"60 years of occupation"?

When people talk about "60 years of occupation," what do they mean? Occupation of what? Israel has occupied the West Bank and the Golan Heights since the 1967 war. Gaza is not now occupied by Israeli troops, nor are there any Israeli settlers living there - although I think one could fairly argue that Israel still controls Gaza because of how it limits entry in and out. The occupation of Gaza thus lasted from 1967 to 2005.

The only piece of territory that Israel has "occupied" for 60 years is the land within the armistice lines of 1949. A quote from a local "anti-occupation" organization says "This art installation [a fake checkpoint] aims to provide a glimpse into the daily lives of Palestinian civilians who have been living under a violent military occupation for the past 60 years."

Does this statement mean that the Palestinian citizens of Israel have been living under a violent military occupation for that period of time? It is true that until 1966 Arabs in Israel lived under military rule - but not since then. And while there is discrimination against Arab Israelis, and there have been some violent clashes between Israeli Arabs and the police, it is not true to say that they are living under a "violent military occupation." In fact, some Arab Israelis serve in the Israeli army - especially those from the Druse, Bedouin, and Circassian communities.

Thus, while the quoted statement is factually incorrect, it seems to me that it implies something else too - that the state of Israel itself, within the Green line (the armistice lines of 1949) is merely an illegitimate military occupation, with all that implies legally. Those who "occupy" land are supposed to leave it at some point and hand it back to its legitimate occupants. Thus a reference to "60 years of occupation" is actually a statement that the existence of the state of Israel is in itself illegitimate, and that those who live in Israel by virtue of the establishment of the state are also there illegitimately. The Jews who arrived in Israel in the wake of statehood therefore have no legitimate status - they are merely "settlers" who have illegally settled in an occupied territory. And, simply, they must now leave and return to their homes - which of course, do not exist any more... (at least, those Jews who came from Poland or Iraq or Tunisia or Ukraine).

Such is the possible meaning of a little phrase....

Hamas, once again, doesn't recognize Israel

As against those who have argued that Hamas has actually recognized Israel and wishes to negotiate with it, see these comments from Mahmoud al-Zahar, who along with Ismail Haniyah has just emerged from four months underground in Gaza.

"We cannot, we will not, and we will never recognize the enemy in any way, shape or form," Mahmoud al-Zahar, one of the two leaders, said in a mosque sermon broadcast on the Islamist movement's radio station, referring to Israel.

So how can anyone parse that as meaning that Hamas does recognize Israel?

If Iran is so great, Roger Cohen, why is Roxana Saberi in Evin Prison?

Update Roxana Saberi was released from Evin prison in Teheran and permitted to leave Iran with her parents.

Roger Cohen's brown-nosing for the Iranian regime doesn't seem to deal very satisfactorily with events like this:

NPR.org, April 18, 2009· An Iranian court has convicted U.S. Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi of spying and sentenced her to eight years in prison. Saberi, who has reported for NPR, only recently learned of the espionage charge.

Saberi's lawyer was not allowed to ask the court about bail. She has been jailed at Evin Prison in Iran since Jan. 31.

The deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Robert Mahoney, says her sentence is too harsh.

"We believe that Roxana Saberi's trial was not transparent," he said. "And it does not seem that she has been treated fairly. We would call on the Iranian authorities to release her on bail pending appeal because we believe she should not be confined in Evin prison.

NPR's CEO Vivian Schiller says Saberi has already been held in for three months. Schiller has appealed to the Iranian government to show compassion and allow Saberi to return immediately to the United States

I'm starting to think that Cohen is like those left-wing idiots who shill for the Cuban regime, like the "Pastors for Peace" I wrote about a few years ago. I just went to the "Tompkins County Against War and Occupation" website and found out that the local "Pastors for Peace" group is going to Cuba again soon to bring aid to people. Make no mistake - I have no argument with bringing the aid. I also believe the U.S. should life the embargo on Cuba - I see no point to it, it certainly hasn't toppled the Castro regime, and it's cruel to the people of Cuba. But don't mistake my opposition to the embargo with any kind of support for the Castro regime.

Here's a statement from the latest posting at the TCAWR website that indicates why I think these people are idiots -

If the ban on travel to Cuba actually is lifted in the Congress as it appears it may be, my guess is Americans will flock to Cuba to see for themselves what life in a state that puts people before profit looks like. If enough Americans go perhaps the Congress will think that that flood of “freedom loving Americans” will benignly topple the socialist regime. My guess and fervent hope is that the reverse will happen. Americans will return home and demand socialized medicine, education and the elimination of homelessness that Cubans currently enjoy and have for many decades.

No, I think that if Americans start to visit Cuba, they will see ancient American cars and crumbling buildings and think how lucky they are not to have to live in Cuba! And if these same Americans actually know something about how the Cuban regime works, they might even protest the oppressive regime and those people who have been imprisoned for years for working for true democracy there (not "democratic centralism")!

Here's a recent Human Rights Watch press release about Cuba:

For almost five decades, Cuba has restricted nearly all avenues of political dissent. Cuban citizens have been systematically deprived of their fundamental rights to free expression, privacy, association, assembly, movement, and due process of law. Tactics for enforcing political conformity have included police warnings, surveillance, short-term detentions, house arrests, travel restrictions, criminal prosecutions, and politically motivated dismissals from employment.

Cuba’s legal and institutional structures have been at the root of its rights violations. The rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, movement, and the press are strictly limited under Cuban law. By criminalizing enemy propaganda, the spreading of “unauthorized news,” and insult to patriotic symbols, the government curbs freedom of speech under the guise of protecting state security. The courts are not independent; they undermine the right to fair trial by restricting the right to a defense, and frequently fail to observe the few due process rights available to defendants under domestic law.

Now that I think about it a bit more, Roger Cohen is exactly like the Pastors for Peace - calling for the right policy (engagement, not embargo) for absolutely the wrong reasons, and in the process, presenting a regime that oppresses its own people and has done so for decades in an unrealistically rosy light.

This is my country

This is my country?!

Interrogation Memos Detail Harsh Tactics by the C.I.A.

methods included:

keeping detainees awake for up to 11 straight days,
placing them in a dark, cramped box
putting insects into the box to exploit their fears.
waterboarding - "The United States prosecuted some Japanese interrogators at war crimes trials after World War II for waterboarding and other methods detailed in the memos."
forced nudity
the slamming of detainees into walls
prolonged sleep deprivation
the dousing of detainees with water as cold as 41 degrees.

