The Mavi Marmara. Might Israel soon have a fleet of such hateful "humanitarian attack" craft?

The Mavi Marmara still docks in Ashdod, and other ships are on the way from Iran and Lebanon to similarly challenge Israel. Israel may yet end up with a flotilla of “humanitarian attack” craft in its ports. What are we going to do with all these boats? Here are ten things Israel could usefully do with the first, trailblazing terrorist trawler.

The Turkish groups behind the first hate-Israel flotilla fear being labeled terrorist organizations if they claim ownership of the Mavi Maramara. That means that we, Israel, get to do what we want with the infamous ship, a Trojan/Turkish Horse if there ever was one.

Here are ten things Israel could usefully do with the terrorist trawler:

1. Load it with humanitarian supplies (and perhaps a few weapons too) for the persecuted Armenians and downtrodden Kurds, and set sail for their oppressor, Turkey. In Mersin, Marmaris and Antalya we can unload all the wheelchairs, Band-Aids, chocolate, baby toys, slingshots, electric steel-cutting saws, knives and other peaceful goods donated by peace-loving Israelis. While we’re at it, in each city we can set up an expansive traveling museum exhibit on the Armenian genocide and the inalienable rights of the Kurdish people to independent statehood.

2. Rename it the “Gilad Shalit” and load it up with 500 or more Hamas terrorists in Israeli prisons. Anchor the boat off the coast of Gaza under heavy guard, with no food and no visits from the Red Cross or media. Tell the Hamas that they can have their terrorist buddies and the ship too, if Gilad Shalit is freed. Wait them out.

3. Rename it the “Exodus” and set sail for the Iranian ports of Bandar-Abbas, Bushehr and Imam Khomeini in order to force the release of Iran’s remaining Jews. With a sufficient media pool, a high-profile inter-faith delegation, and a smattering of Nobel laureates aboard, we should be able to embarrass the clerics of Teheran into ending their blockade against Jewish emigration. While visiting Bushehr, we could also take a tour of the nuclear reactor, to see up-close, first-hand, how the Iranians are producing peaceful medical isotopes there.

4. Rebrand the ship as the “Karine B”, and together with the “Karine A” launch an Israeli flotilla for peace. Sail our armada into Jeddah, Ras Tanura or Kuwait City broadcasting messages of reconciliation and democracy. “Kol HaShalom” will broadcast from the ship into every home in the Persian Gulf. News broadcasts will spotlight Israel’s academic, cultural and high-tech successes, alongside reports on genocide, racism, discrimination, slavery, terrorism, and anti-Semitism in the Arab and Moslem worlds.

5. Christen the cruise ship as the “HMS Ariel Sharon” and turn it into a long-term residence for the homeless refugees of Gush Katif, who were dragged out of their homes for the sake of peace with Gaza, a process called “disengagement” … which led to the rise of Hamas in Gaza … which led to Operation Cast Lead and the Israeli blockade … which led to the flotilla … which led to the Israeli naval raid … which led to the sorry current situation — which is why we have this wonderful boat anchored in Ashdod in the first place. I’m sure that the forgotten Gush Katif refugees will appreciate the gesture. It certainly doesn’t look like they are going to get permanent housing any other way.

6. Ask Cyril Keren, Martin Schlaf, Gilad and Omri Sharon, Shimon Sheves, and Dov Weisglass to “do a Jericho” for us: Turn the Mavi Marmara into a casino boat for the pleasure of Israelis – especially now that it is no longer pleasant to travel to the casinos in Turkey. Kadima and Labor party members can have preferential access and VIP privileges.

7. Turn it into a school for Ultra-Orthodox Sephardic girls rejected by the Slonim Hasidim in Emmanuel. Better yet, move the Slonimers onto the boat…

8. Anchor the boat off the shores of Tel Aviv, and use it for bar mitzvah parties for the children and grandchildren of people like Judge Goldstone and other high foreign officials who seek to mark the traditional Jewish year of passage into adulthood without having to have security outside a synagogue or at the Western Wall.

9. Sell the boat to cover the health expenses of our wounded naval commandoes and to buy better (paintball?) guns for the IDF. Alternatively, we could cut the boat up into pieces and sell chunks on EBay as souvenirs, in order to fund psychological rehabilitation for the PTSD-afflicted youth of Sderot.

10. Demonstratively sink the boat just outside the territorial waters of Turkey (in “international waters”) to protest world hubris, hypocrisy and hostility to Israel. Just blow it up.

"Zeidy": Prof. Zvi Meir (Henry) Weinberg z"l

For Holocaust Memorial Day 2010, consider this true personal story. It is about a kvitel, a little prayer note, that connects five generations of my family. It is a story about the power of Jewish history, about survival beyond the Nazi Holocaust, and about the Jewish People’s historic return to the Land of Israel.

My father, Prof. Henry H. (Zvi Meir) Weinberg of blessed memory, passed away in Jerusalem in December 2006, after a long, amazing life that took him (fleeing from the Nazis) from Poland to the Ukraine, Siberia, Uzbekistan, France, Israel, United States, Canada, and then again, some fifteen years ago, to Israel.

Here in Israel, he was elected in 1996 to the Israeli parliament as a representative of Natan Sharanky’s Yisrael Be’Aliyah political party. He lived to see all his children and grandchildren living aside him in Israel.  

My father came from a long line of Sanzer and Bobover Hassidic Jews in Krakow, who were pillars of the community going back to the students of Rabbi Yeshaya of Pshedbosh in the early 1800s. His father (my grandfather), Moshe David Weinberg (for whom I am named), fled Poland with his wife and children into Russia just ahead of the Nazis in September 1939. Thus, they survived World War II. Moshe David’s siblings and their families, however, perished in the Holocaust.  

Moshe David’s father (my great-grandfather), Dov Beirish Weinberg, had passed away and was buried in Krakow in 1935. My father, Prof. Henry/Tzvi Weinberg, had searched for, found, and photographed, Dov Beirish’s gravestone in the enormous, overgrown and partly destroyed “new” Jewish cemetery in Krakow. (The gravestone, we discovered, had been re-done after the war by a cousin, Rav Tzvi Hersh Meisels of Chicago, Wiziner Rav, author of Mekadshei Hashem).  

Here begins the story. Some three months after my father’s passing (in early 2007), my brothers and I were digging through the voluminous papers and books in his Jerusalem apartment. Among the many ancient holy books, I discovered an original, first edition copy of “Pardes Mordechai,” a volume of Torah commentary written by my step-grandfather Rabbi Mordechai Wulliger (published 1928 in Munkatch, Hungary), personally inscribed by Rabbi Wulliger to my father.  

Inside the faded book, my father had stashed documents and papers in envelopes, all neatly labeled. Clearly, he wanted us to find these papers. One of the envelopes had a red tab on it, and was labeled: The “New” Cemetery in Krakow.  

Inside that envelope I found a photo of Dov Beirish Weinberg’s gravestone in Krakow. I had seen this before, but attached to the photo was a hand-drawn map; a map sketched out by my father with detailed instructions how to find Dov Beirish’s grave inside the old/”new” cemetery. According to this map, Dov Beirish’s plot was adjacent to the gravestone of the well-known Rabbi Shimon Sofer — a Talmudic giant.  

The Kvitel Map, hand drawn by my father

At the bottom of the map, my father had written: “Attached is a ‘kvitel.’ Please deliver the kvitel to the grave of my grandfather.” (A kvitel is a prayer note, the type that is often scribbled, folded and tucked by Jews into the crevices of the Western Wall in Jerusalem. There is a tradition to leave such prayer notes also at the graves of ancestors).  

