An Arab Christian Israeli Military Prosecutor--With a Jewish Grandmother

(Photo credit: Mitch Ginsburg/ Times of Israel)

I can't be the only person who thinks that this woman's life and profession would make her a natural heroine for a series of mystery novels, except that people would probably find her too unrealistic, and complain that the author was trying to throw in everything but the kitchen sink.

Arin Shaabi's story is fascinating. Her family's complicated history is similar to others I've heard about, and her thoughts and concerns about her work as a prosecutor in military courts in the West Bank are challenging and informed, something that's not always easy to find once this subject comes up. Well worth a read.

The Israeli Army's Most Improbable Arab Prosecutor

A Chareidi Woman In the IDF

An eight-year-old girl, dressed for school in her light blue shirt and dark navy skirt, presses the elevator button as she hurries to school. When the elevator appears, she dashes inside and finds herself standing next to two Israeli soldiers with M16 rifles slung over their backs. The soldiers, sporting kippot, are her neighbor’s sons, who are heading back to the base after Shabbat. The little girl looks at them admiringly. She decides that one day she’s going to be just like them—a defender of the Jewish people.

That little girl was me.

The idea that religious Israeli Jews are growing in numbers, take from and control Israeli society, and don't contribute has become part of the anti-Israel narrative. It provides cover to lament that Israeli democracy is being undermined by people who--mysteriously--are imbued by the narrator with the traits that classical anti-Semitism attributes to all Jews.

The work of women like Fayga Marks, who find ways to live out their intersectionality in positive and bridge-building ways stands as a contradiction to these gleeful predictions of the destruction of Israel's democracy because of religious Jews.

Read Fayga's story, here.

The Same Ones

On a smart, politically progressive blog that I love, a post begins by solemnly announcing that, as with Aurora and Newtown, we may never find out why the Boston Marathon bombing happened. I am reminded, abruptly, of a scene in "Driving Miss Daisy", when the driver, Hoke, tells his disbelieving employer that her synagogue in Atlanta has been bombed. "Who would do such a thing?" she protests. "You know as good as me, Miss Daisy," he tells her, a little sharply. "It always be the same ones."

Now, in the present time and place, it is not always the same ones. In the first swirling days following the bombings in Boston, we didn't know who had done it, or why, and responsible people tried to stop themselves from speculating. Of course, plenty of people were speculating madly. Pam Geller and her ilk announced that it was obviously Islamist, but they say that regardless. In the progress-o-sphere, speculation ran to right-wing extremists (a theory I favored, due to the location and timing of the attack). But when we eventually identified the bombers, and learned a little about their backgrounds, it became fairly clear this was an Islamist attack.

However, scanning progressive blogs, I find people still firmly resisting that fact. We don't know, and they may have acted alone, and even if they were supplied by jihadi connections, it might not really be about religion, and we just can't know... No. I do not believe that Muslims should be the target of hate because of Islamist terror. I do not believe that Islam is an inherently problematic religion. I do not believe that any crime committed by a Muslim is motivated by religion. But do we really need to pretend that we are starting from scratch again, each time?

It's true, as people have said, that non-Muslim domestic terrorists are identified as 'lone wolves', and their crimes decontextualized. But that's a bad approach, not one to adopt for other sorts of terrorists as well. Imagine that this was the man many of us expected, an anti-government, American-born white Christian. In that case, people on the progressive blogs would be clear what his motivations were. Even if he had acted alone, they would put him in context: a tradition of violence, an ideology, and an atmosphere of incitement. All of these things are true as well of Islamist violence. It is stupid and self-indulgent to pretend that's not true.

I grew up with the constant threat of terrorism, and the experience of learning again and again that Jews around the world had been targeted. I am not willing to pretend that Islamic fundamentalist terror is not systemic, interconnected, and aimed directly at me and mine. And it frustrates the hell out of me when people ask "Who would do such a thing?" You know, Miss Daisy. I know. And we're no better people for saying that we don't.

OK, There Are Apparently Officially NO White Jews

From the This Is White Privilege Blog: White privilege is not having to Google if there’s discrimination against your ethnic group in a country you want to visit. Discrimination? Hell, you may want to check if you can get in, and if you can bring your tfillin with you.

