mashdownbabylon

Sharon as de Gaulle

"Who is that masked man?" I joked under my breath during the Disengagement, as I heard yet another comparison made of Ariel Sharon to the late French President Charles de Gaulle. The fact that then-French President Jacques Chirac had told Israel’s Prime Minister the previous month that he was not welcome in France, for having encouraged his country’s Jews to immigrate to Israel, made this stream of de Gaulle comparisons even more annoying.  Whether it was out of a desire for a strong conservative leader who could reassure Israelis that they could conclude a final peace agreement with the Palestinians, or a yearning for a strong, conservative leader who would protect all Jews, was unclear.

Throughout his tenure as Israel’s Prime Minister, at home or abroad, Sharon's persistent identification with de Gaulle was a tremendous source of strength and legitimacy for his large than life leadership. Lauded the world over for his steely resolve, his stereotypically brusque, Israeli independence, and his ability to consistently deliver Israel from it’s enemies, the founder of two of the country’s two most significant political parties of the last generation - Likud and Kadima - was treated almost as though he were the closet thing to a national superhero: a reincarnation of the founder of the Fifth Republic.

As awkward as this might sound, there are very simple reasons for asking this question, particularly in the wake of the Six Day War. Why, given the trauma associated with the subsequent rupturing of Israel's alliance with France, would Israelis choose a French icon like de Gaulle to model their ideal leader after, especially considering how snubbed they were made to feel by the late President’s behavior in the wake of the victory? If Israelis were really as upset by de Gaulle's action as to consider it anti-Semitic, the verdict being passed on Sharon as though he were de Gaulle generates more questions than it answers.

In the years following his assumption of the Prime Minister’s office, when comparisons between Sharon and de Gaulle reached critical mass, could this comparison have served as a sign of possible disrespect? That, Israeli politics had sunk to such a profound low, that Israelis had put their faith in a murderous thug accused of war crimes to lead them out of the Occupied Territories? Was it an expression of genuine appreciation that Israel, like France, could produce soldier-statesman who embodied a similar combination of leadership qualities? Or were such comparisons simply empty rhetoric used to reassure Diaspora Jews that Israel was indeed governed by a European style aristocracy?

In every case, the answer is affirmative. For liberals, like de Gaulle, Sharon was an ambitious army officer with anti-democratic tendencies, guided by a similar combination of nationalist and security conservatisms, and an enormous ego. Yet, despite such obviously disrespectful views of his character, Sharon was to be tolerated because he grew willing to assimilate progressive foreign policy objectives, such as withdrawing from Gaza, and determining a final international border, irrespective of how problematic both the withdrawals, and the security wall he began building on Israel’s eastern frontier would end up being.

Blue and White Blues

 

If you haven't read Roi Ben-Yehuda before, you're sorely missing out.

One of the best writers I've ever worked with, Roi's articles epitomize the sensibilities of someone who has grown up in both Israel and the US, and remains rightfully suspicious of one-dimensional appeals to all forms of nationalism and xenophobia.

His latest piece, on the ideological limitations of Israel's flag, was published yesterday in Haaretz.

Nuclear Sound Affects

 
During the late 1970s, I can't remember how many times my siblings and I would hear a song on the radio--most often English-language pop and disco--and try to sing along. We'd mimic the lyrics, switching back and forth between English and Hebrew as we unsuccessfully attempted to master particularly difficult American-sounding turns of phrase. Boney M's 1978 mega-hit "Rasputin," and Earth, Wind and Fire's 1979 smash "Boogie Wonderland" were particular sources of amusement, as friends and family would struggle to properly enunciate "R" and "W," sounding, in the case of "Vonderland," like Israeli caricatures of Bela Lugosi.

To read the rest of my review of Soul Messages From Dimona, click here.

Israeli Punk

The best band names are frequently found in hotel bathrooms. Mitzpeh Ramon, Sukkot, 2006.

Mixed Media

Barack Obama's positions on Israel may sound relatively conventional. However, the opportunity he's taking to frame the Bush administration's Mideast policy is genuinely welcome. Following his speech to the AIPAC meeting in Washington on Wednesday, I wrote Taking Responsibility. While I end up spending more time on Joseph Lieberman's response than Obama's speech, you''ll see exactly why I appreciate the issues Obama is raising.

Along the same lines, I wrote a series of reflections on Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen's 2007 film Jellyfish, which appeared in Zeek today. Nonsensically titled Netanya Fish Fry, the piece addresses recent American attempts to come to grips with contemporary Israeli cinema, and a tendency I detect to try and de-politicize it. Contending that recent narrative experimentation in Israeli filmmaking is in fact it's own political gesture, the article is about Diaspora anxieties about Israel, displaced onto film criticism.

It's Getting Closer

Sometimes a well-placed sign says everything. A block east of Bayshore, at the foot of Bernal Heights. San Francisco, May 2008.

To Israel's America Lobby

It was an event that held a little significance for everyone. For Israelis, because of the commitment that the US President reiterated to their security. For Americans, because of the opportunity that their leader took to excoriate their country's opposition in a foreign parliament. And, for Iran, which was once again reminded that, despite how poorly the US is faring in Iraq and Afghanistan, America would still protect Israel from any manner of threat. In other words, it was an exercise in consistency, one that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert duly noted by nearly falling asleep during the President's speech in Jerusalem on Thursday.

Notwithstanding the umbrage taken by the US press to Bush's address to the Knesset, for anyone familiar with the importance that the Republicans have attached to securing Jewish votes in the forthcoming elections, it all made sense. Of course the President would take advantage of such an ideal opportunity. The problem is that, aside from the advantages that Israel most definitely accrued from playing host to the occasion, it had less to do with Israel than it did with the United States, and the failings of the present administration to make any positive achievements in the Middle East during Bush's two terms in office. With the failure of Lebanon's government to contain Hezbollah, one cannot ask for a more timely display designed for domestic consumption during an election year.

