Israel has been engaged in heated debate in recent days about the efficacy of trading Arab prisoners with blood on their hands for the remains of two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah in July 2006.

The Jerusalem Post’s Matthew Wagner weighs in with a piece on what the Jewish sages might have said about this swap.

Glynis Ann Ritchie has a touching essay in The New York Times’ style section about how she, a starry-eyed American Jewish girl, fell for a hunky Israeli soldier on a Birthright Israel trip. Though the Israeli turns out to be part of the parade of callous men that Ritchie says “opened up my chest, scooped out the contents and tossed them into the trash,” he does leave her with something positive and long-lasting: a healthy self-image.

• Louisiana has passed an “academic freedom” bill permitting school districts to promote Creationism in the classroom.
• A Texas court has upheld the right of religious organizations to engage in practices that may constitute physical and emotional abuse, even when those practices may endanger the well-being of a minor.
• A public school teacher in rural Ohio was fired for promoting Christian views in the classroom and branding crosses onto his student’s arms.
• Video has surfaced of pop singer Amy Winehouse shoving a fan during a recent performance at a rock festival in the UK.
• Contradicting earlier reports that the two were receiving “Kabbalah counseling,” the UK’s Sun reports that Madonna and her husband, director Guy Ritchie, may divorce over the singer’s involvement with the Kabbalah Center.
• Jewlicious contributor DJ Handler reminds us of a Saturday Night Live sketch in which Adam Sandler first explored the disco-loving Israeli persona that would come to be known as the Zohan.
• A religious studies professor at Virginia Tech explains what the Zohan tells us about post-Zionism and vice-versa.
• An Orthodox court in Israel has issued a ban on portable video players, such as the video iPod, claiming “their devilish distributors want nothing more than to drive the people of Israel to sin.”
• Jay Michaelson ponders whether there’s room for the Jews in Narnia.
• Jewish Currents editor Rokhl Kafrissen looks back at Nextbook’s Jews & Power event, raising qualms with the conception of Jewish “liberalism” advocated by the likes of Ruth Wisse and Leon Wieseltier.
• And finally, daaaaaamn, Ahmadinejad’s wife is smokin’! Psych!

In his latest piece of “national security” reportage The New Yorker’s Sy Hersh uses insinuations and several leaps of logic to raise questions about the wisdom of the Bush administration’s apparent funding of covert activities designed to destabilize Iran’s religious leadership.

The headline and Hersh’s juxtapositions suggest that Hersh believes these activities are problematic and a sign that the Bush administration is “preparing the battlefield” for a U.S. attack against Iran.

But the activities also could be interpreted as just the opposite: The White House may be taking this action as an alternative to launching a full-out assault against the Islamic Republic and its suspected nuclear weapons program, and it may well prove more successful than an attack, sanctions or doing nothing.

Hersh makes several leaps of logic in his piece.

The first focuses on whether or not the White House’s initiative — $400 million worth of activities authorized by an executive order called a Presidential Finding — is for military activity to overthrow the regime in Tehran, and whether killing is an intrinsic or merely incidental part of the operations.

The anonymous administration sources cited in the story (they’re almost all anonymous in Hersh’s reporting) say the operations are not about killing:

As far as the C.I.A. was concerned, [a] former senior intelligence official said, “the over-all authorization includes killing, but it’s not as though that’s what they’re setting out to do. It’s about gathering information, enlisting support.”

The defensive-lethal language led some Democrats, according to congressional sources familiar with their views, to call in the director of the C.I.A., Air Force General Michael V. Hayden, for a special briefing. Hayden reassured the legislators that the language did nothing more than provide authority for Special Forces operatives on the ground in Iran to shoot their way out if they faced capture or harm.

The legislators were far from convinced. One congressman subsequently wrote a personal letter to President Bush insisting that “no lethal action, period” had been authorized within Iran’s borders. As of June, he had received no answer.

Members of Congress have expressed skepticism in the past about the information provided by the White House.

So has Hersh.

But isn’t this what the doves have been pushing for all along? They’d prefer the White House provide support for regime change in Iran from the inside, rather than seeing the U.S. adapt the hawks’ call to attack Iran head-on.

