JPost - last but not least!

Even though I stopped interning for the Jerusalem Post a few months ago already, some of my latest articles hadn't been put on this blog yet. So here we are:

Book review of the autobiography of Vladimir Zeev Jabotinsky
Meeting with Ben Brafman, famous for having defended DSK last year
Presentation of The Israel Project, a local NGO
Visit of a new and much needed infant care center in the Arab neighborhood of Silwan in Jerusalem
Emmanuel Navon, professor of international relations in Tel-Aviv university and new member of the Likud central committee on the primaries in the party in January.
Meeting with Laurent Fabius, who since became the new Foreign Affairs minister of France
What is it to be both a religious Jew and gay? (part 1 and 2)
Book review of a translated and annotated version of a book of the rav Kook by Beno Gross (professor of philophy in Bar-Ilan university)

Le Monde and journalism 101

Here’s how Israel gets delegitimized and the religious-zionist community demonized, which leads to outbreaks of violence by “avengers” such as we saw in Toulouse, France, two months ago:

First, a mainstream media account of an incident in Ytzhar, Samaria (West Bank) last week-end by the biggest French newspaper Le Monde:

http://israelpalestine.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/05/22/des-balles-contre-des-pierres-la-violence-ordinaire-en-cisjordanie/

(for English-only readers you can obviously find similar libels on most of the Web. If you don’t know where to start, don’t look too far, we can be confident Haaretz, the left-wing Israeli newspaper will have its word on it)

Now, what really happened there?

First, religious Jews, even under the hypothesis they would be that violent, wouldn’t stage such an attack on Shabbat, the traditional Jewish day of rest, as most of the activites implied in a “raid” are strictly forbidden under the Halacha [Jewish law] that day.

So why did this group of mostly young people leave their village (“settlement”) that holy day toward the neighboring Arab village of Assira Al-Qibliya ? Well, actually the fire mentioned by Gilles Paris (le Monde’s correspondent in Israel, always late/wrong) was set by a group of violent Palestinians, as they did the two previous weeks in order to destroy the Jewish fields/houses. (By the way, whoever is responsible for the beginning of the violence, there’s no need to blame a whole community as Paris does: “the inhabitants of the colony of Itzhak are well-known for their radicalism and their violences”)

When the Israeli volunteer fire-fighters team got to the place (again under Halachah, you can break Shabbat’s rules when lives are put in danger, such as in the case of an arson) they got stoned by the same violent group and the security guards of the village had to intervene to protect them. So first, we’re dealing here with a case of legitimate self-defense  and second they didn’t even shoot with real guns but with rubber bullets (in case you didn’t figure out by yourselves that if the guy received a head-shot with a real bullet he would have died…).

Then, why the two soldiers seen in the (very partial) footage didn’t intervene? Well, davka because they were two, in the middle of two groups composed of dozens of villagers on both sides, and probably waiting for instruction by their hierarchy on how to react.

Then let’s deal with the video itself. It was published by the famous NGO “B’Tselem” but was shot by local Palestinian villagers. I’ve been myself able to find two different footages, taken from different angles, by people installed on high position in order to have a good view and who started shooting before any violence erupted (if you except the Palestinian arson which triggered the whole thing…). They were here to be able to register the mere fruit of their provocation in order to put the blame on Israel the day after. And, sadly, it systematically works.  Indeed, contrary to the title “ordinary violence”, incidents in which Israeli settlers are involved aren’t that numerous as the ones who really happen (if you count this as being a real incident) are always filmed by the other side. Why isn’t there any footage by the Israeli side? Again, this is the whole interest of the Palestinian extremists to stage those incidents on Saturdays: religious Jews won’t film what happen on that day so the Arab propaganda can get a highway to the media…

Yamim noraïm - 20th century version

Jews consider the 10 days from the new year (rosh hashanah, that comemorates the creation of the world in general and of the human being in particular) and yom kippur (the day of atonement) as yamim noraïm ("terrible days"). And indeed, those days are seen as the moment par excellence for taking a step back from daily routine and reconsider our place and role in this world.

