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This Shabbat I’ve been asked to give a dvar Torah. It’s political enough to also be a blog post.

This week’s parasha is Parashat Tetsaveh (Exodus 27.20-30.10), which deals mostly with the clothing worn by the Cohanim and the sacrificial ritual surrounding their ordination. There is plenty of interesting material here, but my regular readers will not be surprised that I want to talk about another aspect of this Shabbat.

It is Shabbat Zachor [“remember”], the Shabbat before Purim. And in addition to the regular portion,  we read a special one from Deuteronomy (25.17-19):

Remember what Amalek did to you, on the way when you were leaving Egypt, that he happened upon you on the way, and he struck those of you who were hindmost, all the weaklings at your rear, when you were faint and exhausted, and he did not fear God. It shall be when Hashem, your God, gives you rest from all your enemies all around, in the Land that Hashem, your God, gives you as an inheritance to possess it, you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the Heaven — you shall not forget! [Artscroll tr.]

The special Haftarah for Shabbat Zachor (I Samuel 15.1-34) amplifies the message, telling the story of King Saul who, commanded to totally destroy Amalek — men, women, children, even animals — kept some of the nicer animals and failed to put the king, Agag, to death. For his disobedience, Saul lost his crown (and the prophet Samuel finished off Agag).

Now I do not think that Hashem wants us to wipe out the families of the enemies of Israel, men, women, children and animals. This is what he commanded Saul to do, specifically to the Amalekites. Today there’s no identifiable tribe of Amalek, although part of the commandment to remember Amalek is to be vigilant in defense of the nation of Israel against its enemies.

And many of them, throughout the ages, have been identified in Jewish tradition as Amalek. The Romans, Haman, Chmielnicki, Hitler, Stalin, Yasser Arafat and today Mahmoud Ahmadinejad all have been seen as manifestations (in the case of Haman “the Agagite”, a descendant) of Amalek.

Like The Joker, Amalek often reappeared after being apparently destroyed; somehow there were Amalekites left around after Joshua, Saul and David all defeated them and put them to the sword.

Although some like to talk about Amalek as a representation of evil influences inside us — as a spiritual enemy — it still, unfortunately, makes sense to think about the commandment in relation to our physical enemies. Let’s look more closely at it, specifically this:

…when Hashem, your God, gives you rest from all your enemies all around, in the Land that Hashem, your God, gives you … you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek … you shall not forget!

The last part may seem contradictory — are we commanded to wipe out its memory or to remember it? The answer is both. When, finally, Israel is secure from ‘enemies all  around’, it will be possible to relax, to wipe out the memory of the persecutions, the Holocaust, the scuds, the Qassams and so forth. Then we can forget. But for now we must keep the memory of Amalek before us so that we will be better prepared to fight today’s enemies.

People ask why Jews are so obsessed with antisemitism and persecution, why are they so paranoid, always expecting another Holocaust (although now that Iran is about to get nuclear weapons they don’t ask so much). This is one reason: we are remembering Amalek.

The description of Amalek attacking the weak naturally strikes a chord with us. Isn’t this precisely the nature of terrorism, shrinking from combat with the IDF but murdering children? Who is Samir Kuntar if not an Amalekite?

The story of Saul’s battle with Amalek also has some contemporary lessons. Saul’s disobediance consisted of his failure to fully carry through with God’s command to destroy Amalek. Recently we have been in combat with Hezbollah and Hamas. Should we not have destroyed their armies and their ability to fight? Should we not have killed or captured their leaders? Obviously our situation is not identical with that of Saul, because we must not kill noncombatants or animals, but isn’t it parallel? Didn’t we fail in the same way?

And this, from Samuel:

Saul said to the Kenites, “Go, withdraw, descend from among the Amalekites lest I destroy you with them; for you performed kindness with all the Children of Israel when they went up from Egypt.” The Kenites withdrew from among Amalek.

One imagines Saul dropping leaflets on the Kenites, leaving messages on their cellphones.

Nevertheless, although today we are not fighting in order to  commit a genocide, although our methods are not those of our enemies, we are still required to remember what our enemies want to do to us — what Amalek wanted to do.

And we are commanded to fight to win, to not pull back, even though the task is disagreeable.

