Politics
Last Updated on Tuesday, 9 February 2010 08:14 Written by beverlyhills Sunday, 9 August 2009 04:50
The Second Disengagement
by Ari Bussel
“According to the Hebrew calendar, today is the fourth anniversary of the disengagement. Israel uprooted approximately 10,000 Israelis – men, women and children – from their homes. To our regret, Gaza has become a base for Hamas-led, Iranian-sponsored terrorism; thousands of rockets and missiles have been fired at us. Therefore, today, I would like to emphasize … Peace will go back to being based on reciprocity, not unilateralism. In the framework of the peace agreements, Israel expects that the Palestinians will recognize the State of Israel as the national state of the Jewish People, that the problem of the refugees will be resolved outside Israel’s20borders, that there will be effective security arrangements and demilitarization, with international recognition and guarantees. These are not pre-conditions for the start of a peace process but the basic conditions for establishing a lasting and stable peace. Palestinian moderates should internalize this.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks at the weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday, August 2, 2009
The Gaza Unilateral Disengagement, August, 2005
Most of us wanted to believe in that Disengagement of four years ago. Led by Arik Sharon, “the General,” the no-nonsense strategist, we trusted he had already planned the next steps, like a master chess player. We expected benefits we will reap for years to come for the deep wound Israel would self-inflict. There might have been a plan, but God thought otherwise. Prime Minister Sharon is still in a coma of sorts, and there i s not a single soul who was privy to his Grand Plan.
Some of us opposed unilateral Disengagement. The most vocal opposition included the residents of Gush Katif, who for decades had lived with the full blessing and support of the Israeli government and created a green desert area. Their supporters also included predominantly religious Jews throughout the Diaspora for this community that developed an industry, bringing hundreds of millions of dollars into Israel through exports. The Gush Katif community also supported numerous Gazans, employing them full time.
For decades the prevailing argument in Israel was why should so many resources be spent to guard so few. “There is no reason to be there” was often spoken. The army periodically renewed its study of the cost benefit analysis of providing the defense of this small area in the Northern Gaza Strip. It was always in favor.
Israelis craving peace were willing to do whatever it took to usher in its arrival, including leaving the Gazans to themselves. Providing the billions in monetary aid and hundreds of truckloads of “humanitarian aid” that passed every day from Israel to Gaza, the area could quickly turn into a tourist Mecca. Good Jews, Peace and anti-Apartheid activists, Palestinians from the world over and Muslims in general could come and vacation in Gaza, along the shores of the Mediterranean, and support this newly created oasis. If one craved history, a short excursion into Egypt to view the Pyramids or to Israel’s Biblical sites or even to Jordan to see Petra could satisfy the sudden urge. Gaza is at the crossroads, as Turkey is between continents.
It was still a recent memory how Israel had given a very substantial portion of its land to Egypt in return for a peace accord. It had given away the area where Israelites traveled for more than 40 years until an unworthy generation has passed. To ensure peace by giving away a small strip of land, where only a handful of people lived in constant danger, sounded very reasonable to many.
How wrong we all were.
Wrong were those inhabitants who fought to the very last minute and rather than struggle to stand again on their own two feet, crumbled under their self pity and despair.
Wrong was the government that went blindly after a General who left no clue as to what the next step should be.
Wrong were the vast majority of Israelis who supported the move based on some convoluted notion of peace that cannot be achieved in our lifetime. The Gazans proved how wrong we all were when they began by desecrating the synagogues, burning the fertile hot houses, turning thriving towns into rubble and converting the area into a massive terrorist super-camp.
Wrong w ere those who opposed the Disengagement from afar. To take an integral part in what is happening in Israel, to truly bring about change, the fight should have been on the ground. They should have immigrated to Israel, to the Holy City of Jerusalem, and amidst a quarter of a million native English speakers, settled in the heartland of Zion.
Wrong was the IDF, who received orders from the political echelon and failed to remind the country it is not the job of the Israel Defense Forces to uproot Jews from their homes in their own homeland. It was morally repugnant, especially when it was done unilaterally, with no peace accord offered in return. Such a directive contrasts the mission of the IDF, the very essence of its creation.
Four years have passed and we lament the mistakes of the past. Some are still mourning, and yet, I am jubilant. That Disengagement must now be followed by the SECOND DISENGAGEMENT.
