Chutzpah Borders

It takes a special kind of chutzpah for a US President to make policy pronouncements on what should be the border of Israel; when he cannot even effective secure the borders of his own country.



xpost: The Last Exile

The long lie

One of the first truisms one encounters when studying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that truth is fluid. What was true yesterday or even today is not what will be truth tomorrow. Of course, truth could depend entirely on what language is spoken.

There is no better example of this principle in action than Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' New York Times opinion piece. Why the NY Times gave this man their paper as his soap box to preach on is beyond me. I will not re-hash the points others have covered but instead I just want to point out Abbas' personal narrative is a little 'fluid' depending on time, place and language. Abbas' starts his op-ed piece with a personal walk down memory lane.

SIXTY-THREE years ago, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy was forced to leave his home in the Galilean city of Safed and flee with his family to Syria. He took up shelter in a canvas tent provided to all the arriving refugees. Though he and his family wished for decades to return to their home and homeland, they were denied that most basic of human rights. That child’s story, like that of so many other Palestinians, is mine. This month, however, as we commemorate another year of our expulsion — which we call the nakba, or catastrophe

In July 2009, Abbas speaking on Palestinian television stated quite plainly in Arabic that his family was not driven out by the Jewish militias but fled out of fear that the Jewish milita would potentially take revenge for the ill-treatment the Arabs had metered out historically to the Jews. Arutz Sheva:

Speaking with Al-Palestinia TV on Monday, Abbas admitted that his family was not expelled or driven out, but rather left for fear that the Jews might take revenge for the slaughter of 20 Jews in the city during the Arab pogroms of 19 years earlier.

“I am among those who were born in the city of Tzfat (Safed). We were a family of means. I studied in elementary school, and then came the naqba [calamity, namely, the founding of the State of Israel – ed.]. At night, we left by foot from Tzfat, to the Jordan River, where we remained for a month. Then we went to Damascus, and then to our relatives in Jordan, and then we settled in Damascus.

“My father had money, and he spent his money systematically, and after a year, the money ran out and we began to work. “The people’s basic motives brought them to run away for their lives and with their property. These [motives] were very important, for they feared the violence of the Zionist terrorist organizations – and especially those of us from Tzfat felt that there was an old desire for revenge from the rebellion of 1929, and this was in the memory of our families and parents.”

Yadda, yadda. And so goes the long lie.

xposted to The Last Exile

Osama, I hardly knew you

Bin Laden is dead, Americans are uttering sighs of relief, but you cannot put the genie back in the bottle. What Bin Laden launched a million radicalized souls will continue on.

What I find interesting from the initial reports I have read is that Bin Laden was targeted for assassination while living in a mansion in a suburb of Islamabad. All of which means he has probably been under the protection of high officials within the Pakistani government – and this from the so-called US Allies.

Since Bin Laden was given up now; I would like to know what offer the US Administration made to the Pakistanis which was sweet enough of a deal for them to give up Osama now. Make no mistake, there was a deal; otherwise, no US forces would have been allowed to operate by the Pakistanis inside their capital of Islamabad.

This wasn't the hinterland mission on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan where one can claim 'hot pursuit' and so say 'sorry'. While there are reports that the US government did not advise the Pakistani's of this operation; then ask yourself how the US helicopters just managed to operate freely in the air space of the capital of Pakistan? Or why would the Obama Administration jeopardize relations with a US ally by carrying out a targeted assassination which is by the nature of the act a gross violation of the concept of nation sovereignty. Of course, other reports claim Pakistani commandos were on board. Either way, there was a deal, and so what is the price to be paid?

Secondly, while it appears all sides of the political spectrum have found relief by Bin Laden's death by targeted assassination, I would just like to point out the innate hypocrisy of the left for being relieved with bin Laden's death, but then, spew outrage when the Israelis target Palestinian terrorist leaders for assassination. You can't have it both ways. Those targeted by for death by the IDF are just as committed to seek the life of the citizens of Israel as Bin Laden was against Americans and just as deserving of their fate.


xposted: The Last Exile

A perfect storm of delusion or the world only loves dead Jews.

Maybe it is me but there is just something widely appropriate for Ha'aretz's columnist Gideon Levy to pen an op-ed piece arguing that Israel should give Hamas another chance on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

It has been less than a month since a guided missile attack emanating from the Gaza Strip targeted an Israeli school bus and killed a 16 year old boy.

Gilad Shalit is still held captive and a prisoner of Hamas....so yes, of course, why not give Hamas another chance?

I mean, why not roll the dice and play roulette with the other 7 million Israeli lives? It's a perfect storm of delusion and I can just imagine how Levy would have argued against the Warsaw Uprising if he had been alive and present in the Warsaw ghetto.

For the sanest opinion piece on Holocaust Rememberance Day - read Sarah Honig.

xposted: The Last Exile

The hand of fate

Blogging has been practically non-existent for the last few months because I received a contract to write the memoirs of a little known Israeli military hero from the War of Independence. My deadline is looming and I have just the conclusion to write which is all well and good except I am suffering from the worse case of writer's block in the known verse.