Y. Y. Jacobson, “When Love Becomes Evil, The Psychology of Gaza and Mumbai“, writes:

Because some people are so filled with hate, they are incapable of appreciating love. Concerning such people, the Talmud states [Berachot 58a], “He who comes to kill you, kill him first.” Or in the words of the Midrash [Kohelet Rabah 7:16], “He who shows compassion for the cruel, will end up being cruel to the compassionate.”

Update [6 Mar 2009 0857 PST]:

Some people didn’t understand the points I tried to make in this post, and I apologize for being unclear. Here’s a summary of what I was trying to say:

• The injunction to remember Amalek does not mean that we should try to figure out who is Amalek today and wipe them out. There was a specific command by Hashem to a specific person — Saul — to wipe out a specific tribe, which does not exist today. We are never commanded to commit genocide, even if our enemies would like to do so.

• Today the commandment is not to wipe anybody out, but to remember — until Israel is finally at peace, perhaps in the time of the Mashiach, at which point the memory can be wiped out — that there are forces that want to destroy Israel, and to oppose them vigorously.

• Saul made a mistake, which is that he did not carry out Hashem’s commandment completely. Although we aren’t commanded to kill the families and animals of our enemies, we are commanded to destroy those who try to destroy us. This is the meaning of “remember Amalek” and “he who comes to kill you, kill him first.” If we don’t do this — as we failed to do in Lebanon in 2006 or in Gaza this year — then we are guilty of a mistake parallel to the one made by Saul.

Technorati Tags: Shabbat Zachor, Amalek, Israel

The film “Waltz with Bashir” about the first Lebanon War has been harshly criticized for presenting the actions of Israeli soldiers in total isolation, without context, without a reason.  I admit that I haven’t seen the film and don’t intend to.

But I have seen a short (90 second) animation about Israeli restrictions on Gaza made by Yoni Goodman, who was animation director for “Waltz with Bashir”. It was created for Gisha, an Israeli NGO “whose goal is to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especially Gaza residents”.

The short film shows a young Palestinian who is prevented from following a bird, representing his freedom or aspirations, by huge hands. They block him in every direction, even sink his rowboat when he tries to follow the bird out to sea. Ultimately the hands place the bird in a cage as well. At one point, he sees rockets fired at Israel — from a location far from him — and almost immediately he is buffeted by nearby explosions as Israel retaliates. That’s the context — no Hamas, no suicide bombings, no thousands of rockets over 8 years.

The position of Gisha is also presented on their website without context:

Since the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel’s military has developed a complex system of rules and sanctions to control the movement of the 3.4 million Palestinians who live there. The restrictions violate the fundamental right of Palestinians to freedom of movement. As a result, additional basic rights are violated, including the right to life, the right to access medical care, the right to education, the right to livelihood, the right to family unity and the right to freedom of religion.

Ignoring the absurdities like ‘freedom of religion’ — is participating in jihad an absolute religious right? — it’s clear that the rights of Palestinians to complete freedom of movement conflict with the rights of Israelis (to life, etc.) because of the very real phenomenon of Palestinian terrorism. But the film, and Gisha, don’t mention Israeli rights, and this constitutes a major distortion of the moral question.

It might make sense to say that Israeli restrictions are not necessary, or too harsh. But it doesn’t make sense to ignore the aspect of the rights of Israelis.  How can Gisha be so ignorant or stupid not to see this?

The answer is not that they are ignorant or stupid, but that their distorted ideology does not recognize the equivalence of Israeli and Palestinian rights. The ‘post-colonial’ viewpoint that they apparently share with other contemporary left-wing groups, holds that in a colonial situation — which they think describes Israel’s relationship to the Palestinians — there is a fundamental asymmetry between the colonizer and the colonized.

For example, in this view the colonizer is racist, but the colonized people — even if they behave violently and hatefully toward the colonizers — cannot, by definition, be racist. In this view, racism is in part a power relationship, and it only flows one way, from the powerful to the powerless.

Another example is violence: when a colonized people uses violence, even terrorism, against a colonizer, that is ‘resistance’ and can be justified; but the attempts of the colonizer to protect itself are simply violence employed in the service of maintaining the subjugation of the colonized people and is never justified.

So it seems that for Gisha, there are not human rights. There are only the rights of those humans that — in their opinion — are oppressed.

