More trouble on the Temple Mount

Nadav Shragai's opinion piece in the March 12, 2009 issue of Haaretz reveals some information that I did not know, and it provides a key to why there was violence on the Temple Mount the morning before Yom Kippur a week ago. He wrote in March:

For years, the Jerusalem District Police "benefited" from the fact that few Jews visited the Temple Mount, sparing the police this "headache." But now the situation is changing. The halakhic consensus that Jews are forbidden to ascend the mount has been broken. More and more rabbis are permitting Jews to visit, and more and more Jews are seeking to do so.

The police have not come to terms with this new situation. They are confused and are confusing others, and have inverted the natural order of things on the mount, which is both the world's most sensitive site and the Jewish people's holiest site. Not much remains for Jews on the Temple Mount. The Temple is gone. Prayer is forbidden there. The mount's antiquities have been destroyed, and its mosques have become founts of religious and nationalist incitement against the State of Israel.

It is certainly true that more religious Jews have started to go to the Temple Mount, despite the halakhic prohibition of the Chief Rabbinate which has existed since 1967. The question is whether this should be regarded as a "provocation," as the leaders of the Islamic Movement in Israel and the Palestinian Authority seem to.

On April 16, 2009, Haaretz reported that "Hundreds of Muslim protesters block Jewish entry to the Temple Mount." Apparently a Jewish group was given permission to ascend the Mount and pray there, something which I thought was not allowed at all.

Hundreds of Muslims gathered Thursday at the foot of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, to prevent Jewish worshippers from entering the Temple Mount for a planned prayer service. The Muslim protesters began arriving Wednesday evening, gathering on the slope leading to the Temple Mount area. The rise, which overlooks the Western Wall, is considered holy to both Jews and Muslims, and houses a sacred site for both religions.

The Islamic Movement had opposed the prayer session, and police said they would allow the Jews to pray on the Mount, but not to engage in any other activities in the area.

Army Radio on Wednesday quoted Jerusalem Police as saying that they would limit the number of Muslim worshippers entering the Temple Mount for prayers on Thursday due to fears of disturbances. Hundreds of police and Border Police officers were to be deployed to East Jerusalem to prevent violence, and entry to the Temple Mount was to be restricted to women, and men over age 50 holding Israeli ID cards. Police said they received intelligence warnings about thousands of Palestinians being called to protest at the site. The Islamic Movement's northern branch arranged dozens of buses to take Muslim protesters to the area.

See also Shragai's September 28, 2009 Haaretz article, "Digs, Lies, and Mugrabi bridge," on growing Muslim denial that Jews ever had anything to do with the Temple Mount, including denying that Solomon's Temple once stood there.

The problems on the Temple Mount were renewed today: Israel keeps Temple Mount closed in wake of clashes

After a day of clashes near the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem on Sunday, Israeli security forces have decided to limit access to the compound for another day. The compound will be open only to men over the age of 50 with a valid Israeli identification card and to women of all ages.

Tensions in the Old City seemed to have calmed by late Sunday afternoon, following hours of clashes between Arab youth and security forces. Israeli security forces released from custody Jerusalem's senior Fatah official, Khatem Abed Al-Kadr, who was arrested earlier in the day on suspicion of inciting riots. Al-Kadr was released on condition that he not enter the Old City of Jerusalem and that he remain at least 250 meters from the area gates for 15 days. He was released on NIS 10,000 bail. Deputy leader of Israel's northern Islamic Movement, Sheikh Kemal Khativ, was also released on similar conditions.

Some 150 Palestinian protesters hurled rocks and bottles at Israeli police on Sunday after being barred from one of the holiest shrines in Jerusalem, on Temple Mount.

Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said police have dispersed the demonstrators who had gathered near the disputed hilltop compound. One police officer was lightly hurt in the clash. Ben-Ruby said that the unrest continued at a nearby East Jerusalem neighborhood and that three men have been detained.

Earlier Sunday, police closed the Temple Mount complex to visitors. The complex is sacred to Jews as the site of the two biblical Jewish temples and to Muslims as home of the al-Aqsa mosque. The closure was imposed after Palestinians rioted at the site last week on Yom Kippur. The northern chapter of the Islamic Movement reported Sunday morning that buses en route to the Al-Aqsa mosque had been detained on route 6.

It was further reported that tensions were high in the area following recent calls on Muslim residents of East Jerusalem to show a presence at the mosque.

On Friday, the Islamic Movement held a rally in the Israeli Arab town of Umm al-Fahm, under the heading "Al-Aqsa is in danger." The rally is a 14-year old annual tradition. The head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, Ra'ad Salah, warned Friday against Israel's alleged plan to take over the mosque. "[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu will set the Middle East on fire," Salah told his supporters at the rally.

I would say that the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel is also trying to set the Middle East on fire, as the words of Ra'ad Salah below demonstrate:

An Islamic Movement leader on Sunday urged Muslims across Israel to gather at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to prevent extreme right-wing Jews from entering the compound to pray. "I call on everyone in Jerusalem and within the Green Line to come to the [Al-Qasa] mosque and show your presence," said Sheik Ra'ad Salah, who heads the northern branch of the Islamic Movement.

A reporter for a website affiliated with the northern branch of the Islamic Movement was beaten by police during the riots today:

A reporter for the Arab-Israeli news website PLS48.net was injured during the riots that broke out Sunday morning at the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem's Old City. He claims a police officer struck him with a baton and disappeared. Police reject the claims.

Reporter Abdallah Zidan arrived at the Temple Mount at dawn to cover the prayers for his website, which is sponsored by the Islamic Movement's northern branch.

Many heeded Islamic Movement leader Sheikh Raad Salah's call to arrive at the Al-Aqsa Mosque after word got out that extreme-right wing Jews would be making their way to the site as well.

Zidan, a resident of the Manda village in the Galilee was among the visitors, and along with a group of fellow worshipers arrived at the entrance gate at around 5 am. A tumult suddenly erupted near Sheikh Kamal Khatib, Salah's deputy, who was standing in Zidan's vicinity. Khatib, who was later arrested on suspicion of incitement, was surrounded by people who prevented officers from reaching him. Zidan claims that during the fracas a police officer struck him with a baton in a forceful manner. "I started bleeding from my eye, the people around me tried to help but the police officer disappeared," Zidan recalled.

Zidan was evacuated to an east Jerusalem hospital and transferred by ambulance to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. "I was lucky the actual eye wasn't hurt, it was very close," said Zidan, who required stitches.

"Police officers were behaving very brutally, like animals. They came and hit me for no reason. Media personnel who come for news coverage cannot be hurt in such a way," he said.

The reporter added that he intends on filing a complaint against the officer with the Justice Ministry.

Jerusalem Police rejected the claims and stated that "Border Guard forces together with minority section officers requested Kamal Khatib to come with them, which he did. Nothing unusual occurred at any stage of his arrest. It went by very smoothly."

While I deeply suspect the motives of the Islamic Movement, I don't necessarily believe all of the police accounts either. Police certainly present themselves in the best possible light and deny any wrongdoing when they clearly did the wrong thing in a given situation - like beating a reporter.

Khaled Abu Toameh of the Jerusalem Post also reports on today's events:

At least 100 Palestinian men, who had refused to leave the Temple Mount despite an Israeli decision made on Sunday morning to shut down the site due to security concerns, left the area in the early evening. The Palestinian Authority and the Waqf had instructed the men to arrive at the site on Saturday night and stay put, fearing what they termed a "Jewish takeover."

On Sunday morning, approximately 150 Arabs hurled rocks and bottles at security forces in the Old City shortly after the decision to shut down the compound was announced.

In the evening, Jerusalem Magistrate's Court issued restraining orders against senior Fatah official Hatem Abdel Kader and Islamic Movement official Kamal Khatib, banishing both men from the Old City area for a period of 15 days. Khatib was arrested in the afternoon on suspicion of fanning the riots. Kader was detained overnight Saturday on suspicion of inciting Muslims to cause disturbances in the Old City by issuing the call. Kader previously served as the Palestinian Authority's minister for Jerusalem affairs after acting as PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayad's adviser on Jerusalem affairs.

In Gaza, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh commented on the riots, saying that "The Israeli attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque is continuing, they have surrounded the mosque and broken into it." Speaking at a function in honor of the release of the 20th female Palestinian prisoner, Haniyeh claimed that gun-toting Israeli security forces had forced devout worshipers to leave the compound.

Earlier in the day, Border Police closed off roads around the Old City and dispersed the rioters into the neighborhood of Wadi Joz, where residents briefly joined in the disturbances. Three rioters were arrested and one border policeman was lightly wounded in the clashes.

Many of the Arab rioters were believed to have traveled to the capital from the North. Palestinians had claimed that police planned to order groups of Jewish settlers to pray within close proximity of mosques.

The clashes come two days after the US State Department called on its citizens to avoid the area over Succot.

According to police, access to the area was barred following a call made throughout east Jerusalem to "come and defend" the mount.

Last week, shortly before Yom Kippur, disturbances flared up across east Jerusalem, beginning when 18 policemen and 15 rioters were hurt during clashes on the Temple Mount, and later elsewhere in the Old City.

