More war-related news.I'm pouring most of the really hot items into
Command Post. These are juicy tidbits with more shelf life:
The DoD has a
list of support-the-troops links.Add
Flit to the hour-by-hour war report blogs.
Outside the Beltway has some
happy photos of US troops, plus one of
Saddam's presidential palace - ouch.
Amygdala consistently finds obscure funky science and political stories in corners where no one else is looking, for example
the diaries of Gertrude Bell, one of those dotty English adventurers whose fascination with Arab culture shaped the Middle East into what it is today.
. . . her life was governed by a love of the Arab peoples, inspired, it seems, by a visit to friends in Jerusalem in 1899-1900. She learned their language, investigated their archaeological sites, and travelled deep into the desert, accompanied only by male guides. Her knowledge of the country and its tribes thereby gained made her a prime target for recruitment by British Intelligence during the First World War, later, as a Political Officer, and then as Oriental Secretary to the High Commissioner in Baghdad, she became a king-maker in the new state of Iraq, which she had helped to create. Her first love, however, was always for archaeology, and, as Honorary Director of Antiquities in Iraq, she established in Baghdad the Iraq Museum.
Jim Henley has a suggestion for an incorruptible, experienced, credible
statesman of international stature to helm the post-war Iraq Reconstructon Commission.
I like it.
Spring solstice. I have outlived last winter!
April! I am not dead!
the ancient exclamation
of Eleusis. Dead do not
cry out anything nor bring
sheaves to Demeter.
The dead did not outlive last winter
but I have outlived last winter.
- my favorite poet,
Paul Goodman (from
Hawkweed, 1967)
When I was a child, my grandmother used to tell me all kinds of stories that had to do with history, Jewish history in particular. As Jewish history goes, some of these stories involved violence against Jews. Some of her stories came from personal experience, like the pogrom that took place in her home town of Orsha in Belorussia, when she was about 3 years old. She remembered people going from house to house, killing Jews. She said that some gentiles stood in front of her house to protect it, saying: "We won't let you kill Mendel [my great-grandfather]". I remember her explaining why they liked him, but don't remember what the explanation was.
There was another story that she occasionally told me, which not only was not personal, but I cannot imagine where she got it at all, because this kind of information was not commonly available in the Soviet Union. The story was that during WWll Romanians rounded up some Jews, cut them up, put them in barrels, with the word "Kosher" on them. I never heard this story anywhere else, and never actually believed it. That is, until I read
this just now:
Remarkably, roughly half of Romania's 750,000 Jews survived the war, but the country's early, spasmodic acts of anti-Semitic violence stand out even in the general inhumanity of the Holocaust: during a pogrom in Bucharest in early 1941, Jews were forced to crawl through a slaughterhouse where they were butchered like cattle, beheaded and stamped "fit for human consumption." That book review is apparently from the NYT, BTW.
I really want to say more about this, but I just cannot put it into words.
I was not looking forward to this war in the positive sense, but I know it is necessary, and thus I wanted to get on with it. Still, I never expected it to "fix" the Middle East, or the world. So, since it has started, although I am relieved from all the tension of anticipation, I still have this heavy feeling that I just cannot explain to non-Jews. The only way I can put it into words is this: there is no place in the world that is completely safe for anyone. No, even worse: this whole world is absolutely unsafe for all human beings, in large part through their own fault. But somehow, Israel is the safest unsafe place for the Jews. Does this make any sense?
Blog round-up. First of all, my apologies to "Tom Paine" for not managing to squeeze in
his Carnival of the Vanities entry the week
I was hosting, especially since he devoted a chunk of it to quoting and discussing our boy Kohelet. Then, Rick Bruner
reluctantly drags himself to a pro-war position, demolishing his friends' antiwar arguments along the way. Winds of Change is (are?) looking for
nominations for the Ultimate idiotarian Contest - go help them out. Finally, Laura employs surgical precision in fisking
Stanley Kurtz on women in the armed forces.
The UN enters the Libyan Age. I get this email newsletter called
Global Development Briefing, which lists interesting NGO-related goings-on around the globe, carries job postings, etc. I forget how I got on it - I'm not in the industry - but it's an interesting window onto a world of professional international do-gooders. Anyway, today's Briefing begins with this:
"Censorship, arbitrary detention, jailings, disappearances, torture - at last the UN has appointed someone who knows what she's talking about."
- Reporters Without Borders on Najat Al-Hajjaji, the Libyan chair of the 53-nation UN Human Rights Commission.
Libya began its controversial leadership of the UN's top human rights body Mar. 17; the Paris-based NGO was expelled from the meeting after six members threw protest leaflets around the room during Ms. Al-Hajjaji's opening speech, in whichshe criticized Israel and warned that war against Iraq would damage human rights.
Ha ha.
Moran still sinking the Democrats: The
American Prowler has the
nth installment of the Jim Moran saga. My friend Mike Granoff is weighing into the fray - and that can only spell doom for Moran:
The clearest sign that Moran -- and perhaps more broadly Democrats -- are in trouble with Jewish voters was news on Thursday that a former staffer for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and currently a Washington lawyer, Jeremy Bash, was willing to step up and challenge Moran in next year's Democratic primary.