And this is probably what underlies Gisha’s position. There is no need to look at Palestinian violations of Israeli rights because as  ‘colonizers’, Israelis have no rights. Q.E.D. 

When you watch the film below, ask yourself these questions:

• What purpose is served by portraying the Palestinian as alone?

• Why does the Palestinian have a face but Israel only has hands?

• Why does the rocket firing take place far from the Palestinian?

• Where is Iran in all this?

Gisha is funded in part by the European Union, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry and the UK Government Global Opportunities Fund. It lists as “primary funder” a US non-profit named Echoing Green, a charity which funds “social entrepreneurs”.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinains, Gaza, Yoni Goodman, Gisha

The Obama administration and the EU are apparently moving full-steam ahead to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by pressing Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to reach a peace agreement. As always, the idea is that Israel will withdraw from most of the West Bank, there will be compromises on Jerusalem and refugees, a Palestinian state will be established, and shalom b’yisrael.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, on her first foray into Middle East politics as US secretary of state, called for urgent action by Arabs, Israelis and the international community to break the cycle of Mideast violence and to move toward a comprehensive peace in the region…

“We cannot afford more setbacks or delays – or regrets about what might have been had different decisions been made,” she said in apparent reference to the failure of previous peace initiatives.

With the Obama administration’s Mideast peace envoy, George Mitchell, seated behind her at a conference meant to raise billions to help the Gaza Strip recover from its recent war with Israel, Clinton said President Barack Obama would continue the Bush administration’s focus on seeking a two-state solution that entails Israel and a sovereign Palestinian state coexisting in peace…

“By providing humanitarian aid to Gaza we also aim to foster conditions in which a Palestinian state can be fully realized, a state that is a responsible partner, is at peace with Israel and its Arab neighbors and is accountable to its people,” she added. — Jerusalem Post

As Herb Keinon explains, there are significant differences between the US and the EU on the little matter of Hamas. Both seem to think that somehow Hamas must be integrated into the PA, but the US seems to be demanding that Hamas commit to the three original Quartet conditions for participation — recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence and acceptance of past Israel-PA agreements — while the EU would like to somehow finesse the issue to get Hamas involved no matter what their position, ‘in the interests of peace’.

Right here the process founders, because there is no way that Hamas can be included in a Palestinian entity that will be at peace with Israel. None. Regardless of whatever formula Hamas can be coaxed to utter, acceptance of Israel contradicts the essence of Hamas.

My suggestion was that Israel should first eliminate Hamas, and then see what can be accomplished with the PA. But — since Israel has replaced the Arabs as the most appropriate subject for Abba Eban’s famous remark “[They] never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity” — Operation Cast Lead ended with Hamas as strong, or stronger in some senses, as before. This was really a historic failure, one whose dimensions have yet to be appreciated.

One particularly dangerous idea is that Israel should release Marwan Barghouti, imprisoned on a charge of multiple murder, to be freed and allowed to unify Fatah and Hamas. Barghouti (see here and here), a Fatah leader, is no less committed to eliminating Israel then Hamas. Putting Barghouti in charge would probably be almost as bad a move as bringing back Arafat was in 1993.

Hamas appears to be the major obstacle, but what Obama’s people don’t seem to understand is that the problem goes far deeper than Hamas.

This weekend I attended a presentation by Aryeh Green, a remarkably perceptive observer. He and I share the view that one of the worst mistakes that Israel has made since 1948 was the decision to bring Yasser Arafat back from exile in Tunis to head the PA. Arafat did many things, like lying about his intentions, talking peace in English while calling for jihad in Arabic, financing and directing terrorism against Israel while pretending to fight it, and so on. If the early 1990’s were a short window during which the gap between Israel and the Palestinians could have been bridged, Arafat insured that it was not. If anyone closed the ‘peace window’, it was he.

One of the worst things he did was to develop the Palestinian Authority’s educational and communications functions — the schools, the media, the mosques, sports, summer camps, etc. — as a massive system with one goal: to teach Palestinians that the only way to end the conflict with Israel was to defeat it by violent ‘resistance’. Israel was portrayed as a demonic interloper that had stolen the Palestinian homeland, which would ultimately be taken back “with blood and with spirit”, as Arafat and other Palestinian officials enjoyed saying. Incitement against Israel from official PA sources continued all through the Oslo  period (in violation of the agreement) and continues today, including veneration of suicide bombers and vicious antisemitism.

