Israelis abroad make excuses

Roi Ben Yehuda is an Israeli, or ex-Israeli, who lives in Spain and writes frequently for Ha'aretz. He previously (see 'Epiphany in a Spanish neo-Nazi bookstore,' Haaretz June 15, 2008) alleged that a Neo-Nazi Book shop is selling anti-Semitic materials in Barcelona. He further alleged that "just about everywhere he looked" he saw swastikas and anti-Nazi graffit. These claims were made by no-one else to my knowledge. They made Barcelona sound like a description of Berlin in 1932. This assertion could not be verified by a friend living in Spain. She notes that the sale of such materials is forbidden by Spanish law and that she did not see much graffiti in or posters of the type described in Barcelona. Perhaps others can enlighten us. Roi's story about Nazi bookstores and graffiti in Spain is therefore dubious, to say the least.

Roi's latest article tells us that many people, including apparently himself, believe that you can be an Israeli living in Spain or the United States or some other country. (See "Why Jews can have more than one home," Haaretz August 26, 2008). As Roi notes, there are as many as 600,000 such "Israelis" living in the United States.

This concept of "Israeli Lite" is shared by many Israelis living abroad. But the truth is that most people can have only one home and are not happy with split identities. You can be an Israeli with Spanish or American citizenship or an American with ties to Israel, but you cannot really be both an American and an Israeli at the same time.

If you live and work in the United States or Spain, your children will learn Spanish or English, and not Hebrew, and they will be Spanish or American. It is not likely they will be Israeli. Sooner or later, they or their children or their grandchildren are going to decide they are not Israelis. Roi is going to find himself less and less Israeli the longer he lives in Spain.

Everyone must make their own choices, but I am fascinated by the phenomenon of Jews who insist on living in various European countries: Spain, Poland, Germany, and also insist on complaining about anti-Semitism in those countries. All those countries have a history of anti-Semitism of course. If you live in France, expect good wine. If you live in Spain or Poland, expect the characteristic specialties of those countries.

In my view, living in Spain and complaining about anti-Semitism is like eating ripe Camembert and complaining about the taste. Often, these claims are clearly exaggerated, as happened in a hoax letter circulated about French anti-Semitism. Is anti-Semitic persecution a part of the "Jewishness" of these folks?

Roi is entitled to his opinion. The question is, why Ha'aretz wants to publish it.

More interesting is the question of why Sara Miller of Ha'aretz, as well as Roi Ben Yehuda himself sent me letters trying to tell me what I can and cannot write about Roi Ben Yehuda and claiming that what I wrote was 'libelous.' Of course, Ha'aretz would be justifiably upset if someone tried to censor them. What I wrote can scarcely be libelous unless there is indeed a major Nazi revival in Barcelona, which no other journalist has reported. Nor did anyone else report that everywhere they looked in Barcelona there are Swastikas. And if it is "libelous," what are we to make of the writings of Gideon Levi, Amira Hass and Yitzhak Laor about Israelis and Zionists? Is Ha'aretz prepared to guarantee that every accusation they make is absolutely grounded in fact and provable in a court of law?

As I have no desire for legal problems with Ha'aretz, the article is duly altered, but the message is the same.
Ami Isseroff

Continued (Permanent Link)

Left and Zionist

Reflections of a Sometime Israel Lobbyist speaks for many Jews, perhaps the silent majority, in expressing our attitudes toward Israel, anti-Zionism and the peace process. But in some ways Fein "doesn't get it." The big problem with Mearsheimer and Walt is not that they don't understand the "Jewish Massada Complex," but that much of their thesis is based on lies. Israel did not push the US into a war with Iraq, and Israel is a strategic asset to the U.S. Jimmy Carter, not a friend of Israel, did not ensure there would be a $3 billion annual aid package to Israel because of the "Israel Lobby." He did it to help ensure US presence and leverage in the Middle East. The "Israel Lobby" is not shutting up Walt and Mearsheimer or Jimmy Carter. Most Jews will not support groups that threaten the existence of Israel because they recognize that Israel is the best thing that happened to Jews in 2000 years, our single greatest achievement.

Still, it nice that at least some few of us still hope that the rightful place of Zionism is with progressivism, and that the rightful stance of the left is support for Israel. Not uncritical support, but certainly support for the right of the Jews to have a state of our own.

If right wing extremists have coopted Zionism, that is in large part the fault of the Zionist left, who largely deserted the arena of defense of Israel, and handed the leadership of the Zionist movement to the right on a silver platter. Fein's article, with all its faults, is therefore a welcome step in the right direction.

Ami Isseroff

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Reflections of a Sometime Israel Lobbyist

By Leonard Fein

HERE'S A SECRET, the kind we hardly acknowledge to ourselves.

But first, you may be wondering who this "we" is, on whose behalf I am writing. In truth, I am not sure. Maybe it is the Jews. But the problem with "Jews" is—well, not all Jews are in on the secret. Or maybe it is the Zionists. But the problem with "Zionists" is that the word has come to seem musty, at best, and in these last several decades it has been appropriated by exclusivist fanatics. So let me spell it out: the "we" here means old-fashioned liberal Zionists, people who intuitively endorse the idea of a Jewish state, people who acknowledge that to secure the safety of that state and to ennoble its character are the compelling Jewish projects of our time, hence people who these days suffer considerable anxiety and are not strangers to disappointment. Things are not going very well, or even just average well.

And what is the secret we hardly acknowledge? We are all for a two-state solution, we are eager to call a halt to Israel's expansion, to put an end to the settlement movement, to restore Israel's good name, to make almost any compromise consistent with the preservation of Israel's character as a Jewish state and its commitment to democracy. We are, in a word, "doves." But we don't trust the Palestinians; we worry about Iran; we haven't a clue about how you get from here to peace; we don't take America's support for granted; and even if we did, we are not exactly proud to have to depend on that support. We worry that Israel has taken multiple wrong turns, not only on the big question, its peace policy, but on a range of domestic issues as well—most notably, its increasingly inegalitarian economy (where it now ranks with the United States on disparities in income distribution); its corrupting entanglement of religion and state; the decline in the quality of its educational system; its manner of dealing with the 20 percent of its citizens who are Palestinian. We are dismayed by the extent of public corruption. In short, we fear that Israel is at risk both domestically and internationally.