But in modern Israel, a second period can be considered as yamim noraïm: the one that covers the week from yom hashoah (when we remember the victims of the "Holocaust") to yom ha'atzmaut (independence day) through yom hazikaron (remembrance day devoted to fallen soldiers and victims of terror).

The connection hence made between the Shoah and the birth of a Jewish state shouldn't be taken as a direct causality: Zionism was born and had given its first fruits way before the Holocaust and, hopefully, Israel isn't just about giving Jews a shelter, it's about realizing a national destiny. Obviously, what happened in Europe accelerated the path, but the anti-zionist narrative accusing Europe of "giving" to the Jews for atonement of their crimes a land ppopulated by an innocent Arab population doesn't hold: Europe has just not given anything, they barely recognized a de facto situation the 29th of November 47 when they voted for the division of Palestine. Actually, this UN resolution didn't even create a Jewsih (or Arab) state: only six months later, when David Ben-Gurion declared independance did this State appear. November 28th there already was a Jewish shadow government, which had no more and no less responsabilities December 1st.

Anyway, this historical point being made, lets come back to our annual celebrations. I make this yamim noraïm comparaison because of the very obvious process of going from death to life. More precisely from "useless" death to "heroic" death defending the third stage: the resurection of a fulblown Jewish people on his land. It's indeed a central tenet of Zionsim to say that, even though 2000 years of Diaspora don't mean no Jewish people, only autonomy, security and gathering make it completely existant. Allthemore interesting when you see that the secular Zionists from Herzl to Ben Gurion hence adopted a very similar apporach to the one when can understand from both the Torah and Talmud (itself written in Babylon!), and generations of rabbis and Jewish scholars.

So during this week Israelis are inclined to reconsider their relation to their country and their people (very technically, they actually observe three times a moment of silence: one the morning of yom hashoah and two during yom hazikaron). This is perceptible through several ways:

- connection to Jews living abroad. This is more or less true all year long, but especially the days around the comemoration of the destruction of most of European jewry.
- visiting military memorials and cemetaries: not only most Israeli families have members serving their country during their military service, but unfortuunately many know more or less closely fallen soldiers (or victims of terrorist attacks). I actually just comme back home from a visit at Mount Herzl (the national cemetary), which was completely full of people of all backgrounds, including many youngs, accompanying bereaved families to the graves of their relatives.

I can't say it as an eyewitness for now, but it's known that the passage from bereavement to joy is particulary impressive on the night from yom hazikaron to yom ha'atzmaut. Pictures to come!

JPost articles: new batch!

Here are some of the articles from November/december:

Investigation on Israeli NGOs (part1)
(part2)

Recap of the controversial laws discussed by the Israeli governement over the last weeks

Israeli-German relations (part1)
(part2)

Discovering Christian monasteries during this Christmas season

Israel Business conference (part1)

Two weeks ago, Israeli financial magazine Globes organized its annual two-day Israel Business Conference, a major event not only for Israeli but also for worldwide decision makers. Being, among others, the « economy guy » at the French edition of the Jerusalem Post, I got an invitation to go. So the conference took place in a fancy Tel-Aviv hotel the David intercontinental with people to guide wherever you want to go (by the way, being a journalist makes you go to all kind of places, and, trust me, some are way far from any sort of luxury).The conference halls were underground with a central one hosting the snacks and organizing groups’ stands… and cars (don’t ask me why they were there or how they got there). Too bad for the chronological order but now that I’m talking about snacks let me tell you that high-standard hotels are over-rated: the food was being cooked on the spot, so you had huge queues for each stand. Oh, and it wasn’t even that good. :p

 But except if you’re found of food, my article is devoted to the conference itself. First, I have to proudly say that half of the speeches were in Hebrew and that I got most of what was at stake! ;) After an introduction (too long and not so interesting) by President Shimon Peres and general presentation of the 2012 economic forecasts by Oliver Blanchard (vive la France!), the first session I attended was on the economic consequences of the so-called “Arab spring”. Participants were :

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David Brodet, chairman of Bank Leumi. He mostly talked about the Paris agreements (see the French text at the end of the article, your faithful servant wrote it for the JPost) and how they were implemented overtime.

