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Monday, March 17th, 2008

The Jerusalem Post Cheap viagra from canada, notes that Ala Abu Dhaim, the gunman who shot up the Merkaz HaRav yeshiva in Jerusalem:

...did not meet the typical profile of Palestinian attackers, police said. "He is not known to the security forces," Jerusalem Police Chief Cmdr. Aharon Franco told Channel 2. "He was a normal man ... who was going to wed soon."

Franco added that the gunmen drove students to school for a living, Kentucky KY Ky. , once again denying Abu Dhaim's family's claim that he had been working at the Yeshiva. He said that while Abu Dhaim had recently become more religious, he was not devout, cheap viagra from canada. Franco said he believed Abu Dhaim had planned the attack some time in advance and that it was not a response to recent violence in the Gaza Strip.

This man was from Jabl Mukaber. in eastern Jerusalem. Buy viagra no rx, In a post last July, I wrote about a checkpoint at the edge of one of Jabl Mukaber's several distinct neighborhoods, a mini-village called Sheikh Sa’ed. Cheap viagra from canada, I have re-written it a bit and will offer it again. Ala Abu Dhaim must have known all about the suffering of his neighbors in Sheikh Sa'ed, and no doubt the situation there added to his rage.

The first part of this post enraged readers on the pro-Israel right, order viagra no prescription. The second part enraged readers on the anti-Israel left. The rest of us must figure out how to live in the grey area where an understanding of moral ambiguity is a prerequisite to finding the truth.

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Checkpoints, the wall and an unexpected message

I think of Hannah often these days, now that I have begun to wade into the difficult task of conversing with the left on Israel, cheap viagra from canada. She is from Australia, in her late 50s, Massachusetts MA Mass. , and has lived in Israel since the early ’70s. Hannah (not her real name) is one of the brave, tireless, often rather eccentric Israeli Jews (most of them women) who volunteer for Machsom Watch.

Machsom means “checkpoint.” These woman have taken it upon themselves to monitor the treatment of Palestinians at some of the most controversial checkpoints in the West Bank. Like the wall/barrier/fence (it can be any one of those things, cheap viagra pills, depending on where it’s located), many of the checkpoints that were established in the last few years prevent Palestinians from traveling from one part of the West Bank to another without approval from Israeli Border Police or soldiers. Cheap viagra from canada, About a year ago, at the end of June 2006, I accompanied Hannah and her companion, J, to Sheikh Sa’ed. That is--or at least used to be--one of several distinct neighborhoods of Jabl Mukaber, a village on the eastern edge of Jerusalem. Buy cheap viagra, Jabl Mukaber was not annexed by Israel, so it is technically part of the West Bank. The residents of Sheikh Sa’ed are closely linked to Jabl Mukaber and the rest of East Jerusalem, where they have many family ties and go for many services.

The Israeli government had planned to extend the wall/barrier/fence so that it divided Sheik Sa'ed from Jabl Mukaber. But in March, 2006, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the planned route of the wall was improper, cheap viagra from canada. So the Israelis set up a permanent, New York NY N.Y. , staffed checkpoint at the entrance to Sheik Sa'ed. According a report from B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization (which calls Shei Sa'ed a "village"):

"Village residents who do not hold Israeli identity cards are forbidden to exit the village and enter Jerusalem . Even those who have permits to enter Israel are not allowed to cross the checkpoint. Oregon OR Ore. , Instead they are directed to the Olive Checkpoint. Cheap viagra from canada, To get to that checkpoint, they have to negotiate a long descent down the cliff on which the village lies. In fact the siege imposed by Israel means that those without Jerusalem identity cards with two ways to leave Sheikh Sa’ed : to go along a difficult and, for some residents, an impossible path down the cliff, or to enter Jerusalem illegally.

The siege affects every aspect of the resident’s lives, Vermont VT Vt. . One of the most serious consequences is its effect on access to medical treatment: the village has no medical clinic, so the residents have to go to facilities in East Jerusalem, in most cases to Jabel Mukaber, which lies about 100 meters from the entrance to Sheikh Sa’ed. Billige viagra apotek, The villagers have difficulty obtaining essential foodstuffs and other consumer needs.