I read this out to my brothers. We shuddered. A request from the grave — my father’s grave, sending us on a mission — to the grave of our great grandfather! A last request, so carefully thought out and mapped out by our father, labeled clearly, and left conspicuously behind for us to find.  

We peered at the small, square piece of paper that was attached to the map, folded into four. “A kvitel for the grave of Dov Beirish Weinberg” it proclaimed. Hesitantly, we opened it. “Refuah shleima for … and bracha ve-hatzlacha for Zvi Meir Weinberg and his family,” it read — a prayer for a relative’s health, and for the good fortune of our entire family.  

Here is the rub. That day — the day I found the book Pardes Mordechai with the photo and map and kvitel and my father’s request – was a mere four days before my eldest daughter, Ariella Rachel, was scheduled to leave with her class on a heritage trip for Poland and Krakow.  

Four days! Amazing. Could my father have known? Was this but a coincidence?  

I have never believed it was.  

Ariella was now on a mission for her grandfather to her great-great-grandfather’s grave. To deliver the kvitel.  

It was no happenstance that Ariella was “chosen” for this mission. Ariella was my father’s oldest and favorite grandchild, the apple of his eye; named after his mother, Rachel Weinberg of Krakow. Ariella and her “Zeidy” (Yiddish for grandfather) had a special relationship. Zeidy was now sending Ariella on a posthumous mission to his grandfather’s grave.  

Arrangements had to be made, fast. Ariella’s school principal and teacher were quite excited when I told them the story and showed them the kvitel. But they explained to me that breaking away from the class to make a special, personal side trip to the cemetery in Krakow would not be an easy thing. It necessitates advance approval by the Israeli security team that accompanies each Israeli class in Poland, and requires the accompaniment of a teacher and special transportation arrangements. And there wasn’t much time. Nor would they have much time in Krakow to search for the grave. And who knows how long it would take to find the grave, if at all!  

To make a long story short… on Sunday morning, 22 Adar 5767 (March 18, 2007) Ariella set out for the cemetery in Krakow to deliver the kvitel.  

Using Zeidy’s map, which was extraordinarily accurate, she found the grave of Dov Beirish Weinberg in no time at all, placed the kvitel on the stone, and prayed for the entire family. Then she left photos of our family on the grave, and lit ten candles shaped into the Hebrew word “Chai” (life).  

Ariella delivers the kvitel to her great-great-grandfather's grave

“What should I do if I get to the grave?” Ariella had asked me at Ben-Gurion airport before she left for Poland.  

“Well,” I answered, “you deliver the kvitel. Then you can say some Psalms. And then you can say to Dov Beirish: ‘Hi! I’m your great-great-granddaughter! The family survived Hitler, and I live in the sovereign state of the Jewish People, in Israel!”  

And so she did.  

Upon her return landing at Ben Gurion airport in Israel, Ariella excitedly showed me the photos on her camera from the cemetery in Krakow. “I wish I could show these photos to Zeidy and tell him that I made it to Dov Beirish’s grave with the kvitel,” she said to me.  

“Don’t worry,” I replied. “I’m sure that Zeidy already knows…”  

This article was originally published in March 2007, and was republished by Aish.com in January 2010. 

However, the widely-held presumption that splitting Jerusalem will lead to prosperity for the city and to peace for Jews and Arabs is an egregious error. Partitioning Jerusalem will destroy the city. It will die, in every way – culturally, religiously, economically and more. And politically, the shearing of Jerusalem into Arab and Jewish sovereignties will turn it into the bull’s eye of Mideast battle – a city that will make Belfast at its worst look like paradise.

The main reason for this is that any section of the city handed over to “Arab” rule will immediately become Ground Zero for the fierce war being waged within the Arab world over Islamic lifestyle, ideology and legitimacy.

Just who is going to rule in “Arab” eastern Jerusalem? Will it be the declining secular Palestinian national movement (whose sway in the West Bank is tentative at best), or the radical Islamist Hamas (which openly seeks Israel’s destruction), or the annihilationist Al-Qaeda affiliated forces (who are growing in strength in the territories), or the increasingly radical and violent Israeli Arab Islamic movement (which has been the main force behind recent unrest on the Temple Mount), or the Jordanians (who have a superior claim to Arab leadership in Jerusalem under the 1994 peace treaty with Israel), or the Moroccans (who head the Arab League’s Supreme Jerusalem Committee), or the Saudis (who see themselves as the true custodians of Islamic holy sites)?

Each of these forces will seek to prove its supremacy and bolster its legitimacy in the Islamic world through control of Arab Jerusalem and aggression against what remains of Jewish Jerusalem. What better way to prove one’s loyalty to the Islamic cause than to attack the rump Israeli presence in the city? And with bases of operations to work from in the eastern half of the city (whose neighborhoods will no longer be under Israeli security control) – locations that are bare meters away from Israeli homes and government and commercial centers — such terrorism will be oh, so very easy. So irresistibly tantalizing.

Thus, if the city is irresponsibly butchered into halves it will inevitably die a slow death. What Israeli family is going to walk with its kids to the Western Wall on Friday night through checkpoints and alleyways patrolled by Palestinian police? What Birthright group is going to shop in the Mamilla pedestrian mall below Jaffa Gate with Palestinian or Arab League sharpshooters on the Old City walls above?

What American church group is going to march along the Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem’s Christian and Moslems Quarters with Hamas or Saudi modesty patrols harassing the women? What hi-tech company is going to invest in Jerusalem when the Kassam missiles start flying from Sheikh Jarrah into Har Hotzvim?

The world needs to be reminded directly: It is only complete Israeli security control over united, greater Jerusalem that prevents the city from becoming a boiling cauldron of conflict within the volatile Arab and Islamic world and from becoming the hottest-ever-imaginable flashpoint of Israeli-Arab war. There is no “neutral” peacekeeping force in the world that will do a serious or better job than the Israeli army and police of keeping Jerusalem a terrorist-free zone.

There is also absolutely no empirical basis to believe that Arab rulers of Jerusalem will maintain the Israeli gold standard of unimpeded religious worship in the city. There is no Arab or Islamic country in the Middle East where Christians or Jews can freely operate religious institutions. Under Palestinian Authority and Hamas rule, Christians in the West Bank and Gaza have been hounded, terrorized and driven out. Christian Bethlehem is, effectively, no more. The Church of Nativity was defiled by Palestinian Muslim terrorists who turned it into an armed refuge in 2002. Who will protect the churches of Jerusalem from the same fate under Islamic rule?

Jewish synagogues and holy sites in Jericho, Nablus and Gush Katif have fared no better – they were burnt to the ground while Palestinian police looked on. Under Jordanian rule Jews were not allowed to reach their holy places in Jerusalem at all, while thousands of Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives were desecrated and the tombstones used to pave streets. How can this be prevented under Palestinian Arab/Muslim rule?

Here’s the truth: It can’t. Neither the purported Arab rulers of eastern Jerusalem that President Barak H. Obama so earnestly wants to induct, nor the international community, will competently guard Jewish, Christian and Western interests in Jerusalem. Israel is the only reliable, responsible guardian of Jerusalem.

