From: Adam LeBor

To: Shmuel Rosner

Dear Shmuel,

Thanks for your perceptive letter, and I think you are right to move the debate along to explore Jewish responsibility for stopping genocide, if indeed Jews have such a responsibility. But before we go there, let me share with you the latest news from the United Nations, which only confirms my increasing belief that the organization is in a terminal political decline.

Each year the General Assembly, which opens in September, elects a president and twenty-one vice-presidents. The General Assembly is dominated by the G77 group, non-aligned states from the developing world, including many Arab and Islamic nations, which accounts for its obsession with Israel, but let's leave that for the moment. The 2008 President of the General Assembly is Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, of Nicaragua. Señor d'Escoto Brockmann, a Catholic priest, is a former Sandinista foreign minister. He does not much like the United States and swiftly condemned what he called acts of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan. So far, so familiar.

Now comes the list of twenty one vice-presidents. Vice-President of the GeneralDevastation In Myanmar: The Junta blocked UN aid to its own citizens Assembly is mainly an honorary position, but still counts for something in the carefully delineated diplomatic hierarchy of the United Nations. The VPs include Egypt, Russia and Afghanistan, as well as the United States and the United Kingdom. And Burma. Yes, Burma. Cyclone-ravaged Burma, which is ruled by a junta so paranoid and downright evil that it deliberately obstructed the flow of UN aid to its own citizens. Burma, which promised Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon that aid would flow freely after his visit, and then immediately reneged on that promise. Burma, whose intransigence forced the World Food Programme, the UN's food agency, to suspend further supplies while the junta simply confiscated its aid and equipment. Burma, which obstructed and delayed visas for UN aid workers. Apart perhaps from North Korea, no other UN government has shown such contempt, even murderous disregard for its own citizens. No matter, for in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of the UN General Assembly, Burma's anti-western credentials make it an honored member.

And this same moral blindness has shaped the United Nations' response to Darfur. I was amazed and depressed to learn, while researching Complicity with Evil, how much reflexive anti-Westernism still shapes international diplomacy there. Colonialism in Africa and Asia ended decades ago, but still shapes the mentality of governments from Jakarta to Algiers. Sudan's greatest defenders at the United Nations are the Arab, Islamic and African blocs, and of course, China, which buys Sudan's oil and so keeps the government in power and funds the genocide. Time and time again, since the crisis in Darfur erupted in spring 2003, Sudan's allies have blocked or watered down attempts by the United States, Britain and France to exert diplomatic pressure on Sudan. (It's fascinating to compare the response of the Arab and Islamic countries at the UN to Bosnia and Darfur. They pressed the West hard to intervene in Bosnia, where Bosnian Muslims were being killed by Serb and Croat Christians. They now try and stymie any attempts to intervene, even diplomatically, where black Muslims are being killed by their own Muslim government.)

So, to a large extent, as you rightly say, it has been left to Darfur lobbying groups, which have a substantial Jewish presence, to take the lead. You ask if Jews have a special responsibility over Darfur? In absolute terms, no. Darfur is the world's responsibility, a moral incumbency no more or less on Jews than anyone else. But perhaps that is mere sophistry. You write that we should feel proud that: "Jews, who suffered the most from genocide feel compelled to raise their voices against such actions in every part of the world. They feel they have the moral authority, and the obligation to do so. And they do." I absolutely agree. While objectively speaking, Jews do not have a special responsibility to combat genocide, they believe they do, and act on it, which should indeed make us proud. (Although it's notable that in my homeland of Britain, Darfur has never become a hot-button issue, neither among Jews nor the wider population.)

I thought your second point was especially interesting: that American Jews got tired of investing all their political capital in supporting Israel. Especially, in my opinion, when it has become impossible to justify Israel's actions in the Occupied Territories, and the endless, creeping wave of settlements and annexations. It seems to me, Shmuel, that you are right, that there is a drift, even a movement away from the Israel-right-or-wrong school of thought and towards a more independent position, which can only be healthy in the long run. But here's an idea: maybe Jews support the 'Save Darfur' campaigns for another reason, so that they can argue that however bad things are in Palestine, they are nowhere near as bad as what is happening in Darfur. Which is true.

You ask what happens when the preservation of Israel contradicts stopping genocide.Yad Vashem: "Never Again" means more than remembering the six million I don't see a contradiction here, at least in today's world. Such a dilemma, thankfully, has not arisen. But I do think, that Israel, whose coming into existence was to some extent accelerated by the Holocaust, has a special responsibility to act humanely and with compassion towards refugees. I am critical of the way, for example, that foreign dignitaries are taken to Yad Vashem by Israeli government ministers. It's good that Yad Vashem exists, but it should be independent of politics. These visits seem to me an almost cynical attempt to draw a historical continuum between the Holocaust and the need to support Israeli government policies. And considering Israel's patchy record in dealing with refugees from a current genocide, Darfur, such visits could even be distasteful. Consider the Prevention of Infiltration Act, which has already passed a preliminary reading in the Knesset.

It allows the expulsion of refugees without judicial process, and seven year prison sentences for refugees from Sudan. It even allows for 'hot returns,' meaning that Israeli soldiers would force the refugees back over the border into Egypt, to face imprisonment or execution. Israeli soldiers have repeatedly witnessed and testified to how Egyptian troops deal with fleeing Sudanese: they shoot them.

Shmuel, we've covered a lot of ground in this enjoyable and thoughtful exchange, despite its depressing subject matter. But I leave you with this thought about Jews and Genocide. The Holocaust was the determining event in modern Jewish history, and has greatly shaped Israeli identity. But if 'Never Again' means anything, it means not just memorialising the six million, but also trying to stop present day genocides, or at least helping their victims. And that's true in Jerusalem as much as Washington DC.