Now, none of that is secret. Psychic dissonance is hardly an unknown phenomenon. The secret is that because we are apprehensive, we are not entirely upset that "out there," in the public square, those who speak authoritatively on Israel's behalf—meaning, principally, AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations—are considerably more rigid, more hawkish, if you will, than we are.

Which brings me, of course, to the curious case of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who make a repeated point in their controversial book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, of the discrepancy between "official" Jewish pronouncements regarding American policy toward Israel and the consistent finding of public opinion surveys, which show that American Jews are considerably more dovish than those who speak in their name.

Mearsheimer and Walt don't know the secret, meaning they don't know the Jews. They look at Israel and see the strongest military power in the region, a prosperous, high-tech economy, and they conclude that all the talk of Israel's vulnerability is merely hokum, clever propaganda intended to keep American aid at its (allegedly) wildly disproportionate level. The source of the propaganda, the explanation for the level of American aid? The Lobby. "The Lobby," in their view, is a social scientist's dream; it explains not only America's unconditional support for Israel, it explains everything. Two words, three syllables, and you have the key to the whole of the special relationship: you know why America invaded Iraq, you know why Camp David II failed, you know why both Congress and the administration are without spine in dealing with the chronic conflict between Israel and its neighbors. It's the lies the leaders of the Lobby have told and continue to tell us.

What Mearsheimer and Walt miss (among many other things) is any understanding of the depths of apprehension currently experienced by the Zionist left. On any given day, in connection with any given episode, Israeli officials and much (but not all) of the pro-Israel activist community in the United States may, indeed, repeat the tired slogans, the inflated claims, the whole of the familiar litany of rationalization and justification: Israel is the only democratic state in the region, it faces implacable enemies, it is America's ally in the war on terrorism, its values and America's are the same, its response to threats to its security is measured—all dismissed by Mearsheimer and Walt as false pleadings. That may be true, but it is essentially irrelevant. Whether true or false (and it is at least partly true), the dismissal doesn't speak to Jewish apprehensions, shared fully by liberal Zionists. Our leaders may inflate, exaggerate, even lie; the lies of Israel's enemies are vastly larger. But neither lies nor truths are assessed by a dispassionate lie-detecting machine. They are assessed by people riddled with apprehension, and if there is any one word that captures the substance of the apprehension that word is "abandonment."

For Jews, abandonment is an old, old story. The world may abandon Israel; Israel may abandon the Zionist dream. The project may fail. Look around, the portents are everywhere. There's a rush to disinvestment, a palpable abandonment. There are mainstream claims that Israel's own policies are the necessary and sufficient explanation of the conflict, that Israel is therefore the villain of the piece. And, for liberal Zionists especially, there's the growing fashion of Left alienation from Israel, sometimes (though not always) combined with romanticization of the Palestinians. Nathaniel Popper, a young journalist who works for the Forward, writes that when he reported to his friends on his recent visit to Israel, "they seized on my skepticism—of both the Palestinians and the Israelis—to rail against Zionism. Something snapped; I whipped to Israel's defense, summoning arguments I had heard at the pro-Israel conferences I attend for work." He does not add, but might well, that part of what snapped was his comfort with those friends, his ability to take for granted a roughly similar weltanschauung. Whiplash, and suddenly we are Israel's embattled defenders, perceived as imposters on the left, insufficiently dismissive of the parochial claims of the Jews. Where, then, do we belong?

As if empathy for the Israelis precludes sympathy for the Palestinians. As if this is all a zero-sum game, as if Mr. Bush's gross "You are either with us or against us" were a sober appraisal not only of the battle with terrorism but also of the war between Israel and its neighbors—as if there's no place for qualification, for ambiguity, for nuance. As if there's no appreciation for tragedy.

NADAV SAFRAN was a distinguished professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard.

Born in Egypt, he'd lived in Israel (and fought in its War of Independence) before coming to the United States. His first major book, published in 1963, was The United States and Israel. In his preface to that book, Safran wrote, "I believe that fundamentally both Arabs and Jews have an unassailable moral argument. A person who cannot see how this is possible does not understand the essence of tragedy; much less does he realize that his position serves only to assure that the Palestine tragedy should have another sequel, and yet another."

Safran was prescient. Exclusivists on both sides of the conflict have indeed brought on sequel after sequel, by now an ongoing calamity. It matters not at all which set of exclusivists is the more to blame, which less. What matters is that together they've come to own the crowded stage.

There's Hamas, of course, in a class by itself. There are the settlers and their avid defenders. There are a handful of hard-line American Jewish organizations like the ZOA (Zionist Organization of America). And there are Nathaniel Popper's friends—presumably (I don't know Popper) people of the left—who have neither use for nor patience with the Jewish state. It's racist, it's militaristic, and it's an anachronism. Nationalism was never a good thing, and the Jews were supposed to know that.

AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents are at most unwitting support personnel for the tedious drama. Nominally, they support a two-state solution, which—by definition—the exclusivists do not, and which by now has become the litmus test of a pro-peace (which means pro-Israel and pro-Palestine) stance. True, there are times when they and some right-leaning others set the bar so high that their endorsement of a two-state solution seems little more than lip service. But it is not helpful or accurate to lump them together as part of the exclusivist camp.

THERE'S A dynamic here, worth attending to: where the left has closed the door to Israel, gone beyond tough criticism all the way to demonization, we are left out in the cold; we will have no truck with exclusivists, whether of the right or the left. But while we cannot, do not, will not dance with those who believe that pro-Zionist passion requires the suspension of critical judgment, we prefer the company of those who wish Israel well to the company of those who wish it ill, even though the course endorsed by those who wish it well seems to us too often mistaken.

The left has a hard time with nationalism and is particularly irritated by Jewish nationalism. "Tribalism," they call it, and tribalism it sometimes is. Somehow, it is supposed that the Jews should know better, whether because we have so often in the past been victims of nationalism or because there's something awkward about people who have been comfortable living at the margins suddenly insisting that they have a fixed address and a fire in the fireplace or because nouveau powerful is no more attractive than nouveau riche or because statecraft is not a particular strength of a people of artists, scholars, merchants, a people with so pacific a history as ours. And look, they say, at what a mess the Zionists have made of things. Pacific? Only so long as they were not allowed to carry guns. Now, with guns, they become hunters.

