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Showing posts with label Proud to defend Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Proud to defend Israel. Show all posts
Friday, November 16, 2012
Operation Rally for Israel in L.A.! This Sun., Nov. 18, 2012, 1 pm in front of the Federal Building
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Qatari PM: Israel's 'Vicious Attack Must Not Pass Unpunished' Qatari Prime Minister warns that Israel's retaliatory strikes on terrorists in the Gaza Strip must not go unpunished.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani warned that Israel's retaliatory strikes on terrorists in the Gaza Strip must not go unpunished, state news agency QNAreported on Thursday, according toAFP.
"This vicious attack must not pass unpunished," QNA quoted the premier as saying at a Wednesday meeting in Saudi Arabia of the six Gulf Arab nations and Russia.
"The UN Security Council must take up its responsibility to secure peace and security in the world," he said, adding the latest escalation of violence in Gaza is likely to "promote extremism."
"We reject extremism and terrorism but such irresponsible and unjustified attacks must be condemned by the world," he said.
In October, Qatar's emir was the first head of state to visit Gaza since Hamas seized control from the Palestinian Authority in 2007.
Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defense on Wednesday-- beginning with the targeted assassination of Hamas military chief, Ahmed Jabari-- as terrorists in theGaza Strip continue launching rockets that pulverize Jewish communities in the South.
More than 200 rockets have been fired from Gaza in the last 24 hours, killing three people and wounding two others in the southern Jewish community of Kiryat Malachi.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Jeremy Ben-Ami and David Suissa face-off over Israel
It was an evening for civil discourse and hard questions, particularly one asked quite often in the two years of J Street’s rapid rise to prominence: Can groups and individuals criticize policies of the Israeli government yet still be pro-Israel?
The topic was nearly identical to one addressed by a committee in the Israeli Knesset in March, but the Monday night event, which drew more than 600 people to Temple Israel of Hollywood, could scarcely have been more different from that investigation.
If the Knesset hearing was designed to endorse or reject Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government’s decision to either isolate or ignore J Street, the “community conversation” at the synagogue assumed such a policy would be wrongheaded.
“Not to argue with each other about important ideas is simply un-Jewish,” Temple Israel Senior Rabbi John Rosove said in his introduction.
Co-sponsored by J Street (and by The Jewish Journal, along with a number of local synagogues), the evening was designed to steer clear of rancorous debate even as it attracted a politically varied audience. Rabbis Ed Feinstein of Valley Beth Shalom, Zoë Klein of Temple Isaiah, Shmuly Yanklowitz of UCLA Hillel and Sharon Brous of IKAR were each invited to ask one question of the speakers.
Because the evening was organized to focus primarily on the way the Jewish community talks internally about Israel, the discussion felt, at times, oblique.
At no time was this more apparent than when Suissa dispensed with many of the best-known critiques of J Street in an early aside. “I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint all my friends on the right who’ve been asking me to take the gloves off,” he said before quickly running through criticisms of J Street, ranging from the money that the group received (but did not initially disclose) from George Soros, to the way the group is alleged to have escorted South African jurist Richard Goldstone around to the offices of lawmakers in Washington D.C. (Ben-Ami denied the latter point, but not the former.)
Ben-Ami used a similarly light touch when he used one of the metaphors frequently employed by the left — that Israel, by building settlements in the West Bank at a time when negotiations over the land have not been completed, has been eating pieces of a pizza while still discussing how that pizza should be split.
Ben-Ami said that he hoped the event would be a chance to model the kind of conversation he wanted to see within the Jewish community and invited Suissa to speak at the next J Street conference. Suissa accepted — albeit with a groan.
“You can ‘oy’ all you want,” Rosove said, “as long as you come.”
All told, the two speakers ended up spending a fair amount of the evening focusing on their similarities rather than on their differences, including:
• Both believe in the premise of “two states for two peoples” (although Suissa took issue with Ben-Ami’s presentation of that solution to the conflict as something that needs to be resolved immediately);
• Both love the city of Jerusalem (although Ben-Ami seemed more willing than Suissa to accept a two-state solution that involves sharing the city); and
• Both see the prospect of the United Nations’ voting to recognize a Palestinian state at the General Assembly in September as a grave diplomatic threat to Israel (although they certainly don’t agree as to what Israel, the United States or American Jews should do about it).
