JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Kosherfest: a reporter earns his (chicken) wings

By Ami Eden · October 29, 2009

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Debating Israeli-Palestinian issues on ‘The Daily Show’

By Gil Shefler · October 29, 2009

Tension was tangible Wednesday at the taping of "The Daily Show" as host Jon Stewart interviewed guests Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti and activist Anna Baltzer.

The interview was interrupted twice by a heckler, who was eventually escorted out of the studio.

During the interview, Stewart asked Barghouti and Baltzer, who recently wrote a book based on her experience as a human rights activist in the West Bank, various questions pertaining to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Palestinians have been subjected to the longest occupation in modern history, and a system of segregation which is totally unjust," Barghouti said.

"Liar!" a heckler shouted in the crowd in response.

"Apparently we have Joe Wilson with us tonight," Stewart said, using his famous wit to defuse the situation.

Viewers knowledgeable in Middle Eastern affairs are probably familiar with Barghouti, a moderate member of Fatah and one of the prominent Palestinian signatories of the Geneva Initiative, an unofficial peace plan drafted by Israelis and Palestinians. But the name Baltzer may not ring a bell.

A 29-year-old Columbia grad and Jewish American, Baltzer says on numerous videos posted on YouTube that she became a pro-Palestinian activist after visiting the area and witnessing Palestinian plight.

At one point during the interview, Stewart asked Barghouti and Baltzer whether they believed in Israel's right to exist.

While the Palestinian Barghouti has publicly supported Israel's right to exist, Baltzer has said she believes having a Jewish State in the Middle East is unjust.

Here's what she said in May 2008 at a University of California, Irvine pro-Palestinian rally under the header of "Never again? The Palestinian Holocaust."

"What Israel is doing is doing to the Palestinian people is not a perversion of what Israel could be or should be," she said at the UC-Irvine event. "It is an inevitability of having a Jewish state in a place where the majority of the people who have rights to the land are not Jewish."

During the interview Baltzer evaded Stewart's question regarding Israel's right to exist, choosing instead to focus on human rights violations by Israel against Palestinians.

"But they would say we are defending ourselves," Stewart responded.

"There's nothing defensive in denying Palestinians water," Baltzer said.

When Baltzer began saying that historically Jews lived better in the Arab world than they did in the Western world she was cut off by the host.

"I don't think they felt particularly comfortable there, I mean in 1948 when the Palestinians were forced to leave their land many Jews were forced to leave their land in Iraq, Iran," Stewart said. "Its not necessarily comfortable living in exile."

Stewart tried to lead the conversation in a way that would suggest hope, and veteran politician Barghouti ended the interview on a conciliatory tone.

"Jon, if I may say so, Israel has tried for 60 years the language of power to achieve security," he said. "The only road that was not tried fully is to have peace with Palestinians, and I am sure this is the best guarantee for security."

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Remembering Rabin

By Ami Eden · October 29, 2009

On the 14th anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Ha'aretz columnist Ari Shavit says the slain prime minister was not a saint and was no genius -- but he was great:

But even though he was neither a saint nor a genius, Rabin was great. He was great not just because he saved Jerusalem in the War of Independence and whipped the Israel Defense Forces into shape ahead of the Six-Day War. He was great not just because he helped create a strategic alliance with the United States in 1970 and began the peace process with Egypt in 1975. Rabin was great because during his second term as prime minister he realized the existential danger of occupation and decided to take action. The specific action he took - the Oslo process - was quite flawed. But the septuagenarian's willingness to foment change and take risks to extricate Israel from its troubles turned Rabin into a historic figure and role model.

When Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak give speeches about Rabin a this week's memorial ceremonies, they should ask themselves where they are compared to him. Nine months have passed since the general election, and seven have passed since the government was established. But so far, the captains of this ship haven't bothered to let the passengers know where we're going - what the objective is, what the destination is. This ambiguity gives the Bibi-and-Barak government the charm of a Rorschach test: People can see in it whatever they want to see. The problem is that at the end of the day, the government is just as politically effective as a Rorshach test.

Liat Collins of The Jerusalem Post offers her own poignant reflections on Rabin, and ends with a plea for partisans to stop using his murder as a political weapon:

This year, the first to raise the ghost of Rabin was Haaretz, which saw fit to publish private letters by Leah Rabin in which she called Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (then in office for the first time) "corrupt" and "a liar." Their publication was condemned by his daughter, Dalia Rabin, who presumably realized it brought no honor to either of her parents or to Netanyahu in Round II as premier.

Equally embarrassing were the attempts by Peace Now activists to encourage right-wing MKs and personalities into condemning anybody connected with Oslo and the peace process in a mock documentary. The fiasco resulted in the desired outrageous statements being aired, alongside news that Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin had banned Peace Now Secretary-General Yariv Oppenheimer from entering the Knesset until further notice.

Left-wing politicians and activists, those whose camp had no problem shouting "murderer" outside the window of prime minister Menachem Begin in the First Lebanon War - or even condemning Ariel Sharon until his sharp Left turn produced the Gaza disengagement plan - once more accused the Right of dangerously abusing the rights of freedom of expression.

More than a decade later, it is sadder than ever that instead of focusing on the real dangers facing Israel - the country and its society - there are those who prefer to use Rabin's name as a tool of delegitimization. May he rest in peace.

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