Well, look: though pocked with imperfections, some no cosmetics can mask, the record's hardly one of unrelieved bungling. There are grace notes galore and much to admire: freedom of speech, the rule of law, distinguished science, and an ongoing effort to balance the twin imperatives of the Jewish understanding—on the one hand, the claims of the tribe; on the other the claims of the whole world; on the one hand, the particular; on the other, the universal.

And yet we know there's an urgency to boundaries; Esperanto doesn't work. Again and again, Hillel's questions are heard simultaneously, not sequentially, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" and "If I am only for myself, what am I?" Others may find contradiction here; we find enduring and productive tension.

Some of us get it wrong all the time, opting either for radical universalism or for stultifying particularism. And all of us get it wrong some of the time. But we are held together (when we are) by memories of the dreams we have dreamed, of what it is supposed to be like: the swords into plowshares, the spears into pruning hooks, all under their own fig tree and none shall make them afraid.

Is it necessarily the case that the moment you tie a rag to a branch and call it a flag, you become obsessed with your own narrowly defined interests and to hell with the others? There is that risk, as ample precedent makes clear. And Israel's destiny, in the end, may be to be a nation like all the other nations rather than the light unto the nations that the utopians imagined. In the Jewish tradition, there are two Jerusalems. In the heavenly Jerusalem, Moses teaches, David sings, Solomon dispenses wisdom; in the earthly Jerusalem, there are curses alongside the blessings, people shove in line and cheat on their income taxes, they laugh and hug and hate, grandeur and pettiness cohabit. The haunting question is how the two Jerusalems can be brought closer together.

And maybe they cannot be, neither here nor anywhere. Or maybe they can be, but we are still off course somewhere in the desert. All we have learned so far is that being Jewish does not immunize against the baser appetites and the evil inclinations. And that hurts; we were taught to expect more and better. We had it figured out, what Max Weber called "the theodicy of disprivilege." How does an oppressed people explain its persecuted status? By imagining that it is morally advantaged. That is what we were taught, quite often explicitly: the oppression, the advantage. Now both seem remote. And though we still proclaim our unbending commitment to justice, we also whine a lot.

Some of us have given up, dream dreams derived from other stories; others of us feel betrayed, thereby embittered; and there are those who take their cue from Anthony Burgess in his retelling of the Exodus story (Moses: A Narrative), when the people complained to Aaron: "And one said: 'I don't like this sort of talk at all. It's all blown up, like a sheep's stomach full of wind. Life is . . . life is what we see, smell, feel—the taste of a bit of bread, a mouthful of water, sitting at the door, watching the evening come on with the circling of the bats. The things you talk of are only in the mind. We are too old, I tell you, for this talk of common goals and purposes and journeys.'" Today life is no longer just the taste of a bit of bread or a mouthful of water; these days we have pastries and fine wines. These days, busy meeting with senior officials of the Defense Department to talk about Israel's pressing needs for this new weapons system or that, meeting over at State to make sure that Israel is not pressed too hard, meeting with Members of Congress to trade support for support—who has time or disposition for talk of purposes and journeys?

THE ISRAEL LOBBY includes all those who, because they take neither Israel nor America's support for Israel for granted, because they remain haunted, prowl the corridors of American power to press the case for "the special relationship." And yes, they are powerful, albeit not nearly so powerful as their critics contend. And yes, power, as Acton taught, corrupts. But we know that impotence is even more corrupting. And the strange truth is that we feel both powerful and powerless at the same time. That is how we see ourselves and that is how we see the Jewish state, and that is also how the Israelis see themselves and their nation. We were slaves unto Pharaoh in Egypt and we have known pharaohs ever since; underneath our designer costumes we wear a shroud.

FOR SOME OF US, that means that even with the Land, we still remain in Exile, Exile as an existential condition rather than a geographic space. All the pastries and the fine wines cannot erase our tortured wisdom; though rich, we are not comfortable. We are imprisoned both by our memories and by the world's disorder. Our only remedy is to remain prisoners of hope as well, to remember not only yesterday but also tomorrow, the promised tomorrow.

The world of the lobbyists, by and large, is less fragmented. They have learned to work the system; in some ways, they have become the system. If that were a crime, they would be guilty. But it is not a crime. The argument cannot be whether there should be a lobby or whether, once there is a lobby, it is entitled to be powerful. Those are the givens of the system.

So the argument is really about the means by which the lobby maintains its power and the ends to which it devotes that power. The broadest statement of the lobby's purpose is that it seeks to preserve and enhance the special relationship between Israel and the United States. That relationship has deep and diverse cultural and historical roots; it is not an artifact of which the lobby is the author. AIPAC (and the others) work within a hospitable context; the engine of its power is a vast and devoted grassroots constituency.

And what of the liberal Zionists? Chiefly Americans for Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom—we also lobby, and just as energetically, albeit with considerably more limited resources. Pound for pound, we may even be as effective, as powerful one might say, as the others, but we are welterweights. We do what we can to promote a genuine two-state solution and to reverse those policies of the Israeli government—settlements especially though not exclusively—that stand in its way, thereby evoking rebuke and sometimes condemnation from the mainstream. We insist that "pro-Israel" has many shades of meaning and cannot be a term reserved for the most hawkish of Israel's supporters. We persist in our love of Zion, thereby evoking rebuke and sometimes contempt from erstwhile and natural allies on the left. We believe that classical Jewish values and current Israeli interests are of a piece and, with Seamus Heaney, that one day "hope and history will rhyme."

Leonard Fein is a Boston-based writer and teacher, a regular columnist for the Forward, founding editor of Moment magazine, and a member of the board of Americans for Peace Now.

Continued (Permanent Link)

Is Israel a democracy?

Dr. Eugene J. Fisher Responds to America Magazine Editorial, "Israel at 60"

While I can sympathize with much of the America editorial, which quite rightly reminds readers
of the needs, plight, and rights of Palestinians, I can only say that the statement that Israel
is not a democracy in the Western sense is ill conceived and very misleading.  It seems to
presume that all Western democracies have never had any problems with minorities,
unlike Israel.  Say again?  The USA has not, ever (according to this editorial) ever in any sense
mistreated its native American or Black American or, currently its Hispanic American citizens? 
And the French and British and Germans are not, right now, having problems dealing with their
Arab/Muslim minorities, and none have ever, ever persecuted their minorities?

