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May 29, 2005
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Reorganizing the Palestinian Security Forces (Council on Foreign Relations)
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 Sharon Offers Cooperation to Abbas by Barry Schweid
Mixing conciliation with tough talk, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pledged last week to cooperate with Mahmoud Abbas but said the Palestinian leader's statements criticizing violence as a political tool "must be translated into real action on the ground." Some 4,000 American Jews, attending the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC's annual policy conference, applauded him vigorously. (AP/Washington Post)
Text of Sharon's Speech / View Sharon's Speech
See also Bush Offers Palestinians Aid by Peter Baker and Glenn Kessler
President Bush offered an unstinting vote of confidence and $50 million in direct aid to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas Thursday in an attempt to bolster his newly elected government and reinvigorate the Middle East peace process. (Washington Post)
Secretary Rice Addresses AIPAC
"Judging by how many students I see in the audience today, I know that AIPAC's future is clearly going to be bright....In 1948, cynics and skeptics could not see the promise of Israel, so they doubted it, said it could never be fulfilled. They saw only a wounded and wandering people beset on all sides by hostile armies. But there were those who had another vision, a vision of a Jewish state that would shelter its children, defend its sacred homeland, turn its desert soil green and reaffirm the principles of freedom and democracy. With courage, the Israeli people made that vision a reality." (State Department)
View Rice's Speech: "PA Must Dismantle All Terrorist Networks"
Israel Trying to Attract Young Immigrants
Israel is launching a $280 million program aimed at convincing thousands of young Jews to immigrate to Israel in the next five years, officials said. The program - targeting people between 18 and 30 - is meant to increase the number of young adults who will eventually immigrate to Israel annually by allowing them to remain here for a year on a tourist visa. During that time, the participants will be offered access to university classes and other programs. Last year, some 4,000 Jews from this age group immigrated to Israel. (Los Angeles Times)
The Birth of Modern Israel: A Scrap of Paper that Changed History
A paragraph scrawled on a piece of hotel stationery by a young British civil servant in July 1917 will be sold next month by Sotheby's for hundreds of thousands of dollars. But its value goes far beyond money. It's hard to think of a single document that changed the course of world history as decisively as did the Balfour Declaration. Arthur James Balfour (pictured), Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, sent a letter backing "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." (Independent)
British Lecturers Union Overturns Boycott by Two-Thirds in a Re-Vote by Yaakov Lappin
British lecturers overturned their decision to boycott Haifa and Bar-Ilan universities in a vote last week. The decision was overturned by a two to one margin. Luciana Berger, a spokesperson for the Union of Jewish Students, was elated at the outcome. "This is fantastic news," she said, pleased with the "good results today." Berger categorized the results as just. "The feeling here is not one of being triumphant, but that the right decision was made. I'm disappointed we even had to be here in the first place." (Jerusalem Post)
 A London Hysteria by Amnon Rubinstein
A Martian landing in today's London would assume that the earth is a haven of peace and human understanding - except for a country called Israel, which clings to a fascist-Nazi philosophy, infringes on human rights, and endangers world peace. We are dealing not merely with opposition to the occupation of areas Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, but with a rejection of the basic tenet of Zionism - the right of the Jewish people to a national homeland and self-determination. (Jerusalem Post)
Creating a Mediterranean Ecology of Peace by Uri Savir
In the last 30 years Israel has signed a variety of full or interim peace agreements with virtually all its neighbors. The Middle East, however, remains a hostile environment. The Mediterranean basin is poetic, rich in culture and history, relaxed in nature, flavorsome and beautiful. It should also be peaceful. The communities of the region must strive to coexist peacefully, develop their economies in parallel and interact on a cultural level. We've tried diplomacy in a vacuum. This time peace agreements must be backed up by broader strokes in the region, creating an ecology of peace. (Jerusalem Post)
Why Not Say Yes to the "Right of Return" by Evelyn Gordon
The one thing Jewish Israelis of every political stripe agree on is that a "right of return" would spell the destruction of the Jewish state. Unfortunately, this knee-jerk response plays right into one of the most brilliant Palestinian negotiating tactics ever devised. Only an estimated 200,000 of the original 1948 refugees are still alive. They are not any sort of demographic threat to a Jewish population of 5.4 million. The hysteria over the "right of return" derives not from reality, but from a UN-created fiction that has no parallel among any other group of refugees in history: the idea that refugee status can be passed on to one's descendants and their descendants, generation after generation, world without end. (Jerusalem Post)
