Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

• Israel’s secret Iran meeting between security officials and Rabbi who wants to ‘annihilate’ Arabs
• Mob ‘lynching’ of Palestinian minors marks rise of Jewish extremism
• Official rationale for NYPD spying falls apart with report that ‘no leads’ came from spying on Muslims
• Help complete ‘Dancing Under Apartheid: A Poetic Memoir of Palestine’
• Exile and the Prophetic: (Jewish) birth certificate in the new diaspora
• Burned, grandma
• ‘IDF Fiction’ author Boianjiu calls Palestinians ‘ballsy thieves’ in fashion magazine interview
• The viral skinnydipping scandal, and the real story
• My correspondence with NYT’s Rudoren
• ‘New Yorker’ fiction parody contest award winners, at last

Israel’s secret Iran meeting between security officials and Rabbi who wants to ‘annihilate’ Arabs
Aug 21, 2012
Joe Catron

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef

Senior Israeli officials including National Security Advisor Ya’akov Amidror and Interior Minister Eli Yishai held what the Algemeiner calls a “secret meeting” with Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, on Friday. Yosef, in his state-funded role as head of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages, is the governing coalition party’s spiritual leader, while Yishai is its political chief.
Haaretz reports:

Senior defense officials have recently been visiting the ultra-Orthodox Shas party’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, to discuss a possible Israeli attack on Iran.
Some want the 91-year-old rabbi to support it, others to oppose it. At least one visit, in which the rabbi was briefed on Iran’s nuclear program, came at the behest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is battling for support in the cabinet to strike Iran.
One of the visitors to Yosef’s Jerusalem home was National Security Council head Ya’akov Amidror, accompanied by Interior Minister and Shas political leader Eli Yishai, the Kikar Hashabat website reported.
Yishai reportedly objects to an Israeli attack on Iran in the current circumstances, although he has not made his position clear in public.
It is not known whether Amidror or any of the others succeeded in persuading Yosef. However, on Saturday evening, a day after his meeting with Amidror, Yosef said in his weekly sermon: ‘You know what situation we’re in, there are evil people, Iran, about to destroy us. … We must pray before [the almighty] with all our heart.’

Yosef is one of Israel’s most incendiary public figures. In 2000, he claimed that the Holocaust was not “all for nothing,” because its Jewish victims were “the reincarnation of earlier souls who sinned [and who] returned … to atone for their sins,” before “call[ing] the Palestinians ‘snakes’ and ‘accursed, wicked ones,’ and cit[ing] Talmudic commentaries to claim that God was ‘sorry he created’ all Arabs.”
The following year, Yosef said of Arabs, ”It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable.”
In 2005, Ynet quoted Yosef on the United States’ Hurricane Katrina:

“There was a tsunami and there are terrible natural disasters, because there isn’t enough Torah study… black people reside there (in New Orleans). Blacks will study the Torah? (God said) let’s bring a tsunami and drown them.”
“Hundreds of thousands remained homeless. Tens of thousands have been killed. All of this because they have no God.”

And in 2010, Yosef provoked a firestorm of outrage and criticism, even from pillars of the American Zionist establishment like the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, by comparing non-Jews to farm animals and saying they were only fit to serve Jews.
According to the Jerusalem Post,

‘Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,’ he said in his weekly Saturday night sermon on the laws regarding the actions non-Jews are permitted to perform on Shabbat.
According to Yosef, the lives of non-Jews in Israel are safeguarded by divinity, to prevent losses to Jews.
‘In Israel, death has no dominion over them… With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money.’
‘This is his servant… That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew,’ Yosef said.
‘Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat.
That is why gentiles were created,’ he added.

Yosef may hold the unenviable but impressive title of Israel’s most prominent and outspoken racist, perhaps in close competition with fellow Shas leader Yishai, who famously said in May, “Most of those people arriving here are Muslims who think the country doesn’t belong to us, the white man.” Now he has also emerged as a pivotal decision-maker on the launch of a regional war with unknown, but certainly lethal and wide-ranging consequences.
As the Algemeiner explains,

The current position of Shas, as stated by its chairman Eli Yishai who is also a member of the eight-minister security forum, opposes a military strike against Iran. However, if Rav Ovadia is convinced and announces his support for a strike his declaration would bring about a shift in his party’s views.