As much as my goal is to breathe life in this memoir; I find the birth pangs are grinding down my will and impairing my ability to focus on the task at hand. In an effort to jump start this process I thought I would write a little about the man whose memoirs I am writing.

His name isn't very well known although he played a direct role in the formation of the Israeli state and fought as a sapper with the Soviet Red Army. In fact, he was instrumental and played a direct hand in ensuing the Soviet's escape a German pincher movement in the Ukraine.

If the Red Army hadn't successfully crossed the Dnieper River more 1.2 million Russian soldiers and equipment would have been vanquished from the field of battle, and consequently, the Soviets would have lost all ability to fight on. Imagine - the consequences for us in the West; if the Soviets were defeated in the fall of 1941.

It is really not surprising his name was only known in the upper echelon of Israeli military and early Labor Zionist political/government circles. He left Israel in 1956 feeling the Labor Zionist movement had betrayed the very people - like him - who were among the few to take up arms and risked the treasure of their lives to make the Zionist state a reality.

The lesson we so often learn is that only the victors write history and so why would a man like him be lauded? A man who routinely referred to David Ben Gurion a 'shrimp' and thought Golda Meir was the 'root of all ugliness'. A man who believed Moshe Dayan should have been tried by a military court for incompetence, and wasn't only because of his family's connections within Labor Zionist movement. Or who thought that Menachem Begin had a gift for making a speech but couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag. A man who commanded the young Ariel Sharon and thought him a good boy who could be counted on to do exactly what he was told to do – no matter the price.

Every once in a while a witness outside the victor's circle gets heard and gives a contrary cry to the established narrative of the victors. When I was first offered the project I wrote a friend and asked his opinion on the matter. He wrote and I quote -

Even setting aside his own role, anyone that even witnessed battles as diverse as helping yet another Soviet army being destroyed in a Kiev-like encirclement battle, Tobruk, and Haifa – let’s see, by my tally, that’s someone who:
helped prevent the defeat of the Soviet’s in the first year of their war with Germany, helped prevent the Nazis from capturing the Suez Canal – preventing a linkage between Germany and Japan, and played a causal role in the creation of Israel.

Most people never get the chance to be present at one major historical event – this guy was present and active at 3. I hate to admit it, but some things are better than sex.

I am not so sure about the sex part (the verdict is still out on that one) but there are very few personal accounts of life in the Red Army during Operation Barbarossa. It is one of those little historical ironies that most accounts available to us in the west tell the tale concerning life for a German soldier on the Russian front. There are varied reasons for this - one of which is the constant Soviet need to rewrite their own historical narrative to reflect whatever current political realities of the day was reining. And so here is an excerpt from Jaques Bar's - Life on the Russian Front 1941

The convoy was rolling as fast as the road allowed  in order to reach the bridge in the shortest time possible and by the shortest route. There wasn't much talk amongst the ranks during this time and it occurred to me that the first group of Soviet soldiers were probably hoping to reach the bridge before the Germans and praying the crossing would be done in time. The second group was probably wishing the Germans had already reached the bridge and were waiting for the convoy. I was preoccupied with trying to determine the ratio between the first and second group. The regiment sent forward a detachment to the bridge holders to persuade them to wait and not to blow up the bridge precisely at midnight in case the convoy arrived late and providing the facts on the ground would allow it.

We arrived twenty-three minutes after midnight and found the bridge was still standing. The convoy crossed the river in seven minutes and the bridge was safely blown away. With a group of German troops still on our heels but moving cautiously we continued on in the night in the direction of the river. We did not dare to stop even for a moment after crossing the river but continued to drive in a southeast direction, climbing the top of a deep canyon on the east banks of the river. The road was steep, narrow and curved which made it very difficult for the larger trucks to manoeuvre. It was assumed there were probably a few other German units who had already crossed the river in a few places – possibly north and upstream of our position.

The drivers by this time were weary and harassed from the constant need to drive without sleep or food. Long before sunrise the convoy came out from the canyon into the open steppe and started moving very fast in the southeasterly direction. The wide road on the steppe made it possible to drive three to four trucks side by side and this abridged the length of the convoy to half a mile long. The race was to get to the new Russian front lines before any fighting occurred and possibly hunker, down in the forests where German air craft could not sight us and attack from the sky.

Out of nowhere came a barrage from different firearms and explosions. The convoy was racing directly into a line of fire and it was instantly apparent we were the target. Kirilenko immediately jumped out from the truck he was riding with Gorbachev and me to join his assigned men. Under heavy fire, the convoy broke formation in an attempt to look for cover or hideouts in all directions – spreading out as widely as possible. The fire intensified and concentrated on the convoy where the explosives seemed to be concentrated. Different types of shrapnel were hitting the convoy and no matter which direction the drivers took to evade fire. Whenever a vehicle stopped, frightened soldiers crawled or leaped out from the trucks, screaming this was an ambush, a trap, the Germans had trapped them in a surprise attack.

