Middle East Peace Notes

…The Rule of Law…

middleeast — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:55:03 +0000

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6 Kislev 5770, Monday, November 23, 2009 0:21 IST

…the rule of law…

Sir, – Thanks for supporting rule of law in Israel and America in your editorial “Crossing the lines” (November 18). Israel is too vulnerable for military refusenik activity on either Left or Right.

Civilian civil disobedience (like Dr. Martin Luther King’s) is sometimes laudable, but never in precarious Israel’s – or any democracy’s – military. Suppose southern states’ National Guardsmen had refused US president John F. Kennedy’s federalization of the Guard to enforce civil rights laws? That would have been disastrous.

But I doubt if “the excesses on the Right were precipitated by bad behavior on the Left.” At best, it seems a chicken-egg question. Rightist extremism led to Baruch Goldstein’s 1994 mass slaughter of Mosque worshipers, Ya’acov Teitel’s attacks on Israel Prize-winner Ze’ev Sternhell and a Messianic Jewish family, and Yigal Amir’s assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The Post deserves congratulations. Social stability, nonviolence and the rule of law should be something about which conservative and liberal Jews can all agree, just as we are all outraged by Palestinian terror.

JAMES ADLER

Cambridge, MA

The struggle could be almost won

middleeast — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:58:13 +0000

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17 Cheshvan 5770, Wednesday, November 4, 2009 2:19 IST

The struggle is almost won

Sir, – I appreciate David Horovitz’s recognition, in “The fragmenting of US Jewry” (October 30), that “the Obama-Meretz-J Street philosophy …. falls within the Zionist rubric.” My dissents are friendly and reluctant.

J Street seems at least as much like Kadima, as shown by the steps Kadima would have taken in negotiations, and by the greetings sent by Kadima leader Tzipi Livni and its former MK, now President, Shimon Peres to the J Street conference.

J Street and Obama also surely accept “1967-plus.” President Obama is trying to help Arabs to face-saving acceptance by not making it appear like an American diktat. And it is Horovitz himself who quotes Obama that not only should Israel revisit just how much “plus” it requires, if that degree stops peace and intensifies antagonism, but also that the Arabs revisit “1967-exact” after 40 long years and all the changes on the ground. This philosophy seems similar to president George W. Bush’s.

Horovitz also repeats the common idea that the J Street vision “sits uneasily alongside the fact that the Arab world sought the destruction of Israel from 1948-1967, when there was no ‘occupation’ and no ‘buffer’.” But this misses precisely the point. Times have now changed – to today’s Arab League plan of universal recognition and peaceful relations. The plan certainly requires further intensive negotiations, including against the”right of return” of refugees. But the upshot is that Israel has almost won her struggle for recognition, peace and security – if only she could admit it and act upon the good news of her own victory.

JAMES ADLER

["if." And it's a big one]

Marking 8 Years of the Afghan War

middleeast — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:42:06 +0000

www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/opinion/l08afghan.html?ref=todayspaper

The New York Times

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Letters

Marking 8 Years of the Afghan War

To the Editor:

Re “Surgical Strikes Shape Afghanistan Debate” (news article, Oct. 6):

My family has not gone to bed feeling as safe as we now do in this country in the eight years since 9/11, and President Obama has already made the country a safer place than President George W. Bush did after fighting two bloody and costly wars.

Let these wars not become President Obama’s. Then this new presidency, with its promise of bold change, will have been all for nothing, and probably without a remotely similar potential for a safe America in a peaceable world for decades.

We won’t indefinitely continue to feel safer, and be seen even more and more as a friend of the world’s Islamic street, unless the president continues to stay the course and sound even more loud and clear rapprochement.

James Adler
Cambridge, Mass., Oct. 6, 2009

Obama: ‘The Jew among presidents’

middleeast — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:08:44 +0000

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17 Tishrei 5770, Monday, October 5, 2009 1:18 IST

Obama: ‘The Jew among presidents’

Sir, – Douglas Bloomfield’s “The ‘aginners’ and the politics of hate” (September 24) rightly praised his Likud father’s sadness at haters who “accuse Obama of being a Jew-hating, closet Muslim out to destroy Israel”- a country which especially appreciates the distinction between legitimate criticism and blind hateful rhetoric.

But when Caroline Glick says that “the weaker Obama becomes, the less capable he will be of carrying through on his bullying threats against Israel and against fellow democracies around the world” (”An enfeebled Obama,” September 25), she uses the same blind hateful rhetoric as anti-Israel extremists do.

While most democracies are relieved at Obama’s presidency, criticism of Obama can be legitimate – Herb Keinon, Barry Rubin, David Horovitz and Saul Singer do it. But in Glick’s writing, one senses hatred.

