You'll Miss It When It's Gone (Iran Deal Edition)

The UN Security Council today declined to extend an arms embargo against Iran, over furious protests by the United States, Israel, and Arab Gulf States. The main opponents of the arms embargo were, naturally, Russia and China. But several European nations -- France, Germany, and the UK -- expressed hesitation, claiming that the United States was no longer in a position to credibly push for sanctions on Iran after it withdrew from the JCPOA (aka "the Iran Deal").

Fancy that. And speaking of the JCPOA, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, in its own statement denouncing the UNSC's vote, urged that Security Council consider implementing the JCPOA's "snapback" provisions as an alternative means of blocking Iran from advancing its nuclear weapons program. An interesting idea -- if only a certain country hadn't detonated the JCPOA framework! It's almost like the Iran Deal contained important leverage and hard-won commitments even from countries not otherwise inclined to care about Iranian aggression, and when the United States unilaterally abandoned the deal we lost a ton of international credibility that we can't easily earn back.

Many, many people warned against the reckless decision to back out of the JCPOA, precisely on the grounds that doing so would ruin the ability of the United States to credibly pursue any sort of robust diplomatic containment strategy against Iran going forward. And now we're seeing the real fruits of the Trump administration's decision. Way back when the Iran Deal was initially being debated, I noted that one of the most persuasive arguments I read in its favor was the experts who observed that every time we reject or abandon an "Iran deal", the one we're able to get two or three years later is far worse than the one we left behind. The common cycle is a deal is proposed, conservatives say "how dare you give everything away to the terrorist regime of Iran", we abandon the deal, and then next time around ... we're in an even worse negotiating posture than we were before and what once looked like "giving everything away" now is an unattainable fantasy.

We are, as always, apparently doomed to keep reliving history. Heckuva job, Trumpie.

Christmas Eve Roundup: 12/24/15

I'm at my girlfriend's parents' house in Owatonna, Minnesota for the week. I'm tempted to duck into a Chinese restaurant tomorrow just to see who (member of the tribe or otherwise) will show up in the rural Midwest.

* * *

A federal court has struck down the provision of federal law prohibiting the registration of offensive trademarks. Most people are following this issue because it is the legal basis for stripping protection from the Washington Redskins. But this case involved an Asian-American band that sought to trademark its name, "The Slants." This nicely illustrates one of the central problems with "hate speech" regulation (broadly defined) -- it is hard (at least as a legal rule) to separate out subtle, subversive, or reclaimative usages of slurs.

Ha'aretz suggests that Arab countries are quietly reaching out to their Jewish diaspora (particularly in the United States) as a means of establishing back-channel links to Israel.

Israeli authorities have opened an investigation into the grotesque video showing Jewish wedding attendees celebrating the murder of a Palestinian child in the Duma firebombing.

Mark Graber has thoughtful comments on BDS.

Kevin Jon Heller and I had a very nice conversation about how discourse about anti-Semitism is situated inside discourse about Israel.

With Friends Like These....

A Facebook friend, with the ever-so-wry "just sayin'", just posted a quote attributed to a certain Father John Sheehan, S.J.:

“Every time anyone says that Israel is our only friend in the Middle East, I can’t help but think that before Israel, we had no enemies in the Middle East.”

As a pure statement of history, this is of course false. The U.S. has had its share of pre-1948 enemies in the Middle East (the Barbary Pirates, the Ottoman Empire in WWI, various Arab factions which sided with the Nazis in WWII, etc.).

But pushing beyond that, I think this statement needs to be unpacked a bit even if we took it at face value. The argument being made by our friendly Jesuit priest is that prior to Israel's establishment, we were all buddy-buddy with the dominant powers in the Middle East, but that all went to hell once the Jews had the temerity to establish their own state. Damn Jews.

This, of course, is an interesting view over how we should think about "friendship," to wit, that the most important consideration is whether it allows us to maintain and preserve preexisting relationships of power. Which ... okay, so that's one way of looking at it. Charles De Gaulle did say that "nations do not have friends, only interests." But I'd hope that's not the only way that we would think about how we select our friends.

Consider the following statement as a parallel:

"Every time anyone says that Blacks are Democrats' only friends in the South, I can't help but think that before Blacks were allowed to vote Democrats had all the votes in the South."

