Category Archives: Israel

Impressions From Jerusalem

Ancient History, Family, Ilana Mercer, Israel, Judaism & Jews, Religion

THE FOLLOWING EVOCATIVE PIECE was written by a special young woman, my daughter. She traveled to Israel with the common political perspective, imbibed in insulated, privileged, propagandized North America—and shared by left-liberals and paleos alike. Once in Israel, she underwent a transformative experience.

Most individuals who write about Israel, pro and con, should not be doing so, as they have never experienced the place or the people. I’m proud of my girl. Aside a talent for spare, strong writing, she had the heart and the head to rethink received ideology when confronted by something far more powerful and persuasive.

Impressions From Jerusalem
By Nicky

My idea of a militarized society was that of the USA. Soldiers and armed guards are visible only where security is needed. They are stern, unsmiling, erect. They signify danger and command respect, wordlessly and humorlessly.

In Canada, my only experience of the military is the odd soldier in fatigues on the street, perhaps on the bus: an object of casual consideration. I view him with the privileged gaze of a Western pacifist, not obliged to look him in the eye. I think: “Why, friend, what are you doing in that uniform? What are you afraid of? What did the government tell you to make you believe you should don those clothes?” I don’t feel served or protected by this soldier because I don’t need his service or protection. My daily movements are free and unfettered; I am an independent Western woman. I cannot relate to my soldier. It saddens me that all I can summon for him is private condescension and the thought that my tax dollars could be better spent than on his meager salary.

I was certain that this attitude would be seamlessly transplanted to Israel. I was wrong; it simply would not stick. Not because I’m a Jew. I didn’t even consider myself a Zionist when I walked through the streets of Jerusalem: I still did not understand Israel, even then. And even now, after an intensive ten-day tour of the tiny country and its borders, I can barely bring myself to discuss it. There is too much history to learn, to read, too much to experience, to see, to understand with one’s full attention in order to speak of Israel, let alone flippantly as many who haven’t experienced it do.

You cannot fathom 3000 years of history, and yet there is rubble from that time, from the Temple’s first destruction. Here and there soldiers stand amidst the rubble. Jerusalem is beautiful but she is neither grand nor ornate. Even the Western Wall appears fragile. Only the Dome of the Rock shines gold and blue in a city of calcified limestone. A soldier steps graciously out of my camera’s view as I photograph one stretch of wall and rubble. At the Holy City’s entrance, a couple of young soldiers stand between the two opposing flows of traffic. They look into our faces, our eyes, their guns slung low, pointed to the ground. They are at ease, relaxed. One of them smiles warmly. A group of children scampers past, unafraid and wholly indifferent to the soldiers. Already this experience is markedly different from those I’ve had at the US and Canadian borders, or customs at Heathrow, London, where I have been treated like trash more than once. And yet I don’t doubt that these young boys could protect me. I feel safe and relaxed here amongst these soldiers.

THE HOLY CITY IS FULL OF YOUNG ISRAELI SOLDIERS. When they enter a museum together, they leave their guns in a pile at the entrance, guarded by one or two watchful but friendly soldiers who will smile for our cameras and bark no orders on how far to stand from the pile of guns. Many know each other from training and though they walk with different brigades you often see a handful stray for a moment to greet one other. They receive no reprimand for straying. No one barks commands. Gathered in groups, they sit or stand, laugh, smoke cigarettes and talk and text on cell phones. They are unabashedly affectionate: embracing and back-slapping; their faces light up at seeing one another. These are boys and girls in their late teens and early 20s. I doubt I will ever see youngsters this age behaving this way in North America. That would be “like, gay or something.”

Even in a group one can access solitude instantly while walking through Jerusalem. It isn’t unusual to fall silent mid conversation. Her history commands respect and quiet reflection. The closer you get to the Western Wall, the lower the tones, the greater the quiet. Everyone approaches slowly, atheist, agnostic, believer alike. Religious or not, you feel its power. Birds nestle in its crevices. They watch the people below and I feel certain even they know the Wall is special. It is fortified by a band of humans teaming at its base, palms and foreheads flat against the stone, as though holding it up. You approach slowly, your eyes travel through space and time, fixed on the wall. First you touch the wall, then you kiss your fingers. You gently wedge your note in with the rest, hoping it is profound, meaningful enough to be worthy of its stony recipient; worthy of its fallen defenders.

