ISRAEL POSTCARD

TEL AVIV: eve of Yom Hazikaron, the Memorial Day for the Fallen soldiers in all Israel's wars.

The throbbing, noisy street in front of the hotel has steadily been falling silent over the last couple of hours. We watched the sun setting over the Mediterranean from our terrace after a beautiful mild sunny day.

There is no cafe, restaurant or any public place of entertainment open tonight.At 8.00 pm the eerie sound of a siren is heard over the city and over the whole country.
At exactly 11 am, it will be repeated for 2 minutes when the whole country will stop in its tracks.

For us visitors, it is a sobering experience to be here at this time. For the citizens, most of whom have either lost some of their nearest and dearest,- or know someone close to them who is in that position,- this is a very traumatic and sad 24 hours. Memorial candles are lit, even by guests in our hotel.

PESACH/PASSOVER:the festival of freedom.:

The first two nights (one night in Israel) are spent by families and friends at the SEDER table. It is a night of story-retelling of the escape of the Jews from slavery in Egypt, led by Moses. For this reason it is called the festival of freedom.
It is also a night of feasting with traditional foods such as "gefillte fish" (varying in taste from verysweet, to medium sweet, to non-sweet with salt and pepper,- depending upon the originating family traditions)followed by chicken soup with matzo-balls (dumplings), then various meat and chicken dishes, with tzimmes (honeyed carrots and raisins), potato pancakes(latkes or kugel), or matza pancakes.
After the meal the story-telling continues, finishing of with raucuous singing.
All this providing the gathering is led by a well-versed older member of the family who can keep control over the children. It can take until midnight, the whole process!

For adults-only gatherings, a shortened version is offered below to offset the inevitable boredom which sets in for the older generation who have weathered the stories over many years. As one 70 year old who is not conversant with Hebrew said upon hearing this abbreviated fun-Haggada,- "it's the first time that I understood what the Seder is all about!"

The Two-Minute Haggadah
A Passover service for the impatient.

By Michael Rubiner




Opening prayers:

Thanks, God, for creating wine. (Drink wine.)

Thanks for creating produce. (Eat parsley.)

Overview: Once we were slaves in Egypt. Now we're free. That's why we're doing this.

Four questions:
1. What's up with the matzoh?
2. What's the deal with horseradish?
3. What's with the dipping of the herbs?
4. What's this whole slouching at the table business?

Answers:
1. When we left Egypt, we were in a hurry. There was no time for making decent bread.
2. Life was bitter, like horseradish.
3. It's called symbolism.
4. Free people get to slouch.

A funny story: Once, these five rabbis talked all night, then it was morning. (Heat soup now.)

The four kinds of children and how to deal with them:
Wise child—explain Passover.
Simple child—explain Passover slowly.
Silent child—explain Passover loudly.
Wicked child—browbeat in front of the relatives.

Speaking of children: We hid some matzoh. Whoever finds it gets five bucks.

The story of Passover: It's a long time ago. We're slaves in Egypt. Pharaoh is a nightmare. We cry out for help. God brings plagues upon the Egyptians. We escape, bake some matzoh. God parts the Red Sea. We make it through; the Egyptians aren't so lucky. We wander 40 years in the desert, eat manna, get the Torah, wind up in Israel, get a new temple, enjoy several years without being persecuted again. (Let brisket cool now.
The 10 Plagues: Blood, Frogs, Lice—you name it.

The singing of "Dayenu":
If God had gotten us out of Egypt and not punished our enemies, it would've been enough. If he'd punished our enemies and not parted the Red Sea, it would've been enough.

If he'd parted the Red Sea—(Remove gefilte fish from refrigerator now.)

Eat matzoh. Drink more wine. Slouch.

Thanks again, God, for everything.

SERVE MEAL.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Michael Rubiner writes for movies and television. His work has appeared in many publications, including The New Yorker, the New York Times, and Rolling Stone.
Photogaph of matzoh on the Slate home page by Menahem Kahana/AFP Photo.

