Blogs serve an important purpose: Bloggers can blow off steam, particularly when it's so hard to get any column inches in the mainstream press. Another pressure valve is the "talkback" feature that follows many online newspaper items. Frankly, they're a waste of time and effort, but sometimes it's the only way to get something off your chest. Such is the case this week with many angry readers of The New York Times' Nicolas Kristof's column this week on the "Israeli colony" in Hebron.
I'm not the only one to use the blog and the "talk-back" feature to respond to Kristof. Read Prof. Gerald Steinberg's response on the NGO Monitor site. A particularly poignant response was written by Stephen Flatow, father of 20-year-old Alisa who was killed by a Palestinian bus bomb in 1995. There's also an important response by David Wilder, spokesman for the Jewish community in Hebron. Wilder revealed that while Kristof toured Hebron with B'Tzelem, one of the most vociferous and tendentious pro-Palestinian organizations in Israel, the columnist satisfied his "journalistic objectivity" by merely giving Wilder a phone call.
Below are excerpts from my own response to Kristof.
Mr. Kristof -- The Israelis you cite are either from the extreme left who deny any Jewish right to the Jewish historical sites in Judea/Samaria (the West Bank) or those on the right in Hebron who find themselves on the front lines. Their views are molded by the intense pressure of their lives.
Most Israelis, however, are anchored in the center, and that is certainly the case for the hundreds of thousands who, like myself, live in the post-1967 areas and for their extended families and friends in pre-67 Israel.
You find the idea of Jews living in their second holiest city, Hebron, illegal or “utterly 
impractical.” Sorry, Mr. Kristof, many Jews want the right to visit the Tomb of the Patriarchs, something denied to Jews after the 1929 massacre of Hebron’s Jews. Many of those closed shops you referred to were once Jewish properties.
Don’t apply the “utterly impractical” standard to Israel. The state never would have been founded in 1948 according to your standards.
You claim one-third of settlement land is privately owned by Palestinians. Not according to the Israeli Supreme Court — the paragon of justice, decency, fairness loved by Israel’s left — that allowed the construction of settlements on “state land.” When a settlement was built on private land, the court ordered it removed immediately. (The Elon Moreh case.)
The delay of sick Palestinians in ambulances at checkpoints is tragic, but the use of those ambulances to ferry explosives used by suicide bombers is lethal and criminal. I’m not surprised they get delayed at checkpoints.
Mr. Kristof, unless you parachuted into Hebron, you drove on Route 60 from Jerusalem.
I use the road every day, and I share it with hundreds of Palestinian trucks, taxis and private cars. Many of them enter Route 60 from Bethlehem. At that intersection 10 years ago a Palestinian terrorist, driving a large stolen Israeli truck, rammed my son’s compact car with his four passengers. Miraculously they survived. The intersection was closed during the intifada, but it’s been open for a year. And my son drives past that spot every day on his way to a Jerusalem hospital where he treats Arabs and Jews. For better or for worse, most roads are open and most Palestinians can travel in the West Bank.
Your portrait of evil Israelis just can’t be complete without the canard of Israelis using five times more water than Palestinians. Sorry, it doesn’t wash, so to speak. A study produced by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences along with their Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli counterparts ten years ago, found little difference between water consumption in Israeli and Palestinian urban areas. “Per capita water use for urban Palestinians reaches a maximum of 100 cubic meters a year, similar to Israeli use.” The study suggests that low figures for rural Palestinians “is likely to increase with improvement in the level of living.” More telling, however, is the report’s finding that “water losses unaccounted for [theft of leaks] in the [Palestinian] distribution network” reach 55 percent[!]
Lastly, all modern, developed 21st century societies use much more water than developing societies. “The United States and Canada are the highest per capita water users in the world,” according to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, “…per person usage is more than 2.5 times that in Asia or Europe, and over six times that in Africa.” Cross the border into Mexico and per capita water usage drops by two-thirds.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Responses to The New York Times' Nicolas Kristof
Update on the LBJ "Righteous Gentile" Campaign
Looking For Survivors --Click to read how you can help
Read About LBJ's Jewish Granddaughter
Monday, June 16, 2008
And Now Back to Lyndon B. Johnson --
Help Make the Case for the Title of “Righteous Gentile”
The reaction to the original May 28 blog calling LBJ a “righteous gentile” has been very moving. The site continues to receive dozens of “hits” a day. And at the behest of several readers I began a dialogue with the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to see if LBJ could be officially recognized as a “Righteous Gentile.”
