Israel

Everyone knows that because Arab population growth rates in Israel and the West Bank far exceed Jewish ones, the percentage of the population that is not Jewish will rise steadily.  The only problem with that statement is that it is not true. As The Times of Israel has just reported,   The fertility rates of Jewish and Arab women were identical for the first time in Israeli history in 2015, according to figures released by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday....Jewish and Arab women had given birth to an average of 3.13 children as of last year....   The explanation is a sharp drop in Arab Israeli birth rates while Jewish birth rates have been rising: "In 2000, the fertility among the country’s Arab population stood at 4.3 children per woman, while the fertility rate of Jewish women was 2.6. Since then the gap has narrowed as the Arab rate dropped off and the Jewish fertility rates steadily increased." This high fertility rate is not simply an artifact of Israel’s growing ultra-Orthodox or Haredi population; the non-Haredi fertility rate is 2.6.  (This is, by the way, a far higher fertility rate than that of American Jews, which is 1.9; the replacement rate is 2.3.) The overall Israeli Jewish fertility rate of 3.13 also suggests that the population balance between Israel and the West Bank will not change: "Palestinian fertility on the West Bank has already fallen to the Israeli fertility rate of three children per woman, if we believe the Palestine Ministry of Health numbers rather than the highly suspect Central Bureau of Statistics data. In 1963, Israeli Arab women had eight or nine children; today they have three, about the same as Israeli Jews." What are the political implications? Whatever they are, the debate must begin with facts rather than assumptions--including facts about population growth.    

Given that Israel is the freest nation in the Middle East, and the only stable democracy there, the steady assault on Israel by human rights groups and by enemies of Israel using human rights language has always been particularly reprehensible. But it has also been hard to understand: why attack Israel precisely where its record is in fact exemplary by any international standard? Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks has explained it, concisely. Speaking to the European Parliament in September, in a presentation entitled "The Mutating Virus: Understanding Antisemitism," Sacks said this:   Throughout history, when people have sought to justify anti-Semitism, they have done so by recourse to the highest source of authority available within the culture. In the Middle Ages, it was religion. So we had religious anti-Judaism. In post-Enlightenment Europe it was science. So we had the twin foundations of Nazi ideology, Social Darwinism and the so-called Scientific Study of Race. Today the highest source of authority worldwide is human rights. That is why Israel—the only fully functioning democracy in the Middle East with a free press and independent judiciary—is regularly accused of the five cardinal sins against human rights: racism, apartheid, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and attempted genocide.   Rabbi Sacks’s explanation is in fact doubly powerful. Not only does he explain why Israel’s enemies choose the language of human rights, he also reminds us that the central motivation of those critics is, quite simply, anti-Semitism. As he explained,   Antisemitism means denying the right of Jews to exist collectively as Jews with the same rights as everyone else. It takes different forms in different ages. In the Middle Ages, Jews were hated because of their religion. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century they were hated because of their race. Today they are hated because of their nation state, the state of Israel. It takes different forms but it remains the same thing: the view that Jews have no right to exist as free and equal human beings.   His conclusion is stark:   It was Jews not Israelis who were murdered in terrorist attacks in Toulouse, Paris, Brussels and Copenhagen. Anti-Zionism is the antisemitism of our time.  

In 1935, the great Jewish leader, Zionist, and nationalist Vladimir Jabotinsky wrote in a letter to David Ben Gurion about the paramount need to establish a Jewish state:   I can vouch for there being a type of Zionist who doesn’t care what kind of society our “state” will have; I’m that person. If I were to know that the only way to a state was via socialism, or even that this would hasten it by a generation, I’d welcome it. More than that: give me a religiously Orthodox state in which I would be forced to eat gefilte fish all day long (but only if there were no other way), and I’ll take it. More even than that: make it a Yiddish-speaking state, which for me would mean the loss of all the magic in the thing—and if there’s no alternative, I’ll take that, too.   It was the founding of the state that counted, above all else. This passage reminded me of the remarkably similar language Abraham Lincoln used in a letter in 1862 to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune and a passionate critic of Lincoln for his failure, up to then, to end slavery. Lincoln’s famous reply included these words:   I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.   For both men, the nation --a dream for Jabotinsky, a reality imperiled by civil war for Lincoln-- embodied the hopes of millions and their own hopes. They saw in the nation the hope for liberty and survival. Every other pressing cause came second. All states are greatly flawed, and the attacks on the United States not least in this election year and on Israel in every year are often fierce. But in their understanding that true hope lay in establishing and preserving the nation, and in their absolute determination to protect it, both men demonstrated their greatness. The similarity of language and of thinking here is striking and memorable.

