I would love to be able to write this and say that our government functions so well that there will be no shutdown of the federal government due to lack of money. That is not the case. This isn’t just about the budget, and it isn’t just about social issues. It isn’t just about politics, and it isn’t just about representative democracy.
If this situation were unique to 2011 we would be both panicked and likely to solve a solution. That is not the case. There have been past government shutdowns and with the trend in current political climate it stands to reason there will be others in the future. It is not merely an impasse between Democrats and Republicans, or between conservatives and liberals. It isn’t just Blue Dogs and Tea Partiers.
This is a conflict between a mindset: one mindset says that politics in a representative democracy should be done for political gain, and if shutting down the government may gain political points, it is the thing to do. The other mindset says that in representative democracy, the government must represent many views, and the government must always maintain the ability to function. The first mindset says politics is a game of 50%+1. The second mindset wants the best society for the most people.
These two mindsets, like everything else in politics, lay along a scale. They could be diagrammed as a circle, a triangle, or a square (or another four-sided object). We, all of us, possess both mindsets at the same time. We fall along all points of the scale, and are both inside and outside the box. This battle over whether to cut $30,000,000,000 or $33,000,000,000 or $60,000,000,000(those numbers look big written out) from the budget is both sad and not a battle of ‘us versus them.’ This battle is not just a domestic battle, it is an internal battle. It is one we all must fight. Do we cut the $30,000,000,000 of non-security spending for political gain, or should we do it because it represents our interests?
That is the question.
For three full months the revolutions across the Middle East have besieged both their domestic tyrants and the geo-political forces that have restrained the whole region for decades. What, at the fall of Mubarak, looked like a torrent of uprisings that would stop only when it ran out of dictators to topple is now a collection of struggles increasingly frustrated by repression, intervention and their current tactical limits.
In the case of Yemen, protesters have been valiantly mobilizing since January 20th against the 33-year rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh. By February, protesters had launched a sit-in at Sana’a University, in effect, making it their own Tahrir Square. Over a month and half into that sit-in, there they remain steadfast despite several brutal assaults, but so does Saleh remain in his presidential palace(s).
Bahrain’s own democracy movement that was launched on February 14th has also showed glorious determination, several times resisting brutal crackdowns only to face a regional conspiracy that brought soldiers from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries storming in to reinforce the monarchy. And again in Bahrain, protesters had a location to rally around, making Pearl Square their Tahrir Square.
There is great risk that the lesson learned from Egypt’s revolution is that it only takes a square occupation to bring down an entrenched autocrat. The occupation of Tahrir Square was one of multiple tactics fundamental to forcing Mubarak out of power. The replication of only one of these tactics has partly contributed to stalled revolutions across the region.
The Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions utilized different sets of tactics but their shared success was in their ability to escalate and retaliate to the repression they encountered. When security forces loyal to Ben Ali carried out the vicious massacre of protesters in Kasserine, Tunisians responded with the Sfax general strike, mobilizing tens of thousands of people on January 12th, only to be followed up days later by the Tunis general strike on the 14th, the day Ben Ali went fleeing for the protection of Saudi patrons. Showing similar tactical proficiency, Egyptians also managed to punish the regime for its intransigence by launching sit-ins outside the presidential palace, state TV, and parliament, actions reinforced by waves of industrial action in critical sectors that combined to overpower Mubarak.
Bahrain’s revolution showed promise in retaliating against repressive measures ordered by the Khalifa dynasty. 90% of workers from Bahrain’s largest trade union federation voted to strike in March in response to attacks on protesters. However, the strike at the crucial Alba aluminum plant failed to affect operations as only “non-essential” staff participated in industrial action. Other decisive sectors like oil and petrochemical industries remained unaffected by the strike call, depriving the street protesters of the working class escalation invaluable in revolutions. Left unscathed by the strike call, the Khalifa regime has begun a systematic campaign targeting opponents within the working class.
There are early but positive signs that Yemen’s revolution is adapting and adjusting strategy specific to their situation. April 7th, the city of Taiz witnessed a general strike that reportedly choked the city, brining tens of thousands onto the street. This comes days after another general strike that shut down both Aden and Taiz. The challenge for Yemen is whether this mobilization can escalate in degree, length and extend to other major cities.
This maturation of industrial action in Yemen must not be delayed. The United States is now heavily involved in the political crisis, negotiating to see Vice President Abd al-Rab Mansur al-Hadi lead the “transition”. But al-Hadi has been Vice President since 1994 and if he’s being pushed forward by the United States then he’s sure to be a continuation of Washington’s so-called stability centered foreign policy. The Americans have found their Omar Suleiman character to take over Yemen and sure enough, the Gulf Monarchies have become involved in executing this transition desired by the Obama administration.
Defense Secretary Gates visiting Saudi Arabia this week was no coincidence. Gates while there even said, without evidence, that Iran is meddling in Bahrain. The statement effectively serves to endorse the Saudi led GCC invasion of Bahrain while getting the House of Saud behind the “transition” outcome in Yemen desired by Washington.
But as the United States works furiously to set the agenda in Yemen, the Yemeni people have the chance to circumvent that agenda by removing Saleh and his accomplices by their own volition, a feat the Egyptian revolutionaries accomplished by removing both Mubarak and the Western anointed successor Suleiman. To do so will require Yemenis to repeat Taiz strike action across all cities, to effectively deny Yemen’s political class an economy and the country to operate it.
I’ll be counting once more for the Arab Revolution, this time in Yemen, to surpass imagination and breakout of this frustrated cycle of repression and intervention. The Arab Spring must blossom once more.
