From the New York Times March 27, 2015 by Carol Giacoma Article Links HERE
NOTE: All views welcome here.
John Bolton’s best quality may be that he says what he thinks. Diplomats are trained to set aside personal beliefs as they fulfill their professional duties but even when Mr. Bolton was a senior official in the administration of President George W. Bush, and supposed to be exercising discretion, he was brash and outspoken.
In an op-ed published by the New York Times on Thursday, he advocated bombing Iran with characteristic force. “Time is terribly short but a strike can still succeed,” he argued.
Mr. Bolton has been pushing a hardline — military action and regime change — against Tehran for at least a decade. But he leaves out some important context — that he was part of an administration that never seriously sought a negotiated solution with Iran. Nor were they capable of putting together the kind of sanctions against Iran — with buy-in from the major powers — that Mr. Obama did and that Mr. Bolton still finds grievous fault with.
Most people believe the various sanctions helped persuade Iran to come to the negotiating table, where an agreement is said to be within reach, perhaps next week.
Mr. Bolton also avoids two major questions: First, if bombing Iran is such a great idea, why didn’t the Bush administration do it years ago when Iran’s program had a fraction of the equipment and facilities it now possesses and when military action would have been easier? As David Sanger reported in The Times, President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel in 2008 for specialized bunker-busting bombs that Israel wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex.
The options for dealing with Iran have always been pretty straightforward: Accept the fact that Iran has an advanced nuclear program that has yet to produce a weapon but could lead to one. Try to maintain sanctions and a system of containment indefinitely. Take military action against Iran’s many nuclear facilities, which experts say would set back the program by only two years or so. Or negotiate an agreement that would curb the program and guarantee long-term international monitoring.
Mr. Obama is pursuing the only sensible solution.
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Embracing Israel Boycott, Jewish Voice For Peace Insists on Its Jewish Identity
from The Forward.com March 28, 2015 by Evan Serpick Article Links HERE
NOTE: So, do you get angry at this or do we try to understand how things are going so horribly wrong? Shouting at JVPers is pointless. But not dealing with this exodus to ignorance is fatal.
Read more: http://forward.com/articles/217528/embracing-israel-boycott-jewish-voice-for-peace-in/#ixzz3VhiLllLW
NOTE: So, do you get angry at this or do we try to understand how things are going so horribly wrong? Shouting at JVPers is pointless. But not dealing with this exodus to ignorance is fatal.
At the opening plenary of Jewish Voice for Peace’s recent national conference, Rabbi Alissa Wise, JVP’s co-director of organizing, asked the crowd of some 600 how many were attending their first such gathering; about three-quarters of the room shot up their hands.
For the group whose advocacy of boycotting, sanctioning and divesting from Israel makes it a pariah in most of the rest of the Jewish community, these have been boom times. And for many of its members, the reason appears to be a continuing desire to assert their opposition to Israel’s fundamental policies in a Jewish context rather than abandon their Jewish identity altogether.
One of those raising his hand was Noah Knowlton-Latkin of California’s Claremont Colleges. Like many of those in attendance, Knowlton-Latkin, a sophomore, was involved earlier in Students for Justice in Palestine, a campus group devoted to organizing students to oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza. The group also pushes college administrations to cut their economic and academic ties to Israel.
But last summer, Knowlton-Latkin reached out to JVP to express his concerns in a Jewish context. “It was great to find out that this existed,” said Knowlton-Latkin, who came to the conference with two other Jewish Claremont students, both members of SJP.
JVP’s recent conference, which took place in Baltimore from March 13 to 15, was notable for several new developments. Two weeks earlier, after a lengthy process that included study committees and membership surveys, JVP’s board of directors voted to fully support the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel, or BDS, as it is popularly known. JVP’s call for a full economic boycott of Israel comes after years of supporting a more limited boycott of only companies that operated in the occupied territories.
JVP’s full embrace of BDS includes endorsing a right of return for Arabs and for descendants of Arabs who fled or who were expelled by Israel’s army in the 1948 war that established the state. That population, most of whom remain stateless refugees, now numbers more than 5.2 million. Israel and its supporters, including even dovish Zionist parties such as Meretz, argue that full implementation of the United Nations resolution calling for their return would render Jews a minority in their own state. It would mean, they say, the end of Zionism.
But JVP’s president, Rebecca Vilkomerson, told the Forward: “For there to be a sustainable and just peace, that is one of the issues that we have to grapple with. We believe that there can be a homeland for Jewish people that is not based on the systematic denial of rights of Palestinians.”
JVP does not offer details on how that could be if such a return indeed took place.
Most striking at this conference was the way Israel’s hard-right turns, and particularly last year’s war in Gaza, have fueled JVP’s growth among a cohort of mostly young people who find the response of other Jewish groups, including the dovish group J Street, simply inadequate. JVP’s leaders anticipate that this trend will only quicken following the recent election victory of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They point to his election eve disavowal of a two-state solution and his election day warning about Arabs voting, plus the prospect that he will soon lead an even more right-wing government.