A Channel 2 commentator suggested that the riots were not just a reaction to Jewish presence in the compound, but also "induced by fear that Israel would plant false archaeological evidence, as though a Jewish temple never existed in Jerusalem."

Police said some 150 Muslim worshipers participated in last week's disturbance on the Temple Mount, which began when a group of Jewish visitors entered the compound with a police escort.

The Temple Mount compound will also be shut down on Monday, when tens of thousands of Jewish worshipers are expected to pray at the Western Wall. Only Muslim worshipers over the age of 50 will be allowed access to the compound.

Abe Selig contributed to this report.

Click here for a video report from the Jerusalem Post.

From Jaffa Gate - Holy Sepulcher - Haram - Mt. Zion

View of a northern archway on the Temple Mount.

One of the things that has disturbed me about the status quo on the Temple Mount is that Jews (or any non-Muslims) are forbidden to pray there in any way. If the police see someone just moving their lips in prayer they can take the person off the Mount. I understand that some Jews go up to the Mount to pray in order to provoke Muslims - I can see why the police wouldn't want to permit them to do so. But I do wish that some provision could be made for peaceful prayer by non-Muslims. The Temple Mount is the holiest place for Jews. When I visit there, I wish I could pray.

From Muslim Quarter & Temple Mount/Haram esh-Sharif

Inside view of the ceiling of the Dome of the Chain (situated just to the east of the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount).

I would prefer that the permission allow personal, individual prayer, however, not the establishment of a synagogue on the Temple Mount, because it would inevitably be controlled by the most rigidly Orthodox. (Not by the ultra-Orthodox, who wouldn't go on the Temple Mount in any case, as far as a I know). Men and women would be separated in prayer and the men would be in control. I would like unfettered prayer there - not controlled by the Waqf, the Israeli police, or Orthodox Judaism.

The NYTimes doesn't want us to know that William Safire was Jewish?

So I guess the Jews really do control the media, according to Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss: Dowd breaks ‘Times’ seal on Safire’s ‘influential’ religion. The site seems to have an obsession with the NYTimes obit of Safire - there are three articles on the subject - and how its failure to mention that Safire was Jewish is part of some deep plot to minimize the evil Zionist/Jewish influence on the diabolical MSM. It's kind of embarrassing to read this classically anti-semitic trope on the website of someone who prominently mentions his Jewishness himself.

The White House blog

I guess I'm behind the times, but the White House has a blog? See Reality Check: Trying to Turn a Point of Pride into a Moment of Shame. Apparently Glenn Beck thinks that there's something wrong with Chicago trying to win the Olympics, and the White House blog replies to his false charges. The last line is the most delicious - "For even more Fox lies...."

Daniel McGowan, again

I discovered a couple of days ago that Daniel McGowan has republished his article, "What does Holocaust denial really mean?" on the "Palestine Think Tank" website. (He apparently republishes this article on a regular basis - it appeared as a letter in the Ithaca Journal a couple of years ago). Why his Holocaust-denying article is published by a supposedly pro-Palestinian site, I do not know, although upon cursory checking of the site, it appears that his is not the only anti-semitic article to appear on the site.

Another site where the same article has recently appeared is a 9/11 "truth" site, "What really happened." Earlier iterations of the article appeared on Rense.com, a right-wing anti-semitic website; CODOH, a Holocaust-denying website; and Dissident Voice, which bills itself as "a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice" (it also published McGowan's fond recollections of his visit to Ernst Zundel, the German Holocaust denier, in prison in Germany). This same journal has also published Gilad Atzmon, another anti-semitic partisan of the Palestinian cause who does that cause no favors.

The article has also been published on the website of "Deir Yassin Remembered," the organization that McGowan chairs which is dedicated to the memory of the 1948 massacre at Deir Yassin, perpetrated by members of the Stern Gang. While his devotion to keeping the memory of the massacre alive is commendable, his descent into Holocaust denial in the name of supporting Palestinians is not.

Temple Mount riots - what really happened?

Isabel Kershner, in an article in today's New York Times, reports that the visitors to the Temple Mount who aroused such violence yesterday were not in fact a group of Jews, but a French tourist group.

Palestinians had been expecting a group of religious Jews to try to enter the Temple Mount compound, according to an independent Palestinian news agency, Maan.... A police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said the police dispersed a crowd of about 150 Palestinian Muslims with stun grenades after they attacked the tourists, who he said were French. Disturbances then broke out in and around the Old City and elsewhere in East Jerusalem as Palestinian officials urged more Muslims to come to the holy site. At least 40 Palestinians were injured, according to Palestinian officials. Mr. Rosenfeld said that 17 police officers were injured, and that 11 Palestinians were arrested for throwing stones.

The Palestinian Authority's Information Ministry responded as if this was a deliberate attempt by Jewish settlers to enter the Temple Mount. Was it?

The Palestinian Authority’s Information Ministry issued a statement after the initial clashes on Sunday accusing the “Israeli occupation police and extremist settlers” of “breaking into the courtyard of the mosque, firing tear gas bombs and live bullets” against Palestinian worshipers.

It did not mention the French tourists, but added: “The Ministry of Information calls upon our people to gather at the mosque and to stand in the face of extremist Jewish groups.”

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, accused Israel of “deliberately escalating tensions in Jerusalem” by sending the police up to the mosque compound.

According to Kershner's report, however, there weren't live bullets, there were stun grenades. At least some police were already there on the mosque compound, as they always are during the hours when non-Muslims are permitted to visit (as I know from my own personal experience this summer). One of the Old City's police posts is right next to the Temple Mount, at the Mahkameh, and thus it's very easy for the Border Guards to get there. (See picture below)

From Jaffa Gate - Holy Sepulcher - Haram - Mt. Zion

While looking for some images on the web of the disturbances yesterday, I came across an interesting AFP photo that shows Israeli border guards deployed near the Al Aksa mosque, in the southwest corner of the Temple Mount:



(From Getty Images - since I haven't paid for it, the Getty Images copyright image appears on it).

The AFP caption reads:

A picture obtained on September 27, 2009 shows Israeli policemen taking position inside the grounds of the al-Aqsa mosques compound in Jerusalem. Tensions ran high after clashes erupted in Jerusalem's Old City at the Al-Aqsa, a site revered by Muslims and Jews that has been a major faultine in the Middle East conflict. Police and witnesses said the unrest erupted after a group of tourists entered the mosque compound. The visitors were probably mistaken for Jewish worshippers because a group of some 200 mostly religious and right-wing Jews had gathered in the early morning at the gate through which police allow tourists access to the holy site. AFP PHOTO/STR

So this source also says that the visitors who actually went up to the Temple Mount were not the religious Jews who had gathered earlier in the day. What happened to them, in that case? Did they go up to the Mount?

The next AFP/Getty Images photo shows Israeli border guards just outside the entrance to the Al Aksa mosque:
















Another AFP/Getty Images photo shows masked Palestinians carrying rocks and glass bottles:
















The Maan (Palestinian news agency) report is somewhat different from the New York Times in some details, but notes the inconsistency between the reports of 150 (or 15) Jews and a group of French tourists:

But there were also conflicting reports about the group spotted prior to the clashes. An Israeli police spokesman, who initially said the visitors belonged to the Jewish group, later insisted it was actually a group of French nationals that toured the compound.

In any event, Palestinians were seen throwing stones and other objects at police sent to the mosque area, reportedly hurting several. Using police batons and stun grenades, Israeli forces injured dozens during attempts to forcefully disperse the gathering crowds.

Clashes later erupted near Majlis Gate, one of the main entrances to the mosque, after police prevented worshippers from entering the area, according to witnesses. More clashes followed noon prayers near the Lions' Gate entrance to Al-Aqsa.

Israeli police closed all entrances in what they said was an effort to contain the fighting. However at one point Palestinians aged over 50 were briefly allowed to return, but the main gates toward the compound were again sealed later in the afternoon.

Hundreds of Jerusalemites and Palestinians living inside Israel arrived at the mosque compound when word of the clashes spread. They gathered outside several sealed entrances, chanting and denouncing the occupation and what they called assaults against holy places and residents in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, Israeli police prevented Islamic notables such as Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, chief of the Islamic Supreme Committee and grand mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, from entering the Al-Aqsa area.

Also denied access was Hatim Abdul Qader, former PA minister of Jerusalem affairs and current Fatah representative on Jerusalem. Israeli police produced an order preventing Abdul-Qadir from accessing Al-Aqsa until further notice, under the pretext that he urged demonstrators to gather at the compound.

(One wonders if it really was a pretext, or if he actually urged demonstrators to gather at Al Aksa). Below is a photo from Maan of Border Policemen gathering in the Al Aksa compound.


















The Maan report raises the question of whether the Israeli police were telling the truth (that it really was a group of French tourists) or were trying to cover up for a Jewish group going onto the Temple Mount before Yom Kippur. The original report I linked to said that the group of Jews went up with police escort. This is not usual. When tourists go to the Temple Mount, there is no special police escort.

A Ynet report from today is also confusing.

Palestinian leaders warned Israel on Sunday not to stoke tension in Jerusalem in the hope of thwarting peace talks, after clashes at a sacred site in which Palestinians and Israeli police were injured.