Yours,

Adam

From: Adam LeBor

To: Shmuel Rosner

Dear Shmuel,

Thanks for your thoughtful response. Once again you raise some good points, the most crucial of which is the Big Question: the United Nations -- Angel or Satan? The case for the prosecution is heavy indeed: Bosnia, Rwanda and now, Darfur. And, as you say, the same mechanisms that prevented, and prevent, any meaningful action on these crises still hampers any decision on Iran. No matter how many times the International Atomic Energy Authority warns that Iran is not co-operating over its nuclear programmes the UN seems powerless to act. Member states -- and especially the five permanent members of the Security Council: the US, Great Britain, Russia, China and France -- still act in accordance with their national interests and realpolitik triumphs over any hazy ideas of humanitarian internationalism. We live in a world of nation-states, and have done so since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which set out the principles of territorial integrity and non-intervention.

Except when the opposite suits. Jumping back to Bosnia, you absolutely right toTreaty Of Westphalia: Where the trouble began point out that "Clinton didn’t really move in the Balkans until he was certain that political damage will be greater if he didn’t act, than the possible damage if he does." By the summer of 1995, it was clear that the daily humiliations that the Bosnian Serbs were meting out to NATO troops were severely damaging the western alliance's credibility and self-respect. Moscow was watching and laughing. Clinton finally pushed to bomb the Bosnian Serbs as much to save NATO as to save Bosnia. And here, once again, the UN's report into Srebrenica, provides an interesting footnote.

The war in Bosnia began in spring 1992. Western powers repeatedly argued that there was no mandate to intervene to stop the killing. But when NATO did finally bomb the Bosnian Serbs, they needed some legal authorisation. They found it in Security Council resolution 836 that mandated UN peacekeepers to "deter attacks" on the safe areas such as Srebrenica. Resolution 836 was passed in June 1993. For two years American, British and other diplomats had argued that this resolution (which they had more or less crafted) did not provide a mandate to intervene in Bosnia. But when NATO's credibility became the key issue -- instead of the lives of starving, ragged, Bosnians -- Resolution 836 was suddenly re-interpreted. A miracle! It did allow for intervention.

The pattern continues today. Let's focus briefly on Darfur as an example. For the past five years Sudan has been carrying out a campaign of genocide in Darfur. And yes, it is genocide. Contrary to popular belief, genocide does not mean mass extermination, either industrial, such as the Holocaust or, by hand, such as happened in Rwanda in 1994. It means the intentional destruction of a group. The group here is the civilian population of Darfur, of whom about 300,000 have been killed, or died of hunger or disease, and more than two million displaced from their homes. This campaign is thoroughly planned and executed by the Sudanese government, using its own armed forces and paramilitaries known as the 'Janjaweed.' Just as happened in the Holocaust, many of the victims die from the decisions of the 'desk-murderers,' in this case the Sudanese officials and ministers who deliberately obstruct relief and medical supplies to the victims.

Meanwhile China bankrolls Sudan, supplies its weapons and military equipment, and keeps the Sudanese economy afloat by buying its oil. The US, and to a lesser extent Britain and France, make a lot of noise about Darfur and the need to stop the killing. Even the Bush administration has talked tough on Darfur. It's to America's credit that unlike in Europe, where the left is obsessed with Israel/Palestine to the exclusion of almost everything else, there is a vocal Darfur solidarity movement. But one not powerful enough to actually influence policy.

The west is complicit in the genocide in Darfur. The key to stopping the slaughter inDarfur: The west could stop this, but won't Darfur lies in Beijing as much as Khartoum. Western diplomats would have you believe that China is some great, immovable behemoth, impervious to criticism and incapable of altering her policies. That's complete nonsense. China has never been as vulnerable: under the human rights spotlight during the preparations for the Olympics, its coming-out on the world stage.

Now is the time for sustained pressure from the United Nations, to get the peacekeepers into the field, to get the relief supplies to those whose lives depend on them. And for sustained pressure on China to stop bankrolling Sudan. Neither of these are happening. Western governments play safe with China because it is the biggest market in the world. We need to sell to China, sure, but China also needs our computers, aircraft and cars. But tragically, there is no political will to even use the leverage that we have.

Faced with these circumstances it's hard to be optimistic about any kind of meaningful reform of the UN. The new Human Rights Council, which replaced the discredited Human Rights Commission, shows how western concepts of human rights are being ever more marginalised. The council, whose agenda is dominated by Islamic and Arab countries, is obsessed with Israel. Only a handful of resolutions passed at the May 2008 session were concerned with specific countries. Four of these condemned Israel. Sudan, and Burma, for example, got one each.

We can doubtless look forward to more of the same, when, next year, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Cuba take their seats. Increasingly, it seems to me, that the United Nations, which was supposed to unite the world in a drive to protect human rights, is now the forum where human rights abusers find support and sustenance. All of which raises the question of why the west, and the United States in particular, which pays 22 per cent of the UN's budget, keeps funding hate-fests for those states who have diametrically opposed ideas to ours about the meaning of the words 'human rights.' I have always thought the UN could be reformed but increasingly, I am starting to have doubts. Perhaps it's time to start thinking about an "League of Democracies" after all.

Very best,

Adam

From: Adam LeBor

To: Shmuel Rosner

Dear Shmuel,

Many thanks for your thoughtful letter. Yes, you are right, Complicity with Evil is a very depressing book. Depressingly compelling, and even essential, I hope. It chronicles the United Nations' failures in Bosnia, Rwanda and, even as you read this, Darfur. So catastrophic are these that we may rightly ask what is the point of the United Nations' continued existence? It was founded by the Allies in 1945, in the shadow of the Holocaust, and with the noblest of ideals, as its charter details: to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war" and "reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights." The United Nations’ key documents—the Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights and genocide convention—are the most advanced formulation of human rights in history. And they have been flouted by UN member states for decades.

