Fred Krupp : Innovative Environmentalist & Clean Air Guru

Fred Krupp is too reasonable to be a traditional environmentalist. That is why he isn't. He is an innovator. From the Acid Rain Program to this year's TXU Mega-deal, Krupp is on the scene. As the president of Environmental Defense, he has cut an interesting path within the environmental movement (outside of it too). They were the Environmental Defense Fund but changed the name about a decade or so ago. Of course, he is backed by an incredible staff of practical environmentalists.

Environmental Defense helped create the cap and trade system that is so popular everywhere today. Cap and trade is behind the universally agreed upon success of the Clean Air Act Acid Rain Program. Krupp and crew did not support the Clear Skies Initiative even though it was based on the Acid Rain Program. Environmental Defense did complete AAEA's Diversity Survey (one of only 4 other groups to do so). Krupp even attended our diversity meeting along with the heads of 12 other environmental groups in 2002. Environmental Defense received a good rating according to the criteria in the survey. So if you are a minority and want to work for an environmental group, you will find a good home at Environmental Defense. Yep. Krupp is a clean air guru and environmental innovator.

Global Warming Bills Should Address Environmental Justice

Global warming legislation should address environmental justice concerns related to the perception that emission trading programs cause disproportionate pollution from older, dirtier plants to negatively impact low-income and minority communities. Although carbon dioxide poses a global threat, old plants might still remain open in minority communities.

AAEA is recommending an Environmental Justice Allowance Reserve (EJAR) to address the racial 'Hot Spots' issue. These allowances would come from a special reserve, similar to the current Acid Rain Program Renewable Energy and Conservation Reserve, when the initial allowance allocation is made. They would be awarded to utilities that undertake environmental justice practices and programs designed to promote carbon dioxide offsets. Utilities could choose to work with organizations and businesses that conduct environmental justice activities that reduce related emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury. The EJAR should receive an allocation of 50 million allowances.

The EJAR program will leverage allowances and resources to promote environmental justice practices and projects designed to:

1) Increase the installation of pollution control equipment and carbon dioxide offsets,
2) Promote community education and
3) Enhance health-related activities.

Allowances are fully marketable commodities. Once allocated, allowances may be bought, sold, traded, or banked for use in future years. Contact us at: AfricanAmericanEnvironmentalist@msn.com

Amtrak Illinois Ridership is Growing

National network and state-supported trains report increases

CHICAGO - Amtrak trains in Illinois have racked up impressive ridership and revenue in the first few months of the railroad's fiscal year, with significant growth on all the routes. Under a new contract with the State of Illinois, there is additional service on all three Downstate routes.

‘Our’ correspondent in Iraq tells all

I am here out of patriotism and a commitment to Iraqis. They have suffered mightily at our hands and I feel a need to do what I can. It was purely accidental that I was given this chance. But once I was asked, I was in an existential dilemma in which to say ‘no’ made me feel like I was running away from responsibility and a my professed principles.

Once I got here I got attached to the dozen or two Iraqis I worked with directly, and a greater number of Iraqis and ex-pats I interacted with casually. I came back in large measure because of the bravery and patriotism of the Iraqis. They paid costs I would not bear. Their commitment strengthened mine. I also felt I could improve on the job I had done before. On the other hand, the money is good. It was not that great on the first tour, but it is on this one. I am not KBR [the subsidiary of Halliberton that’s the biggest US contractor in Iraq] but I am not suffering. Moral commitment is made easier when coupled with economic advantage. You may take my earnings as an offset to my statement about conscience, but honestly, both are true.

My final answer to the question of whether I have been/can be effective is "I don't know." The element within the State Department to whom we report is the Iraq Reconstruction Management Organization (IRMO). IRMO has been resistant to a lot of my ideas for good reasons and bad, but is coming around. In “Mythbusters,” a show on TV, one of the characters says, "I reject your reality and substitute my own." Ideology still trumps reality here. On the other hand, good and sensible ideas become irrelevant with one "boom."

So, here's the story. As of yesterday, my current mission is to: a) create materials and training for starting business support centers across Iraq when there is enough order for them to develop; b) devise methods for encouraging self-sufficiency among such centers; c) write a program through which the centers can derive income; d) train Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) about how to use the materials when we are gone, and how to integrate resources across local, provincial, “governate” [a regional authority] and even national boundaries. In the process, I have written one book on best practices for business centers and am completing another, a handbook on how to create a business in Iraq....

WIthout going into too much detail, the current plan is the latest of literally a dozen made by me and rejected by IRMO. Plans began with an attempt to extend the Baghdad Private Business Center we initially created and to derive an Iraq Business Alliance of business support and professional associations. That plan "exploded." Plans since then have varied widely from creating an all-Iraq Internet/electronic business community; distance training both as part of the above and as a free standing resource; pilot business centers all over Iraq within functioning business institutions like chambers to reduce security and other costs; etc. etc. etc. My latest rejected plan, based on wide collaboration within and outside of Iraq (including Jordan and Egypt), plus integration with some of the work done by USAID, was rejected because, I believe, it increased our independence from IRMO, created a situation in which IRMO would have to share credit with AID, and the US share credit with others.

Of course, that is a microscopic and personal view. in a larger sense, the key impediment to any "real" contribution is the violence and disorder. I write about it all the time. Last week, two people I casually knew and siblings of two Iraqis working here died. The Iraqis were strangers. One of those I knew was the South African [Glen] who I described many months ago as the one who fed the cats at dusk and suffered unrequited love.

Glen had two weeks to go, had packed up early, invested all of his earnings (foolishly) in a million pounds of feed for the cattle farm he owns, and to sell at a profit. He intended to retire and be self sufficient. He has a large family. His memorial service was last Saturday. The other was an American, a relative newbee I only saw but never knew. The two died when a mortar misfired and hit them in error. It did not make the news. Nor are Iraqi and contractor deaths counted as war casualties, though these men were engaged in tasks that otherwise the military would have had to do. The Iraqi siblings died in separate car bombings.

The second largest impediment is the U.S. presence and incredible incompetence associated therewith, plus the concomitant Iraqi incompetence that the American presence rewards and even inspires. This week's example: The good guys basically know who fired the mortar that took Glen. The bad guy fires about the same time – 6:30-7:30 AM – several times a week from spots not far from here. A joke on compound is that if we do not hear a mortar exiting a tube (it is loud pop, sometimes followed by a whooshing sound like a distant public urinal flushing) we figure he's on vacation and speculate where he might be. The protective forces send Iraqi and American foot patrols, Iraqi police and militia vehicles, American military vehicles of every description, American military and contractor (Blackwater) helicopter overflights, and American jet aircraft every night, but never at 6:30-7:30. I'm guessing the residents and squatters, and maybe the militia, know where he is.

Way more important as elements of the incompetence of occupation are policies that come out of the embassy or DoD, which change without reason, become semi-secret edicts that everybody knows, and still rest more on ideology than reality. I could give a zillion examples.... One of the great difficulties in doing this work is that any Iraqi seen with Americans – as we ride in our armored suburbans and humvees and caravans, drive people off the road, and project incredible arrogance as occupiers – is a marked Iraqi. So is his family. It is not good for therm. Do not doubt that, with few exceptions (excluding most of Kurdistan), we are hated....

Bush Beats Gore Again : This Time on Home Environment

Former Vice President Gore has an energy guzzling home and President Bush has an energy friendly home. It is being reported that Gore has a 20-room home and pool house that used 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours. The Gore 2006 energy bill: $30,000 - enough for the average person to live on. Just like the Hollywood stars advertising their Prius but not their other 10 cars and 5 homes, the former VP is living large. We are sure he will do something about it, just as he did with the leaking underground storage tanks at the Naval Observatory when he lived there.

