Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on February 3, 2020

The last of the Auschwitz survivors to revisit the extermination machine in Poland have left. Now very old men and women, they returned to mark the 75th anniversary of the infamous death camps liberation last Monday.

Memory inflicts no greater pain than is theirs. The day they were freed in 1945 was both an end and a beginning: the end of terror and the beginning of remembering.

And one of the things to remember is not just the vast horror of the Holocaust but the fact that it was conducted as an industrial enterprise by managers and bureaucrats with a chillingly impersonal attention to detail. Adolf Hitlers demonic program of genocide would have come to nothing without his enablers.

On Feb. 6, 1944, SS Obergruppenfuhrer Oswald Pohl, who headed the part of the Nazi terror machine given the bland name Office of Economic Administration, wrote a report with the title Utilization of Textiles: Used Clothes from the Jewish Resettlement.

He complained about the condition of material so far obtained from the Jewish resettlement in the camps in the Lublin area, and Auschwitz. Much of it, particularly for men, is much diminished by the fact that many clothes are rags

Speers story reminds us in a timely way that its not only the knowingly depraved who gather around a tyrant.

The SS controlled the distribution of the clothes and possessions taken from the Jews as they arrived at the death camps. Every train delivering prisoners left on its return journey loaded with those possessions. Items of value, like jewelry, gold, including gold teeth, and foreign currency mostly ended up in the Reichsbank in Berlin, their worth carefully noted in ledgers. The clothes, if at all serviceable, went to the foreign workers who were part of a gigantic program of forced labor producing weapons and munitions.

That program was designed and overseen with clinical efficiency by Albert Speer, the Reichsminister for Armaments and Munitions,

Speer made only one visit to a concentration camp. In March 1943 he was given a carefully restricted tour of Mauthausen, near Linz in Austria. This camp was notorious for its stone quarry, where prisoners worked under brutal conditions and were machine-gunned if they became weak. Speers tour lasted only 45 minutes. He was spared the sight of actual prisoners, but he was shocked by the quality of the buildings. They were, he said, too lavish.

Five days later he wrote to Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, complaining that he needed all the steel, wood and manpower he could get for building arms factories: We must therefore carry out a new planning program for construction within the concentration camps [that] will require a minimum of material and labor. The answer is an immediate switch to primitive construction methods.

Pohl, not Himmler, replied with a furious reminder that Speer had himself signed off on all the plans for building the camps and said a switch to primitive materials was unrealistic. He continued: we have 160,000 prisoners and are constantly battling against epidemics and a disproportionately high death rate, both largely due to impossible sanitary conditions.

Of all those involved in the Nazi terror machine, Albert Speer was, literally, the most elusiveelusive because he escaped a death sentence at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, and elusive because until the end of his life (he died in 1981) he was never able to display any guilt about his role as an accomplice to genocide.

Late in 1943, when Speer had brought about a dramatic revival of German arms production, the issue of Hitlers succession was being discussed quietly by his generals and some lower level ministers.

At this point they were not talking about a coup, but a planned succession with Hitlers consent. They ruled out the founding Nazi psychopaths, Himmler, Goebbels, Bormann and Goering. One minister told Speer he thought Hitler himself favored Speernobody else had such a close relationship with him. Speer did not disagree, but the moment never came.

Speers story reminds us in a timely way that its not only the knowingly depraved who gather around a tyrant. Equally dangerous are those, like Speer, who provide the system with their intellect while in denial about the consequences. Some people do this because the tyrant helps them to advance their own agendas; others do it just because being in the same room delivers the craved-for embrace of power.

Once Speer fell within Hitlers spell he enjoyed his proximity to absolute power, no matter how vile its actions.

Speer had first endeared himself to Hitler as an architect. They shared a taste for the Greco-Roman style of triumphal buildings. This culminated in Speers plan to replace Berlin with a new capital city called Germania for the thousand-year Reich. At its centerroughly where Berlins Reichstag now sitsthere was to be a Great Hall with a massive dome nearly 1,000 feet high (the U.S. Capitol dome is 284 feet high).

Speer was always resistant to self-doubt. Once he fell within Hitlers spell he enjoyed his proximity to absolute power, no matter how vile its actions. And Hitler clearly enjoyed his frequent communion with Speer. In these moments of spiritual kinship, talking of art and architecture, Hitler was flattered by Speer into thinking that he was an aesthete at the head of an Aryan empire purged of all racial impurities.

As the war ended, Speer was captured in northern Germany by American troopsa U.S. intelligence team was keen to get to him before the Russians could, in order to understand how he had been able to double weapons production while under constant Allied air bombardment. Then he was handed over to the United Nations war crimes commission and put on trial at Nuremberg.

He claimed that he had not been present at a conference in 1943 when Himmler spoke of 'wiping Jews from the face of the earth.'

On the night of Oct. 16-17, 1946, ten of Hitlers closest associates were hanged in the gymnasium of Nuremberg prison, having been found guilty of war crimes. Speer was there and heard their names being called out. But he was spared, given a 20-year sentence to be served in Spandau. (Oswald Pohl was executed in June 1951.)

Afterward it emerged that the principal American judge, Francis Biddle, and the Soviet Unions judge, General Iona Nikitchenko, had voted to sentence Speer to death, but another American judge, John Parker, and a British judge, Norman Birkett, argued for clemency, apparently because he seemed to them too refined to be a mass murderer. Also taken into consideration was his cooperation with Allied intelligence. The jail sentence was a compromise reached after a two-day argument among the judges.

Speer was released in 1966. He published a self-serving best-selling version of history, Inside the Third Reich, and became wealthy, considered by many as the rare Good Nazi who had done what he could to curb the worst of Hitlers instincts. He had always acknowledged that his industrial plan had depended on slave labor, including many Jews, working under appalling conditions, often dying on the job, but denied any knowledge of the scale of the Holocaust.

He claimed that he had not been present at a conference in 1943 when Himmler spoke of wiping Jews from the face of the earth. But 25 years after his death a newly discovered cache of letters revealed that he had, indeed, been present. The master dissembler was finally exposed as the monster he was.

Its always questionable to introduce the Nazi regime as a caution when looking at our own present carelessness with the values of our republic. The Holocaust was a crime of such enormity and singularity that we can too easily trivialize it by invoking any historical comparison.

Nonetheless the message from Auschwitz was reinforced by its anniversary: Ronald Lauder, head of the World Jewish Congress, said he was worried that the lessons were being forgotten: Auschwitz is a beacon of where anti-Semitism can lead, we cant rewrite history but we can be much more forceful today.

