Where’s a J Street when you really need one?
For a very long time, I could not voice differences over Israeli policies without being shouted down by hard line advocates for Israel. It was very difficult to defend Israeli policies. The military undertook operations that seemed excessive and settlements were built amid a hostile Arab population in Gaza and the West Bank.
I could have benefited from the supportive presence of a strong organization willing to raise legitimate concerns about Israel. None existed. Now we have J Street, which bills itself as “the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement” and lobbies Congress and President Obama to take positions that are considered leftward of those stances supported by most other pro-Israel organizations.
A series of events transformed my thinking on Israel, as said events transformed the thinking of many on the right. The most agonizing moment came during summer 2005 when Israel evacuated all settlements in Gaza, thus eliminating the threat to the lives of settlers and troops there. I fume whenever I recall reports of Arabs burning down the synagogue structures that were left behind, and then they subsequently launched rockets into southern Israel.
There are still times when criticism against Israel is merited, but now I am on the same page with one-time adversaries on most key issues. I have been close to the point where I do not care what Israel does.
So why does J Street inject itself into such a volatile situation? J Street offers a new take on the theory that some groups outlive their usefulness. J Street would have been helpful prior to the Gaza evacuation, but J Street’s usefulness vanished before J Street was even created.
Israel’s new ambassador, Michael Oren, launched a frontal assault on J Street in Cherry Hill, N.J., a Philadelphia suburb, while addressing a convention of Conservative synagogue leaders on Dec. 7. The weekly Forward reported that Oren called J Street “a unique problem in that it not only opposes one policy of one Israeli government, it opposes all policies of all Israeli governments. It’s significantly out of the mainstream.
“This is not a matter of settlements here (or) there. We understand there are differences of opinion. But when it comes to the survival of the Jewish state, there should be no differences of opinion. You are fooling around with the lives of 7 million people. This is no joke.”
Perhaps Oren’s outburst was more forceful than necessary. On its Web site, J Street denies that it is the disloyal monster portrayed by its detractors. However, a single word defines J Street: irrelevance.
I objected to some Israeli policies a decade ago despite the peacemaking strides of Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak. Israel played with fire by allowing settlements in Gaza and the more isolated reaches of the West Bank. I was willing to support the creation of a Palestinian state even with its capital in East Jerusalem if it would produce a peace settlement. When Ariel Sharon was prime minister, I was appalled by Israel’s fierce military incursions that contributed to a skyrocketing casualty rate.
Circumstances changed my perspective.
Nearly two years ago, J Street joined a sprawling network of Jewish advocacy organizations that tend to trip over one another and prove themselves useless when some important issues arise. The money spent on their bureaucratic operations can be better directed to Jewish social-service needs. To be fair, many of these organizations serve the Jewish people well in numerous ways, but not all the time.
Most of these organizations take moderate or hawkish positions on Israeli issues that can change with circumstances and political arrangements here and in Israel. J Street sets itself apart by firmly urging the creation of a Palestinian state and sending mixed messages on whether the Arabs should control East Jerusalem. I might be able to find common ground with J Street to eliminate West Bank settlements, but existing organizations share this view.
J Street’s arguments collapse against the backdrop of the past decade. Israel offered the Arabs an independent state with no strings attached during the 2000 Camp David summit, despite the lies of the late Yasser Arafat. Arafat rebuffed the offer and facilitated a war against Israel, and then refused an expanded offer shortly before President Clinton left office. After Sharon defeated Barak for prime minister in February, 2001, he intensified the hostilities which mainly played out in Gaza and the West Bank. Most civilian casualties were caused by terrorist bombings and other attacks within Israel proper and the bulk of military casualties occurred in the territories.
Sharon presided over the Gaza evacuation in 2005, eliminating concerns about settlements being retained there amid hostile neighbors. Arabs responded by burning synagogues and greenhouses, and then firing rockets into Sderot and other towns in southern Israel. They provoked a two-front war in 2006 after kidnapping a soldier near Gaza and two soldiers in or near southern Lebanon. That effectively delayed plans to evacuate settlements in the West Bank.
Both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon have built war machines, and Hamas provoked Israel into another fight last year. The leadership of Fatah in the West Bank has shaky support and Hamas persists with its intent to destroy Israel. Have I mentioned Iran’s threat to demolish Israel with a nuclear device?