Much of the blame for the UN's failures in Rwanda and Bosnia lies with theKofi Annan: Preferred "neutrality" to stopping genocide permanent five members of the Security Council: the United States, Great Britain, Russia, China and France—the victors of the Second World War. If they had wanted to stop the slaughter, they could have. Was there any more shameful decision in modern American history than President Clinton's demands that the UN actually pull out the 2,500 UN peacekeepers deployed in Rwanda in early 1994? None of whom were even American? After pressure from the Clinton administration just 250 remained, under the command of the Canadian General Romeo Dallaire.

To understand these tragic events we need to peer inside the UN building in NYC and examine the role of the Secretariat, the body of permanent officials who advise and serve the member states—for as you say, the devil is in the details. Secretariat officials often claim to be impartial. But they are not. And I wanted to investigate how, in the age of mass communications and transport, two genocides occurred: one lasting months, in Rwanda, and one that just took a few days, in Srebrenica, and how we—the world—could stand by and do nothing. No one involved can say they did not know; both genocides took place where the United Nations had deployed both peacekeepers and relief workers, in regular contact with their headquarters in New York.

Many of the answers were quite easy to find in the United Nations' own reports into Rwanda and Srebrenica. The reports on the UN's role in the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica are in the public domain; they are extremely detailed, offering a day to day, sometimes hour by hour, chronology account of these grisly events. The United Nations is no good at stopping genocide but its officials are skilled at recounting and explaining its failures. The Rwanda report details the decisions made by Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) officials in New York, led by Kofi Annan, then DPKO chief. It shows how his and his colleagues' obsession with guarding the UN's neutrality—rather than enforcing the humanitarian principles on which the organisation was founded—was part of the chain of events that led to the deaths of 800,000 people.

By January 1994 General Romeo Dallaire, the commander of UNAMIR, the UN peacekeepers in Rwanda, had received detailed information about the planned mass murder of Tutsis from a source inside the Hutu militia, known as "Jean-Pierre." General Dallaire asked the DPKO for authorisation to raid the Hutu arms caches. On January 11 he cabled New York: "Since UNAMIR mandate the informant has been ordered to register all Tutsi in Kigali. He suspects it is for their extermination. Example he gave was that in 20 minutes his personnel could kill up to 1000 Tutsis." Annan's office replied, in a cable signed by his deputy, Iqbal Riza: "No reconnaissance or other action, including response to request for protection, should be taken by UNAMIR until clear guidance is received from Headquarters." When Dallaire repeated his request, Annan again refused. "The overriding consideration is the need to avoid entering into a course of action that might lead to the use of force and unanticipated repercussions," his cable concluded.

Srebrenica was one of five UN-declared 'safe areas' in Bosnia, islands of besieged,The UN's Disgrace In Rwanda government-controlled territory, surrounded by the Bosnian Serbs. The term had been agreed after much finely-calibrated diplomatic wrangling in the Security Council, but was meaningless. The Serbs launched their final attack early on Thursday 6 July 1995 and Srebrenica fell the following Tuesday. UN commanders refused the Dutch peacekeeper's repeated requests for air-strikes—on one occasion because they had completed the form incorrectly. It was common knowledge at the DPKO in New York that Srebrenica was not viable. DPKO officials had even been briefing the UN press corps that something might happen. They said that the Serbs might attack the southern part of the enclave, and attempt to capture a road. So it was not surprising that initially, the Serb attack on Srebrenica caused few ripples at the half-empty DPKO office.

Despite the judicious leakings, Annan was away as the Serbs advanced. So was Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali, traveling in Africa. Shashi Tharoor, the DPKO team leader on Yugoslavia, was on leave. So was General Rupert Smith, the British commander of peacekeepers in Bosnia. On Saturday July 8, Boutros-Ghali, Annan, General Smith, and other senior UN officials met in Geneva. They barely discussed Srebrenica. Incredibly, they sent General Smith back on leave. By the time Shashi Tharoor finally returned to his desk on the Monday, Srebrenica had virtually fallen. The killing started immediately and over the next few days up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were slaughtered by the Bosnian Serbs.

None of which hindered the careers of any of the DPKO officials. Annan, as we know, served two terms as secretary general. Shashi Tharoor was repeatedly promoted, and with Annan's behind the scenes backing, nearly succeeded him as secretary general. Iqbal Riza, who signed off the cable to General Dallaire, became Annan's chief of staff, one of the most influential positions in the UN. So in answer to your question, Shmuel, as to whether I would like a more efficient UN, or a more robust response to genocide from countries like the US, I would first of all like to see a system of internal UN accountability that calls to account those officials involved in the UN's failures. And one which stops promoting them.

Very best,

Adam

Earlier this year I wrote an article for Jewcy arguing that Barack Obama was good for the Jews. One of my more light-hearted points was that 'Barack' is essentially the same word as 'Baruch', and both mean 'blessed', so Jews should vote for him. The article was passed to Obama through a friend of mine who is friends with one of his advisers on Jewish affairs and Israel. I thought he must have read it, for lo and behold, he told a synagogue audience in Florida last Thursday that they can call him 'Baruch'.

Semites Come Together: A Children of Abraham family reunion The audience laughed and smiled in response.

But sadly for my future career plans as presidential inter-faith adviser, it seems that he has known about Baruch-Barack for several years. Daniel Koffler advises me that Obama has been working the Semitic cognate thing since 2003.

Even so, the similarities among Hebrew, Arabic, Swahili could still be a useful tack for Obama as he tries to negotiate a path between his Arabic and Swahili names and multi-cultural heritage and his Jewish supporters. He could, perhaps even should, start lacing his speeches with other examples of almost-identical phrases. Of course we know that Hebrew and Arabic share much vocabulary, but it's still suprising quite how similar they are once you start looking. Wikipedia's guide to Semitic languages is very good on this. Personally, I found that several years of Hebrew school and time on a kibbutz ulpan was a solid basis for learning Arabic at Leeds University. The two languages are, roughly speaking, about as similar as Dutch and German.