You are not speaking at all now, nobody is. You can only hear the sound of softly praying lips and of children hushed by admonishing parents. You do not turn your back on the Wall, but retreat slowly, facing it. Along the periphery, where the men and women’s sections are segregated, lone individuals, eyes covered, pray silently. Some are crying. Among the crowd, the elderly are seated, reading from Hebrew prayer books, mouthing the words in silence.

THE ISLAMIC CALL TO PRAYER booms through the quiet five times a day, everyday, even at 4am, with militaristic precision and pitch. Several mosques perform the prayer, one after the other. You cannot hear anything else for a full five minutes at a time, for up to thirty minutes a session. The speaker crackles from the distortion of the blaring volume. Secular tourists need to yell to hear one another, helping to shatter the erstwhile calm, easily distracted and pulled from their meditation. Tour guides turn off their mikes patiently and wait.

The worshipers at the wall cover their ears and pray more intensely, still silent. The soldiers, unmoved, stand sentinel at the ancient ruins.

Update III: ‘Jerusalem Is Not A Settlement; It's Our Capital’ (Forthcoming)

Bush, Christianity, Democrats, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: (Who else?) “The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years ago, and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today. Jerusalem is not a settlement. It’s our capital.” (PBS NewsHour)

So said Mr. Netanyahu during a visit to the United States Capitol, following a “two-week old” tiff between his administration and Obama’s over ongoing construction in East Jerusalem. (Refresher is here.)

The WaPo ventures that “Netanyahu believes that a halt to construction represents political suicide for his coalition, so no amount of U.S. pressure will lead him to impose a freeze — at least until he is in the final throes of peace talks.”

For Israeli’s sake, let’s hope there’s more to Bibi’s stand than political expediency.

Update I (March 24): “…in Israel—foibles and frailties notwithstanding—the West has reclaimed a small spot of sanity in a sea of savagery, where enlightened western law prevails, and where Christians and Jews and their holy places are safe. (Muslims are always secure in western societies, Arab-Israelis too.)” [From “Paleos Must Defend the West…And That Means Israel Too.”]

A reminder to relapsed Republicans; Condi Rice was as good a friend to Israel as is Barack Obama.

Update II: Watch this space. Forthcoming on Barely a Blog this weekend “Impressions From Jerusalem,” written by a special young woman who went to Israel with the expected perspectives imbibed in insulated North America—and shared by paleos and liberals alike—but had a transformative experience.

Most individuals who write about Israel, pro and con, should not be doing so, as they have never experienced the place or the people. This young woman had the heart and the head to ditch tinny ideology (she is not your average Millennial, described in “Your Kids: Dumb, Difficult And Dispensable”) her own included, when confronted by something far more powerful and persuasive.

Be sure not to miss BAB’s upcoming weekend feature.

Update III: You’re in luck. I’ve decided to post the promised evocative piece of writing tomorrow. The mystery young woman has real talent for spare, strong writing.

Update III: East Jerusalem Or One Jerusalem? (Gunning For A Jewish Neighborhood)

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, History, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

“In a 45-minute telephone call Friday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton upbraided him and demanded that he take more steps to show his nation’s commitment to peace,” writes the LA Times. The confrontation between the shrewd and the shrew was the latest round in a “dispute this week between the Obama administration and Israel,” which “has ballooned into the biggest U.S.-Israeli clash in 20 years, adding to months of strain between Washington and one of its closest allies,” the LA Times again.

Israel’s decision to move ahead with 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, announced during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden, drew criticism from Washington in language rarely directed at even Iran or North Korea. …
Clinton’s criticism, authorized by President Obama, was aimed at trying to obtain concessions from the conservative Israeli government at a moment when Netanyahu may be politically vulnerable, officials said.
The U.S. goal is to win Israeli agreement to back off the housing project and to forgo announcements of additional Jewish construction in East Jerusalem, officials said. The administration also wants Israel to agree to discuss substantive issues in new peace talks that could begin in coming days, U.S. officials said.

