Extremism Update

JERUSALEM — A Palestinian was caught Wednesday trying to bring six pipe bombs into the city to carry out a terrorist attack. Jewish settlers set fire to a West Bank mosque today.

(Hat tip: Jewlicious)

Gaza Strip

Journalists frequently describe it as one of the most-dense places on the planet. Anti-Israel activists call it an open-air prison. But is this true?

(Hat tip: Michael J. Totten)

Afghanistan

[Keith Burgess-Jackson posted this letter to the editor in the New York Times. I cannot help but wonder: I understood the need to destroy the Taliban after 9/11, but why is the United States still there?]

To the Editor:

Thomas L. Friedman argues that President Obama’s Afghanistan policy will succeed only if we are successful in nation-building (“May It All Come True,” column, Dec. 6). It’s worse than that. There is no nation to build.

Afghanistan is a loosely aligned collection of tribal constituencies. Its people are largely illiterate. The so-called central government does not control the countryside and is corrupt.

How are Americans in a relatively short period of time going to create from this raw material a state capable of ensuring its own security?

We are also fighting the wrong enemy. The Taliban, no matter how alien to our values, pose no threat to the United States. Al Qaeda has no significant current presence in Afghanistan.

In short, we are sending a lot of soldiers at enormous cost to fight an enemy that is somewhere else, with the de facto mission of propping up a narco-state. This makes no sense.

Boyd Hight
Los Angeles, Dec. 6, 2009
The writer was a deputy assistant secretary of state during the Carter administration.

On the Jewish-Girl Fetish

Seventh in a series of essays

JERUSALEM — Details magazine looks at Jewish girls as the erotic fascination of the moment:

It seems that America can’t get enough smoking-hot Semitic tush lately.

In a recent poll on the porn blog Fleshbot, “Jewish girls” ranked second among kinks (the winner: “freckles”). Jewesses aren’t just the rage in the triple-X realm, either: They’re seducing goyim on Mad Men and Glee and giving movie geeks conniptions over reports of JILF-on-JILF action between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in Darren Aronofsky’s upcoming Black Swan.

That Jewish women have become the ethnic fetish du jour is all the more remarkable given that Jews represent a truly tiny minority (2.2 percent) of the U.S. population. In recent years, God’s chosen menfolk have been objects of affection, too, though they draw their appeal from cuddly schlubbiness, not sexual energy—consider Judd Apatow’s all-Jewish Frat Pack (Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill, Jason Segel, et al.). But unlike their funnyman brothers, Jewish girls have had to overcome the old stinging JAP stereotype of frigidity, whininess, and big hair.

Recently, however, the Fran Drescher rep has given way to a more smoldering image. Think cultural mutts like Rachel Weisz, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and Rachel Bilson—women who have little in common beyond sultriness and Star of David necklaces.

My first trip to Israel was with Taglit-Birthright Israel in 2006. I was twenty-six and on the waiting list, but a spot opened up at the last minute on a trip specifically geared towards college students. I went anyway since I was excited to have a chance to go.

In retrospect, it was quite interesting to see the interaction between the American and Israeli Jews on the trip. Taglit usually brings a dozen or so young, IDF soldiers on the trip as part of a cultural exchange — and the two groups, both just out of high school, are always excited to meet each other. And I mean “excited” in every sense of the word. (Here is an archived article I wrote on the trip while editor-in-chief of Spare Change News in Boston.)

The American girls were smitten with the muscular, tanned, 18-year-old soldiers carrying machine guns. The American guys were awestruck by the bawdy, lively girls in uniform (see a picture of mine below) who also carried the same weapons. The various hotel rooms in which we stayed over the ten-day trip were put to good use.

I was not the only one to notice the fascination that Americans — whether Jewish or not — have with Israeli women in uniform. The Israeli government decided a few years later to brand the country as being full of gorgeous women to attract more tourism and establish associations with something other than war and terrorism (see here and here). Most significantly, one result was a cover page and photo spread in Maxim magazine in July 2007 with current and former soldiers wearing little.

This video — which went viral — also brought the message of Israel’s unique, well, assets to the Western world (note: strong language):

Now, I do not mean to imply that there is some direct connection between the Israeli government’s marketing efforts and the recent interest in Jewish starlets in Hollywood. No matter what some conspiracy theorists might believe, the Jewish world is nowhere near organized enough to pull something like that off. A group of four Jews can argue for hours over what to eat for breakfast — and some really expect them to run the world?

Still, either there seems to be many Jewish stars gaining popularity among Americans or there are enough media outlets choosing to focus on Jewish actresses, thereby making them popular. (Chicken and egg.) But why?

One obvious answer is that mainstream, white America has always had a fetish for ethnic women of various types throughout the years. (See the Details article’s timeline of Jewish actresses throughout the decades — you might be surprised at who makes the list.) People always have an erotic fascination with that which is different. Moreover, humanity’s natural instincts tell people to produce children with those of other ethnicities because the combination of two immune systems consisting of different genes protects better against disease. (This is also the reason that insular breeding within the same, closed community tends to result in more birth defects and other ailments throughout life.)

So, Americans have always celebrated the, um, beauty of diversity — after all, nearly all Americans are descended from immigrants from various countries — but why Jewish girls? Why now?

As with many subjects, the answer lies in politics, current events, and subconscious mindsets. Many Americans feel, rightly or wrongly, that they are under siege by Islamic terrorists, and they subconsciously empathize with female, Israeli soldiers whom they believe are on the frontline of the War on Terror. (I am sorry to deflate their fantasies, but nearly all female, IDF soldiers work desk jobs — the term in Hebrew is “jobnik” — or do guard duty. The machine guns that the soldiers had on the Birthright Israel trip, for example, are sometimes for show to impress the American boys.)

For those Americans who believe that the world is engaged in a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West, Israeli Jews and American Jews are also seen — directly and indirectly, respectively — as allies with the West who have a higher stake in the outcome because of their ethnicity and religion.

Many American men may also be taking a liking to Jewish girls because they are more traditionally oriented towards family and children — and they know how to cook amazing food as well. As the Western world is beginning to experience a backlash against feminism, such an attitude is not surprising.

Another reason is that many Mizhrahi Jews — those whose families come from Arab countries — are a little too close to Arabs. As the Boston Globe’s Brainiac blog observed some time ago on the fact that European fashion shows now feature some Islamic outfits:

I have a psychological, not biological, burqa theory of my own. In the mid-1940s, the psychologist Anna Freud described “identification with the aggressor” as a neurotic attempt to avoid punishment by internalizing the values of one’s oppressor. It seems to me that Americans are so worried about Islamofascist terrorists that we’re slowly turning ourselves into conservative Muslims.

If it is true that Americans can be described as having an increasing “identification with the aggressor,” then taking a liking to Mizrahi Jews — like actress Emmanuelle Chriqui below, who became famous after playing Adam Sandler’s Palestinian love interest in “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” and whose family are Moroccan Jews — is as close as one could get to Arabs without liking, well, Arabs. (Ashkenazi Jews, in contrast, are those of European descent. A slim majority of Israelis are Mizrahi Jews.)