What are Israelis and Palestinians thinking about their own situations, about each other, and about peace? Two new October polls give us additional insight. Tel Aviv University has just put out its “Peace Index.” There we learn that Israeli Jews favor renewing peace negotiations with the Palestinians (66% to 31%) but don’t believe anything will come of them. Twenty-five percent believe the negotiations will lead to peace “in the coming years,” and 71% do not. An-Najah University in Nablus, in the West Bank, has just published “Palestinian Public Opinion Poll No. 53,” focusing mostly on Palestinian politics. Like Israelis, Palestinians are pessimists about a peace agreement: 33% of respondents believed that there is a possibility for the creation of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders while 61.5% said that there is no such possibility. If there is no such possibility, what do they then want? People can of course choose inconsistent or multiple answers, but there are some interesting results. Thirty-eight percent favor an armed intifada, which is a very big number even if 56% reject that option. Thirty-one percent said “the current political, security and economic circumstances compel them to desire to emigrate.” Forty-six percent favor “the creation of a confederation with Jordan on the basis of two independent states with strong institutional relations.” The very notion of a confederation with Jordan is vigorously rejected by very many Palestinian and Jordanian officials, but the idea just does not seem to die. Given the BDS movement, it is also worth noting the results when it comes to Palestinian boycotts of Israeli goods. Seventy-five percent of Palestinians “supported boycotting Israeli goods and products,” but they do not practice what they preach. Thirteen percent of the respondents said that they buy Israeli products in all cases, 37% said they buy Palestinian products in all cases, and nearly half, 46.5%, said they “buy according to the quality of the item regardless of its origin.” On Palestinian politics, a majority oppose the recent postponement of elections and believes their rights as citizens (to vote) are being abridged. Asked to predict the outcome had elections been held, roughly half say Fatah would have won in the West Bank and Hamas would have won in Gaza. A final and bizarre note: Palestinians blame the Brits for everything! Asked “Do you consider Britain responsible for the catastrophes that befell the Palestinian people?” 79% say yes and only 14% don’t agree. Logically, then, 75% say yes when asked “Do you support or reject a call from President Mahmoud Abbas on Britain to accept the historical, legal, political, material, and moral responsibilities relating to the consequences of Balfour Declaration including offering an apology to the Palestinian people for the catastrophes and injustice committed against them?” May I summarize? "The Brits are to blame for the mess we are in, and no peace deal is possible, so let’s have an intifada, or anyway get me out of here, or let’s at least have a confederation with Jordan." John Kerry, call your office.      

There is little to be added to the scorn rightfully shown in the United States and in Israel (which has cut all ties to UNESCO) toward the UNESCO vote this week that in essence wipes out Jewish and Christian history in Jerusalem by referring to it only in Muslim terminology. UNESCO’s own Director General Irina Bokova criticized the vote, saying “Jerusalem is the sacred city of the three monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. To deny, conceal or erase any of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim traditions undermines the integrity of the site...." The following nations voted yes: Algeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chad, China, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Mauritius, Mexico, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan and Vietnam. Six countries voted no: Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States. These were the abstentions: Albania, Argentina, Cameroon, El Salvador, France, Ghana, Greece, Guinea, Haiti, India, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Kenya, Nepal, Paraguay, Saint Vincent and Nevis, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda and Ukraine. (Serbia and Turkmenistan were absent from the vote, presumably deliberately to avoid the issue entirely.) The Times of Israel reported a bit of good news in this voting pattern:   Losing a vote 24-6 is a clear diplomat defeat; there is no other way to describe it. But when one takes a closer look at the outcome of Thursday’s vote, there is another side to the story, in which a silver lining of sorts emerges that was almost lost in the chorus of outrage. Compared to the April vote on the same matter, which similarly turned a blind eye to the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, Thursday’s result marked a not-insignificant improvement, from an Israeli perspective.   Seven countries that just six months ago voted in favor of the resolution now abstained, among them heavyweights France and India. After an Israeli outcry over the April vote, Paris had admitted that its yes vote was a mistake and so the French abstention was not really a surprise. But Israeli officials did not expect countries like India and Sweden to refuse backing the Palestinian draft, which was sponsored by Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan. (The other countries which surprisingly changed from yes to abstention were Spain, Argentina, Sri Lanka, Guinea and Togo.)   Israeli diplomacy must be given real credit for these switches. Still, what is Morocco doing lending its name to this kind of Palestinian activity? Why couldn’t France join Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands in voting no? It’s striking that no European country supported this resolution, but why couldn’t every one of them oppose it--having, one assumes, some knowledge of the true history of the Middle East?  