A Land to Die For? reviewed in the Jerusalem Post

Still Alive

I am getting emails from friends who want to know why I have stopped blogging. Some were even worried that I might be unwell. The fact that some people have noticed and have even gone to the trouble of telling me that they miss my occasional ponderings is flattering of course.

I would like to set your minds at ease: I am fine and the only reason I have not blogged lately is that I am under deadline pressure. I have promised the manuscript for my next book to my publisher and working on it is virtually all I do. OK, I did go to a friend's party last night. When I mentioned to one of the guests that I was in a “deadline panic”, he asked, “is there any other relationship one can have with a deadline”? and he is probably right.

Thank you all for asking. I will try to feed the blog again.

Secret Porn

There is nothing like porn to wake one up and in this case to get me to blog again. Two seemingly unconnected items recently appeared in the press:

·      *   The British electronic eavesdropping station, GCHQ (the United States NSA’s little sister) not only listens to all our phones, reads our faxes, emails and even sms messages but also – in a programme aptly names Mastering the Internet - follows the whole world’s internet traffic. They know what sites we visit, what we use search engines for etc. Moreover, GCHQ sucks in and holds on to the material for 30 days, to give them time to analyse the material.

·      *   30 per cent of all data transferred across the Internet is porn.

If you consider both items in conjunction with each other, what you get is that a secret British government’s department has built gigantic super computers to enable it to store vast amounts of pornographic material. It may also mean that they have hundreds of [happy or probably frustrated] government analysts whose sole remit it is to watch porn. 

London synagogues

To balance the pornographic content, here is a synagogue story. Friends had recently suggested I join them for the Friday night service at two synagogues in the Marylebone area. The first one we went to was the Reform Synagogue at Upper Berkley Street. It was a delightful evening. There was a small orchestra as well as a choir. The tunes seemed to be a combination of Christian church music with some Andrew Lloyd Webber thrown in. Altogether, there was a good atmosphere. The second synagogue was a failure. I meant to go to the conservative Marble Arch synagogue at Great Cumberland Place. However, the security man prevented me from entering. I had no bags or luggage and would not have objected to a search, but he was adamant that I should give him my name whilst I wanted to remain anonymous.  

Not Enough Silicon?

A great recipe for political success: Frighten the population into a hysterical frenzy - send in the troops - catch a suspect - reap applause: 

The reports from Boston, after the Chechen suspect was arrested were full of “we are a resilient city” and “we are proud to be Bostonians”, whilst hordes in the city of Harvard and MIT shouted “USA USA” reminding one of recent classy Republican Party conventions.

As terror attacks go, this one was fairly minor. And yet, public transport was shut down, airspace was restricted and more than a million Bostonians were put under curfew. Then, many thousands of policemen, national guardsmen, FBI agents and who knows what other agencies they have, were sent out to locate one man whose identity was known to the authorities.

Is that their level of sophistication in the land of high-tech or is it just that the word terrorist gets everybody’s knickers in a twist? They don’t, after all, close down American cities every time a murderer is on the run. Perhaps they should? 

Such heavy-handed mode of operation could perhaps have been avoided, had more sophisticated and intelligent FBI work been able to prevent the Marathon bombing: having been tipped off by the Russian (?) secret service, the FBI that interrogated the elder (now killed) Tsarnaev brother a couple of years ago, failed to recognize his radicalization.

Here, There, Everywhere

Sara (with hat) Netanyahu at the Thatcher funeral

Hat off to Obama for not sending a representative.

Thatcher

When critics complained about the high cost of Mrs. Thatcher’s funeral (apparently ten million pounds), one of the Lady’s many admirers responded that the cost of looking after the Jordanian terrorist Abu Qatada - who has successfully fought off extradition to Jordan - in the UK and the cost of the various judicial processes connected with his making Britain his chosen land has already exceeded ten million pounds.  

Now, if Margaret Thatcher had stayed alive (she was no longer capable of doing any harm) and Abu Qatada had died – we would have enjoyed a double saving.

On a serious note – the send off that the previous Labour government and the current Tory administration have allowed Thatcher to orchestrate for herself was an inflated outrage. We are owed an apology by the government.

Other than for heads of state or government killed due to and during their term office, this whole state funeral nonsense should be discontinued.

Pressure on Israel – A Zionist Act?

Should Israelis and Diaspora Jews who believe that the occupation and the settlements are a barrier to peace lobby for US and European pressure on Israel?

