=jplt16 To: Jerusalem Circle Group (LIST) cc: Awaskow@aol.com Re: Jerusalem Circle Posting, 24 May '04 "A Shavuot vort" Art Waskow's paperback "Seasons of our Joy" is an excellent introduction to religous Judaism. It includes reproductions of intricate papercuts by JoAnne and Martin Farrin, that are a sort of visual midrash; and also includes suggested readings, and seasonal recipes. That said: I think that Art Waskow's posting of 24 May to the 'Jerusalem Circle' Yahoo Group, was not justified, neither procedurally nor substantively. Waskow speaks in passing, without noting his source(s), of "the Israeli Army's smashing of Palestinian homes and killing even unarmed, nonviolent protestors in Gaza" Procedurally, I think that statements of political opinion are not appropriate on this LIST. This LIST seems to be a Bulletin Board for persons striving to rise above political/religious/ethnic differences in order to co-exist amicably. The West Jerusalem YMCA states, in a plaque before its entrance: "Here is a place whose atmosphere is peace, where political and religious jealousies can be forgotten and international unity be fostered and developed." (from General Allenby's dedication address, April 1933.) Substantively, the matter is more complex; and a rejoinder would extend the procedural error. I am tempted, though, to suggest a few guidelines for persons, especially abroad in galutz, attempting to criticize or critique Israel's political/military acts and policies. We each live in monadic bubbles of virtual reality; intersecting comic-book worlds; "myths of the marketplace" from which we take political opinions fashioned to fit our self-image. One's opinions are largely shaped by one's sources: The main English-language source for news of Israel comes from The Jerusalem Post, http://www.jpost.com , which was more literate before the Histadrut sold it off, but still seems reasonably objective. Editorially the present Post supports the New Sharon and flacks for Bush. The secondary English-language source for news of Israel is HaAretz/English, http://www.haaretz.co.il , included as an unrequested supplement to the HaAretz-printed edition of the International Herald Tribune. Much of HaAretz/English is literate (particularly the movie reviews of Uri Klein), but overall it trips over its ideology. It seems to speak only for those who fancy themselves members an imagined Ashkenazi elite; and is vigorously opposed to Israeli occupation of the post-1967 territories. As a rule of thumb, if an alleged offense against Palestinians by the IDF (not to mention settlers) is not reported in HaAretz, it probably didn't occur. At the risk of hyperbole: If an IDF soldier sneezes on a Palestinian, HaAretz will respond the next day with 3 Ed_Ops in unreadable rhetoric claiming victimization by germ warfare. There is also the export-oriented fortnightly Jerusalem Report, http://www.jrep.com , which, with occasional exceptions (notably Ehud Ya'ari), is in general little more (intellectually) nourishing than a trayful of pareve ("shaving cream") pastry. Its commentaries on alternate biblical parshiot, while not up to Haverat Shalom standards, are a relief from the predetermined conclusions of orthodox gloss. ----------------------------------------------------------------- sa, Mevo Modi'in: 3 Jun '04 , 14 siVan , 14 Rabi' al-Thaany ---------------------------------------------------------------- A short substantive rejoinder occurs on my Website, http://www.geocities.com/sa73122a , in =jplt16; but will not be incldued here. [INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING PAR ONLY in =jplt16, not in Posting to GROUP List.:] It is my understanding that: Israel forces entered Rafah to protect IDF border patrols (13 of whom had recently been killed) and to disrupt the smuggling of arms, including long-range weapons, via the Sinai through tunnels into Rafah. Approximately 53 buildings (homes?) were destroyed during this operation. Some to disrupt tunnels, some because they had been used to shoot at IDF patrols, some to clear a way for advancing troops. In one incident 7 or 8 Palestinians, 5 of whom were armed apparent gunmen, were unintentionally killed apparently by shrapnel from a tank shell fired intended as a warning shot to head off a large group of Palestinians, some of them armed, who were advancing in ostensibly a protest demonstration that would have cut off an advance unit of IDF foot-soldiers. Israel has long had a policy of destroying the homes of persons determined to have commited terrorist acts. This is not precisely 'collective punishment', but it is surely 'familial punishment'. If it is justified, it is not justiifed as 'justice' -- which is the requiting of