And did Japan really have to join the jackals here? The vote shows that plenty of countries are tired of the Palestinian and broader Arab abuse of the UN system, but very few profiles in courage. One should take note that Albania, which abstained, is the only Muslim-majority country to do so, and deserves credit. And then there are the yes votes, which are appalling: outside the Muslim world, they were Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Vietnam, and of course Russia and China. This vote further discredits UNESCO, of course, but it also discredits the countries that supported or did not oppose a resolution that is entirely political and entirely divorced from history. One can hope (a dim hope, I suppose) that in some of those countries there will be discussion and debate over the vote. While damaging UNESCO the resolution gained nothing for the Palestinians. There was no reason to support it except the usual UN tropism against Israel. Still, that automatic majority is weakening--a result of years of effort by the Netanyahu government. And the best comment on all of this was made by Prime Minister Netanyahu in his speech to the UN General Assembly on September 22nd:   The UN, begun as a moral force, has become a moral farce. So when it comes to Israel at the UN, you’d probably think nothing will ever change, right? Well, think again. You see, everything will change, and a lot sooner than you think. The change will happen in this hall, because back home, your governments are rapidly changing their attitudes towards Israel. And sooner or later, that’s going to change the way you vote on Israel at the UN....I believe the day is not far off when Israel will be able to rely on many, many countries to stand with us at the UN. Slowly but surely, the days when UN ambassadors reflexively condemn Israel, those days are coming to an end....   Ladies and Gentlemen, distinguished delegates from so many lands, I have one message for you today: Lay down your arms. The war against Israel at the UN is over. Perhaps some of you don’t know it yet, but I am confident that one day, in the not-too-distant future, you will also get the message from your president or from your prime minister informing you that the war against Israel at the United Nations has ended. Yes, I know, there might be a storm before the calm. I know there is talk about ganging up on Israel at the UN later this year. Given its history of hostility towards Israel, does anyone really believe that Israel will let the UN determine our security and our vital national interests? We will not accept any attempt by the UN to dictate terms to Israel. The road to peace runs through Jerusalem and Ramallah, not through New York. But regardless of what happens in the months ahead, I have total confidence that in the years ahead, the revolution in Israel’s standing among the nations will finally penetrate this hall of nations. I have so much confidence, in fact, that I predict that a decade from now an Israeli prime minister will stand right here where I am standing and actually applaud the UN. But I want to ask you: Why do we have to wait a decade? Why keep vilifying Israel? Perhaps because some of you don’t appreciate that the obsessive bias against Israel is not just a problem for my country; it’s a problem for your countries, too. Because if the UN spends so much time condemning the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, it has far less time to address war, disease, poverty, climate change and all the other serious problems that plague the planet.  

It is easy to exaggerate the opening that is occurring between Israel and several Gulf states, but it’s easy to underestimate it too.  The most recent change: Saudi Arabia has stopped blocking access to Israeli newspapers on line. As Al Akhbar in Beirut reported in a story entitled "Saudi Arabia Lifts Ban on Israeli Press." Here’s a part of the story:   “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is gradually endorsing its relations with Israel and widening these relations’ scope by moving from the political communication calls and mutual visits into media normalization. This indicates that things will further escalate in a way as to prepare for subsequent steps.   “Yesterday, the Hebrew media revealed that the ban and surveillance that were imposed on the Saudis preventing them to enter Israeli news websites have been lifted knowing that this ban had gone one for years. This Saudi step was seen in Tel Aviv as an indication to enhancing the [bilateral] relations and normalization.... “The Israeli Jerusalem Post newspaper, which is published in English, had confirmed that Saudi Arabia lifted the surveillance and ban imposed on the Israeli press and that the Saudis can now enter and browse its website and other Israeli websites including the websites of the Hebrew media. The newspaper indicated that the number of people browsing its website from Saudi Arabia is on the rise. It further quoted journalists via social communication networks as saying that entering the website as well as other Israeli news websites is now possible....Israeli users of the social communication networks expressed their joy over what they called the normalization with the Kingdom and the enhancement of the relations between the two parties.”   (And here is the original, in Arabic.) This not so small a step. Sure, Saudis could get around the ban in the past--but now access to the Israeli press is normal and no big deal, just like reading The Times of London or The Washington Post. Sure, very few Saudis read Hebrew, but there are many Israeli news sites in English, from The Times of Israel to The Jerusalem Post to Ynews. Reading such sites will give Saudis a view of Middle Eastern, and Israeli-Palestinian, affairs that’s quite different from their Foreign Ministry’s official line. It will give them far deeper insights into Palestinian and Israeli politics, U.S.-Israel relations, and Israeli society. What’s more, it will show them that a free press does exist in at least one place quite nearby in the Middle East, able to criticize government policy without fear. So it is an entirely positive development, and one must give credit to the Saudi government. The Saudis keep saying there is change and reform underway in the Kingdom. This is a sign that they mean it.    