As a historical matter, this is at least as true (and probably more so) than Sheehan's statement. And some people do seem to resent Blacks for that, and essentially blame them for the Democratic Party's misfortunes in the American South. But most of us, one hopes, would recognize that supporting civil rights was the right thing to do regardless of whether it ultimately helped or hindered Democratic electoral fortunes. And if we're looking for someone to blame, it should be the White voters who decided that supporting civil rights was a dealbreaker, not the African-Americans who had the temerity to want to be treated as equals.

How much of the current strain between America and the countries of the Middle East can be attributed to the existence of Israel is debatable, but it is fair to say that most of these countries are less than keen on the friendship or the existence of an Israel at all. And they expressed that antipathy quite cogently, in the form of a series of wars and ethnically cleansing 99% of the Jewish population from the Arab World. Such actions don't always result in American opposition, particularly when (as noted) such opposition places us in conflict with the local elites. But where it does, it seems weird to object on the grounds that we weren't sufficiently solicitous of the preexisting hierarchy.

After doing all this work, I got interested in the provenance of the quote itself and who this "Father John Sheehan" is. And that is a surprisingly difficult proposition. The quote shows up a lot on Google, but it is almost invariably unsourced except to say "John Sheehan, S.J." The closest thing I've found to a source is a citation to Volume 21, No. 2, p. 34 (2002) of the Journal of Historical Review. The problem being that the Journal of Historical Review is the house journal of Holocaust-deniers -- it's a conspiracy website with footnotes. Meanwhile "John Sheehan" might as well be "John Doe" if you're thinking of generic name for a Jesuit Priest -- while that could just explain why it's so hard to find the particular "John Sheehan" who said it, it also might explain why there seemingly is no information of the "John Sheehan" who supposedly said it.

The bottom line is that I think the quote is a hoax -- it flies around various anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic circles, but I don't think it's real.

This story does come with a happy ending though: I posted all of this (including my sense that the quote was fake) on my friend's Facebook wall, and you know what she said? She thanked me for my sleuthing, admitted she had probably taken in, and resolved to be more careful next time (and affirmed that the quote did not express her views on the American/Israeli alliance, which she says should be preserved).

The Good News Club

Two pieces of good news related to the Holy Land. First, incoming Justice Minister Tzipi Livni indicated that she'll be cracking down on Israeli "price tag" militants. "Price tag" refers to the cost these radical settlers claim they impose on Israeli actions seeking to undo the occupation, and the result is they've attacked both Palestinian and Israeli targets alike in a sweeping spree of terrorism. I've been quite adamant that Israel needs to come down hard on these thugs, and I've also been a long-time fan of Livni. Good to see she's stepping up.

Meanwhile, the Arab League has announced that it would be willing to accept variations from the '67 borders as a basis of a new Palestinian state. The swaps would have to be agreed-upon and "minor", but since '67 borders-with-agreed-upon-swaps is the acknowledged formula by everyone even remotely serious about securing the democratic self-determination of Jews and Palestinians alike, it's good to get another stakeholder on board.

The Right Argument for the Wrong Reason (and vice versa)

Hussein Ibish has an interesting piece up castigating the way in which the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab lands has recently emerged. Ibish does not deny that these people have valid claims, but he says that the Israeli government's recent embrace of the issue is being done in bad faith -- it isn't really about protecting these person's interests, but rather about neutralizing the potency of Palestinian refugees ("I'll see your refugee claims with one of my own!").

There isn't really any doubt that much of the Israeli usage of this issue has this tactical, political component. This is not really surprising: this is an issue that Mizrachi and Sephardic Jews have been trying to raise for years with little success, so it's hardly the case that the largely Ashkenazi Israeli political elite can claim to have always been possessed with a burning indignation over the issue. And Ibish is only helped by framing his piece in response to a Ben Cohen column which, as Ibish puts it, "systematically proves every point I make."

