Tony Judt, RIP, Debunked Cliches about Israeli -Palestinian Conflict

Historian Tony Judt, who died this weekend, continued to write even though he was suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease for his final two years. His eloquence and logic will be greatly missed. Earlier this summer, his incisive opinion piece in the New York Times was widely discussed. To read "Israel without Cliches", a concise summary of the half dozen perrenial talking points, click here for the original article.

It is almost impossible to discuss the Middle East without resorting to tired accusations and ritual defenses: perhaps a little house cleaning is in order.

No. 1: Israel is being/should be delegitimized

Israel is a state like any other, long-established and internationally recognized. The bad behavior of its governments does not “delegitimize” it, any more than the bad behavior of the rulers of North Korea, Sudan — or, indeed, the United States — “delegitimizes” them. When Israel breaks international law, it should be pressed to desist; but it is precisely because it is a state under international law that we have that leverage.

Some critics of Israel are motivated by a wish that it did not exist — that it would just somehow go away. But this is the politics of the ostrich: Flemish nationalists feel the same way about Belgium, Basque separatists about Spain. Israel is not going away, nor should it. As for the official Israeli public relations campaign to discredit any criticism as an exercise in “de-legitimization,” it is uniquely self-defeating. Every time Jerusalem responds this way, it highlights its own isolation.

No. 2: Israel is/is not a democracy

Perhaps the most common defense of Israel outside the country is that it is “the only democracy in the Middle East.” This is largely true: the country has an independent judiciary and free elections, though it also discriminates against non-Jews in ways that distinguish it from most other democracies today. The expression of strong dissent from official policy is increasingly discouraged.

But the point is irrelevant. “Democracy” is no guarantee of good behavior: most countries today are formally democratic — remember Eastern Europe’s “popular democracies.” Israel belies the comfortable American cliché that “democracies don’t make war.” It is a democracy dominated and often governed by former professional soldiers: this alone distinguishes it from other advanced countries. And we should not forget that Gaza is another “democracy” in the Middle East: it was precisely because Hamas won free elections there in 2005 that both the Palestinian Authority and Israel reacted with such vehemence.

No. 3: Israel is/is not to blame

Israel is not responsible for the fact that many of its near neighbors long denied its right to exist. The sense of siege should not be underestimated when we try to understand the delusional quality of many Israeli pronouncements.

Unsurprisingly, the state has acquired pathological habits. Of these, the most damaging is its habitual resort to force. Because this worked for so long — the easy victories of the country’s early years are ingrained in folk memory — Israel finds it difficult to conceive of other ways to respond. And the failure of the negotiations of 2000 at Camp David reinforced the belief that “there is no one to talk to.”

But there is. As American officials privately acknowledge, sooner or later Israel (or someone) will have to talk to Hamas. From French Algeria through South Africa to the Provisional I.R.A., the story repeats itself: the dominant power denies the legitimacy of the “terrorists,” thereby strengthening their hand; then it secretly negotiates with them; finally, it concedes power, independence or a place at the table. Israel will negotiate with Hamas: the only question is why not now.

No. 4: The Palestinians are/are not to blame

Abba Eban, the former Israeli foreign minister, claimed that Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. He was not wholly wrong. The “negationist” stance of Palestinian resistance movements from 1948 through the early 1980s did them little good. And Hamas, firmly in that tradition though far more genuinely popular than its predecessors, will have to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.

But since 1967 it has been Israel that has missed most opportunities: a 40-year occupation (against the advice of its own elder statesmen); three catastrophic invasions of Lebanon; an invasion and blockade of Gaza in the teeth of world opinion; and now a botched attack on civilians in international waters. Palestinians would be hard put to match such cumulative blunders.

Terrorism is the weapon of the weak — bombing civilian targets was not invented by Arabs (nor by the Jews who engaged in it before 1948). Morally indefensible, it has characterized resistance movements of all colors for at least a century. Israelis are right to insist that any talks or settlements will depend upon Hamas’s foreswearing it.

But Palestinians face the same conundrum as every other oppressed people: all they have with which to oppose an established state with a monopoly of power is rejection and protest. If they pre-concede every Israeli demand — abjurance of violence, acceptance of Israel, acknowledgment of all their losses — what do they bring to the negotiating table? Israel has the initiative: it should exercise it.