those, and only those, who have committed crimes -- but on utilitarian ethical grounds, ass a deterrent. (Although it is not clear that it does serve as a detterent, and may to some extent serve as motivating force to futher terrorist acts. Particular since those nation-based groups which sponsor 'Palestinian' terrorist groups, promptly provide alternate housing and comopensation. ) If Israel wanted to use collective punishment, it could block foreign aid and funds, and cut off utilities and communications to the Gaza strip. A case may be made for the ethical justificaiton of collective punishment (ie, punishment which is inflicted upon non-combatants) as a deterrent measure. ================================================================= Re: TIME 17 Nov '03 ("The Real Story of Jessica Lynch") Re: the account of the capture and rescue of Jessica Lynch (TIME 17 Nov '03): She seems to have been a victim of the Bush Administration's management of the Iraq problem; not a hero. She also seems to have shown great spiritual courage in contending with her adversity. The account of her capture suggests that some court-martial's would be in order, starting with the Commander-in-Chief: A minimally trained young woman volunteer in the National Guard, from an impoverished region, assigned to support duties, neither trained nor psychologically suited for combat, is sent into a combat zone. In a sandstorm area, she is given an M-16 (rather than an Uzi, which is very easy to clean quickly), without a case. No procedure requring frequent checks and cleaning assures that the weapons will not become unusable due to sand. She is put in a group within a convoy with few if any combat-trained soldiers. Her vehicle is allowed to fall behind the rest of the convoy. There is apparently no "sweep", a well-maintained last vehicle with combat troops to ensure that no personnel are left behind. At a critical junction, a forward group placed to ensure that no vehicle makes a wrong turn abandons its posts, having incorrectly assumed that the entire convoy has passed -- procedures for radio communication or even a simple checkoffhave not established that one vehicle has fallen behind. Hopelessly outnumbered, the group, apparently with no orders to surrender in such a situation, are killed, with the exception of Jessic Lynch, who, seriously wounded, and apparently about to be used by guerillas as a propaganda hostage, is rescued thanks primarily to sympathetic Iraqui hospital staff. A Hopi Indian young woman soldier, the single mother two young children, seems to have acted and fought heroically to save Jessica Lynch before and during the ambush; at the cost of her own life. It is not clear why a single mother would be placed in a combat situation. And it is not clear that she has received proper recognition from the U.S. Army for her courage; nor that it has made proper provision has been made for her children's financial support. The Bush administration -- not including Colin Powell, who seems to be a mature and responsible man who, shunted aside as a marginalized Secretary of State, has assumed the thankless historic task of serving as a "sea-anchor" to a runaway ship of state -- seems to have exploited and betrayed the financial sruggles and idealism of young men and young women from its economic backwaters. The background of Jessica Lynch seems to be not unlike that of Lynnie Englander, another poor but spirited young woman from West Virginia , who joined the National Guard in quest of a better life, but apparently fell into bad company and was exploited in an immoral, unlawful, and essentially irrational policy of intimidating prisoners, in quest of information about conspiracies taht apparently have little existence outside the imaginations of a few central members of the Bush Administration. ================================================================ Sent JP 31 May '04 30 May '04 Re: English AM News, 30 May '04 REMEMBER FRANCO: A reported march by self-identified IDF soldiers and officers from Yavne to Gush Katif, in support of Sharon's plan to evacuate Jewish residents from the Gaza strip, seems doubly inappropriate. Although it is only a symbolic act, and although most Israelis may be identified as reserve IDF soldiers, such a demonstration has the form of military intimidation of the citizenry, and of military support for one faction in a political dispute. ================================================================= To: letters@iht.com, nicholas@nytimes.com Re: IHT 27 May '04 (Kristof: "Snuggling up to Ariel Sharon" Nicholas Kristof (IHT 27 May '04, "Snuggling up to Ariel Sharon") cranks out a number of anti-Israel cliches. Kirstof writes: " ... Sharon responds to terrorist