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

Greetings From Moldova: where Jesus was a communist carpenter Greetings from Moldova! You know, the former Soviet state bordered by Ukraine and Romania, whose special characteristics include being the poorest nation in Europe, as well as the first former Soviet state to elect a Communist as its president! It's hard to believe that a country where 98% of the population weighs in as Eastern Orthodox voted President Vladimir Voronin -- a Communist -- into office, but they did, and now priests, nuns, and assorted other believers are being intimidated and harassed by secret police.

Meanwhile, Christians in India aren't faring much better, what with increasing attacks by fundamentalist, nationalist religious groups such as radical Hindus and "anti-Christian fanatics."

And here in the U.S., a Burmese Christian refugee who gained asylum this past August is settling into his new life on the East Coast, while religious persecution in his homeland continues on.

As Daniel Henninger wrote last week in the Wall Street Journal, "The anti-Bush, anti-neocon obsession has been so constant, so often pegged to the broader Bush 'dream' for democracy and freedom, that its critics have tossed out the world's democratic babies with the Iraqi and Afghan bathwater." Roger Cohen echoed a similar theme: that anyone who favored the Iraq War, continues to believe it was the right course of action to take, and persists in the goal of democracy promotion will inevitably be slandered as a "neocon." He wrote that this sort of reasoning

...makes Vaclav Havel and Adam Michnik and Kanan Makiya and Bernard Kouchner neocons, among others who don’t think like Norman Podhoretz but have more firsthand knowledge of totalitarian hell than countless slick purveyors of the neocon insult.

For an example of this bizarre type of thinking, head on over to the blog of the New American Foundation's Steve Clemons, (last seen engaging in bizarre fantasies of "Purging the Neocons from the American Soul" and praising all-around clown Joe Wilson), where Sameer Lalwani writes of the thwarted democratic uprising in Burma:

Despite the much ballyhooed cedar, rose, and orange revolutions that turned out to be far more complex power struggles rather than purely democratic revolutions, there appears to be something qualitatively different about what is happening in Myanmar right now -- a much more organic galvanization of the population -- though I think we lack sufficient information to substantiate it.

The sneer here directed towards the Lebanese, Georgians and Ukranians--who took to the streets to demand democratic reforms, many risking their lives to do so--is simply breathtaking, especially coming from someone sitting in a cubicle at a Washington, D.C. think tank. Writing these events off as "far more complex power struggles rather than purely democratic revolutions," Lalwani thinks he's undermining the nefarious neocon project of global democracy promotion when really all he's doing is casting aspersions on masses of people with far more courage than he, pegging them down from democracy activists fighting authoritarianism to the status of urban ward heelers.

He then expresses skepticism at whether or not the events in Burma last week constituted a "purely democratic revolution" because "we lack sufficient information to substantiate it." It's no doubt the case that information out of Burma has been spotty (due to the ruling junta's running the country like a giant prison cell, shutting off the country's internet access last Friday) but there has been no shortage of news confirming the reality of the situation in Burma, if Lalwani is even paying attention.
We already have reports that thousands of monks and other protesters are "missing." Over 100 monks (and potentially many more) were slaughtered, their bodies tossed into the jungle. Tens of thousands of people protested in Rangoon's streets last week with very clear and simple demands: democratic reforms, the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, et. al. How is this not a genuine "democratic revolution?" Because those dreaded neocons supported it?

One of the commenters conspiratorially writes:

Just to note the "Democratic Voice of Burma" is financed by the NED [the National Endowment for Democracy] - a U.S. operation like Al-Hurra. So take their accounts with some salt.

Yes, the NED, that dreaded locus of evil. In actual fact, the Democratic Voice of Burma (no scare-quotes needed), is staffed by Burmese exiles in Norway and actually gets money from George Soros. Does his mighty imprimatur negate the suspicion?

Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue, Rangoon

A few years back I received a group email that linked to a chart listing the number of Jews in every nation in the world. The two figures that most blew my mind were those representing the number of Jews in Iran: 20,000, and the number of Jews in Afghanistan: 1. The first number surprised me because I had no idea so many Jews remained in Iran after the Revolution. The second number gripped me on a purely existential level. I imagined, rather dramatically, this lone Jew living out his days against a monochrome landscape of bleached sand and rubble, without a single co-religionist in sight. Practically a sci-fi existence.

The chart linked to this guy’s story, and I was pretty fascinated. For a while there was one other Jew in the country, but the two fought over a bible and became hateful enemies. Then the second to last Jew in Afghanistan died. You can read more about the last Jew in Afghanistan here.

I just came across another interesting statistic, though. There are twenty Jews left in Burma. Their mini-community is in the capital, Rangoon, and they occasionally celebrate holidays with Buddhist monks. Here’s Ynet News on what it’s been like for them lately:

"These are the saddest Rosh Hashana and Sukkot we've had in a very long time… we had to adjust the prayer services to the military's curfew, the streets are crawling with soldiers and the situation here is very unstable. The Jews, like many others here, fear for their lives," said Samuels.

The tensions between the military junta and Buddhist monks have made the Jewish community take extra precautions and they have recently hired a private security company, to guard Yangon's only synagogue.

"The unrest here makes it hard for us to even find the quorum needed for prayers," said Samuels. "There are usually a lot of tourists here this time of year, but this year, because of the riots, there are very few of them. Everywhere you look all you see are people rushing home," he added.

"We all pray that the UN negotiations will help restore the peace and quiet to this country," the article quotes one of the twenty as saying. Pray, indeed. Today, China’s ambassador came out against sanctions, and Burma’s ambassador said he can’t understand why there would be need for international action of any kind. Once again, we witness U.N. paralysis at the hands of sinister opportunists treated as statesmen.