And while we’re at it, here is another non-politically correct truth that needs to be articulated: Israel needs, desires and has developed Jerusalem as a workable, attractive city; it is the centerpiece of the ancient Jewish People and the modern State of Israel. The Arabs and Palestinians, however, don’t really care about Jerusalem; they never did. In fact, they would consider it a triumph if Jerusalem were so wracked by conflict and poverty that it was ruined for 1000 years — just as long as it would be lost to the Jews. That is one more reason why Jerusalem cannot be parceled out to the Palestinians.

We need “to tell the truth when it is needed,” as Hillary Clinton condescendingly said in her AIPAC speech this week. Well, the truth is that Jerusalem under Israel – and only under Israel — has flourished. For Jews, Muslims, Christians, scholars, clergymen, craftsmen, architects, artists, archaeologists and tourists alike, the past 43 years have been good times. For everyday citizens too: Never before in its three-thousand-year-long history has the city been such a magnet for simple residency. Witness the incredible demand for, and sky-high prices of, housing in the city today.

Israel has sagaciously developed the city from a backwater town to a magnificent metropolis, and astutely kept it open and expanded the possibilities for religious worship of all faiths. Cautious Israeli custodianship has kept a lid on the always-smoldering religious-national tensions in the city. It has, most of the time, managed the complicated city with sophistication and sensitivity.

Even the Arabs of Jerusalem agree. Any Palestinian Arab will tell you (privately, of course) that in the broader scale of things he prefers to live in an Israeli-controlled Jerusalem over a Jerusalem controlled by a Hamas imam-ocracy or the incredibly mislabeled Palestinian “Authority” (where there is little authority or democracy of any type).

That’s why very few Jerusalem Arabs have ever participated in intifada and other terrorist activities against Israel. That’s why any and every Palestinian Arab who can – has been desperately scurrying over to the Israeli side of the security fence in and around Jerusalem. That’s why Jerusalem Arabs are buying up homes at a dizzying pace in several predominantly Jewish neighborhoods like French Hill, Pisgat Zeev and Talpiot.

Thus, the sundering of Jerusalem is not only patently unwise, but unfair to Jewish history and to Israel’s fine stewardship of the city.

Woe will be a divided Jerusalem. Has the Obama administration even bothered to think this through?

* Published in The Jerusalem Post on April 1, 2010.

Erdogan has accused Israel of war crimes, walked out on its president, and backed Israel’s sworn enemies. So Israel hazed his ambassador a bit by giving him a cheap seat. Shocking!

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly accused Israel of war crimes against the Palestinians.

We sat his ambassador to Tel Aviv down on a low sofa. Ohmigosh!

Erdogan launched into an ugly public tirade against Israel and accused – to his face — the esteemed President of the State of Israel, Shimon Peres, of barbarianism. Then, before the television cameras of the world, he offensively stalked off the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

In front of television cameras, we sat Erdogan’s ambassador to Tel Aviv down on a low sofa and failed to smile at him. Outrageous!

While most Middle East leaders privately, and in some cases even publicly, supported Israel during Operation Cast Lead, Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey (and his buddy Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) sought to intervene on Ismail Haniye’s behalf. Erdogan actively backed our sworn enemy in a war against us.

Israeli stalwart deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon received Erdogan’s ambassador in the Knesset, but sat him down on a low sofa. How terribly insulting!

Erdogan abruptly and demonstratively canceled Israel’s participation in the multinational “Anatolian Eagle” air exercise in Turkey last October, and has acted to cool and curtail the important Israel-Turkey military and strategic relationship.

Ayalon sat Turkish Ambassador Ahmet Oguz Celikkol down on a low sofa, without a Turkish flag on the table before him. Shocking!

In 2008, Turkey welcomed the irredentist president of the Islamic Republic of Iran for a formal visit. No Western country has ever issued such an invitation to the Iranian leader. After Ahmadinejad rigged the June 2009 Iranian vote, Erdogan hurried to congratulate the Iranian dictator on his “re-election,” while the rest of the world demanded that the election be investigated.

We sought to demonstrate the depths of our disgust with Erdogan’s stumpy behavior by sitting his representative down at low level on a cheap sofa. Can you believe that?

Erdogan recently announced that the AKP’s Turkey will not participate in any sanctions aimed at preventing Iran from gaining the nuclear weapons it wants in order to incinerate Israel. Then, in defiance of American attempts to impose harsher sanctions on Iran, particularly in the area of refined oil products, Ankara agreed to establish a $2 billion crude oil refinery in northern Iran as a joint venture project.

We sat the ambassador of a regime that is collaborating with our most dangerous enemy down on a low sofa for a frank discussion about the nadir to which his boss has brought our relationship. Inconceivable!

In an interview with The Guardian ahead of his recent trip to Iran, the Turkish premier preposterously accused our Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, of threatening to attack the Gaza Strip with a nuclear weapon.

Lieberman’s deputy, Ambassador Danny Ayalon, avoided a public upbraiding of the Turkish representative in Israel over this, nor did he call attention to widespread Turkish human rights violations, nor did he toss even one not-nice name at Erdogan. But he sat the Turk down on a low sofa. Nu?

Erdogan refuses to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but he has broken the Western consensus by hosting Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for a formal visit in Turkey. No Moslem leader, said Erdogan, could ever commit the war crimes and genocide in Darfur for which Al-Bashir is globally considered responsible.

Consequently, we sat the war-criminal-hugging Turkish premier’s ambassador down on a low sofa and read him the riot act. Is that really inappropriate?

AKP-run Turkish state-controlled television has now run several inflammatory anti-Israeli drama series, including episodes that portray IDF soldiers raping and massacring Palestinians, and Mossad agents kidnapping young Turkish women.

Danny Ayalon delivered a mild rebuke with a bit of a sting to it by sitting the Turkish ambassador down on a low sofa — so that Turkey will know that we too have a bit of national pride. Nishkeferlach. I can live with that.

The current winter in Israel-Turkey ties is also the result of genuine anti-Semitism in the AKP. Erdogan, for example, told Istanbul University students at an academic convocation last year that they should work hard but try not to be like the money-grubbing Jews. This is gutter talk.

So Erdogan’s ambassador doesn’t get to sit in a diplomatically-classy, high-backed, plush leather chair. He gets the low sofa.

Actually, this is quite understandable.

* Orginally published in The Jerusalem Post as The low sofa affair on January 19, 2010.

The pious spiritual claptrap that characterizes J Street’s conference in Washington this week is both a conceit and a new form of Jewish apostasy. Conference speakers earnestly broadcast their “profound” Jewish and “spiritual” identities in order to besmirch the mainstream Jewish community and engender a distancing in US-Israel relations. This certainly does not fool the American Muslim leaders who are speaking at the conference. They know and appreciate exactly what J Street is up to.

It was the Buddhist seders that tipped me off to the real conceit behind J Street. The sensitive “progressive” types behind the new Washington lobby are deeply concerned, it seems, for the morality and soul of Israel.

 Gee, thanks.

 A love for Buddhist seders, a penchant for avant garde poetry (including a ballad entitled The Queer Intifada), and an abiding concern for Israel’s spiritual quintessence – all while being intermarried down to nearly the last Jewish soul among them — is how The New York Times recently characterized the founders and key staff members of J Street. They seek, you see, justice and holiness and Jewish meaning in the world. Especially in the Arab-Israel conflict.

This explains the preponderance of numerous, vaporous spiritual types at this week’s big J Street hug-in in Washington. Rabbi Sharon, Rabbi Amy, Rabbi Tirzah, Rabbi Jennie, Rabbi Julie, Rabbi Toba and Rabbi Melissa are among the prominent speakers. They are “diversity facilitators,” “spirituality counselors,” and “interreligious leaders” at places called Neve Kodesh, Brit Tzedek, Dorshei Tzedek and Just Vision.