These events helped satisfy my prime concerns about Israeli policies. Israel no longer controls land in Gaza and its attention to West Bank settlements was diverted by military conflicts. Flaws with the military infrastructure were exposed during the 2006 war and some improvements were implemented, though probably not enough.
It is foolish to take fixed positions on issues that will be subject to negotiations between Israel and the Arabs. All parties should be open to the question of an independent Palestinian state and consider all pros and cons. Yet, J Street adamantly supports a state while right-wing groups such as the Zionist Organization of America adamantly oppose it. Too many questions must be answered.
As for Jerusalem, Arab leaders must justify why they need any part of it. Israel fought for control of East Jerusalem in 1967 and annexed it shortly after that war. I cannot see why they need any section of Jerusalem.
I presume that J Street and myself share common ground on arguments for evacuating some West Bank settlements, but existing organizations share these concerns.
Perhaps it should be comforting that J Street is here for me now. Not that I need it.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Insanity defense could snag justice
‘Naveed Haq’s intention was to frighten Jews…The jury held that holding extremist views does not make you insane, but it does make you dangerous’
- King County (Wash.) Prosecutor Dan Satterberg
With two trials, Naveed Haq could not snow his second Seattle jury with an insanity defense.
After 2 ½ days of deliberations, a more prudent jury convicted Haq last Tuesday, Dec. 15, of aggravated murder and seven other offenses in the murder of Pamela Waechter and the wounding of five other women inside the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle on July 28, 2006.
Haq is at least the third thug to employ the insanity defense after killing or assaulting Jews. All three defendants were convicted, but Haq came close to getting away with his crimes when the first jury deadlocked in June 2008 and the judge declared a mistrial. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, which by legal tradition means he could not distinguish between right and wrong. Haq believes there is nothing wrong with killing Jews.
Imagine what Adolf Hitler could have done with the insanity defense had he lived to stand trial. In San Francisco a few years ago, a defendant who assailed Nobel Prize-winning author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel was found guilty in spite of using the insanity defense. In March 1994, Lebanese-born Rashid Baz murdered Ari Halberstam, 16, and critically wounded another Jewish teen-ager in a school vehicle on the Brooklyn bridge. He exercised his right to claim insanity, but a jury compelled him to take responsibility for his acts by convicting him.
The insanity defense is dangerous. True, this legal instrument is more complicated than the right-from-wrong standard, but we have reached the point where a person can be acquitted simply because s/he believes it is justified to murder someone who belongs to a given minority group.
Among Jewish victims alone, the line of reasoning that saved Haq the first time could have protected the Georgians who lynched Leo Frank in 1915; the Ku Klux Klan members who slaughtered three civil rights workers in 1964 (two were Jewish, one was black); and the teen-ager who fatally plunged a knife into Yankel Rosenbaum in Crown Heights in 1991.
Pam Waechter, a campaign director for the Seattle Federation, was at least the ninth Jew to be murdered in the United States because they were Jews. Waechter converted to Judaism when she married years earlier, but Haq made no such distinction when he entered her building and killed her because of his anger against Jews.
In his first trial run with the justice system, so to speak, Haq lucked out when Superior Court Judge Paris Kallas declared a mistrial after a jury deadlocked over 14 of 15 charges against him. Haq did not dispute charges that he shot Ms. Waechter to death and seriously wounded five other women inside the Federation building; Federation raises and allocates funds for Jewish causes. Haq would have gotten away with murdering a Jew had the entire jury agreed with the attorney’s arguments.
After the second trial, jurors said they were not provided with evidence that Haq was insane and in fact heard taped jailhouse statements from Haq that he regretted none of his acts and was proud to be a martyr, a typical honor for Islamic terrorists. Fortunately, the jury dismissed any possible arguments that Haq saw nothing wrong in killing Jews, but a different jury could have interpreted it differently.
Haq was not mad at the world but specifically at Jews because of their supposed oppression of his Muslim brethren in the Middle East, as he told witnesses. His shooting spree did not result from a spontaneous explosion of outrage. Media reports in The Seattle Times and The Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s coverage describe a methodical progression of events which led to the slayings.
I developed strong doubts about the insanity defense after covering criminal trials on and off for a few daily newspapers. In Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, a mother claimed religious motives for attempting to murder her children, one by one. The prosecutor demonstrated that the defendant committed the crimes in a meticulous manner, yet the jury bought her insanity defense.
