The recent mega-blaze in the Carmel forest was partly the blame of the JNF.
JNF planted pines because they were fast growing. Trees, according to old Turkish law, were taxed; so many pre-State Arab landowners uprooted their trees to avoid the tax. This was why Israel was partially barren when the State was declared. In Arab custom planted trees are proof of ownership of land. Also, shade and foliage were needed to prevent erosion. Pines were chosen. Recently the choice of pines was questioned since the cones and spurs from the pine are highly acidic and prohibit other plant life anywhere near them.
That said, pines are what were planted, and as most people know pines are used as starter wood for a fire, then cedar or oak or olive wood to keep the fire burning long-term.
The JNF is now out and raising money to replace the pines. The JNF chief was on the air last night saying over 50,000 dunam (about 13,000 acres) of trees went up in flames. The UJA is also running a campaign to raise money for relief. What money and what relief? I didn't look at the JUF campaign pleas, yet. Hopefully they'll pay for fire-fighting planes and fire-trucks. The real problem is the fire department itself. No fire fighters' school exists. Scarce and out-dated equipment, and lack of staff are the norm.
Last night a group of fire fighters appeared on TV sitting around, taking a breather. They responded to the reporters’ questions about salaries, stating that they hadn't received a salary in two months. Another report on another channel had a fire-fighter explaining that many appointments to the fire department are political, either Likud, the ruling party, or Shas, the party that controls the Ministry of the Interior, that controls the fire department, with inexperienced appointees filling positions required by professionals. These and other disturbing facts are now pouring out.
Bit of background. The political struggle going on now to avoid blame for the tragedy is in early stages. As was said above, the fire department falls under the umbrella of the Ministry of the Interior. Shas leader Eli Ishai is the Minister of that department. He is being attacked for not doing anything for the fire department. He claims he did. Memos and such are produced to verify his claims. Commentators say that these 'behind covering' memos are standard procedure. The paper is there but no one does anything about it.
Ishai said he fought for 500 million shekels (about US $138 Million) for the fire department but was only given 100 million shekels (About US$$ 27 million). Truth is he didn't fight very hard. The fire department workers went on strike a while ago, not one minister really paid attention. Following the War In Lebanon II, when a good hunk of the upper Galilee was set ablaze by Hezbollah rockets, and the inability of the fire department to cope with the blaze became evident, a government report was issued stating plainly the fire department was weak in so many areas a disaster was waiting to happen.
But who pays? Trees don't vote. Shas leader Ishai fought for money for Yeshivot, and other ultra-Orthodox causes, but did little or nothing for the fire department. Remember he has one budget for his ministry and that has to be doled out to the elements in his constituency to keep them happy and voting. Like I said, trees don't vote.
A fire-fighter officer told an Israel TV reporter that the money from the Ministry of the Interior for the fire department, the same ministry that funds the local municipalities, is turned over the local government bodies. But these government bodies are chronically short of cash, and use the money for other shortfalls, not to pay fire fighters' salaries, or buy equipment.
This produces a situation where one firefighters' salary, or even half-a-salary, is designated for half-a-dozen towns and villages. So one fire fighter is responsible for 40,000 dunams. But in truth there isn't a fire fighter, just a slot on the books, with the money going elsewhere. Ditto for equipment. The result, an understaffed, under-equipped, under-trained fire department incapable of putting out anything but a simple fire in a forest and much better trained and equipped to put out urban factory and building fires, but even then sorely lacking in the right stuff.
Eli Ishai is a very aggressive and wily politician. When interviewed at the staging location during the mega-blaze, he took the offensive, yelling at reporters that he had done everything he could and more. Later he told the press that he was a sacrificial goat, a poor Sephardi right-winger being lead to the slaughter.
In truth the case against Ishai is not racism but government priorities. The needs of the fire department have been common knowledge for at least a decade, but no one was willing to pay from their budget to upgrade and staff and pay for the necessary equipment. Now Ishai says he's been asking that the fire department be moved from the Ministry of the Interior to Homeland Security, but no one did anything about his request. A request is even on the books for a fire-fighting plane. But no plane was ever bought. In fact, the Army once had a special unit to fight fires, but the unit was disbanded.
Moving the fire department on paper is easy, but assigning a tangible budget is another. Should Eli Ishai manage to move the fire-department to another ministry he will have passed this hot potato to another ministry, but then the question is will another ministry treat the situation any differently?
The answer is 42 and counting. That's the number of people killed so far by this fire. Three others are still in critical condition. The deaths of these hapless victims push a mundane bureaucratic issue into another realm entirely. Someone commented that after the War in Lebanon II heads rolled. Then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was forced to resign as well as then Minister of Defense Amir Peretz; Army top brass retired. This analyst thought the same thing would happen after this tragic fiasco.
Israel's PM Benjamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu, to his credit, was on the case as soon as it was clear that the forest fire was beyond the capabilities of the Israeli fire department. He phoned abroad and over 30 countries agreed to pitch in, sending planes and manpower. Even Greece and Turkey, who hate each other, joined in the effort and worked together. And remember Turkey, at odds with Israel over a variety of issues, also surprised the locals by lending a hand. The Israel government also hired a US based "super-tanker" Boeing 747 capable of dropping 92,000 liters of fire-retardant in a single pass. Russia donated two smaller planes, each with 30,000 liters of material. It was these planes, along with the scores of others from around the world that helped contain the fire.
Now Bibi has gone on TV and committed his government to the purchase of two or three of the fire fighting planes like those sent by Greece and Turkey. Bibi also promises a new renovated fire department. Perhaps he'll actually do something about his promises.
But the problem behind the fire is Netanyahu's government. Eli Ishai represents Shas. That party is like a hungry child devouring whatever comes within reach and asking for more. It is not that the move is on to oust Eli Ishai, the move is really to oust Shas.
The Shas' outlook hurt Israel when a group of Christian evangelists offered to buy modern fire trucks some months back. According to the Jerusalem Post Eli Ishai turned them down because of religious reasons. Analysts say that should Netanyahu reform his coalition and replace Shas with another party, one that has members who pay taxes and serve in the army, then perhaps the massive split forming in Israeli society will be healed.
Meanwhile Bibi Netanyahu is reportedly concerned about keeping the ultra-orthodox parties in place should he succeed in hammering out a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu is counting on the ultra-orthodox, who are being well-paid now from the government budget in the form of subsidies to their yeshiva students and other perks, to vote for his plan when the time comes.
Pundits think that better perhaps would be for Bibi to discard the ultra-orthodox and take his chances with a moderate non-religious party. But, according to informed sources, Bibi thinks of history, and his place in it, and the history books won't write about him for saving trees, but will write about him for making peace. Is this philosophy shortsighted? According to Wikileaks the Americans and many Arab countries consider the Palestinian issue a huge stumbling block to dealing with the Iranian issue that nearly everyone apparently consider highly volatile. The push for a PA/Israeli peace treaty is considered a necessary precursor to dealing with Iran. Should this attitude change, say the analysts, then Bibi would rethink the make-up of his government coalition.
Commentators say that a new coalition would change the way Israel behaves towards its own citizens: forcing the ultra-orthodox to go to work, join the army, pay taxes. This change would, according to analysts, insure Israel's viability financially and defensively for years to come. But can this change be accomplished under US pressure to make a deal with the Palestinians? Apparently Bibi doesn't think so. This means, according to pundits, that Shas and the other ultra-orthodox parties supporting Netanyahu in the Knesset will continue to get their way, receiving money funneled to yeshiva students (many of whom are fictitious, used as a way to gain more money for the yeshivas) rather than the university students or even the fire department.