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Daniel B. Shapiro, ambassador of the United States to Israel. So, the problem with high-ranking diplomats is they never say anything interesting or new: Shapiro basically adapted Obama’s position to Israeli ears on the theme “transition is both a risk and opportunity”, or that when it comes to Iran, “nothing is off the table”, then underlying that despite criticisms, the security cooperation between the United States and Israel has never been so high.

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Then you had a retired Turkish diplomat, Yasar Yakis. He didn’t add anything new to the current situation analysis but most importantly said that Turkey now wants to overcome its estrangement from the Middle-East undergone after the establishment of the republic.

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Next speaker was a tremendously interesting Ghanem Nuseibeh, (a Lebanese economist with a heavy London accent). According to him, the Arab states who have so far known only few or no contestation are saving time by using the very tools that launched the Arab spring: population dependency on subsidies and (large and inefficient) public sector wage rises that can’t make up for a real market growth and that will sooner or later collapse, launching protest as when people in Tunisia understood Ben-Ali’s system was broke. He called for currently non-existent) European diplomacy to illustrate its experience of transition in Eastern Europe.

-          - At last came Israel Elad-Altman from the prestigious IDCHerlziya. He drew a history of the modern Middle East through 3 periods: the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s were the time of revolt in numerous states (Egypt, Iraq, Syria, temporarily Iran, Algeria…) against (post)-colonial status-quo, driven by a common socialist/panarabist ideology. Then came the 80’s and 90’s, were the new elites consolidated their power and stabilized the regimes, more or less giving up ideology. But this new status-quo is collapsing, notably because a confusion between privatization and liberalization of the market that led to as widespread as unsustainable nepotism. For all the fears of a shiia ark from Iran to south-Lebanon, what we observe now is the ascendency of Sunny radical Islamism, ideological successor of panarabism, that attack the old regimes and reopen the war with shiism: cf. Syria, that the Hamas is leaving, refusing (contrary to the Hezbollah) to support a minority shia regime against the sunni majority and returning to its Egyptian cradle now that the Muslim Brotherhood’s mother is on its way to power.

-To conclude the session, opposition leader Tsipi Livni came. You first have to know that the only reason to live for her (and somehow her Kadmia party) is to oppose Netanyahou. On whatever he does/says. So I was positively surprised when she started the first 5 minutes of her speech by analyzing how a democracy is more than just elections, that it takes time to build… But then, she couldn’t handle it anymore and stated yelling against the prime minister, and how he’s “responsible” for basically anything from the hilltop youth (against which he acts more than Kadima when it led the previous governments) to the Turkish new offensive diplomacy, basically concluding that he is a radical religious extremist (probably referring to a few extremist Haredim) trying to force women (probably speaking for herself) out of the public scene. By the way, Netanyahou doesn’t even wear a kippa… My theory is Livni hopelessly loves him and represses her feeling, transforming them into irrational hatred! ;)

Récapitulatif : l’accord de Paris

Nicolas Touboul

Au lendemain de son discours à la tribune de l’ONU, Mahmoud Abbas a fait part de son souhait de « modifier l’accord de Paris », un aspect des négociations israélo-palestiniennes peu connu du grand public.

En avril 1994, dans le cadre du fameux processus d’Oslo entamé l’année précédente, est signé à Paris le « Protocole sur les relations économiques entre le gouvernement de l’Etat d’Israël et l’OLP, représentant le peuple palestinien », appelé la plupart du temps accord de Paris. Il s’agissait de développer les relations économiques bilatérales comme moyen de désamorcer le conflit. Une mesure issue d’une idée qui traverse la pensée politique de Montesquieu (« l’effet naturel du doux commerce est de porter à la paix ») à la construction européenne (débutée au lendemain de la seconde guerre mondiale et avant tout économique, de la CECA à la zone euro).