Atlas Shrugged. The back of the book describes the query of the book, “who is John Galt?” to be immortal, but it is the book itself that is timeless and immortal. Political philosophy is meant to stand the test of time, and Atlas Shrugged does that. The issues, the reality, is as poignant now as it was when the book was written. Like the characters in the book, we have a choice in the future we face. How will we face reality?
I quoted the following speech at length because in order to understand the second part I had to quote what Ayn Rand meant by the mystics of spirit and the mystics of muscle.
There are two kinds of teachers of the Morality of Death: the mystics of spirit and the mystics of muscle, whom you call the spiritualists and the materialists, those who believe in consciousness without existence and those who believe in existence without consciousness. Both demand the surrender of your mind, one to their revelations, the other to their reflexes. No matter how loudly they posture in the role of irreconcilable antagonists, their moral codes are alike, and so are their aims: in matter–the enslavement of man’s body, in spirit–the destruction of his mind.
The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man’s power to conceive–a definition that invalidates man’s consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society–a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a superbeing embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself. Man’s mind, say the mystics of spirit, must be subordinated to the will of God. Man’s mind, say the mystics of muscle, must be subordinated to the will of Society. Man’s standard of value, say the mystics of spirit, is the pleasure of God, whose standards are beyond man’s comprehension and must be accepted on faith. Man’s standard of value, say the mystics of muscle, is the pleasure of Society, whose standards are beyond man’s right of judgment and must be obeyed as a primary absolute. The purpose of man’s life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question. His reward, say the mystics of spirit, will be given to him beyond the grave. His reward, say the mystics of muscle, will be given on earth–to his great-grandchildren.
Thirty pages later–pages in which the timeless question “who is John Galt?” is answered by John Galt–Ayn Rand brings the novel to the crux of her political philosophy, still speaking as John Galt.
…We will rebuild America’s system on the moral premise which had been its foundation, but which you treated as a guilty underground, in your frantic evasion of the conflict between that premise and your mystic morality: the premise that man is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others, that man’s life, his freedom, his happiness are his by inalienable right.
You who’ve lost the concept of a right, you who swing in impotent evasiveness between the claim that rights are a gift of God, a supernatural gift to be taken on faith, of the claim that rights are a gift of society, to be broken at its arbitrary whim–the source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A–and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, and it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational. Any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man’s rights, is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life.
Rights are a moral concept–and morality is a matter of choice. Men are free not to choose man’s survival as the standard of their morals and their laws, but not free to escape from the fact that the alternative is a cannibal society, which exists for a while by devouring its best and collapses like a cancerous body, when the healthy have been eaten by the diseased, when the rational have been consumed by the irrational. Such has been the fate of your societies in history, but you’ve evaded the knowledge of the cause….Just as man cannot live by means of the irrational, so two men cannot, or two thousand, or two billion. Just as man can’t succeed by defying reality, so a nation can’t, or a country, or a globe. A is A.
Do I agree with everything Ayn Rand argues? No. Nor should I. Nor should you. That does not lessen her argument. I hope we choose the rational way.
Hey, remember that whole thing about a mosque right next to Ground Zero? Of course, any building in New York City is ‘right next to’ where the Twin Towers once stood. We might as well scream that apartments are being renovated and could be purchased by non-white folk. Scary! That mosque thing, which was really a community center, had a guy in Florida so mad he wanted to burn the Quran.
Well, that was last year. Guess what happened, after a year of what must have been torture (not a word to be used lightly in America anymore) for that Floridian pastor so intent on burning the Quran? He did it! He put the Quran on trial, found it guilty of not being sacred, torched it in kerosene … and guess what happens to something after you pour kerosene on it and add fire?
Last year, a few hundred thousand not-so-dumb people from all sorts of religions, political persuasions, and skin color told this pastor Terry Jones not to burn the Quran. General Petraeus told Rick Sanchez: “that there was nothing brave about burning the Quran over here while our soldiers pay the consequences over there — in Afghanistan, Iraq and now, Libya.” Last year, Terry Jones didn’t burn the book. This year he did. Want to guess the result? It cost us lives.
If you want people you think are ‘terrorists’ (international) or ‘criminals’ (domestic) to win, tell them that that they are a terrorist or a criminal…and then give them means to prove it. Goad them into committing an act that you can call a terrorist act, and you’ve got yourself a terrorist. Yes, do that if you want them to win, because by giving them reason to be violent – to terrorize or to be a criminal – you give them a cause and a reason.
My guess is that Terry Jones wants to prove that Muslims are terrorists. He does this by giving them a reason to commit something that can be called an act of terrorism. He’s proved his point. Are the people – given circumstances I would say Muslims – who killed aid workers in retaliation of Jones’s Quran burning to blame? Sure. Jones has made terrorists out of them. In the process, Jones sunk to a lever far below a terrorist.
I had hoped to write an article, upon my return for Israel, detailing the reasons why the US should not become involved in Libya. It’s a bit late to write that article, but not too late to lay out my thoughts, and why I can change my views. When I left for Israel there was a conflagration in the the Middle East and Maghreb, inspired by self-immolation. There were revolts or protests in Egypt (which had just overthrown Mubarak), Yemen, Tunisia (‘successful’), Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Syria (which has turned into a major mess), and a few other places in proximity to Israel. I’d also written before leaving about why there would be no protests in Israel. Things had just started to heat up in Libya.
While in Israel I heard an excellent summary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, including current events – which, of course, led to the topic of Libya and other countries with large protests. I don’t know if you remember, but the United States is engaged in a war in Afghanistan, a ‘nation-building exercise’ in Iraq, and a drone war we no longer hear about in Pakistan. Therefore, Neil Lazarus, the amusing British speaker summarizing the conflict for us, was laying out the reasons the United States does not wish to be involved in Libya (he said this before we became ‘involved’): Obama has enough to deal with already.