The Second Disengagement, Rosh Ha’Shana 5770
Israel must disengage from American Jewry. It must do so now and can wait no longer. The effort should be planned and executed by the Jewish New Year starting in September 2009. There is no time to waste. Having learned the lessons of the First Disengagement, the process must be carried out promptly, passionately and perfectly.
The country will shed tears, most orchestrated, a few real. A song lamenting an illusion will ultimately emerge with a true understanding. Its melody will be so ancient as to bring back a deep belief, not in the power of politics, money or the lure of America, but in the very essence of Israel itself. A rebirth of the knowledge the Jewish Homeland exists as a result of a Covenant with God.
In the Second Disengagement, the master planner is President Hussein Obama. His administration will oversee the necessary moves. The military and other annual aid to Israel will be reduced to nothing and the pressure to diminish Israel will increase. This is already evident as first attempts begin to flower – the American Consulate in Jerusalem has just removed all mention of Israel, allowing Arabic but no Hebrew translations. This will be but a small example as the full Obama-Clinton Plan takes full effect.
Difficult days lie ahead for American Jewry. It will be blamed for supporting Israel, a stubborn country that refuses to do what it is told to bring about peace. The settlements will reappear (in discussions), like a red contagious rush. American Jewry, who so strongly opposed Prime Minister’s Netanyahu’s insistence on minimal expansion to accommodate newborns and basic community needs, will be targeted. It will be blamed for the ten top Obama advisors – all token Jews – for all the hardships that remain in store as a byproduct of a failed economy and down to a widespread Swine Pandemic.
As a matter of convenience Jews will once again be made scapegoats, blamed for the economy’s collapse and the root cause of all the suffering, unemployment, hunger and crime. Jewish life will become close to unbearable. Now having to care for their own, their elderly and young and to provide social services to their communities, American Jewry will be distanced from standing so strongly with Israel (or at least with their vision of a Peace Now Israel).
For their own sake, for their long-term well-being and for Israel’s sake, American Jews should disengage from Israel. They may always emigrate, but the decades old co-dependence must stop. It is unhealthy and will bring only destruction. Jews will visit Israel, the “right of return” will continue in full force and effect, money will continue flowing – but the message must be in the most practical terms: We are separated.
Those who opposed the20First Disengagement so strongly would immediately point out the devil is in the details. But an astute observer will equally recognize this is not the case. The vast majority of American Jews voted for (then Senator) Obama. Tens of millions of dollars were raised from these same American Jews.
To this day, the major Jewish organizations continue to provide strong backing for President Obama and his aspirations to impose peace on a region he does not in any way comprehend. Rabbi after Rabbi, cantor after cantor and leadership of one religious institution following another signed a letter supporting the President, condemning Israel. AIPAC, so immersed in its mountains of gold amassed over the decades, decided to sway from its own stated rule-that-should-never-be-bent and categorically oppose the Government of Israel under Netanyahu.
American Jewry is the one enabling President Obama’s dreams of a weak Israel and strong Muslim world, and Israel is paying the price for this folly. If we were today living under Ottoman rule,=2 0one would immediately recognize the signs that Israel was about to be tortured. Ah, but we are in the 21st Century, and President Obama is too slick, too oily an orator to exercise brute force. Why bother with it when the majority of American Jewry is covering his back.
Israel, stand strong. Disengage. Break the ties that bind you into submission to America’s leaders, and the sooner you do so, the better. When graffiti morphs into violence, when American Jews businesses begin closing and Jewish American lives are threatened, then you must accept them into Israel. Just as you have done for the better part of a century – bringing in Yemenite and Jews who fled Muslim rule in Arab lands, embracing Ethiopian Jews, absorbing a massive immigration from Russia and most recently opening your gates to French and Venezuelan Jewry.
The time draws near when you must also accept the American Jew in masses onto your tiny land on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Until then, Israel, act unilaterally, disengage.
In the series “Postcards from Israel,” Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel’s on the ground, Zager’s counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related – the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts – and so is this “point – counter-point” presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives.
© Postcards from Home, August, 2009
Contact: aribussel@gmail.com
Helen Thomas Remembers
By Norma Zager
“The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.” Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823
On occasion a particular revelation or thought may cause one to laugh out loud. An hour after watching the White House briefing recently where seasoned reporter Helen Thomas took Robert Gibbs to task for White House efforts to control the media, I laughed aloud.