There are now 65 JVP chapters, up from 40 a year ago. Vilkomerson says JVP now has 9,000 dues-paying members, compared with 600 when the Forward last profiled the group in 2011. In the tax year that ended in June 2013, JVP had $1.1 million in donations. Vilkomerson said she expects this year’s total to top $2 million, almost all of it from individuals. The group has more than 204,000 Facebook followers, more than twice as many as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and about eight times as many as J Street.
For all their alienation from the mainstream community, JVP members seem to share an urgent need to voice their angst in a Jewish context, and to project it outward to the world, also citing their status as Jews. Critics condemn this as mere exploitation of their Jewishness in order to gain a hearing the group would otherwise be denied.
But many JVP members do come from backgrounds of serious Jewish engagement. The conference itself opened on a Friday night, with the group celebrating Kabbalat Shabbat, and included a memorial service for those killed in the war in Gaza, during which members chanted the Mourner’s Kaddish and the prayer for the dead, El Maleh Rachamim. JVP says the group offers the members a place to be their “whole selves.”
“21yrs in many jewish spaces & I’ve never felt so at home,” one participant, Talia Bauer, wrote on the group’s Facebook page after the conference.
Another participant wrote, “For three days, I was immersed in a Jewish community unlike I have ever been a part of, one rooted in justice that welcomed all of me.” She wrote anonymously, she said, to avoid her family learning of her involvement with JVP.
In Vilkomerson’s view, “the mainstream Jewish community should be thanking us. We are bringing many people back into a Jewish community. There’s so much angst in the Jewish community about the loss of community, and losing the young people, and what is going to happen, and the apathy. Nobody here is apathetic; nobody here is unconnected. To the contrary.”
Some in the mainstream grant them this point. “Any sort of Jewish engagement by young people is a positive thing,” said Steven M. Cohen, a professor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion who studies the American Jewish community. He said that JVP, along with anti-democratic far-right groups and “any group that represents lots of Jews,” should be invited to be members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and similar mainstream organizations. “JVP doesn’t show concern for the security of the State of Israel and doesn’t care if there is a Jewish State of Israel or not,” he added. Nevertheless, he said, “We should not exclude JVP from conversations — we should engage them.”
That view is unthinkable to many Jewish community standard-bearers.
“The positions and actions taken by Jewish Voice for Peace are anathema to mainstream Jewish organizations,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, in a statement to the Forward. “The group’s activities, which include partnerships with anti-Israel organizations that deny Israel’s fundamental right to exist, put them at the farthest fringe of the Jewish community and would certainly preclude their participation among mainstream organizations.”
JVP, he said, “uses its Jewish identity to provide the anti-Israel movement with a veneer of legitimacy and to shield the movement’s most demagogic supporters from allegations of anti-Semitism.”
For many, the decision to join JVP was a painful, personal one, reflecting a lost faith in the State of Israel. Rabbi Brant Rosen, a co-chair of JVP’s rabbinical council, who served as a congregational rabbi in suburban Chicago for 17 years, joined in 2009, after Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, its military campaign into Gaza, with numerous reports — contested by Israel — of high civilian deaths rates.
Michael Davis, a congregational cantor in the Reform movement and a member of JVP’s rabbinical council, grew up Orthodox in Israel. He said that his own worldview changed after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin at a fateful Tel Aviv peace rally in November 1995. “That was the end of the dream for me,” he told the Forward.
For Vilkomerson, it was the second intifada, starting in 2000. “There are these moments of cracking open, where people sort of make the leap,” she said.
Rosen added, “Historically, that’s how JVP has grown, unfortunately, tragically.”
Speaking after the Israeli election, Vilkomerson says she now expects another wave of people to come into the JVP fold. “Given that the American Jewish community is generally interested in peace and democratic values, we expect a lot of self-reflection about how to support a true peace in the days to come,” she said.
Contact Evan Serpick at feedback@forward.com
Read more: http://forward.com/articles/217528/embracing-israel-boycott-jewish-voice-for-peace-in/#ixzz3VhiLllLW
Israeli Center-Left Leader Seeks Path Forward
From The New York Times March 27, 2015 Article Links HERE
Tel Aviv- Isaac Herzog is not acting like a sore loser. He is not seeking scapegoats to blame for his center-left Zionist Union’s failure to capture enough votes in Israel’s election last week to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is not shouting “I told you so” as the Obama administration and Europe threaten to isolate Israel as never before.
Instead, Mr. Herzog is both promising to lead a “fighting opposition” if Mr. Netanyahu, as expected, forms a narrow coalition of right-leaning and religious parties, and leaving at least a crack in the door for the long-shot possibility of joining a unity government. He does not see the campaign in simple win-loss terms: The Zionist Union, after all, will have 24 of 120 seats in Israel’s next Parliament, more than the 21 its two parties had in the last one.