But wait, the title of this article is “Why Libya is Different”. Different than who, or what? Different than Afghanistan or Iraq, or Pakistan, or wherever else we’re waging war that we’re not aware of. There was no effort to consult congress, and that’s nothing different. There was a UN Resolution, though, which gives me brief hope that this was not a ‘war,’ ‘intervention,’ or ‘humanitarian mission’ of only US interests. Opinion – and in international affairs, international opinion – is the only way to walk away a victor. Otherwise you have a Pyrrhic Victory.
I wanted, as I said, to return to America and share my view that we should not be in, or involved in, Libya. And now I have changed my view. When the rebellion in Libya started (and it existed only because some military defected, giving rebels weapons) they asked – I’m not quite sure how you reach the outside world when communications are cut off – to be let alone to fight their own battle. Fight they did, and they probably lost as much as they won, except that they were fighting for a cause, while Qaddafi’s men were fighting so they could receive another paycheck (a very different kind of cause). The world let the rebels fight their battle. And the world watched (actually, for the first time in several years, since I was in Israel on a guided trip without a computer, I wasn’t watching). It was when the rebels said “we need help!” that the international community worked together (about as much as it ever does) – and the United States worked with the international community. I should repeat that, it’s important. The United States worked with the international community. When Bush was president, that was not the way to operate. This time, the United States actually waited for international interest and a UN Resolution.
I’m disappointed that the United States forgot to consult its own congress about ‘implementing a no-fly zone’ (that is, bombing targets) over Libya. It would have been nice to get the whole procedure right. But this time, we’re not democracy-building by invasion. Not yet. We waited until the rebels said they needed our help. When they ask us to leave – and they will ask – I hope we leave, planes and all.
Why is Libya different? Because we’re not forcing democracy, we’re assisting what might become democracy. Could it become a disaster (more than it is), or backfire? It’s happened in the past. Yes, it could. We run that risk, but this time our values and our morals and our actions all agree. I did not want us there – we’re over-committed and can’t fund domestic programs – but Libya is different. I hope we are right.
About a month ago I wrote about a bill going through Israel’s Knesset that would investigate any organization Israel deemed unpatriotic. According to a recent summary of the bill “the original version called for sentencing anyone who marks Independence Day as a day of mourning or who holds memorial events for the Palestinian “Nakba” (destruction ) to three years in prison.” That’s been revised only to “deny public funding to institutions that sponsor activities which deny Israel’s status as a democratic state and as the state of the Jewish people.”
The choice is a bad bill or a less bad bill – how about the choice of no such piece of legislation? I feel like it’s hardly necessary to write a lengthy defense of not passing the bill. It should be clear either that the bill should be passed or the bill should not be passed. There can’t be any middle ground here, and if you support passing this piece of legislation I feel sorry for you, but you get to keep that opinion. I can’t persuade you that my opinion – that the bill should not be passed and to come to the point where such a piece of legislation is even considered in a democracy (or anywhere) shows just how far a government can fall – and I won’t ask you, if you believe in the legislation, to meet me halfway and only sort of investigate organizations. Do it or do not do it. It’s a stark choice a form of government that calls itself a democracy should not have to consider. This is not ‘regulation,’ where regulators ensure that laws in place work, this is ‘you’re for us, or if you’re not for us, we’ll destroy you because we can.’ This is where a democracy is no longer a democracy. It has happened. Do those of you with the power to vote think it should happen again?
March 4, 2011 – Israel
A few weeks ago I announced I would be gone on a trip to Israel. I return without any exciting stories of rebellion or tsunami, so the story I tell doesn’t really involve chaos or disaster. My apologies.
The trip was with forty Jews I didn’t know (okay, 39 I didn’t know, I knew myself) out of an airport with which I had no familiarity, with vague instructions about where to rendez-vouz and at what time. Naturally, that plan worked brilliantly. I walked through security alone and found my group at the gate a couple hours later – a great way to get acquainted. As they say in a timeless Jewish comedy skit from the ’60s, “the plane left on time, two hours late.”
Actually, the plane left on time, but if you want sustenance while traveling do NOT fly Delta. The Kosher meal was hardly warm and not much more edible, and that was it for a twelve hour flight. My first thought, though, upon landing wasn’t about food; we were in Tel Aviv and my first though was “David Ben Gurion was named after an airport.” That is how I introduced myself to the Land of Milk and Honey; with humor.
The trip left on March 2nd out of New York. We got to Israel on March 3rd, late, and got to the kibbutz even later. A kibbutz is where you plotz after a long day. By March 4th we had no idea what day it was, and it was only out first full day of a blitz through the country. Our first venture was to walk in the valley between the Golan and Gali Mountains, partly to see the country and partly to move our legs after a long time on a plane and bus. It’s interesting that I’ve always walked sure-footed and quickly, both hiking (mountain-hiking and otherwise) and on city streets. Is that because I grew up in the mountains, or am I naturally a fast walker, sure of how and where to cross a stream? Some of us walk fast, and some of us walk slow, and a group of forty somehow naturally seems slower than a group of 20, 10, 0r 5.
March 5, 2011
March 5th was the first time in a long time that I had observed Shabbat. In Israel, of course, and in Judaism the sabbath, Shabbat, doesn’t begin on Saturday, but on Friday night. The day doesn’t begin on Friday, but a day ends when the sun goes down. Just as I once had to ask why the French calendar ends with Saturday and Sunday (I mean, ours begins on Sunday, why doesn’t everyone follow us?), I have had to ask why a day begins at night (this time, I asked myself). The day doesn’t begin at night, the day ends with the sun, which means the next day must start. Shabbat is interesting and meaningful in Israel (the Israelis I have made friends with will laugh when they read that obvious sentence), while here even serious and faithful Christians, Jews, and Muslims might attend Church – but guess how they get there. In Israel (you Israelis will laugh again at the obviousness) things stop on Shabbat. Cars don’t drive Friday night and Saturday. Phone calls stop, at least in the public domain. No pictures. A Sabbath Elevator is required. Shabbat actually matters.