There is yet another uncomfortable reason why Jewish women are becoming so popular. As I noted in a prior essay, Western society is becoming increasingly superficial and more often viewing women as sex objects partly as a result of the unintended consequences of feminism. Jewish women, in general, tend to be more curvy naturally than many of European descent, so they might become more popular in a culture that focuses more and more on appearance. After all, one of the most popular porn stars today, according to the Details article, is Joanna Angel (below). (She comes from an Orthodox Jewish family, so that explains some of the perverted interest as well.) And, no, I am not going to search for a link to her website.

An often-asked question in Jewish circles is: “Is this good for the Jews?” I am conflicted. Obviously, any good PR for Israel is beneficial. But, as frequent readers of my blog know, I am very uncomfortable with women — Jewish or not — being viewed as sex objects. But as with all fads and fetishes, this, too, shall pass. For better and for worse.

Elsewhere: Jessica Pauline looks at the issue at Jewcy as well.

Prior essay: The Upcoming Generational War

Status of Jerusalem

JERUSALEM — The big news of the day — and it is potentially explosive indeed — is the European Union’s reported endorsement of Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state:

The 27 EU foreign ministers are scheduled to decide Tuesday on the final wording of a statement on the Middle East that may very well include European recognition of east Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Efforts in Brussels on Monday to get a consensus on the text among the EU ambassadors failed, meaning the foreign ministers themselves will have to delve into the arguments over the text.

One Israeli official said it was very rare for a text this substantial to reach the foreign ministerial level without prior agreement.

The statement, which has just been allegedly passed, somewhat states the obvious since all outside parties have agreed that a two-state solution — Israel and Palestine as two countries next to each other — is the way to peace and have pressed both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority towards that end.

But the devil, so to speak, is in the details. Although the Israeli Foreign Ministry is pleased that the statement purportedly recognizes Israel’s claim to east Jerusalem — the territory was annexed following the Six Day War in 1967 –the office also called for the EU to “promote direct negotiations between the parties, while considering Israel’s security needs and understanding that Israel’s Jewish character must be preserved in any future agreement.” This is an important point: The Palestinians have yet to recognize the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

Moreover, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat — a secular, former high-tech businessman who leans right politically — bashed the EU proposal:

In response to the Swedish proposal currently being debated by European Union foreign ministers in Belgium that would declare east Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat on Monday sent an official letter to the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton, in which he insisted that Jerusalem remain united “as the eternal capital of the State of Israel.”

“Throughout the history of the world, there is not one important city that was divided that functioned successfully,” Barkat wrote. “They either reunited or ceased to function properly. The lesson is too clear. Jerusalem must stay united.”

Barkat added that “division focuses on differences rather than the common denominator that unites people of all faiths,” and identified Jerusalem as “the heart and soul of the Jewish people.”

On a personal note, I can say that the mayor is being consistent. I attended a Q&A with Barkat at a gathering of English-speaking Israelis during the 2008 mayoral campaign, and he said the exact same sentiment. This is also an important point: Can a divided city ever function properly?

It is also hard to imagine the hatred that many Israelis have for Europeans in general, especially following their perceived (rightly or wrongly) support for Hamas during the Gaza conflict late last year:

This [EU statement] is known in the trade as a slap in the face. Since coming to power, Netanyahu’s government eased up on checkpoints and military presence in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria, has supported and protected Mahmoud Abbas and his government, have slowed and now frozen virtually all settlement construction while being far more cautious about construction of Jewish homes in Jerusalem as well as destruction of Palestinian homes. In return, Israel has had to swallow the Goldstone Report, the Swedish “IDF Steals Body Parts” attack with no apology from the government and now this…

Europe should really stay out of it. They have done enough damage with their constant funding for NGOs that oppose Israel, for their blind support of the Palestinians and relative silence over Hamas and Gazan attacks on Israeli civilian targets and the constant pressure presented from their courts over potential arrests of Israeli leaders.

This is also an important point. Both Israel and the Palestinians need to respect those who are trying to mediate the conflict. If even one party does not trust the mediator, then negotiations are useless. Europe — except, perhaps, for France ever since the election of President Nicolas Sarkozy –  is perceived by Israelis as being anti-Israel as much as the United States has been seen as being pro-Israel. Can such outsiders ever implement or even produce a peace agreement, or is it something that Israelis and Palestinians can only reach on their own?

Moreover, if the alleged plans to announce a State of Palestine soon with east Jerusalem as its capital occur — as PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyed might be planning — but produce no real results, will that lead to a third intifada and a return to Square One?

Islamic Call to Prayer

JERUSALEM — Jewish residents of the Holy City are becoming increasingly annoyed by the five-times-a-day calls to prayer broadcast by local mosques:

While recent rioting in and around Jerusalem’s Old City has left religious tensions between the capital’s Muslims and Jews simmering, a new dispute – this time concerning the volume of prayers, more than the prayers themselves – is resonating in outlying neighborhoods.

Jewish residents of these areas, all of which are in close proximity to Arab neighborhoods in the capital’s east, have begun to complain that the adhan, or Islamic call to prayer, which is broadcast five times a day from loudspeakers inside local mosques, has become an intolerable nuisance, particularly when it blasts through their neighborhoods at 4 a.m. every day.

“It’s as if they took the speakers and put them inside my bedroom,” Yehudit Raz, a resident of the northeast Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. “And it’s not from one mosque or two mosques – we’re talking about tons of speakers going off, one after the other, every morning.”

As with everything in the Middle East, the issue is complicated. Praying at the assigned times is a devout mandate among Muslims, so it is imperative for them that people be reminded to do so. This would not be a problem if the call to prayer could somehow ring only in the ears of believers. But the majority of Jerusalemites — who are mainly Jews but also include some Christians — hear the call as well. So the issue, politically and ethically, is one of competing priorities: the desire to ensure freedom of religion and the desire not to have a religion forced on those who do not believe in it.

Still, Europe is also facing this philosophical dilemma. The historic English city of Oxford has been debating whether to allow the Central Oxford Mosque to broadcast the calls to prayer. Most significantly, a majority of voters in Switzerland recently voted in a referendum to ban the construction of minarets (from which many calls to prayer are broadcast):

Swiss voters on Sunday adopted a referendum banning the construction of minarets, seen by some on the far right as a sign of encroaching Islamism.

“The Federal Council respects this decision,” said a statement from Switzerland’s government. “Consequently the construction of new minarets in Switzerland is no longer permitted. The four existing minarets will remain.

“It will also be possible to continue to construct mosques,” the government statement said. “Muslims in Switzerland are able to practice their religion alone or in community with others, and live according to their beliefs just as before.”

The issue, of course, is similar to that of Christian churches ringing bells every Sunday. When Europe was overwhelmingly Christian for many centuries, this was not a problem. But now I wonder what would happen if a group of non-Christians in Europe or the United States sued to stop the ringing out of the same desire that non-Muslims have to stop the calls to prayer. But the fact remains that Europe has been traditionally Christian. As Ross Douthat notes, the referendum could have occurred anywhere on the continent:

Switzerland isn’t an E.U. member state, but the minaret moment could have happened almost anywhere in Europe nowadays — in France, where officials have floated the possibility of banning the burka; in Britain, which elected two representatives of the fascistic, anti-Islamic British National Party to the European Parliament last spring; in Italy, where a bill introduced this year would ban mosque construction and restrict the Islamic call to prayer.