So much “Tzedek”! So much “Kodesh”! So much overflowing of honey, holiness and justice! At a political lobby conference, no less. Perhaps the organization should be renamed Spiritual Street.

You know that all this righteousness just needs to be exported – through tough love, if necessary — to Israel. To repair the Middle East. To spiritually save Israel in spite of itself. Or at least to salve the sacred American Jewish soul.

Well, enough, I say, of this misty, sentimental and self-serving gobbledygook. All this soft spiritual urgency, supposedly on “behalf of” Israel, belies a triple conceit; or should we say, a great deceit.

Firstly, J Street is peddling the nutty notion that spirituality has anything to do with Mideast peace. The latent chutzpa is the insinuation that authentic identification with the Jewish prophets and morality dovetails with the dovish side of the political map. If only American Jews and Israelis were more religiously dovish and in touch with the forgiving and compassionate side of their Jewish souls – we would do the “left” thing and concede more generously to the Palestinians. Then, lo and behold, peace would come to the Mideast.

The second conceit is that such J Street-peddled nonsense – along with J Street support for talks with Hamas, opposition to military action against the Hamas, and opposition to sanctions or military action against nuclear Iran — represents the majority of American Jewry. Hogwash. Patently false.

The third conceit is that, if only Israel were to change – and it is J Street’s job to get America to force Israel to change – then peace would come to the Mideast. As if Israel was the party unwilling to compromise. As if Israel hasn’t already offered the Palestinians at Oslo and Camp David and Taba and Annapolis just about everything they want of post-67 Israel. As if the Palestinians have compromised on their demands one wit since the great handshake on the White House lawn. But it is Israel that needs to be pressured, say the J Street moral oracles.

J Street is a new form of Jewish apostasy. Its adherents hasten to embrace their Jewishness (even if they don’t really know much about authentic Jewish tradition and morality) in order to besmirch Israel and the mainstream Jewish community. They earnestly declare how “profoundly” Jewish they are, in order to engender a distancing in US-Israel relations.

I guess that’s why J Street has spent most of its resources bashing long-standing supporters of Israel – calling them extremists and right-wingers and accusing them of a ‘silencing’ – and listing things that Israel must be made to do. All this, instead of calling out the dangers of Iranian nuclear weapons or Palestinian genocidal anti-Semitism. That’s why they fret over the Jewish soul instead of working to save and protect the physical Jewish State of Israel.

The only people clearly not fooled by all this spiritual mumbo-jumbo are Salam al-Mayarati and Trita Parsi and other leaders of the American Muslim Public Affairs Council and National Iranian American Council – who are speaking — surprise, surprise — at the J Street Jewish soul jamboree this week. They undoubtedly see past the pious claptrap, and know – and appreciate – exactly what J Street is up to.

* Originally published in The Jerusalem Post on October 23, 2009.

Shana tova!

I have come from Israel to tell you that Israel is under attack and to ask you to raise your voice in its defense. I have come to tell you that this fall, as we approach Yom Hadin, the Day of Judgment, we Israelis are indignantly angry and alarmed about the direction we see international opinion and government policy moving. We are resilient, but we are worried.

Israelis are more united than ever around a new security and foreign policy consensus. But we also feel isolated, delegitimized, even demonized. Consequently, we need you to rise up in indignation, and mount a counterattack.

I said that we are resilient, but at the same time worried. Why are we so apprehensive?

Because the intellectual climate and the tone of international debate about Israel and Israeli policies has become venomously poisoned.

It is becoming acceptable, even quite regular, to talk about Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity; to seek criminal prosecution of Israeli leaders and military men in international courts; to debate the Israel is an apartheid state contention; to discuss divestment from Israeli companies; to publish blood libels about Israeli soldiers; to publish op-ed articles in the most respected journals expressing sympathy for the so-called Palestinian “right” of return and advocate for a “one-state” solution; to express respect for despots and religious movements who seek Israel’s destruction and who barely conceal their disdain for the West; to celebratize tyrants and grant them frenzied media glory as if they were rock stars, even here in New York City — including this month.

So we Israelis, as I say, are resilient, but we are worried.

You may think, perhaps, that I am exaggerating. Let’s consider the record.

A Swedish newspaper, albeit a tabloid, decided to publish a blood libel about IDF trafficking in Palestinian organs. Worse still, the accusation was that Israel purposefully kills Palestinians in order to harvest their organs. The author says he doesn’t know or have any proof that it is true, but the newspaper editor says he published it anyway because it could be true! He deems it conceivable that it really happened; that Israel does such things.

The Los Angeles Times published recently an op-ed article, by an Israeli of course, calling for a total boycott of his own country. Again, the decision to publish this on a prestigious op-ed page means that the editor feels that discussion of a global boycott of Israel could or would be legitimate. This wouldn’t have happened ten years ago. We are witnessing the expansion of the marketplace of ideas to include complete defamation, delegitimization, even demonization of Israel.

And thus I say again — we are resilient, but we are worried.

Remember that virtually every government in the world went out their way, a few years ago, to condemn some perfectly innocent cartoons that offended some Moslems by portraying Mohammed. Without making comparative judgments of relative offensiveness, no reasonable person could argue that depicting a long-dead religious figure comes anywhere close to falsely accusing contemporary Jews of murdering innocent Palestinians for their blood and organs. No one intelligent can be unaware of the echoes this brings to the fore of centuries of blood libels against Jews, and their result: pogrom and concentration camp. But the Swedish prime minister and foreign minister reused to distance themselves from, never mind condemn, the article. No other world leader felt the need to comment either.

By choosing to remain silent, they all become facilitators of bigotry.

When the Swedish-style assault on Israel is augmented by organizations that present themselves as global guardians of human rights, it stops being merely absurd; it becomes a campaign aimed at undermining Israel.

Beginning in Durban, and then after each of Israel’s recent wars of defense against Hezbollah and the Hamas, groups like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, Oxfam and others – many of whom are based here in NY, not in Europe — have published report after report, applying the labels of war crimes, massacres, deliberate attack on civilians, disproportionate force, collective punishment and ethnic cleansing to Israel’s actions. These human rights superpowers are trafficking in an entire world of “lawfare” against Israel, using the language of international law and human rights to criminalize Israel. The next shoe to fall in this regard is the Goldstone report, expected this coming week; the United Nation’s formal investigation of alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Headed by a Jew.

It seems to be open season on Israel.

And thus, despite our resilience, we are worried.

I was just in Toronto. In Toronto, filmmakers and writers from Jane Fonda to Naomi Klein have launched a boycott of the Toronto International Film Festival because it is featuring a few films celebrating the 100th anniversary of Tel Aviv. They say that Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai, who is attending, is a war criminal because Tel Aviv is built on stolen Palestinian sand. The so-called Toronto Declaration signed by Fonda and about 100 others says that “in the year when Gaza happened, there shouldn’t be a celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv.”

In England, intellectual and highbrow discourse about Israel – in the media, academia and literary circles — has over the past twenty years gone from moderately pro-Israel to viciously anti-Israel and anti-Zionist. The former Israeli foreign ministry legal advisor Alan Baker, now a lawyer in private practice specializing in international law, tells me that he advises commercial El Al pilots who still due reserve duty in the Israel Air Force – not to pilot flights into Britain, Spain or Belgium – because they could be arrested in those countries for war crimes.