En effet, si le protocole prévoit un certain nombre d’aspects techniques tels la mise en place d’une autorité monétaire palestinienne ou les modalités de collecte de l’impôt dans les territoires, son objectif général est d’établir une forme primaire d’union douanière entre les deux entités. Cette union prévoit à la fois des mesures de libre-échange et l’établissement d’une politique commerciale commune vis-à-vis du reste du monde (droits d’importation…). Par ailleurs il fait du shekel la monnaie usuelle dans les zones contrôlées par l’AP.

Mais, déjà  à l’époque, le camp palestinien n’avait accepté l’accord qu’à reculons, l’OLP ne l’acceptant qu’après la proposition de libre accès au marché du travail israélien  avec en outre versement de la sécurité sociale au niveau israélien.

La polémique est pourtant relancée aujourd’hui, pour plusieurs raisons. Tout d’abord, selon Mohamed Ishteya, directeur général du conseil économique palestinien pour le développement et la reconstruction, l’absence de barrière commerciale avantage bien plus Israël, qui exporte pour 4 milliards de dollars de biens vers l’AP tous les ans tandis que seuls 300 millions de dollars font le chemin inverse « du fait des restrictions israéliennes à nos exportations ». Ca et le conditionnement des relations économiques directes palestiniennes à la reconnaissance formelle d’Israël par le pays partenaire (ce qui exclut toujours 48 pays, dont la plupart des pays arabes) sont pointées du doigt par les hauts-responsables palestiniens  comme les principales causes du sous-développement industriel palestinien, qui accroit ses difficultés à exporter. On rappellera toutefois que même quand ces deux obstacles sont levés, comme dans le cas des échanges avec l’Union européenne, les ventes palestiniennes dépassent à peine 6 millions de dollars par an.

Par ailleurs, Mahmoud Abbas a plusieurs fois critiqué ce qu’il estime être des entorses au protocole de la part d’Israël. Ainsi, il accuse les douanes israéliennes de ne pas reverser les revenus comme prévu par l’article 3, qui stipule qu’ils doivent être alloués à la même destination que le bien pour lequel le droit de douane est ponctionné, sachant que l’essentiel de ces biens transite par les ports israéliens. Par ailleurs, il dénonce le manque de coordination engendré par l’absence de comité technique de gestion commune.

Dernière raison de l’insatisfaction palestinienne, l’aspect général même du protocole, qui n’accorde clairement pas le statut d’Etat à la Palestine. Par exemple, les mesures économiques prises par le leadership palestinien doivent être ancrées à celles de l’Etat hébreu, à qui est laissée l’initiative. C’est le cas par exemple en ce qui concerne le niveau de TVA (entre 15 et 16% dans les deux territoires) ou encore le niveau des droits de douane. De même, l’accord prévoit que l’administration israélienne, plus développée, soit celle qui collecte l’essentiel des impôts palestiniens. Même s’ils sont évidemment versés en fin de compte à l’AP, une telle mesure signifie que 70% de son revenu est obtenu par l’intermédiaire de son principal opposant. De tels principes sont désormais insupportables pour Abbas s’il veut montrer au monde que la Palestine peut accéder au rang d’Etat.

The Israeli melting-pot

So yesterday was (American) Thanksgiving. As a French boy it was the first time I got the chance to celebrate it and it had to happen out of the US… here in Jerusalem. The Jewish Federation of North America and Beit Hillel had a great reception in a fancy Ramat Rachel (south of the city) hotel where we were around 150 Americans, Canadians, Israelis and some lost French eating turkey, sweet potatoes and pumpkins. Which leads me to today’s article’s topic: communities.