On Shabbat, at a time when we were not familiar with one another, we stopped to ask what it meant to be a Jew. Naturally, the kibbutz we were on was not old – about sixty years, which is the age of Israel. The kibbutzim are failing, but that’s not a topic of Shabbat…. Kibbutzim are a product of the idea of the New Jew (an idea of the late 19th and especially early 20th centuries, promoted by early Zionism), that a Jew can be more than a banker, that a Jew can work the land (an act forbidden to Jews for many centuries in Europe). And so, Jews worked the land of Israel. That’s what it means to be a New Jew.
For everyone, being a Jew means something different. I place no emphasis on the Torah, but believe it was written (by man) with a purpose. I am not a New Jew. Nor am I the Jew of Middle Europe. I am mixed; observant and unobservant; interested in scholarly works but not the works of only my religion. I am a Jew, like many of (the forty of) us, that attained a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, went through confirmation with my class two years later because it seemed like the thing to do, and paid no attention to my religion, though I did not forsake it. I simply gave it no meaning, because I was never taught that it had any except a historical one. The (literal) meaning of Israel is to wrestle with God, that is, to question Him/Her/It, and that is what we do naturally; we question.
March 6, 2011
I’m either perpetuating a new myth or an old one when I say that, like the rabbi of Europe, who moved to the town of Tsvat in his old age, I can see why he heard the songs of angels in Tsvat. It is a beautiful town, in the beauty of Mediterranean coastal mountain villages of Spain, France, Italy, and Greece, where beauty comes naturally and where the buildings belong to and enhance the land.
Tsvat is not only beautiful, it inspires greatness. It has become a center of (if not the originating location of) the study of Kabbalah, which studies the interconnectedness of matter and spirit (the physical and the metaphysical). Kabbalah begins with language and numbers, and is patterns and meanings unified with questions and answers that lead to more questions and answers.
There is a refrain running through Israeli answers to problems that is both a joke and not a joke. Issues everywhere may be bad, but Israeli problems are worse. Water supply may be short everywhere, but it is more endangered in Israel. Environmental problems may exist everywhere, but in Israel they are worse. National Security is an issue for everyone, but it is for Israel more than others. This is what the Israelis tell you, both with humor and with seriousness. I don’t know what kind of realistic world we’re living in, but out of about fifty Jews, every one believed that global warming is real. Maybe a problem is only bad when you recognize that it exists.
Between Tsvat and learning about environmental issues that Israel faces, and its efforts to solve these problems followed by our drive to Tel Aviv, seven Israeli soldiers joined our trip. They joined, not as soldiers (though they had their uniforms) but as Israelis. They joined so that we could learn about Israel from Israelis, and so they could learn about America from Americans. They came from all ranks and duties, and they came with a joie-de-vie that many Americans do not have, the kind inspired by college or comradeship in a duty and service that means something and inspires friendship with those who work for the same reason. (I say this afterward because I saw it in their faces, though I did not doubt it at the time.) They stayed with us for about five days, which is very short, but in the action-packed schedule of a ten-day tour, it was good amount of time
March 7, 2011
We spent very little time in Tel Aviv – the night of March 6 – which is a bit disappointing to me as I tried to study the culture and politics of the country. Tel Aviv, after all, is the diplomatic and modern cultural center of Israel, and the place of independence. We saw Independence Hall – where Ben Gurion was named after an airport – and heard the speech proclaiming independence. Except that we are so far removed from the event, both in time and space, it was important and good to see. I suppose it’s a bit like listening to someone read the Gettysburg Address once an hour at Gettysburg, or listening to a guide recite The Declaration of Independence. Interesting, but not quite moving.
Tel Aviv is pretty in a modern kind of way; it looks exactly like any other large city in the world, with signs in a different language (actually, most signs are in Hebrew AND English, and most Israelis I encountered spoke passable or good English). The Mediterranean is, perhaps, the prettiest part of Tel Aviv and we walked from there to Jaffa. It’s a mess trying to figure out which city is where (not just Jaffa and Tel Aviv, but anywhere in the world) but Tel Aviv is a suburb of sorts of Jaffa, and Tel Aviv has several suburbs. Brilliant, right? With all the walking I did in Tel Aviv and Jaffa, and every other part of Israel, I can’t tell you a whole lot about culture; we saw what we (tourists) were meant to see. However, as I’ve said, things don’t change much between one country and another. (For instance, parts of the agricultural countryside of Israel look just like shanty-towns of Mexico, California, or the Midwest).
I’ve been told that the term gentrification has a negative terminology, because it involves fixing an area up only for profit. It gentrification is negative that’s not what we helped do in Israel; if it can be a positive action as well, which has no profit in mind, then we – the almost fifty of us with the soldiers – helped gentrify a neighborhood by cleaning and weeding a garden in Lod. Of all the forced fun activities we did – the ones that did not involve seeing the country – I think this might have been the most useful, both to Israel and to ourselves.
March 8, 2011
We hiked in the Negev Desert. It’s beautiful and I’m glad I don’t live there.As Jews, our ancient recorded history began, and culminates in, wandering in the desert. We came out of the land of Egypt, which is desert, the land called Mitzraim, “narrow passage,” which could have the double meaning of a birth canal. That is, we as Jews were born in Egypt. There is a horribly written book that I encourage you not to read, called The Gift of The Jews, but nonetheless has its facts and story correct. Before Judaism man conquered space – farmed his fields – and repeated the next year. But he had not, as far as historical record makes clear, conquered time. The Jews (and, if you’re Christian you have no reason to object, because the Jewish history Before the Common Era is the the Judeo-Muslim-Christian tradition) conquered space and time. They conquered space – how else? – by occupying land, and working the land. They conquered time by 1)making a historical record, and 2)by setting aside time as the sabbath. We came out of Egypt, and received commandments, and conquered space and time.