So I ask you: How can we prevent America from becoming like Britain? How do we prevent the talk about boycotting and divesting from apartheid Israel – so prevalent in today’s England — from swimming across the Atlantic? What do we have to do in order to prevent public opinion from sliding into the European-style madness of criminalizing Israel?

Here in New York and in Washington there are malicious intellectual winds blowing as well.

Walter Russell Mead, an important foreign policy thinker at the Council of Foreign Relations here in New York, wrote a major essay in Foreign Affairs magazine in February which calls on the international community to take another, more positive look at the Palestinian right of return. So did Hussein Agha and Robert Malley in an August issue of The New York Times. Mead is a decent, generally favorable to Israel, mainstream guy who has spoken at the think-tank with which I am associated, the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Israel. Yet this does not stop him from today advocating something, which, as you all know, fatally erodes the basis for a Jewish state.

Going down the path of Palestinian return would inexorably lead to the end of Israel. The net result of these articles is that there isn’t room in their strategic heart for a Jewish state in the Mideast. They want us to have more sympathy for Palestinian demands!

In response, I say that the Palestinians already get too much international sympathy. Their history has been one tall tale of rejection of Israel and the world. They should not be shocked that a Jewish state rose and exist. They were on notice of this by the international community ever since 1922. They have continuously denied this and rejected all compromises. Their record of misbehavior needs not to be sympathized with; we need not impute to them more rights!

Sixty years of Israeli achievement and state building cannot and must not be erased because the failing Arab world wants to foist another failure, the Palestinian national movement, and what would assuredly be another failed state — on Israel.

It is the Arab world that is responsible for Palestinian misery, not Israel or the West! They kept Palestinian refugees suffering as pawns and prevented their resettlement. So now Israel and the West should pay? This is bad, dangerous, thinking, and it is gaining a toehold even in important foreign policy circles here in the US.

And in the meantime, Israel’s hard core detractors are having a festive time. Charles Enderlin of French TV2, the father of the Al Dura lie, just received France’s Legion of Honor from President Sarkozy. Anti-Israel activist Felicia Langer just received Germany’s Federal Honor of Cross, and Durban chairperson Mary Robinson was just awarded the US presidential Medal of Freedom by your very own President Barack Obama.

Claudia Rosett has written that we’ve even entered the age of the “celebrity tyrant.” Hardly a week goes by without the exploits of some despot or another snatching the headlines. One week its North Korea’s Kim Jong hosting Bill Clinton for dinner and a detainee pickup. Another week Muamar Kaddafi celebrates the parole of one of his Lockerbie bombers, and then it’s Burma’s Than Shwe milking the hostage-politics racket for a house call by Senator Jim Webb. Mahmoud Ahmadenijad comes to New York and has dinner with 1,000 friends at Grand Hyatt, and lunch with 50 select American opinion-makers at the Intercontinental. Kaddafi is even higher up than Ahmadenijad on the UN speeches list for Sept. 23, coming soon at a General Assembly near you.

A generation ago, dictators of this ilk were a lot less rich in cachet. Saddam Hussein was hiding in a spider hole, Kaddafi was trying to appease America, and Assad was teetering. Today, however, President Obama is dishing out “respect” faster than the rulers of Teheran, Tripoli, Pyongyang or Caracas can spit their contempt right back in his face.

There is, my friends, a strange, hard-to-understand alternative universe overtaking international affairs, in which the discourse is less about decency and morality than about thrills, weirdness, showmanship, and despotic glitterati.

Let me tell you a true story that took place just a few months ago at the Sheba Medical Center/Tel Hashomer Hospital in Israel. I do some public affairs work for the hospital.

Many Palestinian children sick with cancer are treated at this Israeli hospital. Several months ago, there was an eight-year-old Palestinian child from Gaza at the hospital, ill with a rare form of cancer. He was clearly going to die without a bone marrow transplant.

Sheba worked hard to obtain permission to enter Gaza and test the child’s relatives, until they found an 18-year-old brother who was an almost perfect bone marrow match. The problem was that Israeli authorities didn’t want to grant this brother entry into Israel for the operation, because he was a Hamas activist.

A number of doctors at the hospital are senior activists in the Israeli NGO, Physicians for Human Rights, and they, along with Shimon Peres’s son-in-law, who is also a senior physician at the hospital, successfully petitioned the Israeli Ministry of Defense to grant special dispensation, and allow the brother into Israel. In order to save his little brother’s life.

The brother arrived Friday afternoon. Friday night, the doctor’s began the delicate procedure. Within a 24-hour window, you need to suppress the patient’s immune system, harvest the bone marrow from the donor brother, and transplant. The procedure began.

But Friday night at midnight the donor brother from Gaza disappeared. Just disappeared. Gone. The doctors went crazy. One nurse said: I saw two Shin Bet agents come and take him away. The secret General Security Service spirited the 18-year old away. This was a death sentence for the sick eight-year old Palestinian child.

What do you do? The hospital director called the prime minister’s office in the middle of the night; which called the Shin Bet. Where is my bone-marrow donor, he demanded to know!

Yes, we took him away, explained the Shin Bet. You see, they had been eavesdropping on the 18-year-old’s cell phone conversations. From within an Israeli hospital, to which he had been specially brought in order to save the life of his younger brother, this youthful Palestinian terrorist was giving instructions on the phone to the Hamas in Gaza how to get past security at Tel Hashomer Hospital and blow the place up!

Now, I want all of you to remember: We’re the war criminals! Right?

So my friends, it is a scary world. There is a lot to fear. A lot to daven (pray) about.

Hazal, our sages, say that fear is good. Shlomo Hamelech said in Mishlei (Ecclesiastes): “Ashrei adam mefahed tamid.” It is good to always be a bit afraid. Rabbi Soloveitchik famously taught that true tefilla (prayer) arises from a sense of fear and trepidation. From tzara. “Only the sufferer truly prays,” wrote the Rav. “If man does not find himself in narrow straits, if he is not troubled by anything, if he does not know what tzara is — then he need not pray. To a happy man, to a contented man, the secret of prayer was not revealed. G-d needs not thanks or hymns. He wants to hear the outcry of man, confronted with a ruthless reality. He expects prayer to rise from a suffering world cognizant of its genuine needs.”

We daven on Rosh Hashana:

ובכן תן פחדך ד’ אלוקינו על כל מעשיך

ואימתך על כל מה שבראת

ויירואך כל המעשים

וישתחו לפניך כל הברואים…

“Make all the world fear you, oh G-d, and impose your trepidation on all creation, and all mankind will be in awe of you and bow down to you….”

In other words, it all begins with shock and awe: “חיל ורעדה יאוחיזון”

The midrash in the book of Esther says that nothing galvanized the Jewish People to teshuva, repentance, more than the shekalim of Haman, the silver coins that he paid to King Achashverosh as bribe money in order to get a royal edict to kill all the Jews. Haman’s shekalim, says the midrash — Haman’s threat to annihilate the Jewish people – was more effective at moving Jews to repentance than the prophecies and admonitions all 46 prophets in Tanach, the Bible!

So, my friends, our concern for Israel, our trepidation over the intellectual climate about Israel – should galvanize us to prayer and to action.

To speak out and speak up in defense of Israel.

And I ask you: has American Jewry done all it can and should, to push back against unfair and immoral pressure on Israel?