It is inherent that anyone who commits a crime must be mentally unstable. A person in their right mind automatically knows that a criminal act is wrong and recognizes there is always a strong chance of getting caught and facing prosecution.
Nor is it convincing that a defendant should be excused for their acts if they cannot distinguish right from wrong or do not understand the nature and quality of their acts. Haq did in fact shoot six women, one fatally, even though he did not believe he was wrong to harm these people.
A defendant’s state of mind should be taken into account during sentencing because such conditions as emotional duress could trigger a person’s criminal acts, but not the process of determining guilt. He shot those six women, no question about it.
In both of his trials, the defense was persuasive in establishing that Haq suffered from serious mental-health problems, which included being on medication and having a history of child abuse; he was a self-proclaimed Muslim of Pakistani ancestry. Even his background fails to meet standards as a mitigating factor in sentencing. Haq’s reasoning should repulse anyone who is specifically concerned with anti-Semitism and generally with bigotry.
Haq singled out Jews. Since when does use of medication or experience with child abuse provoke someone to pick and choose among ethnic and religious groups? As JTA reported, Haq told a 911 operator, “I’m not upset at the people. I’m upset at your foreign policy. These are Jews. I’m tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East.”
The Seattle Times reported these additional comments from Haq to the 911 operator: “I want these Jews to get out. I don’t care…just want to make a point…all the media’s being controlled by Jews. I’m sick and tired of it…Patch me into CNN.”
Obviously, he must have drawn on his upbringing and mental-health history to believe it was not wrong to kill Jews. Hitler could have exploited this argument.
The prosecution was methodical in proving, well, how methodically Haq carried out his plans. JTA reported that Haq went on the Internet two weeks before his shooting spree to research Jewish organizations. He got directions to the Federation building from Mapquest. He drove 227 miles from his home in eastern Washington to kill Ms. Waechter and injure her colleagues. Some were Jewish, some were not. Along the way, he test-fired the two handguns he brought with him. To gain entrance into the building, he kidnapped a 14-year-old girl and started firing when he reached the Federation’s second-floor reception area.
Dayna Klein, who was pregnant at the time, testified that Haq shot her in the arm when she covered her abdomen with her arm to protect her unborn child. The wound left her without use of the arm. Klein coaxed him into talking with 911 operators. Police officers testified that Haq surrendered to police without further incident.
Haq saw nothing wrong in shooting these women because they were Jews or worked at a Jewish facility. Such a belief could still help any defendant attain an acquittal in the future, and that endangers all of us.
- King County (Wash.) Prosecutor Dan Satterberg
With two trials, Naveed Haq could not snow his second Seattle jury with an insanity defense.
After 2 ½ days of deliberations, a more prudent jury convicted Haq last Tuesday, Dec. 15, of aggravated murder and seven other offenses in the murder of Pamela Waechter and the wounding of five other women inside the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle on July 28, 2006.
Haq is at least the third thug to employ the insanity defense after killing or assaulting Jews. All three defendants were convicted, but Haq came close to getting away with his crimes when the first jury deadlocked in June 2008 and the judge declared a mistrial. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, which by legal tradition means he could not distinguish between right and wrong. Haq believes there is nothing wrong with killing Jews.
Imagine what Adolf Hitler could have done with the insanity defense had he lived to stand trial. In San Francisco a few years ago, a defendant who assailed Nobel Prize-winning author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel was found guilty in spite of using the insanity defense. In March 1994, Lebanese-born Rashid Baz murdered Ari Halberstam, 16, and critically wounded another Jewish teen-ager in a school vehicle on the Brooklyn bridge. He exercised his right to claim insanity, but a jury compelled him to take responsibility for his acts by convicting him.
The insanity defense is dangerous. True, this legal instrument is more complicated than the right-from-wrong standard, but we have reached the point where a person can be acquitted simply because s/he believes it is justified to murder someone who belongs to a given minority group.
Among Jewish victims alone, the line of reasoning that saved Haq the first time could have protected the Georgians who lynched Leo Frank in 1915; the Ku Klux Klan members who slaughtered three civil rights workers in 1964 (two were Jewish, one was black); and the teen-ager who fatally plunged a knife into Yankel Rosenbaum in Crown Heights in 1991.
