Are there Moderate Muslims?

At a time when we are constantly enjoined to remember that most Muslims are moderates, it is interesting to hear this Egyptian Muslim's take on things.

"The bottom line is; it is quite possible, at one point of history, to have an entire nation dominated by some very bad ideas. We have seen it before and we are seeing it today. For the west now to deny this historical fact and pretend that the majority of people are always naturally sane, rational, peace loving hippies is hypocritical, misleading and dishonest. It is an ugly lie that offends our intelligence."

"There are moderate Muslims but it should be clear at this point that they are not as influential as the extremists. It should be clear that advocates of reform in the Muslim world are as marginalized and persecuted as any other non-Muslim minority. One clear proof of that can be seen in the fact that many if not most such Muslims, like Mr. Zonneveld or me personally, do not actually reside in their home countries but in the western world due to the fact that many parts of the Muslim world are extremely intolerant towards reform and criticism.

In my childhood I was told that every day that passes on the Islamic nation without a caliphate is a sin. That the failures and miseries of the Muslim world started the moment we gave up conquests and wars against the infidels. That our prosperity depends on conquering new lands, converting new believers, looting new resources and enslaving more women. I was taught that a Jew is essentially a demon in flesh and that it is our destiny as good Muslims to kill them all. I was regularly fueled by battle stories and stories of lethal feuds of seventh century Arabia. It was not just me, a small child in Cairo, who was raised with these great apocalyptic prophecies, it was also so many people from all around the globe."

For the full opinion piece, click HERE.

Guard Your Women - Beware the Jews!

It's utterly amazing to me that Europeans have found a way to blame Zionists and Jews for the "refugee" invasion that is currently going on in Europe. While it is true that Jews are disproportionately liberal and progressive, it is equally true that they are undoubtedly one of the groups who have the most to lose from this population transfer. That there are Jews who support this shortsighted policy, is in spite of the fact that they are Jews not because of it.

Otherwise, I found this "viral" video to be interesting because it contrasts so sharply with the "warm and fuzzy" clips of women and children refugees proferred by the mainstream media. Actually, this video turns this tendency on its head by focusing on European women and the dangers that they face from virile Muslim marauders. In some ways this reads like the mirror image of Muslim paranoia surrounding the control and "honor" of their women.

For all of its many faults, I think that those who have only seen positive imagery of refugees/migrants or images of suffering and victimization, rightly deserve to be shocked by what is presented here. In short, the clip is both interesting, deeply problematic and unsettling in many ways.

The Miracle of Fire at Joseph's Tomb

According to the CNN headline, another miracle occurred here in the Holy Land today - "Joseph's Tomb site catches fire."

How could this happen? Perhaps this was a case of spontaneous combustion? Most likely, I thought to myself, this was due to a "fire from heaven" such as the one called down by Elijah during his duel with the priests of Baal (I Kings Ch. 18:38-40).

Sadly, it turns out that this was just a mob of Palestinian arsonists who decided to upset the "status quo" by burning down a Jewish and Christian holy site. According to tradition, Joseph, son of the patriarch Jacob (i.e. Israel), was buried here after he was brought to the Holy Land following the Exodus.

Although these acts of desecration of non-Muslim holy sites are all-too-common both here in Israel and in Islamic States, President-for-life Mahmoud Abbas snapped into action and promised a full investigation.  For the record, he stated that "These kinds of acts, or any other acts that violate the law and order ... offend our culture, religion and morals."

First of all, I am happy to see that Abbas is actually capable of condemning violence. It is just too bad that he has, to date, been unable to similarly condemn the stabbing of innocent people.  I guess what that means is that the wave of stabbings we have experienced over the past ten days do not offend Palestinian culture, religion, and morals.

Read all about it.

PS  After a few hours CNN did a stealth edit of the Headline. It seems that even they realized their own ridiculousness.

Flagging Sophistication

I never could understood why it is considered the height of sophistication to aver that "Flags are just pieces of cloth with color on them."

That's like saying that books are just wood pulp with ink on them. Or humans are just sacks of flesh with blood and bones in them. Or movies are just projections of light through celluloid.

Sure, all of the above are technically true, but they entirely miss the point.