Yad Vashem’s initial reaction was not very promising:
“The title of Righteous among the Nations is awarded by a special Commission … that operates according to a well-defined set of rules and criteria. The Righteous, as defined by the Yad Vashem Law enacted by the Israeli Knesset in 1953, are non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. In some cases, the Commission also bestows the title on people who did not risk their lives, but took grave risks in order to assist Jews in danger of deportation and death
. In latter cases it has to be shown that the nominated persons acted against the law [emphasis added] or contrary to their professional instructions, thus risking severe punishment. From what I could glean from the article, Johnson helped Jews who had managed to leave Europe in their attempts to get to the U.S. and settle there. Based on the article this proved to be an admirable attitude and may have greatly helped the Jews at their time of need, but it seems at first glance that this case is not in line with the program’s criteria. At any rate, in order for a file to be submitted to the Commission we need to have survivor testimony or archival documentation that attests to the nature of the rescue activity.”
In reaction to the Yad Vashem note, I began consultations with several eminent historians and LBJ scholars. Prof. Robert Dallek, author of Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960, gave me some valuable leads. After all, already in 1991, Dallek told a Time Magazine reporter, “During 1938 and 1939, Johnson secretly helped Jewish refugees from Europe enter the U.S., through Galveston. I don't know of any other Congressman who did that. Out of 400,000 constituents, his district had only 400 Jewish voters. Something deep in this man's psyche, probably harking back to his Texas hill-country boyhood, made him identify with the underdog.”
Prof. James Smallwood, whose research was vital to the first blog posting, responded, “It is correct that Johnson did not risk his life but he committed illegal acts to save the Jews. It can be proved that LBJ saved some 42 from the Nazis….Indirect evidence says he probably saved about 400. From my research, I agree with the larger number. However, there are problems, since much of what went on was illegal, Johnson knew better than to leave a ‘paper-trail.’”
To move forward on the campaign to get Lyndon Johnson recognized as a “Righteous Gentile,” I am launching a separate website, Lyndon Johnson and Israel. The site invites scholars, survivors and survivors’ children to submit historical accounts of LBJ's actions. We particularly invite the participation of the Texas Jewish community, the Houston Holocaust Memorial, and the Johnson Library. We will present the data to Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, and with God’s help, provide the well-deserved recognition during the commemoration of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s 100th year, which begins August 27.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Incredible Reactions to the RFK Articles
"I didn't know that about RFK!" has been the most common response to the blog and the Robert Kennedy and Israel website.
Make sure to check out Marty Peretz' blog over at The New Republic on the RFK letters and his assassination by a Palestinian terrorist.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
On Bobby Kennedy's 40th Yahrzeit:
Articles He Wrote from Palestine 60 Years Ago
Jerusalem Post, June 5, 2008
Hillary Clinton's horrible gaffe several weeks ago about Robert Kennedy's assassination served as a reminder that RFK was gunned down exactly 40 years ago as he left a primary victory celebration in California. Bobby generated great hope and enthusiasm among America's young, especially those who were opposed to the Vietnam war - not unlike the campaign of a young Illinois Senator today.
RFK was a strong supporter of Israel, and that support was genuine, deep, and heart-felt.
And it cost him his life.
His oldest daughter, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, told me on his 30th yahrzeit, "He was killed by an Arab terrorist [Sirhan Sirhan] because of his support for Israel."
Sirhan's motives - which were expressed in his diary and trial - were fueled by his anger over Israel's victory exactly one year earlier.
Ironically, June 5 is also another Kennedy anniversary. Sixty years ago, just weeks a
fter Israel declared its independence, the Boston Post published a series of articles by the young college graduate who arrived in Palestine in late March 1948. Bobby's words still inspire:
"The Jewish people in Palestine who believe in and have been working toward this national state have become an immensely proud and determined people. It is already a truly great modern example of the birth of a nation with the primary ingredients of dignity and self-respect.