Pam Waechter, a campaign director for the Seattle Federation, was at least the ninth Jew to be murdered in the United States because they were Jews. Waechter converted to Judaism when she married years earlier, but Haq made no such distinction when he entered her building and killed her because of his anger against Jews.
In his first trial run with the justice system, so to speak, Haq lucked out when Superior Court Judge Paris Kallas declared a mistrial after a jury deadlocked over 14 of 15 charges against him. Haq did not dispute charges that he shot Ms. Waechter to death and seriously wounded five other women inside the Federation building; Federation raises and allocates funds for Jewish causes. Haq would have gotten away with murdering a Jew had the entire jury agreed with the attorney’s arguments.
After the second trial, jurors said they were not provided with evidence that Haq was insane and in fact heard taped jailhouse statements from Haq that he regretted none of his acts and was proud to be a martyr, a typical honor for Islamic terrorists. Fortunately, the jury dismissed any possible arguments that Haq saw nothing wrong in killing Jews, but a different jury could have interpreted it differently.
Haq was not mad at the world but specifically at Jews because of their supposed oppression of his Muslim brethren in the Middle East, as he told witnesses. His shooting spree did not result from a spontaneous explosion of outrage. Media reports in The Seattle Times and The Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s coverage describe a methodical progression of events which led to the slayings.
I developed strong doubts about the insanity defense after covering criminal trials on and off for a few daily newspapers. In Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, a mother claimed religious motives for attempting to murder her children, one by one. The prosecutor demonstrated that the defendant committed the crimes in a meticulous manner, yet the jury bought her insanity defense.
It is inherent that anyone who commits a crime must be mentally unstable. A person in their right mind automatically knows that a criminal act is wrong and recognizes there is always a strong chance of getting caught and facing prosecution.
Nor is it convincing that a defendant should be excused for their acts if they cannot distinguish right from wrong or do not understand the nature and quality of their acts. Haq did in fact shoot six women, one fatally, even though he did not believe he was wrong to harm these people.
A defendant’s state of mind should be taken into account during sentencing because such conditions as emotional duress could trigger a person’s criminal acts, but not the process of determining guilt. He shot those six women, no question about it.
In both of his trials, the defense was persuasive in establishing that Haq suffered from serious mental-health problems, which included being on medication and having a history of child abuse; he was a self-proclaimed Muslim of Pakistani ancestry. Even his background fails to meet standards as a mitigating factor in sentencing. Haq’s reasoning should repulse anyone who is specifically concerned with anti-Semitism and generally with bigotry.
Haq singled out Jews. Since when does use of medication or experience with child abuse provoke someone to pick and choose among ethnic and religious groups? As JTA reported, Haq told a 911 operator, “I’m not upset at the people. I’m upset at your foreign policy. These are Jews. I’m tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East.”
The Seattle Times reported these additional comments from Haq to the 911 operator: “I want these Jews to get out. I don’t care…just want to make a point…all the media’s being controlled by Jews. I’m sick and tired of it…Patch me into CNN.”
Obviously, he must have drawn on his upbringing and mental-health history to believe it was not wrong to kill Jews. Hitler could have exploited this argument.
The prosecution was methodical in proving, well, how methodically Haq carried out his plans. JTA reported that Haq went on the Internet two weeks before his shooting spree to research Jewish organizations. He got directions to the Federation building from Mapquest. He drove 227 miles from his home in eastern Washington to kill Ms. Waechter and injure her colleagues. Some were Jewish, some were not. Along the way, he test-fired the two handguns he brought with him. To gain entrance into the building, he kidnapped a 14-year-old girl and started firing when he reached the Federation’s second-floor reception area.
Dayna Klein, who was pregnant at the time, testified that Haq shot her in the arm when she covered her abdomen with her arm to protect her unborn child. The wound left her without use of the arm. Klein coaxed him into talking with 911 operators. Police officers testified that Haq surrendered to police without further incident.
Haq saw nothing wrong in shooting these women because they were Jews or worked at a Jewish facility. Such a belief could still help any defendant attain an acquittal in the future, and that endangers all of us.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
On your way, 'Christian' lawyers
So, a religious group for aspiring attorneys claims the right to discriminate. A law school refuses to accept the organization if it will not accept gays and other so-called heathens. The victims of this group’s discriminatory policies are unlikely to seek membership in this organization.
There is a joke in here somewhere. Correction: We can assemble a rollicking monologue out of this which writes itself. It is nonetheless a grave matter when an organization discriminates against any group since Jews and others could ultimately be affected.