By contrast President Bush's 4,000 square foot home in Crawford, Texas is eco-friendly and uses geothermal heat pumps located in a central closet circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees. The water heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. It uses about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems utilize. A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof runs; wastewater from sinks, toilets and showers goes into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding the four-bedroom home. (Source: Chicago Times)

Five Western Governors Agree to Reduce Greenhouse Gases

Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, and Oregon have joined with California in an agreement to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. They will establish reduction targets in six months and design a regional cap and trade system within a year after that. They will have to get approval from thier respective legislatures. California has already passed legislation. Northesastern states have already established a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

These states need to support the aggressive construction of nuclear power plants if they are serious about their carbon dioxide reduction programs. We suspect they are not serious, particularly Nevada -- note their absence from this group. Nevada is probably afraid they would have to endorse Yucca Mountain as the repository (and recycling center if AAEA had its way) for nuclear waste. In 2003, California, Oregon and Washington created the West Coast Global Warming Initiative, and in 2006, Arizona and New Mexico launched the Southwest Climate Change Initiative. So maybe we are wrong about Nevada. (New Mexico Business Weekly)

The agreement is called the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative. The governors include: Janet Napolitano (AZ- Upper Right), Bill Richardson (NM), Chris Gregoire (WA), Ted Kulongoski (OR) and of course Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA). (Wash Post)

Jewish call for ‘Exodus’ from Iraq

Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s Shalom Center is circulating a stirring call to end the war in Iraq: “WHAT BETTER TIME THAN PASSOVER TO BEGIN THE EXODUS FROM IRAQ? – A JEWISH CALL TO END THE WAR BY 9/11."

What makes this issue difficult for me is not that the US should never have invaded Iraq in the first place, that one is easy. It's that the war is no longer primarily about the US being there.

If we left Iraq immediately, would this stop the sectarian warfare that is taking hundreds of lives each week? We honestly don't know if withdrawing US troops at this point would dampen down the violence or the opposite. My impression is that a US presence in parts of Baghdad actually saves Sunni lives; and this is what many Sunnis believe. The irony of this is monumental, considering that we invaded to end a Sunni-dominated tyranny and have empowered a Shiite-dominated government today.

Maybe there's nothing better for our forces to do than to get out of the way and let the Sunnis and Shiites fight it out to a bloody mutual exhaustion. But this is not exactly a pro-peace or progressive perspective. My frustration is that there is no obviously humane or correct answer to this conundrum.

New Jews of Silence?

Our blogger friend from Chicago, Gidon D. Remba, has written this article in his periodic column in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, Feb. 22: "Are We the New Jews of Silence?"

“We were the Jews of Silence, the Jews enjoying security, the Jews of the Western world.... What torments me most is . . . the silence of the Jews I live among today,” wrote Elie Wiesel a generation ago in a “Letter to a Young Jew in the U.S.S.R.” Today, there is another silence among the Jews of America: the silence that a few would impose on the rest. It brooks no criticism of Israel, always the righteous victim of Arab enmity. Enforcing quiet—supporting Israel right or wrong—is essential to preserving Israel’s status quo, a condition which, as we all know, is truly the best of all possible worlds.

And what if the status quo is, in fact, toxic to Israel? What if it is a poison eating away at the foundations of the state, fouling its Jewish and democratic values and corrupting the young who are its future, some of whom must venture into the West Bank to suppress and control the Palestinian population? Counter-insurgency and the occupation of villages and cities is ugly, but they are necessary evils in the face of a barbarous and genocidal war against the Jews and the Jewish state.

But what if it is not all for the sake of Israel’s security? What if our brave Jewish fighters sometimes serve the interests of Jewish settlers who encroach on Palestinian land, steal their olive trees, build wildcat Jewish outposts in violation of Israeli law and then bar the Palestinians by force from their property? To make matters worse, what if they manage to co-opt sympathetic government agencies, and the Jewish state itself now becomes complicit in their piracy? And what if, in the course of duty, our soldiers do many things to ordinary Palestinians which they themselves cannot justify as necessary to protect the lives of Israel’s citizens?

Click to read the entire article online.

Black Entrepreneurs Should Emulate Joe Kennedy

Joe Kennedy cut a $100 million advertising and oil deal with evolving dictator of Venezuela Hugo Chavez. You've seen the television commercials. Poor people getting served by Kennedy's Citizen's Energy, based in Boston, Massachusetts. AAEA's president visited the operation 25 years ago. Kennedy is providing a great service to people having trouble heating their homes. Hugo Chavez is also having fun advertising his company all over the USA. If Kennedy is planning on running for office soon, these are great commercials to get his name back out in front of the public.

Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover and Cornel West visited with Hugo Chavez and instead of cutting a Kennedy-type of deal to advance African American ownership of energy infrastructure and product, they denounced President Bush. If AAEA had the opportunity to meet with Chavez we would try to negotiate some sort of equity deal. The Black consumer market for energy products in America is huge; we just do now own any of its tools. So next time a "prominent' Black gets in front of Chavez, please try to at least broker a tanker deal, drilling deal or refinery deal. Something. Anything besides just screaming insults at Bush. (Wash Post)

UPDATE: Props to Danny Glover who DID cut a $30 million deal with Chavez to finance his movie about Toussaint L'ouverture.

Cities Make You Skinny

People who live in the densest, pedestrian-friendly parts of New York City have a significantly lower body mass index (BMI) compared to other New Yorkers, a new study finds.

Um, duh

Vox Evangelica Volume 6 (1969) now on-line

The following articles are now on-line in PDF:

David R. Jackson, "Education and Entertainment: Some Aspects of Life in New Testament Times," Vox Evangelica 6 (1969): 4-31.

I found this the most interesting of the articles in this issue. Based, as it is, on a careful study of classical sources it seems likley to have enduring value.

Arthur C. Cundall, "Sacral Kingship--The Old Testament Background," Vox Evangelica 6 (1969): 31-41.

Leslie C. Allen, "Amos, Prophet of Solidarity," Vox Evangelica 6 (1969): 42-53.

Geoffrey W. Grogan, "Christ and His People: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Henbrews 2: 5-18," Vox Evangelica 6 (1969): 54-71.

J. Clements Connell, "A review article on Jurgen Moltmann's Theology of Hope (S.C.M.)," Vox Evangelica 6 (1969): 72-77.

Dingell & Solis Seek Underground Leak & Money Fix

A General Acounting Office (GAO) report requested jointly by Reps. Hilda Solis, right, and John Dingell, left, shows the public cost of cleaning up leaking underground storage tanks is $12 billion and that these leaks are negatively impacting public health and our water supplies. In its response to the GAO state survey, California noted that there are approximately 14,800 leaks in its "cleanup backlog," 80 percent of which have affected groundwater at levels requiring cleanup. 9,000 of these leaks (approximately 60 percent) contain MTBE at levels that require cleanup.

The Trust Fund had a surplus of $2.57 billion in 2006 that is expected to grow to $3.0 billion at the end of Fiscal Year 2008. The tax on gasoline brought in $197 million in 2006 and an additional $99 million was collected in interest on the amounts in the Trust Fund. President Bush only requested $72.4 million in his FY 2008 budget for cleanup, which is approximately 2.82 percent of the total amount in the Trust Fund. A Press Release by Reps. Dingell and Solis provides more information.

Congresswoman Hilda Solis (D-CA) has also introduced an environmental justice bill to codify Executive Order 12898 and to require the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to fully implement the recommendations of the Inspector General of the Agency.

"Every soldier is king" By J. Zel Lurie

In martial law, which has prevailed on the West Bank since June 1967, every soldier is a king. Some of them act like King Antiochus of Persia before he crowned Queen Esther. Take this incident at a checkpoint witnessed by the Jewish ladies of Machsom Watch [Israeli women who try to protect Palestinians from abuse at checkpoints]:

A soldier examining a Palestinian driver noticed a daily paper sitting on the windshield. The soldier asked to look at the headlines. The Palestinian driver refused. He said he was in a hurry. The soldier ordered him to stand aside.

A little while later the commander appeared. He explained to the Palestinian: “Here the soldier is the law. If he asks you for your underwear you give it to him. Now go.”

The driver was lucky that the Machsom ladies were present. They witnessed the soldier’s action and called the commander.

Machsom Watch is a group of about 400 middle class Jewish ladies who go out to about 40 permanent checkpoints in the West Bank twice a day in the early morning and the late afternoon. There are over 500 permanent and flying checkpoints in the West Bank,

Their reports are digested and edited and sent by email once a week to interested parties. The latest report for February 11 to 17 shows that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s recent promise to ease restrictions at West Bank checkpoints was honored for a day or two. And then it was business as usual. The full reign of the army, replete with confused orders that change from day to day, was completely restored.

At the Huwwara checkpoint, a few minutes from Nablus, on Sunday February 11 at 3.30 p.m., the Machsom Watch ladies reported that men and women age 15 to 35 from Nablus are not allowed to pass. Residents of the Tulkarim and Jenin districts are not allowed at the Huwwars CP and must go through Bait Ibo. “Great confusion among both soldiers and Palestinians,” the ladies report.

