A few months back, as I prepared to come to Israel with my family for 3 months, the interim Winograd Commission report came out. As you may recall, the report identified a range of apparent failures during the conduct of the war with Lebanon in the summer of 2006.
The final report is due out in a couple of months, but even the interim report managed to generate a lot of attention and discussion inside Israel. Even without a final report, people demanded the Prime Minister step down; indeed, over 100,000 demonstrated in Tel Aviv calling for his ouster. His approval ratings plummeted into the single digits. Although Olmert has managed to remain in office, the reactions to Winograd were the final blow suffered by former Defense Minister Amir Peretz that led to his defeat to Ehud Barak (and Ami Ayalon, who also beat him out in the first round) in the recent Labor Party primaries.
All of this attention resulted from the report’s initial findings that there were numerous mistakes made in the decision to go to war at all, in the carrying out of the war, and in the overall preparation and state of the Israel Defense Forces.
Now, to top it off, the Winograd Commission has indicated it will investigate whether or not war crimes were committed by Israel during the war. That is, those on the Commission have actually looked at the reports of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and others about the use of cluster munitions against civilians and have decided they need to investigate. An internal investigation that admits its possible war crimes were committed (with American-made weaponry, of course).
Who know what they will find? Frankly, it’s near to impossible to imagine the Commission finding that war crimes occurred. The impact and implications would be innumerable. Especially in light of the potential investigation (depending on how the State of Israel responds to the High Court’s recent ruling asking for their opinion on a commission) into the July 2002 targeted killing of Salah Shehadeh in Gaza with a one-ton bomb that left 14 innocent civilians dead.
As Ha’aretz reported, the move to investigate came from both the parents of soldiers and human rights groups:
Gal-On wrote to the Winograd panel several weeks ago to urge such an inquiry. She said she made the request after soldiers’ parents - who had earlier approached Winograd independently - asked her to push for an investigation into whether there was ethical misconduct during the war.
Gal-On said that grave allegations made by human rights organizations, who accused the IDF of committing war crimes and harming Lebanese civilians, strengthened her conviction that these claims must be probed.
But what Winograd ultimately finds on the war crime question doesn’t really matter to me. What matters is that they are looking at it all and actually facing the question of “could we have committed war crimes?” Admitting that such things are even theoretically possible.
Now, I will leave it to others to comment on the implications for the kind of investigations and introspection currently underway (or not) in the United States vis-à-vis Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
What I am concerned about is the absolute silence from those incredibly loud and vocal supporters of Israel’s decision to go to war and to forego cease fire talks in the first weeks.
The whole point of Winograd is to insure, if such insurance is possible, that the mistakes made last summer don’t happen again. But the mistakes they are concerned about are primarily tactical and logistical, as well they should be. As recently reported, the IDF is facing problems of morale and reputation and retention and professionalism of a kind never before seen in its history.
And this is indeed a huge problem. For those who love and believe in the State of Israel, the army is a necessity. Repairing its ability not only to perform in battle, but also to have the people believe it can and will perform to the levels previously expected, is a must. Of course, we may also work to insure that it does so with even higher standards for its rules of engagement and overall conduct, but it is clear that the IDF must be healed. Thus I believe Winograd, regardless of its findings on war crimes, will be an important piece of the puzzle of progress here.
What I fear is the lack of progress in the U.S., whether in the government or in the mainstream Jewish community. And for that, Judge Winograd, you have to come home with me. Because we need your help.
Last year, as you will recall, the rush to support Israel’s decisions, and to fend off all criticism and questioning as near blasphemy, by the Administration, in Congress, and most of all within the mainstream of the American Jewish community could not have been quicker.
In a piece I have quoted before, the Forward quoted leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and Jewish Committee for Public Affairs at the end of July as saying there was “absolute unanimity” and “zero dissent” in the Jewish community that Israel was doing the right thing and should not pursue a cease fire until it was ready. We told our students that Israel was justified in all it was doing, and that they needed to get out there on campus and convince everyone they could that this was the case.
In Congress, “pro-Israel” leaders like Rep. Brad Sherman of California (a Democrat and former member of the House Human Rights Subcommittee, no less) not only backed Israel (and voted almost unanimously), they called for Israel to do more. Inflict – and suffer — more violence and death. As Rep. Sherman wrote in the Jewish Journal in late July of 2006:
Congress rightly has condemned Hezbollah for “engaging in unprovoked and reprehensible armed attacks against Israel on undisputed Israeli territory.” The House passed a resolution by a vote of 410 to 8 supporting “Israel’s right to defend itself, including the right to conduct operations in Israel and in the territory of nations which pose a threat to it.”