Obama defended the Gaza operation, demanded Arabs cease violence and recognize Jewish Israel, refused to meet Ahmadinejad and condemned the Goldstone report. For this we praise everyone but Obama, a victim of exactly what Israel opposes: double standards.

The Second Lebanon War, Hamastan and Ahmadinejad’s nuclear advances occurred during George Bush’s – undemonized – presidency. Obama inherited Bush’s – and 50 years of – failures.

He is not all-powerful. No more than “the Jews” of anti-Semitic fantasies can he do, or undo, everything. If Alan Dershowitz rightly calls Israel “the Jew among nations,” this black named Hussein is singled out as “the Jew among presidents.”

We know that civility and decency safeguards Western civilization. Why don’t we practice it?

JAMES ADLER
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Considering Mideast Peace

middleeast — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:03:56 +0000

www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/opinion/16iht-edlet.html?_r=1&ref=global

September 15, 2009

Letters to the Editor

Considering Mideast Peace

Yossi Alpher may be right that “for many Israelis, the peace with Egypt and Jordan has not appeared sufficiently beneficial.”

But Israelis take this peace for granted. Suppose there had not been any such peace: At any time during the recent wars with the Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Gaza’s Hamas Egypt may have launched a full-scale invasion. What if Egypt had decided to invade at the height of Israel’s vulnerability during the second Intifada?

Arab states, in contrast with non-state Palestinian organizations, have always honored deals they have made with Israel. Therefore, there is no reason to think that a deal among Israel and all the Arab states (through the Arab League) would not lead to peace.

It is bewildering that the Israeli right-wing seems to prefer settlement expansionism and occupation to peace and security.

James Adler

Why all this rightist rage?

middleeast — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 22:46:46 +0000

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18 Av 5769, Saturday, August 8, 2009 22:23 IST

18 Av 5769, Saturday, August 8, 2009 22:54 IST

Why all this rightist rage?

Sir, – Re Sarah Honig’s “Be a good bully” (UpFront, July 31) and Caroline Glick’s “The lonely Israeli Left” (daily paper, same date): George W. Bush said: “In an age of global terror and weapons of mass destruction, what happens in the Middle East greatly matters to America. The bitterness of that region can bring violence and suffering to our own cities. The advance of freedom and peace in the Middle East would drain this bitterness and increase our own security.”

President Obama couldn’t have said this better. Both presidents have tried increasing security for Israel and America.

I agree with Israel’s anger at Kassam rockets continuing to fall after her Gazan withdrawal, her military response, prior security fence, and Iran’s threat. But precisely because of this shared anger and angst, underscored by PM Netanyahu’s calling Israel “the most threatened country in the world,” I don’t understand the rage, in these writers’ recent columns, against Obama for trying to help – just like Clinton and Bush. Why loathe, deride and mock the president, cutting him no slack? Why not give him a chance to try?

A rightist rage has descended that to friends of Israel, America and Obama seems irrational.

JAMES ADLER

Bleak and hopeful

middleeast — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 16:03:09 +0000

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27 Tamuz 5769, Sunday, July 19, 2009 1:43 IST

Bleak and hopeful

Sir, – “Gone but not forgotten” (July 15) was bleak and hopeful and heartbreaking all at the same time. It also reaffirmed why I am a Zionist, though a very liberal one. It reminded me of some of my other favorite Zionist voices, like Amos Oz (in his A Tale of Love and Darkness) and Daniel Gordis (in his If a Country Can Make You Cry – Dispatches from an Anxious State).

We may differ in our politics, but the piece conveyed a sense of the tragedy of the Jewish people – and of its unbreakable fortitude; and also of the individual human being carrying on, tenaciously.

Those old slings and arrows of (all too often outrageous) fortune affect us all, but we work through our losses because, as Judy Montagu pointed out, we simply have no choice.

JAMES ADLER
Cambridge, Massachusetts

P.S. Judy’s column, Gone but Not Forgotten,” is at

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Listening to Obama’s Message in Cairo — N.Y. Times

middleeast — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:59:04 +0000

www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/opinion/l06mideast.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

The New York Times

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Letters

Section A, Page 20

Listening to Obama’s Message in Cairo

Published: June 5, 2009

Wesley Bedrosian

To the Editor:

Re “Addressing Muslims, a Blunt Obama Takes On Mideast Issues” (front page, June 5):

The world’s eyes and ears on Cairo underscores how President Obama has given us the gift of a new and unique opportunity — one that only a year ago seemed like a fantasy — to reorient America as a peaceful citizen of the planet we seem to have rejoined at last.