Prince Charles attended the funeral of Shimon Peres last week, in Jerusalem. This was not his first visit: he also attended the Yitzhak Rabin funeral in 1995. In the 21 years since then he has visited Arab countries repeatedly, but Israel has remained on the blacklist. No official visit, no tourism, sum total of visits there = two visits to Mount Herzl Cemetery. Why? Is it his own prejudice against the Jewish State, or is the Foreign Office telling him to stay away? (The Queen has never set foot in Israel.) There is actually a very good reason for him to visit another cemetery in Jerusalem, at the Mount of Olives: his grandmother is buried in a convent there. That woman is Princess Alice of Battenberg, the mother of Prince Philip. Philip actually did visit there, in 1994, in a trip the Foreign Office insisted was entirely private. Princess Alice was an extraordinary woman. She was the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and was born at Windsor Castle in 1885. Earl Mountbatten of Burma was her younger brother. Congenitally deaf, she nevertheless learned to speak English and German. She led a most difficult life, in and out of exile from Greece (she had married Prince Andrew of Greece in 1903). During the Second World War she lived in Athens and sheltered Jewish refugees there, for which was recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the "Righteous Among the Nations." That ceremony at Yad Vashem was in fact the occasion for Prince Philip’s visit. She lived the final years of her life in Buckingham Palace and died there in 1988, after which in accordance with her request her remains were interred on the Mount of Olives. Her spirit is nicely suggested by this story: during the Second World War the Nazis occupied Athens. When a German general asked her "Is there anything I can do for you?" she replied "You can take your troops out of my country." I suppose it is far too much, diplomatically, to expect Israel to disinvite someone like the heir to the British throne from a funeral. But the Prince’s attendance was an act of hypocrisy. If he wants to honor Shimon Peres, a better way is simply to schedule a visit to the country to which Peres devoted his life. And he can see his grandmother’s grave while at it. UPDATE ON OCTOBER 5: It turns out that Prince Charles secretly visited his grandmother’s grave while in Jerusalem, according to a story in The Times of Israel. The headline and subhead of the story are: "Prince Charles secretly visited grandmother’s grave while in Jerusalem; British royal took advantage of his attendance at Peres funeral to stop by burial site of Princess Alice of Battenberg, on Mount of Olives." Note the difference between what he did and what his father did. Prince Philip made a "private visit" to Israel in 1994 to be present at Yad Vashem when his mother was honored, and to visit her grave. Prince Charles, who would not visit Israel under any circumstances except a state funeral, visited there before leaving the country. My point still stands: no British royal, not one, has made any sort of official visit to Israel despite dozens of visits to Arab countries. That’s indefensible.

Last week President Obama spoke at Shimon Peres’ funeral and watched him buried--in some sort of No Man’s Land. Not in Israel, it seems. The Obama White House actually issued a correction of its press release of Obama’s remarks, to strike the world "Israel." You can see a screen shot of the corrected release here at the McClatchy news site. The absurdity of this move is striking. The ceremony was at Mount Herzl, the Jerusalem cemetery where many of Israel’s greatest figures are buried: Herzl himself, Jabotinsky, Begin, Golda Meir, Rabin, and innumerable military heroes. It lies in Western Jerusalem, near Yad Vashem and Jerusalem Forest--a place Palestinians do not even claim when they claim a share of Jerusalem; only those who seek to destroy Israel think this place will ever be anything but a part of the Jewish State. U.S. policy is that Jerusalem is a final status issue, so we have our embassy in Tel Aviv. But there is no dispute about west Jerusalem, where the Knesset, Prime Minister’s office, and Supreme Court, and the National Library, and Yad Vashem--and Mount Herzl--all lie. One wonders if President Obama, speaking about the meaning of Peres’s life for Israel, actually thought as he spoke those words at the grave site that he was not standing in Israel, and that Shimon Peres was not being buried in Israel. I doubt it. Which suggests, again, how foolish the current and longstanding American policy really is.    

The last American founding father, James Madison, died in 1836, 60 years after independence had been declared. Today, in the 68th year of its independence, Israel experienced the loss of its own last founding father. Shimon Peres was the last statesman who had been a force in Israeli life from independence in 1948 through all of its wars and all of its peace treaties, and served as Israel’s president until 2014. Peres, who was born in what was then Poland, was in Israeli government and politics for two thirds of a century. The man who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 had been Director General of its Ministry of Defense in the early 1950s, where he played a key role in securing the arms that allowed Israel to survive Arab attacks. Peres was 93, and until the last year his vitality was astonishing. He could have passed for a healthy man in his 70s. This longevity and energy help explain his decades of influence on Israeli political life. This is not to say that Peres was Israel’s greatest hero: its generals and its first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, vie for that honor. Nor was he its greatest prime minister or political leader. He was actually unpopular in many quarters, and lost numerous elections, until in old age he won the respect to which his career entitled him. Peres was long criticized for excessive optimism about peace with Israel’s neighbors, so it is ironic that when he passed from the scene his predictions appeared in some important ways to be coming true. Israel’s relations with Egypt and Jordan are close and cooperative, at least on security matters, and now relations with the Gulf states appear to be warming up. I recall Ariel Sharon saying to me in 2005 that Israel did not seek to be the lion but refused to be the lamb either. The Arab lions are not exactly lying down with the Israeli lamb today, but they are not attacking it either and many governments appear to be realizing that cooperation with Israel can be to everyone’s benefit. I first met Peres in 1981.  What I recall vividly about many meetings with Peres was his focus on the future. He reveled in hi-tech, not in nostalgia. He was fascinated by nanotechnology, for example, and it was hard to have a meal with him without hearing him speak of the newest frontiers of Israeli technology. He greatly preferred talking about coming decades to reminiscing about earlier ones. Perhaps that is what kept him young into his tenth decade. Israelis will miss him-- for his optimism, for his lifetime of service, and for this symbolic passing of their founding generation.