After 80 odd hours the physical fire was out but the political fire was smoldering. Bibi acted decisively, unlike George W. Bush during Katrina, nor Barak Obama during the oil spill. Perhaps this decisiveness will save his political hide even though he knew about these fire department shortfalls for years.
Eli Ishai has been calling for a commission of inquiry knowing he has the paper to cover his behind. Analysts say these commissions take months to form and a year to study the material and another half-year to reach conclusions that rarely have any real effect.
However, the irascible State Controller Michael Lindenstraus is preparing his own report on the shortfalls that caused the disaster. This may well fan the smoldering political coals and create a new and powerful fire department capable of handling a fire and preventing it from becoming a mega blaze.
Trees don't vote. That's been the problem. But over 40 deaths justifiably have gravitas. Will that bus tragedy change a government?
Time will tell.
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Ruling From Afar
Israel has been an independent state since 1948. This 62-year period is the longest in history that the Jewish people have ruled their own country. The combined terms of Kings David and Solomon don’t match that, and Solomon, who consolidated his warlord father’s power, controlled Israel for only 39-years.
After that a succession of conquerors ruled Israel, most often from afar. The most famous were the Persians under Cyrus, the Greeks under Antiochus and the Romans under Titus. The latter resulted in a dispersion of the Jews from Israel and the end of a 1,000-year Jewish kingdom.
Once the idea of resettlement of Israel became a goal, brought about by second-class citizenship in the Russian empire, and the rise of socialism, which arose both independent of and paradoxically part of the same equation, Israel has been essentially ruled by outside powers steering policy.
Both the first and second aliya were as much idealism as escapism. The subjugation of the poverty stricken peasants fostered the taste for revolt; the alternative of starting a new society in an ancient homeland was the escape from tyranny. Nationalism was on the rise. Russian nationalists chose to implement socialist polices in their homeland; some Jews decided to try the socialist experiment in their own land, or at least land that was once historically theirs.
Many of the original settlers were disenfranchised orthodox Jews, today called ‘yotzei em sheala’ (leaving religious life with questions). Like Ben Gurion, the leaders had been raised in ultra-orthodox homes, their lives circumscribed by the rules and regulations set down by the rabbis in the small towns and villages in the Pale of Settlement, just about the only place the Tsar allowed them to live. Poverty was endemic. Work was restricted to agriculture. Oppression was a tight heavy yoke. No wonder many young men and women fled restrictive religious life and sought freedom in socialism and revolution. Those with firm foundations in Judaism sought to transfer this socialism and escapism to a utopian state outlined by the non-religious Viennese journalist Theordore Herzl in his landmark treatise “The Jewish State.”
But starting a country isn’t like starting a dot com company. Money has to be raised. A structure has to be devised. Leaders have to be found. A plan has to be followed. And then there is the question of survival, not only what to eat, but how to defend against hostile neighbors. Defense means weapons and training. Both require funds.
The early Zionists had to be both idealists and materialists. Had to have enough fervor to excite a crowd, keep them excited as they dug in malarial swamps, hacked away at parched earth, built on shifting sands. Yet material enough to realize that schnooring was a necessity. Money had to come from somewhere.
Tzdeka is an age-old Jewish tradition that traces its roots back to the Old Testament. A widow had to be cared for, also orphans, the sick, the needy. Along the way the ethics were refined: a wealthy man who became poor should be supported by the community in the style to which he was accustomed; the Torah scholar must be supported by the community lacking the scholar’s exceptional intellectual skills.
The wealthier Jewish merchants were always solicited for contributions, to the poor and needy, for a synagogue, a mikva, a Torah scroll. When the Jewish State was discussed, the wealthier Jews were brought into the mix. The Rothschilds put up money for farming equipment, a vineyard, financed new towns. An Italian/British financier named Montefiore helped with the foundations of a New Jerusalem. Simple Jews around the world were solicited for their pennies, just as U.S. President Obama appealed to donors for their dollar bills.
The bigger the child, the bigger the problems. The larger the country grew the larger the needs. Pre-state Israel, then named Palestine by the early Zionists, became a receiving nation. Like Jamestown in the British Colony, early agricultural settlements were communal. Most of the Jews lived on handouts from abroad.
Fast-forward a hundred years. The modern state of Israel is the second in hi-tech start-ups in the world with a GNP greater than all the surrounding Arab states combined. A standard of living envied by Israel’s neighbors, who still remain third-world countries. Israel’s intellectual potential was utilized, allowed to flourish, producing one of the economies hardly affected by a near financial collapse around the world.
Even the Arab population living under Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza benefited from Israel’s financial success. As bad as the life is in the West Bank according to Arab sources, the standard of living, if work can be found, is still better than in other countries.
Israel is an independent state, capable of supplying other nations with aide, sending rescue teams to earthquake zones like Haiti and Turkey, supplying food and medical equipment to Thailand, helping out when possible.
But rather than join Israel as it developed, the Arab nationalists of the 1930’s, the Palestinian nationalists of the 1960’s, the Khoumanism of the eighties, the Islamic zealousness of the 90’s, all sought to deny Israel and the Jewish population an existence.
Ideally this enmity wouldn’t exist, but idealism is good in theory, until the bombs go off in the busses, the missiles fall into the settlements, throats are slit all the way through the spinal cord in a grisly decapitation.
Co-existence is a two-sided endeavor. Oil, politics, corruption, greed, all mix together to make the Middle East what it is. While the majority of Israelis abhor discrimination in theory, they still practice it, against their own citizens and their neighbors.
But discrimination isn’t limited to the Israelis. When the Black Plague swept Europe in the 14th Century, the Jews were blamed. No necessity in going on with the list of disgusting accusations that resulted in millions of Jews murdered over the centuries. Frequently this enmity is pure jealousy. Christians angered that Jews refused to accept Jesus as the Messiah; Moslems angry at Jews refusing to follow the ways of Islam. Secularists angered that the Jews were religious, businessmen angry that the Jews succeeded where they failed. On and on, as Kurt Vonnegut wrote, once, On and On.
To defend herself Israel became an armed camp. From the early Fedayin to the Hamas , Hezbollah, and Achmenijads of today, weapons were needed for defense, sophisticated, expensive weapons. Israel started by purchasing weapons with donations made by wealthy Jews. Then aligning herself with countries seeking to exert political influence in the region.
The best friend Israel ever had is the United States, a country that recognizes Israel as the one stable Democracy in the region. Not a pure democracy, to be sure. Not an American democracy. But the US has supported and supports other countries with even worse offenses than Israel. Some of them were huge mistakes, like the S. Vietnamese. Others, most in fact, took the money and pocketed it. Not Israel.
So when U.S President Obama decides to push Israel into a peace agreement, the pressure starts to resonate with the historical past, reminders of the rulers who controlled the Holy Land from afar, the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Turks, British.
ADL director Abe Foxman has said that the US is pursuing a mistaken policy in the Middle East, one that was always wrong. One that puts Israel as the key to peace.
When U.S. President Obama decides that Israel shouldn’t build up Jerusalem, that decision may easily be construed as interfering in the internal affairs of another country.
When President Obama, under advice by well-meaning liberals and friends of Israel like Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod, push for a peace conference with the Palestinians, some pundits see this as a means to distract the world from the failures of Obama’s ability to make good on his campaign promises.
When all else fails, blame the Jews, is an old tactic, long practiced, usually with disastrous results for the Jews. Analysts wonder if cynical politics isn’t at work at what is called the lowest point in the US-Israel relations in 35-years.
