A (not so) funny thing happened at the USA embassy today as we were updating one of our kid’s USA passport. On the form it asks for your child’s place of birth. We wrote Jerusalem, Israel.

The (very friendly) employee at the embassy must process hundreds of these passport requests every week. He asked us a few questions, in Hebrew since the local processing staff at the embassy are Israelis. He reviewed the form in our presence to make sure everything was filled out correctly. He then  asked what city was our child born, and we responded “Jerusalem”, he very quickly and matter-of-factly crossed off “Israel” from the form, so that it was plain to see.

I wonder if there are other cities of birth in the world for which the country is left blank on the passport application of our beloved USA?

When it comes to Jerusalem, there is no need to mention either natural growth or natural development; what is at stake is nature itself, the nature of our connection to this city and the realization of the right that is rooted in our religion, our history, and 2,000 years of memory and longing, during which the Jewish presence in Jerusalem never ceased to exist.

I wonder how many of our political leaders adhere to this sentiment?

Consider this: You are sitting near someone who is coughing up a lung. You know that he often travels overseas for work. He just got an aliyah and benched gomel, returns to his seat cough and all. Do you worry that maybe he has the swine flu?

Stay Home
With the WHO (World Health Organization) now classifying the Swine Flu as a world pandemic, we really have to think twice about where we go and who can enter our ‘private’ space. Sneezing and coughing, aside from disturbing other prayer goers from hearing the chazan, also raise the possibility of you catching whatever they have. There’s got to be heter (permission) somewhere that says you should stay home and not get others sick in order to make a minyan.

Ahmadinejad, with his Holocaust denial and his long series of provocations, drew most of the attention, but apparently had less influence on the nuclear program. There are even senior members of the Israeli defense establishment who share the public stance of former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy, who claimed that the Iranian president’s behavior, perceived in the West as quasi-lunatic, advanced Israel’s security interests.

In other words, the enemy that you know is better than the enemy that you don’t know…

French Anti-Zionist Political Party

France’s comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala has created a political party to run in the upcoming parliamentary elections.  The French high court threw out a petition to ban this party from running in the elections as a racist party.

Their platform essentially states the usually rhetoric that Israel, the USA, and the French (by implication) led by the ‘powerful Zionist lobby’ are an axis of evil bent on overturning the world.

Notice how they found the token bearded Jew for this campaign poster to assure voters that they are not ‘anti-semitic’.

People, wake up!  European ambivalence to Jews has already been shaken by change in demographics.  The not-so subtle shift of European anti-Israeli populist movements jumping to the forefround is a harbinger of things to come.

How much longer before America’s populist agenda, especially with the maverick Obamian policies, turns ambivalent, or even worse, against Israel?

Roger Waters of Pink Floyd at the Israel Security Fence

Three years later, at 65, Roger Waters is ambivalent about his having visited Israel (and taking in millions of dollars spent by adoring Israeli fans).  Mr Waters thinks that the wall is actually a colonialist action by Israel.  Never mind that this wall was put up to help prevent terror attacks and bus bombings of innocent civilians.  Never mind that the wall has essentially stopped terrorism from the areas in where it was erected.  Never mind that the US has a longer and bigger wall with it’s Mexican border in several high-trafficked areas (and Mexico is not at war with the USA!).

What would I say to him if I had the chance to sit him down and explain the whole thing.  Would I tell him how the wall has given Jewish families in Neve Yaakov and Gush Etziyon, to name a few, the chance to leave for work in the morning without wondering if their kids would be burying them that night?  How much Jewish blood can be spilled for Mr. Waters to acquiesce to Israel attempting to prevent further savage acts.  How many children living in the southern Jerusalem neighbourhood of Gilo should be forsaken?

These questions may remain unsolved to many, but to me it’s pretty clear.  As Israel’s government spokesman, Mark Regev put it ever so bluntly, “We don’t need no education about suicide bombers coming into Israel and murdering innocent people, and how the security barrier has prevented that by more than 95 percent”.

Hungary has a total population of just over 9 million. So with Jews totalling 1/2 percent of the population, you wouldn’t figure for them to a major force in that country.  Therefore, I found it odd to see today’s headline in Haaretz:  “Proud Hungarians must prepare for war against the Jews.”

This is not a headline from some blogger world or an offbeat political commentator. This is a headline taken from Hungary’s leading Police union newspaper. Here’s another example:

After the recent resignation of prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, one of the candidates for the post was Gyorgy Suranyi, formerly the governor of the Hungarian Central Bank, a brilliant economist, and a Jew.

The center-right party Democratic Hungarian Forum published on the front page of its newsletter a picture of Suranyi’s face inside a yellow star of David (reminiscent of the yellow patch from the days of Fascism) with the following caption: “Suranyi is actually the candidate backed by the elderly [Israeli President] Shimon Peres.”

The frightening and chilling tones of pre-WWII Eastern Europe are rearing their ugly heads yet again.  This time, there are practically little Jews left there, and yet they still pipe the same headlines – “Given our current situation, anti-Semitism is not just our right, but it is the duty of every Hungarian homeland lover, and we must prepare for armed battle against the Jews.”

Jews of the diaspora today should pop open the history books and read what are the warning signs of anti-semitism so they can draw their own conclusions on appropriate action plans to keep their families safe from the ordeals our recent and past ancestors endured.  One book that I can specifically recommend is The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945 by Lucy S. Dawidowicz.

Israel has not accepted this probe and questions the validity of a UN-led team, with its known anti-Israel bias.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yigal Palmor said “This committee has been instructed to find Israel guilty no matter what and there is no point in cooperating with such a masquerade.”

Goldstone in Gaza to Probe Possible Israel Warcrimes - Source: Haaretz

The commission is headed by a Jew, Richard Goldstone, a South African judge. The irony is not lost on this author that even in this day and age a Jew and non-Israeli would be willing to lead a commission that investigates Israel in a world forum.

Israel said last week that it will not cooperate with the UN team.

This headline would come as a shocker in any other country, in any other context, in any other time.
However, here in Israel in 2009, I was only surprised that the percentage was less than half.

The survey shows that Holocaust denial among Israeli Arabs has become more prevalent in recent years. In 2006, 28 percent of Israeli Arabs polled denied that the Holocaust occurred.

That didn’t surprise me either. Why do Arab children in Israel get such a different education than their Jewish counterparts?

Moreover, only 53.7 percent of the Israeli Arab public believe Israel has a right to exist just as an independent country, according to the poll, down from 81.1 percent in 2003.

Is there a solution to all this? Someone? Anyone?