So, the news item of the week was the resignation of the national chief of police in the wake of...yes, another corruption scandal. The stories of fallen heroes here are growing tedious, so I thought I would write about something else this week.
Judging from what you see in the media, we in Israel are preoccupied mostly by questions reagarding our personal safety and the future of the Jewish people - which is true. (Other acute local issuess that are, admittedly, less newsworthy concern the decision to eat a cheeseburger on a kosher-for-passover bun at the McDonalds in downtown Jerusalem, whether to upgrade to a cell phone with an MP3 instead of buying an iPod or who to root for in the finals of the reality program 'Born To Dance.')
What the rest of the world doesn't know is that many of us who live here suffer from grave conditions that run right below the surface of our daily existence but are often undiscernable to the average tourist. I myself am deeply afflicted with two syndromes I know many of my compatriots share.
The first is an obsession with the news. Just as substance abusers enjoy a wide array of alternatives from which to infuse, the news junkie can get it from the radio playing constantly in the background, from news services that provide continuous updates via text messages to cell phones or from the endless news and current events programs broadcast 24 hours a day on television. My personal medium of choice is the newspaper, which arrives faithfully on my doorstep before I awake and provides the powerful fix I need to start the day. No one talks to me at the breakfast table because I don't respond, at least until I've read the lead stories and checked the caricature on the op-ed page. At lunch I complete the editorials and beat articles. If I'm working and I don't have time for more than a glance at the headlines, I often feel like I'm about to slide over the brink of a great abyss because I'm not on top of things.
I can't help but wonder what fuels this obsession: is it a deep need to feel educated and informed? Is it the fear that someone will ask me a question about modern Israel that I can't answer (which is my worst professional fear, after oversleeping in the morning and boring people)? In truth, I believe my news jones is fed by an anxiety I developed in camp the summer before twelfth grade. As the oldest kids in camp, we had no curfew and went to sleep whenever we felt like it. Not being much of a night person, I invariably turned in before many of the others, only to awaken the next morning and hear about all the brilliant jokes, stories, songs and soul-to-soul conversations I missed. There is nothing worse than having history pass you by, especially when you live in the midst of the greatest work-in-progress of the Jewish people in the modern age. The thought that something of importance might happen in Israel without me knowing about it is, frankly, terrifying. I can't predict what that great moment is going to be, but I damn well want to be there when it happens.
My other obsession is the neighbors, probably because our conflict with the Palestinians is such a huge obstacle in the path to Israel's future that it's hard to see anywhere beyond the next few weeks. Everywhere I look, I see them - and not just in the newspaper (btw, did anyone catch that shot of Abu Mazen, Haled Meshal and Ismail Haniyeh at Mecca in their pjs? Priceless!)
I project them onto whatever I'm reading, whether it's a passage about King Herod's begrudging acceptance of and cooperation with Rome or Toni Morrison's freed slaves' struggle to put their tragic past behind them.
I can't watch a movie without transposing the story into our key. A few weeks ago I saw 'Blood Diamond,' about the terrible violence in many African countries with a wealth of natural resources and weak governments. I was very moved by the story but as I walked out of the theatre I found myself projecting our reality onto the scenario. My first thought was that the West Bank and Gaza look like paradise compared to what was portrayed in Sierra Leone. My second thought was that the neighbors are not that far away from the utter chaos that brings with it the horrifying violence we saw in the movie.
Last week I spent several days at Hadassah hospital with fund raising professionals here to learn about all of the hospital's projects first-hand. We toured the center for emergency medicine, viewed the plans for the new building, heard from doctors about their medical research and spoke with patients whose lives had been saved by the hospital staff. Beyond the immense admiration for the organization behind the hospital, my head was buzzing with ideas for a Palestinian Hadassah. Why can't the Palestinian diaspora raise money to build a similar facility? God knows, they need it - when Arafat was deathly ill he had to go to France for medical care because there isn't a single high-quality hospital in Palestine. All they need is one Henrietta Szold to get the project up and running - just think of how it could help, where it could lead! We can assist with advice, and who knows what else - it could be a bridge to peace!