I'm sorry.  Israel may not be a better Western democracy than the USA, England, France, Germany,
Denmark, etc., but to say it is not one of us is to entirely miss the point of what defines Western
democracies, which for all our faults I will defend and, therefore, perforce, defend our friend Israel.

Dr. Eugene J. Fisher
Great Falls, VA. 22066

(Dr. Fisher is the Former Associate Director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB))

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www.christianfairwitness.com

Continued (Permanent Link)

Ahmadinejad predicts: Israel will disappear again - but Ha'aretz got it wrong

Ha'aretz's story Ahmadinejad predicts Israel will be 'swept away' by Palestinians is wrong. It states:

 

It is the second time within less than three years that the Iranian president predicted the eradication of Israel.

The first time was in 2005 when Ahmadinejad hoped that Israel would be eradicated from the Middle East map.

 In the first place, Ahmadinejad didn't say in 2005 that he hoped Israel would be eradicated from the Middle East map (or "wiped off"). What he said was that Imam Khomeini said there would be a world without Zionism and America, and Ahmadinejad believes this goal is feasible. This can be checked easily, though there is not really much difference between what he did say, and what he was widely reported as saying.

 

Secondly, Ahmadinejad has predicted the demise of Israel several times since then:

 

Jerusalem Post, Dec 2, 2006:

 

 

Ahmadinejad went on to say that, "Today scores of Western politicians are in doubt as to the future of this illegitimate regime and its existence has come under question.

 

"There is no doubt the Palestinian nation and Muslims as a whole will emerge victorious," the Iranian president told Haniyeh.

"The continued commission of crimes by the Zionist regime will speed up the collapse of this fictitious regime," said Ahmadinejad.

And Ynet, November 13, 2006:

 

 

Ahmadinejad: Israel's destruction near

Published:  11.13.06, 08:53 / Israel News

According to the Iranian media Monday, Iranian President Mahoud Ahmadinejad declared that Israel was destined to 'disappearance and destruction' at a council meeting with Iranian ministers.

"The western powers created the Zionist regime in order to expand their control of the area. This regime massacres Palestinians everyday, but since this regime is against nature, we will soon witness its disappearance and destruction," Ahmadinejad said. (AFP)

 

On June 3, 2007, Foxnews reported:

 

"God willing, in the near future we will witness the destruction of the corrupt occupier regime," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying during a speech to foreign guests who attended ceremonies marking the 18th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who is known as the father of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

 

 

Compare the above with the current story:  

 

"This terrorist and criminal state is backed by foreign powers, but this regime would soon be swept away by the Palestinians," Ahmadinejad said in a press conference in Tehran.

 

Ami Isseroff

Continued (Permanent Link)

Being pro-Israel on Campus

Ilana Diamond's complaint about Israel advocacy on campus is common to many of us. Progressive and Middle of the Road Zionist groups are conspicuous by their absence. Surely a large group like Arza should have some campus presence in the fight for Israeli legitimacy? Ilana writes:

It is extremely hard to fight fire with fire and remain respectable. The images the pro-Palestinian groups put onto posters are deplorable. Texans for Israel will try to avoid the pity ploy, but on today's college campuses it seems that that's what it takes to gain support for a cause. A group has to be loud, crude, over the top, and gut wrenching for their message to be heard. Simply showing the positive side to a cause no longer captures attention.

Pro-Israel activists can talk up the positives of Israel until we are blue in the face, but until someone sees Israelis as victims, they will just ignore our message.

Indeed, it is sad that what "works" among these "budding intellectuals" is blood, gore and sensation, "personal messages" and the like, rather than facts and rational argument. The cult of Rachel Corrie and Yasser Arafat is a much more effective advocacy tool than a dozen boring tracts about international law.

Ami Isseroff

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It's lonely being pro-Israel on campus

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ilana Diamond , THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 15, 2008

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Many people put much faith into average college students, assuming that they are curious enough to explore every facet of information given them. But people who think this of college students are severely misguided.

The majority of college students are looking for something to believe in. So when pro-Palestinian on-campus groups wave around posters with pictures of "mutilated" Palestinian children, it's easy for students to fall into the "Israel is the aggressor" trap.

This is a widespread problem on numerous college campuses - not only in the United States, but Canada and European countries as well.

On the University of Texas at Austin campus, where I am a student, it's a daily problem. There are some five pro-Palestinian student groups currently active on campus. Guess how many pro-Israel student-run groups there are. One.

Well, maybe two. There is also the Union of Progressive Zionism, but I am not yet convinced that their main battle won't be fighting the "occupation."

Meanwhile, one could say there are about seven institutionalized forces working against Israel on the UT campus.

This year alone, these groups have brought in speakers such as John Mearsheimer, author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, a book denouncing AIPAC; Alison Weir, journalist and the founder of If Americans Knew, a group that argues the US is sending too much money to Israel and that the Palestinian plight is underrepresented in American media; Neturei Karta Rabbi Dovid Weiss, who attended Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial conference and is a member of Jews United Against Zionism; and Anna Baltzer, a pro-Palestinian American Jew.

Needless to say, the Palestinian sympathizers at UT know how to make their events look credible, and the events are usually well attended. This is the part where putting too much faith in college students starts to go wrong.

STUDENTS ATTEND these lectures and hear how AIPAC is supposedly wasting taxpayer's money, how Israel is supposedly brutalizing and killing innocent Palestinian children, and so on. The organizers of these events know these issues are compelling, and that any Joe-shmoe is going to sympathize with their cause.

The average college student attending is likely to be hearing about the Arab-Israel conflict for the first time, and can end up believing that what they've just learned is the whole story, thus creating a large problem for pro-Israel activists.

It is especially undermining when some of these anti-Israel speakers are of Jewish heritage. Students interpret that to mean that if a Jew doesn't like Israel, then Israel must be really bad - so it's ok if I don't like Israel either.

In fact it is not uncommon to see scattered clueless middle-class kids schlepping to class with a keffiyeh around their neck because they sympathize with Palestine and believe they are wearing a "freedom scarf," as is called by the clothing store Urban Outfitters.

To combat anti-Zionism on campus, TFI (Texans for Israel) has brought in speakers such as Middle East expert and former Jerusalem Post editor David Makovsky, Nonie Darwish, the Muslim-born Christian who founded Arabs for Israel, and David Brog, the founder of Christians United for Israel.