Mob ‘lynching’ of Palestinian minors marks rise of Jewish extremism
Aug 21, 2012
Allison Deger

Teenage suspect in Friday’s mob attempted lynching in police custody, August 19, 2012.       (Photo: Olivier Fittousi/Haaretz)

On Friday four Palestinian teenagers were mobbed by 50 Israelis of similar age who were prowling the streets of Jerusalem shouting “Death to Arabs” and “Arabs, Arabs,” looking for Palestinians to beat. Disturbingly, during the Zion Square attack Israeli authorities said around 100 witnesses stood by and watched as one victim, Jamal Julani, was kicked as he laid on the ground unconscious. The violence only stopped after police intervened.
Nir Hasson detailed the assault in Haaretz through quotes from a witness’ Facebook page:

‘When one of the Palestinian youths fell to the floor, the youths continued to hit him in the head, he lost consciousness, his eyes rolled, his angled head twitched, and then those who were kicking him fled and the rest gathered in a circle around, with some still shouting with hate in their eyes.’
‘When two volunteers [from local charities] went into the circle, they tried to perform CPR and the mass of youths standing around started to say resentfully that we are resuscitating an Arab, and when they passed near us and saw that the rest of the volunteers were shocked, they asked why we were so in shock, he is an Arab. When we returned to the area after some time had passed, and the site was marked as a murder scene, and police were there with the cousin of the victim who tried to reenact what happened, two youths stood there who did not understand why we wanted to give a bottle of water to the cousin of the victim who was transferred to hospital in critical condition, he is an Arab, and they don’t need to walk around in the center of the city, and they deserve it, because this way they will finally be afraid,’ she added.
‘Children aged 15-18 are killing a child their own age with their own hands. Really with their own hands. Children who’s hearts were unmoved when they beat to death a boy their age who lay writhing on the floor,’ she wrote.

Haaretz then reported on Sunday the Israel police escalated their initial assessment of a “brawl” to a “lynching.” In addition, four additional suspects, between the ages of 13 and 15, were arrested.

Taxi transporting Palestinian family was firebombed on August, 16, 2012, near Bat Aiyan. (Photo: Israeli Police/Haaretz)

The mob attack came just a day after a firebomb was hurled at a taxi transporting a Palestinian family of six, including two children, and weeks after settlers planted a car bomb in a Palestinian village near Ramallah. The explosions come in the context of the highest rates of settler violence in the past five years, according to a report by the Jerusalem Fund. In 2011 alone, there were 10 “price tag,” arson attacks on Palestinians.
Noting the increase in Jewish Israeli violence against non-Jews, the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) published a fact-sheet linking the attempted lynching to the recent wave of mob violence against African migrants:

In May 2012, a wave of anti-African racism and violence, including physical assaults and a string of arson attacks, hit Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel, fueled by inflammatory statements made about asylum seekers by Israeli politicians including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Interior Minister Eli Yishai.

IMEU’s report, titled “A Culture of Impunity: Violence Against Non-Jews in Israel & the Occupied Territories,” points to an unspoken government acceptance of settler attacks on Palestinians as some of the incitement originated from members of the Israeli Knesset and state-funded rabbinical authorities. Settler rabbi, Dov Lior is described as a patron radical whose:

salary is paid by the Israeli government told a conference that Arabs are ‘wolves,’ ‘savages,’ and ‘evil camel riders.’ Earlier in 2011, he warned Jewish women against marrying non-Jewish women, stating: ‘Gentile sperm leads to barbaric offspring.’

Friday’s mob violence seem to indicate the Israeli hard-right’s incendiary political discourse has paved the way for extremist Jewish violence, all will the tacit support of the state of Israel.
 
Official rationale for NYPD spying falls apart with report that ‘no leads’ came from spying on Muslims
Aug 21, 2012
Alex Kane

(Photo via ArabianBusiness.com)

The New York Police Department’s (NYPD) rationale for its widespread surveillance of innocent Muslims in the Northeast has been that it helps protect the city against terrorism. “Our primary goal is to keep this city safe and save lives and that’s what we’re doing,” police chief Ray Kelly said earlier this year in response to critics of the surveillance program.
But that explanation crumbled today with an Associated Press article that reports that after six years of eavesdropping on conversations and recording them and infiltrating mosques, the spying “never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation.” The admission, which came in court testimony from June that was just unsealed, was made by Thomas Galati, the head of the NYPD’s Intelligence Division.
Here’s more from the AP:

Galati testified as part of a lawsuit that began in 1971 over NYPD spying on students, civil rights groups and suspected Communist sympathizers during the 1950s and 1960s. The lawsuit, known as the Handschu case, resulted in federal guidelines that prohibit the NYPD from collecting information about political speech unless it is related to potential terrorism.
Civil rights lawyers believe the Demographics Unit violated those rules. Documents obtained by the AP show the unit conducted operations outside its jurisdiction, including in New Jersey. The FBI there said those operations damaged its partnerships with Muslims and jeopardized national security.

The AP also reports that the NYPD surveilled people just because of the language they spoke:

In one instance discussed in the testimony, plainclothes NYPD officers known as “rakers” overheard two Pakistani men complaining about airport security policies that they believed unfairly singled out Muslims. They bemoaned what they saw as the nation’s anti-Muslim sentiment since the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Galati said police were allowed to collect that information because the men spoke Urdu, a fact that could help police find potential terrorists in the future.
“I’m seeing Urdu. I’m seeing them identify the individuals involved in that are Pakistani,” Galati explained. “I’m using that information for me to determine that this would be a kind of place that a terrorist would be comfortable in.”

