Israel’s happy but realistic about bin Laden demise
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, News, Politics, War
Americans celebrate outside the White House Sunday night.
Other government officials as well as the Israeli media made sure to point out the reaction to the killing by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh who condemned the US ‘policy of killing and repression’ and hailed bin Laden as a Muslim mujahed [warrior] and Arab human being.
The only naysayers among the general public in Israel were those fringe Obama haters who worried that the action would boost the US president’s ratings and chances of being reelected in 2012. “There is no doubt that Obama is a greater threat to Israel than Osama was,” National Union MK Aryeh Eldad told The Jerusalem Post, going down in infamy as an all-time boneheaded statement.
But while there weren’t any spontaneous celebration – like there were in Times Square, outside the White House or at Ground Zero – the vast majority of Israelis rejoiced along with America on Monday.
Perhaps, because we’ve been fighting the daily struggle against terrorism and our own local bin Ladens for so long, we’re aware that one knockout punch isn’t going to end the battle of Islamic fundamentalist terror against the West. It didn’t happen when Israel took out Hamas mastermind Sheikh Yassin in 2004 and it didn’t happen when it targeted Hiezbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh in 2008.
That could be why we weren’t out dancing in the streets along with America. It’s not the last dance yet.
Grappling with the Katsav verdict
Filed under: A New Reality, Crime, General, Israeliness, Life, News, Social Justice
Does today’s conviction of former president Moshe Katsav on two counts of rape as well sexual harrassment and committing indecent acts show Israel in a positive or negative light?
After all it’s not everyday that a leading public figure is found by judges to be a criminal, guilty of heinous acts. It doesn’t cast a glowing light on the state of our leaders, the neanderthal views toward women by a certain segment of Katsav’s generation of males, or our ability to suss out the bad apples in the barrel.
On the other hand, Katsav’s conviction is a testament to Israel’s vibrant democratic process, in which even the most powerful in the land are not above the law. Most reactions to Thursday’s court findings commented on this dichotomy.
While calling it “a sad day for Israel,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu also said that “the court today delivered two clear messages, one being that everyone is equal in the eyes of the law and the second the right of every woman to be in control of her own body,”
The state prosecutor Ronit Amiel also referred to the sadness surrounding the event but asserted that the verdict represented a “badge of honor for Israeli democracy.”
And Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch said at a swearing-in ceremony for new judges that the verdict “demonstrates the value of equality before the law.”
Speaking at the same ceremony, President Shimon Peres said: “There are not two States of israel. There is only one State of Israel. There are not two justice systems in Israel. There is only one justice system. There are not two types of citizens in Israel. There is only one type of citizen, and all are equal before the law.”
And the Katsav case is not the only example of the good, bad and ugly of Israeli society. Since 2008, courts have indicted former PM Ehud Olmert for fraud, sentenced former finance minister Avraham Hirschson to five years imprisonment for theft and money laundering, and convicted former health minister Shlomo Benizri of taking bribes.
While we Israelis feel the bile and nausea over the realization that our former president committed depraved acts in the very halls which represent the country’s independence, we can also stand tall amid the legal process that brought him to justice. It was indeed, the worst and the best of days.
No need to plug these leaks
Filed under: A New Reality, Blogging, General, Israeliness, News, Politics, Technology
Israeli officials were quivering in their chairs on Sunday in anticipation of WikiLeak’s release of the trove of diplomatic cables it had obtained. The weekend papers warned that there would be much embarrassment on both the Israeli side over revealed US government assessments of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and former PMs Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert.
Netanyahu went so far to remind reporters on Sunday, before the documents were published on news websites around the world, that Israel was not expected to be the focus of the documents.
“Israel is not the center of international attention,” Netanyahu said during a visit to the southern border with Egypt. “Normally, there’s a gap between what is said publicly and what is said privately, but in this case, the gap is not large.”
It turned out that he was right. While the documents released Sunday night included some titillating tidbits about other public figures – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was referred to as “Hitler,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy as a “naked emperor,” the German chancellor was called Angela “Teflon” Merkel and Afghan President Hamid Karzai as “driven by paranoia,” Vladimir Putin was referred to as “Alpha Male,” while Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is “afraid, hesitant,” Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s full-time nurse is a “hot blond,” and Berlusconi loves “wild parties,” – the material pertaining to Israel is serious and to the point.
• Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, who stepped down as head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence last week, said in a meeting in 2009 with US Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Florida) that Israel was not in a position to underestimate Iran and be surprised like the United States was on 9/11.
• Mossad director Meir Dagan told Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns in 2007 that Israel and the United States need to do more to create regime change in Iran.