However when speakers like these appear, Palestinian sympathizers come and make accusations against them. A member of the Palestine Solidarity Committee got up to ask Nonie Darwish a "question" which began: "You can't be serious. You are not a serious speaker. What are you trying to accomplish by speaking to a bunch of white American Jews?"

Nor can these relatively few speakers compete with the onslaught of weekly posters put up around campus with pictures of bloodied Palestinian children, body bags, and misquoted statements from Israeli officials seeming to suggest that Palestinians are asking for it. For some reason - perhaps the way the media covers the conflict - many college students seem to be more skeptical of pro-Israel speakers than anti-Israel ones.

SO FAR TFI has taken a non-confrontational stance when addressing the gory posters and signs claiming "Zionism equals racism." The Palestine Solidarity Committee even protested at an Israeli cultural event that had nothing to do with politics - proving that it is not aiming for peace or even dialogue.

However in response to the recent "Apartheid Week" (that actually went on for two weeks) and the Campus Anti-War Movement to End the Occupation which displays posters with cartoons comparing Gaza to Auschwitz, TFI is stepping up our game, and preparing exhibits on the current situation in Sderot, minus the overwhelming gore.

It is extremely hard to fight fire with fire and remain respectable. The images the pro-Palestinian groups put onto posters are deplorable. Texans for Israel will try to avoid the pity ploy, but on today's college campuses it seems that that's what it takes to gain support for a cause. A group has to be loud, crude, over the top, and gut wrenching for their message to be heard. Simply showing the positive side to a cause no longer captures attention.

Pro-Israel activists can talk up the positives of Israel until we are blue in the face, but until someone sees Israelis as victims, they will just ignore our message.

But is it right for pro-Israel groups to capture attention by exhibiting photos of suicide bombing victims? Or life under continuous rocket attack?

Israel prides itself on being able to quickly pick up the pieces and move on. By stooping to the level of showing bombed-out homes, are pro-Israel groups helping or hurting the country? I am not sure.

Luckily the semester is almost over, and we will have a whole summer to gear up for another 10-month-long war of words and rethink the tactics we are using.

The writer is a sophomore at the University of Texas at Austin studying journalism and Middle Eastern studies. She was a Jerusalem Post intern last year.

Continued (Permanent Link)

To the people of Sderot and Ashkelon: Grim Restraint and Fierce determination

In these days, it is important to remember: Arab terror attacks are not new, and casualties are not new. We have seen much worse times in this country. This personal account of the Ben Yehuda Street Bombing of1948 reminds us of the essentials. In the bombing, over fifty people were buried in the wreckage and destruction wreaked by Arab terror.

The letter was not written by a spinmaster, a blowhard politico or a Zionist "Hasbara" master. It was written by an American young lady, a student in Jerusalem in 1948, who had joined the Haganah. She arrived on the scene of the bombing and set up a first aid station.

Zipporah Porath wrote:

I am becoming like the Jews who live here: every shock and sorrow nurtures you to grim restraint and fierce dedication.

That is something to think about for the frenzied op-ed writers, who tell us every day that the sky is falling. A 60 year old lesson in being an Israeli, 101, from a young student and new immigrant. This is what we do when the sky really does fall!

Ami Isseroff

Continued (Permanent Link)

The Silver Platter - a Memoir of 1948

A memoir of Palestine 1948 - immigration and defense

This is a memoir of Aliya Bet Ha'apala (illegal immigration) and fighting in Israel's War of Independence. It is one man's story. Together with other such stories (Memoirs of a Palmach volunteer, 1948, Was there Ethnic Cleansing in Palestine in 1948? it tends to disprove the claims of Israeli superiority in the war, and other myths that were circulated about unwilling immigrants who were forced to come to Israel from the DP camps of Europe. It also counteracts the fabricated notion that the war was initiated by "Zionists" for the purpose of "ethnic cleansing" of Palestine. The author fought to defend a kibbutz that was attacked by the Egyptian army.

Israelis, like everyone else, were not perfect, and some of the mistakes and frictions of the early years are evident in this story. It might be much "nicer" to provide a prettified version of events, but we want to relate history, not to reinvent it, as some others are doing.

The title, The Silver Platter, is a reference to the famous poem, "The Silver Platter," written by Natan Alterman soon after the United Nations Partition decision in 1947, an advance tribute to the youth who would fall in the coming war.

Ami Isseroff

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The Silver Platter

Shlomo Ramon

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Where we came from

We were born 1928 and 1929, as Wenzelberg and Glaser, respectively. Greta`s family lived in the Polish city of Bielsko in Polish Silesia, but she was born in Vienna, so that her mother would get proper care after a fist stillborn child. I was born in the ski town of Zakopane in the Polish Tatra mountains.

We lived in our towns until the outbreak of WW2, when our parents had the sense to escape the invading Nazis by going to the east of Poland – each unaware of the existence of the other. This saved our lives, but it meant being exiled by the Soviets to the Urals or Siberia. We were forced to stay out there, in the frozen wastes, until almost the end of WW2.

The Soviets then restored our Polish citizenship, and we were allowed to go "where we pleased" within the Soviet Union. By some chance both our families selected a town placed on a major rail line, named Chu in central Kazakhstan By that time Greta was already a full orphan and I had lost my father. She had to work for survival. I went to school and worked part time. We became acquainted while I was working as cinema projector operator and could get her in to see a movie for free.

Back to "homeland"

By the end of 1945 we were allowed to return to our homeland –Poland. The trip was in a cargo train and lasted 5 weeks, as train had a very slow priority on the system. The cargo cars were equipped with large shelves for sleeping and even had a cooking stove- to heat up whatever food could be scavenged in the railway stops. Greta travelled as a part of a group organized to join a kibbutz in Palestine, and I was with a mother and young brother.

When the train crossed the border, it became very clear that the "homeland" did not want us back. People were yelling: " What? the Soviets take our coal in a train and use the same train to send us Jews! " Some people were pulled off the train and murdered. When we got back to Krakow, my mother decided to stay for a while – to try to sell some family real estate. I joined a "kibbutz group" intended to join kibbutz Neveh Eitan in Palestine.

I understood the hard way that I have no fatherland and had better look for a new one. Prior to that time, we were not a Zionist family and I had no idea that Jews are a nation and should have a state of their own too.

