I think that this piece by Amir Oren (about the letter from 27 IAF Reserve pilots who have signed a letter refusing to participate in the targeted killings of Jihad-oriented folk) is meant to be sarcastic. This older piece - scroll down to "Reducing the Risk" gives some background to the IDF's decision to demolish a house in Hebron rather than attempt to arrest Hamas man Ahmed Bader who was hiding inside.

Jpost publisher Bret Stephens was one of a dozen Israeli and Palestinian journalists flown on a luxurious British-gov't sponsored peace junket. Tony Blair spoke banalities. The Guardianistas were shallow know-it-alls. The Palestinians dodged a lot of questions but were on occasions sincere or interesting. (article).

Haaretz really really wants you to read this speech that publisher Hanoch Marmari made on the topic of "embedded journalism" to the International Press Institute.

Johann Hari of The Independent kindly responds to my remarks below:

You have, I fear, willfully misread my article. When paraphrasing what I say, you ignore the rather massive if: "IF you don't know about the terrible history of anti-semitism, THEN..." the events of 1948 seem unjustifiable. Of course, all educated people DO know this history. I am a strong defender of the right of the Israeli people to self-determination and safety; I support the creation of a Palestinian state precisely because Israelis will never be safe so long as they are denying Palestinians their safety and freedom.

I have repeatedly argued against English anti-Semitism in print, and taken a hell of a lot of flak for it; I have Jewish relatives and, as a gay man, would have been killed by the Nazis (and, yes, Hamas) myself; and as for having "no evidence" for my criticisms of Israel, I spent over a month on the Occupied Territories this summer. Your accusation of anti-Semitism is disturbing, libellous and extremely upsetting. I hope that on reflection, you will retract it, not least because we cannot expose real anti-Semites (and believe me, there are many) when such foolish accusations are thrown around against transparently non-racist people.

Yours sincerely,

Johann Hari.

The full paragraph in contention:

Of course, if you don't know about the Naqba, Palestinian anger at Israel looks simply like a disembodied, crazy loathing. And if you don't know about the terrible history of anti-Semitism, the creation of the state of Israel looks like unjustifiable wickedness.

You write: "When paraphrasing what I say, you ignore the rather massive if: "IF you don't know about the terrible history of anti-semitism, THEN..." the events of 1948 seem unjustifiable. Of course, all educated people DO know this history." But you don't address your use of the term "wickedness" - the simple implication of what you wrote is that creation of Israel is a kind of sui generis wickedness that only anti-Semitism climaxing in the sui generis Holocaust can justify.

Moreover, you believe that the Naqba explains (and in a partial sense legitimizes) the implacable Palestinian antipathy to Israel. But the term Naqba signifies the events of 1948 in a national-mythical sense, and the relationship between the Naqba and the actual creation of Israel (and flight of refugees) resembles the relationship between the "Jenin Massacre" and the events of Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. So it's really the mythologization of the events that causes the implacability of Palestinian anger. Perhaps your actual view is that it's this Palestinian view of the Naqba that makes the creation of Israel look like unjustifiable wickedness, and not their unawareness of the history of anti-semitism.

Elsewhere in the article you write that in "their desperation to feel safe" the Levantine Jews committed "an atrocity against the Palestinians" - what is intended? Deir Yassin? The refugee problem as a whole? That the Mandate-period British and the Arabs (or the Turks for that matter) committed more frequent atrocities of their own does not justify what happened at Deir Yassin, but clearly reduces its significance as a historical event. If you'd like to discuss the specific events of 1947-49 (eg. UNSCOP declaration, ensuing riots etc.), I'd be pleased to do so - and I'd also be interested in hearing what similar conflicts you believe that the Levantine Jews should have used as their "role models".

I do recognize and appreciate that you are trying to give a just hearing to both sides of the current dispute (and I'm giving short shrift to other points that you make in the column). But this context makes the apparent proposition that Israel's right-to-exist somehow derives from the Holocaust all the more disturbing. There's not much daylight between that approach and the idea that the Palestinians are suffering because Europe dumped the Jewish problem on them. In the basic sense, Jewish national rights should be regarded as legitimate - though I think that in Europe this point is not regarded as at all obvious.

I do sincerely regret having made mention of the term anti-Semitism - both because it has been interpreted as an attack against you and because it detracts from the main issues that we are discussing. You will note that in my original message I stopped short of directly accusing anyone of anti-Semitism, and that my ponderings on that score also had much to do with the audience that you seem to be addressing as well some of the opinions expressed in the British Medical Journal. So perhaps to could modify the description of the "accusations" that I made.