As the United States slowly loses Lebanon to Iran, despite the immense investment the Americans made in the Siniora government, once again we have another example of how US intervention in the region has worsened Israel's security. Sandwiched in between an Iranian-supported state in the south, and not one, but now two in the north, Israel's situation, at the end of Bush’s final term in office, is actually worse than it was on 9/11. No wonder Israelis would want the kind of dramatic security guarantees that the US President has offered. No wonder they'd want it specifically from Bush, and that Israel would place so much value on it, too. Given how poorly the Israel Defense Forces have performed in recent years, the need for American reassurance, of the kind that the President reiterated, is that much more important. Its a horrible situation.

Yet, there is also good reason to argue that Thursday's event in Jerusalem had little to do with reaffirming the significance of Israel's security, however flawed America's conception of it might be. Bush's speech, as an editorial in Friday's Haaretz suggested, also signaled the President's willingness to use Israel's conflict with Iran as a way of maintaining control over US Mideast policy after leaving office. To implicate Israeli security requirements with such a possible maneuver can only serve to further damage Israel's long-term interests, not simply because precedent suggests that the US would lose such an engagement against the Iranians. But, as important, because it would implicate Israel's security interests in contravention of America's electoral process.

Americans may not have a clear idea of an effective Mideast policy alternative to that of Bush. Though the Democrats have not exactly offered any compelling options, the amount of energy that Republicans have expended trying to debunk Obama's alleged positions suggests that conservatives fear another emerging policy is surely out there, and that it really is different. For as nebulous as that position might be, the desire for such a policy change is an enormous part of what will motivate millions of Americans to vote Democratic in November's Presidential election. As the Bush administration's failures in the Middle East have repeatedly demonstrated, that's exactly why Israel ought to remain open to whatever alternatives an Obama-led government might have to offer.

Originally published on Allvoices

The Last in Line

Three quarters of the way through his speech, the President's mouth seized up, as though he were about to say something important that he just could not figure out how to put into words. Alas, this moment would be forever frozen in time, as the media player refused to restart, prematurely ending George W. Bush's address to a gathering of Israeli and foreign dignitaries at the Facing Tomorrow conference, held this evening in Jerusalem.

Snapping a screenshot of this scene, I could not help but giggle at what a great photo opportunity this was, capturing the American leader stopped in his tracks, his mouth wide open. No amount of contempt could sum up the tremendous satisfaction that welled up in my chest as I imagined how speechless the President really looked. The pleasures I've been able to derive these past seven years are few, my revenge fantasies limited to short, ironic moments like these.

Obviously, Bush is an easy target. Provincial, religious, and inarticulate, he's the most opportune of prey to have one's adolescent way with. A paradigmatic Philistine, or an anti-democratic ideologue straight out of central casting, the President's horrible record lends much credence to his critics, who blame him for every ill that has befallen the U.S. since 9/11. From a collapsing economy to the war in Iraq, Bush has left Americans feeling poorer and more insecure than any President since Woodrow Wilson.

This is why, at least for me, it's important to not over-emphasize the singularity of this moment. As inclined as Americans might be to harangue Israel for being so automatically willing to grant Bush such a warm welcome, it's important to remember that Israel has never been the President's sole foreign supporter. The governments of Tony Blair and John Howard, Silvio Berlusconi and Jose Maria Aznar, were, of equal, if not to greater degrees, supportive and admiring, as is French President Nicolas Sarkozy today.

Though I'd prefer that Israel's Prime Minister not be a member of this club, there was something positive about being forced to watch this evening's proceedings. With his days looking increasingly numbered, Olmert will not be the last foreign leader to have such an intimate connection with the Bush era. That honor will be left to Sarkozy, who, from the looks of it, will end up outliving both besieged heads of state. No great shakes, but at least, for once, it will be a European that will be the last in line, and not another Israeli.

Israel As a Vocation

Today, Israel commemorates the sixtieth anniversary of it's founding. Unlike the celebrations of the country's 50th birthday in 1998, today's events have a far more somber quality to them, as though they are observing the passing of something far more tentative and fragile than we imagined back then, just before the peace process ground to a halt. Predictably, this month has witnessed the publication of a number of controversial articles questioning whether Israel will survive, generating, in turn, the expected reactions. In other words, business as usual.

As an Israeli citizen, and as an American-born editor working in English-language news publishing, I've resisted the temptation to draft my own thoughts on the subject, if only because I'm loathe to indulge the cliches that inevitably accompany the ritual of commenting on any specific nation's annual observation of it's independence. Especially those penned by U.S. Jews, which I read all of the time, and inevitably drive me nuts. Whether its spreading the love, or demonstrating disappointment, more often than not, it all reads the same.

This isn't to say that I'm not using the date as an opportunity to reflect on the nature of the state my friends and family continue to create. I am, just as I do every day, as someone who, for better or worse, always has Israel on his mind. If Israel has succeeded in establishing itself as it's own unmoved mover, to quote my divinity school training, it would make Aquinas proud. Nothing in my mind is not somehow related to or impacted by it. Israel is everywhere, and everything.

However, I don't feel the least bit sentimental about it, and there's something about recognizing this that I find relatively liberating. To wit, my wife and I will be going home to see my parents in a month's time, and the country will not feel any different than it did the same time last year I returned home, or, for that matter, this week, as I worried about the fact that I was not worried whether I'd write anything about this date at all. Israel, quite simply, exists, and feels more a part of my life than ever.

Of course, like the pundits I like to read, I could offer my own interpretation of the country's Italian-style political scene, and what I think the future holds in store for Israel under a coming Berlusconi-equivalent. Or I could offer it by way of talking about the remarkable films I saw this week at the San Francisco International Film Festival, such as Vasermil, Children of the Sun, or Under the Bombs, all of which offer rich insights into how Israelis and Arabs alike experience the country. At some point, I'm sure I will.

But, today, I guess, my point is far more mundane. For me, as it is for many Jews, Israel is something of a vocation. If that's what citizenship ultimately means, that's fine. I gladly accept it. As much as I'd like to find the identity somehow transformative or more involving, over the years, I've had to set certain instinctual limits to it because the psychic burden of being Israeli is traumatic enough. Adding anything else to the equation would be, for lack of a better of way of putting it, completely overwhelming.

