The most important consideration in planning any action is to evaluate the decision using the test of “realistic benefit.” If the “realistic benefit” cannot be identified, then the decision not to proceed is the only alternative.
A retrospective of the “flotilla incident” of May 31st leads me to believe that recent actions of the Israeli government were not sufficiently evaluated against this rule of thumb. Permit me to explain.
When one is confronted by an enemy the best defense is an offense that removes the ammunition from his arsenal. But there are two kinds of ammunition. There is physical ammunition such as weaponry and there is non-physical ammunition such as public relations and the newest weapon of a smart enemy, social networking.
Based on our experience over the last 62 years, Israel will be criticized whenever it tries to remove ammunition of any type from the hands of the enemy. But the criticism is generally less volatile and even somewhat muted when the ammunition is physical. For example, when Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reaction in 1982, there was initial criticism, some of which was far from muted. But it dissipated relatively rapidly and, in retrospect, the world ended up being somewhat grateful for Israel’s actions in crippling an element of Saddam Hussein’s war machine.
Similarly, when Israel’s military captured the Karine A vessel in January 2002 and demonstrated that the ship was carrying 50 tons of weaponry headed for Gaza, there was again muted criticism. But there was also an understanding that there could be no argument with a country’s sovereign right to protect itself from attack.
Even when Israel allegedly attacked the nuclear reactor installation inside Syria in 2007, while there was, as expected, criticism of Israel’s incursion into another country Syria did not respond and the world understood why Israel took such action.
In all of these cases Israel acted to take physical ammunition out of the hands of the enemy.
The later blockade of Gaza after its takeover by Hamas, was yet another attempt to control the inflow of physical ammunition into what Israel defined as hostile territory. And while the sea blockade was Israel’s alone, the land blockade of Gaza was joined by Egypt as well, as Egypt is also concerned about the proliferation of weapons in that area. After all, once someone has weapons capability there is no telling in which direction those weapons will be pointed.
The decisions required to take these steps also seemed to pass the test of whether there was “realistic benefit” to be gained from these actions. Of course, one can argue that blockade or no blockade Hamas was able to continued its arms buildup in any event, albeit somewhat more slowly. Nevertheless, there was “realistic benefit” to be gained from these actions.
However, when it comes to removing non-physical weapons from the hands of the enemy, or from the hands of people who sympathize with the enemy, such an effort is much more difficult to manage, and, if handled incompetently, results in much more world condemnation. In this area, and the “flotilla incident” is just the most recent example of this, Israel has not learned how to handle these situations and generally suffers badly as a result. Many decisions related to this aspect of Israel’s efforts do not seem to have passed the test of “realistic benefit.”
The government here knew that regardless of how the flotilla was handled Israel would look bad in the world press. If we did nothing, and let the ships dock in Gaza, as we had done previously, Hamas would have said that they had captured the upper hand and that Israel’s threats to foil the voyage were just that, threats and no more. Given the fact that we knew who was organizing the flotilla, and that while many participants were pro-peace activists, we also knew that the leadership was seeking to provoke Israel into action, it was clear that stopping the ships would be seen by the world as yet another example of Israeli intransigence. Worse, if there were people injured or, heaven forbid, fatalities, the entire situation could blow up in our faces. And yet, knowing all this, we failed to apply the test of “realistic benefit” and went ahead with the operation which ended with all of our worst fears being realized.
At this early date there is no telling how bad the fallout will be from this latest exercise which seemed to accomplish nothing more than creating more casualties in the ongoing battle for legitimacy, and a world diplomatic community bent on using this incident for its own less than objective purposes. But the key error here, I am sure, will turn out to be the failure to evaluate “realistic benefit” and the concomitant lack of understanding of how to handle the public relations aspect of crises when they occur, as they do time and time again.
Frankly, we had better learn how to apply this test rapidly and figure out, as well, how to leverage today’s social networking technologies to our benefit. Else, one day, we will find ourselves so incredibly isolated as to be non-functional. At that point, the enterprise we call Israel will simply crash.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
The Brandeis University Commencement
The Real Issue at Brandeis University
By Sherwin Pomerantz
In the discussion of the suitability of inviting Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren to be the commencement speaker at Brandeis University later this month, graduating senior Tara Meital is quoted in the Post as opposing the invitation, given that it “will make some in the audience feel uncomfortable, such as the Palestinian graduates.”
And there you have it. Once again the essence of the discomfort among some Jews is not really that the speaker is controversial, but that inviting the official representative of the State of Israel to speak at a university founded by the American Jewish Community in the name of the first Jewish Supreme Court justice, will make non-Jews who chose to attend that university uncomfortable.
The situation takes me back to the late 1970s when I was very active as a national officer of my college fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi. The fraternity was founded in 1913 by a group of Jewish college students at New York University given that, at the time, Jews were generally excluded from membership in the Waspish Greek letter student societies on US campuses. The fraternity/sorority system remained segregated by race and religion until after the end of World War II when America became much more sensitive to such issues. Slowly but surely the system opened up and Jewish fraternities began to accept non-Jews while the Christian groups accepted some Jews as well. Racial integration took a few more years to become accepted.
At an annual convention held that year at the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, I, as the resident traditional Jew on the National Board, was asked to conduct the memorial service for those members of the fraternity who had passed on during the previous year. The service was, of course, in English but my tradition was to close the service with the recitation of Kaddish, the prayer traditionally recited at such times and, of course, it was in Hebrew.
After the service a few of the Jewish undergraduates came up to me and voiced their displeasure over the fact that I had used Hebrew as part of the ritual. Their logic was that now that we had non-Jewish members in the organization it might be offensive to them for us to use Hebrew in any rituals of the organization. At the same convention a resolution was then drafted and passed prohibiting the further use of Hebrew in any ritual of the organization. (It was at that point in time, by the way, that I left the active service of the fraternity and decided to devote my time to causes that were more proudly Jewish.)