Galati also says that the NYPD thinks that eavesdropping at a Lebanese cafe is useful because, if customers were from South Lebanon, “that may be an indicator of possibility that that is a sympathizer to Hezbollah because Southern Lebanon is dominated by Hezbollah.”
Just as disturbing is that Galati admitted that merely expressing opposition to US policy is reason enough for the NYPD to spy on Muslims and record speech in that vein. Blogger Marcy Wheeler does some digging through Galati’s testimony, and finds that Galati said:

Their job was, if they hear people talking about it, you know, they should inform us. If what they’re hearing is hostility towards the United States or to the general public at large, you know, as a result of these events, would something happen here as a result? Their job is to listen for that…
If we deployed them because of an event that took place in a particular part of the World, a drone attack, we would want to know and we would instruct them that people are upset about this drone attack. If they are, that’s something that would be important for us to know, that would be something we would want to know.

Jethro Eisenstein, a long-time lawyer who has litigated the Handschu Guidelines case for over 40 years, told the AP that “he will go back to court soon to ask that the Demographics Unit, [the unit that spied on Muslims], be shut down.”

Help complete ‘Dancing Under Apartheid: A Poetic Memoir of Palestine’
Aug 21, 2012
Ian Rhodewalt
 
After living in Ramallah for two years, I am in the process of writing a memoir of my time there, called Dancing Under Apartheid. In order to support the writing of the book and get it to publication, I have launched a Kickstarter campaign. I am really excited and passionate about writing this book, and am eager to share the project with Mondoweiss readers.
Kickstarter is a grass-roots platform to raise funds for creative projects, in exchange for various rewards for backers, in this case, copies of the book, amongst other things. It is an all-or-nothing venture, so I need to raise an additional $8,000 by September 9, or no money changes hands.
From the description on my Kickstarter page:
“As an American living in Ramallah, I quickly came to understand how little I had known about Palestine. Dancing Under Apartheid, a memoir of my time there, offers a look at my struggle to comprehend the situation and paints a portrait of everyday life in the West Bank.
Through poetry and essays, I explore what it has been like living in Ramallah over a time period that spans from the runup to the Arab Spring, to the historic Palestinian prisoner hunger strike this year. These two years saw the Palestinian statehood bid at the UN and UNESCO’s declaration of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem as a world heritage site. With these events as a backdrop, I write about the joys and sorrows of life in Palestine.”
Additionally, I did a recent interview about the book and my Kickstarter campaign with Sylvia Global radio station on BlogTalk Radio.
Thank you for your support!