"On the Verge of Destruction"

Just last month CNN declared it the "last chance to see" the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and made it the poster child for the world's 25 most "magnificent and endangered" structures.  As you can see from the link (below), these buildings are apparently "on the verge of destruction." it is odd then that Palmyra did not even make their list. This, despite the fact that Palmyra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was already in the Islamic State's hands at the time the article was published. (http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/30/architecture/gallery/beautiful-buildings-verge-of-destruction/)

This is just one more example of how the Arab-Israeli conflict skews reality. While everyone is focused on what is going on over here in Israel, very important things are happening throughout the Middle East that are not being covered by the news. It is precisely for this reason that no one saw the Arab Spring coming and why the real story of the last decade was happening in the Sunni triangle of Iraq and in the underground bases of Iran. Gaza, Israel, West Bank - this is all a side show to a much bigger drama.

Today the world lost a priceless historical gem that was part of the patrimony of all of mankind. What else will be lost if the West continues with it's head in the sand?

Do Not Disagree with Me!

As each day passes, the Obama administration and President Obama himself ups the rhetoric against anyone who opposes the Iran "deal"/capitulation.  In his latest "presidential" outburst, Obama stated that he does not recall a similar example of a leader of an another country forcefully injecting themselves into the debate that is currently going on in Washington surrounding the "deal"/capitulation.

I will leave it to others to debate whether or not this is unprecedented.  I personally think all of this debate surrounding the agreement is a moot point since he will clearly veto any bill that rejects this deal and there will never be enough votes to override a veto.

That said, and in light of his latest assertions I do think that there are two things that need to be clearly stated:

1) This administration is constantly interfering in Israel's internal affairs, to the point where it tried to inject itself into the recent elections up to and including the subversion of Israeli democracy. I guess it is no fun when the shoe is on the other foot, but somehow I am sure that the US will somehow get over it.

2) The Iranian nuclear bomb is an important issue that Washingtonians need to debate but it is an absolutely  EXISTENTIAL issue for Israelis (and Palestinians, for that matter).  There is literally wall to wall consensus here from every political camp (including the Arab parties) that a nuclear Iran is a threat to this region and that this is a bad deal that will not prevent Iran from going nuclear.  I think that an Israeli Prime Minister who did not try to impact the vote on this issue by making his voice loudly heard would not be worthy of his positions.

So, Obama's protestations of admiration for Israel and commitment to the country's security notwithstanding, it is actually our kids who are on the front lines and our lives that are in harms way. Rather than encourage debate and argue the finer points of this "deal"/capitulation, Obama's imperious approach just comes off as condescending. How dare Israelis oppose his "gift" to us?

Frankly, if Obama had only spent 5% of the energy he is currently using to fend off Israeli objections into forcing the Iranians to agree to the dismantlement of their nuclear program and anytime/anywhere inspections, we would be in a much better place. Sometimes it really is hard to tell who Obama thinks are America's friends and who are its enemies.

When is a Genocide not a Genocide?

I find it a bit odd watching the Turks throw a hissy fit over the Pope's use of the word Genocide to describe the Armenian GENOCIDE. 1.5 MILLION Armenians were rounded up and systematically and ruthlessly murdered in an orchestrated campaign that Hitler cited as his inspiration for the Holocaust.

It's not as if they are unfamiliar with word.  Indeed, Erdogan has recently accused Israel of a "systematic genocide" against the Palestinians. This is odd if you consider that the Palestinian population and percentage of Palestinians in the population is purportedly on the rise. Maybe he just doesn't know what the word genocide means?

I think that this is entirely possible if you consider that just this week both the Iranian "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Khamenei and the Hizballah "Supreme Leader" Hassan Nasrallah accused Saudi Arabia of Genocide in Yemen after 600 people have died in fighting. But heck, why should you let the facts get in the way of a good story?

Meanwhile, the Iranians are at it again with a Holocaust-denial cartoon competition... 

Going out on a Limb: Projecting the Israeli Election

It is a sad truism that about 95% of what is written about Israel is lazy and uninformed. Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to Israeli politics where the foreign press see things through one lens and one lens only: “The Conflict.”

In actuality, Israeli politics are much more interesting and diverse than Western politics which has the luxury of focusing on social issues to the exclusion of much else. Very few are the Western democracies that are as ethnically and religiously diverse as Israel. Going to the polls today are large communities of Jews (of all stripes), Muslims (Sunni, Sufi, Shiites), Christians (Catholic and Orthodox), Druze, Circassians, Bedouins, Bahais and even the recently recognized Arameans. Add to this the fact that few countries face the kind of existential threats that Israeli deal with on a day to day basis and you have a uniquely complicated patchwork of political parties.