No. 5: The Israel lobby is/is not to blame

There is an Israel lobby in Washington and it does a very good job — that’s what lobbies are for. Those who claim that the Israel lobby is unfairly painted as “too influential” (with the subtext of excessive Jewish influence behind the scenes) have a point: the gun lobby, the oil lobby and the banking lobby have all done far more damage to the health of this country.

But the Israel lobby is disproportionately influential. Why else do an overwhelming majority of congressmen roll over for every pro-Israel motion? No more than a handful show consistent interest in the subject. It is one thing to denounce the excessive leverage of a lobby, quite another to accuse Jews of “running the country.” We must not censor ourselves lest people conflate the two. In Arthur Koestler’s words, “This fear of finding oneself in bad company is not an expression of political purity; it is an expression of a lack of self-confidence.”

No. 6: Criticism of Israel is/is not linked to anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism is hatred of Jews, and Israel is a Jewish state, so of course some criticism of it is malevolently motivated. There have been occasions in the recent past (notably in the Soviet Union and its satellites) when “anti-Zionism” was a convenient surrogate for official anti-Semitism. Understandably, many Jews and Israelis have not forgotten this.

But criticism of Israel, increasingly from non-Israeli Jews, is not predominantly motivated by anti-Semitism. The same is true of contemporary anti-Zionism: Zionism itself has moved a long way from the ideology of its “founding fathers” — today it presses territorial claims, religious exclusivity and political extremism. One can acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and still be an anti-Zionist (or “post-Zionist”). Indeed, given the emphasis in Zionism on the need for the Jews to establish a “normal state” for themselves, today’s insistence on Israel’s right to act in “abnormal” ways because it is a Jewish state suggests that Zionism has failed.

We should beware the excessive invocation of “anti-Semitism.” A younger generation in the United States, not to mention worldwide, is growing skeptical. “If criticism of the Israeli blockade of Gaza is potentially ‘anti-Semitic,’ why take seriously other instances of the prejudice?” they ask, and “What if the Holocaust has become just another excuse for Israeli bad behavior?” The risks that Jews run by encouraging this conflation should not be dismissed.

Along with the oil sheikdoms, Israel is now America’s greatest strategic liability in the Middle East and Central Asia. Thanks to Israel, we are in serious danger of “losing” Turkey: a Muslim democracy, offended at its treatment by the European Union, that is the pivotal actor in Near-Eastern and Central Asian affairs. Without Turkey, the United States will achieve few of its regional objectives — whether in Iran, Afghanistan or the Arab world. The time has come to cut through the clichés surrounding it, treat Israel like a “normal” state and sever the umbilical cord.

Dealing with the Lobby and staying on message

Hat tip to activist Angela Godfrey-Goldstein for these two evergreen Latuff cartoons, as relevant as ever.

Bible bonfires inside Israel

Was there a whiff of brimstone and sulfur when Bibles went up in smoke last week? Certainly, it was not the finest hour for the people of the book...particularly when news of the incident coincided with an American soldier getting disciplined for using a Koran as target practice over in Iraq. Holey holy books create rancour, and the sight and odor of burning texts brings totalitarian stormtroopers and witch hunts to mind.

Messianic 'Jews for Jesus', who are closely linked with Evangelical Christian groups from America and now number up to 15,000 inside Israel, called for an official investigation after orthodox students from a yeshiva in the town of Or Yehuda allegedly dumped and burnt hundreds of copies of the New Testament. These had been distributed to Ethiopian immigrant families in the town.

At first, the action was defended by Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon, of the Shas party, as "purging the evil among us", but he was quick to backtrack. Ultimately, he blamed "three or four" hotheaded students for a "spontaneous act" which led to an international public relations disaster. Aharon apologized by saying "sorry we hurt the feelings of others", but he shrugged off criticism of his anti-missionary zeal. To proselytize is against the law inside the Jewish State, although Christian missionaries often are tolerated when they spread the gospel to Israeli Arabs.

Tensions are on the rise. Two months ago, a parcel bomb left outside a house in Ariel wounded the son of a prominent Messianic Jew. Haredim massed outside messianic Jewish gatherings in Beersheba and Arad, and stirred up violence.

And just before Independence Day, a group of religious Zionist rabbis called for a boycott of this year's International Bible Quiz after discovering that one of the four finalists from Israel, Bat-El Levi, an 11th-grader from Jerusalem's Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood, was a messianic Jew.

The rise in tensions is partly due...to increased fervor within haredi anti-missionary groups.