A wave of anti-Semitic attacks and hate crimes in the U.S. has followed the massacre of 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue in October 2018. Three people were killed last December in a shooting at a kosher grocery in Jersey City and at least 10 anti-Semitic incidents took place in the New York area over Hanukkah.

80 million people were not persuaded to follow Hitler because ... he seemed evil, but because he seemed extraordinarily good.

Albert Speer

One issue raised by several of the Holocaust survivors at Auschwitz was how such a barbaric crime could happen in a country that, until then, was regarded as both civilized and an intellectual powerhouse. It seemed all too easy for the Nazis to operate with the silent consent of a majority of the German people.

Speer addressed this in an interview with the British journalist Gitta Sereny, who spent 10 years studying his life for a riveting book, Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth. He was responding to a charge that he tried to present himself as the prototype of the new technological man while he had conveniently overlooked the connection between technology and a program of mass extermination. He argued that the machinery of murder had nothing to do with technology, it was too primitive. And then he said:

Eighty million people were not persuaded to follow Hitler because they knew he was going to murder people in lime ditches and gas chambers; they did not follow him because he seemed evil, but because he seemed extraordinarily good. And what convinced them of this was Goebbels brilliant propaganda, his unprecedented use of modern means of mass communication.

Its terrifying to think what Goebbels could have done using todays means of mass communication. But perhaps we already know.

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Albert Speer, the Hitler Henchman Who Enabled the Holocaust, Bears Another Look Today - The Daily Beast

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Posted By admin on February 3, 2020

I had the privilege of participating in two important recent events in connected to memory and the lessons of the Shoah.

First, on January 20, on the 78th anniversary of the infamous Wannsee Conference, I was part of a Simon Wiesenthal Center delegation that met with Pope Francis. It was there in 1942, in a suburb of Berlin, where 15 high-ranking Nazi officials, among them people with doctorate degrees, convened to agree on the fastest and most efficient way to murder 11 million European Jews.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier speaking at the International Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem

(Photo: MCT)

Pope Francis declared, If we lose our memory, we destroy our future. Then, on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland, the pontiff urged the faithful to declare in their hearts: Never Again!

There were many powerful declarations at a historic gathering of over 40 heads of state, kings, and diplomats at Jerusalems Yad Vashem that included a powerful admonition by Rabbi Yisrael Lau, former chief rabbi of Israel, who was sent to a concentration camp at the age of 7.

There was Prince Charles moving description of the impact that a Holocaust survivor had on him personally. There was the dramatic entrance into the hall of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the laying of wreaths honoring the 6 million by the kings of Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands.

But for many, the most powerful moments were delivered by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. They each recited the Shehecheyanu blessing in Hebrew, a gesture of affirmation of how far the Jewish state had come since its miraculous founding a mere three years after Auschwitz.

To his credit the German president did not sugarcoat the crisis of anti-Semitism infecting his nation, flat-out admitting that Germans had not learned the lesson of the Holocaust. Heiko Maas, Germanys foreign minister, warned that many German Jews were considering leaving if anti-Semitic attacks continued.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki at Auschwitz

(Photo: Reuters)

Such honesty is welcome but these words are fated to become self-fulfilling prophecies unless real action is taken. Here are a few concrete actions that Berlin can take to begin to turn the tide against anti-Jewish hate:

Herr Steinmeier previously was the main German negotiator for the nuclear deal with Iran. As president, he should directly confront the Iranian regime for making Holocaust denial part of its statecraft. Every senior Iranian official and delegation coming to Berlin should be openly challenged by German officials at every opportunity.

Declare Hezbollah and not only its military wing a terrorist organization. This will rob it of a significant fundraising base in Europe and stop its ability to promote Jew-hatred among Arab immigrants.

Link all future German funding of UN Relief and Works Agency schools to an independent review of the current anti-peace curriculum.

Step up policing, prosecutions and sentences against perpetrators of anti-Semitic hate crimes whatever the source whether neo-Nazi or far-left or Islamist.

Insist on Holocaust education in all schools. Parents who dont want their children to be exposed to the truth should not be able to harass teachers to stop. There must also be real consequences for bullies intimidating or threatening Jewish students.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, and Chancellor Angela Merkel know full well that these steps need to be taken. If they dont find the political will to fully implement these policies, then no amount of pious posturing will convince Jews that they have a viable future in Germany.

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Germany, the Jews and 75 years of historical baggage - Ynetnews

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Posted By admin on February 3, 2020

Today, for the first time, the City of Calgary will recognize and commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day at city hall.

This global day of remembrance tells the stories of courageous survivors and honours the six million Jews and 11 million other individuals who perished in the Shoah (Holocaust).

Jan. 27 marks 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, an event first commemorated by the United Nations in 2005. Although this day is recognized worldwide and is sanctioned by the United Nations, only a handful of municipalities in North America officially recognize this day, including New York, Windsor and, most recently, Calgary and Toronto.

Canada, which became a member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2009, first officially recognized International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2015. However, for local Jewish communities, government recognition is so much more than ceremonial or symbolic. Formal acknowledgement of International Holocaust Remembrance Day has always gone hand-in-hand with initiatives to recognize, condemn and act against anti-Semitism. When International Holocaust Remembrance Day was first declared by the United Nations, it came as part of a greater initiative, Resolution 60/7, which encouraged countries to develop educational programs about genocide, condemn religious intolerance, incitement, harassment, or violence based on ethnic origins or religious belief.

In New York, recognition of the day was accompanied by a city-wide week of Holocaust education. In Calgary, recognition of International Holocaust Remembrance Day was part of a landmark notice of motion, Combatting anti-Semitism in the City of Calgary, and most recently in Toronto, recognition of International Holocaust Remembrance Day was seen by the city as an opportunity to increase public awareness and understanding of our history in response to growing Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism in Canada. In conjunction with these educational initiatives, now more than ever, public acknowledgement of the Holocaust and recognition of the reality of anti-Semitism matters.

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Opinion: With anti-Semitism on the rise, annual Holocaust commemoration is vital - Calgary Herald

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Posted By admin on February 3, 2020

Ceremonies in both Poland and Jerusalem marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the death camp run by the Nazis that was synonymous with the Holocaust. Over a million people were murdered there between 1940 and 1945, the vast majority of them Jews.

Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and French President Emmanuel Macron were among the leaders to attend the World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalems Yad Vashem Holocaust remembrance center.

