Something Israel’s government can do

Israel’s new government was voted into existence on June 13 by the narrowest of margins – 60 votes in favour, 59 against, and one abstention.  Life is full of uncertainties.  Should a vote of confidence be called in the Knesset at any time in the next four years when just one government supporter has recently passed away, or just one happens to be confined to a hospital bed, the country faces the possibility of a government defeat and yet another general election.

Many opine that a government in so precarious a political position will be unable to take policy initiatives of any substance.  This may indeed be so, but there is one area where it could make a difference.

The government is a coalition formed from no less than eight of the twenty parties that won seats in the new parliament.  In one way this could be considered a wonderful example of the national interest trumping purely party concerns, but there is a downside. Not a single Israeli voter in the 2021 general election will see the policies they voted for put into effect.  This is because there is almost no connection between the votes cast by ordinary citizens in the polling station and the nature of the government that eventually emerges.  Their votes can simply help the party of their choice to be represented in the Knesset by some remote politicians of whom they know nothing.

In many democracies the party that receives the most votes forms the new government.  That is the case in the US and the UK.   Because of its system Israel is among those where elections are followed by weeks and often months of back-room haggling and bargaining.  During this process political parties usually water down, or sometimes abandon, key aspects of the political programmes they presented to the electorate.  The loser in this unsavoury process, which is often about the offer of Cabinet posts in exchange for support, is the voter.

          One major difference between Israel’s electoral system and that of most other Western democracies is the lack of any direct connection between the people who gain a seat in the Knesset and ordinary Israeli voters. US representatives and senators, for example, are voted into Congress by their home constituencies, and remain intimately connected to them. Britain’s method is virtually the complete opposite of Israel’s. Party lists are an unknown phenomenon. Members of parliament in the UK each have to compete for the votes of their own electorate.

The United Kingdom is divided into 650 constituencies, each of which elects one member of parliament.  The candidate in each constituency who wins the most votes is elected, regardless of how many votes are cast for other candidates.  This is known as “first past the post” (FPTP), a system also popular across the States, although other voting methods are also used locally. Like all electoral systems, it is far from perfect. In the UK, because proportional representation does not feature, its main disadvantage is its failure to match the national voting pattern with seats in parliament.  Its main advantage is that all voters have their own MP, to whom they can go for help regardless of political affiliation, while all MPs take a particular concern for welfare of their own constituencies.

“The urgent need for electoral reform of Israel's parliamentary system,” says the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, “is widely, if not universally, recognized.”  It goes on to point out that electoral reform can be enacted only by the Knesset, which is composed of parties and individuals whose political life may be threatened by that reform. “Political suicide,” remarks the JCPA, “has never been popular -- certainly not in Israel.”

Radical reforms have been suggested by committees and working parties over the years, but none has got past a first reading in the Knesset.  Certain small changes to the electoral system have indeed been carried out, together with one short-lived experiment in the direct election of the prime minister, but the current model has never been significantly altered.

If the domestic political turmoil of the past two years reveals anything, it is surely that Israel’s current electoral system is far from perfect.  This seems the ideal opportunity to put it under the microscope, with a view to considering what changes might be desirable and practicable.

How might such a scrutiny best be effected?  The JCPA’s own suggestion strikes a fiery note.  It asserts that the only way to bring about reform is by what it calls a “citizens’ revolt” – a major campaign aimed at gathering up to a million signatures on a petition demanding electoral reform, to be followed by a march to Jerusalem when the petition would be presented to the Knesset.  “This,” it concludes, “is the only way to effect a break-down of the present resistance to electoral reform on the part of the powers that be.”

In the UK, when really major issues require forensic examination and recommendations for government action, what is known as a Royal Commission is sometimes established.  When selecting the Chair and commission members, the greatest care is taken to ensure that only individuals of the highest integrity and with the greatest expertise are appointed.  The last such commission, in 2000, was concerned with reform of the House of Lords and culminated in a report containing 132 recommendations. 

Israel’s electoral system in its present state would seem to be a prime candidate for such a process – a dispassionate examination by constitutional experts, able to conduct a root and branch analysis, to compare it with other democratic systems, and to make recommendations for change.  It is especially fortunate that a mechanism akin to the UK’s Royal Commission is available.  In October 2000, at the beginning of the Second Intifada, the Israeli government set up the Or Commission – officially a "Commission of Inquiry into the Clashes Between Security Forces and Israeli Citizens in October 2000".

If the new unity government does nothing else during its time in power, it should surely take the first steps towards providing Israel with an electoral system better suited to its needs – an ideal initiative for new Justice Minister, Gideon Sa’ar, to take on board.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post on-line, 29 June 2021:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/something-israels-government-can-do-672294

Vengeance - a short story

This story is published in the edition of the Jerusalem Report dated 28 June 2021 

       

Young Eli was intrigued by the naval museum that was half a ship.  Ships and the sea were not things he had grown up with. My grandson was a child of the desert.