There have been many attacks on aspects of Palestinian President Abbas’s speech to the UN General Assembly last week, but it had one saving grace: candor. Let’s take just two examples. First, Mr. Abbas said this about the Temple Mount: Israel must cease its aggression and provocations against the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque," and Israel "continues to commit aggressions and provocations against our Christian and Muslim holy sites, especially Al-Aqsa Mosque. The continuation of the Israeli aggressions against our Muslim and Christian holy sites is playing with fire." This accusation--as we see, repeated twice--is false, but Mr. Abbas goes beyond merely stating it and turns it into a threat of violence. What else does "playing with fire" mean? Second, and in a way worse, is Mr. Abbas’s treatment of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his complete delegitimization of Israel. Here are some of his remarks on that:   By the end of this coming year....100 years have passed since the notorious Balfour Declaration, by which Britain gave, without any right, authority or consent from anyone, the land of Palestine to another people. This paved the road for the Nakba of Palestinian people and their dispossession and displacement from their land. As if this were not enough, the British Mandate interpreted this Declaration into policies and measures that contributed to the perpetration of the most heinous crimes against a peaceful people in their own land, a people that never attacked anyone or partook in a war against anyone.   Therefore, we ask Britain, as we approach 100 years since this notorious Declaration, to draw the necessary lessons and to bear its historic, legal, political, material and moral responsibilities for the consequences of this Declaration, including an apology to the Palestinian people for the catastrophes, miseries and injustices that it created, and to act to rectify this historic catastrophe and remedy its consequences, including by recognition of the State of Palestine. In addition, Israel, since 1948, has persisted with its contempt for international legitimacy by violating United Nations General Assembly resolution 181 (II), the partition resolution, which called for the establishment of two states on the historic land of Palestine according to a specific partition plan. Israeli forces seized more land than that allotted to Israel, constituting a grave breach of Articles 39, 41 and 42 of the United Nations Charter.  In the preamble of resolution 181 (II), paragraph (c) clearly states: “The Security Council determine as a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression, in accordance with Article 39 of the Charter, any attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution.” Regrettably, however, the Security Council is not upholding its responsibilities to hold Israel accountable for its seizure of the territory allotted to the Palestinian State according to the partition resolution.  I appeal to you read this resolution once again.   Many Israelis have said for a long time that they could solve the "1967 issues" with the Palestinians but cannot possibly solve the "1948 issues"--meaning the Palestinian objections to the very establishment of the Jewish State. In his speech, Mr. Abbas showed this to be correct: his complaints went far beyond those related to issues in the West Bank or Gaza. He wants the Balfour Declaration of 1917 undone, wants the British to apologize for it, and complains of the UN’s partition resolution in 1948. His history is wrong here, when he complains that Israel seized more land than that which the partition resolution allotted to it--because he forgets that Israel accepted the resolution but was then attacked by the Arab states, which did not accept it. The Arabs lost that war and paid the price. Mr. Abbas’s account is false and misleading. Perhaps some day, a Palestinian leader might say something like this to the UN and to his own people: "We said no in 1947, when we could have had a state, and we chose war instead. We said no at Camp David in 2000, when we could have had a state, and we chose terrorism instead. We said no in 2008, after Annapolis. It is time to say yes." Until that happens, the "unsustainable occupation" that began in 1967 will continue. In fact, next year marks its fiftieth anniversary. A speech such as Mr. Abbas gave shows us why it has not been possible to make more progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians. As long as Palestinian leaders are inciting violence with fantasies about the Temple Mount and are mired in their inaccurate history of past victimization, from the Balfour Declaration to today, it is hard to see how progress is possible.  

