The Moebius Strip image was inspired by the January 5, 2009 Daily Show by Jon Stewart. http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=213378
This one-sided surface was immortalized in an Escher poster available from:http://www.worldofescher.com/gallery/A29.html
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Saving Israel From Itself
Professor John J. Mearsheimer argues that the two-state solution is the only way to guarantee Israel's long-term security as well as that of the United States.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
UNITED STATES DISQUALIFIED!
If you or I were in a conflict with another party, would we trust a third party with any role in helping us resolve that conflict, if we knew that the third party had given more than two decades of unconditional support to the party that was our adversary? The United States has for several decades provided unconditional support to Israel. In the United Nations the U.S. abstains, votes against or vetoes any statements or resolutions that are critical of the Israeli government. The United States provides financial and military aid to Israel with no strings attached. Operation Cast Lead resulted in the deaths of hundreds of women and children and many institutional structures were reduced to rubble. The American government has done nothing to investigate whether Israel’s use of gifted armaments in Operation Cast Lead violated U.S. laws. The United States gave tacit approval to the Israeli invasions of Lebanon in the summer of 2006 and in Gaza in the winter of 2008-9. Yet, the United States has imposed many conditions on support provided to Palestinians. When less than a majority of Palestinians elected Hamas (about 44% according to The Economist), the U.S. government withheld financial assistance to this donor dependent Palestinian community.
Aaron David Miller in his book, The Much Too Promised Land, characterized the role of the U.S. as “Israel’s lawyer.” The United States government has done little or nothing to stop “facts on the ground” that now make a two-state solution very difficult if not impossible. For more than a decade, the Israeli government has increased its matrix of control over the daily lives of all Palestinians even grade school children and others who are in no way security threats to Israel.
Championing the U.S. in a major role with the Israelis and Palestinians is fundamentally flawed. Only if the United States stops unconditionally supporting Israel can we qualify for a legitimate third party role. Free and open discussion is likely to convince most Americans that unconditional support of Israel is neither in the best interests of the United States nor in the best interests of Israel. However, Israeli/Palestinian issues are rarely discussed freely and openly by academics, religious leaders and especially not by politicians. Quick, vicious attacks from the Israel Lobby (this includes not only AIPAC and other Jewish organizations, but also secular Zionists and a significantly larger group of evangelical Christians) discredit and marginalize speakers whose comments are against the unconditional support of Israel. As a result many opinion leaders censor themselves in public settings even though in private settings they may express very different views. Let us hope that the climate for free and open discussion continues to improve so that the United States can qualify for a legitimate third party role with the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The Israeli/Palestinian Conundrums
The Israeli/Palestinian situation is “an intricate and difficult problem” in which the interests of one peoples are inextricably linked to the interests of another peoples. On a recent visit to Jerusalem, Bishop Wayne Miller reported on NPR http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/content.aspx?audioID=31386 some comments from a member of the Parents Circle – Families Forum. Those comments captured this inextricable linkage of peoples and were paraphrased into the following conundrums:
Israeli security requires Palestinian freedom. Palestinian freedom requires Israeli security. Palestinians must share the land with Israelis. Israelis must share the land with Palestinians.
A United States foreign policy based on these conundrums will be guided by President Obama’s ideal of both/and not either/or. Gaza will continue to smolder with violence and suffering and Israelis near Gaza will live in fear until these conundrums are taken seriously. Smuggling weapons and materials for creating weapons through the tunnels on the south end of Gaza must be stopped. The United States foreign policy supports Israeli security on this issue. How does United States foreign policy deal with Palestinian freedom?
CNN has shown that some tunnels are used to smuggle weapons and materials for building weapons but other tunnels support merchants who sell basic necessities. These tunnels and these merchants exist because Israeli authorities deny adequate supplies to enter Gaza. Since the summer of 2007, UNWRA [http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2245142,00.html#article_continue] has forcefully asserted that the Israeli authorities deny entry of the amount of basic supplies required to maintain the health and welfare of the Gazan population especially the normal development of children. The Israeli control of land, sea and air surrounding Gaza have led some to characterize Gaza as the world’s largest open-air prison. Gazans are unable to live productive lives with the Israeli restrictions on exports and imports. The reconstruction of many buildings that the Israeli military reduced to rubble during Operation Cast Lead will require a huge increase in the amount of supplies and services entering Gaza. The United States has done nothing to support Palestinian freedom by breaking the Israeli control of imports and exports.
