This Is Why I Maintain Hope

Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, the two IDF reservists abducted by Hezbollah two years ago in a raid that sparked the Second Lebanon War, are to be released in a prisoner exchange deal with Hezbollah approved by the cabinet yesterday. In exchange for the captive soldiers, Israel will release jailed Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar, who murdered a Nahariya family in 1979, and four Hezbollah militants, the remains of Lebanese civilians and several dozen Palestinian prisoners.

The vote in the Israeli Cabinet wasn't close, 22 in favor and only 3 opposed. While many people believe Regev and Goldwasser to be dead, and information about Israeli Airman Ron Arad sketchy at best (his plane was shot down over Lebanon), it is still a significant step toward peace. The cabinet ministers were influenced by IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, who said: "I am the commander of all the soldiers ... of the living and the dead, and therefore I say to you the deal must be approved."

The deal will take place in four stages:

• first, the signing of the agreement, which should happen in the next two or three days
• next, Hezbollah will hand over a report on efforts to obtain information on missing airman Ron Arad, MIA in Lebanon since 1986. In exchange, Israel will give Hezbollah a report on the fate of four Iranian diplomats kidnapped and murdered during the Lebanon war in the 1980s.
• Stage three requires United Nations hostage negotiator and intelligence expert Gerhard Konrad's approval of the reports. If he approves, Hezbollah will return Goldwasser and Regev - or their remains if they are no longer alive, along with the remains of Israeli soldiers in Lebanon. Israel will return Kuntar to Hezbollah, along with four Hezbollah militants who were captured in the Second Lebanon War and the remains of a few dozen bodies
• Stage four will occur within a month of the exchange, as Israel releases a number of Palestinian prisoners of Israel's choosing.

It matters. It matters for any number of reasons, not the least of which is a step toward normalizing relationships and putting an end to hostilities. It matters, because sworn enemies are talking to each other. It matters, it matters.

Moshe Dayan said: If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

Our Exposed Nerve

"To me, Gaza embodies the entire saga of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; it represents the central contradiction of the state of Israel—democracy for some, dispossession for others; it is our exposed nerve."

Amira Hass, Israeli journalist and author of Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land under Siege.

Fruits of Endurance

Israel and Hamas agreed Tuesday to an Egyptian-brokered Gaza truce. While Hamas has observed previous unilateral truces and cease-fires with Israel in the past, all of which broke down within a short period of time, this truce is different for two significant reasons.

• First, the truce means Israel has given Hamas de facto recognition, acknowledging that the US-backed blockade has not worked.
• Second, although Hamas's charter calls for the destruction of Israel, with this truce Hamas showed a willingness to co-exist with Israel as Hamas's leaders have said they will pursue a long-term truce in order to build a Palestinian state.

Hamas has said that all militant groups in Gaza have promised to abide by the terms of the truce, which calls for Israel to ease restrictions on blockade against Gaza.

Skepticism abounds on both sides. However, both Israel and Hamas need this cease-fire. The Gaza strip has become an intolerable burden for both parties. Israel's economic blockade against Gaza has worsened a horrific humanitarian crisis. Israel has allowed only the most basic foodstuffs and medical equipment in, and virtually nobody out. Hamas is finally admitting the blockade is really hurting them.

What escapes notice is the people who live in Israel's border communities, who have also been suffering. Palestinian militants fire crude rockets into the border towns, killing and injuring Israelis, which then brings down massive retaliation from Israel's military. However, Israel has no effective defense against these rockets.

For Hamas, the lifting of the economic embargo and the subsequent improvement of daily life might persuade Gaza's leadership that negotiation is the best response. Why do I have hope it will last? Because of these words:

"We believe that what was agreed upon will last and the Palestinian people will see the fruits of their endurance," said Ismail Haniyeh, the senior Hamas political leader in Gaza.

It's a first step.

Friday Granddaughter Blogging

Gramma is coming to visit me again tomorrow and I can't wait. We'll go to the zoo and maybe a baseball game and I can eat hot dogs. We went to see Mickey Mouse and I got scared at the rides. I'm having a onion pinyon about the Priminster of Izreal because he should resign because he took bribes and he doesn't want peace. And he's sposed to go to Egypt with somebody named Barak who is not the same as Barack Obama, because this Barak is the Izreal minster of defence and they're sposed to talk about a sees fires with Gaza. And this Barak and lots of other peoples in Izreal are telling the priminster to resign because of craolushun crupshun. I think he's a bad man like the prezlinet of America and they should put them all in peaches.

