tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82517822024-03-13T10:58:37.898-05:00Zionism & AliyaEssays, opinions, rants, and general musings about Israel, Judaism, Zionism, politics (either Israeli or else related to Israel) by <a href="http:///www,caitlynmartin.org">Caitlyn Martin (קייטלין מרטין)</a>.Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.comBlogger190125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-33416017644710818152016-03-12T16:54:00.000-06:002016-03-12T16:54:32.102-06:00Where Did All The Blog Posts Go?During the first ten years I had this pro-Israel blog there were periods of furious activity and periods of almost total inactivity. For the past 15 months it's been entirely silent. Most of my pro-Israel activism had shifted to social media and, while dealing with a difficult period in my personal life, my muse was essentially gone anyway. I needed a break.<br><br>
I'm writing a lot about Israel again. I have maybe a dozen half written articles and notes for more. However, most of them won't end up here. Why? I'm now blogging for <a href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/caitlyn-martin/">The Times of Israel</a> which, I hope, will help me reach a much larger audience. Anything which isn't TOI material will still end up here.<br><br>
So... please visit my page and my writing on The Times of Israel page and feel free to comment, criticize, kvetch, you name it.Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-61408372849568921172014-12-30T18:06:00.000-06:002014-12-30T19:23:13.369-06:00Burning Witches and HereticsI find myself deeply disturbed by the fact that <a href="https://www.facebook.com/kishkushkay">Kay Wilson</a>. an Israeli Jewish victim of Arab terrorism, is under attack for somehow not being Jewish enough. Worse, she is accused of being a traitor to the Jewish people and a secret Messianic Jew or Christian, something she has repeatedly denied in her writing. <a href="http://www.israellycool.com/2014/12/30/guest-post-kay-wilson-going-to-mcdonalds-doesnt-turn-me-into-a-hamburger-2/">Her words are clear, unequivocal</a> and should have put this matter to rest. She has <a href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/i-believe-with-an-imperfect-faith/">written at length about her faith</a> which is unquestionably Jewish but not Orthodox. Somehow, though, those self-appointed pillars of the purity of Judaism keep attacking and harassing her. I have come to know Kay Wilson as on online friend and I have no doubts about her integrity. I am beyond disgusted.<br><br>
<a href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/penina-taylor/">Penina Taylor</a> wrote an <a href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-witch-hunt/?fb_action_ids=1019433611406360&fb_action_types=og.comments">excellent piece for The Times of Israel</a> about what Kay is currently enduring appropriately titled "The Witch Hunt". Taylor described the terror attack:<br><blockquote><i>"It was December 2010 and two women had been out hiking in a forest near Beit Shemesh when they were attacked by two Arab terrorists. The two women were Kay Wilson and her friend, Kristine Luken. Luken was an American Christian missionary visiting Israel and Kay was a Jewish immigrant from England who was a tour guide. Kristine was brutally murdered – stabbed multiple times, and Kay almost so. Kay attributes her survival to pretending to be dead already and not moving as the attacker continued to thrust his knife into her."</i></blockquote>How can anyone think that someone who is attacked and nearly killed by Palestinian terrorists simply because she is Jewish is somehow not Jewish enough? Kristine Luken died because her killer thought she was Jewish as well.<br><br>
As much as I find the attacks on Kay Wilson disturbing I do not find them surprising based on my own much milder experiences. Perhaps a week ago I posted a news story on Facebook about a "Christian" pastor who wants all LGBT people killed. My comment, exactly one line long, quoted Christian scripture. I asked "What ever happened to 'Judge lest not ye be judged'?" One Orthodox Jew who had friended me on Facebook immediately asked if I was "Messianic", pointing to the fact that my name is not typically Jewish. (I could post using my Hebrew name or my original family name, but I don't.)<br><br>
Anyway, to summarize a long discussion, he felt that quoting one relevant line of Christian scripture in response to a Christian pastor was giving power and legitimacy to Christianity and hurting Judaism. When I pointed out the book "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosher_Jesus">Kosher Jesus</a>" by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RabbiShmuleyBoteach">Rabbi Shmuely Boteach</a> I was told that the rabbi is a dangerous heretic. When he advised me to seak out Chabad to have this explained to me I responded that I am Conservative (Masorti). I did attend modern Orthodox congregations at times in my life and, sorry, my beliefs fit better into the Conservative stream of Judaism. Anyway, his conclusion was to unfriend me on Facebook. I am terribly misguided, also a heretic, and clearly not Jewish enough.<br><br>
I've also been attacked because I support LGBT rights and have been accused of placing liberalism ahead of Judaism. I have also been attacked for standing up for human rights for all human beings, including Arab Muslims. Liberalism, I have been told, is my religion, even though I'm quite conservative on many issues. If I don't share the bigotry and outright hatred of some on the far right I am, once again, insufficiently Jewish according to our very own Jewish inquisitors.<br><br>
So... no, I'm not surprised by the attacks on Kay Wilson. I am deeply saddened by them and I find them disturbing. We Jews are often our own worst enemies. People within our community often do more harm than all the antisemites put together because their own Judaism, however narrow, gives them legitimacy with some people.<br><br>
[Note: Part of this article started out life as comments to Penina Taylor's article on the Times of Israel. Those comments have also appeared on Facebook.]Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-29292194787919695982014-12-29T14:12:00.000-06:002014-12-29T14:14:26.620-06:00American Jews Are Not A Liability To IsraelOn December 27th an unusual pro-Israel activist, <a href="http://fredmaroun.blogspot.com/">Fred Maroun</a>, published a piece in The Times of Israel titled <a href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/have-american-jews-become-a-liability-to-israel/">Have American Jews Become a Liability to Israel?</a>. I greatly respect Fred. He brings a unique perspective as a staunchly pro-Israel Arab living in Canada but originally from Lebanon. He often sees things very clearly in ways those of us who are part of the Jewish community and who have strong direct ties to Israel cannot. We've become friends online and I greatly value his insights. However, while he makes some very valid points in the article he comes to an entirely incorrect conclusion.<br><br>
Writing from outside the Jewish community and from outside the United States the article seems to judge where American Jews are perhaps by social media and news media, which often give a distorted picture. While most American Jews are politically liberal there is a slow but steady move rightward in response to the challenges Israel is facing and the increasing hostility of the left, including the left wing of the Democratic Party. Yes, there are American Jews who are uneducated about Israel, do not read the Israeli or Jewish press, and see things through an American prism. Yes, there are always people in any group who oversimplify things. Yes, there are Jews who lack any real connection to Jewish beliefs or Israel and take default left wing anti-Israel positions. <a href="http://israel-aliya.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-as-jew-phenomenon.html">I wrote about that phenomenon last year</a> and I believe this is what Fred is addressing.<br><br>
Where I differ from Fred is that he sees this as widespread among American Jews. I do not. Social media has a tendency to amplify extremes. Media outlets from the left and right chose to cover those who share their views. The result is a distorted picture of American Jewry.<br><br>
The overwhelming majority of American Jews, roughly three quarters according to most polls, support Israel. Most support Israel strongly. Neither Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) nor J Street reflect the opinions of anywhere near a majority of Jewish public opinion in the United States. They do represent a loud, vocal minority who get disproportional coverage in liberal media and on Facebook. For many of the people they represent liberalism trumps Judaism every time. When people immerse themselves in liberalism and don't do the same with Judaism the result is predictable.<br><br>
So, no, American Jews are not a liability to Israel. However, the minority of Jews, both in Israel and abroad, on the far left often are, especially during times of conflict.