Exile and the Prophetic: (Jewish) birth certificate in the new diaspora
Aug 21, 2012
Marc H. Ellis
This post is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
Do Jews rise in exile? Among other exiles in the New Diaspora? Because that’s where we are, among others, as we have always been, now in a more intentional way, living together in our ordinary lives and, for our consideration, among others who exercise their conscience and pay-up for it.
You can’t rise outside history. You can’t rise within a history that is empire only. Every empire-only history has those who rise within it. They offer a way out of empire through empire. Yet we all know that empire will change only by running its course.
Ecological calamity has always been part of empire running its course. For the most part, though, in previous eras empires didn’t know that ecology had a say. Our experts at the Holocaust museum seem to know it well. Mass death comes off their tongue like the reception delicacy that was brought to make me feel comfortable in the Holocaust museum, firmly entrenched in American power.
Jews rising. Uncomfortable for Jews who are used to Christians using resurrection as a battering ram. Acknowledged. Let’s just say that Christians and resurrection are like Jews with chosenness, however translated – they can’t help themselves. We can add Muslims and Mohammed or Americans singing the praises of America.
The fact that some Christians are idiots about resurrection doesn’t mean that Jews don’t have a question about how they will be remembered in a history that is so thoroughly saturated with an equal amount of nonsense that the Jewish wayward path is celebrated almost as if it is salvific. Hasn’t Israel been seen as our resurrection, at least in our rhetoric if not in our hearts and minds?
Auschwitz/Jerusalem. Death and resurrection. Israel soldiers the Holy Spirit. Palestinians and Arabs as the devil incarnate. Elie Wiesel as our suffering saint. Baptizing our martyrs. Who’s kidding who, the Jewish sensibility has been thoroughly Christianized which is why I usually refer to the Jewish establishment as an example of Constantinian Judaism.
In this scenario, Progressive Jews are akin to Catholic Vatican II types in retreat. Both opened vistas only to fear the consequences and step back. Jews of Conscience are like liberation theologians without theology. This means that Jews of Conscience are, more or less, the only Jews left, embracing the indigenous prophetic in the modern context.
Yes, Romero is still resonating in my heart. Admittedly, I assume a Jewish observer status. The peasants he finally moves among can’t be Jews even in my wildest imagination. Nor can Romero the priest be Jewish. Looking in as a Jew, I see Romero’s world and its darkness. I also witness the glimmer of Romero, the prophet, gathering light.
As a Jew, I add commentary, see Romero’s world in its different dimensions, witness the coming and going of justice-seekers. Is that the role of Jews rather than as history empire-state builders? Jews manning the prophetic commentary post?
In the afternoon yesterday, reading my Practicing Exile, my small group entered once again the territory of exiled Jews, now moving in the New Diaspora, and asked if this finally means that Jews will transcend their “us versus them” singled out status. My own writing goes back and forth on the subject of assimilation in the New Diaspora. Which might mean an embrace of the prophetic as practiced in exile without retaining any form of Jewish particularity. As generations go by. If the parents who come into exile with others from around the world bequeath their children only this broader exilic community why won’t they simply embrace all that is placed before them as their identity? Jewishness might be discarded or simply fade away.
New Diaspora identity – made up of the fragments of culture, religion, nationality and geography, an evolving gathering of non-Jewish identities with no particular destination or destiny in mind. Since their isn’t a particular origin of the community except exile itself, now seen as a community, why not accept the New Diaspora citizenship offered Jews?
New Diaspora citizenship is offered irrespective of ethnic, national or religious backgrounds. The only qualification for New Diaspora citizenship is exile, a consciousness of the prophetic and the willingness to contribute the fragments of one’s traumatized journey to the larger community without seeking to make those fragments dominant. So the New Diaspora birth certificate is quite different than the one’s filed with the state.
The New Diaspora birth certificate. What it would look like. Can “Jewish” appear anywhere? Religion isn’t even a category for the second generation and beyond. People of origin?
It’s a problematic or a liberation – at least my small group here in the mountains thinks this is the dilemma. Even the rain didn’t dampen their energy on this New Diaspora subject. But, then, I raised the question if Jews can transcend Jewishness in their own lives with the equally important question if Jewisness could be transcended in the non-Jewish mind in the New Diaspora and in the larger world.
Since the New Diaspora won’t have its own island to live separate from the global population, I assume that the Jewish question will remain. This means that Jews in exile are still liable for the Jewish conspiracy theories and beyond, the singled-out status that occasionally or often rears its head. As in, so relevant for my group, would Jews be able to live in great numbers in Austria or Germany or Poland or the Czech Republic or more or less anywhere outside the United States without being held libel for everything under heaven when the going gets tough and sometimes when the going is easy.
The disconnection between Jews in the New Diaspora and Jews of all stripes, including the millions of Jews who are simply moving through life with family and friends, can never be complete, I assume, since history beckons at Jewish doors internally and otherwise. I simply can’t imagine a Jew in another history – only. It wouldn’t make sense – really.
But, then, if Jews in exile seek the historic cessation of the Jewish prison, will the Jewish prophetic which appears because of this prison continue to appear without Jewishness? This is another way of asking if the world would be better off if the Jewishness of the prophetic, the indigenous root of the prophetic world-wide, disappears.
Should the Jewishness of the prophetic disappear in the New Diaspora? Can even Jews in the New Diaspora exist without some kind of protection from the anti-Jewishness that rears its ugly head in large and small ways? Just because you’re in exile and have applied for New Diaspora citizenship doesn’t mean that you don’t have Jews on your brain somewhere. Back to the BDS examples but I have met others in exile too who cannot resist the temptation to think Jewishness is a problem to overcome.
Full assimilation into the prophetic New Diaspora? Unknown if this can happen over time. What is clear is that I can’t go there – only. Yes, I still think Jews want and need their own particularity. And that Jews need some special protection in the New Diaspora and in society at large. Is this my hidden Zionist, the retro Two-State(r), the singled-out Jew in Marc, the (un)read author?
My Palestinian student raised the question if by protection I mean the state of Israel. When I responded, not necessarily, she asked if protection meant the Israel Lobby in the United States. I responded no. She then asked about American support for Israel as the protection Jews needed. Once again, I said no. Growing frustrated, if it wasn’t the state of Israel, the Israel Lobby or the American/Israel alliance, what protection of Jews was I advocating? Wasn’t it enough for Jews to be citizens wherever Jews live?. As in, like everyone else?
I have never lived without special protection as a Jew. The great majority of Jews in the world today have lived with special protections – only. Of course, other groups have special protections now, women, gays and lesbians and other minorities in Europe and America, for example. Every group who has suffered discrimination needs special protection. Is this different than what Jews have and need?
Yes and no. Since there seems to be a time limit on the needs of the unempowered making it in society. These are mostly confined to legal spaces – guaranteeing rights of women and others. The idea is that once equality is achieved the guarantees will be understood as the essence of society. No special categories, rights or space. Assimilation of all to the one goal of citizenship – equality, shared responsibility. Check your particularity ID at the citizenship door.
Enlightenment sensibility. Which doesn’t mean that Enlightenment is enlightened – only.
On Jews and the Jewish future. No, it is not the same – only. And yes Jews will – also – need some special protection. Or better some empowerment that can link with other empowerment, ideally forming a network of interdependent empowerment where Jews and others cannot be singled out for abuse.
Retro-sensibilities. Sure. My experience is that Jews and non-Jews carry too much Jew-baggage to say that the Jewish being singled out history is over. Though I’m not sure I want it to be over – only. For without the Jewish prison the Jewish prophetic would lose its distinctive voice and contribution. Would the world be better off?
Perhaps it’s the Austrian Alps outside my window. Closing in on me. But I’ve been around. “Jew” is hyped. Through history. Now. Is it the fault of the Jews? The fault of the others?
Jew entangled – in the world. Entangled Jews – in the world.
Jews entrapped – by others. Entrapped Jews – our own fault?
Jews interwoven – with everyone else. Interwoven Jews – is that possible?
Jews – tangled/intertwined. Jews are a bundle.
Still.