Update: Johann Hari responds that the above is "thoughtful" and "well-argued" but that he disagrees.

Several blogs have praised columnist Johann Hari; they think that he seems to be a sane liberal despite his working for the Independent. But in an article titled How do we move beyond 1948? Hari writes:

And if you don't know about the terrible history of anti-Semitism, the creation of the state of Israel looks like unjustifiable wickedness.

"unjustifiable wickedness" ?! That Hari can just toss off a line like that is amazing - he actually thinks that he's being reasonable and conciliatory as he declares that from his perspective defending Israel's existence amounts to justifying the unjustifiable. His statement says more about him (and the circles that he moves in) that it does either about justice or about the situation of the region now or fifty years ago. He also writes an incredibly uncritical piece on the ISM.

(via comments at "Harry's Place"): a (similarly) depressing dialog from the British Medical Journal.

I'm not one to make accusations of anti-semitism, but it seems that there's not a small number of educated people in the UK who have a strong desire to believe the worst about Israel... and on no evidence at all or on the flimsiest of accusations.

More: I'm flattered but not convinced by Johann Hari's response in the comments section. I will post a reply of my own soon. At the moment I'd just note that in my original message I stopped short of directly accusing anyone of anti-Semitism, and that I regret having made mention of the term anti-Semitism - both because it has been interpreted as an attack against Hari and because it detracts from the discussion of what he has written in the columns that I mentioned.

Shai's surgery went fine and he's gone home. I don't know if the doctors gave him the piece of the suicide bomb that was lodged in his shoulder. When Norwegian TV interviewed him, the questions included "Will this change your life?", "Will you now move out of the country?" ("No" and "No").

"Do you have a message for the new Palestinian leader Abu Ala?". Don't know what Shai replied, but I think there's nothing to say to him because his policies will be determined primarily by the rigid Palestinian mythology and secondarily by Arafat.

Victims of terrorists receive a lot attention and sympathy (as do injured soldiers). Shai's friends were ribbing him about how he was being treated like a hero.

Arafat is supposedly talking about an wholly unilateral ceasefire (report). Anyone remember when Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire? I think it was shortly after the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement fell apart in 2000; the Palestinians dismissed it as a propaganda measure.

I was just talking on the phone with our friend Shai, who my wife Tova is visiting in the hospital. Suicide bombers pack nails and screws into their bombs to make them more deadly. On Tuesday night Shai was hit with two pieces of the "shrapnel": one went straight through his leg; the other broke his collarbone (?) and lodged near a major artery in his chest - making it dangerous and tricky to remove. And the boom of the blast has impaired his hearing. His surgery has been postponed as the doctors figure out the best way to remove the debris.

Shai is otherwise in OK shape and sounds like his regular self. Tova printed out the global "get well" wishes from the comments below, which he appreciated.

He wasn't reluctant to tell me details. He was sitting in the middle of the cafe with his back to the door when the Jihadi blew up, so he heard the boom and saw people opposite him panicking. When he was hit in the leg and shoulder he fell to the floor, and consciously avoided looking behind him. Someone shouted a people to stay down because there might be another bomb. After someone smashed a glass pane near the back of the restaurant (which was walled with glass on 2 sides), Shai managed to pull himself out with the help of his dinner companion. They distanced themselves from the restaurant (again consciously to avoid trauma) and then returned and got ensconced into an ambulance.

The governor of Oklahoma visited Shai in the hospital, and he was interviewed by a newspaper called "The New Mexican"[?].

A Norwegian TV network filmed and interviewed him for 20 minutes and intends to juxtapose him with a Palestinian terrorist. But why would they choose to focus on a mildly-wounded, not-so-traumatized unmarried well-off guy in his 30s? Why not describe the story of Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter who would have been married last night? Why not speak to their families? Wouldn't it make a better human interest story?

24 hrs. afterward

Sh. - one of my wife's old friends - was hurt by shrapnel in last night's bombing. Doctors say there is a screw lodged near a major artery, which requires removal via a delicate procedure. He's been moved to a different hospital and will be undergoing surgery tomorrow. Get better soon Sh.

Currently they're saying 4 dead and many injured. Our friends in the neighborhood all seem to be OK. Report in Haaretz, Jpost.

I'm signing off for the night.

Hamas are evil, but it's hard to think much differently about the people in the PA and abroad who demand that we just accept this and give the Palis more and more in the hopes that someday they won't dislike us anymore.