Bash's roots are in the Northern Virginia district which Moran currently represents. His father was a rabbi at a Virginia temple, and the younger Bash has been active in Democratic politics. AIPAC played up the Bash decision, and then pulled out a few big guns: the money men.
Bash has already lined up some of the biggest national Jewish political donors in the game: Michael Granoff, a New York investment banker, who helped fund Democrat Artur Davis's victory over Alabama's Democratic Rep. Earl Hilliard, as well as Rep. Cynthia McKinney's defeat in Georgia. As well, Steve Grossman, former president of the DNC and AIPAC, threw his support behind Bash.
American Jewish groups are apparently enraged that Moran is now claiming that one reason for saying what he said was that his district has one of largest numbers of Muslim and Arab-American voters in the U.S. "I bet there wasn't a single Muslim or Arab American in that room when he spouted off about the Jews," says a current AIPAC staffer.
It isn't just Moran who is taking the heat. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi had asked for a private sitdown with AIPAC leaders at its upcoming Washington meeting, but was rebuffed, in part, because of her handling of the Moran mess. "We're going to make her sweat on this one," says the AIPAC staffer.
For now, Pelosi's only scheduled appearance at the AIPAC event will be on a panel alongside House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Jews blamed for the war, Part 4. Actually, this is
just an addendum. Gary
links to David Frum's article on paleoconservatives.
Fact I Did Not Know: Justin Raimondo, an Internet journalist who delivered Pat Buchanan's nominating speech at the Reform party convention in 2000....
That fits wonderfully with the rest of Raimondo's maunderings about Israel being implicated in September 11th and general (not universal, of course) kookiness.
That explains a lot. . . .
Gary also points to
Saddam's defiant message to the "American, English and Zionist invading aggressors" and adds
Surely an oversight that he didn't remember to say "American, English and neo-conservative invading aggressors." I guess he didn't get the memo.
UPDATE: Gary
deconstructs Jim Henley's attempt to dismiss the issue. Matt Welch has a
long piece with documentation speculating that the Saudis might be behind the recent attempt to smear the neo-cons in the Bush administration.
All war, all the time. Blogs with ongoing as-it-happens war news (veracity not guaranteed):
Professional media:CNN correspondent Kevin Sites has a
"personal website not affiliated with, endorsed by, or funded by CNN." Pretty gnarly looking dude.
The BBC is hosting a
Reporters' Log.On March 18th
New Republic Senior Editor Gregg Easterbrook
began filing regular dispatches focusing on such matters as tactics, weaponry, technology, and logistics.
Longtime Iraqi dissident Kanan Makiya is also
writing a war diary for TNR.
Howard Owens for the Ventura County Star.
Jeff Jarvis for NewJersey.com.
San Jose Mercury News warblog.
Blogosphere:The Command Post is an ad-hoc group weblog reporting for the duration of the war, staffed by some of your blog favorites. (I just joined the fun.)
Constant war posts at
Blogs of War (check out
this photo), Rantburg, and
Winds of Change.And
Salam in Baghdad, of course.
Armed forces personnel:Lt. Smash.From the Sandbox with
Captain Steve.Sgt. Stryker.Group Captain Mandrake.Lots of
military weblogs, including spouses and families at MSNBC.
This is the blog equivalent of keeping the TV on and channel surfing, except on the net you'll get a wider variety of news and opinion. (But you knew that.)
UPDATE:
Kevin Sites was told to shut down his blog by CNN.
War news. Everybody's doing it, says
Reuters.Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, the Internet has taken on the role the corner barbershop once played in small-town America -- a place where people gather to discuss and debate issues. . . . "This war is a ratcheting up of the significance of the 'Net . . . They needed to vent and there was no room for that in the traditional media space . . .So the Web becomes a virtual commons where people can talk about anxieties, swap morsels of information and it's a many-to-many medium, unlike television."
I sure hope
this is true - It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Not. As the war proceeds, Fisk becomes
more and more incoherent. Is the plethora of Iraq pundits leaving you confused? Ask and you shall receive:
The Slate Field Guide to Iraq Pundits (from Richard Perle to Thomas Friedman to Janeane Garofalo).
A peculiarly American hubris. Meryl
points out the very American arrogance (and implied racism) that leads people like Rachel Corrie to think they are invulnerable. (And much more from Tal G, Russian Israelis, Amira Hass, the author of the ICT terrorism study, and others
here.)
UPDATE: More on Rachel Corrie
here and
here.
Keen foresight - not. Guess which high-ranking American official said this?
When I met with Yitzhak Shamir on April 9 [1991] to discuss the peace process, he was quite concerned that despite a great victory, Saddam was alive and still in control. “It’s not a good lesson for the area,” Shamir told me. “Such a man, if you could call him a man, who’s cost us so many losses, who has dared to attack us with missiles, is a man that we can’t live with. I think everything in the region will be temporary until this fact changes.” I responded that all our Arab coalition partners believed that Saddam would be ousted by a coup within six to eight months.