Nonetheless, I can't help but read Ibish's article and think "so what?" Ibish concedes that the Jewish refugees have valid claims; he only argues that the way the Israeli political elite is currently deploying these claims is cynical and not really calculated to actually vindicate these refugee's legitimate interests. The problem is that if one takes the set of legitimate issues Israelis and Palestinians might have, then subtract those which are deployed in a tactical fashion aimed primarily at scoring transient political advantage or otherwise making the other side look bad, you're left with ... zero issues. Every issue in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is deployed cynically for short-term tactical purposes. Does Ibish really think that most of the people talking about Palestinian refugee rights are primarily concerned with what rhetoric and stylings are most likely to actually give them some degree of recompense in their lifetime? Of course not. If we're going to commit ourselves to try and facilitate just outcomes to plethora of issues dissecting Israel and Palestine, the fact that these issues are often used by political elites in a cynical fashion simply can't be disqualifying. We'd be left with absolutely nothing. And what ends up happening is that arguments like this become ways of indefinitely shunting aside any discussion of these peoples' claims as "political".

But I'd tentatively go even a step further. I'm inclined to think that decision to use Jewish refugees as a counterweight to Palestinian refugees is not per se wrong. Part of compromise is recognizing that one's adversary, like oneself, has legitimate interests that deserve consideration and accommodation. If one doesn't believe that, the only reason one would compromise is because one is over the barrel. The issue of Palestinian refugees, for example, is important in part because of the tangible things they lost, but also in part because it cuts against the narrative of 1948 being about nothing more than a genocidal Arab pogrom that fortunately failed. Likewise, elevating the stature of Jewish refugees matters in part because they deserve compensation, but also because it checks the narrative of 1948 being about marauding Jews seizing land that previously was held in harmony by the indigenous people. In this way, the narrative of the underlying conflict is enriched and parties are less inclined to view compromise as akin to capitulation or an implicit guilty plea to the charge of being the villain.

Those Other Israelis

Writing in the Forward, Jay Michaelson argues that if J Street really wants to build momentum for progressive change in Israel, it should look at Israel's largely Sephardic/Mizrachi working class. These Jews, hailing predominantly from North Africa and the Middle East, lean considerably to the right, and bear a considerable amount of resentment towards Israel's Ashkenazi elite.

There is irony that this resentment ends up redounding to the benefit of the Israeli right, as non-Ashkenazi politicians have seemingly reached higher levels in Israel's more liberal parties (e.g., Amir Peretz in Labor or Shaul Mofaz in Kadima). Nonetheless, the Israeli peace camp is overwhelmingly associated with Ashkenazi politicians. And Jews hailing from the Arab world tend to be those with the most visceral disdain for Arabs (Beitar Jerusalem, whose fans recently went on an anti-Arab rampage through a shopping mall, draws its support overwhelmingly from the Mizrachi community).

Still, to the extent that a critical aspect of any pro-peace endeavor is building support for it on the ground, making inroads in this community is absolutely crucial. I noted this sort of left revitalization project as an alternative to Beinart's settlement boycott, and this only reemphasizes it. How does one gain the trust of a community that has been ignored for so long? Well, by listening, to begin with, and showing that one is responsive to their (legitimate) concerns. Attaching consideration for Jewish refugees in the Independence War is an obvious example of an issue area important for this community that has been repeatedly marginalized. I'm sure further engagement could come up with others (that, after all, is the point).

Qatar Depicts "Palestine" as West Bank and Gaza

Maps of Israel and Palestine are touchy subjects. Partisans tend to get angry at maps which don't depict the land in question in the form they like. Sometimes, this leads to hilarity, as when the Palestine Solidarity Committee complained about an Israeli map which did not separate out Israel from the West Bank and Gaza ... same as the PSC's own logo which also presents the territory undivided. Or when a flight to Tel Aviv didn't include Israel on its inflight map, and instead told bewildered passengers they were going to Mecca.

In any event, at the 2011 Arab Games in Doha, "Palestine" was depicted as consisting of the West Bank and Gaza. Which to my mind is a positive development -- building a consensus around two-states is always a good thing, and it's particularly good coming from a nation that currently does not have diplomatic relations with Israel. Of course, I heard about it from a very upset blogger at Electronic Intifada -- the "upset" part is unsurprising, since EI is a critical player in the irredentist faction of Palestinian politics. Not being a fan of either Jewish or Palestinian irredentism, though, I'm glad on the occasions where I can see it marginalized.

So good on Qatar. While who controls what particular patch of land will ultimately be decided by negotiations, in broad strokes there is no solution but one predicated on 1967 borders with agreed-upon swaps. The more people who endorse that basic vision, the better off we are. It was gratifying to see a majority of Palestinians endorse that vision this past April, and it's gratifying to see Qatar sign on as well.