The best way for Obama to greet his audiences, of whatever faith, would be with 'Shalom Aleichem-Salaam Aleykum', meaning ‘Peace be upon you'. This could even be a subtle set-up for Baruch-Barack, as the ‘chet' in ‘Aleichem' and ‘Baruch' becomes a ‘kaf' in both Arabic versions. He could continue with ‘Beyti-Beytak', meaning ‘My house is your house', a traditional Arabic greeting. That would not need a Hebrew version as ‘Beyt' means house in both languages. He could even put his yad-yad (hand) on his lev-qalb (heart) as he spoke. And that would send a message about what unites Jews and Arabs, instead of dividing them.

[Editor's note: Earlier today, a mass anti-American and anti-Kosovar protest broke out in Belgrade. Protesters set fire to the US embassy.]

I just got back from Kosovo, and here’s my advice for the Israeli foreign ministry as it decides if and when to recognize the world’s newest nation: Send an ambassador and send one now.

Why? Because the latest Balkan crisis is also an opportunity for Israel: both to gain a new friend in a strategically vital area, and build a bridge to the Muslim world. Just over two million people live in Kosovo, ninety per cent of whom are ethnically Albanian and nominally Muslim. Recognizing Kosovo could help short-circuit the usual reflexes - on both sides - that Muslims and Jews are destined to struggle in perpetuity. It would also be rooted in a shared history of centuries of co-existence.

Kosovo was part of the Ottoman empire until the early twentieth century. But Islam in the Balkans then was a very different faith to the austere Wahabi and Deobandi fundamentalism that now shapes much of the Muslim world’s thought. 

The synagogue of Belgrade For centuries Jews flourished across the lands known as Turkey-in-Europe. Of course life was not perfect and Jews, like Christians, suffered restrictive taxes and other laws. But cities such as Prishtina, the capital of Kosovo, Salonika, and Skopje were home to ancient Jewish communities that traced their ancestry back to Spain and the expulsions in 1492. Legend has it that when the Ottoman sultan Bayezit II heard that the Spaniards were about to throw out all the Jewish doctors, lawyers, scribes and engineers, he sent a fleet of boats to bring them all to his domain.

That cosmopolitan world ended forever during the Second World War, when most of Kosovo was occupied by the Nazis and annexed to Albania. Some Albanian soldiers joined the SS Skenderbeg division, set up under the auspices of the Palestinian leader Hajj Amin el-Husseini, an ardent admirer of Hitler who had taken refuge in Berlin. Some helped round up Jews and send them to internment and concentration camps. Others fought with the partisans. But many Albanians invoked their code of honor, known as besa, and hid Jews, including refugees from across Europe. They sent them into the mountains for safety, to be sheltered and fed. Albania was a rare country in wartime Europe, to have a larger Jewish population in 1945 - around 2,000- than in 1939.

During the wars in Yugoslavia during the 1990s, all sides waged a parallel struggle for public opinion, expending much time, money and energy courting the Jews, especially in the US. That battle for hearts and minds continues today over Kosovo. Serb propagandists have made much of the supposed connection between Serbs and Jews. As Yugoslavia descended into war in the early 1990s, Serbian intellectuals set up the ‘Serbian-Jewish Friendship Society”.

Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic dispatched a Jewish dentist, Klara Mandic, on a propaganda drive to the United States to swing Jewish public opinion behind the Serb cause. It’s true that during the Holocaust the Nazis and their Croatian allies massacred Serb, Jews, Roma and Croatian anti-Fascists together in concentration camps such as Jasenovac, in Croatia, where the brutality of the guards disgusted even the SS. “Six million pairs of eyes ask me from the sky, ‘do you see what is happening - will you try and do something’,” Mandic lamented.

What she did not mention was that during the Second World War, Serbia was run by a Nazi puppet regime, headed by General Milan Nedic. Nedic and his police willingly collaborated in the Holocaust, setting up concentration camps across Serbia and gassing Jews in vans that trundled back and forth over the Danube bridges. Belgrade was the first city to be declared ‘Judenrein’ or ‘Jew-free’. During the Bosnian war in the 1990s the Serbs set up a network of concentration camps such as Omarska, where once again stick-thin men stared out from behind barbed wire. Footage of Omarska, and later on from Kosovo, of civilians once again being forced from their homes, caused a wave of revulsion around the world.

So much for the past. Kosovo’s future could herald a new era for Israeli-Muslim relations. Israel has already put down a marker here when it opened a field hospital on the border with Macedonia in 1999, when hundreds of thousands of Kosovars were ethnically cleansed. Many Kosovars remember Israel’s help then with gratitude and affection. Sadly, few Jews now remain in Kosovo, perhaps no more than several dozen. The community in the capital no longer exists, as the last families fled during the war, fearful of being identified as Serbs, because of their Yugoslav names. A small community of Albanian speaking Jews still lives in Prizren.

But across Kosovo there is a widespread sympathy for Israel, as the homeland of another oppressed people, the Jews, who have had to fight to carve out their state. Hashim Thaci, Kosovo’s prime minister, has repeatedly spoken of his respect for Israel. He recently gave an interview to Ha’aretz, pledging that Kosovo will be not be an Islamic nation. and asking for Israel to recognise the new country.

Thaci’s desire for ties with Israel are also about realpolitik. Kosovo’s greatest protector is the United States. When independence was declared on February 17 there were almost as stars and stripes being waved on the streets as red and black Albanian flags. Kosovo, like neighbouring Albania, is resoundingly pro-western. Sporadic attempts by Saudi emissaries to steer Kosovo’s Muslims to Wahhabism have made little headway. There is simply no appetite among Kosovar Muslims - who are thoroughly European in their outlook - for any kind of Islamic state.