It occurred to me, at this rather seasoned stage of my life as well, the old caveat about how old age allows one to remember what happened thirty years previous, but rarely what occurred the day before holds true. A truth I am finding all too scary of late.
The passing of Walter Cronkite only revisited my fears the press has sold out for political access and its own agenda. Cronkite’s left-leaning politics were completely unknown to his audience. Growing up I was never aware he had views. However, I was incredibly aware he possessed a heart.
Thomas’s stern tongue lashing into Gibbs could have been predicated on the truth we remember things longer passed than sooner. She may have at last “remembered” her angry feelings at being 9 Chandled” by any politician.
Lately, I have found little solace in the behavior of American Journalists. Thomas herself appeared to have succumbed to the media’s complete lack of political objectivity until memory clearly served her.
The outburst of laughter of which I speak is not a hearty happy yuk yuk of someone enjoying the joke. There is nothing funny, nay enjoyable about the current state of American journalism. Of late I have moved on from being a reporter to a commentator as a personally rebellious act, however I am certain I still retain the ability to distinguish the two. Sadly, too many reporters do not.
Journalists have historically possessed a liberal viewpoint. A truth well known and accepted, which up until now has done little to hinder an ability to report events accurately and objectively.
There has been a sense of pride that mainstream American reporters were capable of this feat. It has been the cornerstone of the great and near-great writers who have graced the pages of our newspaper giants.
Those who have in the past attempted to “make or distort news” have been outed and ridiculed for their efforts.
William Randolph Hearst’s famous quote to artist/correspondent Frederic Remington writing Hearst from a peaceful Cuba in 1898 asking to come home, still remains chilling. Hearst wrote back: “Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”
Yet others wore their profession like a badge of honor.
The g reat Edward R. Murrow fought McCarthy’s powerful machine without fear because he believed intrinsically in the power of American journalism. “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.” Murrow’s words serve as a warning to all administrations, past and present, they will not and must not succeed in burying or creating their own truth.
The advent of the Internet has delivered a new voice onto the scene. It is not journalism, but a distant facsimile by a group of citizen-journalists who do not possess the information or education necessary to fully comprehend a profession they profess.
Journalism is not solely reporting the news factually and accurately. It is divorcing oneself from its content, rendering no opinion even when your very soul is aching to scream at an injustice or evil. It is a far cry from the job of a reporter to seek out and uncover evil, and the law’s responsibility to judge and punish the wrongdoing.
No objective journalist can successfully accomplish both.
Sadly, it is not only the uneducated among citizen-journalists who mistake opinion and bias for news reporting, but the disease has seeped into the very bones of the mainstream press. Fawning and drooling once reserved for celebrity reporting is now commonplace among mainstream political journalists.
Our forefathers understood the importance of supporting a free press responsible for keeping politicians honest. They knew so great was the potential for corruption among politicians it necessitated inclusion of a free press as the watchdog of democracy in our United States Constitution.
How effective can a ferocious Doberman be at guarding the gates if he is busy swallowing a piece of meat? Can reporters fawn over politicians they are meant to suspect?
I am appalled at recent allegations the Washington Post, the newspaper of Ben Bradlee, Watergate and the premiere political watchdog for the American people, has sold its soul for a few coins in its coffers.
Are the words of New York Times Managing Editor John Swinton in 1880 perhaps the true account of American journalism?
“There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.
“I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
“The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
“We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
Sadly, his prophetic words may provide=2 0the last nail in the optimistic coffin of those who retain a scintilla of hope for the American press.
It is imperative journalists who seek to battle for the continuation of a great and free America wake up and remember the words of Nazi Joseph Goebbels, “Not every item of news should be published. Rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose.”
I prefer to believe the words of one of America’s greatest journalists Walter Lippmann will accurately forecast the future of my profession. “A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society.”
Helen Thomas remembered. One can only pray the remainder of American Journalists will do so as well.
In the series “Postcards from Israel – Postcards from Home,” Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports about Israel, homeland of the Jewish People, as seen by two sets of eyes. This “point – counter-point” presentation has, since 2008, become part of our lives. It can be found in numerous websites around the world as well as in print in the USA.
© Postcards from Home, July, 2009
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