The Nazis used slave labor to build a huge, sprawling prison complex and killing factory in occupied Poland outside Owicim. Entire families from across Europe were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in cramped cattle trains. Immediately upon arrival in Birkenau, the fittest were selected to work as slave labor, while others deemed too weak to work older people, women, children, the sick were immediately sent to die in the gas chambers.

The Allies first started receiving reports of what was happening in Poland and other death camps as early as 1942. But they disbelieved them as Polish propaganda. It wasnt until the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, that the world first saw how systematic and horrible the Nazis truly were.

And no country knew that as acutely as Poland. At the outset of World War II, Poland was home to the largest amount of Jews in Europe. By the wars end, six years later, 90 percent of Polands Jews had been liquidated.

And while the world leaders were remembering the victims, with many of the survivors in attendance, the organizers in Jerusalem wanted to call attention to the waves of antisemitism and racism that are still prevalent across Europe. Waves of violence against Jews are now more widespread in Europe and in the United States than at any time since the end of World War II.

In November, the Anti-Defamation League published a piece that said one in four Europeans harbor pernicious and pervasive attitudes against Jews, with those numbers rising sharply in Eastern and Central Europe. In Poland, anti-Semite attitudes rose to 48 percent, up from 37 percent just four years before. In Hungary, 25 percent of the population believes that Jews want to weaken our national culture by supporting more immigrants coming to our country.

And while the survivors in the ceremonies in Poland and Jerusalem utter once more what they said 75 years ago when they were liberated, Never Again, events around the world show us that we havent come close to making these words a reality.

Piotr Cywinski, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, is concerned that the lessons of 1945 are dying off with the passing of the survivors.

More and more we seem to be having trouble connecting our historical knowledge with our moral choices today, he said. I can imagine a society that understands history very well but does not draw any conclusion from this knowledge.

There are still several places in the world that try to deny that the Holocaust ever took place. And as time passes on with the last of the survivors passing with it, those voices will no doubt get louder.

One 96-year old Polish survivor, Zofia Posmysz, hears the rhetoric of today and feels the Never Again movement will die off with the survivors.

I fear that over time, it will become easier to distort history, she said in an interview with the New York Times. I cannot say it will never happen again, because when you look at some leaders of today, those dangerous ambitions, pride, and sense of being better than others, are still at play. Who knows where they can lead.

But the phenomenon isnt just confined to Europe: Here in the United States, the rash of attacks on Jews in Pittsburgh, Poway, Jersey City and in New York City have barely been a blip on the radar of national consciousness.

Last year, the U.N. General Assembly was briefed on reports of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief and the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism.In the report, the authors urged all states to take action. They also expressed concern at reports documenting extensive Holocaust denial, particularly online, as well as surveys reflecting that significant proportions of the population are ignorant of key facts about the Holocaust.

Moreover, social media is being misused to perpetuate antisemitic stereotypes and prejudice.

Antisemitism, fueled by political leaders and left unchecked, threatens not only Jews, but also other minority and vulnerable communities, and the very foundations of democratic societies, they warned.

Now, 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, we mourn the victims of the Holocaust and solemnly call on States to redouble their commitment to fighting this unacceptable yet recurring threat.

This years commemorations in Jerusalem and in Poland may be the last time that any of the survivors will be heard from publicly again. About 100,000 of the victims of the Holocaust live in Israel: They are aging and dying off at a rate that there wont be many left in just a few years.

We cant let this die with them. Instead, we should bear witness to remember and truly pledge to the victims Never Again.

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Auschwitz Liberation 75 Years Ago: "Never Again? Think Again - SOFREP

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Posted By admin on February 3, 2020

Visitors walk past the infamous entrance gate that reads: 'Arbeit macht frei' - or 'Work sets one free' - at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial in Germany. (Picture: Carsten Koall/Getty Images)

Monsters are real. They may wear business suits or military uniforms, but they have walked among us. We see the evidence of their works in the bleaker chapters of human history and this week, on Holocaust Memorial Day, we marked the darkest chapter of all.

We remember the persecution and mechanised slaughter of 17 million people, more than a third Jewish. Entire communities, huge segments of entire races and any of those the Nazis found to be deviant or defective were rounded up and shipped to camps like Auschwitz and Belsen to be murdered.

This outrageous regime was only made possible with the blind capitulation of thousands of otherwise normal people. Of this, Italian writer and holocaust survivor Primo Levi said: Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.

The Nazis were successful at mass murder because they desensitised and normalised it. They inured every level of government and military to atrocity with endless layers of bureaucracy that reduced millions of lives to lines in a ledger book, transport manifests and piles of unclaimed belongings.

Hannah Arendt described this as the banality of evil when she covered the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961. Sitting across from this little grey man in court, the architect of the final solution, Arendt described Eichmann as being terribly and terrifyingly normal.

It is that realisation, that horrific acts can be committed by humdrum men that for me represents the most powerful warning of the Holocaust. Monsters are real and we need to keep reminding ourselves of that.

As the Holocaust begins to move out of living memory, it is incumbent on all of us to keep that memory alive and to pass it on to our children and theirs to come. Recent research shows how imperative that is. According to a poll reported by BBC News, one in 20 UK adults believe the Holocaust didnt happen, a full eighth of the population believe it has been exaggerated.

I have written before about the incident last year when I spent some time in hospital and the man in the bed opposite volunteered his belief that the Holocaust was all a hoax. In the argument that followed, he revealed that the basis for his position was rooted in videos hed seen on YouTube.

Stronger than the sword is my soul

Challenging antisemitism and Holocaust denial falls to each of us. We have seen the grim evidence of its revival in the rise of casual antisemitism in UK politics and in two mass shootings in crowded synagogues last year alone. This isnt going away. Hate still blooms against the Jewish people and many of those others persecuted by the Nazis. We must do everything we can to stamp it out.

In the study of the Holocausts gruesome history, we come to the names of its perpetrators before we come to the names of its victims and survivors. Perhaps that is because the names of those who perished are so innumerable, their stories too heartbreaking. But the preservation of their memory is the most important thing we can do.

The fact that we are here, living amongst many of the communities that the Holocaust sought to extinguish is evidence that the Nazis failed. That human spirit prevailed over evil.

I was reminded of this when, on a parliamentary visit to Strasbourg in 2017, I stopped at the Synagogue de Paix which is built on the site of the Gestapo headquarters of Western Europe. Above the front door is a legend written in French and in Hebrew: Stronger than the sword is my soul.

Alex Cole-Hamilton is the Lib Dem MSP for Edinburgh Western.

