An Arab Prime Minister for Israel?

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Haim Watzman

In the wake of Barack Obama’s victory in the U.S., there have been a spate of op-eds and blog posts on whether an Arab could ever become prime minister of Israel. Some present it as a challenge to Zionism, at least as conventionally conceived, while others try to explain why such a thing could not, should not ever be. The latest installment is Daniel Gordis’s piece in The Jerusalem Post.

Gordis is correct in saying that an Arab majority in Israel would be the end of Israel as a Jewish state, and that an Arab majority in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, would reflect that loss of majority status. Zionism requires a Jewish majority–and not just a bare majority but a large one–for the state to be Jewish. This is the reasoning that means the two-state solution is the only way of preserving Israel as a Jewish state.

But while the election of an Arab to head Israel’s government, while improbable, is certainly not impossible,

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Muppet Mayhem: How I Mis-“Mah Nà Mah Nà”-ed My Daughter

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Haim Watzman

Here at South Jerusalem, Gershom and I sometimes feel like Statler and Waldorf, the two grumpy old critics in the balcony from The Muppet Show. Actually, my Muppet connection runs deep. I grew up identifying with Kermit (“It’s Not Easy Being Green”).

Then, when I came down with and survived a massive Group A Strep infection, I learned that Jim Henson, the Muppets’ creator, had been less lucky in his bout with the disease just six years earlier. And when I was in rehab, we had an occupational therapist who liked to get me and my fellow patients doing shoulder exercises to Kermit’s “Caribbean Amphibian”.

Last week, my daughter Mizmor brought home a set of Muppet Show DVDs from a neighbor and I walked in just as the Muppet classic “Mah Nà Mah Nà” was playing.

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Serious Pluralism, Serious Judaism, Serious Democracy: Aryeh Geiger z”l

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Haim Watzman South Jerusalem lost another of its pillars this week. Aryeh Geiger, a religious educator for whom the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin signaled the need for a complete revision of religious education in Jerusalem, passed away this week after a four-year battle with cancer. I, and my daughter Misgav, were among the many hundreds … Read more

The Delay-Sayers’ Mistake

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The new conventional wisdom among Middle East hands with lots of State Department postings on their c.v. is that trying to reach a two-state agreement is hopeless. Can’t be done, don’t try. Wait for a better time. Aaron David Miller laid out the case recently in the Jerusalem Post:

It’s not that there are metaphysical or magical reasons why these core issues can’t be resolved; it’s that the political will is lacking among leaders to reach an agreement and that the current situation on the ground between Israelis and Palestinians makes it impossible for them to do to. That everyone knows what the ultimate solution will look like (an intriguing notion that is supposed to make people feel better) is irrelevant if the circumstances for an agreement don’t exist.

The Palestinians are too divided, and “there is serious dysfunction at the political level in Israel as well.” Therefore, Miller recommends to Barack Obama to “manage” the conflict:

…support an Israeli-Hamas ceasefire, train PA security forces, pour economic aid into the West Bank and Gaza, even nurture Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the big issues, but don’t think you can solve it; you can’t.

I have great respect for Miller’s experience and expertise, and his argument is laid out as cogently as ever. But I have to dissent respectfully for three reasons:

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House of Ill-Dispute

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There have been some pleasant surprises this week. For instance, the Supreme Court ordered the state to explain why it isn’t removing the outpost of Migron, built on other people’s land. The state – meaning Defense Minister Ehud Barak, for practical purposes – wanted an indefinite delay, based on a supposed agreement with the Council … Read more

On Settlement Legality, With Thanks to Our Readers

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For those who have missed it, a impressive debate on the legality of West Bank settlements has been in progress for the past week between several of South Jerusalem’s readers. To find it, look in the comment section of my post, The Paper Trail: Settlement Land Theft. The dueling writers have remained civil – no small thing in blogland. Meanwhile, they’ve provided a thoughtful, articulate and footnoted overview for anyone interested in this issue.

That said, it’s an unequal battle. Beginning at comment No. 14, David (with some assists from Fiddler) lays out the basics of international law on occupation and the prohibition of settlement. On the other hand, commentator aliyah06 (with some assists by others) summarizes the arguments that have been used by defenders of settlement.