So there we were. A fraternity who voluntarily accepted members who were not Jewish, but all of whose members swore allegiance to its goals and objectives which were personified by its coat of arms which bearing, until today, both a Star of David and a Menorah, the historical symbols of the Jewish people for over 2,000 years, now deciding to change its policies for fear of offending “them.” In the case of the fraternity the “them” was the small cadre of non-Jews who, themselves, chose to affiliate with an organization that was identifiably Jewish. And, as always, it was not “them” that raised the objections but “us.”
Fast forward 40 years and we stand today in the very same place. Brandeis University, founded as the outward symbol of the success of the Jewish experience in the USA, with a student body, some of whom, themselves the beneficiaries of the American Jewish experience, concerned that inviting the appointed diplomatic representative of the State of Israel to the U.S. might make the Palestinian students uncomfortable.
I fly with some regularity on Royal Jordanian Airlines and every flight begins with a public reading, in Arabic, of the prayer for a safe journey. No one ever seems concerned that I might be offended by that, nor do I expect them to be. It is forbidden to enter Saudi Arabia with any non-Muslim symbols, Christian or Jewish prayer books and the like, and no one seems to be concerned that I might be offended by that. But we, of course, always seem to be ready to bend over backwards to accommodate others, even if (a) it is not in our best interests and (b) we know that the people for whom we are making the accommodation given the opportunity would not return the favor.
The University is to be commended for having stood its ground while the students who objected hopefully will never have to thank their lucky stars that there is an Israel ready to welcome them home should their native country ever cease to be the welcoming place that it is today.
Sherwin Pomerantz, a 26 year resident of Israel, is President of Atid EDI Ltd., a Jerusalem-based economic development consulting firm.
By Sherwin Pomerantz
In the discussion of the suitability of inviting Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren to be the commencement speaker at Brandeis University later this month, graduating senior Tara Meital is quoted in the Post as opposing the invitation, given that it “will make some in the audience feel uncomfortable, such as the Palestinian graduates.”
And there you have it. Once again the essence of the discomfort among some Jews is not really that the speaker is controversial, but that inviting the official representative of the State of Israel to speak at a university founded by the American Jewish Community in the name of the first Jewish Supreme Court justice, will make non-Jews who chose to attend that university uncomfortable.
The situation takes me back to the late 1970s when I was very active as a national officer of my college fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi. The fraternity was founded in 1913 by a group of Jewish college students at New York University given that, at the time, Jews were generally excluded from membership in the Waspish Greek letter student societies on US campuses. The fraternity/sorority system remained segregated by race and religion until after the end of World War II when America became much more sensitive to such issues. Slowly but surely the system opened up and Jewish fraternities began to accept non-Jews while the Christian groups accepted some Jews as well. Racial integration took a few more years to become accepted.
At an annual convention held that year at the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, I, as the resident traditional Jew on the National Board, was asked to conduct the memorial service for those members of the fraternity who had passed on during the previous year. The service was, of course, in English but my tradition was to close the service with the recitation of Kaddish, the prayer traditionally recited at such times and, of course, it was in Hebrew.
After the service a few of the Jewish undergraduates came up to me and voiced their displeasure over the fact that I had used Hebrew as part of the ritual. Their logic was that now that we had non-Jewish members in the organization it might be offensive to them for us to use Hebrew in any rituals of the organization. At the same convention a resolution was then drafted and passed prohibiting the further use of Hebrew in any ritual of the organization. (It was at that point in time, by the way, that I left the active service of the fraternity and decided to devote my time to causes that were more proudly Jewish.)
So there we were. A fraternity who voluntarily accepted members who were not Jewish, but all of whose members swore allegiance to its goals and objectives which were personified by its coat of arms which bearing, until today, both a Star of David and a Menorah, the historical symbols of the Jewish people for over 2,000 years, now deciding to change its policies for fear of offending “them.” In the case of the fraternity the “them” was the small cadre of non-Jews who, themselves, chose to affiliate with an organization that was identifiably Jewish. And, as always, it was not “them” that raised the objections but “us.”
Fast forward 40 years and we stand today in the very same place. Brandeis University, founded as the outward symbol of the success of the Jewish experience in the USA, with a student body, some of whom, themselves the beneficiaries of the American Jewish experience, concerned that inviting the appointed diplomatic representative of the State of Israel to the U.S. might make the Palestinian students uncomfortable.
I fly with some regularity on Royal Jordanian Airlines and every flight begins with a public reading, in Arabic, of the prayer for a safe journey. No one ever seems concerned that I might be offended by that, nor do I expect them to be. It is forbidden to enter Saudi Arabia with any non-Muslim symbols, Christian or Jewish prayer books and the like, and no one seems to be concerned that I might be offended by that. But we, of course, always seem to be ready to bend over backwards to accommodate others, even if (a) it is not in our best interests and (b) we know that the people for whom we are making the accommodation given the opportunity would not return the favor.
The University is to be commended for having stood its ground while the students who objected hopefully will never have to thank their lucky stars that there is an Israel ready to welcome them home should their native country ever cease to be the welcoming place that it is today.
Sherwin Pomerantz, a 26 year resident of Israel, is President of Atid EDI Ltd., a Jerusalem-based economic development consulting firm.
Friday, April 23, 2010
My Response to Roger Cohn
Roger, once again your residual enmity towards Israel dictates and controls how you approach the issue. If you had chosen to live here you would understand that the vast majority of us who made that choice, want peace in the worst way possible. No one living here wants war, no one living here wants to drive through checkpoints to get from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, no one living here wants to see the ugly separation that was put in place for protection, and no one living here wants to worry any longer about their husbands, fathers, sons or brothers dying in order to keep this place safe.
But negotiation is a two way street and no party to a negotiation should ever have to make any concessions in order to get the other party to the table, if both are interested in finding solutions to the issues at hand. What is it about that you do not understand? And what is it about this that President Obama and his advisors do not understand?
