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You’re Incredibly Lucky to be Alive

  By admin | 01/10/2020 - 09:55 |
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You’re Incredibly Lucky to be Alive

My parents met in Cuba. My mother Jenny Weinreb was a refugee, escaping Nazi Germany in 1939 (alone on a German boat at age 13!) to Lisbon (where my Aunt Eva was married with two baby twins), and from there to a British refugee camp in Jamaica (1942?), and finally to Cuba in 1944. My father Arthur Wilzig left Poland in 1936 straight to Cuba (where a large expatriate community had established itself in 1926 after widespread Polish pogroms).

They married in 1946 and I was conceived in Cuba in 1948, but born in May 1949 in the U.S. where they had immigrated because “there was no future Jewish life in Cuba”, as my mother explained to me decades later. Thus, I definitely qualified as an “international baby” from several perspectives.

How often have we heard others say that they’re “lucky to be alive” because they just missed being killed in some accident? Indeed, Judaism has a special prayer for someone escaping danger: “gomel”.

But this is missing the main point: EVERYONE in the world is unbelievably lucky to be alive! From several standpoints.

First, although we do not know for sure if there is life anywhere else in the universe, it is clear that the chances of life “evolving” on any one planet are very, very small (but as there are trillions upon trillions of stars and planets in the universe, overall the probability is that there is “life” elsewhere: see “Drake’s Law”). You and I happen to be living on a planet where this did happen – the chance of that is less than winning the national Powerball Lottery. So thank your lucky star (pun intended)!

Second, in many cases the chances of your parents meeting when they did is also quite small (notwithstanding the occasional “marrying one’s high school sweetheart”). In the course of a person’s youth and young adulthood, we will meet – even superficially – a few thousand people, among the hundreds of millions that they could have met, and of them the thousands they reasonably could have married. And if they had met someone else, you wouldn’t be here! Doubly lucky.

Third, and something of a head scratcher, is the most important “lucky event” of them all. In a nutshell, whereas your mother dropped one ovum each month down her fallopian tubes to be (potentially) impregnated, your father’s ejaculate contained close to one hundred million (100,000,000!) sperm. So, think about this: if the specific sperm that impregnated your mom’s egg had been beaten in that swimming race by one other among the “99,999,999” sperm, would YOU be alive at all? Probably not – just someone pretty similar to you (at least, similar to when you were a newborn).

Never thought of that, did you? And that’s the point. Life is largely a matter of attitude and perspective. You can look at your cup that’s missing a few drops on top, or at the cup that’s brimming with life (yours). I am certainly aware that this is not the way people usually think about their life, but that’s my point: as human beings, we are capable of shifting our viewpoint once we look at the mirror straight on, instead of from the side. Some people don’t need to do this – their natural predisposition (what is usually called “attitude”) is to be positive and optimistic. Others are naturally pessimistic, seeing more night than day. And then there’s the broad middle who can go either way, depending…

On what? On their social circle; on their socio-economic status; on their social happiness (quality of marriage; relationship with their kids; etc); and dare I say it? On how they consume media information.

No, I am not about to partake in modernity’s national sport: media-bashing. Actually, the “people” (that’s you and me) are at fault. When was the last time you read this headline (change the country name as you wish): “Yesterday, 8 million Israelis had an Uneventful Day.” Never. Because we, the readers, listeners, and viewers, want to get “bad news” – almost the only kind that we consider “news” at all.

Why? For that we have to go back several hundred thousand years (or even millions). All creatures on earth – and certainly evolving humans who were not particularly strong or fast – had (and have) to be on constant lookout for danger that could annihilate them: back then, tigers and human enemies; today, technology (e.g. cars) and human enemies. Thus, danger-sniffing is planted deeply in our genes. And what constitutes “danger” (socially and not only personally) is not only the usual stuff (plane crashes; war breaking out) but also – even increasingly – unusual stuff that we are not familiar with. Flying machines? (Early 20th century) People changing their sex?? (Mid-20th century) Robots building cars faster than humans can??? (Late 20th century) Designer babies?!?! (21st Century).