Our trip experienced very little culture, or ‘real’ feeling of life in Israel – though it’s not unlike life in America. We came close, perhaps, when we stayed this Tuesday night in a Bedouin camp. We rode camels – I don’t intend on doing that any time soon – listened to music, and stared at stars. But not me. I’ve seen stars, and I was tired. So I slept as much as I could, in our open tent, with all of us. The food was awesome, as it was everywhere on this free trip, but next time I’m in a Bedouin camp I’d like to not eat on paper plates with electric lighting. It kind of ruins the feeling, you know.
March 9, 2011
After the Second Temple fell in 70 C.E. and there was open Judaic revolt against the Romans some Jews – about a thousand – fled to Masada, an inhospitable but naturally fortified mountain in the Negev. The Romans set up eight camps in an area where I could see no possibility of growing food and besieged the mountain for five months. To get up Masada we hiked up the Roman Ramp, which was more of a natural path given steps (I’m not sure there were steps for the Romans), and it’s a half-mile hike where people can throw rocks at you from above.
You can see the Dead Sea (which is also the border between Israel and Jordan) from Masada. They should rename it the Magic Shrinking Dead Sea, because it’s disappearing at about two meters at year, mostly from water being consumed before it reaches the sea. So, for the night at the Bedouin tent we packed an overnight bag, for our day at Masada and the Dead Sea. I FORGOT to pack my sandals. A word to the wise: don’t do that! I went into the Dead Sea far enough to say I’d been in, but ouch, walking on dried salt deposits hurts.
March 10, 2011
My experience with Holocaust memorials is that the hurt of the Holocaust becomes stronger near the source. The deportation site in France hurts more than a museum in Los Angeles. How did Yad Vashem, the memorial and museum in Israel, feel? The Holocaust always hurts, but there was not strong feeling evoked (for me) at Yad Vashem. Only the usual sadness, which I hope we all feel. The pictures, the places, hurt far more than the story.
I wonder if I should feel bad, conceited, or knowledgeable that when discussing (actually, listening to a funny lecture on) the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict I knew all the names, dates, figures, and players involved. I know of the leaked secrets, which I could dedicate whole writings to, and the disappointment and just how close we are and have some idea of how far we have to go. I don’t mean to say I learned nothing hearing a talk on the event, especially so close to the source (I was in Jerusalem); I walked away knowing that it is not easy to solve and not easy to absolve. (And though we were so close to the Conflict, we saw no dividing wall, no settlements, no checkpoints. We saw what they wanted us to see.)
March 11, 2011
In a world where we think in thousands of miles and look up to see things we know to be millions of light years away, walking through Jerusalem takes a very short time. It must be less than a square mile if it takes fifteen minutes to walk from one side to the other. Jerusalem, though, is a place full of history. Markets from Roman times can be seen not far from building two thousand years older, which are not far from those two thousand years newer. It is not hard to imagine a place with such history; it is hard to imagine a place with such history in America.
We visited the Western Wall not once but twice on this Friday. The first time we were almost the only people there (men to the left – North – side of the wall, women to the right side, with a partition), and we Walled. I mean, we prayed as desired – it felt right to say the Mourner’s Kaddish at the Wall – and left a note if we wished to leave a note. In some way the Western Wall is more impressive – it is a different kind of impressive – than the Great Wall. The Western Wall is high, and trying to conceptualize the technology, including manpower, to move the blocks of rock is a hard thought to wrap my brain around.
The second time we visited the Wall was after Shabbat had begun and several hundred Jews were at the wall, praying, dancing, and singing (or wailing). The experience sharpened my conviction that religion at its best is meant to bring people together, and can be done through song and dance. What is religion at its worst? It must be to pull people apart, probably not through song and dance. It was quite an incredible feeling – much more so than doing the same thing at a local dance – to grab a stranger and dance, producing the feeling of brotherhood.
March 12, 2011
The following is a direct excerpt from my journal, while some of the above has been from my journal, and most has been to enhance it. I find that the best way to conclude my trip is what I’ve already written:
Today is our last day; most of the forty of us will never see each other again.
Our bus does not run on Shabbat, so our only transportation on Saturday is on foot. We walked to the National Cemetery and saw the graves of Golde Meir, Ytzhak rabin, and many others. The most touching grave was that of an American who died fighting in the Israeli Army: “whose love of G-d and Israel is eternal.”
Our plane leaves at night, and it began to occur to me – and to all of us – that we were leaving, as we said goodbye to those not joining the flight.
Ten day is a short time to get to know a country or a group of people.
March 4, 2011 – Israel
A few weeks ago I announced I would be gone on a trip to Israel. I return without any exciting stories of rebellion or tsunami, so the story I tell doesn’t really involve chaos or disaster. My apologies.
The trip was with forty Jews I didn’t know (okay, 39 I didn’t know, I knew myself) out of an airport with which I had no familiarity, with vague instructions about where to rendez-vouz and at what time. Naturally, that plan worked brilliantly. I walked through security alone and found my group at the gate a couple hours later – a great way to get acquainted. As they say in timeless Jewish comedy skit from the ’60s, “the plane left on time, two hours late.”
Actually, the plane left on time, but if you want sustenance while traveling do NOT fly Delta. The Kosher meal was hardly warm and not much more edible, and that was it for a twelve hour flight. My first thought, though, upon landing wasn’t about food; we were in Tel Aviv and my first though was “David Ben Gurion was named after an airport.” That is how I introduced myself to the Land of Milk and Honey; with humor.