Here’s to justice for the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and all other good people of Burma.

An emotional Sylvester Stallone told the Associated Press this week that he had witnessed some horrendous things during the filming of his action movie “John Rambo” on the Thai-Burmese border recently. “Survivors with legs cut off and all kinds of land-mine injuries, maggot-infested wounds and ears cut off… We hear about Vietnam and Cambodia and this was more horrific.”

Sly’s political antennae have always been finely tuned. The last time we saw John Rambo, you will recall, was some twenty years ago, when he almost single-handedly liberated [sic] the people of Afghanistan from Soviet rule in Rambo III, a movie that immediately entered the Guinness Book of Records as the most violent ever made. I say ‘almost’ single-handedly because Rambo doesn’t have to do everything himself, of course; he enlists the help of the plucky mujahideen to kick the invaders’ collective ass, and the film is famously, if with hindsight slightly ironically, dedicated “to the gallant people of Afghanistan”. Sample dialogue:

Mousa: This is Afghanistan... Alexander the Great try to conquer this country... then Genghis Khan, then the British. Now Russia. But Afghan people fight hard, they never be defeated. Ancient enemy make prayer about these people... you wish to hear?
Rambo: Um-hum.
Mousa: Very good. It says, 'May God deliver us from the venom of the Cobra, teeth of the tiger, and the vengeance of the Afghan.' Understand what this means?
Rambo: That you guys don't take any shit?
Mousa: Yes... something like this.

Rambo was scarcely the only celluloid franchise to lionize the bravery of the mujahideen, of course; perhaps the apogee of this late 80’s trend was The Living Daylights’ ludicrous, Oxford-educated Kamran Shah, who helps a grateful James Bond escape from a Russian airbase in a commandeered cargo plane. (Hollywood, for all its faults, sniffs the zeitgeist carefully. By 1994, Art Malik’s heroic mujahideen rebel had morphed, with eerie prescience, into True Lies’ controversial Arab terrorist, Salim Abu Aziz, threatening to “rain fire” on American cities unless US troops were pulled out of “the Persian Gulf area immediately and forever”.)

The Afghan freedom fighters were anti-imperialists for the Reagan era; Rambo gave us license to cheer on the good guys against a easily identified enemy, but was careful not to require us to bring our brains into the theater if we didn’t want to; no complicated politics for audiences to digest, just a quick set-up to establish that the Soviets were the bad guys and on with the shooting.

So if the grizzled Vietnam vet is now setting his sights on the bastards who now subjugate the Burmese people, maybe there is hope yet for this forsaken corner of the world. Rambo doesn’t have the time, or inclination, to wrestle with the great geopolitical issues of our day; he was never a political animal, after all, but just wanted to be left alone. Stallone says that he decided on Burma by phoning up Soldier of Fortune magazine and asking them who the worst guys in the world were, a conversation I would have paid good money to listen in on. (“It’s who?”) It may be a crassly simplistic way of getting across a complex political message, but if this dull-witted action hero reminds ordinary moviegoers of a long-forgotten injustice, than maybe some good will come of it after all.

Lest you be tempted to belittle the Stallone effect, witness the shameless bandwagon-jumping on the part of the UN’s infamous Human Rights Council, who this week caused a minor sensation by adding Burma to the hitherto rather short list of countries singled out for censure by that august body. In fact, until Sly weighed in earlier this week, only one country had ever been condemned by the UNHRC (I won’t demean your intelligence by wondering if you can guess which one). Hell, even the Chinese voted for censure – having carefully vetoed an earlier Security Council resolution to the same effect. The pecs may not ripple quite as brightly as before, but John Rambo still has the power to make men tremble, and we can learn a surprising amount from watching cultural trends, however low-brow. If I were a Sudanese government minister, I’d take out a subscription to Variety.

Our Sufi neocon baba gives a potted history of the land in which Orwell served as a colonial civil servant and concludes that Chinese intervention isn't the answer:

Some Western pundits have argued that a China now oriented toward capitalist growth has an incentive to dissuade the Burmese army from administering a bloodbath. Such optimism about Beijing, however, is vain.The only hope for the rescue of the tormented peoples of Burma resides in the solidarity expressed by President George W. Bush at the U.N. General Assembly when he said, "Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma. The ruling junta remains unyielding, yet the people's desire for freedom is unmistakable."
 
Cynics may decry the president's stand as a mere effort to renew the vision of democratization that accompanied U.S. intervention in Iraq. But Burma--like Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzia before it--shows that the weak links in the global chain of tyranny are breaking, one by one, and that the worldwide movement for entrepreneurship, accountability, and popular sovereignty can assert itself, with or without the help of outsiders. For Americans and all haters of oppression, the message is clear: The United States should show effective support for the aspirations of Burma's diverse citizens; tougher sanctions against the regime are only the beginning.  

50 year-old Japanese photographer Kenji Nagai was brutally shot at point blank range on the streets of Yangon yesterday. His crime was doing his job. Below is the chilling YouTube of the murder, which is proof enough that Burma's dictatorship must end. 

Welcome to the age of post-post-colonialism. One almost feels a vicarious thrill for apologists of religion like Madeleine Bunting of Comment is Free, or Our Maddy of the Sorrows, as Norm Geras calls her. She's taken the spectacle of tens of thousands of marching Buddhist monks to taunt atheists: "Will Richard Dawkins accuse these monks of child abuse for encouraging young boys to join their monasteries?"

Well, he'd be a cad to do that at a time like this, wouldn't he? Though would it be too much to ask Bunting to acknowledge the tens of thousands of secular and lay Burmese also risking life and limb to defy a miserable junta?