When we arrived there, Hannah, J and I got past the checkpoint and walked into Sheikh Sa’ed, where a cab driver met us and drove us around. The women were there to bear witness, to take notes as they talked to villagers, cheap viagra from canada. From the top of the steep, sloping donkey path that is now the only way in and out of the neighborhood for many residents, kjøpe viagra, we watched two teenage boys hauling some wood up the hill. Hannah told me that if people have physical problems, like asthma, and can’t make it up the hill, Jotta viagra verkossa, they are stuck in the village. They can’t get out.

An old man with a cane walked past us and gingerly moved down the donkey path. Cheap viagra from canada, He appeared to be tip-toeing. The women took notes. The cab driver ticked off a number of indignities, like the tear gas that the Border Police had tossed at some teenagers who had approached the checkpoint, ordering viagra online, talking loudly and boisterously, but, he claimed, had meant no harm. Viagra prices, In rejecting the state’s plans to build the wall/barrier there, the Israeli court had indicated there was no evidence that these people posed a direct security threat to the State of Israel, Hannah told me. But the Court did urge the Israeli government to build the barrier on another route, further east. As we walked back through the checkpoint to her car, she said, loudly, so a young Border Policeman could hear, “The Germans said they didn’t know, cheap viagra from canada. They didn’t know what was happening, Ohio OH . I know. I know what is happening.”

She was reluctant to talk politics, to examine the big picture. As we drove away, Viagra generic, I kept pressing about her political beliefs, and all she would tell me was that she didn’t vote for Meretz. Cheap viagra from canada, She was “way left” of Meretz, she said.

But later, as we drove past the wall at Abu Dis, I heard something unexpected from Hannah.

I asked her the inevitable question that must be asked by anyone who insists on seeing both sides’ points of view: “But don’t you think the wall and the checkpoints have stopped terrorists?”

She gave me the standard, Florida FL Fla. , post-Zionist answer, something along the lines of “It has nothing to do with security. It’s just there to control people, to humilate them.”

I kept at it. Osta viagra online, I said that, at one point a few years back, moderates in the Palestinian Authority had accepted the idea of some kind of barrier, as long as it was on the Green Line. The PA had been unable to control Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and they appeared to understand that, for the time being, the State of Israel had to do something to stop suicide bombers, cheap viagra from canada. They were not happy about the wall/barrier/fence, but as long as it did not cut a swath through the West Bank, where to buy cheap viagra, at least some PA officials appeared to be willing to live with it, for the time being. I told Hannah that I knew this to be true because I had heard them voice that sentiment.

Then Hannah said, Ordering viagra online without prescription, “It would be ugly. It would be horrible...I could live with it, too.”

I expressed surprise. Cheap viagra from canada, I had been assuming, without thinking much about it, that she was in the same camp as the international leftists who urge Israel to just tear down the “apartheid wall,” demolish it unilaterally, pretend there is no need for concerted negotiations, pretend there is no problem, pretend there is no blood feud that has been going on for a hundred plus years.

Instead, Hannah said, simply, generic viagra, “There are people who don’t want me here.”

So here she was, the kind of Israeli witness who feeds the fury of anyone with a smidgeon of concern for basic human decency and humanity. But even Hannah, who spent her days exposing the nightmarish conditions of Palestinians under occupation, Texas TX Tex. , wanted a wall or a barrier to protect her children, grandchildren, friends and neighbors from getting blown to bits.

I haven’t the faintest idea what Israel should do right now about the wall/fence/barrier, other than ensuring that it doesn't cut through Palestinian villages and olive groves, and re-routing those parts of it that jut into the West Bank to protect far-flung Israeli settlements, order viagra online, and announcing, loudly and clearly, that it is TEMPORARY, a security measure that can be eliminated if and when there is a political settlement. For viagra online, As for the system of checkpoints and other obstacles to Palestinian movement, Peace Now says the vast majority of them do not protect Israeli security. But it still calls for 35 of them to remain, cheap viagra from canada. Sharing the rage of people who don’t want old men to be forced to tip-toe down old donkey paths does not mean that one should ignore the worries and fears of Israeli parents who don’t want their kids to be slaughtered in supermarkets and discos.