"At a time when (US) President (Barack) Obama is trying to bridge the divide between Palestinians and Israelis, and to get negotiations back on track, Israel is deliberately escalating tensions in Jerusalem," chief peace negotiator Saeb Erekat said.

"We've seen this before, and we know what the consequences are," the Palestinian minister added, in a statement that recalled the visit of then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon to the site in Jerusalem's Old City in 2000. Sharon's presence at al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, triggered the second Palestinian uprising and dealt the biggest setback to peace efforts in years.

The reasons behind Sunday's clash were disputed.

According to legislator Hathem Abdel Kader and other Palestinian sources, the clash erupted in the early morning when Palestinians inside the complex - sacred to both Islam and Judaism - saw a group of 15 religious Jews trying to enter. The Jews never managed to get into the complex, because several hundred Palestinians, who were on alert for such a possibility, began a loud protest. Israeli police responded with tear gas then stun grenades.

The clash occurred hours before the start of Yom Kippur, the solemn "Day of Atonement" which is the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Police were on alert for violent protests in several flashpoints where Jews and Arabs live side by side.

Palestinians: No tourists were involved

Protesters threw stones, chairs and whatever they could lay hands on as riot police rushed to the scene. Video showed them trying to drive police away from the doorway of the al-Aqsa mosque, but there was no sign that police entered it. Police said 17 officers were hurt and 11 rioters arrested, and medics said 13 Palestinians were treated for injuries. There were no reports of serious injury or death.

Israeli police said it began when religious Palestinians angered by immodestly dressed tourists grew violent. Palestinians dismissed that account, saying no tourists were involved. There was no further comment from Israeli authorities, who were observing the Yom Kippur silence.

"Providing a police escort for settlers who are against peace at all costs, and whose presence is deliberately designed to provoke a reaction, are not the actions of someone who is committed to peace, but of someone who will go to extraordinary lengths to scuttle all hopes of peace," Erekat said.

He said it was "deliberately timed to coincide with the eve of the anniversary of that visit" by a government "emboldened by its ability to fend off calls for a settlement freeze."

These accounts raise a lot of questions:

1) Was there a large group of religious Jews waiting to get into the Temple Mount in the morning?
2) Or were there only 15?
3) Or was it actually a group of immodestly dressed tourists?
4) Or a group of French tourists (perhaps the same as #3)?
5) Did Palestinians react when the Jews/tourists reached the Temple Mount via the Mughrabi Gate (which is the only entrance non-Muslims can use), or did they prevent people from coming onto the mount altogether?

I find it hard to imagine that even if this were a group of religious Jews, that they had come there specifically at the behest of the Netanyahu government to cause trouble before Yom Kippur. I think that if Netanyahu wants to cause trouble about the Temple Mount, he will do something similar to what he did in 1996 (when the Kotel tunnel was opened at its northern end at the Via Dolorosa, sparking riots in which 80 people died) - that is, act openly, not in a hidden fashion. Groups of religious Jews do now go up to the Temple Mount, in defiance of the ban imposed by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate on Jews' entering the site. They do this on their own, however, not at the government's urging. I hope this gets untangled, since the Temple Mount is such a flashpoint that even the mistaken belief that this was planned by the Netanyahu government could lead to much worse clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli government than have already happened yesterday and today.

Dancing on Yom Kippur

Gershom Gorenberg has a wonderful article at South Jerusalem on Yom Kippur: Hiya Judge: On Dancing Yom Kippur. He writes about the difference in the melancholy melodies sung at an Ashkenazi Yom Kippur service versus the joyous melodies at a Sephardi service that he experienced in Bangkok years ago. He hazards a guess as to why this ethnic difference exists:

Anyway, I mentioned this story a week or so ago to a friend learned in Jewish history. “That’s the difference between people whose neighbors opposed their existence and people who were accepted as – even if second class – members of society.”

I wouldn’t want to attribute all the differences in Ashkenazi and Sephardi culture to the gap between how Christian Europe and the Muslim Middle East related to Jews. But I’d guess that it is one key reason. As I noted last year in an article on anti-gentile prayers that worked their way into Jewish liturgy and that should be removed:

Hebrew University historian Israel Yuval says that traditional liturgical attacks “are always against Christianity,” and are found in Ashkenazi prayers, not Sephardi ones. The rage reflects theological battles with Christianity, which claimed the Bible as its own and argued that Jews suffered in exile because God had ended the covenant with them. The Jewish response was a stress on “vengeful redemption”—looking forward to a conclusion of history in which the power relations were reversed, the Christians destroyed.

While there were ups and downs in Jewish-gentile relations in both the Christian and the Islamic worlds, Jewish liturgy itself bears testimony that Jews felt that their lives were far more precarious among the Christians. Recently, in the midst of contemporary nonsense about the “Clash of Civilizations,” some rightwing Jews have made a habit of arguing that things were as bad or worse for Jews among the Muslims. The psychological record of the prayerbook says otherwise.

May you have a joyous Yom Kippur.

Yom Kippur

To my Jewish readers - have an easy fast and g'mar hatimah tovah (may you be sealed for a good life).

This Associated Press story on Yom Kippur in Israel is a good account of the meaning of the day for Israeli Jews, religious and non-religious: Israel shuts down for Day of Atonement amid fears.

A group of about 15 Jews went up to the Temple Mount today, under police guard, during the time that non-Muslims are permitted to go there. Their group was met with stone-throwing and a riot ensued in which the police threw stun grenades at the Palestinian rioters. Twelve policemen and fifteen rioters were injured.

I hope that this is not a harbinger of worse trouble. It's hard to forget that one of the proximate causes of the second intifada was Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount on September 28, 2000. (See this account from the Jewish Virtual Library on the second intifada - see that Sharon's visit was certainly not the only cause).

Farouk Hosny - the Jews are to blame

Farouk Hosny, the Egyptian culture minister who was not chosen to be the head of UNESCO, blames Jews for UNESCO loss. He said that "European countries and the world's Jews" wanted him to lose. Another statement from him: "There are a group of the world's Jews who had a major influence in the elections who were a serious threat to Egypt taking this position,"

Nothing like being convicted out of your own mouth of anti-semitism.

Hitchens on Jimmy Carter

The latest absurdities to emerge from Jimmy Carter's big, smug mouth - Christopher Hitchens (article of May 21, 2007).

It's always pleasant to read a literate takedown of Jimmy Carter, who is one of my least favorite former living presidents. I learned something new and startling from this article - apparently Eugene McCarthy voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 rather than for the sitting president of his own party. McCarthy said: "Mr. Carter quite simply abdicated the whole responsibility of the presidency while in office. He left the nation at the mercy of its enemies at home and abroad. He was the worst president we ever had."

Hitchens' case against Carter: "It was because, whether in Afghanistan, Iran, or Iraq—still the source of so many of our woes—the Carter administration could not tell a friend from an enemy. His combination of naivete and cynicism—from open-mouthed shock at Leonid Brezhnev's occupation of Afghanistan to underhanded support for Saddam in his unsleeping campaign of megalomania—had terrible consequences that are with us still. It's hardly an exaggeration to say that every administration since has had to deal with the chaotic legacy of Carter's mind-boggling cowardice and incompetence." I hadn't realized that Carter had supported Saddam Hussein also. He joins the illustrious company of Donald Rumsfield in misestimating Saddam.

I also did not vote for Carter. I was living in Seattle in the fall of 1980, and had temporarily turned into a Republican in order to vote for John Anderson in the Republican caucuses. When election day came, I didn't vote for Reagan, or Carter, or Anderson (who I think was running as a third party candidate), but for another third party candidate, Barry Commoner. Carter demonstrated how little concern he had for his own party when he conceded before the polls had closed on the west coast, thus reducing the incentive of Democratic voters to go to the polls and vote for Democrats in other races.

Nuke agency says Iran can make bomb

The AP is reporting something very alarming about Iran's nuclear capability: Nuke agency says Iran can make bomb.

VIENNA — Experts at the world's top atomic watchdog are in agreement that Tehran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and is on the way to developing a missile system able to carry an atomic warhead, according to a secret report seen by The Associated Press.

The document drafted by senior officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency is the clearest indication yet that the agency's leaders share Washington's views on Iran's weapon-making capabilities.

It appears to be the so-called "secret annex" on Iran's nuclear program that Washington says is being withheld by the IAEA's chief.

The document says Iran has "sufficient information" to build a bomb. It says Iran is likely to "overcome problems" on developing a delivery system.

Why is this report being withheld? Isn't this vital information that should be publicized? Why is the IAEA protecting Iran?

I don't want the Israelis to attack Iran's nuclear program. Pretending that Iran doesn't yet have the ability to produce a nuclear weapon is unlikely to prevent Israel from acting, since it makes it seem that the IAEA is deliberately lying instead of taking Israel's concern seriously.

Later: the IAEA denies the report (Reuters).

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said Thursday it had no proof that Iran has or once had a covert atomic bomb program, dismissing a news report that it had concluded Iran was on its way to producing nuclear weapons.

In a statement, the International Atomic Energy Agency reaffirmed IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei's September 9 warning that allegations the agency was sitting on undeniable evidence of Iranian bomb work were "politically motivated and baseless."