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, or ELCA, is a church in decline--but whose enthusiasm for attacks on Israel never wanes. The decline is very clear in the numbers. The ELCA when formed in 1988 had over 5 million members, but is now down to about 3.8 million-- down over a fourth. The number of member churches is similarly in decline. At its triennial convention this past week, the ELCA built on previous anti-Israel resolutions to demand an end to aid to Israel from the United States. What passed is a resolution to:   --call on the U.S. President, in coordination with the United Nations Security Council, to offer a new, comprehensive and time-bound agreement to the governments of Israel and Palestine, resulting in a negotiated final status agreement between Israel and Palestine leading to two viable and secure states with a shared Jerusalem;   --To urge this church’s members, congregations, synods, agencies and presiding bishop to call on their U.S. Representatives, Senators and the Administration to take action requiring that, to continue receiving U.S. financial and military aid, Israel must comply with internationally recognized human rights standards as specified in existing U.S. law, stop settlement building and the expansion of existing settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, end its occupation of Palestinian territory, and enable an independent Palestinian state; and --To encourage this church’s members, congregations, synods, and agencies to call on the U.S. President to recognize the State of Palestine and not prevent the application of the State of Palestine for full membership in the United Nations.   A time bound agreement-- so facts on the ground, for example the strength of Hamas or even ISIS in the Palestinian territories would be irrelevant. Stop all construction in East Jerusalem--well, not really; just construction by Jews. "Enable" an independent Palestinian state, as if the only worry about such a state, and its only problems, come from Israel--not poverty, terrorism, corruption, and repression, for example. End military aid to Israel, regardless of the threats it faces from Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Iran, and other enemies of Israel’s and ours. And of course, these standards and these requirements apply to one single country: Israel. In a world awash in repression and human rights violations, only Israel. This resolution was passed by 82% of those voting. One wonders if the last few ELCA congregations, when there has been another 25 years of shrinkage, will pass an anti-Israel resolution just before turning out the lights.  

I’ve written about a half dozen times in the past about UNRWA, the UN agency that deals with Palestinians: here in 2014 and here in 2015, for example. Simply put, UNRWA has long had employees who were sympathetic to Hamas, and who engaged in acts of anti-Semitism, but it has overlooked their actions and indeed often protected them. That appears to be the culture of the place. In the last week we’ve learned something new: that employees of other leading charitable and development agencies like World Vision and the UN Development Program (UNDP) may also be diverting funds to Hamas. Israel has detained employees of both World Vision and UNDP. Australia has frozen contributions to World Vision’s Gaza programs until the entire matter can be sorted out, and the German offices of World Vision have frozen their own programs in Gaza. Here’s the UNDP story:   Israel said Tuesday it had charged a United Nations staffer with helping the Islamist movement Hamas, the second indictment involving aid workers in Gaza in a week. Engineer Waheed Borsh, who has worked for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) since 2003, was arrested on July 16 and charged in a civilian court in Israel on Tuesday, a government statement said. The UNDP said it was "greatly concerned" by the allegations while Hamas, which has run the Gaza Strip since 2007, denied any involvement. The government said 38-year-old Borsh, from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, had been recruited by "a senior member of the Hamas terrorist organisation to redirect his work for UNDP to serve Hamas’s military interests". It said he had confessed to a number of accusations, including diverting rubble from a UNDP project in the coastal strip to a Hamas operation to build a jetty for its naval force. He is also alleged to have last year persuaded UNDP managers to focus home rebuilding efforts in areas where Hamas members lived, after pressure from the group.   And here is the World Vision story:   The Gaza head of the U.S.-based humanitarian aid organization World Vision funneled as much as $7 million a year over the past 10 years to Hamas’s terror activities, Israel’s domestic security agency said Thursday. The Shin Bet said the aid group’s Gaza director, Mohammed el-Halabi, is an active figure in Hamas’s military wing. He was indicted by Israeli authorities Thursday, accused of diverting some 60 percent of World Vision’s annual budget for Gaza to Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that rules the coastal enclave. He was charged with transferring money and working with a terror group. Hamas is viewed as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union. Israel has fought three wars with Hamas since 2009. In addition to the $7 million a year in funds transferred to Hamas coffers, Shin Bet said, Halabi also handed over to Hamas piles of cash -- an additional $1.5 million a year. The Israelis also said he gave Hamas $800,000 taken from a United Kingdom donation to help build a Hamas military base. The money was designated for civilian projects in the Gaza Strip, Israeli authorities said.   