More and more Europeans are feeling — rightly or not — that their civilization is under attack and in danger of become Islamizied after decades of lax immigration policies. As Douthat observes, this view is both correct and not:

The immigrants came first as guest workers, recruited after World War II to relieve labor shortages, and then as beneficiaries of generous asylum and family reunification laws, designed to salve Europe’s post-colonial conscience. The European elites assumed that the divide between Islam and the West was as antiquated as scimitars and broadswords, and that a liberal, multicultural, post-Christian federation would have no difficulty absorbing new arrivals from more traditional societies…

Millions of Muslims have accepted European norms. But millions have not. This means polygamy in Sweden; radical mosques in Britain’s fading industrial cities; riots over affronts to the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark; and religiously inspired murder in the Netherlands. It means terrorism, and the threat of terrorism, from London to Madrid.

And it means a rising backlash, in which European voters support extreme measures and extremist parties because their politicians don’t seem to have anything to say about the problem.

As I wrote in an earlier post on the philosophical conflict between feminism and multiculturalism in regards to the way that some devout Muslims treat women badly, the solution to the conflict in Europe over the call to prayer in Islam is simply to enforce the law (and enact one beforehand, if necessary). If there are zoning laws or similar ordinances that restrict the broadcasting of noise, enforce them. If not, enact them. Muslims and Christians, for example, may complain about a violation of their religious freedom, but there would be no violation if the law is applied equally and fairly to all religious institutions. For once, the answer is actually quite simple. As my twelfth-grade AP Political Science teacher once put it during a discussion of a U.S. Supreme Court case that denied the right of a Native American tribe to use drugs during a religious ritual, having a religion does not give you the right to break the law.

However, this solution might not work in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel. Islam is only religion here that broadcasts matter relating to religious practice, so any laws or ordinances limiting noise might be inherently discriminatory against Muslims. I do not know the solution here.

Addendum: If any of my American readers live near Muslim communities, I am curious: Do you hear the calls to prayer? Are they regulated by zoning or any related ordinances? I used to cover zoning issues when I was a reporter in Boston, so I am curious.

Elsewhere: Daniel Pipes argues that Christians in Arab countries should be treated equally if Muslims in Europe want to be, and he adds that the Swiss referendum could be a bellwether of Islam’s future in Europe.

Israeli Settlements

JERUSALEM — Law professor David M. Phillips sets the historical and legal record straight on how Israeli settlements are not a violation of international law:

Though routinely referred to nowadays as “Palestinian” land, at no point in history has Jerusalem or the West Bank been under Palestinian Arab sovereignty in any sense of the term…

The Ottoman Empire contained the area known as Palestine for hundreds of years. The British Empire defeated the Ottomans, took control of the region, gave the land east of the Jordan River to the future kingdom of Jordan, and offered to split the remaining land west of the Jordan between the Jews and Arabs who were living there. The Arabs west of the Jordan rejected the partition, the British withdrew from the area, Israel declared independence, and then the surrounding Arab countries invaded.

By the end of the 1948 war, Jordan had taken control of the West Bank and east Jerusalem. (The so-called “Green Line” has merely been the dividing line between the Israeli and Jordanian armies at the time the cease-fire began.) Most of the Arabs west of the Jordan had moved to the West Bank and Gaza Strip (the latter was held by Egypt). Some of the Arabs had fled for their safety; others had left Israeli territory to make way for the invading armies; and still others had been pushed out by the Israeli army. Many of the Arabs in the West Bank eventually obtained Palestinian passports; Yassir Arafat, of course, was an Egyptian from Gaza. In the 1967 war, the surrounding countries attacked Israel again. In the end, Israel took over the West Bank, west Jerusalem, and Gaza to protect itself against any future attacks by Jordan and Egypt.

So, the only three entities that could possibly have sovereignty over the West Bank are Britain, Israel, and Jordan. England, of course, does not want to retake any possessions in the Middle East. Jordan does not want anything to do with the West Bank anymore because Palestinian terrorists nearly overthrew the monarchy in 1970. This leaves Israel.

The Palestinians, of course, could have a state in the future — but they have never had collective, sovereign authority over the West Bank in the past. As the European Union debates whether to recognize a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, it is worth remembering this fact.

Letter from Israel: Me and the Israeli Arab

Sixteenth in an ongoing series

RISHON LEZION, Israel — “Why hire a non-Jew when you can hire a Jew?”

That was the response of a local bar owner when I asked him, out of curiosity, whether he would hire an Israeli Arab as a bartender or waitress if the person were attractive, friendly, and experienced. Earlier that day, I had asked the owner of a local kiosk — something like a convenience store — whom I know whether there were any local companies that provide cleaning services. For the equivalent of $12 for two hours of work, I could have my small apartment cleaned as often as I like.

The kiosk owner, to my surprise, called out to another shopper in the store and asked him in Hebrew whether he wanted a cleaning job. Evidently, they were friends. I spoke to the other person — a guy who was my age — and he agreed to come over the next evening after we haggled over the price. As I left the kiosk, the owner told me in English: “By the way, he is a very nice guy. A hard worker. But he is Arab.”

—
Arabs, Christians, and Jews

Thirty percent of Israelis are not Jews. Most of the minority are Arabs who are either Muslim or Christian. The remaining people are immigrants from the former Soviet Union — Christians and atheists — who fled the country in the early 1990s and were able to emigrate to Israel because they had at least one grandparent who was a Jew even though they themselves were not Jews. The latter group has become very successful in Israel because they were highly educated in fields like engineering and the high-tech industry. But the Arab community has always had higher levels of poverty, crime, and poor education. Nearly all of them work in blue-collar or service jobs — if they are
employed at all.

When the owner told me that they guy — a 30-year-old by the name of Faiez who works at a falafel stand during the day — was an Arab, I admit that I hesitated for a split second. The American and Israeli sides of my brain were battling each other. The American said not to be racist since the United States has usually been an idealistic, multi-ethnic society — at least in theory, if not always in practice. The realist Israeli in me said to forget about it. After all, I did not really know Faiez — although the kiosk owner said that he was a good guy, this might be a risky endeavor for all the obvious reasons.

Finally, the American in me won. I told the kiosk owner in Hebrew: “What do I care? A good guy is a good guy.”

—
The Israeli Reaction

I was still a little unsure after I had hired Faiez, so I went to ask some Israeli friends at a bar that night for their thoughts. The owner of the place told me that he always prefers to hire Jews. After all, when you want to build a Jewish country out of nothing but sand, it is important to make sure that all Jews are employed and able to survive. (Although, the owner’s statement was not entirely accurate. Some of the waitresses he had hired were non-Jews from the former Soviet Union, so perhaps he had truly meant that he would not hire any Arabs.) Others offered thoughts that were meant as jokes but offered insights into the Israeli mentality as well. “Don’t leave an Arab guy alone in your apartment; he might try to steal something.” “If anything happens to you, we’ll know what.”

Imagine this conversation occurring in the United States, and replace the word “Arab” with “black” or “Hispanic.” For all of the good things about Israeli society, the sad truth is that this country is incredibly racist as well. A recent wave of immigration brought black Jews from Ethiopia to Israel, but other Israeli Jews frequently refer to them with the Hebrew equivalent of the N-word. For people who were born and raised, for example, in the United States or Britain, these attitudes are always shocking because people in our native countries are less racist, and any racism is at least not spoken bluntly and outright in public.