Whatever the reasons, ruling from afar seems not to have gone out of style, no matter what Washington is saying,
After that a succession of conquerors ruled Israel, most often from afar. The most famous were the Persians under Cyrus, the Greeks under Antiochus and the Romans under Titus. The latter resulted in a dispersion of the Jews from Israel and the end of a 1,000-year Jewish kingdom.
Once the idea of resettlement of Israel became a goal, brought about by second-class citizenship in the Russian empire, and the rise of socialism, which arose both independent of and paradoxically part of the same equation, Israel has been essentially ruled by outside powers steering policy.
Both the first and second aliya were as much idealism as escapism. The subjugation of the poverty stricken peasants fostered the taste for revolt; the alternative of starting a new society in an ancient homeland was the escape from tyranny. Nationalism was on the rise. Russian nationalists chose to implement socialist polices in their homeland; some Jews decided to try the socialist experiment in their own land, or at least land that was once historically theirs.
Many of the original settlers were disenfranchised orthodox Jews, today called ‘yotzei em sheala’ (leaving religious life with questions). Like Ben Gurion, the leaders had been raised in ultra-orthodox homes, their lives circumscribed by the rules and regulations set down by the rabbis in the small towns and villages in the Pale of Settlement, just about the only place the Tsar allowed them to live. Poverty was endemic. Work was restricted to agriculture. Oppression was a tight heavy yoke. No wonder many young men and women fled restrictive religious life and sought freedom in socialism and revolution. Those with firm foundations in Judaism sought to transfer this socialism and escapism to a utopian state outlined by the non-religious Viennese journalist Theordore Herzl in his landmark treatise “The Jewish State.”
But starting a country isn’t like starting a dot com company. Money has to be raised. A structure has to be devised. Leaders have to be found. A plan has to be followed. And then there is the question of survival, not only what to eat, but how to defend against hostile neighbors. Defense means weapons and training. Both require funds.
The early Zionists had to be both idealists and materialists. Had to have enough fervor to excite a crowd, keep them excited as they dug in malarial swamps, hacked away at parched earth, built on shifting sands. Yet material enough to realize that schnooring was a necessity. Money had to come from somewhere.
Tzdeka is an age-old Jewish tradition that traces its roots back to the Old Testament. A widow had to be cared for, also orphans, the sick, the needy. Along the way the ethics were refined: a wealthy man who became poor should be supported by the community in the style to which he was accustomed; the Torah scholar must be supported by the community lacking the scholar’s exceptional intellectual skills.
The wealthier Jewish merchants were always solicited for contributions, to the poor and needy, for a synagogue, a mikva, a Torah scroll. When the Jewish State was discussed, the wealthier Jews were brought into the mix. The Rothschilds put up money for farming equipment, a vineyard, financed new towns. An Italian/British financier named Montefiore helped with the foundations of a New Jerusalem. Simple Jews around the world were solicited for their pennies, just as U.S. President Obama appealed to donors for their dollar bills.
The bigger the child, the bigger the problems. The larger the country grew the larger the needs. Pre-state Israel, then named Palestine by the early Zionists, became a receiving nation. Like Jamestown in the British Colony, early agricultural settlements were communal. Most of the Jews lived on handouts from abroad.
Fast-forward a hundred years. The modern state of Israel is the second in hi-tech start-ups in the world with a GNP greater than all the surrounding Arab states combined. A standard of living envied by Israel’s neighbors, who still remain third-world countries. Israel’s intellectual potential was utilized, allowed to flourish, producing one of the economies hardly affected by a near financial collapse around the world.
Even the Arab population living under Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza benefited from Israel’s financial success. As bad as the life is in the West Bank according to Arab sources, the standard of living, if work can be found, is still better than in other countries.
Israel is an independent state, capable of supplying other nations with aide, sending rescue teams to earthquake zones like Haiti and Turkey, supplying food and medical equipment to Thailand, helping out when possible.
But rather than join Israel as it developed, the Arab nationalists of the 1930’s, the Palestinian nationalists of the 1960’s, the Khoumanism of the eighties, the Islamic zealousness of the 90’s, all sought to deny Israel and the Jewish population an existence.
Ideally this enmity wouldn’t exist, but idealism is good in theory, until the bombs go off in the busses, the missiles fall into the settlements, throats are slit all the way through the spinal cord in a grisly decapitation.
Co-existence is a two-sided endeavor. Oil, politics, corruption, greed, all mix together to make the Middle East what it is. While the majority of Israelis abhor discrimination in theory, they still practice it, against their own citizens and their neighbors.
But discrimination isn’t limited to the Israelis. When the Black Plague swept Europe in the 14th Century, the Jews were blamed. No necessity in going on with the list of disgusting accusations that resulted in millions of Jews murdered over the centuries. Frequently this enmity is pure jealousy. Christians angered that Jews refused to accept Jesus as the Messiah; Moslems angry at Jews refusing to follow the ways of Islam. Secularists angered that the Jews were religious, businessmen angry that the Jews succeeded where they failed. On and on, as Kurt Vonnegut wrote, once, On and On.
To defend herself Israel became an armed camp. From the early Fedayin to the Hamas , Hezbollah, and Achmenijads of today, weapons were needed for defense, sophisticated, expensive weapons. Israel started by purchasing weapons with donations made by wealthy Jews. Then aligning herself with countries seeking to exert political influence in the region.
The best friend Israel ever had is the United States, a country that recognizes Israel as the one stable Democracy in the region. Not a pure democracy, to be sure. Not an American democracy. But the US has supported and supports other countries with even worse offenses than Israel. Some of them were huge mistakes, like the S. Vietnamese. Others, most in fact, took the money and pocketed it. Not Israel.
So when U.S President Obama decides to push Israel into a peace agreement, the pressure starts to resonate with the historical past, reminders of the rulers who controlled the Holy Land from afar, the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Turks, British.
ADL director Abe Foxman has said that the US is pursuing a mistaken policy in the Middle East, one that was always wrong. One that puts Israel as the key to peace.
When U.S. President Obama decides that Israel shouldn’t build up Jerusalem, that decision may easily be construed as interfering in the internal affairs of another country.
When President Obama, under advice by well-meaning liberals and friends of Israel like Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod, push for a peace conference with the Palestinians, some pundits see this as a means to distract the world from the failures of Obama’s ability to make good on his campaign promises.
When all else fails, blame the Jews, is an old tactic, long practiced, usually with disastrous results for the Jews. Analysts wonder if cynical politics isn’t at work at what is called the lowest point in the US-Israel relations in 35-years.
Whatever the reasons, ruling from afar seems not to have gone out of style, no matter what Washington is saying,
Friday, February 05, 2010
What Were They Thinking?
A recent announcement by Israel’s Ministry of Defense sent the residents of the beleaguered Southern Israeli town of Sderot scurrying to their phones to call the media, and
whomever else they could, to muster support for an initiative to change the Ministry’s mind over the decision not to implement an anti-missile system for the small towns along Israel’s Southern and Northern borders.
At stake was the safety of the citizens of Sderot. The Ministry of Defense decided that the Iron Dome anti-missile system, recently tested successfully by Rafael Industries off the coast of Israel, would be stored at an airforce base in the South of Israel.
The media pointed out that Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, and others in the Ministry’s R&D division, championed the Iron Dome system as a solution to the problems of Sderot’s residents. The Iron Dome, Barak claimed, was going protect the citizens of Sderot from mortars and short-range Katyusha rockets.