The trip left on March 2nd out of New York. We got to Israel on March 3rd, late, and got to the kibbutz even later. A kibbutz is where you plotz after a long day. By March 4th we had no idea what day it was, and it was only out first full day of a blitz through the country. Our first venture was to walk in the valley between the Golan and Gali Mountains, partly to see the country and partly to move our legs after a long time on a plane and bus. It’s interesting that I’ve always walked sure-footed and quickly, both hiking (mountain-hiking and otherwise) and on city streets. Is that because I grew up in the mountains, or am I naturally a fast walker, sure of how and where to cross a stream? Some of us walk fast, and some of us walk slow, and a group of forty somehow naturally seems slower than a group of 20, 10, 0r 5.
March 5, 2011
March 5th was the first time in a long time that I had observed Shabbat. In Israel, of course, and in Judaism the sabbath, Shabbat, doesn’t begin on Saturday, but on Friday night. The day doesn’t begin on Friday, but a day ends when the sun goes down. Just as I once had to ask why the French calendar ends with Saturday and Sunday (I mean, ours begins on Sunday, why doesn’t everyone follow us?), I have had to ask why a day begins at night (this time, I asked myself). The day doesn’t begin at night, the day ends with the sun, which means the next day must start. Shabbat is interesting and meaningful in Israel (the Israelis I have made friends with will laugh when they read that obvious sentence), while here even serious and faithful Christians, Jews, and Muslims might attend Church – but guess how they get there. In Israel (you Israelis will laugh again at the obviousness) things stop on Shabbat. Cars don’t drive Friday night and Saturday. Phone calls stop, at least in the public domain. No pictures. A Sabbath Elevator is required. Shabbat actually matters.
On Shabbat, at a time when we were not familiar with one another, we stopped to ask what it meant to be a Jew. Naturally, the kibbutz we were on was not old – about sixty years, which is the age of Israel. The kibbutzim are failing, but that’s not a topic of Shabbat…. Kibbutzim are a product of the idea of the New Jew (an idea of the late 19th and especially early 20th centuries, promoted by early Zionism), that a Jew can be more than a banker, that a Jew can work the land (an act forbidden to Jews for many centuries in Europe). And so, Jews worked the land of Israel. That’s what it means to be a New Jew.
For everyone, being a Jew means something different. I place no emphasis on the Torah, but believe it was written (by man) with a purpose. I am not a New Jew. Nor am I the Jew of Middle Europe. I am mixed; observant and unobservant; interested in scholarly works but not the works of only my religion. I am a Jew, like many of (the forty of) us, that attained a Bar/Bat Mitzvah, went through confirmation with my class two years later because it seemed like the thing to do, and paid no attention to my religion, though I did not forsake it. I simply gave it no meaning, because I was never taught that it had any except a historical one. The (literal) meaning of Israel is to wrestle with God, that is, to question Him/Her/It, and that is what we do naturally; we question.
March 6, 2011
I’m either perpetuating a new myth or an old one when I say that, like the rabbi of Europe, who moved to the town of Tsvat in his old age, I can see why he heard the songs of angels in Tsvat. It is a beautiful town, in the beauty of Mediterranean coastal mountain villages of Spain, France, Italy, and Greece, where beauty comes naturally and where the buildings belong to and enhance the land.
Tsvat is not only beautiful, it inspires greatness. It has become a center of (if not the originating location of) the study of Kabbalah, which studies the interconnectedness of matter and spirit (the physical and the metaphysical). Kabbalah begins with language and numbers, and is patterns and meanings unified with questions and answers that lead to more questions and answers.
There is a refrain running through Israeli answers to problems that is both a joke and not a joke. Issues everywhere may be bad, but Israeli problems are worse. Water supply may be short everywhere, but it is more endangered in Israel. Environmental problems may exist everywhere, but in Israel they are worse. National Security is an issue for everyone, but it is for Israel more than others. This is what the Israelis tell you, both with humor and with seriousness. I don’t know what kind of realistic world we’re living in, but out of about fifty Jews, every one believed that global warming is real. Maybe a problem is only bad when you recognize that it exists.
Between Tsvat and learning about environmental issues that Israel faces, and its efforts to solve these problems followed by our drive to Tel Aviv, seven Israeli soldiers joined our trip. They joined, not as soldiers (though they had their uniforms) but as Israelis. They joined so that we could learn about Israel from Israelis, and so they could learn about America from Americans. They came from all ranks and duties, and they came with a joie-de-vie that many Americans do not have, the kind inspired by college or comradeship in a duty and service that means something and inspires friendship with those who work for the same reason. (I say this afterward because I saw it in their faces, though I did not doubt it at the time.) They stayed with us for about five days, which is very short, but in the action-packed schedule of a ten-day tour, it was good amount of time
March 7, 2011
We spent very little time in Tel Aviv – the night of March 6 – which is a bit disappointing to me as I tried to study the culture and politics of the country. Tel Aviv, after all, is the diplomatic and modern cultural center of Israel, and the place of independence. We saw Independence Hall – where Ben Gurion was named after an airport – and heard the speech proclaiming independence. Except that we are so far removed from the event, both in time and space, it was important and good to see. I suppose it’s a bit like listening to someone read the Gettysburg Address once an hour at Gettysburg, or listening to a guide recite The Declaration of Independence. Interesting, but not quite moving.