Israeli elections regularly feature parties from the hard right (Jewish Strength and Jewish Home) to the Centrist (Yesh Atid), and the hard left (Meretz and Hadash); from the avowedly secular (Labor) to the devoutly religious (United Torah Judaism and the Islamic Movement); from the ethnically-based parties (Shas and Jewish Home) to the joint Arab and Israeli list (Hadash). To confuse things further there are even single-issue based parties such as the Pirate Party that wants complete net neutrality to the Green Leaf party that wants to legalize marijuana.

Yet, if you have been following the foreign media over the past few years, the prevailing narrative has either been about how the extreme right has irrevocably hijacked the country or that the Israeli public is on an inexorable death march towards apartheid and fascism. Even worse, Israelis have been assailed as uniquely evil for simply going about their daily affairs rather than wringing their hands and renting their garments over the lack of progress in the peace negotiations while, at the same time, the Palestinians have been given a free pass.

As such, it will be interesting to see how the foreign press will spin the election results tonight. It has been pretty clear for about six weeks now that the public is moving to the Left and that Netanyahu and the Likud party will be in the opposition after this election. Of course, since Israel functions under a parliamentary system, it is still possible that Netanyahu can pull this one out of a hat and forge some kind of a coalition, but it seems quite unlikely. The Zionist Camp at the head of Isaac Herzog will more than likely win the most votes and Herzog will serve as the next Prime Minister of Israel.

So what is going on here?  A bunch of things.  First of all, the Israeli public has Netanyahu fatigue. He has not only been the Prime Minister for the past few years, but he is the longest-serving Prime Minster in the history of Israel.  Secondly, there is a massive housing crisis in Israel that has only gotten worse over the past six years. Most young couples cannot even dream of buying a house because it will ruin them financially. Third, the cost of living in Israel is extremely high and there have been mass protests in the past few years about the growing disparity between the rich and the poor. Rather than tackle these social issues head on, Netanyahu played the consummate politician and set up advisory panels only to shelve all of their recommendations. Even with all of Netanyahu’s Sturm and Drang about the security situation, I suspect that he will soon learn that you cannot afford to ignore bread and butter issues that impact people’s everyday lives.

I predict that Netanyahu’s political machinations at the expense of other political parties and his coalition partners will now come back to haunt him. There is a lot of bad blood between him and all of the other parties and I sincerely doubt that the religious parties or the Lapid’s centrist party will be quick to rush into a coalition with him.  He has left himself with very little room to maneuver.

In addition, there is a strong sense that Netanyahu botched this past summer’s war by not either ending it much sooner or going much farther towards toppling Hamas. 70 dead soldiers for a bunch of tunnels seems to most like a high price to pay for what will invariably be just a few months of quiet.

From an economic perspective, Netanyahu is in some ways a victim of his own success. With his MBA background, he has been a steady proponent of neoliberal economic ideas. Over the past decade Israel’s GDP growth has been impressive and per capita we know rival Japan. People can see all around them that the economy has expanded, but the increasing income disparities and abysmally low minimum wage is especially jarring in a society that was deeply inspired by socialism not that long ago.

Last but not least, it is said that hubris and pride cometh before the fall. Netanyahu allowed his coalition partner Avigdor Lieberman of the Jewish Home party to pass legislation raising the electoral threshold from 2% to 3.25% in order to destroy the chances of the Arab parties from sending representatives to the Knesset. This has seriously backfired as, against all expectations, ALL of the Arab parties (from Communist to Islamist) joined together in a united list.  If Arab Israelis come out and vote in large numbers today, the Arab parties will almost certainly end up being the kingmakers.

At the same time, in what can only be called karmic retribution, it looks increasingly likely that the Jewish Home will fall victim to the new electoral threshold they spearheaded. Over the past two months, the party has been seriously battered by corruption scandals and the completely unhinged comments by Lieberman (he called to behead “disloyal” Arabs). Today, in one final irony, Lieberman was basically reduced to endorsing his archenemies in the Jewish Meretz party in an attempt to pull away voters from the joint Arab list.