attacks by sending troops to bulldoze Palestinian homes and shoot protesters Briefly: After 13 Israeli soldiers were killed, some in fire from buildings adjoining the border road, while attempting to disrupt arms smuggling into Gaza across Israel's southern border, a larger Israeli force entered the area. Approximately 56 buildings were destroyed, to protect Israeli troops and to disrupt smuggling tunnels. In one incident, 7 or 8 Palestinians, 5 of them armed gunmen, were unintentionally killed when a tank fired a warning shot to head off an onstensive protest march which would have cut off an IDF advance-positioned foot-patrol. Kristof seems to suppose that there are Palestinian "moderates" with whom Israel, by a more conciliatory policy, could negotiate a bona fide and lasting peaceful co_existence. But since Elias Freij was forced out as Mayor of Bethlehem under threat of death from the PLO's peculiar Capo, it appears that no PLO moderate could stand up even against the corrupt secularists of the PLO, let alone the honest theocratic facists of Islamic fundamentalism. Kristaff seems to endore the view that "the road to Baghdad runs through Jerusalem"; that is: that Iraqi opposition to U.S. occupation is based, not on jockeying for post-occupation territorial control between armed, well-organized, and externally-supported power blocs, but primarily on popular fraternal indignation at what is perceived as U.S.-enabled Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people. Briefly, one could argue that the Palestinian "ordinary people" had greater freedom and prosperity under Israeli occupation, at least until the 1988 intifada, than any other administration (Turkish, British, Jordanian/Egyptian, or PLO/Hamas) before or since. ================================================================= Re: Eg, Jlem Report, "May 31, 2004" (Goodman) There are two particular journalistic cliches that don't ring true. One is that a majority of Israelis support evicting Jewish residents from the territory of Gaza. But, especially without a national plebiscite, it is not clear how this conclusion was reached, nor even what it means, beyond summarizing the results of occasional polls. But polls do not occur in their pretended intellectual vacuum; they are much less accurate, and far more dependent on daily context and on wording of the question, than their stated "margin of error" [apparently merely the percentage of those polled who did not respond] indicates. Another bit of presently acccepted 'conventional wisdom' is that elections would not be in the best interest of the Israeli people. It is not clear what motivates this opportunistic disdain for democracy; one suspects it is government officials who fear having to work to a living. ================================================================= Re: English afternoon news, 30 May '04 The Tel Aviv District Court, however politically intimidated, has at least attempted, however ad hoc and regardless of the precedent it sets, to articulate an issue underlying Yigal Amir's appeal for conjugal rights: is the opportunity to attempt to procreate a fundamental human right, or is it a privilege, that may be denied to prisoners if not (yet) to non-citizens. However, most courts are judged by political appointees who rule, not on legal principle, but ad hoc. In the case of Amir, the underlying unackowleged and undemocratic superstition that what he committed in assassinating a Prime Minister was not merely murder, but something an order of magnitude greater, analogous to regicide (and in fact, Rabin seemed then on the verge of attempting to arrogate monarchic powers). =============================================================== Re: Jlem Post Magazine 20 May '04 (Dector, Zacharia) Perhaps one should hesitate to credit anyone who began his political career as Jerry Ford's best buddy with human intelligence. Still, following recent news, even in a mercifully text-only mode, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion -- although Midge Dector might dissent (JP 20 May '04) -- that Donald Rumsfeld should be sold to a supplier of Mad Cow Feed; and Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Teenage George with him. Another Bushie apologist given prime-time space in the weekend Post (Zacharia, ibid.) can do no better than quote Nicholas Kristaf, who wrote: "The central point is that we have no PROOF that Mr. Rumsefeld bears DIRECT responsibility for the torture" [my emphasis added]. But those are lawerly weasel-words for someone wriggling to forestall impeachment or indictment. ================================================================= Sent JP 31 May '04 Israel is morally exceptional in recognizing the