Demagoguery's Terrible Deal

Many of Israel's influentials, politicians and pundits, have declared that last week's exchange of murderers for corpses was some sort of moral victory for Israel. Some declare that the decision was "uniquely Israeli" because of some convoluted connection to our responsibility to our soldiers. What utterly hollow euphemisms.

The deal mortgaged the future safety and lives of soldiers and civilians, who will be the targets of kidnapping and slaughter by an unrepentant Samir Kuntar, his sponsors, his colleagues in terror, and perhaps generations of jihadist-indoctrinated youth. We ruined the processes of deligitimizing and neutralizing of Hizbullah which were necessary to reduce the group's popularity and to help Lebanon break free of Syrian-Iranian hegemony. We greatly reduced the chances that the abducted soldier Gilad Schalit will return home alive. So, which moral values did Israel serve?

Did the deal value human life? Not for Israel. Hizbullah chief Hassan Nassrallah demonstrated more respect for the lives of his fighters. When Israel negotiated without insisting on "proof of life," the lives of the kidnapped stopped being the crucial element in the negotiation. When we made kidnapping a profitable enterprise for our enemies, returning their able, motivated fighters for Israeli corpses, we declared that Israeli blood – past, present, and future - is cheap; on the other hand, we'll pay handsomely for the bones.

Did Israel honor her soldiers? Some senior commanders asserted that they could not turn down the Hizbullah deal and still ask solders to follow them into battle. If conscripts didn't feel that Israel would pay any price, including terrorist demands, to retrieve them dead or alive, went the argument, conscripts wouldn't serve with the dedication they do now. Such a statement is an insulting libel to the young men and women who who declare their willingness to endanger their lives for Israel's safety. The terrible sacrifices paid by Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were not honored by freeing the willing confederates of those who killed them. No; this deal had nothing to do with patriotism or with honoring military service.

One concept highlighted by the exchange was Israeli (i.e., Jewish) victimhood. Commentators remarked on the asymmetric stakes: the sympathetic lever that brought strong Israel to her knees. However, while Israel might enjoy some short-lived sympathy, Hizbullah was the winner of greater respect and legitimacy. Living things perceive differences between healthy organisms and sick ones. While Hizbullah is reviled as a torch-bearer for oppressive, Jihadist Islam, steeped in misogyny and totalitarianism, this deal arguably served its nefarious interests. Israel's sanctimony of superior civility doesn't garner much admiration when our actions are so self-damaging. Before long, most of the world, except for the Jihadists, will forget the images of Nasrallah and the Lebanese celebrating the release of a monster. It will refocus on the convenient scapegoat to ingratiate itself with the provider of the next barrel of oil.

Israel couldn't turn the deal down, remarked analysts, because if they did Hizbullah would not allow "closure" from the Second Lebanese War. Some closure. Hizbullah's arsenal of missiles is larger than ever and includes Iranian missiles capable of reaching the Negev. "No price is to great," declared Israel's elites of demagoguery. "We must do this for the families of the kidnapped, even if it's just to give them something to bury." And what of the families of kidnapped soldiers to come? "We'll deal with the future in the future," they replied, ignoring rational, burning concerns.

Therein lies the real root of Israel's problems. As long as the empowered reap political gains, Israel's political system is designed to provide instant gratification. Our officials are not chosen for long-term solutions; they are not chosen for integrity; they are not even chosen for their experience. They are chosen for short term remediation, for championing trendy causes celebre, for reciting simple catch-phrases that Israelis are told by their media that they want now. Ehud Olmert was desperate for the kind of headlines that helped him at least postpone a denouement from his scandals, the fallout from which is very close to terminating his political career.

We needed a leader to tell Karnit Goldwasser, gently, that while we sympathized with her we could not exchange bloodthirsty terrorists for what we confidently believed were corpses. The strength to act in this way has its roots in integrity, a quality our officials won't have until we are able to select them for it. We have to stop empowering patronizing demagogues; we must institute a system of elections with direct representation that lets us select talented, accountable individuals.

There was no moral victory here, no "uniquely Israeli" resolution that strengthened us through some dilemma of higher conscience. A combination of shameless demagoguery and moral bankruptcy on the part of Israel's political elite prostrated the country before one of its most brutal and evil foes.

Happy 4th of July – To America and the Jewish People

So, why should Israelis and Jews all over the world commemorate the date that thirteen American colonies declared their independence, as the United States, from England? It's not just the billions of dollars in aid Israel receives from Uncle Sam every year.

