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What’s changed in 20 years

By Uriel Heilman · June 3, 2009

Though I'd prefer not be bothered to comment on the latest narishkeit from New York Times columnist Roger Cohen, I've been urged to do so by readers. So here goes, after a taste of Cohen's latest missive. He writes:

Little has changed in 20 years. After Bush 41 and Baker, we got Clinton’s love affair with Yitzhak Rabin (“I had come to love him as I had rarely loved another man”); the disintegration of Oslo after Rabin’s tragic assassination; and the Israel-can-do-no-wrong policy of Bush 43.

Balance — the credential no honest broker can forsake — vanished from American diplomacy.

I don’t believe that’s been good for Israel. The Jewish state needs to be challenged by its inseparable ally if it is to achieve the security it craves...

I said little has changed in two decades. But some things have. The wall-fence has gone up, putting some 10 percent of West Bank land on the Israeli side of the barrier. The Israeli settler population of the West Bank has more than tripled to some 300,000. A network of garrison-like settlements, roadblocks and settler-only highways has built Palestinian humiliation into the very fabric of what Baker called “Greater Israel.”

Here are a few things that have changed in 20 years, which Cohen has left out:

• Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 that has withstood the test of time.

• Israel unilaterally ended its occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.

• The only credible pan-Palestinian leader the Palestinian movement ever had, the late Yasser Arafat, rejected Israel's offer of de-facto statehood on about 95 percent of the West Bank, at Camp David in 2000.

• Unsatisfied with Israel's offer, Arafat launched a Palestinian campaign of terrorism against Israelis in late 2000. The campaign was brought to a halt about two years later due to a combination of aggressive Israeli military tactics, including assassinations of Palestinian leaders, and the erection of the West Bank security fence.

• U.S. President George W. Bush endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state, something Israeli prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak already had done.

• Longtime hawk Ariel Sharon, as prime minister, endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state. His successor, Ehud Olmert, followed suit.

• Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, unilaterally ending its occupation there (then-prime minister Sharon believed there was no viable Palestinian partner for peace). Olmert hoped to do the same in the West Bank, until he learned the lesson of the Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006.

• Six years after Israel's unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah fired some 4,000 rockets into northern Israel during a 34-day war in 2006. The Israel Defense Forces failed to bring a halt to the rocket fire.

• A militarized Palestinian state supported by Iran emerged on Israel's doorstep in 2007, when Hamas routed the more moderate Fatah faction from Gaza and took control of the strip. The seizure followed Hamas' victory in Palestinian legislative elections a year earlier.

• After eight years of increasing rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, the IDF conducted a broad offensive in Gaza to curtail rocket fire from the strip. During the three-week war, Hamas' rockets reached as far east as Beersheva and as far north as Ashdod and Kiryat Gat.

• In polls this decade, a majority of Israelis consistently expressed support for the creation of a Palestinian state.

• The Palestinian polity has failed to come up with a leader (or leadership) willing and able to deliver on a peace deal with Israel.

• Despite Israel's incessant warnings, Iran has moved closer to nuclear weapons capability, sapping Israelis' willingness to rely on guarantees of security from other countries.

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Roeder’s religion

By Eric Fingerhut · June 3, 2009

Scott Roeder, the killer of abortion doctor George Tiller, observed Sabbath from Friday night through Saturday, according to his ex-wife. But he apparently was part of a church based on the Old Testament, and not Jewish. Here's an AP story interviewing his ex-wife:

Scott Roeder's family life began unraveling more than a decade ago when he got involved with anti-government groups, and then became "very religious in an Old Testament, eye-for-an-eye way," his former wife said ...

Lindsey Roeder said from her home in a Kansas City suburb that the early years of the marriage were good and that Scott Roeder worked in an envelope factory. But she said he moved out of their home after he became involved with the Freemen movement, an anti-government group that discouraged the paying of taxes.

He then became involved with a church based on the Old Testament, but she said she did not know much about its beliefs. She thought it was strange when he showed up Friday to take their son out to dinner and to see the movie "Star Trek."

"That's his Sabbath," she said. "So we wouldn't usually see him on a Friday or Saturday. ... I think now, that he was saying goodbye."