“A 33-year old resident of Deir Balut with his 25-year old wife were turned back to Nablus,” the report continues. Deir Balut is 20 minutes from Nablus through Huwwara. It is four hours away over bad roads through Beit Iba. The Arabs claimed they had a sick mother at home. No dice. In the name of security, the couple made the long ride home.

On the same day, at the Beit Furiq checkpoint, a Nablus doctor who spends one day a week at the Beit Furiq clinic was turned back to Nablus. He kept repeating in English. “I am a doctor. Doctors have an international status. That is the way it is all over the world.” But not in Beit Furiq on February 11. He was from Nablus and he was sent back. The sick in Beit Furiq will have to wait until next week for treatment.

The next day, some people from Nablus with medical problems or permits to work in East Jerusalem found a way to get through to Qalandia, the main entrance to Jerusalem from the north. On Monday, February 12, Machsom Watch ladies tried in vain to help men from Nablus with permits to work in East Jerusalem. They were turned away.

Four women with sick children who held one-day permits to East Jerusalem hospitals were held up because they came from Nablus. Here the Machsom ladies were able to help. “Our intervention succeeded,” the ladies reported. “The soldiers had misunderstood the orders,” the ladies were told.

What exactly were the orders? Why the discrimination against Nablus residents? No one knows. No ordinary Israeli, certainly no Palestinian is allowed to question army security. The soldier is king and he has been king for almost 40 years.

What is true for the soldiers is true for the Border Police. Machsom Watch reports that the BP has been carrying on a feud with the village of Huwwara.

For weeks BP jeeps hung out in the courtyard of the girls high school. This stopped when three of the older girls filed a complaint. But then harassment of the whole village began. The residents say that the BP’s objective is to pressure them to withdraw the complaint.

On Sunday February 11, the ladies report on the testimony of the girls who made the complaint and on a conversation with the BP commander as to why his men on the roof of a residential building were keeping fearful women and children awake all night.

“They are there for road surveillance,” said the commander. To the ladies query of why they can’t survey from the roofs of commercial buildings where no one sleeps, he answered: “We mustn’t interfere with security considerations. It is our right to climb on any roof we choose.”

At 4 PM that day a curfew was enforced by the BP. All shops in Huwarra village were shut. The excuse was that some kids threw stones at a BP jeep.

Two days later at 4:40 PM, Machsom Watch ladies in Huwwara village observed ten men standing in the rain. They had been ordered out of their workshop by the BP while their papers were examined.

The feud continues. The power is with the army, but the villagers are steadfast.

Applebee's and the Death of Sprawl

Applebee's, the institution that has come to symbolize the vitality of strip-mall America, recently announced quarterly losses. The corporation may begin unloading their stores to franchises.

Why?

"High fuel prices have forced its customers to cut back on dining out"

Applebee's considers sale
Casual dining chain Applebee's International (APPB) is exploring its strategic options, including a possible sale of the company.
The casual dining sector has struggled for the past year as high fuel prices have forced its customers to cut back on dining out.
Applebee's January sales of restaurants open at least a year fell 5.8 percent, partly because of winter weather. The struggles have led a major shareholder to press for change, including electing four new board members and selling most of the company-owned restaurants to franchisees.

When corporate stalwarts of the suburban lifestyle and the leader in "well-slathered" food start making plans to Cut-and-Run, can the Death of Sprawl be far behind?

If you own a suburban home far from work and urban life, get out while you still have a chance.

Come back to cities where you can walk to a restaurant.

(hat tip to JH)

Derek Tidball on Vox Evangelica

I now have access to the entire run of Vox Evangelica which is now listed here. In the final edition Derek Tidball gives an excellent retrospective on the series:

Derek J. Tidball, "Editorial Note: Vox Evangelica 1962-1997," Vox Evangelica 27 (1997): 6.

F.F. Bruce on Biblical Exegesis at Qumran

The following monograph is now on-line in PDF:

F.F. Bruce, Biblical Exegesis in the Qumran Texts. London: The Tyndale Press, 1960. Pbk. pp.88.

F.F. Bruce looks at the "pesher" exegesis used at Qumran and explores how this helps us to understand how the early church interpreted the OT. My thanks to the late Professor Bruce's daughter for her kind permission to reproduce this important study.

Prof. Rosenfeld’s Notorious Paper

This is an excellent editorial by Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of New Jersey Jewish News, a paper I occasionally write for. Please note that this begins by summarizing Rosenfeld’s thesis without endorsing it:

The AJC and the Left: a work in progress

Here’s what the average reader might learn after reading “‘Progressive’ Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism,” the much-talked-about paper written by Indiana University professor Alvin Rosenfeld and published by the American Jewish Committee:

There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism, mainly in the Muslim world, but also among Western leftist intellectuals. The forms of this anti-Semitism seem new but actually play on classic Jewish stereotypes, from the poisoning of wells to “Protocols”-like manipulations of government and finance.

The most insidious forms of this new anti-Semitism include the hyperbolic language used to denounce Israel’s actions and the hostile way intellectuals challenge the Jews’ very right to a state of their own.

The Jewish writers named in the paper — poet Adrienne Rich, British polemicist Jacqueline Rose, and a professor at Bard College named Joel Kovel, for example — typify “one of the most distressing features of the new anti-Semitism — namely, the participation of Jews alongside it, especially in its anti-Zionist expression.”

Here’s what you don’t learn from Rosenfeld’s paper: How widespread are these views among Jewish “progressives”? When Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, a self-described “writer and poet, activist, scholar and teacher,” writes that she is renouncing her “right to return,” does she represent some, many, or most “progressives”? Who is Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz?

If there is a “drift of ‘progressive’ Jewish thought” in this direction, as Rosenfeld asserts, what are his measures for this “drift”? How does he define the marketplace of ideas, and how influential are these Jews “who are proud to be ashamed to be Jews” (that’s Rosenfeld quoting British lawyer Anthony Julius)?

Since the paper does not acknowledge their existence, should the reader assume that there are no Jewish “progressives” who represent a countervailing force or trend — that is, of unabashed Zionist leftism?

Since The New York Times reported on Rosenfeld’s paper early this month, reaction to it has been swift and vociferous. The paper has its defenders, including Shulamit Reinharz, a professor of sociology at Brandeis University, and Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick. “Far from seeking to silence these hostile Jewish voices,” Glick writes, “Rosenfeld’s essay simply serves to draw lines between friend and foe where such lines are important.”

Much of the criticism of the paper, especially on the Left, challenged Rosenfeld’s premise that certain forms of invective aimed at Israel — namely, the use of Nazi and apartheid imagery and calls for a “binational” state of Arabs and Jews — are prima facie evidence of anti-Semitism. Still others suggested that the “anti-Semitism” label is intended to squash debate on Israel.

For their part, Rosenfeld and the AJC deny this last point. AJC executive director David A. Harris issued a statement, declaring, “It is important to stress that [Rosenfeld] has not suggested that those about whom he writes are anti-Semitic.” This is simply disingenuous. Rosenfeld builds an eight-page argument that certain views and attitudes exemplify the “new anti-Semitism” and then quotes at length the Jewish writers who hold these very views. If that is his definition of the new anti-Semitism, in what ways are these writers not anti-Semites? How can you participate “alongside” anti-Semitism without being a purveyor?

Or perhaps Harris is not being disingenuous, and Rosenfeld genuinely believes that Rose, Kovel, et al, are not anti-Semitic. If so, that strengthens the argument of critics like the New Republic’s John Judis, who writes that “harsh denunciation of Israeli policies can be offensive without being anti-Semitic.” In fact, if you take away Rosenfeld’s once-over-lightly treatment of the “new anti-Semitism,” you really have an expose and rebuttal of some extremely offensive writings by some seriously misinformed or malevolent thinkers.

But Rosenfeld is not satisfied with exposing and rebutting these folks; he wants to tie them instead to something darker and more dangerous. As Harris puts it in his statement, Rosenfeld has “courageously taken on the threat that arises when a Jewish imprimatur is given to the campaign to challenge Israel’s very legitimacy.” The threat, the reader can only presume, is that the enemies of the Jews are strengthened when they can point to Jews who may share some of their arguments about Israel’s behavior and legitimacy. It’s an academic version of former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer’s comments, soon after 9/11, that Americans “need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.”