"With respect to a recent media report, the IAEA reiterates that it has no concrete proof that there is or has been a nuclear weapons program in Iran," the statement said.

Is Lockerbie bomber really dying of prostate cancer?

This is something I've wondered about the release of the man convicted for the Lockerbie bombing, whether his medical condition was really as dire as it was presented in order to support his "compassionate release". The Telegraph reports: Doctors urged by Libyans to draw 'helpful' conclusions about Lockerbie bomber life expectancy.

Among those killed by the explosion and crash of the plane were 35 students from Syracuse University, four from Colgate University, and two from SUNY Oswego - all colleges in upstate New York within a couple of hours drive from Ithaca, where I live.

The mother of one of the victims from Syracuse, responded to the release in this way:

Janine Boulanger, the Shrewsbury mother of Nicole Elise Boulanger, a 21-year-old student who was killed in the bombing, said she was disappointed but not surprised.

She said her daughter, who was a musical theater major at Syracuse University, had been studying on scholarship in London. She was coming home after completing all of her requirements in seven semesters when she was killed, her mother said.

“These individuals died in foreign countries, without their families there, and we, as it was, had to accept this very low sentence,” she said.

“And now, not to carry it out?” she said. “You soon lose faith.”

The mother of another one of the Syracuse University student victims said:

But Susan Cohen, whose only child Theodora, 20, was one of 35 Syracuse University students on Pan Am flight 103, said any suggestion of freedom on compassionate grounds was "vile".

Speaking from her home in New Jersey, she added: "It just shows that the power of oil money counts for more than justice. There have been so many attempts to let him off. It has to do with money and power and giving Gaddafi what he wants. My feelings, as a victim, apparently count for nothing."

The father of one of the students from Colgate University said on hearing of the news of the release:

A former Macungie man who lost his 21-year-old son in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 called the release of the only man convicted in the attack ''perverted justice.''....

Scott Saunders, a dean's list senior at Colgate University, was returning home from studying in London when a bomb destroyed the plane in the air, killing all 259 passengers and crew and 11 residents of the small Scottish town of Lockerbie. Many of the 189 Americans on board the flight were college students wrapping up studies in Europe....

''This dominated the morning news, and it's a searing pain, I can tell you, to have to relive this, to have to see someone who has been found guilty of the crime is going to be liberated,'' Saunders said. ''But nothing in this thing surprises me anymore. I'm not surprised. I'm certainly discouraged. It isn't the first searing pain and it will not be the last.''

Scott, a 1985 Emmaus High School graduate, was majoring in English and history and had planned to enter law school or become a journalist.

The victims' families received multimillion-dollar settlements from Libya, which the elder Saunders has called ''blood money.'' He donated some of it, set aside some for his other son, Greg, and used more to augment scholarship funds in Scott's memory.

Saunders said some victims' families believe other nations -- perhaps Iran or Syria -- were behind the bombing and that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi only took responsibility in an effort to rehabilitate his reputation in the West.

Saunders doesn't subscribe to that theory but he is certain the truth behind the bombing hasn't fully emerged, and may not for many years. He is also sure that the West's oil interests in Libya were likely the deciding factor in releasing al-Megrahi, an intelligence official.

So much for "reconciliation" with Libya. Michael Totten's reporting from Libya gives the information we need to know about "The Land of the Brother Leader". See his article about the Megrahi release also - Qaddafi Can Celebrate His Filthy Regime Without Us.

Auf Wiedersehen, Pat Buchanan

Ten years ago Jacob Weisberg wrote an illuminating article about Pat Buchanan - Auf Wiedersehen, Pat - which presents much evidence about Buchanan's anti-semitic, Nazi-defending worldview then.

He writes:

Buchanan is a kind of fascist fellow traveler, who dabbles in an anachronistic style of populist demagoguery that points to cosmopolitan Jews, and to a lesser extent nonwhite immigrants, as the source of the country's problems....

The fuss about Buchanan first started in 1990 when he blamed Jewish neoconservatives of dragging the country toward the Gulf War. In a similar vein in his 1996 campaign, Buchanan would hint that Jews were to blame for much else, sarcastically enunciating the name of Ruth Bader Ginsburg when complaining about the Supreme Court. Or he would attack "New York bankers," often singling out the firm of "Goldman Sachs" (but never Bear Stearns or Salomon Smith Barney). Or he might complain about the globalist economic policies of Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan--not those of Lloyd Bentsen and Bill Clinton. In Buchanan's neo-1930s protectionism and isolationism, it isn't hard to hear the echoes of the radio priest Father Coughlin, who associated Jewish bankers with rapacious capitalism....

His new book, A Republic Not an Empire, makes his complaints against the Jews more explicit than ever. A brief for isolationism, the book includes a pocket history of "Jewish Influence" in U.S. foreign policy from 1917 to the present. Buchanan, who blamed Jews for dragging America into the Gulf War, thinks they also pushed us into World War II--mistakenly! His words echo those of Charles Lindburgh, a leader of the America First Committee, who Buchanan thinks was unfairly labeled an anti-Semite for warning the country about Jewish influence in Hollywood and the media. Buchanan, whose campaign Web site sports an "America First" logo, echoes Lindbergh when he decries "the growing domination of U.S. foreign policy by ethnic groups and media elites able to focus public attention and incite public hysteria." Instead of agitating for entry into a specific war, he thinks these "ethnic groups" and the "media elites" (read Jews) are pushing us toward general policies of interventionism and internationalism.

I hadn't realized how accurate it was to accuse him of being an America-Firster. I wonder if Philip Roth was thinking of Pat Buchanan when he was writing his book, The Plot Against America.

September 1, 1939

I should be grading map exercises, but instead I've been reading blogs, and like other people, have found George Orwell's entries in his diaries (now being posted daily on the Orwell Diaries website) very poignant. For September 1, 1939, the day that Germany invaded Poland, he wrote:

Invasion of Poland began this morning. Warsaw bombed. General mobilization proclaimed in England, ditto in France plus martial law. [Radio]
Foreign & General
1. Hitler’s terms to Poland boil down to return of Danzig & plebiscite in the corridor, to be held 1 year hence & based on 1918 census. There is some hanky panky about time the terms were presented, & as they were to be answered by night of 30.8.39,[1] H.[2] claims that they are already refused. Daily Telegraph [a]
2. Naval reservists and rest of army and R.A.F. reservists called up. Evacuation of children etc. begins today, involving 3m. people & expected to take 3 days. [Radio; undated]
3. Russo-German pact ratified. Russian armed forces to be further increased. Voroshilov’s speech taken as meaning that Russo-German alliance is not contemplated. Daily Express [b]
4. Berlin report states Russian military mission is expected to arrive there shortly. Daily Telegraph [a]

The site includes PDFs of the newspaper articles he refers to in the diary.

This is a good counter to Pat Buchanan's retrograde America-First anti-semitism, most recently expressed in a column published on his website and others, which contends that "Hitler did not want a war with Poland." The only possible response to this comment, it seems to me, is "why the hell did he invade Poland then?!" Why does MSNBC retain him as a commentator? How much more blatant does his anti-semitism and pro-Nazism have to get before they decide that he's more of a liability than a draw?

Update: see this good TPM article on Buchanan. Commenter jeffgee reminded us of Molly Ivins' stellar line describing Buchanan's speech at the '92 GOP convention: it "sounded better in the original German."

And here's a good takedown of Buchanan by Orac.

This is the stanza of W.H. Auden's poem about the beginning of the war that I find the most moving:

Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

And again, today was a beautiful early September day - not a cloud in the sky, warm but not too warm, the sky a beautiful blue as it was on that Tuesday eight years ago in New York City and Washington.

Hamas shows its true colors again - Holocaust denial and hatred of Jews

Hamas, the Holocaust-denying Islamist terrorist organization that runs Gaza, slams UN over "Holocaust classes" in Gaza.

Branding the Nazi genocide of the Jews "a lie invented by the Zionists", the Islamist movement which runs the Gaza Strip wrote in an open letter to a senior U.N. official that he should withdraw plans for a new history book in U.N. schools....Hamas said it believed UNRWA was about to start using a text for 13-year-olds that included a chapter on the Holocaust. In an open letter to local UNRWA chief John Ging, the movement's Popular Committees for Refugees said: "We refuse to let our children study a lie invented by the Zionists."

Of course, the UNRWA schools currently do not teach anything about the Holocaust, and when asked if there were any plans to change that, the UNRWA spokesmen refused to answer.

UPDATE: Apparently, contrary to the article quoted above, UNRWA does have a new human rights curriculum for eighth graders that teaches the basic facts of the Holocaust.

Three teachers at U.N. schools said that according to the new program, basic information about the Holocaust was expected to be taught to eighth grade students as part of human rights classes.

Two of the teachers said they were told about the lesson plan by colleagues involved in the new syllabus. Another teacher said he attended a recent meeting with education officials where he was told to try to teach the new syllabus without offending parents' sensibilities.

All three said they had not received the syllabus for the human rights classes yet, even though the school year began in late August. They requested anonymity because they are not allowed to speak to reporters.

