going to tell you. The day will come when you will see thousands of Jews fleeing Palestine. I will not live to see this, but you will definitely see it in your lifetime. The Oslo Accords will help bring this about.'"
Atwan claimed that Arafat created the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades because the Israelis and US sidelined him after the Camp David summit failure in 2000. "President Arafat was the one who established the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades in response to the attempt to marginalize him after the failure of the Camp David summit," Atwan stated. "At the summit, he faced immense pressure from Israel, the US and some Arab parties to compromise on Jerusalem. Ironically, some Arab leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz, called Arafat demanding that he display flexibility on the issue of Jerusalem."
Atwan said Arafat rejected the offers Israel made at the summit "because he wasn't prepared to sign a final agreement with the Jewish state. He was well aware that such an agreement would make him go down in history as a traitor because he would have to give up the right of return for the refugees and most of the sovereignty over east Jerusalem."
So, there you have it, Arafat never intended "peace," just as the Israeli right has claimed all along.
The problem with Oren (and those like him) is that they still don't want to admit they made a serious mistake with the Oslo Accords - bringing Arafat into Israel, setting up a mini-terror state, arming him and expecting him (like Rabin did) to terrorize his own people for Israel's benefit. They still want to believe they were right. It doesn't matter about reality, they "need" to be right. If Arafat only lived long enough... but that isn't acceptable to say publicly in Israel, so, instead they blame the Israeli right. It must be that the right is unhappy about Arafat's death, because it will forestall progress in the "peace process". Anyone with half a cabbage upstairs knows that the whole "Oslo thing" was a major disaster for Israel, and the right was thrilled that Arafat finally got it.
It just goes to show you - you could be a best selling author, receive critical acclaim (by saying all the "correct" Israel-bashing things) and still not have any common sense.
[Part 2 of 2]
(c) 2004/5765 Pasko
When interviewed on National Public Radio's show "Fresh Air" on June 11, 2002 (during his US book promotion tour), Michael Oren was asked, "Do you think that the Israeli incursions into the territories are an effective way of stopping the terrorist infrastructure?"
Oren answered, "Oh. Well, first I don't think you can stop the terrorist infrastructure. I don't think anybody reasonably thinks that you can stop terrorists solely through military means...."
Oren clearly missed it on that one. Israel has been reasonably successful in decapitating Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other terror groups.
Then he spewed the standard Israeli leftist line: "Obviously, the only long-term solution to terror is a diplomatic political solution...."
Yes, let's have Oslo 3, Oslo 4, Oslo More, More, More...
Ami Eden reported on the Forward's weblog of November 22, 2003: "This weekend I attended two lectures delivered by Michael Oren, author of Six Days of War. He made several interesting observations... Though Oren, a fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, leans right on some security issues [Eden's view], he is willing to rip the ideological excesses on that side of the political fence... He also seemed to come out in favor of dismantling isolated settlements in Gaza and the West Bank that lack anything close to popular support in Israel and serve no clear security purpose."
So, he's clearly a man of the center-left at best. Which gets down to the real question: What is Michael Oren doing at Yoram Hazony's right-wing research institute?
When Oren was asked just that in his 2002 Haaretz interview, "How did you get to the Shalem Center?" he answered, "I discovered it four years ago: a young, developing Zionist institute consisting of Princeton graduates. I liked the place, and they were looking for someone to take charge of their Middle East project. They made me a senior fellow and made numerous resources available to me, including research all over the world. Without their support, I would never have produced a book of this scope within three years."
Oren found a group of fellow Princeton graduates to fund his research. But why would they help him (a former Marxist Hashomer Hatza'ir activist with a left-wing proclivity), considering that the Shalem Center has a national (right-wing) bent to it? Hazony at one time proposed building the Shalem Center in the West Bank settlement of Eli, where he lived.
During that same Haaretz interview, Oren admitted that, "In fact, one of the Jewish critiques I received was that I am too sympathetic to Nasser. I am not complimentary to the IDF on a lot of subjects... There is a problem here. There is an historical affair that I want to understand, and what gets in the way are my views and opinions, the fact that I am a Zionist. If I want to reach understanding that is deep and balanced, I have to leap over those opinions. On every page, I stopped and asked myself whether I was writing in the most balanced way, and relatively speaking, I think I succeeded."
