John Hagee, for those who have been vacationing, is a Texas mega-church pastor, founder of Christians United for Israel, and a man whose endorsement John McCain sought and won. A short interview with him appeared in The New York Times last weekend. The strict Q&A format did not allow the interviewer to point out where Hagee was, shall we say, disagreeing completely with Hagee, or at least with what Hagee tells his fundamentalist followers. A key section
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A liberal Israel lobby? If you will it, it is no dream
My cover story in Prospect Magazine on the need for a liberal, dovish Israel lobby in Washington is now up on the UK magazine’s site. I’m making a careful argument here: I reject the claims of Mearsheimer, Walt & groupies that a pro-Israel cabal controls American policy toward the Mideast. However, the key lobbying group, … Read more
Refugees and the Jewish Question
My friend and colleague Ben Lynfield forwarded me a news report he wrote a couple of days ago on Prime Minister Olmert’s response to the continued flow of African asylum seekers from Egypt to Israel. In both the foreign and local press, Ben has done his best to make people aware of the refugees’ plight. Several months ago, when I wrote about the obtuseness to Jewish history that Olmert was demonstrating by turning back refugees from Darfur, Ben pointed out to me a flaw in my story: Refugees from elsewhere in the Sudan were fleeing similar dangers, and were equally desperate for asylum.
Since I haven’t seen Ben’s most recent story up yet on the Net, I’ll quote some of it here with his permission:
Lies, Damn Lies, and Supreme Court briefs
The Israeli Supreme Court recently issued a temporary ruling on a petition brought by residents of six Palestinian villages who have been barred from using Highway 443. The highway is an Israeli-built road running from the Modi’in area near Tel Aviv, through the West Bank to the northern side of Jerusalem (actually, the north end of annexed East Jerusalem).
The petitioners, represented by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), asked the court to “repeal the IDF’s complete restriction on Palestinian movement on Route 443,” according to ACRI. Instead, the court gave the state six months to report on its efforts to built an alternative road for Palestinians only. Though this isn’t the final ruling, it looks like court approval for separate roads in the West Bank, segregated roads,
Purim: Chance, Fate, and Choice
Purim is the Hebrew calendar’s brush with postmodernism. No other observance is so full of contradictions, alternative readings, ambiguities. Nahafokh hu, as the Book of Esther says—every character, event, and ritual comes along with its mirror image. We expunge the ultimate evil, Amalek, from our memories by remembering; we are commanded to recite a story we already know and listen to every single word, yet we may read it from a scroll in which many words are missing; we mark God’s miraculous intervention in Jewish history by reading a book in which God is not mentioned at all.
These contradictions are all emanations of the one great contradiction that every person who both thinks and believes must face. The problem presented by modern, scientific knowledge is not in the specifics. Belief in God can be squared with the assertions that the universe came to being in a big bang and that humans are just another kind of primate. The apparently unbridgeable gap is that between chance and purpose. The fundamental, irreducible principle of the world of the believer is that what happens in the world happens because of divine intent. The fundamental, irreducible principle of the scientist’s world is that it runs according to physical laws, with no purpose and no plan. God’s world can be judged; it can be good or evil. The scientist’s world can only be.
First Law of Political Thermodynamics: For every action there is an unequal and opposite reaction
At a press conference a few weeks ago, Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon explained the government’s attempts to influence events in Gaza through both military action and pressure on the general population. “Palestinians in Gaza know the truth,” he asserted. They understood that the Hamas regime was responsible for their woes, and would act against it. “A combination of steps will bring an end to the Hamas regime in Gaza,” Ramon said.
Ramon was half right. Nothing affects Palestinian public opinion like Israel actions – just as nothing affects Israeli public opinion like Israeli actions. But as the latest Palestinian poll results show, the reaction is usually in the opposite direction
The Dispossessed and the Manufacture of Fury
Amalek, according to the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy, is the name of the tribe that attacked the Israelites on their way out of Egypt, on the road from slavery to freedom. You can regard this as ancient history. But history is remembered as our story, and in Jewish mythic consciousness, Amalek became a name for hate embodied.
From there, it’s an easy jump – for the fearful and the angry, and for those embodying a fair amount of hatred themselves – to label a present-day enemy as Amalek. The formula “Amalek = ____” transforms a real-world conflict into a metaphysical one, and gives theological sanction to fury. Since Haman is described in the Book of Esther as a descendant of Amalek, and Esther is read on Purim, some misuse the carnival holiday to dress Judaism in a dark costume of rage.
And others remove that awful mask. Twenty-five years ago I heard an interpretation of the Amalek myth that transforms it into moral obligation. It was entirely rooted in rabbinic tradition – and served as proof that the meaning of the text is the responsibility of the interpreter. I remain uncertain that the man from which I heard it was really there. Here’s the story,
Obama Comes Clean
When I came to Israel thirty years ago, my first home was the northern town of Kiryat Shmonah. I was quickly adopted by a young family–they were my age but already had two children–who were part of a small group that had come to Kiryat Shmonah from Israel’s big cities. Under the inspiration of the … Read more
Israel’s Separation Barrier: The Best of the Worst
Pretty much everything the critics say about Israel’s separation barrier is true. It causes incredible hardship to the Palestinians; it has been used in many places as a means of annexing Palestinian territory to Israel; and it has caused much environmental damage.
For all that, however, it has achieved its purpose. Since construction of the barrier commenced, deaths in terrorist attacks emanating from the West Bank have dropped precipitously. As I note in my article in the current issue of Orion Magazine,
According to figures provided by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, between 2000 and 2003, Palestinian terrorists carried out 73 attacks, killing 293 Israelis and wounding 1,950. From 2003 to 2006, the period in which the fence was gradually erected, there were 12 attacks, killing 64 Israelis and wounding 445.
Purim security alert – one-sided or two?
The Israel Defense Forces spokesperson’s office has sent out this notice:
In accordance with the decision made by the Minister of Defense and as part of the security measures adopted by the defense establishment, a general closure will be implemented in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. The closure will begin today, Tuesday, March 18th at 12:00 am and will be lifted on Saturday, March 23rd, 2008 at 12:00 am.
The reason for the closure, the notice says, is that
“The IDF regards the Purim holiday as a highly sensitive period in terms of the security risk.”
McCain: Uh, Sunni? Er, Shi’ite?
John McCain, running for US president on his security credentials, showed in Amman on Tuesday that he does not attention to the difference between Shi’a and Sunni extremists in Iraq. This isn’t flunking Iraq 101, it’s flunking the entrance quiz to get into the course.
Earlier, the three candidates for president sent their proxy fighters to meet with Jewish leaders. McCain’s man,
The Look of the Lynch Mob
Nadia Matar, leader of the extremist Women in Green, has performed a certain service for feminism, I realized Sunday as I watched her give a series of quickie TV interviews at sunset on the promenade leading to Jabel Mukaber. Until I’d watched her talk, I still harbored the assumption that loud, threatening, bigoted rants – the jaw out, the tone nervous with excess adrenaline – were a male thing, especially a young male thing.
My mistake. An older woman can also don a baseball cap, push her jaw out, and describe an entire ethnic group – in this case, Israeli Arabs – as threatening to good people. Her rap was the same for each camera crew. The strangest part was when she insisted that if a Muslim in America had killed Christians, “they would confiscate the whole family’s American ID cards.” But then, it doesn’t matter that America doesn’t have government-issue ID cards. It has had lynch mobs,