PDavidHornik

George Gilder's new book on Israel

This overview by Mona Charen makes me realize I have to read it urgently.

Home again

Just got back to bustling, broiling Tel Aviv from three days in the northwestern Galilee. The seacoast, the mountains, the little settlements nestled in the greenery...so lovely up there, I'd be very happy to live there someday.

Obama going too far even for docile Jewish groups

Ronald Kessler of Newsmax reports that in the U.S., the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations "is taking on President Barack Obama for his demand that Israel stop construction of Jewish housing in east Jerusalem." These organizations include many that would gladly deny Jews' right to build and live in Judea and Samaria, the cradle of Jewish history, but for whom denying them this right in parts of Jerusalem is going too far. A statement issued by the conference says:

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has long advocated and supported the unity of Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel. As such, we believe that legal construction by residents of the city should be allowed as long as it is in keeping with the standards and requirements of the municipality and the national government. We find disturbing the objections raised to the proposed construction of residential units on property that was legally purchased and approved by the appropriate authorities. The area in question houses major Israeli governmental agencies, including the national police headquarters. The United States has in the past and recently raised objections to the removal of illegal structures built by Arabs in eastern Jerusalem even though they were built in violation of zoning and other requirements often on usurped land. In addition to the Jewish housing, the project called for apartment units for Arabs as well....

As a united city, Jerusalem’s Jewish and Arab residents should be permitted to reside wherever legal and security requirements allow. Hundreds of Arab families have moved into Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem and the same right should be accorded to Jewish residents in live where they choose in Jerusalem. To do otherwise would undermine and prejudge the status of the city.

No government of Israel has or can pursue a discriminatory policy that would prevent the legitimate presence of Jews in any area of its capital.

The Palestinians, so deserving of largess, a state, etc.

Two short reports in today's Jerusalem Post by their Arab-affairs correspondent Khaled Abu Toameh, which speak for themselves.

This one:

Security prisoners to be honored with PA street names

The Palestinian Authority plans to name dozens of West Bank streets after Palestinian security prisoners who were involved in murdering Israelis or carrying out terrorist attacks, a PA minister said on Wednesday.

Issa Qaraqi, who was recently appointed prisoners affairs minister in Salaam Fayad's government, said the streets would be named after at least 100 Palestinians who were serving terms of 20 years or more in Israeli jails.

Qaraqi is also head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, a Bethlehem-based group that defends the rights of security prisoners and documents Israeli "violations" of human rights in prisons.

He said the decision was taken as part of the PA government's solidarity with the prisoners, especially those who have been sentenced to lengthy terms or life in prison.

Qaraqi said the initiative to name streets after security prisoners would be launched next week in coordination between his ministry and the PA's Ministry for Local Government.

"This is the legitimate right of the Palestinians," he explained. "We have the honor and duty to honor our prisoners in recognition of their sacrifices and steadfastness in Israeli prisons."

Many streets in West Bank cities and villages have already been named after Palestinian "martyrs" who were killed in clashes with Israel over the past few decades.

And this one: 

Church official, wife beaten and robbed in Gaza

Constantine Dabbagh, Executive Secretary of the Near East Council of Churches, complained on Wednesday that three masked men who broke into his house beat him and his wife before stealing money and jewelry.

The Hamas government said it had launched an investigation into the incident, which took place on Tuesday night in the western suburbs of Gaza City.

The assault on Dabbagh and his wife is the latest in a series of attacks on members of the tiny Christian community in the Gaza Strip.

Dabbagh said that the masked men first bound his and his wife's hands behind their backs before covering their heads and faces with cloth and beating them.

He added that the assailants told him that they came to search the house for wireless devices of communications. He said that the masked men spent nearly one hour inside the house, during which time they stole money and jewelry.

The assailants also stole the Christian couple's car.

Ringing words from Jeff Jacoby

From his latest Boston Globe column:

LATE LAST WEEK, the Obama administration demanded that the Israeli government pull the plug on a planned housing development near the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem. The project, a 20-unit apartment complex, is indisputably legal. The property to be developed - a defunct hotel - was purchased in 1985, and the developer has obtained all the necessary municipal permits.