Why aren't we prosecuting the lawyers who wrote the memos that tortured legal reasoning to permit torture?
Why aren't we prosecuting the interrogators who inflicted these tortures? And the medical personnel who supervised the inmates to make sure they wouldn't die under these conditions?

Because we're afraid of hurting the feelings of some CIA agents?

Because they were "only following orders"?

the Nuremberg principles declare:

Principle II
The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.

Principle IV
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

Our President taught constitutional law - isn't he aware of these principles? If we do not punish our own people who commit war crimes, then any other court in the world would be justified in arresting these people and putting them on trial.

We are still in the "low dishonest decade" if we don't hold those people accountable who made this torture possible and who actually tortured.

Wolpe, Cohen, and Iran

I haven't blogged on Roger Cohen's exceedingly puzzling columns on Iran, its Jews, and Israel (although I have posted a few comments on other people's blogs), but I would now point to Rabbi David Wolpe's account of Cohen's visit to his synagogue in Los Angeles to speak to the Iranian Jewish members of the synagogue (it's about half Iranian Jews): Rabbi David Wolpe: Clashing Over Iran and the Jews.

The encounter came about because of a suggestion by Jeffrey Goldberg that Cohen go there to meet with some Iranian Jews who were not constrained by the Iranian regime because they didn't live there anymore.

Well, Cohen doesn't appear to have learned anything from his conversation with these people. Compare Cohen's article with Wolpe's to see how there was definitely no meeting of the minds (as Cohen says).

I think that Cohen somehow became convinced of a mirage when he visited Iran - that the regime is really much more moderate than it presents itself to be. I don't know how he gained this impression, given the statements of Ahmedinejad and more to the point of Ali Khameini about Israel. He seems to have conflated his pleasant personal experiences in Iran with the political reality there.

I'm also in favor of the U.S. talking to Iran, rather than branding it a member of the Axis of Evil, but I think we should do so in full consciousness of who we're dealing with - a regime that oppresses its own people, that treats Jews as second-class citizens, that executes homosexuals, that persecutes Bahai's (who are not recognized as members of a legitimate religion), a regime that is very probably doing its best to acquire the atom bomb, a regime that supports Hezbollah and Hamas both morally and militarily. At this point, I think that it's in the interest of the United States to be talking to Iran, not fighting it. But our government should not have any illusions about the regime that it is talking to. I'm glad to see that Obama seems to have this same consciousness of the nature of the Iranian regime when he advocates talking to them.

A new center for Judaic Studies - at Jerry Falwell's university

Jim West reports on the new Center for Judaic Studies at Liberty University, which was founded by Jerry Falwell. According to the Liberty Journal, Dr. Randall Price has just become the Executive Director of the new center. "In order for Christians to support Israel effectively, Price said, they need to understand both Jewish history and importance of the modern state of Israel in Biblical prophecy that God will fulfill. 'If we’re not supporting Israel, then we’re not … understanding [God’s] program as it unfolds in history. And in fact we’re probably on the wrong side of history because we’re not with God in the thing that matters most to Him,' Price said." (Emphasis mine) They're going to be raising money for an endowed chair and eventually want to establish a "separate School of Judaic Studies."

In no version of academic Judaic Studies that I'm aware of is the "importance of the modern state of Israel in Biblical prophecy" a legitimate subject of inquiry, except in analyses of contemporary evangelical theology of Israel. I suspect that Price and his cohort would receive a very cold reception if they propose papers on such a subject (except from an analytical perspective) at the annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies.

This is not a legitimate center for Judaic Studies - it is a sham, designed to deceive the students at Liberty University into thinking that they're really studying about Judaism. In actuality, they'll just be looking into a mirror of their own beliefs about Jews and Judaism.

I will be very curious to hear if they ever decide to hire a Jewish scholar of Jewish Studies to teach at this center (that is, one who has not already converted to evangelical Christianity).

Raphael Haim Golb arrested

Last summer I wrote about a panel on Women and Qumran at a conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls that was held at the Israel Museum. In the comments to the posting I received a couple of comments by "Museum Ethics Controversy" and "peter.kaufman2," claiming that there was a deliberate attempt at this conference and others to suppress the views of those disagreeing with the majority scholarly consensus that identifies the scrolls as having belonged to the library of the sect quartered at Qumran, who are generally agreed to be the Essenes whom Josephus wrote about (although there are important scholarly disagreements about this proposition).

It turns out that these comments were probably made by Raphael Haim Golb, who has been posting under many different aliases with the aim of forwarding his father's theories (Norman Golb) about the origins of the scrolls. Robert Cargill has documented Golb's aliases (by the way, in his article, he carefully does not identify the person who posted under all of the aliases, but instead demonstrates that all of the aliases were the same person), including Peter Kaufman. Raphael Golb was just arrested in New York City for identity theft, impersonation (of Dr. Lawrence Schiffman), and harassment.

The defendant, RAPHAEL HAIM GOLB, was arrested on charges of identity theft, criminal impersonation and aggravated harassment. The crimes in the Criminal Court Complaint occurred during the period of July to December of 2008.

The investigation leading to today’s arrest revealed that GOLB engaged in a systematic scheme on the Internet, using dozens of Internet aliases, in order to influence and affect debate on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in order to harass Dead Sea Scrolls scholars who disagree with his viewpoint. GOLB used computers at New York University (NYU) in an attempt to mask his true identity when conducting this Internet scheme. He gained access to NYU computers by virtue of being a graduate of the university, and having made donations to its library fund.

For more information, see the article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, which also explains how Cargill became involved in the issue.

Robert R. Cargill, an instructional technology coordinator at the University of California at Los Angeles's Center for Digital Humanities, has for the last two years been tracking the activity of an academic cyberbully who, writing under as many as 60 different aliases, has been waging a campaign to harass and defame opponents of Norman Golb's theories about the origin of the 2,000-year-old scrolls.

He said that by tracking the Internet protocol addresses attached to a number of e-mail messages, blog posts, and other Web activities, he was able to conclude with reasonable certainty that the perpetrator was working from a series of computers at the Bobst Library. (An IP address is a unique number, assigned by Internet-service providers, that identifies every connection to the Internet.)