The main point of disagreement between the two men was elicited by a pointed question from Feinstein.
Both speakers, Feinstein said, were fighting against fantasies. Ben-Ami is up against the right wing’s fear that if Israel gives away land in the West Bank, it will suffer more Hamas-launched rocket attacks, like those coming from Gaza, as a result.
Suissa, on the other hand, faces the left’s nightmare scenario that the longer Israel holds onto the West Bank, the more radical the Palestinian population becomes, to the point that it would be taken over by Hamas.
“The question is,” Feinstein said, “how do you proceed with policymaking?”
Their answers were familiar. Ben-Ami proposed that Israel stop building in the West Bank — of its own accord — because it would help to make a peace deal. Suissa, who focused much of his attention on combating the idea that the Israeli settlements are the primary obstacle to a peaceful resolution of the conflict, argued that giving land for peace had been tried before and failed. He wants Palestinians to stop the practice of incitement against Israel and be required to come to the negotiating table without preconditions.
What was surprising — on the part of both men — were their acknowledgments of the uncertainties associated with both of their positions.
“Those who, like me, argue that Israel can only be secure and safe and have a future that we can hold onto and relate to by making peace cannot guarantee that signing that agreement will lead to peace,” Ben-Ami said. “We can’t guarantee that there won’t be future terror. We can’t guarantee that there won’t be rockets and bombs and suicide attacks.
“In fact,” Ben-Ami continued, “I would go so far as to say those of us who are arguing for an effort to make a two-state deal need to be honest with everybody upfront and say, ‘There will be terrorism and there will be threats, and there’s going to be a lot more need for security after a deal.’ ”
Suissa’s most surprising comment came at an earlier point in the evening, when he acknowledged he didn’t necessarily have a clear set of steps that Israel — or the United States, or American Jews — should be taking next.
“All my friends on the left have this one fantastic argument: What do we do now?” Suissa said, preempting what he called the best response to his position. “It’s a great question.”
Ultimately, Suissa argued forcefully as to why J Street and others on the left were wrong to pressure Israel in pursuit of a peace deal and why he believes the focus on settlements covers up real obstacles to peace (Hamas, the Palestinian right of return).
But when Ben-Ami ticked off the basic shape a Palestinian state would likely take — 70 percent of the Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank to be incorporated into Israel; land-swaps to make up the difference; and the fate of the city-size settlement of Ariel still to be determined — Suissa nodded along in agreement.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
"How Can You Defend Israel?" by David Harris, Executive Director, AJC, and Senior Associate, St. Antony's College, Oxford University
I was sitting in a lecture hall at a British university. Bored by the speaker, I began glancing around the hall. I noticed someone who looked quite familiar from an earlier academic incarnation. When the session ended, I introduced myself and wondered if, after years that could be counted in decades, he remembered me.
He said he did, at which point I commented that the years had been good to him. His response: "But you've changed a lot."
"How so?" I asked with a degree of trepidation, knowing that, self-deception aside, being 60 isn't quite the same as 30.
Looking me straight in the eye, he proclaimed, as others standing nearby listened in, "I read the things you write about Israel. I hate them. How can you defend that country? What happened to the good liberal boy I knew 30 years ago?"
I replied: "That good liberal boy hasn't changed his view. Israel is a liberal cause, and I am proud to speak up for it."
Yes, I'm proud to speak up for Israel. A recent trip once again reminded me why.
Sometimes, it's the seemingly small things, the things that many may not even notice, or just take for granted, or perhaps deliberately ignore, lest it spoil their airtight thinking.
It's the driving lesson in Jerusalem, with the student behind the wheel a devout Muslim woman, and the teacher an Israeli with a skullcap. To judge from media reports about endless inter-communal conflict, such a scene should be impossible. Yet, it was so mundane that no one, it seemed, other than me gave it a passing glance. It goes without saying that the same woman would not have had the luxury of driving lessons, much less with an Orthodox Jewish teacher, had she been living in Saudi Arabia.