Now the Ministry says that the Iron Dome takes nearly 30-seconds to go on-line, about twenty-seconds longer than it takes a rocket to fly the two or three kilometers from Gaza into Sderot. The Ministry also said that the Iron Dome was more effective with larger rockets, like the Iranian made Fajr 5, with a range of 75 kilometers.
Clearly the Iron Dome is a system that is needed to defend Israel’s industrial heartland and major population center around Tel Aviv against Hamas in the South and Hezbollah in the North. In fact, no Iron Dome batteries are planned for deployment in the North at this time, according to the Ministry.
Military correspondent Yossie Melman, writing in Haaretz this week, said that the Iron Dome system was never designed to protect the Northern settlements nor those in the South. Rather it was a nod to Rafael, one of Israel’s major defense contractors, who lost out in the development of the Arrow anti-missile system, designed to protect Israel from long-range rockets flying out of countries like Syria and Iran.
According to Melman the anti-missile Gattling gun and the Nautilus laser canon system, would have been much more effective to defend Sderot, or Kyriat Shmona. Back when these systems were being tested experts claimed that the Ministry of Defense was concerned that should either the Gattling gun or Nautilus alternatives be chosen then the Iron Dome would be put on a back burner. The indications are that the Iron Dome was shoved through under false pretenses in order to throw Rafael work, and not directly for security reasons.
One pundit defended the Ministry’s actions arguing that companies like Rafael must be kept in business because they provide a vital role in developing and manufacturing systems used to defend Israel. The consolation prize of the Iron Dome would insure Rafael’s profitability since each Iron Dome battery will cost the government over $50 million, and dozens of the batteries are needed to protect the country, and form a real Iron Dome. The total cost is now estimated at over $1 billion. One analyst pointed out that estimated budgets are usually thirty-percent below the final cost.
An observer of the defense industries pointed out that if this was a bone tossed to Rafael, he’d hate to see what happened when they tossed them a real consolation prize.
The residents of Sderot have begun a campaign to change the Ministry’s mind, and have the Iron Dome deployed in Sderot rather than warehoused in an airforce base even though sources pointed out to these residents that anyway the Iron Dome wouldn’t be able to protect them, since the system was too slow to stop short-range rockets.
Will the Ministry of Defense now turn to the Gattling gun or Nautilus solution? Pundits speculate that depends on how much pressure Sderot can put on the government.
As for Syria, recently the Syrian Foreign Minister accused Israel of dragging Syria into a new war that would encompass the entire Middle East. Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Leiberman responded that should Syria attack Israel, Syria would be defeated and a new regime would then take over power in Syria.
Both Israel’s PM Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu and Israel’s Minister of Defense Ehud Barak have tried to downplay Leiberman’s threats. Most analysts believe that neither Syria nor Israel are preparing for nor want a war, rather that Syria is blowing off steam. Israel’s Foreign Minister, say these analysts, is talking tough for no good reason other than that’s who he is.
Avigdor Leiberman is still under investigation by the Israel police for a variety of charges, most involved in money laundering of one type or another. The police have been investigating Leiberman for over a decade, and no indictment has ever been issued. Leiberman has called on the government to stop the investigation, saying that a decade is long enough to be harassed by the police.
A few analysts say that the investigation is used primarily to keep Leiberman in line, with the threat of an indictment over his head in case he goes too far in a direction the ‘powers that be’ find offensive. No proof has been given to this cynical observation, other than the fact that the investigation continues with no indictment.
Gilad Shalit is still a captive in Gaza, facing his fourth year of imprisonment. Observers say that as ususal, whenever Hamas feels they’re not getting attention they trot out Shalit and offer to renew negotiations. This policy, observers say, is the same one that PLO founder Yassir Arafat used for decades to keep the ‘Palestinian Issue’ on the front burner of the world’s consciousness. Pundits say that Hamas realizes the tactic worked wonderfully for Arafat, so why not for them. So far, say these pundits, Hamas is correct.
Analysts wonder why the Palestinian issue has such great appeal around the world, when so many other burning problems exist?
Hezbollah, the Shiite terrorist organization in Lebanon, is now a part of the Lebanese political establishment. Recently the UN caught Hezbollah with tons of weapons stockpiled in S. Lebanon. Israel used this discovered to claim that Hezbollah is preparing another war with Israel. Hezbollah claims it is Israel preparing for the war. One observer states that Hezbollah has vowed to eliminate Israel, as have both Hamas and Iran. Israel, says the analyst, has never vowed to eliminate any of these forces. So why, the analyst asked, is Israel seen as the aggressor?
Given that Israel is facing long-range threats from Iran, and medium range rockets from Hezbollah and Hamas, it is clear why the Iron Dome is needed. But one pundit asked why Sderot and the border towns in the North should be exposed to danger, using only the early warning system of sirens and bomb shelters, for their safety? What were the defense officials thinking, asks this pundit, when these small communities were ignored?
whomever else they could, to muster support for an initiative to change the Ministry’s mind over the decision not to implement an anti-missile system for the small towns along Israel’s Southern and Northern borders.
At stake was the safety of the citizens of Sderot. The Ministry of Defense decided that the Iron Dome anti-missile system, recently tested successfully by Rafael Industries off the coast of Israel, would be stored at an airforce base in the South of Israel.
The media pointed out that Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, and others in the Ministry’s R&D division, championed the Iron Dome system as a solution to the problems of Sderot’s residents. The Iron Dome, Barak claimed, was going protect the citizens of Sderot from mortars and short-range Katyusha rockets.
Now the Ministry says that the Iron Dome takes nearly 30-seconds to go on-line, about twenty-seconds longer than it takes a rocket to fly the two or three kilometers from Gaza into Sderot. The Ministry also said that the Iron Dome was more effective with larger rockets, like the Iranian made Fajr 5, with a range of 75 kilometers.
Clearly the Iron Dome is a system that is needed to defend Israel’s industrial heartland and major population center around Tel Aviv against Hamas in the South and Hezbollah in the North. In fact, no Iron Dome batteries are planned for deployment in the North at this time, according to the Ministry.
Military correspondent Yossie Melman, writing in Haaretz this week, said that the Iron Dome system was never designed to protect the Northern settlements nor those in the South. Rather it was a nod to Rafael, one of Israel’s major defense contractors, who lost out in the development of the Arrow anti-missile system, designed to protect Israel from long-range rockets flying out of countries like Syria and Iran.
According to Melman the anti-missile Gattling gun and the Nautilus laser canon system, would have been much more effective to defend Sderot, or Kyriat Shmona. Back when these systems were being tested experts claimed that the Ministry of Defense was concerned that should either the Gattling gun or Nautilus alternatives be chosen then the Iron Dome would be put on a back burner. The indications are that the Iron Dome was shoved through under false pretenses in order to throw Rafael work, and not directly for security reasons.
One pundit defended the Ministry’s actions arguing that companies like Rafael must be kept in business because they provide a vital role in developing and manufacturing systems used to defend Israel. The consolation prize of the Iron Dome would insure Rafael’s profitability since each Iron Dome battery will cost the government over $50 million, and dozens of the batteries are needed to protect the country, and form a real Iron Dome. The total cost is now estimated at over $1 billion. One analyst pointed out that estimated budgets are usually thirty-percent below the final cost.
An observer of the defense industries pointed out that if this was a bone tossed to Rafael, he’d hate to see what happened when they tossed them a real consolation prize.
The residents of Sderot have begun a campaign to change the Ministry’s mind, and have the Iron Dome deployed in Sderot rather than warehoused in an airforce base even though sources pointed out to these residents that anyway the Iron Dome wouldn’t be able to protect them, since the system was too slow to stop short-range rockets.