Masada or Yavneh?

CEDAR: When you compare the rebels on Masada to the wise men in Yavneh, the rebels died as lions, and the wise men lived as dogs . But the dogs had puppies, and we are those puppies. So, there was something about blowing up Beaufort, blowing up the fortifications, blowing up the mountain, at the end of the film, that was also about blowing up a symbol of (the lion's) power. It's about our power to create something else that, at least for me, makes us different from our enemies.

ZEEK: It means that as Israelis, we can start over. That we have the ability to reinvent ourselves.

CEDAR: Not only that. It means that we have an identity without the geographical symbol, that we have an identity that is as powerful and as firm as concrete and fortifications, flags and pride.

To read the rest of my interview with director Joseph Cedar, check out the new issue of Zeek.

The H in Globalization

H, that is, for Hebrew. Go get 'em, tiger.  Orakiva  Mall, 2006.

American Studies

American defense concerns have always given weapons names that fit their function. For example, fighters such as the F-15, F-16 and F-18 were appropriately given names such as 'Eagle', 'Fighting Falcon,' and 'Hornet,' while the black-painted, radar-evading F-117 stealth bomber was dubbed the 'Nighthawk'.

As silly as these names can get, (Why not a Dayhawk? When is the Chickenhawk coming? etc..) you can see the cultural logic behind their specificity. They're meant to convey that such war machines embody the fierce, agile, even predatory qualities that define the brave birds that the aircraft were named after.

Hence the curious naming of the new 'Masada' assault rifle by it's manufacturer, Magpul Industries. Named after one of the first recorded incidents of mass suicide (in which 960 Jews besieged by Roman troops took their lives) the complexity of the rifle's title represents a fairly serious break with convention.

As though anticipating criticisms over having chosen such a potentially controversial name, in a PDF brochure for the weapon posted to Wikipedia, Magpul maintains that the company is  neither "Jewish or Israeli backed," but that it has always found the story of Masada to be "a bold example of defiance."

If you want to get a sense of what informs so many American estimations of Israeli military prowess, you won't find a more revealing signifier. One people's loss is another's defiance. Or, one could conjecture that such takes on Israelis say more about American desires than what they think about Jewry.

In January, the Masada was licensed to the larger American arms manufacturer Bushmaster, who have since retitled it the Adaptive Combat Rifle.

Street Academy

Right across the street from the San Francisco supermarket where I confirmed the non-identity of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades leader stands a liquor store. Until recently, it's owner was a Palestinian, and the clerks who worked there were either from southern Lebanon or the West Bank.

The last time I had talked to the Lebanese clerk was in July 2006, at the beginning of the war. He had told me that he was very concerned about his family, who still lived in the south, and had just had their electricity and water cut off during the first days of the fighting.

Two weeks ago, I found him standing in front of the store. He recognized me, and we shook hands. "Did your family make it through?" I asked. "Yes," he replied. "Barely. Your people bombed the hell out of their village," he added, as a young couple walked by us speaking to each other in Hebrew.

I told him about the turn I took last summer in Ghajar, and asked if he could help me identify the puzzling green flag of the militiamen I'd run into there." Oh, they were Amal," he said, referring to the Lebanese Shi'ite guerrilla organization that preceded Hezbollah.

'Deserteur'

Two weeks ago, France 24 produced a larger television piece on the recent advert attempting to 'shame' Israelis who do not do their military service. Based on the recent forum on the Observers site, I discuss my decision, 23 years ago, to not do my military service. Jennifer shot the original interview.

The nicest part about this experience was hearing about it first via my uncle Avi in Tel Aviv, who saw it on France 24 at home, and then telephoned my parents about it, who in turn called me. I didn't get a chance to see the full piece until last week, when Roi Ben-Yehuda let me know it had been posted online.

Note the use of the word 'deserter' in the English broadcast of the interview. In French, the original term, 'deserteur'  is also used to describe people who choose not to do military service as an act of conscience. It doesn't consistently translate as 'to leave one's post', though that surplus is most definitely there.

Click here to watch the English version. The French edition is worth a gander, too.

Shit You Hear at Groceries

This is our local grocery store. We try not to shop there too often because it's expensive, and offers a fairly unimaginative selection of coffees. But, being four blocks away, it still has it's value. Such as when, fact-checking an article about the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade cell in Nablus last summer for a magazine, I ran into a friend who had just spent a month working with an NGO in the West Bank city.

"The author identifies the head of the local 'Brigade crew," I told Rebecca when I saw her, dropping the name given to the commander. "You must have run into those people with some frequency when you were there. Does it ring a bell?" I asked. Laughing, she gently replied, "No, of course not. That's definitely not the guy's name, and besides, I couldn't pin a pseudonym on him if I tried."

My Fifth Anniversary

Every weekday morning, I turn on the news as I pick up our bedroom before heading off to work. Last Friday was no different. Hoping to catch the all-too-brief snapshot of CNN's international channel that we get here in the US between eight and nine AM Pacific time, I switched on the TV, which, as I discovered, was already tuned to what looked like a European news program.

"Over ten thousand veterans have committed suicide since coming home from Iraq," I could hear an American-accented voice saying, as I folded my wife's puppy dog-themed red pajamas.

Unnerved by what I'd just heard, I looked up at our television screen wondering if the channel was tuned to CNN. My suspicions proved correct. It wasn't This was the morning broadcast of Russia Today, which, unsurprisingly, was covering America's Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan conference, a reprise of the similarly-named 1971 event, in which Vietnam vets such as Senator John Kerry spoke out against the war in Southeast Asia.

As inclined as I was to dismiss this broadcast as a polemical exercise by an anti-American news channel, these figures didn't seem all that far off. Our neighbor works as a physical rehabilitation specialist at a local VA hospital where the majority of her clients are soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. The stories she's told me about their state of mind, (and their bodies,) sound like obvious recipes for suicide.

Broadcast the day after the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, this depressing disclosure capped off a stream of bad news issued forth throughout the week. From the rising US casualty rate (confirmed today at 4K) to the increasingly chaotic state of the economy, last week, it felt as though the entire country was taking inventory on the various ways in which the war has begun to tear at the fabric of life here.