Israel is prepared to sit down with the Palestinians tomorrow and work on a negotiated final settlement to all of the issues that are roadblocks to peace. Why aren't the Palestinians ready to do the same? Why Mr Cohen, why?
27 years ago when I was still living in Chicago and meeting with my accountant regularly to go over the books of the company, in which he had an investment as well, I once started giving him reasons why we had lost money the month before. His response? Son, if you make money, you can give me reasons. If you lose money, they are just excuses.
Roger, they are just excuses and I don't even want to know the reasons. We are sitting on our side of the table and are ready and willing to talk if someone will sit down on the other side of the table as well. Why doesn't that happen?
Sherwin Pomerantz
Jerusalem
April 23, 2010
________________________________________
April 23, 2010
OP-ED COLUMNIST – NEW YORK TIMES
Israeli Unassailable Might and Unyielding Angst
By ROGER COHEN
JERUSALEM — For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his people are not traumatized by some wild delusion. No, there are facts: the rise of Iran, the fierce projection of Iran’s proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, and the rockets that have been fired by them.
Netanyahu is firm in his core self-image as the guarantor of threatened Israeli security. Israeli withdrawals from southern Lebanon and Gaza, led only, in his view, to the insecurity of life beneath a rocket threat.
The question he poses himself, contemplating the West Bank, is how to stop this happening a third time.
To enter Israel is to pass through a hall of mirrors. A nation exerting complete military dominance in the West Bank becomes one that, under an almost unimaginable peace accord, might be menaced from there.
A nation whose army and arsenal are without rival in the Middle East becomes one facing daily existential threat. A nation whose power has grown steadily over decades relative to its scattered enemies becomes one whose future is somehow less secure than ever.
It’s not easy to parse fact from fiction, justifiable anxiety from self-serving angst, in this pervasive Israeli narrative. I arrived on Independence Day, the nation’s 62nd birthday. Blue and white flags fluttered from cars on the superhighways. A million festive picnickers were out. “If a war takes place, we will win,” the chief of the Israel Defense Forces assured them. Did annihilation anguish really spice the barbecue?
I guess so. The threat has morphed since 1948 — from Arab armies to Palestinian militants to Islamic jihadists — but not the Israeli condition. The nation “wallows in a sense of existential threat that has only grown with time,” the daily Haaretz commented. Netanyahu, in a 20-minute interview, told me of “the physical and psychological reality” of a nation whose experience is that “concessions lead to insecurity.”
Part of the insecurity right now stems from the troubles with Israel’s ultimate guarantor, the United States. President Obama, for all his assurances about unbending American commitment, has left Israelis with a feeling of alienation, a sense he does not understand or care enough. Has he not visited two nearby Muslim states — Turkey and Egypt — while snubbing Israel?
I think what is really bothering Israelis, the root of the troubles, is that Obama is not buying the discourse, the narrative.
Instead of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with little Israel against the jihadists, he’s talking of how a festering Middle East conflict ends up “costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.” Instead of Iran, Iran, Iran — the refrain here — he’s saying Iran, yes, but not at the expense of Palestine. Instead of Israeli security alone, he’s talking of “the vital national security interests of the United States” and their link to Israeli actions.
This amounts to a sea change. I don’t know if it will box Israel into a defensive corner or open new avenues, but I do know an uncritical U.S. embrace of Israel has led nowhere. For now, Israeli irritation is clear.
Before meeting Netanyahu, I spoke with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon. “We are the ones suffering most in terms of blood and treasure,” he told me, reprising the Obama line. “This is the difference, we are the ones that have to live through an agreement and survive afterward. Of course we want peace but not at the price of our existence.”
He dismissed as “totally false” the notion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict feeds an environment inimical to U.S. interests. On the contrary, he said, “We pay the price for defending U.S. values in this area.”
For Ayalon, the proximity talks with the Palestinians that the Obama administration is struggling to revive are a “waste of time” and should be replaced by direct talks without preconditions. As for Obama’s demands, believed to include a complete Israeli building freeze in Jerusalem, Ayalon said, “Any demand without a quid pro quo is a mistake. Why should the Palestinians negotiate if others negotiate for them?”
So here we are, 62 years on, negotiating about negotiations whose
prospects of leading anywhere seem fantastically remote. I think Ayalon’s right about getting to the table, but peace involves embracing risk over fear, no getting around that, and with the Iranian nuclear program rumbling, Israelis look more risk-averse than I’ve ever seen them. Life’s not bad in affluent, barrier-bordered Israel even if threats loom.
The prime minister insists that he is ready to move forward, that he will not use the Iran threat as a delaying tactic, and that he and Obama respect each other’s intelligence.
What is imperative for him right now is that the United States and Israel talk to each other.
But about what exactly? The trauma of 9/11 bound the Israeli and American narratives. They have now begun to diverge with putative Palestine hanging in limbo between them.
But negotiation is a two way street and no party to a negotiation should ever have to make any concessions in order to get the other party to the table, if both are interested in finding solutions to the issues at hand. What is it about that you do not understand? And what is it about this that President Obama and his advisors do not understand?
Israel is prepared to sit down with the Palestinians tomorrow and work on a negotiated final settlement to all of the issues that are roadblocks to peace. Why aren't the Palestinians ready to do the same? Why Mr Cohen, why?
27 years ago when I was still living in Chicago and meeting with my accountant regularly to go over the books of the company, in which he had an investment as well, I once started giving him reasons why we had lost money the month before. His response? Son, if you make money, you can give me reasons. If you lose money, they are just excuses.
Roger, they are just excuses and I don't even want to know the reasons. We are sitting on our side of the table and are ready and willing to talk if someone will sit down on the other side of the table as well. Why doesn't that happen?
Sherwin Pomerantz
Jerusalem
April 23, 2010
________________________________________
April 23, 2010
OP-ED COLUMNIST – NEW YORK TIMES
Israeli Unassailable Might and Unyielding Angst
By ROGER COHEN
JERUSALEM — For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his people are not traumatized by some wild delusion. No, there are facts: the rise of Iran, the fierce projection of Iran’s proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, and the rockets that have been fired by them.