To call out, simply and passionately, “Tear down the apartheid wall” at demonstrations, buy viagra without prescription, without offering a reasonable, immediate solution to those Israeli parents, is to tell them they should not worry about their kids. One could say, “Hannah should not be there,” Hannah should go back to Australia, the whole experiment should be summarily cancelled. That’s not just offensive; it is unrelated to objective reality, yet I read comments like that all the time on the lefty blogs. Cheap viagra from canada, Hannah isn’t leaving, and that is a good thing. She and her comrades rage and rage against the brutality and dehumanization that is an inevitable consequence of the occupation. She refuses to stop holding a mirror up to the Israelis who bear much of the responsibility for this unremitting tragedy. But they do not bear that responsibility alone. While Hannah rages, she also needs to protect herself and the people she loves. She is faced with conflicting moral imperatives that are impossible to reconcile. As some point, I suspect, she stopped trying to reconcile them, like a lot of Israelis who have as much concern for human rights and justice as the sloganeers on the anti-Israel left.

.

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Viagra Sale

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

Viagra sale, The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations recently "reaffirmed its longstanding position that a united Jerusalem should remain the sovereign and eternal capital of Israel," according to a JTA story. Some left-of-center groups were against it but they could not stem the tide. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the last decade, billige viagra Apotheke, including Ehud Olmert, Viagra pedido en línea, knows that the status of Jerusalem is an open question that must be resolved as part of a comprehensive agreement, but that did not deter the groups from, once again, billiga viagra apotek, being more Israeli than the Israeli government. Viagra without prescription, The idea that the Jewish people have had a continuous, unbreakable emotional and spiritual connection with Jerusalem for thousands of years is, of course, Iowa IA , one of the organizing principles of our narrative. Cheap viagra no rx, I certainly feel that connection, deep in my bones. But the transformation of that emotional and spiritual identification into the core of a political ideology, is, in fact, a recent phenomenon, viagra sale.

For one thing, cheap viagra from canada, many secular Israelis on the coastal plain want nothing to do with Jerusalem, Texas TX Tex. , rarely if ever venture there, and live quite happily without such a connection. That is, lowest price viagra, I think, Buy viagra no prescription, their loss. But the Zionist pioneers who are mythic heroes to American Jews also lacked an attachment to the city. I just stumbled upon a compelling tidbit in The History of Zionism by Walter Laqueur, För viagra online, by far the best and most comprehensive history of the movement. Viagra sale, He is, by and large, sympathetic to the Zionist cause. Ordering viagra from canada, But, in a new preface written in 2005, he tells us:


The question of Jerusalem illustrates best the enormous difference between historical Zionism and the ideology that has replaced it, comprar viagra de descuento. Jerusalem contains the holy places of three world religions, Alaska AK , and elementary prudence if not basic tolerance should have prevented declarations according to which Jerusalem was to remain forever undivided under Israeli rule. It was, in fact, cheap viagra, an empty declaration, Rabatt kaufen viagra, for in actual fact Jerusalem is of course a divided city.

When Hertzl first visited Jerusalem, he saw only the musty deposits of two thousand years of inhumanity, Massachusetts MA Mass. , intolerance, Comprare viagra, and impurity; he perceived superstition and intolerance on all sides. Hertzl suggested Haifa as the capital of the new Jewish state, viagra sale. But it was not only Hertzl, the assimilated Jew, buy viagra online, who reacted in this unsentimental manner. Buy viagra no rx, Chaim Weizmann always feared becoming involved in the Jerusalem imbroglio. And because their attachment to the city was not overwhelming, David Ben Gurion and other leaders of the second aliyah did not visit Jerusalem for the first time until two or three years after their arrival in the country, viagra cheap. For many years, Pharmacie viagra bon marché, not a single Zionist leader chose to live in Jerusalem. Viagra sale, For them, Jerusalem symbolized the negative past of Jewish history, that part of the tradition from which they wanted to disassociate themselves.

The idea that Jerusalem was the beginning and end of Zionism, that Israel could not exist without having full sovereignty over the entire city emerged only after 1967 and the growth of a religious fanaticism and aggressive nationalism that had more in common with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood than the founding fathers of Zionism, West Virginia WV W.Va. .

And so, South Carolina SC S.C. , guarding the holy sites has become a nightmare and Jerusalem itself has become a dangerous flashpoint. The insanity of a few religious fanatics –Jewish, Muslim or Christian—has the potential of transforming a local conflict into a religious war with incalculable consequences, Kansas KS Kans. .

Word up, Walter.

