It's Almost Supernatural

The Rule of Law Triumphs

After 5 years of legal battles and public protests, the Israeli defense establishment has announced that it will move the security fence around Bil'in, Alfei Menashe and Tzufin closer to the green line. The decision is expected to return 2600 dunams of land that were expropriated from local Palestinians at a cost of 50 million Shekels.

The story of the construction of the security fence in this part of the country has sadly been fraught with deception and lies. The fence in the area was built in 2003 to prevent infiltrations and shooting attacks on Israeli motorists and residence. I know the area well. My family live in the Israeli village of Kochav Yair (just west of the Green line). I have personally experienced the fear (during the height of the intifada) of driving past the Palestinian town of Qalqilyah on the way to their home. I have also visited the settlement of Alfei Menashe (just to the east of the Green line) where friends of my family live. That some barrier was needed to protect these people from Palestinian violence cannot be denied. The problem was how much Palestinian land was expropriated to include these Israeli settlements and towns within the route of the fence.

On construction of the fence, Palestinians who had been adversely affected by the fences route petitioned the Supreme Court (a right afforded to all Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza) to have it moved. The Civil Administration’s Legal Counsel at the time ‘stated that the path of the fence was determined by security and topographical considerations’. But the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on handing down a decision in the case found: ‘The fence’s path has no security advantage. It is routed through an area that actually endangers troops patrolling it. On the basis of the security concepts presented to the court, the route gives cause for considerable surprise.’ Furthermore the court determined that the reason for the barriers route was based not on security but expected future settlement expansion in that region.

That the process has taken so long to move the fence to conform to the Supreme Court’s ruling is disgraceful. But the point is that it has now been done. Despite its behavior up to this point, Israel has today shown that the rule of law will ultimately triumph. This gives me tremendous hope for the future.

Last week I spent some time talking and listening to members of the SA ‘human rights’ delegation that just returned from the West Bank. A striking feature of their analysis is the permanence of Israel’s presence in the territories. They do not believe that left to its own devices Israel is willing or able to dismantle even structures that have been found illegal under Israeli law. Today Israel has proved them wrong. But this victory is only one small battle in a much larger war.

Israel, in addition to fighting Palestinian terrorism, is engaged in a desperate internal struggle against corruption. The hundreds of illegal outposts that have mushroomed in the West Bank, like the financial investigations of numerous cabinet members, are symptomatic of this. If Israel is to flourish as a Jewish and Democratic state we are going to need many more victories like this one.

Previously at IAS

• The strategic importance of Alfei Menashe
• Barrier – the seam of the Israeli Palestinian Conflict

The branches in this Forrest only grow on one side

Drew Forrest’s puerile column in last week’s Mail & Guardian raises my disappointment with the self styled ‘human rights delegation’ that visited Israel two weeks ago - David and Goliath Revisited.

Forrest has always been one of the leading anti-Israel journalists in South Africa and has always been very forthright in the way he has put his one-sided views across. Judging from the stance he has previously taken, it would have seemed that there is very little left for him to learn. I have to wonder what the organisers of the Delegation hoped to achieve by including him on the team. I very much doubt whether a single one of Forrest’s views was challenged on the tour.

Forrest writes about a visit to watch some Israeli anarchists and a small band of Palestinian demonstrators protest against the construction of the Israeli security barrier. His take is so simplistic - he sheds the conflict of any complexity and reduces it to a simple David versus Goliath battle.

It is a shameful metaphor. His myopic take on the conflict restricted his ability to think further than he could see; and all he could see was outnumbered Palestinian civilians hurling rocks at shielded Israeli soldiers.

It’s quite fitting that Forrest, writing on behalf of the human rights delegation, refers to the ICJ ruling on the legality of the barrier. He describes this ruling as “part of the bigger picture.” Hopefully Forrest can one day join a delegation of human rights activists that will visit the countries that formulated the ruling against Israel. It was delivered by China, a country that would never allow a visiting delegation intent on uncovering its many flaws. Others that helped make the case such as Sudan, Cuba and Saudi Arabia are hardly world champions of human rights themselves.

Make no mistake the security barrier does harm the interests of the Palestinians affected by it. Many dunams of Palestinian land will and have been confiscated. Some Palestinians will end up in a type of twilight “neither-here-nor-there” seam zone, where they will live not in Israel and not on their own farming land – their lives to be controlled by entry and exit permits (in these situations however their compensation is usually pretty substantial).