Burned, grandma
Aug 21, 2012
Rawan Yaghi

Palestinian child is in intensive care after a molotov cocktail attack by Israeli settlers on a taxi in the Occupied West Bank. (Photo: Activestills.org)

Let me take two minutes of your time to tell you the story of a four year old kid.
They were going to visit their grandmother. He talked all day about the new little racing car she bought him. How he was going to meet her was occupying his thoughts. A hug. A kiss to her right cheek. A kiss to the left. He’ll sit next to her until he receives his gift. He’ll hide it with his Mom after playing, alone, with it for a few minutes, and he’ll play with the kids in that neighborhood. He’ll keep it nice and clean for the first day of Eid with his friends.
They jumped in the Taxi. His mom embracing his little sister, him sitting in the back seat behind his dad, dad asking the driver, who was a relative, how he was and how everything is going on with his side of the family. The kid with a smile on his face looks through the window to see a group of long bearded men with small hats attached to their heads. He knows who they are. This must be trouble, he thought. They throw something on the car. His dad shouts to the driver to drive faster. Before he knew it, that thing sent its flames to his skin. The flames embraced his sister and clutched to both his arms and leg. He felt his face being scratched. The screams of his mom and sister crawled to his mind vaguely. He couldn’t hear his dad or the driver.
He, along with his sister, mom and dad, is spending his Eid in intensive care with limbs wrapped in white, eyes swollen, and face scratched. His grandmother is sitting right next to him with her white scarf and majestic tobe (traditional dress).
 
‘IDF Fiction’ author Boianjiu calls Palestinians ‘ballsy thieves’ in fashion magazine interview
Aug 21, 2012
Allison Deger

“Army Girl,” interview with Shani Boianjiu in Marie Claire’s September 2012 issue.

In the September issue of Marie Claire magazine Shani Boianjiu, the IDF fiction author made semi-famous by the New Yorker, follows up her ethnic typecasting in her June essay by portraying Palestinians as “thieves.” As Boianjiu details her assignments, the ex-military guard turned writer veers into the biggest nuisance to her work, “Arabs”:

[R]eally the biggest problem were kids from Arab towns stealing from the base. One time a few soldier were practice shooting and when they went to check their targets, they left their vests full equipped with helmets and magazines and flashlights. When they got back, they saw their vests running up a hill. The thieves were ballsy.

To Boianjiu, Palestinians function as the background noise of her military service and in her forthcoming novel, The People of Forever Are Not Afraid, a coming of age tale about bored female soldiers. “I think the main thing I learned was how to deal with my boredom—how to entertain myself when I was alone or doing routine things,” said the author to Marie Claire. “It also made me less afraid of things, because when you are promised danger or big consequences and at the end nothing happens you become more indifferent.”
Boianjiu is not an ideologue. It is apathy towards her military days that clouds any  details of the occupation. “I had guard duty, too, which was boring,” said Boianjiu. Marie Claire‘s interviewer, Roberta Bernstein, steers clear of the subject, instead inquires “how strict is the army about makeup and clothing?” and “Did you ever feel that women were treated like second-class citizens?”
On sex, dating and trouble making, Bernstein asks, “The female characters in your book fool around and flirt with the ale soldier. Was there a lot of sex going on?” Boianjiu’s reply she gives an anecdote that takes place in Gaza:

One time, we were taken out of boot camp to help with the Gaza pullout [In 2005, when the army forced Israeli settlers in the Gaza Strip and some West Bank settlements to resettle], and we were on a makeshift base—just a bunch of tents in this sandy place. There were tons of soldiers and then this stupid white string around the girls’ sleeping tents. Someone would always check it, too, to make sure no one crossed it.