But then I deflate and return to reality. I, and many other Israelis, would love to fix the Palestinians' problems for them by transforming them into wise, peace-loving neighbors anxious to create a democracy based on western values just like ours. But the truth is that they are who they are and they'll have to solve their own problems without any meddling from me and my ilk. The solutions appear nowhere in sight, but who knows? The Middle East is full of surprises. I might wake up tomorrow and find headlines about a back-channel, secret peace agreement.
So I'll keep reading that newspaper...
Monday, February 26, 2007
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
The Hullalabaloo on the Temple Mount
So,what's with the Temple Mount?
Images for which we have no nostalgia have beeen splashed across screens and front pages all over the world depicting violent clashes between the Israeli police and Palestinian demonstrators in Jerusalem. And why? The Moslems are frenzied over what they claim is yet another Israeli conspiracy to undermine the foundations of the Temple Mount.
The hysteria is being generated by the northern branch of the Israeli Islamic organization led by one Raed Salah. In contrast to its relatively moderate southern branch, the northern group tilts very dangerously toward Islamic extremism and harbors little affection for the state whose citizenship its members hold. Raed Salah has made the liberation of El Aktsa (aka the Temple Mount) his flagship cause and consistently casts about for molehills to transform into mountains.
In this case, the excavation work on the bridge leading up to the Mugrabi Gate of the Temple Mount proved to be a choice opportunity to stir up the masses. Although the bridge runs perpendicular to the Temple Mount and is not a supporting structure, Salah wasted no time in declaring yet another Israeli scheme to cause its collapse, conveniently invoking the ire of the entire Moslem world.
In light of some possible confusion here are some facts worth reviewing:
-the Temple Mount is a large, flat platform surrounded by four retaining walls. It was built by King Herod about two thousand years ago.
-The original hilltop was occupied by several different buildings: King Solomon's Temple (approx. 960 BCE); the rebuilt second Temple (517 BCE); Herod's Temple (18 BCE); a pagan platofrm built by the Romans (135 CE) and finally the Dome of the Rock (691 CE) and the El Aktsa Mosque (720 CE), both Moslem buildings which were briefly transformed into churches during the Crusader reign of Jerusalem (1099-1187) and which remain on the platform until today.
-Modern Israel regained control of the Temple Mount during the Six Day War, exactly 1897 years after the Temple was destroyed for the second and final time. Although the Jewish return to the Temple Mount in 1967 was an important milestone in the rebuilding of Jewish spiritual independence, a decision was made immediately after the war to leave the jurisdiction of the Temple Mount in the hands of the Moslems. Practically the Israeli leadership at the time understood the far-reaching implications any changes in the area would have, but equally important in the formulation of Israeli policy was the rabbinic directive for a complete Jewish hands-off. Our tradition, which is not an unifluential element here and is always taken into deep consideration regarding issues of a spiritual nature, says that the Temple will be rebuilt only when the messiah comes. Until that momentous era arrives not so much as a single pebble may be removed from there in preparation. In light of these considerations the jurisdiction over the entire Temple Mount was left in the hands of the Waqf, the Moslem trust, where it remains until this day. The Temple Mount was in our hands, but we gave it back.
Israel has no interest in changing the status quo to the benefit or detriment of either party. Can any rational person suggest what Israel would gain by causing the collapse of the Temple Mount? In fact, I can't think of a bigger headache. We need a collapsed mosque like we need a hole in the head, not to mention World War III, which would no doubt be soon in coming.