"Apartheid" Misses the Point by Meron Benvenisti
The use of the term apartheid and the comparison between Israel and South Africa under minority white rule are taking over public discourse. The very use of this terminology has become a mark of leftist radicalism, and the angry denial of the validity of such a comparison now testifies to Zionist patriotism. The careless and tendentious use of the Israel-South Africa comparison blurs the major differences between the two societies and political cultures that make the comparison irrelevant. (Ha'aretz)
Druse Student Rallies Against Haifa University Boycott by Yaakov Lappin
Amir Khnifess, an Israeli Druse student, sits in a small, bustling London School of Economics campus cafe and talks about the University of Haifa, where he was a student for seven years and which has been targeted by Britain's Association of University Teachers for an academic boycott. Khnifess is amazed that his former university is facing sanctions by British academics. Completing a master's in political studies, Khnifess has spent weeks defending the University of Haifa against allegations that it represses academic freedom and is complicit with the "occupation." (Jerusalem Post)
Profs Combat Academic Anti-Israel Bias by Hilary Leila Krieger
While the bulk of pro-Israel campus activism in North America has focused on educating and empowering students, a group of professors wants to combat anti-Israel bias among academics. To that end, they are organizing an October conference at Case Western Reserve that seeks "to challenge the theoretical foundation that leads people to misconceptions about Israel," according to conference chair Philip Carl Salzman. The "Post-colonial Theory and the Middle East" conference is sponsored by the 600-member Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, a group devoted to discrediting anti-Israel propaganda in academia. (Jerusalem Post)
Columbia: An Academic Freedom Fighter by Jordan Roth
Nearly two months have passed since a controversial Columbia University internal report lifted the blame from professors accused of anti-Zionist speech and harassing pro-Israel students in the classroom. But now, thanks to students such as Bari Weiss, the intensely heated, intellectual battle at Columbia University is resuming. Weiss insists it is not only students' obligation to create effective debate, but also the role of professors, who maintain more power in the classroom, to promote "an atmosphere where dissent is permissible." (Jerusalem Post)
Students Target Obstacles to College Studies in Israel by Manya A. Brachear
The language of the travel warnings to Israel has evolved over the years, and a revision last month raised the hopes of students who want administrators to amend policies this summer in time for the fall term. Seven universities - including the University of Wisconsin, Michigan State and Ohio State University - recently have reinstated their programs with the caveat that students must sign a waiver clearing their schools of any liability in case of violent unrest. Students from Indiana University, for instance, will participate in a summer archeology dig. (Chicago Tribune)
Personal Ties Do It: Technion, Indian School Sign Accord by Eric Fingerhut
The top technology schools of Israel and India signed an academic collaboration agreement last week, but instead of putting pen to paper in Haifa or Bombay, officials held the ceremony in McLean, Virginia. Why Fairfax County? Part of it was due to being in the right place at the right time. The rest is the result of the relationship between local graduates of Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Technology. (Washington Jewish Week)
See also Rao Gets Top Israeli Award
Renowned Indian scientist Prof C N R Rao has won the $1 million Dan David Prize instituted by an Israeli university for his lifetime contribution to material sciences. "This is a high point in my career. I have received several awards but this is like the Nobel Prize. The standards are very high here and such a major award is being bestowed on an Indian after a long gap since C V Raman got the Nobel Prize in 1930," Rao said before the award ceremony. (Deccan Herald)
Michigan - Flint: Prayer Room Stirs Up Tension
A room for peaceful reflection and prayer at the University of Michigan-Flint has become a source of interfaith tension between Muslim and non-Muslim students. Complaints started in November that some Muslim students were monopolizing the space and filling it with religious paraphernalia and anti-Israel literature. (AP/Huntsville Times)
Cornell: Jewish Student Community Hosts Israel Chief Rabbi at Commemorative Weekend by Jane Lefko
Rabbi Yona Metzger, Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, arrived on campus just in time for Slope Day, a free-wheeling, riotous, end-of-classes celebration. Wading into the eclectic crowd of assembled students, the tall, bearded rabbi in the immaculate black frock coat and stiff-brimmed black hat listened to the music of rapper Snoop Dogg and invited a young black student, who said he had a Jewish mother, to Kabbalat Shabbat services. A recent issue of the campus newspaper Cornell Daily Sun featured as its centerfold an ad boldly headed; "2,005+ Cornell Students Declare Support for the U.S.-Israel Relationship and Middle East Peace." (Cleveland Jewish News)
Birthright Brings the Jewlicious Crew on Special Trip by Charlotte Hall