In San Francisco, a public law school withdrew recognition of a chapter of the Christian Legal Society as a school organization because of its refusal to comply with school policy barring discrimination against religion, sexual orientation and related grounds.
If the society complies, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco - part of the University of California - would allow it to use meeting space, bulletin boards and other school services as it does for 60 existing student groups.
However, the society will only permit students to become voting members or assume leadership positions if they affirm the group’s orthodox Christian beliefs and disavow “unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle,” according to The New York Times. That would include “sexual conduct outside of marriage between a man and a woman.”
The society sued for its right to discriminate and was rebuffed last March by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. On Monday, Dec. 7, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the society’s appeal.
Filing a lawsuit is an instinctive action for an attorney, one would think. Actually, a responsible attorney would not attempt to violate the policies of its host to begin with.
Ironic that an anti-gay group would organize in America’s homosexual capital. Then again, these law students will be challenged by a test of temptation to rival their bar exams.
Obviously, the very people who are not welcome by the society would have no perceptible reason to join, so there does not seem to be any likely possibility of a problem.
There is the principle, of course. It is a public university, and therefore the school leadership cannot permit discrimination. The Rev. Barry W. Lynn put it this way: “Groups that wish to engage in discrimination should not expect public subsidies.”
Lynn is executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed a brief in support of the law school’s case.
Especially, any law school student who would join a discriminatory organization is making a categorical argument for why they should pursue another line of work.
The legal system was created to allow the pursuit of justice on the basis of the law and the facts of a given case. The Christian Legal Society bases its policies on its interpretation of the Bible. Its beliefs are far removed from more liberal Christian denominations.
The pursuit of justice must inherently be flexible. An attorney, like any professional, must be imaginative and aggressive, and not let an unconfirmed philosophy get in the way of a good case.
To paraphrase Groucho Marx, I would not hire an attorney who would join an organization like the Christian Legal Society.
“Christian” lawyers have their employment opportunities. Some will get jobs with conservative organizations and Republican politicians. They will win some religious-oriented cases; there are times that they have been in the right. The Bush administration’s Department of Justice was filled with “Christian” lawyers.
Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are among the “Christian” lawyers named to the U.S. Supreme Court by recent Republican presidents. Many from this mold were recommended and/or confirmed to lower court judgeships.
That does not make them quality attorneys.
The Christian Legal Society is no poor victim. This is the second time that one of its chapters filed legal action to challenge their college host’s policies. Their pockets must be fairly deep if they can afford to file lawsuits.
Law schools are supposedly training grounds for men and women to play by the rules. An organization that discriminates does not play by the rules. That makes them dangerous.
There is a joke in here somewhere. Correction: We can assemble a rollicking monologue out of this which writes itself. It is nonetheless a grave matter when an organization discriminates against any group since Jews and others could ultimately be affected.
In San Francisco, a public law school withdrew recognition of a chapter of the Christian Legal Society as a school organization because of its refusal to comply with school policy barring discrimination against religion, sexual orientation and related grounds.
If the society complies, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco - part of the University of California - would allow it to use meeting space, bulletin boards and other school services as it does for 60 existing student groups.
However, the society will only permit students to become voting members or assume leadership positions if they affirm the group’s orthodox Christian beliefs and disavow “unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle,” according to The New York Times. That would include “sexual conduct outside of marriage between a man and a woman.”
The society sued for its right to discriminate and was rebuffed last March by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. On Monday, Dec. 7, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the society’s appeal.
Filing a lawsuit is an instinctive action for an attorney, one would think. Actually, a responsible attorney would not attempt to violate the policies of its host to begin with.
Ironic that an anti-gay group would organize in America’s homosexual capital. Then again, these law students will be challenged by a test of temptation to rival their bar exams.
Obviously, the very people who are not welcome by the society would have no perceptible reason to join, so there does not seem to be any likely possibility of a problem.
There is the principle, of course. It is a public university, and therefore the school leadership cannot permit discrimination. The Rev. Barry W. Lynn put it this way: “Groups that wish to engage in discrimination should not expect public subsidies.”
Lynn is executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed a brief in support of the law school’s case.
Especially, any law school student who would join a discriminatory organization is making a categorical argument for why they should pursue another line of work.