What's interesting to note is that in the frenetic negotiations following the collapse of the Camp David Summit in August of 2000 a discussion was held over the division of Jerusalem. Israel was prepared to cede the Temple Mount to the Palestinians, with the Western Wall remaining in Jewish Jerusalem. We asked, however, for a symbolic presence on the Temple Mount to represent the site's sanctity to the Jewish faith, a request which was flatly rejected on the grounds of historical inaccuracy. Raed Salah and various other Islamic leaders have publically proclaimed on numerous occasions that the Dome of the Rock and the El Aktsa mosque predate Jesus, Herod and Solomon. In their revised version of history the Jewish people have been conviently written out of the story and hence have no claim to the hilltop. My inclination has always been to view this laughable attempt to rewrite history as an embarrasment to the Moslem religious establishment, but clearly our Arab neighbors don't share my sense of humor. Rather, they view anything understood by Israel as truth to be a conspiracy of lies, regardless of the science, scholarship and international consensus that stand behind it. This unqualified distrust of Israel by the Arab masses (perhaps understandable to a certain extent) is, however, a powerful tool in the hands of a charismatic leader like Raed Salah and is not to be underestimated. The Arab mob can be mobilized in a very short time simply by rumor and violence often ensues, even if the hoardes aren't exactly sure why they have been called out to the streets. Rarely do those leaders take responsibility for happens next.
So what do we do - stop the bulldozers? Absolutely not. An in-depth examination of the nearly forty years the Temple Mount has been under Israeli sovereignty will show that the sanctity of the Moslem holy sites and the Temple Mount has been consistently respected and preserved . Israel has the legitimate right to make physical changes in the area around the Temple Mount in order to facilitate better access for visitors to both the Mugrabi Gate and the Southern Wall excavations. To stop the digging in order to avoid Moslem violence would be to sell the Jewish hsitoric and religious significance of the Temple Mount very cheaply.
Images for which we have no nostalgia have beeen splashed across screens and front pages all over the world depicting violent clashes between the Israeli police and Palestinian demonstrators in Jerusalem. And why? The Moslems are frenzied over what they claim is yet another Israeli conspiracy to undermine the foundations of the Temple Mount.
The hysteria is being generated by the northern branch of the Israeli Islamic organization led by one Raed Salah. In contrast to its relatively moderate southern branch, the northern group tilts very dangerously toward Islamic extremism and harbors little affection for the state whose citizenship its members hold. Raed Salah has made the liberation of El Aktsa (aka the Temple Mount) his flagship cause and consistently casts about for molehills to transform into mountains.
In this case, the excavation work on the bridge leading up to the Mugrabi Gate of the Temple Mount proved to be a choice opportunity to stir up the masses. Although the bridge runs perpendicular to the Temple Mount and is not a supporting structure, Salah wasted no time in declaring yet another Israeli scheme to cause its collapse, conveniently invoking the ire of the entire Moslem world.
In light of some possible confusion here are some facts worth reviewing:
-the Temple Mount is a large, flat platform surrounded by four retaining walls. It was built by King Herod about two thousand years ago.
-The original hilltop was occupied by several different buildings: King Solomon's Temple (approx. 960 BCE); the rebuilt second Temple (517 BCE); Herod's Temple (18 BCE); a pagan platofrm built by the Romans (135 CE) and finally the Dome of the Rock (691 CE) and the El Aktsa Mosque (720 CE), both Moslem buildings which were briefly transformed into churches during the Crusader reign of Jerusalem (1099-1187) and which remain on the platform until today.
-Modern Israel regained control of the Temple Mount during the Six Day War, exactly 1897 years after the Temple was destroyed for the second and final time. Although the Jewish return to the Temple Mount in 1967 was an important milestone in the rebuilding of Jewish spiritual independence, a decision was made immediately after the war to leave the jurisdiction of the Temple Mount in the hands of the Moslems. Practically the Israeli leadership at the time understood the far-reaching implications any changes in the area would have, but equally important in the formulation of Israeli policy was the rabbinic directive for a complete Jewish hands-off. Our tradition, which is not an unifluential element here and is always taken into deep consideration regarding issues of a spiritual nature, says that the Temple will be rebuilt only when the messiah comes. Until that momentous era arrives not so much as a single pebble may be removed from there in preparation. In light of these considerations the jurisdiction over the entire Temple Mount was left in the hands of the Waqf, the Moslem trust, where it remains until this day. The Temple Mount was in our hands, but we gave it back.