The soldiers left the convoy and spread out onto the field leaping from one place to another and took up positions in the lowest possible places on the ground - great distances from the trucks and waited for further orders. I knew the realities of the front line but I never expected to find myself in the midst of live fire on the front line. I had convinced myself the evacuation and the retreat would be safe and not pose any real risk of danger. I did not think I was exposing myself to the opportunity of certain death. I looked up into the terrified eyes of Gorbachev whose eyes told me the situation was clear. The convoy had been intercepted by German troops and within a very short period of time everything would be lost and destroyed.

I made it clear to Gorbachev that I could not surrender to the Germans because I was a Jew and since no chance of escape existed, I would commit suicide. No other solution was possible for me. Gorbachev was close to breaking down; so deep was he shocked by the latest turn of events. He turned to me and said that he had no other choice but to fight to the bitter end. He would not allow himself to be taken alive. Then just as suddenly, the shooting ceased and the noise from the guns grew quiet.

Gorbachev and I jumped out from the truck and saw two trucks with white white cloths were moving towards the direction from where the shooting had originated. 
There were scattered bodies of the dead and wound soldiers lying everywhere in the fields. There was no attempt at subterfuge and the white flag of surrender was tied to a truck in the lead. This time, the Ukrainian nationalist elements in the regiment were convinced their moment had come and the convoy would be shortly and firmly be under German control.

Gorbachev and I were surprised and interrupted from carrying out our suicide pact by a group of Ukrainian nationalists acting on their own initiative. They forcibly disarmed us and placed us under armed guard until we could be handed over to German military authorities, The Ukrainians promised that after our interrogation by the Germany authorities they would personally kill us both. Gorbachev couldn’t understand why the regiment surrendered without even displaying token resistance while I sunk into despair.

It was an existential moment for me, and I was left pondering, why it was so necessary to come this far, only to be caught by the German division within miles of the new Russian front. I was willing to endure long periods of being cold, wet and lice, suffering chronic hunger and sleep deprivation; if this suffering meant one day I would get my life and freedom back. This left me questioning why my luck had run out at such a moment as this. This ignorable end meant that my opportunity to do something of lasting importance had passed and future historians would never remember or have reason to mention my tragedy.   The all clear was given and the convoy moved back into formation and proceeded to move forward towards the obvious ‘German’ lines.

The self-appointed pro-German Ukrainian soldiers began their new orders by firing additional shots from the machine guns of the moving trucks to ensure all those soldiers lying down were really dead, and if not dead before, were well and truly dead now.

  When the convoy reached the firing lines and crossed over with the soldiers there was once again much confusion written on the Soviet faces. These were not German troops but Soviet Red Army soldiers behind the newly established front. The convoy was the victim of a friendly fire incident. The Soviets at the new front lines were never advised or made aware there was the possibility of a regimental sapper convoy arriving sometime after midnight. Furthermore, after string upon string of devastating losses and retreats, it seemed far too incredible for a convoy of this size to have been able to succeed in piercing through the German army iron rings of tanks and guns.

If it wasn’t for the cover of darkness and the convoy arriving late, the Red Army would never have mistaken the regimental sapper convoy for a motorized column of German infantry. After a short battle and the misunderstanding the issue was cleared and the convoy was allowed to pass through with only a loss of about 10% of our strength. The friendly fire incident started because darkness had not completely lifted and the arriving force was taken as a motorized column of German infantry. The Ukrainian soldiers realized that they were also victims of a misunderstanding born out of the fog of war.

The first draft is due on Thursday, and no doubt, there will be multiple re-writes, but until then, let us all ponder the hand of fate.

Freedom is just another word for kill the Jews

What amazes me is how so often everything in the Arab world always comes back to killing Jews. It's like the entire body politic of the Arab world is literally a one-note charlie. And that one-note? Listen and learn.






h/tip: The Muqata

crossposted at the Last Exile

Better cry for Cairo

You may think you are watching the struggle for freedom and democracy in Egypt as ordinary Egyptians take to the street in the hopes of shedding the shackles of an oppressive dictator – and it might have even started that way - but now, it has come to a showdown between the Muslim Brotherhood and Hosni Mubarak. NY Times

CAIRO — Egypt’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood and the secular opposition banded together Sunday around a prominent government critic to negotiate for forces seeking the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, as the army struggled to hold a capital seized by fears of chaos and buoyed by euphoria that three decades of Mr. Mubarak’s rule may be coming to an end.

The announcement that the critic, Mohamed ElBaradei, would represent a loosely unified opposition reconfigured the struggle between Mr. Mubarak’s government and a six-day-old uprising bent on driving him and his party from power.

Though lacking deep support on his own, Dr. ElBaradei, a Nobel laureate and diplomat, could serve as a consensus figure for a movement that has struggled to articulate a program for a potential transition. It suggested, too, that the opposition was aware of the uprising’s image abroad, putting forth a candidate who might be more acceptable to the West than beloved in Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood just bought themselves a public secular face as a beard. And for those of you with little short term memory – let point out that it was during Dr. El Baradei’s watch at the International Atomic Energy Agency that the Iranians got away with creating a second parallel but ‘unmonitored’ nuclear program.

crossposted at the Last Exile