Now, I am not excusing the racism; I merely intend to explain it. As most people know, Israel has been attacked by the surrounding Arab countries since its inception. Waves of Palestinian terrorism and suicide bombings swept through the country in the late 1980s and 1990s. In this small country — roughly the size of New Jersey — nearly everyone knows someone who died in a war or terrorist attack. For obvious reasons, this affects people mentally. Israelis my age were preteens and teenagers during the worst of the intifadas. The effects are two-fold: 1.) Many Israeli men have some level of
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a result of military service; and 2.) Israelis have a myopic view that the surrounding peoples — Jordanians, Lebanese, Egyptians, and Syrians — are not individual peoples but simply “Arabs” who want to push the Jews into the sea. The racism in Israeli society recently extended to the city of Petah Tikva, which wants to monitor and “help” Jewish, teenage girls who date older, Arab men. (Although, as I noted, there is also crime, poverty, and education involved in addition to racism.)

In just one example: One friend of mine was fired upon while fighting in Lebanon; a few of his friends died. A few years later, he saw a few other friends die when a Palestinian terrorist took control of a bus and plowed them down in the street. You can imagine what he thought when I told him that I had hired an Israeli Arab to clean my apartment.

—
Me and Faiez

So, Faiez came over. He was very friendly, and he did a wonderful job cleaning. I gave him the wage plus a good tip. While he cleaned, we would watch soccer and basketball on television, talk about girls, and he would ask me about my American DVD collection. (For example, how do you explain “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in basic Hebrew? I said, “A girl in high school kills…” and then held up two fingers to my mouth to imitate fangs. He understood and laughed.)

I do not speak Arabic, and he does not know English, so we compromised on Hebrew. But we started to teach each other a few phrases in our native languages. Faiez would see my neighbors — cute, Israeli girls in their twenties — walk by and then make the usual comments to me in typical guy-fashion. He asked one if she needed someone to clean her apartment; she declined curtly and walked away. That same night, he asked if my girlfriend — an Israeli Jew who was born and raised in Jerusalem — was Muslim. I responded, perhaps sheepishly because I did not want to risk offending him, that she was not.

Later, Faiez told me this past week that it is hard for him to meet girls. I was not surprised. Most Israeli Arabs live in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and in a few towns in the northern and southern parts of the country — not here in the central region. I said that there are some dating websites for Muslims — probably even for Arabs in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip — and that I would find one for him. But then Faiez said something that made me pause mentally for a moment: “I do not have a lot of friends either. Can I come just to hang out sometimes? You seem like a good guy.”

—
A New Friendship?

My mind did not know what to think. But out of my American politeness (as opposed to Israeli bluntness), I said: “Of course! You are a good guy too.”

After Faiez left, I went to talk to my friends again. First, I called my girlfriend. “Jews and Arabs just don’t become friends here; it just doesn’t happen,” she said. “You should screen his calls, and hire someone else.” Another friend who owns a bar in the city: “You know what I think. If you become friends, do NOT bring him here.” (“Not a problem,” I replied. “He is a Muslim and does not drink alcohol.”) But three other people responded: “A person is a person. Who cares what his religion is? If someone said these things about Jews, we would be angry!” The responses to my situation perfectly reflected the polarization in Israeli society and politics — there is hardly anything between the far left and the hard right.

Since I had originally hired Faiez to clean my apartment and he seemed like a nice guy, I no longer had any concerns about the fact that he was a Muslim Arab. I was more concerned about my personal motivations. Did I hire him and possibly want to become friends with him because he was a poor Arab who needed the money? That would be condescending. Was I considering becoming friends with him out of a desire, to help promote peace in some small way, to build a peaceful, Jewish-Arab connection between two people? That would reduce him to being simply “an Arab” and not a person in his own right. If I would become friends with Faiez, it would only have to be for the fact that he was a nice guy whom I liked.

So, after reflecting on this situation and writing this essay, that is what I decided to do. Now I’m just thinking about what I will tell my girlfriend.

Prior Letter: The Bright Side of Life

Fatah and Hamas

Spengler posits a reason why the unacknowledged Palestinian civil war is so one-sided:

All the training and arms in the world will not persuade the leaders of the Palestine Authority to fight, because they are extremely wealthy men who live in luxury anywhere in the world. Ahmed al-Meghami, then the PA’s attorney general, estimated in 2006 that billions of dollars may have been stolen by Palestinian officials. Men with London townhouses and villas in the south of France don’t risk their lives. Their Hamas counterparts are quite willing to die and in any case have nowhere to go except safe houses in Damascus. That explains why only one side fights.

Western donors to the PA know this perfectly well; they also know that the putative refugee population is inflated by as many as 1.3 million non-existent souls in order to inflate foreign aid requirements, as I reported on August 18 (Palestine problem hopeless, but not serious). But it is easier to keep the charade going than to admit failure. Cupidity and inertia have produced a criminal enterprise in the guise of a proto-state, vulnerable to liquidation by hard men who are willing to die for what they believe. That is why the Palestinian civil war is a one-sided affair; the other side has no reason to fight.

Hamas seems to be working more for a Palestinian state than Fatah. True, the Palestinian state desired by the terrorist group would take over all the land “the sea to the river,” be void of all Jews, and likely be an Islamic theocracy — but it would still be a state. Fatah, on the other hand, seems to be spinning its wheels.

One Year Later

Rabbi Gabi Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, were murdered a year ago during the terrorist attack in Mumbai, India. Here is Chabad’s tribute to them.

Thomas Friedman

The New York Times columnist writes something I never thought he would say: The United States should, at least for now, give up on trying to create peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Life Under Rocket Fire

RISHON LEZION, Israel — This is what life is like forty-five minutes south of where I live:

Imagine that you are 18 years old. You have just completed high school and in a few months you will enter the army. In the meantime, you spend your time going out with friends and working to save some money – like any other typical teenager in Israel.

One afternoon, you come home exhausted from work and collapse into bed for a nap. Suddenly, in the middle of your nap you find yourself waking up to the sound of glass shattering – all over your back.

It takes you a moment to realize that the window above your bed has exploded and that shards of glass lie everywhere. Your dad comes racing in, picks you up and carries you outside to safety.

The Sderot Media Center Community Treatment Theater performed Children of Qassam Avenue in Jerusalem this week, and I would have gone if I had known about the play. As the above YouTube clips shows, the performance is a group of teenage girls showing what life is like under a constant rain of rocket fire from Hamas in the Gaza Strip. As the new school year has begun, principals have been repairing and upgrading their bomb shelters and related buildings.

Even though the number of deaths and injuries have been low, a generation of children is growing up with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Related: Letter from Israel: The Gaza Conflict

God is Back

Karen Armstrong writes in Foreign Policy that the so-called New Atheists are mistaken in their assumptions.

Cultural Nihilism

LONDON and JERUSALEM — The Daily Mail reports on efforts to change British drinking habits (and includes, of course, several tabloid-worthy pictures):

Such scenes are not uncommon, which is why Cardiff – one of the country’s worst cities for binge drinking – has just banned boozing on the streets.

The crackdown is aimed at late night revellers, targeting rowdy hen and stag parties and generally trying to make the streets safer after dark.

Police can use the new powers to confiscate alcohol or arrest anyone who defies them.

The ban has been a success in trials in small areas but will spread across the entire city in time for Christmas and the New Year.

Yesterday it was hailed as a big step towards ‘reclaiming the streets’ from drunken yobs.