Stupid Things That People Say When They Talk About Israel, Part One

Today's favorite: "Why doesn't the UN build a new headquarters on the Temple Mount? Then all the nations could help pay for its defense." Yes. I certainly want the UN on top of the Temple Mount, and I'm sure that the Muslims of the world will smile happily at the thought of the al-Aqsa mosque being turned into a bureaucratic headquarters for the United Nations. (Interestingly, the Knights Templar did exactly this during the Crusades, I mean, a headquarters for themselves, not the UN, and peace did not ensue.) Because the UN has worked so hard to bring peace to the region. MASSIVE FAIL. On the other hand, perhaps this is EXACTLY what is needed. Then, Israelis and Palestinians would unite to get the UN off the Temple Mount, and forget all of the petty land-water-national sovereignty stuff until that was over.

Roman Polanski, Gore Vidal, and "Charges of Anti-Semitism"

Goddamnit, I get tired of this.

So I wander over to Tiger Beatdown, to see what the hardcore feminists are talking about, and as it happens, they're talking righteous smack about the newly late Gore Vidal, and his defense of Roman Polanski. I am still, as it happens, unbelievably angry about the spineless, unbelievable defense of Polanski exhibited by far too many Hollywood names ('rape-rape', Whoopi? WTF?), so I settle down for a quick read.

Now, apparently Vidal said this: "The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel all in white, being raped by this awful Jew, Polacko – that’s what people were calling him – well, the story is totally different now from what it was then."  And then right in the middle of the take-down of Vidal's victim-blaming and viciousness, I get this, not from Gore Vidal, but from blogger Garland Grey:

"I take charges of Anti-Semitism very seriously, but I also know that sometimes (as when people show even a sliver of support or concern for the state of Palestine and its people) accusations of such are misused to shut the conversation all the way down."

Well.

I wrote a quick response on the comment thread:

I agree that accusations of anti-Semitism were used to deflect blame in the Polanski case, and avoid confronting his actual rape and abuse of this young woman.

You should, however, be aware that the formulation used above, that accusations of anti-Semitism are used to control conversation about the Israel/Palestine conflict, is, in fact, often used to cover for actual anti-Semitism, and to provide people with an excuse for not learning the real history of the conflict, or taking responsibility for the bigotry they may speak.

It's remarkably similar to many other accusations about people 'playing the race card', and it plays a similar function.

Was there some reason for bringing in an unrelated topic to illustrate your idea that people sometimes lie about the bigotry they face? Or was it easier than explaining why you don't believe anti-Semitism was a factor in the Polanski case?

That was was much more restrained and polite than I felt like being. There's a fine line between trying educate and just wanting to break stuff, and this makes me want to break stuff. For real? Is there some way this does not break down into "I take accusations of anti-Semitism very seriously, but Jews and their friends sometimes lie about it, anyway, to shut people up, you know, like if you show any sympathy (a 'sliver') for the Palestinian people, so I guess I can dismiss this contention of Gore Vidal's without seeming like I'm not giving it enough attention, because this is just another example of using charges of anti-Semitism to make people be quiet"?

Is there another form of racism that a serious anti-oppression blogger would treat like this? I'm betting not.

It's really pretty funny, because I think Polanski is scum, so it's fairly hard to offend me when railing on him and his defenders. I wouldn't have blinked if the writer had simply said she thought Vidal was full of shit on the anti-Semitism issue re: Polanski.

Hilarious, too, is the fact that Vidal himself was an anti-Semite fond of veiling his hate in rants about Israel:

Commenting for the Huffington Post on his infamous 1986 piece "The Empire Lovers Strike Back", David Greenberg writes:

It was the kind of piece that should give pause to those who ritually deny that anti-Zionism is rooted in anti-Semitism; it should be read in full. Describing the Podhoretzs as propagandists for Israel (“in its never-ending wars against just about everyone … a predatory people”), he cast Podhoretz, who was born in the United States, as someone who would never become “an ‘assimilated American,’ to use the old-fashioned terminology.” Addressing Decter, he declared, “I’ve got to tell you I don’t much like your country, which is Israel.”

So unquestioningly has this idea been accepted, that calling anti-Semitism by name is only a way to 'shut the conversation down', that it now creeps into conversations as far afield from Israel as this. Charming. Really charming.

Stunning Photos from This Weekend's Pride Parade In Jerusalem

Over at CIFWatch, Adam Levick posts his gorgeous pictures of the tenth annual Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade. Pinkwash this!