Friday, April 16, 2010
Via Jennifer Rubin at Contentions, Elie Wiesel has taken out a full page ad in The International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and this coming Sunday's New York Times. Powerful:
It was inevitable: Jerusalem once again is at the center of political debates and international storms. New and old tensions surface at a disturbing pace. Seventeen times destroyed and seventeen times rebuilt, it is still in the middle of diplomatic confrontations that could lead to armed conflict. Neither Athens nor Rome has aroused that many passions.
For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture -- and not a single time in the Koran. Its presence in Jewish history is overwhelming. There is no more moving prayer in Jewish history than the one expressing our yearning to return to Jerusalem. To many theologians, it IS Jewish history, to many poets, a source of inspiration. It belongs to the Jewish people and is much more than a city, it is what binds one Jew to another in a way that remains hard to explain. When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time; it is a homecoming. The first song I heard was my mother's lullaby about and for Jerusalem. Its sadness and its joy are part of our collective memory.
Since King David took Jerusalem as his capital, Jews have dwelled inside its walls with only two interruptions; when Roman invaders forbade them access to the city and again, when under Jordanian occupation, Jews, regardless of nationality, were refused entry into the old Jewish quarter to meditate and pray at the Wall, the last vestige of Solomon's temple. It is important to remember: had Jordan not joined Egypt and Syria in the war against Israel, the old city of Jerusalem would still be Arab. Clearly, while Jews were ready to die for Jerusalem they would not kill for Jerusalem.
Today, for the first time in history, Jews, Christians and Muslims all may freely worship at their shrines. And, contrary to certain media reports, Jews, Christians and Muslims ARE allowed to build their homes anywhere in the city. The anguish over Jerusalem is not about real estate but about memory.
What is the solution? Pressure will not produce a solution. Is there a solution? There must be, there will be. Why tackle the most complex and sensitive problem prematurely? Why not first take steps which will allow the Israeli and Palestinian communities to find ways to live together in an atmosphere of security. Why not leave the most difficult, the most sensitive issue, for such a time?
Jerusalem must remain the world's Jewish spiritual capital, not a symbol of anguish and bitterness, but a symbol of trust and hope. As the Hasidic master Rebbe Nahman of Bratslav said, "Everything in this world has a heart; the heart itself has its own heart."
Jerusalem is the heart of our heart, the soul of our soul.
- Elie Wiesel
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Strong. After pointing out how Ben-Ami basically freaked out on behalf of his White House master after Wiesel's open letter on Jerusalem and reacted with the scurrilous, not the wise, Boteach addresses Ben-Ami directly: ..."Jeremy, my dear Jewish broth... Read More
Historical, archaeological and legal evidence are all irrefutable - Jerusalem belongs to the Jews and Israel. Whether people choose to ignore that or not makes it no less true. "Jerusalem must remain the world's Jewish spiritual capital" is not enough - it is and will remain our capital - period.
For Jerusalem's sake I, like you, will not rest.
With great interest I read the beautiful open letter you penned to the U.S. president that appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and International Herald Tribune on Friday, and which will appear in the New York Times today. From it I learned that you know much about heavenly Jerusalem, but less so about its counterpart here on earth.
An outsider reading your letter would probably have concluded that peace has already taken root in the City of Peace. He would learn that in Jerusalem, Jews, Christians and Muslims worship their gods unimpeded, that "all are allowed to build their homes anywhere in the city."
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Someone has deceived you, my dear friend. Not only may an Arab not build "anywhere," but he may thank his god if he is not evicted from his home and thrown out onto the street with his family and property. Perhaps you've heard about Arab residents in Sheikh Jarrah, having lived there since 1948, who are again being uprooted and made refugees because certain Jews are chafing from Jerusalem's space constraints.
Those same zealous Jews insist on inserting themselves like so many bones in the throats of Arab neighborhoods, purifying and Judaizing them with the help of rich American benefactors, several of whom you may know personally. Behind the scenes our prime minister and Jerusalem's mayor are pulling the strings of this puppet show while in public deflecting responsibility for this lawlessness and greed. That is the real reason for the "new and old tensions surfacing at a disturbing pace" of which your warn in your letter.
For some reason your historical survey missed an event of the utmost importance, namely the destruction of the Temple. If we are already citing events that happened here 2,000 years ago, let us recall the Sicarii, who blinded by religious zeal murdered opponents within the Jewish community and brought on us the disaster of our 2,000-year exile. We have no choice, you and I, but to ask whether history is now repeating itself.
You, my dear friend, evoke the Jews' biblical deed to Jerusalem, thereby imbuing our current conflict with messianic hues. As if our diplomatic quarrels weren't enough, the worst of our enemies would be glad to dress this epic conflict in the garb of a holy war. We had better not join ranks with them, even if unintentionally.
