“It’s like a civilian carnage Toyotahon!”

Watch the full episode which has more discussion of Israel throughout.

• How-to on using social media tools (like Twitter) to track the Israel-Gaza conflict. [Mashable]
• Wired reports on Israel’s use of social media in the propaganda war. [Wired]
• Israel’s consulate holds a press conference on Twitter. [NY Times]
• “Israel’s assault on Gaza has launched an emotional firestorm on Facebook—including violent threats, Nazi slurs, and pleas for reconciliation.” [Daily Beast]
• Friend-of-the-blog Charles Lenchner examines the use of Nazi/Holocaust comparisons by pro-Palestinian demonstrators. [Change.org]
• In what strikes me as one of the most balanced assessments of the current conflict I’ve read yet, the International Worker’s Tendency denounces ongoing violence by Hamas and Israel. [IWT]
• Are Israel’s actions in the best interest of achieving the peace it so desires? No, says Jonathan Freedland. [Guardian]
• Bernard Avishai: Israel’s tactics only embolden Hamas and its supporters. [Daily Beast]
• Thousands rally in Israel against the Gaza incursion. [Al Jazeera]
• J Street rebuts Reform leader Yoffie’s critical op-ed. [J Street]
• Gideon Levy asks whether the Israeli public’s response to the Gaza incursion is evidence of Israel’s moral collapse. [Haaretz]
• Diaspora Jews are more critical of Israel’s military actions than ever before, says Anshel Pfeffer. [Haaretz]
• Arab American pollster James Zogby says American Jewish dissent against the Gaza incursion “may help open up the policy debate.” [Huffington Post]
• Reza Aslan: “Can the difference between lawful and unlawful war—between a soldier and terrorist—really be a matter of matching uniforms?” [Daily Beast]

New York has a great piece in this past week’s issue about Tony Blair’s faith work following his departure from British politics.

The article goes some way in drawing what I see as the distinction between religious progressives and religious fundamentalists:

“I would identify three aspects to faith when we talk about it as an objective force,” [Blair] says. “One is that faith can become a means of self-identity: This defines my culture; this defines my political attitude.” One can intuitively understand this statement in the context of wars with religious components: I’m Sunni, and you’re Shia; I’m Catholic, and you’re Protestant.

“A second aspect,” he says, “is that it’s just part of my tradition: ‘I grew up in a certain type of society that was defined by my faith.’” My father’s father’s father practiced this faith, in other words, and that’s why I’m a Catholic/Hindu/Jew.

“And then there is a third way,” he says, “faith as spiritual awakening: faith as it defines my values and beliefs, not in a cultural sense but in a personal sense.”

And this final aspect of faith, if you think about it, best describes Tony Blair’s. His faith is personally and deeply felt, something he’s studied and thought hard about, something that’s quietly animated his life choices and provided a code of values to live by. The second aspect doesn’t describe him—he hardly had a faith tradition in his family if his father was an atheist—nor does the first: Faith couldn’t have distinguished his political identity if he couldn’t even talk about it when he was in politics.

George W. Bush may also experience faith as spiritual, a force that defines his values and beliefs. We should grant him that. But faith absolutely distinguishes him politically. Though he may never have said outright that he’s the leader of a Christian nation, he reportedly told Palestinian leaders that he believed God told him to end the tyranny in Iraq, and he has described, now infamously, the war on terror as “a crusade.”

“I call it ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ religion,” says Miroslav Volf, Blair’s co-teacher at Yale this past semester. “‘Thin’ is a cultural resource that provides a canopy over who we are, and it functions to legitimize, to sacralize, what we would have done in any case. Whereas a ‘thick’ religiosity has commitment, a sense of values, a sense of historical depth. And my theory,” he says, “is that when you have a thinning out of religion, it’s more likely to promote violence.”

I very much like Volf’s characterization: “To sacralize what we would have done in any case.” It immediately brought to mind the religious Zionist movement’s use of Torah to justify the most reprehensible actions of the settler movement.

I just worry that it can be tossed back in the other direction, being all too-familiar with the argument that progressive Jews likewise distort Torah to suit their own agenda.

Anyhow, read the full article here, and no, don’t worry, Blair does not get a pass for his support of the Iraq War.

You can also listen to and watch segments of Blair’s provoking Yale seminar, “Faith & Globalization,” here.

