JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Jews fit to print

By Ami Eden · April 14, 2008

Zev Chafets says Israel shouldn't be counting on the United States to take care of Iran.

Daphne Merkin visits the Kabbalah Center.

Peter Steinfels takes a look at the Haggadah.

The boom in Passover food products.

The Ethicist weighs in on whether someone should rat out a fellow employee who makes up fake Jewish holidays to get off of work.

A profile of comedian Irwin Corey's journey from the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum to the Friars Club.

Happy 75th birthday Mr. Roth.

A look at what has gone wrong with Sheldon Adleson's plan to help the Republicans win in 2008.

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Reactions to Jimmy Carter’s planned Hamas meeting

By Ami Eden · April 14, 2008

The New York Post does not approve of President Carter having tea with terrorists:

It's bad enough that Carter - a former US president and winner of the now-thoroughly discredited Nobel Peace Prize - will be putting a stamp of legitimacy on a gang of cutthroats who've never hesitated to include Americans in their growing body count.

The saddest thing about this get-together is that it comes as no real surprise. Indeed, it's entirely in keeping with Carter's recent embrace of Palestinian extremism - to the point where, in his latest published anti-Israel screed, he all but gave his blessing to attacks on Israel.

But a columnist for the Daily Star of Lebanon makes the case for why he thinks a Carter-Hamas meeting would be a good thing:

The key to achieving a peaceful win-win situation is to analyze and deal with Hamas in the total framework of its actions, and not only through the narrow lens of terror acts. This means understanding and addressing the six R's that Hamas represents: resistance, respect, reciprocity, reconstruction, rights and refugees.

Resistance against Israeli occupation and aggression is Hamas' main task, and the key operative verb in its Arabic language name "harakat al-muqawama al-islamiyyah" ("Islamic resistance movement"). It resists and defies Israel, and refuses to acknowledge Israel's legitimacy - until Israel decides in return to acknowledge Palestinian national rights and integrity.

Achieving respect is an intangible but crucial part of Hamas' battle against Israel; it has been achieved in part in Israeli agreement to two cease-fire accords with Hamas, with a third likely on the way, perhaps followed by a prisoner exchange.

Reciprocity - the application of respect in tangible political form - requires that Israelis and Palestinians deal with each other and be treated by the world according to the same rules and criteria - on the use of violence, application of the Geneva Conventions, political engagement, and implementation of United Nations resolutions. It also applies to reciprocal statehood with Israel, which Hamas now says it accepts if Israel withdraws from the territories occupied in 1967 and implements UN resolutions on refugee rights.

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Dave Marash: Why I quite Al Jazeera English

By Ami Eden · April 14, 2008

Al Jazeera English's respected Jewish American anchor tells the Columbia Journalism Review why he quit the network:

It's been a gradual process, and defining it all, is that with corporate encouragement, over the first two years of the channel's existence, I have made myself effectively the American face of the channel and vouched for its credibility and value. And over the last seventeen months there have been several changes at the channel which put things on the air that, frankly, I could not vouch for. If I had just been another employee I might have just dropped my head and let it all wash over, because it is the nature of our business that every place you workoccasionally does things that embarrass you. But I felt an extra measure of responsibility.

Now, as anchor, I was in position to vouch for at least half of the material that went on air because I got to speak it and I could edit it on the fly if I felt that there were any inaccuracies or imbalances in it. But when the proposal was made that I leave the anchor chair [he was informed of this in December and his last day as anchor was March 13] and become a sort of heavy correspondent, I knew that I would never be able to have the kind of editorial input or control that would put me in a position to honestly vouch for anything. Furthermore, when I was taken off that meant that there were zero American accents in any of the presenter roles at Al Jazeera. And it occurred to me that this was just one part of a series of decisions that diminished editorial input from the United States. It got to the point where I feel that in a globe where Al Jazeera sets a very, very high reporting standard, and a very, very high standard for both numerical and qualitative and authentic staffing, that the United States was becoming a serious exception to their role, and a place where the journalism did not measure up to the standards that were set almost everywhere else by Al Jazeera English's very fine reporting.

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