“I’m pleased with the result, and I’m not pleased with the outcome,” Mr. Herzog said in an interview. “We’re already moving on,” he added. “People stop us in the street all the time, stop me and say thank you for giving us hope and make sure Netanyahu doesn’t screw us up.”
The postgame analysis in Israel is, roughly, that after a surprisingly close battle, Mr. Netanyahu used the power of incumbency and scare tactics to turn the tables in a 72-hour blitz in which he tacked hard to the right. Mr. Herzog, a consensus-builder short on charisma, was slow and soft in his response to the onslaught, and never quite crossed the threshold as a strong-leader alternative.
Yet beyond any shortcomings of candidate and campaign tactics, the election has raised profound questions about the prospects for Israel’s moribund political left and amorphous center. Though the Zionist Union and other parties spent most of their time talking about kitchen-table concerns, in the end it was existential questions like peace with the Palestinians and the Iranian nuclear threat, along with internal, tribal rifts, that seem to have been the deciders.
If Mr. Herzog was selling hope against Mr. Netanyahu’s fear, fear won in part because Israelis are not hopeful about the situation they see surrounding them.
“Of course they made mistakes, but not terrible mistakes, not tragic mistakes. It’s much deeper than that,” said Yossi Sarid, who served as a leftist Parliament member and minister from 1974 to 2006.
“Philosophical arguments, theoretical arguments, are not for influence — the only factor which influences sometimes is reality by itself,” he added. “People think what they see, and as long as our reality is like the reality of the Titanic before the collision, or in Pompeii in the last days before the eruption, so nobody will influence them or convince them.”
Ari Shavit, a prominent columnist and author, said the Zionist Union also failed to articulate what, exactly, Israelis could be hopeful for, promising only to improve relations with Washington and try to return to negotiations with a Palestinian leadership that most Israeli Jews do not see as a partner for peace.
“Hope was very hollow, and fear is much deeper,” Mr. Shavit said. “The peaceniks have never internalized the fact that the right got something right, and the only way to fight the right is by giving an answer.
“They didn’t market the utopian peace because no one in this country will buy it,” he continued. “Instead, they sold ignoring the occupation, and ignoring the traumas. They didn’t bring a new, benign peace context that is solid and realistic.”
Some say a better strategy would have been to fight fear with fear. “Instead of shouting ‘things are terrible,’ the left wing should have told the public the truth,” Sever Plocker argued in the newspaper Yediot Aharonot. “ ‘Yes, right now your situation is good, but Netanyahu’s policy vis-à-vis the Palestinians is necessarily leading to the establishment of a binational state in which things will be bad, very bad, for you and us. Truly scary.’ ”
But Mr. Herzog said in the interview that Israelis had been warned of isolation and a binational state “for 50 years, that’s long term.” And in any case, he said, “If you hit too hard on that people view it as a kind of lefty position, you’re with our enemies.”
He complained that Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign consisted of “a lot of lying, a lot of false blame and false rhetoric,” and acknowledged, “We found ourselves kind of defending ourselves uselessly about it.”
“What could be our hate rhetoric?” he asked rhetorically at one point. “I’m trying to think.”
The son of Israel’s sixth president and grandson of its first chief rabbi, Mr. Herzog has since 2003 served in Parliament as a member of the left-leaning Labor Party. Yet for the bulk of a 40-minute conversation, he spoke of the center, not the left, and then ultimately defined his camp as “the center-center-left.”
“I have huge respect for the left — the left is bold, the left is very focused and is very ideological — but most of the rank and file of the Israeli public wants something more pragmatic,” he said. “I moved my party to the center and I will continue forcefully to stage my party to the center. The only way to win in Israel is by being in the center.”
The center, though, is already occupied — by Yair Lapid, who refused to meld his Yesh Atid party into the Zionist Union and won 11 Parliament seats last week, and now by Moshe Kahlon, who broke from Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party to form his own, called Kulanu, which won 10 seats and is expected to join the coalition. Both campaigned on the economy, not the security issues that have long defined Israel’s political map.
Mr. Herzog acknowledged that his campaign failed to expand the center-left base. Next time, he said, he would reach out more to the working-class and children of immigrants. He would emphasize Jewish tradition, understanding the damage caused when the Israeli artist Yair Garbuz derided Israelis who hold old customs dear at the left’s big pre-election rally.
He said he would also try to forge a deeper alliance with Arab lawmakers who have until now operated outside the political and parliamentary mainstream.
Last weekend, Mr. Herzog made a brief getaway with his wife to an upscale spa resort in Israel’s north.
By Tuesday, he had resumed meeting with activists in the Tel Aviv suburbs of Petah Tikva and Yehud. On Wednesday, he was taking meetings in the back room of Shine & Sharp, a Tel Aviv steakhouse, fueled by a bottle of Coke Zero.
He said he had not spoken with Mr. Netanyahu since calling him to concede on the morning after the election, despite persistent rumors that they might yet join forces — rumors he did not definitely deny.