Similar to the interview, Boianjiu’s literature omits the larger context of violence endured by Palestinians who are present in the same setting. In her New Yorker essay, her lack of care to detail becomes historical revisionism, in effect repeating IDF propaganda over a death of a Palestinian family on a beach in Gaza. When mentioning the Palestinian deaths, Boianjiu’s story says a “dormant shell that Palestinian militants had left by the sea” killed the family. However, Annie Robbins andAdam Horowitz noted it was Israeli fire that caused the tragedy.
As well in her essay Boianjiu callously described a protester against the occupation as “more like a bank customer asking for an increase of his credit limit than like a demonstrator.” She continues by painting the man as manipulative, trying to cajole the soldier-protagonist into firing at the demonstration in order to garnish more press–all while wearing a hopelessly dated Guns N’ Roses tee-shirt. “‘Please,’ the man said. ‘We need to be in the newspaper. Page 5, even.'”
Boianjiu’s misrepresentations of Palestinians are made all the more alarming by her account of military service in Marie Claire. For the author, what makes the occupation a disruption to normal life is “everyone had to carry around an M16 rifle at all times, even to the bathroom, so you had to get another girl to watch it while you showered. If you were in there for more than three minutes, people started yelling.”
Three pages after Boianjiu’s interview, Marie Claire cover another Israeli women, Orit Gadiesh, a chairman of Bain & Company who previously worked for presidential candidate Mitt Romney, finding him an “extraordinary” leader:

He was smart, thoughtful; he actually cared about the people he worked with. I don’t know how people describe him now, but he was way beyond Mr. PowerPoint. He was negotiating with the banks, and what he did was extraordinary. He did turn the company around.

Like Boianjiu, Gadiesh also served in the IDF and comments on her military service as a training ground for her future work. “I saw people like the minister of defense and the chief of staff making important decisions without perfect information, which served me well later. I don’t think you need to have perfect information to get people to change, which is what Bain is all about.”
The viral skinnydipping scandal, and the real story
Aug 21, 2012
Philip Weiss
I’ve been with the in-laws in the woods so have missed the most important story in American policy in the Middle East, skinnydipping in the Galilee, the fact that the FBI is interested in a congressional junket to Israel last year during which Kansas congressman Kevin Yoder jumped naked into the sea of Galilee. Yoder has duly apologized.
But Yousf Munayyer has the appropriate response at Politico:

It’s quite telling that the “news angle” here is about a congressman skinny dipping on a trip to Israel and not the bigger far more important and embarrassing problem of Congress’ regular prostitution to the pro-Israel lobby.
The first issue involves nudity and politicians, the second only involves major implications for American foreign policy in a region where we have countless interests, thousands of troops and a history of flawed foreign policy. But hey, sex and scandals drive traffic and ratings so who cares about all that other stuff.

We did a lot of reporting on the American Israel Education Foundation, a branch of AIPAC, last year– showing that good liberal Jewish philanthropists who endowed halls at Princeton and Harvard, and ballets and art museums, were also doing their utmost to corrupt American politicians on Israel policy. They’ve succeeded. The fact that the press can look on a midnight swim as more important than the obeisance of the Congress to the Israel lobby– a “private factfinding tour,” in the narcotized words of the Washington Post— shows the degree to which the entire American establishment has been converted to the Zionist cause. When is the press going to look into these Congressional “birthright” trips and blow the real story out of the water? When are they going to look into birthright, for that matter? Plenty of skinnydipping there.