The Ambiguous Status of Women in Religion

The importance of the separation between Religion and State for women’s human rights today.

At a recent concert, I was listening to a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade” and reading the program notes which stated:
“The Sultan Shahriyar, convinced of the duplicity and infidelity of all women, had vowed to slay each of his wives after the first night. The Sultana Scheherazade, however, saved her life by the expedient of recounting to the Sultan a succession of tales over 1001 nights.”

In this one paragraph I one reads about: 1. the power of the male over life and death of his women; 2. the implication that all women are “duplicitous and unfaithful”; 3. the woman’s cleverness and cunning,- albeit used to save her own life, but males,- beware!

Traditionally, women were always viewed with ambiguity in religion... On the one hand, in the Torah we read Solomon’s verses: “who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.” This is followed by a list of all the wonderful tasks this virtuous woman whose price is above rubies (it would need to be!) would perform. Her reward? “Her husband is known in the gates, when he siteth among the elders in the land.”

Whether in the Bible, old or new Testament, or the Qur’an, women not only have their place alongside and belonging to a male, but the men are admonished to punish them if they “overstep the mark” as it were. In addition, the punishments are described in detail for each offence in the scriptures as though they were God-ordained. Unfortunately, they are humanly imposed. In this way, male power over females is still exercised in many Theocracies and religious fundamentalist communities today. Some of their women, perhaps secure in happy relationships themselves, will assert to be willing participants in such an imposed social order within their communities. Their religious leaders will claim that their religion is protective of women. But are these latter claims genuine and universal? If they were, there would not have been a Holocaust and other atrocities! While for those who do not subscribe to these benign theories, or chained within unhappy relationships, can they opt out? On whose side is the State and its laws?

I pondered on the above when reading extracts of Benazir Bhutto’s book, Reconciliation, which she had just finished before her assassination and as published in The Australian on February 11th, 2008. Under the chapter “Jihad for Women’s Rights”, she stated:

‘Special attention should be paid to organizing women as political, social and economic players in each society. This is especially true for the Islamic world, where women often faced subjugation. This subjugation came not from the message of Islam, which proclaimed the equality of men and women, but from narrow interpretations of Sharia that deliberately promoted subjugation and from political exploitation by ideological clerics.’

This article was followed shortly afterwards by a widely reported comment by the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, who argued during a lecture, for some elements of Sharia law to be introduced alongside British laws. His comments were greeted by universal condemnation and alarm,- not just criticism,- in the world’s English-language media. In light of the above, women were the first to react in absolute horror at the suggestion. While supposedly meant as an individual optional alternative, the women would be the first to be held to ransom within their communities to be bound by their restrictive Sharia laws within the secular Western democracy of Britain.

Why would anyone want that?

The protection of women’s human rights today is dependent upon the separation of religion and State. For this reason in particular, when Justice Elizabeth Evatt chaired a Government Inquiry into “Multiculturalism and the Law in Australia” , NCJWA in 1990 made a submission not to introduce religious exceptions in areas of marriage and divorce to suit particular ethnic groups, (there were even submissions for legalizing polygamy) because where this separation of religion and State does not exist,- women are almost as badly off today as they would have been in the dark ages.

The Americans are absolutely paranoid about their Constitutional right with respect to the separation of religion and State, even though their Constitution invokes the name of ‘God’. However Religion per se is not mentioned. Their Founding Fathers had fled from European Church-inspired persecutions for their religious beliefs. Therefore while they included their belief in “God” within the State’s Constitution, they avoided mentioning the word Religion in all its various human applications. As the recent visiting philosophy lecturer Dr. Zohar Raviv of Israel stated,- belief in a supreme being, i.e. belief in God is not the same as organized religion,- (which he termed to be “dogma” and human inspired, but still important in conveying moral values and promoting social harmony, perpetuating family traditions and so on. )