…There are some who say the Israeli reaction has been “disproportionate.” It cannot be overstated that the recent outbreak of warfare was not simply a reaction to one event. The truth is that there have been five kidnapping raids and hundreds of missiles fired during six years of attacks. If anyone is going to say that Israel’s reaction is disproportionate, let them say that Israel is doing too little.
That’s right. Using cluster munitions and leveling so much of Beirut and southern Lebanon, while Hizballah continued to target innocent Israelis and inflict casualties on its forces, was “doing too little.”
After the war, when Human Rights Watch released its report on use of cluster munitions, the rush to condemnation in the mainstream was again quick. As he often is, first out of the gate to cry “anti Israel!” was Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League.
Once again, Human Rights Watch has reached a skewed conclusion in its review of Israel’s actions in an armed conflict with its neighbors. In an irrational rush to judgment, Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of indiscriminately attacking Lebanese civilians.
The report looks at Israel’s military activity in a vacuum, ignoring the threats to Israel’s security and existence, ignoring the intentions and growing capabilities of its enemies, and ignoring the cynical actions of those who seek to hurt Israel and its citizens on the ground, or to make Israel look bad in the eyes of the world.
Israel, like any country, has a right to defend itself, and does so with every effort to prevent civilian casualties that, while tragic, are unavoidable during war. It is especially difficult to minimize the harm to civilians against an enemy who purposely operates from within the midst of a civilian population in callous disregard of the consequences to those civilians.
What say you now, Mr. Foxman? Will you condemn the Winograd commission for giving validity to these reports? For listening to the Israeli parents of Israeli soldiers, who wonder whether ethical lines were crossed? Will you present “absolute unanimity” in supporting Winograd’s efforts to understand what went wrong in this war you so loudly applauded? Or, instead, should there be “zero dissent” from the notion that Israel could ever do such things?
What about you, Mr. Sherman? Will you write another article in the Jewish Journal, or give a statement on the floor of the House, and ask yourself whether you were wrong? Will you question your urge and those of your colleagues to rush to the podia of Congress and rallies around town to say you “stand with” Israel, whatever you think that may mean? What does it mean? And how does blind support for a war, and refusal to consider its end, meet your definition?
Most importantly, will you consider apologizing to the parents of those Israeli soldiers who now have to ask whether their children engaged in war crimes? Will you apologize to the families of those Israeli soldiers who were killed or injured as a result of your insistence that Israel fight on? To the families of the innocent civilians killed in Israel and Lebanon? To the people of Lebanon as a whole?
Or do you still think Israel did “too little” last summer?
In the end, as far as I can tell, there has been silence from the mainstream Jewish community about Winograd’s meaning for our own relationship to and support of Israel. This report from the American Jewish Committee summed up well the many aspects of the interim report but left out any discussion of AJC’s own vocal support of Israel’s conduct.
Don’t get me wrong. The American Jewish community and American government needed to be there last summer to help the people of Israel through its crisis. One of the main things, however, that we needed to do was to look at the reality, from the luxury of distance and safety that we enjoy. To see the real problems with the war, to focus on the impact on the Lebanese population as well, and to push for a swift and meaningful resolution for all sides.
Instead, we sat on the sidelines and cheered. And held rallies and raised money. And now that those rallies have been shown – by an official Israeli commission – to have been in support of a questionable war, a war that did not achieve its stated ends, where is our introspection? Where is our search for a way to respond to such crises in the future? Where is our insurance that we truly support the people of Israel, to help them find as true a peace as possible, rather than simply backing any and all of its decisions, wise or not?
My 5th summer here has, as they always do, taught me a lot about Israel. Like with any place, I have seen and experienced plenty of good and bad. And when you’re an outsider, it’s often all too easy to focus on the bad parts (as it helps you avoid your own failings). But among the best parts of Israel is its willingness to consider (to a degree, anyway) its flaws. As I was reminded in a comment to a previous post on dailykos, some people choose to live here, rather than be outside preachers like those of us who float in and out for a few months at a time.
And those who live here are aware they are not perfect. Along with that is the notion that they need help from friends and family.
The question is what that help should be. Sadly, I don’t think we Americans, particularly mainstream American Jews, are capable of understanding that right now. We understand only “absolute unanimity” and “zero dissent.”