When I came to settle in Israel late in 1949, it was way down south in the Negev that I started a small business, taking my Hebrew name from the most important town in the area.  So it was as Avraham Ramon that I married a girl I'd known as a child in the old country.

When our grandson, Eli, reached his thirteenth birthday in 1988, I wanted to give him the biggest barmitzvah treat I could.  A week’s holiday in Haifa was something he’d never experienced – he’d never been so far north before in his life. 

It was on the second morning of our holiday that Eli and I came across the odd‑looking building with its rather unusual sign.

“What do those words mean, grandpa?” he said.

I spelled them out for him.

““Illegal Immigration and Naval Museum.”

“What’s illegal immigration?”

“It means coming into the country unlawfully.”

Eli knew what I was talking about.

“It’s all those stories you used to tell me, about when you were young.  Let’s go in, grandpa.” 

As we entered, the sun’s heat was transmuted into air-conditioned comfort, and the glare into a shadowy, greenish light.  Buying the tickets, I asked the man at the desk the name of the ship that had been integrated into the museum.

Grizzled, bearded, he looked at me intently. 

“The Af Al Pi Chen,” he said, “one of the vessels that used to bring illegal immigrants into the port of Haifa under the noses of the British.”

“Can I go and explore, grandpa?” said Eli.

“Yes, off you go.  I’ll never keep pace with you.  I’ll go round in my own time.”

He raced away and I turned to the man at the desk, his face half in shadow. 

“It seems like a very good place to bring children.”

“Oh, kids love scrambling about the ship,” he said. “For them it’s an adventure.  But the story we tell here – that’s a different matter.  That’s no fairy tale.”

“I know,” I said.

“I was in the middle of it all,” said the man. “First the Haganah in the '30s, and then again after the war. But by then I was searching for someone I wanted to find.  So I looked for a job where I could go on searching.  This was ideal.”

“Who are you searching for?”

“I'll tell you.  Have you time for a chat?”

“Why not?”

I took a seat.

“Where to begin?  After the war our people, the pitiful remnants who had survived Hitler's camps, were still in camps – refugee camps – and yearning to come here, the only possible haven.  We had to bring them in.  The Haganah bought, borrowed, chartered, whatever vessels we could, and we brought them across the sea – to within sight of the land.  And then we faced the British blockade.  So we had to smuggle them in – or try to.

   

  “In the autumn of 1947 I was appointed leader for one particular voyage. We were about to set sail when I received instructions by radio that a co‑leader from the Palmach had been assigned. 

“Now I was uneasy from the moment that man arrived on board – tall, thin, fair‑haired, blue‑eyed and clearly a native German speaker.  He looked like the archetypal Aryan.  I didn't beat about the bush.

" 'I don't trust you,' I said.  'Understood?’

“ ‘Couldn't be clearer,’ he said.  ‘So treat me as a refugee.  You’re in charge.  All right?’

  The man at the desk looked across at me. 

“But in the end I wasn't able to do without him.  We were just over the horizon from Haifa when the radio packed up.  That meant we couldn't contact the reception committee, back on the mainland, waiting to organise the run into shore and the disembarkation. So I just had to turn to the man from the Palmach.

“ ‘You'll have to row to shore,' I said, 'and contact the reception committee.  There's no other way.  You'll set out at five p.m.  At eleven we'll begin to edge towards the coast.  I expect to see the Haganah welcoming message by Morse lamp from the top of Mount Carmel during the night – in good time for us to get to the beach and disembark our passengers.   Is that all understood?'

“ ‘Aye, aye captain,’ he said.  ‘Just one thing.  I'm Palmach.  What’s the Haganah code?’

“I could scarcely believe my ears.

“ ‘Are you telling me you were sent as co‑leader on this trip without being told the coded reception message?’

" ‘Strange as it may seem.’

 "This confirmed my worst suspicions.

“ ‘Well, if they didn't trust you with it, neither will I.  They'll know it on shore.  All you have to do is to make contact.’

 “But he wasn’t prepared to take that. 

“ ‘Understand this – if I'm not given that message, I don't leave this ship.’

 “So I gave him what he wanted. ‘The coded message I expect to see is: Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.’

" ‘Right," he said. 'And that's what you will see.   That I promise you.’

 “And that's the message I did see.  About 2.30 a.m., when we were lying about 8 kilometers from the coast.  And a terrible dilemma it placed me in.”

For the first time since he’d begun his story, I interrupted him.

