Most of us have a number of acquaintances, but we often have very few people who are really close friends. A really good friend will come to you when you are doing something dumb or self-destructive and tell you to knock it off.
I am a pastor from Tacoma living for three months in the West Bank and working with an ecumenical church group which focuses on peace and ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank . From my perspective here on the ground, I suggest that Israel needs a really good friend, the type that intervenes and says, “What you are doing is dangerously self-destructive.”
I have had the opportunity to spend time with Meir Margalit, an Israeli Jew who served on the Jerusalem City Council. Margalit says, “Israel urgently needs someone to intervene to keep the current Israeli Government from driving off a cliff.” He believes the current government is encouraging a wave of xenophobic nationalism that will “make any peace process impossible, completely alienate Israel further from Arab countries, further isolate Israel from the rest of the world community and destroy democracy and freedom of expression within Israel.” He senses that if the current government is not pressured to change course within the next year or two then the situation will become irreversible.
What is Margalit seeing that has him so alarmed?
· In his opinion it is Israeli intransigence that killed the most recent attempts at peace talks. Israeli officials turned away as President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton begged for a measly three-month extension of a partial moratorium on settlement expansion, even when the deal was sweetened with promises of more military hardware. Israel seems intent on doing all it can, while it can, to make any future Palestinian state totally non-viable, much like the South African attempt at controllable Bantustans or homelands.
· The “Clinton formula” for a potential future division of Jerusalem is to be based on demographics, i.e. those areas that are predominately Palestinian would go to a future Palestine and those areas that are predominately Israeli would go to Israel. So the freeze is off and the rush is on to claim the demographic upper hand in as many neighborhoods as possible. Just this week the Israeli government made a bold move to tear down the old Shepherd’s Hotel to prepare the way for the construction of at least 20 new apartment units exclusively for Jewish settlers. This is property appropriated by Israel and then transferred to Irving Moskowitz, a gambling magnate who underwrites significant illegal settlement activity. This is in a neighborhood of strategic importance just north of the Old City and currently Palestinian. It exemplifies a concerted and systematic process of limiting Palestinian construction, encouraging Palestinian relocation and developing more Israeli settlements, all of which is illegal under the Geneva Convention and the International Court of Law. Nevertheless, there were 74 demolitions of Palestinian homes in 2010 in Jerusalem and 17 in the month of December. From the Palestinian point of view negotiating with Israel while Israel is building settlements is like trying to divide a pizza while one person is busy eating it.
· Israel is aggressively developing and expanding illegal settlements throughout the West Bank, devoting approximately $500 million directly to settlements with much more earmarked in other parts of the budget.
· Prime Minister Netanyahu has been pushing legislation to declare Israel an “officially Jewish” state and demanding that all citizens, be they Christian or Muslim or secular, swear allegiance to that concept, undermining the historic democratic foundations of the nation.
· A letter to the Knesset from the wives of a group of influential Rabbis in Jerusalem recently urged Jewish women to avoid any association with Arab men so as to maintain their “purity” while at the same time this group of Rabbis has introduced legislation before the Jerusalem City Council to make it illegal in West Jerusalem to rent to Arabs.
It is time for the United States to be Israel’s friend, a really good friend, by intervening and exerting pressure to turn Israel away from policies that will only bring more unrest and instability to the region and more pain and suffering among Palestinians and Israelis. Tragically, Israel’s remaining commitment to democracy and human rights is fast vanishing.
Wayne Smith has been a pastor at Praise Covenant Church in Tacoma, Washington for the past 10 years.
And the cry of the talkbackers: “Leave Israel Alone!”
I wish someone would send Wayne Smith’s excellent article here to Obama, so he can read it along with the letter sent to him because right now Obama, the leader of the free world, must decide whether or not to veto the UN resolution on the illegal settlements–his last chance to be a real US leader and, ultimately, the real friend of Israel, rather than the sole full-time hatchet man for rogue Israel at the UN on the US dime.
Here’s the scoop, putting Mr Smith’s thoughts in full real context: link to guardian.co.uk
The “Clinton formula” for a potential future division of Jerusalem is to be based on demographics, i.e. those areas that are predominately Palestinian would go to a future Palestine and those areas that are predominately Israeli would go to Israel.
On the subject of Jerusalem, the Clinton Parameters were a non-starter, because they failed to adequately address the issues of contiguity between Palestinian areas within Jerusalem, and access from the West Bank (and Gaza, presuming “safe passage”). Although things have gotten much worse since 2001, on both counts, it is more a matter of quantity than quality. The real issues in Jerusalem are and have been for many years, issues of human rights, property theft, inequality, and ongoing ethnic cleansing. Meir Margalit is of course at the forefront of all of these battles. He’s a remarkable man.
friends don’t let friends to drive drunk.
Nor do they allow a bipolar friend to roam free when they start seeing signs of rapid cycling dangerous to the friend and those the friend encounters.
It is likely that once again the US government will refuse to do what is right and will veto the Security Council res.
It will fall on deliberately deafened ears but this is part of an email I sent to the spineless Obama.
Our government calls on the two parties to “negotiate.” This is like calling on the party who has stolen my house not to move out but to negotiate with me while he moves more of his family into my house, remodels it and keeps me out while threatening to shoot me if I come too close to my house. Meanwhile the police keep telling the thief of my house and me to “negotiate” but the police support the thief because he is their “friend.”
Wondering if Edwin Black whom has a few books coould be figured out as well, he was on C-Span and saying some very wild things which as I looked at the audience ( looked like an indoctrination) into such viament hate. I can’t imagine publishers actual;ly giving a platform to “blood liable” this day in age.
Wayne, this is disgusting, this public crowing about your great friendship for Israel. What the hell is the pay-off for you?
“It is time for the United States to be Israel’s friend, a really good friend,”
Oh for God’s sake, Wayne, criminals and psychopaths don’t have friends, they have victims and people they minipulate.
But I’ll tell you what, Wayne, you just go on insisting that Zionism is amenable to the kind of friendship you are proposing. And while you do it, please read all the comments in YNET on Macy Gray. Maybe you will figure it out then.
“with an ecumenical church group which focuses on peace and ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank .”
Sure, no reason in the world why that shouldn’t work. After all, if Israel can ignore UN resolutions with impunity, they are sure to listen to you.
Grow up, man.
Hey Mooser,
So far you have only told us what you don’t like. What is your solution? What kinds of actions do you recommend?
The ‘true but candid and critical friend of Israel’ position is also taken by Jimmy Carter, as I recall, and is indeed a bit wearing. So is the reference to the ‘historic democratic foundations’ of Israel. I’d be interested in the definition of ‘democracy’ that Wayne is using and in his reasons for thinking that Israel deserves friendship.