Now it seemed to Green and it seems to me that if the PA was truly interested in peace with Israel that there would be some effort made to educate their population in this direction, remembering that PA media (etc.) are entirely under the thumb of the leadership. But of course nothing of the kind was ever done, and the present ‘moderates’, Abbas and Fayyad have continued the policy, proving that they are no more interested in a peaceful Palestinian state alongside Israel as Arafat was.

What is needed is not more Israeli concessions, and not more complicated diplomatic maneuvers like the Camp David talks.  Rather, the opposite: there must be no concessions, no aid, no rebuilding, nothing but isolation until some Palestinian leadership indicates — by ending the incitement as well as the terrorism — that peace is in fact what they want (hint: this would not be Barghouti).

Palestinians are fond of saying that they can wait hundreds of years, as long as it took to get the crusaders out of Jerusalem. Israel needs to show them that Jews can wait too.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians

If war is diplomacy by other means, a war is only as good as the diplomatic objectives that it achieves. And so, despite the absolutely brilliant performance of the IDF and the improved, although far from brilliant, performance of Israel’s information services, the war was an utter failure.

In the objective battle for advantage with Hamas, the early termination of the fighting due to the cowardice of the political leadership — either from fear of taking casualties or fear of irritating Barack Obama on his inauguration day — prevented the achievement of any permanent goals, like the rescue of Gilad Schalit, the elimination of Hamas’ ability to terrorize southern Israel, or the destruction of a large part of Hamas’ leadership and fighting machine.

In the information arena the defeat was complete, with the unprecedented success of the IDF fighting in a densely populated area with minimal civilian casualties being portrayed throughout the world as a a brutal, even genocidal attack on a defenseless population. As the facts come out bit by bit and we see that as a matter of fact the IDF did not fire on the UN school, the casualties were far fewer than claimed, and most of them were Hamas fighters, we see that it doesn’t matter, any more than the truth about Mohammed al-Dura didn’t matter.

The truth is always less exciting than the bloody lies for the media, and it always comes too late.

Now the next phase of Hamas’ triumph is about to begin, in which the world — mostly the US and Europe — having accepted that a horrible wrong was done by Israel to the people of Gaza, will transfer about $2.8 billion to the Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere by way of the UN, NGO’s, the Palestinian Authority (PA), and other channels.

I’m sure this will be presented as a way to empower the ‘moderates’ and divert the Palestinians’ energy from war to economic and social development. I’m sure the example of how Germany and Japan were rebuilt as peaceful economic powerhouses after WWII by aid and guidance from the US  will be given.

But there are several big differences. One is that, unlike in postwar Germany and Japan, the same bad actors remain in control, both Hamas in Gaza and the Arafatist PLO in the PA. And neither of these entities has the slightest intention of ending their ‘struggle’ until the state of Israel has been eliminated.

But isn’t the PA committed to a negotiated, peaceful two-state solution with Israel? Here’s what Ami Isseroff, someone who considers himself firmly in the ‘peace camp’, has to say:

Owing to an insistent campaign that has not been answered by any government or other advocacy, it is now falsely established in the public mind that the Annapolis talks failed because of Israeli “inflexibility” about Jerusalem. The truth is the opposite. Mahmoud Abbas announced and admitted on November 11 2008, that Israel had offered a compromise on Jerusalem but the Palestinian Authority rejected it, because the Palestinians insist on obliterating Israeli rights in East Jerusalem. It is not compromise that the Palestinian Authority demands from Israel, but rather unconditional surrender.  — ZioNation

We might add that Abbas and even his ‘moderate’ Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and have further refused to compromise on the ‘right of return’ for refugees. This is not surprising, since Abbas has not deviated from the original principles of his former boss, Yasser Arafat, except insofar as he seems to shave more often. Abbas even met with child-murderer Samir Kuntar on his release from an Israeli jail, and congratulated his family.

Although the money is supposedly going to be distributed in a way that will ‘bypass Hamas’, practically speaking this is impossible. Hamas has complete control  — either by ideology or by fear — over everything that happens in Gaza, including the activities of  the NGO’s and even UNRWA, many of whose employees are Hamas operatives.