So, here, Oren is admitting that his left-wing opinions force him to take a "balanced" approach.
What's interesting is that this "Post-Zionist" attitude of Oren's is exactly what Yoram Hazony attacked in his May 2001 book, Jewish State: A History of Zionism and Post-Zionism. According to his publisher, Hazony's book offered an in-depth analysis of the "new historians," the revolution in the new Israeli public-school curriculum implemented under Yitzhak Rabin and other issues. He wrote about the influence of post-Jewish ideals on Israel's culture and politics, examined Israeli academia and literature, as well as the media, the legal system, the armed forces and the foreign policy establishment. It's a pity his book came out before Oren's; Hazony might have included him in it.
Another fellow traveler of the left on staff at the Shalem Center is associate fellow Yossi Klein Halevi. Formerly a follower of the radical right-wing Rabbi Meir Kahane (founder of the Kach Party), Halevi described his journey to the religious left in his 1995 book Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist: An American Story. He now regularly writes for the left-of-center Jerusalem Report.
Has Hazony's own think-tank become one of those "corrupted" Israeli academies?
As for Oren, he revealed his true intentions in his Jerusalem Post op-ed piece, when he said, "Yet the far-right need not worry. It seems highly unlikely [clearly moaning - ANP] that any Palestinian figure will be capable in the foreseeable future of marshaling the legitimacy needed to make peace with Israel, or the military power to impose that peace on the Palestinian terrorist groups that will certainly oppose it."
Truthfully, it is Oren (and others on the left) that mourn Arafat's passing. They are saddened that he didn't live long enough to "make peace with Israel," or impose " peace on the Palestinian terrorist groups that will certainly oppose it." They still believe in their messianic pipe dreams.
My proof? The Israeli left-wing Yahad-Meretz Party just voted 17-14 to send condolences to the "Palestinian nation" on the loss of its leader, Yasser Arafat.
Maybe if Arafat had lived another five, ten or 20 years? Guess what, it wouldn't have helped. The same day Oren's op-ed ran, the Jerusalem Post published an article claiming that Arafat never intended to make "peace" with Israel. Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi, said Arafat spoke to him when they met in Tunis, a few days before the PLO returned to the Gaza Strip. "I met with him in his office at around 3:00 AM," Atwan related. "The man told me, 'Listen, Abdel Bari, I know that you are opposed to the Oslo Accords, but you must always remember what I'm going to tell you. The day will come when you will see thousands of Jews fleeing Palestine. I will not live to see this, but you will definitely see it in your lifetime. The Oslo Accords will help bring this about.'"
Atwan claimed that Arafat created the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades because the Israelis and US sidelined him after the Camp David summit failure in 2000. "President Arafat was the one who established the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades in response to the attempt to marginalize him after the failure of the Camp David summit," Atwan stated. "At the summit, he faced immense pressure from Israel, the US and some Arab parties to compromise on Jerusalem. Ironically, some Arab leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz, called Arafat demanding that he display flexibility on the issue of Jerusalem."
Atwan said Arafat rejected the offers Israel made at the summit "because he wasn't prepared to sign a final agreement with the Jewish state. He was well aware that such an agreement would make him go down in history as a traitor because he would have to give up the right of return for the refugees and most of the sovereignty over east Jerusalem."
So, there you have it, Arafat never intended "peace," just as the Israeli right has claimed all along.
The problem with Oren (and those like him) is that they still don't want to admit they made a serious mistake with the Oslo Accords - bringing Arafat into Israel, setting up a mini-terror state, arming him and expecting him (like Rabin did) to terrorize his own people for Israel's benefit. They still want to believe they were right. It doesn't matter about reality, they "need" to be right. If Arafat only lived long enough... but that isn't acceptable to say publicly in Israel, so, instead they blame the Israeli right. It must be that the right is unhappy about Arafat's death, because it will forestall progress in the "peace process". Anyone with half a cabbage upstairs knows that the whole "Oslo thing" was a major disaster for Israel, and the right was thrilled that Arafat finally got it.
It just goes to show you - you could be a best selling author, receive critical acclaim (by saying all the "correct" Israel-bashing things) and still not have any common sense.
[Part 2 of 2]
(c) 2004/5765 Pasko