The End of the World Draws Nigh

I don't drink coffee, so it is tempting to just snicker at the coming apocalypse of rapidly increasing coffee prices. But if this is what it takes to get conservative folks to recognize that global climate change is a threat, so be it. On the other hand, since the most common coffee bean in the world is named "Arabica", perhaps they'll simply retreat to the old "blame the Muslims" standby.

A War They Can Get Onboard With

Lauren Booth is a journalist for Iran's Press TV and a pro-Palestinian activist (in much the same way that the Kach Party consists of "pro-Israel activists"). She's mostly known for being the half-sister-in-law of Tony Blair. Like many folks of her particular political bent, she is affiliated with various putatively "anti-war" groups: Stop the War Coalition, Media Workers Against the War, etc..

But let it never be said she's not a pragmatist about it. For Lauren Booth appears to have found a war she can support: Urging Israel's Arab neighbors to attack it (again):

It is time, Brothers and Sisters, for Al Quds to be liberated. For Islam and people of the world who wish to pray there to the one God. And we say here today to you Israel, we see your crimes and we loathe your crimes. And to us your nation does not exist, because it is a criminal injustice against humanity. We want to see Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt go to the borders and stop this now. Liberate Al Quds! March to Al Quds!

If asking Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt to "march to [Jerusalem]" (Al Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem) isn't simply a pro-war rallying cry, I don't know what is. Other speakers clarified that, yes, they were talking about sending in the army:

You can’t take an army, which is a nation’s army, a terrorist nation’s army, and defeat it with sincere small fighters. It needs some of those states around to release their armies to burn that land and then that region will see peace like it had in the past. Because the only time that land has seen peace between Muslim, Christian and Jew living side by side was when sincere Islamic rulers ruled with justice.

The point is that the "anti-war" commitments of folks like Booth extend precisely as far as their realization that sometimes war has the salutary impact of killing Israeli Jews.

Famous Ray's Original Defense of Syria

This is an extremely disappointing post by Ray Hanania, a Christian Arab writer whom I've written favorably about due to his important work combating Arab extremism and working towards Israeli and Palestinian peace.

In this piece, though, Hanania takes on criticism faced by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) for canceling a performance by a Syrian singer which was seen as referencing the ongoing protests by Syrians against President Bashar al-Assad. Hanania is on the board of the ADC, and some of the ADC's top leadership are known to be very close with Assad's inner circle. But many in the American Arab committee are furious that the ADC seems to be taking the side of Syria's tyrannical regime rather than that of the protesters fighting their own rendition of the broader "Arab Spring".

Hanania's contribution is so garbled as to be almost incoherent -- it reads as a sort of mutated mad libs combining his own general stock in trade (attacking Arab extremists) and the classic "Israel is at the root of it all" conspiracy theories that are typically more characteristic of those very extremists. He strongly insinuates that the protesters are working against Assad at the behest of Israel, and accuses the protesters of acting only "tearing things down" -- despite the fact that across the Arab world their actions have given many states their first true glimpse of a democratic future in decades. Take a taste:

I’m conflicted over the controversy involving Syria. On the one hand, the government of Bashar al-Assad has been brutal towards the protestors. On the other hand, I don’t know who these protestors really are. Most American Arabs feel the way I do about Syria. They are conflicted. Why fan the flames of one side over the other, just to make Israel and the rightwing U.S. Congress happy?
[...]
Whether Jandali does or doesn’t perform at the ADC conference means nothing to me and probably the majority of American Arabs who are silenced in fear by the activism of a small group of fanatics who brow beat and threaten anyone who challenges their extremist agenda.

But it does raise an issue about the disturbing trend in the American Arab community where it is easier to bash other Arabs than it is to standup to Israel. Maybe that’s what happens to victims, because Arabs and especially Palestinians are victims of more than a century of oppression. Victims find it is easier to beat up on themselves rather than to stand up to the real oppressors.

So if I had to chose between destroying Syria to make the Israelis happy, or bringing Democracy to Syria, I have to ask, having lived in the corrupted form of Democracy practiced in the United States, why would we want American-controlled Democracy to takeover Syria?