Mr. Cargill, who has carefully refrained from making any direct accusations against Raphael Golb or his father, Norman Golb, declined to say whether he had assisted the district attorney's investigation.

Mr. Cargill began tracking the cyberbully—whom he calls the "Puppet Master"—two years ago after he himself was targeted. At the time, he was a doctoral student at UCLA helping to produce a film about Khirbet Qumran—the site in present-day Israel where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered—and its inhabitants for an exhibit on the scrolls at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

Mr. Cargill said it was then that the aliases began attacking him and his film, both in e-mail messages to his superiors and on various Web forums, for failing to give credence to Norman Golb's long-held theory about the origin of the scrolls and how they came to Khirbet Qumran.

I had wondered why the commenter was so vehement in his assertions on my blog. I rarely post on the Qumran scrolls and didn't expect to find a reply that dealt with such a specific issue of controversy.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef rules women may chant Scroll of Esther for men

This is a fascinating story and halakhic decision from the most prominent Sephardic rabbinic authority in Israel today. Rabbi Ovadia rules women may chant Scroll of Esther for men.

Women are allowed to chant the Scroll of Esther on behalf of men if no competent men are available, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Israel's Sephardi community, ruled last week in a landmark decision liable to outrage many of his Ashkenazi counterparts.

Esther is traditionally read in synagogue on the holiday of Purim, which this year falls next week. And while some rabbis have long permitted women to read the megillah, or scroll, for other women, most do not allow women to read on behalf of men.

In his weekly Torah class on Saturday night, however, Yosef discussed the rules of reading the megillah and ruled that not only may women read it in front of men, but the men will thereby have fulfilled their obligation to hear the scroll read.

"It is permissible for a woman to fulfill this obligation on behalf of men," he said, because the obligation to hear the megillah falls equally on men and women.

Yosef said that most rabbis forbid women to read the megillah on the grounds that men are forbidden to listen to women sing, because a woman's singing voice can stimulate sexual arousal. However, he said, he does not agree that a woman chanting a sacred text is the kind of singing that stimulates sexual arousal. The analogy rabbis have drawn between singing and chanting sacred texts has "no value," he declared.

Yosef said women should not read for men if there are men capable of doing the reading. But in a "small community" where there are no men capable of chanting the text properly, it is permissible to bring a woman to read, he ruled.

Yosef also said that women could write a kosher Scroll of Esther - another task that most rabbis say can be done only by men. He said that ancient megillahs written by women have been found in Yemen, and it would be permissible for women to do so today as well, "to earn a living for their household," since women "were part of the miracle" that the megillah describes.

However, he admitted wryly, it is an open question "whether anyone would buy it."

In both cases, Yosef's rulings were specific to Megillat Esther and do not necessarily apply to other sacred texts, such as the Torah.

Jewish women mystics

I just sent in my paper proposal for the Society of Biblical Literature meeting this fall:

Female Jewish mystics in late antiquity: real women or literary construction?

The Egyptian Jewish philosopher Philo reports on the Therapeutics, a first-century C.E. Jewish monastic group with both male and female members, who engaged in allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures and ecstatic ritual celebrations. The Testament of Job, a retelling in Greek of the book of Job, describes Job’s three daughters as hymning God in the languages of the angels, and Joseph and Aseneth, an expansion in Greek of the biblical story of Joseph’s marriage to Aseneth, describes how Aseneth’s prayers invoke the angelic captain of the heavenly host. Why could these works depict the contact between women and angels in a positive fashion? What factors made it possible for the Testament of Job and Joseph and Aseneth to portray a mystical ideal for women as well as for men? Do these works offer any evidence that real women engaged in mystical contemplation, or do they simply explore the exegetical possibilities through literary depictions? Does Philo’s account of the Therapeutics provide any guidance towards the social setting of composition of the Testament of Job or Joseph and Aseneth, or hint towards the type of woman likely to be involved in mystical contemplation?

Last summer in Israel I did quite a bit of research on Joseph and Aseneth and discovered how thorny the questions are about its composition. There is a real difference of opinion between those who think that it's probably a first century BCE or CE Egyptian Jewish work, and those who think it's much later and may be of Christian provenance (Ross Kraemer argues that the book is later). One problem has to do with the manuscripts and figuring out the recensions and which one might be older than the others. Kraemer argues that a shorter recension is earlier and more original, while other scholars like Christian Burchard argue that the longer recension is the earlier one. I tentatively decided to follow their lead, because their arguments seemed better, but I have the sense that it's very hard to tell without devoting a couple of years to going through all the manuscripts and trying to figure out the process of recension myself, something which I don't have the time to do.

It is really a fascinating book, however, and regardless of when it was written or by whom, it's well worth spending time on it and trying to figure out what's going on in it.

Avigdor Lieberman's epic chutzpah

Surprisingly enough, a Christopher Hitchens column about Israel that I actually agree with, on Avigdor Lieberman.

Now we have to watch the rise of a thug and a demagogue who has called with relish for the execution of elected Arab members of Israel's parliament if they meet with Hamas, who has demanded the drowning of Palestinian prisoners in the Dead Sea, whose supporters chant "Death to the Arabs" at their rallies, and who has materialized the worst fears of those Arabs who have made the longest-lasting accommodation with the Jewish state. Avigdor Lieberman's essentially totalitarian and Inquisitionist style, though, may be even more manifest in his insistence that non-Zionist haredim, or pious Jews, also either take an oath of loyalty or forfeit their citizenship. This takes the ax to the root of the idea that Jews have a presence in Jerusalem from time immemorial and that their resulting rights are not derived from, or dependent on, any state or any ideology. Shame on Benjamin Netanyahu if he makes even a temporary alliance with Lieberman. As questionable as the "right to return" may already be, it certainly cannot confer the right to expel.

I knew about the racism, the call for the execution of Arab members of Knesset who meet with Hamas (what about Israeli officials who are actually negotiating with Hamas right now?) and the threat to Israeli Arabs' citizenship. I hadn't known that he made the same threat to the non-Zionist haredim. No wonder Rav Ovadya Yosef (the leader of Shas, the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox party) warned that a vote for Lieberman was a vote for Satan: "Whoever votes for Lieberman gives strength to Satan."