“But wasn’t that the message you’d asked to see – that you’d expected to see?”

He thumped the desk in front of him

“No, no, no!  I hadn't trusted Hans Utterman, not from the start – he could have been a spy infiltrated by the British.  The Haganah cypher was changed at irregular intervals, so I gave him the old one. It all seemed so simple. If Utterman was genuine, the reception committee would know the current code and use it.  If he was a spy he’d go straight to the British ‒ so if I saw the message I'd given him, the thing to do was to turn round as quickly as possible and head straight out for sea.”

“But good heavens!” I said.  “Didn’t you consider a third possibility?”

“Not till he’d gone. Only then I realised what a problem I’d given our friends on shore.  Suppose this Utterman was genuine and told the committee that I was expecting to see Vengeance is mine, says the Lord – that he’d promised me faithfully that this would be the message I'd see.  What would the committee do? – flash me the code I said I was expecting?  Or flash the one I ought to be expecting?”

“So you saw the wrong message,” I said.  “What did you do?”

The old man looked anguished.

“The wrong thing.  To my eternal shame. That message, shining out from the top of Mount Carmel over the calm sea – wrong though it was, it seemed like a beacon of hope. Surely our people were out there in the darkness, waiting for us. I convinced myself that Utterman had argued with the reception committee, insisted they flash the message I'd told him I expected to see.

“I gave the order to move forward.  We inched ahead, closer and closer.  Suddenly...lights, brilliant lights, flooding the ship from stem to stern. And that voice, that British voice I hear still in my dreams, my nightmares...  

“ ‘Stand to, the Miriam.  You will be boarded shortly.  My men have orders to fire if there is any resistance.  Keep calm and no‑one will be hurt.’

“We were interned, every last one of us, first on shore, then in Cyprus, for over a year.  For myself I didn't care.  But those people, so close, after so much suffering – only to have the cup dashed from their lips. It was heart‑breaking.  As soon as I got back, I set myself the job of tracking down that German spy.  Years passed, and I never saw or heard of him.  Then I took this job in the Illegal Immigration Museum. I felt that, if he was still alive, one day the museum would draw him.  For twenty years I've sat here, searching the faces – always in vain.  Until… “

“Until today,” I said.  “That's right isn't it, Uzzi?  You recognised Hans Utterman the minute he walked through that door.”

“Of course,” said Uzzi Tal.  “Age, weight, an accent – what are they?  The man is in the eyes.  At last.”

A second later a revolver was pointing directly at me.

“I'm sorry about your grandson, Herr Utterman.  He’s innocent.  But the time has come to pay for your betrayal.”

I made no move of any sort.

“Put your gun away, Uzzi.  Listen to what I have to say.”

“You think you can talk your way out of this?” he said.  "One of the great betrayals of the Jewish struggle?”

“But you've got it all wrong.  Do you want to hear the truth?  Can you bear it?”

Uzzi Tal kept his gun pointing straight at me.

“Tell me.”

“That night,” I said, “I got to shore about one o’clock.  I beached the boat¸ and walked across the sand – straight into the arms of a British patrol.  I was taken to British headquarters, and it was quite clear that they knew the Miriam was out there. She'd been tracked halfway across the Mediterranean. They'd also broken the Haganah code – or so I’d believed until just this moment.  Now I realise they didn't know it had been changed.

“They decided to make things easy for themselves by flashing out to the ship what they thought was the reception message.  The closer to shore the Miriam came, the more likely they could board her and intern the passengers without much trouble. 

“You, my dear Uzzi, made two classical errors: you under‑estimated the enemy, and you were too suspicious of your friends.  If only you'd given me the right code in the first place, the whole tragedy would never have happened.  You’d have turned round.  You could have got away.”

Tal lowered the revolver.  In the dim greenish light, I could see that his hand was shaking.

“How have you turned up after 40 years?  Why could I never find you?”

“I was shipped by the British straight back to Germany,” I said.  "I didn’t manage to return till ’49.  I got married, and settled down in the Negev. I took a Hebrew name – but Avraham Ramon or Hans Utterman, I'm quite innocent of the crimes you've been charging me with in your heart all these years.  If there is any guilt for the extra misery heaped upon those hapless refugees, where does it lie?  You tell me. 

“Uzzi, you’ve been nurturing vengeance in this place for twenty years.  Vengeance is a plant that thrives in the shadows.  Let in the light, and it will shrivel away. No, Uzzi, vengeance isn’t for us mortals.  Remember – “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord”."