[Note: Parts of this article first appeared in comments on The Times of Israel and Facebook.]Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-3380062527578471002014-07-28T18:37:00.000-05:002014-07-28T19:00:56.274-05:00I'm Heartless - Part 1: Flare Guns and FirecrackersBack in 2006 <a href="http://israel-aliya.blogspot.com/2006/07/comments-you-will-never-read.html">I wrote about the comments to this blog</a>, the ones filled with hatred and vitriol and the ones filled with nothing but Palestinian propaganda and misinformation, which I don't publish. I've received some like that in response to my post about the <a href="http://israel-aliya.blogspot.com/2014/07/when-was-cbs-sold-to-hamas.html">extreme anti-Israel bias in CBS News</a> broadcasts, comparing it to the relatively good coverage we've seen from most other mainstream media in the United States. One of those comments from an anonymous coward started and ended with two words, all in caps: "You're heartless". What makes me heartless? I'm going to handle his or her points in reverse order. <br><br>
Those 2,000 Hamas rockets fired into Israel in this conflict, and the 12,000 fired from Gaza in total, "might as well be flare guns". One equally deluded person on Facebook called them "firecrackers". Take a <a href="http://militaryedge.org/articles/syrian-made-m302-rocket-fired-hamas-hadera/">look at the Syrian-made M-302 rockets</a> Hamas is using and tell me that nonsense again. Yes, it's true Israel has a defense in Iron Dome that works 90% of the time. No other nation would tolerate the rocket fire that can and does kill people. Why on earth would Israel? Oh, and yes, Israelis have died from the rocket fire. All it would take would be a rocket landing on a school, busy shopping mall or a <a href=http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.607311">"peace" demonstration in Tel Aviv</a> and the death toll would suddenly be a lot less uneven. 90% effective isn't 100%, is it?<br><br>
Look, every civilian death is a tragedy. Hamas is responsible for most Palestinian deaths. A higher body count is better PR in their twisted calculations. They are deliberately using their own people as human shields, firing from in or near <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O9AHzUKYk8&feature=youtu.be">hospitals</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-fh-fRs7To">schools</a>, mosques and <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/07/21/idf-hamas-uses-residential-neighborhood-of-shujaiya-as-fortress-for-its-weapons/">densely populated neighborhoods</a>. If they had stopped firing when Egypt twice proposed cease fires before the ground offensive began there would have been no Israeli incursion. None. Israel accepted those cease fire proposals and Hamas did not. Now that Israeli troop are in Gaza it became clear that the thread from Hamas was far greater than previously believed.<br><br>
Every nation has a responsibility to protect it's citizens. Why is Israel denied that by the left? I believe the answer has been shown over and over again in the demonstrations in Europe, with their calls to "<a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/7/21/5923145/gaza-anti-semitism-europe">gas the Jews</a>" and "<a href="http://mic.com/articles/94590/the-crisis-in-gaza-is-creating-horrifying-backlash-for-jews-around-the-world">Jews to the ovens</a>". So, no, anonymous cowards, I am not heartless. In part 2 I will show how this particular bleeding heart actually favors genocide, so long as the victims are Jews.Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-64583653995059170952014-07-15T21:48:00.000-05:002014-07-15T21:57:49.034-05:00When Was CBS Sold to Hamas?During the current conflict between Israel and Hamas I’ve been watching, listening to and reading a wide variety of media. Mostly it’s been a pleasant surprise this time around. The BBC did a remarkable piece about all the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-28198622">false images claiming to show the suffering</a> of Palestinians in Gaza. Media outlets around the world picked up the story which highlighted the lies and propaganda in places that never report on it. France 24 showed IDF footage taken from one of Israel’s planes which showed a pilot calling off an airstrike because Hamas has put children on the roof to act as human shields which, once again, got a surprising amount of coverage in places where I least expected to see it. (Shown <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152234735717689">here</a> with English subtitles.)<br><br>
Just <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1407/14/cfr.01.html">last night on CNN’s Crossfire</a> former US Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich pronounced the calls for Israeli restraint in the face of relentless rocket fire from Hamas his “outrage of the day”. He pointed out: "If the United States had 1,000 rockets fired at us, would we show any restraint? Of course not. We would annihilate whoever did it." Paul Begala, the left wing commentator who normally debates Gingrich, first three words in response: “You're exactly right.” That is not what CNN viewers are used to seeing on Israel. <br><br>
CBS has been as bad as the far left fringe outlets. Watching Holly Williams report on Gaza from Sderot I learned the most amazing things. For example, most Gazans were displaced from their homeland in 1948. Considering that the median age in Gaza is just 15 most Gazans have never seen Israel. They are the granchildren and great grandchildren of the actual refugees, but Ms. Williams clearly believes in inherited refugee status. Her main theme was that “Israel claims” it’s targeting terrorists but it’s really aiming for poor, innocent Palestinian women and children. Her reports show children going to hospital (some with no obvious injuries), wailing and screaming women, and rubble which supposedly was their homes. There usually is no mention of Hamas using human shields except for last night, when she had a Hamas spokesman on to claim that is a lie. No Israeli was included in any of her reports I've seen during the conflict.<br><br>
If Ms. Williams does mention Hamas rockets briefly at the end of her report she makes sure to tell us that no Israelis have died and that Palestinians don’t have anything like Iron Dome to protect them. (One Israeli was killed today.) She apparently believes that rocket fire into Israel should be ignored. No mention of injuries and property damage gets into her reports. She needs to use all her time to convince us to pity the poor Palestinians.<br><br>
If that Hamas spokesman had been given editorial control of the CBS News report he couldn’t have written more favorable propaganda. When I was young the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite was the most respected and trusted television newscast in America. That is no longer the case. Sadly journalistic standards and fairness have been entirely abandoned by CBS. Nowadays they are combatants in a media war against Israel, even when many mainstream left-leaning media outlets have decided they cannot participate this time around.Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-37456301341071754582014-06-05T00:55:00.000-05:002014-12-29T15:30:31.854-06:00A Little Family History - and Why Israel's Survival is Critical to the Jewish PeopleIn 1926 three brothers left their homes in Munkatsch (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukachevo">Mukachevo</a>) in what was then Czechoslovakia. (It's western Ukraine today.) They traveled to what was then the British Mandate of Palestine and became part of the great Zionist undertaking: the building of a modern Jewish state in our ancestral homeland. They eventually built homes and settled in Netanya. These were my father's uncles, my great uncles. My grandfather stayed in Munkatsch.<br><br>
In 1935 my (great) uncle Moshe came home for a visit. He told my grandfather that Hitler would be trouble for the Jews, and that my grandfather should bring his family to Palestine. When my grandfather told this story decades later he said that if he didn't know better he would have thought Moshe was a <i>nuvi</i> (prophet) but he knew his brother and Moshe was no <i>nuvi</i>.<br><br>
In 1938 Munkatsch was occupied by Hungary after the Munich Agreement. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared "<a href="http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/workbook/ralprs36.htm">peace in our time</a>". It was the beginning of the end for the Jewish community in the small city; the only city in Hungary with a Jewish majority. The Nazis occupied Munkatsch in 1944. On May 30, 1944 the city was pronounced <i>Judenrein</i>. My grandfather, my father's stepmother, my father and his two younger brothers were deported to Auschwitz. Uncle Moshe was serving in the British Army in Egypt at the time. My grandfather and my father survived. The three brothers who had left for Palestine years earlier avoided the Holocaust. Everyone else in my family who was in Munkatsch at the time died.<br><br>
In 1947 the Communists took over control of Czechoslovakia. My father was living in Prague. Fearing he was seeing the rise of something eerily similar to Nazism he left the country illegally to join his family in Palestine. This was during the revolt against the British. The British sank the ship he arrived in within an hour and opened fire on the Jews trying to reach our homeland. This was the same British army in which uncle Moshe had served.<br><br>
My father found himself in the Palmach just before Israeli independence, fighting the Arabs who were trying to destroy the nascent State of Israel and push the Jews back into the sea. Those Arabs fought under the command of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bagot_Glubb">a British general</a>. Never mind that it was the British who decided western Palestine should be a Jewish state in the first place, a decision affirmed in the <a href="http://www.cfr.org/israel/san-remo-resolution/p15248">San Remo Resolution</a> and the <a href="http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/2FCA2C68106F11AB05256BCF007BF3CB">League of Nations Mandate For Palestine</a>. This was accepted by the legitimate Arab sovereign at the time in the <a href="http://www.mideastweb.org/feisweiz.htm">Faisal-Weizmann Agreement</a> and reaffirmed in <a href="http://www.crethiplethi.com/faisal-frankfurter-correspondence-at-the-paris-peace-conference-1919/the-middle-east/2010/">Emir Faisal's letter</a> to Felix Frankfurter. Now the same people who promised a Jewish state decided to destroy it.<br><br>
In the 1930s, when Hitler first wanted to expel his Jewish population, nobody would take the Jews. The British didn't want any more Jews in Palestine despite their previous support for a Jewish state. In refusing to take in the German Jewish population and then <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/mandate.html"> closing Palestine to Jewish immigration</a> on July 13, 1939 the British government became complicit in the Holocaust. In the words of Liberal MP James Rothschild, "for the majority of the Jews who go to Palestine it is a question of migration or of physical extinction". The very country that turned Zionism from an unlikely dream into a reality, the country that was supposed the be the best ally of the Jewish people, stabbed us in our collective backs.<br><br>
Why tell this story now, in 2014? Antisemitism in Europe today is at the highest levels seen since the 1930s and the rise of Nazism and fascism. Some claim it's actually at a higher level. The shootings which <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Museum_of_Belgium_shooting">killed four people at the Jewish Museum</a> in Belgium are simply one horrific example. French Jews are <a href="http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/176341/2014/05/13/">leaving in record numbers for Israel</a> while others choose the United States and Canada. We see marches with Nazi flags being flown and anti-Semitic chants in European countries.<br><br>
"Progressives" in North America are also largely anti-Israel. When I have tried to engage many of these people in discussions and debates their responses echo the antisemitism of the 1930s, often repeating falsehoods and slurs that date back to the 19th century or earlier. As I raise their ire the terms Jew, Israeli and Zionist often become interchangeable.<br><br>
In the 20th century Jews trusted in allies and friends and the result was the death of over a third of our people. We can no longer afford the luxury of such trust. The State of Israel is the guarantee of a safe haven for the Jewish people. It is, as my friend <a href="http://www.cuwi.ca/ryan-bellerose.html">Ryan Bellerose</a> frequently points out, the only place on earth where an <a href="http://www.themetropolitain.ca/articles/view/1235">indigenous people have reclaimed their ancestral lands</a> and established a modern state. The Jews of Munkatsch in 1944 had nowhere to go. They faced either slavery or death. So long as we have a strong, secure Israel the Jewish people have a place to go, to escape if antisemitism turns to violence. It is the only guarantee that we won't face another Holocaust.<br><br>
Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-85235689213553989782014-04-10T23:41:00.001-05:002014-04-11T00:20:05.947-05:00'70s Israeli Progressive Rock: Sheshet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5VwjETA-X3c/U0dwDPxscmI/AAAAAAAAAMU/GycODPAgwa4/s1600/sheshet.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5VwjETA-X3c/U0dwDPxscmI/AAAAAAAAAMU/GycODPAgwa4/s320/sheshet.jpeg" /></a></div>
<P>I grew up on the progressive rock of the '70s. Mostly we heard US and UK bands in the States, but some European bands, particularly Italian bands like PFM, Le Orme and New Trolls recorded songs in English and had a following in the U.S. Israeli prog? Not so much. First, it never was a terribly popular sound in Israel from what I can gather, and without a big commercial success in their home country these bands just didn't get exported. I only discovered them in recent years and a few were truly exceptional.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.discogs.com/artist/3646289-Sheshet">Sheshet</a> is my personal favorite, a band that was as good as anything that came out of the US or UK. They had Yehudit Ravitz for a vocalist and acoustic guitarist and Shem-Tov Levi on flute and vocals. He also wrote most of the music, which is an amazing mix of the softer side of progressive rock and Canterbury scene style jazz, plus unique touches of their own. Prog bands always needed exceptional keyboardists and Sheshet had one in Adi Renert.</p>
<p>The 30th anniversary deluxe edition, released in 2007, is a two CD set currently available from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s?_encoding=UTF8&field-artist=Sheshet&search-alias=music">Amazon</a>. The first disc is their self-titled debut album, which was exceptional from beginning to end. Some tracks have Yehudit Ravitz singing lead; others have group vocals. Some of the album has Hebrew lyrics but there is also a lot of wordless vocalise. I always loved when Annie Haslam did that with Renaissance. It takes a talented singer to pull that off well and Yehudit Ravitz is up for the task. The one track that was a single in Israel is All Thumbs Samba, a track which really is a samba with Hebrew lyrics. Despite the very different sound from the other tracks it has enough depth added to make it fit seamlessly into the album.</p>
<p><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2fbuOakRrKM/U0dwm0XjtrI/AAAAAAAAAMc/AkyM3SPwYAg/s1600/stretcher.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2fbuOakRrKM/U0dwm0XjtrI/AAAAAAAAAMc/AkyM3SPwYAg/s200/stretcher.jpeg" /></a>Their second and final album is the soundtrack to the film "The Stretcher March" (1977). It's filled with lovely prog instrumentals and more vocalise. The 30th anniversary deluxe CD reissue of Sheshet's self-titled debut includes all the original, previously unreleased music from the film on a second bonus CD. (The three tracks that appeared on both albums are only on the first disc.) It includes two versions of the theme song from the film. The disc opens with an instrumental version and finishes with a vocal version, with Gidi Gov singing lead. The one set basically gives you everything the band ever recorded. I can't recommend this one highly enough.</P>
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<p>Notes: Photos from the CD booklet. This review was originally written for Amazon with some minor differences.</P>Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-37564174035097547212014-02-11T20:54:00.000-06:002014-02-11T21:07:27.456-06:00Palestinian Mythology: Indigenous People and European Jews as ColonistsBack in 2007 I wrote what supposed to be the first of a series of posts on Palestinian Mythology, tackling <a href="http://israel-aliya.blogspot.com/2007/05/palestinian-mythology-arab-east.html">"Arab" East Jerusalem</a> first. Almost seven years later it's way past time I resume debunking the Palestinian narrative that denies Jewish history and attempts to rewrite the reality of what happened over the millennia in what is now Israel.<br><br>
My friend Ryan Bellerose, a Métis (native Canadian) man from northern Alberta, has been making the argument that Jews, the indigenous people of what is now Israel, and Native (North) Americans should find common ground and common interests. <a href="http://www.themetropolitain.ca/articles/view/1235">He is a Zionist</a> and has argued that Israel should be an example to indigenous peoples. Why? Here is <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/14377#.UvrXBPFwbGg">his explanation</a>:<br>
<blockquote><i>"Israel is the world's first modern indigenous state. Those who are arguing for Palestinian “indigenous rights” are usually those who have little grasp of the history, and no understanding of the truth behind indigenous rights."</i></blockquote>
As you might expect, such an assertion has generated some fairly harsh replies. One comment to such an article made three specious claims:<br>
<ul><li>Jews are not indigenous to "Palestine" and were expelled in the first century
<li>Modern Israelis are European colonists
<li>Israel was created by the United States to establish U.S. hegemony in the Middle East</ul>
Clearly this man needed a history lesson, as do many supporters of the Palestinians, who know only their propaganda. Here is my response:<br><hr><br>
Jewish people are indigineous to what is now Israel, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) as well as western Jordan (the East Bank) and southernmost Lebanon. We have had a continuous presence that dates back to the return from Egypt, sometime between 1200 and 1250 B.C.E. We were not expelled in the first century C.E. as you claim. The <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/revolt.html">First Jewish Rebellion</a> against Rome (67-73 C.E.) was one of many. The most famous is the <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/revolt1.html">Bar Kochba Rebellion</a> (132-135 C.E.) when Jews expelled the Roman legions for nearly three years, which was actually the third Jewish rebellion. The Romans then renamed Iudea (in Latin) to Syria Palestina in their attempt to quash Judaism. Even the names Palestine and Palestinians were given by conquerors and are not indigenous.<br><br>
Oh, and while some Jews were expelled in the second century and many scholars consider what the Romans did at that time genocide, there was still a very substantial Jewish population outside of Jerusalem. Further rebellions against the Byzantine Empire continued, most notably in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_revolt_against_Constantius_Gallus">4th</a> and 7th centuries C.E. Indeed, how did <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_of_Tiberias">Benjamin of Tiberias</a> manage to raise <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_%28614%29">a Jewish force of 26,000</a> to ally with the Persians during the Byzantine–Sasanian War if there were no Jews? The consequence of that alliance was the restoration of Jewish sovereignty in 614 C.E. The Byzantines didn’t retake Jerusalem until 628 C.E., meaning there was a Jewish state in Israel five hundred and fifty years after you say we were expelled.<br><br>
Similarly, there was a Jewish majority or plurality in Jerusalem throughout most of the period of Ottoman rule, before the Zionist movement ever started. A British consular report from 1857 claimed that Jews made up nearly 80% of the population, though that number is higher than most other reports from the era. A reporter for the New York Daily Tribune, in <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1854/03/28.htm">a report dated April 15, 1854</a>, put the Jewish population at 8,000 out of a total population of 15,500, which is still a majority. That reporter was Karl Marx.<br><br>
While the Zionist Movement certainly started in Europe, the fact remains that a majority of modern Israelis are people with no ties to Europe whatsoever. Two thirds were born in Israel. A majority are either descended from or are people who were expelled from Arab countries, not Europe, Jews who have lived in what is now Israel for centuries, or from other non-European places like Ethiopia. Genetic studies, most importantly recent ones since the decoding of the human genome, make clear that <a href="http://www.ashg.org/2013meeting/abstracts/fulltext/f130123130.htm">European Jews are Middle Eastern people</a>. If you accept the (rather nonsensical) idea of generational refugees as the Palestinians do, then Ashkenazi Jews must also be refugees from what is now Israel.<br><br>
Put simply, Jews are the indigenous people of Israel. Palestinians? 80% are descended from people brought in by the British from neighboring countries to build infrastructure. Of the remaining 20% most are descended from Arab conquerors, not native to the Levant.<br><br>
Finally, you assert that Israel was created with aid from the U.S. to create and maintain American hegemony. That is entirely false. Jews were under an arms embargo from the United States during the revolt against the British (1946-48) and the War of Independence (1948-49). Not one penny of military aid went to Israel from the U.S. until the Kennedy administration in the 1960s. The arms mostly came from Czechoslovakia (at the direction of the Soviet Union) and France, not the U.S. Last I checked there is no Czech hegemony anywhere. Meanwhile, during the 1948-49 war, the Arabs fought under the command of a British general. In that war, as others, the Arabs (including the people who would come to be known as Palestinians later) were on the side of the foreign conqueror.<br><br>
I really suggest that you read real history rather than propaganda. Ryan Bellerose clearly has.
Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-5677779062762227992014-02-04T17:48:00.001-06:002014-02-04T17:55:03.168-06:00A Note About Dinner and Kosher Foods in America <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nj_Zq49qkLE/UvF4UWNR0pI/AAAAAAAAALk/atR9zcEePuo/s1600/soup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nj_Zq49qkLE/UvF4UWNR0pI/AAAAAAAAALk/atR9zcEePuo/s320/soup.jpg" /></a></div>
I made a big pot of bean and leek soup (with carrots, garlic, a little bit of onion, a finely minced habanero pepper to add a little kick, plus spices) in a Crock Pot. I had some as part of dinner tonight topped with some shaved Parmesan cheese, with a piece of baked Alaskan cod and a piece of very fresh rye bread. It's wonderful, but since it's just me that eats it I'll be having it for a week or more. That's why I do things like this (big pots of soup, chili or cholent) so infrequently.<br><br>
I used half of a bag of a 15 bean mix intended for soup. It had the appropriate kosher certification on it. On the back cover it had a soup recipe which started by telling me I'd <b><i>need</i></b> 1 lb. of ham hocks. Really? Tell me this: why would a company go through the expense of kosher certification and then only put a blatantly <i>treyfe</i> recipe on the back of the package? Wouldn't it be better to have two recipes, one of which appeals to the people who looked for that symbol of <i>kashrut</i> and perhaps vegetarians as well? Wouldn't that make more sense? Trust me on this: you can make a delicious soup from those beans without any pork.<br><br>
[Note: This started out as a Facebook post. I've also published it in <a href="http://ever-increasing-entropy.blogspot.com/">my personal blog</a>.]Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-82754232109282074262014-02-02T16:33:00.000-06:002014-02-02T18:33:19.346-06:00My Response to Paula R. Stern's Angry Open Letter to John KerryAn <a href="http://www.paulasays.com/2014/02/02/open-letter-to-john-kerry">open letter by blogger Paula R. Stern</a> to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry echoes much of the right wing commentary I've seen coming out of both Israel and the diaspora Jewish community. It also echoes the really <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4476582,00.html">unfortunate comments by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon</a> who told Kerry to "leave us alone."<br><br>
Stern writes, in part:
<blockquote><i>"You won’t fail in your goal of ramming peace down our throats because of this, however. You will fail because, amazingly enough, you don’t even understand Israel. We are the easiest to get, the easiest, honestly. All you have to do is listen and see – but even that is beyond you.<br><br>
[...]<br><br>
For a long time now, the Arabs have fooled you. They’ll speak to you of peace over the coffee they serve you and then when you leave the room, they slap each other on the backs and laugh – another successful day at making the US look stupid."</i></blockquote><br>
Secretary Kerry did not threaten Israel. He simply relayed the dangerous trends he sees building around the world. BTW, the Palestinians want to <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Fatah-wants-Kerry-prosecuted-before-ICC-for-threatening-Abbas-340127">haul him before the ICC for supposedly threatening Mahmoud Abbas</a>, something else he did not do. Let me just say this is the strongest terms: I disagree with this letter.<br><br>
Secretary Kerry is no simpleton. He has not been fooled. He may be on mission impossible but he is anything but stupid or naive. Predicting a failure that seems likely doesn’t mean that trying is not worthwhile. It is the correct and moral thing to do. It’s what separates Israelis and Jews from the Palestinian Arabs: we value life and we strive for peace.<br><br>