Today, people are drawn to religion and religious observance more than ever,- particularly since the downfall of Soviet Communism and the rise of globalization with all its uncertainties. Still, there are many areas of conflict between particularly women’s human rights and the various religions’ laws,- especially in the areas of personal status. We find religious restrictions on women’s dress, including their hair and hair coverings; the various marriage and divorce laws; restrictions on women’s inheritance, on their participation in the ceremonial and hierarchical structures of all orthodox religions., etc. There are also many ‘customary laws’ versed in religious terms such as contraception, and female circumcision, abortion, so that women in countries where there are no State laws on any of these issues.Women need to have the means of redress and escape from their fate, ( unless they are wealthy enough to go elsewhere!) .

This is why many immigrant younger women in England whose families escaped from the tyranny of some of the most repressive religious laws in other countries, have reacted with absolute alarm at the comments made by Archbishop Williams. Islamic laws have not been revised since the first millennium and are ruthlessly imposed on the populations of many countries, including stoning to death on accusations of adultery and jailing women for showing their ankles (Iran) and even jailing a woman for being raped, (Saudi Arabia),- all ordered by the Islamic Courts administering Sharia laws. Then there are African countries suffering the ravages of the AIDS epidemic, where the use of condoms for protection of their sexual partners from being infected. is prohibited by the Catholic Church. Infected males therefore offer no protection to their sexual partners from contagion. Interestingly, the Vatican recently announced the modern version of today’s “7 deadly sins”, but infecting one’s partner with the AIDS virus wasn’t among them!

For devout Jews, religious divorce can be very problematic when there is no ‘Get’ granted by either partner, but usually by the male who can use blackmail to gain financial advantages in the divorce process. There are many “‘chained women”’ as a result, ‘agunot’ in Hebrew,- particularly in Israel where all laws of personal status are regulated by the Rabbinate. Many women’s groups are working very hard to get this anomaly rectified from within the religion, particularly the International Council of Jewish Women and all its affiliates around the world. Sadly, the religious male supremacy in the political structure of the State makes it virtually impossible to shift the Rabbinate,- claiming divine authority in the Torah for this law. However, the Israeli State judiciary does have the means to impose heavy penalties on recalcitrant spouses who refuse to grant a Get to their partners.

In Turkey, it has recently been announced that a review of Islamic traditions (apparently not their laws) is being undertaken with a view to bring them up-to-date, i.e. up to modern standards of women’s and all human rights. Turkey is also struggling to maintain its strict separation between the dominant Islamic religion and a secular Constitution established by Gamal Ataturk in the early1920s and jealously guarded by the military.
Tradition, tradition, tradition, -as Tevyeh the milkman cried out. While it is important to maintain our traditions for future generations, we must recognize that some archaic customs and traditions are not worth preserving. The State should guard against them. Unlike Archbishop Dr. Williams, I believe that religion and traditions are the domains of the individual. The democratic State is the repository of the laws to protect our human rights (not always successfully e.g in dictatorships) and the rule of law must reign above all.

Long live our liberal democracies where this exists and women should be particularly thankful to be living in Australia today.

See the transcript of the ABC Radio National 'Background Briefing' program of 13/4/08
Haredi community in Israel.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2008/2211143.htm

USING LAW TO FIGHT ASYMMETRIC WARFARE

Using law to fight a war
By Melanie PHILLIPS
Jewish Chronicle
21 March 2008

http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=574

Asymmetric warfare is normally defined as the weak pitting
themselves against forces equipped with infinitely superior
military power.

But in fact, unlike conventional warfare between states,
asymmetric warfare conceals the real drivers of the
aggression - those regimes which finance, recruit, arm and
train those who fire rockets at civilians or turn themselves
into human bombs.

Such concealment paralyses countries which need to protect
their citizens against such terror. Their military might
becomes a boomerang when, as happened during Israel's recent
action in Gaza, the terrorists place women and children on
the rooftops during air-raids in order to maximise civilian
casualties.