This feeling is made more pronounced by the fact that my view is one that is both that of an insider as well as an outsider, as an Israeli as well as an American. Thus, reading all of the glowing reviews of Republican Presidential nominee John McCain's visit to Israel last week in the Israeli press, especially the overt deference shown his candidacy, I felt myself growing increasingly uncomfortable with the correspondence between what Americans were waking up to and how we were reacting to McCain.

Though the Arizona Senator's positions are largely indistinguishable from those of Clinton and Obama, there is a particular spirit to his approach to the region that, like Bush, is both ideologically and morally impervious to the mistakes America continues to make in Iraq. Or, to put it in the words of a US colleague, "Like Bush, McCain just doesn't get it. His problem is that though his reasons would be different, he'd still be willing to do it all over again."

So, how might one explain the preference we showed for McCain? Is it ideological, or is it due to a justifiable anxiety about the mess that the Americans will leave Israel with if they withdraw from Iraq? Don't discount how concern over how such a move might further empower Iran, (despite how the American invasion of the country has already done so), motivates such flawed judgment calls. Fear continues to play an enormous role in informing many Israeli positions on Diaspora politics.

The problem is that these kinds of dynamics do not necessarily play out well anymore abroad, especially in crisis situations like the one that America is presently undergoing. Everything that is wrong with the Bush Administration, and how it has run the country the past seven years is epitomized by how the situation in Iraq has impacted the US economy, and injured nearly thirty thousand American troops.  The figures are not as high as Vietnam, but the combination of events feels unprecedented.

This is how most Americans view the conflict, even if they believe the invasion was justified. Why make Israel complicit with this situation? This is the risk we take when we fail to properly qualify ourselves in relation to domestic American politics. This doesn't mean we have to shut up about it. We can have our opinions, and share them. But only if we make a more serious effort to qualify our preferences with a more profound sense that as Israelis, we don't take for granted the toll this war has taken on America.

Israel's Next President

Republican Presidential candidate Senator John McCain's visit to Israel this week provoked a great deal of discussion in both the Israeli and Diaspora Jewish press. To be expected, conservative commentators praised McCain's initiative as a sign that the Arizona legislator would be a better President for Israel than the current Democratic front-runner, Senator Barack Obama, while liberal Jewish pundits opined on the lack of difference between them in matters concerning Israel.

France 24's Observers hosted a lively forum on the greater subject in which I took part, together with Jewcy's Daniel Koffler, Haaretz US correspondent Shmuel Rosner, and conservative Jewish blogger Neo-Neocon. What emerges is an exceedingly balanced discussion that will give you an excellent sense of the parameters of the debate currently taking place about what kind of American President would be best for Israel. Big up to France 24's Roi Ben-Yehuda for shouting us all out.

1948 Versus 2008

As we approach the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, it is worth putting certain facts into perspective. Until the 2003 invasion, it was assumed that the 1948 Arab-Israeli war had created the region's largest and most significant refugee crisis, sending an estimated 750,000 Palestinians into exile.

According to figures made available by news agencies, over the past five years, the US occupation of Iraq has turned over 4 million of the country's citizens into refugees. In an article published by the Associated Press on Monday, it is estimated that two million of these refugees are internal, with the rest spread around the region.

Separated by 60 years, and different national contexts, there are as many reasons to not assimilate these events as there are for comparing them. From an Israeli perspective, however, given the tragic legacy that the Palestinian refugee crisis has bequeathed the region, the Americans would be well advised to learn from precedent.

This post is also published on allvoices.com

Choose Your Jerusalem

Sometimes, a ten minute walk from home can lead to more pleasant associations.

Leaving Ghajar

I could see four soldiers standing next to a table, rifles in hand, staring right back at us. They could have been Lebanese, they could have been not. It was hard to tell from that distance. Positioned next to the southernmost entrance to Ghajar, a Lebanese border village, which, until the 2006 war, had been divided between Israel and Lebanon (whatever Lebanese military entity was controlling that side of the frontier) the town had been the site of numerous firefights over the years, most recently, in 2005, when Hezbollah militiamen launched a combined infantry and rocket attack on IDF troops in the village.

Raising their rifles rather threateningly in our direction, we quickly decided it was time to back out, turn around and head up towards the Golan. Our destination was the Druze village of Majdal Shams, where we were hoping to arrive in time to see residents communicating via bullhorn with their Syrian cousins across the shouting wall, a hillside spot along the Syrian-Israeli frontier, where the 1974 ceasefire line separates the Israeli municipality from a Syrian Druze village called Hadar. A minefield lies in between.

Driving out of Ghajar, an IDF humvee we'd encountered on the way into town (heading in the opposite direction) had since parked at a checkpoint, and the troops inside had set up shop. Hair unkempt, heavy machine gun hanging listlessly on top of the vehicle's roof, several sleepy-looking young soldiers stared at us rather curiously, as though they were surprised that an Israeli-plated vehicle was coming from the direction of the Lebanese town. They did nothing. Taking the steering wheel with my right arm, I extended my left out the window, and, issuing a sigh of relief, waved goodbye.

After we returned home, I remember telling a relative about the checkpoints in Ghajar. "I thought the town was firmly in our hands, and no longer divided," I told him. "But the second checkpoint we arrived at seemed like it was manned by hostiles. However, the flag flying stretched out behind them was green, not yellow, like Hezbollah's." "I'm very surprised to hear this," my cousin replied. "You should have never been allowed to pass through that first checkpoint, let alone get close to that second one. I'm going to make a phone call. The commander responsible for this is going to get into a lot of trouble."

(De)Programming the Middle East

If you live in the US and need to follow events in the Middle East closely, Mosaic is absolutely indispensable. A thirty-minute long aggregation of regional television news programming broadcast on Link TV, the show is the brainchild of award-winning producer Jamal Dajani.

A Jerusalem native, and a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, I spoke to Dajani about his work on Mosaic for the March issue of Zeek. What transpires is a fascinating conversation about the state of Middle Eastern media today, and its increasing importance for Americans.