...Victor Kalisher, the son of Holocaust survivors, spoke to the Jerusalem Post about his shock and dismay at the burnings. "As Jews we were raised and taught that were books are burned, worse things can happen. That's what I think when I see the pictures of what happened in Or Yehuda. What worries me is that nobody has stood up against this. It seems there is a war against messianic Jews in Israel. Nobody cares about many, what I believe to be cults, in Israel. These cults, which are not based on the Bible, don't pose a threat to the establishment. But God forbid a Jew learns about the messiah from the [Christian] Bible," Kalisher said.

He said he did not know who paid for and distributed the New Testaments that were distributed in Or Yehuda, but that there was demand for the books from many quarters. "The Bibles are not forced on anybody and are not forced into any homes. The book has never harmed anyone, you can choose to read it or choose not to read it. If this happened to Jewish books overseas we would be screaming anti-Semitism. This sort of thing happens in some regimes around us that we don't like," he said.

Widow stirs Talpiot tomb tumult as scholars ponder Jesus family bone boxes

Jesus, Mother Mary, and Joseph... sounds rather like my great aunt sputtering in surprise on some April Fools' Day, but this is part of the litany of names scratched on ancient bone-boxes unearthed in a Jerusalem suburb back in 1980 which were at the center of an academic conference which concluded in Jerusalem this afternoon.

The Third Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins was called to evaluate the Talpiot Jesus Family tomb in the academic context of Jewish burial (and reburial) practices in the Second Temple era and Jewish belief in the afterlife. You can already find the tomb on Google Earth and Wikipedia, even though it's been resealed: you'd think by popular demand the academics might give it the nod.

After days of sound and fury amongst preachers and professors, the jury still is out on whether these ossuaries-- labelled Jesus, son of Joseph; Maria (in Aramaic); Mariamne (in Greek); Matthew; Judas, son of Jesus; and Yose, a diminutive of Joseph-- might have anything to do with the remains of Jesus H. Christ. Two of the academicians said no way, two said the 'evidence' was encouraging, and one diffident scientist said more digging must be done, since there is not enough evidence one way or another to rule out a possible link with Jesus of Nazareth. An official report written by the Israeli archeologist Amos Kloner found nothing remarkable in the discovery. The cave, it said, was probably in use by three or four generations of Jews from the beginning of the Common Era.

(See the links at right in the sidebar "Gripes,Hypes & Bones to Pick" for earlier posts and articles about Talpiot.)

The real show-stopper happened when the widow of archaeologist Yosef Gath was called onstage to receive an award for her late husband, who had catalogued the bone boxes back in 1980. (The tomb already had been vandalized by latter-day Crusaders, so there was a limit to what a full-scale dig would have yielded.) She told the audience in Hebrew that her husband had always suspected that the cluster of famous names might be linked to THAT Jesus; but as a holocaust survivor, he was reluctant to unleash a possible backlash onto the Jews with his dramatic find. "The world has changed in our lifetime," she had said, accepting the honors.

Simcha Jacobovici, the Naked Archaeologist for Discovery Channel who'd resurrected the tomb controversy in a broadcast last year, attended the conference. "When she said that, I just started shaking," he confided to journalists. His speculations have not been vindicated yet, though, and some scholars propose reopening an archaeological dig in Talpiot to gain more information.

Some cynical conference-goers thought that the pro Talpiot-buffs had exploited the Israeli widow, and wondered why, if it's the one, not a single tradition or legend had flourished around this humble cave tomb in Jerusalem's 'burbs. "The hypothesis smells a bit bogus to me," sniffed one scholar over falafel and beer afterward.

Israeli conductor Barenboim's surprise: a spare passport from the Palestinians

The high profile Israeli pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim now carries two passports: both Israeli and Palestinian. The controversial Argentine-born maestro has been branded anti-Semitic more often for conducting Richard Wagner than for embracing Palestinian humanitarian causes, but how he conducts himself is what puts him in the limelight. The Guardian reports:

The Israeli pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim has been granted Palestinian citizenship for his work in promoting cultural exchange between young people in Israel and the Arab world.
The Argentine-born musician is believed to be the first person in the world to possess both Israeli and Palestinian passports after receiving his new documentation at the end of a piano recital in Ramallah in the West Bank at the weekend.

"Under the most difficult circumstances he has shown solidarity with the Palestinian people," Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian MP and presidential candidate, said at the recital held to raise money for medical aid for children in the Gaza Strip.