The country remains shaped by its tolerant Ottoman heritage- and that includes a desire for links with Israel. Even if some Palestinian intellectuals are calling for a Kosovo-style declaration of independence (unlikely) this is still an opportunity that Israel should not miss.

As I'm writing for an American website, I will start with a declaration of interest. Pecuniary interest, even. I will personally benefit if Barack Obama is the next President of the United States. I placed a bet—enough for a decent dinner for two, even in NYC—with the British bookmakers Ladbrokes last month and got good odds on him winning: 8-1. Post Iowa, that has now slipped to evens, while poor Hilary, once the favourite at 4-7, is now slacking at 11-4. As for betting on the New Hampshire primary, it's not even worth it—Obama is running at 1-16.

Obama: Won't You Be My President?But there is more at stake here than my bank balance. More even than the future of the most powerful nation on the planet. For Barack Obama is good for the Jews. How so? Let us start, contrarily, Jewishly, by considering the case for the prosecution. His surname rhymes with the first name of America's enemy number one. His middle name matches that of Iraq's former dictator, who was extremely bad for the Jews, launching scud missiles at Tel Aviv during the first Gulf War and paying handsome bonuses to the families of deluded Palestinians who blew themselves up across Israel. His grandfather was a Muslim, which arguably means under Islamic law that his father was a Muslim, and, as there is no op-out clause under Islam, possibly that BO himself is technically also a Muslim. He spent much of his childhood in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country.

And then let us demolish that same case. Let's consider his first name: Barack. Barack is Arabic for "Blessed". It is essentially the same word as the Hebrew "Baruch". The ‘ch' in Hebrew becomes a ‘k' or ‘ck' in Arabic, so that Shalom Aleichem = Salaam Aleykum. So he practically has not just a Jewish but a Hebrew name. And just as his name straddles the Muslim-Jewish divide, so can he. Although he is now a Christian, Obama does not deny his Muslim heritage. He celebrates it, as he should. His passion for social justice, his time as a community organizer in Chicago working with the marginalized and underprivileged, his work on easing immigration and providing universal health care—all these are classic areas of Jewish social concern.

  Behind the scenes, Obama has for years worked with Jewish philanthropists, such as Robert Schrayer in Chicago and Alan Solomont in Boston, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reporter Ron Kampeas. He is also on good terms with two of the top Jewish lobbyists in Washington: Rabbi David Saperstein of the Reform movement and Nathan Diament of the Orthodox Union.

Lieberman never had it so good: The Obama-kah Obama told the JTA in 2004: "Some of my earliest and most ardent supporters came from the Jewish community in Chicago." Three years later he said: "My support within in the Jewish community has been much more significant than my support within the Muslim community. I welcome and seek the support of the Muslim and Arab communities."

And here is the crux of the matter: Obama's ties with the Jewish community and his Muslim heritage can be two pillars of a much needed bridge: between Jews and Muslims, not just in the United States, but globally. Imagine how an African-American president with a Muslim name would help demolish stereotypes across the Arab and Muslim world.

At the same time, Obama has made clear his commitment to Israel's security in speeches to both AIPAC and the National Jewish Democratic Council. But he has not shied away from spelling out some harsh truths—especially among those Jewish lobbyists who demand a blank check for Israel. Obama told AIPAC that Palestinian needs must be considered when a final peace deal is made. Israel cannot be asked to take risks with its security, he told the NJDC, but nor can the status quo of fear, terror and division continue. There have been blips as well. Obama said that "No-one has suffered more than the Palestinians", a surprising statement when one of his foreign policy advisers is Samantha Power, who has been vocal on the need for action on Darfur. But he clarified this by explaining that nobody had suffered more than the Palestinians had from the failure of their leadership.

An Obama presidency could also help recalibrate the relationship between American Jews and Israel. Most American Jews, like Jews everywhere, want to be proud of Israel. And there is much to be proud of: its lively democracy, vibrant civil society and the very fact that the Jewish state exists. But many of us are not so proud of the continuing land-grab on the West Bank, and the web of checkpoints and obstacles that further atomize what is left of Palestinian society and its economy. Just a few days after the charade at Annapolis, Israel announced the expansion of the Har Homa neighborhood in Jerusalem on appropriated (read: stolen) Palestinian land, paid for largely by US taxpayers. Hopefully, President Obama would show real commitment to a just, two-state solution—a policy that would be welcomed by a substantial number of Israelis. What's more, his Jewish campaign supporters even have cool Barack yarmulkes: "Obama ‘08." Let's hope so.

My suggestion that Hamas should have been invited to Annapolis triggered all sorts of reactions, from agreement to accusations of being a proto-Islamo-fascist-neo-old-Nazi-appeaser. Thanks to Michael D. Fein for pointing out a key, er, point, which I forgot to make: that we, the west, cannot claim to be supporting or promoting democracy in the Middle East and then ignore the results when we don't like them.

Anyway, it seems that like it or not (and I do), Israel is already talking to influential figures connected to Hamas. At least according to this report in last week's edition of the London-based Jewish Chronicle, which is usually a well-informed newspaper. I reproduce it here in full, as the website is subscription only:

Secret ‘diplomatic' overtures to Hamas

30/11/2007

By Anshel Pfeffer Jerusalem

A diplomatic back-channel is intensifying between Israeli and Muslim religious leaders, including figures identified with Hamas.

The aim of the talks, taking place with the full knowledge of the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships, is to provide a wider consensus at the grassroots for an eventual accord.

While all eyes have been on preparations for this week's Annapolis summit, talks have continued between senior religious figures on both sides.

Israel has insisted on not talking to Hamas politically until it recognises Israel and renounces violence, but politicians are aware of the need to engage with Hamas on some level.

There is also a need to supply some degree of support for a possible peace deal within the Palestinian public, especially among the more Islamist elements. While a dialogue between Jewish and Muslim leaders has been taking place for over a decade, a senior Israeli government source told the JC this week that "it has greatly intensified over the past six months and is of a much serious order than in the past".

