Showing posts with label Palestinian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palestinian. Show all posts

Thursday, May 28, 2015

FIFA, Corruption And The Vote Over Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu with FIFA President Blatter
It couldn't happen to a nicer organization...

Perhaps it was not much of a surprise to see that seven top FIFA executives were arrested in Zurich yesterday on charges of racketeering, fraud, money laundering etc.,  The charges apparently relate to bribes that FIFA officials are alleged to have received in connection with awarding the World Cup to South Africa in 2010.  Investigations have been opened over the awarding of the World Cup to Russia for 2018 and Qatar for 2022.  Qatar as a World Cup host?  Is there any other plausible explanation aside from bribery?

FIFA has long been the subject of swirling allegations of match fixing, bribery of officials and all sorts of other conduct.  FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who is now running for his fifth term on Friday, has vehemently denied having any knowledge of any such activities.  Funny enough, one of his strongest supporters is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who always seems to have "no knowledge" of different circumstances, particularly the untimely deaths of his various political opponents.

It is in this context that one must consider the Palestinian motion that has been brought to oust Israel from FIFA.  What's wrong with this picture?  For one thing, "Palestine" is not even a state.  Why does it have its own FIFA team to begin with?  It should have "FIFA observer status."

But consider - that the Palestinian FIFA organization is asking the 209 members of FIFA for a popularity contest vote with respect to Israel.  Not sure how Qatar, Saudia Arabia, Yemen, Turkey and some other human rights luminaries are likely to vote but  they seem disinclined to support Israel, to put it mildly.  I haven't seen a vote on the FIFA agenda for the suspension of Russia for its activities in the Ukraine or, for that matter, for the suspension of Palestine for the launching of rocket attacks at Israel last year.  This motion to suspend Israel is obviously a blatant political move by the Palestinians in their ongoing effort to delegitimize Israel by using the BDS movement, instead of making political concessions to reach a peace deal.

Consider for a moment the structure of FIFA.  Israel is already in the wrong division in an organization that is supposed to be apolitical.  Israel is part of UEFA, the European Football association rather than the Middle Eastern division.  For this reason, it is so difficult for Israel to gain entry to the World Cup finals.  Geographically, Israel should be grouped with its neighbours.  It should have to play Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan etc., to qualify.  If those countries were to boycott the matches, they could be considered to have defaulted the game.  If there are any security concerns, matches could be played in neutral territory in Europe.  But instead, FIFA has always given in to the notion that a whole geographic area can exclude Israel and force Israel to play with the Europeans.  If FIFA had any balls as an organization (and not balls that were being artificially inflated or otherwise doctored), it would take the appropriate steps to ensure that Israel is in the proper division.

So the issue has already been politicized.  Now the Palestinians have clamoured for a vote to suspend Israel.  With yesterday's news of the arrests of several FIFA officials, it became clear that an investigation has been going on at FIFA for more than a year.  These FIFA officials have known, or certainly should have known what was going down. 

In the face of this type of pressure on FIFA, why not do what Middle Eastern countries always do?  Blame Israel for everything, lob the ball over to the Israeli side of the pitch and see if all of the negative attention can be deflected to Israel.  Moreover, with allegations of bribery swirling over the award of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar - a key financier of Hamas and backer of various terrorist activities, perhaps it was even a condition of the award to Qatar that this type of motion would be brought at FIFA.

A cynic might question the timing of U.S. prosecution officials and wonder why so many FIFA officials would be arrested just as the issue of suspending Israel was coming to a vote.  Fair enough, the timing is interesting.  But this investigation has been going on for more than a year and is apparently just the tip of the iceberg.  It will be really interesting to find out how Russia and Qatar were awarded their World Cups.  (South Africa apparently bribed officials to the tune of $10 million U.S. to get the games).

With this background information, it seems far more likely that the Israel issue is much more of a smoke screen, a cloud set up to distract attention from what is really going on at FIFA.  In other words, the timing issue is probably the exact opposite of what the cynic might suggest.  It is FIFA, down by a player or two (or seven), with a collection of yellow cards (or whatever colour U.S. indictments might be) that is begging the referee to hand Israel a red card at a crucial moment to deflect attention from its own foul play. 