Let’s take the issue of Washington’s pressure on Israel over the settlement issue. I’m not here going to get into the issue itself, or express an opinion of the wisdom or effectiveness of the Obama Administrations’ decision to make settlements a paramount issue.

But I am going to question the Administration’s indecent one-sidedness in pressuring Israel while not similarly showing toughness towards Arabs. This imbalance has created a very unhelpful dynamic in the region, whereby the Arabs feel they can sit back and do nothing while America delivers Israel.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Congress on May 27 that “With respect to settlements, the president was very clear. He wants to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions… That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly, and we intend to press that point.”

A Jerusalem Post columnist has suggested language for a similarly harsh Obama attitude to Iran. Here is what this tough approach would sound like if it was applied to Iran. “With respect to Iran and its nuclear weapons and sponsorship of terrorism, the president was very clear. He wants to see a stop to nuclear weapons – not just some nuclear weapons, not just the warheads, not just the missiles … That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly, and we intend to press that point.”

But you never heard that, did you?!

Or how about the Syrians? “With respect to Syrian sponsorship of terrorism, the president was very clear. He wants to see a stop to Syrian sponsorship of terrorism – not just training terrorists, not just giving them safe passage, not just against Israel, not just against Iraq … That is our position. That is what we have communicated very clearly, and we intend to press that point.”

But again, neither President Obama nor Secretary Clinton has ever come close to mouthing such tough love for Syria.

So I ask: Where has the voice of American Jewry been on this matter of Obama Administration one-sided pressure on Israel?

Chazal comment on the fact that during the exodus from Egypt, Am Yisrael passed through a place called Pi Hachirot, which in earlier times had been called Pitom. And they explain that pitom comes from the Hebrew peh satum, a closed mouth, a silenced tongue. Slaves are silenced. They have no voice. When the Jewish People left Egypt, however, Pitom, peh satum, became Pi Hachirot, freed mouths. And then they could use that freed tongue to sing shira, to give thanks to G-d. To speak up for themselves.

We too, today, have to find our freed tongues, and not be silenced by political correctness or winds of political chill. American Jewry has to be, it must be, Israel and the Jewish People’s bedrock of support in the face of a creeping, insidious, deep political chill against Israel.

To put it in the prophet Yeshayahu’s words that we read in today’s haftara – all chomotayich Yerusahlayim hifkatedly shomrim, kol hayom vechol halayla. We must beef up the guards on the ramparts of Jerusalem, who stand watch in protection of Israel, all day and all night.

Who are the shomrim, the sentries that guard Jerusalem? The Radak says the shomrim are the Jews of the Diaspora, who day and night pray for security and peace in Zion; who advocate for Israel among the nations of the world; who defend Israel against ludicrous and outrageous accusations of war crimes; who speak out against unfair and imbalanced pressures on Israel from Washington; who support the building and expansion of Jerusalem, and more.

Again, the words of the haftara: Leman Zion lo eheshe ulemann Yerushalayim lo eshkot, ad yetze kenoga tzidkata veyeshuata kelapid yivar.

My friends, the cholent is waiting. “I won’t keep you much longer” – as Henry the Eighth is said to have told each of his eight wives. But I have additional message to impart to you this morning. That the people of Israel are strong and resilient and more united than ever.

Despite all the international criticism we have discussed, and the pressures from friendly capitals, a new national consensus has emerged in Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu faithfully and accurately represents that new consensus.

The consensus is that in principle we are prepared to partition the land with the Palestinians and allow for their state to emerge alongside ours. But in practice there is no chance in the world that we can allow this to happen anytime soon, because the Palestinians are very, very far from being anywhere ready to give us the security and recognition and compromises that we need.

The net result is that we will have to manage the conflict for a long time. Not all problems have solutions or ready solutions.

Israel can, must and will do all that it can to better manage the conflict, to lower the flames, to improve the quality of life for people on both sides of the conflict. But there is unlikely to be any grand conflict resolution over the next two years, as President Obama has declared.

The coalescence in Israel around this sober paradigm gives us resilience. We are not going to be pushed into any precipitous or risky new disengagements or withdrawals. It’s not just a question of unity. There has emerged a more profound Israeli consensus. It is the realization that – we’re not to blame! We’re not blaming ourselves. The world may be blaming us, but we’re not! And this self-assurance gives us tremendous buoyancy and strength.

We need you too, to recognize, understand, respect, reflect and reinforce that new consensus.

Moshe Rabbeinu admonishes us in today’s parasha: Chizku veimtzu al tiraoo veal taartzu mipneihem, ki hashem elokecha hu haholech imach, lo yarpecha velo yaazvecha, lo tira velo techat. Fear not, be strong, because G-d will be with you, He will not abandon nor leave you, fear not.

Bechol tzaratam lo tzar, says the haftara. G-d will not allow our enemies to hit us as they wish. Imo anochi betzara. He is with us in our affliction. He will protect us, if we act wisely and decisively, speak out and stand together!

Thank you for this opportunity to address you. Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova.

Hosni Mubarak

Mubarak’s sleepy summer-time visit to Washington is purposefully timed. He wants to avoid Congressional scrutiny of his government’s human rights abuses, the anti-Semitic Egyptian publishing industry, Egypt’s massive military build-up, and its very mixed record in regional peacemaking.

Mubarak last visited Washington five and eleven years ago. Prior to the 1998 visit, at a time of great Egyptian-Israeli tensions, I wrote a column entitled Make Mubarak Sweat which infuriated the Egyptians. Al Ahram in Cairo even reprinted the full column in Arabic on their front page to demonstrate how much, in their words, “Israelis hate Egypt.”

Egypt is, of course, too large and important a country to write-off as an enemy, and the Egypt-Israel peace, however cold, is a regional strategic cornerstone.

But for years Cairo has done everything possible to prevent the normalization of relations with Israel by any other Arab states. Mubarak has consistently opposed the reconvening of the so-called multilateral committees, effectively shutting-down this second-tier negotiating track. Egypt also impeded Israel’s attempts to be accepted into a regional grouping at the UN, and has backed the attempt to label settlements as war crimes under international conventions. At the current moment, too, Mubarak has rejected President Obama’s call for Arab world good-faith concessions to Israel.

In the sixteen years since the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies was established – a center named in honor of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty — not a single top-level Egyptian academic or military strategist has deigned (or dared) to participate in a conference at the Center in Israel!

And of course, Mubarak has no plans to himself visit Israel. In fact, he has never made a state visit to Israel. (Paying his respects at Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral doesn’t count).

But this presidential summit demonstrates the dramatic about-face in U.S.-Egyptian relations since Obama’s election, as David Schenker and J. Scott Carpenter of the Washington Institute have noted. After years of tension resulting from the Bush Administration’s focus on human rights and democratic development, the traditional U.S.-Egyptian bilateral “bargain” has been effectively restored, they say. In exchange for cooperation on key mutual interests — the peace process and the Iranian threat — Washington appears to have shelved longstanding concerns over internal Egyptian governance.

So Obama isn’t delivering any pro-democracy messages to Mubarak. Just the opposite. Despite his much-ballyhooed and grandiose June 4 “Address to the Moslem World,” Obama is abandoning the Moslem world to its long-standing dictators. A July report by the Project on Middle East Democracy found that while the Obama administration has increased its request for democracy funding in the Middle East overall, it has cut such funding for Egypt by more than half and cut aid to independent civil society organizations by more than two-thirds. Michele Dunne of the Arab Reform Bulletin this week expressed to The Washington Post the degree of betrayal she feels about Obama.

