For more than 30 years, the settlers\’ dream has choked the dream of free Israelis. The dream of the whole land of Israel and a messianic kingship drains daily the hope of being a people free to build a just society.
For an Israeli who lives in Jerusalem, it\’s strange being the only Jew in the room. Yet that\’s how it was on Jan. 10 as I gave a talk on the current political situation to an international conference of Catholic bishops at the elegant Knights Palace Hotel in the Old City.
In a keynote speech last week at the Herzliya Conference on Israel\’s National Security, Sharon declared that \”2005 will be the year of great opportunity,\” with \”a chance for an historic breakthrough in our relations with the Palestinians, a breakthrough we have been waiting for years.\”
It was not clear what form the new Israeli-Russian cooperation would take.
It was a loss that brought back the darkest days of Israel\’s war on Palestinian terrorism and the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon — and the next day it got even worse.
Six elite soldiers of the Givati Brigade, on their way home from a mission to destroy arms factories in Gaza City, died in a huge fireball Tuesday when their ordnance-laden armored personnel carrier went over a land mine.
On Wednesday, at least five more Israeli soldiers were killed in an attempt to retrieve the remains of the previous days\’ dead when their armored personnel carrier was hit by an anti-tank missile.
A recent report in The New York Times captured almost perfectly the thorny questions that stand at the center of relations between the American Jewish community and Israel. Should one be permitted to criticize the government of a foreign country with which one feels a deep affinity, or is it a moral and political imperative to support the policies of that government, right or wrong?
Later that same day in Orange, we popped in to some of the antique shops that radiate from the central plaza. In a world of eBay, even antique stores seem antique. In one store, I thumbed through a stack of old advertising posters, and out fell a red-white-and-blue sheet, the size of a movie theater lobby card, depicting a silhouette of a soldier against an American flag, printed with the words \”Operation Desert Storm 1990-1991.\” It was $7.50.\n\nThe fact that relics of the last war are already collecting dust alongside World War II-era Japanese ammo belts ($60) and war bonds calendars ($24) made me wonder how, 10 years hence, we\’ll regard Gulf War II. Will it resonate with world-shifting portent that World War II mementos do? Or will it seem by comparison to today\’s war somehow small, eclipsed in our mind by more immediate threats and darker developments?\n\nAs soon as we returned to the car and turned on the radio, the answer seemed clear. U.S. soldiers had encountered some fierce resistance — several had been killed, many others taken prisoner. By Monday, there were reports of more missing, of Iraqi troops using guerilla tactics to inflict casualties. Areas that the Army initially announced in coalition control were now in the midst of firefights — I know, because I\’ve watched several unfold on TV with surreal intimacy.
Arab spokesmen regularly complain about what they call \”the Israeli occupation\” of the Judea-Samaria-Gaza territories. But the truth is that there is no such \”Israeli occupation.\” To begin with, nearly all Palestinian Arabs currently live under Yasser Arafat\’s rule, not Israel\’s. Following the signing of the Oslo accords, the Israelis withdrew from nearly half of the territories, including the cities where 98.5 percent of Palestinian Arabs reside. The notion that the Palestinian Arabs are living under Israeli occupation is false. The areas from which Israel has not withdrawn are virtually uninhabited, except for the two percent where Israelis reside.
It\’s virtually \”genealogy for dummies.\”
In a nation of immigrants where more than 35 percent of the population — or 100 million Americans — have at least one relative who passed through Ellis Island, officials at that historic entry point to New York have unveiled a new Web site that will enable even the least tech-savvy to mine a mother lode of information on their families\’ roots.
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