Is this true, and in what context? When a Jew writes an anti-Zionist essay or a book that compares the Palestinian territories to the Warsaw Ghetto, does that make things worse for other Jews and the State of Israel, and in what ways? To turn it around, if no Jew held these views, or if no publisher would print them, would the world’s attitudes toward Israel be any more positive? Would the threat to Israel be any less dire?

There is another threat, and that is the danger that once you start declaring certain ideas and writers a “threat,” you don’t know how to stop. That’s certainly what happened when Rosenfeld cherry-picked a single column on the Lebanon war by Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen. Ignoring his long-standing support for Israel and devotion to the subject, Rosenfeld accused Cohen of purveying “the age-old indictment of the Jews.” (Harris has apologized, somewhat grudgingly, to Cohen, saying his “disturbing comments expressed this summer…do not reflect the totality of his occasional writings on the Middle East”).

And then there is the threat that when you “draw lines between friend and foe,” the boundaries you sketch become narrower and narrower. What I find most unfortunate about Rosenfeld’s essay is his equation, from the title onward, of “progressive” with “anti-Semitism.” In the good old days of ideological ornithology, when it was the Right that was more likely than the Left to be analyzed for its anti-Semitism, academics were always careful to distinguish among, say, conservatives, paleo-conservatives, and neoconservatives. These distinctions made clear that while individuals may share certain beliefs, that doesn’t mean they share all the same beliefs.

Rosenfeld doesn’t mention the Zionist leftists who defend Israel in “progressive” settings, with, admittedly, varying disagrees of success. He doesn’t mention the network of American Zionist organizations, like Ameinu and Meretz USA, who support their counterparts in the Knesset and the Israeli Left. He doesn’t even call on leftist Zionists, as you might expect he would, to clean their ranks of those who “participate” in the new anti-Semitism. To do so, he would have to acknowledge that there are alternative “progressive” Jewish voices to those he lambastes in his paper. A mainstream Jewish organization with AJC’s reputation for scholarship and measured activism should know better than to hand an emboldened right wing a cudgel with which to beat nearly anyone to its left.

That being said, there’s work to do on the Left. Gleeful bloggers have suggested that the negative reaction to the AJC paper is the sign of a reborn “movement” of Jews who agree with their criticism of Israel. Perhaps. And yet it’s not enough to declare “I’m no anti-Semite” and at the same time only engage with Israel and Jewish life to the degree to which you protest its policies and attack its mainstream. “Progressive” also means imagining a positive, engaged expression of Judaism and Zionism, not just tearing down its myths and idols.

Rosenfeld’s paper is an attack on a movement’s extreme. The non-extremists within that movement should use their moment in the sun to express a leftist Zionism that proudly earns the name “progressive.”

How to make the Saudi peace plan work

Yossi Alpher, a pioneer strategist on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking efforts, is co-editor of the “Bitterlemons” family of internet publications. This is a slightly abridged version of his latest online posting:

... in order for the plan to be more appealing Saudi strategists should consider enhancing it in a number of ways.

First, the original plan demands that Israel return to the 1967 borders as a condition for peace. Yet even the late King Hussein of Jordan and the PLO's Yasser Arafat recognized that territorial swaps and compromises have over the years become necessary. The plan should recognize and accommodate this factor with regard to both the Palestinian and the Syrian peace fronts.

Second, the plan offers Israel peace, normal relations and--perhaps most important given present conditions in the region--"security for all the states of the region". But what does this mean? It would be very helpful to present Israel with a more detailed description of the mutual security arrangements the plan contemplates, as an incentive for territorial concessions that might otherwise endanger Israel.

Third, the plan calls for "a just solution of the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194". Back in March 2002 this was touted as an Arab concession, insofar as the plan recognizes the need for all sides to agree and does not demand the right of return (in fact, neither does 194 if read carefully in its original context). Yet that same Beirut Arab League summit that approved the plan then went on to pass three successive resolutions reaffirming its demand for the right of return, as if no significant change in Arab positions had just transpired. Israel, which would be committing national suicide if it accepted the right of return..., needs to hear clarifications on this issue.

Particularly troublesome for Israel is the concluding operative paragraph of the 2002 plan, which calls upon the League secretary general to recruit support for it from the United Nations, the United States, Russia, the Muslim states and the European Union--everybody but Israel. The objective seemed to be to compel Israel to accept the plan without discussion, debate or negotiation. This approach has to change. The Saudis and the Arab League have to address Israel directly. They have to come to Jerusalem to present their revised plan to the government and public of Israel. If they do so in the tradition of Anwar Sadat and King Hussein, they will be amazed at how forthcoming the Israeli public can be.

Finally, the plan has to be broken down into workable stages and integrated into the new and threatening regional context. Israel can be asked to make the first move, but there must be Arab initiatives, too. And both sides need to perceive that there are incentives to progress toward Arab-Israel peace and regional security cooperation.

Phase I should involve two Israeli steps. First, discussions with the PLO to clarify the territorial and other parameters of a successful two-state solution. This corresponds with recent "diplomatic horizon" proposals made by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni for jump-starting the peace process. The Rice-Abbas-Olmert summit of Feb. 19 was a problematic beginning, but nonetheless a beginning.

In parallel, Jerusalem should enter into preliminary back-channel negotiations with Damascus concerning the possibility of bilateral peace talks that would satisfy Israel and the United States' (and the Arabs') needs regarding cessation of Syrian support for terrorism and strategic collaboration with Iran, if and as an Israeli-Syrian territories-for-peace deal is reached. This reflects the inclination of many within the Israeli security establishment to test President Bashar Assad's invitation to Israel to renew negotiations. If, however, the Saudis share American reservations about rewarding the problematic Assad with even exploratory talks at this juncture, then they should amend their peace plan accordingly, so that Israel is not held to a hypocritical regional peace standard.

Assuming one or both of these moves begin to generate momentum and lay the foundations for full-fledged negotiations, phase II would bring Israel together with the two "quartets"--the Saudi, Egyptian, Jordanian and Gulf leaderships along with the UN, US, EU and Russia--to begin discussing normalization of Israel-Arab relations, including security cooperation. Just as the Arab public wants to see progress toward Israel-Arab peace, the Israeli public needs to witness serious Arab gestures in the context of normalization and security cooperation against common enemies, and to be reassured that successful peace processes are rewarded by the Arab world.

Phase III witnesses Israeli-Palestinian and possibly Israeli-Syrian peace processes, either in parallel or in sequence, supported by international and Arab incentives and ultimately culminating in (phase IV) bilateral peace agreements and multilateral normalization and security coordination.

Whereas the first two phases could take six months to a year, phases III and IV would, in the best case, stretch out over years. Indeed, even to begin this process requires a degree of Israeli, Palestinian and American resolve and energy that appears to be sadly lacking. Yet the interactive nature of today's Middle East crises, and their gravity, demand nothing less than a major push for peace by the moderate Arab countries led by Riyadh.

Published 19/2/2007 © bitterlemons.org

AAEA Offers 'Authentic Black' Certificates

A debate has erupted about whether Barack Obama is black enough. What does it mean to be Black (better capitalize it)? This issue has been debated in the past regarding O.J. Simpson, Tiger Woods and Michael Jackson, among others. AAEA took this issue to our laboratory and our researchers developed a 'Certification of Black Authencity' so that poeple will have an objective measure.

Please answer the questions below with a 'yes' or a 'no' to describe yourself. If you qualify, we will send you a certificate upon your request. You will have to provide your own frame.

1. Articulate

2. Educated

3. Aspire to be middle-class or higher

4. Dress well

5. Pious

6. Polite

7. Neat

8. Organized

9. Generous

10. Kind

If you answered 'yes' to at least 7 of the questions, then you are an Authentic Black. To order your certificate click HERE. Leave you address and the certificate will be mailed to you.

Global Warming Pollution: Cows even worse than cars

"Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, reports the FAO. This includes 9 percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. Altogether, that's more than the emissions caused by transportation."

Christian Science Monitor

Prince George's County Black Chamber Awards Program

The Prince George’s Black Chamber will celebrate its 6th Anniversary and its 6th Annual Gala & Awards Program on March 17th, at Camelot of Upper Marlboro. The Prince George’s Black Chamber has been both a constant in helping to service the needs of small, local, minority and women owned businesses, as well as a catalyst in the ongoing effort to promote greater access to opportunities in the Washington Metropolitan region. In a very short time we have established a history of commitment to the growth and stability of the small, local and minority-owned businesses in our region.