The survival of the current regime in Iran isn’t a partisan issue. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans want to see the perpetuation of a government that supports and sponsors terrorist groups, threatens U.N. member states (Israel and some Persian Gulf countries, including Bahrain), has nuclear ambitions, and on a daily basis persecutes and represses its own citizens.

So what’s the problem with the White House spending $400 million a year to try and change that in a less destructive and costly way than a frontal attack?
(more…)

• American Jewish Life, one of the finer Jewish magazines in circulation, has folded citing economic woes. Editor-in-chief Benyamin Cohen, author of the forthcoming book My Jesus Year, will be moving on to greener pastures — and by that we truly mean “green:” Cohen will be assuming the role of editorial director at a soon-to-launch environmental news agency. We wish him much success in his new venture.
• The Guardian’s film blog takes note of the proverbial “wedgie” delivered to Mel Gibson by Adam Sandler in You Don’t Mess with the Zohan.
• Pratt’s Chabad shaliach and Up, Up and Oy Vey! author Simcha Weinstein explores the Incredible Hulk’s Jewish undertones in the Jewish Press. I wonder if he’s seen Eli Valley’s latest comic.
• Alec Baldwin dishes on “his true Jewish self” to the Jewish Channel.
• An Orthodox-run real estate agency in Brooklyn has been hit with a discrimination suit after investigators found the company engaged in “systematic” prejudice against black clientele.
• The Bronfman family will be taking over Park City, UT for a three-day conference called “Why Be Jewish” that sports an invite-only all-star guest list.
• The Vatican has responded to Jewish demands that they open the books on Pope Pius XII by insisting that the Jewish community opens up its own archives from the era. The Papacy, however, was hard pressed to name a single archive the Jews haven’t already exhausted numerous times over.
• A Lebanese-born American man accused of providing material support to Hezbollah has insisted that the judge hearing his case recuse himself because, as a Jew, he cannot possibly be impartial.
• Daily Show contributor Lewis Black’s new book Me of Little Faith explores the author’s relationship to his Jewish identity as well as his feelings on religious matters in general.
• The other Telegraph reports that Jean Sarkozy, the 21-year-old son of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, is considering converting to Judaism after his upcoming marriage.

Borrowing a page from Fatah’s playbook, Hamas is criticizing Fatah militants who are shelling southern Israel from Gaza as acting against the Palestinian national interest by risking the shaky truce begun June 19 with Israel.

Years ago, it was Fatah — then led by Yasser Arafat — that was signing agreements with Israel and criticizing Hamas for undermining the Palestinian national interest by firing at Israel (see this statement from 2003). Now the tables are turned.

In those days, Israel took actions to bolster Fatah against Hamas, and in the 1990s Israel provided the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority with weaponry to secure its dominant position in Palestinian affairs.

Leaving aside for the moment that it didn’t take long for Palestinian police to turn that weaponry against the Israelis who gave it to them — and that they’re doing the same now, in Gaza — this is yet another sign that the ideological differences between Fatah and Hamas are academic, if they exist at all.

Put simply, these are two Palestinian factions (and not the only two), each of which has a beef with Israel and with each other. Historically, Israel has dealt only with Fatah — described these days as “relatively moderate” but with a bloody history of terrorist attacks against Israelis and Jews — but now Israel is pursuing peace with Hamas (June 19 cease-fire agreement) while pursuing the terrorists in Fatah (see this week’s IDF counter-terrorist operations in the West Bank).

Does this mean Israel now should bolster Hamas against Fatah? Or, was this strategy of picking sides in the Palestinians’ internal conflict flawed from the get-go?

Perhaps rather than choosing favorites regardless of their popularity or power on the Palestinian street (Palestinian Authority President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is virtually powerless and largely discredited among Palestinians), Israel should let the Palestinians sort out their internecine conflicts on their own and then deal with the victor, whoever it is.

Israel cannot choose the face of the Palestinians for them; the Palestinians must do it on their own. They are doing it through violence and through the ballot box: Hamas scored victories in January 2006 (ballot box, in Palestinian legislative elections) and in June 2007 (violence, when Hamas routed Fatah from Gaza).