"From a small village of a few thousand inhabitants, Tel Aviv has grown into a most impressive modern metropolis of over 200,000. They have truly done much with what all agree was very little...
"The Jews point with pride to the fact that over 500,000 Arabs, in the 12 years between 1932-1944, came into Palestine to take advantage of living conditions existing in no other Arab state..."
RFK'S WORDS also serve as a rejoinder to anti-Israel propagandists today. Some revisionists claim that the Jews of the Yishuv outnumbered and outgunned the Arabs in Palestine. Kennedy's eye-witness account is different:
"When I was in Tel Aviv the Jews informed the British government that 600 Iraqi troops were going to cross into Palestine from Trans-Jordan by the Allenby Bridge on a certain date and requested the British take appropriate action to prevent this passage. The troops passed unmolested...
"I saw several thousand non-Palestinian Arab troops in Palestine, including many of the famed British-trained and equipped Arab legionnaires of King Abdullah. There were soldiers from Syria, Le
banon, Iraq, Trans-Jordan, and they were all proudly pointed out to me by a spokesman of the Arab Higher Committee... Every Arab to whom I talked spoke of thousands of soldiers massed in the 'terrible triangle of Nablus, Tulkarm, Jenin' and of hundreds that were pouring in daily...
"When I was in Lebanon and asked a dean at the American University in Beirut if many students were leaving for the fight in Palestine he shrugged and said, 'Not now - the quota has been oversubscribed.' When journeying by car from Jerusalem to Amman I passed many truckloads of armed Arabs and even then Jericho was alive with Arab troops. There is no question that it was taken over by the Arabs for an armed camp long before May 15 [the British date of departure]...
"The inability [of the Haganah] to make any long-range military maneuvers because of the presence of the British has been a great and almost disastrous handicap to the Jews... If the Haganah had waited for May 15th and the withdrawal of British troops, there would be few alive in Jerusalem today. Strong units of that body had moved into the hills on either side of that strategic road and repelled Arab counterattacks long enough for several hundred truckloads to make the 40-mile trip into the city... The maneuvers had to take place and took place despite the British...."
IN ONE stirring passage, Kennedy joined with Haganah fighters and physically placed himself in danger.
"I have ridden in J
ewish armored car convoys which the British have stopped to inspect for arms. As always, there were members of the Haganah aboard and they quickly broke down their small arms, passing the pieces among the occupants to conceal them so as to prevent confiscation... If the arms had been found and confiscated and Arabs had attacked, there would have been but a remote chance of survival for any of the occupants. There have been many not as fortunate as we...."
ROBERT KENNEDY'S affinity for American Jews and empathy for the Jews of Palestine was all the more remarkable considering his father's antipathy and the views of one of his father's friends, Lord Beaverbrook. As related by RFK's biographer, Arthur Schlesinger, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. opposed the United States's entry into the war against Germany, and in the summer of 1942 complained to his friend, Beaverbrook, "There is a great undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the appointment of so many Jews in high places in Washington..."
In March 1948, Bobby found himself on the Queen Mary sailing to England with Beaverbrook. Schlesinger relates, quoting from RFK's diary, that when the young Kennedy told Beaverbrook he was heading to the Middle East, the Englishman remarked that the United States was "a subjugated nation to a Jewish minority..."
Bobby Kennedy was probably one of America's most optimistic and forward-thinking politicians since Franklyn Roosevelt. His attitude is reflected in his famous quote (paraphrasing G.B. Shaw), "There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?"
And that attitude was obvious already in 1948 when RFK wrote, "It is against all law and nature that this Jewish state should exist... The Jews believe that in a few more years, if a Jewish state is formed, it will be the only stabilizing factor remaining in the Near and Middle East... Vehemence and hatred between the Jews and Arabs increase daily. But in many cases Jews and Arabs work side by side in the fields and orange groves outside of Tel Aviv. Perhaps these Jews and Arabs are making a greater contribution to the future peace in Palestine than are those who carry guns on both sides..."
May his memory continue to be blessed.
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