Cardiff Central MP Jenny Willott said: ‘Late night alcohol-fuelled crime and anti-social behaviour is a huge problem on the streets.

‘People deserve to have a night out without the fear of intimidation or facing violence as a result of excessive alcohol consumption.

‘This ban should help the law-abiding and responsible majority to reclaim the streets.’

When I lived in London in 2001 and worked as a bartender at the Zetland Arms, I observed that British people drink a lot — a lot more than your average American. But it was still within reasonable limits. Every night, the regulars — a friendly-but-sad bunch — would arrive after work and drink pint after pint while watching sports. Then they would leave for home late at night and return the next evening.

Later in the evening, the young people would arrive. Since pubs had to close at 12:30 a.m., they would drink a lot and then move to a club or hang out on the streets. (It is legal to drink outside in counties including Britain and Israel.) But I rarely saw any problems. The closest I ever got was when I took the drink out of the hand of a drunken Scotsman because I was angry and he refused to leave at closing time. Luckily, the manager came over and calmed him down. (One lesson of bartending in London: If you want to befriend a Scotsman, mention the film “Braveheart” in a positive way.)

But, sadly, it seems that things have become much worse:

…the proportion of women who binge-drink almost doubled between 1998 and 2006 and is now at 15% (men who binge-drink increased by 1% to 23%). However, the proportion of 16- to 24-year-old men binge-drinking decreased by 9% since 2000. Researchers also found that whilst fewer children are drinking, those that do drink are drinking much more than they did in the past.

Violent crime by youths is also an increasing problem. If the reports are credible (I have not been to Britain since 2001), then English cities are dealing with mobs of drunken, violent youths every night.

If you want to see the future of a country, look at its young people. Great Britain, once known as the economic, cultural, and fashion capital of the world, seems to be crumbling. I first realized this when former British Prime Minister Tony Blair started giving speeches several years ago defending the very idea of the country itself.

The still-unanswered question facing Blair in the 1990s was: What does it mean to be “British” as opposed to “English,” “Welsh,” or “Scottish”? The United Kingdom is a political entity created through conquest that has rarely, if ever, had a collective sense of identity. Blair tried, unsuccessfully, to brand the country as “Cool Britannia.”

The British Empire collapsed after World War II, and the British people never quite recovered subconsciously as the United States, a former colony, became the new leader of the free world. Decades leader, the British people viewed Blair as George W. Bush’s lap dog in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. (In geopolitical terms, Blair could do little else.) It was a confirmation of the global humiliation that the British people have been feeling after centuries of power and influence had disappeared.

In recent years, Scotland and Wales formed their regional parliaments and became more autonomous. The current prime minister, Gordon Brown, is a Scot and now deeply unpopular. It is indeed possible that Great Britain will cease to exist in the coming years. As the country devolves, it might also lose sovereignty to the European Union and the euro.

Cultural divisions and economic conditions are also tearing the country apart. Decades of mass immigration have caused many Brits to feel that their country is no longer “British.” The most-popular, national food is now seen as chicken tikka masala rather than fish ‘n’ chips. (One former coworker here in Israel moved here even though he is not a Jew because he said that his country no longer exists.) Radical Muslims in Britain condemn democracy, want to impose Shari’a law, and have plotted terrorist attacks. Anti-Semitism is skyrocketing (see here and here). Young men are becoming more apathetic and willing to live with their parents as well as on the dole.

The most significant example of the negative feelings held by Britons was the recent inclusion of Nick Griffin, the leader of the far-right British National Party, on the political, panel-discussion show “Question Time.” Both journalism and the free-market are perfect bellwethers of cultural trends. Companies, even media ones, must tailor their products, services, and marketing pitches to pre-existing trends in society. Journalists, who ideally have their fingers on the pulses of people, decide which views are relevant to a the discussion of a given topic. When the BBC, the standard-bearer of British journalism, decides that a person like Griffin is suited to a serious political discussion, that is a clear indicator of what a significant segment of society is feeling.

In the theory of Alexander Fraser Tytler, Great Britain may be nearing towards the end of the life-cycle of all nations and empires as a result of all of these trends and feelings. With all of these cultural, political, and social problems in the subconscious minds of young people, is it any wonder that they seem to have lost hope in the future? Without any optimism, they turn to alcohol and violence out of nihilistic despair.

One of my favorite 1970s-era bands is the Moody Blues, and I think their following pop-rock song from 2000 is an apt description of British malaise:

We’re on a runaway train, rolling down the track / And where it’s take us to, who knows where it’s at / But if we hold together, we can make it back / For an English sunset

And I’ve decided I can live with humility / And the sad decay / ‘Cause that’s the English way

We keep the faith alive in every thing we do / And at the end of the line, we still keep coming through / And though it’s sad and sorry, what else can we do / It’s an English sunset

And I’ve decided they can wait for the requiem / And take it day by day / ‘Cause that’s the English way

As someone who has loved British culture since he was a child, I write this post with extreme sadness. Still, I fear that the same attitudes are affecting behavior in Israel, specifically in Jerusalem. As Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz notes:

Anyone with more than passing knowledge of the atmosphere in central Jerusalem will be aware that the heart of our capital city is rapidly becoming a late night no-go zone.

Clusters of violent youth rule and roam the streets, armed with knives and with the beer and vodka bottles they’ve emptied, picking fights with unsuspecting victims.

Of course, the police are not solely to blame for the deepening climate of intimidation and violence. As [Public Security Minister Yitzhak] Aharonovitch and Israel Police Insp.-Gen. Dudi Cohen have frequently observed, ours is becoming an increasingly violent society, more and more kids are now carrying knives, and the response needs to be found, at least in part, in better parenting and better educational values.

I travel to Jerusalem several times a week, and I will likely be returning to live there soon. I was walking on the way to a pub with my girlfriend, a born-and-raised Jerusalemite, and we were speaking in English. A man on the street walked up and tried to convince us to come to his bar. (There are dozens of such people in the city center’s streets who try to get English-speaking tourists to visit their restaurant or bar.)

I waved him away and said, “We don’t need [your flier]” in Hebrew. His response? “Your accent sucks!” he yelled in English. I was about to walk over and return the favor when my girlfriend stopped me and said, “Do NOT talk like that here!” Unfortunately, people have been assaulted there for less.

As I have written in my Letters from Israel series, the Jewish state is rife with political, religious, and social divisions that many fear will tear the country apart. This has led to increased anti-social behavior and the possible destruction of the civil society that had developed since the refounding of Israel in 1948. Perhaps young Israelis have developed the same pessimism regarding the future that British youths now have.

As a result of the geographic isolation of the United States — it is separated from the world by two, gigantic oceans — the country is usually the last to receive cultural trends from Europe (as well as technological innovations from eastern Asia). Since young people there are increasing angry and frustrated over their economic and social conditions, I wonder whether the same anti-social behavior will occur in America soon.