“Netanyahu said there’s a huge chasm between us. He said during the elections that we are anti-Zionists, and he said during the election that I will basically sell the country to the Arabs,” Mr. Herzog said. “I haven’t heard anything to the contrary. I’m not intending to be the troubleshooter or the fixer or the bleaching element in his government.
"We will try to expose the weakness of this coalition," he said "my goal will always be to bring hope, to show that there is a sincere, reasonable and sensible voice in the arena." Click HERE to keep reading.
Tel Aviv- Isaac Herzog is not acting like a sore loser. He is not seeking scapegoats to blame for his center-left Zionist Union’s failure to capture enough votes in Israel’s election last week to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is not shouting “I told you so” as the Obama administration and Europe threaten to isolate Israel as never before.
Instead, Mr. Herzog is both promising to lead a “fighting opposition” if Mr. Netanyahu, as expected, forms a narrow coalition of right-leaning and religious parties, and leaving at least a crack in the door for the long-shot possibility of joining a unity government. He does not see the campaign in simple win-loss terms: The Zionist Union, after all, will have 24 of 120 seats in Israel’s next Parliament, more than the 21 its two parties had in the last one.
“I’m pleased with the result, and I’m not pleased with the outcome,” Mr. Herzog said in an interview. “We’re already moving on,” he added. “People stop us in the street all the time, stop me and say thank you for giving us hope and make sure Netanyahu doesn’t screw us up.”
The postgame analysis in Israel is, roughly, that after a surprisingly close battle, Mr. Netanyahu used the power of incumbency and scare tactics to turn the tables in a 72-hour blitz in which he tacked hard to the right. Mr. Herzog, a consensus-builder short on charisma, was slow and soft in his response to the onslaught, and never quite crossed the threshold as a strong-leader alternative.
Yet beyond any shortcomings of candidate and campaign tactics, the election has raised profound questions about the prospects for Israel’s moribund political left and amorphous center. Though the Zionist Union and other parties spent most of their time talking about kitchen-table concerns, in the end it was existential questions like peace with the Palestinians and the Iranian nuclear threat, along with internal, tribal rifts, that seem to have been the deciders.
If Mr. Herzog was selling hope against Mr. Netanyahu’s fear, fear won in part because Israelis are not hopeful about the situation they see surrounding them.
“Of course they made mistakes, but not terrible mistakes, not tragic mistakes. It’s much deeper than that,” said Yossi Sarid, who served as a leftist Parliament member and minister from 1974 to 2006.
“Philosophical arguments, theoretical arguments, are not for influence — the only factor which influences sometimes is reality by itself,” he added. “People think what they see, and as long as our reality is like the reality of the Titanic before the collision, or in Pompeii in the last days before the eruption, so nobody will influence them or convince them.”
Ari Shavit, a prominent columnist and author, said the Zionist Union also failed to articulate what, exactly, Israelis could be hopeful for, promising only to improve relations with Washington and try to return to negotiations with a Palestinian leadership that most Israeli Jews do not see as a partner for peace.
“Hope was very hollow, and fear is much deeper,” Mr. Shavit said. “The peaceniks have never internalized the fact that the right got something right, and the only way to fight the right is by giving an answer.
“They didn’t market the utopian peace because no one in this country will buy it,” he continued. “Instead, they sold ignoring the occupation, and ignoring the traumas. They didn’t bring a new, benign peace context that is solid and realistic.”
Some say a better strategy would have been to fight fear with fear. “Instead of shouting ‘things are terrible,’ the left wing should have told the public the truth,” Sever Plocker argued in the newspaper Yediot Aharonot. “ ‘Yes, right now your situation is good, but Netanyahu’s policy vis-à-vis the Palestinians is necessarily leading to the establishment of a binational state in which things will be bad, very bad, for you and us. Truly scary.’ ”
But Mr. Herzog said in the interview that Israelis had been warned of isolation and a binational state “for 50 years, that’s long term.” And in any case, he said, “If you hit too hard on that people view it as a kind of lefty position, you’re with our enemies.”
He complained that Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign consisted of “a lot of lying, a lot of false blame and false rhetoric,” and acknowledged, “We found ourselves kind of defending ourselves uselessly about it.”
“What could be our hate rhetoric?” he asked rhetorically at one point. “I’m trying to think.”
The son of Israel’s sixth president and grandson of its first chief rabbi, Mr. Herzog has since 2003 served in Parliament as a member of the left-leaning Labor Party. Yet for the bulk of a 40-minute conversation, he spoke of the center, not the left, and then ultimately defined his camp as “the center-center-left.”
“I have huge respect for the left — the left is bold, the left is very focused and is very ideological — but most of the rank and file of the Israeli public wants something more pragmatic,” he said. “I moved my party to the center and I will continue forcefully to stage my party to the center. The only way to win in Israel is by being in the center.”