Netanyahu is firm in his core self-image as the guarantor of threatened Israeli security. Israeli withdrawals from southern Lebanon and Gaza, led only, in his view, to the insecurity of life beneath a rocket threat.
The question he poses himself, contemplating the West Bank, is how to stop this happening a third time.
To enter Israel is to pass through a hall of mirrors. A nation exerting complete military dominance in the West Bank becomes one that, under an almost unimaginable peace accord, might be menaced from there.
A nation whose army and arsenal are without rival in the Middle East becomes one facing daily existential threat. A nation whose power has grown steadily over decades relative to its scattered enemies becomes one whose future is somehow less secure than ever.
It’s not easy to parse fact from fiction, justifiable anxiety from self-serving angst, in this pervasive Israeli narrative. I arrived on Independence Day, the nation’s 62nd birthday. Blue and white flags fluttered from cars on the superhighways. A million festive picnickers were out. “If a war takes place, we will win,” the chief of the Israel Defense Forces assured them. Did annihilation anguish really spice the barbecue?
I guess so. The threat has morphed since 1948 — from Arab armies to Palestinian militants to Islamic jihadists — but not the Israeli condition. The nation “wallows in a sense of existential threat that has only grown with time,” the daily Haaretz commented. Netanyahu, in a 20-minute interview, told me of “the physical and psychological reality” of a nation whose experience is that “concessions lead to insecurity.”
Part of the insecurity right now stems from the troubles with Israel’s ultimate guarantor, the United States. President Obama, for all his assurances about unbending American commitment, has left Israelis with a feeling of alienation, a sense he does not understand or care enough. Has he not visited two nearby Muslim states — Turkey and Egypt — while snubbing Israel?
I think what is really bothering Israelis, the root of the troubles, is that Obama is not buying the discourse, the narrative.
Instead of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with little Israel against the jihadists, he’s talking of how a festering Middle East conflict ends up “costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.” Instead of Iran, Iran, Iran — the refrain here — he’s saying Iran, yes, but not at the expense of Palestine. Instead of Israeli security alone, he’s talking of “the vital national security interests of the United States” and their link to Israeli actions.
This amounts to a sea change. I don’t know if it will box Israel into a defensive corner or open new avenues, but I do know an uncritical U.S. embrace of Israel has led nowhere. For now, Israeli irritation is clear.
Before meeting Netanyahu, I spoke with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon. “We are the ones suffering most in terms of blood and treasure,” he told me, reprising the Obama line. “This is the difference, we are the ones that have to live through an agreement and survive afterward. Of course we want peace but not at the price of our existence.”
He dismissed as “totally false” the notion that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict feeds an environment inimical to U.S. interests. On the contrary, he said, “We pay the price for defending U.S. values in this area.”
For Ayalon, the proximity talks with the Palestinians that the Obama administration is struggling to revive are a “waste of time” and should be replaced by direct talks without preconditions. As for Obama’s demands, believed to include a complete Israeli building freeze in Jerusalem, Ayalon said, “Any demand without a quid pro quo is a mistake. Why should the Palestinians negotiate if others negotiate for them?”
So here we are, 62 years on, negotiating about negotiations whose
prospects of leading anywhere seem fantastically remote. I think Ayalon’s right about getting to the table, but peace involves embracing risk over fear, no getting around that, and with the Iranian nuclear program rumbling, Israelis look more risk-averse than I’ve ever seen them. Life’s not bad in affluent, barrier-bordered Israel even if threats loom.
The prime minister insists that he is ready to move forward, that he will not use the Iran threat as a delaying tactic, and that he and Obama respect each other’s intelligence.
What is imperative for him right now is that the United States and Israel talk to each other.
But about what exactly? The trauma of 9/11 bound the Israeli and American narratives. They have now begun to diverge with putative Palestine hanging in limbo between them.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Elements of a Palestinian State
Elements of a Palestinian State
Earlier today I received the Winter 2010 issue of the Rawabi Home Magazine, which is the official publication relating to the construction of the new Palestinian city of Rawabi north of Ramallah. Rawabi will be the first ever Palestinian municipality built according to a master plan which, when completed, will provide housing, work and recreation for 40,000 people.
Receiving the publication was no surprise as I am familiar with the project and its positive ramifications for those interested in seeing the development of responsible Palestinian governmental leadership.
What I was not prepared for, and what hit my eye immediately, was the postage on the envelope. The philately was a 500 Fils stamp of the Palestinian Authority with an artistic rendering of Mother Mary and her child with the words “Bethlehem 2000” on the side of the stamp. First of all, I was not aware that the Palestinian Authority is issuing postage. Secondly, it was interesting to see that the postage is denominated in Jordanian currency (i.e. 500 Fils is ½ of a Jordanian Dinar). My guess is that the Government of Israel is complicit in the issuance of such postage and that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has given approval to the use of their currency as well.
Many of the readers of this blog may be surprised as well on both issues but for reasons other than those that made me look again at the envelope. My guess is that many people are not even fully aware of the extent to which the elements of statehood are being developed within areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The planned City of Rawabi is a major undertaking of the Palestinian leadership funded in great part by the Qatari government through one of its real estate arms. The issuing of postage, while it may seem innocuous enough, is yet another example of the march towards statehood. Israel’s readiness to deliver such mail with stamps issued by a non-state also speaks loudly to the potential emergence of a real country next door (read: facts on the ground).
People who know me well are aware that I believe the only long term political solution that will ensure the eternal viability of the enterprise known as Israel, is for our “cousins” to have a state of their own, side by side with Israel, with true peace and harmony between us. I am not making a statement here that this is possible. I am only saying that if it could be achieved it would be in the long term interests of both of us.
But what is important to note is that while our politicians debate the pros and cons of the situation, two dramatic things are happening as we speak. First, the trappings of Palestinian statehood are being developed before our eyes. Second, the world is supportive of this concept and will most probably recognize such a state whether it is declared unilaterally (as Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad promises to do next year) or as part of an agreement with us.