Will the Ministry of Defense now turn to the Gattling gun or Nautilus solution? Pundits speculate that depends on how much pressure Sderot can put on the government.
As for Syria, recently the Syrian Foreign Minister accused Israel of dragging Syria into a new war that would encompass the entire Middle East. Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Leiberman responded that should Syria attack Israel, Syria would be defeated and a new regime would then take over power in Syria.
Both Israel’s PM Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu and Israel’s Minister of Defense Ehud Barak have tried to downplay Leiberman’s threats. Most analysts believe that neither Syria nor Israel are preparing for nor want a war, rather that Syria is blowing off steam. Israel’s Foreign Minister, say these analysts, is talking tough for no good reason other than that’s who he is.
Avigdor Leiberman is still under investigation by the Israel police for a variety of charges, most involved in money laundering of one type or another. The police have been investigating Leiberman for over a decade, and no indictment has ever been issued. Leiberman has called on the government to stop the investigation, saying that a decade is long enough to be harassed by the police.
A few analysts say that the investigation is used primarily to keep Leiberman in line, with the threat of an indictment over his head in case he goes too far in a direction the ‘powers that be’ find offensive. No proof has been given to this cynical observation, other than the fact that the investigation continues with no indictment.
Gilad Shalit is still a captive in Gaza, facing his fourth year of imprisonment. Observers say that as ususal, whenever Hamas feels they’re not getting attention they trot out Shalit and offer to renew negotiations. This policy, observers say, is the same one that PLO founder Yassir Arafat used for decades to keep the ‘Palestinian Issue’ on the front burner of the world’s consciousness. Pundits say that Hamas realizes the tactic worked wonderfully for Arafat, so why not for them. So far, say these pundits, Hamas is correct.
Analysts wonder why the Palestinian issue has such great appeal around the world, when so many other burning problems exist?
Hezbollah, the Shiite terrorist organization in Lebanon, is now a part of the Lebanese political establishment. Recently the UN caught Hezbollah with tons of weapons stockpiled in S. Lebanon. Israel used this discovered to claim that Hezbollah is preparing another war with Israel. Hezbollah claims it is Israel preparing for the war. One observer states that Hezbollah has vowed to eliminate Israel, as have both Hamas and Iran. Israel, says the analyst, has never vowed to eliminate any of these forces. So why, the analyst asked, is Israel seen as the aggressor?
Given that Israel is facing long-range threats from Iran, and medium range rockets from Hezbollah and Hamas, it is clear why the Iron Dome is needed. But one pundit asked why Sderot and the border towns in the North should be exposed to danger, using only the early warning system of sirens and bomb shelters, for their safety? What were the defense officials thinking, asks this pundit, when these small communities were ignored?
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Israel and Switzerland
Trying to find out the breakdown of the Swiss economy can be rather difficult. Why would anyone living in Israel be interested in Switzerland? Simple. The Swiss population of 7.8 million people is roughly the same as that of Israel.
There the similarities nearly stop.
Switzerland has an economy of about $403 billion in 2007, making it, according to some charts, the 16th richest country in the world. It does have the highest per-capital income in the world, about $43,000 per person.
Israel’s per-capita income is $26,600 (2007 est.) with a surprising GDP of about $200 billion.
Most of Switzerland’s economy is based on according to the U.S. State Department website, Aug 2009: “Industry (est. 29% of GDP): Types--machinery, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, time pieces, precision instruments, textiles and clothing, pigment, transportation equipment.
Services (70% of GDP).
Trade: Merchandise exports (2007)--$172.6 billion (207.1 billion Swiss francs): food, beverages, and tobacco (3%; +24%); metal and chemical industries (42%; +12%); precision instruments (7%; +8%); watches (8%; +16%); machinery and electronics (21%; +11%); clothing 1.1%; +4%). Major markets--EU, United States, Canada, CIS, India, Brazil, Japan. Merchandise imports (2007)--$164.8 billion (197.7 billion Swiss francs): consumer goods (38%); equipment (19%); energy (7.1%); raw materials (28%). Major suppliers--EU, U.S., Canada, CIS, South Africa.”
Israel’s breakdown is similar to Switzerland’s. Agriculture: 2.6% industry: 32.4%
Services: 65% (2008 est.)
What big difference jumps out? War. Defense. Survival. Switzerland declared itself a neutral country. While Switzerland does maintain an army, they make sure it doesn’t really have to fight. When Switzerland joined the UN it was with the understanding the Swiss would never send troops to a conflict.
Believe it or not the Swiss air force shot down German planes that encroached Swiss airspace during WWII. They also engaged the US forces and during that war over 100 Allied troops were interned in Swiss prisons. The Allies bombed a few Swiss factories and towns. The Swiss were selling weapons to the Germans. Also the Swiss were lending the Germans money, depending though, how well the war was going.
According to the CIA World Factbook, Israel “… depends on imports of crude oil, grains, raw materials, and military equipment. Despite limited natural resources, Israel has intensively developed its agricultural and industrial sectors over the past 20 years. Israel imports substantial quantities of grain but is largely self-sufficient in other agricultural products. Cut diamonds, high-technology equipment, and agricultural products (fruits and vegetables) are the leading exports. Israel usually posts sizable trade deficits, which are covered by large transfer payments from abroad and by foreign loans. Roughly half of the government's external debt is owed to the US, its major source of economic and military aid.”
Another big difference between Switzerland and Israel is that Switzerland doesn’t depend on foreign aid to help with its deficit, since it has no deficit. The US provides Israel with about 5 percent of Israel’s GDP. Nearly $3 billion in foreign aid, another $2.5 billion in military grants and loans for the purchase of military weapons, supplies, and replacement parts. Then there’s the additional $10 billion in load guarantees the U.S. provides.
Switzerland’s budget surplus allows Switzerland to remain neutral. Israel, on the other hand, remains dependent on the USA to help Israel with the 10 percent of the GDP spent on defense (about $20 billion a year). Imagine, one pundit says, that if Israel could devote that 10 percent to hi-tech, services, tourism, the positive effect on the economy. And, the pundit adds, don’t forget when a soldier does reserve duty for 30-days, he’s away from his job that is productive to the economy, and gets paid for the month.
So when Israel’s PM Bibi Netanyahu goes to meet with President Obama for a trilateral summit including the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas, pundits say he goes not because he wants to, but because the largest donor to Israel’s cause has asked him to.
Israeli Jet fighters, tanks, Armored Personnel Carriers, all run on US engines; helicopters, machine guns, rifles, are pure US Army issue. One observer said, ‘Try telling the country that puts the engines in your tanks and planes you’re not interested in sitting down with the PA for a discussion that may lead to peace. Hard to do.’
The Israeli media’s take on this new summit is that PM Netanyahu is going just because he was pressured by the US to go. In this case pressure could mean shutting off the flow of arms and supplies the Israeli army needs from the US. These threats have happened in the past, under US President Nixon, the first US President Bush, and US President Carter.
So, say the observers, going to New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel to sit with Abbas and Obama isn’t such a big deal. One cartoon shows a nervous sweating Obama sitting near Abbas and Netanyahu pleading for ‘just a little handshake, please.’
“Obama’s 11th Hour Push” was the headline in the Israeli paper Haaretz. After much back and forth by US Special Envoy George Mitchell, Netanyahu and Abbas agreed to go to Washington. Abbas, according to the paper, has little legitimacy since his term of office has officially ended and he extended it with the approval of his narrow cabinet, even though elections were scheduled.