Israel has no interest in changing the status quo to the benefit or detriment of either party. Can any rational person suggest what Israel would gain by causing the collapse of the Temple Mount? In fact, I can't think of a bigger headache. We need a collapsed mosque like we need a hole in the head, not to mention World War III, which would no doubt be soon in coming.
What's interesting to note is that in the frenetic negotiations following the collapse of the Camp David Summit in August of 2000 a discussion was held over the division of Jerusalem. Israel was prepared to cede the Temple Mount to the Palestinians, with the Western Wall remaining in Jewish Jerusalem. We asked, however, for a symbolic presence on the Temple Mount to represent the site's sanctity to the Jewish faith, a request which was flatly rejected on the grounds of historical inaccuracy. Raed Salah and various other Islamic leaders have publically proclaimed on numerous occasions that the Dome of the Rock and the El Aktsa mosque predate Jesus, Herod and Solomon. In their revised version of history the Jewish people have been conviently written out of the story and hence have no claim to the hilltop. My inclination has always been to view this laughable attempt to rewrite history as an embarrasment to the Moslem religious establishment, but clearly our Arab neighbors don't share my sense of humor. Rather, they view anything understood by Israel as truth to be a conspiracy of lies, regardless of the science, scholarship and international consensus that stand behind it. This unqualified distrust of Israel by the Arab masses (perhaps understandable to a certain extent) is, however, a powerful tool in the hands of a charismatic leader like Raed Salah and is not to be underestimated. The Arab mob can be mobilized in a very short time simply by rumor and violence often ensues, even if the hoardes aren't exactly sure why they have been called out to the streets. Rarely do those leaders take responsibility for happens next.
So what do we do - stop the bulldozers? Absolutely not. An in-depth examination of the nearly forty years the Temple Mount has been under Israeli sovereignty will show that the sanctity of the Moslem holy sites and the Temple Mount has been consistently respected and preserved . Israel has the legitimate right to make physical changes in the area around the Temple Mount in order to facilitate better access for visitors to both the Mugrabi Gate and the Southern Wall excavations. To stop the digging in order to avoid Moslem violence would be to sell the Jewish hsitoric and religious significance of the Temple Mount very cheaply.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Political Death By French Kiss
Last week we witnessed the destruction of yet another talented and powerful Israeli male who could not keep his hands to himself. Haim Ramon, a brilliant politician and a man with a long, promising career ahead of him destroyed his reputation and his future in one impulsive moment. What was he thinking when he forced his tongue between the lips of a female soldier working in his office? Was he imagining Theodore Herzl standing on the balcony of the casino in Basel after creating the Jewish state? Was he visualizing the ingathering of the Jewish exiles in Israel? Could he see Ahmadinajad's visage grimacing toward the Holy Land? Evidently, at that same moment the Israeli Minister of Justice was preoccupied with copping a feel from a young woman who asked to be photographed with him. Is a modicum of restrain too much to ask from our leadership?
The courts thought not and convicted Ramon of an indecent sexual act, transmitting, once again, a very strong message to the citizens of Israel regarding the zero tolerance level that a self-respecting society should have towards sexual harrassment and, at the same time, sending Ramon out to pasture. Unlike Moshe Katzav, a serial sex offender and generally unimpressive individual , Ramon elicits far more sympathy from the public, probably because his indiscretion appears to be the result of an instant of extremely poor judgement rather than the symptom of a serious character defect. Most Israelis would agree that Haim Ramon is a good guy who should be reprimanded for his action, but not politically destroyed for it. The courts thought otherwise; he now bears the title of convicted sex offender. Go make a career in politics with a sign like that hanging over your chest.
The consensus amongst the pundits is that Ramon could have made this embarrassing misdeed go away simply by apologizing. If he would have approached the young woman and her lawyers and said, "I'm so sorry about what happened. It was wrong of me to kiss you like that I wish I hadn't behaved inappropriately towards you," chances were excellent that she would have accepted his apology and moved on, without filing a complaint, and that would have been the end of it. Instead, Ramon chose to fight by attempting to cast doubt on the complainant's integrity and by lying. By choosing to attack rather than admit he was at fault Ramon tied the knot of his own noose.