My correspondence with NYT’s Rudoren
Aug 21, 2012
Jerome Slater
This post appeared lately on Jerome Slater’s site.
In the last few days I have had an interesting email exchange with Jodi Rudoren of the New York Times, concerning in the first instance her August 17th profile of Dani Dayan, but more generally the larger issues concerning the responsibilities of serious journalism.  Rudoren is a clear improvement over Ethan Bronner as the Times’ chief Israeli correspondent, and she comes across as a serious and well-intentioned journalist–and one willing to engage with a blunt critic–but also one who has a long way to go in her understanding not only of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also of what serious journalism must include.
If you haven’t read Rudoren’s profile, here’s the link: link to www.nytimes.com
Rudoren has generously given me permission to publish our correspondence, so (with a few deletions dealing with minor or irrelevant matters) here it is.  I must also say that she is clearly a most courteous and admirable gentlewoman, responding to my no-holds-barred bluntness with great restraint.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the fact that she is wrong on the merits of our disagreement.
I’ll be glad to hear your reactions.
On August 18th, I wrote the following:
Dear Ms. Rudoren:
I am a retired 77 year old political science professor, still active in writing for both professional journals and the general reading public.  My father was one of the generation of Russian Jews who escaped the pogroms and grew up in the lower East Side of NYC in the early 20th century.   Growing up in New York in the 1940s-1950s I experienced plenty of anti-Semitism and was a passionate Zionist.  In 1970, after serving three years as an anti-submarine warfare officer on a U.S. destroyer, I volunteered my services to the Israeli Navy in the event of war with Egypt (which had recently acquired four Soviet subs).  In 1989 I was a Fulbright lecturer at Haifa University, and I have visited and lectured in Israel on many other occasions.
I trust these facts establish my Zionist credentials. However, for the last forty years I have specialized, both in my writing and teaching, in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and as a consequence I now regard Israel as a moral disaster–a betrayer of what we have long believed to be  Jewish rationalism, enlightenment, and commitment to the highest values of civilization.   It is a disgraceful state, and an increasingly ignorant and in many ways disgraceful society, a pariah state that fully deserves its pariah status.  Aside from its moral evil, it is also insanely self-destructive, and it will be something of a miracle if it survives.
I am no longer in a tiny minority in holding these views; they have become increasingly common among American Jewish intellectuals, and indeed among the best Israelis–people who you would be sure to (or already do) respect and admire.  And all of us are in deep despair of what Israel has already become and is well on the way–probably irreversibly–to becoming worse yet.
All this by way of background to my comment: your story of Dani Dayan today is simply shameful.  He represents nearly all that is not merely “wrong” or “self-destructive” about Israel, but what is evil.   It is entirely irrelevant if you find him to be pleasant, “worldly,” and “pragmatic,” nor whether he genuinely believes–or purports to believe–that he is serving the true interests or security of Israel.   It is also irrelevant that he might not be quite as evil as some of the people that he represents.
When evil, insanity, violence, thuggery, and self-destructiveness reach a certain level, it longer matters how “worldly” or “pragmatic,” or  personally seemingly genial and pleasant some of its leaders may  be, and any discussion of them that focuses on such trivialities is not merely irrelevant but dangerously misleading.   I’m sure you can think of some of the obvious examples.
Those of us–in the U.S. and in Israel–who had given up on the NY Times in general and Ethan Bronner in particular, and who had hoped for awhile that you might make a real difference, are already in shock at your apparent naivite.   I hope you will come to grips with the reality and with your own responsibilities as soon as possible.  Even Thomas Friedman is finally beginning to grasp the full realities; I hope it won’t take you as long.
Rudoren responded:
I chose to profile Dayan because I think he is both interesting and important, the main two criteria for journalistic relevance. The fact that you think he represents all that is evil in Israeli politics to me does not undercut the need for profiling him, it only enhances it; that view, I think, was represented in my piece by Yariv Oppenheimer, who spoke of the importance of “exposing” Dayan’s agenda from beneath his palatable exterior.
You may have seen that I also recently profiled Michael Sfard’, Israel’s leading left-leaning human rights lawyer. My choice of both men is not about ideology, obviously I can’t agree with both of their perspectives. I chose to write about each of them because I think they’re important figures in Israeli society, and because I think their personal stories, perspectives, etc, are intriguing (and somewhat surprising) for readers. I completely disagree that delving into newsmakers’ backgrounds and personalities is irrelevant or dangerous; I find such profiles to be among the most revelatory types of journalism, and I gravitate toward them as both a reader and a writer. I think it is absolutely critical to understand who these people are, what motivates them, how they live, who they hang out with, in order to make sense of their doings in the public sphere. One of the key pieces of advice I got when covering the 2004 presidential campaign was that revealing what kind of people the principles were would help people know what kind of president they would be, and I wrote many profiles of the candidates and the people around them that are among the most memorable work I have done.
It is of course painful to hear that you or anyone has “given up on The New York Times,” or that people think I am naive. As you know, I do not have particular background in the Middle East, but extensive experience in American journalism. I can assure you that I am devoting myself fully to, as you put it, coming to grips with the realities around me and with my responsibilities. I hope I will not continue to disappoint you, but my coverage will continue to include all ideological perspectives.
I responded:
I appreciate your taking the time and effort to explain your position.  I continue to vigorously disagree with it.  Your answer suggests that my critique implies that I have a different view of the function of journalism than you do, in particular that what I think is irrelevant or dangerous is “delving into newsmakers’ backgrounds and personalities.”  That is hardly the case, since that is obviously an important part of normal  journalism—such as covering a presidential campaign.   But much more importantly: the more serious the issues, the more important serious and informed substantive analysis becomes, as compared  with personal profiles of the contestants.
It is that kind of analysis that was precisely what was lacking your piece.   On the contrary, you painted an essentially positive picture of Dayan, regardless of what he represents or the consequences not merely of his views, but of his power.