Well, I won't keep you in suspense - it was James Baker. You know, Mr.
"Fuck the Jews - they don't vote for us anyway." Mr. Baker, is that crystal ball of yours under warranty?
(via
Matt Welch)
UPDATE:
Tal G links to an article about how the first Bush administration decided to leave Saddam in power.
The first meeting, which took place between Cheney and Powell, was intended to prepare the proposal given to then-president George Bush. Powell, who essentially controlled the conversation, proposed an immediate end to the war once Kuwait was liberated from Iraqi occupation. Cheney wasn't satisfied with that, and asked Powell to offer alternatives to show the president. Although he asked Powell a number of times, those present noticed that the secretary of state did not respond, but only reiterated his sole proposal - to immediately end the attack. The two then went to Bush, and the final decision was made, against the recommendations of the field commander, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who was on the ground.
You can't make this stuff up Dept. PARIS, March 17 (Reuters) - The only way left to avoid war in Iraq is for Pope John Paul to rush to Baghdad to be "the protector of humanity's values," a French parliamentary deputy said on Monday.
(via
lgf comments)
Not only secretly manipulating the world for nefarious purposes but Christ-killers too Dept. Meryl
updates us on the
Mel Gibson life-of-Christ-movie controversy. Yow! Every anti-semitic stereotype of the past 2000 years is taking its turn on the world stage. Every last one. Sort of like Halley's Comet, but with a shorter cycle. You young'uns take a good look now. Us older folk done tole you it was gonna come around again, din't we? And y'all remember now, and tell
yore children, so's they'll be ready fer it next time around, hear?
On the eve of war, a voice from Iraq. Iraqi blogger Salam
thinks invasion is not the best way to help the Iraqi people.Look at the northern parts of Iraq, that is a model that has worked quite well, why wasn’t anybody interested in doing that in the south. Just like the US/UK UN created a protected area there why couldn’t the model be tried in the south. It would have cut off the regimes arms and legs. And once the people see what they have been deprived off they will not be willing to go back, just ask any Iraqi from the Kurdish areas. Instead the world watched while after the war the Shias were crushed by Saddam’s army in a manner that really didn’t happen before the Gulf War.
I am not an expert on military tactics and don't know if there is a way to do this that doesn't just add up to invasion and regime change, but read the whole thing.
Joe? Sgt. Stryker? Any thoughts?
Meanwhile, it's 10 PM - do you know
where your troops are? (link via
Unlearned hand, via the always interesting and chock-full of juicy URLS
Winds of Change)
UPDATE:
Diane rightly chastises the Sarge for
his harsh words to Salam. I have to agree with Diane here. If you haven't lived in a totalitarian regime with informers on every block, where thousands get disappeared every week, it's easy to give advice to those who do. Sarge's words remind me of those peaceniks who say we have no business liberating Iraq because if the Iraqis didn't want Saddam they would depose him themselves. You've got to jump over a whole lot of history (Soviet Russia, North Korea, Cambodia, Nazi Germany, to name a few) to be that dismissive of the difficulties of deposing a dictator with an aggressive secret police. And I can't imagine anyone being sanguine about huge bombs being dropped on their city, even if those bombs might eventually lead to a favorable outcome.
UPDATE: There
may not be much
bombing anyway.
UPDATE: Why, Robert Fisk seems to be quite put out that
Baghdad is so calm.
Stick a fork in Saddam Dept. Damian Penny sez: "Two words:
Nicolae Ceausescu. And isn't that how it was supposed to work all along?
Damian also unearths a
1999 Guardian article reporting on a meeting between Saddam and bin Laden. Gee, I thought there were no direct links between Saddam and Al Qeda. . . .
PS Iraqi agents have been
up to their elbows in a whole bunch a shit, according to
the Observer. (via
Amygdala)
Eat a rattlesnake for PETA. And wild boar, antelope, and ostrich too. I pretty much ignored Meryl's
anti-PETA meat-in, not because I don't approve, but because I knew I would be at some pre-Purim event that evening and having just gotten back to NYC from Austin, would not have had time to line up convivial company. Also, a juicy steak in New York is expensive. But if I were still in Austin, I would have celebrated
International Eat an Animal for PETA Day at this
aggressively carnivorous establishment. (I've had the rattlesnake cakes - don't knock 'em till you've tried 'em.)
Iraq war coalition Dept. Denmark and
Australia are sending troops.
Shark has more.
Jews blamed for the war, Part 3. First of all, I want to draw attention to the
thoughtful response to Kevin's original post by Max Sawicky, and equally thoughtful comments by many people.