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Rising antisemitism shows we must remember the banality of evil that led to Holocaust Alex Cole-Hamilton - Edinburgh News

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Posted By admin on February 3, 2020

The opportunity of the centuryIn The Palestinian leadership should not reject Trumps peace plan (January 28), Jason Greenblatt and Bishara Bahbah lay out a path toward reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis. They urge the Palestinians to look at the plan and make constructive suggestions, to not miss another opportunity to move forward, to make a better future for their people.So, it is ironic that on the same page, in The international community should say no to the Trump plan, Nimrod Goren implores the international community to oppose the plan. Goren offers no new solutions, and falsely notes that the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank made a decision to conduct their national struggle in the diplomatic arena, glossing over facts such as that the Palestinian government pays to slay; educates its citizens to hate Jews; and empowers its media and religious institutions to incite to violence.Moreover, the Palestinians have already said no to much more generous offers than those apparently on the table, so what is Goren thinking might be acceptable to them?It is time for all to actually read the plan Goren included and say, Yes, lets talk.BARRY LYNNEfratI have just read The international community should say no to the Trump plan. It never fails to amaze me how Jewish Israelis on the Left blind themselves to the truth. It never occurs to them that the right-wing political ideology could be correct. Also, how can Nimrod Goren decide whether to accept or reject a plan that has yet to be unveiled?How is it possible to advance peace when the Palestinian leadership: Refuses to negotiate/ compromise Refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state Keeps repeating that all of Israel is occupied territory, that all the land from the river to the sea is Arab land Expects to flood the country with millions of so-called refugees Encourages terror in the schools, mosques and media and by paying to kill Jews and honoring those who die trying And, like Goren, says no to a peace plan yet to be unveiledIs it any wonder those who do not subscribe to leftist philosophy scratch their heads in utter amazement? EDMUND JONAHRishon LeZionNimrod Goren (no relation to this writer), has urged the PA to reject the Trump plan, sight unseen. Somehow, this does not sound like advice given on the basis of the authors factual knowledge, since at that point no one had yet seen the plan. Rather, Goren points out that the plan runs counter to previous agreements and understandings [and] serves a right-wing political ideology. Well, well. If Mr. Goren is correct, it means that the present US administration is not going down the same dark, blind alley that its several predecessors (on both sides of the US political spectrum) have done, and have become hopelessly confounded and lost.He veritably ridicules world leaders who have had the audacity to say that they will not judge the plan before we see it. He further claims, Israeli public support for the two-state solution is declining. Oh, really? He decries the fact that only a few of the electoral lists that are running in the upcoming elections actively support the TSS. We wonder why. Certainly not because of the flimsy reasons he gives. Its because it is clear that the TSS was and is doomed because the PA has no intention of adopting it or living with it.I am sure that Mitvim is a fine institution, and that Goren is a superb administrator. Now, if he can just make contact with the real world.DR. MENACHEM GORENPetah TikvaWe all owe US President Donald Trump an enormous thank you for caring about our country and region and investing so much effort to move us all from the broken-record go-nowhere stale ideas of the past decades to a new coexistence template that can conceivably be embraced by both sides.Perhaps the Arabs will finally realize that their all-or-nothing stonewalling will not be forever supported and rewarded by the world. They have everything to gain by agreeing to a just solution with compromises on both sides, and much to lose by refusing to even consider the merits of this opportunity. If their reaction is to be their old fallback of threatening and committing violence, they are likely to continue to be perennial losers.SID GOLDMANRishon LezionAshrawi and Tlaib blood libelRegarding Rashida: Rushing to demonize Jews (January 27), the blood libel has now come full circle. A seven-year-old Arab child in Beit Hanina drowns in a tragic accident and, of course, a bizarre story of fiendish Jewish malevolence is immediately concocted to explain what happened. Precisely how the blood libels begin. On March 22, 1144, Little William of Norwich was found dead, and the Jews were immediately accused, in a fantasized fable, of his murder. The story was memorialized by Thomas of Monmouth and spread widely. That likely led directly to the 1190 York massacre and 1290 expulsion of the Jews from England, not be formally reversed until 1655.This new libel spread much wider and faster than the original. Hanan Ashrawi tweeted it to her many followers; it was further advanced by US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), who has a sordid history of jumping the gun on dubious stories. For example, as news of the recent Jersey City attack emerged Tlaib immediately and totally erroneously, blamed it on white supremacists. Ashrawi at least had the decency to delete her tweet and semi-apologize; Tlaib has not yet apologized. Unlike how her party botched an earlier attempt to condemn antisemitism forthrightly, will it now call out Tlaibs blatant antisemitism? Will her constituents remember in November?RICHARD D. WILKINSSyracuse, NYIt is a travesty to see the infamous medieval blood libel rearing its ugly head here in the land of Israel.It is a reminder of the tenacity of the seminal hatred of Jews in Europe, which manifested itself as late as 1946, the year after the end of WWII and the Holocaust, when a group of 42 Jews returned to Kielce to try to salvage their lives in Poland. When a 15-year-old Polish boy came home late one night and was reprimanded by his parents, he countered that the Jews had kidnapped him to use his blood for their religious rituals. The next day, July 4, 1946, all 42 Jews were murdered in Kielce as a result of the blood libel.Such canards repeated today must be rooted out in the strongest manner possible.MARION REISSBeit ShemeshKudos for KempAs expected, British Col. Richard Kemp has written a masterful summary (Britain should support Trumps plan, January 27) of the horrific consequences of his governments Mandate policy, including the infamous White Paper, which prevented European Jewry from entering Palestine before, during and after World War II.Since 2009 and the terrible period of the Goldstone report, Kemp has repeatedly spoken out on the world stage about the unique morality of our IDF and of the justice of our battle against terrorism. He is one of our greatest friends, and deserves to be properly acknowledged and appreciated, yet in the bio at the end of his article, you write only, The author is a former British army commander.On the same page as Kemps article was a piece written by a 10th grader; you devote seven lines to his achievements. On Sunday, January 26, you printed four op-eds; the authors were described in three lines, seven lines, four lines, and three lines respectively, the last being a third-year law student.How does this minimization of a worthy hero like Col. Kemp occur? DR. JAN SOKOLOVSKYJerusalemIn Britain should support Trumps plan, the redoubtable Col. Richard Kemp OBE sets forth in his inimitable way the unforgivable actions of invidious Albion toward Europes Jews and in the Land of Israel before, during and after the Holocaust. His detailed recording of the huge numbers of Jews who were prevented from escape by the policies of the British government contrasts starkly with the mealy-mouthed remarks by Prince Charles at the 75th commemoration of the Holocaust last Thursday.AVRAHAM BERKOVITSJerusalemSorry state of affairsRegarding Prejudices and ignorance among Israeli settlers in the West Bank (January 22), I agree with Gershon Baskin that children living under the administration of the Palestinian Authority should be raised to have better opportunities than hoping to become gas station attendants or construction workers in Israel. However, I cannot agree with his blaming the occupation for the sorry state of affairs in which Abbas subjects find themselves. The unfortunate truth is that Palestinian leaders are far more interested in destroying Israel than they are in building a state in which their people could become productive citizens. I am sure that Israel would be happy to aid in the development of the Palestinian economy if the Palestinian mosques, schoolrooms, and media would stop spewing anti-Jewish incitement, if the PA would end its pay-for-slay program, and if Arab nations would rescind their laws banning Palestine refugees from citizenship, enabling generations of people whose forebears fled Arab-initiated violence to get on with their lives.TOBY F. BLOCKAtlanta, GAMacrons missing mannersWhat shoddy behavior by French President Emmanuel Macron while visiting the Church of Saint Anne in Jerusalems Old City (French President Emmanuel Macron, January 22).Macron was one of over 40 heads of state who came to Israel for the Fifth World Holocaust Forum, with the King of Spain, Prince of Wales, Russian president, US vice president and others. Consider Israels security logistics including dealing with the PAs daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, telling its readers to commit murders to disrupt the huge gathering, one of the largest in Israels history. More 10,000 police were drafted in.The event was to be a stand against antisemitism, but actions speak louder than words. Here was Macron, the leader of France, a Holocaust-perpetrator state that actively engaged in the near-total destruction of European Jewry, barking orders at an Israeli guard to leave the churchs French territory.Macron emanated the stench of French antisemitism and his visit to Israel is marked by it, just as French President Jacques Chiracs was in 1996. His lofty Forum speech will not erase his unstatesmanlike outburst.Macron should direct this streak of French presidential behavior, gratuitously contrived for Israel, toward the gilets jaunes (yellow vests movement). If he dares.DR ROZA I.M. EL-EINILondonThe role of rabbisWhat an interesting juxtaposition of similar yet conflicting ideas in two recent articles: Needed: Rabbis with knives between their teeth (January 24) by Nathan Lopes Cardoza and Rabbis in politics a disaster for both by Shuki Friedman (January 26).Cardoza proposes an ideal code of morality and behavior for rabbinical leaders and religious parties in the political arena something to strive for but sadly, probably no more than an unattainable, utopian dream. Friedman, on the other hand, tells it how it unfortunately is. Referring to rabbis who become politicians, he propounds that either the rabbis remain faithful to their rabbinical calling and thus fail in their political role, or they become politicians in every sense and are thus almost certain to betray their rabbinical mission. Friedman points out that rabbis who act as spiritual leaders and who should be role models for their followers are the very antithesis of politicians. He praises rabbis for being the bearers of a treasury of Jewish values that can offer so much to public life in Israel, but concludes, Whenever they [the rabbis] enter the cesspool of politics, they tarnish themselves, their image as rabbis and the Judaism they seek to present. This is bad for the rabbis and bad for Judaism. Sad, but true.MICHAEL TUCKERNetanyaSo, was there a Holocaust?Regarding Prince Charles tours Palestinian territories during Middle East visit (January 25), PA President Mahmoud Abbas wrote a doctoral thesis that the Holocaust never took place. Yet Abbas received a visit from Prince Charles, who came to Israel specially for the 75th anniversary of the Holocaust.What hypocrisy and how disgusting!(REV) MICHAEL PLASKOW, MBENetanyaIn Holocaust Conference takeaways (January 27, 2020) child Holocaust survivor Tova Gerta Teitelbaum wrote, In some cases, soap was made from the remains of Jews who had been killed stamped with the letters RIF, an abbreviation for Reine Judishes Fett (Pure Jewish Fat).Although it is true that the Nazis did produce soap from human corpses, this was not on an industrial scale. However, the Nazis did use rumors of Jewish soap to frighten concentration camp prisoners.Bars of soap stamped with the letters RIF were generally produced from normal ingredients by the Reichsstelle fr industrielle Fettversorgung (the National Center for Industrial Fat Provisioning) the Nazi government agency responsible for the production of soap and other cleaning products.We have to be careful not to allow any inexact information to seep into our understanding of the events of the Holocaust, as any errors, however small, can give perfidious Holocaust denial a foothold.RICHARD RINBERGRaanana