Madonna tours Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem

And on a happier note: Madonna tours Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem. She toured an ancient tunnel near the Western Wall. I presume this is part of the Kotel tunnels area. If one goes north of the part of the Western Wall that is open to worshippers, one comes first to a big archway in the men's section that leads into an inside area for prayer and study. Continuing northward, one walks underneath the Mamluk buildings that butt right up against the western wall of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. The area has been excavated since after the Six Day War, when the Old City came under Israeli control, and the whole length of the wall was opened to tourists in 1996, occasioning riots which led to the deaths of many Palestinians. The tunnel goes all the way to the Via Dolorosa. For more information, see The Western Wall Tunnels.

I found a couple of videos of part of a tour of the Western Wall tunnels -
Kotel Tunnel tour #1
Kotel Tunnel tour #2

Jerusalem news: still fighting over the parking lot

Haredim, seculars clash in Jerusalem.

I'm teaching a course about Jerusalem this semester (history, politics, religion, and architecture from biblical times to the present). From time to time I'll be blogging about what's going on in Jerusalem today - and the story of the day seems to be the continued riots over the Karta parking lot opening on the Sabbath. Haredi and secular people clashed, as well as the police and the Haredim.


This photo shows a policeman confronting a group of Haredi men. It's not clear to me where they are.

The Haredim were shouting "Shabbes" and "Nazis" at the policemen trying to keep them away from the parking lot.

Antiwar Movement Plans Fall Campaign on Afghanistan

The only good news in this story is that ANSWER isn't mentioned, although unfortunately the execrable Code Pink has jumped in:

Code Pink is trying to build opposition to the war among women’s groups, some of which argue that women will suffer if the Taliban returns. In September, a group of Code Pink organizers will visit Kabul to encourage Afghan women to speak out against the American military presence there.

Only "some" women's groups argue that women will suffer if the Taliban returns? As Barney Frank said recently in another context, what planet are these people on?

Although I eventually came to oppose the war in Iraq, it was not because I was persuaded by the anti-war movement, but because of my own judgment about horrendous things the U.S. has done there (especially the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other prisons, the lack of any evidence for WMDs, the evidence that the Bush administration consistently lied to us, etc.). The rhetoric of the anti-war movement repelled me, and continues to repel me. I have no respect for people like Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan. For them, the U.S. is always the villain, not any other nation or group of people. It will be entertaining, in a grimly repulsive fashion, to see how they excuse the Taliban for their crimes against their own people, especially Afghan women, and for their crimes against the people of the United States, in allying with Al Qaeda and providing a base for Osama bin Laden's jihadists. Maybe Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan have forgotten the September 11 attacks and where they came from, but I certainly haven't.

Back in Ithaca

I returned to Ithaca this morning, and it is so green! So much is growing - the tomatoes & basil in the backyard, the rose bushes (which have been sadly decimated by the Japanese beetles), the Rose of Sharon trees, the lilac bushes, the coneflowers (echinachia), the brown-eyed Susans, the grass.... We are really blessed by abundant rain here! (At least this summer). My tenants told me that apparently some creature has been eating the tomatoes when they start to get ripe - I hope that when I pick my cat up from the kennel today, he'll start keeping whatever animal it is away from them.

Vigil for Tel Aviv attack held in Jerusalem

I wasn't able to get to this event, but there was a Vigil for Tel Aviv attack held in Jerusalem this afternoon. The Jerusalem Post is reporting that about 500 came, mostly young people.

Hundreds of people convened Sunday afternoon in Jerusalem's Kikar Zion to express solidarity with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) after two people were killed and more than a dozen injured on Saturday night.

Some 500 arrived to the square, carrying signs in with slogans including "Live and Let Love," "Why Kill?" and Tourism Ministry posters of Jerusalem on which the phrase "Senseless Hatred destroyed Jerusalem" was written in Hebrew. Some people waved flags with the rainbow colors symbolizing the gay community and others waved black flags.

Members of the homosexual community light candles at Kikar Zion in Jerusalem, in memory of the victims of the shooting at the gay youth center in Tel Aviv on Saturday night.
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimksi

Nir Katz and Liz Trobishi buried today

Gay center shooting victim laid to rest.

Nir Katz, one of the two people killed during Saturday night's shooting attack at a gay and lesbian youth center in Tel Aviv, was laid to rest in Modi'in on Sunday....

Relatives and friends, as well as representatives of various gay organizations and Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Dan Harel all arrived at the cemetery to pay their last respects to Nir.

His mother Ayala said during the service, "Nir always had a smile on his face; and endless love for every living creature. He always had respect for himself, his life and those around him."

Nir's father, Rami, was killed in the first Tze'elim Disaster in 1990, in which five soldiers were killed by a shell during training, when Nir was only seven years old. His mother, Ayala remarried, raising Nir and his other five siblings.

I just heard on the radio that the second victim Liz Trobishi was also laid to rest today. Some memories of her from her friends:

Friends and relatives flocked until the early hours of Sunday morning to the home of Liz Trobishi, 16, who was killed Saturday night in a shooting attack at a Tel Aviv gay center.

As they struggled to digest the news, the mourners told of a happy girl who loved to write poetry....

Trobishi's friends said she participated regularly in activities held by the gay youth organization Igy, even though she herself was not a lesbian.

"Although I am not a part of the Igy community I really love being with them," the 16-year-old wrote on the youth organization's online forum a few months ago.

"I connected with a lot of people, met a lot of nice people and am not sorry for any moment," she added.

According to her friends, whenever somebody would announce online that they had come out of the closet, Trobishi would post a message of support on the forum.

"I am so happy to know it went well," she wrote to one of her friends....

Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar attended her funeral, and told the mourners that it was hard to believe there could be such evil as that which cut short Trobishi's life.

"I have to say that I felt yesterday and I feel today shame for a society that is turning into a violent, cruel, inhumane society. Week after week, we hear and read about things that our brains cannot process, and I really hope that together we can create in the future a better society and protect our children."

Trobishi is survived by her parents and three brothers.

More on the attack on the gay center

The names of the murder victims have just been released for publication: Nir Katz (26) and Liz Tarabushi (17).

Shlomo Laufer, in an opinion piece on Ynet, writes about the homophobia and attacks that gays and lesbians even in Tel Aviv face every day.

Friday night on Tel Aviv’s beachfront promenade; two guys holding hands, standing at the beach line, and kissing. Three men pass by and swear at them; one man spits. Tel Aviv, Israel’s liberalism capital, the city that openly celebrates pride parades and markets gay tourism packages worldwide; a city whose leaders inaugurate gay centers, but cannot defend us from our greatest enemy – fear and hatred....

Dozens of youth groups, gay association branches, and small community groups operate outside of Tel Aviv through silent agreement. Yet it is not always silent. Eight years ago, when a youth group was established in the town of Hadera, we were ambushed by dozens of haredi thugs organized by the local Shas chairman. They raided the branch, beat us up, threatened us, and threw us out. It worked out for them; a few gay teenagers cannot face hate-filled brigades. So we spread across the country; most of us moved to Tel Aviv. This was supposed to be the ultimate shelter; a local version of San Francisco.

I'm listening right now to Yaron Dekel's morning show on Reshet Bet, and he began the broadcast by talking about how politicians need to take responsibility for their speech - and that anti-gay hate speech can lead to murder. His discussion with Yonit Levy, the mother of a gay son, includes a mention of the murder of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 - which was preceded by wild hate speech against Rabin and posters of Rabin dressed in an SS uniform. Levy is now saying that she's going back to the hospital to be with the wounded, since for some of them, their parents have not come to visit them and they need people to be with them.

3 killed in attack on gay center in Tel Aviv

Update: According to the Israeli news sites this morning (Sunday, August 2), two were killed, not three. The original reports must have been wrong that the man in the hospital had also died. The murderer has still not been captured.

Haaretz reports that three young people were murdered at an event for youth from the gay and lesbian community in Tel Aviv. The event occurred in the basement of the Association for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Israel, at the corner of Ahad Ha'Am and Nahmani Streets in Tel Aviv. The dead were a young man of 24, a young woman of 17 and another man who died of his wounds in the hospital. About 15 other people were injured, 4 of them in serious condition. Eyewitnesses at the scene reported that a masked gunman entered the basement of the building, began to shoot in all directions and then escaped. At this point the gunman has not yet been located and the police are searching for him with a helicopter and many police vehicles.

Another report in Haaretz says that activists in the organization have gathered tonight at the corner of Nahmani and Rothschild streets and have lit candles. Members of the gay community did not hesitate to say that "there is no doubt that this is a hate crime." Mike Hamel, the head of the Aguda, said that this was an unprecedented event for the gay community in Israel. "We have joined the 'enlightened' countries in which hatred is the standard."

Hamel said that the club was located on a quiet street and that there was no obvious sign out front, to allow youth who are dealing with their sexuality to come to the place securely. For this reason, the Aguda had not thought of hiring security for the place.

Knesset Member Nitzan Horowitz from Meretz, who is gay (and who spoke at the gay pride march in Jerusalem in June) said that "there is no doubt that this is the harshest attack ever against the gay community in Israel."