Barenboim, 65, who is musical director of the Staatsoper in Berlin and Milan's La Scala opera house, established his West-Eastern Divan orchestra with the American-Palestinian intellectual Edward Said in 1999 following a workshop in Germany. The orchestra's aim is to bring together musicians from Israel and Arabic countries to exchange ideas and perform together.
Barenboim, a regular and lively commentator on the Middle East conflict, said he was "moved and very, very happy", adding that he accepted it because it "symbolises the everlasting bond between the Israeli and Palestinian people".

In a pointed reference to US President George Bush's recent comments on the Middle East conflict in which he talked of Israel's "occupation" of the West Bank, Barenboim added: "Now even not very intelligent people are saying that the occupation has to be stopped."

Barenboim is a controversial figure to many in Israel, but less for the sympathy he openly shows towards the Palestinians than for his promotion of the music of the 19th-century antisemitic German composer Richard Wagner, which he has conducted in Jerusalem.

He criticised the Israeli government when he was forced to cancel a concert in Ramallah after Israel said it could not guarantee his safety. More recently, he held a press conference to protest at Israel's refusal to allow musicians from his Divan orchestra to enter Ramallah.

Accused neo-nazi teenager lets Holocaust survivor grandma speak out for him

The arrests of a rogue band of teenage skinheads who have plagued a city north of Tel Aviv triggered a wave of revulsion in the Knesset and across Israel. But now, the Holocaust-survivor Bubbe of one boy has risen to his defence, and blames his nasty friends for bullying her beloved grandson into attacks on Orthodox neighbors, immigrants and junkies. He's no Nazi, she swears. The octogenarian insists that the family "has been Jewish since Adam and Eve" and that, after this latest news broke, she's sorry that the fascists didn't kill her back when she was six. Dramatic stuff,
which verifies everything we ever thought about how strong the love of a Jewish grandmother is. The arrests, kept under wraps for a month, are apt to create a backlash against immigrants and Jewish converts inside Israel.

PETAH TIKVA, Israel (Reuters) - She escaped the Holocaust at age six by hiding from the Nazis under a pile of dead bodies in her Ukrainian village.

Now the Israeli pensioner's grandson stands accused of joining a neo-Nazi gang which allegedly attacked Orthodox Jews in Petah Tikva in metropolitan Tel Aviv and painted swastikas across the walls of the local synagogue.

Her 17-year-old grandson is one of eight young Israelis, all from the former Soviet Union, arrested in connection with neo-Nazi activity, in a case that has stunned the Jewish state. All denied involvement at a court hearing this week.

Some one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union have moved to Israel since the fall of Communism in 1990. Many, including some of the suspects, were not born to a Jewish mother -- the Orthodox definition of a Jew -- but qualified for Israeli citizenship because they had at least one Jewish grandparent.

The accused's grandmother said on Monday her family had been Jewish "since Adam and Eve".

It would be absurd, she said, to charge her grandson with neo-Nazi activities. Neither the accused, a minor, nor his relatives can be named for legal reasons.

"I went through a first disaster when I was six years old and now I'm going through a second disaster when I'm 72," she said in a telephone interview. "It was just chance the fascists didn't shoot me ... Now I'm very sorry they didn't kill me."

The accused's mother said her son was persuaded to join the gang after connecting with hardcore members on the Internet. She said he tried to leave when he found out about the attacks but was bullied into staying.

"He was always interested in history and the War," his mother told Reuters. "He made a mistake ... he thought they were just a bunch of history freaks."

"GOD WITH US"

The mother could not explain why her son tattooed "God with us" onto his arm in what she said was Yiddish. In German, which is close to Yiddish, the same motto -- "Gott mit uns" -- adorned the belt buckles of German soldiers in World War Two.

People in Petah Tikva -- many of whom sought refuge in Israel from anti-Semitism elsewhere -- expressed disbelief at the attacks on the local synagogue.

"This is incredible to see this here -- we didn't even see this kind of thing in Russia," said 32-year-old barber Mark Elazarov, who moved to Israel from the former Soviet Union 15 years ago and now attends the synagogue that was vandalized.

The case has revived calls for tougher immigration rules to ensure only bonafide Jews move to Israel.

While many Russian-speaking Jews have succeeded in Israel's booming hi-tech industry, others, including many not regarded as Jewish by religious authorities, have struggled to integrate.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the neo-Nazi case was an isolated incident and cautioned against tarnishing the entire community of Russian-speaking immigrants.