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January 29, 2020: The opportunity of the century - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on February 3, 2020

Reader submissions Published 5:00 a.m. PT Feb. 1, 2020

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Tiny homes a fad solution

While I am accepting of the need for temporary shelter for the homeless, the tiny homes concept is not a cost-effective way to achieve shelter.Multi-unit construction with common walls and perhaps a second story are cheaper to build, heat and cool, and maintain. They also require less land. Think college dorm units individual locking bedroom areas with shared bathing, kitchen and outdoor facilities.

Cost-effective solutions might also include conversion of existing malls, motels and empty businesses to a dorm type shelter. Single family dwellings in the form of tiny homes arent the appropriate way to address the shelter issue economically.

Danella Donlan, Palm Springs

Say it isn't so!

Many of us questionwhy would you (Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians) build a 10,000-seat stadium in the middle of Palm Springs when you have another casino and area that could accommodate the 10,000 people and automobiles in Rancho Mirage, adjacent to the 10 freeway with access for the traffic that the city of Palm Springs can not possible accommodate.

Judy Handler, Palm Desert

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Picking a team

In the debate over mans influence on our climate, there are those on the left who are believers/environmental activists and those on the right who are labeled deniers, suggesting their denial is akin to Holocaust Deniers.

In an Another Voice editorial presented on the Jan. 27 Desert Sun Opinion page On climate, US voters sound more like Team Greta than Team Trump the USA TODAY Editorial Board lines up with the lefts Team Greta.

To support their position, they cite the views of registered voters, most of whom are not climate scientists, but are susceptible to left-leaning information they get in school or in the mainstream media.And that information is slanted heavily to Gretas activist point of view.Of course, Greta is merely responding to the information shes been fed.After all, she is no more a climate scientist than Al Gore.

And to further bolster their opinion (and it is just opinion, by the way), they cite the disastrous brush fires in heat-and drought-stricken Australia which have consumed an area the size of Virginia. But they should know that these fires are largely the result of arsonists and poor land management not greenhouse gas emissions.

But why screw up a good editorial with the facts.

