Someone sent me this piece below, and I hesitated to send it out. My internal dialogue went like this: This looks like a propaganda piece, but just because it is from Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., doesn't mean it is propaganda. If it is all true, so what's the problem? Still, it casts doubt on Islam as a tolerant religion. 

I AM SENDING IT OUT, BECAUSE I HAVE COMMITTED MYSELF TO INFORMING  PEOPLE.  I share responses below this article-- Lilly

• March 9, 2012, The Wall Street Journal

Israel and the Plight of Mideast Christians

Just as Jews were once expelled from Arab lands, Christians are now being forced from countries they have long inhabited. By MICHAEL OREN

Some nice things about M.J. Rosenberg (for a change)

M.J. Rosenberg captured on YouTube.

This links to J.J. Goldberg's Forward column on M.J. Rosenberg, "Israel Lover Is Branded As Hater."  J.J. reminds us that M.J. is fundamentally with us in the progressive pro-Israel camp.  Still, if I were editing his piece, I might have placed  J.J.'s caveats about M.J. earlier, but they're there:

... I haven’t always agreed with him. He’s moved from left to right and back a few times and said lots of things I wouldn’t say. But he’s always fought for the Jewish cause as he understood it. And nobody’s ever called him a moral coward.

To my surprise, I found a very nice online comment from Rosenberg on my Tikkun review article of "In Darkness," a searing Holocaust drama on a true-life Polish rescuer of a small group of Jews, who acted heroically despite his antisemitic prejudice:

Conflicting claims over Jerusalem

The following material is from Dr. Peter Feinman, the founder and president of the Institute of History, Archeology, and Education. It is painful to see how the Palestinians have come to deny the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem, but this should not be taken as proof that the Palestinians do not also have a centuries-old link to this city.  A resolution of this conflict requires a sharing or re-division of the city.  

This is a reality that Golda Meir denied when a peace treaty with Jordan might otherwise have been possible in the early 1970s with King Hussein of Jordan, and that Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert acknowledged in their aborted negotiations with Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas respectively.  Unfortunately, the Israeli position on Jerusalem seems again to be in denial mode, under Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, with the national and municipal governments allowing (and in some ways encouraging) the forcible takeover of Palestinian homes and properties in East Jerusalem. With this said, here is this material from Dr. Feinman: 

[Palestinian denials of Jewish claims]:

The 'Magnes Zionist' on Purim & Bibi

Judah Magnes This is from a blog called "The Magnes Zionist" by Jeremiah Haber (not his real name). I am told he is an Orthodox person; by calling himself a Magnes Zionist, it tells me he is for moral behavior (perhaps a bi-national state) and a humanist.  I am intrigued with him, and am sending the piece below for all those reasons.-- Lilly

---

It has been my custom to reproduce this Purim post every year, with some modifications. This year I do it a day after Prime Minister Netanyahu gave a megillah/Scroll of Esther to President Obama. The scroll, read twice on the holiday of Purim, relates the victory of the Jews over Haman the Agagite, his sons, and a whole bunch of people inside and outside the Persian capital of Shushan who had it in for the Jews. Jeffrey Goldberg explains the point of Bibi’s gift:

The prime minister of Israel is many things, but subtle is not one of them. The message of Purim is: When the Jews see a murderous conspiracy forming against them, they will act to disrupt the plot. A further refinement of the message is: When the Jews see a plot forming against them in Persia, they will act to disrupt the plot, even if Barack Obama wishes that they would wait for permission.

Goldberg reads Bibi right, but Bibi reads the megillah wrong.

Gorenberg: Iran Pushes Palestinian Issue Aside

Gershom Gorenberg's new American Prospect article is now online at their website,  "When Bibi Met Barack or "Bibi Wants to Bomb Amalek." Its subhead is "Netanyahu's evaluation of Iran is based on mythology. Can Obama hold him back?" But Gorenberg also points out that the focus on Iran has kicked the Palestinian issue to the curb:  

Speaking to AIPAC, Netanyahu virtually waved his finger in Obama's face. "Diplomacy … hasn't worked," he said; neither have sanctions, nor will deterrence. ...

Netanyahu equated hesitation before attacking Iran to America's refusal to bomb Auschwitz in 1944. As additional support for his case, Netanyahu cited the biblical Book of Esther.... He described Haman, the villain of that ancient story, as "a Persian anti-Semite [who] tried to  annihilate the Jewish people." In Jewish legend, I should note, Haman is understood to be from the tribe of Amalek, which tried to destroy the Israelites when they left Egypt and endlessly keeps trying. The reasoning of Netanyahu's speech, if "reasoning" can be used in this context, is that Amalek, Haman, Hitler and the current leaders of Teheran are all the same.

Israel & US on same page re Iran?

It troubles me that most people on the left, who are justly worried about war with Iran, are placing the onus upon Israel, as if Iran's years of overt hostility and belligerent acts have nothing to do with this crisis.  I believe that an Israeli attack on Iran would be disastrous for Israel and bad for the US, but Israel needs to be reassured that its existence is not on the line. It’s up to Iran to step back from its rhetoric and policies, in order to alleviate the crisis atmosphere.

I'm not opposed to an ultimate deal that includes Israel allowing international inspections of its nuclear facilities, but Iran's hostility is the problem, not an Israeli nuclear arsenal that has threatened no one for decades.  Iran may be reaching the critical stage of uranium enrichment that Israel and the International Atomic Energy Agency both fear.

Hopefully, an intelligent combination of international diplomacy and sanctions can persuade Iran to cooperate fully with the IAEA to assure that its nuclear facilities are only used for peaceful purposes. During Prime Minister Netanyahu's visit to Washington, the US and Israel struggled to get on the same page. The US needs to prevent Israel from launching a preemptive attack, but this can only be done if Israel knows that the US has its back when it comes to deterring Iran.  In an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, Pres. Obama is saying exactly that.

Controversy of Arab Judge & 'Hatikva'

Justice Joubran (Haaretz photo by Tomer Appelbaum)

Right-wing politicians were outraged, demanding Justice Salim Joubran's resignation, when at the celebration for retiring Supreme Court Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch, he (the only one of the 15 high court judges who is an Arab) was not singing Israel's national anthem, "Hatikva."  The NY Times and Haaretz both observe that "Hatikva" is exclusively Jewish.  Rather than insisting that non-Jewish Israelis sing what is really a Zionist anthem, Israel would be well-served by looking for a more inclusive alternative entirely, or coming up with a new set of lyrics that celebrate the country's beauty and significance in a way that is not ethnocentric.  Sadly, in the currently charged political atmosphere, any such move to symbolically enlarge Israel's tent will be resisted fiercely by the right as a step away from Zionism.  This is how the NY Times encapsulated the matter:

Frustrating picture of recent negotiations

Ravid

This is an account of the recent Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in Jordan by Haaretz diplomatic correspondent Barak Ravid. It indicate a limited but still more substantive discussion of the border and Jordan Valley issues than was my previous impression.  This is the headline and subhead of his Haaretz blog piece of Feb. 17:

Netanyahu's border proposal: Israel to annex settlement blocs, but not Jordan Valley
The proposal that came up during the Israeli-Palestinian talks in Amman effectively means a withdrawal from 90% of the West Bank, and is very similar to the one proposed by Tzipi Livni [during 2008].