In the summer of 2008, American media [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/02/world/middleeast/02fulbright.html] carried stories of seven Gaza students whose Fulbright scholarships were not finalized. U.S. Secretary of State Rice intervened and demanded that these students be permitted to leave Gaza to study in the United States. In the face of mounting criticism Israeli authorities reversed their decision and permitted these seven students to exit Gaza. In addition to these seven, there were many more students who were held in Gaza and denied the opportunity to study in the West Bank and abroad. B’Tselem reported that the exact number was unknown but one human rights group estimated the number to be in the hundreds [http://www.btselem.org/English/Gaza_Strip/20080724_Gaza_Students.asp]. The United States acted to support Palestinian freedom.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article [http://sec.online.wsj.com/article/SB123186758734177759.html], there are about 15,000 to 20,000 Hamas fighters in Gaza. Yet, all 1.5 million Palestinians who reside in Gaza are held accountable and punished for the actions of a few. Violent acts by Palestinians that create Israeli insecurity must be condemned and stopped. U.S. foreign policy must be structured to help Israel find ways to suppress these acts of the few without violating the freedom rights of the many.
Monday, January 19, 2009
USA Gifted Weapons Devastated This Physician's Life
The Moebius Strip image was inspired by the January 5, 2009 Daily Show by Jon Stewart. http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=213378
This one-sided surface was immortalized in an Escher poster available from:http://www.worldofescher.com/gallery/A29.html
From the Los Angeles Times
Israel TV news broadcasts a Gaza father's heartbreak
Dr. Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish, who gave frequent interviews to the Israeli media, was minutes away from giving another when he called newscaster Shlomi Eldar, screaming and weeping with grief.
By Jeffrey Fleishman and Batsheva Sobelman
Reporting from Jerusalem
January 17, 2009
See YouTube VIDEO
Israeli TV airs telephone call to father after children killed -English
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUh6xVlndhM(4:13min)
It was a voice of anguish that pierced a nation.
Israeli TV broadcast a father's heartbreak Friday night when a Palestinian doctor living in Gaza made a frantic phone call to a newscaster saying an Israeli tank had shelled his home, killing three of his daughters and injuring other family members.
Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish, who speaks Hebrew, worked as a gynecologist in an Israeli hospital. Even as the crossings between the Gaza Strip and Israel had largely been closed in recent months, he had traveled frequently from one place to the other. But he had remained in Gaza since the Israeli offensive began 21 days ago. He gave frequent interviews to the Israeli media on living conditions in the seaside enclave. He spoke of having tanks around his house and of passing through checkpoints; he told Israelis what it was like to be Palestinian.
Minutes away from a scheduled phone interview on Israeli TV 10 with newscaster Shlomi Eldar, Aboul Aish called Eldar's cellphone, screaming and weeping in Arabic and Hebrew. The doctor's home had been struck by a shell:
"Oh God, oh my God, my daughters have been killed. They've killed my children. . . . Could somebody please come to us?"
Sitting at his news desk for one of Israel's main evening news broadcasts, Eldar held his phone up. For three minutes and 26 seconds, Aboul Aish's wailing was broadcast across the country.
Eldar welled up. He put his head down. He looked at the camera. He looked at his phone. He made pleas for helpfor the family, but the doctor kept crying, his voice scratchy, like sand on paper, until Eldar took out his earpiece and walked off the set to try to arrange for help. The newscaster's bewildered face seemed to capture a bit of pause in a nation that has largely supported its military campaign and prefers not to question its course.
News reports said there had been shooting in the area of the doctor's house before the shelling. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
Israeli officials permitted ambulances carrying members of the doctor's family to cross the border to a hospital.
Aboul Aish was a single father. His wife had died of cancer. He made his daughters sleep close to the walls of their home in hopes that would keep them safe if airstrikes or artillery collapsed the ceiling.
"I don't know how this man will stand on his feet again after this tragedy," Dr. Liat Lerner- Geya, an Israeli who worked with Aboul Aish, told the Hebrew-language news website Ynet. "He would come to Israel and sleep at friends' houses for three nights. Even though he had all the necessary permits, they always gave him trouble at the crossings. But he believed there should be coexistence and practiced this in his work."