I like to draw on the steps with my giant chalk. Bye bye. Let's have peace.

How I learned to Drive Manual Transmission

Yesterday, I spoke with my ex-husband about his upcoming trip to Israel with our son. They needed a car, they needed trip insurance, they need some hotels, and he needed my professional help. Yes, I'm a travel professional. Don't try this at home. We talked about what kind of car he wanted to rent, and he said "Not a Fiat 500" and we both burst out laughing. We'd met on Kibbutz, in Israel, and that Fiat played a part in our story.

In May, 1969, I moved to Israel. I was 20 years old, a college drop-out, and an idealist who felt shattered by the direction the United States had moved: Richard Nixon was our President, we were enmeshed in a horrible war in Viet Nam, our nation was torn apart. What better thing for a young Jewish girl to do than move to a new nation, become a pioneer, farm, get my hands dirty. My parents dropped me at the airport, and off I went on my new adventure.

I met my ex- on the first day I arrived. He literally grabbed my art portfolio out of my hands and carried it to the housing block I was assigned. He was on a bicycle. He thought he was dashing. I thought he was an asshole. So began 22 years of ragged togetherness before it ended in divorce. Hell, we get along better divorced than we ever did married, but that's a whole nother story.

This story is about a four cylinder Fiat 500, a car that was manual transmission and only had two cylinders working. It wasn't our car. It didn't really belong to anyone, exactly. This girl purchased it in Spain for $500, drove the hell out of it until she appeared on the Kibbutz one day, parked it, and stayed for a month. She left, and somehow the car (and the keys) stayed. Somehow, we had those keys. So, we just sort of decided we had right of first whatever.

Israel in 1969 was very much a country on defense. Still bearing the swagger of the Six Day War, when the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank were captured, there was a bravado that defied the constant sense of looking over one's shoulder. We were not far from a small border town, and that town was constantly being shelled by Katusha rockets launched by Palestinians in Lebanon. It didn't stop us from hiking the hills - in fact, we felt in more danger from the wild dogs than from the rockets. Kids in their twenties feel immortal.

I cannot describe how beautiful this region was. The light, the colors of the land, the Jordan River - all of this begged for exploration. And we had a car at our disposal, so explore it we did. But there was the issue of the two cylinders - we would pull into gas stations not to fill up with gas, but because the radiator was about to overheat and we needed to add water, or coolant, or whatever it is you put into a car to keep it from blowing up. The other issue was that because Israel was at war, there were roadblocks set up all over the place. My ex- was without a driver's license; I didn't know how to drive stick. He decided there was no time like the present to learn.

Oh, there is a third issue. I don't like to take direction much. And one of the reasons he's an ex-husband is because he was a bit over-bearing. (I love it when I understate.) And I am a natural blonde.

So we pulled over into a secluded area to teach me the workings of manual transmissions, and clutches, and forward, and not grinding gears, and when to shift, and "GODDAMNIT, STEP ON THE CLUTCH AND THEN EASE IT INTO GEAR", and then it was time for my first roadblock. It did not go well. I lurched the car forward, I jerked it and it stalled. I tried again. Stalled again. The soldiers told my ex- to get me out of the drivers seat or they would run me in. We decided that my driving was not so good, and we'd be better off with him driving without that pesky credential. License? We don need no stinking license. Thus ended my driving experience in Israel.

I eventually taught myself in an emergency back in the States. My son spiked a sudden fever at age 4. My ex- had my car, I had our VW Bus, which was manual, and I needed to take my son to the doctor. I somehow managed to get there without a problem, except I couldn't figure out reverse. Later that weekend, I learned.

But we lived in Israel for a year before we moved back to the States. It was in Israel that I listened to Neil Armstrong's voice as he took his first steps on the Moon. The night of July 20th was hot, sticky and cloudless as we gathered around the radio - staring up at the moon - the first steps toward extraterrestial colonization after we completely fuck up Earth.

I was in Israel when my beloved Cubs folded to the vile, loathe and disgusting New York Mets. Not the Miracle Mets, no, nay, never: The MALEVOLENT Mets, forever evil in my book. I was in Israel when everyone was going on down to Yasgur's farm for the Woodstock Nation. I was in Israel for a year, and it changed me forever.