President Obama has “pressed the reset button,” as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton did with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov of Russia, and our return from the wilderness could help bring the Israelis and the Palestinians closer to peace and reconciliation — and underneath all restore those Western-Islamic relations that have so heavily burdened the second half of the last century and especially the beginning of the new one.

No wonder Al Qaeda fears and hates President Obama. And no wonder, even after the new millennium started with an unexpected nightmare, it seems we can at least dream, after all, that our and the Middle East’s and world’s children might grow up to better lives.

We can never of course get back to the world of Sept. 10, 2001, but with lots of determination — and luck — our president may eventually return us closer to that place than we had ever dared to hope.

James Adler
Cambridge, Mass., June 5, 2009

More optimism, hope than a year ago (The Jerusalem Post, May 25, 2009)

middleeast — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 03:18:58 +0000

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2 Sivan 5769, Monday, May 25, 2009 22:01 IST

More optimism, hope than a year ago

Sir, – The respective victories and summit of Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu represent an exhilarating sea change over last year. Consider:

• America’s dynamic president, who combines the best of America’s heartland, the best of the important Third World, and Kennedy’s idealism; who also has an honest broker’s ability to help bring Israel peace and security, and who is helping America – and the 80 percent of Jewish America that supports him – “rejoin the world.”

• The president of Israel tells AIPAC: “A tsunami of hope is rolling across the globe; its center is right here in America… I am convinced… (Obama) has the capacity to turn the crises into opportunity. May I say to President Obama – you are young enough to offer hope to the world and great enough to bring it to life.”

• Israel’s dynamic premier, whom Israelis want to succeed, as Americans do Obama.

• Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who does not spook me (and I don’t know why he spooks the far Left). He will trade territories and, since the Right trusts him, can deliver.

• Netanyahu videos AIPAC not only that “I respect President Obama,” but “I believe that with the cooperation of President Obama and President Abbas, we can defy the skeptics. We can surprise the world.”

How much better off we are now with Obama and Netanyahu, who are popular, effective, realistic and have the will and strength to cooperate and deliver.

The defective Saudi peace plan is not cast in stone – consider how far the Arabs have come since Khartoum’s Three Noes. Nor is time cast in stone.

The world changes, time is sometimes actually on our side, and – whether or not it is this time – how much more optimism and hope there is than just a year ago! (”Netanyahu: US to present new plan,” May 18).

JAMES ADLER

Let there be peace in the Middle East (Cambridge Chronicle, Apr. 30, 2009)

middleeast — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 03:06:46 +0000

www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/news/opinions/x297241186/Letter-Let-there-be-peace-in-the-Middle-East

The Cambridge Chronicle
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Letters

Let there be peace in the Middle East

Cambridge — In the spirit of the Cambridge Holocaust commemoration, may I make a heartfelt (and I believe tough-minded) plea for a strong regional peace process between beleaguered Israel and her neighbors?
Large nations that are built on ancient civilizations, like Iran, as well as similar ones such as Egypt are always going to feel entitled to have nuclear capabilities and, ultimately, no matter how hard we try to stop them, they eventually will get them in the same way China and India and Pakistan have.

An Israeli attack on Iran to try to stop this would endanger Israel further because Iran would just bide its time and strike back whenever it could — even with a stolen rogue bomb from the former Soviet Union. Furthermore, an Israeli attack could so intensely radicalize the Islamic and Arab streets as to evolve Egypt and the Arab world into nuclear powers and radical Islamist states.

It is often said truthfully that, unlike with the Arabs, Israel cannot afford to lose even one single war because a single lost war could mean its destruction — would mean another disaster of Holocaust proportions.

But without a regional peace and security arrangement, how will wars involving Israel not continue to happen until Israel eventually loses one of them?

For example, it would take just one Iranian (or even a future Egyptian) bomb. Or one stolen rogue bomb. Or simply one lost war of any kind.

This is why Israel needs long-term regional peace and security, such as based on the Arab League peace plan, which would be accepted only as the beginning, not the end, just the beginning, of negotiations toward peace. And would also serve as the most realistic and best possible regional counterweight to Iran.

The Arabs and Iranians already have their peace and security:

· They do not need President Obama, Hilary Clinton, and the United States Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell.

· The key here is that it is not the Arabs, but Israel, that needs peace and security. It is Israel, and not the Arabs, who should be overjoyed that President Obama and Clinton and Mitchell are trying so arduously to accelerate the peace process between Israel and her neighbors.

This is the best — the only — way to guarantee that there will never be a Shoah-scale catastrophe for Israel and, over the long run, to ensure her peace and security.

JAMES ADLER