If you enjoy this piece, check out Covering the Coverage, and Left of the Middle East. Short excerpts from my book, they cover much of the same topical ground as my conversation with Dajani, but focus on US and otherwise progressive Western news media instead.

The Song Remains the Same

The best stocked section (aside from the Health and Diet shelf) in San Francisco's Green Apple Books bargain media annex.

Perhaps the single most frequently asked question posed by my interns at Tikkun was why we continued to receive so many books about Nazism and the Holocaust to review.

Indeed, every day, new books about the Shoah would inevitably outnumber arriving titles on Israel and Judaism. "It's one of the occupational hazards of being a Jewish magazine," was my stock reply.

Back in the USSA

Who better to talk to about American politics than a German periodical. Revisiting the discussion of purity in Jerusalem Calling, this interview, in the new edition of Pulse Berlin, just came out.

I haven't spoken about such issues in years. It was a pleasure to think through them again. The renewed perspective that this side of the Bush era helps provide is really something else.

Earthquakes Versus Equality

I'm with you. This unpleasant-looking Israeli parliamentarian looks like he's suffering from a fairly serious allergy attack. To find out the real story, Earthquakes Versus Equality explains it all.

A form of social, news blogging called an 'event' by Allvoices.com, I wrote it as a quick experiment today to see how well I could limit myself to working within the site's prescribed event style.

Rule number 1: You always have to riff off of established sources.

Conscientious Objections

France24 has launched The Observers, a new, bilingual citizen journalism initiative. At the behest of staff writer Roi Ben-Yehuda, I became an Observer last week, and gave my thoughts on a new Israeli government drive to encourage teens to do their obligatory military duty.

As someone who, when they came of age in 1985, did not do their service, I explain why, as well as criticize a new state-produced video designed to prevent kids from doing the same. Check it out. The following response, by the anonymous Yael, is worth the price of admission alone.

Later on this week, Roi will be running a piece on the first Tel Aviv Sex Festival, which was held a little over a week ago. I'll be reprising my Observer role as part of the proceedings.

Left Anti-Semitism: Excerpt

Attributed to progressives sympathetic to Islamist criticisms of Israel and Zionism, this genre of anti-Semitism is the least understood form of prejudice against Jewry. Viewed as opportunist in its support of Islamic and right-wing Arab views of Jews and Zionism, as a means of disguising racism as anti-colonialism, left-wing anti-Semites are treated almost as though they are false progressives, who don the multicultural mantle of the left in order to be openly prejudiced.

Jews are incited against not because they profess an inferior culture or religion, but because the object of their faith is a state that discriminates against non-Jews, specifically, Muslims. Because their concept of the state is so integral to their religious identity, Jews are viewed as being inherently biased against non-Jews. Whether they are Diaspora or Israeli Jews, the foundational importance of the Zionist state, as an exclusively Jewish state, is supposed to be similarly viewed by progressives and by Islamists as an iconographic instance of the core politics of Jewish identity.

In short, Judaism is a synonym for racism because behind it hides Israel. Progressives aren't supposed to like Judaism, first, because Israel stands for the indivisibility of religion and state, and second, in the form of the Israeli state, for the official practice of discrimination against Palestinians on the basis of their ethnicity. Though Judaism is found to be deeply problematic, both historically and theologically, the notion of returning to the promised land that Zionism prescribes is less important than how it is understood to function as a cultural cover for the West's theft of Arab lands.

- From an article I'm currently working on

Desert Sessions

It was a hard decision to make, but I had to do so. For the last twelve months, I desisted from doing any freelance work in order to reserve all of my energies for Israel vs Utopia.

Now that the book is in my editors' hands, today, my first article since last March was published by Zeek. And, on Tuesday, I conducted my first formal interview since I spoke to Jimmy Carter in December 2006.

Look forward to reading a conversation about Middle Eastern news media with Link TV's Jamal Dajani in Zeek next month. To call it informative would be an understatement.

We Are All Losers

Morning reading for my book research, February 2007. The Class War Federation statement on the War in Lebanon was definitely the most colorful of these four selections.

You may not agree with them, but the document's wholesale criticisms of all of the parties involved display a refreshing disenchantment with the positioning on the war that we've grown accustomed to.

I can't seem to locate the original statement. However, I've linked through to the copy that was circulated on the LBO list when it was first published during the summer of '06. 

Two Way Mirror

The Middle East reflects America back, wishing it were somewhere else. The quintessential site of sixties utopianism, Woodstock, printed on the wall of an abandoned Syrian army barracks in the Golan Heights. On the border, June 2007.   

Protect Your National Identity

Every time I go home to see my parents, I always seem to do something wrong with my US passport. For example, once I ran it through the wash just before we were to take a trip to nearby Istanbul.

It would have been one thing if I'd known where my Israeli papers were. Handing the border control officer a decidedly damp American ID, when he could tell that I held dual citizenship, is another. I barely made it on to my flight.

I wonder whether there would have been a problem if I'd had memorable sleeves for my passports like these. The eagle inscription is so in-your-face, it feels like it's watching out for you.

Dubbing with de Gaulle

The cover of a January 1969 edition of the French weekly news periodical L'Express, featuring the face of former President Charles de Gaulle set inside a Star of David. Surrounded by an English translation of a letter de Gaulle wrote to David Ben Gurion in 1967, it's figured prominently in revisions to my book, whose 2nd draft I'm furiously working on finishing right now with my editor.

A scanned page from European Union official Francois Massoulie's idiosyncratic volume, Middle East Conflicts, the image is bordered on either side by the end of one of my own book's chapters, an open Real Audio browser loaded with a BBC page, and my most recent playlist, featuring the brilliant Sledgehammer Dub LP by the consistently overlooked roots producer, Niney the Observer.

The Day Before Annapolis

Two blocks away, an Israeli-American couple sat down to a late lunch in a local cafe. Ten minutes later, a young woman and her middle aged mother took the table next to them, and in Hebrew, began discussing the differences between San Francisco and Tel Aviv real estate prices.