I had been thinking today that I felt lucky to have been in Israel at a time when no terrorist attacks have occurred - unfortunately that feeling of safety has been violated. While the police define this attack as having a "criminal" rather than "nationalistic" context, attacking gay youth in the headquarters of the national gay and lesbian organization in Israel strikes me as a hate crime intended to terrorize gay people of all ages in Israel.

Officer Defends Arrest of Harvard Professor

Some updates on this issue:

1. Stanley Fish has finally written a column in the New York Times that I agree with, about how the accomplishments of both Professor Gates and President Obama are being doubted because of their blackness. At Duke, where Fish hired Gates as a professor in the English department, his accomplishments were doubted because of his blackness - "Doubts were expressed in letters written by senior professors about his scholarly credentials, which were vastly superior to those of his detractors. (He was already a recipient of a MacArthur fellowship, the so called 'genius award.')" In a similar way, the "Birthers" - those people who do not believe that Obama was born in the United States - cast doubt on his right to the Presidency.

Gates is once again regarded with suspicion because, as the cultural critic Michael Eric Dyson put it in an interview, he has committed the crime of being H.W.B., Housed While Black....

Gates and Obama are not only friends; they are in the same position, suspected of occupying a majestic residence under false pretenses. And Obama is a double offender. Not only is he guilty of being Housed While Black; he is the first in American history guilty of being P.W.B., President While Black.

Both Professor Gates and President Obama challenge a powerful white racist stereotype about blacks - the belief that they are inherently less intelligent, and therefore inferior to whites. And if blacks are inferior to whites, anything they accomplish in life is a sham and a trick, especially if they do better than a white person. It's embarassing to my profession that senior members of the Duke faculty thought that Gates was inferior to them despite having won an award that they doubtless would have liked to receive themselves.

2. Charles Blow, NYTimes op-ed columnist, writes about his first experience with a white policeman in Louisiana who threatened to shoot him and his friends at a traffic stop: Welcome to the Club. He also brings some useful statistics into the debate:

A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last July asked: “Have you ever felt you were stopped by the police just because of your race or ethnic background?” Sixty-six percent of black men said yes. Only 9 percent of white men said the same.

These views are not without merit. A series of racial-profiling studies across the country have found that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be stopped and searched than whites.

In fact, last year the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York law firm specializing in human rights, released a damning study of the racial-profiling practices of the New York Police Department. It found that more than 80 percent of those stopped and frisked were black or Hispanic. The report also said that when stopped, 45 percent of blacks and Hispanics were frisked, compared with 29 percent of whites, even though white suspects were 70 percent more likely than black suspects to have a weapon.

3. The President has also issued a new statement about the arrest and subsequent controversy arising from his words:

He did not apologize but softened his language. “I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station,” he said. “I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well.”

Mr. Obama described Sergeant Crowley as an “outstanding police officer and a good man” who has “a fine track record on racial sensitivity.” But he said the incident showed that “because of the difficulties of the past, you know, African-Americans are sensitive to these issues.”

Original Post

The officer who arrested Henry Louis Gates, Jr. last week has said that he won't apologize since he didn't do anything wrong (Officer Defends Arrest of Harvard Professor).

Sergeant Crowley said that he arrested Professor Gates because the professor got angry after being asked for identification and proof of his address, and continued his “tirade after being warned multiple times.” The sergeant was adamant that he was following police procedures in making the arrest.....

Next, the sergeant said, he warned Professor Gates to calm down and lower his voice, and to step outside to his front porch. Sergeant Crowley said he gave the professor two warnings, the second while holding a set of handcuffs, but that the professor continued berating him. “The professor at any point in time could have resolved the issue by quieting down and/or by going back in the house,” he said in the radio interview.

I don't understand why getting angry and yelling inside one's own home or on the front porch is grounds for an arrest. What did Professor Gates do wrong? Why would the police consider yelling to be something wrong? Aggravating, yes. Who likes to be yelled at? I'm starting to wonder if this isn't just a case of racial profiling, but of a cop reveling in the power of being a cop - of having that power to stop someone else's yelling by arresting them. I still strongly doubt that a white professor in the same situation would have been arrested.

Pleasant day in Jerusalem hills

Today began like most of my weekdays in Jerusalem - with a visit to the National Library to work on my research and course planning. (Today I was working on planning my Jerusalem course - there is so much to learn about the history and communities of Jerusalem. I feel like I'm just scratching the surface). In the middle of the afternoon, as I was sweating again over a hot photocopier (this is not meant metaphorically, by the way - it's hot here now, which I'm sure is a surprise to my readers), a friend called to say that she was going horse-riding.

I seized the opportunity to flee the library, and went with her and another friend on a pleasant drive in the hills of Jerusalem to חוות נטף (Nataf Farm), where she climbed on the horse and we sat around and watched her, the other horses, and the beautiful landscape. After she finished her lesson (the first time in many years, with the goal of getting over her fear of horse-riding engendered by past falls from horses) we went to another beautiful place to have dinner - a restaurant called בר בהר ("Bar in the Mountain" - it rhymes in Hebrew). I didn't have my camera with me, but we went there last year too and I took some photos of the surrounding mountains then.

We had a very nice dinner and then headed back to the sweltering city via a road I had never traveled on before, the מנהרות (the tunnels). This meant crossing the Green Line (out of Israel proper) into the West Bank, passing by a Jewish town named Betar Illit ("Upper Betar") and an Arab town just across the road from it named Bittir, and then arriving at the tunnels into Jerusalem. Before we entered the first tunnel we drove right along the separation wall, and then between the first and second tunnels there was another wall, this one not completely filled in however. We entered Jerusalem from the south and passed by a sign directing us to the tomb of Rachel, which is just at the entrance to Bethlehem and is on the Israeli side of the Green Line. When I last visited it, which was about twenty years ago, there was no wall, no checkpoint, and no massive building that enclosed Rachel's tomb. I wouldn't go there now - I can't imagine how it would be a particularly spiritual experience now. A sobering end to a pleasant afternoon in the Jerusalem hills.

President Obama: "Cambridge Police acted stupidly"

Why do I love the fact that Barack Obama is now our president? This is one big reason.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

No previous president could address racism in this direct, personal, intelligent, and politically aware way.

Cambridge 02138: Harvard professor Gates arrested at Cambridge home

UPDATE - apparently the person who called the police was not a neighbor, but someone who worked in a nearby building. In that case, it makes a bit more sense that she would call the police. (Via Ta-Nehisi Coates).

UPDATE - Cambridge Police are dropping charges, according to a Harvard Crimson story.

This is my home town - Harvard professor Gates arrested at Cambridge home.

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's pre-eminent African-American scholars, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. The incident raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling.

Gates

Police arrived at Gates’s Ware Street home near Harvard Square at 12:44 p.m. to question him. Gates, director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard, had trouble unlocking his door after it became jammed.

He was booked for disorderly conduct after “exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior,” according to a police report. Gates accused the investigating officer of being a racist and told him he had "no idea who he was messing with,'' the report said.

Gates told the officer that he was being targeted because "I'm a black man in America.'' [To read a copy of the police report, click here]

Friends of Gates said he was already in his home when police arrived. He showed his driver’s license and Harvard identification card, but was handcuffed and taken into police custody for several hours last Thursday, they said.

The police report said Gates was arrested after he yelled at the investigating officer repeatedly inside the residence then followed the officer outside, where Gates continued to upbraid him. "It was at that time that I informed Professor Gates that he was under arrest,'' the officer wrote in the report.

Get this - he was arrested in his own home. I cannot imagine that this would happen to any distinguished white Harvard professor. What is wrong with the Cambridge police? I grew up in Cambridge in the 1960s and 70s, and the Cambridge police certainly engaged in many dubious actions then, but I had hoped that they had improved since then.

The article in the Harvard Crimson on the arrest.

Ta-Nehisi Coates in the Atlantic online.

Apparently it was one of his neighbors who called the police on him. She didn't know what he looked like? He's pretty distinctive looking, and his photo appears in the local papers pretty often. Why did she call the police?

The painful cost to Israel of its settler adventure

Bradley Burston's new column today, on the painful cost to Israel of its settler adventure, explains why it's important for the U.S. administration to stand firm in its demand that Israel stop all building in the settlements.

Is this how to talk about war and peace in the Jewish tradition?

I just received a notice on the H-Judaic list about a conference on "War and Peace in Jewish Tradition" which will be happening on July 28 in Jerusalem. This seemed very promising to me, until I looked at the schedule of presentations, which does not deal at all with how the State of Israel should conduct war. I would have thought that a conference held in Jerusalem would have at least one session dealing with the contemporary debate on "just war" in the Jewish tradition and how and whether beliefs about just war should affect the actions of the state of Israel, but there is not even one paper on the topic.

I became very interested in this issue during the Gaza War and taught a section of my introduction to Judaism class in the spring on the ethics of war. (For those interested, see the relevant pages on the wiki that I created for the course: War in the Jewish Tradition; War and Ethics; and War and Ethics - Gaza War).