The legal system was created to allow the pursuit of justice on the basis of the law and the facts of a given case. The Christian Legal Society bases its policies on its interpretation of the Bible. Its beliefs are far removed from more liberal Christian denominations.
The pursuit of justice must inherently be flexible. An attorney, like any professional, must be imaginative and aggressive, and not let an unconfirmed philosophy get in the way of a good case.
To paraphrase Groucho Marx, I would not hire an attorney who would join an organization like the Christian Legal Society.
“Christian” lawyers have their employment opportunities. Some will get jobs with conservative organizations and Republican politicians. They will win some religious-oriented cases; there are times that they have been in the right. The Bush administration’s Department of Justice was filled with “Christian” lawyers.
Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are among the “Christian” lawyers named to the U.S. Supreme Court by recent Republican presidents. Many from this mold were recommended and/or confirmed to lower court judgeships.
That does not make them quality attorneys.
The Christian Legal Society is no poor victim. This is the second time that one of its chapters filed legal action to challenge their college host’s policies. Their pockets must be fairly deep if they can afford to file lawsuits.
Law schools are supposedly training grounds for men and women to play by the rules. An organization that discriminates does not play by the rules. That makes them dangerous.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
World has Israel's back...for now
It qualifies as an important event in Jewish history: An international body stands by Israel in its life-and-death dispute with Iran.
The governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency - described as the nuclear watchdog for the United Nations - censured Iran by demanding that its government freeze operations at a uranium enrichment plant right away. The United States was joined by China, Russia and 24 other countries in voting overwhelmingly for the resolution on Friday, Nov. 27 - two days short of the 62nd anniversary of UN approval to establish the state of Israel.
The IAEA’s vote is the strongest UN action I can recall on behalf of Israel since it was accepted as a member of the General Assembly on May 11, 1949. It holds historical significance in part because of the brutal treatment of the Jews during our 2,000-year diaspora, but especially with recent history as a backdrop.
Member states of the UN have probably never stood so staunchly behind Israel since the Jewish state’s very creation. The UN adopted Resolution 181 to endorse creation of the Jewish state on Nov. 29, 1947, as part of a partition plan for two states, one for Israel and the other for Arabs, according to the Israeli Mission’s Web site. Of course, it did not work out that way as the surrounding Arab nations rejected the plan and invaded Israel.
Israel proclaimed its independence on May 14, 1948, turned back the Arab armies and joined the UN nearly a year later.
Relations between Israel and the UN have often been hostile. The UN injected itself into the 1973 Yom Kippur War once Israel was in position to lay siege to Cairo. The world body also pressed for a truce in 2006 before Israel could cause Hezbollah any real damage. Interestingly, Michael Oren noted in his book, “Six Days of War,” that Israeli leaders intentionally withheld news of Israel’s early victories in the Six-Day War, in 1967, for fear that the UN would seek to shut down the war before Israel could make further progress.
Among its many slights to Israel, the UN General Assembly in 1975 adopted a resolution equating Zionism with racism and rescinded it in 1991. It is not historic that the majority of member states undid their previous damage.
Still, on Nov. 27, delegates from 27 nations lined up behind Israel to cast a vote for the first time demanding that Iran immediately halt construction of a uranium enrichment facility in Qum, according to The New York Times.
By no means is this vote conclusive, but it is a good start. Surprisingly, China and Russia joined the vote, as did such countries as France, Germany, England and Canada.
The Times explained that the vote does not go so far as to finding Iran in formal “noncompliance” or violation of its nonproliferation commitments. That would afford strong evidence to support the drive for a new round of sanctions.
The conditions that shaped the IAEA vote are wide open to speculation. It may be that some countries recognized that voting to censure Iran was the right thing to do. We have a president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who repeatedly denied the Jewish people’s tragic history while threatening Israel’s destruction, and his government steadily develops a nuclear program. What gray areas can there be for reasonable people?
Plenty of backroom maneuvering evidently ensued. President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and their people were certainly lining up their ducks, even those likely to vote their way, anyway.
Obama had met individually with the leaders of Russia and China. Before meeting in Beijing with China’s president, Hu Jintao, two senior National Security Council officials, Jeff Bader and Dennis Ross, were sent to China to make a personal case for the United States’s concern about Iran’s nuclear programs, the Times reported.
One must wonder what carrots or sticks were used. Maybe American officials reminded Russia and China that they could face international trials for alleged human rights abuses, just as the Goldstone report on the Gaza war threatens that fate for Israel. Americans could have promised their help if this kind of situation arose.