I absolutely support the Israeli Supreme Courts’ upholding of certain Palestinian petitions which has forced the IDF to redraw the route of the barrier in areas where there hasn’t been a valid security reason for its entrenchment onto Palestinian lands. But I expect better analysis. Surely some weighing up of whether the inconvenience to the Palestinians is proportionate to the security needs of the Israelis. Instead we are given an account which just assumes (without investigation) there is no proportionality – Israel is the Apartheid Goliath and the Palestinians are innocent bystanders always acted upon, never themselves actually acting.

Forrest lends much praise to the young Israeli anarchists who organise the protests against the construction of the barrier. Perhaps Forrest never learned of the many successful petitions that have been brought to the Israeli Supreme Court forcing changes to the route of the barrier. Surely legal counsel trumps raw anarchy? Perhaps not, but this question of tactics is not even remotely investigated. There is no praise for the lawyers who have fought and won many of these petitions – praise is exclusively awarded to the Israeli anarchists who dangerously provoke Israeli soldiers attempting to prevent the construction of the barrier through force rather than the courts.

Forrest, like many other delegates on the human rights tour, downplays the threat posed by the wave of suicide attacks that forced Israel into building the barrier in the first place. (He describes them as a ‘distant event’. Is he mad? He conveniently ignores the Palestinian bulldozer attack that occurred just days before he arrived in Israel.) The suicide blasts did (and still do) pose an existential threat to the Israeli way of life. Israelis were scared of visiting restaurants, of travelling in busses, of visiting nightclubs. The attacks allowed the terrorists to veto any chance there was of a resumption of peace talks.

Nowhere does Forrest explain the last-resort-nature of the barrier – for God’s sake Drew, the barrier isn’t an expression of Israeli choice! In more than 4 years of violence over 1000 Israelis were killed in suicide attacks. During the same period 3,300 Palestinians were killed in retaliatory raids. The barrier has resulted in fewer deaths on both sides. Furthermore, the barrier means that the many illegal Israeli settlements on its Eastern side are effectively being relinquished and will never be part of Israel proper – it signals the withdrawal of territory!

You wouldn’t think it from Forrest’s column, but grown men are crying on both sides of the barrier. Both sides are littered with Davids and Goliaths. It’s a pity that Forrest is unable to convey this, especially after actually visiting the area.

Shooting back with cameras and rockets?

  Israeli group B’tselem has recently started a ‘shoot back' campaign in which they  are arming Palestinians with cameras to record video footage of abuses perpetrated by IDF soldiers.

Making the news at the moment is footage of an Israeli soldier firing a rubber bullet at a bound Palestinian demonstrator from point blank range.

The incident occurred on July 7 and was not reported to Military Police until B’tselem received the footage and forwarded it to the Military Police Investigation Unit.

My immediate instinct is to lend support to this campaign, even though I disagree with the motives and tactics employed by B’tselem (more on this later). Abuses are bound to occur and if they are captured on film then it will help prevent them. Still, it’s not always that simple. After consideration, I have decided to oppose the campaign.

Sometimes force is required in order to quell violent demonstrators. A video recorder allows one to capture an incident as the the person filming it perceives it, rather than as it was. The absence of context can make life for decent, well behaved and well intentioned soldiers very difficult. I believe the campaign will be abused by Palestinians looking to harm the IDF.

In other depressing news, it seems as though Israeli settlers have fired 2 rockets into Palestinian villages in the West Bank. The settlers are denying the accusations but last week a settler was arrested for being part of a plan to fire makeshift rockets. Assuming it was fired by settlers then it is totally unacceptable. The Shin Bet is investigating.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise though. Israeli towns have been bombarded with Palestinian rocket fire since even before the withdrawal from Gaza. The international community has turned a blind eye and Israelis feel frustrated and unable to fight back. If the rockets fired by Palestinians had been taken seriously by the international community then this wouldn’t be a problem. It’s yet another example of how the many misguided one-sided condemnations from countries like South Africa only server to further inflame the region.

If they treat their own like this...

Kudos to the Independent Group for yesterday's detailed report on the 8 Iranian woman and 1 man sentenced to death by public stoning for adultery.

As Natan Sharansky says, if they treat their own people this way, how do you expect them to treat their neighbours? Sadly South Africa continues to provide Iran with diplomatic support, edging them towards full blown nuclear capability.

Too High a Price?

Watching the images of mass celebration in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank tonight over the return of 4 captured Hizbullah fighters and the cold blooded terrorist Samir Kuntar makes me want to hurl. As Nasrallah proclaims victory, I can not help but wonder how much more Jewish blood will flow as a result of this 'deal'. How can one judge if the mutilated bodies of our 2 soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were worth this cost?