Palestinian Society

The Jerusalem Report, a biweekly, English-language magazine on the Middle East and Judaism, has an interesting article with poll results from Palestinian society. The article is not online, so I’ll just present the interesting numbers taken by Palestinian pollsters:

• 51% do not trust their political leaders in general
• The percentage of people who trust Hamas has declined from 41% in January 2006 to 11% in June 2009
• 58%  disapprove of Hamas, and 38% approve
• Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has a job-approval rating of 55% while Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has a 64% disapproval rating
• If a parliamentary election were held today, the Fatah party would beat Hamas by a margin of 4 to 1
• If a presidential election were held today, Abbas would beat Haniyeh by 35% to 12% in a multi-party contest
• Palestinians are most concerned about internal fighting and the economy. In a second poll, the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip ranked fourth out of the top-five concerns
• 70% favor the disarmament of political factions and the consolidation of weapons with official security forces
• 68% think Hamas should stop advocating the destruction of Israel
• Slightly more than half said that all rocket fire into Israel should cease
• 55% favor a two-state solution while 11% want a single, bi-national state
• 77% believe that Israel is not really a partner for peace
• 61% identify themselves as religious
• 49% want Palestinian law to be based on Islamic law
• 75% want a future State of Palestine to be a democracy
• 23% believe that their best ally is Egypt; the second-highest answer was “no one”

The margin of error was 6 percent.

Freedom of Religion

RISHON LEZION, Israel — Over the past several days of the Succot holiday, Palestinian and Israeli Arabs have been rioting in the Old City of Jerusalem because they heard that some Jews wanted to pray on the Temple Mount.

Maybe I am missing a detail, but why cannot both Jews and Muslims pray on the Temple Mount? Why are Jews banned from doing so?

On a related subject, why do most two-state solutions call for the expulsion of all or most Jewish settlers from the West Bank? Why would Jews be banned from there? If Israel wanted to expel all Arabs from Israel, there would be numerous international condemnations.

What happened to freedom of religion? Why cannot both Jews and Muslims pray on the Temple Mount? Why cannot all residents of a future State of Palestine practice whatever religion they wish? As I have written, Jews should be allowed to stay in the West Bank — but they and their settlements would, as is fair, fall under the jurisdiction of the State of Palestine.

Gilad Shalit

RISHON LEZION, Israel — Hamas kidnapped an 18-year-old Israeli soldier three years ago and has been holding him in the Gaza Strip ever since. Israel released twenty Palestinian prisoners today in exchange for proof that he is alive. This is a video made by Hamas and released an hour ago. The soldier talks to his family and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Here is an English translation of his remarks.

Israel at the UN

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a logical, accurate, and passionate defense of Israel during a United Nations speech. One of the reasons I voted for him was that he speaks English fluently. This is one of the best speeches I have ever heard. If you are going to comment on this post, I ask that you watch all three clips first (they are short).

What is Egypt?

The headline of this Associated Press article asks: “Is Egypt secular, Muslim, or a muddled mix?”:

Two furious debates have been raging through the season in the Arab world’s most populous nation. On one hand, rumors that police arrested Egyptians violating the daily Ramadan fast raised dire warnings from secularists that a Taliban-like rule by Islamic law is taking over.

On the other, Ramadan TV talk shows on state-sponsored television featuring racily dressed female hosts discussing intimate sex secrets with celebrities have sparked outrage from conservatives, denouncing what they call the decadence that is sweeping the nation…

Ramadan, the final day of which is Saturday in most of the Islamic world, shows the contradictions. Egyptians widely adhere to the dawn-to-dusk fast, in which the faithful abstain from food, drink, smoking and sex from dawn until dusk. After sunset, while some pray into the night, many Egyptians party with large meals and a heavy dose of TV entertainment produced specially for the month.

I do not have an answer since I am not an expert on Egypt by any means, but I noticed the same paradoxes when I visited Cairo last year. Here is one of my blog posts following that trip. Perhaps the correct answer to the headline is (c).

Rosh Hashanah 2009/5770

RISHON LEZION, Israel — Benji Lovitt of the humorous blog “What War Zone?” takes a trip through the streets of Tel Aviv to interview Israelis on what they think of the Jewish New Year.

But do not be misled by the lightness of Lovitt’s video. As Israelis and Jews move into the year 5770, they are increasingly frustrated and anxious over recent events. Here are some headlines from just this past weekend:

• Iran reportedly has the ability to produce a nuclear bomb and is on the way to making a missile system that could deliver it.
• The Israeli government urgently warned Israelis in India that Islamic extremists are planning additional attacks there soon.
• Britain’s Trade Union Congress is calling for a boycott of Israeli goods.
• Iran is increasing its control over Hizbollah, the Islamist group in southern Lebanon.
• The Jerusalem Post remembers Capt. Assaf Ramon, who died recently in a military plane crash. His father was the first Israeli astronaut, and he died in the Columbia space shuttle explosion.
• IDF Brigadier General Avichai Mandelblit talks to the Post about defending Israel from international, legal criticism of the military’s conduct during the recent war in Gaza. The United States has said that a UN report on the issue was “unbalanced.”
• A United Nations conference condemned Israel’s atomic program.
• Jewish celebrities including Natalie Portman, Sacha Baron Cohen, Lisa Kudrow and Jerry Seinfeld are defending the Toronto Film Festival’s decision to spotlight Tel Aviv.
• There is still rioting in Jerusalem over the opening of a parking lot on the Sabbath.

But not all of the news is bad. (Besides, many Jews at Rosh Hashanah dinners over the holiday likely told the centuries-old joke with a shrug: “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat!”) Here is a collection of optimistic, inspiring, or light-hearted tidbits from the weekend papers.

• Israel and the United States are working together to prepare for “every possible scenario.”
• Amotz Asa-El commends Bank of Israeli Governor Stanley Fischer for saving Israeli from the worst of the worldwide recession and making the country one of the first to bounce back.

• The Jerusalem Post profiles twelve young Israelis for their contributions in areas ranging from the arts to sports to government to music.

• Herb Keinon interviews soldiers like Isabella Fhima, a 21-year-old, Moroccan Jew, who came to Israel by herself to join the army because she believes in the country. I know many lone soliders from all over the world, and each one deserves a feature in a national newspaper.

As for me, I’ve been listening to a recent pop song by the Israeli artist Sarit Hadad (in English) to get away from the headlines:

Although I generally hate pop music, I have to admit that this song is infectious and sunny. As non-Hebrew speakers can probably understand the video, the words are about running away from life’s stress for a short while and running to the beach. The summer is on its way out here, so we only have a few weeks left to do that.

Eight Years Later

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, occurred eight years ago. Here are my two posts on the causes and significance of the event. I was a senior in college in Boston at the time, but these reflections were written several years later.

Weekend News Roundup

The Jerusalem Post has an interesting feature on the effect that ultra-Orthodox Jews have on neighborhoods when they move into them. In an effort to combat assimilation among American Jews, the Israeli government and Jewish Agency are airing television commercials encouraging Israelis to convice friends and family there to take extended trips to Israel. Caroline Glick argues that Iran is months away from having nuclear weapons. Madonna ends her world tour in Tel Aviv, meets Israeli politicians, is nice to a Jerusalem waitress, wraps an Israeli flag around herself on stage, and faces criticism from Palestinians. Bradley Burston hopes that the Jewish New Year will bring an end to extremist, unrealistic idealism on the far left and right. Sarah Honig argues that the main conflict in the peace process is not Israeli settlements but the refusal of Arabs and Palestinians to recognize the right of the Jewish state to exist. Amotz Asa-El wonders whether the United States is truly in decline. The White House criticized Israel for building additional settlements before a negotiated freeze begins.

Don’t Buy Into Apartheid?