But many in Petah Tikva want tougher action.

"People who are not Jewish should be kept out of Israel," said Elazarov.

Shopkeeper David Ness, 58, said he "panicked in his heart" when he saw the swastikas emblazoned across the synagogue.

"This is a Jewish country and it's my home, For someone to do something like this, it hurts," he said. "The police should get them and throw them out."

John Cleese on anti-Semitism

The erstwhile Minister of Silly Walks has mastered the art of keeping his tongue firmly in cheek mid-rant and bluster. This irascible and brilliant performer sure hits his targets when he launches into his schtick after being asked whether Monty Python is anti-Semitic.
Harvey Morris, a veteran foreign correspondent, advises new arrivals to Israel that all the insights a journalist needs to cover the Arab-Israeli conflict are in the film "The Life of Brian".When the DVD was spotted on the desk of a Palestinian official, it became clear that Morris knows his stuff.

'Beyond Chutzpah' class cancelled in US

My neighbours are cheering because this controversial Jewish American history professor's class about the political manipulation of anti-Semitism charges has been abruptly canceled, according to wire reports out of Chicago. Norman Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, is a committed contrarian who chips away at what he calls the extortionate 'Holocaust industry'. Why he lusts so after the international academic spotlight is a puzzle for psychotherapists. "There's no business like Shoah business," his supporters reply.

DePaul University canceled the one remaining class taught by a controversial professor who has accused some Jews of improperly using the legacy of the Holocaust.

Norman Finkelstein, whose work led to a long-running public feud with Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, says he may respond by committing civil disobedience when classes resume Sept. 5.

Finkelstein, 53, was denied tenure in June after six years on the DePaul faculty, but he was permitted to teach for the one year remaining on his contract.

On Friday, however, the university e-mailed students saying that Finkelstein's sole political science course had been canceled. By Monday, the books for the course had been pulled from the DePaul bookstore's shelves.

Finkelstein's most recent book, "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History," is largely an attack on Dershowitz's "The Case for Israel." In it, Finkelstein argues that Israel uses the outcry over perceived anti-Semitism as a weapon to stifle criticism.

Dershowitz, who threatened to sue Finkelstein's publisher for libel, urged DePaul officials to reject Finkelstein's tenure bid in June.

The American Association of University Professors is preparing a letter to the university protesting Finkelstein's treatment as a serious violation of academic ethics, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.

Finkelstein told the newspaper that he planned to wage his own campaign against the administration.

"I intend to go to my office on the first day of classes and, if my way is barred, to engage in civil disobedience," Finkelstein said. "If arrested, I'll go on a hunger strike. If released, I'll do it all over again. I'll fast in jail for as long as it takes."

After he was denied tenure, Finkelstein, a son of Holocaust survivors, posted a letter on his Web site explaining the school officials' reasons, including Finkelstein's "deliberately hurtful" scholarship along, lack of involvement with the school and tendency for public clashes with other scholars.

"In the opinion of those opposing tenure, your unprofessional personal attacks divert the conversation away from consideration of ideas, and polarize and simplify conversations that deserve layered and subtle consideration," school President Dennis Holtschneider wrote in a letter dated June 8. DePaul at the time verified the letter was authentic.

Denise Mattson, the university's associate vice president for public affairs, released a statement saying Finkelstein was on administrative leave with full pay for the academic year.

"Administrative leave relieves professors from their teaching responsibilities. He was informed of the reasons that precipitated this leave last spring," the statement said.

Update: 9/6/2007
Finkelstein resigns

Hot air and hot collars over 'Israel Lobby'

Accusations of anti-Semitism surface every time an academic questions Israeli policy. Ardently pro-Israel Americans often are astonished to learn that half of Israelis disapprove of the hawkish policies of its governments and tend to welcome critiques of American lobbyists for the Likudnik hardliners.

Now two American professors look set on provoking a rethink about America's crucial Middle East commitment, the long-standing one with Israel.
John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard are in the eye of the hurricane of their making.Their new book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy is drawing controversy, weeks ahead of its Sept. 4 release by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Mearsheimer and Walt raised eyebrows when they published a brief of their thesis in the London Review of Books last year. They assert that pro-Israel groups have disproportionate influence on U.S. foreign policy, and that this trend has not always served U.S. interests, or, for that matter, Israel's. While some praised their writing as courageous,pro-Israel groups cry anti-semitism.