Given these facts our government needs to do whatever it can to ensure that the outcome of all of this activity will be peace not conflict, reconciliation not war, progress not recidivism…life not death.
Elie Wiesel has said “Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give to each other.” And we may add: it is our lifeblood as well.
Sherwin Pomerantz
Jerusalem, April 21, 2010
Earlier today I received the Winter 2010 issue of the Rawabi Home Magazine, which is the official publication relating to the construction of the new Palestinian city of Rawabi north of Ramallah. Rawabi will be the first ever Palestinian municipality built according to a master plan which, when completed, will provide housing, work and recreation for 40,000 people.
Receiving the publication was no surprise as I am familiar with the project and its positive ramifications for those interested in seeing the development of responsible Palestinian governmental leadership.
What I was not prepared for, and what hit my eye immediately, was the postage on the envelope. The philately was a 500 Fils stamp of the Palestinian Authority with an artistic rendering of Mother Mary and her child with the words “Bethlehem 2000” on the side of the stamp. First of all, I was not aware that the Palestinian Authority is issuing postage. Secondly, it was interesting to see that the postage is denominated in Jordanian currency (i.e. 500 Fils is ½ of a Jordanian Dinar). My guess is that the Government of Israel is complicit in the issuance of such postage and that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has given approval to the use of their currency as well.
Many of the readers of this blog may be surprised as well on both issues but for reasons other than those that made me look again at the envelope. My guess is that many people are not even fully aware of the extent to which the elements of statehood are being developed within areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The planned City of Rawabi is a major undertaking of the Palestinian leadership funded in great part by the Qatari government through one of its real estate arms. The issuing of postage, while it may seem innocuous enough, is yet another example of the march towards statehood. Israel’s readiness to deliver such mail with stamps issued by a non-state also speaks loudly to the potential emergence of a real country next door (read: facts on the ground).
People who know me well are aware that I believe the only long term political solution that will ensure the eternal viability of the enterprise known as Israel, is for our “cousins” to have a state of their own, side by side with Israel, with true peace and harmony between us. I am not making a statement here that this is possible. I am only saying that if it could be achieved it would be in the long term interests of both of us.
But what is important to note is that while our politicians debate the pros and cons of the situation, two dramatic things are happening as we speak. First, the trappings of Palestinian statehood are being developed before our eyes. Second, the world is supportive of this concept and will most probably recognize such a state whether it is declared unilaterally (as Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad promises to do next year) or as part of an agreement with us.
Given these facts our government needs to do whatever it can to ensure that the outcome of all of this activity will be peace not conflict, reconciliation not war, progress not recidivism…life not death.
Elie Wiesel has said “Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give to each other.” And we may add: it is our lifeblood as well.
Sherwin Pomerantz
Jerusalem, April 21, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Of Loneliness and a World Gone Mad
The Tel Aviv stock exchange reached its highest level ever immediately after the Passover holiday. Not typically a symptom of country under a seemingly ever-growing cloud of existential threat. And in spite of news that seems to grow more worrying by the day, Israelis and foreigners alike continue to fork over millions for towering apartments in range of ever more powerful missiles from an ever widening array of hostile powers which threaten daily to unleash them. Multinationals continue to invest and to build and though perhaps not in masses, new immigrants arrive daily from prosperous and relatively quiet countries. Rare are the voices that suggest that perhaps Nero is fiddling while Rome burns. And yet, one wonders if even the citizens of Czechoslovakia in 1938 felt the same deep sense of abandonment that many Israelis feel today. Did they feel as deeply misunderstood by a topsy-turvy world in which right is wrong and political expediency (to say nothing of a unquenchable thirst for oil) replaces any semblance of morality? The Jordanian monarch is probably right when he states publicly that Israel is more isolated than North Korea. Why shouldn't this be so in a world in which Libya can chair the UN Human Rights Commission and in which Israel's medical mission to earthquake stricken Haiti can be accused by supposedly reputable people of harvesting organs?
In spite of constant attacks and censures from even those whom we considered to be level-headed friends, most Israelis somehow continue to remain reasonably secure in their footing on the moral high ground. Most of us are not so blind or arrogant as to be unable to admit that perhaps we might have made some mistakes, done some things differently and that tragic errors do occur. At the very least we might have explained ourselves better. Not that any of it would have made much difference in a world which seems to have decided that Israel is guilty no matter what it has or has not done, but it might have made those whose faith has begun to wane believe more strongly in the justice of our cause
This is not a matter of some kind of double standard. Israelis probably wouldn't mind very much being held to a higher standard than the rest of the world. It should be our raison d'être to be "state of the art" in morality as well as in technology and I think we should stop complaining about that. It is or should not be a double standard that troubles us, but the lack of any moral standards at all that contributes to a profound loneliness. True, at times that standard goes to absurd lengths as where building apartments on disputed land somehow becomes more heinous than all of the wonderful human rights accomplishments of some of our neighbors like raping condemned women, to say nothing of condemning them to death for frequently fabricated crimes, or hanging homosexuals or executing heretics for the practice of any religion but that of Islam (and perhaps only one variant of that). Or when atrocities which never happened are reported on page one and retractions, if there are any, may find themselves buried on page 46. Everyone remembers the reports of the Jenin massacre and of the countless other fabricated massacres. Who remembers the subsequent corrections? Probably very few people, since generally they aren't even published.
We have little choice but to continue to do what we believe is right and to build our lives, our land, and our future and to try as far as is humanly possible to so in a manner that will at the very least contribute our own belief in ourselves and the justice of what we are doing here.