Last night, I was watching Neil Jordon's film, "Michael Collins." In the extras on the DVD, Jordon writes that Michael Collins developed new strategies for the independence of Ireland. His tactics include what are now recognized as urban guerrilla tactics - Jordan is firm in pointing out that Collins was a soldier, a politician, and would deplore terrorist tactics. In fact, in the 1940s, the underground Jewish militia, the Irgun, patterned itself after the Irish Republicans. Yitzak Shamir so admired Michael Collins that he took the nickname "Michael."

I believe that Yassar Arafat was of this ilk: he was a soldier, and his PLO employed the kinds of urban guerilla tactics that Collins developed. Not so the terrorist group, Hamas. Hamas straps explosives onto the bodies of young, disenfranchized men and tells them to go blow up a coffee house. Attack civilians. And then Israel behaves like the British did and bulldozes houses; cuts off water, electricity; builds a fence. Our world has gone insane.

This morning, Dusty sent me a link to this article from the New Republic. The article goes into depth about J-Street, the new lobbying group and political action committee that says it will represent the interests of liberal American Jews.

The group, according to its website, favors "diplomatic solutions over military ones, including in Iran; multilateral over unilateral approaches to conflict resolution; and dialogue over confrontation with a wide range of countries and actors when conflicts do arise." Perhaps most controversially, its founder favors negotiating with Hamas.

"It's true that American Jews are overwhelmingly liberal on most issues; the problem for J Street is that Israel simply isn't one of those issues." My own family is an example: my ex-husband and son support Israel and Israel's actions completely. My ex-husband speaks of Palestians as though they are less than human. Sort of the way Jews were talked about in the past. My daughter and I support a two-State, diplomatic solution and to me, this means that Israel must talk to Hamas. They must. To pursue a military stance will ensure the destruction of Israel. The only way for Israel to survive, nay, thrive, is through diplomacy.

What the Palestinians need is a Michael Collins, an Eamon de Valera, a Yitzhak Rabin. What Israel needs is some restraint, and a lobby like J-Street to make the Government listen. Most Israeli citizens support a two-state, diplomatic solution, as do a growing number of American Jews. J-Street supports peace, a two-state solution, security for Israel, and using diplomacy, rather than military force, to deal with countries like Iran and Syria. It is only the far Right wing (the millenialists, the Religious Right, the Rev. Hagee) who want Israel to keep Gaza and the West Bank.

Perhaps, as my ex-husband and our son drive around Israel in the car I've secured for them, they will come to terms with a more even-handed point of view. I can only hope.

Israeli Center Against House Demolitions

It's the government, not the people. Another Israeli organization that actively opposes the Olmert Government's policies toward Palestinians is The Israeli Center Against House Demolitions. Their current project is to rebuild 18,000 homes that have been demolished by the government. Peace WILL prevail.

What does it mean to be Pro-Israel?

I recently joined J-Street, the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-Peace movement. J-Street was founded to create meaningful American leadership to bring a peaceful end to the Arab/Israeli and Palestinian/Israel conflicts.

J Street represents Americans, primarily but not exclusively Jewish, who support Israel and its desire for security as the Jewish homeland, as well as the right of the Palestinians to a sovereign state of their own - two states living side-by-side in peace and security. We believe ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the best interests of Israel, the United States, the Palestinians, and the region as a whole.

Today, I received an email from founder Jeremy Ben Ami, with the text of an article he'd written in a recent Washington Post issue. I print it in full:

5 Myths About Being 'Pro-Israel'
By Jeremy Ben Ami

Six decades ago, my father fought alongside Menachem Begin for Israel's independence. If you'd have told him back then that politicians in the world's last superpower would be jockeying today to see who can be more "pro-Israel," he would have laughed at you. Grateful as I am for decades of U.S. friendship to Israel, I have to wonder, as the state my father helped found turns 60, just who is defining what it means to be pro-Israel in the United States these days.