The credulous West accordingly sees an inhuman Israel
killing unarmed innocents. The regimes whose strategic aim
is the death of such innocents as well as the slaughter of
Israelis are totally absent from the false picture imprinted
upon the West's collective retina.

Since asymmetric warfare thus limits the capacity of armies
to bring about a military solution, defenders of
civilisation have to start thinking outside the box.

In Israel a law centre, Shurat Ha'din, is doing just that.
It is forcing the terror-masters onto a different
battleground altogether - the courtrooms of America, Europe
and Israel.

Inspired by the Southern Poverty Law Centre in the US, which
used civil litigation to cripple the Ku Klux Klan, the
lawyers of Shurat Ha'din have helped hundreds of Israeli
terror victims file civil suits against Palestinian terror
groups and their financial patrons.

As leading lights in the organisation told a conference in
Rome last week, such achievements have an important
strategic value. In suing Iran, Syria and the EU for
bankrolling terrorists and in bringing cases against the
Palestinian Authority and Hamas for actual attacks, they
shrink the global space in which the sponsors of terrorism
otherwise enjoy virtually free rein to run their infernal
funding networks.

In an American court, for example, Shurat Ha'din won a $200
million judgment against the PA on behalf of the family of
an American Jew, who was in the band at a batmitzvah party
in Israel which was blown up in a human-bomb attack by a PA
policeman.

While the PA fights this judgment - on the eye-popping
grounds that the attack on the batmitzvah party was a
'legitimate act of war' - its funds are frozen. This is
causing it so much damage that it asked the State Department
to intervene; two weeks ago, State finally refused.

Other lawsuits brought by Shurat Ha'din are similarly
disrupting the flow of terrorist funds. The Jordan-based
Arab Bank has paid families of human-bomb terrorists
'rewards' for murdering Jews. Since the Arab Bank's NY
branch brought it under US jurisdiction, Shurat Ha'din
launched a lawsuit against it there for $50 million. The
bank promptly announced it would shut its NY branch to avoid
liability - which it has not been allowed to do.

When Hamas came to power, the US and EU froze all PA funding
that would go to Hamas - which in response raised $40
million from terror regimes.

The Arab League told Hamas that it would open a bank account
in Cairo from which it would transfer this money to Gaza.
Since the Arab League had an office in Washington DC, Shurat
Ha'din filed a suit in that city to freeze the money in the
Cairo bank account on the grounds that it should be paid
instead to the Jewish families whose lives Hamas had
destroyed.

Even though diplomatic cravenness in America, Israel and
Europe creates problems in enforcing such judgments, the
very fact they are made forces the terror-masters onto the
back foot. Banks think twice before giving money to terror
groups. Even a case in Italy which Shurat Ha'din lost
against Iran's national oil company forced Iran to shift
funds from Rome to Thailand. As the Palestinian banks only
deal in euros and dollars, terror finding was once again
disrupted.

Since London is arguably the most important centre of all
for the funding of global terror, one might think that the
British courts would play a key role in this strategy of
bankrupting the Islamists. Think again. For this to happen,
such lawsuits need to be filed by British lawyers (on a pro
bono basis). But every British lawyer - and for that, read
Jewish lawyer - asked to do so by Shurat Ha'din has refused.

Is this not shameful? On the battlefield of the mind, the
Islamists are winning. But on the battlefield of the courts,
they are losing.

British Jews are hardly conspicuous by their absence in
Britain's legal circles. Surely they of all people should be
queuing up to use the law to cut the terror-funding networks
and defeat the devious godfathers of the vile and
manipulative war against the Jews?
__._,_.___

BIPARTISAN SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL IN OZ PARLIAMENT

USUAL SUSPECTS TRY TO BLAME ISRAEL FOR THE PALESTINIANS' LACK OF SELF-DETERMINATION.
Advertisement in The AUSTRALIAN tries to undermine today's bipartisan Motion.