The center, though, is already occupied — by Yair Lapid, who refused to meld his Yesh Atid party into the Zionist Union and won 11 Parliament seats last week, and now by Moshe Kahlon, who broke from Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party to form his own, called Kulanu, which won 10 seats and is expected to join the coalition. Both campaigned on the economy, not the security issues that have long defined Israel’s political map.
Mr. Herzog acknowledged that his campaign failed to expand the center-left base. Next time, he said, he would reach out more to the working-class and children of immigrants. He would emphasize Jewish tradition, understanding the damage caused when the Israeli artist Yair Garbuz derided Israelis who hold old customs dear at the left’s big pre-election rally.
He said he would also try to forge a deeper alliance with Arab lawmakers who have until now operated outside the political and parliamentary mainstream.
Last weekend, Mr. Herzog made a brief getaway with his wife to an upscale spa resort in Israel’s north.
By Tuesday, he had resumed meeting with activists in the Tel Aviv suburbs of Petah Tikva and Yehud. On Wednesday, he was taking meetings in the back room of Shine & Sharp, a Tel Aviv steakhouse, fueled by a bottle of Coke Zero.
He said he had not spoken with Mr. Netanyahu since calling him to concede on the morning after the election, despite persistent rumors that they might yet join forces — rumors he did not definitely deny.
“Netanyahu said there’s a huge chasm between us. He said during the elections that we are anti-Zionists, and he said during the election that I will basically sell the country to the Arabs,” Mr. Herzog said. “I haven’t heard anything to the contrary. I’m not intending to be the troubleshooter or the fixer or the bleaching element in his government.
"We will try to expose the weakness of this coalition," he said "my goal will always be to bring hope, to show that there is a sincere, reasonable and sensible voice in the arena." Click HERE to keep reading.
Friday, March 27, 2015
Making Sense of Chaos in the Middle East
Full Article Links HERE
CLICK THIS for the video
CLICK THIS for the video
Volcanic changes in the region are under way, with the outbreak of Sunni-Shiite wars in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, unprecedented tension between Washington and Israel, and U.S.-Iranian nuclear talks that appear on the verge of breakthrough.
To discuss the urgent and longer-term implications of this unfolding chaos, The Washington Institute will host a Policy Forum with senior fellows James Jeffrey, Dennis Ross, and Robert Satloff, moderated by Michael Singh.
Join us for a live webcast of this event starting at 12:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 1, 2015. (HERE)
James Jeffrey is the Institute's Philip Solondz Distinguished Visiting Fellow and former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Turkey.
Dennis Ross is the Institute's William Davidson Distinguished Fellow and former special assistant to President Obama.
Robert Satloff is the Institute's executive director and Howard P. Berkowitz Chair in U.S. Middle East Policy.
Michael Singh is the Institute's Lane-Swig Senior Fellow and managing director.
Netanyahu looks for way out of rightist coalition
from al-monitor.com March 27, 2015 Full Article Links HERE
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has often, including in recent days, spoken with longing of his second government, established in 2009 in partnership with his ultra-Orthodox allies and the Labor Party headed by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. It was a fairly stable government that saw out almost four years of its term, during which it enjoyed international support by dint of the close ties between Barak and the US administration and the expectations generated by Netanyahu’s 2009 Bar Ilan speech. As long as Barak served in the government, the diplomatic stalemate of Netanyahu’s second government was considered bearable and something that could be contained.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has often, including in recent days, spoken with longing of his second government, established in 2009 in partnership with his ultra-Orthodox allies and the Labor Party headed by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. It was a fairly stable government that saw out almost four years of its term, during which it enjoyed international support by dint of the close ties between Barak and the US administration and the expectations generated by Netanyahu’s 2009 Bar Ilan speech. As long as Barak served in the government, the diplomatic stalemate of Netanyahu’s second government was considered bearable and something that could be contained.
The guidelines of that government expressed a commitment to restart negotiations with the Palestinians, including Barak’s demand that the government work to advance the Middle East peace process within the framework of a regional peace conference. This demand helped Barak obtain the approval of his party’s institutions for joining the Netanyahu government. Labor’s accession to the government put an end to the direct and indirect contacts for entering the coalition Netanyahu was conducting with then-chairwoman of the Kadima Party, Tzipi Livni, whose party had gotten 28 Knesset seats in the elections. In talks held at the time, the parties spoke extensively of negotiations with the Palestinians, which at that point had gotten to a very advanced stage between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
The makeup of the coalition that he formed with Barak could not have been better as far as Netanyahu was concerned: It created a false impression of a desire to move the diplomatic process forward through the Labor Party and gained him relative calm on the international front. In fact, Netanyahu did not advance the process, but rather he put it on hold, something that won him relative calm from the settlers and the extreme right wing of the Likud. A truly magic formula.
After the 2013 elections, Netanyahu resorted to the same formula. The first coalition agreement was signed with Livni, who by then was heading a new party called Hatnua, which ran on a diplomatic process ticket. Livni was determined to join the government and not to revert to her frustrating time in the opposition, and was quick to clinch a deal. Netanyahu promised that he would be committed to the diplomatic process and Livni was put in charge of the negotiations with the Palestinians and tasked with reaching an agreement ending the conflict. But this time, too, Netanyahu had no intention of pushing the negotiations forward.