For me this shocking act is the ultimate testimony to our humanity. Israel is not just a state like any other. It is a community, an extended family, that will do whatever it can to bring its children home (alive or dead). It is this humanity that has inspired millions to risk their lives to ensure the security of this special nation and surely contributed to our miraculous victories in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. But this humanity is also a weakness that our enemies (who have far less regard for the value of their own people's lives let alone ours) can use against us. How many more Jews will be kidnapped in order to exact an ever heavier price from the state of Israel?

A friend of mine Diane Morrison together with Justus Reid Weiner from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has written a comprehensive paper on this very issue that was published today in the Jerusalem Post. It explores in detail both the Jewish and international legal implications of the deal. It would seem from their analysis that this deal was contrary to both: Hizbullah’s Triumph – The Long Term Implications of Prisoner Exchanges

[From an international law perspective] “by exchanging prisoners with the proxy organizations (like Hizbullah) as if they were law-abiding states, Israel can be seen as upgrading the status of the organizations' unlawful combatants from terrorists and war criminals, giving them the same rights as lawful soldiers, without demanding from them the reciprocal obligations. At the same time, Israel downgrades the rights of its own captured soldiers by overlooking the organizations' systematic depravation of POW rights for Israeli soldiers under the Geneva Conventions."

Its ironic that all those critics of Israel who denounced Israel from flagrantly violating international law during the actual Lebanon war are now silent on the legality of this exchange.

While Jewish law maintains that that there is no greater mitzvah than the redemption of captives, ultimately, public security considerations take precedence when evaluating whether to pay a ransom. The proportionality of the payment is seen as crucial in this regard. Examining the historical evidence of terrorists once again murdering innocents on being freed and the consequences of exchanging terrorists for body parts, the article shows that this deal may not meet Jewish legal requirements.

Today marks just 1 more terrible choice that our enemies have forced upon us. I would like to wish the Goldwasser and Regev family's long life. I met Karnit Goldwasser (Ehud's wife) 2 years ago in London and was extremely inspired by her faith and her tenacity. The final realisation that her husband was never coming home must have been an unbearable reality. While it is certainly no consolation, at least she now has some closure.

JPOST - Israel Mourns

SA Human Rights Delegation to Israel Fails to Strike the Right Balance

Monday’s mornings headlines of the encouraging progress in the peace talks between Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and PA President Mahmoud Abbas could not have been further removed from the negative sentiment resulting from the recent delegation of 23 South African ‘human rights’ activists to Israel.

The delegation was organised, at least in part by former head of Habonim South Africa, Doron Isaacs.

The tour played out as expected – it was perfectly scripted to show the very worst of the Israelis – devoid of any context – leading the delegation towards a conclusion that was designed and orchestrated from the very beginning. In a great propaganda play, they essentially mapped the tour backwards from the ideal outcome, to the initial setup. As a quick disclaimer, I want to add that my disappointment with this tour is directed not towards the delegates themselves but towards the organisers and funders of the delegation.

The delegation was problematic on a number of levels. First of all, what was the justification for such a tour? There already exists a UN Human Rights Commission Special Rapporteur on Israel who is tasked with studying and reporting on Israeli abuses (and only Israeli abuses I might add) of Palestinian Human Rights. Israel is also the only permanent item on the UN HRC agenda. What value could this delegation have possibly added?

When searching for this justification we need to consider whether the funding could have been better spent elsewhere. That said, the private funders have every right to spend their money where they see fit so perhaps this angle is slightly argumentative. On a similar note, should Israel consider sending a delegation of activists to South Africa to analyse what led to the recent attacks on foreigners on our doorstep given Israel’s outstanding record at absorbing refugees?

Secondly, we must question what the aim of the delegation was? They claim that they were there to ‘help’ Palestinians and Israelis begin building new bridges. I think its hot air and I’ll explain why.

The itinerary of the tour did not provide the delegation with a balanced picture. Like the mandate of the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Israel, they only dealt with Palestinian human rights (infringed by only Israel and not the Palestinian leadership) and totally ignored the abuses suffered by Israelis. The absence of a visit to Sderot was certainly eye catching. Perhaps safety was the reason...I guess the organisers of the tour trust the Israelis more with their safety in Palestinian areas than they trust the Palestinians with their safety in vulnerable places like Sderot.

The delegation saw Israel at her worst and the Palestinians at their most righteous. Many members of the delegation have commented on the fervent religious extremism driving Israeli settlers. Comments on Jews believing that they, as the ‘chosen people’ have every right to abuse others were bandied about in the press covering the delegation. Mondli Makhanya of the Sunday Times described it as “evil evil evil!”

In contrast, no comments were made about the religious extremism of the Palestinians. Are Jews the only party in the conflict afflicted with religious radicalism? Can we take a delegation that fails to discuss the part played in this conflict by radical Islam – the indoctrination of the youth into a cult of violence and suicide – seriously?