Netanyahu responded today:

“With regard to commitments to peace, the government of Israel has proven over the last year that it is commitment to peace, both in words and actions,” said the statement.”
The statement cited as examples Netanyahu’s inaugural foreign policy speech made at Bar Ilan University, the removal of hundreds of roadblocks across the West Bank, and its decision to freeze temporarily construction in West Bank settlements. The latter, said the statement, was even called by Clinton an “unprecedented” move.
Netanyahu’s office added in its statement that the Palestinians were continuing to thwart the political process by demanding preconditions before the resumption of peace talks. “They are orchestrating a de-legitimization campaign against Israel in international institutions.”

East Jerusalem is the issue here. Netanyahu will have to stand strong on the unity of Jerusalem. The rest is a sideshow the Obama administration has chosen to amplify, or so I suspect.

“The Muslim Claim to Jerusalem” is political, not religious or historic, argues Daniel Pipes. It is also a recent project.

Centuries of neglect, as Pipes puts it, “came to an abrupt end after June 1967, when the Old City came under Israeli control. Palestinians again made Jerusalem the centerpiece of their political program. “Mecca, of course, is the eternal city of Islam, the place from which non-Muslims are strictly forbidden. Very roughly speaking, what Jerusalem is to Jews.”

[SNIP]
HISTORY NOTWITHSTANDING, What of Palestinian families who’ve resided in the city for generations? Sure, they will have soaked in the disingenuous, bogus political case for a Palestinian religious or historical claim on the Holy City. This, I would go further than Pipes and argue, is of a piece with the Palestinian historical identity theft project. That aside, the question of generational attachment to place and property is a simple one to solve if intentions are good. People remain on their properties and extend to their Israeli neighbors—residents of the 1,600 new housing units Biden protested included—-the courtesy their brethren receive in Israel proper.

Update I (March 17): Daniel Pipes provides an updated analysis of the Washington-Jerusalem spat:

“A recent poll of American voters shows an astonishing 8-to-1 sympathy for Israel over the Palestinians,” Pipes points out. So, “picking a fight with Israel harms Obama politically – precisely what a president sinking in the polls and attempting to transform one-sixth of the economy does not need”:

“On the surface, that the Obama administration decided one fine day to pick a fight with the government of Israel looks like an unmitigated disaster for the Jewish state. What could be worse than its most important ally provoking the worst crisis (according to the Israeli ambassador to Washington) since 1975?

A closer look, however, suggests that this gratuitous little spat might turn out better for Jerusalem than for the White House.

(1) It concerns not a life-and-death issue, such as the menace of Iran’s nuclear buildup or Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas predations, but the triviality of the timing of a decision to build new housing units in Israel’s capital city. Wiser heads will insist that White House amateurs end this tempest in a teapot and revert to normal relations.

(2) If Obama et al. hope to bring down Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government, they can’t count Knesset seats. Peeling away Labor will lead to its replacement by rightist parties.

(3) An Israeli consensus exists to maintain sovereignty over eastern Jerusalem, so provoking a crisis on this issue strengthens Netanyahu.

(4) Conversely, U.S. histrionics make the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas more reluctant to enter into Washington’s counterproductive negotiations.”

Update II (March 18): Petraeus’ Palestinian Protectorate. According to Debkafile:

“President Obama and secretary of state Hillary Clinton turned down their initial proposals for easing the upset and laid down three pre-conditions for restoring normal relations with Jerusalem:
1. The Netanyahu government must extend the 10-month freeze on West Bank settlement construction to include East Jerusalem;

2. When the moratorium runs out in September, it must be renewed for the duration of peace negotiations with the Palestinians;
3. Israeli must make more concessions to the Palestinian Authority and its chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
The Israeli government was informed that until those conditions were met, its ministers would not be received in Washington by high-level American officials …”

American officials are openly insinuating that, “Israel’s settlement policy is the root-cause of Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb and of the conflicts endangering American lives in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. … Vice President Joe Biden … reportedly attacked Netanyahu for the announcement of 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem by saying: ‘What you are doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.’