Can anyone really say that Israel is the one country in the world that should be suspended from participating in world football with everything going on in the world?  I haven't heard of any pending votes on Russia (over Ukraine), China (over Tibet), or countless other countries.  If FIFA decides to go down this road of politicizing football even more than it already does, it may wind up with only a handful of member countries who are deemed to be worthy of participation in its illustrious organization. 

The best outcome for Israel, for FIFA, for world football and for international sports would be a vote in which Israel manages to scrape together more than the one-third that it needs to avoid suspension.  Hopefully, an even more decisive vote would send the message that political disputes should not be played out on the football pitch. 

Perhaps the next discussion topic, if Israel is successful, will be the realignment of FIFA divisions to put Israel in the Middle East, where it really belongs.  But, of course, that is just a dream.  Given FIFA politics, it is far more likely that the organization will soon vote to add a new member to the organization - ISIL/ISIS - with its apparent expertise at heading the ball - and beheading opposition players. 

World Football fans might even get to watch ISIL play Palestine at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, while some democratic countries like Israel sit out on the sidelines.  Can't wait...




Thursday, January 1, 2015

Catch the Jew - by Tuvia Tenenbom - A Review

I had some time as I was travelling back from Israel to Toronto and decided to check out a relatively new book that has been selling well in Israel - "Catch the Jew" by Tuvia Tenenbom.  The book was written in Hebrew but I went for the English version.

Tenenbom has quite an interesting resume.  In his introduction, he describes himself as having been born and raised in an ultra-Orthodox, anti-Zionist home, groomed to be the next in a family lineage of rabbis.  His mother was a Holocaust survivor and he had an extensive ultra-Orthodox religious education.  He left that world completely and went to study in the United States, accumulating degrees in computer science, math, theater and literature.  From the book, it is apparent that he speaks English, Arabic, German, Yiddish and Hebrew.

In 2012, he published "I Sleep in Hitler's Room," a book in which he detailed his travels across German in the summer of 2010, exposing outrageously high levels of German anti-Semitism, as he saw it.  Now, Tenenbom was recruited, as he puts it, to travel across Israel and write a book about his travels.  Catch the Jew is a collection of chapters that summarize Tenenbom's interactions, observations and discussions with a very wide range of Israeli and Palestinian characters across Israel.  It is witty, irreverent, satirical, and well written. 

Although I had a sense that this would be somewhat like Amos Oz's landmark 1993 book "Here and There in the Land of Israel," there were significant differences.  Tenenbom's book probably covers a wider range of territory, is significantly more cynical than Oz's and is even more pessimistic.  But it is also funnier.

Given Tenenbom's educational and linguistic background, he was able to disguise his identity, somewhat, to gain access to a wider range of subjects, who were apparently somewhat disarmed by the persona that he adopted.  So, while travelling throughout the Palestinian Territories and among Israeli-Arab communities in Israel, Tenenbom claimed to be "Toby the German" and spoke only English and German.  For other interviews, he could put on a kippah and attend a Friday night dinner with some ultra-Orthodox hosts, using his own real name, Tuvia Tenenbom. At other times, he would simply be Toby or Tobias the German reporter, to gain access to prominent Israeli officials, including members of Israel's Knesset, Palestinian Authority leaders and other writers and well known personalities.

Tenenbom delights in posing difficult questions to his subjects, many of which are apparently quite unexpected.  Although purporting to be a German reporter, highly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, he still manages to ask Palestinian leaders some very uncomfortable questions about the "facts" that they provide him in the course of interviews and discussions.  Similarly, he asks pro-Palestinian NGOs all kinds of questions about the work they are doing, the claims they are making and their underlying motives and the answers are often quite fascinating.