“Vengeance is mine”
Deuteronomy 32:35

“Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord”
Romans 12:19

The US and NATO leave Afghanistan to its fate

This article appeared in the Jerusalem Post on 22 June 2021

Today Israel is home to more than 10,000 Jews of Afghan descent.  In Afghanistan itself there are no Jews at all – except one.  Zablon Simentov is convinced that he is the last Jew in the country.  Simentov lives in Kabul’s only synagogue, housed in an old building in the center of the Afghan capital.  He has survived a Soviet invasion, deadly civil war, brutal rule by the Taliban and the US-led occupation of his homeland. Over the decades all his relatives have left, including his wife and two daughters.   He has been imprisoned by the Taliban four times.  Still, he refused to leave.

Come the autumn, however, Simentov will almost certainly be making his way to Israel.  He has vowed that if the Taliban ever return to power he will leave Afghanistan – and this they are highly likely to do once US and NATO troops pull out.  US president Joe Biden has set the iconic date of 9/11 – September 11, 2021, exactly twenty years since the attack by al-Qaeda on the USA that triggered the American invasion – as the absolute deadline for the total withdrawal of US armed forces, although they may all have gone by the end of July.

          However neither Biden, nor NATO, nor any of the coalition nations, has put in place an effective military presence or a strong administration to follow their withdrawal. Meanwhile the Taliban are seizing the initiative by launching intensive attacks on government forces, and are threatening the capital, Kabul.

          Turkey, both a Muslim country and a member of NATO, is making the most of its equivocal position.  During the NATO conference on June 14, Turkey – which has been hosting talks with the Taliban and the Afghan government – undertook to safeguard the air link out of Kabul after US forces had left.  This was taken to mean that Turkey would prevent Hamid Karzai International Airport from falling into Taliban hands.  How much reliance can be placed on this undertaking is doubtful, but US officials are reported to have seized on it.

The Taliban, which emerged following a 10-year occupation of the country by the Soviet Union, swiftly became a formidable military machine. Towards the end of 1996 it captured the Afghan capital, Kabul.  By 1998, the Taliban were in control of almost 90 percent of Afghanistan.

Initial support from some of the population quickly faded as the fundamentalist group imposed hardline Islamist practices, such as amputations for those found guilty of theft, and public executions of adulterers. Television, music and cinema were banned, and girls aged 10 and over were forbidden to attend school.  Meanwhile, they continued to wage their two-handed war against the US presence in the country on the one hand, and the Afghan government on the other. That conflict continues.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who has twice served as Afghanistan’s prime minister, is reported as warning that what he terms the “irresponsible” American withdrawal is leaving behind a government unable to avoid a certain war, as the Taliban attempts to take back control of the country.  “It seems very improbable for the Afghan government and its military to be able to sustain this fighting.” he said.

   There is just a chance that Hekmatyar’s fears may prove premature.  Despite Biden’s announcement about the US military withdrawal, reports have appeared in the media suggesting that an internal debate in the Pentagon is under way over what level of Taliban resurgence would amount to a national security threat to the US, and therefore justify military action.  For example, if the Taliban tries to retake Kabul or another key capital in the wake of US forces withdrawing, airstrikes in support of the Afghan government, involving US aircraft or armed drones, may be justified.   Since there would be no US aircraft remaining in Afghanistan, any future attacks would have to be launched from bases elsewhere.  Biden, who would himself have to approve any such action, is likely to require a good deal of convincing.

Meanwhile the UK has decided to allow over 4000 Afghans who worked for the British military, mostly as interpreters, to settle in Britain together with their families.  Defence minister Ben Wallace explained that those being relocated were people who might otherwise "be at risk of reprisals" from the Taliban.  He said those who worked for the British had "sacrificed a lot to look after us, and now is the time to do the same".

Secretary of State Priti Patel said: "It's our moral obligation to recognize the risks they faced in the fight against terrorism and reward their efforts."

The US, who employed many more local Afghans, is working on a similar scheme to protect those who worked as translators for US forces and now fear for their lives once foreign troops leave Afghanistan.  On June 10 General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “The United States government will do what is necessary in order to ensure the safety and protection of those that have been working with us for two decades.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin gave the same message to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In disengaging from Afghanistan, the Western alliance is tacitly acknowledging that its involvement and its effort has failed.  It has tried for twenty years to ensure that a democratically elected Afghan government was backed by a well- trained professional military capable of maintaining the peace.  Yet the extreme Islamist Taliban are currently occupying a large area of the country and, heavily armed, seem poised to defeat the government and take control of the nation.  The 3,500 American lives and the $2.26 trillion expenditure seem an inordinately heavy price to have paid for so little gain.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online, 22 June 2021:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/the-us-and-nato-leave-afghanistan-to-its-fate-671651

Published in the Eurasia Review, 18 June 2021:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/18062021-the-us-leaves-afghanistan-to-its-fate-oped/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 18 June 2021:
https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/06/18/the-us-leaves-afghanistan-to-its-fate/