Walking back to our car afterwards, we talked about how much more familiar this city is starting to feel. The prevalence of pita and hummus on restaurant menus, how often we run into Israelis. And, the increase in signs like this, which we caught as we got into our Toyota. 

Liberation Theology

It's just about out, and the first reviews for Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice, are starting to filter through.

Edited by my former Tikkun colleagues Jo Ellen Green Kaiser and Or Rose, and the Kavod House's Margie Klein, this inspired collection, documenting the new American Jewish social justice movement, is already receiving the recognition that it deserves. According to this week's edition of Publisher's Weekly,

While written for progressive Jews and their communities, anyone struggling with the age-old conundrum of "…but what can I do?" should sample this wonderful buffet of ideas, replete not just with tradition, but with innovative interpretations suited to a 21st-century approach toward social action and reform.

A slimmed down version of "Everything Falls Apart", the first chapter from my forthcoming book, Israel vs Utopia, has a home in Righteous Indignation's Israel section. A representative excerpt, The New Jewish Left, was posted to Mashdown last July.

Always On Our Minds

If the National Intelligence Estimate published on Monday is true, and Iran is not actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program, it poses a potential problem for the Bush administration's relationship with American Jewry. Given how the US President said last August that Iran is aggressively expanding its military capabilities in order to trigger a nuclear 'holocaust' - using such explicit language - how might we reconsider Bush's willingness to employ such  loaded terminology when no such preparations are actually taking place? In light of this revelation, should Jews reproach the head of state for employing terms that unnecessarily stoked our deepest-held fears?

Invoking the specter of the Nazi genocide for political purposes is nothing new. In the Jewish community, nearly sixty three years after the Second World War, the legacy of the Holocaust continues to exercise enormous influence over how we think and talk about politics. From the slightest turn of phrase to the ways in which we understand our relationship with the Christian and Islamic worlds, the Shoah ('catastrophe'), as we call it in Hebrew, is almost always a point of reference. Though there are numerous problems with the manner in which we grapple with this patrimony, there's something even more problematic when its memory is ideologically leveraged by non-Jews.

If Israel were not locked in a long distance conflict with Iran, it would be easier to overlook the inflammatory nature of the American leader's language. The problem is that Israel is in a heightened state of tension with the Islamic republic precisely because of American policies in the region. Frequently treated by its enemies as though it were an extension of the United States, witness Iraq's repeated missile attacks on Israel during Operation Desert Storm as but one example. Factor in Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated denials of the Holocaust, and his threats to 'wipe Israel off the map' and Jews have every reason to take the US President's warnings with the utmost seriousness.

That is why it is incumbent that Israel's self-declared friends express their care for the country a little more wisely. To stand in solidarity with Israel, in opposition to demagogues who threaten its dissolution is one thing. But to take at face value the words of a crazed paper tiger, and repeat them as though they were the genuine item is another. Instead of assessing their empty threat responsibly, by repeating them as though the threat was indeed real, the former Governor of Texas ended up reinforcing the feelings of fear many Jews already felt instilled in them by the Iranian leader's racist rhetoric.

The Liberal Arts

   
Ron Nachmann is an Israeli-American journalist based in San Francisco. A close friend and colleague, we've worked together at a number of different periodicals, including Tikkun, where Ron served as music editor. Now a contributor to Zeek, his latest article, a review of Tom Segev's 1967: Israel, the War and the Year That Transformed the Middle East, was published in the December issue. It's not only a marvelous piece of writing on an incredibly complex and politically loaded book. Ron's essay is an excellent introduction to the politics of writing about Israeli history.

The appropriately-titled Continuity has finally arrived. A CD/DVD by the Tokyo-based, Polish sound artist Zbigniew Karkowski (in collaboration with Japanese videographer Atsuko Nojiri), this unorthodox career retrospective is the last project we signed when I was Asphodel's label manager. Already receiving excellent reviews in Europe from publications such as Vital Weekly, given press like this, I have the sneaking suspicion that Continuity will cement Karkowski's reputation as one of the world's most forward-thinking electronic musicians.

Culture(s) of Domesticity

Behind the propaganda, four Thanksgiving pies cool down in our fridge. Notice the childhood picture of Jennifer on the left, followed by Skylar Nicolini Bertsch, Angus Young, and George Washington.

Sandwiched in between a commemorative 1977 peace process-themed Bezeq phone card (anchored by Jimmy Carter), Moshe Dayan, Elvis Presley, and an unidentified Bedouin all play supporting roles below.

Dig on the Jamaican currency hovering above the US dollar. That's fifty Jamaican dollars, mind you. An identical bank note bought us one of the best dinners ever, on our honeymoon, in June '06.

Inside the Former Fortress

The acoustics in Akko's old city are something else. Next time I go home to Israel, I'm going to make a recording of a British friend with a thick cockney accent reciting T.S. Eliot poems, in Hebrew, inside.

Changing Channels

Speaking of Al Jazeera English, if you get the chance, check out  Roger Cohen's excellent op-ed on the Qatari broadcaster in today's New York Times.

Discussing the difficulties that the service has had trying to find national distribution from America's cable and satellite providers, the Times' International-Writer-at-Large extols the network's virtues, noting, in reference to the same polarized context invoked in Friday's posting, that Al Jazeera is carried (by Yes) in Israel, where it replaced the BBC last winter.

Incidentally (and much discussed as of late) Al Jazeera English was also slated to replace CNN on Israel's largest cable service, Hot, but was outbid at the last minute by Fox News.

Covering the Coverage

His curiosity piqued by a recent article in Haaretz discussing the relative merits of the New York Times' coverage of Israel, a colleague asked me if I could point him to what I think are the best studies of Western media reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict. For those who understand the subtext of such inquiries,  the editor couldn't have asked a more loaded question. To make such a request in today's environment means that you first have to ask why the question is important, and second, for whom.