Netanyahu did, in fact, have a broad-based government with a diplomatic agenda in the spirit of two states for two people; Livni, who was also appointed justice minister, traveled the world and met with Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. Netanyahu, on the other hand, through his special envoy to the talks, attorney Yitzhak Molcho, made sure that nothing concrete would emerge from the closed-door meetings. As far as he was concerned, the illusion of negotiations had an important role vis-a-vis the United States.
Netanyahu is now facing a new reality. On the one hand, he won the elections and strengthened the Likud, bringing it 30 Knesset seats. On the other hand, the emerging coalition is composed of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties, at a time when relations with the United States are sliding uncontrollably down a slippery slope.
NOTE: Pease keep reading: Click HERE to keep reading
The Day of Remembrance: Using Film to Learn about the Holocaust
from Edutopia March 25, 2015 by Eileen Mattingly
Full Article Links HERE
NOTE: Great resource. Bookmark this, share it, use it.
Click HERE to keep reading
Full Article Links HERE
NOTE: Great resource. Bookmark this, share it, use it.
The Day of Remembrance, or Yom Hashoah, will be marked on Thursday, April 16, this year. Numerous civic and religious organizations use the week before this date to commemorate the victims who perished during the Holocaust. Teachers who introduce this topic to their students often find that textbook chapters on the Holocaust numb students with the sheer scale of the devastation—the many millions of lives lost in this genocide. It’s simply impossible for them to visualize. To help your students understand the impact, consider using a film that focuses on an individual caught in the maelstrom of Nazism.
For older and more mature students, the classic film Schindler’s List would be appropriate. It is long—over three hours—but students will find that it is well worth the time. Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist who was willing to work with Nazi leadership, even join the Nazi party, to increase his business. He used Polish Jews in his factory because their slave labor was cheaper than that of free workers. Over the course of the war, as he watched over his workers, he became more and more determined to protect them and to keep them from the death camps like Auschwitz. Eventually, the man who wanted to make money from his laborers wound up spending his entire fortune on bribing German officials in order to save their lives. A study guide to the film is available from Facing History and Ourselves at https://www.facinghistory.org/for-educators/educator-resources/resources....
Many opportunities for student research and writing arise from this film. In an English class, for example, you might use Oskar Schindler as a superb example of a dynamic character, one who evolves from one set of beliefs to a different perspective; a character analysis using evidence from the film could explore his shifting nature and goals in detail. Alternatively, taking a broader perspective, you might have students discover the meaning and importance of the phrase "the righteous Gentile." They could research to uncover individuals of the time (including and beyond Schindler) who exemplified it. Then students could write news articles to detail their lives, using photographs, graphics and maps as appropriate. Such a lesson would include instruction on the organization and style of news writing; students could even use desktop publishing to showcase their articles in a group news magazine. A variation would include a study of those people who are the Schindlers of today, taking individual actions to combat oppression.
For younger students or those not mature enough for Schindler’s List, consider a more recent film, Defiant Requiem. The film began as a project of Murry Sidlin, a conductor and music faculty member at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. In researching Holocaust music, he came across information about a group of Jewish prisoners in Terezín (Theresienstadt) outside of Prague. Under the leadership of young conductor Rafael Schächter, the prisoners learned the words and music of Verdi’s Roman Catholic requiem mass, using one score and one piano, and performed it sixteen times in the concentration camp. They even sang it to Nazi officials, including the hymns “Libera me” (“Set me free”) and “Dies irae,” a hymn that hints that God will exact revenge. Sidlin took his chorale to Terezín and performed the Requiem as a memorial. The documentary film is a blend of contemporary photos and artifacts, interviews with survivors of Terezín, re-enactments, and the Terezín performance.
A set of eight free interdisciplinary lesson plans for Defiant Requiem is available for downloading from http://journeysinfilm.org/download/defiant-requiem/. The lessons include a study of Verdi and his Requiem for music classes; social studies lessons on the Jews of Prague before the Holocaust and on life in Terezín; a lesson on the nature of propaganda, both during world War II and now; an English lesson on writing a film review; journal questions to use while viewing, and more. The film is available for viewing for free as well, at http://video.pbs.org/program/defiant-requiem-voices-resistance/.
In addition to such a film, or if time does not allow for viewing a full-length film, you might wish to search out a Holocaust survivor in your community who would be willing to speak to your classes. If this proves impossible, consider introducing your students to the Shoah Foundation website at the University of Southern California (https://sfi.usc.edu/). This website is an archive of video testimonies by survivors of the Holocaust. Short videos can be searched by such topics as Kristallnacht, Auschwitz, religious holiday observances, women and families in the Holocaust, and more. There are full-length, online lectures by Holocaust experts. A trove of resources and activities for teachers and students is also available at this site. The Visual History Archive Online at http://vhaonline.usc.edu/login.aspx. This site has over 52,000 audiovisual testimonies about genocide, mostly about the Holocaust, but also including some on the Rwandan genocide and the Nanjing Massacre. More than 1200 are in English.