Why, then, does the administration want the development killed? Because Sheikh Jarrah is in a largely Arab section of Jerusalem, and the developers of the planned apartments are Jews. Think about that for a moment. Six months after Barack Obama became the first black man to move into the previously all-white residential facility at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, he is fighting to prevent integration in Jerusalem.

It is impossible to imagine the opposite scenario: The administration would never demand that Israel prevent Arabs from moving into a Jewish neighborhood. And the Obama Justice Department would unleash seven kinds of hell on anyone who tried to impose racial, ethnic, or religious redlining in an American city. In the 21st century, segregation is unthinkable - except, it seems, when it comes to housing Jews in Jerusalem....

The great obstacle to Middle East peace is not that Jews insist on living among Arabs. It is that Arabs insist that Jews not live among them. If Obama doesn’t grasp that, he has a lot to learn.

Read it all here.

Bibi--Obama, lay off Jerusalem

Yes, it's a real shocker, but there is a Jewish people, and they have certain values, traditions, and rights--even the right to live in their capital city. My take, on Pajamas Media, on the latest U.S.-Israeli flap, this time over Jerusalem.

Kenneth Levin on the genocide ignorers

The same people who--sometimes for disparate reasons--ignore the ideology, statements, and behavior of enemies of Israel like Hamas and Hizballah, also ignore the ongoing genocide in Darfur. In both cases, there's a refusal to look at the factor linking the phenomena--Arab supremacism, whether toward Sudanese Muslim but non-Arab blacks, or non-Arab, non-Muslim Jews in Israel (and other unfortunate groups in the Arab world). Deeply insightful, original, important article by Kenneth Levin, makes points you won't see anywhere else.

Insight from Anne Bayefsky

Great, caustic op-ed by Bayefsky on Obama's meeting last week with some cherry-picked leaders of American Jewish organizations, and the implications.

Israel Harel on how to save Channel 10

Israeli columnist Israel Harel has a nice column on how to save Israel's Channel 10 TV news: turn it into an Israeli equivalent of Fox News. "The investors--whether the current investors or the new batch of investors--need to internalize the fact that Israeli television viewers love their country, their army and their state no less than American viewers." Israel's Channel 10 news, and the more high-powered Channel 2 news that it apes, reflect the values of the post-Zionist, postmodern, post-everything Tel Avivian elite. This translates into giving viewers a steady diet of scandals and corruption stories, an overall nasty, demoralizing picture of the country while largely ignoring its strengths and achievements. Change this, Harel says, make Channel 10 news (and the channel in general) reflective of the loyal, patriotic, mainstream values of the country, and it can be saved.

Bill Kristol gets good and mad

At Obama, and for excellent reason. Never seen him get as mad as this, and certainly not on behalf of Israel, re. which he tends to be kind of docile and detached.

Posted by William Kristol on July 14, 2009 03:17 PM | Permalink

Haaretz reports today: “Obama to U.S. Jewish leaders: Israel must engage in self-reflection” And not just any old self-reflection. According to the article, Obama told Jewish leaders at the White House yesterday that Israel would need "to engage in serious self-reflection."

“Serious self-reflection!” It’s really good that Barack Obama is reminding the leaders and people of Israel to engage in that. I hope they’re up to it. After all, what do Israelis know about reflecting on, and living with, the life and death consequences of political decisions? What do Bibi Netanyahu and Ehud Barak and Moshe Ya’alon -- either as individuals or as leaders -- know about war and peace? These are guys -- and the Israelis are a people -- who just coast along, taking an easy path, never debating, never thinking, never questioning, never second-guessing...and never making or asking their fellow citizens to make sacrifices.

Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, and David Axelrod, on the other hand -- they’re seriously self-reflective individuals. Look at their wide experiences at peace and in war. Look how they’ve had to grapple with life and death decisions for decades. For them, it’s not just talk and spin and positioning. The American president and his advisors -- they’ve made personal sacrifices, they’ve come to grips with the tough choices over their decades of accomplishment in public life. They’ve got the standing to lecture the people and leaders of Israel on the need for self-reflection.

And so they did.