Are they really building bridges as they claim...or are they harming existing bridges that have allowed the serious talks between Olmert and Abbas to progress?

Experimental psychologists long ago confirmed that adverserialism is a pervasive and deep rooted human tendency. I can’t help but suggest that it was this tendency which hardwired the delegation’s itinerary. We have to recognise that psychological biases get in the way of analysing emotional conflicts and the tour should have worked hard at recognising and working at them. The biases were set from the get-go –and the itinerary only served to reinforce them -- not to overcome them.

In the Sunday Times this week, editor and delegate on the tour, Mondli Makhanya, presented the first local editorial about the delegation’s tour. The editorial tells a black and white story about a violent occupying aggressor (Israel) and a poor oppressed victim (the Palestinians). The good Israelis are the ones that refuse to serve in the army. He adopts the lexicon of the Palestinians, calling the Israeli Defence Forces the Israeli Occupation Forces, and sneaks in – without any attempt at challenging - a second-hand comparison between the Holocaust and the suffering of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails (he fails to point out a single Israeli gas chamber mind you).

Makhanya concludes with a call to help build bridges between Palestinians and Israelis. Sadly, his calls will go unanswered. The important messages he needs to relay will have zero impact on mainstream Zionists. The lack of balance will force most of us to see his message as adversarial in nature – the delegation’s final message praises groups like “anarchists against the wall” without affirming the threat facing Israel which caused them to build the barrier in the first place. The one-sided nature of the tour will unfortunately compel most Zionists to ignore all of their feedback, even when they are right.

If Makhanya and the rest of the delegation really want to build bridges then they should attempt to understand both sides of this conflict – they should be aware of the suffering not just of Palestinians; but of Israelis too – a suffering that forces the stringent security measures that they recently witnessed. Before Makhanya left for the tour, he made a comment about Israel being evil in the context of an editorial on Zimbabwe. Sadly, this tour never challenged his preconceived mindset.

I have to add, that many of the tours I have been on have also not been balanced – portraying only Israel’s perspective. However, it is something I was always aware of – the tours I have been part of have never pretended to be neutral. I can say though that the books on my bookshelf are evidence that I have challenged my preconceived biases.

Many members of the delegation are great intellectual minds who have made real positive differences to the new South Africa. I only hope that their analysis of what they saw takes account of what they did not see.

SA Orthodox Rabbinate to Boycott Limmud

Last week the South African Jewish Report (SAJR) broke the unbelievable story of the South African Rabbinical (Orthodox) Associations (SARA) decision to boycott Limmud. For those that don’t know, Limmud is an annual festival of Jewish learning that will be taking place in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban towards the end of August. Over the last few years Limmud has become a global phenomenon, bringing thousands of Jews of all shapes and forms in tens of countries closer to their religion, heritage and culture. That the Southern African Rabbinical Association would want to boycott such an event seems absurd! Particularly seeing that leading international Orthodox Rabbis and educators like Yehoshua Engelman, Avraham Infeld and Maureen Kendler are coming out to South Africa for the festival.

However the SAJR claims to have seen a resolution in which such a boycott was called for. The resolution reads:

The executive of SARA would like to remind you of the existing policy toward the upcoming Limmud learning programme, which is that no (Orthodox) rabbi will accept an invitation to participate. At a meeting of the executive yesterday, which included Rav (Moshe) Kurtstag and Chief Rabbi (Warren) Goldstein, it was further agreed that rabbis who are in a position to dissuade people from attending, would do so, bedarchei no’am ubedarchei shalom.

The rabbinate has refused to comment on the report until Rabbi Rose (the Chairman of SARA) returns from abroad.

The rumours I have heard seem to indicate that SARA is uncomfortable with the fact that Reform Rabbis and secular scholars will be giving talks on the Jewish religion. The logic as I was explained it, is that the Orthodox Rabbinate sees itself as the only legitimate vehicle for Jewish religious instruction in South Africa. Limmud with a mix of talks by representatives of all Jewish streams clearly presents a threat to this monopoly. Moreover they can not accept the premises of Limmud that all subjects of Jewish interest (from Torah to food) should be given equal space.

If true, this is ludicrous. Chief Rabbi Goldstein has made promoting the values enshrined in our constitution an important cornerstone of his tenure as Chief Rabbi. His Enriching Tomorrow Forum has sought to expand freedom of speech in this country giving a platform to views that are not always heard by the community or reported in the mainstream media. His guests have been extremely controversial from pro-Palestinian Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rassool to morally dubious ANC leader Jacob Zuma. Thus taking such an extremely authoritarian decision to censor the community from all non-Orthodox views of Judaism by boycotting Limmud would seem to contradict all that he stands for.