The fact is and always will be that this city is holy to everyone - such is its blessing and its curse. That's why the solution to the Jerusalem problem can't wait for the end of the Middle East conflict as you suggest, because it will have no end if its resolution is postponed until "the Israeli and Palestinian communities find ways to live together in an atmosphere of security."
"Jerusalem is above politics," you write. It is unfortunate that a man of your standing must confuse fundamental issues and confound the reader. Is it not politics that deals with mankind's weightiest issues, with matters of war and peace, life and death? And is life itself not holier than historical rights, than national and personal memory - holier even than Jerusalem? The living always take precedence over the dead, as must the present and future over the past.
There is nothing in our world "above politics." Yes, politics creates problems, but only through it can those same problems be resolved.
Barack Obama appears well aware of his obligations to try to resolve the world's ills, particularly ours here. Why then undercut him and tie his hands? On the contrary, let's allow him to use his clout to save us from ourselves, to help both bruised and battered nations and free them from their prison. Then he can push both sides to divide the city into two capitals - to give Jewish areas to the Jews and Arab areas to the Arabs - and assign the Holy Basin to an agreed-on international authority.
Only then can Jerusalem be maintained as "the world's Jewish spiritual capital," as you write. The Jewish spirit does not need Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Abu Dis and Shoafat to fulfill God's command to Abraham to "Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it."
Ronnie, since Jerusalem is mentioned hundreds of times in the Torah, and not once in the Koran,
and since Muslims pray with their backs towards Jerusalem, towards Mecca,
DIVIDE Mecca.
INTERNATIONALIZE Mecca.
Part for Muslims and part for Jews, part for Christians, part for Buddhists, part for Hindus.
Ronnie also quoted
"Those same zealous Jews insist on inserting themselves like so many bones in the throats of Arab neighborhoods,"
So Arabs are choking on Jews living in their midst.
Good.
HAPPY NAKBA!
#2 a Ronnie
Ah, yes, since 1948. You refer, of course, to Arabs transferred there by Jordan after the Jews who used to live in the Jewish enclave there, a neighborhood also known as Shimon Hatzadik after the tomb of near the tomb of Shimon Hatzadik, here driven out by the Jordanian Army. (Btw, that transfer of population by the occupier Jordan was illegal under the Geneva Conventions.)That neighborhood was also the scene of a brutal massacre in 1948; on their way to Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus, 79 unarmed medical personnel were attacked. The Arabs killed them and mutilated their bodies.
The neighborhood was built in the 1870s by the Jews of Jerusalem as housing for poor Sephardic Jews, to relieve the overcrowding in the Old City. (Recall that Jews had been the plurality in Jerusalem since around 1830-40 and became the majority shortly after.)
Go ahead. Deny the history and claim that this has always been Muslim land, part of their ancient patrimony from time immemorial.
I was a bit taken aback by the "bones in the throat business," but maybe that's just me.
?
Also, with great respect to President Obama, he should "save us from ourselves?"
He is perhaps a great man (time will tell) but nu?
Ha Mosiach?
Sophia, you sometimes post comments that look like you never saw fire before.
You think fire is pretty, you touch it, again and again because it's pretty, until you burn off all your fingers.
Eddie it's not that I haven't seen fire. I honestly don't know though what we're supposed to do given Republican attitudes toward important issues like health care and the environment and also, a combination of tax cuts and wars that have been very harmful to America's economic health.
I would have preferred to vote for another Democrat. I'm worried that the discourse post Housing Flap is getting uglier and uglier and increasingly antisemitic.
However, the American people aren't idiots. Therein lies my hope.
BTW though - it's important to see that the Palestinian people are human beings also. A solution must be found asap to this issue.
I disagree with Obama's approach though, especially considering the problem of incitement - people aren't paying nearly enough attention to this and it's serious and undermines long range hopes for peace.
Plus, Jerusalem is sui generis, it's part of Jewish history for thousands of years.
But, this doesn't mean we can ignore the needs and suffering and aspirations of others, in this case the Palestinians.
And, by the same token, we can't be ignored either and I think the wrong note was struck in Cairo.
I was glad for the outreach to the Muslim world in Cairo but Jewish history in Israel long predates the Shoah, there should be no problem in articulating this fact.
And also I think Obama as President should find time to visit Israel too.
Eddie's right. Sometimes your naïvete is simply astounding. It takes my breath away to read that you think our vain, empty-suit, teleprompter president may be a great man.