I wonder if guilt over the Goldstone report was a factor for some of the western nations. There are legitimate concerns over the Gaza war earlier this year, but even some of these countries probably recognize that the upshot of the report was way over the top and tilted too far against Israel.
The IAEA vote resolves nothing at this stage, and Iran’s subsequent defiance underscores that. In addition, the 27 nations that voted in the affirmative are hardly a majority of the U.N. membership itself.
However, Israel and its supporters have reasons to take heart. The IAEA vote at least held symbolic importance, and that is historic there.
The governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency - described as the nuclear watchdog for the United Nations - censured Iran by demanding that its government freeze operations at a uranium enrichment plant right away. The United States was joined by China, Russia and 24 other countries in voting overwhelmingly for the resolution on Friday, Nov. 27 - two days short of the 62nd anniversary of UN approval to establish the state of Israel.
The IAEA’s vote is the strongest UN action I can recall on behalf of Israel since it was accepted as a member of the General Assembly on May 11, 1949. It holds historical significance in part because of the brutal treatment of the Jews during our 2,000-year diaspora, but especially with recent history as a backdrop.
Member states of the UN have probably never stood so staunchly behind Israel since the Jewish state’s very creation. The UN adopted Resolution 181 to endorse creation of the Jewish state on Nov. 29, 1947, as part of a partition plan for two states, one for Israel and the other for Arabs, according to the Israeli Mission’s Web site. Of course, it did not work out that way as the surrounding Arab nations rejected the plan and invaded Israel.
Israel proclaimed its independence on May 14, 1948, turned back the Arab armies and joined the UN nearly a year later.
Relations between Israel and the UN have often been hostile. The UN injected itself into the 1973 Yom Kippur War once Israel was in position to lay siege to Cairo. The world body also pressed for a truce in 2006 before Israel could cause Hezbollah any real damage. Interestingly, Michael Oren noted in his book, “Six Days of War,” that Israeli leaders intentionally withheld news of Israel’s early victories in the Six-Day War, in 1967, for fear that the UN would seek to shut down the war before Israel could make further progress.
Among its many slights to Israel, the UN General Assembly in 1975 adopted a resolution equating Zionism with racism and rescinded it in 1991. It is not historic that the majority of member states undid their previous damage.
Still, on Nov. 27, delegates from 27 nations lined up behind Israel to cast a vote for the first time demanding that Iran immediately halt construction of a uranium enrichment facility in Qum, according to The New York Times.
By no means is this vote conclusive, but it is a good start. Surprisingly, China and Russia joined the vote, as did such countries as France, Germany, England and Canada.
The Times explained that the vote does not go so far as to finding Iran in formal “noncompliance” or violation of its nonproliferation commitments. That would afford strong evidence to support the drive for a new round of sanctions.
The conditions that shaped the IAEA vote are wide open to speculation. It may be that some countries recognized that voting to censure Iran was the right thing to do. We have a president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who repeatedly denied the Jewish people’s tragic history while threatening Israel’s destruction, and his government steadily develops a nuclear program. What gray areas can there be for reasonable people?
Plenty of backroom maneuvering evidently ensued. President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and their people were certainly lining up their ducks, even those likely to vote their way, anyway.
Obama had met individually with the leaders of Russia and China. Before meeting in Beijing with China’s president, Hu Jintao, two senior National Security Council officials, Jeff Bader and Dennis Ross, were sent to China to make a personal case for the United States’s concern about Iran’s nuclear programs, the Times reported.
One must wonder what carrots or sticks were used. Maybe American officials reminded Russia and China that they could face international trials for alleged human rights abuses, just as the Goldstone report on the Gaza war threatens that fate for Israel. Americans could have promised their help if this kind of situation arose.
I wonder if guilt over the Goldstone report was a factor for some of the western nations. There are legitimate concerns over the Gaza war earlier this year, but even some of these countries probably recognize that the upshot of the report was way over the top and tilted too far against Israel.
The IAEA vote resolves nothing at this stage, and Iran’s subsequent defiance underscores that. In addition, the 27 nations that voted in the affirmative are hardly a majority of the U.N. membership itself.
However, Israel and its supporters have reasons to take heart. The IAEA vote at least held symbolic importance, and that is historic there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)