Paul Forrest, La Quinta

The feeling is mutual

Sort of interesting article in the recent Desert Sun Desert magazine about musician Jesse Hughes, who is definitely a piece of work.

However, putting his slogan, "No BS, no racists, no Nazis and no bullys" which also included "no Democrats" on the cover was in poor judgment, especially having his mug on the cover holding what looks like some kind of firearm along with the slogan.

No Democrats?Hey, Jesse, Democrats do not want you either.

Rob Westwood, Rancho Mirage

Checking one, not the other?

I was surprised to see the Jan. 27 USA TODAY page article about fact checking President Trump's defense team.

Why was there no fact checking on the Democrats? Does not seem to be impartial news.

Another disappointment.

Maryann Luh, Palm Desert

A second chance needed here

Now that I hear Kris Long on radio I hope he will soon be back on TV.With everything going on in our world we really need his knowledge and experience.

He apologized for a social media slip up. Even if you didn't like it, doesn't he deserve a second chance? Everyone from Tiger Woods to Billy Bush gets one.

I see Long at my gym now and then.He always greets me with a smile and warm hello. He seems like a very decent man.

I, for one, would love to turn on my TV and see and hear him back on the news.

Victoria Gentry, Rancho Mirage

An example of what Street Life Project's tiny home project could looks like.(Photo: Street Life Project)

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Letter: Tiny homes not the right move in tackling big homelessness issue - Desert Sun

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Posted By admin on February 3, 2020

Orthodox Jewish women are increasingly joining a custom called Daf Yomi, Hebrew for "daily page," which involves reading a page a day of the Talmud, a centuries-old, multivolume collection of rabbinic teachings, debates and interpretations of Judaism. Here women read the last pages of the cycle at their first women's mass Talmud celebration in Jerusalem in January. Tanya Habjouqa/NOOR for NPR hide caption

Orthodox Jewish women are increasingly joining a custom called Daf Yomi, Hebrew for "daily page," which involves reading a page a day of the Talmud, a centuries-old, multivolume collection of rabbinic teachings, debates and interpretations of Judaism. Here women read the last pages of the cycle at their first women's mass Talmud celebration in Jerusalem in January.

Among devout Orthodox Jews, the intense study of Talmud is no longer just a man's world. Women are increasingly delving into this central religious work, and American expats in Israel are at the forefront of the trend.

They're following a custom called Daf Yomi, Hebrew for "daily page," which involves reading a page a day of this centuries-old, multivolume collection of rabbinic teachings, debates and interpretations of Judaism. It takes about seven years and five months to read all 2,711 pages.

Some 3,000 women of all ages attended their first-ever large celebration for the completion of the Talmud, at a convention center in Jerusalem. Tanya Habjouqa/NOOR for NPR hide caption

Some 3,000 women of all ages attended their first-ever large celebration for the completion of the Talmud, at a convention center in Jerusalem.

In early January, as Orthodox Jewish men held gatherings to mark the end of the cycle, called Siyum HaShas, Orthodox women in Israel held their own large-scale Talmud celebration for the first time. Some 3,000 women of all ages cheered in a Jerusalem convention center, according to the event's organizers, Hadran.

"I never thought I would live to see this day," said Tamar Stern, a Chicago native, sitting in the second-to-last row at the celebration. She attended Orthodox Jewish schools in the 1960s and 1970s, never allowed to learn Talmud with the boys.

Women and girls flock to the women's Siyum HaShas, as the celebration for completing the Talmud is called. Tanya Habjouqa/NOOR for NPR hide caption

Women and girls flock to the women's Siyum HaShas, as the celebration for completing the Talmud is called.

Sitting in the first row, Sherri Saperstein, 49, was beaming. She grew up in New York and Boston and now lives in the Israeli town of Ramat Beit Shemesh, home to a community of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who avoid contact with female strangers and still see Talmud as a man's pursuit.

"I was sitting in the post office," Saperstein recalled. "Two men behind me, who would probably never talk to me, were sitting behind me. They were talking about the 'Daf.' I knew exactly what they were talking about because I am in this process, I am learning the 'Daf'!"

The women's Siyum HaShas was co-organized by Michelle Farber, 47, a New York native who teaches a daily Talmud class for women from her living room table in Raanana, a quiet suburb north of Tel Aviv.

Michelle Farber, 47, a New York native who teaches a daily Talmud class for women from her living room table in Raanana, a suburb of Tel Aviv. After a morning class Farber uploads her podcast. Tanya Habjouqa/NOOR for NPR hide caption

Michelle Farber, 47, a New York native who teaches a daily Talmud class for women from her living room table in Raanana, a suburb of Tel Aviv. After a morning class Farber uploads her podcast.

Men wrote the Talmud and, for centuries, it has mostly been men who have studied it. Today, Talmud study groups and even related podcasts are almost all exclusively delivered by men.

"Because they're given by men, they're not actually kind of seen from a woman's perspective," said Farber. "When I teach, I think a lot about the women's issues on the page."

One part of the Talmud discusses the ancient practice of dedicating money to the Temple in Jerusalem, in which Jews should give an amount relative to what the text considers to be their individual worth. In her classes, Farber notes the historical context. "This was written in a time where women were valued as less because women weren't educated and women weren't working," Farber said.

Women in Orthodox Jewish communities were long discouraged from studying Talmud, but they are now increasingly taking part in study classes. Daf Yomi, or "page a day," is the Jewish practice of reading the ancient book of rabbinic teachings. At a page a day, it takes almost 7 1/2 years to read the whole thing. Tanya Habjouqa / NOOR for NPR hide caption

Women in Orthodox Jewish communities were long discouraged from studying Talmud, but they are now increasingly taking part in study classes. Daf Yomi, or "page a day," is the Jewish practice of reading the ancient book of rabbinic teachings. At a page a day, it takes almost 7 1/2 years to read the whole thing.

The modern-day Reform and Conservative movements of Judaism have long embraced a more egalitarian approach, ordaining women as rabbis and allowing equal participation in leading prayer and study. Some progressive Orthodox communities in the last few decades have widened women's roles in leading prayer and participating in Talmud study, and women are expanding the boundaries more and more.

American immigrants like Farber are helping lead the push for women's Talmud study in Israel, in part because many were exposed to Talmud early on. Some Orthodox schools in the United States began teaching the sacred text to girls in the 1950s.

Michelle Farber (center) leads a daily Talmud class for women. Tanya Habjouqa/NOOR for NPR hide caption

Michelle Farber (center) leads a daily Talmud class for women.