Some purported keepers of that flame claim that supporting Israel means reflexively supporting every Israeli action and implacably opposing every Israeli foe -- adopting the talking points of neoconservatives and the most right-wing elements of the American Jewish and Christian Zionist communities. Criticize or question Israeli behavior and you're labeled "anti-Israel," or worse. But unquestioning encouragement for short-sighted Israeli policies such as expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank isn't real friendship. (Would a true friend not only let you drive home drunk but offer you their Porsche and a shot of tequila for the road?) Israel needs real friends, not enablers. And forging a healthy friendship with Israel requires bursting some myths about what it means to be pro-Israel.

1.American Jews choose to back candidates largely on the basis of their stance on Israel.

This urban legend has somehow become a tenet of American Politics 101, which is why politicians work so hard to earn the pro-Israel label in the first place. But it's a self-serving fable, cultivated by a tiny minority of politically conservative American Jews who actually are single-issue voters. Most Jewish voters make their political choices the way other Americans do: based on their views on the full spectrum of domestic and foreign policy issues.

Moreover, the American Jewish community still has a markedly progressive bent. Exit polls suggest that nearly 80 percent of Jewish Americans voted for John F. Kerry over George W. Bush in 2004; some 70 percent of them were opposed to the Iraq war in 2005, according to the American Jewish Committee; and polls show that most American Jews say they favor a more balanced U.S. Middle East policy that's aimed at achieving peace.

2.To be strong on Israel, you have to be harsh to the Palestinians.

Wrong, and counterproductive to boot. One popular way for members of Congress to earn their pro-Israel stripes is to come down as hard as possible on the Palestinians, by using economic and diplomatic pressure or giving the Israelis a freer hand for military strikes. That may satisfy some primal urge to lash out at Israel's foes, but it does Israel more harm than good.

As Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has argued, Israel's survival depends on offering the Palestinians a more hopeful future built on political sovereignty and economic development. As long as Palestinians despair of a decent and dignified life, Israel will be at war. And as long as the only channel for the Palestinians' ingenuity is building better rockets, not even the Great Wall of China will protect Israel's cities from their wrath. Helping the Palestinians achieve a viable, prosperous state is one of the most pro-Israel things an American politician can do.

3.The Rev. John Hagee and his fellow Christian Zionists are good for the Jews.

Hardly. Are Israel and American Jewry really so desperate that we must cozy up to people whose messianic dreams entail having us all killed or converted to Christianity? Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel, and his ilk believe that Israel dare not cede any territory in the quest for peace, claiming that the Bible promised all of the holy land to the Jews. In other words, Christian Zionists look at the trade-offs that Israel must make to achieve peace -- and hope to thwart them. Then again, peace is not what these folks have in mind; they hope that Israel will seek to permanently expand its borders, thereby goading the Arabs into a war that will become the catalyst for Armageddon and the second coming of Christ. Do your ambitions for Israel extend beyond turning it into the fuel for the fire of the "End of Days"? Then Hagee and company are not -- repeat, not -- your friends.

4. Talking peace with your enemies demonstrates weakness.

You don't need an advanced degree in international relations to recognize that pursuing peace only with people you like is pointless. Most Israelis know this; a recent poll in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz found that two-thirds of Israelis favor cease-fire negotiations between their government and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip, exactly because Hamas is such a bitter foe. But in Washington, we self-righteously refuse to engage -- even indirectly -- with Hamas, Iran or Syria.

Hamas won the most recent Palestinian national elections in a landslide. Do we seriously think that it can be erased from the political landscape simply by assassinations and sanctions? Precisely because Hamas and Iran represent the most worrisome strategic challenges to Israel, responsible friends of Israel who'd like to see it live in security for its next 60 years should be engaging with them to search for alternatives to war.

5. George W. Bush is the best friend Israel has ever had.

Not even close. The president has acted as Israel's exclusive corner man when he should have been refereeing the fight. That choice weakened Israel's long-term security.

Israel needs U.S. help to maintain its military edge over its foes, but it also needs the United States to contain Arab-Israeli crises and broker peace. Israel's existing peace pacts owe much to Washington's ability to bridge the mistrust among parties in the Middle East. So when the United States abandons the role of effective broker and acts only as Israel's amen choir, as it has throughout Bush's tenure, the United States dims Israel's prospects of winning security through diplomacy. The best gift that Israel's friends here could give this gallant, embattled democracy on its milestone birthday would be returning the United States to its leading role in active diplomacy to end the conflicts in the Middle East -- and help a secure, thriving Israel find a permanent, accepted home among the community of nations.