As you plan your classes for the rest of the school year, consider incorporating one of these films and/or a selection of survivor testimonies to help your students understand the nature of genocide and why we must all say, “Never again!”
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How to Deal with Anti-Semitism on Campus
American Thinker March 27, 2015 by Elise Cooper
Full Article Links HERE
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/03/how_to_deal_with_antisemitism_on_campus.html#ixzz3VcC5yApi
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Full Article Links HERE
Anti-Semitism is gaining traction on many college campuses across America. Instead of an atmosphere where ideas are exchanged and intellectual curiosity is encouraged, there is bigotry, discrimination, and offensive commentary against the Jewish population. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a major contributing factor, considering the divestment and the anti-Israeli campaigns. There is a culture of targeting Israel that in turn targets Jewish students. As in general society, the perpetrators appear to be one particular group: the Islamic extremists and their supporters.
Ariela Keysar, who wrote a detailed "Anti-Semitism Report" with Barry A. Ksomin, found that more than half of American Jewish college students personally experienced or witnessed anti-Semitism last year. Two glaring statistics stand out: college students are five times more likely to have encountered anti-Semitism in the U.S. than other age groups, and 54% of Jewish students in the sample survey reported having been subject to or witnessed anti-Semitism on campus.
UCLA was recently in the news with the overtly anti-Semitic actions on campus. Rachel Beyda, a Jewish student, was going to be confirmed by the student council as an appointed justice to the Judicial Board. During the process, she was asked, "Given that you are a Jewish student and very active in the Jewish community… how do you see yourself being able to maintain an unbiased view?" This interrogation coincided with UCLA's annual Israel Apartheid Week. It was reported that after Rachel left the room, the discussion consisted of "forty minutes of unequivocal anti-Semitism." Even though all thought her amply qualified, half of the council did not want to confirm her because of "Rachel's Jewish identity."
In response to this and other actions, David Horowitz of the David Horowitz Freedom Center has initiated JewHatredonCampus.org. His organization placed posters at UCLA linking the group "Supporters for Justice in Palestine" with terrorist activities. For example, one poster depicted the body of a lifeless Palestinian civilian being dragged through the streets of Gaza by Hamas operatives while tethered to a motorcycle, with the bottom caption "#JewHaters." Interestingly, UCLA's chancellor, Gene D. Block, came out strongly against what he calls intolerance and bias on the campus. But the point to be made is that he wrote his condemnation only after the poster depiction of the Palestinians, which occurred days after the Rachel Beyda incident. He needed a tit-for-tat before he publicly spoke.
American Thinker interviewed David Horowitz and two UCLA Jewish student leaders regarding anti-Semitism at UCLA. The Jewish students wonder if Horowitz is an extremist who is just adding fuel to the fire, while David Horowitz questions if some Jewish groups on campus are appeasers. Although they differ in the tactics to be used to battle anti-Semitism, all are in agreement that a contributing factor is the "liberal" atmosphere at UCLA.
Horowitz told American Thinker, "The Muslim Student Association and Students for Justice In Palestine are hate groups whose only purpose is to demonize the State of Israel. They receive campus funding and campus support. There is this hypocrisy and double standard. Think about it: if they said these things against blacks, would there still be the same reaction? With the campaign 'Jew Hatred On Campus,' we are attempting to shift the conversation from the ludicrous, whether Israel is an apartheid state, to whether these groups are hate groups. We want to put forward the truth and present the propaganda of lies."
Rebecca is a UCLA junior who writes for UCLA's Jewish news magazine, Ha'Am. She decided to engage the students who put up the Israel Apartheid Wall Installation on campus. It is painted with different misfacts about the conflict. Her feeling is that this wall is an attempt to recruit support from the black and Hispanic communities on campus, associating their experiences with Palestinian issues. According to Rebecca, the discourse was respectful, with a give-and-take, until the Muslim representative saw her necklace that identified Rebecca as Jewish. From that moment she never looked her in the eye and refused to continue the conversation. Rebecca said, "I was really bothered, since she refused to talk to me only because I was Jewish. She utterly disrespected me. It became obvious it was not OK to have a dialogue with people who want to challenge the facts. They do not want any dialogue." NOTE: MUCH more to read by clicking HERE
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/03/how_to_deal_with_antisemitism_on_campus.html#ixzz3VcC5yApi
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Catch the Steamy Romance Atop Masada, on a TV Near You
FULL ARTICLE LINKS HERE
from the Jewniverse March 27, 2015 by Avishay Artsy
Premiering next week on CBS, The Dovekeepers, based on the bestselling Alice Hoffman novel of the same name, dramatizes the story of Masada, the ancient mountaintop fortress, with bloody sword fights, battering rams and flaming torches. There’s lots of steamy makeout scenes by candlelight and overwrought romantic dialogue. (“Can you defend yourself, my little dove?” “Try me.”)