Since September 11th, domestic coverage of the Middle East has obviously become more significant. Not just because the attacks on New York and Washington signaled the beginning of a conflict  between America and West Asian Islamists. But, also because of how it placed far more editorial requirements on a news media already struggling - and, in the US, largely failing - to meet the complex cultural demands already required of Mideast coverage by the country's Jewish and Muslim Diaspora communities.

US news agencies haven't done the best job of striking this balance yet either. However, there is more English-language, Mideast-based media to rely on than ever before to make up for it. Take for example, Israeli publications like the English edition of Haaretz on the one hand, and Al Jazeera's English broadcasting service on the other, not to mention all of the translated editions of regional sources in between. Americans now have every opportunity to read news that's potentially more informative.

Though "local" is not always a synonym for "better", irrespective of partisanship and the limitations international media inevitably find themselves subject to, in comparison, few domestic sources, including the ethnic press, deliver the same quality goods.  Does that mean that American periodicals should hang up their hats? No. Because of this country's obvious ties to the region - economic, cultural, and military, to name a few - US news outlets are morally obligated to continue reporting on the Mideast.

The question is how. Obviously, one answer would be to create content that was complementary with a foreign reporting that is better privileged for information. Another angle would be to concentrate on commissioning work on the numerous ways in which Americans deliberate about their involvement in a particular country's affairs. Thus, you emphasize domestic political discussions at, say the State Department, or, amongst Americans with cultural ties to said state, instead of the other way around.

As many editors at American news periodicals will tell you, the two biggest complaints about Mideast coverage are always that its either anti-Semitic, or similarly compromised by a desire to satisfy special interest groups. The problem with such criticisms is that they're not only frequently incorrect. But, most importantly, that they help divert editorial attention away from very real ethical problems, like learning how to properly tailor international news for a cosmopolitan, multicultural readership - during wartime.   

- From my notebook, Nov 1.

Scene From a Mall

A surviving example of early Cana'anite capitalism. Jerusalem, 2007.

The Gift That Keeps on Giving

One of the most pronounced themes in my book is an expressed concern with the way Israel gets 'constructed' by its proponents in America. Without explicitly specifying it as such, I continually press against the versions of Israel I encounter here, as though there is something alien about them,  continuously wondering whether they have anything to do with me, or are merely the stuff of fantasy. I feel oppressed by this experience, oftentimes suffocated, to the point of wondering whether this was the country my family failed to create. As though they were admonishing us, new pioneers have come to conjure something different, something that ignores 'the natives', in much the same way that the original settlers saw Ottoman Palestine as a wild and empty place.

Thus, I was reminded, as I listened to a sixty something New Yorker explain the good he thought Israel had achieved through its seizure of Arab lands in June 1967. The Six Day War improved the lot of American Jewry, he argued, because it completed the process of Jewish integration, helping us secure the truly remarkable level of equality we live with in this country today. Suggesting that the war's fruits outweighed its failings, this gentleman's argument was truly curious, as though he were inferring that it's social achievements in the US were sincerely worth the last four decades worth of displacement and terrorism the occupation has gifted both Israelis and Palestinians. Though I did not ask the guy whether he believed that the occupation ought to continue for said purpose, I still ask myself whether he might believe such.

It is for reasons like these that I am increasingly uneasy about the ways in which fellow progressives tend to rationalize ongoing Diaspora support for the occupation. Traditionally inclined to see such dispositions as being products of a fundamentalist or reactionary approach to Judaism, I am concerned that such arguments have obscured the prevalence of equally common secular positions like these. Specifically, in terms of whether one can ascribe right-wing Diaspora support to the present Israeli status quo on the grounds that it's never-ending violence is the only guarantee of Jewish equality in multiethnic societies. If that is truly the case, no wonder it feels as though Israel is continuously ignored. Because it's not Israel that matters in the end, but the Diaspora.

San Francisco to Lebanon

"They're extending their range of fire," my father said as I answered my mobile phone. Before I had a chance to ask him why, he stated, "They finally managed to hit Afula." Almost a week into last year's war, this was not reassuring news to hear. "Well, Abba," I responded, trying to sound comforting, "That's still far away from your home. At least they didn't point the weapon southwest. "

What more could I say to my clearly anguished father? That a strike on a nearby town was better than one on our own? Of course not. He knew what I meant. But with each missile fired at Israel's north, it was clear that they were slowly getting closer. "Well," my father said, clearing his throat. "Our pilots are doing the best that they can to knock these things out..."

I'd taken the day to work out of my house, and was standing in front of a local, Arab-owned convenience store as my father and I spoke about the situation. When we were done, I told Elie that I loved him, and walked inside to buy some smokes. "Your family in Israel?" asked the clerk, who clearly had overheard the conversation. "Yes," I said, feeling a little uncomfortable. "They live in the north."

"My parents are under fire too," he said. "In a Christian town, just across the border." "Have you had a chance to speak to them?" I asked. "Yes," he replied, sounding worried. "Apparently their power has been cut off, and they're running out of food. I am puzzled by this, because they are Christians, not Shia. Why are your people targeting us? It's stupid. We used to be your allies."

Though I have since quit smoking, I have gone by the convenience store several times, hoping to say hello again to the fellow and hear what ended up happening to his beleaguered family. He's never reappeared. Since then, I've chatted several times with his replacement. A Christian from Bethlehem, he told me that he'd escaped to the US during the siege of the city in May, 2002.

Spotting him sitting outside the store yesterday, I wondered if his Lebanese colleague's parents were lucky enough to have done the same. Oftentimes, I ask myself why I just don't ask him what happened to the guy, whether his parents survived. Seeing as several rockets did eventually fall near my parents' home, I think it's because something inside me prevents myself from asking, as though I already know why.

Rome to Tel Aviv Transfer, 1976

Placing our carry-on baggage on a conveyer belt in order to be scanned, we could see the contents of other peoples’ bags on a black and white video monitor. As a Middle Eastern-looking gentleman in front of us watched his bag go through the x-ray machine, a pistol and several grenade-like objects appeared on the television's screen.

Two Carabinieri carrying submachine guns immediately appeared. Without a word, they took the owner of the bag by the arm and escorted him out of line, while the rest of the flight’s passengers continued through to the gate. Looking up at my father, as though to signal my recognition of what had just transpired, he returned my stare, and silently nodded in reply.