Former AAEA Board Chairman Addresses Black Violence

AAEA's founding Board Chairman Charles Stephenson was quoted in The Washington Post:

"Closing a club here or there is just a Band-Aid," says Charles Stephenson, co-author of "The Beat," a book about the District's go-go scene, and a longtime aide to former congressman Ron Dellums. "As long as we keep dealing with this one club at a time, we're going to continue to go to Johnson & Johnson's to buy a lot of Band-Aids. The venue is not the issue; it's the larger problem of violence in the black community."

Stephenson argues that politicians should focus not on isolated incidents outside some club's front door but on developing alternatives to the street corner for teens. He points to New Roc City in New Rochelle, N.Y. -- an entertainment complex with a skating rink, bowling alley, movie complex, go-kart track and games arcade, and a police substation prominently placed at the entrance -- as the kind of development that provides a safe environment for people not old enough to drink.

"Let's do some creative things to show young people that we really love them and want them to learn and to have a good time," Stephenson says. "All they hear is that go-gos are bad and their schools are bad and whatever they're interested in is bad and they are bad. The kids who go to the Black Cat get very different messages. They hear that the 9:30 is a nice place to go to, the schools in Fairfax are excellent, and all those messages are internalized."

Mr. Stephenson was an incorporator of AAEA. AAEA's first office was in Mr. Stephenson's apartment on Capitol Hill. Charles Stephenson initiated and held the annual Malcolm X Day observances in Anacostia Park for two decades. He was a key legislative aide to former Congressman Ronald Dellums (now mayor of Oakland). We could go on about Charles. The bottom line is that is one of the nicest people you could ever meet. We are honored to know him. Charles is pictured above with his daughter Zora and wife Judith.

On Negotiations, Dershowitz and Carter

The following by Rabbi Bruce Warshal is courtesy of our khaver, Zel Lurie. My position is somewhat different; as I indicated in the two prior postings, the point is not to negotiate directly with a Hamas government that doesn’t want to negotiate with Israel, but to negotiate with President Mahmoud Abbas, authorised under the Oslo Accords anyway, as head of the PLO, to negotiate with Israel. Still, Rabbi Warshal is correct that making the Palestinian people suffer collectively has not been a good strategy.

I’m just a commentator and I make no pretense to being a sage, but immediately after the Hamas victory in February of last year I wrote: “A disastrous response is to overreact and to cut off all monetary support and contacts with the Palestinian Authority … It is a draconian measure that demands Hamas moderate itself instantaneously.” I pointed out that a United Nations report before the Hamas victory indicted that two-thirds of Gaza residents lived under the poverty line of $2.20 per day. I then wrote: “It is important not to immediately cut off American financial support to the Palestinian Authority because Hamas is now in control. Such precipitous action will only push Hamas into the hands of Iran and other more militant Islamists. We must be careful to strengthen the moderates in Hamas, not to undermine them.”

[But the former is] exactly what the Israeli and American governments did with the urging of the Jewish lobby which pushed through a Congressional resolution that demanded that our government isolate the Hamas regime. Now a year later we realize that all we did was to increase the poverty and despair in Gaza and push Hamas closer to Hezbollah and Iran, even though the latter are Shiite and Hamas is Sunni.

But the realization of this folly is surfacing in Israel where military experts from both the left and right of the political spectrum are beginning to speak out and demand direct negotiations with Hamas. Retired Major General Shlomo Gazit was the chief of military intelligence in 1976 and was the architect of the brilliant Entebbe raid that saved the Jewish hostages held by Idi Amin. He was also Menachem Begin’s military advisor during the peace talks with Egypt. He is now at a think-tank at Tel Aviv University. This past month, speaking of the three conditions laid down on Hamas by Israel and the U.S. (no talks unless it recognizes Israel, swears off violence and accepts previous signed Israeli-Palestinian agreements), Gazit characterized them as “ridiculous, or an excuse not to negotiate.”

Gazit continued: “Only a country that suffers from an inferiority complex demands that everyone like it. We must negotiate on concrete problems – not on declarative issues. I am in favor of starting negotiations today, while the violence continues, and to sign an agreement which will go into effect when it stops. Why should the Palestinians stop fighting us until they know we are willing to make an agreement?”

Ex-Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy, who was a top advisor to former prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Ariel Sharon, has also come to the same conclusion. The Forward reports: “According to Halevy, Israel should take up Hamas’s offer of a long term truce and try negotiating, because the Islamic movement is respected by Palestinians and generally keeps its word. He pointed to the cease-fire in attacks on Israel that Hamas declared two years ago and has largely honored. ‘They’re not very pleasant people, but they are very, very credible,’ Halevy said.”

We always knew that the PA Prime Minister, Ishmail Haniyeh was open to negotiations, but recent statements by the hard-line Hamas boss who pulls the strings from Damascus, Khaled Meshal, indicate that the time is ripe for a change in Israeli and American policy. Meshal is ready to “respect” previous Palestinian agreements with Israel, but Israel and the U.S. are demanding that Hamas “commit” itself to the agreements. I repeat Gazit’s question – why should Hamas commit itself to anything until it knows what it will get in return? That’s the point of negotiating. I am afraid that we are missing an important opportunity and that the brilliant leadership in Washington and Jerusalem will drive Hamas even closer to its unnatural ally, Iran. (Talking of brilliance, Olmert, in his visit with Bush a few months ago, praised our president for stabilizing the Middle East. Tell that to our troops in Iraq.)

A Footnote on the Debate over President Carter’s Book

Alan Dershowitz has been the most outspoken critic of Carter. His recent column has been emailed to practically everyone who has an email address. In it he attacks Carter’s personal integrity because the Carter Center has received money from Arab sources and Carter once borrowed money from BCCI, a now defunct Arab-owned bank that was “virulently anti-Israel.” He writes: “The entire premise of (Carter’s) criticism of Jewish influence on American foreign policy is that money talks. It is Carter, not me, who has made the point that if politicians receive money from Jewish sources, then they are not free to decide issues regarding the Middle East for themselves. It is Carter, not me, who has argued that distinguished reporters cannot honestly report on the Middle East because they are being paid by Jewish money. So, by Carter’s own standards, it would be almost economically ‘suicidal’ for Carter ‘to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine.’ By Carter’s own standards, therefore, his views on the Middle East must be discounted.”

I agree with Dershowitz’s premise that money buys political support. Our lobbyists in Washington have proved that point. We have the best Congress that money can buy. But this does not apply to Carter. At his Brandeis speech he specifically answered a student’s question concerning financial support for the Carter Center from Arab sources. He responded that he instructed his staff to go through every donation and they found that only two percent of their donations came from Arab sources, and nearly all of that money has gone to development projects in Africa. Furthermore, there has always been transparency. All of their donations have been made public.

This has not stopped Dershowitz from writing that, “It pains me to say this, but I now believe that there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter …. He is no better than so many former American politicians who, after leaving public life, sell themselves to the highest bidder and become lobbyists for despicable causes. That is Jimmy Carter’s sad legacy.”

It is apparent that Dershowitz has taken on the hatchet-man mantle for the Jewish establishment. He is to the more sedate Jewish leaders what Nixon was to Eisenhower. What would induce him to take such a stance? Well, I called a Jewish Federation director and asked a simple question – what is Dershowitz’s current speaking fee? He replied that it was between $55,000 to $60,000 per speech. “Who pays that kind of money?” I asked. He replied that it is Jewish Federations and other national Jewish organizations. I would assume that, since Dershowitz speaks frequently throughout the country, he makes much more off the national Jewish establishment than he does from his professorship at Harvard. But, of course, his politics would not be affected by this since he is not an ex-politician.

I am afraid that Dershowitz is in the same position as Newt Gingrich, who was pushing for the impeachment of Clinton at the same time that he was having an affair with his intern, while cheating on his third wife (or was it his second?). The analogy is correct, except that Clinton was actually diddling Monica while President Carter is not guilty of Dershowitz’s slander. But this does not get Dershowitz off the hook, or the Jewish establishment that has apparently bought him.

Congestion Pricing in America?