Ben Dansker
Vice President, Atid EDI
The Tel Aviv stock exchange reached its highest level ever immediately after the Passover holiday. Not typically a symptom of country under a seemingly ever-growing cloud of existential threat. And in spite of news that seems to grow more worrying by the day, Israelis and foreigners alike continue to fork over millions for towering apartments in range of ever more powerful missiles from an ever widening array of hostile powers which threaten daily to unleash them. Multinationals continue to invest and to build and though perhaps not in masses, new immigrants arrive daily from prosperous and relatively quiet countries. Rare are the voices that suggest that perhaps Nero is fiddling while Rome burns. And yet, one wonders if even the citizens of Czechoslovakia in 1938 felt the same deep sense of abandonment that many Israelis feel today. Did they feel as deeply misunderstood by a topsy-turvy world in which right is wrong and political expediency (to say nothing of a unquenchable thirst for oil) replaces any semblance of morality? The Jordanian monarch is probably right when he states publicly that Israel is more isolated than North Korea. Why shouldn't this be so in a world in which Libya can chair the UN Human Rights Commission and in which Israel's medical mission to earthquake stricken Haiti can be accused by supposedly reputable people of harvesting organs?
In spite of constant attacks and censures from even those whom we considered to be level-headed friends, most Israelis somehow continue to remain reasonably secure in their footing on the moral high ground. Most of us are not so blind or arrogant as to be unable to admit that perhaps we might have made some mistakes, done some things differently and that tragic errors do occur. At the very least we might have explained ourselves better. Not that any of it would have made much difference in a world which seems to have decided that Israel is guilty no matter what it has or has not done, but it might have made those whose faith has begun to wane believe more strongly in the justice of our cause
This is not a matter of some kind of double standard. Israelis probably wouldn't mind very much being held to a higher standard than the rest of the world. It should be our raison d'être to be "state of the art" in morality as well as in technology and I think we should stop complaining about that. It is or should not be a double standard that troubles us, but the lack of any moral standards at all that contributes to a profound loneliness. True, at times that standard goes to absurd lengths as where building apartments on disputed land somehow becomes more heinous than all of the wonderful human rights accomplishments of some of our neighbors like raping condemned women, to say nothing of condemning them to death for frequently fabricated crimes, or hanging homosexuals or executing heretics for the practice of any religion but that of Islam (and perhaps only one variant of that). Or when atrocities which never happened are reported on page one and retractions, if there are any, may find themselves buried on page 46. Everyone remembers the reports of the Jenin massacre and of the countless other fabricated massacres. Who remembers the subsequent corrections? Probably very few people, since generally they aren't even published.
We have little choice but to continue to do what we believe is right and to build our lives, our land, and our future and to try as far as is humanly possible to so in a manner that will at the very least contribute our own belief in ourselves and the justice of what we are doing here.
Ben Dansker
Vice President, Atid EDI
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Response to the NY Times
This is my response to the editorial below which appeared in the NY Times on Friday.
===================================================================================
To the editor of the NY Times:
Your editorial on the need for Israeli Prime Minister to make yet more concessions in order to get the Palestinians to the negotiating table once again bespeaks the paper’s unwillingness to understand the playing field on which Israel is operating.
Israel has already conceded its willingness to agree to a two state solution with a Palestinian state on its border; it has agreed, in principle, to return to the 1967 borders in return for true peace; it has agreed, as well, to allocate a portion of what the world calls East Jerusalem to the Palestinians for its capital; and, in a show of incredible commitment to the peace process itself, it unilaterally withdrew from Gaza displacing thousands of its citizens and destroying over a dozen communities, for which it received absolutely nothing in return save a five year barrage of rockets in the south of the country and the continuing loss of its troop’s lives defending its southern border (witness the death of two of our soldiers on Friday at the hands of Hamas operatives who were trying to lay mines on the border itself).
So, none of us living here can blame the Prime Minister for standing tough on construction anywhere in Jerusalem and even in biblical Judea and Samaria which the world refers to as the West Bank. Israel’s position in this regard is supported by the vast majority of the Israeli public and taking this position in a dialogue with an ally such as the US should not have caused President Obama to treat our Prime Minister during his US visit last week like someone from Equatorial Guinea.
Yes, friends have to be honest with each other. But friends also have to recognize the realities with which each of them are involved and, as both a US and an Israel citizen, I must say that this time I think the reaction of the US administration has been “way over the top” during the post-Biden visit discussions. Frankly, when and if the Palestinian leadership decides to come to the negotiating table in earnest, we here in Israel will still have to have some concessions to offer in order to make peace. The real settlements, not Jerusalem neighborhoods but those small but courageous communities in the West Bank, will probably be on the chopping block at that time. No good negotiator would yield those in advance of the discussion.
Sincerely,
Sherwin Pomerantz
Jerusalem
=============================================================================
March 27, 2010
EDITORIAL
Mr. Obama and Israel
After taking office last year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel privately told many Americans and Europeans that he was committed to and capable of peacemaking, despite the hard-line positions that he had used to get elected for a second time. Trust me, he told them. We were skeptical when we first heard that, and we’re even more skeptical now.
All this week, the Obama administration had hoped Mr. Netanyahu would give it something to work with, a way to resolve the poisonous contretemps over Jerusalem and to finally restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. It would have been a relief if they had succeeded. Serious negotiations on a two-state solution are in all their interests. And the challenges the United States and Israel face — especially Iran’s nuclear program — are too great for the leaders not to have a close working relationship.
But after a cabinet meeting on Friday, Mr. Netanyahu and his right-wing government still insisted that they would not change their policy of building homes in the city, including East Jerusalem, which Palestinians hope to make the capital of an independent state.
President Obama made pursuing a peace deal a priority and has been understandably furious at Israel’s response. He correctly sees the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a factor in wider regional instability.
Mr. Netanyahu’s government provoked the controversy two weeks ago when it disclosed plans for 1,600 new housing units in an ultra-orthodox neighborhood in East Jerusalem just as Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. was on a fence-mending visit and Israeli-Palestinian “proximity talks” were to begin.
Last year, Mr. Netanyahu rejected Mr. Obama’s call for a freeze on all settlement building. On Tuesday — just before Mr. Obama hosted Mr. Netanyahu at the White House — Israeli officials revealed plans to build 20 units in the Shepherd Hotel compound of East Jerusalem.