While the Jewish rebel leader Eleazar ben Yair and the Roman governor of Judea, Flavius Silva deliver impassioned speeches, the show really focuses on the stories of four women, including Cote de Pablo of NCIS fame as the magic-wielding Shirah, and Kathryn Prescott of Skins and Finding Carter as the fearless fighter Aziza
Keep reading. Full story with pictures click HERE
from the Jewniverse March 27, 2015 by Avishay Artsy
Premiering next week on CBS, The Dovekeepers, based on the bestselling Alice Hoffman novel of the same name, dramatizes the story of Masada, the ancient mountaintop fortress, with bloody sword fights, battering rams and flaming torches. There’s lots of steamy makeout scenes by candlelight and overwrought romantic dialogue. (“Can you defend yourself, my little dove?” “Try me.”)
While the Jewish rebel leader Eleazar ben Yair and the Roman governor of Judea, Flavius Silva deliver impassioned speeches, the show really focuses on the stories of four women, including Cote de Pablo of NCIS fame as the magic-wielding Shirah, and Kathryn Prescott of Skins and Finding Carter as the fearless fighter Aziza
Keep reading. Full story with pictures click HERE
Manischewitz-Glazed Matzah Truffles
by Amy Kritzer March 27, 2015 The Jewish Week
NOTE: This is getting serious. And awesome...
Amy Kritzer/JW
This is the second installment of our new series "The Remix" in which we seek to gently tweak the more challenging dishes in the Jewish culinary cannon. With a little bit of love, we’re convinced we can make even these dishes delicious, even the ones that seem bizarre to the modern palate.
Matzah, of course, is a cracker, but a strange one. When I ask my non-Jewish friends if they like matzah, the answer is a resounding yes. But my Jewish friends are more divided. Responses from an informal Facebook poll ranged from “I love it! I eat it all year long!” to “Yes, with butter, egg salad, charoset, lox or honey,” to, ahem, “My digestive system hates it. I prefer to be regular.” Alrighty then! More than one respondent called matzah out for being crumbly, hard to digest, bland, and messy.
But maybe the bread of affliction is supposed to afflict you. After all, we eat matzah because when Moses and the Israelites fled slavery in Egypt, they left so fast they didn’t have time for their bread to rise. The matzah is a symbol of struggle; its unappealing qualities remind us of our hardship.
For years, matzah was carefully crafted by hand, with Rabbis closely monitoring it to make sure it went from dough to cracker in no more than 18 minutes, when the leavening process is thought to start.
Then, in 1888, Lithuanian immigrant Dov Behr, founder of Manischewitz, opened the first matzah factory in Cincinnati. The company’s ads even bragged, “No human hand touches these matzos!” Matzah went from round and bumpy to square and uniform. The factories brought matzah to the mass market and made it more affordable.
Julie Sperling, co-founder of the handmade matzah brand Vermatzah, is trying to bring an artisanal touch back into matzah making. She believes that all that automation has hurt the flavor.
“Most matzah is made using industrially produced wheat, which leaves it tasting bland,” she said. She prefers local ingredients, which give the matzah a more interesting flavor.
But even your big-box matzah is better as part of a recipe, most agree. Lots of us love matzah brei, chocolate-covered matzah and, of course, matzah balls, which open up the whole sinkers versus swimmers argument. (Team sinker!) We also chew over whether one should add seltzer water for lightness (I say nay), and if we should put in tons of vegetables or leave the broth plain. As a people, we may never reach one conclusion.
But we do know that chocolate improves everything, even matzah balls. Of course, the only thing these truffles have in common with traditional savory matzah balls is their shape, and the matzah. They’ve also got rich, dark chocolate with crunchy matzah, a touch of sea salt and a sweet glaze made with Manischewitz wine. Your seders may never be the same.
1/3 cup heavy cream
5 ounces (about ¾ cup) dark chocolate, roughly chopped
1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
1 piece matzah, finely chopped
1-1/2 cups kosher for Passover powdered sugar
3 tablespoons Manischewitz (or to taste)
Sea salt
1. Put heavy whipping cream in a small saucepan over low heat. Bring to a simmer and add chocolate. Remove the saucepan from the heat and whisk until smooth. Whisk in butter until smooth. Stir in matzah pieces and chill for 1 hour or until mixture hardens. Can be made up to one day in advance.
2. While chocolate is hardening, make glaze by mixing powdered sugar and Manischewitz. The glaze should be loose enough to drizzle but thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
3. Remove chocolate mixture from refrigerator and use a teaspoon or melon baller to create round truffles. Drizzle each truffle with glaze, then sprinkle with a few grains of salt. Let glaze harden and serve. Can be made one day in advance and stored in the refrigerator, or up to three days if you drizzle the glaze a day before serving.
Last Update:
03/27/2015 - 11:35
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