In
my previous installment, I responded to Nick Denton's take on Jewish "influence" over the Bush administration's Iraq policy. So did
Gary Farber. (And Meryl, who has been very busy with her anti-PETA campaign,
weighed in on Kevin Drum. Wait till she reads the latest . . . )
Nick's
latest salvo simply reiterates his previous argument, and mostly ignores our careful, fact-based responses in favor of accusing me of "self-pity" and Gary of "ineffective sarcasm." If you scroll to the end of Nick's piece where he makes these charges and follow the links, you can decide for yourself whether Nick has accurately described our responses.
The main problem with the arguments of Buchanan and fellow travellers - which is the glaring illogic of the anti-semitic worldview in general - is that they replace perfectly understandable policy decisions with mysterious "Jewish influence." Now, you may not agree with the Bush team. You may believe they are paying attention to the wrong data, or basing their reasoning on flawed views of global politics, or being influenced by unseemly ambitions. But if you have been actually paying attention, you must notice that they engage in a process of accumulating data and thinking about it and coming forth with decisions. The only way you can attribute their policy to "Jewish influence" is to throw Occam's Razor in the trash.
For example, I pointed out "that there are
so many good reasons to force regime change in Iraq that protecting Israel is pretty far down the list." Nick does admit that "It's not even as if it's the only factor in American foreign policy, or its proposed war on Iraq" but goes on to say, "But it is one factor, and to pretend otherwise is obtuse. . ." Nick, "one factor" doesn't equal a major factor, and to the Buchananites you are defending, the other arguments for invading Iraq pale next to the importance of Israel.
Someone pointed out that there were far more Jews in the Clinton administration. Clinton met repeatedly with Arafat and pushed for Barak's unprecedented concessions. No matter. If - for the sake of argument - Israel
is so important to the Bush cabinet that it is driving the war on Iraq (and you would have to leap over all the other reasons to arrive at this conclusion), it cannot be for sound strategic reasons, but because of "Jewish influence." If there were no Jews anywhere within 100 miles of the White House, Buchanan and Denton would have to invent them to explain Bush's behavior.
Nick claims we are recklessly throwing around the term "anti-semite," thereby devaluing it. But this accusation of undue influence in the halls of power is a textbook example of how anti-semitism has functioned
since the Christian Gospels refined the genre: Making the war be all about Israel side-steps having to ponder complicated policy decisions, none of which are black-and-white. When confronted with complex political problems, where all responses will have ambiguous outcomes but one has to make decisions anyway, relieve the anxiety and restore a more predictable world by finding a simple cause behind all the confusion: the nefarious influence of the Jews.
If people exhibit ducklike behavior, it would be dim of me not to reach back into my personal and tribal experience of ducks and perform a comparison, regardless of their warnings that I will have no credibility if I keep pointing out their waddling and quacking and general ducklike appearance. If policy-makers have many reasons for pursuing this war that have nothing to do with Israel (even if you think their reasons are wrong-headed), if they can defend support for Israel on strategic grounds (even if you disagree with their conclusions), if - as
Gary pointed out - Jews
oppose the war at a higher percentage than the rest of the country, if polls consistently show at least half of the 98% gentile American public in favor of the war, and if the Jewish presence in this intensely Waspish administration is minuscule compared to the previous administration . . . . If - after all that counter-evidence - you are still fixated on Jewish influence, you have joined the waddling and quacking brigade.
And I would still like someone to answer the "brain drain" question. Why should the Left care if Jews leave? On the one hand, we are so beloved that our supposed defection bothers them; on the other hand, we are perfidious and insidiously influential. To be consistent, the Left would want to get rid of us so that we don't use our superhuman mind-fogging powers on
them (indeed, a crucial step in consolidating power for any totalitarian regime with any Jews at all is to purge them).
If the Left wants Jews to stay, I have some suggestions: First, notice the fact that
Jews still populate the Left at a much higher percentage than our numbers in the general population. Notice
why their participation matters to you. Ask those who have disengaged from Leftist activism
if they have even changed their political views at all - they may just be
reluctant to march next to people who
disseminate vicious charicatures about them. Ask
why they are
leaving. Listen to
the answers. Do some
self-examination of the
type you are
always recommending to people you think of as
less-enlightened than you.
Clean house.
Jewish email humor Dept. I found this in my archives while looking for the shovelling snow parody. In the spirit of Purim, I will subject you all to it while I am listening to the megillah for the 2nd time in 24 hours. (I wanted to leyn but I couldn't decide which service to commit to. Ah, the diverse multiple temptations of Jewish New York!) But I can't face cleaning up the >s.
ABBOTT & COSTELLO LEARN HEBREW
> by Rabbi Jack Moline
>
>ABBOTT: I see you're here for your Hebrew lesson.
>COSTELLO: I'm ready to learn.
> A: Now, the first thing you must understand. is that Hebrew and English
> have many words which sound alike, but they do not mean the same thing.
> C: Sure, I understand.
> A: Now, don't be too quick to say that.
> C: How stupid do you think I am? Don't answer that. It's simple-some
> words in Hebrew sound like words in English, but they don't mean
> the same.
> A: Precisely.
> C: We have that word in English, too. What does it mean in Hebrew?