Of course, I could make equally negative comments about Naftali Bennet, whom Stern praises. Bennet fails to understand that Israel cannot possibly rule over millions of hostile Arabs and survive as a democratic Jewish state. Right wing Israelis also live for an impossible dream. In that sense they are just like the Palestinians Stern is so critical of.<br><br>
When my father fought for Israel’s independence in 1948-49 he fought for a state that, for the next 18 years, did not include Judea and Samaria and yet it was still a Jewish State in Israel. In 1967, when other Israelis celebrated, his first words on hearing of the great victory were, “Occupation. Bad business.” I think history has proven him right.<br><br>
Stern knows her history. Indeed, she has seen it first hand, including the horrors of terror perpetrated by Palestinian Arabs on innocent Israelis. Sadly, possibly due to her very real pain and justified anger, she draws the wrong conclusions from that history. A peace agreement, should it ever come (which I seriously doubt) does not mean a terrorist state or greater threat. Gaza became a threat because it was a withdrawal without any peace agreement, and without basic steps to insure Israel’s security, such as controlling the border with Egypt. Prime Minister Netanyahu has made clear that he won’t make those mistakes again.<br><br>
Peace with Egypt, on the other hand, has held for nearly 35 years. It held through two tumultuous changes of government and two years of Islamist rule by Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. How many Israeli Jewish lives have been saved by making peace and by giving up Sinai?<br><br>
Instead of anger at John Kerry we should be thanking him for allowing us to demonstrate once again that Israel is the one side in the conflict that always strives for peace. Yes, he may fail and yes, if he does, it will be because the Palestinian leadership is not ready for peace. I give him credit for trying, and credit for trying to bring about what, for most Israelis, is the great hope and dream: peace and security.Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-4060317774500998192014-01-16T17:19:00.000-06:002014-01-16T17:19:18.048-06:00CD Review: R. Carlos Nakai & Uri Bar-David - Voyagers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FVKVON-Wn0k/UthmoXu3ZtI/AAAAAAAAALU/6K5sKUbaQos/s1600/voyagers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FVKVON-Wn0k/UthmoXu3ZtI/AAAAAAAAALU/6K5sKUbaQos/s320/voyagers.jpg" /></a></div>
[NOTE: Originally written as a review for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Voyagers-R-Carlos-Nakai/dp/B000NVKY34/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1389913407&sr=1-1&keywords=Nakai+Voyagers">Amazon.com</a>]<br><br>
Cello music can be dark. It can be downright dismal. Listen to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkfx7hBdEvg">David Darling's "Journal October"</a> for a cello album that delves into dark ambient territory for an example. When I see cello I rarely think bouncy or upbeat, so I wasn't disappointed the way others were at the melancholy tone of much of this album. Rather, I find this a lovely and soulful collaboration. As an Israeli-American Jew many of the traditional Jewish melodies are familiar to me, but the interpretation and arrangements that the artists present are truly unique.<br><br>
As <a href="http://www.torontosun.com/2013/06/14/native-jewish-bond-thicker-than-water">Ryan Bellerose</a>, a Métis writer from northern Canada <a href="http://www.themetropolitain.ca/articles/view/1235">explains</a> in his articles, these are two indigenous peoples and a blending of these very different musical traditions into an album like this is worth noting not just because it's a very good listen. This music, to me, expresses the common dark history the Jewish and native North American peoples share: one of displacement from the land, one of loss, and one of genocide. There are brighter moments on this release. "Bashraf Farahfaza" is downright joyful and features some Will Clipman percussion to add depth. The final piece, Indigena Indigenous, is also uplifting, with plucked cello and playful flute melodies. It's a perfect ending for this album because we live in a time of hope for both peoples.<br><br>
I really enjoy this music, both as a pleasant background and for active listening. Highly recommended. Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-17186890617784465512013-11-15T00:05:00.000-06:002013-11-15T00:07:01.015-06:00A Time of HopeBefore I start writing again about current events which I find truly disturbing I wanted to post something different, something from a time a decade ago when I had real hope. It was a time when many of us saw a brighter future for Israel, for the Arabs, for the Middle East, for the whole world. The Oslo Accords, now generally regarded as a failure, made us believe that peace, real peace, was possible. We could talk openly with Arabs about it and find common ground in our shared hope. It was a different time and, in many ways, it was a better time.<br><br>
This video is the late Ofra Haza singing a song written especially for the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, where Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then Foreign Minister Shimon Peres received their prizes. This is from the actual ceremony: <br><br>
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Both Yitzhak Rabin and Ofra Haza are long gone. So is the hope of those days. I hope I live to see that kind of hope again, but sadly it probably won't ever be because of a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs.Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-55142581991711510582013-08-24T20:15:00.000-05:002013-08-24T20:16:35.690-05:00Review: Karolina - Zohar (Special Edition)[Notes: Posted after Shabat was over. A rare cross-post from my <a href="http://ever-increasing-entropy.blogspot.com">Entropy general purpose blog</a>.]<br><br>
For the first time since November, 2005 I wrote a product review for Amazon. Eight years ago it was a book I really enjoyed; this time it's a two CD boxed set: <hr><br><br>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X7ntf0k-fNg/UhlRyZFVXMI/AAAAAAAAAK4/ip1JwnFVNlo/s1600/zohar-blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: center; float: center; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X7ntf0k-fNg/UhlRyZFVXMI/AAAAAAAAAK4/ip1JwnFVNlo/s1600/zohar-blog.jpg" /></a></div>
If you've heard either Funset's "Pumpkin Ragga" or <a href="http://habanot.com/">Habanot Nechama</a> you probably already know that <a href="http://http://karolina.co.il/english">Karolina</a> (Keren Avratz) has an amazingly flexible and expressive voice and is a very capable songwriter. When she sings in English her Israeli accent is thick enough to cut with a knife but somehow that doesn't matter.<br><br>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BYGPNJC">"Zohar" (Glamor)</a> is her second solo album. The original CD was rather short and included two different versions of Al Te'ahar (Don't Be Late), with an acoustic rendition closing the album. On this album she drops the soul and reggae influences which were so evident on her first album and with Funset and adds a little Mizrahi flavor, even though she is not from that tradition. Zohar, with the exception of her Chanson For Lebanon, has a much more contemporary feel. The words are entirely in Hebrew with the exception of "Save Me From Myself", and surprisingly that may be my favorite from this album. <br><br>
The new version adds an EP of covers, three well known Israeli songs from the '60s and '70s plus a collaboration with Boom Pam on a version of Led Zeppelin's Black Dog, with a surprising amount of Middle Eastern flavor added to the instrumentation. Karolina practically channels Cilla Dagan, who sang the original version of Yom Bo Yakom, and does a beautiful rendition of Zohar Argov's Tzel Etz Tamar (Shadow of the Palm Tree).<br><br>
This is an album I just keep going back to again and again. Definitely pick up the Special Edition if you're going to get a copy of Zohar. It's more than worth a little bit extra to hear Karolina rework the old songs.<br><hr><br>
Here are a couple of songs from the album:<br><br>
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Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-76098978275448179622013-08-11T20:25:00.001-05:002013-08-11T20:34:39.083-05:00More Reasons Why the Peace Process is a Moral and Strategic Imperative<i>The only alternative to war is peace. The only road to peace is negotiation.</i> - Golda Meir<br><br>
<i>I believe however that peace is attainable regardless of the Arabs mentality, society or government.</i>-Yitzhak Rabin<br><br>
In the <a href="http://israel-aliya.blogspot.com/2013/07/if-you-want-to-make-peace-you-dont-talk.html">last piece I wrote</a> passionately and personally about the moral imperative to seek peace from my liberal, Jewish, Israeli-American perspective. On Thursday U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke of a <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Kerry-to-Jewish-leaders-Peace-is-strategic-imperative-322558">strategic imperative</a> to pursue peace talks. He's right. While I can't help be passionate about the peace process I can lay out some practical reasons why it must go forward and why I support the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Israel-Prison-Service-names-26-Palestinian-prisoners-to-be-released-this-week-322762">prisoner release</a> which the Israeli cabinet approved.<br><br>
Before I go on let me say that my heart does go out to the families of these murderers. Not a one of them deserves to be released. I read the accounts of the attacks they perpetrated and I was sickened. It would be so very easy for me to hate the Arabs. I certainly hate things they have done like this. The easy thing is often precisely the wrong thing. As much as it may bother some of the right wingers out there I still believe Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing the right thing, even though it is both unpopular and difficult.<br><br>
Israel needs to seize any opportunity to make peace for it's own interests. Even if the process fails, as we all expect it will, at least Israel is seen as making every effort for peace. That is vital for U.S. popular and government support. Indeed, this may be something President Obama needed to get the gulf states to go along (or at least not interfere) with a strike on the Iranian nuclear program. In other words, these peace talks may well be a side show for something that is more important, both to Israel and the U.S.<br><br>
Then again, maybe the U.S. and Israel really have put a new peace process front and center in their thinking. This may also be the one time in history when the Arab-Israeli conflict is the easiest one in the Middle East to solve. The other conflicts in the region: the Syrian civil war, Egypt on the edge of civil war as well and, of course, the standoff with Iran are all more difficult problems.<br><br>
Permit me, however, to frame this strictly in terms of the Israelis and Palestinians. If you won't even negotiate with your enemy how will you ever have peace? Must Israel be condemned to endless wars, death and destruction?<br><br>
I am not "gullible" for supporting a two state (really a multi-state) solution as some people have claimed. I can see clearly enough to know it's a choice between that and the eventual destruction of Israel. The Palestinians will never become Jordanians, they can't be bought off, they will never leave Judea, Samaria and Gaza voluntarily, and, if we include Gaza, there are almost as many of them between the river and the sea as there are of us. Once again, I say us because I have so much family and so many dear friends in Israel, plus, of course, I am planning a move there myself. Whatever happens, it will affect me directly.<br><br>
If Israel tries to expel or kill the Palestinians, as hardliners online, many of them Americans and Christians, insist Israel should, the U.S. will almost certainly lead the international military against Israel. The Serbs weren't permitted to expel the Albanians, a much smaller number, in Kosovo. Do you really think Israel will get away with it? Insanity!<br><br>
If you didn't read <a href="http://israel-aliya.blogspot.com/2013/07/if-you-want-to-make-peace-you-dont-talk.html">my very personal blog post</a> and don't understand where I'm coming from, read it. If you did read it and still don't understand... fine.<br><br>
Let me say this again, for the last time: if you oppose even negotiating for peace you and I have very different <a href="http://israel-aliya.blogspot.com/2013/07/if-you-want-to-make-peace-you-dont-talk.html">moral values</a> and very different beliefs. You may, unwittingly, be an agent of the destruction of Israel. Have a nice life with your delusions of greater Israel or fortress Israel or whatever you think will work. Just please don't expect me to want or to have any part of it. I will continue to pray, as Jews have for centuries, for peace in Jerusalem and all of Israel. I will also work in any way I can to make peace a reality.
Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-4276960156312226252013-07-30T00:18:00.000-05:002013-07-30T21:08:53.193-05:00To Those Who Oppose Peace Talks<i>If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.</i> -Moshe Dayan</i><br><br>
The late Moshe Dayan was a wise man who knew a thing or three about defending Israel. The wisdom of the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/world/middleeast/israel-agrees-to-prisoner-release-clearing-way-for-talks.html?_r=0">Palestinian prisoner release</a> is debatable at best, and while I support what Prime Minister Netanyahu did in the hope of advancing peace, I can understand those who disagree. What I cannot understand are those on the right who oppose any negotiation for peace. I cannot understand those who say Israel should not sit down at the table and talk.<br><br>
I am an old peacenik going way back. Most of my friends know this. I guess I still am. I still believe in my heart that the only way Israel will ever know security is if there is peace. I believe every Prime Minister of Israel except Yitzhak Shamir has understood this and worked for the day that Israel will have peace with her neighbors. I believe the senseless deaths in endless wars has to end someday. That day will come only when there is peace.<br><br>
The reason my family did not stay in Israel, the reason I finished growing up in the United States, is simple. My mother put her foot down. She said she did not want her children to go to war. If it was up to my father, who came to the States from Israel in the 1950s, we'd have settled in Israel permanently. A few years earlier when most Israelis were celebrating the great victory in the Six Day War in 1967, my father saw nothing to celebrate. His words: "Occupation. Bad business." I believe history has proven he was correct.<br><br>
I believe Israel has the right to defend herself. I believe that unequivocally. However, I also believe, based on the liberal Jewish values I was raised with, that Israel also has an obligation to seek peace at every opportunity. The Jewish people have prayed for thousands of years for the peace in Jerusalem and all Israel.<br><br>
Many right wing Americans, on various Internet sites, claim to be great supporters and friends of Israel. They also are dead set against peace talks. If you are opposed to peace talks, if you think war is preferable to compromise, if you believe annexation and expulsion is somehow the correct answer to the dispute, if you would in any way oppose even sitting down and talking, then I believe you are no friend of Israel or the Jewish people.<br><br>
One of the most important principles in Judaism is <i><a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/pikuach_nefesh.html">pikuach nefesh</a></i>, the obligation to save a life. It is so important it trumps all other religious considerations. It is perfectly permissible to travel on Shabbat, on a holiday, even on Yom Kippur, if you can save a life. Another important concept I was taught when I was growing up is <i><a href="http://www.innerfrontier.org/Practices/TikkunOlam.htm">tikkun olam</a></i>, which literally means repairing the world. We have an obligation to leave the world a better place than what we found when we came into it. What could do more to make the world a better place than achieving peace?<br><br>
I am really and truly skeptical that these peace talks will go anywhere, at least in the near term. I just don't see Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership being ready to compromise on pretty much anything, and compromise is essential on both sides to achieve a peace agreement. Having said that, if you had asked me in college during freshman or sophmore year if Egypt would ever make peace with Israel I would have said "no way". I know because that is precisely what I said. I would have pointed out that Anwar Sadat flew planes for the Nazis and led his country in the Yom Kippur War. Then, late one evening in 1979, I was sitting in Wilson Commons, the student union building on the University of Rochester campus, watching the premiere of "Battlestar Galactica" with friends. The network interrupted the show... to announce the signing of the Camp David accords. What had seemed impossible to me a year earlier became reality that night. I will never forget it.<br><br>
If you would condemn us to more war, more death, more destruction without so much as sitting down and trying to talk to our enemies, as Moshe Dayan said we must, then you are no friend of Israel and the Jewish people. I say "us" because so much of my family and so many friends, so many people I love dearly, live in Israel. I say "us" because anyone who has read my writing over the years knows that once I meet certain obligations here in the States and reach some goals which would make aliya successful for me, I plan on finally moving to Israel.<br><br>
To those who say no talks, I say: די כבר - enough already. Give it a rest. We've had enough killing, enough death. We must at least try to make peace even if we are doomed to fail. It is our moral obligation.Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-65926426314239332992013-06-21T17:48:00.000-05:002013-06-21T17:53:49.199-05:00I Believe In Human Rights, In Peace and In EqualitySocial media brings you into contact with all sorts of people. My own Zionism, my Israeli and Jewish heritage, and my passion for defending Israel has put me in contact with many Israelis and Zionists around the globe and it's been a wonderful experience. I'm using Hebrew more, gaining language skills I thought I'd never gain until I made aliya, and meeting some fantastic people in the process. (My Hebrew is still awful, just not as awful.) I have plans to turn some online friendships into real life ones as part of a group trip to Israel in 2014 if everything works out as I hope. For the most part, it's all good.<br><br>
Over the years, as the peace process has failed and it became increasingly obvious to me that the current <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Abbas-says-he-cant-allow-even-one-concession">Palestinian leadership has no interest in peace</a> at all my politics have drifted to the right somewhat when it comes to Israel. One thing interacting on Facebook has taught me is that I may now be more of a centrist than a leftist, but I still can't support the Israeli right or right wing Jews who are often, as Alan Dershowitz put it in his book "<a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Case_for_Peace.html?id=vXVp66UnFaUC">The Case For Peace</a>," more Israeli than the Israelis. <br><br>
Those who hate Israel and the Jewish people try to portray us as racist monsters who hate the Arabs. In my experience there are such people, but they are a truly tiny minority of Jewish and Israeli voices. Most Jews, Zionists, Israelis I know are tolerant people who simply want the right to live in peace in our homeland.<br><br>
This is my response to a right-wing person who identified as a Sephardic Jew who, as it happens, isn't Israeli. Her views include the idea that Arabs don't belong in Israel or the territories and that Palestinians "don't exist" as a people. I've edited several of my posts from a discussion together, removed names, and reordered it a bit to make a coherent whole.<br><br>
<hr><br>
Call them Arabs instead of Palestinians and they do belong. 80% of the Arab population in 1948 was first generation. They arrived in the first half of the last century. Some of the other 20% had been in what is now Israel (including Judea and Samaria) for centuries. You are correct that they didn't have a national identity and saw themselves as Syrian, but Israel was part of Southern Syria under the Ottoman Empire. Those people have every bit as much right to their homes, which they've now lived in for generations, as we do.<br><br>
Second, human rights apply to all human beings, even despicable ones. I don't have to respect terrorists. I do have to respect the rights of all people, even those I don't like. Israel is a democracy and a state for all it's people. Last I checked Arabs have equal rights under Israeli law. If you annex all of Judea and Samaria those rights will apply to the Palestinian Arabs there, who will suddenly be a huge voting bloc. For me the prime consideration is Israel's security but that has to be balanced against maintaining Israel as a Jewish democracy which respects the rights of all of its citizens.<br><br>
I have a cousin who is Dati and lives in Samaria. [The last time I visited him] he lamented for his Palestinian friends who he no longer sees. Some were murdered during the first Intifada for being too friendly with Israelis. Those who still live are, in his words, "people just like us. All they want is to live in peace." If a Palestinian expresses that desire in the PA controlled territories their life may be forfeit. Please remember that.<br><br>
You've denied that the Arabs have any rights in Israel including Judea and Samaria. You've denied that they belong in Israel at all. You've denied that the Palestinians exist as a people. Yes, their national identity was created as a weapon against Israel, but now two generations of people have grown up with that identity and it is real to them.<br><br>
You disagreed with me when I said all people, even Arabs, have human rights. That really does qualify as hate speech. You generalized about every Arab on the planet in a way that really can be construed as hate speech. Yes, the anti-Semitism in the Arab world is horrendous. However, the only way we will ever change any of that is if we are open to talk to the ones who don't hate. You know there are a growing number of Arab and Muslim voices supporting Israel. Yes, I know they are a small minority, but it's a start and an important one.<br><br>
Palestinian mythology attempts to delegitimize Israel. Posting things that delegitimize Arabs and championing denying them the same rights we demand for ourselves isn't helpful at all to our cause. It also doesn't represent majority opinion among Jews or Israelis.<br><br>
Regarding ceding territory, you know, considering the historical and religious importance of Judea and Samaria I would love to see them annexed to Israel. How do we do that while preserving the Jewish nature of the State of Israel, preserving democracy, and preserving basic Jewish and Israeli values which include human rights and equality for everyone in Israel? My friends on the right have never been able to answer that question. Until they can I have to support some sort of divorce from the Palestinians even if it comes without a peace treaty.<br>
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Shabbat Shalom from east Texas.
Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-88494008286754445222013-06-13T23:03:00.000-05:002017-10-01T15:23:05.179-05:00The "As A Jew..." PhenomenonOne of the dangers of being an outspoken Zionist who is proud of my Jewish and Israeli heritage is that I find myself being put in a position where I end up defending Israel in what has become a truly hostile world. I've done that, in a small part, with this blog over the last nine years. More recently the main focus has been social media, particularly Facebook, where a war of words on not only Israel but on the Jewish people continues daily.<br><br>
One phenomenon I've seen repeatedly on Facebook is the "As a Jew..." This is a person who identifies themselves as Jewish and uses that as a means of somehow strengthening their attack on Israel, at least in their own view. These attacks are often accompanied by the same old anti-Semitic canards about Jews controlling the media, Western governments and the banks. When you quiz these people on their Jewish identity many will admit to being atheists or otherwise secular, and in some cases their Jewish heritage is limited to one grandparent or great grandparent. Others do claim to have been raised Jewish but to have found the truth in their oh-so-liberal views. They, in general, have no knowledge of Judaism.They know nothing of Jewish history or religion or culture. However, because of a Jewish ancestor they feel justified in speaking for the real, moral, honest, decent Jewish people and feel equally justified in dismissing those of us who do not share their views as racist monsters.<br><br>
Back in 2006 I shared <a href="http://israel-aliya.blogspot.com/2006/04/my-response-to-anti-israel-anti.html">my response to an anti-Israel, anti-American rant</a> by a young American woman on one of the <a href="http://www.linuxchix.org/">LinuxChix</a> lists. The support she received from the movers and shakers in the organization at the time is the reason I left. For the "progressive" American left, and indeed for liberals around the world, hating Israel is seen as the morally correct position. The "As a Jew..." adopts this sort of their liberalism as their religion and they defend these beliefs with a zealous passion, abandoning what tiny little connection they may have had to their Jewish roots in the process.<br><br>
What follows is a response I wrote to an "As a Jew..." today. I've removed names to protect the guilty: <br><br>
<hr>
You start from a lot of false assumptions and go downhill from there. First, being a Zionist Jew does not mean hating Arabs. Spend some time in a city like Haifa, where Jews and Arabs live side by side, and where they are good neighbors and friends. Then tell me if being a Zionist means hating Arabs. Huge clue: it does not.<br><br>
Second, you presume the Palestinians are underdogs and as someone who has very liberal views overall, that makes them worthy of your support. First, get out of the liberal echo chamber. I know what it's like because I'm an old peacenik and I used to be in there. Democracy Now! or AlterNet or ThinkProgress are not objective sources. They are left wing propaganda, much as Rush Limbaugh or Breitbart or Free Republic are right wing propaganda. The one thing all these sites on both the right and left have in common is that they have chosen sides. They won't let facts get in the way of their agenda. You've bought into the leftist agenda which, just like the right wing agenda. bears no resemblance to reality.<br><br>
The <a href="http://israel-aliya.blogspot.com/2007/06/palestinian-suffering-putting-blame.html">Palestinians are suffering</a>, but <a href="http://israel-aliya.blogspot.com/2007/06/letting-truth-out-into-arab-media.html">not primarily because of Israel</a>. The issue is NOT and HAS NEVER BEEN occupation or oppression. Take this from someone who's father didn't celebrate the great victory of 1967. His words: "Occupation. Bad business." He was right, but mostly not for the reasons you think.<br><br>
In 1948 80% of the Jews in Palestine were first generation immigrants. So were 80% of the Arabs. They came from neighboring countries to take advantage of economic opportunity created by Jewish immigration. There was nothing wrong with that. However, there was no national identity called Palestinian in the Arab world until after Israel was created. That national identity was created as a weapon against Israel. To be considered a Palestinian refugee by the U.N. you simply had to be in Palestine for two years prior to 1948. Tell me, if you go work somewhere, anywhere in the world for two years are you entitled to citizenship? Of course not.<br><br>
So... for 65 years these Arab people, Egyptians like Yasser Arafat, Syrians, Jordanians, Iraqis, Lebanese, (Saudi) Arabians have been held hostage in squalid camps and denied basic rights because they are children or grandchildren or great grandchildren of people who worked in British Palestine to be used as a weapon against Israel. Is that Israel's fault or the fault of their real oppressors?<br><br>
There was no ethnic cleansing, no expulsion in 1948. The <a href="http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/quotes.html">Arab leaders told the Arabs to leave</a> and then return when the Jews were pushed into the sea. That never happened. Did some right wing paramilitary groups on the Jewish side want to push the Palestinians out? Of course. Did most of the Arabs who fled ever see these groups? No. Did the Arab side exaggerate dangers to get their people to leave? Yep, as did the paramilitaries. Those groups were disbanded or absorbed by the Israeli government after independence. That government begged the Arabs to stay.<br><br>
The Palestinians have been abused, but largely by their Arab brethren. No, Israel is not faultless. No, Israeli policy is not perfect. Far from it. However, it is NOTHING like you and your friends portray it. You found some far left Israeli friends to agree with you. That's nice, but it's not mainstream Israeli thought at all.<br><br>
The main thing you need to understand: the Palestinians are not underdogs. They are part of the 300,000,000 hostile Arabs that surround tiny Israel. They have been offered peace and independence time and again and have turned it down. They are NOT interested. Their interest, and I am talking about the leadership now, is to destroy Israel. Ordinary Palestinians include many fine people who would love to live in peace. Unfortunately they have absolutely no say in the matter.<br><br>
You are not supporting the underdog. When you support the Arabs you support the oppressors who have already <a href="http://www.meforum.org/263/why-jews-fled-the-arab-countries">driven nearly a million Jews</a> and <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/06/10/former-lebanese-president-warns-mideast-christians-face-%E2%80%98existential-crisis%E2%80%99/">most of the Christians</a> and other minorities out of their respective countries. You are not fighting colonialism. You are supporting the colonizers, the Arabs, against the indigenous Jews. You are betraying your own people for liberal ideology which does NOT accurately reflect history or the facts on the ground.<br><br>
Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-30745758247568134602013-05-13T11:39:00.001-05:002013-05-13T11:39:37.499-05:00The Day I Grew a Second HeadI moved to a small city in east Texas last year and, for the first time in my life, I found myself living in an area with a miniscule Jewish population. There must be some other Jews in the area because one local market does have a kosher/Israeli food section very similar to what I found in supermarkets in the Raleigh, NC area where I lived before. On the other hand, the nearest <i>shul</i> is more than 40 miles away.<br><br>
As Pesach approached I expected that the market that had a kosher foods section would have foods which were kosher for Passover as well. Less than a week before Pesach there still wasn't anything there so I decided to ask and see if maybe they were just late in arriving. When I talked to the help and the manager and asked about "Passover foods" they looked at me like I had grown a second head. I was asked "What's that?" or even "What's Passover?" Special foods? Nope, not that they knew of.<br><br>
There is a huge market about 20 miles away that is in the outermost suburbs of Houston. They have a somewhat larger kosher/Jewish foods section there including frozen foods. Surely they would have what I needed. No such luck. Once again, the looks I got as I explained what I meant would be appropriate if a two headed space alien had walked into the market. The next day a coworker suggested I try another large market in the town with the <i>shul</i>. That made sense. Sadly, the results were exactly the same as I had experienced at the two previous markets I tried.<br><br>
There is a significant Jewish community down in Houston. Looking up where the Jewish community is online and where I'd likely find the selection of kosher foods I wanted revealed that it would be 80 miles each way to get to that part of the city. I decided to check the College Station/Bryan area which is closer to where I live. It turns out there is a Chabad there and they recommended two markets. Sure enough, I found a very nice selection of Passover foods <i><b>only</i></b> 50 miles from home.<br><br>
I went back to the first market mainly for fresh produce a couple of days before Pesach started. Their little Jewish foods section was picked clean. The matzo that was clearly labeled "Not for Passover use" was gone, as was the gefilte fish and pretty much anything else that resembled food for the holiday. Clearly if the had brought in Passover food it would have sold well. It was also clear that what Jewish community we have is probably not religious and was willing to make do with anything that resembled what would be found on a seder table.<br><br>
Anywhere else I've lived, from Raleigh to Green Bay to Florida to New York, asking those questions would have resulted in someone pointing me to the correct aisle or, at the very least, a "no, sorry" followed by a suggestion about which market would have what I was looking for.<br><br>
Despite the very nice pay rate that came with the contract work here I've come to the conclusion that moving to east Texas was a mistake. Culturally I feel like a fish out of water here. Identifying myself as a somewhat traditional, somewhat observant Jew shouldn't have generated the kind of reactions I got when I went shopping that day. We tend to believe that Jewish people are accepted and welcome in the United States. My experiences served as a stark reminder that, once you go away from the cities with large Jewish populations, we are still seen as strange and somehow alien in America. Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-45836127832579187302013-05-02T23:26:00.000-05:002013-05-02T23:31:00.498-05:00Time to March on Jerusalem? I Don't Think SoYesterday on The Times of Israel website, blogger Emanuel Shahaf wrote <a href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/lights-on-nobody-home/">an article imploring Israelis to march on Jerusalem</a> and demand that the Israeli government gets serious about making peace with the Palestinians. He concludes:<blockquote>If the Israeli public doesn’t take the initiative, gets its act together and without much further ado marches on Jerusalem to convince our fearful politicians that this is crunch time, that we have to act, seize the moment and negotiate this conflict away before it consumes us, then we deserve no better.</blockquote>
I strongly disagree with Mr. Shahaf and wrote a response which I posted as a comment. Here it is in full:<br>
_________________________________________________________________<br><br>
I've read the article as well as the comments and responses. עמנואל שחף, with all due respect, you can only make peace when both sides want peace. The majority of Israelis still accept a "two state solution." I put it in quotes because today that means a four state solution within what was the original British Mandate of Palestine: three Arab states (Jordan, Gaza, West Bank) and a Jewish one which would be much weakened. Most of the recent polling I've seen from the P.A. indicates a two state solution is only acceptable as a step to liberating "all of Palestine," meaning, of course, all of Israel. The percentage that accepts the idea of living along side of a Jewish state is around 19%, and that was the most generous number I've seen.<br><br>
The fact is that Ehud Olmert's 2008 offer, while now "off the table" as you point out, certainly was about the maximum Israel could ever offer. Mahmoud Abbas didn't even grace it with a formal response. There was no counter offer. Prime Minister Netanyahu lost his first government, in part, over the Wye River Accords. Yes, I know the budget was the final straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, but after withdrawing from most of Hebron he lost most of his support from the right. In his second term he tried the settlement freeze which was ignored up until the last minute by Abbas and then it's end was used as an excuse for not negotiating. Recently we heard of a possible freeze again and Abbas suddenly needed every last Palestinian prisoner released no matter what they had done. Neither the Prime Minister nor his predecessor have failed to work for peace at all.<br><br>
The reality is that Abbas has little popular support and nowhere near the courage to risk his life for an agreement even if he believed in peace. Having read and listened to his statements over the years, and what he has to say to his fellow Arabs in particular, I don't really believe he has any interest in peace at all. Once upon a time I was a peacenik. Like so many in the '90s I thought peace might be right around the corner if only we worked hard enough for it. Like so many I've since come to realize that I succumbed to a popular delusion.<br><br>
Israel should always leave the door open to peace. We should always be ready to sit down and negotiate in good faith. We shouldn't beg those who fire rockets into Israel daily or those in Judea and Samaria who plot destruction to please, please, please make peace. That smacks of weakness and achieves nothing.<br><br>
A mass march on the government that fails to work for peace is a wonderful idea. You would need to march on Ramallah, not Jerusalem.<br><br>
Respectfully,<br>
קייתלין מרטיןCaitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-2253365439637998902013-04-21T15:20:00.000-05:002013-04-21T15:20:50.522-05:00The Boston Blame Game: Left Wing Editon[NOTE: This is a rare cross-posted from <a href="http://ever-increasing-entropy.blogspot.com">personal blog</a>. I've added it here because touches at least tangentially upon Israel.]<br><br>
Ever since the Boston Marathon bombings lots on lots of people on the Internet are playing a despicable blame game, blaming everyone and anyone they don't like for the terrorist attack; anyone except <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/04/20/178112198/the-tsarnaev-brothers-what-we-know-about-the-boston-bombing-suspects">Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev</a>, that is. The conspiracy theorist version of the blame game includes claiming this was actually a U.S. government plot or an Israeli/Mossad "false flag operation". The right wing version often includes blaming Islam as a whole and every Muslim on the planet. For right now I'm going to pick on a left wing version: blaming the victims (the United States) and our friends in the world. <br><br>
It's pretty easy for hard core left wingers to blame American foreign policy here: the use of drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq and American support of Israel are used as prime examples. The United States is blamed, often solely blamed, for the loss of innocent lives throughout the Muslim world. Here is a dose of reality: radical Islamists have declared war on the West. When you're attacked you do have to respond. Anything else is perceived as weakness and encourages more violence. Are innocent lives are lost? That is the sad and tragic reality in any war. Yes, if we have a choice war needs to be a last resort. Sometimes, sadly, it is the only resort left.<br><br>
The problem with radical Islam, something which is growing and spreading like a cancer in the Muslim world, is that people are taught to hate in their schools, in their mosques and in the media. Add a very large poor population, poorly educated or hardly educated at all, a relatively low literacy rate, and little or no access to other viewpoints. If the infidel or the American or the Jew or the Israeli or the European is made a scapegoat for all that is wrong in their lives the hatred is there. It doesn't require a drone strike or ill advised foreign policy to nurture that hatred.<br><br>
Some ultraliberals, when referring to the Muslim world, talk about how we ignore or harm "the government(s) that represents those people". In the Islamic world there are only such representative governments in Turkey, Indonesia, and Iraqi Kurdistan, which is independent from the rest of Iraq in many respects. Everywhere else you have dictatorships and theocracies that vary only in the extent to which they brutalize their own people. The worst poverty I have ever seen was in a Muslim country I visited several times on business. If I took the time to describe what I saw your heart would break. The sad truth is those kind of scenes are repeated in many, many countries throughout the Islamic world.<br><br>
The poverty I refer to wasn't caused by drones, by American meddling or by any other excuse used to explain the problem. Those issues are factors but, honestly, they are relatively minor factors. They serve as propaganda points for those stoking the hate. No American government policy included meddling in Chechnya, where the Tsarnaev's come from. Honestly, that excuse is nothing more than an excuse.<br><br>
The conflict between a modern, tolerant view of Islam and the more radical and fundamentalist view has been going on for more than a thousand years. To blame recent policies, no matter how short sighted or flawed, is to ignore history. The principle blame here belongs to the terrorists, to the ideology they followed, and to those who promote that ideology and justify terrorism. A small dose of blame goes to the left-wingers who enable terrorism by blaming the victims rather than the real sources of the problem.
Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-78530362668200409892013-04-18T16:12:00.000-05:002013-04-21T13:53:47.937-05:00Israel is Always Ready to Negotiate for Peace<dir>“<i>The Palestinians have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.</i>” -Abba Eban</dir><br>
One of the popular but utterly false claims made by the pro-Palestinian crowd online is that no Israeli Prime Minister since Yitzhak Rabin has been willing to sit down and negotiate with the Palestinians for peace. That claim stinks to high heaven but none the less it's practically a meme on social networking sites like Facebook. Here is a summary of what each and every Israeli Prime Minister has done since the Rabin assassination.<br><br>
The first Prime Minister after Yitzhak Rabin wase Shimon Peres, one of the architects of the Oslo Accords. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with both Rabin and Yasser Arafat. Does anyone doubt his peacemaking credentials?<br><br>
Next came Binyamin Netanyahu's first term. He not only negotiated with Arafat, but he signed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wye_River_Memorandum">Wye River Memorandum</a> in 1998 and withdrew from additional land, including most of Hebron, the second holiest place in Judaism. The consequences of that agreement were that the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Features/In-Thespotlight/This-Week-in-History-Wye-River-land-for-peace-deal">right abandoned Netanyahu and his government fell</a>. He basically sacrificed his own political career at the time for an interim peace agreement.<br><br>
After Netanyahu came Ehud Barak who negotiated both at <a href="http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/The+Middle+East+Peace+Summit+at+Camp+David-+July+2.htm">Camp David</a> and at <a href="http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=43143">Taba</a>. President <a href="http://likud.nl/2001/06/clinton-to-arafat-its-all-your-fault-likoed-nederland/">Bill Clinton blamed the failure of Camp David squarely on Arafat</a>. When Barak upped the offer at Taba the response delivered by Yasser Abed Rabbo was that the Palestinians wouldn't give up "even one centimeter" of land. No counter offer was ever made. The offers from Israel were good enough that many moderate Arab leaders had encouraged Yasser Arafat to accept. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah of Jordan, and Mahmoud Abbas were among those urging Arafat to finally make peace with Israel. <a href="http://www.peacewithrealism.org/pdc/campdave.htm">Prince Bandar, no friend of Israel, said Arafat's refusal to take the deal was "a crime"</a>. Arafat chose to fight the second intifada instead.<br><br>
After Barak came Ariel Sharon who withdrew from all of Gaza without any agreement in the hope it would lead to peace. Instead the result was regular rocket fire from Gaza into Israel and two more conflicts. Then came Ehud Olmert who ran for Prime Minister on a platform of withdrawing from much of Judea and Samaria. He was at the 2007 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapolis_Conference">Annapolis Conference</a>, which was the first time both sides agreed that the final settlement would be a two-state solution. In 2008 he <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/haaretz-exclusive-olmert-s-plan-for-peace-with-the-palestinians-1.1970">offered Abbas</a> an area equal in size to the 1949 armistice line with land swaps to account for current demographics. He was <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/pa-rejects-olmert-s-offer-to-withdraw-from-93-of-west-bank-1.251578">turned down flat</a>. Once again, there was no counteroffer from the Palestinians.<br><br>
Now we have Binyamin Netanyahu again, who gave a 10 month settlement freeze and nearly lost his government for it. Abbas only negotiated in the last two weeks and then used the expiration of the freeze as an excuse not to negotiate. Since then the Prime Minister has offered to negotiate without preconditions whenever the Palestinians are ready. They are never ready.Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-86569323465212352542012-01-22T13:46:00.001-06:002012-01-22T13:58:34.299-06:00The Villification of Prime Minister Netanyahu<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w7RZVZlsglc/TxxqXvzPuTI/AAAAAAAAAGc/Yrcqv4qHD6o/s1600/220px-Benjamin_Netanyahu_portrait.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="212" width="220" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w7RZVZlsglc/TxxqXvzPuTI/AAAAAAAAAGc/Yrcqv4qHD6o/s320/220px-Benjamin_Netanyahu_portrait.jpg" /></a></div>If you read the left-leaning and much of the mainstream press it's easy to believe the <a href="http://en.netanyahu.org.il/">Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu</a> is the problem, or at least a big part of the problem, in the stalemated talks between Israel and the Palestinians. He is often described as "right wing" and "hard line" when nothing could be further from the truth.<br />
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Part of the reason, of course, is that he is from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likud">Likud</a> party. Likud is seen as the Israeli equivalent of the Republican Party by many American liberals. That is an oversimplification and is really incorrect. The Prime Minister himself corrects journalists, steadfastly referring to Likud as center-right. Israel is a multi-party system and, much unlike the Republicans, those right of center divide into a number of secular and religious parties. Prime Minister Netanyahu has committed himself to <a href="http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Speeches+by+Israeli+leaders/2011/Speech_PM_Netanyahu_US_Congress_24-May-2011.htm">"two states for two peoples"</a> and he is the elected leader of Likud. That position is an anathema to the truly right-wing parties, for example, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Union_%28Israel%29">National Union</a>, which is in opposition to the current government.<br />
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This Prime Minister lost his government during his previous term when the right wing parties <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_legislative_election,_1999">pulled out of the ruling coalition</a>, including breakaway members of Likud. It wasn't the left that brought him down; it was the right. Why? He signed the <a href="http://www.state.gov/www/regions/nea/981023_interim_agmt.html">Wye River Memorandum</a> and gave control of more land to the Palestinian Authority, including most of Hebron. I have no doubt that Prime Minister Netanyahu would do the same again if there was a real chance for peace. Right now there isn't one.<br />
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The problem is, and always has been, the Palestinian leadership. They have had a total of three leaders since 1919: <a href="http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php">Haj Amin al-Husseini</a>, who sided with the Nazis in World War II and wanted to bring Hitler's final solution to Palestine, his nephew and chosen successor, Yassir Arafat, and Arafat's hand-picked successor, Mahmoud Abbas, whose <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Side:_the_Secret_Relationship_Between_Nazism_and_Zionism">doctoral dissertation amounted to Holocaust denial</a>. Yes, people can overcome their past. Anwar Sadat flew planes for the Nazis and led Egypt to war on Yom Kippur in 1973. Today we remember Sadat as a man who gave his life for the sake of peace. Sadly, Abbas is no Sadat. He insists on terms that he knows Israel can never meet as <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/10/25/abbas-peacetalks/">preconditions to negotiation</a>, guaranteeing their failure in advance.<br />
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Look what Prime Minister <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3692964,00.html">Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians</a> in 2008: land equal in area to what Jordan and Egypt occupied prior to 1967 with land swaps to account for present demographics, a divided Jerusalem with holy sites under international control, and a symbolic, limited acceptance of some Palestinian "refugees" into Israel. It's the most Israel probably could ever offer. The Palestinians <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/olmert-abbas-never-responded-to-my-peace-offer-1.263328">didn't even respond</a> and offered no counter-proposal. <br />
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What on earth could Prime Minister Netanyahu offer that hasn't already been offered? How is Prime Minister Netanyahu an obstacle to peace when he repeatedly says he will negotiate at <a href="http://www.forward.com/articles/149714/">any time in any place</a> the Palestinians may choose? He's made <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-would-meet-assad-any-time-any-place-1.266341">the same offer to Syria</a>. The answer is simple: Prime Minister Netanyahu is not a problem except in the minds of those who always find reason to blame Israel and those who believe them.Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-82973459508782232302012-01-21T19:14:00.005-06:002021-03-14T22:30:26.617-05:00How President Obama and the Democrats are Losing My SupportThe Center for American Progress (CAP), a prominent Washington think tank, are the folks behind the Think Progress website. Their views are both influential in and often representative of the Progressive (liberal) wing of the Democratic Party. They have always had anti-Israel writers. That's nothing new. However, their writing has recently descended into anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism of the ugliest kind. Normally this is the sort of thing I would write off as far left and move on. What makes CAP different is that the group routinely advises the Obama administration on Middle East policy.<br />
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The statements in question are blog posts and Twitter tweets referring to American supporters of Israel as "Israel firsters", a term which originated and until recently resided exclusively in the neo-Nazi fringe. It's the old charge of dual loyalty or disloyalty to America leveled at American Jews since the 1920s. The term was used by Think Progress blogger Zaid Jilani according to pieces in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/center-for-america-progress-group-tied-to-obama-accused-of-anti-semitic-language/2012/01/17/gIQAcrHXAQ_print.html">The Washington Post</a>, <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_white_house_israel_bashing_pals_8ThjAmEWCbSDjFPx9znPbO">The New York Post</a> and <a href="http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=254410">The Jerusalem Post</a>.<br />
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Another example was penned by CAP’s director of Middle East Progress, Matt Duss:<blockquote>“Like segregation in the American South, the siege of Gaza (and the entire Israeli occupation, for that matter) is a moral abomination that should be intolerable to anyone claiming progressive values,”</blockquote><br />
Other Think Progress writers have made statements that are equally offensive.<br />
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Is that really anti-Semitism per se? Faiz Shakir, who is editor-in-chief of the ThinkProgress.org website and a Vice President at CAP <a href="http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=252605">agrees that it is</a>:<blockquote>“Yes, I agree ‘Israel Firster’ is terrible, anti-Semitic language. And that’s why that language no longer exists on Zaid’s personal twitter feed, because he also knows and understands the implications.”</blockquote><br />