I am against Israel’s ongoing blockade of Gaza since Hamas’ election and the U.S. and Israel’s isolation of Hamas, which as a policy has backfired and caused a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. I am against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians under occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. And I am against the settlement enterprise which perpetuates the brutality of the occupation by necessitating an Israeli military presence in the West Bank. I am also against Israel’s politicians’ cynical use of this incursion to boost their popularity pre-election. And I am sympathetic to Palestinian civilians who endure endless suffering from this conflict, and wish to never experience myself what must be the horror of their daily lives.

I am also of the belief that Hamas’ refusal to accept the legitimacy of the existence of Israel and as such its refusal to accept existing agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (which equates to the thumbing of its nose at the international system) are signs of a stubbornness rooted in a dangerously ruthless martyrdom ideology. I believe that Hamas is its people’s own worst enemy, and that their refusal to halt their rocket attacks, despite their inefficacy and the lethal retaliation they incur, bespeaks an eagerness to sacrifice the lives and well-being of their people. I believe that Hamas willingly provokes attacks in order to orchestrate photo-ops and mount a body count which they use to manipulate public opinion. And I believe that Hamas is in bed with nefarious Islamic regimes whose human rights records make Israel look saintly, and that if Israel does not tamp down on Hamas’ armament by these powers that it is only a matter of time before Hamas is firing long-range Iranian missiles into Tel Aviv or sneaking dirty bombs into downtown Jerusalem.

I don’t approve of what Israel’s doing and I have no desire to see Palestinian civilians suffer, but I have no idea what else Israel is supposed to do in light of the international community’s neglect of these matters. I don’t support the current tactics or policies but I don’t have a better solution to propose.

Discussions about the legitimacy of Zionism or Israeli statehood are all well and good in the philosophical realm and I encourage Jews to debate these matters. But realpolitik is that 7 million Israelis are living within 30 miles of an Iranian and Saudi-backed Islamic militant faction with a martyrdom complex and a charter to destroy Israel.

It’s not so simple that one can just root for the Palestinians or root for the Jews. I recognize the rights of self-definition and self-determination for both Jews and Palestinians and that includes their rights to statehood and to defend their states from attack.

I do not deny that in the case of Israel’s isolation and blockading of Gaza, it is the aggressor. But the appropriate response to that aggression is not to target Israeli civilians and thus further endanger the lives of your citizens by provoking an escalation of the conflict.

In the vein of Drafted Art, a collaboration of Israeli artists opposed to the 2006 Lebanon War (in which I participated), several Israeli artists and poets opposed to the war in Gaza have issued a new collection of work expressing their dissent.

Ronen Eidelman, a co-organizer of both Drafted Art and this new collaboration, writes:

Lazet! (לצאת) A Collection against the war in Gaza and the abandonment of the south, was created in great urgency and anger, immediately with the beginning of the war, as a prompt protest act. The collection is a collaborative project by Maayan, Etgar, Maarav, Daka, Sedek art and poetry journals and Guerrilla culture group. On the third day of the war we sent out the open call. On the fifth day of the war we sat for twelve intense hours of editing to chose material. We received hundreds of poems, drawings, essays, stories and stories, but unfortunately it was only possible to use a small portion for the print. We rushed to have the booklet ready for the big “Against the War” demonstration in Tel Aviv that will take place on Saturday night - a week for the war.

Lazet! Calls to the end of the occupation and denounces the massacres and killings. Lazet! Calls for an immediate seize fire. Lazet! Calls to to emerge (”Lazet”) in a long term and visionary action of living together, dialogue and corporation based on true equality.

Download it here (Hebrew-only PDF).

Props to Kung Fu Jew

When New Voices magazine published its recent issue excoriating the Chabad Lubavitch movement for its regressive practices, some critics said it was inappropriate and unfair of the publishers to hold the renown hasidic sect responsible for the Agriprocessors scandal. Many in the Chabad community claimed — as one friend of mine did in a recent conversation about the unrighteous behavior of a fellow Chabad hasid — that “when an individual acts as an individual, there seems to be little reason to mention their lineage or affiliation.”

Chabad’s defenders can no longer advance this argument, however, whereas yesterday JTA reported that a group of top Chabad officials have started a legal defense committee to aid the Rubashkin family which owns and operates the Agriprocessors facility.