> A: No, no. Precisely is an English word.
> C: I didn't come here to learn English, I came to learn Hebrew. So make
> with the Hebrew.
> A: Fine. Let's start with mee.
> C: You.
> A: No, mee.
> C: Fine, we'll start with you.
> A: No, we'll start with mee.
> C: Okay, have it your way.
> A: Now, mee is who.
> C: You is Abbott.
> A: No, no, no. Mee is who.
> C: You is Abbott.
> A: You don't understand.
> C: I don't understand? Did you just say me is who?
> A: Yes I did. Mee is who.
> C: You is Abbott.
> A: No, You misunderstand what I am saying. Tell me about mee.
> C: Well, you're a nice enough guy.
> A: No, no. Tell me about mee!
> C: Who?
> A: Precisely.
> C: Precisely what?
> A: Precisely who.
> C: It's precisely whom!
> A: No, mee is who.
> C: Don't start that again-go on to something else.
> A: All right. Hu is he.
> C: Who is he?
> A: Yes.
> C: I don't know. Who is he?
> A: Sure you do. You just said it.
> C: I just said what?
> A: Hu is he.
> C: Who is he?
> A: Precisely.
> C: Again with the precisely! Precisely who?
> A: No, precisely hee.
> C: Precisely he? Who is he?
> A: Precisely!
> C: And what about me?
> A: Who.
> C: Me, me, me!
> A: Who, who, who!
> C: What are you, an owl? Me! Who is me?
> A: No, hu is he!
> C: I don't know; maybe he is me!
> A: No, hee is she!
> C: (STARE AT ABBOTT) Do his parents know about this?
> A: About what?
> C: About her!
> A: What about her?
> C: That she is he!
> A: No, you've got it wrong-hee is she!
> C: Then who is he?
> A: Precisely!
> C: Who?
> A: He!
> C: Me?
> A: Who!
> C: He?
> A: She!
> C: Who is she?
> A: No, hu is he.
> C: I don't care who is he; I want to know who is she?
> A: No, that's not right.
> C: How can it not be right? I said it. I was standing here when I said
> it, and I know me.
> A: Who.
> C: Who?
> A: Precisely!
> C: Me! Me is that he you are talking about! He is me!
> A: No, hee is she!
> C: Wait a Minute, wait a minute! I'm trying to learn a little Hebrew,
> and now I can't even speak English. Let me review.
> A: Go ahead.
> C: Now first You want to know me is who.
> A: Correct.
> C: And then you say who is he.
> A: Absolutely.
> C: And then you tell me he is she.
>A&C: Precisely!
> C: Now look at this logically. If me is who. And who is he. And he
>is she. Don't it stand to reason that me is she?
> A: Who!
> C: She!
> A: That is hee!
> C: Who is he?
>A&C: Precisely!
> C: I have just about had it. You have me confused I want to go home.
> You know what I want? Ma!
> A: What.
> C: I said Ma.
> A: What.
> C: What are you, deaf? I want Ma!
> A: What!
> C: Not what, who!
> A: He!
> C: Not he! Ma is not he!
> A: Of course not! Hu is he!
> C: I don't know. I don't know. I don't care. I don't care who is he,
> he is she, me is who, ma is what. I just want to go home now and
> play with my dog.
> A: Fish.
> C: Fish?
> A: Dag is fish.
> C: That's all, I'm outa here.
Shovelling. Last fall
I threatened to post the Purim parody I wrote a few years ago. Well,
Purim begins tonight. Jordan Max, while digging out his driveway in Toronto,
imagined various Jewish leaders giving him advice on shovelling snow, and his
parody travelled around the internet. When I first read it, I was involved with the experimental, New Agey
Jewish Renewal movement, and came up with my own version lampooning Jewish Renewal leaders. (This will not be as funny if you don't know this cast of characters, but those who do have greatly enjoyed it.) (Apologies for my fake Hebrew....)
Rodger Kamanetz: I stood before the snow, shovel in hand, and reflected on my brief time with Reb Coyote Winklestein of the Wedeln Havarah. My quest for a Judaism of Snow had taken me from the powdered peaks of Vail to the ice-crusted hills of Vermont. As I began to dig out my car, I realized that the movements of my body were recalling the meditation on the Ski-Sephirot Reb Goldstein had taught me on the slope the previous afternoon ......
Abraham Joshua Heschel: Behold the magnificence of Snow, all whitely laid out before Man, who passes through chamber after chamber of growing Awe: first the Polartec sweater, then the Boots, then the Shovel, and finally Man emerges into the all-encompassing Whiteness that is truly his Outer Sanctum: this is the Day of Shovelling.
Shefa Gold:
Brucha at Yah, Ruacha ha Olam .... (3x)
This snow on my heart, lift it up, lift it up .... (2x)
hallelu-hu, hallelu-hu .... (bass line)
(chant in 3 parts, or maybe as a round)
Reb Sammy Intrator: What I want you all to know at this time is that the snow represents the real toyrah that you have to come to with your own shovel, and if Reb Schlomo were here, he would say "What should we do with all this snow?" And I know, I really know, that Reb Schlomo would want all of us to pick up that shovel and shovel that toyrah into our hearts ......
