This week’s postings@JfJfP.com
This week, if we manage to sort out the excerpt box, which makes up the weekly newsletter, you will see the results of all the work that has gone into redesigning the new website. It is a work in progress and as new to us in the postings office as it is to you. Do send any comments or queries to us at postings@jfjfp.org and we’ll pass them on to the correct department.
To read this page, click the 3-bar box on the new home-page and then click News and Analysis, though we hope we’ll be able to do more than that.
That’s a bit of internal housekeeping:
JfJfP gets a new look, new logo and new functions
One of the appeals made in the launch of the new website is for more input from readers and we heartily endorse that here in the postings department. Send your comments, news, reviews (film, theatre, books etc.) to postings@jfjfp.org
Our regular reviewer is signatory Deborah Maccoby and this week we have her masterful review of a book by Britain’s favourite Jewish intellectual, Simon Schama. Ms Maccoby is not impressed:
Schama, the arch-showman of Jewish history
In this last week, 11th-17th December 2017, Trump is still the dominant actor in Israel/Palestine politics. The man is the gift to journalists which keeps on giving. His proclamation that he recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel did, naturally, occasion thousands of messages, verbal and demonstrative, of repudiation.
JJP was quick off the mark, condemning both the proclamation and the witless support for him from the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD):
JJP condemns fake history of BoD and Trump
It has not been a surprise that Trump’s bedrock support comes from evangelical Christians, even though he has rarely displayed any Christian qualities or church-going habit. But these people, devoted to Israel and to right-wing politics, are his rock-solid fan base and this is what they want:
God sent Trump his message on Jerusalem
This loyal base has a direct line to the White House through the VP Mike Pence, himself an evangelical Christian:
Evangelicals ensconced in White House
The most bizarre phenomenon is the close relationship between the Prime Minister of the Jewish State and the same Evangelicals; he regards them as Israel’s ‘best friend’. It’s less odd that the right-wing Netanyahu would also favour the alt-right, abhorred by most American Jews. Jonathan Cook acerbically points out that this further alienates American Jews:
Messianic Christians are Bibi’s best friend
There have been protests from Palestinians and Muslims in other countries at Trump’s claiming of Jerusalem for Israel alone, some violent, some peaceful, some flamboyant. Some of the protests, as in Gaza and Hebron, turned into riots:
Soldiers lose control over anti-Trump protest
What there hasn’t been is a mass popular uprising. Anshel Pffeffer explains why:
Trump has not sparked the 3rd intifada
What there has been is an emergency summit of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) which declared Jerusalem the capital of Palestine and an address by Pres. Mahmoud, Abu Mazen, declaring Pres. Trump had forfeited any role for the US in bringing about peace negotiations with Israel:
Abbas casts out US as peace-maker
The shaky position of Pres. Abbas in the Arab and Muslim worlds has been subject to much speculation. His raison d’etre was that, unlike Yasser Arafat he was a man of peace and would actively seek negotiations with Israel under the aegis of the US. He naively believed Trump was neutral on the issue and therefore would treat Palestinians as partners for peace. In reality, Pres. Trump treats him and Palestine as subordinates too low-grade for him to do a deal with:
Little man, what now?
What was the point in PM Netanyahu going to the European Council to tell them European countries should also move their embassies to Jerusalem? Could he have believed that his sedulously cultivated friends in eastern Europe (the Visegrad 4, V4) had changed the long-standing EU rejection of Israel’s expanding occupation – including of Jerusalem? Or did he just want to make a rhetorical point that the EU was not worth bothering with, especially now it’s lost friendly Britain?:
No Prime Minister, our embassies stay in Tel Aviv
The always-perceptive commentator Akiva Eldar, formerly of Haaretz now Al Monitor, writes a pained column on the spread of racism in Israel. The leading voice is that of Avigdor Lieberman who arrived from the USSR in 1978. The racism is directed, by all levels of Israeli society, at the Arabs in their midst. Many Israeli Jews have noted and deplored it. But most others don’t want to know although it is the force which could destroy the Israel that still gets strong support:
Racism is the existential threat to Israel
Lastly and seasonally
Chanukah: a personal reflection by Marion Hersh
Chanukah this year – its importance has been enhanced by its proximity to once-Christian Christmas – runs from Tuesday night, December 12, 2017 through Wednesday, December 20, 2017