The Friends of Palestine and their associates would do better to spend their moneys and energies in encouraging their Arab brethren to become responsible citizens and prove, like Israel has done, that they can form themselves into a responsible national entity which can live in peace and harmony with its neighbours.
.
In 1947 there was no national group calling itself "Palestinian" among the Arab inhabitants and therefore there was no one to take up the UN offer of the Partition Plan to form themselves into another State alongside Israel. While the combined Arab armies surrounding the fledgling Jewish nation of Israel attacked it from all sides in '48/'49, they had no intention of doing anything other than obliterating Palestine altogether.

Hamas and the hard-line Islamists continue and are still intent on fulfilling their infamous aims even after 60 years. Which other sovereign nation and UN member has to argue for its legitimacy? How dare these signatories to the advertisement argue against our Government's principled stand in protecting the right of Israel to exist in secure and legitimate boundaries?

Congratulations to the Editors of THE AUSTRALIAN newspaper for its fair and unbiased coverage of the true situation vis-a-vis Israel and its neighbours!

TERRORIST MASSACRE IN JERUSALEM, 7th March 2008.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-halevi2mar02,0,7450703,print.story

Los Angeles Times: The end of the 'guilty Israeli'
Yossi Klein-Halevi says (on 2nd March, before the massacre):

Gaza's people are being held hostage to a political fantasy. And the
international community is abetting the tragedy. The U.N. actually
considers Palestinians to be permanent refugees, to be protected in
squalid but subsidized camps even though they live in their own
homeland of Gaza, under their own government.

So long as Gaza refuses to heal itself, Israelis will rightly suspect that the Palestinian goal remains Israel's destruction. Not even a full withdrawal from the West Bank, they fear, will end the war, any more than the pullout from Gaza stopped the rockets. Israel's crime isn't occupying but existing.

And so we move toward the next terrible round of conflict. This time, though, for all our anguish, we will feel a lot less remorse. Because even guilty Israelis realize that, until our neighbors care more about building their state than undermining ours, the misery of Gaza will persist. "

[Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow in the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and author of "At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for Hope with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land." ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Terrorist massacre in Jerusalem: The truth is louder than a Kalatchnikov

Amy Isseroff writes:
07.03. 2008

http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000503.html


"There were ten attack warnings in Jerusalem on Thursday. In any case, we can assume that whoever planned it was doing the bid of the Iranian Mullahs, who are intent on fighting the American Great Satan to the last Palestinian Arab and Israeli Jew.
The massacre has generated a certain amount of unwonted solidarity in Israel, and even a bit of support abroad. Ha'aretz has taken the unusual step of labeling it a terrorist attack, and calling the killer a "terrorist" rather than a "gunman" or a "militant." Of course, the BBC described it as an "attack" by a "gunman," but they did at least mention the bloodthirsty jubilation in Gaza and the official announcements of support by Hamas.
--------
The Post put out a small edition despite the bombing (see Palestine Post).

To some of our readers, the Post's reaction may seem very strange. It did not blame other Zionists or Jews for the attack. It did not advise stopping the "cycle of violence." Nor did they call for. bloodthirsty revenge or replacing the Zionist leadership with more religious personnel. It blamed the terrorists who carried out the bombing, an obvious idea that doesn't seem to have occurred to many people this week.

The Post editorial began
The truth is louder than TNT and burns brighter than the flames of arson.
It is time for everyone to remember and understand that unity, grim resolve and cool heads are our greatest assets. The truth is brighter than blowhard airheaded politicos and rabbis, and louder than an AK-47.

Ami Isseroff
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[N.B. The Yeshivah attacked is part of the Religious Zionist Movement, whose students fight in the IDF to protect their country, withou waiting for Moshiach to help them.]
3/2008 2:01 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------


The difference between some journalists, (e,g, like Ed O'Loughlin of The Age) and others, like this true Australian journalist's sense of 'fair go', is shown in the following article !
----------------------------------------------------------------------: Islamists leave Israel no choice |
The Australian

(Greg Sheridan, Foreign Ed.)