Marcia Falk:
It is good to bless
falling snow
our white day
our blue shovel
from WalMart
our life
our death
our falling day
Amen
Reb Zalman Schacter-Shalomi: Right here where we could say the Shechecheyanu, there is also a bissle space to make a snow brocha. Now how do you make a snow brocha? Vell, if you remember this morning ve talked about how the prayers of the Colorader Rebbe vent down into the earth, of course this is not a literal earth but Adamah-Yatom, the first earth that comes up with the shovel of the heart, you understand? Soooooo, in that earth there is mixed some snow, and I'll sing you a little of this brocha, it goes like this .....
Marge Piercy:
What is it about shovels,
I wonder? Do they remind me
Of your black look when
I say, "Dear, the snow has
Covered the sleeping driveway,"
Or is it my mother's black
Dress I used to hide behind
In shul on Shabbos morning?
Black shovels, white snow,
Nudging women, resigned men,
Yellow onions, Siamese cats,
Or anything else I can cram
Into this sort of Jewish poem?
Rabbi Arthur Waskow: Dear Chevre, my latest book has a chapter on the great intertwining of the feminine G!D-force with the human stirrings of eco- consciousness that dances together with our shovels of desire for food, money, sex, and a little rest, nu? So, shouldn't we be asking ourselves: Was this snowfall caused by global warming? Join me for a mass shovel-in in front of the Capitol building tomorrow at noon! Unless the snow melts, in which case I'll send another email. (Apologies for cross-posting.)
Purim is here: My wife and I are heading across DC this evening to join our friends for the Megillah reading and festivities at their synagogue.
Will I get drunk? I don't know that I can afford to, considering I still have to work come tomorrow morning...
Last year in this space,
some argued that Purim leads to alcoholism, while others argued that controlled outbursts like Purim
discourage substance abuse.
Me? I'm just out for a good time. It's Purim, let's get pished!
Jennifer Traig is on the
same wavelength:
Jews are not big drinkers. Maybe it's because kishke and cocktails don't mix. Maybe it's because we're too neurotic to kick back with a six-pack. Or maybe it's because we know our mothers would kill us if we made a drunken spectacle of ourselves. Whatever the reason, many Jews will choose milk over a martini every time. But on Purim that all changes. Purim is the one time a year we drink like fish and dress like floozies. On Purim, every Jew is a Girl Gone Wild.
To get you in the festive mood, try these links:
American seeks and finds martyrdom. As the world gets ready to wring its hands over
Rachel Corrie, who deliberately climbed onto the shovel-plow of a bulldozer about to flatten buildings used as cover for snipers and tunnels, who was the first "human shield" death in 30 months of intifada, let us take a look at the long roll call of
American victims of Middle East terrorism, including most recently
14 year old Abigail Litle, who was simply riding a bus in Haifa - the Israeli city proud of the integration of its Arab citizens - when she was blown up by a suicide bomber who was trying to kill as many people as possible.
Let us also remember that
far more Israeli non-combatants (i.e. normal people going out for a pizza) have been killed in the intifada than Palestinian non-combatants, even using the loosest possible definition of "non-combatant."
Let us also remember that Corrie's group did not attempt to achieve a peaceful settlement between the two peoples, treating both as human beings with legitimate claims, but unabashedly adopted the Palestinians' hatred. The international groups which camp out in the territories are so one-sided that even Amira Hass - the pro-Palestinian Israeli journalist who lives in Ramallah - has
criticized them for calling themselves "peace activists" while refusing to publicly condemn suicide bombings.UPDATE: Since comments disappear from KT after a month, let me post those of Don Radlauer of the
International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and author of the study on relative Israeli and Palestinian casualties in the intifada. Don says that my
statement about the numbers of noncombatants killed by Israel and the Palestinians is incorrect. The ratio of the mutual killing of noncombatants is, in fact, roughly 55 Palestinian noncombatants killed by Israel for each 45 Israeli noncombatants killed by Palestinians. It is true, however, that the proportion of noncombatants among the Israelis killed is much higher than that among Palestinians: about 80% of Israelis, compared with about 45% of Palestinians. (The 45% figure, BTW, includes a large number of victims whose combatant status is unknown; we give the Palestinians the benefit of the doubt and include all "unknowns" among the noncombatants.) [italics mine - JSW]
Other interesting findings relate to the demographic makeup of the noncombatants killed. The demographics of the Palestinian noncombatants killed leads me to conclude that many of their deaths (not all, certainly, but a substantial proportion) result from a conscious policy on the part of the Palestinian leadership to encourage "suicide propagandists" to endanger themselves, for the sole conceivable purpose of scoring publicity points.
Thank you for the correction, Don. I had read the study carefully when it came out, but I didn't reread it before making this post, and I was sloppy in choosing my words. Yes, a far higher
proportion (relative to the general population) of Israeli noncombatants have been killed, and a far higher proportion of them are women, children, old people.