That is not help. That is not support. That is, in the end, a recipe for more pain and suffering. And, as the polls show, it’s a perfect way to create more distance between American Jews and the mainstream Jewish community.
And so, Judge Winograd, when your work is done here, please come to my home. To America. To Washington. And help us look at ourselves.
Otherwise, I fear you may correct your country’s mistakes but we will not correct ours.
You have a good blog here, sir, however: have not Americans done a great deal of introspection? What about all the soul searching after Vietnam? Or having a left that burns it’s own flag, throws garbage uon returning soldiers of it’s own army, and in general seems to hate it’s own people with great glee?
At the risk of being provocative, it would seem that Americans have done a great deal more self-examination than Israelis have
It is curious that the mainstream American Jewish organizations — and most “mainstream-thinking” American Jews in general, are so massively defensive about Israel that they not only cannot be critical themselves, but see anyone else’s criticism as “Israel bashing” and/or anti-Semitism. As you know, I posted a blog here about my RSVP to my invitation to an Israel Bonds dinner, an invitation in which I was also asked to contribute because “whether I fully agreed with everything that the Israeli government did or not, I should support Israel.” I have just heard — second hand — that my letter did raise a bit of a flap, and was interpreted by those who read it as being very anti-Israel. This, in spite of the fact that I thought I made it clear in the letter that I care deeply about Israel, support its right to exist, and support the many organizations in Israel which are looking for a just and peaceful solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict. The letter was read through the filter that it seems all critical examination of Israeli policies is perceived by the mainstream American Jewish community: one must either support Israel fully in all things, right or wrong, or one is an anti-Zionist hater of Israel. It is ultimately not helpful to Israel to have such uncritical, unthinking supporters — particularly since these supporters have — and raise — lots and lots of money for Israel, as well as for powerful politicians who affect our government’s Middle East policy. I couldn’t agree more with you, Brad — we need a Winograd here!
Steffi, thanks for updating about your incredibly powerful letter from a couple months back.
Needless to say, I share your frustration. More than ever, I think, the gulf between perception and reality is a critical issue. And so few Israelis or Americans, particularly American Jews, are aware of (let alone understand) the reality facing the Palestinians, that perceptions dominate. And the overriding perception is that, although Israel always remains subject to existential threats, it is carrying out policies that make it safe and ensure the security of the Jewish homeland.
Rarely in the recent past have Israelis (and many have confirmed this for me) felt so “secure” vis-a-vis the Palestinians (Iran, Syria, Hizballah, et al are another story). And that is where they would like to stop — at the point of feeling secure. Considering what lies behind that perception is someone else’s problem.
Your letter asks everyone to look behind the perception of security and possibly decide to undo some of it. And to undo it for the sake of other people. I am not at all surprised that causes backlash.
As I mentioned in an earlier post from here (”One Occupation at a Time”), I think discussing the overall conflict may not be the right tack at the moment. It’s too big, and people don’t see the need.
So I am beginning to think taht we who believe in ending occupation may need to turn American Jews back to the issue of understanding Israel itself. And starting from the notion that Israel is not perfect vis-a-vis other Jews. That the government is fallible and can make bad decisions that, ultimately, hurt other Jews. Or Jewish identity.
One such issue that I plan to also write about more is the poor and homeless in Israel, and the continued focus on development and the booming economy, to the detriment of approximately 53,000 Jewish families.
At present, there is a tent protest in the center of Jerusalem (in the garden next to the old Knesset and across from Ha-Mashbir, for those who know the city) consisting now of about 25 families who are braving the heat to protest the Housing Ministry, and the decisions of the state as a whole, to forego construction of public housing and leave them out in the cold (or heat, as it were, right now). I will paste in a very long article from the Jerusalem Post so that people can read up on the issue.
Last week, I had a chance to visit the protest camp and meet Ayala Sabag, quoted in the article. And while sitting there, I realized this may be the way into the Jewish community for occupation discussions. Perhaps we must begin with the notion of Israel’s actions toward its own people before getting to the Palestinians. Perhaps we should be working to help these people, these victims of one aspect of the real Israel, as a means of ultimately getting American Jews to engage at a real level with the real Israel.
And once they engage and learn more, and become active, not just to raise more money and talk about — and even visit –a mythical place, perhaps then your letter will have its intended audience. Until then, I fear fewer and fewer care to think beyond their perceptions.