> http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23337782-7583,00.html

"On Monday night, the ABC's Lateline program ran a report on the suffering of civilians in Gaza, an absolutely legitimate subject. Among the heart-rending footage there was an interview with a Gazan civilian who understandably complained bitterly about Israel's actions. But the ABC reporter didn't ask the absolutely obvious question: Do you wish your leaders would stop firing missiles into Israel, which make inevitable both the economic blockade and the Israeli military response? The ABC, as usual, was following more or less exactly the terrorists' preferred script for the Western media. Islamist terrorists have always been centrally concerned with the Western media and their understanding of its story presentation dynamics is acute, as this episode demonstrates. Hamas gets to sheet all blame to Israel.

Second, Hamas is trying to radicalise more Palestinian opinion. Palestinian politics has evolved from nationalism to religious extremism as the rise of Hamas demonstrates."

---------------------------------------------

As far as the American initiative is concerned,- it is not just about America, Israel and Fatah vs. Hamas or Hizbollah. It is about the Saudis and Jordanians and Egyptians vs. Iranians and Syrians and.......

As Sheridan puts it: "And finally, Hamas may well be operating in very close concert with its sponsors, Iran and Syria. There is tremendous Sunni Arab concern about the growing power of Iran, evident not least in the bloody political vacuum in Lebanon.
A crisis in Gaza forces the forthcoming Arab summit to focus on the Palestinians, rather than Syria's murderous campaign to prevent the emergence of a democratic Lebanon. "
-------------------------------------------------------

Some people believe Israel and America should talk to Hamas and all would be honky-dory!
If the politics of hate were that simple, - i.e." let's talk it over!",- would any conflict escalate to murderous wars over centuries? If the Sunnis and Shias keep killing each other, what can we expect from them vis-a-vis the Jews? Or the Christian world for that matter?

Too difficult for our laypeople's simple minds to comprehend, but there it is! Helping our enemies in their propaganda war doesn't do anything for anybody, except that it extends the conflict.

ZIONOPHOBIA?

ISRAEL INSIDER

Diagnosing Zionophobia and curing it

By Gil Troy
February 24, 2008



In 1882, a Russian Jewish physician named Leon Pinsker diagnosed "Judeophobia," the irrational Jew-hatred, blighting enlightened Europeans. On February 24th and 25th, 126 years later, delegates from 45 countries will convene in Jerusalem to attend the International Conference for the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism, organized by the Israeli Foreign Ministry's Department of Combating Antisemitism headed by Aviva Raz-Shechter. The Forum's venue proves that Jews' statelessness, which Dr. Pinsker blamed for causing anti-Semitism, has ended. Tragically, an irrational hatred of that Jewish state has morphed this ancient disease into a new affliction: Zionophobia.

Zionophobia is the irrational hatred of Israel and Jewish nationalism, meaning Zionism. Rooted in traditional Judeophobia - and in genuine sympathy for the Palestinian predicament -- it masks this antisemitism by demonizing Israel in the guise of defending the downtrodden. By treating Israel as the world's only pariah state it assails the essence of Zionism, which demanded equal treatment for the Jewish nation.

Zionophobia singles out the Jews, holding Israel to an artificially high standard, while ignoring Israel's unique blend of liberal, democratic, and Jewish values. Only Israel remains on probation 60 years after its founding, with its legitimacy seemingly contingent on good behavior. No one questions the legitimacy of, say, Pakistan, despite being artificially carved out of the British Raj - and rarely a constructive force in the world. This double standard marks Zionophobia as a strain of a broader disease, the modern tendency to judge all Western nations harshly, but especially the United States and its allies, while absolving Third World nations of wrongdoing. This inconsistency reflects a bigotry of low expectations regarding non-Western countries camouflaged by a vicious, self-righteous storm of fury whenever America, England, or Israel stumbles.