The international community and Israel reacted by roundly ignoring these developments and crowning Fatah the representative of the Palestinian people.

But, as Israel has learned over the past year or two, this doesn’t really work. Hamas’ power continues to grow, and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority is as ill-equipped as ever to deliver on its promises of peace to Israel, or on its promises of increased freedoms for Palestinians.

Israel can’t be blamed for wanting to bring this matter to a head, and quickly. After all, Israel is the target of all these Palestinians factions, and they will continue to attack Israel in a bid to win popular support and consolidate their power among Palestinians.

Yet Israel’s suffering notwithstanding, it may not be within Israel’s power to bring it to an end. Alas, that power may lie only with the Palestinians.

Time magazine columnist Joe Klein has triggered a firestorm with a recent blog post asserting that the neocons and Joe Lieberman’s support for the Iraq war and tough action against Iran raises questions about dual loyalty:

The fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives — people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary — plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel.

He also seemed to endorse the theory that the president and vice president are sending American troops to die in order to boost oil company profits:

And then there is the question — made manifest by the no-bid contracts offered U.S. oil companies by the Iraqis — of two oil executives, Bush and Cheney, securing a new source of business for their Texas buddies.

The column drew swift criticism from members of the Commentary crowd, including Peter Wehner and Jennifer Rubin.

Klein fired back:

Then, what can one say about Jennifer Rubin, who accuses me of antisemitism? I must say that’s rather thrilling coming from the Commentary crowd. You want evidence of divided loyalties? How about the “benign domino theory” that so many Jewish neoconservatives talked to me about–off the record, of course–in the runup to the Iraq war, the idea that Israel’s security could be won by taking out Saddam, which would set off a cascade of disaster for Israel’s enemies in the region? As my grandmother would say, feh! Do you actually deny that the casus belli that dare not speak its name wasn’t, as I wrote in February 2003, a desire to make the world safe for Israel? Why the rush now to bomb Iran, a country that poses some threat to Israel but none–for the moment–to the United States…unless we go ahead, attack it, and the mullahs unleash Hezbollah terrorists against us? Do you really believe the mullahs would stage a nuclear attack on Israel, destroying the third most holy site in Islam and killing untold numbers of Muslims? I am not ruling out the use of force against Iran–it may come to that–but you folks seem to embrace it gleefully.

Furthermore, as a Jew, I find it offensive that the American Jewish Committee would support such an ideologically unbalanced publication as Commentary, one that spouts a Likudnik bellicosity that is out of sync with the beliefs of the vast majority of American Jews. A question to all concerned: When was the last time you opposed a policy, any policy, of the Israeli government–other than one that attempted to move toward peace?

Before I could tweak him, Klein was able to post this correction: “The American Jewish Committee is no longer associated with Commentary, thank God.”

As for when the last time a prominent neocon opposed a “policy, any policy, of the Israeli government — other than one that attempted to move toward peace”… How about Doug Feith playing a main, if not lead, role in cracking down on Israeli arms deals with China? It’s hard to think of any other issue that caused a bigger problem in U.S.-Israeli relations during the Bush administration — and Feith reportedly was the one delivering the hammer on Jerusalem.

This isn’t just a case of overlooking an example. There is a larger point here: Feith and his ideological brethren may have what Klein thinks is a crazy world view, but it is just that — a world view, as in China and Taiwan, Contras and Sandinistas, etc.

As for the question of fighting a war to make Israel safe, it may or may not be a bad idea — but plenty of non-Jews support the concept and it wouldn’t be the only time the United States determined that it was in America’s interest to take up arms to aid an ally. So why the talk about “dual loyalty”? At least Tim Russert was polite — and responsible — enough to raise the issue in a form of a question, and allow for a response.

Bonus: The O.U.’s D.C. blog has audio of McCain ripping Klein.