David Gibson, a Catholic blogger at Beliefnet, writes that Roeder was probably involved with a radical Christian movement:

Perilous to speculate of course but I won't be surprised if it emerges that Roeder was involved in some kind of Christian Reconstructionist group, or the Christian Identity movement, or influenced by those beliefs. These groups rarely have "churches," per se, or broader communities which could temper (or inflame, I suppose) extremist views. That's problem: folks like Roeder keep it bottled up, for the most part, occasionally let off some steam. So friends and family express "shock" when they go off the deep end.

For good background on these radical Christian movements, read a 1998 Southern Poverty Law Center paper here:

 "The militant anti-abortion movement is driven by three different but overlapping theologies that motivate violence: Christian Reconstructionism, Christian Identity and apocalyptic Catholicism. To understand this movement's increased militancy and its goal of instituting a theocracy -- a goal that by definition means ending democracy -- it is necessary to examine these three ideological strands."

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The Sheinkin test

By Uriel Heilman · June 3, 2009

Amir Mizroch of The Jerusalem Post writes that Tuesday's war preparedness drill in Israel failed the Sheinkin St. test:

Almost nobody on Rehov Sheinkin paid any attention to Tuesday's siren marking the highlight of Operation Turning Point 3. Eleven o'clock came, and then it went. The siren wailed - audible faintly over the sounds of Pink Floyd in one café, and loud, hard techno in the adjacent clothing store. For the duration of the siren, café customers continued sipping cappuccinos, and window-shoppers continued staring at windows while inside, others were trying on new shirts...

Why is the Rehov Sheinkin test important?

It's important because people in the North and people in the South know very well that the threat is real; it's the people in the Center of the country who need to be reminded. Seeing as the stated purpose of Tuesday's nationwide drill was to get the entire populace to practice taking cover in shelters when the siren went off - or, at the least, to identify where the shelters were - the Home Front Command failed miserably...

To be fair to the army and the Defense Ministry, this neighborhood is probably the hardest nut to crack in terms of preparing residents for war. The story of the menacing Middle East simply doesn't sell well here. Drawing attention to bad news of looming war has little or no chance of a captive audience on a street packed tight with designer clothing outlets, accessory stores, book stores, electronics stores, music stores, tattoo parlors, organic supermarkets, chic restaurants, food stands, fruit shake stands and trendy cafés. Who's got time to look for a bomb shelter when Camper's is having a sale?

Full story here.

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Why Israelis are nervous about Obama

By Uriel Heilman · June 3, 2009

Everybody wants something from Obama.

Expectations are high as the American president kicks off his first Middle East tour since taking office. He's already met in Riyadh with Saudi King Abdullah, and on Thursday Obama will deliver a much-anticipated speech in Cairo that is being cast as an address to the entire Arab world.

While Obama's meetings and remarks will be scrutinized closely, perhaps nowhere will they be followed more intently than in Israel.

There is great concern in Israel about Obama's trip, and an atmosphere of general nervousness about the new American president. Hardly three months into his presidency, Obama already has criticized Israel -- its settlement policy, to be precise -- with a public candor and directness unseen during the Bush era. As columnist Thomas Friedman notes in Wednesday's New York Times, this U.S. president believes there is little point in "saying one thing behind closed doors and saying something else publicly.”

Obama told Friedman: “We’re just going to keep on telling the truth until it stops working — and nowhere is truth-telling more important than the Middle East.”

Israelis have a few things making them nervous:

• After an election campaign rife with speculation (much of it fueled by the Republican Jewish Committee) that as president Obama would back away from Washington's unstinting support for Israel, Israel and its supporters are fearful about Obama. Many judge him guilty until proven innocent, and every move he makes is likely to be interpreted in the most pessimistic way possible.
• Despite his suggestions to the contrary, Israel's new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, does not see eye to eye with the new American president. They differ on settlements (Bibi's position on allowing "natural growth" in settlements has the support of most Israelis), on the viability of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Bibi has not publicly endorsed such a solution) and on what Israel needs to do to ease conditions for the Palestinians. Israelis remember well the rift between Washington and Jerusalem that developed the last time Bibi was prime minister, when Bill Clinton was president. They're nervous about the same thing happening again, this time with Obama.
• Israelis have not failed to notice that Obama's first trip to the region as president does not include a stop in their country. Many are asking why, and see in it an omen of bad things to come.
• Finally, Israelis are nervous generally about their future and their security. Wars with Hezbollah in 2006 and Hamas in 2009 woke Israelis up to the fact that the northern and southern thirds of their country are vulnerable to rocket attacks that they do not have the power to stop. They know that in the next war those rockets are likely to reach Israel's densely populated center, making no place safe anymore. On top of that, Israelis are nervously watching Iran move ever closer to nuclear weapons capability, and their politicians and media keep hammering home the message that this will put Israel's very existence in jeopardy.