Israel, though heavily Jewish, is an amazingly multicultural country. The first massive waves of immigration during the second half of the 19^th century (by the way, alyoth (ascensions) to Zion from individuals or groups has always existed through the centuries of exile, but in a way smaller scale and with different motives, aka religious and not political) were from Russia/Poland, extend to Romania, Germany and most of central Europe throughout the next decades. Those Ashkenazi communities indeed founded the basis of the state and when it was established they naturally took the political, cultural and economic powers. As their descendent have been living here for now several generations, those communities have mostly mixed in a broader Ashkenazi identity. You still can find local (ie not even national) affiliations in the ultra-orthodox world: most groups (Loubatitch, Breslev, Satmar…) initially refer to a city were their (hassidic) spiritual leader lived and established a dynasty. Furthermore, though I’m not really familiar with that, I’ve read that some parts of the haredi neighborhoods are still organized in courts following the origin (Polish cities, Vilna…).

On the other hand, Sephardi Jews, massively arrived at the moment of the war of independence, chased from their homes in Arab countries (making them the subjects of a greater but not as heard of tragedy than the one the Palestinian population suffered, caught in the war but also actively participating in it). Close to 1 million arrived in the first years, followed by more when French Maghreb became independent or when Khaddafi took power in Lybia and the Mollahs in Iran. Now close to no Jew live in Muslim countries. Hence, they suffered from poverty, lack of qualification and where sent to “development towns”, soulless boomtowns with close to only industrial jobs. This tough arrival, coupled with strong familial traditions, helped those Sephardi Jews keep a special identity. You still have today, “Spanish”, “Yemenite”, “Iranian” synagogues and obviously, many recreating the atmosphere of their Moroccan, Algerian or Tunisian hometowns. But a broader Sephardi identity has also developed, thanks to instances such as a common Sephardi chief rabbi (there is also an Ashkenazi one), the 70’s Black Panthers movement (with its explicit reference to the African-American movement) or the (religious) Shas party that is devoted to the improvement of the living conditions of all this population.

Over the last 20 years, 2 new waves of massive immigration: first, in 1984 (operation Moses) and 1991 (operation Salomon), thousands of Ethiopian Jews (Falashas) could escape the local communist regime and the ongoing famine through two large-scale evactuation operations conducted by the Israeli army. Since then, despite initial tremendous difficulties to adapt to a developed economy, most of the Felashas left their country and are now in a situation close to the one known by the Sefardim a few decades ago.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, close to 1 million Jews were able to go to Israel, right previously denied by the communist authorities. Highly-qualified, they integrated more easily but also now have their own party, Israel Beitenu, known as a far-right party through the current minister of Foreign Afairs Avigdor Lieberman, but that should not be caricatured: during this summer’s protests, they actively promoted social rights, as well as more accountability for the government.

And now Western immigration, especially American and French. Those are not one-time massive flights as before but a continuous flow of people wishing to live Judaism at full scale (and hence tending to be somehow religious (which is a very broad and hence sociologically inefficient term)). They also tend to keep more of their original identity (and first and foremost the language, that tey teach to their kids, things that was close to unknown before) and to cluster in certain towns (Netanya for the French) or neighborhoods (in Jerusalem, Ramat Eshkol, French Hill or Katamon are heavily American, Bait Vagan or Ramot rather French).

P.S: for those of you who like world music, Eidan Raichel is an Israeli singer who works with artists from various communities to promote all this heritage. Enjoy him on Youtube!

New articles from the JPost

So here are some of the articles I wrote over the past few weeks. Again they are in French and again they cover a variety of subjects.
First, a social and historical overview of Beersheva, part of a special issue on the southern city:
Première partie
Suite et fin
Then, a review of the new book of Raphaël Draï (it's an autobiography, but the guy also has published a quantity of good books on psychoanalysis, political science and law):
Here
What will be the consequences of the admission of the PA at the UNESCO?
At the heart of the high-tech sector
A summary of the last episodes of the Euro-zone crisis

Have a good reading!