The first session is on "War and Peace in the Bible: From Release of Prisoners to Holy War." The second session is on "War and Reality and in Image." The three talks start with another paper on war in the Bible, the second deals with "Wars among the Jews in antiquity," and the fourth is on how Jewish immigrants in New York at the outbreak of World War I thought about the war. The last talk in this session, by Dr. Carol Lea Clark of University of Texas at El Paso, is the only one in the entire day-long conference that deals with the Gaza War: "Images of Technological and Moral Ambiguity: The New York Times' Coverage of the Gaza War, Dec. 27, 2008 to Jan. 19, 2009."

Session 3 is on war and peace in rabbinical literature. Session 4 deals with war and peace in contemporary Israeli society, but also does not deal with how Israel does or should wage war. In fact, this session includes a discussion by Dr. Nissim Dana of the Ariel University Center, on "The Wars of Muhammad as a Model for Arab Wars against Israel." What this has to do with war and peace in the Jewish tradition I do not know.

Session 5 is about "War in Jewish Law: From 'Justified War' to the Draft of Yeshiva Students." Three of the papers are on historical issues, the last one is on the draft of yeshiva students. Again, nothing on the very considerable contemporary Jewish discussions on "justified war" in the context of the state of Israel, conducted by distinguished scholars such as Michael Walzer, who wrote specifically about the Gaza War earlier this year.

The last session is on "War and Peace in Jewish Thought," which again does not appear to deal at all with how Israel should act in war. The only talk which seems to touch at all on contemporary issues is the last one, by Rabbi Yuval Cherlow on "Media Ethics in Times of War."

The conference is sponsored by Ariel University Center of Samaria - The Department of Israel's Heritage, and Beit Morasha of Jerusalem, Robert M. Beren College, The Ernest Schwarcz Institute for Ethics, Judaism and State. From looking at Beit Morasha's website, and specifically at the Schwarcz Institute, I am even more surprised at the lack of discussion on contemporary issues. The current focus of the Schwarcz Institute is on issues of war:

Coordinated by political scientist Dr. Moshe Hellinger, the Schwarcz Institute is currently focusing on ethics during times of war. Its explorations of “morality under fire” are delving into issues such as the concept of a “just” war, guerrilla warfare and collateral damage to innocent civilians, the use of human shields, and collective punishment of civilian populations. With a multidisciplinary approach, the Institute integrates content from Jewish studies, history, law, and the social sciences, and places emphasis not only on academic research and writing, but also on active involvement in education and in the public sphere.

It seems to me that a real opportunity is being lost to discuss the serious questions of ethics of war in Israel, especially after the recent release of testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence about violations of the laws of war in the Gaza War. The group has just published 54 testimonies from "Operation Cast Lead" (the Gaza War), providing evidence for numerous violations of human rights committed by Israeli soldiers during the war, and charging that these violations were not committed by rogue soldiers, but were military policy.

To read the testimonies (which are divided into a number of topics), read here. Topics include: Vandalism, Bombardment, Rabbinate Unit, Briefings, Use of White Phosphorus, Atmosphere, Home Occupation, Rules Of Engagement, House Demolitions, Human Shield.

The Breaking the Silence report is also available as a PDF at Operation Cast Lead report. Gershom Gorenberg has discussed these testimonies in a couple of recent articles. The first one was published in The American Prospect - New Testimony from Gaza. On his blog, South Jerusalem, he has posted his own commentary on the testimonies.

Why is this conference not dealing with Israel's own conduct of war?

Illusions of the Israeli political consensus

I think that the Netanyahu government is making a serious mistake in thinking that the Obama administration is not serious about stopping building in the settlements and in East Jerusalem. And it's not just the current government that is making this mistake. Ehud Olmert's statement a couple of days ago that the U.S. administration is making a mistake in insisting on moving on the settlements now is also ill-considered. Perhaps in the current Israeli political consensus the settlements are no big deal, but that is certainly not how the Palestinians think about them. The Palestinians look at the constant increase in the area of the West Bank taken by the settlements (especially those that cut off the northern from the southern West Bank, and those that cut off Arab East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, like Har Homa) and see any hope of a viable Palestinian state dissolving before their eyes.

Another article in today's Haaretz spells out the U.S. administration's position on building in Jerusalem:

The United States views East Jerusalem as no different than an illegal West Bank outpost with regard to its demand for a freeze on settlement construction, American sources have informed both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

This clarification came in the context of a growing crisis in U.S.-Israel relations over the planned construction of some 20 apartments for Jews in the Shepherd Hotel, in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. The U.S. has demanded that the project be halted, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the cabinet meeting Sunday that "Israel will not agree to edicts of this kind in East Jerusalem."

The statement by Netanyahu yesterday that Israel has sovereignty (ריבונות) over all of Jerusalem is not accepted by any other nation on earth, and certainly not by the United States (if the U.S. accepted the Israeli claim, then American passports issued in Jerusalem would read "Jerusalem, Israel" instead of the current "Jerusalem," [and I include the comma because that's how my passport, issued in Jerusalem in 1999, read]). Netanyahu also apparently thinks that Jews in the Obama administration (like David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel) should agree with the right-wing positions of the Likud Party, instead of working for the president who appointed them (as Akiva Eldar says in today's Haaretz: "We want our Jews in the administration to be blind to the settlements and deaf to the complaints of the Arabs").

Eldar's column today is one of the few I've read in the Israeli press these last few weeks that reveals any real understanding of the position of the Obama administration - a position which I, for one, believe is necessary for any kind of peace-making to go forward between Israel and the Palestinians. And American Jews support Obama in his actions. From my discussions with friends here, I've definitely gotten the impression that they misread how American Jews feel about Obama and about Israel - they seem to think that most American Jews are right-wing and religious and support the settlements. The opposite is true.

Eldar writes:

Back during his election campaign Obama made it clear that he did not have to join Likud to be a friend of Israel. Opinion polls in the United States revealed that the views of most Jews are closer to the attitudes of organizations like the Reform movement, American Friends of Peace Now and J Street, which support a two-state solution and eschew Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's doctrine - and above all, largely object to the settlements.

The conversation Obama held with representatives of the Jewish community last week confirms that Netanyahu is drafting them for the wrong war. Even his oldest supporters did not attack the president's position on the settlements, and made do with a complaint about the high profile given to disputes over the issue of natural growth in the settlements. One of the guests at that meeting said that history showed that exposing the differences between the U.S. and Israel does not help to advance peace. [This was Malcolm Hoenlein of the mis-named Organization of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, who never saw anything wrong with the Bush administration's effectively doing nothing about peace during its entire eight years].

"This was not my reading of the lessons of the last eight years," Obama responded without flinching. Moreover, he said he would not shy away from a willingness to pressure all parties, including Israel, if that is in the best interests of the United States and Israel. Obama did not hesitate to tell his Jewish interlocutors that beyond the special commitment to Israel's security, his policy would be completely even-handed. If it became necessary, Obama said, he would speak to Israelis, as he had done to the Arab and Muslim world, to help them to achieve some kind of self-reflection.

Obama has internalized what his predecessors refused to understand: the traditional supporters of the Israeli right are growing old, or losing their relevance. They are giving way to younger, liberal forces who identify with Obama's values. In the "best" case, Netanyahu's incitement against the "self-hating Jews" will do to them what his whispered comment in the ear of Rabbi Kaduri "those leftists are not Jews" did to Israelis a decade ago - it turned them against him.

Eldar is absolutely correct.

Street cats in Jerusalem

When I first got here in June I arrived just in time for Hebrew Book Week (שבוע הספר). I went off with a friend to the book fair at Gan ha-Pa'amon and bought a few books, including on on the development of the Old City of Jerusalem during the 19th century (Yehoshua Ben-Arieh, Jerusalem in the 19th Century: The Old City, published by Yad Izhak Ben Zvi Institute in 1984). Another one is called חתולי הרחוב שלי ("My Street Cats") by Raphaella Bilski (published by Carmel, 2007). It's about her adventures with Jerusalem street cats over the last 14 years. She is a professor of government at the Hebrew University, focusing on politicaly philosophy.

This is a very sweet book, which reveals quite a bit about the author as well as the cats she writes about. She writes about the first cat who came to her garden - Kitsoshi, about how families of cats established themselves in her garden and in the cat pergola which she set up for them, about the friendship between cats (including two female cats who raised their kittens together), about the trauma when her neighbors become angry with her because she had so many cats in the garden and she has to send some of them away, about the territories of cats, about how the mothers train their kittens to be good hunters, etc. In the back of the book she gives several cat genealogies, including one for Kitzoshi. She gets very involved in the life of the cats, worries about them, raises abandoned kittens by hand, cries when they die - she is truly a fine cat lady and expresses well the untoward affection that some of us develop for cats.

Elms in the Yard, a Jerusalem blog, frequently posts photos of Jerusalem cats.

To the left is a photo I took in 2004 of a street cat in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.

More on cats

A friend just stopped by and told me about one of her projects while she's here in Jerusalem - she's photographing one cat a day and sending the picture to her daughter back home in the U.S. I told her about my interest in cat ancestry and the link between domestic cats and wildcats from the Middle East, which made me go back and look again at the New York Times article from 2007 that first piqued my interest in this question. The Times website provides a link to the article in Science from which the information was taken. Amidst the technique discussion of genetics, which I was not able to follow very well, there were some little poetic gems that expressed the conclusions of the article in more understandable language.