Britain’s Jewish community examines its record on race and discrimination

This article appears in the new edition of the Jerusalem Report, dated 21 June 2021

 

            On April 22, 2021, to acclaim from every sector of Britain’s Jewish community, the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD) published its report on “Racial Inclusivity in the Jewish Community”.  It was the result of a 10-month investigation that was, as the Board put it, “unparalleled in UK Jewish history” – an investigation into the experiences of Jews from ethnic minorities as well as Sephardi, Mizrahi and Yemenite Jews.  The report made no less than 119 recommendations, which seemed to imply that there was much wrong with the situation inside British Jewry.  Regardless of whether some or all of the recommendations are implemented, the mere fact of their publication has profound implications for UK’s Jewish community

            In launching its report, the Board explained that the death of George Floyd in the US in May 2020 at the hands of the police had acted as a wake-up call in many sectors of British life, as it had done all over the world.  Community leaders across the nation acknowledged that despite decades of positive action, racism and discrimination remained embedded in British society.  The BoD recognized that this was equally true of the Jewish community. Expressions of good intent in the media were not enough.  Positive action was needed.

“No community is immune from the scourge of prejudice,” the Board wrote, “and ours is no exception.” As society as a whole sought to express its solidarity with those in the States and beyond seeking to remedy racial discrimination, the BoD’s attention was drawn to “moving and concerning testimonies of black members of our own community about their experiences.”

And so it launched its Commission on Racial Inclusivity – an attempt to learn more about the experiences in the UK of black Jews, Jews of color and Sephardi, Mizrahi and Yemenite Jews.  It charged the Commission to examine the issues and recommend how Britain’s Jewish community could do better. As Chair, it appointed the prominent journalist Stephen Bush.

Stephen Kupakwesu Bush, born in 1990, is of mixed race which includes some Jewish heritage.  One of his grandfathers was “the last ‘proper’ Jew in the family,” Bush once explained.  He “married out” so, as Bush wrote, “none of his children, let alone his grandchild, were Jewish, although we have retained a token observation of the major festivals.” 

Bush, educated at a state comprehensive school in east London, won a place at Balliol College, Oxford University, where he studied history.  On graduating in 2011 he worked for the magazine Progress, before writing for the Daily Telegraph. He joined the prestigious left-wing weekly journal New Statesman in 2015, and was appointed political editor in 2018. 

During the years that Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the Labour party, Bush came to realize and condemn the failings of the party in general, and Corbyn in particular, in dealing with the problem of overt antisemitism.  In October 2020 he wrote about the “number of times when, through a combination of action or inaction [Corbyn] revealed himself to be beyond the pale”.

At the launch Bush said: “I hope my report will enhance communal life for black Jews, Jews of color and Sephardi, Mizrahi and Yemenite Jews.  Many of these recommendations, I believe, have a far wider applicability… A proactive attitude to inclusion will draw in many people of all backgrounds who have felt marginalized, left out or turned off from Jewish life… Giving as many people as possible a sense of belonging and a full ability to participate will nourish, strengthen and enrich the Jewish community further, for the benefit of all its members.”

                                                             Stephen Bush

Almost all the witnesses who gave evidence to the Commission expressed a strong connection with Israel, but some felt betrayed by a lack of communal support.

“My family would not be alive today if it were not for the State of Israel,” one said. “I feel let down when my rabbi welcomes an anti-Israel MP to my synagogue.”

“When I am in Israel,” said another, “I see plenty of Jews like me. But the Israel I know is never represented here in the United Kingdom... Israel is one of the most multi-racial and tolerant democracies in the world, and more should be made of this by the BoD.”

Sephardi, Mizrahi and Yemenite Jews complained about the assumption in the community that the British Jewish experience is solely an Ashkenazi one. As one witness put it: “The Sephardi/Mizrahi story is left out of Jewish education in the UK. It’s very Ashkenazicentric.”

Another testified: “I went to Jewish school in my entire life, and I don’t think I ever learned about my history, my story, my father, his story, or any similar stories. It…went from the pogroms to the Holocaust, to the foundation of the State of Israel.”  The 3000 year history of Jewish communities who never left the Middle East was simply ignored.

Some called for better, more open, more critical Israel advocacy to reflect their concerns.

“The community’s Israel advocacy is something I find very difficult,” said one. “As somebody who has a dual identity, I feel very Jewish and I feel very black. I’m Eritrean. I have Eritrean family in Israel who are treated abominably…it is a very difficult thing to deal with when there is Israel advocacy which is presented in a non-critical, no-criticism way.”