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Buy Viagra Online

Friday, October 26th, 2007

Buy viagra online, Mearsheimer and Walt write that AIPAC is a "de facto agent of the Israeli government." In various parts of their book, they provide examples of the "Israel lobby's" ability to promote Israel's agenda in the halls of power. Kjøpe viagra online, But they do not seem to grasp a far more interesting, subtle point about AIPAC: it answers to AIPAC and supports AIPAC's agenda, Ohio OH , Cheap viagra pills, which does not always align with Israel's. An article in this week's Forward, cheap viagra from canada, For viagra online, Contradictory Signals From Israel and its Supporters on Saudi Arms Deal gives the latest example of conflicting legislative priorities:

As the Bush administration’s $20 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia heads for congressional debate, lawmakers are receiving contradictory signals from Israel and its supporters in the United States, Missouri MO Mo. . Viagra prices, Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, Louisiana LA , Buy viagra no rx, told Congress last week that Israel does not oppose the deal and will not take a stand against it. At the same time, Illinois IL Ill. , Cheapest viagra prices, a letter backed by the pro-Israel lobby began circulating in the House of Representatives, demanding that the administration impose strict condition on how the Saudis will be allowed to use special bomb-guidance systems that are part of the sales deal, Kentucky KY Ky. .

...While the chief Israeli defense official was telling members of Congress that he sees no problem with the deal, Israel’s supporters in the House of Representatives began gathering signatures on a letter to the president, asking him to put restrictions and limitations on the Saudi arms deal, buy viagra online. Order viagra online cheap, The letter, which is being endorsed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, South Carolina SC S.C. , Comprar viagra, focuses on the potential threat posed by the Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which is part of the deal, viagra no prescription. Viagra pedido en línea, (emphasis added)

AIPAC, in other words, Minnesota MN Minn. , Oklahoma OK Okla. , is opposing an Israeli policy. This has happened many times in the past, comprar en línea viagra. Order viagra online legally, In Yossi Beilin's book, "My Brother's Keeper, cheapest viagra prices, Tennessee TN Tenn. , " he describes AIPAC officials as acting like "frightened deer" when they were asked to support aid to the Palestinian authority in the 1990s. Buy viagra online, Several, more recent bills for Palestinian aid put much more stringent conditions on the financial assistance than the Sharon and Olmert governments wanted. In 1995, osta alennus viagra, Comprare viagra sconto, AIPAC worked closely with Bob Dole to push the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which embarassed Rabin at a time of delicate negotiations on the implementation of the Oslo accords.

AIPAC does do what Israel wants, much of the time. But it is hardly an "agent" of a foreign government. It's more like a staunch coalition ally which sometimes goes its own way. It supports an IDEA of Israel, a set of premises about Israel, and when the Israeli government disagrees, AIPAC will do what AIPAC wants to do, buy viagra online.

Some of that divergence has to do with the organization's hawkish tilt. But it is also due to something deeper, something about the culture of Washington and the kinds of people who want to --and need to--spend their professional lives nudging the American government to do one thing or another.

An ex-staff member of AIPAC has told me that some of his former colleagues don't really care very much about Israel, they never vacation there, they are consummate political players who could just as easily ply their trade on behalf of the textile industry or big Pharma. It's the win that counts, not the cause. I think that is unfair and exaggerated, but it does help to support a related claim that Washington insiders sometimes make: AIPAC is interested in getting political victories as a means of sustaining its own power and perpetuating itself. That is priority #1, not Israel.

Larry Cohler-Esses, a veteran reporter for Jewish weeklies, once said, "The early Zionists learned that they could help Israel by winning the Washington game. In the 1970s and '80s, the AIPAC people learned that they could win the Washington game by helping Israel."

That should be food for thought for the dual-loyalty theorists...

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Checkpoints, the wall and an unexpected message

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

I think of Hannah often these days, now that I have begun to wade into the difficult task of conversing with the left on Israel. She is from Australia, in her late 50s, and has lived in Israel since the early ’70s. Hannah (not her real name) is one of the brave, tireless, […]

“Jerusalem Day” and the fiction of “unification”

Wednesday, May 16th, 2007

Today is “Yom Yerushalayim,” or “Jerusalem day.” Haaretz has
a very powerful editorial about the plight of Palestinian Arabs in East Jerusalem and the Israeli policies that are largely responsible for that plight.

What do the advocates of the one-state solution say about Jerusalem? For decades, it has been two cities, not one. […]

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