Two days ago the Circuit City store clerk who tipped off police to the activities of the Fort Dix terror plotters gave his first interview. Brian Morgenstern, a 26-year-old employee at the store, told CNN that two “normal people” came into the store and asked for a camcorder cassette tape to be transferred to DVD.
While duplicating the tape, Morgenstern said, “I saw some stuff on the film that was disturbing and it kind of gained my attention that way.” According to press reports, the tape depicted 10 young bearded men firing handguns, rifles and fully automatic weapons at a firing range, calling for jihad, and shouting, “Allahu Akbar!,” or “God is great!” Six of the men were arrested on May 9, and charged, according to court documents, with planning “to kill as many soldiers as possible” in an armed attack on Fort Dix.
Continue reading ‘Doing the Right Thing’
The U.S. ambassador in Israel (I wish I could have said, in Jerusalem) fell into a trap last week—one that he could easily have avoided with a modicum of foresight. It was not the type of ambush laid with roadside devices and a hail of bullets, but it did carry explosive implications, and produced a painful embarrassment for both governments—thus serving a reminder that the Pollard case is still not only an irritant but an active issue for many Israelis.
Speaking at a conference (which I attended) on U.S.-Israeli relations at Bar-Ilan University—Israel’s only university under Orthodox auspices, offering, as such, an honorable and respectable diversity of opinion and being a stronghold of the more scholarly elements within the religious right—Ambassador Richard Jones answered a question about Jonathan Pollard. (Someone should have told him that in almost any room with a good number of knitted skullcaps, a discussion of U.S.-Israeli relations would sooner or later lead to the Pollard case.) The question in itself was triggered by the book published by former CIA director George Tenet, in which he reports that he stood up to President Bill Clinton and prevented him from keeping his promise to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as part of the Wye River Agreement of 1998, to release Pollard in return for Israeli concessions to the Palestinians.
What Jones now said, in effect, was that Pollard would never be released.
Continue reading ‘An Ambassador Ambushed: Richard Jones and the Pollard Case’
Cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hamas this past week served as the latest occasion for the New York Times to cover, and cover some more, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
True to form, Friday May 25th’s front-page featured prominently, for the second time in a week, a color photo of an Israeli strike against a Hamas compound in Gaza. Inside the front section, a major article detailed Israel’s crackdown on Hamas, focusing on the arrest of 33 Hamas officials in the West Bank.
The latest Israeli-Palestinian violence, as well as the intra-Palestinian violence, is certainly newsworthy.
The Times’s extensive coverage, however, overshadowed an exceptionally significant development in Lebanon: intense fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam, an Islamic terrorist group.
Continue reading ‘Some News Is Fit to Print’
When I was asking a group of underaffiliated Jewish academics what being Jewish meant to them, their responses were varied. What dominated, however, was that “terrible things happen to Jews.” Similarly, at an AJC conference in Los Angeles with network television executives, most commented that the Jewish experience signaled an endless tale of oppression.
The more I reflected on these responses, the more I came to realize that the overarching image of Jewishness in contemporary communal discourse today focuses on Jews as victims. All too often, Jews are cast on television and cinema as objects of prejudice or hatred. Rarely does popculture celebrate the joys of Jewish living.
One need not belabor the accuracy of these portraits. Truth is, Jewish history is quite diverse, encompassing a broad swath of experiences ranging from rejection to virtually complete integration. The American Jewish narrative in particular reflects a Diaspora society that has truly proven open and welcoming of Jewish participation. The language of persecution, no matter how loudly trumpeted in certain Jewish quarters, thankfully does not resonate with the reality of Jewish life in America today.
Continue reading ‘Changing the Language of Jewish Identity’
AJC Executive Director David Harris blogs for the Jerusalem Post. From his latest entry:
On May 11, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora had an op-ed in the New York Times.
It reminded me of a Cold War-era joke.
An American and a Soviet debated which country was more open. The American boasted that, without fear of arrest, he could stand near the White House and denounce President Nixon. The Soviet, clearly unimpressed, replied that the USSR was freer. He could stand near the Kremlin and assail the US leader, too. Not only wouldn’t he be seized, but Chairman Brezhnev would personally come out to thank him.
Saniora used the Winograd Commission report, a product of Israel’s democratic process, to criticize Israel, while failing to engage in any parallel self-reflection.
Saniora’s message falls short [JPost]
Complete list of Harris’s blogs [JPost]
Listen: [audio:101meeting/allam050407.mp3]
Magdi Allam, editor at Corriere Della Sera and commentator on Arab and Islamic affairs, was presented with the Mass Media Award on May 4, 2007 at AJC’s 101st Annual Meeting. Here he gives his acceptance speech.
Continue reading ‘Audio: Magdi Allam Accepts Mass Media Award’
Back in 2003, when I was still living in London and working as a journalist, I came across a newspaper advertisement slamming Israel which had been signed by a number of British trade unionists. Among them was Jeremy Dear, the Secretary-General of the union I belonged to, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).
Like many other members, I had no meaningful involvement with the union. The only tangible benefit of membership was a press card which you could whip out, should the need arise, to demonstrate your bona fides to a policeman or a government official. But when I saw Dear appending the name of the NUJ to this ad, I decided I’d had enough. Why, I fulminated, should I pay membership dues to a union that had embraced the demonization campaign against Israel? Why should I, even in a small way, subsidize the salary of a man who, in addressing a rally opposing the Iraq war, declared that an invasion of Israel would be the morally correct alternative?
Continue reading ‘Confronting the NUJ’s Israel Boycott’