The Muslim sources involved confirmed the talks but refused to comment openly.

However, Rabbi Michael Melchior, the senior Israeli participant - a former minister and currently a Labour MK - said: "There are talks at all levels with Muslim leaders, including those who have influence over Hamas.

"We all feel that in the end, the success or failure of the Annapolis summit and subsequent negotiations, is tied to the goodwill of the public on both sides."

Abbas needed to gain support also within Islamist circles, he added. "Also, for many Israelis the fact that there is no consensus within the Palestinian people causes widespread scepticism and we are trying to disprove that."

Rabbi Melchior said that one aim was for a fatwa by senior Islamic clerics to affirm the right of a Jewish state to exist in the region.

Among others, the leadership of Israel's Islamic Movement and representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are involved. Both have close political and religious ties with Hamas. As Sunnis, they also have a joint interest in minimising Iranian-Shia influence in the region.

Rabbi Melchior's hope for a fatwa by Islamic clerics affirming Israel's right to exist as Jewish state seems over- optimistic. This demand for the Arab countries to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, as well as a sovereign state, is a new and not very welcome twist in the tangled Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. The aim should be for a secure Israel to be living in peace and security next to a viable, sovereign and contiguous Palestine. Adding new demands of Arab recognition for Israel's self-definition as a Jewish state only complicates the issue.

Rami G. Khouri, in yesterday's Beirut Daily Star, has an interesting take on this.

Under the headline 'A Jewish Israel needs a healed Palestine" he argues that

One of the most complex and confounding elements that emerged during the run-up to the Annapolis meeting was the demand by several senior Israelis, and its parallel rejection by Palestinian officials, that the Palestinians recognize Israel as "a Jewish state" as a precondition for the start of talks.

There follows some fairly standard anti-Israel arguments:

The issue of the Jewish nature of Israel is so vital for Israelis that it cannot be left totally hanging in the air, rejected outright, or vaguely held out as an undefined goal or prize to be attained after some future negotiations. We in the Arab world cannot be expected to become instant Zionists, proclaiming Israel as a Jewish state, while it continues to offer the Palestinians and other Arabs brutal and long-term occupation, colonization and theft of our lands, Apartheid-like segregation in the Occupied Territories, second-class citizenship inside Israel, the jailing of over 10,000 activists and militants, routine assassinations, and collective punishment of the entire Gaza population by strangulation combined with slowly reducing its supplies of gas and electricity.

Let's put aside for now the rights and wrongs of that paragraph, and instead look ahead at Khouri's rather imaginative and encouraging proposal. The answer, he says, lies in a Bob Dylan song.

As that great American political philosopher Bob Dylan said in one his war protest songs in the 1960s, "I'll let you be in my dream, if you let me be in yours."

In this case, Israeli and Palestinian national narratives must make room for the other, if either wishes to be acknowledged and legitimized. Mutual denial will only get us to where we are today - perpetual warfare, and chronic mutual national rejection.

Israel ultimately must recognize the crimes it and others committed against the Palestinians, and the unstable conditions created by Palestinian national statelessness must be redressed by statehood and a just, negotiated resolution of the refugee issue. Israel, in the same vein, ultimately must be recognized as a state of the Jewish people, as it defines itself, but this can only be formally done as part and consequence of serious negotiations for a comprehensive, permanent peace that resolves fairly the Palestinian national shattering.

Both sides would do well to make these positions crystal clear, so that a Jewish Israel and a reconstituted, healed, wholesome Palestinian state and national community can live normal lives, side-by-side, with equal rights.

I thought this was a remarkable and encouraging article. A columnist in a Lebanese newspaper is arguing for mutual recognition of Israeli and Palestinian narratives and for a Jewish Israel and Palestinian state to live in peace. Call me a hopelessly naive idealist - and I am sure some of you will - but as Mr Zimmerman himself sings: 'The times they are a-changing'.

Nobody expected the Annapolis Middle East peace conference to have finally ended the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it was still quite a party. Just think of the networking and schmoozing opportunities. The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was there, together with Mahmoud Abbas, president of Palestine. Egypt and Jordan sent delegations and Syria too, hoping to swap the Golan Heights for a peace deal. Even the Saudi Foreign minister, Saud Al-Faisal turned up, dolefully warning that he won't shake hands with the Israelis. At least not in public, but as the Washington Post reported, he took lengthy notes while Olmert spoke and even applauded. The only important Middle East government which was not there was Palestine's, for Hamas, which won the 2006 elections, was not invited.

And that is a mistake. Hamas should have been at the negotiating table.

Yes, that's right. Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood which calls for the destruction of Israel and its replacement with an Islamic state. amas, whose ‘despatchers', safe in the warrens of Jenin and Nablus, order confused teenagers wrapped in explosives and shrapnel to blow themselves to bits on Israeli buses. Hamas, Article of 22 of whose charter blames the Jews for the French and Communist revolutions, working through the "Freemasons, the Rotary Clubs and the Lions [sic]'.

And why should have Hamas have been invited? Firstly, because, like Mount Everest, Hamas is there, and it's not going away. However unsavoury its politics, and however bloody its terrorist pedigree, however deluded its charter, without Hamas' agreement - or rather the agreement of part of Hamas's leadership - no peace agreement will be possible in Israel/Palestine. And the way to achieve is not to isolate Hamas further, but to split it in two. How? By engaging the political realists within the organisation in the political and diplomatic process. By exploiting the growing tensions between the ideologues and pragmatists, that shape every political organisation, even those of radical Islamists who claim a divine mandate. By making Hamas leaders realise that it's time to dump all the nonsense about Jewish control of Rotary and Lions Clubs, put down their rockets and engage with the world. For isolation and quarantine is further boosting the radicals, making a long-term solution more unlikely.