Long way to Palestine

After passing through Slovakia our group arrived at a temporary DP (Displaced Persons) camp in Salzburg. We registered as DPS under false names so as to receive the DP benefits: food and lodging. Our instructor (Madrich) who came from Neveh Eitan to prepare our group for kibbutz life, organized all aspects of our daily life. There were other temporary camps in Austria: Vienna, Innsbruck, and other places.

There were also permanent DP camps, mostly in Germany, where people grouped waiting for their immigration visas to other countries.

From Austria our group went (illegally of course) to Italy to wait for our clandestine ship. First we went to a very nice place called Bogliasco, on the Genoa seashore. It turned out that the British knew all about us and no ship would be allowed near the place by the British Navy. So we went to the south, to place called Metaponto near to Bari to wait for our Aliya Bet (illegal immigration) ship.

Eventually we did board the Hayim Arlozorov (ULUA - See SS Ulua -- the story of underground Aliyah, by Arie (Lova) Eliav, am Oved, 1977;
In Hebrew: Hasfina Ulua, Sipuro shel Arthur, Hotza`at Am Oved, Tel Aviv, 1977. (dedicated to Tanya)

Most of illegal immigrant ships were barely floating wooden vessels. Hayim Arlozorov was the first very solid steel ship, originally built as naval escort during WW1. Our group of immigrants to be ("maapilim") first boarded the Rosa, renamed "Shabtai Losinki" on 2/47 from the bay of Taranto in South of Italy. The ship had no luck. A couple of days after sailing, there was a hole in ship`s bottom and it barely returned to Taranto in danger of sinking. All the maapilim descended and began to wait on the shores of Matponto for another ship. Meanwhile, the Rosa was repaired and eventually discharged several hundred ma`apilim in Palestine, next to Nitzanim. One of the members of the Jewish crew was Moti Fein (later Hod) my future CO in the IAF.

The ship Uloa arrived a couple of weeks later and anchored a couple of miles from the shore. The water was shallow there –the only way to board was by sailing from the shore to the ship in rubber boats, which we did. The ship had come all the way from Sweden , where it took on 700 ma`apilim, mostly women survivors of Bergen Belsen who were allowed to enter Sweden after liberation.

The Uloa was in bad shape. It had survived a heavy storm in the Atlantic and had very little food and drinking water, not much room either. The crew commanded by Lyova Eliav (Arthur) loaded most of us plus some food and water. Lyova met his future wife Tanya among the ma`apilim.

In addition to the 700 or so and people from Sweden there were about 700 more boarded in Metaponto. The"Swedish" passengers threw most of their suitcases and belongings over the board to make some room for the "Italians". The ship had no passenger facilities at all, except for the crew, all maapilim were loaded into ship cargo holds. Holds were outfitted with 5 or six layers of wooden floors, separated by about 50 cm in height and leaving only a few passages. On the planks they put mattresses. We were told to get on a mattress, stay there and not move around except for going to toilet. Using toilets was another exercise in torture,, There was no flushing water and very long wait – queue arranged by special detail. We were fed, rarely, sandwiches that were brought to our mattresses. No one was allowed on the topside to prevent the Brits seeing us, but in retrospect it only prevented us from getting some fresh air and forced people to vomit on the mattresses or in passages – adding another horror. Women were separated from men.

The ship was jam packed and sailed east, towards Crete. It was soon intercepted by Royal Navy ships – five destroyers. The Brits were never able to board because of our active resistance. They forced the ship to sail in the direction of Haifa harbor, but the captain Arazi steered her toward Bat Galim and beached her on the ground rocks there. The crew tried to scuttle the ship by opening the scuttlecocks, but the Brits boarded and prevented the scuttling.

I shall never forget my first view of Mount Carmel and the beach crowded with locals from Bat Galim who tried to help us get down. Some people tried to swim ashore but were fished out by the Brits.

The ship was there for many years, part of the Bat Galim view, until dismantled for salvage.

The Brits took all us forciblu to their deportation ships to Cyprus anchored in Haifa harbor, such as Empire Rival.

Continued here

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Right Wing Rabbis and anti-Israel extremists agree: Hang Olmert

For once, there is unanimous agreement on an issue. Attendees at a conference of Rabbis agreed enthusiastically to Rabbi Wolpe's call to hang Israeli leaders, including Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, Haim Ramon and Ehud Barak. Anarchists have a similar idea it seems

 

In a discussion of the death penalty at the Al-Jazeera Web site, Minsa from Hampstead England wrote, "

. Yeah, right - so go hang Olmert for the terrorist murder of over 1000 innocent Lebanese civilians."

 

We were in this movie once before. We know how it ends...

 

Ami Isseroff

Right-wing rabbi calls for PM's death

JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

Government leaders should be hanged for negotiating with the Palestinians, Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe told an audience of rabbis in Tel Aviv, according to a Channel 1 report aired Wednesday night.

"The terrible traitor, [Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert, who gives these Nazis weapons, who gives money, who frees their murderous terrorists, this man, like Ariel Sharon, collaborates with the Nazis," Wolpe told a conference of rabbis who oppose transferring parts of the West Bank or Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority.

"[Olmert's punishment], and the punishment of [Vice Premier] Haim Ramon, and the punishment of [Foreign Minister] Tzipi Livni, and all these people, like [Defense Minister] Ehud Barak, should be to hang from the gallows," Wolpe said to the cheering crowd.

The comment came after news circulated during the conference that one of the terrorists who killed two Israelis in the South Hebron Hills last Friday was a PA security officer.

Among those attending the conference were MK Arye Eldad (National Union/National Religious Party), MK Meir Porush (United Torah Judaism), Kiryat Arba-Hebron Chief Rabbi Dov Lior, Kise Rahamin Yeshiva head Rabbi Meir Mazuz, and former MK Elyakim Haeztni, who joined in the accusations that Olmert was responsible for the deaths of the two Israelis last Friday.

Ramon issued a statement condemning the speeches at the conference: "It is regretful and worrying that more than a decade after the murder of a prime minister in Israel, these people haven't learned a thing, and still continue down the path of incitement that endangers the foundations of democracy in Israel," he said.

Also according to Channel 1, an anarchist group recently uploaded pictures onto their Web site depicting Olmert with a picture of a grenade on his head and the words: "He deserves it."

There was no comment from the Prime Minister's Office.