Palestinians are justifiably worried that these projects nibble away at the land available for their future state. The disputes with Israel have made Mr. Obama look weak and have given Palestinians and Arab leaders an excuse to walk away from the proximity talks (in which Mr. Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, would shuttle between Jerusalem and Ramallah) that Washington nurtured.
Mr. Obama was right to demand that Mr. Netanyahu repair the damage. Details of their deliberately low-key White House meeting (no photos, no press, not even a joint statement afterward) have not been revealed. We hope Israel is being pressed to at least temporarily halt building in East Jerusalem as a sign of good faith. Jerusalem’s future must be decided in negotiations.
The administration should also insist that proximity talks, once begun, grapple immediately with core issues like borders and security, not incidentals. And it must ensure that the talks evolve quickly to direct negotiations — the only realistic format for an enduring agreement.
Many Israelis find Mr. Obama’s willingness to challenge Israel unsettling. We find it refreshing that he has forced public debate on issues that must be debated publicly for a peace deal to happen. He must also press Palestinians and Arab leaders just as forcefully.
Questions from Israeli hard-liners and others about his commitment to Israel’s security are misplaced. The question is whether Mr. Netanyahu is able or willing to lead his country to a peace deal. He grudgingly endorsed the two-state solution. Does he intend to get there?
===================================================================================
To the editor of the NY Times:
Your editorial on the need for Israeli Prime Minister to make yet more concessions in order to get the Palestinians to the negotiating table once again bespeaks the paper’s unwillingness to understand the playing field on which Israel is operating.
Israel has already conceded its willingness to agree to a two state solution with a Palestinian state on its border; it has agreed, in principle, to return to the 1967 borders in return for true peace; it has agreed, as well, to allocate a portion of what the world calls East Jerusalem to the Palestinians for its capital; and, in a show of incredible commitment to the peace process itself, it unilaterally withdrew from Gaza displacing thousands of its citizens and destroying over a dozen communities, for which it received absolutely nothing in return save a five year barrage of rockets in the south of the country and the continuing loss of its troop’s lives defending its southern border (witness the death of two of our soldiers on Friday at the hands of Hamas operatives who were trying to lay mines on the border itself).
So, none of us living here can blame the Prime Minister for standing tough on construction anywhere in Jerusalem and even in biblical Judea and Samaria which the world refers to as the West Bank. Israel’s position in this regard is supported by the vast majority of the Israeli public and taking this position in a dialogue with an ally such as the US should not have caused President Obama to treat our Prime Minister during his US visit last week like someone from Equatorial Guinea.
Yes, friends have to be honest with each other. But friends also have to recognize the realities with which each of them are involved and, as both a US and an Israel citizen, I must say that this time I think the reaction of the US administration has been “way over the top” during the post-Biden visit discussions. Frankly, when and if the Palestinian leadership decides to come to the negotiating table in earnest, we here in Israel will still have to have some concessions to offer in order to make peace. The real settlements, not Jerusalem neighborhoods but those small but courageous communities in the West Bank, will probably be on the chopping block at that time. No good negotiator would yield those in advance of the discussion.
Sincerely,
Sherwin Pomerantz
Jerusalem
=============================================================================
March 27, 2010
EDITORIAL
Mr. Obama and Israel
After taking office last year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel privately told many Americans and Europeans that he was committed to and capable of peacemaking, despite the hard-line positions that he had used to get elected for a second time. Trust me, he told them. We were skeptical when we first heard that, and we’re even more skeptical now.
All this week, the Obama administration had hoped Mr. Netanyahu would give it something to work with, a way to resolve the poisonous contretemps over Jerusalem and to finally restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. It would have been a relief if they had succeeded. Serious negotiations on a two-state solution are in all their interests. And the challenges the United States and Israel face — especially Iran’s nuclear program — are too great for the leaders not to have a close working relationship.
But after a cabinet meeting on Friday, Mr. Netanyahu and his right-wing government still insisted that they would not change their policy of building homes in the city, including East Jerusalem, which Palestinians hope to make the capital of an independent state.
President Obama made pursuing a peace deal a priority and has been understandably furious at Israel’s response. He correctly sees the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a factor in wider regional instability.
Mr. Netanyahu’s government provoked the controversy two weeks ago when it disclosed plans for 1,600 new housing units in an ultra-orthodox neighborhood in East Jerusalem just as Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. was on a fence-mending visit and Israeli-Palestinian “proximity talks” were to begin.
Last year, Mr. Netanyahu rejected Mr. Obama’s call for a freeze on all settlement building. On Tuesday — just before Mr. Obama hosted Mr. Netanyahu at the White House — Israeli officials revealed plans to build 20 units in the Shepherd Hotel compound of East Jerusalem.
Palestinians are justifiably worried that these projects nibble away at the land available for their future state. The disputes with Israel have made Mr. Obama look weak and have given Palestinians and Arab leaders an excuse to walk away from the proximity talks (in which Mr. Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, would shuttle between Jerusalem and Ramallah) that Washington nurtured.
Mr. Obama was right to demand that Mr. Netanyahu repair the damage. Details of their deliberately low-key White House meeting (no photos, no press, not even a joint statement afterward) have not been revealed. We hope Israel is being pressed to at least temporarily halt building in East Jerusalem as a sign of good faith. Jerusalem’s future must be decided in negotiations.
The administration should also insist that proximity talks, once begun, grapple immediately with core issues like borders and security, not incidentals. And it must ensure that the talks evolve quickly to direct negotiations — the only realistic format for an enduring agreement.
Many Israelis find Mr. Obama’s willingness to challenge Israel unsettling. We find it refreshing that he has forced public debate on issues that must be debated publicly for a peace deal to happen. He must also press Palestinians and Arab leaders just as forcefully.