-from a manuscript in progress

Recommended Reading

The timing of this book's publication couldn't be better. As Israelis and Palestinians resume peace negotiations, its also an opportunity to consider what separation really means, and why there can be no such thing as a total break.

Using Jewish and Arab literature to demonstrate how their respective identities both overlap and inhere in one another, In Spite of Partition makes a compelling case against simple-minded and destructive notions of cultural difference.

If you live in Los Angeles, on October 14th, Gil Hochberg will be speaking about her new book with fellow UCLA professor Saree Makdisi. Click here for more information about the event.

America or Europe? (Redux)

Israeli progressives look to Europe for the ideological and financial support they do not get from the United States. Though liberal American Jewish organizations such as the New Israel Fund are making enormous efforts to redress such deficits, despite their numerous philanthropically funded social assistance, worker training and educational programs, the perception is that when it comes to Israel, Europeans have a monopoly on liberalism.

Just look at the coverage accorded to Israel boycott initiatives by British university instructors to understand why. Whereas the United States is identified by the UK press with Christian Zionists who love Israel to theological death, the United Kingdom is conversely identified by many American and Israeli periodicals as the home of a growing anti-Semitic left, eager to punish Israeli educators in order to protest Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

This is why the increasing intimacy between Israel and the EU over the course of the past several years has been fascinating. Coming to a head with the large-scale deployment of European peacekeeping forces in Lebanon after 2006’s conflict with Hezbollah, the European commitment of troops came at a time that two of the same countries providing forces were withdrawing from Iraq out of disagreement with US policy.

Excerpted from Israel vs Utopia

Anarcho-Kibbutzniks

Believe it or not, the kibbutz movement is not dead. So argues James Horrox in the October issue of Zeek. Excerpted from a book I am currently editing for AK Press, this young British political analyst shines a new light on Israel's troubled left.

A Faustian Bargain?

When Benjamin Netanyahu served as Israel's Prime Minister during the late 1990s, I can distinctly recall the physical revulsion I would read into Israeli faces when they would hear of the ties that Bibi had been cultivating with Evangelist Pat Robertson. Told that American Christians were quickly becoming Israel's most devoted Diaspora supporters, I still remember how disappointed even my most politically conservative, Likud-voting friends were to hear about this. Of all people, why them?, everyone seemed to respond. It was as though, in our struggle for recognition and support, even conservatives bemoaned the fact that the only foreigners we could reach out to were people who sincerely hated us.

Granted, there are Israelis who value this 'affection', and see it as a sign of character. But, more often than not, one will find that Israelis of nearly every conceivable conviction, on one level or another, take issue with Americans. Some, for what is perceived to be a provincial approach to Middle Eastern politics, others because they suspect that Israel is a tool for American interests in the region. Though it's hard to imagine Israel's existence without the support of the US, it is equally difficult to stomach the idea that Israelis will learn to indefinitely live with this situation. If we have such ambivalent feelings about our closest ally, what will we think of ourselves if we continue to rely so heavily upon them?

Time Traveler

German was the last thing I expected to hear that morning. But, as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, I could hear my grandmother screaming, "Raus, Nazis, raus." I didn't know what to think. I imagined that I'd been dreaming, and tried to go back to sleep. But my grandmother wouldn't stop. She was absolutely terrified. Nervous, I looked at my watch. It was only six AM. Finally, I decided to get out of bed and see what was going on. "Yoel," Safta announced as I reached the bottom of the staircase, "Arafat is hiding in the bushes outside. He's wearing an SS uniform, and has a couple of German shepherds with him."

While I was only nine at the time, I was old enough to know that there was something terribly wrong. "Safta, doesn't Arafat live in Beirut?" I  remember asking her.  "No, mottek, he's the head of the Gestapo, here in Israel," she replied. I started to tremble. I'd begun reading newspapers, and knew that Arafat was leading the Palestinians next door in Lebanon's civil war. "Safta, do you think you could call Abba in London and ask him what we should do?" I asked. "No," she said sternly. "We shouldn't use the phone right now. It would be a dead giveaway. Just go up to your room, lower the shutters, and be quiet."

Sitting behind my closed door, for the next two weeks, the only sound I could hear was that of my eighty- four year old grandmother's mind blasting apart. Speaking to herself incessantly, in Hebrew, German, and sometimes even Arabic, at varying volumes, she'd recount imaginary reports she claimed to have heard on army radio about how the Gestapo had finally returned to Palestine (not Israel) from Lebanon, with the sole purpose of kidnapping Jewish children. Unable to distinguish between the mandate period and independence, it was the first time I'd ever heard the Palestinians described as though they were Nazis.

Left of the Middle East

From an unpublished conversation with a Jewish magazine editor

We have a terrible disjuncture at present, where the critical coverage that we increasingly rely on in this country comes from progressive sources that aren’t as discriminating in their approach to the Middle East as they should be. Being rightly committed to criticizing imperialism and colonialism, they frequently make the mistake of seeing all of the disparate crises afflicting the region as being different versions of the same political problem. It’s like saying that all Jews or Arabs are identical.

Take a look at how the occupation of Iraq has impacted a lot of progressive reporting on Israel: As the occupation has worsened, it has increasingly conditioned a way of covering the country that has assimilated Israel's conflict with the Palestinians with the situation created by the Americans in Iraq. The problem is that if this is the general disposition of the left press in covering the region, it therefore makes it difficult to explain the very real differences that distinguish the Iraqi refugee crisis from the Palestinian, Kurdish, or Armenian refugee crises which preceded it.

The Middle East is a very big place. Even within the space of short distances, such as that which exists between Gaza and Ramallah, the cultural and political distinctions can be extraordinary. The irony is that this is partially a product of territorial divisions first introduced by Europeans to the area. We ought to encourage the journalists we work with to strike a better balance between understanding the Middle Eastern experience of the West with the domestic differences that the outside world seems so oblivious towards.

Nevermind Matisyahu

Give it up for the real thing.