Right now I heard 2 dead. There's a security guard at the door of the cafe, so my guess is the guy blew himself up in the sidewalk cafe.

All of our friends are calling us to make sure we're OK.

Apparently it's on CNN. That's quick.

Radio says bombing at Cafe Hillel - just down the block from me. Sounds like lots of casualties.

Hillel is usually crowded even at night. It has a lot of tables set up in the alley next to it.

Lots of sirens now.

I'm in the Emek Refaim area of Jerusalem.

Nothing on the radio yet. But sirens from every direction.

Big bang outside 15 seconds ago.

Now a siren.

security fence in Jerusalem (report).

These days when I see on a website or hear on the radio that the IAF has hit a Hamas operative in Gaza, I'm never sure if there's been a new hit or if they're still talking about the last one.

Interesting article about

Huwaida Arraf is a co-founder of the group of pro-Palestinian volunteers called the International Solidarity Movement. From the ISM Central blog:

Huwaida Arraf today sent an email that can be said to constitute the ISM's official reaction to last Tuesday's bus bombing in Jerusalem.

Let's try to step inside her mind and see things "the ISM way" - if we dare:

Friends,

After the August 19 bus bombing in Jerusalem, the ISM received a number of emails asking if the ISM was going to make a statement and we received some of the usual, "why isn't the ISM riding Israeli busses?" comments. One email suggested that if we don't speak out against this bombing, we are "party to it".

These are good questions. The messages on the ISM mailing list agonize daily over Palestinian suffering (both real and otherwise) but made no mention at all of the Jerusalem bombing. The ISM's "actions" interfere with the IDF's operations against terrorists, which leaves the impression that the internationals tacitly support such actions. So I look forward to hear Arraf's responses to these questions even as she sneers at them.

Again our response is that we are working to stop all violence in the region, not by issuing statements, but by working to end the root cause of the violence against Israelis and Palestinians - the ongoing, brutal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and lives ......

Hmm. "Blaming it on The Occupation". But she's supposed to make a ritual condemnation first .. You know, like, "We condemn these attacks, but ..."

In the few short weeks after the hudna was announced on June 29, 2003, up until August 9, 10 days before the bus bombing in Jerusalem, the Israeli military killed 10 Palestinians, 5 of them children, wounded 348 Palestinians, 65 of them children, arrested 435 Palestinians, damaged or completely demolished/destroyed 211 Palestinian homes, and uprooted or destroyed over 10,050 Palestinian fruit and olive trees. This is not to mention the vehicles and businesses damaged and/or destroyed, the thousands of dunams of Palestinian land confiscated or isolated from its owners, the number of new settlement structures that were built, the bypass roads created, the Israeli military outposts erected, the continued work on the apartheid wall, the continued denial of access to Palestinians to their land, and the ongoing daily abuse at checkpoints

CBBTFTP = "Can''t be bothered to fisk that part....

We are not going to issue statements.

She said that already, but OK.

We stand against the killing of all civilians and are saddened for the families of the victims of that bus bombing.

If Arraf had said "We stand against the killing of civilians under all circumstances", I would understand her to be expressing an objection (and taking a moral stand) against the Islamikazes. But she's taking pains to say that she's not "making a statement", so I can only understand her to be saying that the ISM opposes killing civilians "in principle" - the same way that she's for peace on earth.

At the same time we're frustrated with the politics of governments and the complacency that is allowing this to continue. Without a check on the Israeli government and military, this will continue. There can be no hudna or "road map" without restraints put on the Israeli military and government.

I thought you just said that you guys weren't going to issue statements. To me this sure sounds like a statement to the effect that the ISM thinks that the suicide bombings should continue until "The Occupation" ends.

Zeev Schiff writes that there is consensus in the Israeli security establishment not to return to a "truce" that does not include direct Palestinian action against terrorist infrastructure (deja vu)

Additionally, the Shin-Bet (internal security) regards the latest actions of Gaza security head Mohammed Dahlan as a familiar public relations exercise, while the IDF sees some significance in his arresting arms dealers and taking action against Qassam missile launchings - though there have been no steps taken to dismantle weapons workshops or arrest suspected Islamikazes.

Well, one accomplishment of the hudna is that Hamas managed to improve the range of the Qassam missiles that they fire from Gaza. Previously they could only hit Sderot - now the thankfully inaccurate projectiles can reach Ashkelon (report)

New blog: ISM Central