right to attempt to procreate as a basic human right, which cannot lawfully be denied even to prisoners. The government's politically opportunistic opposition to Yigal Amir's request to marry has brought out some rather shabby arguments. The assassination of a nation's Chief Executive Officer is not a greater crime than any comparable premediated murder; although in pre-modern times regicide was regarded as akin to deicide, and punished with unspeakable viciousness. Amir is not an ideologue; and shows no motivation for assassinating, or for that matter harming, anyone else. He made a tactical decision to assassinate Rabin, based on his not unreasonable opinion that Rabin was preparing to cede most or all post-1967 territory, maybe by short-cutting democratic process. And history is in general too complex to guess the consequences, if any, of a single historic act, eg the Rabin assassination; much less to blame Amir for the events of the subsequent years. ================================================================= They urge the eviction of all 7500 Jewish residents of Gaza, while they bewail the destruction in a military operation of 56 Palestinian homes. ================================================================== A BRIEF NOTE ON TNE NON__UNIVERSAL_APPLICABILITY OF CONSPIRACY THEORY AS A ETHICALLY OVER_RIDING GUIDE TO INTERROGATION PROCEDURES: Don Rumsfeld should resign because he's stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Stupid. (With a tip_of_the_hat to Bill Shakespeare, who wrote King Lear, maybe.) ================================================================== Jerusalem, a wishfully holy city for at least the past two millenia, should not permit an expressly homosexual demonstration. To be brief and pareve: Male homosexuality carries psychologic and physical if not social risks, and is unequivocally prohibited by the Bible; female homosexuality is practically ignored in religious and secular tradition. To colorize a bit: First of all, this cannot be termed a matter of 'gay rights'; there is less discrimination against male homosexuals than society might optimally need. And anyhow, most of them are seem, not gay, but at best hysterically grim. Second, the faggots should not be allowed to continue to politically hide behind the ladies' skirts. Male and female homosexuality are no more than superficiallly analogous. Sleeping with women is normal; everyone likes to do so, from itty-bitty babies to old King David. Sleeping with men seems queer, although some female persons apparently find it periodially bearable, if not always an unadulterated pleasure. Male homosexuality is an abdomination (a sub-class of abominations, most of which are architectural). R. Zalman Schachter once said in effect, with his typical conceptual precision, 'Jewish tradition discourages male homosexual 'acting-out' (but added a remark in support of bona- fide homosexual interpersonal union). Moshe Kohn once, with his typical humor-spiced love of religious learning, once wrote (in the JP) that a classic rabinic opinion ruled that "women entwined with one another" should not marry the High Priest (but added in effect, if memory serves, that this was a minority opinion and did not prevail.) More generally (albeit irrelevant) Harvard College's 'Let's Go to Israel' , with just the right dash of fashionably politically correct anti-Semitism, once termed Israel a land of 'raw sex' (in distinction, presumably, to rare. well_done, and overdone.) Nor can homosexuality precisely be termed a matter of 'sexual preference', (like choosing between the chateaubriand and schnitzel at better Israeli cafes). Most gentlemen would at least occasionally if briefly 'prefer' half their neighbors' wives and two-thirds of their daughters to the marital obligation incumbent upon their "Missus legitimate" (Joyce) or "old lady"; but accept the propriety of leaving this option in fantasyland. ================================================================= OH, SAID THE STATION CHIEF POLITELY, YOU DON'T MEAN THAT SATELLITE PICKUP FROM SYCAMORE RANCH WHERE YOU SAY 'I'M TOP BANANA APPLE, AND I SAY IF YOU SLIP THE KID AN EXTRA MIL' YOU CAN KEEP THAT SODDED ISLE'? It is not quite clear precisely what crisis in U.S.--Israel relations the Prime Minister hopes to avert by enabling Gaza to become the world's first multi-national terrorist mini-state; nor just what sort of evidence his Attorney-General would consider sufficient for indictment. ================================================================== If Israel want to disengage behind defensible borders, it should follow the example of the Knights Templar and move to Cyprus. =================================================================