The accused are innocent until proved guilty, although they are said to have confessed. What we can now see clearly is that none of these organizations--UNDP, World Vision, or UNRWA--was ever going to find the facts, fire people, clean out the Hamas agents, and solve these problems. That will require the intervention of donors, and those steps in Germany and Australia are remarkable only in that they have not been followed universally. "Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) called the allegations ’deeply troubling’ and said in a statement that it was ’urgently seeking more information from World Vision and the Israeli authorities. ’We are suspending the provision of further funding to World Vision for programs in the Palestinian Territories until the investigation is complete,’ it said." Quite right--but what about all the other donors? The larger question is the culture of foreign aid to the Palestinians, much of which falls under what President George W. Bush once called (in an entirely different context) "the soft bigotry of low expectations" and some of which falls under the category of terrorism, threats, and plain fear. As to plain fear, look at the last line of the first story, about UNDP: "He is also alleged to have last year persuaded UNDP managers to focus home rebuilding efforts in areas where Hamas members lived, after pressure from the group." Perhaps Hamas made him an offer he could not refuse. "Pressure from the group" in this context may well mean his life was in danger. The "soft bigotry" is the failure to hold the Palestinians to global standards.  We see this, for example, when it comes to the toleration--by every government, including our own and that of Israel--of the way the Palestinian Authority glorifies terrorism and terrorists, naming parks and schools after murderers and broadcasting on official stations all kinds of anti-Semitic hate. We see it in the failure to reform UNRWA. In these cases, World Vision and UNDP, we probably see both support for terrorism and plain fear. It’s likely that some percentage of local employees in Gaza are sympathetic to Hamas--and it seems likely to me that administrators don’t want to know it. If they came face to face with it, what would they do? Fire them? Turn them in to the Israelis? Start difficult and likely very long back-and-forth communications with headquarters, which likely doesn’t want to know and won’t thank the employee who insists on revealing the truth? Simpler to be blind to what is happening. There’s some evidence of that in these remarks by an Israeli legal group:   Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of Israeli legal advocacy group Shurat HaDin, said her organization warned World Vision four years ago its funding was being diverted to armed militant groups in Gaza. She said she discovered this while her group researched a lawsuit against the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which in the past was involved in attacking Israelis. She said the PFLP used front organizations that appeared as beneficiaries on the World Vision web site. Darshan-Leitner said she is exploring suing World Vision in the United States for aiding and abetting terrorism."Foreign NGOs want to give money to Gaza," Darshan-Leitner said, even as they "ignore all the signs that their money is diverted to terrorism."   Allegations are not proof and these cases need to go to trial. The sensible thing for donors to do is to freeze suspect programs immediately, as World Vision Germany and the government of Australia have done.The only way to solve this problem is for donors to withhold funding unless and until the independence of their programs can be assured. Yes, the people of Gaza would suffer, but they would know why: because Hamas is more interested in its own terrorist actions than in the welfare of Gazans. Aid donors have turned a blind eye for far too long.    

This week the State Department engaged in a remarkable assault on Israel. Both in tone and in content, it marks a new hostility--and plenty of sheer ignorance. The comment was entitled "Recent Israeli Settlement Announcements" and the full text ran as follows:   We are deeply concerned by reports today that the Government of Israel has published tenders for 323 units in East Jerusalem settlements.  This follows Monday’s announcement of plans for 770 units in the settlement of Gilo.   We strongly oppose settlement activity, which is corrosive to the cause of peace. These  steps by Israeli authorities are the latest examples of what appears to be a steady acceleration of settlement activity that is systematically undermining the prospects for a two- state solution. In just the past few weeks, we have seen reports of the advancement of plans for 531 units in Ma’ale Adumim, 19 in Har Homa, 120 in Ramot, and 30 in Pisgat Ze’ev; the advancement of a plan to retroactively legalize an outpost near Ramallah; and the issuance of tenders for 42 units in Kiryat Arba. We are also concerned about recent increased demolitions of Palestinian structures in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which reportedly have left dozens of Palestinians homeless, including children.‎  More than 650 Palestinian structures have been demolished this year, with more Palestinian structures demolished in the West Bank and East Jerusalem thus far than in all of 2015. As the recent Quartet Report highlighted, this is part of an ongoing process of land seizures, settlement expansion, legalizations of outposts, and denial of Palestinian development that risk entrenching a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict.  We remain troubled that Israel continues this pattern of provocative and counterproductive action, which raises serious questions about Israel’s ultimate commitment to a peaceful, negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.   Wow. This statement not only protests certain recent activities (of which more in a moment) but actually accuses Israel of  no longer being interested in a negotiated settlement. The history of Obama administration efforts gives the lie to that accusation: it’s quite clear that the Palestinians refused to come to table repeatedly and ultimately defeated Secretary Kerry’s efforts to get something going. Here is what Obama negotiator Martin Indyk said in 2014, as reported in Haaretz:   "Netanyahu moved to the zone of possible agreement. I saw him sweating bullets to find a way to reach an agreement," said Indyk. Abbas, for his part, did not show flexibility, Indyk added.   "We tried to get Abu Mazen to the zone of possible agreement but we were surprised to learn he had shut down. We were ready to go beyond policy positions the U.S. had taken on the core issues to bridge the gaps and resolve it, and therefore there was something in it for him – and he didn’t answer us. Abbas [effectively] checked out of the talks in mid-February," said Indyk.   