Along the way, Tenenbom covers quite a wide variety of ground.  He spends some time with anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Rabbis and asks them about many different subjects. He interviews Israeli prostitutes and winds up asking them about their views about Sudanese refugees.  He spends some time with Israeli soldiers, wounded Syrians being treated in Israeli hospitals, Bedouins, Palestinians in Ramallah and Jenin and settlers in isolated West Bank settlements.  He also speaks to quite a number of Israeli MKs including parliamentarians from several different parties.

Ultimately, Tenenbom offers some very pessimistic predictions for the future of Israel and its society. But along the way, the book includes some very interesting sections.

One of Tenenbom's major targets is the whole range of left-leaning pro-Palestinian NGOs, often funded by German and other European countries as well as American donors.  He details the sources of the funds, the types of people working in these organizations and the rampant anti-Semitism that so often permeates these organizations.  His targets include the IRC (International Red Cross and Red Crescent), Doctors Without Borders, the New Israel Fund, Adalah and many others.  He exposes examples of falsified facts, doctored photographs and videos, hypocrisy, and other ways in which many of these organizations seem to be on a mission to delegitimize Israel. In one shocking example, he follows an Israeli born tour guide named Itamar taking a group of European "fact-finders" on a tour of Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum, at the expense of the EU.  The tour guide uses the museum entirely for the purpose of trying to draw parallels between the Holocaust and modern day Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.  Tenenbom has nothing but scorn and outrage after debunking this type of ridiculous and baseless propaganda.

Tenenbom also attacks what he describes as self-hating Israelis, particularly those who, in his view, spend more time working to benefit the Palestinians than they do trying to improve their own lives.  He uses a number of exchanges with some of these leftists to demonstrate their lack of historical and/or biblical knowledge, or the difficulties with a black and white approach that they take to problems that are often far more complex.  Some of his harshest attacks are aimed at Israel's major left wing newspaper, Haaretz and some specifically named writers.  Another two page missive is aimed at Israeli writer Shlomo Sand.  (I reviewed one of Sand's book's on this site here in 2011).

It is worth highlighting this section for a moment.  Sand had recently published a book entitled "When and How I stopped being a Jew."  Tenenbom attended a gathering with Sand along with a number of left wing Israelis.  I couldn't help but include the last few lines of that section of Tenenbom's assessment:

"If you're a self-hater, if you have no capacity to love even yourself, how can you love anybody else? There ain't no room for love in your heart, man, and you had better start living with it.  As I sit here and watch these self-haters, I hear a voice within me asking: Is there anybody out there who is brainwashing these Jews to hate themselves?  Good question."

Some of Tenenbom's exchanges with Israeli MKs are quite amusing.  He ridicules Labor MK Merav Michaeli for a stream of drivel that comes out of her mouth when he asks her to speak about Israeli challenges and her vision for the future of society.  He is apparently much more impressed by Ayelet Shaked of "Habayit Hayehudi" party, who, in fairness, is far more coherent than Michaeli in these interviews.  Tenenbom's descriptions of meetings with other MKs, including Yitzhak Cohen of Shas and MK Meir Porush of Torah Judaism, are biting and derisive.

There are several themes that appear throughout the book even though this is not an essay or a polemic.  One theme involves the type of anti-Semitism to which Tenenbom is exposed as a German reporter when he is with Palestinians and European funded NGOs.  He details numerous pro-Nazi comments, and many other exchanges that are targeted far more at Jews as Jews than at any political issues.  Tenenbom also raises the very same  type of question that Israeli MK Avigdor Lieberman has been asking for years.  Why is it that in a Palestinian state - there should no Jews whatsoever (like in some other present day Arab states), whereas the state of Israel should accept and absorb even more Palestinian refugees in its half of the two state solution?  Why is a Zionist state "racist" but Muslim states and Christian states are not?  Tenenbom raises these questions with Palestinians, NGO workers and others but is not provided with any reasonable answers.

Another of Tenenbom's recurring themes is the enormous resources invested by Germany and other EU countries as well as investments by German donors to fund anti-Israel NGOs, anti-Zionist and anti-Israel films and all kinds of other anti-Israeli activities under the guise of "peace."   Tenenbom wonders about where else in the world the Germans and other Europeans are so involved in such activities and poses these questions.  He does not receive any reasonable answers.