Don goes on to comment on D-9 bulldozers:
I noticed that the body of the D-9 projects out quite a ways below the driver, so that his line of sight is not very good for seeing things low to the ground and close to the vehicle. My rough estimate is that the driver can't see the ground less than about ten feet (3 meters) from the bulldozer's blade. Of course, he can see someone standing up at a closer distance than he can see someone lying down; but assuming that Corrie had fallen (a not unlikely occurrence, and one that has been reported by eyewitnesses), she would have essentially disappeared from the driver's view. This could easily have led him to think that she'd run off to the side; after all, that would be the normal thing to do in the circumstances.
There are several conflicting eyewitness accounts. Whether or not she climbed onto the blade, there is certainly not a preponderance of evidence that the driver deliberately ran her over.
UPDATE:
Lots more on
this incident over at
Tal G. One of the commenters quotes an Israeli Russian-language site:
- the bulldozers were operating at a location where some 20 buidings previously used to stage attacks on Israeli positions have been demolished about half a year ago - they were being sent there at regular intervals to check for hidden explosives (this explains my question in the comments to the previous post on the same subject: I was rather surprised at the idyllic landscape in the background completely devoid of any Israeli military personnel and vehicles to cover the bulldozer drivers)
- Rachel Corrie died of brain injury, most likely caused by a heavy piece of flying debris; she was never rolled over by a bulldozer, but rather covered with debris it was pushing out of the way
- the bulldozer drivers in the area were used to the "internationals": they would invariably appear to shout slogans through megaphones, but were known to take good care of their own security and not to jump directly in the path of the bulldozers (the article doesn't state this directly, but it would seem that there was neither any intact building structure nor Palestinian inhabitants left in the place)
The Costs of War: The US government is now saying that the cost of invading Iraq could be as
high as $100 billion.
Because of the high price tag, the US is now shopping around for a cheaper
country.
Belgium would cost only about $10-15 billion ... Cuba goes for about $5
billion ... (Mike Sultan)
Jews blamed for the war, Part 2. In our previous installment, some people answered some questions from Kevin Drum on how to talk about Jews in politics without being anti-semitic. Now Nick Denton
contributes several "Jews are pushing for the war"
rants, and is competently fisked by
Gary Farber and
Jonah Goldberg. There
seems to be a lot
more of
this crap floating
around. Is anyone surprised? Jews always get targeted when politics get heated, because we are prominently over-represented in almost
all political movements. Our culture
predisposes us to political activism, although we take that desire for utopia on earth in wildly different directions.
For example, in the same post in which he agrees with Pat Buchanan's assessment of pro-war Jews, Nick confirms the existence of many prominent Jews on the Left by
complaining about a "Leftist Jewish brain drain." And someone points out in my comment thread:
What does no one point out the suspicous overrepresentation of Jews among leaders of the anti-war movement? It seems to me that half the prominent types among the pacifist crowd ranging from that internet kid profiled in the NYTimes last week up to Sen. Feinstein is Jewish. Interesting that the dual loyalty charge is only raised against Jews in government who are conservative. Never heard Amb. Kurtzer, Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, Robert Reich, Jamie Rubin (or Maddy Albright or William Cohen for that matter) questioned on their subconcious motivations.
Well, their motivations were also questioned, when they were in power, which proves the point. (The predictable resurgence of using prominent Jews as props for one's anxieties about current events reminds me of a conversation with some libertarian pundit years ago, who was complaining about how Jews always supported Leftist causes and how Jews wouldn't realize how they benefitted from capitalism. I started ticking off on my fingers: Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Murray Rothbard, both Milton and David Friedman . . . Anyone with a knowledge of libertarian activism can add to this list, but you get the idea.) Jews are truly all over the map, politically, so why don't the Jews on opposite sides of each issue cancel each other out?
Before I continue, may I point out that there are
so many good reasons to force regime change in Iraq, that protecting Israel is pretty far down the list? That US policy on Israel has always been made in the context of such global realities as Soviet domination of the Arab block? May I point out that trying to make the war on Iraq all about Israel requires active denial of a whole bunch of facts? And whose purpose is served by that?
As for Nick's
supposed "brain drain," I have three comments:
1) This is another case of damned-if-you-do-damned -if-you-don't. If Jews really run the Left to such an extent that our "defection" is noticed, and even if we don't, we get accused of
keeping various disadvantaged groups from the halls of power by "dominating" the movement (probably secretly), and turning it to our own nefarious purposes. (It's always the same accusations, whether from the Left or the Right.) If we abdicate our "positions of power," we get accused of causing a brain drain. Kin you say,
"little red hen"?
2) I suppose it's a backhanded compliment to suggest that the Left is at a serious disadvantage without its giant Jewish brains, but I'm not a bigot like Nick - I believe that people of all ethnic identities have quite good brains. Why should it matter if there are lots of Jews on the Left or not? Which brings me to . . .