In an effort to attract a broader cross-section of Jewish youth, the birthright israel program is bringing a group of North American bloggers who write for the "Jewlicious" weblog to Israel for the first time. "They are coming here in accordance with our efforts to bring special interest groups," says Gidi Mark, birthright israel's international marketing director. The Jewlicious birthright israel trip will include visits to places not found on the itineraries of regular birthright israel trips, such as nightclubs and an underground music spot in Jerusalem that attracts rappers and breakdancers. (Ha'aretz)
Ben-Gurion U: Palestinian American Masters Art of Healing in Israel by Matthew Kalman
Palestinian American Jubran Dakwar was brought up in San Jose and was educated at the University of San Francisco, but when the time came to begin medical school, there was only one place he wanted to study - Israel. It was 2001, the height of the Palestinian intifada, when he started his medical studies, but that didn't deter Dakwar. On Tuesday, he graduated from the Medical School for International Health at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, the same college his father, Sajjiyeh, attended 30 years ago. (SFGate)
Advocates for Israel
The Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County will sponsor a forum in August to teach incoming college students how to become advocates for Israel, and to show them what to do if they are confronted with anti-Jewish sentiments or demonstrations. (Boca Raton News)
Condemn Anti-Zionism As Racism by Judea Pearl
Many condemn anti-Zionism for being a flimsy cover for anti-Semitism. I disagree. The order is wrong. I condemn anti-Semitism for being an instrument for a worse form of racism: anti-Zionism. In other words, I submit that anti-Zionism is a form of racism more dangerous than classical anti-Semitism. Labeling and fighting anti-Zionism as racism is precisely the weapon that our students need for survival on campus. Judea Pearl is a professor of computer science at UCLA and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, named after his son. (New York Jewish Week)
My "Holy" Different Kind of Spring Break by Joshua Petru
Put yourself in the shoes of a graduating college senior. Spring break is rapidly approaching, and the pressing issue is where to go. Friends of mine were heading to the usual locations - Miami, Cancun, Las Vegas, and the Bahamas. I chose a different route, one a lot closer to my heritage and history, Israel. I felt at home in Israel. The surroundings are very different from lovely Ohio, but an inexplicable force spoke to my soul in the Jewish state, welcoming me home. (Cleveland Jewish News)
Ohio State: We Weren't In Any Danger Exploring the Jewish State by Hanna Petru
When I found out that my sister was going to be working in Israel with Hadassah at the same time as my spring break from Ohio State University, I knew it was time to make my second trip to Israel with my brother. The Israeli mentality is one of strength and vigilance. Israelis learned long ago that you cannot let fear dictate your lifestyle, a trait learned the hard way by Americans after 9/11. My most positive experience centered around Purim, described perfectly by a friend of mine as a mix of Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, and Jewish tradition. (Cleveland Jewish News)
Cal State - Northridge: Women Artistically Portray Injustices They Encountered by Jacqueline Torres
Five Middle Eastern women - three from Iran, one from Israel and one from Lebanon - came together for a common cause. During the course of about a year, they have been putting together a body of work that encompassed their experiences, struggles and hopes for the future. Amidst all this pain and struggle, Ettie Lerner of Israel offers a ray of hope. Her work is concerned with the hopeful aspect to all this chaos, that one day, Israel might be as it once was. (Daily Sundail)
Israeli Cinema Makes its Mark at Cannes by Allison Kaplan Sommer
The spotlight was on Israel at the 58th Cannes Film Festival last week, as a result of the popularity of the film Free Zone, directed by Amos Gitai. Israeli actress Hanna Laslo (pictured) took the Best Actress award for the film in which she co-starred with of one of the world's most popular young actresses of the moment - Natalie Portman. (Israel21c)
Ze'evi, Kordon Grab Euro Judo Medals by Frankie Sachs
Arik Ze'evi earned a silver medal and Andrian Kordon took bronze as Israel confirmed its status as one of the top judo nations in Europe. A total of three medals were captured over the weekend at the European Championships in Rotterdam, Netherlands, as Yoel Razvozov earned a silver earlier on Saturday. Israel sent eight judokas - five men and three women - to the European Championships and all but two won at least two bouts. (Jerusalem Post)
Made in Israel
The third annual "Made in Israel" film festival will be held at New York's Sutton Place Synagogue on June 4th-5th. The program includes the American debut of Dana Modan's popular Israeli TV drama "Love Hurts" and other award winnings films including "Campfire, "Turn Left at The End of the World," short films about life in Israel, Video Art and more. The opening night reception will be hosted by Eytan Schwartz (pictured), winner of the Israeli reality TV show "The Ambassador" and a selection of segments from the program will be shown. (Ynet News)
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 - Should Israel Permit Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to Gain Citizenship through Marriage?
