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Sunday Reads: Broken promises in Syria, A ‘dignified’ Rabin rally, Nabokov’s Jewish wife

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November 1, 2015

US

According to Trevor Timm, the American special forces sent to Syria constitute another broken promise made by President Obama:  

In 2012, Obama unequivocally said he would end the war in Afghanistan, and chided Mitt Romney the Republican nominee for not promising that. In 2013, Obama said: “I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria.” In 2014, Obama said: “We will not be sending US troops back into combat in Iraq”. At this point, all of those promises have been completely broken.

Jonathan Tobin believes that the capture of another US hostage by Iran is a direct result of the nuclear negotiations:

Since we must assume that Obama wasn’t yet prepared to give Tehran everything it asked for in those talks, what better way to bolster its position than by raising the ante in the standoff by putting yet another American in custody. The question now is what, if anything, will the administration do about it? Judging by their past behaviour, the obvious answer is not much.

Israel

Nachum Barnea voices his despondency following the dignified, a-political memorial ceremony for Itzhak Rabin:

We have such a talented, vital, creative, ambitious people living here, which succeeds in everything it does – until it comes to politics. There, we are paralyzed. We are wasting ourselves. But we do know how to put together beautiful, sad rallies. And that's all we've got.

 Shlomi Eldar describes what visiting the Temple Mount is like these days:

As it turns out, tourists have a priority accessing the compound. When a group of Jews gets organized, it has the last priority to enter. Jews wishing to visit the Temple Mount are assigned police officers, border police soldiers and Waqf security guards who make sure they bring no Jewish ritual objects whatsoever. They are also forbidden from praying, bowing, sitting down, quietly reciting prayers, bringing a prayer book, a photo of the compound or a Star of David. They are allowed to bring nothing that could potentially upset Muslim worshipers and stir up more tension.

The Middle East

Nadav Pollack examines Israel and Jordan’s concerns about Russia’s growing involvement in Syria:

For now, southern Syria is not a top priority for Russia and its coalition of ground forces, as intense battles are ongoing in Aleppo, Hama, and other places to the north. Yet the south may be part of Russia's broader strategy, and it could still allocate some resources to the area even while occupied elsewhere. If this week's southern airstrikes lead to expanded Russian, regime, and allied activity there, it would test Moscow's complicated relations with Israel, Jordan, Iran, and Hezbollah. To forestall or manage such escalation, Jerusalem and Amman should ask Washington to make sure that Russia takes their interests into account, particularly regarding Iranian and Hezbollah operations near the borders.

Following Netanyahu’s controversial remarks, Robert Satloff takes a closer look at the legacy of Hadj Amin al Husseini and at Arabs during the Holocaust:

Contrary to conventional wisdom, Husseini is not a  widely venerated figure in Palestinian political culture. One way to measure this is to assess his place in the popular imagination of Palestinians, as represented by the extent to which he is memorialized in public space. I asked my outstanding research assistant, Marina Shalabi, to look at how many public memorials – schools, statues, streets, etc. – are named for Husseini compared to other Palestinian historical figures. The results are  interesting. Yes, he does have a profile – but not very high.

The Jewish World

David Zinberg lists 12 basic principles of Modern Orthodoxy:

I am not advocating a bourgeois complacency that champions “mesorah” (tradition) above all else. The Modern Orthodox mandate, by definition, is to partner with humanity in its intellectual, scientific, and social progress; we believe this is a moral and religious obligation. True centrists recognize not only the need, but the value of adapting to contemporary reality.

Maxim Shrayer writes about the Jewish themes present in a new compilation of letters written by Vladimir Nabokov to his Jewish wife Vera:

As a non-Jewish writer writing with much sensitivity about Jews, Nabokov was in a league of his own in Anglo-American fiction of the 1940s and 1950s. The figure of Jewish parents who lose or fear losing their sons had appeared in his Russian works and reappeared in his American works, from the story “Signs and Symbols” to the novel Pnin.

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