Check out the London Review piece; Michael Massing's deconstructs the controversy in the New York Review of Books.

The fear of public outrage and demonstrations has prompted the Chicago Council on Global Affairs to rescind an invitation for the dynamic duo to speak on campus about the subject. As Walt told the New York Times this week, one of his principal points in his book is that to challenge the Israel lobby remains taboo inside the United States.

Middle East maven Scott McLeod, of Time magazine, observes:

Citizens are still free to purchase a copy. In fact, would-be readers have already made it a best-seller. With advance orders pouring in, The Israel Lobby is already No. 135 on Amazon's list of top sellers. (It went up four places just as I was writing this blog tonight Cairo time.) Scrolling through Amazon's list, I reckon that The Israel Lobby has become the best-selling book on the Middle East right now, even though nobody actually owns their copy yet. Mearsheimer and Walt may disagree with their critics, but they have to thank them for fueling the controversy, helping them sell more copies and widen the debate over the Israel lobby.

By no coincidence, one of Mearsheimer and Walt's vocal critics, Abe Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, is publishing his own book with Palgrave Macmillan, also on Sept. 4, entitled, The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control. At last count, it's Amazon.com sales rank was No. 14,808.

Pope pooh-poohs Protestant churches & prays that the Jews convert

When the pope pooh-poohed protestant churches as defective, he riled Christian evangelicals and post-reformation High Church congregations the world over, particularly here in the Holy Land, birthplace of Jesus and Judaism. Church clerics are flabbergasted that the pontiff seems to be stirring the pot and encouraging rifts in Christian unity at a time when civilizations are clashing.

Pope Benedict XVI also has just revived the Tridentine Mass, a defunct liturgy, complete with a Good Friday prayer in Latin to convert the "perfidous Jews." Critics say an appeal to anti-Semitism to boost the ranks of Catholics is ill-advised. Appeasing traditionalists who years ago quit the Catholic church because they prefer the ancient services in Latin was the reason the Vatican spokesman cited. The number of Catholics in Europe are in decline.
The Vatican praised the old version for enriching faith and piety, and also the culture of many peoples.

"It is known, in fact, that the Latin liturgy of the Church in its various forms, in each century of the Christian era, has been a spur to the spiritual life of many saints, has reinforced many peoples in the virtue of religion and fecundated their piety."
In an explanatory note to the world's bishops, the Pope said he had seen in the post-Vatican II period "how arbitrary deformations of the liturgy caused deep pain to individuals totally rooted in the faith of the church."
He added that it was clear that, in addition to older Catholics from the pre-Vatican II era, young people are also being attracted by the older form of the liturgy.

Meanwhile, the Catholic anti-defamation league has petitioned in Italy for the removal of "Miss Kitty", a looming statue of the formidable German pope dressed in blonde wig and fishnet stockings, and another artwork which has the face of Jesus Christ pixilated onto the body of a transvestite.

An artists' group insisted that the statues were meant to provoke thought and to defy "dogmatic and ecclesiastic censors."

Israel's own anti-semites

Everywhere you look today, there's an Israeli flag flapping. The Jerusalem Post handed out Star of David bunting with each morning paper, and most cars and taxis fly the flag, too. The nation is geared up first to salute all its fallen soldiers and terror victims on Monday. Sirens signal when to show respect. Next comes the big national 59th birthday bash which commemorates David Ben-Gurion declaring the state of Israel in Tel Aviv and putting the kibosh on the British Mandate. Plastic hammers are the big accessory: smash the past, you sabras.

With all this rampant nationalism on display, Ozzy Bee tells me it's particularly disturbing to learn that no anti-semitism laws exist inside this country. There is so much critical coverage of European legislators who outlaw racism, but neglect to specifically ban anti-semitic acts as well. It turns out that there's a homegrown problem with anti-semites inside Israeli cities, mostly vandalism committed by ethnic Ukranian skinheads against the Ultra-Orthodox. They desecrate tombs, steal mezuzahs, and beat up the Haredim. Girls join in the fray. Wire reports and other newspaper articles have estimated that close to 500 acts of anti-semitic violence happen here each year, and are increasingly frequent. Read 'em and weep. Few Israelis acknowledge this great unmentionable, although some admit to institutional prejudice against the "permanently suntanned" Sephardics and Ethiopian immigrants. This resurgence of perverse anti-Jewish sentiment was never envisioned by the founders of the Jewish state. It is a disgrace.