At 8:15 a.m. on a recent Tuesday, a dozen women, mostly U.S.-born, pored over Talmud books as Farber used a whiteboard to explain the day's page: a complex discussion about women's menstruation, which, according to Orthodox practice, affects when a woman may have sex with her husband.

Each page of Talmud is a small block of mostly Aramaic text surrounded by commentaries, which are nestled in yet another layer of commentaries.

"A brain workout, right?" said Geula Zamist, who flew in from New Jersey to attend Farber's class and the big women's Talmud celebration. "It's such a great way to start a day. It's such a spiritual exercise to use your brain in such a completely different way."

A page of Talmud where a small block of mostly Aramaic text is surrounded by commentaries, which are nestled in yet another layer of commentaries. Tanya Habjouqa/NOOR for NPR hide caption

A page of Talmud where a small block of mostly Aramaic text is surrounded by commentaries, which are nestled in yet another layer of commentaries.

Farber hosts a daily Talmud podcast called Daf Yomi For Women, in English and Hebrew, with about 250 subscribers. Her aim is to make the Talmud more approachable for women.

One of her podcast listeners is U.S.-born Ilana Kurshan, the author of a memoir about studying Talmud. Even with their dated assumptions about gender and class, she says, Talmud stories are worth learning.

"There is a story about a man who mistook his wife for a prostitute. A story about a man who was so engaged by his Torah study that he neglected to come home to his wife for years and years. They're stories that just make you think differently about so many aspects of human experience, and in that sense these texts are really timeless," Kurshan said in an interview at her home in Jerusalem.

Women raise paper in the air during an event marking the end of the cycle of Talmud studies in Jerusalem in January. Tanya Habjouqa/NOOR for NPR hide caption

Women raise paper in the air during an event marking the end of the cycle of Talmud studies in Jerusalem in January.

The new trend of Talmud study is not limited to Orthodox women.

Nonreligious "secular yeshiva" programs in Israel teach Talmud, while the organization Svara runs a Talmud camp in U.S. cities for "queer, straight, trans, aleph bet beginners, experienced Talmudists, secular, religious, Jews [and] non-Jews."

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Orthodox Jewish Women Take A New Lead In Talmud Study In Israel - NPR

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Posted By admin on February 2, 2020

By Joseph Massad for Middle East Eye

Western and Israeli propaganda never tire of telling the world of the age-old Israeli quest for peace, and how much Israel longs to be accepted by Palestinians and the rest of the Arab peoples as a Jewish state an oasis of European civilisation lodged smack in the middle of the Arab world.

Indeed, the racist wisdom of former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban (born in South Africa as Aubrey Solomon Meir) that Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity for peace was recently reiterated by US President Donald Trumps son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner.

Kushner, speaking of Trumps deal of the century, declared on CNN that if Palestinians reject the plan, theyre going to screw up another opportunity, like theyve screwed up every other opportunity that theyve ever had in their existence. Kushner, a primary author of the plan, must be forgiven for his lack of originality, as Zionists, who exhausted the colonial lexicon, have run out of racist cliches and are doomed to repeat them ad nauseum.

Taking Every Opportunity

What Eban and Kushner meant when they spoke of opportunities was the opportunity for Palestinians to surrender all their rights to the Zionist Jewish colonisation of their homeland, end their resistance once and for all, and grant legitimacy to the Zionist theft of their country. The recently released Trump plan does not mince words at all on this: Palestinian leaders must embrace peace by recognizing Israel as the Jewish state, rejecting terrorism in all its forms.

In contrast, we are told that the peace-loving Zionists have not missed a single opportunity for peace, by which it is meant that they have accepted every opportunity and proposal that granted legitimacy to their ongoing theft of Palestinian lands.

As a matter of fact, not only have the Zionists not missed these opportunities, they have instigated them, proposed them, planned them and executed them.

The Zionist colonisation of Palestine has taken every opportunity since its inception to tell the Palestinian people that Jews are superior to them, that Jewish colonial rights to Palestinian lands are superior to any rights that the indigenous Palestinians think they have, and that the only option available to Palestinians that Zionists would accept is full surrender to Jewish colonisation.

Anything short of this will be condemned by Israel and its European and North American allies, alongside a global campaign to delegitimise any rejection of Israels colonial theft of Palestinian land as outright antisemitism.

Legitimising Land Theft

Zionists helped write, and then accepted, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which the British foreign secretary dismissed the indigenous people of Palestine as irrelevant to the plan to establish a Jewish national home in their country. Zionists also supported the British colonial mandate over Palestine, which sponsored the establishment of the Jewish settler-colony on Palestinian lands.

Indeed, the Zionist leadership accepted every act committed by the British that denationalised tens of thousands of Palestinians (through the Palestine citizenship law of 1925) and transferred state lands to Jewish colonists.

When the British Peel Commission proposed taking more than one third of Palestine and giving it to Zionists, calling for the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from the invented Jewish part of Palestine, Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion celebrated.

When the United Nations, under US pressure and manipulation, issued its Partition Plan in 1947, granting 55 percent of the land of the Palestinians to Jewish colonists, the Zionists immediately accepted it and proceeded to expel the Palestinian inhabitants.

This readiness to instigate, propose, accept and create opportunities to steal more land, legitimise that theft, and expel more Palestinians continued unabated after 1948. After the final conquest of the remaining parts of Palestine in 1967 and the expulsion of more Palestinians, Israel sought more opportunities to keep its stolen land and to keep Palestinians away from it.

Indeed, when former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat ceded Palestinian rights to independence and statehood at Camp David, the Israelis who imposed these conditions readily accepted the deal. When a defeated Palestine Liberation Organisation offered its surrender at Oslo in 1993, relinquishing the rights of Palestinians to their lands and country, the Israelis who drafted the agreement also readily accepted it.

Sealing All Previous Deals

As for the Trump deal which the Israelis coauthored, and which hopes to seal all previous deals, calling further for the denationalisation of Palestinian citizens of Israel who live in what is known as the Triangle area inside Israel the Israelis immediately jumped at this opportunity to rid themselves of more Palestinians.

What the Israelis never accepted, and cannot accept, is the right of Palestinians to their lands, to statehood and to independence let alone the rights of those whom Israel expelled to return and reclaim the land and property that Israel confiscated, or the Palestinian right to equality, currently denied by a battery of Israeli laws that grant colonial and racial privileges to Jews.