Netanayhu has a right-wing coalition to answer to back home and isn’t willing to make any concessions prior to the meeting. This lack of concession is something that has embarrassed Abbas, according to analysts. In today’s Haaretz a report came in about new construction outside the settlement of Beitar Ilit, in contravention of the assurances Israel Minister of Defense Ehud Barak has given George Mitchell.
Most analysts say nothing substantive will come out of the meeting. Netanyahu said today that he’d stop settlement activity if the Arab states would allow Israeli commercial aircraft to fly over their airspace.
Lebanon’s strongman Sheik Nasrallah said this week that he’d never recognize Israel as a state. Hamas has echoed this statement. Syrian President Assad seems to be playing a double game, supplying Hezbollah with arms while talking about peace with Israel. The Iranian dictator has kept on threatening Israel with annihilation.
So what happened to Switzerland?
Israelis pay huge taxes on everything in order to support a military that is necessary to defend the borders. The Swiss are sailing along, no one on their borders threatening them with annihilation, no one calling for their destruction, no one saying they won’t recognize Switzerland as a state.
A veteran analyst said ‘A successful peace process in the Middle East would be wonderful. Especially one with teeth that worked. That really brought peace. But sometimes peace isn’t possible, much as it is desired. A teenager can want to have a lusty affair with Angelina Jolie, but that doesn’t mean it will ever happen.’
Another analyst says that considering the difficulties Israel has faced up to now, it is amazing that the economy is so strong, and Israel is so successful in a number of fields.
The $200 billion less than Switzerland that Israel now makes could be $200 billion more without having to constantly spend precious resources on defense.
The father of neo-conservatism, Irving Krystol, who died recently, said he thought the conflict in the Middle East was a waste.
Clearly, if Israel can make peace with the Palestinians, and then the Arab world, this would be in Israel’s best interest. One observer says that Israelis have shown a lot of things but stupidity isn’t one of them. If peace were possible, he says, then Israel would leap at it.
President Obama’s belief is that Israel is the lynchpin to peace in the Middle East, and to quelling the rise in Islamic Fundamentalism. Perhaps he’s right. If so, and the correct formula is reached, Israel will go along with it. There are few Israelis around who wouldn’t want to turn Israel into Switzerland.
In this Jewish New Year, let’s hope that a positive fate is written in the Book of Life for a real chance for peace.
Shana Tova
There the similarities nearly stop.
Switzerland has an economy of about $403 billion in 2007, making it, according to some charts, the 16th richest country in the world. It does have the highest per-capital income in the world, about $43,000 per person.
Israel’s per-capita income is $26,600 (2007 est.) with a surprising GDP of about $200 billion.
Most of Switzerland’s economy is based on according to the U.S. State Department website, Aug 2009: “Industry (est. 29% of GDP): Types--machinery, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, time pieces, precision instruments, textiles and clothing, pigment, transportation equipment.
Services (70% of GDP).
Trade: Merchandise exports (2007)--$172.6 billion (207.1 billion Swiss francs): food, beverages, and tobacco (3%; +24%); metal and chemical industries (42%; +12%); precision instruments (7%; +8%); watches (8%; +16%); machinery and electronics (21%; +11%); clothing 1.1%; +4%). Major markets--EU, United States, Canada, CIS, India, Brazil, Japan. Merchandise imports (2007)--$164.8 billion (197.7 billion Swiss francs): consumer goods (38%); equipment (19%); energy (7.1%); raw materials (28%). Major suppliers--EU, U.S., Canada, CIS, South Africa.”
Israel’s breakdown is similar to Switzerland’s. Agriculture: 2.6% industry: 32.4%
Services: 65% (2008 est.)
What big difference jumps out? War. Defense. Survival. Switzerland declared itself a neutral country. While Switzerland does maintain an army, they make sure it doesn’t really have to fight. When Switzerland joined the UN it was with the understanding the Swiss would never send troops to a conflict.
Believe it or not the Swiss air force shot down German planes that encroached Swiss airspace during WWII. They also engaged the US forces and during that war over 100 Allied troops were interned in Swiss prisons. The Allies bombed a few Swiss factories and towns. The Swiss were selling weapons to the Germans. Also the Swiss were lending the Germans money, depending though, how well the war was going.
According to the CIA World Factbook, Israel “… depends on imports of crude oil, grains, raw materials, and military equipment. Despite limited natural resources, Israel has intensively developed its agricultural and industrial sectors over the past 20 years. Israel imports substantial quantities of grain but is largely self-sufficient in other agricultural products. Cut diamonds, high-technology equipment, and agricultural products (fruits and vegetables) are the leading exports. Israel usually posts sizable trade deficits, which are covered by large transfer payments from abroad and by foreign loans. Roughly half of the government's external debt is owed to the US, its major source of economic and military aid.”
Another big difference between Switzerland and Israel is that Switzerland doesn’t depend on foreign aid to help with its deficit, since it has no deficit. The US provides Israel with about 5 percent of Israel’s GDP. Nearly $3 billion in foreign aid, another $2.5 billion in military grants and loans for the purchase of military weapons, supplies, and replacement parts. Then there’s the additional $10 billion in load guarantees the U.S. provides.
Switzerland’s budget surplus allows Switzerland to remain neutral. Israel, on the other hand, remains dependent on the USA to help Israel with the 10 percent of the GDP spent on defense (about $20 billion a year). Imagine, one pundit says, that if Israel could devote that 10 percent to hi-tech, services, tourism, the positive effect on the economy. And, the pundit adds, don’t forget when a soldier does reserve duty for 30-days, he’s away from his job that is productive to the economy, and gets paid for the month.
So when Israel’s PM Bibi Netanyahu goes to meet with President Obama for a trilateral summit including the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas, pundits say he goes not because he wants to, but because the largest donor to Israel’s cause has asked him to.
Israeli Jet fighters, tanks, Armored Personnel Carriers, all run on US engines; helicopters, machine guns, rifles, are pure US Army issue. One observer said, ‘Try telling the country that puts the engines in your tanks and planes you’re not interested in sitting down with the PA for a discussion that may lead to peace. Hard to do.’
The Israeli media’s take on this new summit is that PM Netanyahu is going just because he was pressured by the US to go. In this case pressure could mean shutting off the flow of arms and supplies the Israeli army needs from the US. These threats have happened in the past, under US President Nixon, the first US President Bush, and US President Carter.
So, say the observers, going to New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel to sit with Abbas and Obama isn’t such a big deal. One cartoon shows a nervous sweating Obama sitting near Abbas and Netanyahu pleading for ‘just a little handshake, please.’
“Obama’s 11th Hour Push” was the headline in the Israeli paper Haaretz. After much back and forth by US Special Envoy George Mitchell, Netanyahu and Abbas agreed to go to Washington. Abbas, according to the paper, has little legitimacy since his term of office has officially ended and he extended it with the approval of his narrow cabinet, even though elections were scheduled.
Netanayhu has a right-wing coalition to answer to back home and isn’t willing to make any concessions prior to the meeting. This lack of concession is something that has embarrassed Abbas, according to analysts. In today’s Haaretz a report came in about new construction outside the settlement of Beitar Ilit, in contravention of the assurances Israel Minister of Defense Ehud Barak has given George Mitchell.
Most analysts say nothing substantive will come out of the meeting. Netanyahu said today that he’d stop settlement activity if the Arab states would allow Israeli commercial aircraft to fly over their airspace.