• Dagan also told Frances Fragos Townsend, assistant to the US president for homeland security and counterterrorism, in the summer of 2007 that IDF operations against Hamas in the West Bank were preventing the terrorist group from taking over the Fatah-controlled territory, according to a cable from the US Embassy in Tel Aviv to the State Department.
• According to another cable sent from the embassy in Tel Aviv, Barak revealed to a congressional delegation in 2009 that Israel tried to coordinate Operation Cast Lead with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
According to an analysis by The Jerusalem Post’s Yaakov Katz, “while there were some comments made by Mossad director Meir Dagan regarding leaders in the Middle East – the emir of Qatar is “annoying,” and the king of Morocco is not interested in governing – that are slightly embarrassing, Israeli politicians were spared the more embarrassing analyses of their personalities that French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi received.”
Not even a mention of Bibi’s comb over. And Katz also surmised that from an Israeli perspective, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the WikiLeaks documents may have helped Israel.
By presenting the Arab leaders as more extreme in their remarks than Israeli leaders, the cables show the dissonance in the region and the danger involved in allowing Iran to continue with its nuclear program.
So, our initial pre-embarassment over the release of the classified documents has turned into satisfaction. At least until the more damning ones come out.
You’re late, Netanyahu!
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Social Justice
One of the great equalizers in Israeli society is the army. Of course, I’m talking about those segments of society that actually serve in the IDF – not the ultra-Orthodox haredim, nor the far-Left draft dodgers, nor the Israeli Arab citizens for whom an obligatory national service still hasn’t been invoked – but for the rest of us…
Oh, all right, let’s restate that and say for the small majority of Israelis who actually serve in the IDF, the institution is a great equalizer. Just look at the names and hometowns of the air force men who died in this week’s helicopter training accident in Romania – a 48-year-old father from Modi’in, a young kibbutznik, another from a moshav, a Rehovot resident. When a tragedy like befalls the country, we all feel it, because the victims are not just faceless soldiers, but somebody’s neighbor.
Another way that the army evens things out is in its lack of favoritism in its treatment of soldiers. That even goes for soldiers who happen to be the son of the prime minister.
Yediot Aharonot reported today that Yair Netanyahu, the son of PM Binyamin Netanyahu, was recently handed a 10-day detention sentence after showing up late at the IDF Spokesperson’s Office headquarters, where he serves. After the young Netanyahu appealed his sentence, a senior officer at the base lopped two days off the punishment.
Military officials told Yediot that Netanyahu was being treated just like any other soldier. “He was tried for an incident for which any other soldier would have been tried and received adequate punishment,” one source said.
Yair should be applauded for not throwing his family name around and receiving special treatment, not that it would help in any case. However, given his intense schedule and shoulder-dropping responsibilities, it’s a surprise that the elder Netanyahu hasn’t taken his son’s hint and blown off a couple meetings. After all, who’s going to ground him?
Much ado about Gilad
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Politics, War
The country is sort of going a little crazy right now amid the flurry of reports about the imminent release of Gilad Schalit, the IDF soldier who’s been held captive by a faction within Hamas since 2006.
Rumors and speculation abound that the release in exchange for 450 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails – some hardened terrorists with ‘blood on their hands’, a euphenism for being the masterminds or perpetrators of terror acts – is only days away.
While media reports along the same lines crop up every few weeks, this is the first time since the whole ordeal began that it seems like there’s a semblance of truth to what’s being reported. President Shimon Peres said in Cairo on Sunday that progress had been made, and on Monday, a Hamas delegation from Gaza arrived in Cairo to discuss and decide on whether to accept the latest prisoner list provided by Israel. At the same time, Schalit’s parents, Noam and Aviva went to the Knesset to lobby the support of ministers to approve the deal on the Israeli side.
While all Israelis want to see Schalit come home to his family, some are saying that the price of releasing terrorists is too high. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged on Monday to hold discussions in the Knesset and with the public on the terms of a deal for the release of Shalit.
Netanyahu told fellow Likud MKs that the difficulties in making the decision lay in the government’s different goals in the negotiations.
“On one hand, the desire to take care of our soldiers and bring them back, sometimes at the cost of endangering lives – a very big principle for our people and in the Jewish tradition,” he said. “And on the other hand: refraining from encouraging future abductions.”
Members of the National Union party held a press conference urging Netanyahu to reject the deal, warning that it would increase terrorist attacks on Israel.
While that could possibly be an outcome of the prisoner release, it will be difficult, if not impossible for the government to turn back the deal. Apropo to Brian’s touching post below, in a country in which most families have a daughter or son, father and mother who have served or are serving in the army, the national sentiment is top heavy toward bringing Schalit home at any price.
Most of us who may bear the brunt of freshly released terrorists within arms length are willing to take that chance for the opportunity to see Gilad Schalit hugging his parents.
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