These themes are strung together with many others in a collection of interviews that cannot be easily portrayed as "right" or "left" wing.  There are targets on both sides of the spectrum, right and left, Israeli and Palestinian, religious and secular.

Over the course of his adventures, Tenenbom writes repeatedly about his enjoyment of food, both Israeli and Palestinian.  Wherever he goes, he offers comments about the meals that he is served, and even nicer comments if it is accompanied by good whiskey or strong coffee.  Certainly in this area, it sounds like he would be a fun guest to have over for a meal, despite his incessant, self-described chain smoking.

But having read the entire book, I am hard pressed to think of very many positive things that he has had to say about any Israelis, on any part of the spectrum.  Some of his kindest words are for some hijab-wearing Palestinian women that he met.  He also seems to have quite a bit of admiration for Jirbril Rajoub, a Palestinian political and militant figure.  Tenenbom admires the fact that Rajoub has acted, unwaveringly, in support of his people.  It is precisely this characteristic that Tenenbom finds so sorely lacking among Israeli leftists.

If that were really his viewpoint, one might have thought he could find some centrist, or slightly right of centre Israelis that he could present favourably.  But those interviews are sorely lacking. 

So ultimately the book is far more negative than positive, in its coverage of just about everything other than the beautiful Israeli landscapes, the food and, perhaps, the ancient history.  Although Tenenbom seems to be able to present a reasonably disarming nature to people he meets such that he is able to make friends and gain access, his condescending assessment of just about everyone he meets must ultimately leave readers wondering about the type of person Tenenbom really is.

When Amos Oz wrote his book, as biting as it was in parts, it was written by a person dedicated to working on the various challenges that Israel faces, as difficult as these challenges might seem.  While many Israelis might disagree with Oz on a whole range of issues, I would find it quite a stretch to describe Oz with language that is anywhere near "self-hating."  Not that Tenenbom says that about Oz, specifically.  But it is Tenenbom's general characterization of the Israeli left.

On the other hand, it is far easier to criticize everyone you meet as an outsider.  And then to leave and go back to New York or Germany and continue to pose as Toby the German, Toby the Christian or just Toby;  anything other than Tuvia the Jew or Tuvia the Israeli.

After finishing the book and considering the themes, as well as Tenenbom's self-described introductory background, I can't help but wonder whether the "self-hating" description is most aptly applied to Tenenbom himself rather than many of the subjects he interviewed.  Hard to say.  I tend to agree with his arguments regarding many of the subjects.  But the "self-hating" description is applied so liberally, to so many, that I started to wonder.



Monday, July 21, 2014

War in Gaza: Some Thoughts

There is a great deal going on this 14th day of Israel's Operation "Protective Edge."  I have not been writing very many articles recently but I thought an article about the ongoing war with Hamas was overdue.  There are many different angles to cover and many different viewpoints across the Internet, the media and public opinion.  Much of the writing is of course very one-sided.  A great deal of the anti-Israel rhetoric has included vitriolic anti-Semitic attacks unrelated to any legitimate points.  On the other hand, some of the rhetoric on the Israeli side can be criticized as well for being propaganda rather than serious commentary.  Ultimately, anyone writing about this conflict will have a set viewpoint that will colour his or her analysis.  But it is not always the case that there are two sides to every story.  Some fights really are fights of good against evil (or various shades of that theme) and history is filled with examples of such conflicts.

It is not my intention to paint everything as simply black and white but rather to review some key points that have emerged from events so far.

1.  Hamas is a terrorist organization that is intent on killing Israelis and has no interest in peace.

While this sounds like harsh, one-sided rhetoric, it is unfortunately true.  Not long after 2005, when Israel pulled up its settlements from Gaza and left most of it, Hamas was elected as the leadership in Gaza and solidified its hold on Gaza society.  Since then, there have been three significant military conflicts with Israel, all precipitated by Hamas intensifying its use of rocket fire at Israel.