Sorry, aliyah06 et al. Outside of the pro-settlement echo chamber, these positions are considered quirky. While the Israeli government has used them for PR purposes abroad, it takes entirely different positions when arguing real legal cases before the Israeli Supreme Court. I’m sorry. The government has treated you, and others who quote its PR arguments, as useful idiots.

Here are some key points for understanding the illegality of settlement:

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Oh, For the Days of the Party Boss and the Back-Room Deal!

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Haim Watzman


There was a membership meeting at shul Saturday night to discuss plans to finish our building’s unfinished basement. A well-meaning, socially-concerned member (true, those labels apply to pretty much everyone in Kehilat Yedidya ) suggested that democratic procedures required that we poll the entire community, asking each and every member whether they favor or oppose the proposal.

If you’ve ever been involved in synagogue governance, or served on a PTA board, or tried to run any other organization, no matter how mundane, you’ll know why I started turning red. You work together with other concerned members and, through a process of study and deliberation, weigh various options, compromise between opposing views, and put together the best plan you can. Then you bring it before the membership and everyone becomes a partisan and wants to go back to square one. If the meeting isn’t well-managed, all your work is for naught.

How anti-democratic of me! I’ve been accused of precisely such dictatorial tendencies on several occasions during my life. But my socially-concerned, democratically-committed fellow-Yedidyan was wrong. In properly-functioning democracies, not everyone gets to decide everything. And an overdose of public involvement can in fact subvert true democratic process. It’s just such a surfeit of democratic politics that has turned Israel into a nearly non-functioning democracy in recent years, and led to a situation where Israelis will be presented in February with a choice of notably mediocre candidates for its legislature.

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The Sound of Silence

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So Hebron settlers have poured turpentine on a soldier, desecrated Palestinian graves, and sprayed graffiti saying “Muhammad the pig” on a mosque, all because of a court decision that they stop occupying a house until a ruling on who owns it. We should be shocked, but only in half the meaning of the word: such behavior is horrifying, but not surprising. This is what Hebron settlers do.

Also deeply disturbing is the continued silence of moderate rabbis and religious Jews in the face of such behavior by people who claim that Judaism guides them. As I wrote recently in Ha’aretz, there are reasons for this silence – but they aren’t good enough. The article appeared only in Hebrew. For those who don’t read from right to left, here’s part of my critique:

One reason is that [religious moderates] recoil from the right’s politicization of religion. The reflexive response of the moderates is: They – the right – pull politics into the synagogues and schools, so we must not. Their rabbis express offensive political views. So our rabbis shouldn’t discuss public affairs. Anything connected to Arabs or territory is defined as politics. So talking about racism is off-limits… A teacher who would devote three class hours to condemning a student’s theft of his classmate’s cellphone won’t touch the “political” topic of setting up an outpost on privately owned Palestinian land, even if his students spend time there.

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Left Behind: Why a New Party Won’t Save Social Democracy in Israel

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Haim Watzman Ha’aretz has been going ga-ga over the impending new left-wing party that will incorporate Meretz, a few old Labor hands, and some literary figures who have long acted as the collective conscience of the Israeli left. The newspaper also devoted several pages of its Friday opinion supplement to the age-old question of whither … Read more

Who By Fire

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Briefly, I’ve mentioned that I had a fire in my apartment on Rosh Hashanah. My new column in Moment Magazine tries to make sense of that timing: I’m a rationalist. My grandmother’s mumbled imprecations against the evil eye seemed silly by the time I was seven. I don’t believe in omens. When I read ancient … Read more

Do Good Novels Make Good People?

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Rabbi Joshua Gutoff, one of the most thoughtful and regularly heretical people I know, is now blogging at Frost and Clouds. I recommend his heretical thoughts about the role of literature in moral education, especially because they poke holes in my cherished assumptions:

So I’m reading Martha Nussbaum’s Love’s Knowledge… Her argument, briefly, is that (certain kinds of) novels have a unique role to play in moral education, in that their portrayal of finely-drawn characters in nuanced situations helps the reader develop that kind of vision necessary to a high moral imagination…

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