I haven't written earlier about the results of the Israeli election on Feb. 10 because frankly I find them so depressing. Any election in which Bibi Netanyahu is not the worst choice elected is really a bad sign.

Waltz with Bashir does not win an Oscar

I'm disappointed to see that the Israeli film Waltz with Bashir did not win an Academy Award tonight, but rather a Japanese film called Departures. I saw the film last summer in Israel and thought it was excellent, and just participated in a panel discussion about it when it was recently shown in Ithaca.

Venezuela - database of Jewish community stolen

One of the scariest part of the attack on the Caracas synagogue is what was stolen - two computers in the synagogue that contained the database of the Jewish community of Venezuela. This information could be used, obviously, to target any member of the community as an individual - for example, for a kidnapping or extortion, a physical attack - or the community as a whole, for example by rounding them all up or expelling them from Venezuela.

Daniel writes about this:

In one of the most perturbing aspects of the Caracas Synagogue attack we learned that among the stolen items was the registry of all Jewish families associated with Tiferet Israel and the Jewish community of Venezuela, including we suppose the amount of gifts offered by each to help sustain the Temple and diverse charities....

By the way, the article listed above establishes without a doubt the "professional" nature of those who were doing the night attack. My guess is on Cuban trained Venezuelan "security" personnel. Chavez is welcome to prove us all wrong at any time by bringing forth the real guilty party. I am not holding my breath.

More on Venezuela

The Associated Press reports that Venezuela's Jews fear more attacks.

About 15 people overpowered two security guards at the Tiferet Israel Synagogue, shattering religious objects and spray-painting "Jews, get out" on the walls. Most worrisome, according to Elias Farache, president of the Venezuelan-Israelite Association, was their theft of a computer database containing many names and addresses of Jews in Venezuela.

Police are now posted outside the synagogue, and prosecutors said Friday that the security guards "could be involved." Venezuela's attorney general ordered them to court on Feb. 13 — two days before Venezuelans vote in a referendum that could enable Chavez to extend his rule indefinitely.

One week before the invasion, a Chavista columnist named Emilio Silva posted a call to action on Aporrea, a pro-government Web site, describing Jews as "squalid" — a term Chavez often uses to describe his opponents as weak — and exhorting Venezuelans to confront them as anti-government conspirators. "Publicly challenge every Jew that you find in the street, shopping center or park," he wrote, "shouting slogans in favor of Palestine and against that abortion: Israel." Silva called for protests at the synagogue, a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses, seizures of Jewish-owned property, the closure of Jewish schools and a nationwide effort "to denounce publicly, with names and last names the members of powerful Jewish groups present in Venezuela."

Aporrea later replaced the column with an apology that describes Silva's posting as anti-Semitic and exhorts Chavistas to show more discipline by criticizing the Israeli government rather than its people or Jews in general.

Silva, a 35-year-old mathematics professor at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela, got the message. He told The Associated Press Friday that he couldn't comment on the "controversial subject," and that his "position is to condemn any act that goes against the integrity of any faith or conviction."

But other anti-Semitic writings by Silva remained on the site Friday, including one posted on Jan. 19, a week before the synagogue attack. That posting also crudely criticized a Venezuelan archbishop for failing to condemn Israel's Gaza offensive; offices of the Vatican have been tear gassed twice since then....

Hate crimes have escalated despite Chavez's declaration that his government "rejects any type of aggression against any temple, be it Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, or any other." And the attorney general's statement Friday gave no details about any progress investigating a list of more than a dozen threats against Jews that the Venezuelan Confederation of Israelite Associations gave her office a week before the synagogue attack.

The group said one threat involved a rabbi who was leaving a Jewish school in Caracas when two men, one wielding a broken bottle, shouted: "Jew, we are coming for you!" A nearby taxi driver offered refuge and sped him away.

Other Jews have stopped wearing yarmulkes while walking to temple on Friday evenings. Simon Galante said he and his brother now fear for their safety after being accosted by men on motorcycles yelling "Murderers!"

"Thank God, nothing more occurred ... we continued walking and ignored the comments, but it's very sad," said Galante, who joined a demonstration against the attacks this week.

Feb. 5: Heidy Gordon, 85, left, and her husband Andres Gordon, 88, survivors of Auschwitz concentration camp, attend a protest against anti-Semitism.

Some more information from the Latin American Herald Tribune:

After five days, with eyewitnesses and video evidence, there is increasing criticism of the government for not identifying the perpetrators of the attack. "A source close to the investigation in the government security services confirmed to the Latin American Herald Tribune that a group of Palestinian and Arab supporters in Venezuela were responsible." Chavez is blaming the opposition for the attack - despite the fact that the opposition would have no reason to attack a synagogue.

Supporters of Chavez have continued this theme and have even blamed the Mossad: "Susana Kalil, a member of the Organization for the Relief of the Palestinian People, pointed the finger at Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. She claimed that Mossad had done it in order to damage the image of Chavez' revolutionary process. She went on to claim that the attack on the Jewish house of worship is typical of Mossad and the Zionist movement worldwide, 'putting bombs in their own synagogues and then accusing the rest of anti-Semitism.'"

Since 2005, Chavez has started a campaign against Jews in Venezuela by saying, "The world is for all of us, then, but it so happens that a minority, the descendants of the same ones that crucified Christ, the descendants of the same ones that kicked Bolivar out of here and also crucified him in their own way over there in Santa Marta, in Colombia. A minority has taken possession all of the wealth of the world, a minority has taken ownership of all of the gold of the planet, of the silver, of the minerals, the waters, the good lands, oil, of the wealth then and have concentrated the wealth in a few hands." This statement of course includes classic anti-semitic tropes - Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus and are trying to take over the world.

The article goes on to say: "Since then he has twice raided Jewish schools and community centers - always close to or on the eve of a visit by the Iranian President - in a continuing campaign that analysts trace back to one of his mentors, the un-repentant anti-semite and Holocaust-denier Norberto Ceresole."

On Ceresole, from the ADL:

Norberto Rafael Ceresole, who died in 2003, was an Argentine sociologist and political scientist, who identified with Peronism and left-wing militias. He was labeled throughout his life as neo-fascist and anti-Semitic because of his Holocaust denial and hatred of Zionism and Israel.