Source

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The Church's Witness on Issues in the Arab/Israeli Conflict

Introduction

This is a discussion of the witness of the American Churches with regard to the Arab/Israeli conflict.(1) Christians for Fair Witness on the Middle East is concerned that a bias against the state of Israel has emerged within many of the mainstream Christian denominations. This prejudice is reflected in a troubling willingness to lay the blame for the conflict in the Middle East on Israel's shoulders while saying very little about any culpability the Palestinians or Arab nations might have. An example of this bias is found in the Divestment and other resolutions that have been passed by various Protestant denominations since 2004. In these resolutions, history seems to begin after the 1967 Six-day war ended, and the "occupation" and Israeli policies are focused on as the sole cause of the conflict. Some of the Christian commentary on the conflict has become quite extreme, with accusations of apartheid, Nazi-like behavior and attempts at ethnic cleansing, all aimed at Israel. This does not serve the cause of peace and justice.

In the past year there has been an increase in attacks on the fundamental legitimacy of a Jewish state. That begins to send out very serious warning signals.

While some of this we understand is rooted at least partly in a wholesome, righteous, gospel centered and legitimate concern for Palestinian suffering, it incorrectly assumes that the party suffering the most at a given moment is the most innocent party and it is flawed in its refusal to acknowledge the complexity of the situation.

Continued here: The Church's Witness on Issues in the Arab/Israeli Conflict

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Are these people Zionists??

I found this on the "American Zionists" email list. Next time these sort of people tell you they had nothing to do with the murder of Yitzhak Rabin, don't believe them. They are murdering more than Rabin.

The grotesque perversion of this sort of message is monstrous, and the feelings of disgust it generates are hard to describe. "Last night's hate-filled TV eulogies" were beautiful tributes to a hero of Israel. "Rabin never apologized" indeed. The Altalena people never apologized for trying to break the law. If they have their way these people will turn Israel into something like Gaza. People who incite against the heros of the Zionist movement, people who incite against the democratically elected government of Israel are not Zionists.

$#%@%!*$!

Here is the email of the blogger who wrote what is below: shilohmuse@yahoo.com. Tell her what you think.

Ami Isseroff
shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2007/10/catching-tails.html
Catching Tails

.....


Israeli politicians are like cats trying to catch their tails. They are the antithesis, the exact opposite of what true leaders really are.

Last night's hate-filled TV eulogies of Yitzchak Rabin revealed more of his underlying rationale for Oslo. Believe me, Olmert's not the first tired Israeli politician. Yitzchak Rabin was also tired. One of his confidants, sorry, but I forget who was talking, explained that during the Gulf War of US President Bush The First, Rabin was depressed by the sight of cars streaming out of Tel Aviv. He looked at those Israelis fleeing their homes and knew that they were his kind of people, the ones whose votes he wanted. That's why he liked the Oslo Accords. It suited Israelis who had no problem fleeing their homes. Even better, those Israelis got to keep their homes, while the patriotic Land of Israel loving Israelis would, G-d forbid, be exiled from theirs.

Yes, instead of offering leadership and encouragement to the Israeli citizens, Rabin packaged a plan based on the worst and weakest of the Israeli psyche.

True to form, Rabin never apologized for his violence against fellow Jews during the Israeli War of Independence. He was a dedicated follower of Ben Gurion who feared competition for leadership and ordered Menachem Begin to be killed when the Altalena tried to dock to deliver fighters and arms to free the Old City of Jerusalem. Yitzchak Rabin was the commander of the Palmach unit which attacked the Altalena and killed their fellow Jews, Hashem Yikom Damom, May G-d Avenge Their Deaths.




Labels: Altalena, Yitzchak Rabin

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A new approach for Zionism?

Headline:
Firing Up The Unaffiliated

Can this be the way to get young Jewish people interested in Israel and Judaism?


What it is about...

How a small Israel advocacy group is having a big impact on secular Jewish twenty-somethings.
Jewish Week

Gary Rosenblatt - Editor And Publisher

Alexa Silverman, a 20-year-old student at Hofstra University, describes herself as a secular Jew who "had a problem with the way Judaism was taught" when she was young.

Benjamin Turk, 27 and working in sales, was raised Reform and was a counselor at a Zionist summer camp, but says that even then he was "skeptical" about Israel and its actions.

Katherina (Katt) Guttman, 28, with a career in fitness management, grew up in Staten Island, where she was "always proud to be Jewish but didn't know why."

For the American Jewish community, the quest to reach people like Silverman, Turk and Guttman — young adults who are unaffiliated or on the margins when it comes to identifying with Israel, Judaism and communal activities — has become the modern-day Impossible Dream. Every synagogue, federation and Jewish organization wants them. But most young people just aren't interested — or worse.

"In sharp contrast to their parents and grandparents, non-Orthodox younger Jews, on the whole, feel much less attached to Israel than their elders," noted sociologists Steven M. Cohen and Ari Y. Kelman in a new study called "Beyond Distancing: Young Adult American Jews and Their Alienation From Israel." What's more, the authors conclude that "mounting indifference to Israel" has grown into "genuine alienation" for many young Jews who "profess a near-total absence of any positive feelings about Israel."

More than half of those under 35 surveyed did not agree with the statement that "Israel's destruction would be a personal tragedy."

All the more reason why our community should be paying more attention to a little-known success story, a low-budget, nonprofit group based in New York called Fuel For Truth (www.fuelfortruth.org), which has made impressive strides in making pro-Israel advocates and activists out of primarily secular, disaffected Jews between the ages of 18 and 34.

Among its most fervent volunteers are Silverman and Turk, who spend hours each week recruiting new members or planning events. And Guttman left her job last year to work full time as Fuel For Truth's director of operations.

What's the secret formula? No magic, say the group's leaders, but rather an emphasis on creating a strong social network built on volunteerism, seeking leadership types with good communication and organizational skills, and instilling in them a passion for the Zionist cause.

9/11 Impetus

Fuel For Truth was founded six years ago by Jonathan Loew, now 36, and about a dozen friends, all secular, who were upset at the negative media portrayal of Israel during the second intifada. They had been talking about starting a group to educate their peers about Israel, but the 9/11 attack gave them the sense of urgency to move forward.

"We realized the clear connection between the enemies of the U.S. and of Israel," said Loew, an investment banker with a background in media, "and we accelerated our planning."

Group members started visiting college campuses in the Northeast, looking for students who were popular socially, and asked them to help plan a social event on campus that mixed music and alcohol with small doses of "basic information" about the Mideast conflict, beginning with the notion that Israel is a democracy that has been rebuffed repeatedly in its efforts to make peace with its Arab neighbors.