Another complained of the experience of travelling to Israel.  “Getting in and out as a Jew of color is terrible and can be traumatizing. In Israel I have no issues, but [on arrival] I am… viewed with a great deal of suspicion. There needs to be advocacy about this on our behalf by British Jewish leadership.”

Other witness statements highlighted what the Report terms “stigmatisation of minorities-within-the-minority.”  As one Mizrahi witness reflected, as youngsters the only time they saw people who looked like them were in depictions of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Moses was always European or Ashkenazi; Pharoah distinctly Middle Eastern.  On the other hand several praised Simon Schama’s TV series and accompanying book “The Story of the Jews” for providing a comprehensive description of the diaspora’s history and diversity.

Unhappy experiences at school featured in the evidence: “I was at one of the top Jewish schools in the UK, and there were only a handful of us who were black in our year. I had a huge racist experience with teachers and students. And my first experience of being called the ‘N word’ was at my school.”

The 119 recommendations in the Report attempt to cover these and a multitude of other issues raised by the witnesses who provided testimony to the Commission.  For example the Commission proposes that representative bodies and organizations involved in rabbinic training should encourage members of under-represented ethnic groups to put themselves forward for communal roles. 

It recommends that Jewish schools should ensure that their secular curriculum engages with black history, enslavement and the legacy of colonialism, and review their curriculum through a process led by students, particularly those who define as black or of color.

Jewish studies departments should ensure that their teaching celebrates and engages with the racial and cultural diversity of the Jewish community worldwide, including the Mizrahi, Sephardi and Yemenite tradition.

Schools and youth movements should improve training for teachers and youth leaders on tackling racist incidents. Communal bodies and Jewish schools should establish regular listening exercises that seek the concerns of their members or students, and should ensure that complaints processes are accessible, transparent, fair and robust.

A code of conduct should be developed for discourse on social media, making clear that attempts to delegitimize converts, calling people names such as ‘Kapo’, or using Yiddish terms such as ‘Shvartzer’ in a racist way, are completely unacceptable.

One recommendation with profound implications for all Jewish communities was that Batei Din should improve their conversion processes, including a clearer process for complaints.

The report was acclaimed by every sector of British Jewish life from the Chief Rabbi to the Movement for Reform Judaism.  The Israeli NGO Tzedek, one of the fifty-plus organizations that are amalgamated under the aegis of Olam, wrote: “We particularly welcome the recommendation that international development should be an advocacy priority for our community, and we look forward to playing our leading role in making this happen.”

Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, senior rabbi of Masorti Judaism wrote: “One of the great beauties of the Jewish people is that we have lived in all parts of the world and absorbed the elements of culture and perspective from our international experiences. We are a repository of humanity’s diversity, and we must embrace that about ourselves.”

The Commission’s findings and recommendations have a relevance that extends far beyond the shores of the UK. 

Published in the Jerusalem Report on-line:
https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/britains-jewish-community-examines-its-record-on-race-and-discrimination-670629

A two-state solution the UN rejects

 This article appeared in the Jerusalem Post on-line on 8 June 2021

The UN’s enthusiastic support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian dispute is well attested, but there is a certain two-state solution that the UN resolutely refuses to endorse.  Cyprus has been split apart politically ever since 1974, when Turkey invaded from the north, seized nearly 40 percent of the land, and set up a self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.  Its legitimacy has never been accepted by the UN, nor any international organization or country other than Turkey itself, nor has its demand that Cyprus be split into two states.

Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus and its illegal annexation of territory has a direct parallel with the unhappy history of the West Bank and East Jerusalem – indeed, Turkey’s action might have been based on it.  In 1948 Jordanian forces attacked the newly-born Jewish state and seized the West Bank and East Jerusalem.  In 1950 Jordan annexed them – a move not recognized by the UN or the Arab League, nor by any countries except the UK and Pakistan.  When in 1967 Israel succeeded in regaining control of them, it would have been logical for the UN to applaud Israel for liberating illegally acquired territories.  They did not seem to see it that way.

As for Cyprus, when the EU decided in 1996 to admit the whole of the country, with or without a resolution of its enforced partition, Turkey tried for a while to demand a two-state solution. When that failed, it finally agreed to participate in UN-sponsored talks focused on reuniting the people of Cyprus into a single, if bicommunal, nation.  This idea was the basis of a plan proposed in 2004 by then UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan.  Put to the people of Cyprus in a referendum, though, it signally failed to gain the support of Greek Cypriots since it would have involved a tacit recognition of Turkish aggression.  Some two-thirds of Greek voters rejected the plan.  The same percentage of Turkish voters supported it.

Cyprus is an issue that the UN cannot leave alone.  Another international attempt to resolve the partition dilemma was made toward the end of April 2021. At the initiative of UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, the two principals and the three guarantor powers – Britain, Turkey and Greece – met in Geneva with reunification very much in mind.  Ersin Tatar, recently elected president of Turkish Cyprus, pretty much doomed this round of talks from the start.