Let’s test your argument with a different case.  Let’s say you had been assigned to cover South Africa in the apartheid era.  Would you wish to write a profile of, say, the head of the secret police that was torturing and murdering  ANC activists,  implying that he was really a pleasant, pragmatic family man with a nice home, with a view of Cape Town, which he saw himself as protecting?   Do you think that would be appropriate, or would have been counterbalanced if you had also profiled, say,  Mandela?
Undoubtedly you will protest that Israel today isn’t as bad as South Africa, but even if that is marginally the case, the differences become slimmer nearly day by day–including the secret police torturing and murdering Palestinians fighting in a just cause.  Do you think I am exaggerating?   And with a little thought you could come up with even more revealing cases that would undermine your argument.
I’m afraid your most revealing comment is that you think it should be “obvious” that you can’t agree either with Sfard–who represents what is best about Israel–nor Dayan, who represents the worse.  As you say, you have no particular background in the Middle East, and I do hope you learn quickly.   Like most other  liberal Jewish Zionists, including me before I became aware of the realities, you have a picture in your head of an “Israel” that never existed and is now so far removed from Herzl’s vision as to be a nightmare.
I imagine you will think that I am expressing mere “ideology,” and that would be a grave error.  The facts about Israel’s behavior towards the Palestinians are overwhelming, past and present, and you need to immerse yourself in them as soon as you can.  Even if you lack the time for serious historical reading, at the least you should read Haaretz with great care–Eldar, Levy, Hass, Sarid, Burston, Bar’el, Burg, the editorialists, etc, etc..  And you might ask them about what they–journalists all–thought of your Dayan piece.
Please bear in mind that we are dealing with matters of the highest gravity, and you occupy a position of enormous responsibility and potential consequences.   Nearly everyone–especially on the Israeli left–understands that there is no prospect of serious change in Israeli policies in the absence of serious U.S. pressures, and there is no prospect of such pressures in the absence of change in the views of the  American Jewish community.
The Times in general, and you in particular, have a major role to play in influencing those views.
Israel is heading straight to catastrophe of one kind or another.  I used to think–and write–that its policies were beyond comprehension, for even leaving aside the moral issues–which we Jews, of all people, cannot do–what do they think will be the outcome of the hatreds they provoke in a region replete with fanatics who sooner or later inevitably will acquire nuclear or other wmd?
What I did not anticipate was that the catastrophe could also take the form of the collapse of liberal democracy.   You don’t want to tell yourself sometime in the dark future that you were in a position to have done something about it, but failed.
Rudoren responded:
In terms of your South Africa analogy: I would absolutely want to profile the head of the secret police if I were covering apartheid. What that profile would look like would depend what kind of person he was. I do think your analogy gets problematic when you include the torture and murder. Settlements are of course extremely controversial, and many believe illegal, and many settlers do act abusively towards their Palestinian neighbors, and the Israeli occupation government does restrict their rights, but I don’t think it’s fair to suggest that my profile of Dayan is akin to describing a torturing murderer as pleasant. Also I never said he was pleasant. Yes, I described his home and his relationship with his daughter and brother. Yes, I described his strategic approach and his educational and professional background. But search again; I described these things and did not judge them.
My biggest concern in your note is your assumptions about me and my views. You seem to include me in a group called “liberal Jewish Zionists” and I don’t know why you do. I’m a journalist. Yes, I’m Jewish, both by birth and by choice in terms of how I live my life. But otherwise, I’m pretty category-free beyond being a professional observer. So please don’t make such assumptions.
As for Haaretz, I’m a subscriber and read it daily  I am not only reading the columnists you mention, but I have spoken with and met many of them and will continue to do so. Similarly with the leading writers at other Israeli newspapers. I have not asked any of them what they thought of the Dayan piece, as I don’t tend to go around asking colleagues what they think of my work, but for what it’s worth, I had coffee this afternoon with someone from Human Rights Watch — someone who certainly believes all West Bank settlements are illegal and worse —  and he (unsolicited) said he thought the profile was terrific. Which, I know, does not mean that all people who care about human rights violations, or whatever other buckets you might throw him into, would think that, too.
Look, you have a side in this conflict, you are passionate about it. Kol hakavod, your passion is impressive and your positions well articulated. But I do not have a side in it, I am interested in telling about all sides. What I am perhaps most interested in exploring is what lives between the sides. And I don’t think it’s fair to assume that my doing that means somehow I am not taking my responsibilities seriously enough. I am working hard and long, consulting widely and deeply, and absorbing everything as fast as I can.  The two profiles we’re discussing were two of dozens of stories I have filed since arriving.  A lot of them have been in the “serious and substantive” vein. Others have been lighter, more featurey. I believe strongly in a diverse, balanced, well-rounded report, and will continue to try to do major analyses as well as profiles, even if the news cycle grows more intense.
I’m certain that if you publish your parts of the exchange as well as mine, it will be clear to those who appreciate the role of mainstream journalism that the crux of our disagreement is that you are speaking from the position of advocacy and I from the point of observation.
My followup:  
You close by contrasting your “observation” with my “advocacy,” but you are mistaken on both grounds in suggesting that you are driven by the facts and I am driven by some kind of pre-factual or non-factual “advocacy.”  But it is quite clear that you are far from fully aware of the facts and their implications, and my “advocacy” is the outcome of forty years of reading and writing that has made the facts and their implications impossible to ignore.
And finally, Rudoren:
I did not mean to say, by defining yours as a position of advocacy and mine as one as observation, that I am the only one interested in facts. I have not read your work yet, but I have no reason to suspect that it is devoid of facts. Only that you are seeking to use facts and evidence to build an argument based on an advocacy position. That it is one derived from your observation of facts in my view makes it more respectable, but still in the realm of advocacy, which is not where I work.

After I sent the last email, I did have two more thoughts I wanted to add. One was regarding my Human Rights Watch reader. I should have explained what he said about why he liked the profile, which was that it told him things that he did not know about someone who he reads about/deals with all the time. That was very gratifying, because it is exactly the point.
Also, if you do decide to publish the correspondence, I hope one of the things your readers will take from it is that I am willing and eager to engage readers and critics. Ultimately I am here to serve readers, and I believe that engaging with them is part of the job.