3) Oh, you mean the Left
values its Jews? Does the Left value the
particular qualities of our culture that cause us to be so concerned with justice and human rights, so articulate, so adroit in organizing, so willing to stick our necks out?
Then why does the Left treat Jews like shit? Contrary to popular stereotype, Jews are not snivelling masochists who jump to lick the boots of those who
call us Nazis, spread lies about Israel, propagate every hoary anti-semitic stereotype in the book, and
tell us we are racist when we seek out each other's company (while every other ethnic group is encouraged to protect its identity from encroaching globalization). As Ruth Wisse points out,
"The only way to truly fight for human rights is by insisting on the dignity and justice of the Jewish people, because the Jews are the most negatively mythologized people on earth. . . . Jews represent the embodiment of modernity in supreme adaptability, tolerance, pluralism, and mobility. In short, all the features that make up democratic culture are embodied in the Jew. Many people hate these things and therefore hate the Jew, who is an incorporation of all of them.
. . . It was right for Jews as Jews to march with the blacks during the Civil Rights movement," she explains. "But these universalist Jews should have insisted that the blacks march with them when they came under attack. Otherwise their activism lacks credibility. It becomes simple running away from their identity as Jews. What could the blacks have taken away from this? Not that this was selflessness. The Jews who did not stand up for their own rights were abandoning their responsibilities and the principles they stood for."
The Left (and any other movement) can more effectively use Jews as whipping boys and workhorses when we don't stand up for ourselves, but is that what the Left is about? That's really the question highlighted by the Jewish "brain drain" (if it exists, and I'm not convinced it does) and the Left has yet to clean house.
PS For those who care what company they keep,
Edward Said and
David Duke also think Jews have an undue influence on American foreign policy.
UPDATE: Nick Denton dismisses my response as
"self-pity."
What a Moran: Eric Fingerhut of the Washington Jewish Week has even more interesting details on
Jim Moran's problem with Israel and Jews:
... this was not the first time the Virginia Democrat has trafficked in the stereotype of powerful Jews controlling the government. In fact, in a speech to the American Muslim Council in June 2001, he saluted a former congressman who is a leading proponent of the view that Jews and the pro-Israel lobby allegedly control the U.S. government.
"It's nice to be on the podium with Paul Findley, who's a real hero and he looks good É [with] the people that have been beating him up over the years, at least rhetorically, he's doing a great job, he stands tall."
Findley, who lost his Illinois congressional seat in 1983 and has spent much of his time since blaming pro-Israel activists for it, has repeatedly charged that Jews and Israel supporters are so powerful that they do not allow debate on Middle East policy in the U.S. He wrote in his book They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby that House and Senate members "do [the] bidding" of pro-Israel lobbyists who "control" Capitol Hill.
In an interview with WJW two years ago, Moran seemed to endorse that charge, saying that he voted against a congressional resolution expressing solidarity with Israel because its purpose was to "make Congress look good to its Jewish constituents." He noted that there are "400 other members [of Congress who] trip over themselves to criticize Arab leaders" because of "domestic political considerations."
At the 2001 AMC dinner, he characterized the Jewish community as an all-powerful force from which he cannot escape. After delivering a harsh diatribe against Israel, he continued, "Now the reason I say these things is not to deliberately get in trouble, even though I know in every room where I speak there is always somebody who before the sun goes down will report to your cousins exactly everything I've said."
Moran has questioned Jewish claims to Israel, saying at the AMC speech that Theodor Herzl intended for Jews to be a minority in Israel, even though Herzl wrote no such thing in The Jewish State, the book Moran referenced.
... ... Moran's record of congressional votes and statements unfavorable to Israel is extensive. Jerome Chapman of Alexandria -- a longtime Democrat who has set up a Web site, www.no-mo-ran.com, chronicling the legislator's history -- said he does not have a problem with Moran disagreeing with Israeli policies, but says that his statements are frequently accompanied by "vitriol and venom" against the Jewish state.
For instance, at the AMC dinner Moran said that Ariel Sharon, on a then upcoming trip to D.C., was "probably seeking a warrant from President Bush to kill at will with weapons we have paid for," and he alleged last year that Israel's motive in killing alleged terrorists was to eliminate any viable Palestinian leadership.
That comment came during another series of Moran apologies, last year after his remarks at the AMC dinner became widely known. He told a Jewish audience at Beth El Hebrew Congregation in January 2002 that he had been "pandering" to his audience at the dinner and suffering from a "lack of knowledge" of the Middle East, and urged those Jews in attendance to criticize him harshly.
"I don't relish it," he said, but "the harsher treatment I get the better, because it makes me far less likely to put myself in that situation again."
And some local Virginia folks, including my friend Jeff Sachs, are looking to make his treatment as harsh as possible:
Jeffrey Sachs, chair of the Democratic Party in the Lee District, which covers 18 percent of Moran's congressional district, said he will "actively encourage Moran to resign" and, if unsuccessful, "find a candidate to challenge him" in the Democratic Party.