Despite this clear statement Progressives are still claiming that the whole issue is an attempt to smear CAP. One example, written by <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/01/19/the_smear_campaign_against_cap_and_media_matters_rolls_on/singleton/">Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com</a> blames everything on "the predictable roster of neoconservative, hatemongering extremists..." while expounding on his own anti-Israel positions that are every bit as biased, misinformed and even repeat the popular and libelous "apartheid" charge against the Jewish state. <br />
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Who are the hatemongers Greenwald is talking about? Who made these charges? We're talking about the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee. From The Washington Post article:<blockquote>“The language is corrosive and unacceptable,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He added that the blog posts and tweets from CAP staffers “are the responsibility of the adults who run the place, not only the kids who play.”</blockquote><br />
From The Jerusalem Post and The New York Post pieces:<blockquote>Speaking with the Jerusalem Post recently about CAP and Media Matters, the American Jewish Committee’s Jason Isaacson said, “Think tanks are entitled to their political viewpoints — but they’re not free to slander with impunity . . . References to Israeli ‘apartheid’ or ‘Israel-firsters’ are so false and hateful they reveal an ugly bias no serious policy center can countenance.”</blockquote><br />
These aren't right wing groups, nor are they neocons. These are some of the most respected and influential Jewish groups in the country. <br />
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Perhaps the folks associated with CAP and their defenders, instead of lashing out at their critics, should remember the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, whose work we commemorated just a week ago, "When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism." Indeed, and many if not most American supporters of Israel, both Jewish and Christian, identify themselves as Zionists. <br />
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What makes this issue so very critical is the fact that this is the organization that advises President Obama on the Middle East. I am now genuinely worried the Obama administration's schizophrenic policy towards Israel would turn to open hostility in a second term. I remember how President Bush was supposed to be the "best friend" Israel had in the White House and how that friendship evaporated in his second term. Those who read this blog between 2004 and 2008 will remember just how critical I was of the Bush administration.<br />
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During the 2008 campaign I <a href="http://israel-aliya.blogspot.com/2008/03/barack-obama-and-israel-part-1.html">blogged about my concerns</a> about President Obama's then <a href="http://israel-aliya.blogspot.com/2008/04/barack-obama-and-israel-part-2.html">foreign policy advisers</a>. While I had endorsed John Kerry in this blog back in 2004 I could not, in good conscience, do the same for then Senator Obama. In the end Mr. Obama distanced himself from the ones that were most troubling to Jewish and Christian supporters of Israel. The President captured 78% of the Jewish vote as a result. I freely admit I voted for President Obama, mainly due to economic issues, but I had been sufficiently reassured that the new administration would not be hostile to Israel.<br />
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In order to repeat the 2008 results the President will have to repeat his actions from that campaign: distance himself from the fiercely anti-Israel and sometimes even anti-Semitic crowd at CAP. If he can't do that then I can and will vote Republican for President for the first time since 1988. There's an old proverb that dates back to at least the 16th century that is apropos here: "He that lies with the dogs, riseth with fleas." If the President chooses to keep the folks from CAP as foreign policy advisers and if CAP, in turn, keeps these writers on board I have a real problem. How can I trust that the President doesn't share some of their views or won't come to adopt some of their anti-Israel policies? I am deeply worried about what the President is thinking about Iran, about Israel, about the Palestinians and about foreign policy in general and how things might change in 2013 if he is reelected.<br />
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I wish I could have President Obama's social and economic policies and Speaker Newt Gingrich's foreign policy. I can't have both so I have to choose. So... I am definitely undecided at this point.<br />
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The Republicans and the right have been trying and failing to make Israel a right/left wedge issue for years. Now the Progressives in the Democratic party have done it for them. Is this really the path you want to go down? <br />
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When the Democratic Party is on the verge of losing someone who has voted for the Democrat at the top of the ticket in every election since 1992 you know something is wrong. Mainstream Democrats had better think twice about the trend towards virulently anti-Israel positions in their Progressive wing. If the Democrats lose people like me at the time Republicans have shifted way to the right you know they are going to have problems winning elections.<br />
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[NOTE: Posted after the end of Shabbat.]Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-32047278220130541622012-01-12T23:31:00.000-06:002012-01-12T23:31:06.191-06:00How is it "Liberal" to Advocate Genocide?Yesterday I once again found myself defending Israel and watching the opponents' arguments descend into defense of Iran and the desire they share with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to wipe Israel off the map. They would never admit they support genocide but that is precisely the only way the nearly 6 million Jews of Israel will be removed. These "liberals" are supporting a new Holocaust.<br />
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To them I say "Never Again!" and I share this reminder. The music is by Ofra Haza, from the album Kirya, and is her tribute to the victims of the Holocaust:<br />
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/C__mVfpvS1g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8251782.post-34953987842098177192011-12-04T23:07:00.002-06:002011-12-05T01:00:08.628-06:00Be Careful What You Wish ForFor months the American and European media reported on the so-called Arab Spring as if it was a breakthrough for democracy in the Arab world. Dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen have now been overthrown, with varying degrees of force and loss of life. The Western media acted as cheerleaders and Western leaders, including President Obama, first encouraged the overthrow of these regimes and then hailed these events as victories for freedom. Sadly, they were nothing of the sort.<br />
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Across the Arab world where elections, many of them the first free elections these countries have seen, are being won by Islamists who believe that democracy is a form of Western decadence. Assuming the Islamists come to power in some of these countries we could see the sort of one and done elections we saw in Gaza, where the winners, Hamas, promptly eliminated the democratic process that brought them to power as well as their opponents. It is very likely that the end result could be even more repressive than the dictators which have been deposed.<br />
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Somehow this hasn't quite dawned on the press who are trying to find distinctions and differences between the various Islamist and jihadist groups who seem poised to come to power across the Middle East. The Associated Press, in reporting the results of the Egyptian elections, engaged in some truly amazing and contradictory double speak. The first few paragraphs of <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45540682/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/#.TtxNFoS-T0Q">their article</a> are factual. For example:<blockquote>The High Election Commission said the Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party garnered 36.6 percent of the 9.7 million valid ballots cast for party lists. The Nour Party, a more hardline Islamist group, captured 24.4 percent.</blockquote><br />
Having accurately described the parties involved the author(s) of the piece then find it necessary to tell us that, really, the Muslim Brotherhood might be moderates after all:<blockquote>The party has positioned itself as a moderate Islamist party that wants to implement Islamic law without sacrificing personal freedoms, and has said it will not seek an alliance with the more radical Nour party.</blockquote><br />
Really? How could anyone come to that conclusion in the wake of what was said at the Brotherhood rally just before the election? The following is from <a href="http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=247078">The Jerusalem Post article on the rally</a> since the American media somehow didn't find this newsworthy:<blockquote><br />
Muhammad Ahmed el- Tayeb, the imam of al-Azhar Mosque, told the crowd: “Al- Aksa Mosque is currently under an offensive by the Jews... We shall not allow the Zionists to Judaize al-Quds [Jerusalem]. We are telling Israel and Europe that we shall not allow even one stone to be moved there.”<br />
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Protesters chanted, “Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv: Judgment Day has come,” and passages from the Koran vowing that “one day we shall kill all the Jews.”</blockquote>How is promising genocide for the Jewish people moderate? Can someone please explain that to me? Why are mainstream media outlets making excuses for these people?<br />
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John Henry, of the liberal <a href="http://www.lowgenius.net">Low Genius blog</a>, hit the nail squarely on the head in a discussion on Facebook:<blockquote>I think that western minds have a very serious problem parsing the idea that there really are some people - ordinary people who live under these regimes - who *don't want democracy*. We could go round for hours about why that is, but all the talk won't address that simple issue: what do you do when a people, given the option, *choose despotism*?</blockquote><br />
His comments referred both to the Russian elections and the recent elections in the Arab world. Here was my response to him:<blockquote>Mostly it falls into cultural differences and what these people are taught in their schools (assuming they have them), by their media, and in their houses of worship. One of the reasons American foreign policy fails in so much of the world is that we tend to look at everyone as if they are displaced Vermonters. All we have to do is show them freedom and democracy and "the American way" (whatever that is) and they will suddenly be just like us. Both Republican and Democratic administrations have operated under this illusion. The result is what we are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Americans are absolutely despised and where we will likely end up with totally hostile regimes.</blockquote><br />
Sadly the media also operates under the "displaced Vermonter" notion and wishes for events that have horrendous consequences that they can't seem to fathom even though they should be obvious to anyone who knows the Middle East at all. I fear the end results will not only be more repressive regimes but also a destabilization of the Middle East and a bloody regional war started by an attack on Israel. An old saw seems to apply: Be careful what you wish for; it may come to pass.Caitlyn Martinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08066943172339740116noreply@blogger.com1