The domestic cat may be the world's most numerous pet, yet little is certain of the cat's origin. Archaeological remains and anthropological clues suggest that, unlike species domesticated for agriculture (e.g., cow, pig, and sheep) or transport (horse and donkey), the cat probably began its association with humans as a commensal, feeding on the rodent pests that infested the grain stores of the first farmers. The earliest evidence of cat-human association involves their co-occurrence in Cyprus deposits determined to be 9500 years old. Domestic cats are generally considered to have descended from the Old World wildcats, but they differ from these hypothesized progenitors in behavior, tameness, and coat color diversity....

These 15 individuals [Middle Eastern wildcats] had concordant mtDNA and STR phylogenies identical to those of domestic cats and were collected in remote deserts of Israel, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, or Saudi Arabia. These data suggest that these Near Eastern wildcats may represent the ancestral founder population of domestic cats, supporting a domestication origin in the Near East....

The domestication of wild species to complement human civilization stands as one of the more successful "biological experiments" ever undertaken. For cats, the process began more than 9000 years ago when the earliest farmers of the Fertile Crescent domesticated grains and cereals as well as livestock. In parallel, the endemic wildcats of the region may have adapted by both regulating the rodents in the grain stores and abandoning their aggressive wild-born behaviors. The archaeological imprints left in the genomes of living cats here weigh into inferences about the timing, steps, and provenance of domestication—a dynamic exercise depicted in art, in history, and in human cultural development since recorded evidence began.

Much more pleasant to contemplate than humans rioting!

Still more riots in Jerusalem!

I'm listening to the reports tonight on Reshet Bet about the renewed riots tonight in Jerusalem. Apparently, there are thousands of Haredi rioters on Rte. 1 in the Bet Yisrael neighborhood throwing rocks and attacking police. Many have been arrested. Ten police have been injured by the rioters. The reporter speaking now on Reshet Bet mentions a big demonstration on Zaks St. in the Shmuel ha-Navi neighborhood, as well as speeches in Yiddish by rabbis speaking now in Kikar Shabbat telling the Haredim not to give up.

According to an article on the Hebrew Ynet page, the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, is involving himself in the conflict, contacting the Jerusalem municipality, the police, and the Haredim, in an effort to calm tempers.

Jerusalem Police Chief Cmdr. Aharon Franco said Thursday evening that over the past day there "was a marked escalation" in the rioting of haredim in Jerusalem, warning that the level of violence was rising, "both towards municipal workers and towards public infrastructure."

Franco, who was speaking in a press conference, directed some veiled criticism at the government for failing to find a solution to the incessant friction between the extremist elements in the haredi community and the police. "We're talking about a capital city and not enough has been done on the national level in order to calm down the situation," he said.

Warning of further dangers that could arise due to the rioting, Franco said, "They've dismantled traffic lights, and without traffic lights deadly accidents could take place. They've disconnected systems in electricity poles and people could be electrocuted.

"I have not found a single place in the Bible where it is written that these actions are permissible," he added.

According to Haaretz, Franco also criticized the leaders of the Haredi community for not doing anything to cool the tempers of the rioters.

"There is not one sane voice within the Haredi community that will rise up and cry out against this phenomenon," Franco said. "They have rabbis, they have leadership, and I haven't heard the rabbis or sages crying out."

For those curious to know exactly where today's rioting occurred, Haaretz has helpfully put up links to Google maps.

The rabbi of the Toldos Aron group (to which the woman arrested for abusing her son belongs) announced today at a demonstration in Kikar Shabbat that the members of his group should continue fighting the woman's arrest "until the last drop of blood."

I just discovered a blog called Shearim, whose author is a woman who lives in Jerusalem and is fascinated by Hasidim and goes to many Hasidic events, although she is apparently not Haredi herself. Her blog describes many visits to the Toldos Aron synagogue and other Toldos Aron events.

Neturei Karta meet with Haniyeh in Gaza

Some things you just cannot make up. While Neturei Karta in Jerusalem is rioting against the arrest of a woman accused of starving her son, other members of Neturei Karta meet with Haniyeh in Gaza. They apparently arrived in Gaza on one of the boats that international "peace" activists have been trying to land there.

Today, in Jerusalem, three people were hurt by stones thrown by rioters, workers were evacuated from welfare bureau offices when threatened by stone-throwing Haredim, Haredim also threw stones at the windows of the Education Ministry, hurled stones at police officers, set fire to trash cans, and the police stopped dozens of Haredim trying to reach Jaffa Rd. See also the Jerusalem Post report on today's occurrences - Workers evacuated as haredim stone welfare office.

More riots in Jerusalem

While, thank God, we have not had to suffer from terrorist attacks, Jerusalem haredi riots spread to Beit Shemesh. Now the riots are not about a) the gay pride march, or b) the opening of a parking garage on Shabbat, but c) the arrest of a Haredi mother suspected of starving her son, so that at the age of three, he only weighed about 15 lbs.

In a hearing held earlier in the day at the Jerusalem District Court, the head of the special investigation team said of the reactions to the mother's arrest: "There were tactics here befitting organized crime. Doctors, police officers and witnesses were all threatened."

Police are continuing to collect testimonies from doctors who treated the toddler, who is currently hospitalized at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital for severe malnutrition. Experts have posited that the woman in question suffers from Munchausen by proxy. Welfare officials suspicious that she may be actively harming her son set up cameras in the boy's hospital room, allowing the investigators to catch the mother on tape disconnecting the child's feeding tube.

While the first two reasons for rioting make some sense within the Haredi worldview, this last example completely baffles me.

Here are some statements by demonstrators:

"We know the family," said demonstrator Yaakov Avraham Fruchter. "It's a good family, and no one ever sinned … It's just a blood libel."

Chana Weisvish also called the woman's arrest the "blood libel of 2009."

"She said something to the big doctor that didn't suit him, so he said to her 'You won't see your son for three years,' and he took revenge on her. So he brought social workers that testified against her that she's not a good woman …

"We will not be silent about it, because if they can get away with it once, then they'll do it again."

Another onlooker agreed, saying: "I am sure that she is innocent. I know her personally, she is a woman who nurtures her children, nurtures her house, nurtures everything. A pure woman. She sits all day, from eight in the morning until 10 at night, every day by her son … It's really not appropriate for a religious woman to sit with those criminals, women with drugs in jail."

Well, if the woman actually did what she is accused of, she is certainly not religious in my understanding of the term, which includes treating other people kindly! There's clearly something else going on here. The news reports merely say that she's part of an "extremist" group in the Haredi world, without going into any detail about who it is and why they would react in this way.

According to the Failed messiah blog, the woman belongs to the Toldos Aron Hasidic sect - which is indeed one of the most extreme, ascetic parts of the entire Haredi community. Another article on Ynet said that she is part of Neturei Karta.

What happened to the suicide bombers of Jerusalem?

Christopher Hitchens writes on the question: What happened to the suicide bombers of Jerusalem?

Since I am currently in Jerusalem, this is obviously a matter of some personal concern to me. Hitchens makes the important point that while the supply of people who are willing to become suicide bombers may be affected by despair (political, personal, economic, religious), what is really important is whether the "Nasty, vicious, fanatical old men, not human emotions, were making the decisions and deciding the days and the hours of death." Since Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade leaders stopped sending people, for whatever reason, the suicide bombings have stopped (at least for now).

He does, of course, cite a number of other factors, like Israeli targeted assassinations at leaders of the terrorist groups, and the building of the גדר הפרדה (variously translated as separation fence or wall), which made it harder for bombers to get into Israel proper.

Yesterday I went to the Old City to do some research for the course on Jerusalem that I'm teaching in the fall, and at the end of the day I went to the Cinematheque (on Hebron Rd., across the Gei Ben Hinnom valley from the Old City). I discovered that from there I had a very good view of a portion of the separation wall. (And here in Jerusalem at least it's certainly accurate to call it a wall, since it's made of huge slabs of concrete.

Here is a photo of one part of it which can be seen from above the Cinematheque.

Car accidents vs. terrorism

Every time I plan to go to Israel, concerned friends and relatives in the United States ask me if I think it's really safe enough to visit. What they're thinking of is bombs and suicide attackers. But actually, a much higher risk is car accidents, as witnessed this past weekend, when 7 were killed in weekend car accidents. "On Friday, six people were killed in a head-on collision between two cars on Route 38 near Beit Shemesh." The accident was caused by drunk driving and a bad road.

Police said witnesses told them that Maimon [the driver of one of the cars] had been drinking beer with his friends at at a pool party prior to the accident. They also said he had smashed the wing mirror of another car with his speeding vehicle moments before the deadly crash.

Magen David Adom teams that arrived at the scene pronounced the six people dead immediately upon reaching the location, and the injured were taken to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.

Traffic Police Chief Cmdr. Avi Ben-Hemo and Jerusalem District Chief Cmdr. Ilan Franco were both called to the scene, and Franco said relatives of the families arrived and started scuffling after the accident.

Route 38 is narrow and contains many sharp turns and many segments of it are blocked from view by foliage. There is no physical barrier between the lanes and the road is used by many trucks on a daily basis. Beit Shemesh residents have warned in the past that the road is dangerous.