RISHON LEZION, Israel — For the record, I hate extremists of any kind. For every scare-mongering conservative like Glenn Beck, there is a group of useful idiots like the left-wingers in this video.

It seems that June 20 was National Don’t Buy Into Apartheid Day. (Do they make Hallmark cards for that?) A group of aging hippies and a few young wannabees walked into a Trader Joe’s store in San Francisco, started removing all Israeli-made products from the shelves, labeled them with stickers, asked the manager to stop selling them, and tried to convince customers not to purchase them.

My favorite part is the look on the manager’s face when they talk to him. You can just tell that he wants to laugh and say: “Are you f—— crazy?” But to his credit, he kept his composure and did his best not to anger a few crazy customers. I would have done something that would have resulted in a quick firing.

Just a couple of points that are probably obvious:

• Many people who work in low-paid, blue-collar jobs like food-packing in Israel are Arab Israelis and Palestinians. If activist groups decrease demand for these products, they will hurt the people they are supposedly trying to help. But don’t let the facts get in the way of a feel-good act of symbolism that actually does nothing.
• Thriving economies create peace. Countries and peoples that are economically intertwined are far less likely to wage war against each other. One of the best ways to help the Palestinians — whether they will have a state or not — is to help business in the Gaza Strip, Israel proper, and the West Bank. These activists specifically want to target products from the West Bank despite the fact that food produced there, even on settlements, most likely involved capital or labor from Palestinians. Buy more of it! Give them jobs.
• Focus on things that matter. If you want to help the Palestinians, volunteer with or contribute to groups that address abuse by the Israeli Defense Forces (sadly, some individual soldiers do reprehensible things in isolated cases but not as a result of official, military policy); fight in the Israeli Supreme Court for the rule of law in the Occupied Territories rather than the rule of force by settlers; or do other similar actions. Don’t do meaningless, token gestures that just make you look stupid.

On a related note, similar incidents have occurred in France — but with more-sinister results:

One Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, a group wearing “BOYCOTT ISRAEL” T-shirts entered a French branch of Carrefour, the world’s largest supermarket chain, and announced themselves. They then systematically advanced down every aisle examining every product, seizing all the items made in Israel and piling them into carts to take away and destroy. Judging from the video they made, the protesters were mostly Muslim immigrants and a few French leftists. But more relevant was the passivity of everyone else in the store, both staff and shoppers, all of whom stood idly by as private property was ransacked and smashed, and many of whom when invited to comment expressed support for the destruction. “South Africa started to shake once all countries started to boycott their products,” one elderly lady customer said. “So what you’re doing, I find it good.”

As a supporter of Israel, free markets, and civil liberties, I find this story to be absolutely repugnant. These activists stole and destroyed private property. They had the gumption to decide for themselves what consumers should be allowed to purchase. They were misguided enough to focus only on Israel rather than countries — like, say, China and Iran — whose records of human-rights abuses are among the worst in the world. (Then again, if a group removed everything made in China in many stores, I think nothing would be left.)

The fact that the customers in the store did nothing — and a few even supported the action — is downright scary. It may be a cliche, but it is true: Evil (or a useful idiot) triumphs when good men do nothing. If I had been in the French store, I would have grabbed the nearest blunt object I could find and smashed their video camera. Et ce serait fini.

And that reminds me of a final question: Did the San Francisco activists do what the French ones did? The video does not say. Did they steal the products from the store, pay for and take them, or leave the items on the shelves with the stickers? This inquiring mind wants to know. If it is the first or last, they should be arrested and charged with theft or vandalism; if it is the second, then they are extremely stupid because any purchase, no matter from whom, helps the Israeli companies.

(Hat tip: Jewlicious)

Whose Land is Whose?

RISHON LEZION, Israel — Haim Watzman looks at the philosophical assumptions that underpin anti-Zionism and how they relate to the philosophy of land-ownership:

[Phillips] Brooks argues that the land on which the state of Israel was created belonged to the Palestinians. Therefore, it is stolen. Therefore, Israel is founded on a crime. Therefore there is no difference between the land Israel took in 1948 and in 1967; it’s all stolen and held illegitimately and the Jews should return whence they came.

Now, that might sound like a voice of conscience to the unthinking. But if you think it through, it’s based on a concept of originalism that makes no sense in the real world. In other words, for Brooks’ logic to work, there has to be some particular point in history in which the world’s territory was divided up fairly between different nations. Then bad nations started conquering peaceful ones to gain territory. Peace and justice can be regained if everyone goes back to where they came from.

But of course there was no such point in history. Brooks’ position also leads to logical absurdities. Where is the average Englishman, with his hopeless amalgamation of Celtic, Roman Saxon, Danish, and Norman French languages and gene pools, supposed to go? Should all the Arabs return to Arabia? Should India’s Aryan stock return to central Asia? What nation rightfully owns Malta? Istanbul? Honolulu?

Watzman is correct. The first mistake that anti-Zionists make is to claim that a country named Palestine and inhabited by an Arab people collectively named Palestinians existed prior to Israel’s statehood in 1948 — or even before the post-First World War mandate held by Great Britain after it gained control of the region from the crumbling Ottoman Empire. (This fallacy is frequently taught in countries in the Middle East and elsewhere in which school cirriculums are decided by depostic governments.)

In reality, the region known as Palestine was controlled by the Ottomans prior to 1918; various pieces of land were owned by people including Arab, absentee landlords; Jews who had either emigrated or lived there for centuries; Arab farmers and nomads; and various Christian and Islamic communities. Significant portions of land were vacant, arid desert. It was a mix of communities. Moreover, the Arabs who lived there — whether Muslim or Christian — were not known as Palestinians until many, many decades later. A man in Gaza City had little in common with someone in Ramallah; they were surely not united by any sense of a common, national identity beyond their Arab ethnicity and perhaps their religion.

The main mistake, however, is when anti-Zionists insist that all land — wherever it may be — should go back to their “original owners.” As Watzman notes, this is incredibly naive. Those anti-Semites on the American left probably feel that the United States was responsible for the massacre of native Americans and the settling of their land. Of course, they are correct — but I do not see anyone volunteering to return to Europe. Many racists on the American right who despise minorities likely come from Ireland and southern Europe countries — but their ancestors, when they first came to the United States, were denigrated by the Anglo-Saxons who forebearers had originally populated America.

My point is that no one has an inherent right to be anywhere. Humanity left Africa for the Middle East. From there, people spread to India, central Asia, and eastern Europe. Then China, southeast Asia, Australia, Russia, and western Europe. Then northeastern Asia and later North and South America. All of human history is filled with people settling, invading, and defending land.

The only things that separate the modern, Western world from barbarianism with respect to land-ownership are 1.) civil society; 2.) the rule of law; and 3.) the idea of national sovereignty. The only reasons that a person “owns” the ground inside a white, picket fence  is the fact that he has a piece of paper saying so — along with a collective agreement within society to respect the document and a system of courts that will uphold its validity. Moreover, the idea stemming from the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 that newly-defined nation-states have sovereign borders and the right of jurisdiction in all internal affairs somewhat lessened primitive and medieval disputes over land.

However, these three points are only common agreements based in philosophy and pragmatism; they are not inherent in existence itself. In places where a civil society, the rule of law, and national sovereignty are either absent or in need of a firmer foundation — such as in both Israel and any forthcoming State of Palestine — then the Law of the Jungle rules.