Some of these fears are more valid than others.

But one thing Israelis should not fear is that Obama will use his platform in Cairo -- as some have suggested -- to deliver a new broadside at Israel. While I am loathe to make predictions (and I'm usually pretty careful about avoiding doing so), I'll go out on a limb and say that no American president would be so foolish as to stake out new ground challenging Israel from an Arab capital.

It remains to be seen whether he'll use the goodwill and high expectations with which many Arabs are greeting his trip to challenge some of his Arab counterparts on the values America holds dear, such as civil liberties.

Let's wait and see.

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Lost in Israel (or … too funny for Hollywood)

By Ami Eden · June 3, 2009

Would you have seen the Zohan if Adam Sandler were actually Israeli?

Check out this story in the Los Angeles Times about a hit Israeli film that cannot find an Israeli distributor:

The Israeli producer David (Dudi) Zilber couldn't be happier about the success of his latest film, "Lost Islands," a comedy about twin brothers in late-1970s Israel who fall in love with the same girl. The film is having its gala U.S. premiere tonight at the Israel Film Festival (it plays at 7:30 p.m. at the Egyptian Theatre, with more showings later in the week).

"Lost Islands" was the biggest box-office hit in Israel last year, earning a clutch of good reviews and winning a variety of Israeli film awards.

But for all its commercial success and critical honors, the Reshef Levy-directed film is still missing one key feather in its cap -- it has been roundly ignored by every U.S. distributor.

"It's a big disappointment," Zilber, on the phone from Israel, told me. "Not even one distributor has given us an offer. No one is interested."

Filmmaking in Israel has been in something of a renaissance, with a number of recent films, notably "Waltz With Bashir," "The Band's Visit" and "Beaufort" (the last of which Zilber produced) all playing the American art-house circuit, earning rave reviews and doing respectable business for foreign imports.

So why wouldn't anyone want Israel's biggest hit? Zilber isn't entirely sure himself, but he offers an intriguing theory: When it comes to foreign imports, U.S. distributors are far more interested in serious, art-house dramas than in popular comedies. In fact, being a big comedy hit in Israel probably makes "Lost Islands" a harder sell than if it were a small, thoughtful adult drama. ...

Click here to read the full story.

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Rabbi Manis Friedman’s response

By Ami Eden · June 3, 2009

Ben Harris has a story about the controversy over Rabbi Manis Friedman's statements in Moment magazine. Here's the rabbi's full clarification (distributed by Chabad) [UPDATE: The statement has been revised by Rabbi Friedman to make clear that he was not blaming Moment for the misunderstanding]:

I would like to clarify the answer published in my name in last month's issue of Moment Magazine.

First of all, the opinions published in my name are solely my own, and do not represent the official policy of any Jewish movement or organization.

Additionally, my answer, as written, is misleading.

It is obvious, I thought, that any neighbor of the Jewish people should be treated, as the Torah commands us, with respect and compassion. Fundamental to the Jewish faith is the concept that every human being was created in the image of G-d, and our sages instruct us to support the non-Jewish poor along with the poor of our own brethren.

The sub-question I chose to address instead is: how should we act in time of war, when our neighbors attack us, using their women, children and religious holy places as shields. I attempted to briefly address some of the ethical issues related to forcing the military to withhold fire from certain people and places, at the unbearable cost of widespread bloodshed (on both sides!) -- when one’s own family and nation is mercilessly targeted from those very people and places.

Furthermore, some of the words I used in my brief comment were irresponsible, and I look forward to further clarifying them in a future issue.

I apologize for any misunderstanding my words created.

-- Rabbi Manis Friedman

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