The publisher of Ha’aretz, Amos Schocken, has a piece today under the headline “Citizenship law makes Israel an apartheid state”:

The law stipulates that the interior minister does not have the authority to approve residence in Israel for a resident of Judea and Samaria (unless, of course, they are Jews - that is, settlers). This is so even regarding family reunions, meaning marriage, when it comes to Palestinian spouses who are younger than 35 (for men) or 25 (for women). In effect, the law prevents young Israeli citizens from marrying the spouse of their choice and living with this spouse in Israel, if the spouse is a Palestinian from Judea and Samaria.

It is obvious that this has barely any effect on the right of young Israeli Jews to live in their country with the spouse of their choice, because there are hardly any marriages between Israeli Jews and Palestinians from Judea and Samaria. On the other hand, these Palestinians constitute Israeli Arabs’ natural pool for choosing a spouse. For this reason, the law severely discriminates when comparing the rights of young Israeli Jewish citizens and young Israeli Arab citizens.

When the law was first passed in 2003, supposedly as a temporary one-year measure, it was accompanied by security reasoning - the risk of implanting terrorists in Israel via marriage. The reasoning was faulty even at that time: Every Palestinian who wishes to enter Israel must be addressed individually. It is the Shin Bet security service’s task to do this and thus carry out its mission - protecting the security of Israel’s citizens such that the country remains democratic, with equal rights for all. However, as the years go by, it becomes clear that the security argument and the term “temporary measure” are merely a deception aimed at “koshering” discriminatory legislation for demographic reasons.

The claim that there are indications of an apartheid state in Israel is widely heard in the Western world. The word apartheid is catchy and understood in many parts of the world, which makes it useful to send a message that we resent and which we claim has no connection with reality in Israel. However, we do not have to identify the characteristics of South African apartheid in the civil rights discrimination in Israel in order to call Israel an apartheid state. The amendment to the Citizenship Law is exactly the kind of practice that leads to the use of such a term, and it is best that we not try to evade the truth: Its existence in the law books turns Israel into an apartheid state.

Former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, who now chairs the Shalem Center’s Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies (yes, that Adelson), says all of Israel’s current problems can be traced to one core problem: the decline of Israel’s Zionist identity.

It is to blame for changes made in the 1990s to Israel’s code of military conduct, which hampers the ability of Israeli troops to defend themselves and the country; it’s to blame for the culture of political corruption in Jerusalem, where Knesset members are more keen on keeping their jobs than on guiding the country to where it needs to go; and it’s to blame for the persistence of the belief among Israel’s enemies that they can wear down the Jewish state and eventually destroy it, he says.

Sharansky, who sat down with me Thursday in New York, strikes the same theme in his new book, “Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy.”

In a nutshell, Sharansky argues that ethnic identity, rather than threatening freedom, guarantees liberty and democracy. He was in the United States for a book tour (which, he noted wryly, is less lucrative than it used to be, given the decline of the dollar against the shekel).

In our conversation, Sharansky told me Israel’s enemies are becoming stronger only because Israel looks like it is becoming weaker.

Why does Israel look this way? Post-Zionism.

The cure? A Jewish, Zionist identity.

Sharansky sounds some of the same themes American Jews sound when speaking of the dangers of assimilation. Except whereas the price in America is the gradual watering-down or disappearance of Jewish identity among American Jews, in Israel the very survival of the Jewish state is at stake.

To promote the return of Zionist ideology to Israel, Sharansky is collaborating with the likes of Moshe (Boogie) Ya’alon, Martin Kramer, Michael Oren, Yossi Klein Halevi and others on researching the problems and suggesting possible solutions.

One of the things he’s not doing is running for Knesset, which he left in 2005 to protest Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal of Israeli settlers and troops from Gaza, which Sharansky insists was a big mistake.

Will Sharansky ever return to politics? “Nobody can leave politics in Israel,” he says.

The New Standard, which bills itself as “Central Ohio’s Largest Circulation Jewish Newspaper,” has a profile on Colleen McCallum-Bonar, a graduate student at Ohio State who is poised to be the first African-American ever to receive a Ph.D. in Yiddish literature (at least she thinks she will be).

“I can count on one hand the other African-Americans doing Yiddish: none,” McCallum-Bonar said. “Maybe there are some others out there and maybe we just haven’t crossed paths, but I don’t know any.”

But the story fails to address the key question: How do you say “Buckeyes” in Yiddish?