How is this really helping or assisting the people of Gaza?  It is really hard to come up with a good answer to this question - other than "it isn't."  When Israel left Gaza, it left greenhouses in tact, and it left the Palestinians in control of a large amount of prime beach front territory.  With enormous amounts of U.N. aid coming to Gaza, the Palestinians could have chosen a different path.  They could have build hotels in Gaza to build tourism.  They could have put the money into schools, education, sewage, infrastructure.  The current war between Israel and Hamas has shown that enormous resources have simply been used to stockpile different types of rockets and to build extensive tunnels that allow Hamas terrorists to make their way into Israel underground to try to kill or kidnap Israelis.

2.  Israel was left with no choice but to fight this war.

This is the corollary to the first point and it has been reinforced in the events that followed the commencement of the war.  The war was not started because of the Hamas kidnapping and murder of three Jewish students nor was it started because of the reprisal attack carried out by some Israeli vigilantes who murdered an innocent Arab boy.  It was started by Hamas making a decision to fire an unceasing barrage of rockets at Israeli civilians.

What would any other country do?  How could Israel not respond to this?

The difficulty that Israel has faced is that the rockets are being fired at Israel from built up residential areas, mosques, schools (even U.N. run schools), and other densely populated places.  Israel has the capability of determining where the missiles originated from.  Most countries, faced with repeated missile fire from a certain area, would simply destroy the whole building or area.  Certainly the U.S., Russia, France and many of Israel's other vocal critics (with respect to the issue of "restraint") would have little hesitation in destroying everything in sight, even if that meant a large number of civilian casualties in order to stop missile attacks on their country.  If Israel were using this method of responding to rocket fire, the deaths of Palestinians would be in the thousands by now, not the hundreds.

3.  The Cost of the War is high for both sides.

The current war has resulted in many deaths and injuries on both sides.  The media love to report raw numbers as if the numbers were the most important thing.  It is true that the Iron Dome missile defence system has done an incredible job of protecting Israelis from most of the incoming missiles.  It is also true that the people of Gaza do not have properly equipped bomb shelters, missile warning systems or sophisticated means of protecting themselves from the Israeli army.

But on the other hand, it is Hamas that is putting these civilians at risk by firing missiles at Israel from civilian locations.  It is no answer to say that Israel should exercise "restraint" or not respond, start a unilateral cease fire or take some other one-sided action that sees Israel continuing to absorb Hamas rocket fire.  Israel must respond, even if the response causes civilian casualties in Gaza.

For Israel, the soldiers are mostly conscripts from Israeli society who are serving their country and who are asked to trust that the political and military leadership are making decisions that will minimize the short and long term likelihood of a prolonged war.  They hope that Israel's leadership will protect the security interests of Israel's citizens.  The soldiers are friends, family members, acquaintances.  They are called into action to protect the people of Israel and answer the call.  The loss of even one soldier in Israel is a difficult, tragic and heart wrenching event for the people.  The loss of 18 soldiers over this past weekend and 7 more today was simply horrible.

This is not all intended to downplay the value of life or the loss of life of Palestinians.  Many Palestinians have been killed and injured.  The numbers are much higher than the number of Israelis.  But that is the unfortunate and tragic result of this type of war, which was started by Hamas.  Hamas was offered two different cease fires so far, after the war began, both of which were brokered by Egypt, accepted by Israel but  but rejected by Hamas.  Hamas has chosen to fight or continue the fighting three times now where there were alternatives.  It is Hamas that is endangering Palestinian civilians by continuing this war.

One can only hope that the people of Gaza will start to see that a different approach in dealing with Israel would have very different results.  Contrast the situation in Gaza with the situation in the West Bank to understand that point clearly.  Under the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, many West Bank Palestinian are working with Israelis in productive ways and are reaping the benefits of economic progress, stability and relative calm.