Cresole was one of Chaez's mentors. He came to Venezuela in 1994 at the same time Chavez was being pardoned by President Caldera for his 1992 coup attempt. Cresole was exiled from Venezuela in 1995 by Caldera for his alleged ties with Islamic terrorists, but he returned in 1998 after Chavez's victory and wrote a book entitled, "Caudillo, Ejercito, Pueblo" (Leader, Army, People) about the Chavez revolution. The introductory chapter is titled, "The Jewish question and the State of Israel" and it blames Israel and the world Jewish community for his exile.

Ceresole claimed that Jews use the "myth" of the Holocaust to control the world, although he contended he wasn't an anti-Semite. He repeatedly stated that he has nothing against Jews, but that rather he was against the State of Israel for using the Holocaust for political gain.

Anti-semitism in Venezuela

When I was growing up I believed that anti-semitism was an affliction of the past - it was not something that was going to affect me. It was something that happened before I was born - the Holocaust was over and Jew-hatred in the United States had come to an end after the horrific revelations of the Jewish deaths at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. I did not even know any survivors when I was growing up - the one time I saw someone at a family bar mitzvah with a number on his arm I was frozen with shock, and never talked about it with my parents. I hardly experienced any anti-semitism on a personal basis.

As I grew older, I began to read articles about attacks on Jews outside of Israel - for example, the attack on the synagogue on the Rue Copernica in Paris in 1980, which killed 4 people outside while 600 were at Shabbat services inside. Or an attack on August 9, 1982, the Goldenberg restaurant on the Rue de Rosiers in the Marais (Pletzl) in Paris was attacked by Abu Nidal - six people were killed and 22 were wounded. But it was clear that these were acts of terrorists, not of the government of France. I could still think - well, there may be occasional anti-semitic terrorist attacks on Jews outside of Israel by people who are twisted enough to think that all Jews should be blamed for whatever Israel does. I believed that outside of the Arab and Muslim world, governments will protect Jews, they will not conspire against them - and there are now hardly any Jews left in the Arab-Muslim world, so we are still relatively safe in the world.

The news coming out of Venezuela has shattered this illusion that I had still nurtured from my childhood. The Venezuelan government is consciously fomenting Jew hatred and the fruits of this teaching have issued forth in the form of direct attacks against Jews, Jewish schools, and synagogues. This is the first time I can remember in my lifetime that there has been a deliberate governmental anti-semitic campaign in a non-Arab or Muslim country.

Daniel Duqenal, of Venezuela News and Views, translates part of an anti-semitic article published in Aporrea, which is supported by the Venezuelan government: Teaching antisemitism in Venezuela. The anti-semitic article gives instructions to Venezuelans on how to conduct an anti-semitic campaign: boycott Jewish-owned shops or restaurants, or any shops where kosher food is sold; scream at Jews in the street about the Palestinians, denounce any Jew living in Venezuela, especially if owns a business, and questions whether a Jewish school named Hebraica should exist.

The synagogue in Maripérez was attacked a couple of days ago - it was desecrated by thugs.

As Daniel writes:

I did not think that yesterday's post would be validated that fast: the synagogue of Caracas was attacked last night by a group of pro Chavez thugs. They knew perfectly well what they were doing, they knew how to find the Torah and left taking with them the surveillance videos. The antisemitism of Chavez is now having serious consequences....

The government was prompt in taking its distances from the Synagogue attack. Unfortunately for the government even if it can prove that there is no direct links between its Red Shirted storm troopers and the attack, Chavez and his acolytes have been saying too many things against Israel (when not the Jews themselves) not to take blame from this attack. It also does not help the credibility of the government that the "condemnation" was emitted during a political act where the Venezuelan diplomatic expelled from Israel was received as heroes. As if they ever held a stone in some Intifada....

At least elsewhere the condemnation was certainly less ambiguous, showing clearly that any antisemitism in Venezuela is to be found almost exclusively in the chavista ranks. The Catholic Church, the dissident Student movement, the political opposition did not waste time. For many the finger is pointed to the hate speech coming from the government itself, something that this blogger has been writing for years now, and which is today quite open from scholars to some of the best legal minds of the opposition.

Hugo Chavez did "condemn the actions on the synagogue of Caracas" on Sunday, while hinting that opposition leaders actually plotted to attack the synagogue.

The ADL said the incident was not random, rather it was "directly related to the atmosphere of anti-Jewish intimidation promoted by President Chavez and his government apparatus." The ADL called for Chavez to "abandon the official government rhetoric of demonization of Israel and the Jews and to publicly denounce this wanton act of anti-Semitic violence."

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro condemned the attack and promised it would be investigated, while reiterating his government's opposition to what he called Israel's criminal government. "We respect the Jewish people, but we ask respect for the people of Palestine and their right to life," Maduro said in a ceremony called to welcome home two Venezuelan diplomats expelled from Israel this week. [RL: what does Palestine have to do with an attack in Venezuela?!]

The Israeli Foreign Ministry ordered the envoys to leave after Venezuela expelled all Israeli diplomats on January 6th, to protest Israel's offensive in the Gaza strip. Chavez labeled Israeli leaders as genocidal, as nearly 1,300 Palestinians are said to have died in the 22-day offensive in Gaza. [RL: And if Israel had actually wanted to commit genocide, many thousands more of Palestinians in Gaza would be dead now]

Leaders of Venezuela's estimated 15,000-member Jewish community warned that vocal denunciations of Israel by Chavez and the country's government-funded news media may have encouraged Friday's attack. "These declarations permeate society," said Abraham Levy, president of the Venezuelan Confederation of Israelite Associations. "We feel uncomfortable, threatened and intimidated," said Elias Farache, of the association.

The Argentine office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, condemned the attack and warned of an anti-Semitic campaign in Venezuela.

Chavez in 2005 sparked outrage in the Jewish community by stating that those who killed Jesus Christ had become the owners of the world's riches. A Venezuelan Jewish organization later came to Chavez's defense, denying the statement was anti-Semitic.

And to think that good leftists in the United States and other western countries consider Hugo Chavez a wonderful revolutionary leader whose Bolivarian Revolution we should all emulate. He is nothing more than a fascist wrapped in the flag of socialism and revolution.