Israel is ridden with political, social, and religious divisions (see here, here, and here) that have prevented any formation of a civil society for decades. The sovereignty of both Israel and any future Palestine are still up in the air as a result of disputed borders and occasional violence. Both the Israeli and Palestinian governments are rife with corruption.

What both ancient, world history and the modern, Middle East show is that the modern idea of land ownership rests on a shaky foundation that can be easily overtaken by current events. At the most basic level, the rightful owner of a piece of land might just be the answer to one question: Who can obtain and defend it the best?

Israel on Fire

RISHON LEZION, Israel — Noah Efron writes in Foreign Policy that the Jewish state is becoming increasingly polarized as the extreme left and far right both feel embattled and are on the defensive:

Israel’s ultra-Orthodox and secular leaders alike broadcast animal assurance: a full, tempered confidence that their way of seeing the world is singular in its virtue. But behind the bluster, both communities feel themselves as embattled and endangered. Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel are collapsing under the weight of their successes. Dismissed by Israel’s founding generations as the last vestiges of a dying way of life, the ultra-Orthodox have grown enormously in numbers and in political power in Israel over the 61 years since the state was established. They have negotiated for themselves broad exemption from army service, mandatory for everyone else, and a series of entitlements that allow most ultra-Orthodox men to receive a small stipend for studying in religious academies for as long as they wish to do so. As a result, Israeli ultra-Orthodox males probably spend more time in formal study than any other class of humans ever has in the history of the planet. But small stipends do not easily support large families, and over time the ultra-Orthodox have become Israel’s economic underclass, as each generation exceeds the poverty of the last…

Secular Israelis, for their part, live in perpetual dismay over the fact that their successes have never led them to where they expected to arrive. Their parents’ generation, and that of their parents, expected to be vindicated, that the value and truth of the ideology they embraced would be confirmed by the society they built. After Zionists produced the Good Society, they reasoned, no one could doubt that Zionism itself is a social good. And for some time, it seemed that this formula had proven itself to be Israel’s self-image, broadly, as the country passed through two phases…

No one holds a heroic view of Israel anymore, not abroad and not here… Israel’s social gap is now considered among the greatest in the developed world. The most recent wave of immigrants, from the former Soviet Union, are largely disgruntled, and surveys suggest that a large percentage of them are not even Jews… And most important of all, Israel’s military excellence has been tested in a 20-year misadventure occupying southern Lebanon, and in laboriously maintaining the peace in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The disastrous last war in Lebanon, and the wrenching recent war in Gaza, won support by most Israelis, and censure by some, but together they have left little doubt that the country’s army is not heroic in the sense that it once was.

For all these reasons, to be a secular Israeli in 2009 is a demoralizing and demoralized affair. We are tired: tired of the Palestinians, tired of the bombs, tired of U.N. and EU condemnations, tired of having so much of our daily wages taxed to buy guns and missiles, tired of the army reserves, tired of being hated, tired of going to bed and waking up to reports of kids — Jewish kids, Palestinian kids — watching their parents die or dying in their parents’ arms. We are tired of our lives and tired of ourselves.

The longest distance between two points is a straight line from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.

In the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Me’ah Shearim in Jerusalem, men walk around in long, black suits and furry hats, even in the oppressive heat of summer in the desert. Women wear many layers of long, flowing clothing to hide any natural curve on their bodies as much as possible. The men study Torah all day while the women work part-time and take care of their families of as many as ten or more children. They survive on donations and government grants.

On the beaches of the cosmopolitan city of Tel Aviv, bare-chested men wear speedos while tattooed women walk around in the smallest bikinis imaginable. They work in the high-tech industry during the day and watch the Israeli version of “American Idol” or the new comedy show “Fun Night,” which features lewd jokes and dancing girls, at home. For dinner, they will probably eat a salad containing bacon and shrimp.

The true threat to Israel is neither an Iranian nuclear bomb nor rockets from Hamas or Hizbollah; it is Israelis themselves. Even if two Americans are respectively a Blue State-devotee of Barack Obama and a Red Stater who supports Sarah Palin, they still have something in common: The principles enumerated in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution. All Americans, regardless of their political affiliations, are united by a common vision and a set of ideals that supercede preferences on individual policies.

This is not the case in Israel. Sixty-one years after the re-founding of the Jewish state, Israelis still cannot agree on a common vision of what their country should be. Israel does not have a constitution.

Israelis on the far left do not believe in a Jewish state at all because they think countries based on ethnicity or religion are outdated at best or immoral at worst. They want to see a single, secular country consisting of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip in which every person, Jew or Arab, would have one vote. They disrespect religion as well as anyone who believes in it.

The ultra-Orthodox on the far right do not believe in Israel as it currently exists because it is a country that is officially secular and founded by men rather than a theocracy founded by God himself. (In official terms, Israel is a Jewish state based on ethnicity rather than religion.) They disrespect the government, the army, Israelis whom they consider to be less religious, and those who are secular. The ultra-Orthodox do not really care what happens between the Israelis and the Palestinians; they just want to be left alone to follow Judaism as they see fit.

The Religious Orthodox on the right believe that the current State of Israel was founded by God through the hands of men and that Israelis have a duty to settle the West Bank and Gaza. The routinely resist the government when it tries to evict their settlers from the Occupied Territories because, to them, the Torah is more important than the secular law.

Those on the left want Israel to withdraw from the Occupied Territories as soon as possible. The political left believes that the Palestinians will stop their terrorist attacks once they have a country of their own. The religious left believes that it is wrong for Israel to, in their view, oppress the Palestinians and treat them wrongly.

Those on the center right believe that Israel should not withdraw from any part of the Occupied Territories until the Palestians, in their view, stop their terrorist attacks and prove that they are able to build and run a state of thier own.

I write this a few hours before the start of the holiday of Tisha b’Av, the date when Jews fast and mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples as well as other tragedies including the return of the scouts sent by Moses to Ca’anan, the failure of the Bar Kokhba Revolt against ancient Rome, the razing of Jerusalem by the Roman Empire, and the expulsion of the Jews from England. According to the Mishnah, God destroyed the Second Temple and sent the Jewish people into exile as a punishment because the various communities in ancient Judea — such as the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots — held a “baseless hatred” for each other.

I cannot help but wonder if ancient history is repeating itself. Ultra-Orthodox Jews are rioting and lighting things on fire in Jerusalem. Religious Zionists are resisting civil law and causing anarchy. Secular Israelis are becoming increasingly angered at these actions and losing all faith as a result. Even the moderates on the right and left cannot agree on what should come first: a ceasing of Palestinian hostilities or the giving of more land to them. (At the same time, Hamas shows no signs of accepting the existence of a Jewish state, Palestinian moderates are increasingly impotent, and Iran is continuing its march towards a nuclear bomb.)

None of these Jewish communities can gain a majority in such a fractured country, so Israel is paralyzed and unable to do anything. This country cannot agree at all on what this country should be. As a result, each of the communities feels threatened and increasingly angry. I just hope the division is not turning into baseless hatred again.

Elsewhere: Danny Ayalon agrees.

Rabbi Eliyahu Kin addresses the issue of “baseless hatred” within the Jewish community as well as within mankind as a whole. His advice? Do not gossip. Be humble. Give people the benefit of the doubt. See that there is something good within everyone since all people are made in the image of God.