Sunday Reads: Misconceptions about the settlements, AP’s Israel coverage, The only way to beat ISIS

US

Retired US Major General Robert Scales writes about “the only way to defeat ISIS” –

The Islamic State cannot be defeated by diplomacy, sanctions, coalitions or political maneuverings. Its fighters must eventually be killed in large numbers, and Americans will never allow large conventional military forces to take them on. The butcher’s bill would simply be too large. The only sure means for defeating the group is with a renewed, expanded and overwhelming legion of capable special fighters who have learned through painful trial and error how to do the job.

Israel Factor panelist Alon Pinkas examines President Obama’s ISIS dilemma –

Tactically, the Americans are carrying out efficient airstrikes against ISIS in northern and western Iraq, and quietly in Syria as well. But the main question remains unchanged: What is the strategy? And can a strategy even be devised, phrased and executed against a stateless, borderless or shapeless element like ISIS?

This is a complicated dilemma, which is in fact impossible. And it is not necessarily advisable to formulate an overall strategy and an organized policy against the diversity, the uniqueness, the frequent changes and the instability created by the different crises in the Middle East in the past two years.

Israel

According to Eliott Abrams and Uri Sadot, Netanyahu has been remarkably constrained when it comes to settlement building –

So is Israel vastly increasing the pace of settlement activity, making the establishment of a future Palestinian state less and less likely?

The short answer, and the right answer, is no. Just as Israel was being denounced far and wide for settlement expansion, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics released one of its regular reports on settlement activity. What it reveals is that Israel's actual settlement construction pace has reached a historical low. Only 507 housing units were approved for construction by Netanyahu's government in the first six months of 2014, a 71.9 percent decrease from the same period in 2013, with about one-third of those being built inside the major blocks that it is understood Israel will keep in any final status agreement. For a population of over 300,000 Israelis living in the West Bank, that pace of construction does not even allow for natural population growth, much less rapid expansion.

This piece, written by a former AP bureau chief in Israel, is supposed to be a rebuttal of some serious accusations of biased coverage (and it seems to do the opposite) –

As bureau chief, I knew it was one of my key roles to fight bias in our reporting. Was this achieved all the time? I doubt it. But I know an honest attempt was made at all times. I always told our reporters not to deliver “milk toast” and to lay bare the raw passions of each side in all their glory, rather than trying to tone down the arguments. While fairness was of utmost importance, I told them, not every story had to be 50-50 (if you were reporting in 1930s Germany, I asked, would you be compelled to give half the space to the Jewish side and the other half to the Nazis?)

Middle East

Soner Cagaptay discusses Turkey’s new PM, the architect and symbol of the country’s neo-ottoman foreign policy –

Davutoglu’s Ottoman revivalism has dangerously exposed Turkey to regional threats, which will propbably preoccupy him as he takes over the prime ministership. Indeed, it is likely that because Erdogan knew that foreign policy — specifically managing the Syria crisis — would figure heavily in his legacy that he picked Davutoglu as his successor as prime minister. Erdogan and his AKP have won seven elections since 2002 primarily because they have delivered phenomenal economic growth in Turkey. Erdogan has more than doubled average Turkish incomes in a decade. And this economic success has been fuelled by record amounts of international investment — nearly $50 billion annually. Investors prefer Turkey to its neighbors because it is more stable. But the spillover from the Syrian war — sectarian conflict and ISIS — could take all that away. The new Turkish president hopes that his prime minister, who catapulted Turkey into the Middle East to begin with, can now find ways to keep it safe.

Jonathan Tobin warns against appeasing Iran as part of the US campaign against ISIS –

 It is to be hoped that President Obama will finally show some grit and destroy ISIS before it is too late. But if in the course of that effort he is prepared to appease Iran further, that will be a poor bargain. The U.S. doesn’t have to choose between an ISIS-run Iraq and a nuclear Iran. Both are disasters that must be averted at all costs. Strong American leadership could rally the world behind the fight against ISIS and efforts to isolate Iran until it renounces its nuclear ambitions forever. Unfortunately, that appears to be the one thing lacking in Washington these days.

Jewish World

Marjorie Ingall explores the abundance of Jewish characters in today’s popular young adult literature –

Today’s books with teenage Jewish characters aren’t all full of trembling and intensity and doom and self-importance. Don’t get me wrong—there are still lots of books, some of them superb, that deal with Important Jewish Issues. But there’s also an increasing number of young-adult books that might be termed Jewy rather than Jewish.

These books are set in contemporary, diverse high schools where some kids are Jewish and some aren’t. They feature Jewish characters for whom Judaism is just one aspect of identity—like red hair or a love of The Smiths—rather than the singular defining characteristic (or the primary source of conflict). Some of the Jewish characters’ friends are Jews; some aren’t. Jewish characters may even (gasp) date outside their religion. Basically, these books parallel the lives of most American Jewish teenagers today.

Rabbi Naamah Kelman discusses the growing popularity of public Shabbat services in Israel –

With most Kibbutzim privatized, the need for community is finding expression in Kabbalot Shabbat like these. In the big cities, the public sphere now offers more of these pluralistic, open, inclusive, egalitarian experiences. The Israeli counterparts of Reform and Conservative have been midwives to some of these phenomena, are leading others, and the independent communities have also emerged.

What we all share is the building of a bridge to Israelis seeking a local, familiar, rooted harbor out from the sea of uncertainty and anxiety, and a bridge as well to Diaspora Jews hoping to find in Israel a place that feels like home.