See also Adam Holland on the anti-semitic campaign of the Venezuelan government. And a report on Z-Word about the attack on the Caracas synagogue from Eamonn McDonagh, who usefully provides English translations from Venezuelan newspapers for the Spanish-impaired.

Updated Post on the Israeli election campaign

The Israeli election campaign is in full swing, and election propaganda is a crucial part of it - advertisements from the various parties broadcast after the evening news on television. Jeffrey Goldberg brought my attention to an incredible advertisement for the Israeli Green Leaf party. The party platform aims at legalizing marijuana. They have now decided to take up the cause of Holocaust survivors in Israel. Their election ad combines these two causes:



Update: From the JTA: "Perhaps the most unusual alliance in this year's election is between the Green Leaf Party, which has no seats in the Knesset, and the Pensioners' Party, which has six. Renamed the Holocaust Survivors' and Grown-Up Green Leaf Party, the party's prime issues are legalizing marijuana and pensioners' rights, especially those of Holocaust survivors. One of the party's TV ads shows party head Gil Kopatch smoking a joint at the grave of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion."

Lisa Goldman has also just posted on this bizarre match-up. (She also reports on the much more terrifying prospect that Bibi Netanyahu may be Israel's next prime minister - and as she said, he was the worst Israeli prime minister ever. I was living in Israel for part of that time, and he demonstrated the most amazing incompetence I have seen until the Bush II years in the U.S.)

From the "Holocaust Survivors and Grown-Up Green Leaf Party" website: "The Holocaust Survivors & Grown-Up Green Leaf party is a green, human rights, liberal movement founded in 2008 as a unity of activists from the Green-Leaf party and the Holocaust Survivors movement. Today we running for Knesset for the first time. The ideology we are interested in forwarding is personal freedom, quality of life and decriminalization and legalization of all applications of the cannabis plant. We are a movement of activists that are connected by a common love of Basic Human Freedom. We have no stable source of financial backing and only you can help us realize our vision by giving your personal generous support." Their blog is also entertaining to read and gives the names and biographies of the candidates on the list.

Lisa has also posted the election advertisement for the Hadash Party. Their slogan is "Jews and Arabs Refuse to be Enemies." On the evidence of the ad, if I were an Israeli citizen, I would be very inclined to vote for Hadash.

U.S. campaign for academic boycott of Israel

There is now a U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, alongside the British one that the UCU was forced to halt because it broke UK anti-discrimination laws. See this article in Inside Higher Ed for information on the campaign. This is in addition to a group called Teachers Against Occupation, which recently formed, and which publicized an open letter to President Obama written by David Lloyd (USC) and signed by about 900 academics. For the text of the letter and the signatories, see article in the Daily Star (Lebanon), also available here.

It's a very dispiriting letter, placing the entire blame on Israel, accusing it of committing "one of the most massive, ethnocidal atrocities of modern times." The last paragraph says that, "Almost certainly, the only hope of a lasting solution is a single state in Israel/Palestine, committed to the civil and human rights of all peoples within its boundaries, irrespective of religion or ethnicity. That is, after all, the standard to which we hold all other states in the world, Israel alone excepted."

What do they mean by a single state - what would happen to the Jews living in this single state once they are a minority in it? How can the Jews of Israel and Hamas live together in a single state without an even worse state of war than the one that exists right now? I'm not defending what Israel has done in Gaza - I think I've made it clear in this blog that I think that Israel should not have attacked Gaza, that negotiations are the only way to peace, that Israel should be talking to Hamas.

A single state is not the way to peace, it is the way to perpetual war. It is the way to worse atrocities than the ones we have just seen committed.

Even more dispiriting to me personally is that I know some of the people who have signed this letter.

Update: Haaretz today (1/29/09) has a good article on this boycott attempt.

Vatican: Comments by Holocaust-denying bishop unacceptable

Now the Vatican has said that comments by the Holocaust-denying bishop were unacceptable.

In a front-page article, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano reaffirmed that Pope Benedict XVI deplored all forms of anti-Semitism and that all Roman Catholics must do the same....

The Vatican has stressed that removing the excommunication by no means implied the Vatican shared Williamson's views.

Williamson and three other bishops were excommunicated 20 years ago after they were consecrated by the late ultraconservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without papal consent - a move the Vatican said at the time was an act of schism.

Benedict has made clear from the start of his pontificate that he wanted to reconcile with Lefebvre's traditionalist Society of St. Pius X [SSPX] and bring it back into the Vatican's fold.

Lefebvre had rebelled against the Vatican and founded the society in 1969. He was bitterly opposed to the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that brought liberal reforms to the church.

One of the key documents issued by Vatican II was Nostra Aetate, which said the Church deplored all forms of anti-Semitism. The document revolutionized the Church's relations with Jews.

In the article, L'Osservatore said Benedict and his predecessors had all made clear the Church's teaching on Nostra Aetate in documents, actions and speeches and that its contents are not debatable for Catholics.

"Williamson's statements, broadcast last week in a Swedish state TV interview, contradict this teaching and are thus very serious and regrettable," L'Osservatore said. "While broadcast before the Jan. 21 document lifting the excommunication, they remain unacceptable," it said.

This is good as far as it goes - but what about the anti-semitic opinions of Lefebvre and the SSPX itself? Why does the Pope want to welcome these people back into the church if he is so devoted to fighting against anti-semitism? See these two articles from the SPLC website on the group - the first one is about Williamson, and the second one is about the SSPX. The SSPX is itself a thoroughly anti-semitic group.

Bad news for Catholic-Jewish relations

Pope Benedict has just let back into the church four bishops who were excommunicated in 1988 by Pope John Paul II. The French bishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated them and then he and the four bishops were immediately excommunicated by Pope John Paul II for defying his authority. The Society of St. Pius X, to which they belong, denies the legitimacy of the Second Vatican Council, which made Catholic-Jewish reconciliation possible when it absolved the Jewish people of the charge of deicide and denounced anti-semitism with these words: “The Church deplores all hatreds, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism leveled at any time or from any source against the Jews.”