This is just riddled with crazy. I'm dubious to the extreme that the American Arab community is all that ambivalent about whether or not Syria should remain under the thumb of Assad, whose brutality has hardly restricted itself merely to the current batch of protesters. And I know of many of the people who have been at the forefront in pressing for democratic reform -- Hanania disgraces himself to label them as "fanatics" and "extremists". They are liberals with unimpeachable credentials and, unlike the actual extremists Hanania normally opposes, they know better than to make the sine qua non of their political life "standing up to Israel". As bizarre as it is to suggest that the Arab world's problem is that it is insufficiently attentive to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, one of the things that most impresses me about the figures I have in mind who have been pressing for democracy in Syria (and Egypt and Tunisia and Yemen), people like Hussein Ibish and Rebecca Abou-Chedid, is that their commitment to liberalism and justice is not so provisional, neither providing a blank check to Israel (or Palestine), nor cynically deploying them as a distraction from internal conflicts elsewhere in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the dark insinuation of an Israeli or American conspiracy at the root of this controversy is utterly unfounded and perhaps the signature move of the true extremists in the Arab community that Hanania is so obviously echoing. Congress has been mostly silent about Syria (possibly due to fatigue over Libya). The Israeli government is certainly no friend of Syria, and has publicly voiced support for democratic reform their (as they did in Egypt). But Israel's foreign policy also tends to prefer the devil it knows to the devil it doesn't -- the last thing it desires out of its neighbors is rampant instability and strife. That gets you Lebanon. So they've mostly stayed out of the revolt as well, except for when Assad starts sending off protesters to storm the Israeli border and draw media attention away. Which, of course, is what Hanania is doing in media form: Folks drawing attention to an Arab regime's oppression? Look, Israel! American imperialism! If you don't jump to the tune, you're just another lap-dog of the oppressor. Yeah, that's not reminiscent of extremist movements at all.

I mean, read that last sentence: "So if I had to chose between destroying Syria to make the Israelis happy, or bringing Democracy to Syria, I have to ask, having lived in the corrupted form of Democracy practiced in the United States, why would we want American-controlled Democracy to takeover Syria?" That sentence is just a classic example of someone whose mind has been ripped apart by conspiracy. First, I hardly think those are the two options on the table. Second, doesn't it imply heavily that Hanania prefers "destroying Syria to make the Israelis happy"? The alternative is "bringing Democracy to Syria", but apparently Hanania isn't wild about democracy in the first place. So door #1 it is! I can't imagine that's actually what Hanania means, given the bulk of the column as a wild-eyed rant against Israeli depravity and the benefits Assad provides to Syrian Christians -- but this is what happens when you just let the id take over.

Clearing the Box Roundup

Another day, another day I should have spent taking (or least studying for) finals.

* * *

Marc Lynch gives a good rundown of how the terrain has changed with respect to the Arab revolutions.

I meant to post this in the last roundup, but it slipped through -- Latoya Peterson on being the token Black woman in feminist circles.

Conservatives mock Keith Ellison for his heartfelt testimony about a Muslim first-responder who died on 9/11.

Most late-term abortions are the result either of late-appearing health problems, or lack of access to abortion services earlier during the pregnancy.

Jewish groups split on the Peter King Muslim radicalization hearings: The AJC lauded them, while they were subjected to harsh criticism by the ADL and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

Dana Milbank calls the King hearings a "red scare".

Of Interests and Lobbies

As someone who found The Israel Lobby thesis to be profoundly misguided, it really shouldn't be any surprise that I find its new counterpart, The Arab Lobby, to be pretty silly as well. Hussein Ibish reviews the latter here, though I wish he had provided more specific examples about where he thinks the authors go off the rails, the broad points are sound.

In general, the problem with these sorts of arguments is twofold. First, they nearly always have an insanely reductionist account of "American Interests", creating an implicit baseline of what the U.S. "would" be doing were it not for the "lobby", and then measuring the lobby's influence based on how far it can get us to deviate from our basic interests. But that's not the way interests work--we don't just have interests in the abstract; we're interested in various principles, resources, and situations, all of which are open to political and democratic contestation, and lobbies usually try and convince policymakers to adopt one constellation of interests over another. So yes, if the U.S. really didn't care about democracy (adopting a pure W&M-style neo-realist framework that only cared about defensive security) our position regarding Israel would probably change; if the U.S. really did care about democracy our position regarding Egypt would change. We blend lots of interests together, in a variety of cocktails. And that's okay.