Questions from Israeli hard-liners and others about his commitment to Israel’s security are misplaced. The question is whether Mr. Netanyahu is able or willing to lead his country to a peace deal. He grudgingly endorsed the two-state solution. Does he intend to get there?
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Israel Apartheid Accusations in Portland
Israel Apartheid Accusations in Portland
Earlier today my business partner and I were scheduled to deliver a seminar at a downtown Portland, Oregon hotel on the topic of doing business in Israel and the Middle East. Portland was stop number two on a four city tour which began yesterday in Denver and will move next week to Jackson, Mississippi and then New Orleans.
We had discussed before we left Israel that it was entirely possible that some people, seeing the topic, would decide to use the occasion to demonstrate against Israel by parading outside the seminar venue. So it was no surprise when at 7:30 AM the manager of the hotel came to the site of the seminar to tell us that there were a handful of demonstrators outside the hotel voicing their opposition to Israel knowing that an event related to Israel was scheduled to be held inside the building.
The manager offered that when we left the building if we wanted to use a side entrance he would escort us in that direction. I countered by saying that we were actually guests in the hotel so we had no reason to be concerned about leaving as, after the seminar, our intent was to go back to our rooms. He looked a bit puzzled but simply said he was ready to assist if need be. And that, we thought, was the end of it.
The seminar, sponsored by the Oregon Business Development Department, went well, with an opening presentation by the Mayor of Portland’s Director of International Affairs. After our presentation the floor was thrown open for questions and that’s when the shock began.
In this audience of business people who were presumably there to learn how to enter new export markets in order to increase their sales volume in these difficult economic times, the first questioner wanted to know why a department of the state government was sponsoring an event related to increasing business with an “apartheid” country, a country that was guilty of a host of human rights violations and continued to sieze territory against the laws of the Geneva convention. Not realizing there would be more questions of this type, our response was basically that we do not engage in political discussions during business meetings.
However, the second questioner continued in kind wanting to know why the state was not warning its companies of the danger of doing business with Israeli firms. After all, he continue, the strength of the boycott campaign against Israel continues to grow and local companies may find themselves boycotted in America if they continue to do business with Israel. The representative of Oregon in the room responded by saying that there were dangers in doing business in a lot of places in the world and the Department did its best to apprise local companies of the dangers but did not dissuade them from entering such markets.
But all of this is, of course, not the problem. The problem is that most of us living in Israel, while we hear of incidents like this, tend not to internalize them and that is probably natural. But the official government line, of late, has taken the same tack, saying that while the government is aware of the problem, it is nothing new and, therefore, does not warrant a response. This was the official line a couple of weeks ago after Ambassador to the US Michael Oren was disrespected at a presentation at the University of California/Irvine as were other diplomats in the UK as well.
This mistaken approach that nothing is serious enough to warrant a response, is the same kind of thinking that ultimately results in calamity for the Jewish people. For those who have not seen anti Israel and/or anti Jewish behavior face to face, perhaps it is possible to think this is not serious. But when you see it up close as we did this morning, the clear and present danger makes itself quite obvious.
George Santayana put it best when he opined “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Let’s hope he was wrong.
Sherwin Pomerantz
Portland, Oregon
11 March 2010
Earlier today my business partner and I were scheduled to deliver a seminar at a downtown Portland, Oregon hotel on the topic of doing business in Israel and the Middle East. Portland was stop number two on a four city tour which began yesterday in Denver and will move next week to Jackson, Mississippi and then New Orleans.
We had discussed before we left Israel that it was entirely possible that some people, seeing the topic, would decide to use the occasion to demonstrate against Israel by parading outside the seminar venue. So it was no surprise when at 7:30 AM the manager of the hotel came to the site of the seminar to tell us that there were a handful of demonstrators outside the hotel voicing their opposition to Israel knowing that an event related to Israel was scheduled to be held inside the building.
The manager offered that when we left the building if we wanted to use a side entrance he would escort us in that direction. I countered by saying that we were actually guests in the hotel so we had no reason to be concerned about leaving as, after the seminar, our intent was to go back to our rooms. He looked a bit puzzled but simply said he was ready to assist if need be. And that, we thought, was the end of it.
The seminar, sponsored by the Oregon Business Development Department, went well, with an opening presentation by the Mayor of Portland’s Director of International Affairs. After our presentation the floor was thrown open for questions and that’s when the shock began.
In this audience of business people who were presumably there to learn how to enter new export markets in order to increase their sales volume in these difficult economic times, the first questioner wanted to know why a department of the state government was sponsoring an event related to increasing business with an “apartheid” country, a country that was guilty of a host of human rights violations and continued to sieze territory against the laws of the Geneva convention. Not realizing there would be more questions of this type, our response was basically that we do not engage in political discussions during business meetings.
However, the second questioner continued in kind wanting to know why the state was not warning its companies of the danger of doing business with Israeli firms. After all, he continue, the strength of the boycott campaign against Israel continues to grow and local companies may find themselves boycotted in America if they continue to do business with Israel. The representative of Oregon in the room responded by saying that there were dangers in doing business in a lot of places in the world and the Department did its best to apprise local companies of the dangers but did not dissuade them from entering such markets.
But all of this is, of course, not the problem. The problem is that most of us living in Israel, while we hear of incidents like this, tend not to internalize them and that is probably natural. But the official government line, of late, has taken the same tack, saying that while the government is aware of the problem, it is nothing new and, therefore, does not warrant a response. This was the official line a couple of weeks ago after Ambassador to the US Michael Oren was disrespected at a presentation at the University of California/Irvine as were other diplomats in the UK as well.
This mistaken approach that nothing is serious enough to warrant a response, is the same kind of thinking that ultimately results in calamity for the Jewish people. For those who have not seen anti Israel and/or anti Jewish behavior face to face, perhaps it is possible to think this is not serious. But when you see it up close as we did this morning, the clear and present danger makes itself quite obvious.
George Santayana put it best when he opined “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Let’s hope he was wrong.
Sherwin Pomerantz
Portland, Oregon
11 March 2010
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