One of these bishops is a man named Richard Williamson, who denies that the Holocaust occurred and believes in the truth of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

As Ruth Gledhill (Times of London) says:

If Benedict XVI goes ahead with lifting the excommunication in spite of Bishop Williamson’s comments, that will in turn wreak havoc on more than 40 years of attempts to rebuild relations with the Jewish community after nearly two millennia of Christian anti-Semitism culminating in the Holocaust.

The damage will be doubled, coming as it will on top of the Pope’s revival of the Tridentine Mass last year with its Good Friday prayer for the conversion of the Jews.

She also says:

If he brings them back in with Williamson on board, then truly it will be a disaster. Vatican II might as well never have happened and it won't just be the Jewish community that would be justifiably disgusted. For many thousands of lay Catholics the world over, this could be the final proof that what the atheist bus campaign suggested was true: 'There probably is no God.' At least not the God that Williamson and his like believe in. Who could blame them, then, if they put traditionalist Catholic guilt aside, and get on and enjoy their lives.

Andrew Sullivan's response: "I am truly, deeply ashamed of my church for this action and hope this provokes such an outcry it is reversed. These are not the words of Christ. They are the words of evil."

An article in Der Spiegel outlines what Williamson has said and what the Society of St. Pius X has done. (Translation from cathcon.blogspot.com)

Problem for the Pope

A bishop of the Society of Pope St Pius X denies the holocaust.

Anti-semitic tendencies lead to tension between German Catholics and the Central Council for Jews in Germany.

The history of the Catholic Church is also the history of separations from her, of heresy and of error. When the religious deviationists win many supporters, they can be considered, like the Protestants, a church and when rather they remain among themselves, they can be considered as a sect.

Presently, one of the most important splits in the Catholic religious universe is an association of priests, which takes its name from an especially pious Pope, named “The Society of Saint Pius X”. The group founded in 1970 by the conservative and later excommunicated Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre celebrates the Mass in Latin to this day, holds confession in high honour and fights in general things which conform to “an anti-Christian consumer and fun-fuelled society”.

The fundamentalists are thoroughly successful in conversion work. Just in Germany, they have about 10000 supporters and worldwide dependent operations in over thirty countries. In more than fifty places in Germany they have a church or at least a chapel. “We are the tip of the spear against the further destruction of Church and society” says the German district superior, Father Franz Schmidberger, convinced by himself.

The reality is that the Society is so subversive that the top of the Vatican recently tried to bring them back into the womb of the Church. Since Pope Benedict XVI invited the General Superior of the Society, Bernard Fellay and his German representative Schmidberger to his summer residence in Castelgandolfo a great shuttle diplomacy has been set in train.

As a sign of a great coming together, the Pope has given the word for Mass in the old Rite, which is again more often than in the past possible in the Catholic Church without the need to obtain special permission for a service in Latin. The Society sees the majority of the Sacraments which they dispense such as baptism, confirmation, Mass, Last Rites and also priestly orders as recognised by Rome. In May of last year, the Vatican published a clarification that the Society is being courted by the Vatican.

All was going along a good path, but now a problem has surfaced. The tip of the Catholic traditionalist spear is not only pious, it is in parts also antisemitic. This makes the change brought about by the rapprochement also into a problem for the German Bishops’ Conference and, at the same time, for the German Pope himself, who in May will make his first visit to Israel in order to push ahead reconciliation between Christians and Jews.

The antisemitism of the leadership of the Society of Pope St Pius X showed itself to the representatives of the Pope just before Christmas, when the District Head Father Schmidberger sent a circular letter to all 27 bishops, in which he took the position, “The Jews of our day.....share in the guilt of deicide so long as they don’t distance themselves from their forefathers through belief in the divinity of Christ and baptism”.

After this statement, there has been tension between the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Bishops Conference.

Dieter Graumann, Vice President of the Council sees the letter as propagating the “worst clichés against Jews” and asked the Bishops to distance themselves or to find a clear position statement. So far only the Hamburg Bishop, Hans-Jochen Jaschke has made use of the opportunity to answer publicly and that was in the form of a reprimand: Graumann probably does not know that the Catholic Church has nothing to do with the Society of Pope St Pius X, whereby every criticism of the Vatican and her representatives is irresponsible.

Schmidberger rejects the complaint, “These are only religious propositions.” For those knowledgeable in the matter, the anti-Jewish excursions are however no surprise, reservations about Jews having a long history in the Catholic Church and considered only to have been overcome since the Second Vatican Council in the middle of the sixties. The Society with its rejection of all fashionable innovations are also inheritors of this tradition. Exactly their fundamentalist convictions make them attractive to certain sorts of people, which is significant for the willingness of these people to donate money for the building of new churches.

Money flows because the Society does not only pray and talk, they are also prepared to fight for their case on Germany’s streets. Recently they could be found with demonstrators in front of the House of Art in Munich to protest against a “blasphemous exhibition”- which included a crucified frog. During the Christopher Street Day in Stuttgart, their supporters stood on the side of the street armed with rosaries, murmuring prayers against the alleged vice.

A particularly enthusiastic representative of the Society is Bishop Richard Williamson, born in Great Britain, who was commissioned by the founder, Archbishop Lefebrve when the latter was near death to continue the life’s work of the Archbishop. Williamson is frequently in Germany in order to push ahead with this development. In consequence, the next generation lies close to his heart, that will be introduced into the so-called crusader camps. “Life as we know it is coming to an end,” he said a short while ago in a talk to confirmation candidates. “Martyrdom is perhaps coming. Perhaps our blood will be necessary to bring about the cleansing of the Catholic Church.”

An event which took place on the sidelines of a deaconing at the end of last year on All Saints Day can only severely damage the in any case tense relations between Catholics and Jews. Williamson travelled to Zaitkofen where the Society operate a seminary in a small baroque castle to make a Swedish convert, Sten Sandmark into a deacon of the Society. As his departure from the Protestant church was taken as a scandal in the far north, a Stockholm TV reporter Ali Fagan was there. After the deaconing, they both placed themselves in the chapel for an interview in front of the camera

Talk turned to the Nazis. One sees in the film Williamson breathing in and then says he does not believe six million Jews to have been gassed.

To the surprised counter-question “Were there no gas chambers?” “I believe there were no gas chambers, yes.” In the matter of the Holocaust, he associated himself with the “revisionists” who believe that “two to three hundred thousand Jews died in Nazi concentration camps. But none of them died as a result of gas in gas chambers.”