Nappy hardly knows where to begin rebutting the silly nonsense in your comment. Republicans and Health care? Scott Brown rode a popular surge of support for reasonable, commonsense health care reforms instead of the hideous, pork-laden, statist approach of the hideous and expensive Obamacare law rammed through Congress against the wishes of the American people. You may recall that Senator's breakout TV ad started with archival footage of and ad from the 1960 presidential campaign, with then Senator JFK making a statement about taxes. The picture morphs into Scott Brown who finishes JFK's thought.
Apropos needed reform deliberately excluded from Obamacare, it's the Republicans who wanted to address the waste from unnecessary tests and procedures caused by the defensive medicine doctors have to practice because of ambulance-chasing lawyer's such as John Kerry's running mate, John "Haircut" Edwards, fat cats who donate lots of money to the Democrat party. We can buy car insurance from a talking lizard, so why not open up the health insurance market in a similar way to allow interstate competition and to provide options and choices?
The larger truth is that the whole posture of the jackass party being the party of the people and the elephant party being for the monied interests is a little tired and very outdated. It was Republicans who supported the Civil Rights Act (1962) and the Voting Rights Act (1965) which were passed with support from the party of Lincoln over the objections of the Dixiecrats.
LBJ's Great Society Programs did little to benefit the poor or address root causes of poverty—liberals are always fond of pointing to root causes— but it did create lots of entitlements and bureaucracy that primarily benefited the middle class who administered those programs. And it certainly had a lot to do with the grievance and entitltement attitude so prevalent in many of today's phony-baloney, self-appointed civil rights leaders such as Al Sharpton or the pitch of such Congressmen as Charlie Rangel.
However, it was Nixon's Family Assistance Plan that proposed sweeping welfare reform and a negative income tax. The plan didn't pass as such, but its major ideas did eventually prevail as (a) the Earned Income Tax Credit (negative income tax) enacted under President Ford in 1975 and (b) the Clinton era welfare reforms in 1996. (t twice and Congress passed it by overriding Bubba's two vetoes.)
Nixon didn't get very far with his health care reform proposals in 1974 (CHIP: Comprehensive Health Insurance Program, a program that would have provided universal coverage). The nation being preoccupied with the war and the Watergate scandal. Teddie Kennedy would later say it was a mistake to oppose it, that it would have been better to support it, and use it as a starting point for further reform.
The stereotypes your note is full of are very stale and way too simplistic, but they're about what one might expect from such a delusional partisan.
Suffering of the Palestinian Arabs? It's not Israel that keeps them in so-called "refugee camps" in Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza and PA territory. Even now, Palestinian Arabs have a better standard of living and a longer life expectancy than many of their Arab brethren in neighboring countries, and it must be noted that until the disaster of Oslo, when Arafat's thugocracy was imposed on the Palestinian Arabs in the Disputed Territories, all their quality of life measures had been improving: infant mortality, life expectancy, literacy, per capita income, ... Under the PA and now Hamas, there's been a big reversal.
You can't blame Israel for their suffering. Yes, the separation barrier and the checkpoints are a real drag for them, but when were they put up and why? And the fact that of the millions of people who were dislocated in the late 1940s, only this one group hasn't been settled speaks more to Arab rejection of Israel and their using the brethren in the Umma as political pawns than it speaks of Israeli culpability or obligation to do more.
BHO might be a great man? You really have drunk the Kool-Aid, haven't you. You're too mesmerized by his phony posturing to see what an evil, petty, small-minded misanthrope he really is. He did cut his teeth, after all, as an old-school Chicago machine pol.
Typo. The Civil Rights Act, which overturned Jim Crow laws and integrated access to public accommodations and also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, was passed in 1964, not '62.
Wow. Sophia is not sure where to start with Nappy's attack.
One is rather taken aback.
But I'm going to give this a quick shot and then I have things to do.
a) I think Obama has some amazing qualities as a human being. That doesn't make me naive, it makes me observant.
b) That said, great men (or people for that matter) can make mistakes and they can have lousy advisors.
I think President Obama is just as capable of making mistakes as you or I.
Plus, great men throughout history have caused big disasters so don't misunderstand me here. A larger than life, brilliant, charismatic leader can bring harm as well as good into the world.
You guys, with respect, are not using your imaginations. You're just reacting and accusing me of drinking Koolaid, which is a bullshit comment in any case.
Am I wrong?
***
I think the President's approach to Israel has been been misguided and has made matters worse, although I hold to my point of view regarding the Palestinians.
Regardless of who is historically guilty and I think it's mostly the Arabs, the situation is the situation and it requires serious thought and action.
Am I wrong? What do YOU propose?
***
c. None of the above constitutes an excuse for jumping down my throat for expressing honest opinions about domestic policy.
I don't agree with Republicans on that score as a rule.
And like most American Jews I relate more to the poor and to the disadvantaged, to other minorities, than to the rich, well established white ruling class.
So sue me.