Tel Aviv is pretty in a modern kind of way; it looks exactly like any other large city in the world, with signs in a different language (actually, most signs are in Hebrew AND English, and most Israelis I encountered spoke passable or good English). The Mediterranean is, perhaps, the prettiest part of Tel Aviv and we walked from there to Jaffa. It’s a mess trying to figure out which city is where (not just Jaffa and Tel Aviv, but anywhere in the world) but Tel Aviv is a suburb of sorts of Jaffa, and Tel Aviv has several suburbs. Brilliant, right? With all the walking I did in Tel Aviv and Jaffa, and every other part of Israel, I can’t tell you a whole lot about culture; we saw what we (tourists) were meant to see. However, as I’ve said, things don’t change much between one country and another. (For instance, parts of the agricultural countryside of Israel look just like shanty-towns of Mexico, California, or the Midwest).
I’ve been told that the term gentrification has a negative terminology, because it involves fixing an area up only for profit. It gentrification is negative that’s not what we helped do in Israel; if it can be a positive action as well, which has no profit in mind, then we – the almost fifty of us with the soldiers – helped gentrify a neighborhood by cleaning and weeding a garden in Lod. Of all the forced fun activities we did – the ones that did not involve seeing the country – I think this might have been the most useful, both to Israel and to ourselves.
March 8, 2011
We hiked in the Negev Desert. It’s beautiful and I’m glad I don’t live there.As Jews, our ancient recorded history began, and culminates in, wandering in the desert. We came out of the land of Egypt, which is desert, the land called Mitzraim, “narrow passage,” which could have the double meaning of a birth canal. That is, we as Jews were born in Egypt. There is a horribly written book that I encourage you not to read, called The Gift of The Jews, but nonetheless has its facts and story correct. Before Judaism man conquered space – farmed his fields – and repeated the next year. But he had not, as far as historical record makes clear, conquered time. The Jews (and, if you’re Christian you have no reason to object, because the Jewish history Before the Common Era is the the Judeo-Muslim-Christian tradition) conquered space and time. They conquered space – how else? – by occupying land, and working the land. They conquered time by 1)making a historical record, and 2)by setting aside time as the sabbath. We came out of Egypt, and received commandments, and conquered space and time.
Our trip experienced very little culture, or ‘real’ feeling of life in Israel – though it’s not unlike life in America. We came close, perhaps, when we stayed this Tuesday night in a Bedouin camp. We rode camels – I don’t intend on doing that any time soon – listened to music, and stared at stars. But not me. I’ve seen stars, and I was tired. So I slept as much as I could, in our open tent, with all of us. The food was awesome, as it was everywhere on this free trip, but next time I’m in a Bedouin camp I’d like to not eat on paper plates with electric lighting. It kind of ruins the feeling, you know.
March 9, 2011
After the Second Temple fell in 70 C.E. and there was open Judaic revolt against the Romans some Jews – about a thousand – fled to Masada, an inhospitable but naturally fortified mountain in the Negev. The Romans set up eight camps in an area where I could see no possibility of growing food and besieged the mountain for five months. To get up Masada we hiked up the Roman Ramp, which was more of a natural path given steps (I’m not sure there were steps for the Romans), and it’s a half-mile hike where people can throw rocks at you from above.
At the very least, the intervention in Libya by the international community has made simple sloganeering near impossible. The left, who had naturally embraced the Libyan Revolution, now find themselves fighting to both support the revolution while opposing the foreign intervention that same revolution invited.
As a leftist who protested against wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza, I do not find myself mobilized against military operations in Libya. This is not out of some new found love for military operations, but out of a desire to see the Libyan Revolution succeed and acknowledging the right of the revolutionaries to request military support they determine to be necessary. They simply can’t free Libya if Benghazi itself faces a similar fate as Grozny.
It would have been preferable if the Libyan Revolutionaries invited some military superpower free of geo-political interests in the region. I fear such a force doesn’t exist. That may explain why the revolutionaries were quick to say they would honor oil contracts made by Gaddafi with multinational oil companies. Such an assurance would ease Western concerns about the ultimate objectives of the revolution. This will hardly satisfy supporters who may want a more profound and meaningful revolution, but the options of the Libyan Revolutionaries are limited with a regime that used live ammunition on unarmed street protesters and funeral processions.
The immediate historical comparison that came to mind was the American Revolutionaries and their alliance with the French absolute monarchy. Those objecting to foreign intervention in Libya might have blasted such a deal between anti-monarchist American Revolutionaries and the French King. They would have correctly pointed to the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre committed by the French Monarchy, asking how the Americans could have sided with a brutal, colonial power. But facing such a global superpower as the British Empire, such a tactical alliance was pursued by the American Revolutionaries, forcing the British into a wider war rather than focusing all its might on the rebellious Thirteen Colonies.
It is easy for fellow leftists to make grand denouncements of foreign intervention from the safety of London or New York. Such locations are far from the reach of Gaddafi and his promised revenge that would show “no mercy”. The revolutionaries in Benghazi and across Libya don’t have that luxury. In the early days of the revolution, they proudly insisted their rejection of any foreign intervention. I took pride in that myself, hoping to enjoy from a distance as another regime fell at the hands of its own people. Their desired outcome was to topple Gaddafi on their own, but the reality of Gaddafi’s counter-attack humbled them, and they requested foreign military assistance, something they wouldn’t have asked for if it wasn’t tactically necessary.
If you support the Libyan Revolutionaries, you should defer to their judgement on requesting foreign military aid to help topple Gaddafi. That doesn’t mean embracing the interventionists who themselves back terrible regimes in Yemen and Bahrain carrying out brutal crackdowns on non-violent protest movements. I’ll remain active in advocating for those protests movements and denouncing the legacy of Western support for brutal regimes across the region. But the Libyan Revolutionaries have made it this far, if we support their movement, we should acknowledge that they’re in the best position to make strategic decisions.