While the Obama-Mubarak partnership may be useful in mitigating some regional crises, many question marks hang over Mubarak’s Egypt. Ehud Eilam of the BESA Center has written about the many reasons for instability in the Israel-Egypt relationship including the all-important question of succession. Efraim Inbar and Moti Kedar of the BESA Center have convincingly outlined Cairo’s two-faced approach to competition and cooperation with Israel and the Hamas.

Among other, they explain why Israel cannot rely on Egypt to help crush the Hamas. Egypt does not mind if Hamas bleeds Israel a little; it gains domestically by indirectly aiding Hamas build its military capacity; gains internationally by playing a mediating role in a conflict which it simultaneously helps maintain on a “low flame”; and Cairo, they say, is anyway largely incapable of stopping the Sinai Bedouins from continuing as the main weapons smugglers into Gaza.

The same goes for the peace process. Egypt is in favor and at times helpful; while at other times it acts to stiffen Palestinians positions away from compromise with Israel.

Nevertheless, Jerusalem is at present soft-peddling its criticism of Egypt because the Netanyahu administration needs Egypt for the regional coalition against Iran and against Hamas, Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda; and for the Gilad Shalit negotiations. Mubarak is reciprocating: When meeting US Jewish leaders this week, he even warmly praised Netanyahu!

As a result, Mubarak is not going to have to sweat out this visit to Washington. Everybody is making nice. The only question left open, then, is how many times Obama will bow before, and kiss, Mubarak….

* Note: This is a revised version of the original August 17 post, as published in The Jerusalem Post on August 19, 2009.

His Royal Highness Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, the King of Saudi Arabia, works hard to get good press. He throws swell up-market galas, puts on grand interfaith conferences, and finances numerous think-tanks and lobbying firms. He also hands out fancy gold medals on thick gold chains – of which Barak Hussein Obama was a recent enchanted recipient.

Every once in a distant while, the savvy Saudi King also pulls the best trick in the book. He lets loose a feeble – but tantalizing — hint about the remote possibility of a theoretical chance that he might, someday, under exceptional circumstances, and only if he unconditionally gets his way, begrudgingly accede to some faint warming of ties with Israel.

It’s a soft lob, a pain-free ploy, Saudi sophistry at its best. Yet the ruse works wonders. Speak very vaguely and indirectly about peace with Israel, and presto! You’re in Washington’s good books. You’re now a peace process “leader” with a diplomatic “initiative” in your name. No concrete follow-up required. No need to put your money where your mouth is.

Not that the King doesn’t know how to act decisively, or spread around a few American dollars, when he needs and wants to.

The Saudis hauled in truckloads of cash to buy the recent elections in Lebanon in order to ensure a Sunni (i.e., non-Hezbollah) victory. They’ve bankrolled Lashkar e-Taiba (of Mumbai infamy), Hamas, and other radical Islamic movements worldwide when it suited them, while brutally crushing other groups, like Al Qaeda, when these became a threat to them.

They’ve openly embraced, then bluntly cold-shouldered, different Palestinian and American leaders, as per their changing interests. Riyadh also funds madrassas and mosques the world over to aggressively promote its purist Wahabi brand of Islam.

Thus, Saudi kings and princes know how to make things happen, when they want to.

So, if His Royal Solicitude, King Abdullah, really wanted to lead the Arab world towards peace with Israel, he could find a way or two to express his “moderation” more clearly and make things happen.

But the sanctimonious Saudis always seem to hew to the p.r. minimum. When they had a 9/11 image problem (– 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, remember?) then-Crown Prince Abdullah nattered to The New York Times about “full normalization” with Israel in exchange for “full withdrawal” from the territories. It sounded pretty good. In a flash, Abdullah transformed the discourse from Saudi involvement in terrorism to Saudi peacemaking.

However, as Prof. Joshua Teitelbaum of the Dayan Center has pointed out, by the time the Abdullah trial balloon reached the Arab summit in Beirut in March 2002, the initiative had been modified and its terms hardened. It watered down “full normalization,” rewarded Syria with a presence on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and enshrined a Palestinian “right of return” to Israel.

Since then, the sang-froid Saudis haven’t been willing to bat an eyelash at Israel. But the dodge worked so well that today the Obama administration is touting the Saudi “led” Arab Peace Initiative as a cornerstone of its regional peace diplomacy.

The only problem is that the supercilious Saudi King doesn’t really want to lead. He can’t even bring himself to give President Obama some rope with which to entice, or hang, Israel. According to news reports, Washington can’t seem to squeeze any commitments about normalization with Israel from the Saudis, even if Israel freezes all settlement activity and paints the Jerusalem Old City walls in the Saudi national colors.

Now, nobody was expecting the supreme Saudi King to come to Jerusalem, G-d forbid, Anwar Sadat style. Nor could we reasonably expect Abdullah to offer cash for resettling Palestinian refugees outside of Israel.  Nor will he likely curtail the vicious anti-Israel propaganda pumped out daily to the Arab world by his Middle East Broadcasting channel (MBC) or through films like the malevolent Saudi-produced “Olive Dream.” Naw, that would be asking too much.

But Abdullah might have, and still could – if peace truly was his goal – authorize a meeting of Israeli and Saudi academics on desertification and desalinization or other non-political environmental matters. He could quietly allow the opening of a low-level Saudi commercial interest section in a Tel Aviv-based foreign embassy, as some of the other Gulf states have already done. He could send us a Rosh Hashana card.

Heck, Israel would settle for something simple, like approval for El Al to fly over Saudi airspace en route to New Delhi and Beijing. We would even be willing to refrain from serving kosher food, flushing toilets, and playing Hava Nagila on the speaker system as our Zionist planes traverse the sacrosanct Saudi heavens.

But no. King Abdullah can’t countenance such muffled gestures towards Israel. Not even for his friend President Obama.

Now here’s a thought: Perhaps Obama isn’t pressing the Saudis and other Arabs hard enough about normalizing ties with Israel? Perhaps Abdullah has the impression that Obama is going to “deliver” Israel to the Arabs, and wrest from Netanyahu a settlement freeze, then withdrawals, and then a handover of Jerusalem? Where oh where could Abdullah have possibly gotten that impression?

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post on July 6, 2009

The Lieberman laxative is a bitter pill, meant for die-hard, old-style peace processors, which flushes away the Annapolis process, the Arab League initiative, Oslo residue and more

The barnstorming Avigdor Lieberman has capitalized on his inauguration as Foreign Minister to flush away the Annapolis process, the Arab League initiative, Oslo residue and more. He wants the world, wedded to conventional wisdom regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, to lower its expectations of Israeli concessions and imminent breakthroughs.

He is dispensing a powerful purgative drug, which we might call the Lieberman laxative.

Here is the fine print on the regulatory packaging for this sugarless spoonful of medicine:

Therapeutic activity: For stimulating the mind, loosening entrenched thinking, and washing out stale diplomatic processes. Shoots the patient with a dose of realism, and shocks the digestive system into readiness to absorb new diplomatic approaches.

Composition: Each capsule contains 15 mg of laxative (for catharsis, to clear the mind of hallucinatory solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially those that demand immediate and far-reaching Israeli withdrawals); 30 mg of amphetamine (fuels feverish diplomatic reassessment); and 200 mg of 70-proof Russian vodka (helps stomach the drug).