Here is the J’em Post article on the homeless protest:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1185379005565&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer
J’lem homeless protest missing NIS 1.6b. in housing funds
How many apartments could have been bought with a state fund of NIS 1.6 billion that had been earmarked for public housing, but which Knesset sources said has been redirected elsewhere?
“Even our engineers couldn’t tell you,” said Arik Eldar, deputy director-general of Amigur, the Jewish Agency’s housing subsidiary. “It’s been 30 years since Amigur built new public housing.”
More than 100 homeless people encamped in downtown Jerusalem’s Gan Menorah will tell you their situation is the fruit of that decision.
“We demand that all this money go immediately to building houses for the people who need homes,” said Yossi Levi, 35, who lives in the encampment with his wife and three children. “The government’s policies have raised a generation of poor people. We just want to live in dignity.”
The encampment’s 133 residents, all Sephardim, have spent the past seven weeks living in the ad hoc shelter-cum-demonstration, in the park opposite the Hamashbir department store, where King George Street and Rehov Ben-Yehuda meet. Above the cluster of 22 tents, a banner reads: “Tent of the Victims of Economic and Social Terror.”
Construction and Housing Ministry officials highlight rent subsidies as the context for the shift away from building and purchasing new public apartments.
The latter is just one kind of “housing solution,” and compared with rent subsidies, it is “perhaps the most expensive and the least suitable,” said Chaim Fialkoff, the ministry’s acting director-general.
In some cases, however, these subsidies are insufficient, “of course,” one ministry representative said.
The homeless demonstrators, many of whom attempt to support families on a combination of wages and such subsidies, have protested this policy as well.
Under the Public Housing Law of 1998, residents of such housing can purchase their apartments at a discount. Money from these sales is then set aside so that more public housing can be purchased or built, said MK Ran Cohen (Meretz), a cosponsor of the law.
From 2000-2007, the Construction and Housing Ministry accrued NIS 1.6b. in such funds, a ministry representative said.
Ultimately, “not one shekel was used for [buying] a new [public] apartment,” Cohen said.
From the NIS 1.6b. fund, the ministry paid NIS 800 million to the Jewish Agency, per an agreement between the two parties, the ministry representative added.
This agreement was made in 1999, Fialkoff said.
During this time, the policy Cohen had originally envisioned was beginning to change.
“Bibi [then-prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu] succeeded in interfering with the implementation of my law,” Cohen said.
As part of that government’s efforts at privatization, the state asked Amigur to sell off as many as possible of the public apartments it managed, with any unsold apartments moving to government management, Jewish Agency spokesman Michael Jankelowitz said.
Many of these apartments had been purchased early in Israel’s history with Diaspora Jews’ donations that the Jewish Agency had collected, Jankelowitz said.
Ultimately, the government and the Jewish Agency struck a deal whereby the Agency and Amigur would sell as many of their apartments as they could, and the government would pay the Jewish Agency for unsold apartments, Jankelowitz said.
These payments amounted to $40,000 per apartment, Fialkoff said.
Such apartments would then be owned by the state, Jankelowitz said, and their occupants would continue to pay rent.
Not everyone supported this agreement.
“It’s as though the public is paying for these apartments twice,” said one protest supporter at the Gan Menorah camp.
Still, the Construction and Housing Ministry’s NIS 800m. payment to the Jewish Agency was per this agreement, a spokeswoman said.
Afterward, the ministry was required to pay 60 percent of remaining monies to the Finance Ministry, the spokeswoman added.
The other 40% stayed with the ministry, she said.
The end result: The Construction and Housing Ministry retained NIS 320m. - one-fifth of the original NIS 1.6 billion fund.
This NIS 320m. was also not used to build new apartments, the ministry representative said. It went instead toward renovations, social programming in underprivileged neighborhoods and incentive packages for those buying homes in the Negev and the Galilee.
“We do not buy any new apartments,” the Construction and Housing Ministry representative said.
The exception is that the ministry creates 30 to 50 new housing units per year for those with disabilities, Fialkoff said.
Amigur has also left public housing behind.
“In public housing, we don’t build even one unit,” Eldar said. The firm has not created new public housing in “many, many years,” he added.
What Amigur does build - though Eldar distinguished this activity from general public housing per se - is subsidized homes for the elderly. For instance, he said, in April, Amigur completed one such facility in Jerusalem’s Talpiot neighborhood, with 160 new housing units. Ninety-five percent of these units are now occupied. A resident’s rent amounts to 8% of his salary, Eldar said.