"For the small group of economists and policy wonks interested in applying supply-and-demand theories to the thorny problems of gridlock and ever-longer commutes, the $2.9 trillion fiscal 2008 budget released by President Bush on Monday contained some excellent news: $130 million in grants to finance construction of so-called congestion pricing systems."
NYT: ECONOMIC VIEW; What's the Toll? It Depends on the Time of Day

Maryland Legislature Considers Global Warming Bills

The Global Warming Solutions Act would reduce total greenhouse gas emissions from Maryland cars, homes and power plants to 1990 levels by 2020. The bill was introduced by House majority leader, Delegate Kumar Barve ( D-Montgomery) and Sen. Paul G. Pinsky (D-Prince George's)

The Clean Cars Bill is also being considered by the legislature that requires Maryland to adopt California emission standards, which are stricter than federal standards. Auto manufacturers are required to have new gas-saving technology in cars by model year 2011 and sell a percentage of low emission cars, such as hybrids. The bill is cosponsored by Delegate Elizabeth Bobo (D-Howard(l. (Southern Maryland Online).

OTHER ENERGY BILLS

Post-Mecca Blues

Sunday's meeting between US Secretary of State Rice and Palestinian Abbas was covered in a surprisingly upbeat vein by the NY Times:

Ms. Rice made clear that she was willing to begin work on a peace deal with him even if the United States boycotted a unity government. That might allow Mr. Abbas, as the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to hold talks with Israel even if a new Palestinian unity government did not recognize Israel or renounce violence, two conditions that Israel and the United States have both demanded.

Mr. Abbas’s aides were buoyant after the meeting. “We’re encouraged,” one Palestinian official said.

But the Mecca unity government agreement between Hamas and Fatah, which does not explicitly renounce violence and endorse the two-state solution, casts a pall on ongoing efforts toward peace. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert pledged at today's summit with Abbas and Rice to maintain contact with Abbas even while continuing to boycott the Hamas-led Palestinian government; there is some but scant hope in this. The only way forward at this moment is for Israel and the US to negotiate with Abbas while largely ignoring Hamas, but sadly, real progress seems unlikely under these circumstances. I would, nevertheless, hope against hope for this course of working with Abbas and ignoring Hamas.

I often find Ami Isseroff overly harsh, but his analysis, "Palestinian unity: Ominous signs," at the Mideast Peace Web site seems to be basically on target.

F.F. Bruce on Biblical Inspiration

As promised, I have just uploaded the first of many articles from the Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute in PDF:

F.F. Bruce, M.A., "What Do We Mean By Biblical Inspiration?" Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute 78 (1946): 121-139.

The format is unusual as it is a lecture, followed by oral and written responses and then a conclusion by the author.

Meretz USA News Update, 2/16/07

Focus on the Mecca Accord

Editorial note: As of Feb. 18, news reports indicate a likely continuation of stalemate on the eve of US Secretary of State Rice's meeting(s) with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and Palestinian President Abbas, with Olmert stating that the US and Israel are in agreement on shunning any Palestinian government that doesn't meet international demands to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept existing peace accords and Abbas insisting that his unity government agreement is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.

It was last summer, when prisoners from all the major Palestinian factions signed onto the “Prisoners Document,” that people really began talking about a possible Palestinian unity government. Yet, as the year progressed, as Palestinian infighting became more intense, and as various talks fell apart, the prospects for one seemed increasingly unlikely. That is, until about two weeks ago, when talks hosted by Saudi Arabia at last resulted in an agreement. And, though disagreements early this week threatened to inhibit implementation of the Mecca Accord, yesterday, the Hamas government resigned, making way for a new unity government.

Now everyone’s asking “what happens next?” The leaders of Fatah and Hamas had two main reasons for forming such a government: they wanted to put an end to Palestinian infighting, and they wanted to end the economic boycott of the government. Of course, these two factors are not unrelated – the tensions between Fatah and Hamas were amplified by the increasing poverty and malcontent since the West cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority. The unity government will only hold together if Western and Israeli monetary assistance is restored and, likely, if Israel agrees to engage it in peace negotiations. In other words, its success will depend on Western and Israeli interpretations of “who gave in” – Fatah to Hamas or Hamas to Fatah.

On the one hand, some analysts see the unity agreement as a sign of Hamas moderation. Danny Rubinstein wrote this week that, although the Accord did not represent a complete political turnaround for Hamas, the movement is changing. In fact, he argues, it has been slowly doing so since entering into a tahdiya (lull – in fighting) in March 2005. Similarly, Zvi Bar’el noted that Hamas has been toning down its religious rhetoric in political situations and that there are no religious clauses whatsoever in the Mecca Accord.

Other analysts view the unity agreement as a step backward for Fatah. The Mecca Accord calls for Hamas to respect or honor past peace agreements with Israel, but when, and if, the unity government is formed, it will not necessarily recognize the Jewish state or renounce the use of terrorism against it. Indeed, Hamas will continue to hold a plurality of seats [ministries] in the government.

As a result, the US and the UK will be disinclined to end their economic boycott. British Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett said last week that London will continue to withhold aid until Hamas recognizes Israel and gives up violence. And there appears to be little change in the US position as well. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stated that the US will only deal with those Palestinian officials who agree to the three “benchmarks” (recognizing Israel, recognizing past agreements, renouncing violence) for normalization, and many Jewish groups are continuing to advocate for pressure on Hamas. For its part, Israel is said to be reviewing ties to Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas and its position on the Palestinian government. On the other hand, various Israeli and Arab experts question the wisdom of continuing the boycott.

In general, however, both Israel and the US are taking a “wait and see” approach, with Olmert stating that his government has neither rejected nor accepted the Mecca Accord. Abbas has given Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh five weeks to set up a new government, and Israel and the West will probably not draw any conclusions until then.

For this reason, the summit between Rice, Olmert, and Abbas, planned for this coming Monday, is unlikely to yield much in the way of results. Aluf Benn, for one, writes that Yitzhak Rabin would have called the summit bablat (“hot air”) because nothing will come of it.

In the meantime, while everyone waits for the government to form, there are several things to keep in mind. Certainly, the success of the unity government does not depend solely on the international community – the Palestinians will also have themselves to blame if it fails – but Israel and the West can do a great deal to turn its creation into a positive. The Palestinians already believe that the Olmert government is seeking anarchy in Palestine. A refusal to deal with the new government may only help fuel this claim and intensify Palestinian frustration.

In addition, an editorial in this week’s Forward makes a significant observation. Although Hamas has not met the international community’s conditions, the unity government will, de facto, recognize Israel – after all, past peace agreements include this recognition. This understanding may help remove one obstacle to aid and negotiations.

Perhaps if the unity government is given a chance, we’ll find that both Fatah and Hamas “gave in” and created something the Israelis can work with. As Afif Safieh, head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization Mission to the US, observed in this week’s Forward, that, because of the agreement, the Palestinian government will be more representative of the Palestinian people and both Fatah and Hamas are willing to negotiate for the sake of those people. Maybe the unity government will fail, or maybe Israel will be unable to agree to its terms in negotiations, but, at the very least, hopefully it will bring a period of calm and relative stability to the Palestinian people.

To read Meretz USA’s statement on the Mecca Accord, please click here.

ALSO OF NOTE:

# The past couple weeks have seen unrest in the Jerusalem area. Last Friday, hundreds of Muslims gathered in the Old City of Jerusalem to protest the construction of a new bridge to the Temple Mount. The Jewish Quarter Development Company subsequently withdrew its request for construction, then declared it would proceed as planned. To see a summary of this issue, click here.

Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute to be available on-line

I have received permission from the editor of Faith and Thought to place articles from the Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute on-line. The journal ran from 1867 to 1957 when it changed its name to Faith and Thought, which is still published. I will also be producing and hosting a complete index to the series - in development here. F.F. Bruce was a frequent contributor to the journal over the years, but I await arrival of a complete index before beginning the process of contacting individual authors (or their executors) for permission to reproduce their articles on-line.

China Proposes Eco-city

"If Dongtan Eco-City opens on schedule, it will become a carbon-neutral urban showcase at about the same moment scientists foresee China surpassing the United States as the globe's leading emitter of greenhouse gases."

USA Today

So when will we begin planning OUR eco-city in the USA?

Once again, Americans are falling behind the rest of the world.