In explaining the rationale behind the creation of the committee, Rabbi Shea Hecht told JTA:

We are a group of guys who, No. 1, are looking to help Rubashkin get out on bail, and No. 2, to voice our concern because we believe that much of this attack is not just an attack on the Rubashkin family and Agriprocessors, but it’s really an attack on kosher food. And it’s questionable if it’s one step beyond that — an attack on Jews.

By making this statement Hecht is claiming — not only on behalf of Chabad, but as a spokesman for a preeminent American Jewish institution, on behalf of all American Jews — that Sholom Rubashkin’s arrest has nothing to do with his culpability for employing hundreds of illegal laborers, violating their rights as employees, running an identity theft mill and engaging in bank fraud, among the other charges for which he has been indicted. Rather, it has to do with the fact that the goyishe government and people of the United States secretly hate Jews and wish to persecute them for their religious practices.

This line of argument, which has also been advanced directly by the Rubashkins and their supporters, reminds me of the ultra-Orthodox community’s response to the Summer 2006 arrest of Yisrael Wallis, the then-19 year-old yeshiva student who murdered his three month-old infant by throwing him against a wall.

Immediately following Wallis’ apprehension, three of Israel’s most revered rabbinic authorities, Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, Shmuel Auerbach and Chaim Kniyevski, issued a statement condemning the arrest, calling it a “blood libel” and thus inferring that the secular State of Israel was engaged in an antisemitic attack on the religious Jewish community.

Many ultra-Orthodox Israelis proclaimed the entire incident was a plot by the secular Zionist government to negatively portray their community and rioted in the streets of Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood, threatening to “make Jerusalem burn” if Wallis was not released forthright.

Others, like the American Jewish authors of the Agudath Israel-connected blog Cross-Currents, offered various arguments in Wallis’ defense and countless protestations at the media’s portrayal of Wallis as a cold-blooded killer, even after his confession.

Wallis has since been found guilty of manslaughter (a reduced charge likely intended to stave off further rioting, like O.J. Simpson’s 1995 acquittal) and sentenced to six years in prison.

Clearly the response of the ultra-Orthodox community to Wallis’ arrest was reprehensible, outrageous and entirely disconnected from reality. Any honest person would readily agree that the prosecution of a child killer who happens to be haredi is not, in itself, an indictment of ultra-Orthodoxy, Judaism nor the Jewish people. As such, I find arguments like Hecht’s not only insulting to my intelligence, but insulting to me as an American and as a Jew.

America is the only place in the world outside of Israel where Jews have attained such a level of freedom, security and prominence that we are considered an inextricable element within the fabric of the society. To denigrate this nation as antisemitic (particularly as Chabad hypocritically coddles the antisemites on the Evangelical Right) is a grave insult to non-Jewish Americans, who have lavished tolerance and acceptance upon us and invested mightily in our State of Israel. It is also a violation of Agudas Chassidei Chabad’s own articles of incorporation, which advocate an “appreciation of and adherence to the spirit of Americanism and Democracy.”

Worse yet, this dilution of the meaning of antisemitism is an insult to the victims of antisemitism the world over who have been subjected to true Jew-hatred as exhibited in gross discrimination and violence. To abuse the cry of antisemitism in this case is not only completely disingenuous, it is a cynical ploy intended to intimidate the prosecution with the imagined threat of a P.C. backlash.

Furthermore, in light of the fact that it was this administration’s Justice Department that was responsible for the investigation and raid which led to Rubashkin’s arrest, it is also an insidious insult to the Jewish community’s supposed B.F.F. George W. Bush, who despite all his shortcomings and nefarious actions has, at the end of the day, been the most Jew-friendly President in the history of the United States. Suggesting that he authorized a “blood libel” against Rubashkin just goes to show that if it’ll save one of their own, the ultra-Orthodox will throw anyone under the bus. Even the President.

The lengths to which the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox will go to preserve their sense of self-piety never cease to amaze me. The Jewish people are obligated to give rebuke to the members of their community who violate our laws and values and bring shame upon our people. To instead cover up for their misdeeds under the cloak of righteousness — whether by using the injunction against lashon harah (evil speech) to stifle whistleblowers and public debate or by using the cry of “innocent until proven guilty” to promote deniability until the bitter end — seems to me to be an inversion of the spirit of the law and an ethical and moral failing on the part of those who imagine themselves to be the mightiest exemplars of the expression of G-d’s will in the world.

In my estimation, that is a worse disgrace and does far more harm to the reputation of the Orthodox community than even the covered up crimes themselves.