After the newscast, Eldar met with reporters. He said the doctor told him that evening "that since his wife's passing, the girls had been his entire life. He said his eldest daughter wanted to study at Haifa University. Just today another one of his daughters had told him she had gotten her period. 'In the middle of a war you get your period. You are a woman now.' "
She and her sisters are dead. The news spread across Israel's websites; the video of the doctor’s broadcast quickly made it to YouTube.
Eldar said of Aboul Aish: "It is simply surreal. He is part of this place yet not of it, belonging and not belonging."
Even so, across Israel the doctor's anguished voice kept playing over and over.
jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
Sobelman works in The Times' Jerusalem Bureau.
Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times Privacy Policy Terms of Service
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-gaza-doctor-death17-2009jan17,0,4395549.story
This one-sided surface was immortalized in an Escher poster available from:http://www.worldofescher.com/gallery/A29.html
From the Los Angeles Times
Israel TV news broadcasts a Gaza father's heartbreak
Dr. Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish, who gave frequent interviews to the Israeli media, was minutes away from giving another when he called newscaster Shlomi Eldar, screaming and weeping with grief.
By Jeffrey Fleishman and Batsheva Sobelman
Reporting from Jerusalem
January 17, 2009
See YouTube VIDEO
Israeli TV airs telephone call to father after children killed -English
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUh6xVlndhM(4:13min)
It was a voice of anguish that pierced a nation.
Israeli TV broadcast a father's heartbreak Friday night when a Palestinian doctor living in Gaza made a frantic phone call to a newscaster saying an Israeli tank had shelled his home, killing three of his daughters and injuring other family members.
Izz el-Deen Aboul Aish, who speaks Hebrew, worked as a gynecologist in an Israeli hospital. Even as the crossings between the Gaza Strip and Israel had largely been closed in recent months, he had traveled frequently from one place to the other. But he had remained in Gaza since the Israeli offensive began 21 days ago. He gave frequent interviews to the Israeli media on living conditions in the seaside enclave. He spoke of having tanks around his house and of passing through checkpoints; he told Israelis what it was like to be Palestinian.
Minutes away from a scheduled phone interview on Israeli TV 10 with newscaster Shlomi Eldar, Aboul Aish called Eldar's cellphone, screaming and weeping in Arabic and Hebrew. The doctor's home had been struck by a shell:
"Oh God, oh my God, my daughters have been killed. They've killed my children. . . . Could somebody please come to us?"
Sitting at his news desk for one of Israel's main evening news broadcasts, Eldar held his phone up. For three minutes and 26 seconds, Aboul Aish's wailing was broadcast across the country.
Eldar welled up. He put his head down. He looked at the camera. He looked at his phone. He made pleas for helpfor the family, but the doctor kept crying, his voice scratchy, like sand on paper, until Eldar took out his earpiece and walked off the set to try to arrange for help. The newscaster's bewildered face seemed to capture a bit of pause in a nation that has largely supported its military campaign and prefers not to question its course.
News reports said there had been shooting in the area of the doctor's house before the shelling. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
Israeli officials permitted ambulances carrying members of the doctor's family to cross the border to a hospital.
Aboul Aish was a single father. His wife had died of cancer. He made his daughters sleep close to the walls of their home in hopes that would keep them safe if airstrikes or artillery collapsed the ceiling.
"I don't know how this man will stand on his feet again after this tragedy," Dr. Liat Lerner- Geya, an Israeli who worked with Aboul Aish, told the Hebrew-language news website Ynet. "He would come to Israel and sleep at friends' houses for three nights. Even though he had all the necessary permits, they always gave him trouble at the crossings. But he believed there should be coexistence and practiced this in his work."
After the newscast, Eldar met with reporters. He said the doctor told him that evening "that since his wife's passing, the girls had been his entire life. He said his eldest daughter wanted to study at Haifa University. Just today another one of his daughters had told him she had gotten her period. 'In the middle of a war you get your period. You are a woman now.' "
She and her sisters are dead. The news spread across Israel's websites; the video of the doctor’s broadcast quickly made it to YouTube.
Eldar said of Aboul Aish: "It is simply surreal. He is part of this place yet not of it, belonging and not belonging."
Even so, across Israel the doctor's anguished voice kept playing over and over.
jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
Sobelman works in The Times' Jerusalem Bureau.
Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times Privacy Policy Terms of Service
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-gaza-doctor-death17-2009jan17,0,4395549.story
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