Rashid Khalidi’s “Iron Cage”

We of the Zionist peace camp have some experience with Columbia University historian Rashid Khalidi, who used to be a regular panelist at forums of Americans for Peace Now. He was definitely a moderate Palestinian nationalist we could cooperate with, but it's not clear how much he still is. He turned against Oslo following Rabin's assassination and Netanyahu's election as prime minister.

In my view, although Olso had its flaws, Khalidi was throwing the baby out with the bath water. He also gave no acknowledgment to the fact that Rabin had frozen new settlement construction (he, unfortunately, allowed construction for "natural growth" – increased population through birth). And Khalidi did not acknowledge that after Peres was defeated, neither Netanyahu nor Barak were supporters of Oslo, although neither totally discarded it.

In 1997, Prof. Khalidi published a seminal work called “Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness.” His new book, “The Iron Cage,” is a continuation of this story.

What I noticed in his earlier book is that Khalidi made too much of Zionist "unity" – ignoring the bitter split with Jabotinsky's Revisionists that almost led to civil war. Furthermore, unlike Tom Segev's "One Palestine, Complete," written a few years later, which documented how uneasy the Zionist-British "alliance" was, Khalidi simply depicts them as allies, full stop. When I made these observations (nearly 10 years ago) in my In These Times review of “Palestinian Identity," Khalidi wrote a caustic letter to the editor in which he refused to engage any of my points.

The following are selections from a mostly positive review of “The Iron Cage” that my friend Bennett Muraskin wrote for a coming issue of Jewish Currents:

Khalidi tells this story with great erudition. He argues that British support was critical to the development of the Jewish community of Palestine, known as the Yishuv. The British treated the Jewish Agency as a legitimate authority and allowed it considerable autonomy to run its own affairs. The Zionists took full advantage, utilizing their organizing and fundraising skills, marshalling support from Jews throughout the world who provided capital and political clout with their own governments. The Palestinian leadership, on the other hand, floundered. It was divided and elitist....

The British did offer the Arabs an “Arab Agency” but it was in no way equivalent to the Jewish Agency. The British would only recognize an Arab Agency if it signed on to terms of the Mandate, i.e., “a Jewish national home.” As Khalidi comments, “The significance of the quasi-official diplomatic status accorded by the British to the Jewish Agency and the League of Nations through the Mandate…cannot be overemphasized.”

Khalidi... ponders whether the Palestinian leadership “should have come to some sort of accommodation with Zionism” but concludes that none was possible due to “both the drive of the Zionist movement for supremacy in Palestine and the natural resistance to this drive of the indigenous population.” Although he notes that some Palestinian nationalist favored the non-violent strategy developed by Gandhi in India, he does not even mention the 1929 Arab riots that killed 133 Orthodox Jews in Hebron....

[And] was violence the only answer? What about the binational solution proposed by Judah Magnes, Martin Buber and Hashomer Hatzair? Khalidi dismissed their thinking as too fuzzy....

When the Palestinians finally revolted in 1936, it was, in Khalidi’s opinion, too late. By then the Yishuv was firmly entrenched—a state-in-waiting. And despite a massive Palestinian general strike in 1936 and an armed uprising that lasted from 1937 to 1939, the Palestinians were no match for the British army.... When the revolt was finally crushed, 5,000 Palestinians had lost their lives.... This outcome left the Palestinians woefully unprepared to resist the Zionist move toward independence....

It is not that the Palestinian uprising was a total failure. The British finally caved in to Palestinian demands and cut off Jewish immigration to a trickle in its 1939 White Paper and promised eventual independence. But the Palestinians rejected this concession in what Khalidi describes as a “tactical error.” Further, he acknowledges that the Grand Mufti, initially promoted by the British as a Palestinian “leader,” disgraced himself by collaborating with the Nazis during World War II. However, it seems to me that their far greater strategic error was in rejecting the 1947 UN Partition Resolution that would have created a Palestinian Arab state along side a Jewish state. If he is looking for a reason why Palestinian’s have not achieved statehood, he need look no further. Yet on this question, Khalidi is strangely silent....

Where Khalidi truly excels is in his critique of Palestinian attitudes toward Jews who settled in Palestine/Israel. Were they European invaders? In a sense they were, but they were also a persecuted people seeking a safe haven. Palestinians could only see Jews as the former, insisting they were purely a religious entity with no national rights. Lacking any insight into the Jewish condition, they could never understand why the Holocaust and other cases of anti-Semitism convinced so many Jews that security could only come in a state where they held state power. Hence, for decades, the Palestinians had nothing to offer the Jewish population. Not binationalism, not acceptance of partition and not, until 1988, acceptance of UN Resolution 242.... Since then, the mainstream PLO has damaged its own cause by tolerating terrorism and siding with Iraq in the first Gulf War in 1990s....

Although Khalidi is deeply committed to the Palestinian cause, he has his feet planted firmly on the ground. Utopian proposals for a “one-state solution” even when advanced by his mentor Edward Said, have no appeal for him. He refuses to draw facile comparisons between Israel and South Africa. He understands that Palestinian’s must compromise on their “right of return” if they are ever to achieve statehood....

Blaming the Victims in New York

New York may ban iPods while crossing street
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- New Yorkers who blithely cross the street listening to an iPod or talking on a cell phone could soon face a $100 fine.

Presidential Candidates on transportation

Todd Edelman has reviewed the following candidates for their transportation agendas:

Barack Obama
Sorry but not much here except for a bit of energy efficiency and a bunch of alternative fuelling. Really. No mention of cycling, buses, and so on. Never mind re-designing cities. Nothing, zero.
Barack Obama
***
Hillary Clinton
Even less, but she wants your ideas!
Hillary Clinton
***
Chris Dodd
A little bit more about energy efficiency, but, again, only cars are
mentioned.
Chris Dodd

Working at home

Way back when Al Gore first invented the internet, planners worried that, if we were all connected virtually, masses would move into the wilderness perpetuating sprawl development, increasing travel times and infrastructure costs, and eating up agricultural and natural land with housing.

The result has been the opposite: people now telecommute from their homes, friend's homes, cafes, and parks in cities throughout the world. However, a study released last month found a new obstacle to working where you already are: professional success. A survey of 1300 executives world-wide found that people who telecommute are less likely to be promoted.

It’s an issue of good management. If employees are judged by how much their bosses like them, then telecommuting will be disincentivized. If employees are judged by productivity, then telecommuters will thrive. I’m not sure if it’s related, but most jobs in my field of multimodal transportation planning require a valid driver’s license and a car. There's something in the popular consciousness that equates automobility with professionalism, and it has got to stop!

LA Times: Telecommuters may go nowhere -- careerwise

Valentines for Parking Cops

In San Francisco, the bicycle commuity hands out Valentines each year to the Parking Control Officers who work tirelessly to make sure bike lanes are stay clear of double parkers so non-polluting commuters can get through.

View more fun photos from this year's lovefest.

Finally, a real Eco-Car

In Kensington Market in Toronto, there's this bizarre street art where a garden is being grown from inside a car. It's an interesting project and work of art.

I'm not sure who maintains this.

On the back window "Do Not Tow" is written ... I can't see how they can move this thing anyway, it must weigh a good few tons!

Thanks Jon

Al Gore Concert Event : Ozone Man Goes Woodstock

He is everywhere. And carbon-neutral. It is the former Vice President Al Gore now promoting seven concerts to promote the global warming issue in seven locations on 7-7-07. Blbical? Preliminary cities include London, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, South Africa, Kyoto, Japan, Moscow and Washington, DC. Preliminary names for the concert are "Live Earth," and " Save Ourselves."

Gore appeared at the MTV Music Awards in New York, the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles and will probably receive an Oscar at the Academy Awards. He has also been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. The man is clearly competing with Jimmy Carter for a post White House 'activity' award. He is also definitely running for president (without announcing). (Wash Post)

Alliance for Climate Protection

ADL Conference on Left & Antisemitism

“It was not all about Israel: My take on the ADL conference” by Christopher MacDonald-Dennis

Over the past two weeks, I have been inundated with reports and articles discussing the recent ADL conference on progressives and antisemitism in San Francisco. Although the articles come from different organizations with various takes on the conference, all of these pieces simplify the conference. They solely focus on Israel and the question of whether criticism of Israel is antisemitic. As a participant and a presenter, I am frustrated that other discussions about Jewish identity and antisemitism that were held at the conference have been obscured. This piece is an attempt to clarify that Israel was not the only topic at the conference.

