Israel’s next ambassador to the US – it cudda been me

May 6, 2009 - 9:17 AM by David · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Politics 

Michal Oren (Photo: The Toby Press)

Michal Oren (Photo: The Toby Press)

There’s a warm glow in the bellies these days of many Israelis who immigrated from the US. One of our own – historian and author Michael Oren – has been named to be ambassador to the US.

Oren, whose books include Six Days of War: June 1967, The Making of the Modern Middle East and, most recently, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, made aliyah in 1979, only a few years before me. It just confirms that if I had buckled down more, had been a whole lot smarter, and like wearing ties, I might have gotten that posting myself.

While many nationalities in our melting pot have strong representation in the upper echelons of government, business and culture, it seems like we former Americans have been under-achievers, or maybe just too timid to push ahead in the the Middle Eastern environment here. Maybe, we just can’t work the protekzia button the way others have been able to.

Sure, there’s Tal Brody in basketball, Bank Hapoalim’s Shari Arison in business, Nobel Prize winner Robert Aumann, and Dore Gold, Ron Dermer and Ari Harrow in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s inner posse, as well as many more which I’m sure you’ll remind me of.

But when a fellow countryman, even one you don’t know personally, achieves the heights that Oren has, it’s reason to be proud. And Oren, evidently has many reasons to make us proud. Besides being one of the world’s foremost historians on the Middle East, Oren is a mensch, according to his fellow IDF reservist Dan Gordon.

Gordon, writing in his blog, described an incident during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, in which he and Oren were serving in the Army Spokesman’s unit on the front lines.

We hooked up with the ambulance in a wadi or deep ravine. Flairs were going off above us, which meant that Hizbullah knew we were there and were hunting for us. We served as the covering force while the fallen were evacuated.

Later Michael’s daughter, who was serving as a social worker in the Golani Brigade, called Michael on his cell phone. Her unit had taken a lot of wounded; most of them were her friends.

Michael turned to me and said, “My daughter needs a hug. Can I borrow your car?” The two of us drove down from the Lebanese border to Rambam Hospital in Haifa. Michael spent a half hour with his daughter; gave her a much needed hug and then the two of us drove back near dawn to rejoin our unit.

That is the kind of man Israel’s ambassador designate to the U.S. is. He wouldn’t hesitate to endanger his life not only to recover wounded, but to recover the fallen, and though exhausted himself, drove round trip, four hours to give his daughter a hug when she most needed her father’s love.

Politics aside, and Oren’s been bashed for being both too Right and too Left, as a person representing Israel’s interests in the US, there’s every indication he’s going to walk right down the middle. And if he finds the job too taxing, I’m available to help out as long as I don’t have to wear a tie.

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Palestinian kids and Holocaust survivors face the music

March 29, 2009 - 8:35 AM by David · 4 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Life, Music, War, coexistence 

The Strings of Freedom Orchestra (AP)

The Strings of Freedom Orchestra (AP)

It sounded like a dream story for these jaded times in the Mideast – a group of young Palestinian teen orchestra musicians from the Jenin refugee camp, performing for a group of Israeli Holocaust survivors.

It happened last week in Holon, as part of ‘Good Deeds Day,’ an annual event run by an organization connected to Bank Hapoalim heiress and billionaire Shari Arison. The 13 musicians, aged 11 to 18, belong to ‘Strings of Freedom,’ and the survivors are patrons of Holon’s Holocaust Survivors Center.

According to the Associated Press, most of the Holocaust survivors did not know the youths were Palestinians from Jenin, one of the more extremist terror strongholds in the West Bank, and the youths had no idea they were performing for people who lived through Nazi genocide — or even what the Holocaust was.

Some 30 elderly survivors gathered in the center’s hall as teenage boys and girls filed in 30 minutes late — delayed at an Israeli military checkpoint outside their town, they later explained.

Some of the young women wore Muslim head scarves — but also sunglasses and school ties.
As a host announced in Hebrew that the youths were from the Jenin refugee camp, there were gasps and muttering from the crowd. “Jenin?” one woman asked in jaw-dropped surprise.

Conductor Wafa Younis, from the Arab village of Ara in Israel, then explained in fluent Hebrew that the youths would sing for peace, prompting the audience to burst into applause.
“Inshallah,” said Sarah Glickman, 68, using the Arabic term for “God willing.”

Glickman, whose family moved to the newly created Jewish state in 1949 after fleeing to Siberia to escape the Nazis, said she had no illusions the encounter would make the children understand the Holocaust. But she said it might make a “small difference.”

“They think we are strangers, because we came from abroad,” Glickman said. “I agree: It’s their land, also. But there was no other option for us after the Holocaust.”

Younis said the main mission of the orchestra, formed seven years ago to help Palestinian children overcome war trauma, was to bring people together.

“I’m here to raise spirits,” Younis said. “These are poor, old people.”

However, back home in Jenin, the event drew strong condemnations from refugee camp leaders and political activists, who accused the organizers of exploiting the children for “political purposes.”

According to The Jerusalem Post, Adnan al-Hinda, director of the Popular Committee for Services in the Jenin refugee camp, said that the participation of the children in the concert was a “dangerous matter” because it was directed against the cultural and national identity of the Palestinians.

He accused “suspicious elements” of being behind the Holon event, saying they were seeking to “impact the national culture of the young generation and cast doubt about the heroism and resistance of the residents of the camp during the Israeli invasion in April 2002.”

Ramzi Fayad, a spokesman for various political factions in the Jenin refugee camp, also condemned the participation of the teenagers in the Holocaust event, saying all the groups were strongly opposed to any form of normalization with Israel.

“There can be no normalization while Israel is continuing to perpetrate massacres against our people,” he said.

Leaflets distributed in the Jenin area over the weekend also attacked the event and accused the organizers of exploiting the children. The leaflets also warned the Palestinians against participating in similar events in the future.

Sources in the camp said that the political factions in Jenin have also decided to ban an Israeli Arab woman who helped organize the event from entering the city.

Fatah activists in the city also filed a complaint with the Palestinian Police against the woman under the pretext that she had misled the children by taking them to the Holocaust event. The activists also sealed an apartment that had been rented out to the woman in the refugee camp.

So, just like most attempts to draw people together here, the Jenin-Holocaust survivors summit seems to have ended on a sour note. But let’s hope the youth orchestra returns to play again, and that some day, a group of young Israeli musicians might even be able to go to Jenin and play some music there, without having to fear for their lives.

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