Apart from the most die-hard hard-liners, many in the Hamas leadership know that there is little appetite for their vision of an Islamic regime among most Palestinians. Hamas won the elections not because Palestinians in Ramallah and Nablus are dreaming of a new Caliphate, but because the hideously corrupt and chronically inept Fatah could not deliver. Not jobs, not public services and not security. But neither can Hamas, as recent events in Gaza prove. Hamas' greatest ally in its takeover of Gaza, and the setting up of
'Hamastan' was not religion, or ideology, but geography. Gaza is isolated from the West Bank and the borders with both Israel and Egypt are closed. Even if he had the means and sufficient men, it was not possible for Mahmoud Abbas to move sufficient reinforcements to Gaza to defeat Hamas.

Commentators often refer to Hamas as though it was united around its charter. In fact there are three power centres - Damascus, the West Bank and Gaza - and at least four factions within Hamas. Khaled Mashal is the head of Hamas' political leadership and lives in exile in Damascus. Mashal is among the hardest of hard-liners, doubtless partly because Mossad agents tried to poison him in a botched operation in Amman in 1997, which almost destroyed the peace accords between Israel and Jordan. (He was saved only after Mossad handed the antidote to Jordanian intelligence officers).

Hamas' leader in Gaza is Ismail Haniyeh, who was Palestinian prime minister until Mahmoud Abbas sacked him this summer. Haniyeh is also regarded as a radical but the sheer fact of exercising political power in Palestine/Gaza, rather than issuing orders from Damascus, brings an inevitable realism, if not quite moderation. There are already tensions between Haniyeh and Hamas's military wing, Izz ad-Din Al-Qassam, which mounted the coup this summer that led to the Hamas takeover in Gaza. It may be that Mashal is giving the orders to the Hamas fighters from Damascus, rather than Haniyeh. Haniyeh has also called for dialogue with Fatah.

There are Hamas leaders in both Gaza and on the West Bank, perhaps even including Haniyeh, who see the reality of Israeli military power and understand, although they may not admit it publicly, that the Jewish state is not going anywhere. Except perhaps further into the Palestinian territories as the impasse continues. So who should have been invited to Annapolis? Ghazi Hamad, for one. Earlier this year Mr Hamad, a former spokesman for Mr Haniyeh, wrote an internal letter describing Hamas's takeover of Gaza as ‘a serious strategic mistake that burdened the movement with more than it can bear'. He criticised Hamas for reacting to events and lacking a proper political strategy. He later called for negotiations with Israel. Mr Hamad's reward for all this has been an instruction from his Hamas colleagues to shut up.

Mr Hamad's stand is notable partly because it is so rare. He is, after all, just one man. Hamas remains officially committed to its charter and the destruction of the State of Israel. But even Khaled Meshal knows that in the real world, that is not going to happen. And one man can make a difference, especially when he may speak for many, or at least is floating a new idea.

Back in 1973 Said Hammami, the London representative of the Palestinian Liberation Movement wrote a seminal article in The Times (of London). It called for a ‘just peace' and a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza strip. Such arguments are now part of the political mainstream, in both Israel and Palestine, but were then revolutionary. Hammami was a brave visionary: in 1978 he was shot dead by a gunman from the renegade Palestinian group Abu Nidal.

There are precedents for bringing terrorist groups into the political process as a means of splitting them and defusing their destructive power. Northern Ireland is the most recent example, where the Irish Republican Army, or at least its political wing, Sinn Fein, is now part of the political solution rather than the military problem. Hamas has already reacted with fury to the Annapolis conference: stepping up its rhetoric against Fatah, threatening more attacks on Israel and denouncing in advance any agreements that may be reached. How different things might be if Hamas had been offered a seat at the table. Even if it was refused, the resulting internal splits and fissures between the realists and ideologues would have been most productive. To argue that Hamas should be brought into the peace process is not starry-eyed idealism or sappy liberalism. On the contrary, it is hard-headed realism.

Also in Jewcy:

• Jewcy Blogs Annapolis
  
• The Five Strangest Solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict

Tougher than your average British schoolboy: An Israeli soldierLet’s start with a confession. At my Jewish school in north London we did not much like the Israeli pupils. They wore dubonim (padded khaki army jackets) and sand-colored canvas boots. They strutted around and spoke to each other in loud Hebrew. They could drive—cars at least, and for all we knew, tanks. They appropriated without asking—as Israelis do—a space they liked the look of, a comfortable corner of the sixth-form common room. There they sat, or rather slouched, in their dubonim, with their canvas boots on the table.

Worst of all, the prettiest girls were fascinated by these tanned shtarkers. They sat in their laps. We suspected—knew—that these Israelis were actually doing it. So we fought back in the traditional Diaspora manner: with words. The cleverest boy in the school added a speech bubble to a poster of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever (this was the late 1970s). It said: “I am a Palestinian”. This caused a satisfying fury.

Eventually, I too found a girlfriend, and my annoyance abated. And I began to wonder about these Israelis. Who were they? How could they be Jews, but so utterly different to us? I even became friendly with several. They were interesting. They said what they thought. They did not use the conditional, passive circumlocutions that shape British social intercourse. They had a certain piquancy, not just because they ate different foods. They were pushy and pre-emptive, I realized, because otherwise they, and their country, would not exist. I was going to university. The Israelis were headed for the army, and would eventually go to war.

It was, I decided, time to find out more myself. I took a year out and spent six months on Kibbutz Ramat Hashofet, just south of Haifa. We worked half the day and studied Hebrew the rest. Ramat Hashofet was a leftist kibbutz, the kind of place whose founders had dreamed that one day Stalin would visit. He would say, ‘Comrades, I admit I made some administrative errors, but you, you got it right.’