The minute the revolutionaries call off foreign warplanes, my voice will join theirs, demanding the United States and coalition forces comply with that demand. Till then, I’ll hope this risky intervention benefits the Libyan Revolution, allowing it to advance once again as early reports already suggest. I’ll protest any coalition attacks that result in civilian casualties, and I’ll express my continued concern about alleged human rights abuses by rebels. Whether I’ve compromised my leftist values with this stance is for others to determine.
Tens of thousands of young people marching through tree lined streets, filling historic, centuries old squares from one end to the other. This isn’t a Cairo square or a majestic boulevard of Tunis, these are the streets of Lisbon and the people filling them are Portugal’s Geração à Rasca, the Precarious Generation.
The scale of the protests are hard to overstate. Over 300,000 people took to the streets in a country of 10,000,000 people. The spark for the protests was just a plea originating from Facebook for unity and protests against economic deprivation. The plea was answered enthusiastically across Portugal. In Lisbon, Porto, Faro, and Braga, thousands of young people rallied peacefully. These protests weren’t limited to the mainland, either. Both island regions of Madeira and the Azores saw strong mobilization by youths, youths quickly joined by families and pensioners.
The protests helped highlight the indispensable role of artists in social struggle. Arguably the chief catalyst of the movement was a musical performance by Deolinda back in January. Their song, “Parva Que Sou” (Dumb am I) absolutely stirred the audience, reaching and bringing forth their common discontent toward national economic conditions. The crowd interrupted with applause after the line: “what a dumb world where to be a slave you have to study.” After the song finished, and the crowd rose for an emphatic standing ovation, the sense was undeniable that everyone in the theater shared an indignant sentiment: Basta! Enough of the economic deprivation.
Sensing this Geração à Rasca existed, four people on Facebook put out a call for protests on March 12th, and in a few weeks, 65,000 people would pledge their participation. To have the actual attendance far exceed the pledged attendance is a remarkable accomplishment for a movement without any organizational infrastructure that a political party or labor organization has at its disposal. This demonstrates the widespread discontent within Portugal and may signal the messaging needed as the economic crisis batters nations the world over.
The tens of thousands of protesters were brought onto the streets against the economic crisis, rather than in support of any sort of existing institution, leftist or otherwise, within Portugal. In absence of an alternative, the protesters have broadly called for “politicians, employers, and ourselves,” to respond to the “unsustainable” reality. Judged by the turnout on the streets, this broad appeal by the protesters won the sympathy of the country. The question is whether this strength of the movement starts becoming a weakness as the government continues to accuse them of nihilism.
Some have rightly feared we live in “An Age of Revolt – In an Age Without a Left,” and the Portuguese protests may go on to reinforce those fears if they remain vaguely apolitical. I do not fear the absence of an alternative to unite around so much as I fear an unwillingness to unite exclusively against neo-liberalism.
To build an alternative and to win it popular support takes far more time than the crisis affords us. From Wisconsin union busting, to French pension reform, to student fees in the U.K., the intransigence of policymakers frustrates any opposition, formal or informal. Walker, Sarkozy, Cameron all seemingly read off the same script: “there is a crisis, there is no money, we have no choice.” And in a few weeks, these policymakers get their austerity despite large scale mass protests.
Already in Portugal, on the eve of Friday’s mass protests, Prime Minister Sócrates announced a fourth round of austerity as the international markets target that country as their next victim as they did Greece and Ireland before. The Portuguese government, like those of Ireland and Greece, may proceed with austerity despite the unprecedented, spontaneous protests on March 12th.
With governments subject to international bond markets rather than popular social movements, the protests themselves have to become coordinated internationally as well. The Precarious Generation that exists well beyond the borders of Portugal must rise against neo-liberalism, to strike against the failsafe to democratic reforms that is neo-liberalism built into the Washington Consensus. Only when governments are again more concerned with crowds filling public squares than the latest swings in the bond markets can we consider the policies we want in place of austerity.
There is a contentious debate underway on the merits, tactics, and necessity of foreign intervention in the crisis in Libya, a crisis increasingly taking the form of a civil war. If permitted to simplify the debate into two simple narratives, there are those mightily proclaiming responsibility for the well being of Libyans through implementation of a no-fly-zone, and those who insist the fight be deferred to the Libyans revolting against Gaddafi.
This would be a neat debate to have if there was a decisively clear message from the Libyan revolutionaries. This is not the case. Saturday, the National Libyan Council repeated a request for “foreign air strikes to help dislodge” Gaddafi and his regime. This followed a statement days earlier by a rebel spokesman saying there was no need for “any foreign intervention or military operation.”
It would be easy to defer to the latest statement by The National Libyan Council but even that has its perils. The Council is operating out of Benghazi and its authority over the revolution is in question. The recent offensive by rebels against Gaddafi forces in the East illustrates this key problem. Rebels would launch attacks on impulse while military defectors desperately tried to assert a coherent strategy to the attacks. Fortunately, this breakdown in command, or lack of command, hasn’t yet resulted in decisive military defeats of the rebels.
Even if the National Libyan Council has decisively called for foreign intervention, their mandate to make such a request is in doubt. This is a thirty member council chaired by Gaddafi’s former justice minister who defected days into the revolution. What a questionable leadership in Benghazi says about foreign airstrikes may not carry well with the rebels fighting on the streets who fear any American intervention would steal their revolution.
It is my personal desire to see Libya shake free of Gaddafi’s rule through protests and popular armed struggle when necessary. I question calls by U.S. senators for intervention, fearing it is an attempt to reassert American influence in a region where U.S. allies have fallen in Egypt, Tunisia, and Lebanon so far this year. However, if the moment comes when there is a decisive call by Libya’s revolutionaries for explicit foreign military operations against designated regime targets, I’ll stand by their judgement as every outside observer should.
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