Lebanon’s strongman Sheik Nasrallah said this week that he’d never recognize Israel as a state. Hamas has echoed this statement. Syrian President Assad seems to be playing a double game, supplying Hezbollah with arms while talking about peace with Israel. The Iranian dictator has kept on threatening Israel with annihilation.
So what happened to Switzerland?
Israelis pay huge taxes on everything in order to support a military that is necessary to defend the borders. The Swiss are sailing along, no one on their borders threatening them with annihilation, no one calling for their destruction, no one saying they won’t recognize Switzerland as a state.
A veteran analyst said ‘A successful peace process in the Middle East would be wonderful. Especially one with teeth that worked. That really brought peace. But sometimes peace isn’t possible, much as it is desired. A teenager can want to have a lusty affair with Angelina Jolie, but that doesn’t mean it will ever happen.’
Another analyst says that considering the difficulties Israel has faced up to now, it is amazing that the economy is so strong, and Israel is so successful in a number of fields.
The $200 billion less than Switzerland that Israel now makes could be $200 billion more without having to constantly spend precious resources on defense.
The father of neo-conservatism, Irving Krystol, who died recently, said he thought the conflict in the Middle East was a waste.
Clearly, if Israel can make peace with the Palestinians, and then the Arab world, this would be in Israel’s best interest. One observer says that Israelis have shown a lot of things but stupidity isn’t one of them. If peace were possible, he says, then Israel would leap at it.
President Obama’s belief is that Israel is the lynchpin to peace in the Middle East, and to quelling the rise in Islamic Fundamentalism. Perhaps he’s right. If so, and the correct formula is reached, Israel will go along with it. There are few Israelis around who wouldn’t want to turn Israel into Switzerland.
In this Jewish New Year, let’s hope that a positive fate is written in the Book of Life for a real chance for peace.
Shana Tova
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Survivors and Obama
President Barak Obama is viewed with suspicion in Israel, according to most reports, especially among the Holocaust survivors. “I don’t know what he’s going to do, so I’m a little suspicious,” said Prof. David Halivni Weiss, 82, who survived the Wolfsberg subcamp during the Holocaust.
Professor HaLivni was commenting after meeting another survivor who it turned out had been in the same camp at the same time. Halivni went to meet the other man last Wednesday, and the two shared common threads of their experiences.
Zolly Schwimmer, 94, still has a firm grip on his long-term memory. He had set up a panel of papers taped to the dining room wall of his Netanya, Israel apartment, including what he claims is the only sketch of the outline of the camp.
Both men remembered the tin plates they carried for what little food they ate. Prof. Halivni, a Talmud scholar and Israel Prize winner, recalled a scan the SS guards used. “It was the potato peelers job. They said anyone who wanted to could peel potatoes. That sounded like a good job, a bit of potato to eat, even a peel. So I volunteered. And I was in line when one of the Kapos, who was from my home town, pulled me out of line.
I didn’t like that. So I volunteered again, and again he pulled me out of line. Later I found out he’d saved my life because there was no potato peeling job. It was a ruse. They took the volunteers out and shot them.”
Why did he think the guard saved him? “I think it was because I was an Eloui (child prodigy) in our town. That’s the only reason. Otherwise I didn’t really know him.”
Prof. Halvni was 16 when he was taken to the camps. Zolly Schwimmer was 29. Scwhimmer says he is used as a fact checker by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, and also the Holocaust Museum in Washington. “Some of the stories
About the camps are made up,” he said. “People remember what they want, and just keep repeating it.”
According to the men during the High Holidays a small minyan formed in a room using a prayer book, “Machzor” made up by one of the prisoners, who wrote what prayers he remembered on the inside of an abandoned paper sack that held the cement they used to build the underground ammunition bunkers.
The two disagreed if it were Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah, but Schwimmer said he was inside the room, while Halivni said he was kept outside because he was young. Still, prayers in the camps was something unusual.
Prof. Halivini also lectures on faith and the Holocaust. How could someone keep their faith in such an environment. The Holocaust, he said, taught him to be more critical of what man writes, not as accepting just because it is written down. This line of critical thinking is what distinguished him from most other orthodox Jewish Talmudists.
Both Zolly Schwimmer and David HaLivni married Holocaust survivors. Livni’s had passed away, but Mrs. Schiwmmer was busy setting the table for lunch, with potato salad, tuna, and other items. Fluent in Hebrew Mrs. Schwimmer told one of the luncheon guests she’d been in Auchwitz for a year and that her barracks were within meters of the crematorium.
At night some of the Kapos would come to an opening of the fence and yell the names of the families that were exterminated that day, so the information could be passed on to those who knew them. To this day, she said, she still wakes up with nightmares.
People like Schwimmer and HaLivni have learned to be suspicious of peoples’ intentions. There is clearly no comparison between President Obama and fascism, but just the hint of
Showing anti-Jewish bias is enough to make these men, as intelligent as they are, wary.
Some time back a contributor wrote about the ‘survival gene.’ Clearly, with experiences like those undergone by Mr. Schwimmer and Dr. Halivni, it’s no wonder that gene isn’t honed to a fine edge, and their survival antennae twitching as news pours out of Washington and other countries, like Iran.
Prime Minister Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu is being criticized for making entreaties to Hamas in efforts to restart the cease-fire agreements. The critics come from the Kadima party, more liberal than Netanyahu’s Likud, which makes the comments somewhat ironic, according to pundits.
Netanyahu is, analysts say, responding to the lead set by President Obama to try to get some movement in the Middle East peace process. Recently former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, viewed by some as an anti-Semite, and others as a well meaning but naïve liberal, visited Gaza. Then came George Mitchell, the State Department’s special envoy to the Middle East.
Following these visits suddenly the press was filled with reports of the eminent release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was captured three years ago and is reportedly being held in Gaza. Reports of his imminent release have surfaced every few months over the last few years, but never were more than talk.
Some point out that if Hamas would release Shalit it would be a sign of good faith; something the Israelis would use to mollify critics of any Obama peace initiative. While the papers recently said the release was imminent, Hamas leaders have denied such a release. Shalit has been the carrot dangled before the Israelis for three years, and nothing seems to have changed.
Some observers say that if Obama really had gained power with the Arabs from his Cairo Speech then he could pressure Hamas to release Shalit, just as he is pressuring Israel to freeze settlements and restart peace talks. But Obama, say the critics, seems more interested in making highly publicized demands of a pliable Israel than an obdurate Hamas.
Dennis Ross has been promoted from Special Envoy to the Middle East in the State Department to Middle East adviser in the White House. Ross recently published a book “Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East” with former Jerusalem Post editor David Makovsky, now senior fellow and director of the Washington Institute's Project on the Middle East Peace Process.
The book takes the position that a settlement freeze or settlements in general were a red herring, and not the crux of the Middle East’s problems. Perhaps, some say, once Ross is in the White House he can pass on this message to President Obama. Others say Ross was only appointed to guard Obama’s flank from attacks by the pro-Israeli voices.
On the Syrian front, the statements swing between bellicose threats of war to regain the Golan Heights, to moderate messages that Syria is prepared to seriously negotiate peace with Israel.
In Lebanon Saad Hariri, a sunni Musliim, is the new Premier who replaces political ally Fouad Sinioras , in a power-sharing agreement. Hariri is the first son of the slain Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri, blown up by a car bomb in 2005 in Beriut.
Both Syria and Hezbollah are suspected in the attack. Yesterday, Photos of the younger Hariri talking with Hizbollah strongman Sheik Nasrallah, were on the news. How this coalition will play out is something out of a Shakespearean play with all the court intrigues going on behind the backs of the prime players. Hariri and his later father were both prime movers in the pressuring Syria to withdraw from Lebanon. The younger Hariri has also been critical of Iranian influence in Lebanon.
