For you, a Thanksgiving treat: Excerpts from my never to be published opus, “Company’s Coming: A Thanksgiving Haggadah for Gentiles and Other Non-Jews.” Now people of all faiths can turn Turkey Day into a Jewish holiday, and join us in our misery joy!
Longtime Mideast peace negotiator Aaron David Miller writes that a “conflict-ending agreement between Israelis and Palestinians may no longer be possible.”
Depending on your politics (and to continue today’s theme), this is either incredibly depressing or really good news (you’ll forgive me if I don’t join the celebrations).
The main problem, says Miller, is that
the political will is lacking among leaders to reach an agreement and that the current situation on the ground between Israelis and Palestinians makes it impossible for them to do [so]. That everyone knows what the ultimate solution will look like (an intriguing notion that is supposed to make people feel better) is irrelevant if the circumstances for an agreement don’t exist.
So what can the next president do?
Manage it as best you can: help support an Israeli-Hamas ceasefire, train PA security forces, pour economic aid into the West Bank and Gaza, even nurture Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the big issues, but don’t think you can solve it; you can’t.
Instead, go all-out for an Israeli-Syrian agreement which is doable and will enhance American credibility to confront Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran over time with tough choices, and improve America’s regional standing. Then, perhaps, your chances on the Israeli-Palestinian track may be better. In the interim, I’m afraid sadly that the bottom line for Israelis and Palestinians is not a good one: Israelis will have their state, but Palestinians will never let them completely enjoy it.
During the presidential campaign the pro-Israel Right warned anyone who would listen that Obama would surround himself with all kinds of Israel haters from the Left. But articles like this in the Wall Street Journal are throwing his opposition into confusion:
Scowcroft Protégés on Obama’s Radar
WASHINGTON — Many of the Republicans emerging as potential members of the Obama administration have professional and ideological ties to Brent Scowcroft, a former national-security adviser turned public critic of the Bush White House.The relationship between the president-elect and the Republican heavyweight suggests that Mr. Scowcroft’s views, which place a premium on an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, might hold sway in the Obama White House.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was deputy national-security adviser under Mr. Scowcroft in the George H.W. Bush administration, is almost certain to be retained by Mr. Obama, according to aides to the president-elect. Richard Haass, a Scowcroft protégé and former State Department official, could be tapped for a senior National Security Council, State Department or intelligence position. Mr. Haass currently runs the Council on Foreign Relations.
Other prominent Republicans with close ties to Mr. Obama — including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who endorsed the Democrat in the final days of the campaign, and Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — share Mr. Scowcroft’s philosophy.
The argument is now going to shift to where it should have been all along — not who is “pro-Israel” or “anti-Israel,” but whose approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is best for Israel, the United States, and the region. A segment of the pro-Israel community reads “premium on an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord” and sounds the alarum — the moderates in this camp, many genuinely concerned about Israel’s long-term security, equate “priority” with unacceptable pressure, while the ideologues on this side fear any moves that will mean Israel will have to abandon settlements or discuss Jerusalem, and scoff at the idea that Palestinian question is one of human rights.
Supporters of the assertive kind of approach look forward to any kind of progress in the Middle East, and welcome an active, even aggressive U.S. role in helping both sides make the hard choices that any peace deal will necessarily entail. Balancing the ideologues on the Right are members of this camp who put the balance of blame on Israel and hope that Israel will “get what’s coming to it.”
But make no mistake — both sides include folks who are genuinely and deeply pro-Israel, and whose first priority is Israel’s security. Unfortunately, rhetoric won’t play out that way, and they’ll each accuse the other of the worst possible motivations. That’s a shame.
And one other thing: Israel is not a shrinking violet in this debate — its people go to the polls next year, and have a large say in deciding their own direction and destiny. Its people and leaders, and not the alphabet soup of Jewish organizations or the army of oped writers, bloggers, and email forwarders, will decide how fast or slow to go in negotiations.
I sing in an a cappella group, which, despite the ridicule we endure on “The Office,” is one of the great pleasures of my life.
British musician Brian Eno has a “This I Believe” essay for NPR on the pleasures of singing a cappella.
I believe that singing is the key to long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, increased intelligence, new friends, super self-confidence, heightened sexual attractiveness and a better sense of humor. A recent long-term study conducted in Scandinavia sought to discover which activities related to a healthy and happy later life. Three stood out: camping, dancing and singing….
And then there are what I would call “civilizational benefits.” When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That’s one of the great feelings – to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.
My column this week is about the ADL’s new poll about religion, morality, and Hollywood:
…[R]eligion is under “attack”?
I guess it is if you spend a lot of time watching television, or going to the movies, or playing video games. It’s a violent, promiscuous, narcissistic world inside the cable box or on the big screen. And it would be a particularly bold and insidious attack if there were no way to escape it (the way that, say, theocracies enforce conformity).
But if you are talking about “religion, moral values, and Hollywood,” there is always an alternative. You can change the channel or turn off the television.
UPDATE: In the same column I hyperbolize:
No politician with ambitions beyond freeholder would dare acknowledge that he or she is an atheist.
But a colleague sent me a link to an article about Rep. Pete Stark, the 18-term Democratic congressman from California, who told a coalition of secular and atheist groups that he is “a Unitarian who does not believe in a Supreme Being.”
A British tabloid is reporting that Hitler was indeed monorchic.
That’s not a misspelling, but since this is a family blog, you’ll have to find out what it means on your own. But here’s a hint from the article — and perhaps one of the greatest sentences ever to appear in the English language:
Hitler’s genitals have long caused controversy.
Andrew Sullivan, no fan of circumcision, shares foreskin jokes on his blog today. He missed this one:
A man is walking down a cobblestone street in an Eastern European city and sees a storefront advertised by a giant watch, with a display of watches in the front window. He goes inside and says he wants to buy a watch, but the shop owner says he doesn’t sell watches, he’s a mohel.
Asks the guy, “Then tell me, why do you display watches in your front window?”
The mohel says, “What would you have me display?
Sullivan does link to this great advertising idea from a Turkish mohel.
This is just weird: B’nai Brith Canada is protesting the sale of sunflower seeds featuring a classic anti-Semitic image:
According to a B’nai Brith Canada release, the seeds are distributed by the U.S.-based AHT International and sold in retail outlets. The organization said AHT declined to halt sales of the seeds despite protests.
The packaging lists the company’s address as Brooklyn, NY, and the phone number as 718-621-4000. Can anyone out there tell us what the Cyrillic words on the package mean?
Great moments in Israeli aviation, from Ynet:
Jail time for butt-biter
Crime and punishment: Two passengers on an Israir flight from Moscow to Eilat were detained Tuesday upon reaching Israel, after rioting onboard their plane. One of the men apparently bit a flight attendant’s buttocks, while the other punched his wife.
JustASC is written by Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of the 