4.  Hamas has very few friends right now - which makes a cease fire difficult to arrange.

Much of the world realizes that Israel has few alternatives and that Hamas is a terrorist organization.  In the past, Hamas relied on Egypt to quietly supply it with weaponry, permit it to smuggle items in to Gaza through the Rafah border crossing and then pressure Israel into a cease fire before it could damage Hamas.  The situation is quite different now.  The current Egyptian government has little time for Hamas and recognizes that Hamas has embarked on a dangerous operation with no realizable end-goal that makes any sense.  Russian President Putin has been remarkably restrained, at least as reported publicly.  Canada has been strongly supportive of Israel and the U.S. has been publicly supportive.  While there have been anti-Israel demonstrations across the world, most western governments seem to have realized that Israel is facing a terrorist threat and has few alternatives but to continue its current operation.

The most vocal supporter of Hamas has been Turkish president Erdogan, who has made the ludicrous allegation that Israel is "far worse than Hitler." Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu rightly commented in a press conference that this is the type of statement we would expect to hear from Hezbollah, Al Qaidah, or Iran - not from Turkey.  That is all not necessarily a surprise but it is quite disappointing to consider that this is the direction Turkey seems to be heading.  Of course the proper response would be to ask Erdogan about Turkey's genocide against the Armenian people and to put everything into context.  How crazy is it for the leader of a country which has never really accounted for its massacre of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Armenians to be comparing Israel to the Nazis in the context of a war in which hundreds of civilians have been killed, unintentionally.

The challenge that the world faces right now is the lack of a broker to arrange a deal between Hamas and Israel.  John Kerry has no credibility with Hamas (the U.S. has no diplomatic relations with Hamas and views them as a terrorist organization).    So Hamas has turned to Mahmoud Abbas, Turkey and Qatar.  To be an acceptable mediator, it seems, you have to be prepared to describe Israel in Nazi-like terms.  Much like Palestinian leader Hanan Asharawi has done in calling the Israeli operation a giant war crime while refraining from saying anything about Hamas and its tactics.  So the question remains - who can broker a cease fire or push Hamas into accepting some type of deal?  The answer is unclear.  For the Israeli political and military leadership, the best answer is that more time is needed to further limit Hamas' ability to start another war any time soon.

5.  Prime Minister Netanyahu has been very measured

Prime Minister Netanyahu has generally acted in a manner which has been statesman like and impressive.  He pushed his cabinet to agree to two different cease fire proposals, even though acceptance would have meant that Israel would fall short of its aims.  He made every effort to avoid launching a ground war in Gaza until he was forced to do so.  He has ordered the army to take every precaution to minimize the number of Palestinian civilian casualties even while Israel has been facing unceasing rocket fire.  Prime Minister Netanyahu has been holding together a coalition that includes members who have publicly advocated re-occupying Gaza completely - along with other members who strongly support continuing peace talks as quickly as possible.  

6.  Things must change or this will happen again soon

What can Israel do to prevent this from happening again soon?  That is the really challenging question.  For those on the left and sometimes, for Israel's critics, the answer is that Israel should simply "end the occupation" and everything would be fine.  But isn't this what Israel tried in 2005 in Gaza?  Israel left unilaterally.  The result has been three wars.  Unilateral disengagement has not worked in Gaza and it will not work in the other territories.  Ultimately, Israel needs a genuine, enforceable peace deal with a partner that is committed to the arrangement.  As long as Hamas continues to run Gaza, there can be little hope of an arrangement like this any time soon.  Perhaps the people of Gaza will realize this and will bring about a change in their political leadership.  But at this point, many will have been scarred bitterly by this war and will want nothing to do with a government that takes a moderate approach to Israel. 


Unfortunately, the picture is grim.  A cease fire deal with Hamas in the short term will not lead to peace or to any long term solution of the current issues unless Hamas changes its positions dramatically which is not about to happen.  Accordingly, Israel has little alternative but to destroy as much of Hamas as it possibly can and destroy the terror tunnels that lead from Gaza to Israel.  Perhaps in these circumstances, a different type of government will emerge that has an interest in some kind of deal with Israel.

In the meantime, I am certainly hoping and praying for a speedy but successful end to this war and for Israel's soldiers to return home safely and in good health.  I am also hoping that civilian deaths in Gaza can be minimized and that the Palestinians can find a way to make much better decisions.  They deserve better than these Hamas-led wars.