JustASC

Benjamin Netanyahu, in his AIPAC speech, uses New Jersey to make a point:

It is hard to explain Israel’s security predicament to someone living in a country 500 times the size of Israel. But imagine the entire United States compressed to the size of New Jersey.

Next, put on New Jersey’s northern border an Iranian terror proxy called Hezbollah which fires 6,000 rockets into that small state.

Then imagine that this terror proxy has amassed 60,000 more missiles to fire at you.

Wait. I’m not finished. Now imagine on New Jersey’s southern border another Iranian terror proxy called Hamas.

It too fires 6,000 rockets into your territory while smuggling even more lethal weapons into its territory.

Do you think you would feel a little bit vulnerable? Do you think you would expect some understanding from the international community when you defend yourselves?

I got the fake news release, purportedly from AIPAC, saying the pro-Israel lobby is calling on Israel to “freeze new settlement projects, both in the West Bank and Jerusalem.”

NPR fell for it (I almost did, too) but NPR’s news blog quickly posted a corrective by Mark Memmott:

AIPAC has not issued any such statement, spokesman Josh Block tells us, and condemns whoever is responsible for spreading the misinformation.

Sundown marks the “National Day of Unplugging,” an effort by the folks at the Jewish think-tank Reboot to get people ”to recharge themselves by not using computers, cell phones, or any technology for 24 hours, from sundown, Friday, March 19, to sundown, Saturday, March 20.”

It’s part of an effort to promote their Sabbath Manifesto, “a modern-spin on the ancient notion of a day of rest.”

I observe the Sabbath, so I’m already sold on the idea (in fact, when I worked for CLAL, I had a similar idea for a secular technology Shabbat, but it never got off the ground — probably because I didn’t tell anybody else. Damn you, interior monologues that I think everyone can hear!).

Shabbat is a great weekly vacation in and from time — come sundown Friday, I almost hear a gate clanking shut behind me, separating me from all the shmutz of the work week as I step into a haven free from my public obligations. Friday nights we move dinner from the kitchen to the dining room, dress up a little, linger over a multiple-course meal, take a walk when it’s done. The kids are off the computers; I resist the temptation of TV. This may nauseate you a little, but we often spend the night playing a family card game. If someone were to ask me to define “success,” I might say it’s the ability and luxury to, no matter what else is going on in your life, carve out four hours a week that look exactly like that.

I’m in shul on Saturday mornings, but I don’t feel shul-going makes Shabbat Shabbat (although I do like the weekly opportunity to commune with my people). The Shabbat Manifesto boils it down to the basics. If you heed them, you’ll find that the simplest ideas can sometimes be the best:

– Avoid technology,

– Connect with loved ones,

– Nurture your health,

– Get outside,

– Avoid commerce,

– Light candles,

– Drink wine,

– Eat bread,

– Find silence and

– Give back.

Check out live views of Jerusalem’s Old City walls from the balcony of the Inbal Hotel, here.

The Anti-Defamation League is scolding Gen. David Petraeus for describing “a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel”  as (in ADL’s words) “impeding the U.S. military mission in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and in dealing with the Iranian influences in the region.” 

ADL makes it sound as if Petraeus singled out the Arab-Israeli conflict and the U.S.-Israel relationship as an impediment to the war effort, when what he did was list it as only one of ELEVEN “cross-cutting issues that serve as major drivers of instability, inter-state tensions, and conflict” in his area of command. That’s an important difference.

I undersand why the ADL doesn’t want it put out there that the U.S.-Israel relationship stirs anti-American passions in the Muslim world, or that “Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments” in the region, as the general says. But that doesn’t mean Petraeus is wrong for stating the undeniable. 

From the ADL statement:

The assumptions Gen. Petraeus presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee wrongly attribute “insufficient progress” in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and “a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel” as significantly impeding the U.S. military mission in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and in dealing with the Iranian influences in the region. It is that much more of a concern to hear this coming from such a great American patriot and hero.

 The General’s assertions lead to the illusory conclusion that if only there was a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the U.S. could successfully complete its mission in the region.

Petraeus doesn’t reach that conclusion. But is he responsible for those who would? 

Gen. Petraeus has simply erred in linking the challenges faced by the U.S. and coalition forces in the region to a solution of the Israeli-Arab conflict, and blaming extremist activities on the absence of peace and the perceived U.S. favoritism for Israel. This linkage is dangerous and counterproductive.

It may be both dangerous and counterproductive, but again — is it untrue? Can ADL really deny that the Arab-Israeli conflict is a source of regional tension, or that it foments anti-American sentiment and extremisim in the Muslim world? 

Read the text of Petraeus’ remarks . It’s far more subtle than the ADL makes it sound. Before he even raises the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict (again, among 11 other factors leading to instability in the region), he describes the “Most Significant Threats” to U.S. interests in the region. The A-I conflict is not among them:

The most serious threats to these interests lie at the nexus of militant groups, hostile states, and WMD. Across the AOR, al-Qaeda and its Associated Movements are fueling insurgencies to reduce U.S. influence and to destabilize the existing political, social, and economic order. Meanwhile, some countries in the AOR play a dangerous game of allowing or accepting terrorist networks and facilitators to operate from or through their territory, believing that their own people and governments will be immune to their threat. Efforts to develop or acquire nuclear weapons and delivery systems magnify the potential dangers of the marriage between some states and their militant proxies. Indeed, the acquisition of nuclear arms by hostile states or terrorist organizations would constitute a grave threat to the United States, our allies, and the countries of the region and would likely spark a destabilizing arms race.