When should this preparation be used?: Take after fifteen years of Oslo and Annapolis sugar-highs; repeated and unsuccessful attempts to bribe the Palestinians into some semblance of political maturity and willingness to compromise; failed Israeli withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza that led to the establishment of Iranian missile bases for attacking Israel; the emergence of a radical Islamic government in Gaza and its possible takeover of the West Bank; and the imminent development of a nuclear weapon in Teheran.

This cleansing agent is especially necessary when, despite all the above, global political leaders appear incapable of recognizing the changed landscape and drawing the relevant conclusions. Prescribe for special envoys and statesmen who still believe that a comprehensive solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians can be brought about, or forced on Israel, soon.

When taken under responsible political supervision, the Lieberman laxative can be a useful precursor drug that empties and neutralizes the regional playing field and paves the way for a more realistic peace process. Like colonic hydrotherapy, it can clear the way for a much-needed “bottom-up” (pun intended) institution- and capacity-building effort in the Palestinian Authority. It can assist in achieving reasonable conflict management in the near-term and in crafting creative final status solutions for the long-term.

Some studies have showed that this drug improves political eyesight, and helps overcome lackadaisical attitudes regarding the Iranian nuclear threat. (Apparently, the Egyptians have been taking this drug; and recently threw-off all pretensions of love for their Iranian and Hezbollah brothers). The drug may also prevent the patient from taking wild leaps of faith and projecting all his good intentions onto the adversary . (All Westerners negotiating with Teheran should get prescriptions for this drug).

Warnings: This is a bitter pill for die-hard, old-style peace processors to swallow after so many years of Oslo-mania. Some diplomatic tensions are inevitable. Almost all patients will experience a degree of trauma. Side effects may include expressions of diplomatic outrage, condemnation, even boycott and isolation, at least in the short term. Contact your doctor immediately if rash, inflammation or war develops. Do not drive or make major public policy pronouncements on the Middle East until the initial shock of the drug has worn off. This preparation will not work on the politically blind.

Dosage: Start with a full dose for maximum stun effect, then reduce the dosage to allow for dialogue and compromise. If there is no improvement in your condition within a few months or if your condition worsens, repeat and raise the dosage after consulting with cabinet colleagues.

How can you contribute to the success of the treatment?: Refrain from panicking about difficult global reaction to the purging. Disregard the partisans — such as Haaretz’s Akiva Eldar or The New York Times’ Roger Cohen — who warn of (nay, they wish for!) an impending showdown with Washington.

At the same time, note that this laxative leaves the body wasted and vulnerable to attack. Treatment should be quickly followed by additional drugs to fortify the constitution and by new policies to fill the diplomatic vacuum. Fruitless talks about grand political horizons with the Palestinians should be replaced by pragmatic Israeli initiatives. Take advantage of the turning point to grab the upper hand and lead regional diplomacy.

Avoid poisoning your most important friends, like the US, by engaging in serious consultations shortly after availing yourself of this remedy. Do not induce vomiting by overuse. Prolonged use will lead foes to dismiss you as a provocateur or an obstruction to peace. Limit the foreign minster’s access to this medicine. Store it safely in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post on Friday April 24, 2009

Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, the champion of halachic justice, died in December 2008 at age 98. His 70-year-long career in the rabbinate was marked by fearlessness. He stood out, bravely, ahead of the Orthodox mainstream. As Spokesman of Bar-Ilan University, I was privileged to know him well.

Rabbi Prof. Emanuel Rackman, who passed away on Monday in New York at age 98, will be remembered as one of the most profound and daring figures in Jewish life and thought of the 20th century.

His 70-year-long career in the rabbinate was marked by fearlessness; he stood out, bravely, ahead of the Orthodox mainstream. He was concurrently beloved and controversial.

Rackman began to make his mark as rabbi of the prestigious Shaaray Tefila (Far Rockaway, Queens) and Fifth Avenue (Manhattan) synagogues, and as a professor of political philosophy and jurisprudence at New York University, City University of New York and Yeshiva University. His eloquence, erudition in both Jewish and secular law, prolific publication schedule, and his compassion for his congregants, made him a rabbi’s rabbi.

His congregations grew rapidly, serving as an inspiration to the generation that made American Orthodoxy a viable alternative to the Conservative movement, which was still capturing Orthodox synagogues into the 1950s.

As president of the New York Board of Rabbis and the Rabbinical Council of America, he was a religious humanist. His heart embraced all the diversities and contrasts from which Judaism and the Jewish people suffer, and he constantly sought to harmonize and build bridges.

His commitment to Jewish unity explains, as well, his belief in Bar-Ilan University, whose presidency he assumed in 1977, and whose chancellor he remained until his passing. He opened Bar-Ilan’s doors to students of all stripes, turning it into one of the major Israeli campuses, while insisting that everybody could and would study basic Jewish studies — together.

Yet Rackman was no muddled, cuddly or homogenizing liberal. His modern Orthodoxy was deeply and firmly rooted in a rigorously developed philosophy of Halacha which emphasized creativity and justice.

He wrote extensively on the primacy of Torah law, on Judaism and equality, ethics and human rights, legality and morality, and what he called the “teleology” (or purpose) of Halacha. (His collected sermons, essays and newspaper columns have just been published by Ktav Press.)

It was axiomatic to Rackman that Halacha must apply in all generations and all situations; and simultaneously that, in order to remain true to God’s essential desire for justice, it must rise compassionately to meet the challenges of the modern era.

This led him to champion women’s rights within Halacha, among other issues; and this embroiled him in fierce disputes with more conservative elements in American and Israeli Orthodoxy. And gradually, it sidelined him within his own religious community, as Orthodoxy wrenched to the right.

Yet Rackman never shrank from a fight for halachic justice. In his late 80s, when most great men retire to write their memoirs, he launched his boldest and most controversial enterprise: an independent Bet Din (Jewish law court) to free agunot, women chained to their halachic marriages against their will by recalcitrant husbands. The “tears of the oppressed,” he said, were making his heart bleed, and few rabbis were willing to employ the far-reaching legal tools necessary for the task.

Using disputable Talmudic precedents for annulment, he dissolved over 100 marriages without the husband’s agreement. Rackman admitted that one of his goals was to prod the rabbinical establishment out of its slumber on this painful issue, yet insisted that the Bet Din’s technical solutions remained within the halachic envelope.

Rackman said that “the neglect of agunot by the rabbinic establishment is alienating people from Judaism. I am fighting for the glory of Torah and the halachic system, and my solutions will do more for the future of Halacha than the stringency of its mandates. I certainly feel that I can meet my Maker on this!”

Unfortunately, Rackman’s Bet Din was mismanaged, and Rackman failed to substantiate his Bet Din’s actions in a learned teshuva, a formal halachic position paper (although others have now begun to do so, most notably Prof. Aviad Hacohen, dean of Shaarei Mishpat Law College.) Nevertheless, his legacy on the treatment of agunot is considerable, and I believe that Halacha will yet come around to his view. As with many other issues, Rackman simply may have been 100 years ahead of his time.

Interestingly, Rackman became very right-wing politically in Israel, something that seemed to clash with his social and religious liberalism and his passion for Jewish unity. “There’s no contradiction,” he explained to me in 1997. “My devotions are all-embracing and absolute. I am consummately committed to the entire Jewish People and totally committed to the whole Land of Israel!” he declared.

The poet Henry Gibson once quipped about Jacob the Patriarch, who “was left alone” (Genesis 32:25), that “he who stands alone is the strongest man in the world.”

Thus was Rabbi Emanuel Rackman.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post on December 3, 2008