Second, they usually collapse many different perspectives under a single heading. Ibish claims that The Arab Lobby does this by creating blanket groupings of organizations as either "pro-Israel" or "pro-Arab", we know Mearsheimer did this with his wretched list of good and bad Jews. I agree in principle that we can characterize groups ranging from J Street to ZOA as "pro-Israel" in some sense or another, but it seems very bizarre to characterize them as being part of a cohesive "Lobby".

And this, in turn, gets at the fundamental problem with these comparisons between the power of the "Israel Lobby" and the "Arab Lobby"? When you define the Israel Lobby as broadly as do Walt and Mearsheimer, encompassing everyone from the ZOA to J Street, the only thing they have in common is that they don't want Israel to die. Is the sentiment amongst US policymakers that Israel shouldn't be destroyed stronger than their sentiment that, say Saudi Arabia shouldn't be destroyed? I guess, but (unlike with Israel) the potential destruction of Saudi Arabia isn't really on the geopolitical table. In terms of more specific policy initiatives where "the Israel Lobby" is internally divided, it becomes more difficult to sustain claims of unique power. Israel gets lots of American weaponry and aid; so does Egypt and Saudi Arabia. America has security guarantees with Israel, but it likewise has them for Arab neighbors.

Given the unstable nature of concepts like "interests", the widespread disagreement over what it would mean to "support" Israel or Arab "interests", the differing geopolitical contexts which mediate what each group has to request and how much pushback their is against their demands, the question of whose Lobby is bigger is effectively meaningless. These questions are nearly always used as a smokescreen (author protests notwithstanding) to act like somebody is subverting the true needs of the American nation, and I find it aggravating.

You Can Argue But You'd Be Wrong

In spite of grave misgivings, I started to read this post by Efraim Karsh, figuring that hey, it's important to educate myself on the views of others -- even if they do say ridiculous things like that Obama has "distinguished himself, in his short term in office, as the most anti-Israeli U.S. president in living memory."

And then we got here:

James Zogby himself, among others, felt compelled to attempt to rebut my article. "There are bad polls, and then there are bad interpretations of polls," he wrote in the Huffington Post. "Putting them together (i.e. a bad interpretation of a bad poll) can create a mess of misinformation."

The "bad poll" in question is a recent survey for the al-Arabiya television network, noted in my article, which found a staggering 71 percent of Arab respondents had no interest in the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. And the "bad interpretation" is my presumed failure to recognize that this was not a fully scientific poll but rather an "online vote," which didn't refer to the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks but rather to the "Middle East peace process."

It is arguable of course that an "online-vote" by 8844 respondents (more than twice the size of the Brookings/Zogby poll), answering one straightforward question, might be more accurate and less susceptible to manipulation than "scientifically" crafted surveys purposively choosing their target audiences; or that ordinary Arabs, living as they do in one of the least democratic parts of the world, will be more candid in the relative obscurity of the web than in the presence of a pollster knocking on their front door or contacting them by phone.

And ... we're done here.

Because even I, B+ student in Statistics for Half-Witted Morons that I was, know that it is not, in fact, arguable that online polls (no matter how many people respond) are more accurate than a scientific poll. In fact, the entire polling industry got its start because George Gallup proved that scientific polling was far more accurate than even data drawn from a giant, non-random response pool (in his case, the Reader's Digest polls).

Anybody who is more statistically illiterate than I am really can't be trusted on any topic that involves gauging public opinion. Moving on.

Two Face

Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi: "We are not against Jews, but against Zionism."

Gadhafi, same visit:

During their visit, the Israeli Arab delegation asked the Libyan leader to voice an initiative among Arab states to invite Israeli Arabs to visit, and to accept them as students in their various universities.

Ghadafi responded to the request as saying that Libya would be happy to enroll Israeli Arab students in its schools.

Is that request open to Jewish Israeli students as well? No? Why not?

Could be it be -- unequal sentiments towards Jews? If you're interested in cultural exchange with Israelis, it has to be with all Israelis.

(We'll skate on by whether or not unilateral opposition only to Jewish nationalist aspirations is consistent with not being "against Jews" in any meaningful sense).

Jewish Refugees To Be Part of the Picture

The Knesset has approved a proposal which would require that any peace talks the Israeli government enter into advance the compensation claims of the 856,000 Jews who were forced out of their Arab homelands in the wake of Israel's independence. This is a linkage I've long felt appropriate, though some are raising alarms that it adds in another variable to an already complicated equation, and one that isn't traceable to Palestinian action to boot.