Then the cleric talked much about technically unsuitable chimney heights and unsuitable, as they could not be sealed, doors which can still be seen by tourists in Auschwitz. “If this is not anti-semitism,” added the interviewer, “what is it then?”

Bishop Williamson, “If anti-semitism is bad, it is against the truth. When something is true, it is not bad. I am not interested in the word anti-semitism”.

SVT1 will show the one hour long documentary film on Wednesday this week on the programme “Uppdrag granskning” - “The Task of Checking” and it will also be available on the internet.

The Central Council is now going to examine whether a legal case be possible as denial of the holocaust is a crime in Germany.

Graumann is also awaiting a clear statement from the German Bishops Conference, in the context of the Papal visit to Israel.

“They who cannot or do not wish to distance themselves, make themselves complicit.”

More on Williamson at Box Turtle Bulletin.

Gila Svirsky - co-chair of B'Tselem

Gila Svirsky, co-chair of B'Tselem, sent out this e-mail yesterday:

I was listening to the radio interview of two teens from the south of Israel, both of whom had been living under intolerable conditions for several weeks, caught in the crossfire of the adults.

“Oh my family never watches the foreign TV stations,” said one. “They’re not as accurate as the Israeli news.”

“My father forbids it,” said the other. “It could be demoralizing.”

Yes, indeed, it could be demoralizing. If you don’t watch the “foreign channels” – CNN, the BBC, or Sky News, let alone al-Jazeera – you don’t hear the (other) half of what is happening. You never heard, for example, that

al-Quds Hospital in Gaza took a direct hit yesterday; or that

UNRWA notified the IDF that a shell had struck their storage facility (food, medicine, and fuel), but that the IDF fired six more shells after that; or that

children were found cowering in their home near the dead bodies of their parents, probably for days, as ambulances could not reach them, despite strict international laws about the free movement of medical crews.

But Israelis hear only the Israeli news. So what does my neighbor say to me yesterday? “Israel has the most moral army in the world. What other army would drop leaflets warning civilians to leave so they won’t be hurt by shelling?”

Well, the answer is: many countries. It’s a common propaganda tool. Here’s an excerpt from a leaflet dropped by the US into Japan during World War II:

“The weapons used by the Japanese military authorities in order to extend this hopeless war will be completely destroyed by the US Air Force. However, bombs cannot see, so we do not know where they will land. As you know, we Americans are a humanitarian people and we do not want to injure innocent people. Therefore, please evacuate these cities."

And here’s an excerpt of one dropped by Israel into Gaza a few days ago:

"As a result of the acts undertaken by terrorists in your area against Israel, the IDF is forced to respond immediately and take action in this area. For your own safety, you are asked to leave the area immediately."

Needless to say, there is nowhere to go. Gaza is a tiny area – 10% the size of Rhode Island – densely occupied, and all the borders are sealed shut.

But Israelis are still repeating the mantra that turns my stomach: The IDF is the most moral army in the world.

Throughout these horrific weeks, the most carefully documented reports inside Israel of what is and what isn’t actually happening have been those of the human right organizations. You can see a combined blog of these organizations at gazaeng.blogspot.com. You know there have been serious human rights abuses when eleven organizations come together to do something. B’Tselem even took the unprecedented step of issuing a call for a cease fire. All have done important work in getting the message out to Israelis.

Last but not least, the peace organizations continue raising their brave and lonely voices to the ongoing vilification of patriotic passersby and motorists. Here’s what I wrote on my sign yesterday: “We have become our own worst nightmare.” Most passersby didn’t get it.

Gila Svirsky
Jerusalem

Co-chair, B’Tselem
http://www.btselem.org/English
http://www.gilasvirsky.com

Leah Shakdiel in house arrest

I just received this letter on the Israel Feminist Forum list. What Leah recounts is truly shocking - I have never heard of this kind of behavior towards totally peaceful Israeli Jewish protesters before.

A Letter from Leah Shakdiel

Until Sunday night, and please don't worry I am fine and even strengthened politically. I participated twice in protest watches in Beer Sheva (standing with signs with no microphone is legal and does not require police permit by law but the police of course does not know this). I carried a sign in Arabic "In Gaza and Sderot children deserve to live" and near me someone carried a sign in Hebrew that said, "Stop, hold fire, talk". The group Darom4peace ["South for Peace"] is that wishy-washy, yes, very middle of the road we thought, no extreme left, no accusation of Israeli govt or army, not even "peace now" type of thing.

Yet the police these dark days are apparently instructed to play an active role in boosting public morale and national unity, so they jumped into our midst literally and grabbed six of us on Wednesday into their cars etc. Four univ students, myself, and Nir Oren, the director of an NGO called The Parents Circle (look it up on the net), or in Hebrew, Forum Mishpahot Shakulot, Israeli and Palestinian families who lost a family member in the conflict and work together towards peace. Nir's own mother was killed in a suicide bombing of a bus in 1995. It turned out that one of the arrested students also lost his father in a terrorist attack several years ago and showed a great interest in joining the circle.

So now I am in house arrest for a few days, am not allowed into Beer Sheva for two weeks (my students will probably come to Yeruham instead), and we face trial on January 28. This is totally silly as Israel already has a landmark Supreme Court ruling from 1953 on freedom of speech (Bagatz Kol haÁm) but it does drive the message home that only traitors resist killing for their own group.

No one is surprised that the police wrongly thought we were breaking the law, disobeying the police, rioting (???!!!) and disturbing public peace (Orwellian enough, if you wish to disturb the war you actually disturb peace because war is peace, i.e. consensual, and we are controversial).

What is surprising and I think worrisome is the silence of the press on all this in a country where there is freedom of the press, i.e. it is self imposed censorship. Many journalists called, were there at the watch, took pictures and interviewed, telephoned later, promised to come to the court, and nada, not a word, no coverage published. So Israel crossed the line from self-defense to war crimes in my opinion the minute it refused to cease fire when Hamas requested it. We shall not give in. Arrests only radicalizes politically, but I am holding my ground and I still refute the reasoning of the extreme left ("Israel is fascist") or the extreme right: ("a nation state cannot be democratic").

Leah Shakdiel, Yeruham, Israel, and Shabbat shalom, no computer until tomorrow night