So Abbas checks out, Abbas destroys Obama’s and Kerry’s efforts, and the State Department two years later is saying Israel’s commitment is in doubt. Why? Because this construction is going to make the two-state solution impossible and "risks entrenching a one-state reality." That conclusion reflects pure ignorance. The position of the United States is, and has been under Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, that Israel and the Palestinians should engage in land swaps as part of a final status agreement. Just as one example, President Obama told AIPAC in 2011 that "the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps." Swapping for what? Swapping for major Israeli settlement blocs--such as Maale Adumim, population 40,000. The notion that peace is more distant if Israel builds in Maale Adumim is ridiculous. Or how about construction in Gilo? Same: this is a Jerusalem neighborhood of 40,000. Construction there is no obstacle to a two-state solution. Same for Har Homa. In 1997, the United States vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions demanding that construction in Har Homa stop...and it might be recalled that the president at that time was a Democrat, and was the husband of the current Democratic nominee. Besides, the State Department’s criticism regarding Har Homa is about 19 units. 19 units! One might wonder if the Department has no other matters to concern it these days. Checking the State web site, I find no similar five-paragraph attacks or critiques on any subject. It seems nothing is as dangerous to the world as construction in Israel and in settlements. The Department’s criticism also cherry picks numbers to make its argument that there "appears to be a steady acceleration of settlement activity that is systematically undermining the prospects for a two- state solution." In June, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reported that "the number of housing starts in West Bank settlements for the first quarter of 2016 dropped by 53 percent compared to the same period last year," as the Jerusalem Post reported. On the other hand, "the number of completed homes in Judea and Samaria rose by 14.9% in the first quarter of 2016, for a total of 610 units, compared with 531 such structures in the first three months of 2015." Ahh, complexity. Housing starts fell; housing completions rose; and then there is the subject of permits for planning and construction, which very often do not result in actual construction. Note that the occasion of the State Department’s outrage was that the Government of Israel "has published tenders" for new construction--not begun, much less completed, the construction. Those tenders may result in actual permits for construction, and may produce the housing units, or may not--and the numbers may change. It is also pretty clear that Netanyahu policy has been to depress the amount of construction in outlying areas of the West Bank, a policy that has made settler groups angry and that might, in a different world, have led the State Department to thank him. But not in this world, where housing construction is a threat to peace. The Department’s criticism is politically quite stupid. It continues the Obama administration’s absolute refusal to distinguish between construction in isolated settlements in the West Bank in areas that must become part of Palestine if a State of Palestine is ever created; construction in major blocs that Israel will obviously keep in land swaps; and construction in Jerusalem. It treats them all equally as the "steady acceleration of settlement activity that is systematically undermining the prospects for a two-state solution." Moreover, it refers to construction in Jerusalem, Israel’s capital, as settlement construction, and refers to Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem as "East Jerusalem settlements." There are no "East Jerusalem settlements;" the term "settlement" loses meaning when applied to Jews building homes in their nation’s capital city. Why is this approach stupid? For two reasons. First, it’s false: construction in outlying areas of the West Bank may indeed appear to be a problem in creating a Palestinian state, but construction in Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem is not, nor is construction in major blocs Israel will keep. Second, this failure to make distinctions means Israelis will disregard U.S. complaints instead of listening to them. If the State Department criticized construction by settler groups in remote West Bank areas, it would actually have most Israelis on its side. But when it treats Jerusalem neighborhoods and a place like Maale Adumim as indistinguishable from any and every settler activity no matter how remote, Israelis will mostly shrug and wonder why the Americans are so dumb. And that’s actually a good question. Why are we, or rather why is the State Department? I suppose State is just following orders from the White House, but that only raises the stakes; it does not answer the question. Who is the intended audience for this attack on Israel? If the answer is Israelis and their government, it will fail due to its continuing refusal to make logical distinctions. If the answer is Americans, including members of Congress, then this attack--launched by a lame duck administration during this convention week-- will have zero effect. So here’s a theory: the intended audience is European governments, and others around the world. This kind of assault makes their own assaults on Israel easier: they can see us and raise us in the level of criticism of Israel. They can be encouraged in planning attacks on Israel in the UN General Assembly in September. They can offer six-paragraph screeds where they explain how these new housing units threaten peace, security, and the two-state solution. The State Department statement came the same week that the Palestinian Authority announced it would sue the British government over the Balfour declaration. It is true that this was in many ways a comic announcement, but it displayed a complete lack of serious intent to move forward toward peace or peace negotiations. In that sense it is completely consistent with the way the Palestinian Authority and the PLO have behaved throughout the Obama years. With all the misery and bloodshed in the Middle East; with all the terrorist attacks Israel must face; with chaos in Iraq and Syria; with a PLO thinking not about talks but about lawsuits against the UK, it’s remarkable that housing construction strikes State as the critical problem we face. Meanwhile, also this week, a Saudi delegation visited Jerusalem. As The Times of Israel reported, "a retired Saudi general visited Israel this week, heading a delegation of academics and businessmen seeking to encourage discussion of the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative." When the Saudis have a more realistic approach to Israel than the State Department, American policy is far out of whack.