With so many Holocaust survivors, and children of Holocaust survivors, in Israel, it’s no wonder that all of the machinations of the various parties in the middle east are looked up on with suspicion by those with bitter experience of power gone mad.
One observer stresses that President Obama means well, has surrounded himself with intelligent and liberal-minded advisers, including more than a few Jews; and says he only hopes that President Obama can keep a balance between what needs to be done to bring peace and what the temptations of appeasement could mean to Israel.
On the bright side, the World Bank has commissioned a feasibility study meant to finish in 2010 of a pipe or canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. The pipe would not only refill the quickly evaporating Dead Sea but also supply water to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian authority.
If nothing else this shows that the possibility of peaceful cooperation is possible. That’s assuming the canal ever starts to bring water from one sea to another, or if it won’t get stalled somewhere along the line much as the peace process and even the release of Gilad Shalit.
Professor HaLivni was commenting after meeting another survivor who it turned out had been in the same camp at the same time. Halivni went to meet the other man last Wednesday, and the two shared common threads of their experiences.
Zolly Schwimmer, 94, still has a firm grip on his long-term memory. He had set up a panel of papers taped to the dining room wall of his Netanya, Israel apartment, including what he claims is the only sketch of the outline of the camp.
Both men remembered the tin plates they carried for what little food they ate. Prof. Halivni, a Talmud scholar and Israel Prize winner, recalled a scan the SS guards used. “It was the potato peelers job. They said anyone who wanted to could peel potatoes. That sounded like a good job, a bit of potato to eat, even a peel. So I volunteered. And I was in line when one of the Kapos, who was from my home town, pulled me out of line.
I didn’t like that. So I volunteered again, and again he pulled me out of line. Later I found out he’d saved my life because there was no potato peeling job. It was a ruse. They took the volunteers out and shot them.”
Why did he think the guard saved him? “I think it was because I was an Eloui (child prodigy) in our town. That’s the only reason. Otherwise I didn’t really know him.”
Prof. Halvni was 16 when he was taken to the camps. Zolly Schwimmer was 29. Scwhimmer says he is used as a fact checker by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, and also the Holocaust Museum in Washington. “Some of the stories
About the camps are made up,” he said. “People remember what they want, and just keep repeating it.”
According to the men during the High Holidays a small minyan formed in a room using a prayer book, “Machzor” made up by one of the prisoners, who wrote what prayers he remembered on the inside of an abandoned paper sack that held the cement they used to build the underground ammunition bunkers.
The two disagreed if it were Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah, but Schwimmer said he was inside the room, while Halivni said he was kept outside because he was young. Still, prayers in the camps was something unusual.
Prof. Halivini also lectures on faith and the Holocaust. How could someone keep their faith in such an environment. The Holocaust, he said, taught him to be more critical of what man writes, not as accepting just because it is written down. This line of critical thinking is what distinguished him from most other orthodox Jewish Talmudists.
Both Zolly Schwimmer and David HaLivni married Holocaust survivors. Livni’s had passed away, but Mrs. Schiwmmer was busy setting the table for lunch, with potato salad, tuna, and other items. Fluent in Hebrew Mrs. Schwimmer told one of the luncheon guests she’d been in Auchwitz for a year and that her barracks were within meters of the crematorium.
At night some of the Kapos would come to an opening of the fence and yell the names of the families that were exterminated that day, so the information could be passed on to those who knew them. To this day, she said, she still wakes up with nightmares.
People like Schwimmer and HaLivni have learned to be suspicious of peoples’ intentions. There is clearly no comparison between President Obama and fascism, but just the hint of
Showing anti-Jewish bias is enough to make these men, as intelligent as they are, wary.
Some time back a contributor wrote about the ‘survival gene.’ Clearly, with experiences like those undergone by Mr. Schwimmer and Dr. Halivni, it’s no wonder that gene isn’t honed to a fine edge, and their survival antennae twitching as news pours out of Washington and other countries, like Iran.
Prime Minister Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu is being criticized for making entreaties to Hamas in efforts to restart the cease-fire agreements. The critics come from the Kadima party, more liberal than Netanyahu’s Likud, which makes the comments somewhat ironic, according to pundits.
Netanyahu is, analysts say, responding to the lead set by President Obama to try to get some movement in the Middle East peace process. Recently former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, viewed by some as an anti-Semite, and others as a well meaning but naïve liberal, visited Gaza. Then came George Mitchell, the State Department’s special envoy to the Middle East.
Following these visits suddenly the press was filled with reports of the eminent release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was captured three years ago and is reportedly being held in Gaza. Reports of his imminent release have surfaced every few months over the last few years, but never were more than talk.
Some point out that if Hamas would release Shalit it would be a sign of good faith; something the Israelis would use to mollify critics of any Obama peace initiative. While the papers recently said the release was imminent, Hamas leaders have denied such a release. Shalit has been the carrot dangled before the Israelis for three years, and nothing seems to have changed.
Some observers say that if Obama really had gained power with the Arabs from his Cairo Speech then he could pressure Hamas to release Shalit, just as he is pressuring Israel to freeze settlements and restart peace talks. But Obama, say the critics, seems more interested in making highly publicized demands of a pliable Israel than an obdurate Hamas.
Dennis Ross has been promoted from Special Envoy to the Middle East in the State Department to Middle East adviser in the White House. Ross recently published a book “Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East” with former Jerusalem Post editor David Makovsky, now senior fellow and director of the Washington Institute's Project on the Middle East Peace Process.
The book takes the position that a settlement freeze or settlements in general were a red herring, and not the crux of the Middle East’s problems. Perhaps, some say, once Ross is in the White House he can pass on this message to President Obama. Others say Ross was only appointed to guard Obama’s flank from attacks by the pro-Israeli voices.
On the Syrian front, the statements swing between bellicose threats of war to regain the Golan Heights, to moderate messages that Syria is prepared to seriously negotiate peace with Israel.
In Lebanon Saad Hariri, a sunni Musliim, is the new Premier who replaces political ally Fouad Sinioras , in a power-sharing agreement. Hariri is the first son of the slain Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri, blown up by a car bomb in 2005 in Beriut.
Both Syria and Hezbollah are suspected in the attack. Yesterday, Photos of the younger Hariri talking with Hizbollah strongman Sheik Nasrallah, were on the news. How this coalition will play out is something out of a Shakespearean play with all the court intrigues going on behind the backs of the prime players. Hariri and his later father were both prime movers in the pressuring Syria to withdraw from Lebanon. The younger Hariri has also been critical of Iranian influence in Lebanon.
With so many Holocaust survivors, and children of Holocaust survivors, in Israel, it’s no wonder that all of the machinations of the various parties in the middle east are looked up on with suspicion by those with bitter experience of power gone mad.
One observer stresses that President Obama means well, has surrounded himself with intelligent and liberal-minded advisers, including more than a few Jews; and says he only hopes that President Obama can keep a balance between what needs to be done to bring peace and what the temptations of appeasement could mean to Israel.
On the bright side, the World Bank has commissioned a feasibility study meant to finish in 2010 of a pipe or canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. The pipe would not only refill the quickly evaporating Dead Sea but also supply water to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian authority.
If nothing else this shows that the possibility of peaceful cooperation is possible. That’s assuming the canal ever starts to bring water from one sea to another, or if it won’t get stalled somewhere along the line much as the peace process and even the release of Gilad Shalit.
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