When Obama announced his coming visit to Israel, many had hoped for some progress to be made on the peace agreement front. Such progress cannot be achieved without serious pressure on a government that wishes to hold on to and continue settling the West Bank. Some Israelis had put their hopes on Obama – who reportedly neither particularly likes nor trusts Netanyahu – to impose his will. He should, after all, have quite some leverage.

“When I was in Hebron, I was sure no one knew what was going on there. If the mothers knew what their children are doing – so I thought – we’d leave Hebron immediately. But I discovered that wasn’t how it was, because a lot of people don’t think that way. A lot of people, when you tell it to their faces, they just don’t give a shit. … I think international pressure is good. I’m happy about any kind of international pressure. If we are not capable of making the change, then let them lay on the pressure, let Obama lay on the pressure, let all the countries lay on the pressure. Let soldiers who go through stuff talk about it, expose it to Israelis and to the world. Unfortunately it’s of more interest to the world than to Israelis.”

These words of 22-year-old Roee, just out of the army, which appear as monologues together with voices of other young Israelis in A Land to Die For? *, seem not to have reached President Obama. Unless the White House is running a successful disinformation campaign and if we are to believe what various analysts and journalists are telling us, President Obama is coming to Israel without serious intention to sort out the current standstill in the Middle East.

Sentiments such as Roee’s and hopes in the Israeli left that Israel could be “saved” from itself through external pressure are not something new. Often, such voices are criticised by the right wing that sometimes even considers the call for external pressure to be tantamount to treason. Indeed, this has habitually also been the attitude of Diaspora Jews: It does not matter what you think and say at home  – you should not criticise Israel or it’s government in public.

Yet, if holding on to the Occupied Territories is in fact bad for Israel – a view that has recently been made quite clear in the Oscar nominated documentary, The Gatekeepers, and which is shared by many senior members and former members of the Israeli security establishment – then those Diaspora Jews who attempt to stifle any criticism of Israel may have instead of helping Israel actually harmed her.

An amazingly effective AIPAC, a generally strong pro-Israel public opinion in the United States together with the decline in the power of Arab oil means that those who have been hoping for Obama to put real pressure on Israel are likely to be disappointed. Will Europe deliver where the US is failing? It does not have the same leverage over Israel as Israel’s main financial, military and political supporter, the USA. Yet, public opinion in many European countries has in the last years turned anti-Israel. At some point European governments may decide to take notice of what their voters are saying. Europe may yet save Israel from the extreme right road it has been taking for too many years.

Diaspora Jews should ask themselves whether they should continue to automatically toe the Israeli government line rather than listen to what others such as Roee and some of his friends are saying. Pressuring Israel back to sanity may be the most pro-Israel act Jews in the Diaspora could undertake.

* David Ranan, “A Land to Die For? Soldier Talk and Moral Considerations of Young Israelis”, Theo Press, 2013.

Lech Walesa

Talking of closets, someone should lock this Polish icon in one. The world’s Polish darling, Lech Walesa, has just come up with some amazing catholic right wing stuff: Homosexuals should “ know that they are a minority and must adjust to smaller things… not rise to the greatest heights ... spoiling things for the others and taking from the majority.” Asked, in an interview, where homosexuals should sit in the parliamentary chamber this primitive man added, "No minority should climb all over the majority. Homosexuals should even sit behind a wall, and not somewhere at the front.”

His Eminence and sexual conduct

Should archbishops and cardinals have sexual “conduct” at all?

The most senior Catholic cleric in the UK, Cardinal O’Brien, has just announced to a no longer surprised world, “there have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal.” Wow. But, what else could a catholic cardinal define what is said to be fondling and kissing seminarians? 

Somewhere I feel sorry for this 75 year-old gay man who chose priesthood as his vocation, at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in his country. That was probably his way of trying to control, deny and thereby perhaps kill his sex drive - one that society chose to punish.

O’Brien’s sex drive being what it is was stronger than his will and he is alleged to have abused his position to make advances to some men junior to him. This is undoubtedly wrong. It is wrong to take advantage of your position for sexual gratification. It is also wrong for a man of the church to live a lie. Nobody, by the way, suggested child abuse or pedophilia.

Perhaps, however, our eminent cardinal would not have found himself in this terrible position, had society - led by Catholic and other religious institutions and by lawmakers all over the world - not made homosexuality illegal? Had we not been brought up that gay sex is immoral and disgusting? Had society not pushed homosexuals into deep closets hoping that they might suffocate in them?