News

The importance of this week's top Israeli news stories seems to pale in comparison with the humanitarian catastrophe in Haiti, and the urgent relief effort there.

As a result, I discarded the idea of writing about the intentional humiliation of Turkey's ambassador to Israel at the hands of Avigdor Lieberman's Foreign Ministry.  Any other week, perhaps, the crude, highhanded bungling of a not-unreasonable Israeli diplomatic protest by Lieberman and his deputy, Danny Ayalon (and the public reprimand of them by President Shimon Peres) would have been fodder for discussion in this column.  Just not this week.

And I've also chosen not to write at length on remarks made on Tuesday by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who seemed to deflate recent hopes about an imminent return to negotiations.  In a statement issued by his bureau, the Prime Minister denied reports that he had come to an agreement with Egypt on declaring Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, maintaining instead that Israel would never compromise on "united Jerusalem".  Netanyahu's denial caused Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Ali Aboul Gheit to reverse his previously upbeat assessment of the situation.

The new restriction involves not only a much lengthier route. Since Israel regards Qalandia as sovereign territory, the lawyers are also required to first file for an entry permit to the country. But permit requests can take weeks to process, and are not always approved by the Israeli authorities.

That being said, who can resist the urge to sum up the 10 years that end tonight, the first decade of the new millennium?!

Here, therefore, is a series of unsystematic, incomprehensive, but hopefully not inconsequential impressions on the decade that began on 1/1/00.

To set the table (and with a nod to Billy Joel), let's start with a few names and terms that entered our everyday lexicon over the last ten years: Camp David II. Second Intifada. Hanging chads. Taba. Dubya. Durban Conference. 9/11. "Defensive Shield". WMD. The Quartet. Geneva Initiative. Roadmap. "Shock and Awe". Kadima. Gaza disengagement. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mearsheimer & Walt. Gilad Shalit. Tzipi Livni. Sderot. Annapolis. Facebook. J Street. Barack Obama. "Price Tag". "Cast Lead". BDS. Bernard Madoff. Avigdor Lieberman. Settlement Freeze.

-- George Orwell, "1984", Part 1, Chapter 1

Consider this a primer in the underside of Zionist politics. At first blush, not the most riveting topic in the world. But don't reach for the delete key just yet - unless you really aren't concerned about how decisions get decided, deals get dealt, and money gets divvied up. And, to tell you the truth, it's an incredible Orwellian tale, if you take the time to navigate the labyrinth.

You see, unbeknownst to most Jewish Americans, even those active in the Zionist world, the democratic nature of the Zionist movement is under severe attack - in the name of democracy and Zionism!

In his call to take part, ACRI Executive Director Hagai El-Ad bravely ties together the scourge of occupation and the threat to democracy within Green Line Israel. To read El-Ad's text in full, click here.

More than one in five

The Palestinian citizens of Israel vote in elections and pay taxes, and formally enjoy equal rights and equal protection before the law. In the context of decades of Israeli-Palestinian tension and violence, this is nothing to sneeze at, and it's unfortunately a fact that is sometimes overlooked by Israel's blanket detractors. Although Israel is far from a perfected democracy, the situation within its 1967 borders does not approach that of Apartheid-era South Africa.

If you guessed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, you're way off the mark. It wasn't Rush Limbaugh either.

To answer correctly, you need to pan 5,800 miles eastward to Jerusalem where the man in charge of Israel's borders and immigration, Interior Minister Eli Yishai of the Shas party, said precisely those words on Israeli TV's widely viewed "Meet the Press" program.

For those who follow developments in Israel closely, these remarks should not come as a surprise: Shas officials, led by spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, have made a career of comparing women to donkeys, and homosexuality to the plague, and of blaming assimilated Jews for the Holocaust.

This Sunday marks a truly historic occasion.  Under the title "Driving Change, Securing Peace", J Street will be convening the first-ever national conference of all the American Jewish organizations who support Israel's wellbeing, but who - precisely because of this - cannot promise carte blanche support for each and every policy decision of Israel's government. 

In other words, this will be a gathering of individuals and groups who are concerned by all the dangers to Israel's physical and spiritual future. 

In Israel, Sukkot is different. On top of the Sukkot week's central role in the Israeli calendar (including national school vacation and a myriad of top-notch cultural events, such as the acclaimed Akko Fringe Theater Festival), the holiday has also become, over the last two decades, quite a seismic political time of year - with the ever-sensitive city of Jerusalem at its epicenter.

This year has been no exception, with tensions flaring dangerously on and around the disputed Temple Mount area (Har HaBayit, a.k.a. Al-Haram al-Sharif, "the Noble Sanctuary"), and elsewhere in the city, between Israeli police and Palestinian worshippers.

Meretz USA is proud to relay this important message from over a hundred prominent Israelis from the public and business sectors, academia, civil society and the arts. At the start of the Jewish new year, they are reaching out to the American Jewish community, calling on us to work for peace in order to secure the future of the people of Israel, ‘in this and coming generations'.

Please click on the link below to read the entire letter:

A letter to the American Jewish community, from Israeli civil society organizations and individuals