The educational session I presented was entitled "The Academy: Anti-Semitism on College Campuses." The presentation was based on my dissertation that explored the racial, ethnic and ethno-religious position of Jewish undergraduates. In my presentation, I examined the antisemitism some Jewish students experience at purportedly multicultural institutions of higher education.

In my presentation, I discussed how antisemitism was still a force on college campuses. I reported that Jews, unlike other minority groups, were not seen as part of the multicultural movement and that this impacted Jews. My participants were uniformly frustrated by having to explain themselves and educate non-Jews about their issues. They were particularly hurt that others expected Jews to educate them about Jewish issues, whereas other minority groups were not expected to educate the privileged group. Many participants related stories of being asked to explain what Jews felt and to serve as a spokesperson for "the Jewish position" on an issue.

In my session, I highlighted the antisemitism these students faced and its impact on the relationship between non-Jews and Jews, namely how gentiles responded to the assertion that Jews were still discriminated against on campus. The students argued that many non-Jews neither understood the history of Jewish oppression nor acknowledged that antisemitism remains a concern. Jews were seen as undeservedly wealthy and not victimized by discrimination; they also represented and personified the wealthy White person who benefits from whiteness at the expense of people of color.

I shared that the students were also victimized by forms of antisemitism that go deeper than general dismissal of minority status. Yes, we did talk about Israel but for only a few minutes. I
shared how some students had seen posters equating Israelis with Nazis. They had met people who said to them that Jews and Israelis were controlling the world and had malicious plans on world domination.

Mostly I reported about antisemitism in the form of the stereotype of Jews as wealthy people, who segregated themselves from others to form a clique of rich people. In addition, a common euphemism was used on campus that everyone knew meant "Jew": New Yorker. All of the student participants explained that the term was commonly known to mean Jewish in the same way that "urban" was equated with being Black. When students were asked pointedly if they were from New York or someone was being accused of being a New Yorker, they knew that the speaker was classifying the person as a pushy, loud, ostentatious Jew.

The stereotype of the rich Jew often came out in a sexist form as the stereotype of the "JAP" or the Jewish American Princess, the supposedly spoiled, overly materialistic, wealthy Jewish women or the term "New Yorker". In the participants' views, this stereotype was common on campus and socially acceptable to express. All of the women interviewed discussed at length the JAP stereotype, their feelings about the term, and their reaction to hearing it and having it leveled at them when they matriculated at the university.

As stated earlier, these stereotypes come together to form this idea that Jews are "super-privileged" White people. In this view, Jews were seen as wealthy reactionary colonisers who neither deserve the success nor the nation state of Israel they have. When I asked during the focus group whether many people believed that Jews were not targets but rather extra-privileged whites, the group felt that many people on campus, especially people of color, held this idea about Jews.

Lastly, I discussed that many Jews dealt with religious antisemitism on campus. With the rise in Christian fundamentalism, more Jewish students are being accosted for being non-Christian and/or Jewish. Students had been told that the Jews killed Jesus and that the Jewish
people would always be responsible. Christian students tried to convert the students to Christianity, telling them that Christianity had "completed" Judaism. Some students dealt with Christians who pitied them for spending eternity in hell because they had not accepted Jesus as their savior.

While Israel was an important topic for some people, it was not the only item on our agenda. There were presentations that dispelled various myths about Jews including the idea that all Jews are white and Ashkenazi. As my presentation showed, antisemitism takes many
forms. My research showed that the "old" antisemitism in alive and well in many corners of this country. The conference discussed various manifestations of antisemitism, not just Israel. By only focusing on Israel, we are in danger of not confronting the many ways we are still affected by antisemitism.

Christopher MacDonald-Dennis, Ed.D, assistant dean and director of intercultural affairs at Bryn Mawr College, is active with Meretz USA, Ameinu and Brit Tzedek V’Shalom.

US aborts progress with Syria

Gidon D. Remba reviews the gains apparently won for Israel in back-channel talks with Syria and their torpedoing by Bush administration hostility toward Syria and its stranglehold on the current Israeli government. The following is from Gidon D. Remba’s article, “Look Who’s Pressuring Israel,” published January 25, in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle:

...[W]e learn from Ha’aretz’s chief diplomatic correspondent Akiva Eldar that a series of secret unofficial meetings were conducted in Europe between September 2004 and July 2006 between Syrians and Israelis. The Israeli negotiator, former Israel Foreign Ministry director-general Dr. Alon Liel, met with Abe Suleiman, a Syrian-American who is close to Syrian President Bashar Assad. They were brought together by Geoffrey Aronson, an American analyst from the Foundation for Middle East Peace in Washington, under the auspices of the government of Switzerland, represented by Nicholas Lang of the Swiss Foreign Ministry. Their meetings produced a breakthrough framework for a peace agreement between Israel and Syria, resolving many of the issues which had derailed the official talks under Barak and Bashar Assad’s father. The Syrian representative showed flexibility on many of the most intractable issues:

• Much of the Golan Heights would become a park administered by Syrian civilian authorities, with Israelis free to visit during daytime without visas.
• The entire Golan would become a demilitarized zone, and areas of reduced military forces would be created on both sides of the Golan in Syria and Israel at a 4:1 ratio in Israel’s favor.
• The time-table for Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan, which was not finalized, might be extended beyond five years.
• Israel would control the use of water in the upper Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee.
• The US would operate an early warning station on Mt. Hermon.

Other accounts in the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv indicate that Syria may agree to Israel holding 20% of the Golan, where two-thirds of Israeli residents live, in exchange for an equal land swap. Eldar reports that “The European mediator and the Syrian representative in the discussions held eight separate meetings with senior Syrian officials, including Vice President Farouk Shara, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, and a Syrian intelligence officer with the rank of ‘general.’” The former Israeli diplomat kept top brass in Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office abreast of developments in the talks, while the Syrian-American negotiator informed high-ranking US officials, who updated Vice President Dick Cheney. The Syrian representative even traveled to Jerusalem and met with top figures in Israel’s Foreign Ministry to convey Syria’s readiness for a peace treaty with Israel. Like Egypt a generation ago, an increasingly economically distressed Syria, whose proven oil reserves will run out within the decade without a major infusion of foreign capital, is seeking a lifeline and rapprochement with the West.

The Syrian representative agreed that Syria would end its support for Hezbollah and Hamas and “distance itself from Iran” under a peace treaty with Israel. Former Israeli cabinet ministers and current Knesset members from several parties recently heard a similar offer from President Assad’s legal advisor, Riad Daoudi, at the Madrid + 15 conference, which commemorated the 15-year anniversary of the historic 1991 Madrid Arab-Israeli Peace Conference, convened by President Bush’s father. Syria would also promote a solution to the conflict in Iraq, using its influence to foster an agreement between Sunni and Shia militia and political leaders. Syria would further contribute to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conundrum by helping to settle the Palestinian refugee problem on terms acceptable to Israel. In an interview with the German magazine Spiegel on Sept. 24, 2006, Assad, remarkably, adopted Israel’s view that the Palestinian refugees should have the right of return to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, not to Israel.

Leaving no doubt of the seriousness with which the Syrian leadership took these “Track 2” talks, Suleiman attended a final meeting with his Israeli interlocutor in the midst of this summer’s Lebanon war, and conveyed a request from the Syrian government for a secret meeting with the director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry or the Prime Minister’s Office, to be attended by a Syrian deputy minister and a high-level US diplomat. Israel rejected the Syrian request. Lang, the Swiss mediator, met recently with Prime Minister Olmert’s chief of staff, and presented him the draft Syrian-Israeli agreement. Olmert’s advisor told him that Israel was not interested.

Writing in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz in November, I wondered whether AIPAC would work to promote a US-Israeli peace initiative with Syria or the Palestinians. AIPAC’s Israel spokesperson responded on November 23rd in Ha’aretz that “AIPAC’s mandate is not to pressure the Israeli government to follow a particular course.” Reading these words, I scratched my head. Who said anything about “pressure?” In reality, the Bush Administration is pressuring the Israeli government to refuse peace talks with Syria, according to the testimony of Prime Minister Olmert, his advisors and cabinet ministers. AIPAC, and its allies in the organized Jewish community, who rush to loudly protest any time there is a whiff of US pressure on Israel in favor of a peace initiative, has absolutely nothing to say when the White House blocks Israel from talking with Syria....

Read Gidon Remba’s entire article at his “Tough Dove-Israel” Website.