Nonetheless, I think it is a perfectly sensible and just addition, for three reasons (aside from the obvious one, which is that these people were wronged and deserve compensation). First, the proposal is specifically attached to the Saudi Peace Initiative, which does take the idea of peace to be comprehensive. Second, nobody seriously thinks that a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine will actually occur absent some broader regional settlement -- particularly given that on the Israeli side the security threat posed by groups like Hamas is simply a subspecies of a broader fear that all their neighbors want to wipe them out. And third, I think bringing to the fore the history and experience of the Jewish refugees is part of the politics of recognition approach that I think is critical to resolving the conflict. The more nuance we add to the history, the more we can break from simplified notions of "oppressor" and "victim", "native" and "colonizer", and other binaries that both sides use to nurture the moral foundation for maximalist and counter-productive policies.

And THIS is How You Repay Us?

The former premier of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad -- a key player in the red-brown-green alliance uniting over anti-Semitism -- got some negative press coverage recently for a speech in which, among other things, he said the following:

Jews “had always been a problem in European countries. They had to be confined to ghettoes and periodically massacred. But still they remained, they thrived and they held whole governments to ransom,” Mahathir said.

“Even after their massacre by the Nazis of Germany, they survived to continue to be a source of even greater problems for the world.”

A Malaysian paper reported on the remarks, but accidentally omitted "in European countries". An incensed Mr. Mohamad wrote a letter to the editor correcting the mistake, and adding the following:

I would like to point out that in the past when Europeans confined (the Jews) to ghettos, and periodically massacred (them), they used to seek refuge in Muslim countries (of North Africa and the Ottoman empire).

They couldn't have gone there if Muslim countries were less hospitable than the Europeans. Even today, Jews live in Muslim countries including in Iran. It was only after the US welcomed the Jews that they ceased to migrate to Muslim countries.

For the hospitality of the Muslim countries, they were repaid by the Zionists by seizing Palestine to create the state of Israel. Not content with seizing Arab land, they went on to expel the largely Muslim Palestinian [sic].

All that I say here can be verified by the history books of Europe. If Muslims are antagonistic towards the Jews today, it is because of the way the Jews repaid them for their hospitality.

As Judeosphere put it: "So, to clarify—we control the world and we’re ingrates."

It is quite true that many Muslim nations were more hospitable to Jews than their European colleagues throughout the last millenia (though not for all of it, and certainly they still weren't treated as equals). One might note, however, that hundreds of thousands of Jews felt it necessary to flee these countries in the mid-20th century, as that "hospitality" turned with astounding rapidity into rabid, genocidal hatred. Indicating, perhaps, that this wasn't exactly a paradise of equality to begin with.

Regardless, I think it is quite telling that this is all presented as a favor done to the Jewish people -- something we should be grateful for. "Yeah ... we tried not massacring Jews at the first opportunity, and the bastards still complained about unfair treatment! See if we ever make that mistake again!"

As obviously abhorrent as such a stance is, I think there are two elements to it that need to be teased out and given emphasis. The first is how clearly it indicates the danger of such things as a "one-state" solution. Mr. Mohamad's argument, in essence, is that they (Muslims) tried being nice to the Jews, and they've proven they can't be trusted. Given that outlook, it is pretty apparent that reverting to a situation in which Jews are under foreign domination is one unlikely to be result in the (largely mythical) equal treatment that Mr. Mohamad now considers failed policy. Second, it demonstrates the thinness of Mr. Mohamad's conception of just treatment of Jews. Anything that extends beyond "periodic massacres" is "hospitality" -- not even something Jews can demand as of right, but a favor that we should be grateful for. From within that framework, is it any wonder that even relatively basic, fundamental human rights claims made by Jews are looked upon with disdain by Mr. Mohamad and his cohort? It's way beyond what Jews have any right to claim. Pushy Jews -- we give and give and give, and they still want things like self-determination. Schmucks.

Star of David Keffiyeh

The NYR Lede Blog reports on an Jewish music agency's creation of a "Star of David" Keffiyeh (traditional Arab head scarf), which is raising hackles in some circles as a potential appropriation of Arab culture. However, the creator of the product retorts that the garment is as much a part of his tradition as anyone else:

My family originates from Yemen, where my ancestors had lived for close to 2,000 years. Nearly 100 years ago, my grandmother’s side of the family decided to move to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and then to Israel, in 1933 (Southern Syria/Mandate Palestine at the time). On my grandfather’s side, our family emigrated to Israel in 1924. Jews indigenous to the Middle East, such as my family is, have worn some variation of the kefyah (cap/kippah) and keffiyeh (head/neck scarves) for thousands of years.

