Soul Searching in the Snow

Beneath the scorching, relentless summer sun it's hard to believe it can ever snow in Jerusalem, but when the city is covered in white and the texture of the powder reminds me of my childhood backyard in New York I can't help but think of the ancients. Did Abraham and David know the same tricks for keeping warm as the Hopi and the Blackfoot? Could structures akin to teepees perhaps once have dotted the hills overlooking Mount Moriah? The scene doesn't sound all that incongruous as I size up the height of the fluff accumulated on the rough boulders of Jerusalem stone in my garden. Lions and Syrian bears roamed the hills then; maybe the biblical poets simply forgot to mention the wild turkeys and the squirrels?

But not even a noreaster could prevent the long-awaited presentation of the Winograd report yesterday evening at six pm sharp (the Haaretz cartoon showed Olmert and the committee members being transported to the meeting comfortably nestled in the palm of the snow plow). This 610-page tome bears the exhaustive conclusions of the committee set up to evaluate the roles of the government and the army in the Lebanon War of Summer, 2006. Prime Minister Olmert was reprimanded for some faulty decisions but the failure of the war was not laid primarily at his feet. The Israel Defense Forces bore the brunt of the criticism; the panel was unequivocal in concluding that the army had failed in almost every way to evaluate the war situation and utilize its forces effectively. The panel also found fault with every Israeli government and every army chief of staff since the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, who were guilty of not reading the situation correctly and not preparing for it.

Perhaps the most interesting criticism of the report was leveled at Israeli society at large via the army. The committee pointed out that many of the problematic military decisions were based on avoiding casualties for our forces and that advances were halted in order to evacuate the wounded. In other words, the army assigned so much importance to protecting the soldiers that it tied its own hands for the battle mission. It's important to note that after Hizbollah kidnapped the two soldiers from sovereign Israeli territory the whole country was in favor of going to war to restore our deterrent capabilities. If we let this one slide, what was next? However, at the end of the day no one was unequivocally prepared to sacrifice untold numbers of living Israeli soldiers to achieve this goal. On the contrary - the army was expected to produce a swift, bloodless victory with all the casualties on the Hizbollah side. The army in fact cooperated with this delusion by claiming, at the beginning of the conflict, that the whole war could be fought and won by the air force alone.

The committee felt compelled to remind the public that Israel's deterrence lies in its "fitting military leadership, military ability and public fortitude." In other words, if you guys aren't willing to put down your cappucinos, lay your lives on the line and bear the sacrifices stoically then we can't beat anyone. An army cannot win a war without casualites and sacrifices. The problem is that life is so rich and good here, that at times we altogether forget we're actually at war. What a bummer -you mean they still want to fight?

Despite the partial positive outcome of the war, the Winograd Committee stated repeatedly that Israel had lost, Israel had failed, Israel had erred. Hassan Nasrallah and his minions are no doubt celebrating their victory tonight, enabled by the Israeli insistence on airing our dirty laundry in public. However, although our enemies gloat the process of self-evaluation and the honest and difficult search for the causes of failure lie at the roots of our strength. Our state, our society and the building of our future are one big work in progress which will only succeed if we continuously re-evaluate the formula and those who lead us in our aspiration to build the optimum Jewish society. The Winograd Report isn't about punishing those responsible for the failures. It is an attempt to identify mistakes and make the necessary corrections to achieve better, more effective results in the next round against our enemies. And there will most certainly be a next round...

Our Parallel Universe

Strolling through Tel Aviv yesterday, I couldn't help marvelling over how, on the surface, Israel seems like a perfectly normal western country going about its business on a Thursday morning. Men in snappy clothes hurried to work, chicks in tights and big sunglasses walked dogs and looked beautiful, shopkeepers hawked their wares and pedestrians daydreamed at crosswalks.

In the paralled universe of the Gaza Strip Palestinians were gingerly making their way over the rubble of the old barrier separating them from Egypt as, in a great rush of relief so loud you could almost hear it, they gleefully liberated themselves from the ongoing siege that has virtually suffocated them.

Watching them on tv, it was hard not to sympathize with those poor souls who ultimately pay the price for the decisions of their leadership, which in this case is the continuing rocketfire from Gaza on to civilian settlements in sovereign Israel. The Palestinians are skillful at manipulating the media to their advantage but no matter how the picture is painted the bottom line is still the same: Israel's responsiblity is to the security of its citizens first, and to the welfare of the civilian population from whence the rockets come only second. We're in a game of trial and error here, where the ultimate goal is to find the most effective way to pressure Hamas to stop the rockets without actually reoccupying the Gaza Strip.