“We are negotiating for a two-state solution," he announced, as the talks began.  But a two-state deal would have to involve recognizing the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus – something the UN and the Greek Cypriots had resolutely refused to do for nearly 50 years.

So the talks ended in failure.  In his closing statement Guterres said: “"Unfortunately today we are not able to reach the agreements that we would wish to reach.  But we are not going to give up."  The United Nations, he said, would make a fresh attempt in "probably two or three months".

“Cypriotism” is a vibrant aspect of Cypriot political life. It envisions a freestanding Cypriot nation independent of the motherlands Greece and Turkey.   The idea of reunifying the divided country is expressed in the slogan: “Cyprus is neither Greek nor Turkish; it belongs to the Cypriots.”  That concept is increasingly popular among the young, and especially so in the Turkish north.  Many resent the overwhelming influence that Turkey exercises over their lives.  They see it as a threat to their unique secular culture. 

Over the years Turkish Cypriots have blown hot and cold over reunification.  On two occasions attempts to achieve it were actually promoted by Turkish leaders: by Mehmet Ali Talat, elected northern president in 2005, and by Mustafa Akinci elected in 2015. Although both efforts came to nothing, in 2016 success seemed only a hand’s breadth away.

Akincı’s counterpart, Nicolis Anastasiades, president of the Cyprus Republic, was the only Greek Cypriot leader who supported the Annan Plan. He, like Akinci, was born in the southern city of Limassol.  “Mr Anastasiades and I are of the same generation,” said Akinci after his election. “If we can’t solve this now, then the next generations, who lack memories of living together with the other community, could be tempted to explore other options and permanent divorce could be on the table.”

 Akıncı and Anastasiades immediately started intercommunal talks under UN patronage, building upon their close personal relationship. The talks progressed rapidly, and Cypriots saw the two leaders having coffee either side of the buffer zone that separates the two communities. They appeared on TV together to send a holiday message in Turkish and Greek.

In June 2016, Akıncı said negotiations leading to reunification were almost completed and might be finalized at the next meeting. He was too optimistic. Time had run out.  New elections were looming, and Anastasiades had to pull back from his identification with his Turkish counterpart.  This became clear during a summit on Cypriot reunification held in Switzerland that July under the patronage of the UN and the EU.  The talks collapsed, and were never resumed.  The pendulum had swung. 

In October 2020 Turkish Cypriots elected as president Ersin Tatar, whose campaign message had been that the concept of a unified Cyprus in the shape of a bicommunal federation had had its day. Instead, said Tatar, two states was the solution; Cyprus should be permanently partitioned.

His position accords with the geopolitical aspirations of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The discovery in 2010 of the Leviathan gas field off Israel, and of Cyprus’s gas field in 2015, has fostered an agreement between Israel, Greece and Cyprus to build a 1,900-km pipeline distributing natural gas to Europe, bypassing Turkey.  Erdogan wants to develop a Trans-Anatolian pipeline to deliver natural gas from Azerbaijan to Europe. However, Azerbaijani gas reserves are not sufficient – which explains Erdogan’s claims on those of Cyprus, a position only sustainable if Turkey retains control of its self-declared republic.

In the face of Erdogan’s ambitions, Guterres’s continued efforts to achieve the reunification of Cyprus seem unlikely to succeed.

Published in the Jerusalem Post on-line, 8 June 2021:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/a-two-state-solution-the-un-rejects-opinion-670312

Published in the Eurasia Review, 28 May 2021:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/28052021-a-two-state-solution-the-un-rejects-oped/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 28 May 2021:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/05/28/a-two-state-solution-the-un-rejects/

Published in the MPC Journal as "Cyprus - the two-state solution the UN rejects", 22 July 2021:

https://mpc-journal.org/cyprus-the-two-state-solution-the-un-rejects/

The Palestinian dilemma – how much can Egyptian mediation achieve?

 

High-level talks involving Israel, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Egypt are in full swing. Sponsored by Egypt, the aim is to secure an effective truce between Hamas and Israel, putting a formal end to the Gaza conflict. 

It is seven years since the last serious attempt to reach an accord on the perennial Israel-Palestinian issue – the peace talks sponsored by US President Barack Obama, which fizzled out in April 2014.   Oddly enough they failed because PA President Mahmoud Abbas thought he had secured a deal with Hamas – an “historic reconciliation” he called it – together with an agreement to form a unified Palestinian government.  As Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said at the time, Abbas could "have peace with Israel or a pact with Hamas - he can't have both."