Chalk another one up for remembering the Sephardic/Mizrachi community (but what will Malkin say?)!

Via.

Do People Really Deny This?

I can never figure out if I grew up and continue to exist in a totally unique environment, or I'm just totally disconnected from the broader Jewish psyche, or what, because I had no idea that it was a Jewish article of faith that al-Qaeda's actions and support are entirely unconnected to Israel.

Of course they are! Opposition to Israel is part and parcel of the package that al-Qaeda represents. And so it make sense that, as a high profile enemy of Israel, persons upset with Israel for a variety of legitimate or illegitimate reasons will be attracted to it.

I do think Ackerman is right that some Jews get nervous when this is expounded upon too vigorously, because it can lead to Michael Scheuer-esque positions basically advocating throwing Israel to the wolves to appease al-Qaeda. But there are separate issues.

Moreover, Ackerman is clearly right about this:

The answer for the U.S. is not to sever ties with Israel or turn hostile toward it. It’s to seek an end to the Israeli-Arab conflict and a stable Middle East. That will not stop Islamic extremism. Maybe I should say it again in capitol letters: A TWO-STATE SOLUTION WILL NOT STOP ISLAMIC EXTREMISM. Extremists are going to be extremists. They demagogue. They use pretexts. That’s what they do. You deal with that. The proper response is to reduce the circumstances under which their demagoguery resonates. And that’s why ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and midwifing a Palestinian state is so important. This is in our interests, it’s in Israel’s interests, it’s in the Palestinians interests, it’s in the Arab world’s interests, and it’s expressly against al-Qaeda’s interests. It’s in absolutely no way an “appeasement” of al-Qaeda unless you believe that Arabs and Muslims are naturally inclined to bandwagon with al-Qaeda. And that makes you a racist and safe to ignore.

Maybe not "safe to ignore", because such racism still has plenty of purchase in American life. But the general sentiments are right.

Saban to Buy al-Jazeera?

Egyptian-born, Israeli-American media tycoon Haim Saban has reportedly put in a bid to buy half of the popular Arab television network, al-Jazeera. Iranian mouthpiece Press TV has also picked up the story, albeit unsurprisingly playing up the "sleazy Jew" and "Israeli propogandist" angle (Saban has moved considerably right-ward in recent years, but still is predominantly affiliated with Labor in Israel and the Democrats in the US).

In all seriousness -- while I doubt that al-Jazeera can maintain credibility with the Arab world while having an Israeli owner, there is a tiny, tiny sliver of me that hopes instead that this would help build a bridge of understanding, rather than a simple flight of fancy. Unfortunately, I don't know what changes, if any Saban would institute at the network (which could be anything from an uncritical line to the Israeli government -- which I doubt -- to a renewed focus on cross-cultural dialogue and understanding), and I do know that agencies like Press TV and their ideological allies will work to insure that any green shoots that do develop from this project are crushed under a torrent of "the Zionists control the media!" rhetoric.

Via Norm.

More on Recognition

As usual, Obama gets it. Even when he was running for President, Barack Obama demonstrated he had a far more sophisticated grasp on what Jews care about vis-a-vis Israel and Zionism than the average American politician. I recently noted that a focus on recognition would be a wise adjustment on how we bring Israeli and Palestinian officials back to the negotiating table. And apparently, Obama agrees -- putting out regional Arab recognition for Israel on the table as the sweetener to get Bibi Netanyahu to publicly recognize a two-state solution.

Do I expect this to be a panacea? No, I don't -- there are rejectionists on both sides who will likely continue to make trouble. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that facially, Netanyahu and Hamas on the same page: neither recognizes the right of the opposing nation to exist. Hamas rejects Israel's right to exist; Netanayahu rejects Palestine's right to exist. Marginalizing that stance has to be priority one. There is no reason -- none -- to accept that as a tolerable position. Whatever barriers there are to peaceful coexistence between two states, it seems obvious to me that the refusal of certain parties to accept that as the end goal is rather high on the list.