Socialist paradise: Kibbutz Ramat Hashofet Stalin never made it to Ramat Hashofet. But I was there. I had dreamed of making the desert bloom and bringing forth the fruits of the earth with my bare hands. I worked in a wood factory, making ammunition boxes. It was boring, dusty and messed up my contact lenses. Even so, I could see that every day a separate group of workers arrived to feed the wood into the machines. They did not live on the kibbutz. They spoke Arabic. They were day laborers from nearby villages. I asked why they could not join the kibbutz if they worked there. Because they are not Jewish, came the reply. This did not seem very socialist to me, but Zionist socialism has different rules to the everyday variety, the kibbutzniks explained.

It all seemed to just about make sense there on Ramat Hashofet, but back in Britain, at university I still wondered. I decided to study Arabic, including a summer course in the colloquial Palestinian dialect, at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. And now, looking back, I realize that it was in that classroom that my book City of Oranges, which recounts the lives of three Jewish and three Arabs families in Jaffa, was born.

One day a fellow student, an American immigrant in his early sixties, was recounting the beauties of his Arab house. He was a nice guy, liberal, intelligent—learning Arabic, after all. His house was built from Jerusalem stone, he said. It had a terrace, high ceilings to let the breeze flow through, was spacious and airy. But his enthusiasm was tempered by regret. For he knew that his lovely house of Jerusalem stone was haunted. Not by ghosts, but by its previous owners. And one day, someone might come and knock on the door.

Fast forward more than twenty years. I am standing at the door of a large stone villa on the southern end of Jaffa with Fadwa Hasna, and her niece, Rema Hammami. Now an elegant grandmother, Fadwa grew up in this house. Rema is a feisty woman in her early forties who teaches at Bir Zeit university near Ramallah. Both are Palestinians and live in East Jerusalem.

Like Florida, but with fewer Jews: Jaffa oranges The house was built by Fadwa’s father Ahmad Hammami in the 1930s. Ahmad was the scion of an old Jaffa family and worked in the fruit and vegetable business. Another branch of the Hammami family lived next door, and the two houses shared a lush garden, filled with fruit trees, from which Fadwa's mother, Nafise, would make jam. That house is gone and the garden is a rubble-strewn lot. The Hammami villa is now an Israeli home for the elderly, with bits added, chopped off and covered in concrete. Before 1948 this quarter was called Jebbaliyyeh and was home to Jaffa’s prospering Arab middle class. It has since been renamed Givat Aliyah, meaning “Hill of Aliyah,” and the only people prospering are the local drug dealers. Palestinians who worked with Israel in Gaza are also moved here, to be ostracized by their neighbors.

Fadwa remembers the fighting between Jaffa and neighboring Tel Aviv. It erupted in November 1947 immediately after the UN resolution to partition Palestine between Jews and Arabs. First school stopped, then her father Ahmad spent nights at the barricades. By spring 1948 the right-wing Irgun, led by Menachem Begin, was determined to capture the city. Taking Jaffa, the cultural capital of Palestine, would be useful political capital in the coming intra-Zionist struggle with Ben Gurion's labor Zionists. At the end of Pesach in April Begin ordered a ferocious mortar bombardment on Jaffa. The shells rained down and tens of thousands of fled in terror. The Hammamis took a taxi to the port and a boat to Lebanon. There the family dispersed. Fadwa later married Suleyman Hasna, a scion of an old East Jerusalem family and moved to Jerusalem, then part of Jordan.

After the Six Day War the borders between Israel and the West Bank were open. Fadwa was the first Hammami to return to the family home. She came with her mother Nafise. Nafise refused to get out of the taxi when they arrived, but Fadwa talked her way inside. It’s a difficult journey to make, but Fadwa keeps coming back. And each time her children have a new baby, after a while they bring the child here, to show the house that their great-grandfather Ahmad Hammami built.

Room with a view: A minaret in Jaffa The old people's home manager is quite fed up with Fadwa. “You come and you come," he asks. "When will you stop?" Never, she replies.

Sometimes he does not want to let her in. But I remember enough Hebrew from my ulpan. “Shalom,” I say as we walk inside. “I am a British journalist. Can we see the house?”

So we go in, and Fadwa gives me a guided tour. An institutional smell pervades the place, and many of the residents are clearly in their last days. Cheap aluminium walls and partitions divide the house. But the architecture is still gracious, and I marvel at the windows, the thick stone walls, the spacious lay-out, with a large space for family meals, and the bedrooms off to the side. Fadwa shows me the family kitchen, her old room, where she used to play with her brothers and sisters. The old people watch us bemusedly as we wander around.

Had Ahmad Hammami stayed, and sat out the mortar bombardment in his cellar with his family, Fadwa might still be living there. The mortars stopped after three days when Britain, still the mandatory power, threatened to bomb Tel Aviv. But Ahmad, fearful for his family, could not have known that. Once the British left in mid-May, the new Israeli army did not have to fight their way into Jaffa. Its soldiers walked into an abandoned city. Just three or four thousand stayed: over ninety thousand had fled. “I couldn’t understand,” wrote David Ben-Gurion in his diary. “Why did the inhabitants leave?” Perhaps he should have asked Menachem Begin.

I learned a lot that day with Fadwa and Rema. About the human cost of exile and disposession, of the 1948 Israeli war of independence, which the Palestinians call Al-Nakba, the catastrophe. About the nervousness too, that underpins modern Israeli society. The fear that one day, someone will knock on the door, with a legal—or worse, a moral—claim. Perhaps that’s why Israelis, even in my school common room, feel they must mark out their territory.

Will Fadwa ever get her house back? Probably not. But never say never. Perhaps in the distant future, Israel and her neighbors will eventually make peace. The Palestinians and the Jews will all be compensated, or have their properties returned. It’s a comforting, if unlikely vision. Maybe Rema or Fadwa’s children will day settle here, with their families. For isn’t that what everybody really wants, Israeli or Palestinian, just to go home?