Of course no joint Fatah-Hamas government ever emerged.  Numerous attempts over the years to effect a reconciliation have failed, just like the current effort to hold legislative and presidential elections. The divide at the heart of the Palestinian body politic seems irreconcilable.

About 5 million Palestinians live in the Holy Land.  Of these some 3 million occupy the West Bank, most of whom are under the civil administration of the PA.  About 2 million in the Gaza Strip fell under the control of Hamas back in 2007, when it seized the territory, killed or expelled all Fatah officials, and set up its own administration.

That occupation is not recognized as legitimate by much of the civilized world, and certainly not by the EU, the US or the UK.  The PA, which was formed in 1993 as part of the Oslo Accords, was established to administer agreed Palestinian-occupied areas in the West Bank and also Gaza.  This was meant to be an interim step in the journey towards a final settlement of the Israel-Palestinian dispute – a journey that stalled early on and, despite many false starts, remains gridlocked.

Following persistent and effective lobbying by the PA, recognition has been granted by the UN General Assembly, other UN organs, and much of world opinion, to a State of Palestine on the West Bank and East Jerusalem, without any precise specification of what its borders are or, crucially, whether it includes Hamas-occupied Gaza.  The same entities consistently advocate the two-state solution as the desirable outcome of the Israel-Palestinian dispute. 

This strategy is anathema to Hamas and its leaders.  Seeking a sovereign Palestine confined to the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, is to acknowledge that the State of Israel exists legitimately outside those territories.  The same logic applies to the two-state solution.  If Fatah’s own charter, schoolbooks and propaganda are to be believed, two states are not the long-term intention of the PA, merely a holding position (“Long live Palestine, free and Arab” proclaims the charter).

                    “Stay at home so we can protect the homeland”
                         [Official Fatah Facebook page, April 5, 2020]

          All the same, Hamas will have none of it.  They did not support Abbas’s efforts to gain recognition for a State of Palestine, nor do they accept the concept of a two-state solution.  Their whole raison d’être is to eliminate Israel and to occupy the former Mandate Palestine “from the river to the sea”.

It seems clear that before any resolution of the Israel-Palestinian dispute is possible, the gulf that divides the Palestinian body politic must be bridged, at least in part.  The Biden administration has made its position clear.  It does not recognize Hamas, nor its occupation of Gaza.  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has just completed a tour of the Middle East.  Briefing reporters before he left the States, a State Department official said that the administration sought to structure the delivery of aid to Gaza in a way that “begins a process of hopefully reintroducing and reintegrating the Palestinian Authority into Gaza.”

Hamas leaders were in no doubt that this approach was intended to by-pass them and weaken their grip, and they have no intention of allowing the Fatah-dominated PA a way back in.  Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas’s political wing, accused the US of seeking to widen the divide between Hamas and the PA.  This is not Abbas’s view.  He is reported to have told Egypt’s security chief, Abbas Kamel, on May 30 that any reconstruction plan for Gaza must be carried out in coordination with the PA.

An extended truce between Hamas and Israel is perhaps achievable, but to reach a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, Hamas will need to be out-maneuvered and politically neutered.  The basis for any accord would almost certainly be the Three Principles set out in 2006 by the Middle East Quartet (the UN, the EU, the US and Russia) – principles endorsed by the UN Security Council in its Resolution 1850 and which Hamas would be unable to sign up to.

They are that a Palestinian state must

·         recognize the state of Israel without prejudging what various grievances or claims are appropriate,

·         abide by previous diplomatic agreements, and

·         renounce violence as a means of achieving goals.

Hamas has its own game to play.  It does not seek peace or reconciliation.  It seeks to establish itself as the popular alternative to the PA as the champion of the Palestinian people.  It has no desire for a two-state solution – or, indeed, any solution – to the long-running dispute.  It seeks victory and the destruction of the state of Israel.  If Hamas cannot be defeated in conflict, because of the unacceptable level of consequent civilian deaths and casualties, then it must be weakened, diminished and undermined by political and diplomatic means until the PA can reasonably claim to be negotiating on behalf of the Palestinian people as a whole. 

An Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas is the immediate goal, but a longer-term strategy aimed at spiking Hamas’s guns permanently and resolving the Israel-Palestinian issue needs to be devised and set in motion as a matter of urgency.  It should be high on the new Israeli government’s agenda.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 13 June 2021:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/hamas-israel-talks-how-much-can-egyptian-mediation-achieve-670827

Published in the Eurasia Review, 4 June 2021:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/04062021-the-palestinian-dilemma-how-much-can-egyptian-mediation-achieve-oped/

Published in the Jewish Business News, 4 June 2021:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2021/06/04/the-palestinian-dilemma-how-much-can-egyptian-mediation-achieve/