Already hailed as a milestone of essential scholarship, Michael Oren's recent work, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America and the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, relates some astounding links between the Jewish people and the United States. The Puritans who came to America from Europe, "conceived themselves as the new Jews and the New World as the New Canaan." In an interview, Oren elaborated, "That immediately established a sense of kinship between them and the old Jews and the old Promised Land. Since then, many Protestants in the United States have seen it as their religious and national duty to help fulfill God’s promises to rescue the Jews from exile and repatriate them to their ancestral homeland." Oren also points out that in 1844, the head of New York University’s bible department, George Bush, a direct ancestor of two American presidents of the same name, wrote The Valley of Visions, a bestseller urging the United States to take a leading role in recreating a Jewish state in the land of Israel.

In Old World Europe,attempts at self-government were subject to the whims of monarchs and potentates; the value of human life was not a universal truism. The United States of America was founded on the basis that people are essentially good and capable of self-government, that individuals can make a difference in making the world a better or worse place. Israel and America share a mission to be a beacon of life-affirming values beyond their borders.

America does not have an unblemished record - there have been cases of institutional anti-semitism; Jonathan Pollard still sits in a maximum security prison. However, in its 230 year history, America has overwhelmingly been a blessing to the Jewish people. Jews were welcomed as full citizens in the newborn United States and, in 1790, George Washington addressed the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, as follows.

"May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid."

Washington proved to be farsighted. Proud Jews, including Senator Joe Lieberman and NY Assemblyman Dov Hilkind, have influenced American politics at every level. Beyond that, Jewish culture has thrived and become a vital part of mainstream American culture.

As the founders in the United States were inspired by the Jewish people, let's hope that Israel can be inspired to live by America's founding principles of good governance. Shelanu proposes individually electing all legislators as sole representatives of their districts. We support a presidential executive system, completely separate from the legislature (Knesset), that places efficient and effective public service above the kind of sectarian patronage that characterizes Israel's ministerial appointments. These mechanisms, complementary and firmly rooted in principles of individual accountability and citizen sovereignty, have proven themselves over time, in the United States as a whole and in governments as small as the state of Rhode Island. They work because they're built on simple, solid principles which reward individual excellence and consider individual citizens to be the most basic unit of political influence.

Order your t-shirts today! See the post from earlier today.

T-Shirt Campaign

This month, we unveil our very first fundraising effort as a non-profit organization with a t-shirt campaign. Provocative and direct, with our icon produced exclusively by Studio Spinner, these shirts were designed to get people thinking and talking. Take a look at the new design on our web site at

http://www.directrepisrael.org/EN/Stuff.shtml

For a donation of NIS 100 ($30), to Shelanu, you will receive our brand new, redesigned t-shirt. Additional t-shirts can be purchased for NIS 50 ($15) apiece. Please specify t-shirts size(s) as well as contact information (including telephone, mailing address, and email address if possible).

Donations may be made by check or by bank transfer.

By check:
Make checks out to "Shelanu, Meitanu, Avureinu" and send to:
Shelanu
c/o Michael Jaffe
17 HaPalmach Street
P.O. Box 1228
Zichron Yaakov, 30900 ISRAEL
With your check, please include a note with t-shirt size(s), telephone, and mailing address information.

By bank transfer:
Bank of Jerusalem (Israeli Bank #054)
Branch #030
Account #300054210
Bank transfers orders: please call or email us with t-shirt size(s), telephone, and mailing address information

How to contact us:
Email: jmichaeljaffe@directrepisrael.org
Phone: From Israel 04-6398160, From outside Israel +972-4-6398160.
Fax: From Israel 153-4-6398160, From outside Israel +972-153-4-6398160.
Skype ID: jmjaffe
(We cannot accept collect calls at this time.)

Where does the money go?

• Maintenance of our web site
• Legal and administrative fees of establishing and maintaining a non-profit status
• Design and production of educational materials about effective democracy
• Communication costs for publicizing Shelanu
• Planning and producing upcoming events, including our first nationwide general meeting and educational seminars

As a new organization, we must attain a certification, known as a Form 46, that allows us access to many granting institutions. Shelanu should receive this certification over the course of the year, but only if we start with the preliminary support of individuals like you. If you want to make a difference to make Israel stronger, more secure, and more prosperous, there is no better way than helping to heal her democracy.