Zionophobia festers in the fetid springs of modern Arab nationalism and Islamism, culminating a systematic decades-long campaign that has metastasized from rejecting Zionism to demonizing Jews. This fanatic wave of hatred combines traditionally anti-Semitic, Nazi and Soviet tropes with Islamic fundamentalism, the cult of state dictatorships, and Arab pride.

Surprisingly, this anti-modern, anti-democratic, deeply illiberal ideology has influenced academics, intellectuals, NGO-activists, and United Nations bureaucrats who believe they champion modernity, universalism and human rights. Massive doses of identity politics and political correctness calm the cognitive dissonance that should result from this unholy alliance.

Zionophobia explains how an anti-racism conference in Durban in 2001 became an anti-Israel pile-on, and why the UN is planning a repeat in 2009. Thanks to Zionophobia, suicide bombings against Israelis, Kassam rockets raining on Sderot's citizens, and many pro-Palestinian forces' worldwide campaign of hate against Jews not just Israel are rationalized as part of the morally neutral "cycle of violence." Zionophobia exploits modern political divisions, fooling too many liberals into thinking that supporting Israel or opposing Islamist terrorism is somehow illiberal, when Zionism remains shaped by progressivism and Islamist fundamentalism is anathema to liberalism.

Zionophobes -- who today are occasionally Jewish or Israeli -- suffer from five major manifestations of disease:

Myopia: the one-sided, biased view of Israel, exaggerating Israel's imperfections into crimes against humanity while ignoring more serious abuses elsewhere. How else can we explain the libel that Israel is practicing South-African style apartheid or the lopsided number of UN resolutions against Israel?

Dyspepsia: the constant tension attending even benign recognitions of the Jewish state. How else can we explain the furor surrounding the Turin International Book Fair's decision to honor Israel this year?

Obsessive-compulsive disorder: the exaggerated worldview blaming Israel for so much of the world's woes. How else can we explain the worldwide surveys identifying Israel as a greater threat to world peace than Iran with its nuclear ambitions and genocidal threats against a fellow UN member?

Schizophrenia: the split personality among progressives who caricature Israel as a military dictatorship while ignoring the sins of Israel's undemocratic neighbors. How else can we explain the free pass so many liberals give to Arab sexism, homophobia, suppression of dissent, and political strong-arming?

Paranoia: the false claim that the anti-Zionists are victims, demonized, marginalized, delegitimized on campus, in the media. How else can we explain the best-sellers darkly warning about "the Jewish Lobby," and the "Ad Hoc Committee to Defend the University" consisting of over 600 leading scholars only singling out "groups portraying themselves as defenders of Israel" as today's threats to academic freedom?

We cannot lose our sense of outrage. Annual conferences and myriad self-defense organizations risk making us too used to battle, inured to just how disgraceful the situation has become.

We also cannot lose our sense of proportion. It is too easy to mimic our enemies' ailments by becoming the world's hypochondriacs and hysterics, always feeling beleaguered, always fighting the latest scourge in full fury, no matter how insignificant.

The best response to all this ugliness is to foster as much beauty as possible in the modern Jewish state. Better to spend more time building an enlightened, just, democratic, fair, prosperous and fun country than fighting calumnies. This month, Israel Musicals produced "The Man of La Mancha" in English in Israel, for the first time. Don Quixote fights vulgarity with nobility, hatred with love. His "Impossible Dream" amuses the cynics but sweeps up his beloved Dulcinea and his loyal friend Sancho Panza.

The Zionist dream remains compelling yet somewhat impossible, entrancing a committed minority to envision the good in a world with too much evil. Tilting at windmills is futile.

Carefully choosing our battles, applying the right mix of indignation and imagination, realism and idealism, anger and insight, we will learn "to right, the unrightable wrong, to love, pure and chaste from afar." Then maybe, someday soon, we will reach that "unreachable star," not to disarm the anti-Semites but to live in peace, freedom and dignity, "ba'eretz Tzion, Yerushalayim," in the land of Zion, Jerusalem.

Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.





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