It's the two gay men walking hand-in-hand along the Tel Aviv beachfront. No one looked at them, and no one questioned their right to display their affection. Try repeating the same scene in some neighboring countries.
It's the Friday crowd at a mosque in Jaffa. Muslims are free to enter as they please, to pray, to affirm their faith. The scene is repeated throughout Israel. Meanwhile, Christians in Iraq are targeted for death; Copts in Egypt face daily marginalization; Saudi Arabia bans any public display of Christianity; and Jews have been largely driven out of the Arab Middle East.
It's the central bus station in Tel Aviv. There's a free health clinic set up for the thousands of Africans who have entered Israel, some legally, others illegally. They are from Sudan, Eritrea, and elsewhere. They are Christians, Muslims, and animists. Clearly, they know something that Israel's detractors, who rant and rave about alleged "racism," don't. They know that, if they're lucky, they can make a new start in Israel. That's why they bypass Arab countries along the way, fearing imprisonment or persecution. And while tiny Israel wonders how many such refugees it can absorb, Israeli medical professionals volunteer their time in the clinic.
It's Save a Child's Heart, another Israeli institution that doesn't make it into the international media all that much, although it deserves a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. Here, children in need of advanced cardiac care come, often below the radar. They arrive from Iraq, the West Bank, Gaza, and other Arab places. They receive world-class treatment. It's free, offered by doctors and nurses who wish to assert their commitment to coexistence. Yet, these very same individuals know that, in many cases, their work will go unacknowledged. The families are fearful of admitting they sought help in Israel, even as, thanks to Israelis, their children have been given a new lease on life.
It's the vibrancy of the Israeli debate on just about everything, including, centrally, the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. The story goes that U.S. President Harry Truman met Israeli President Chaim Weizmann shortly after Israel's establishment in 1948. They got into a discussion about who had the tougher job. Truman said: "With respect, I'm president of 140 million people." Weizmann retorted: "True, but I'm president of one million presidents."
Whether it's the political parties, the Knesset, the media, civil society, or the street, Israelis are assertive, self-critical, and reflective of a wide range of viewpoints.
It's the Israelis who are now planning the restoration of the Carmel Forest, after a deadly fire killed 44 people and destroyed 8,000 acres of exquisite nature. Israelis took an arid and barren land and, despite the unimaginably harsh conditions, lovingly planted one tree after another, so that Israel can justifiably claim today that it's one of the few countries with more wooded land than it had a century ago.
It's the Israelis who, with quiet resolve and courage, are determined to defend their small sliver of land against every conceivable threat - the growing Hamas arsenal in Gaza; the dangerous build-up of missiles by Hezbollah in Lebanon; nuclear-aspiring Iran's calls for a world without Israel; Syria's hospitality to Hamas leaders and transshipment of weapons to Hezbollah; and enemies that shamelessly use civilians as human shields. Or the global campaign to challenge Israel's very legitimacy and right to self-defense; the bizarre anti-Zionist coalition between the radical left and Islamic extremists; the automatic numerical majority at the UN ready to endorse, at a moment's notice, even the most far-fetched accusations against Israel; and those in the punditocracy unable - or unwilling - to grasp the immense strategic challenges facing Israel.
Yes, it's those Israelis who, after burying 21 young people murdered by terrorists at a Tel Aviv discotheque, don the uniform of the Israeli armed forces to defend their country, and proclaim, in the next breath, that, "They won't stop us from dancing, either."
That's the country I'm proud to stand up for. No, I'd never say Israel is perfect. It has its flaws and foibles. It's made its share of mistakes. But, then again, so has every democratic, liberal and peace-seeking country I know, though few of them have faced existential challenges every day since their birth.
The perfect is the enemy of the good, it's said. Israel is a good country. And seeing it up close, rather than through the filter of the BBC or the Guardian, never fails to remind me why.
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