That Israel has never missed any opportunity to deny the Palestinian people their rights, and accepted every opportunity to steal their land, is a fact the Israelis never deny. That Israel demands that the Palestinians recognise its right to oppress them by granting Israel legitimacy is also a fact that the Palestinians understand well, but have always rejected.

Whereas Palestinians have missed every opportunity to recognise the right of their oppressors to oppress them, Israel has never missed a single opportunity to demand that they do so. Trumps Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People is simply the latest version of this colonial and racist demand.

Joseph Massad is Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University in New York. He is the author of many books and academic and journalistic articles. His books include Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan, Desiring Arabs, The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians, and most recently Islam in Liberalism. His books and articles have been translated to a dozen languages.

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Analysis: Palestinians Have Indeed 'Missed an Opportunity' - to Surrender to Zionism - International Middle East Media Center

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Posted By admin on February 2, 2020

By Omri Boehm / Special to The Washington Post

The announcement of President Trumps Middle East Deal of the Century this week basically cedes the West Bank to Israel, allowing the country to seize land that would otherwise have constituted a Palestinian state. Since Palestinian representatives were not invited to the White House for the policys announcement (Trump told reporters last week that the details of the program had been discussed with Palestinian leadership only briefly), the policys significance seems to lie outside the formal proposal; that is, in how Israel, backed by the United States, will respond once the Palestinians reject the offer. In all likelihood, the response will include massive one-sided annexations, empowered by the claim that the Palestinians had refused to compromise.

Its a step toward apartheid.

As these monumental developments take place, liberal Zionists have watched with alarm. For some time now, they have begun to see that the two-state solution proposed by the Oslo accords is pass. It is now clear that Israel will never evacuate hundreds of thousands of settlers; that a town like Ariel (with 20,000 inhabitants and a research university) will not be removed from the West Banks center. Clinging to the two-state idyll is like climate change denial: It flies in the face of fact.

But Israeli progressives have not offered a politically viable counterpoint. Partly, thats because today Zionists of every political stripe believe that Jews need sovereignty; their own state. And partly its because, in order for that state to be democratic, it must have a Jewish majority. Since Palestinians account for about 50 percent of the combined population of Israel and the occupied territories, a Jewish and democratic state is impossible without a two-state solution.

Also, Israeli nationalists, who support annexations, want to protect Israels Jewish majority. So a politics of transfer code for ethnic cleansing is emerging on their agenda. Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a member of the cabinet, openly advocates for expulsions of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Avigdor Liberman, the countrys former defense minister and likely future partner of Israels center-left, even supports removing Arab Israelis from the Israeli towns where they live. For these reasons, a two-state solution seemed like the only hope for progressives who dont want to trample another peoples rights. Understandably, they now despair.

Yet this anguish is based on a false premise. Zionism today is based on the idea that Jews have the right to their own sovereign state, but the movements founders held a more nuanced view. Intense ideological disagreements divided Theodor Herzl, Zeev Jabotinsky and founding Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, but they all agreed on the distinction, now often forgotten, between Jewish self-determination and Jewish sovereignty. And, up until very late in Zionist history, they were all committed to the former but denied the latter. They believed that the Jews had the right to exercise political self-rule to run their own lives and revive Jewish culture but they did not think that this should be done in a sovereign Jewish state.

Herzl, for example, envisaged the Jewish state as a mere political autonomy, existing under a multinational imperial authority. He rejected the idea that the Jewish state should ever gain independence and become an ethnic nation-state like the new Greece, which he thought would become parochial and provincial. Jabotinsky, whose Zionism is commonly regarded as the nationalist alternative to Herzls, supported to the end of his life the principle that the future of Palestine must be founded, legally speaking, as a binational state. In such a federation, he explained, the Jewish and the Arab ethno-communities shall be recognized as autonomous public bodies of equal status before the law. Hannah Arendt could have written this sentence just as well.

Until the mid-1930s, Ben-Gurion supported the same principles. His binational program consisted in cantons that comprise autonomous states within the federal Palestinian government. It dictated that every canton will be able to write its constitution for itself, but none will be able to pass a law that restricts or violates the rights and equality of another cantons residents. In this federation, national autonomy would have complete authority in the areas of education, culture, and language. On the assumption that Zionism depends on Jews national sovereignty, Zionists tend to dismiss binational one-state politics as anti-Zionist and even fanatical. The founders didnt see it that way.

This is hardly part of some irrelevant past. In 1977, Menachem Begin, a disciple of Jabotinsky and Israels first right-wing prime minister, presented President Jimmy Carter and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat with an offer to the Palestinians, as a part of the peace settlement with Egypt. His plan, sometimes called the Autonomy Program, could have been called the One-State Program. It stated that Israels Military Government in the occupied territories will be abolished, and that an autonomy of the residents, by and for them will be established instead. Palestinians would have not just national autonomy but the free choice to become Israeli citizens, which would entitle them to vote for, and be elected to, [Israels] Knesset. It also ensured all citizens and residents of the territory, Jews and Palestinians alike, full rights to acquire land and settle and to be assured freedom of movement and freedom of economic activity in the whole territory.

Critics on the left sometimes point out that Begins program undermines the Palestinians claim to their own national sovereignty, exchanging it for mere self-determination. This is true, but only half of the story. It is because Zionism is now assumed to be about Jewish sovereignty that granting all Palestinians citizenship in the Jewish state seems inconceivable; even to liberal Zionist eyes. In this light, Begins program does not just exchange Palestinian sovereignty for self-determination; it also transforms the meaning of Jewish sovereignty in Israel, pushing it toward the type thats familiar from Jabotinskys and Ben Gurions Zionist binational programs.

In December 1977, Begin brought the program to the Knessets approval. Defending it from the podium, he explained that granting Israeli citizenship to all Palestinians is necessary to prevent the country from becoming like Rhodesia; that is, a racialist state with a segregated legal system and apartheid. In the vote that ensued, 64 voted in favor and eight against. Forty abstained. (Ultimately, it was rejected by the Palestine Liberation Organization, which insisted on sovereignty, and Israel turned away to pursue a peace accord only with Egypt.)

Trumps proposal Monday is monumental not just because it pushes Israel further in the direction of what Begin called Rhodesia. It also forces liberal Zionists to question their axioms and suggest an actual political program. There are living, worthwhile alternatives to Trumps deal; liberal Zionism beyond the two-state solution is possible. And for the first time in Israels history, a binational Zionism has become necessary.

Omri Boehm, an associate professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research, is the author of A Future for Israel: Beyond the Two State Solution, forthcoming this fall.

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Comment: Middle East 'Deal of Century' is step toward apartheid - The Daily Herald

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