Of course, all of the above analysis may prove wrong if the voter turnout is low, if the Arab Sector decides to forego voting, if the Centrist parties get fewer votes than expected, or if Netanyahu's fear-mongering has borne fruit. In the past 24 hours alone there have been major developments in the elections that will not make sense to outsiders even if the reporters here understood enough to report about them. For example, Livni’s announcement that she will not serve as Prime Minister in a rotation with Herzog may convince many people to vote for the Zionist Camp. While she is liked in the West, most Israelis despise Livni and it was widely felt that this was dragging Herzog down a bit. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that this election-eve stunt may have been too little too late.

Unlike American elections, which are usually decided on election night, everything here is likely be in flux for a few more weeks. President Rivlin has the responsibility of choosing a party to form a government and he has already expressed his desire to push for a Unity Government between Netanyahu and Herzog. To put this into perspective, it would be as if Obama and Romney were tasked by the head of the Speaker of the House with joining forces to run the government. ROf course, Rivlin cannot force the matter, but he is not without influence and it will be interesting to see how he tries to press the issue.  In any case, I will leave that discussion for another day. 

Voting in Israel: Easier and more Democratic than in the US

Ayman Odeh, the head of the joint Arab listing voting on Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Today, for the first time in over twenty years, I had the privilege of voting in an Israeli election. Though in many ways Israel still suffers from the bureaucracy of decades of socialist government, I have to say that voting here was SO MUCH EASIER and MORE DEMOCRATIC than voting in the US.

Heres why:

1) You don't have to register to vote. Instead you get a small note sent to you in the mail that tells you where your polling place is located.

2) If you lose the note, you just have to go to your polling place and show a picture ID (e.g. Identity Card and Passport).

3) There is a festive atmosphere at the polling stations. Lots of kids come with their parents. People are outside campaigning. You can take photographs and it is all very laid back.

4) There are no computers or hanging chads. Instead there are little notes with the names of the different political parties. You pick a note, put it in an envelope and then place that in the ballot box. There is no room for error here.

5) Most polling places are within a 10 minute walk of your home. There are 11,000 polling places in this tiny country. Pretty much every school and government preschool is a polling place.

6) ITS A NATIONAL HOLIDAY - You have no excuse not to vote.

7) If you happen to be registered at your parents and are a student in another city, you can ride the buses and trains FOR FREE on election day so that you have no excuse not to vote.

8) Instead of only two political parties to choose from, you have a plethora of parties from the far-right to the far-left, parties that are community based (Arab, Religious) and parties that are issue based (e.g. the Pirate Party). There is even a party that is running on a platform of free marijuana available for anyone who votes for them.

Now that's change that I can believe in!

The Song and Poetry of Lea Goldberg

The word "Shir" in Hebrew does not distinguish between "song" and "poem." As such, it is not surprising that many of Israel's greatest poets have had their poems put to music. To put this into perspective, it would be akin to taking the poems of T.S. Lawrence, e e cummings, Robert Frost and Sylvia Plath to music.

Few poets have influenced Israeli culture as much as Lea Goldberg. Though she grew up in Kaunas, Lithuania in the interwar years speaking Yiddish, Russian and Lithuanian, she was determined from an early age to be a Hebrew author and poet. Her poetry is riveting, colorful, expressive, and dazzlingly beautiful and it is a double pleasure to be able to hear the lyricism of her songs put to music.

The first poem I want to share is called "At Telkhi BaSade" (You Will Walk in the Field) and it is sung by Hava Albershtein - Israel's answer to Barbara Streisand. The poem was originally written in 1943, at the height of World War II and was called "Haomnam?" (Is it true). Goldberg wrote it to prove that even in terrible times it was possible and desirable to write lyrical poetry so that, "We not lose sight of the meaning and worth of life." There is a lesson here for all of us in these increasingly dark days.

Here is a translation of the poem into English:

"Is it true – will there ever come days of forgiveness and mercy?
And you’ll walk in the field, and it will be an innocent’s walk.
And your feet on the medick’s small leaves will be gently caressing,
And sweet will be stings, when you’re stung by the rye’s broken stalks!

And the drizzle will catch you in pounding raindrops’ folly
On your shoulders, your breast and your neck, while your mind will be clean,
You will walk the wet field, and the silence will fill you –
As does light in a dark cloud’s rim

And you’ll breathe in the furrow in breaths calm and even,
And the pond’s golden mirror will show you the Sun up above,
And once more all the things will be simple, and present, and living,
And once more you will love – yes, you will, yes, once more you will love!