Instead of criticizing Petraeus for telling the truth, the ADL should have applauded  him for correctly prioritizing America’s (and Israel’s) challenges: militant Islam, support for terrorism, and Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Interesting perspective on The Hurt Locker and thrill-seeking at Aish.com:

The desire that drives Sergeant James [to re-up for dangerous war-time duty] is what pushes some of us to jump out of planes at 10,000 feet with only a parachute strapped to our backs. For some reason we don’t feel alive “enough” and want to confront death to give us a renewed sense of appreciation for life.

Do we have to risk our lives to feel alive? Is there no other way? And I wonder if this is a modern phenomenon. Did people in the Middle Ages jump off the roofs of castles to get a rush? I’m betting they didn’t.

I’m no expert, but if I think a lot of this has to do with knowing what you are willing to die for. If you’re plugged into meaning in your day-to-day life, striving to accomplish important things that carry consequences, with a mission to fulfill — I doubt you’re going to risk all that for some life endangering sport. Knowing what you’re willing to die for puts the focus on what really matters in life. And as Rabbi Noah Weinberg, of blessed memory, often said, don’t just die for it – live for it!

Good question, interesting answer, but let’s not forget the difference between a daredevil and a soldier whose risky behavior is in the service of keeping others alive.

There’s a big difference between joining a bomb squad and jumping out of an airplane when you otherwise don’t have to — I for one thank God that there are people willing to do the former, whatever their motivation. I think a sapper like Sgt. James knows better than most what it is “to accomplish important things that carry consequences.”

Here’s our problem: Jews don’t drink enough:

The reason for the high frequency of depression among Jewish men may be linked to their low frequency of alcoholism (confirmed in recent World Health Organisation statistics for Israel). A connection is suggested by the fact that depression is as common in both sexes in other abstemious societies such as Islam and the American Christian sect, the Pennsylvania Amish….

The conclusion must be that Jewish men might be less depressed if they drank more. As the old song has it: “Another little drink wouldn’t do us any harm” — a sentiment that might be medically as well as musically effective.

Ah, but consider the tradeoffs: I’ll take a little depression over domestic violence, family dysfunction, brain damage, workplace absenteeism and injury, road deaths, and all the other devastating health and society ills associated with alcoholism.

 I’ve always felt that, despite historical episodes of grinding poverty, Jews avoided the cycle of poverty  (abandonment, low educational achievement, high family dysfunction) because we’ve been lucky enough to avoid a pattern of substance abuse.

(hat tip: Elli Wohlgelernter)

Evangelical organizer Gary Bauer, leader of the the group American Values, tells the Daily Beast:

“I continue to think it’s odd that the U.S. is suggesting to Israel that there are neighborhoods in Jerusalem where more Jews are not allowed to live. This is the first black president, and that is called segregation.”

This analogy will be less daft on the day that Israel adopts an equal opportunity housing policy that allows Palestinians, including Arab residents of Jerusalem, to live and build anywhere they wish within the Jerusalem municipality.

There is no such policy, of course. Most of West Jerusalem, like 93 percent of Israel itself, is considered “State Land.”  Under Israeli law, only citizens of Israel or Jews are able to purchase property on State Land (while Jerusalem’s Arabs are legal residents if the city, they are not citizens of Israel). As Peace Now explains in a helpful primer here (scroll down):

the ban on purchase of property on “State Lands” by Palestinian residents of Jerusalem extends to East Jerusalem. Not only are Palestinian Jerusalemites barred from purchasing property in most of West Jerusalem, but they are also barred from purchasing property in the 35% of East Jerusalem that Israel has expropriated as “State Land” since 1967, and on which Israel’s East Jerusalem settlements have been built. This means that in more than 1/3 of East Jerusalem, Israelis and Jews from anywhere in the world have a right to buy property in Israeli settlements, but not Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, including the very residents whose land was expropriated to build these settlements.

So let’s at least label this dispute for what it is — in opposing Jewish building plans in east Jerusalem, the United States is not guilty of segregation (unless you’re also willing to charge the Israelis with segregation). It is trying to create the conditions for an equitable separation of two peoples that will a/ secure Israel’s self-stated desire to be a Jewish, democratic state and b/ extend to the Palestinians the kind of autonomy and self-determination Israel currently enjoys.

You don’t need to agree with those aims or Obama’s strategy (see today’s defense of Israel’s Jerusalem housing policies by its ambassador to the United States). But at least don’t muddy the issue with false analogies.

File this under “Solutions to Problems You Didn’t Know Existed.”

You know how you’re supposed to eat matzah at the seder table while reclining? Well you are. This company is offering a little armrest thingy that lets you recline in comfort. Apparently, this is not a parody — although with some aspects of Jewish life, parody isn’t necessary.

Here’s the latest example of Israel’s helplessness in the face of its own…helplessness. Yossi Klein Halevi in The New Republic:

Every Israeli government over the last four decades has built in the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem; no government, let alone one headed by the Likud, could possibly agree to a freeze there. Obama made resumption of negotiations hostage to a demand that could not be met.

So once again, Israel has stopped being an actor in its own drama, but rather a helpless bystander to forces out of its control.

Would we accept a similar formula from the Palestinians, say, “no Palestinian leader could formally recognize Israel as a Jewish state — none has, and asking them to do so is a demand that cannot be met”?