Not only will funds be required, but restrictions will need to be lifted, say the Palestinians:

But Palestinians and international diplomats say they are concerned that the pledges could be for naught unless Israel agrees to lift its 19-month blockade on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and allow in the needed cash, supplies and materials to rebuild the coastal territory. Egyptian officials say that lack of Palestinian reconciliation would also complicate efforts to rebuild the Strip.

“What is the value of all of these millions of dollars if Israel is not allowing in a single material needed for construction, like cement, glass, metal, or tubes?” said Mustafa Barghouthi, a Palestinian MP representing the Palestinian National Initiative faction. “The Israeli siege and closure on Gaza will prevent any reconstruction unless it is removed,” he said.

Tubes? Yes, metal tubes — you know, the ones that are used to make Qassam rockets.

Technorati Tags: Isarel, Gaza, Hamas, Palestinian Authority

To introduce my recent post about the coming Durban II excrement-throwing event, I quoted Ami Isseroff’s remark that “Israel is losing the battle for hearts and minds“. Everyone should read this.

Speaking of hearts and minds, particularly of college students, we note with outrage the coming of Israeli Apartheid Week on March 1 to universities and colleges in 49 cities, from “Al-Quds” to Waterloo, Ont. “Mark your calendars”, say the organizers with undisguised excitement, “we are really going to show the stinking Zionist yahud something this year!” (OK, I made up the last part, but they did say “Mark your calendars”.

And we could also mention the fact that

Some 210 groups, including the PA, have urged the [International Criminal Court] to deal with the matter [of alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza] and the ICC’s prosecutor has said a “preliminary analysis” is underway. — Jerusalem Post

Isseroff has written a follow-on to his piece today (“Battle for hearts and minds — why it is important“), in which he says,

The signs of the Israel’s image problem are so clear, and the effects so obviously pernicious, that denial borders on behavior pathology. In the space of a week, following Operation Cast Lead, Time, Newsweek and the New York Times published the sort of reports about Israel that in former times one would expect from the Syrian government newspaper Tishreen or the Egyptian extremist journal Roz el Youssef: atrocity stories bordering on blood libel, published without verification and without reserve. These are not fringe journals in Europe, but the heart of USA journalism that used to be solidly on the side of Israel. Today they unapologetically distribute propaganda not for the moderate PLO, but for the genocidal Hamas. This alone should have raised alarm bells in every Israel advocacy group, in the Israel Government Press Office, the Office of the IDF Spokesperson and the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was instead virtually ignored, as just the latest step in an inexorable progression.

He goes on to describe other symptoms of pathology, mentioning the conspiratorial views about the ‘Jewish lobby’ held by Chas Freeman, Barack Obama’s nominee for a key intelligence post  (who, by the way, until recently has been a paid lobbyist for Saudi Arabia).

I also wrote about Israel’s image problem a couple of weeks ago (“Israel must become an information superpower“). The problem, in my opinion, has reached a critical point, a point at which it endangers the existence of the state almost as much as the military threats against her.

To be more precise, the process of delegitimization facilitates the destruction of the state by making it difficult or impossible for Israel to  respond to threats that she is, in a military sense, able to neutralize (and I include the Iranian nuclear program here).

The effect on the behavior of important players like the EU and the US is obvious. But in addition, the economic and psychological damage done to the state itself by the multiple ‘information attacks’ is great. Some of the consequences are a growing avoidance of military service, emigration, etc.

Israel expends huge amounts of human energy and money on military preparedness, and little of either on information. Where is the Israeli Al-Jazeera? Where is the vigorous defense against war crimes charges? Where is ‘Hamas genocide week’?

One reason that this is difficult is because so many Jews have accepted the views of the other side and actively work to promote anti-Israeli and even antisemitic views. Naturally these Jews are given a platform and megaphone by the enemy!

And it’s also true that those who wish to eliminate Israel have managed to portray the conflict as a religious one, Jew vs. Muslim. Since there are 1.4 billion Muslims and perhaps 12 million Jews in the world, the effect of this is obvious.

And finally, it doesn’t help that Israel is rudderless, without a government that can claim even a little popular support since the failed Second Lebanese war in 2006.

Nevertheless, ‘difficult’ doesn’t mean ‘impossible’.  Israel has done things before that were difficult, very difficult. It’s time for Israeli information efforts to move beyond the Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover.

Technorati Tags: Israel, information war