You will walk. All alone. Never hurt by the blazing inferno
Of the fires on the roads fed by horrors too awful to stand,
And in your heart of hearts you’ll be able to humbly surrender,
In the way of the weeds, in the way of free men.

Cropoganda

On February 24, Israeli troops entered Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem to arrest a Palestinian terrorist. During the ensuing street clashes, Jihad al-Jafari was shot and killed. If you accept the Israeli version of the story, al-Jafari was the "leader of the rioters" and was fired upon only after a soldier was physically injured and the others felt endangered by incendiary devices and cinder blocks which were being thrown down at them from the rooftops.

Al Jazeera, which provided the above photograph, does not deny that Jihad was on the roof when he was shot, but claims that he was asleep at the time of the raid and only went up to the roof when he heard a commotion in the street below. The only evidence for this assertion appears to be from an interview given by Jibreen al-Bakari, the Palestinian Authority Governor for the area to the Voice of Palestine.  According to a local resident, al-Jafari "was a very nice person. The soldiers had no reason to kill him. He was innocent. A simple, lovely kid."

While I find it hard to believe that al-Jaafari was so naive as to be unaware that the rooftops of the refugee camps are the meurtrières of the modern age, he does, indeed, look like just a kid in the article's accompanying photograph.

Or does he? Here is the uncropped photo:

Obviously, the above photo plays havoc with the narrative that the journalists at Al Jazeera present. The editorial decision to crop the photo should seriously call into question their "reporting."

Yet, perhaps the worst offender was the New York Times. While the Times article briefly presents the Israeli version of events early on in the article, the rest is dedicated to the unverified Palestinian claims that al-Jafari sleeepwalked his way onto the roof. Even worse, the Times gives voice to the unsubstantiated claim that, "Israeli snipers immediately opened fire and shot him in cold blood."

In almost the same breath, the Times reporter Isabel Kershner, proceeds to tie this incident to the withholding of tax revenues and reductions in the electricity supply to the Palestinian Authority. How these events are interconnected remains unclear, but the reporting definitely smacks of an attempt at what social scientists call "contextualization" - a "big picture" approach that attempts to situate events into a broader context.

In those cases where causal links can be demonstrated, contextualization can be an important corrective to simplistic or reductionist explanations. On the other hand, where causality cannot be demonstrated or is assumed, it can be misused to dispense with agency (i.e. free will) by citing supposed underlying causes. In this case, Kershner elicits sympathy for the predicament that Palestinians find themselves in while tacitly absolving them of any responsibility for their actions.

At the same time, Israeli actions are simply presented as a given. They exist in a contextual vacuum and the article makes no attempt to uncover or disclose why the Israeli army chose to "raid" the camp in the first place.

Worst of all, even though the Times undoubtedly had acccess to the above photo, it's editors chose to crop it out all together. In his writings, Foucault called this the "administration of silence" or the other side of discourse that serves to delimit it. It certainly seems like the editors at the Times chose to completely crop out the photo lest its readers try to form their own opinions about Jihad.

Gone Missing: The American Anthropological Association

Who knows, maybe now my anthropology peers will speak out? The American Anthropological Association (AAA) had literally nothing to say about the targetting of Yazidis - a small and endangered culture threatened with genocide - but jumped into action and quickly released a statement when the Tomb of the Prophet Jonah was razed in Mosul, Iraq.

The AAA has also had nothing to say about Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Sinai,  Bahrain, Lebanon, Somalia, Crimea, Boko Haram or the Islamic State in the past few years, but they have recently put together a "Task Force"(!) on "Israel and Palestine." Apparently, "the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine is of great relevance to the AAA."

The AAA's mission statement informs us that, "A central concern of anthropologists is the application of knowledge to the solution of human problems." I guess the fact that nothing has been said about any of the aforementioned places and organizations comes to teach us that everything is copacetic.

UPDATE: As I expected, the AAA has released a communique decrying the destruction at the Mosul museum (http://www.aaanet.org/issues/press/upload/150228-AAA-Statement-on-Cultural-Destruction-in-Iraq.pdf). It just goes to show you that they are capable of getting organized quickly when necessary and that nothing will rile the artsy-fartsy crowd as much as the destruction of a statue. Again, I ask, "Where were you AAA when Yazidis were being slaughtered, when Copts were being butchered, and when Assad was gassing his own people?"

And then anthropologists wonder why they are completely irrelevant when it comes to playing a political decision-making role.