The organizers were amazed at how little the Jewish students knew about Israel or Judaism.

"We asked them how many Jews there were in the world, where the word Jew comes from, where Israel is on the map," recalled Loew, "and they just didn't know. It was really sad when they would tell us, `I just learned more in 15 minutes about Israel and Judaism than what I've learned in my whole life.'"

Based on the campus response, Fuel For Truth expanded and started holding social events with 500 to 1,000 young people or more in popular Manhattan clubs once or twice a year, in addition to holding events at seven colleges in the Northeast.

Operating with a modest budget ($250,000, mostly from individual donors), the group now has two full-time employees, and its eight volunteer committees handle fundraising, recruitment and information for its 200 active members.

Several years ago Fuel For Truth added a "Boot Camp" program for 20 select volunteers — 10 consecutive Tuesday nights of three-hour educational sessions to train future leaders of the group, many of whose recruits have gone on birthright israel trips.

At a recent Boot Camp session, held on the second floor of a hip East Side restaurant, the participants heard from a young Mideast scholar at Harvard, who offered a 20-minute "crash course" on Israel's wars since 1948. Then a non-Jewish Green Beret veteran of recent combat in Iraq spoke passionately about the need for Israel and the U.S. to respond to their militant Islamic enemies pre-emptively.

"Stop sleeping," he warned. "The war is on, and they're out to get us."

The mood of the evening was a curious mix of relaxed informality, a macho emphasis on Jewish strength and Zionist indoctrination, with tips given by group leaders on how to organize fundraising events to support Fuel For Truth (a requirement) and how to make Israel advocacy points in conversations with peers while avoiding unpleasant confrontations or arguments. After the sessions, many of the participants go out for a beer together.

Zionism Lite?

"We teach them social advocacy first," says Joe Richards, 34, a former actor and friend of Loew's who is now the full-time executive director of Fuel For Truth. "You need to establish social relations with people before you can introduce political advocacy." His advice is part communications skills, part educational techniques — like smiling, making eye contact, being a good listener and avoiding confrontations.

"Always have a message triangle of three solid facts you want to get across," he told the Boot Campers. For example, Israel is a democracy, Arabs living in Israel have more rights than those living in Arab countries and the PLO was founded to "liberate Palestine" three years before Israel captured any Arab land in the 1967 war.

Richards also advised the group to spend five minutes in social settings presenting five facts about Israel to five people, and then change the subject. "Don't overdo it," he said.

Some critics point to the social aspects of Fuel For Truth and its bite-sized educational approach and dismiss it as Zionism Lite. But research analyst Frank Luntz, in a report for the group on its impact, found that "you are filling a void that no other Jewish organization has filled," most notably in attracting young people with little previous knowledge of or interest in Israel.

"You have engaged new people in new ways," he wrote, noting that most members don't attend synagogue. "You are clearly reconnecting disconnected Jews with Israel, and that may well be the first step to reconnecting them on other levels as well."

Such praise makes founder Loew all the more frustrated with the relative lack of financial support his group has received from major foundations. He wonders why those who are spending millions of dollars to verify that young Jews are feeling alienated toward Israel aren't recognizing Fuel For Truth's unique approach to dealing with the problem.

"We make them [young Jews] confront their own ignorance and their own self-doubts. We lead them in a direction, but they choose their own paths," he said, adding that unlike most Jewish groups, Fuel For Truth plays hard to get.

"When young people are begged to join a group, they won't do it. But if it's exclusive, they want to be in. We turn it around and say, `We have a great organization and we'd like to know what you'll bring to it.'"

Volunteers must work their way up the ranks through attending Boot Camp or showing other leadership skills. Loew is critical of organizations that "tell inexperienced 22-year-olds to join as Young Leaders."

"The volunteer aspect is key for us," said Guttman, who said she came to work for Fuel For Truth because she felt she could have a significant impact on people. "If we don't reach our members, then we're nothing."

While there is no one silver bullet for inspiring uninvolved Jewish young people, it's clear that Fuel For Truth is onto something. American Jewish organizations and foundations would do well to sit up and take notice.

© 2000 - 2002 The Jewish Week, Inc.

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The Jewish Agency and immigration to Israel

Headline: PM: Jewish Agency still has key role in bringing Jews to Israel
OK - so let them bring Jews. What is it all about? Like everything else that is not about sex, it is about money and power. Groups like Nefesh benefesh and Nativ have succeeded in bringing many more Jews to Israel than the Jewish Agency, whose functionaries have not functioned very well in about forty years.

The Jewish Agency workers protested:

Following the decision, the Agency's workers union held a stormy meeting that resulted in a letter to Olmert accusing him of "breaking the old agreement between the Jewish Agency and the government of Israel over exclusivity in encouraging Aliyah and belittling the Agency's experience and its emissaries whose enormous efforts brought three million people from over the world to Israel."

The problem is that many of these people came to Israel in spite of the Jewish Agency rather than because of it.
Horrible regimes in Arab countries, as well as Nazi and Polish persecution, are among the factors whose "enormous efforts" brought those three million Jews to Israel. Nearly every immigrant has a tale of woe connected with the Jewish agency and its functionaries. Groups that were established to bring immigrants rather than to be the Jewish Agency have done much better in bringing immigrants from places like the North America, where nobody is chasing Jews out. Consequently, the government has made allocations of funds to these groups permanent. The Jewish agency meanwhile, has not been contributing its promised share to Nefesh benefesh, causing budgetary shortfalls.

A few modest suggestions -

1, The available funds should be allocated among the organizations in proportion to the number of immigrants they have brought to Israel, and the number they undertake to bring in the coming years.

2. A small number of jobs in these organizations - on the Israeli side - should be allocated to new immigrants. "Oleh mevi Olim" - an immigrant brings immigrants.

3. A special agency should be set up to bring back some of the estimated 800,000 Israelis living in North America.

4. The government should undertake to examine the reasons why Israelis leave, and to show yearly progress in stopping the "brain drain" of trained Israelis to North America and Europe.

Ami Isseroff

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Avram Burg: always interesting, not always right

A Chinese curse: "May you lead an interesting life." Avram Burg is always interesting, because he makes sure to be interesting. Let's face it, unless you make noisy