Moreover, Limmud has the support of many leading orthodox leaders in the Jewish community. The highly influential Ann Harris (the wife of the late Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris) was even a presenter last year. She spoke on the Orthodox Jewish perspective on feminism, if I remember correctly. And South African Jewish Philanthropist Mendel Kaplan (often described as the king of SA Jews) also spoke on the future of South African Jewry.

Surely a Chief Rabbi that prides himself on the unprecedented unity that exists within the Jewish community would not take a decision that would shatter this. Unlike most other communities in the Diaspora, the vast majority of SA Jews although not practicing, consider themselves Orthodox and readily accept the Chief Rabbi as their representative in all matters affecting the community (even those beyond religious affairs). But by placing themselves at the far extreme of Jewish opinion and attempting to use their influence to cajole people to close their minds to other points of view, the Chief Rabbi and SARA will alienate themselves from mainstream Jewry and could seriously damage their authority to speak on the Jewish community’s behalf. For the future cohesion of this community and the credibility of the Orthodox Rabbinate, I really do hope that the Chief Rabbi and SARA will distance themselves from this stupid resolution.

Blogging Hiatus Update and Getting Hitched

I don't usually speak about my personal life on this blog but here's an exception.

My recent blogging hiatus can be explained by something that is quite easy to understand - I am getting married on Sunday! I have been blessed with a wonderful fiance who has happily taken on the overwhelming majority of the work and I am eternally grateful for the effort she has put in.

Planning a wedding, even a small one, isn't an easy job and requires tremendous time management skills, patience and awareness of the stress that your partner may be feeling. Things can get demanding as you balance your work and social life with the small task of planning a wedding, hunting for a house/flat and then trying to fix it up before moving in. From my experience, there is little time left for a blogging life.

Lucky for me there are two authors of this blog and things have kept ticking along thanks to Mike.

There has been plenty of stuff that I have missed, biased articles and a South African radio station that I recently happened upon where a presenter described the death of an Israeli in Sderot as 'good news'! More on that later...

I will say a prayer under the chuppah for the victims of the latest heinous Palestinian terror attack. Photos and videos of the attack are available on the web. The vile brutality of these attacks still does not make any impact on the left's love-affair with the Palestinians, and that for me is quite supernatural and must be controlled and directed from above for reaons that we will probably never understand. But we will fight on.

A Bird in the Bush is Worth 2 in Hand

South African Zionist Youth Movement Bnei Akiva is in legal hot water over cutting down trees on their campsite near Hartenbos in the Southern Cape that were used as a nesting ground by endangered bird species. The felling is estimated to have caused the death of thousands of chicks. Bnei Akiva has been fined a massive R100 000 (half of it suspended for five years) as a result of their actions- IOL: Trees used by nesting birds felled

Last week the organization was forced to appear before the Mossel Bay regional court where their representatives admitted wrongdoing. In addition to the fine Bnei Akiva has, as part of a plea agreement, vowed to expand its environmental education initiatives and to work more closely with the conservation authorities in the future. Bnei Akiva national chairperson Warren Sher is quoted as saying ‘"We want to show that we do care. We want to make sure children understand (environmental ethical) values’.

Despite the hefty fine (particularly for a non profit young movement), there do seem to have been some extenuating circumstances. Bnei Akiva was not the bird’s traditional habitat. Two years ago, after the development of a holiday resort in the area the endangered bird species migrated to the campsite. As Sher explains the camp soon became home to thousands of birds carrying fleas and lice. Droppings all over the camp not only smelled foul, but posed a health risk to campers—a situation that was untenable. Thus surely the holiday resort must also bear some of the responsibility for this ecological disaster.

Furthermore, the camp's managers consulted with conservation authorities and were advised to cut down the trees in which the birds were nesting as soon as the breeding season was over in the hope that the birds would then be forced to nest somewhere else the following year. The problem was that the trees were cut down at the beginning of the breeding season which resulted in the deaths of all those chicks.

In addition to the serious financial cost, this fiasco has also hurt Bnei Akiva’s image in the broader community. They come across in the mainstream media as heartless bird baby killers. Of course this is not the case. Anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of the organisation knows their commitment not only to improving the environment, but also to contributing towards South African society more generally. Over the years their members have planted thousands of trees in Israel and South Africa in the traditional Zionist spirit of making the land bloom. They were also instrumental in the Jewish community’s refugee relief effort last month. It’s sad that this one stupid act seems to have canceled out all that good work.