Many Israelis are cursing Ariel Sharon and his Disengagment for having created this situation and I think everyone would agree today that it was a fatal mistake to ignore the Palestinian leadership and execute the job unilaterally - under no circumstances can territory be evacuated in a vacuum. Fundamentally, however, the Gaza Strip has no place within the future final borders of the state of Israel. We must continue to think creatively until we find the carrot/stick that will put an end to the rocket fire.

A tourist couple wrote me a thank you note this week at the end of their tour. Amongst other things they said, "We think you guys (Israel) are too nice and accomodating - and we think they will never be satisfied no matter how much you give them back - so I'm for you keeping it all. I have been amazed at how kind you have been towards the Arabs and Muslims."

I wish I could have conveyed to them a story I heard the following day from a friend, who went to a seminar on Israel's War of Independence this week. She said that the thing that stayed with her the most was related by the Israeli writer Yoram Kaniuk when describing his experiences as a soldier during the war: "We had conquered an Arab village and rounded up the villagers to expell them. As they were leaving, several buses pulled up carrying Holocaust survivors who were to occupy the abandoned homes. And I have struggled to live in that gap ever since."

It is a complex reality in which we live. Despite our extraordinary achievements and despite the Tel Aviv bubble, Israel is still a nation fighting for its survival and forced to justify its existence every day. As long as the Palestinians choose to pursue the armed struggle we will do whatever is necessary to protect ourselves, even if it makes us look bad.

We will continue to soul search in cafes over double lattes before during and after, and hope that we won't always have to live by the sword. It's still hard to be optimistic, but then again, this is the Middle East - anything can happen...

Dubya in the Holy Land

"Israeli politics is like karate. You never know where the next chop will come from."
Thus spake the world's ostensibly most powerful man, eloquently encapsulating the complex reality at the root of the world's problems. Observing George Bush in the land of the Jews this week was a fascinating exercise in wishful thinking: is this really the guy who's going to bring peace to the Middle East?

From the moment he appeared at the open door of Airforce One, waving and smiling like a cowboy about to mount the meanest bronco in the rodeo, Bush was relaxed, easygoing, jovial. The warm, confident grin never left his face - not in the mile-long receiving line of Israeli politicians waiting to shake his hand, not in the midst of Israeli children singing and dancing for him at the president's residence and not at the dinner of who's who in Israeli politics as Olmert steered him from one empty conversation to another.

The entire country was on the edge of its seat as the president of the United States made his rounds. Needless to say, the traffic arrangements in Jerusalem were so daunting that people stayed home from work. My daughter's classes were cancelled one day because the teachers were convinced they couldn't get to school. That's the best excuse invented since "the dog ate my homework"!

There probably isn't a single other country that would have received Bush with as much love and admiration as he got here in Israel. Olmert the prime minister positively gushed with praise and kind words for him. The excitement at the airport was so palpable it radiated right though the tv screen; every single one of those salty, manipulative, horse-trading Israeli politicians couldn't wait to run home and tell all their friends they shook hands with the president of the United States of America. It's interesting to note that there was a similar, albeit less intensive ado over Jerry Seinfeld a few weeks ago when he was here to promote his new movie. Both the prime minister and the president rushed to have their photos taken with the Jewish comedian. Despite the attention lavished on little Israel by these great men, we're still stuck in our ghetto inferiority complex. Beneath our achievements in armaments, technology and slow drip irrigation we still can't believe that we deserve to be treated as equal among the nations of the world. "What, the president of the United States is coming to Israel? Give him a visit to remember, because who knows when we'll get this much attention again."

And be sure and send him home with copious gifts. What does one give to a man who owns many oil wells and a ranch in Texas? Olmert's aides were given a mission: find out what Dubya likes. "Bicycling," they reported back. The prime minister presented his guest with a uniform of the Israeli national cycling team (who knew we even had one?)and a GPS system outfitted for a bicycle, complete with information on the road near the ranch. So the next time Bush is lost in the wilderness of the Middle East all he has to do is phone home to Israel. We'll be happy to steer him right back to the road map we've drawn up specially for him.