In the current climate of demand for culpability and responsibility following the war in Lebanon last summer, it's interesting to note that we have yet to witness one Israeli leader, political or military, admit publically that he made a mistake. Whether they believe their actions are blameless or their careers will not be served by telling the truth, the norm here is to never, no matter what, acknowledge that you erred. Even though most upstanding citizens would agree that it takes a person of virtue and character to confess a failure, the citizens of Israel expect their leaders to be paragons of perfection.
So where does that leave Haim Ramon - damned if he does, damned if he doesn't? Maybe not. He chose a ride down that old river in Egypt rather than the genuine introspection that would have lead to an apology. We're loathe to tolerate mistakes by our leaders, but if nobody died then forgiveness is always an option for the truly repentant. Consider the great King David, whose unrestrained lust for the beautiful Batsheva forced him to cynically manipulate the murder of her husband, one of his most loyal soldiers, after discovering she was pregnant with his child. Blinded by hubris, when David's despicable behavior was pointed out to him through a parable, the full weight of his ugly deed came crashing down on him. He couldn't deny it because he answered to a higher authority than the Israeli voting public; instead, he expressed his deep regret over what he had done and was ultimately forgiven.
What a shame Haim Ramon chose to be inspired not by the great leaders of Israel, but rather by his lawyers.
The courts thought not and convicted Ramon of an indecent sexual act, transmitting, once again, a very strong message to the citizens of Israel regarding the zero tolerance level that a self-respecting society should have towards sexual harrassment and, at the same time, sending Ramon out to pasture. Unlike Moshe Katzav, a serial sex offender and generally unimpressive individual , Ramon elicits far more sympathy from the public, probably because his indiscretion appears to be the result of an instant of extremely poor judgement rather than the symptom of a serious character defect. Most Israelis would agree that Haim Ramon is a good guy who should be reprimanded for his action, but not politically destroyed for it. The courts thought otherwise; he now bears the title of convicted sex offender. Go make a career in politics with a sign like that hanging over your chest.
The consensus amongst the pundits is that Ramon could have made this embarrassing misdeed go away simply by apologizing. If he would have approached the young woman and her lawyers and said, "I'm so sorry about what happened. It was wrong of me to kiss you like that I wish I hadn't behaved inappropriately towards you," chances were excellent that she would have accepted his apology and moved on, without filing a complaint, and that would have been the end of it. Instead, Ramon chose to fight by attempting to cast doubt on the complainant's integrity and by lying. By choosing to attack rather than admit he was at fault Ramon tied the knot of his own noose.
In the current climate of demand for culpability and responsibility following the war in Lebanon last summer, it's interesting to note that we have yet to witness one Israeli leader, political or military, admit publically that he made a mistake. Whether they believe their actions are blameless or their careers will not be served by telling the truth, the norm here is to never, no matter what, acknowledge that you erred. Even though most upstanding citizens would agree that it takes a person of virtue and character to confess a failure, the citizens of Israel expect their leaders to be paragons of perfection.
So where does that leave Haim Ramon - damned if he does, damned if he doesn't? Maybe not. He chose a ride down that old river in Egypt rather than the genuine introspection that would have lead to an apology. We're loathe to tolerate mistakes by our leaders, but if nobody died then forgiveness is always an option for the truly repentant. Consider the great King David, whose unrestrained lust for the beautiful Batsheva forced him to cynically manipulate the murder of her husband, one of his most loyal soldiers, after discovering she was pregnant with his child. Blinded by hubris, when David's despicable behavior was pointed out to him through a parable, the full weight of his ugly deed came crashing down on him. He couldn't deny it because he answered to a higher authority than the Israeli voting public; instead, he expressed his deep regret over what he had done and was ultimately forgiven.
What a shame Haim Ramon chose to be inspired not by the great leaders of Israel, but rather by his lawyers.
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