Being a Democrat is legal in America and it's just wrong to attack a person who holds a different political and economic philosophy than you do.
Seriously - is civil debate a dead art?
Apparently! It's just so much easier to attack and assume your "opponent" has something wrong with them rather than to assume that maybe they have a point of view worth considering.
I do think though that the Republican reaction to various proposals concerning health care and the environment are both harmful and obstructionist.
Thus, the majority of American Jews find ourselves in a bind. We support the Democratic agenda on health care, civil rights, environmental initiatives but are uneasy about certain foreign policy issues.
That doesn't make us stupid, you know, or naive. It does reflect the complexity of the issues confronting thinking Americans and also, the lack of concensus in the center and across party lines on important issues that affect all of us.
***
Now - one reason the Obama health care plan is flawed is simple: he's trying to accomodate the insurance industry and accomodate Republican opinion rather than presenting a public option.
The health care plan could have been sleek and simple and cost effective but the insurance industry has enormous power in the US and I don't see them giving it up do you? A single payer, public option plan would have been preferable.
And yes people should have listened to Nixon. For that matter, Teddy Roosevelt - who also supported public health, unlike today's Republicans apparently. But they didn't so here we are.
Also Nappy - blaming the lawyers and the injured parties for doctors' mistakes is just an awesome display of - what. I don't even know what to call it.
Fine. You try being injured by a doctor or a medical procedure. Then come complain to us about how the lawyers are causing health care costs to skyrocket.
Sheese.
That is a drop in the bucket compared to what it costs to treat a serious illness.
I have a friend with acute leukemia. She's been in the hospital for 6 weeks, the ICU for the last eight. I can't even imagine what that costs.
This has NOTHING to do with lawyers. Nothing. It has NOTHING to do with unnecessary tests. So cut the crap.
***
Furthermore, destruction of the environment for the purpose of short-term financial gains combined with idiotic industrial practices that have sent American jobs overseas in order to save labor costs is rapidly turning us into a banana republic, without bananas.
This isn't the fault of the workers, it's the fault of the business leaders.
So please stop blaming the poor for the errors and mendacity of the rich and powerful.
***
Now.
I would appreciate less insults and more open dialogue, starting with Nappy's proposed solutions to the Middle East impasse.
In post #6 Sophia said...
"He is perhaps a great man (time will tell) but nu?
Ha Mosiach?"
!!!
Later in post #11...
"a) I think Obama has some amazing qualities as a human being. That doesn't make me naive, it makes me observant."
WHAT?! I feel nauseous.
Sophia it makes you a sycophant. I'm guessing you have a poster of Obama on your wall, next to your Obama T-Shirt, buttons, mug, slippers, calendar, winking hologram.
"I think President Obama is just as capable of making mistakes as you or I. "
Well I know that if I sat in a church for 20 years, and claimed I never was aware of my close friend and pastor and spiritual advisors anti-American sermons... I'd be LYING - as your "great man" did OR the "great man" is an IDIOT.
Obamas lie about rev. wright should have been the end of his run - just as if a white candidate sat in a racist church for 20 years and claimed no knowledge of what was going on from the pulpit.
"A larger than life, brilliant, charismatic leader can bring harm as well as good into the world."
WHAT????!!!!
"You guys, with respect, are not using your imaginations"
Imagination is one thing. Fantasy, idealization, deification is another.
Well it's official, Obama is Sophias spiritual advisor. Sophia, I hope your HUSBAND isn't jealous.
"It's just so much easier to attack and assume your "opponent" has something wrong with them"
Let me think about that one. Has something wrong with them. Hmmm. I believe so.
P.S. I wish people would stop demonizing KoolAide.
... "But, this doesn't mean we can ignore the needs and suffering
and aspirations of others, in this case the Palestinians."...
BUT we DON'T ignore them.
They get more news coverage than almost any other group.
And they do suffer.
ALL populations under MOSLEM regimes do.
As long as they are ruled by the corrupt regimes in the Pal. territories
and as long as they are locked up in camps in other Arab countries,
and forced to remain statless there, and as long as the
"progressives"/Europeans/etc blame Israel, their lives are going
to suck.
Instead of funneling Billions to the Pals, we should insist that the govt.s
spend those monies on their populations and infrastructures.
These Billions could instead go to truly deserving populations
(Haiti comes to mind).
They will continue to be miserable as long as their people
treat them like pawns. So we may as well use our resourcesto help those who can REALLY use our help.
Haitians, the Israelis (in Sderot and other terror victime),
Darfurians, and all the populations that the Pal. supporters
like to ignore.
NO, I am not singling out you, Sophia, specifically, just the
whole "poor Palestinians" rhetoric -- 5th generation refugees--what's
up w that, anyway?