Such buildings have been funded using a large portion of the NIS 800m. that the Construction and Housing Ministry redirected to the Jewish Agency, Jankelowitz said. He added that the remainder of these funds went back into the Jewish Agency budget for activities like aliya and Jewish education in the Diaspora.
Ninety percent of these homes designated for the elderly are occupied by immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Eldar said.
Leaders of the homeless community in Gan Menorah blasted the policy of building housing units for these Ashkenazi immigrants while halting all creation of new public housing units for other Israelis in need.
“It’s like apartheid in South Africa,” said Ayala Sabag, an activist who leads the Gan Menorah community, though she is not homeless herself. “We [Sephardim] are the blacks, and the Ashkenazim are the whites.”
A family with three children and an income under NIS 4,800 a month could apply for a long-term rent subsidy of up to NIS 1,800 a month, usually receiving about NIS 1,250 a month, Fialkoff said.
But the demonstrators in Gan Menorah have decried this practice as well, saying it has discriminated against families with fewer than three children.
For such families, “the policy is: ‘Have another child,’” Levi quipped. He said subsidies to smaller families were often closer to NIS 400 or 500 a month, which he said was often insufficient, depending on their income, to pay rent and support a family.
A Construction and Housing Ministry spokeswoman confirmed that subsidies were often this small or even smaller.
Asked whether such supplements were enough to pay rent and support a family, she said, “Of course not.” However, she said that many also received other government subsidies such as National Insurance allotments.
Cohen supports the Gan Menorah group’s call to widen eligibility criteria and aid availability for public housing solutions.
“A house to cover the heads of families” is “one of the main services where the country is responsible for our citizens,” Cohen said, contrasting this ideal with the “very ugly” present state of public housing.
Sophie Biton, 33, who has been living at Gan Menorah with her three children, told a personal story that she said exemplified the current policy’s problems. Prior to living in Gan Menorah, Biton bounced between park benches and shelters.
“I feared for my children’s safety,” she said. When she sent her children to live with her sister, Biton faced many more difficulties, ironically, in securing a sufficient rent subsidy, she said.
Around 53,000 Israelis remain stuck in Biton’s limbo, Sabag said.
The Central Bureau of Statistics could not confirm this information, saying the bureau did not maintain statistics on homelessness.
“It’s a problem,” said Alisa Peleg, a CBS official. She confirmed it was unknown how many “sleep in the streets” and how many were “being taken care of… [with] shelter and a meal.”
Since The Jerusalem Post first reported on the Gan Menorah encampment three weeks ago, the camp’s population has risen from 92 to 133, Sabag said.
“All the time, people are coming. People hear about this camp and come because they want solutions,” she said.
Initially, the municipality clashed with the Gan Menorah community over the latter’s choice of a prominent downtown park. The municipality instead offered Sabag’s group the Wohl Rose Garden opposite the Knesset, which Sabag’s group declined, a municipality spokesman said.
Eviction was a possibility, he added, though no orders had been issued.
Then, Sabag cited Gan Menorah’s visibility as the very thing necessary for the demonstration.
“The municipality doesn’t want us here because it doesn’t look nice,” Sabag told the Post.
Cohen ultimately appreciated the statement Sabag aimed to make. “It’s a sad picture to see them there in the center of the city,” he said.
After speaking with Sabag and other members of her community in a recent meeting, Cohen telephoned Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, asking “not just to leave them there, but to give them all the services they need,” Cohen said.
“They are the children of Jerusalem,” he added.
The Gan Menorah group plans to remain encamped until August 15, when people in the Ministry of Construction and Housing go on vacation, Levi said. By that date, he hopes the ministry will have heeded calls to redirect funds toward new public housing and to widen the criteria for who is eligible for aid.
“I hope we will receive good news, because we will not give up,” Levi said.
Thanks for posting the article. It made me curious as to whether the classism — in particular the Ashkenazi/Sephardic split) that is so evident in Israeli society also accounts for the negativity (or indifference) toward the Palestinians as a people. I wouldn’t quite call it racism — that’s a term that gets bandied about much too loosely — but it is an attitude toward those who are seen both as “other” and “lesser” which is remarkably unempathetic.
Do you really think that criticism of internal Israeli politics and its domestic policies would be more acceptable — or at least less alienating — to the mainstream American Jewish community than criticism of Israel’s actions vis-a-vis the Palestinians? I wonder…it’s certainly an interesting idea.