Under new regulations adopted last week, Palestinian men over the age of 35 and Palestinian women over the age of 25 who marry Israeli citizens can apply for Israeli citizenship and receive residency rights in Israel. From 1993-2003, some 130,000 Palestinians received Israeli citizenship by marrying Israeli Arab citizens.
| Either Country or Family by Ilan Saban
- Everyone has to see himself as though he wanted to marry a foreign partner, and Israel, his country, were to tell him: either country or family.
- A state has the right to carry out security filtering on those who want to live within it, and if there is a real suspicion against the foreign partner, the state has the full right to reject the couple's request to be reunited in Israel rather than somewhere else.
- But the new law and its amendment totally reject the test of personal danger posed by a person. They are comprehensive.
- The cat is out of the bag - the danger is not related to security but to demographics. But when Israel uses the demographic argument against its own citizens, it stops being Jewish and democratic.
- When the majority community in Israel maintains the immigration quotas for itself (the Law of Return), it is not being undemocratic, because it has the justification that Israel is a fulfillment of the self-definition of the Jewish people.
- But when Israel discriminates not among foreigners (the Law of Return) but among its own citizens, concerning an individual right of the highest degree - the right to start a family without the intervention of the state - it is allowing itself to relinquish a democratic commitment that cannot be relinquished.
- Jewish Israelis do not like to be compared to apartheid, and to be boycotted and excommunicated. But in today's world it is difficult to have your cake and eat it. After all, the apartheid laws did not forbid the partnership of blacks and whites outside of South Africa; they forbade it inside South Africa.
- Can we be blind to the similarity of imposing a de facto ban - for ethnic-national reasons - on partnership of Israeli-Palestinian citizens, and Palestinians who are residents of the territories? Even if we are blind, others won't be.
- Therefore, instead of developing a third identity between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River - the identity of Israel's Arab citizens, who are proud of their nation but pleased with their citizenship in a democratic country - we are increasingly weakening the ties that bind us. We have, unfortunately, become a Jewish and demographic state. (Ha'aretz)
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Israel's Immigration Idiocy
by Caroline Glick
- In 2002, Denmark itself passed one of the toughest immigration reform statutes in the world, and other EU member states like Ireland and Holland are considering enacting similar statutes. The law stipulates that (as is the case in the US) the fact that a foreigner is married to a Danish citizen confers no legal right to reunification with the spouse.
- And yet, as luck would have it, just as the Europeans seem to be taking the first tentative steps towards acknowledging and contending with the dangers posed to their ways of life by separatist and intolerant Islamic minorities, Israel, which faces a much more acute threat of physical destruction from the same forces, is rejecting the wisdom.
- In so acting, the government paid no attention to the views of respected leftist Zionist legal scholars Profs. Amnon Rubinstein and Ruth Gavison.
- In an upcoming article about Israeli immigration policy, Rubinstein argues, "no country allows into its territory people who have attachments to the side that is fighting against the country during an armed confrontation." Rubinstein recommends that in any permanent immigration law, Israel should restrict the entry of nationals from enemy states into Israel.
- For her part, Gavison, the former chairman of the leftist Association for Civil Rights in Israel, recommends that Israel demand that the person seeking citizenship integrate into the public culture and swear allegiance to Israel as a democratic Jewish state.
- Immigration reform advocates on the political Left couch their support for immigration in policymaking terms, arguing that the fact that Israel has yet to set up a methodical policy for non-Jewish immigration is a failure that needs to be addressed. There is no doubt that this is a true statement.
- But Israel, like every sovereign state, has a right, and indeed a duty to its citizens, to engage in selective immigration policies based on economic status, political loyalties, security implications and national origins of prospective immigrants before conferring them with the privilege of Israeli citizenship.
- Sadly, in voting to reinstate Palestinian immigration to Israel on Sunday, our government ministers, unlike some of their wiser European counterparts, failed to take any of these issues into account. (Jerusalem Post)
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