It is rumored that, “A much-admired American military figure, CENTCOM chief, Gen. David Petraeus, wants the Palestinian Authority added to CENTCOM’s turf” so that the US can protect the PA from Israel.

Update III (March 19): Gunning For A Jewish Neighborhood. The American Thinker (via Larry Auster):

Ramat Shlomo, is a Jewish neighborhood and has been so for thirty years. It is surrounded by other Jewish neighborhoods, and no Israeli in his right mind would consider surrendering it in any final peace deal with the Palestinians. Giving up Ramat Shlomo would be the equivalent of giving up the world-famous Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, the tony Jerusalem suburb of French Hill, and even the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. All three are just as integrated into the Jewish identity of Jerusalem as Ramat Shlomo. Only by accepting the Palestinian narrative — that all of Jerusalem belongs to the Palestinians — could anyone possibly envision the suburb as future Palestinian territory.

AND:

There is absolutely no connection between the construction of apartment units in Ramat Shlomo (still two years distant) and the intent of Islamic martyrs to kill American soldiers thousands of miles away. The same number of American servicemen will be targeted and killed in the Middle East no matter what happens in northern Jerusalem.

So from what playbook are Barack Obama and his administration reading in breathing life into a crisis that should never have been? It is, I believe, simply this: Obama sees the world in terms of a rather protean struggle between the weak and the strong, the poor and the rich. The weak in his eyes are almost always innocent purveyors of righteousness while the powerful personify greed and oppression. The same worldview permeates his domestic policies…

‘Son of Hamas’: Israel Has A Moral Code, Hamas Not

Free Speech, Israel, Jihad, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Palestinian Authority, Reason, Terrorism, The West

Enlightened, realistic, intelligent people (western, left-liberal intellectuals are precluded by definition) who visit or come to know Israel—the place, the people, the purpose of it all—abandon the easy, destructive, fashionable path of the Palestinians.

Such a man is Mosab Yousef, a “Son of Hamas”—also the title of his book—interviewed extensively by CNN’s Christian Amanpour.

This extremely bright young man’s central conversion is religious—once he embraced Christianity, his political change of heart followed. (How ironic, then, that western “intellectuals,” claiming to bear christian witness, routinely root for savagery as against civilization?!)

Amanpour, a fan of that authentic, ever-elusive, tame Islam, was shocked to hear these two stupendously courageous statements from Mosab Yousef:

1. The gangster of the world is the God of the Qu’ran.

2. Shin Bet has rules; is committed to a constitution, is not thirsty to kill Palestinians. Hamas’s goal, on the other hand, is to kill civilians, plain and simple.

Amanpour—who finds herself unable to abide Yousef’s admission that Shin Bet has a moral code, Hamas does not—then spent the rest of the admittedly penetrating interview trying to discredit Israel and the convert.

“Who turned you to working for the Israelis,” she demanded of Yousef.

Tellingly, the Hamas gangster she entertained to that end had a fit about being pitted against an Israeli expert on espionage, Yossi Melman of the leftist Haaretz.

An enlightened young man, with a fidelity to what’s infront of his eyes, turning against Hamas? This, to the western woman hot for the Hamas hottie, his bombs and his “causes”, is incredible.

Amanpour and the other Muslim academic she herded in for the occasion are, seemingly, quite invested in discrediting a born-again Christian whose conversion has seen him reject barbarism.

Regulars on the pro-Palestinian libertarian/left sides of the ideological spectrum might be warned of a major contradiction they risk committing, as they gather to slander Mosab Yousef, “Son of Hamas”:

Boy-oh-boy, has this man hungrily embraced civilization both from the depths of his being and in his actions. Yousef is risking his life to court the ways of the West: speaking, writing, arguing; having fun and making money while doing it all.

Now this is a hero in the Randian mold. May he stay safe.