The media – old (“legacy”) and new (“digital”) – are doing an increasingly better job of ferreting out each and every “potentially dangerous”/ unusual item of information from around the world. And as we absorb more and more of this (with the occasional respite through sports scores and fashion fads), our perception of the world is that things are going to hell in a basket faster than ever. Ah, nostalgia: “when I was growing up, the world was a better place”. Baloney. As a matter of fact, there is less violence in the world today (per capita) than ever before in human history! (Don’t take my word for this; read Steven Pinker’s The Better Nature of Our Angels.)

So we “moderns” are caught in a paradoxical situation: the better things get (objectively), the worse they seem (subjectively). The solution is not to avoid the media (we do want to know what real dangers lie out there). Rather, it is to choose wisely which media to consume – and then understand that 99% of what is happening in the world is positive, precisely what is NOT found in the media (because we don’t want to read “good news”).

Freed from the shackles of informational negativity, we can then more realistically work on developing a more positive and optimistic attitude towards the world – micro (ours personally) and macro (society and the world at large).

Coda: the latest research shows that people with a generally positive attitude have, on average, a lifespan that’s a few years longer than those with ingrained (or acquired) negativity. So not only are the former “lucky to be alive”, but by appreciating that fact they actually live longer – and that’s not a matter of luck.

So here’s my final “you’re really lucky booster”. Remember what I said about your parents’ egg and sperm? Now take that back every generation of your personal forebears! In other words, if any procreation act of any of your grand/grand/grand(etc)parents had a different sperm win that specific impregnation race to the ovum, you would not be here (or anywhere, ever)! So just this one, repeated, “generational” piece of good fortune should be enough to get you to count your blessings every minute of your day.

Only Politics as News?

  By admin | 25/09/2020 - 10:15 |
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I spent half my 40 years or so in academia teaching and researching Politics. The other (second) half was spent doing the same in Communications, mainly Journalism. Scholars tend to focus on rather narrow topics for their research, and I was usually not an exception. But this “reflective memoir” offers me a chance to ask a BIG question.

Imagine an alien coming down to Earth for some “anthropological” study. Among the places it visits is academia, where it finds among the larger universities approximately 40-50 departments, each specializing in a different subject or field of life. One of these is Political Science; perhaps another is International Relations. It then opens the Bureau of Labor Statistics annual reports and discovers year after year that approximately 5% of the work force is employed in government at all levels.

After a hard day’s work, the alien sits down to read a few newspapers (print or screen). “Very strange,” it muses out loud after scanning several of them. “All these news report media seem to spend almost half their time and energy on only one field: politics. I wonder why – after all, far fewer work in politics and even fewer study the subject.”

Indeed! Open any newspaper (not counting the National Enquirer and its ilk) and that’s what you will find: politics, politics, education, politics, sports, politics, science, politics, politics, politics, technology, politics…

Why is this so? One obvious reason is that other than war – itself a continuation of politics by other means, as Clausewitz opined – there is no other area of life with as much “Action & Drama” as the political world. By its very nature it is based on, and suffused with, conflict. And as we are well aware, we are evolutionarily primed to “notice” human conflict as opposed to other forms of human interaction. In short, the news media are simply “playing to the crowd”.

A second reason for the dominance of political news is the influence of politics on our lives: taxes, health policy, environmental regulation, macro-economic policy, etc etc – all obviously have a significant impact on our lives. Moreover, in a democracy the elected leaders are doing what we (supposedly) (s)elected them to do for us. Political news is not just what “they are doing to/for us” but also – or rather – whether they are doing what we agreed that they would do. In short, it is a public mirror of our (un)met desires.

So it is not surprising that politics takes up more space and time on the news than any other field of human endeavor. And yet…

When one looks at what truly affects us, it turns out that a huge amount of influential goings-on aren’t in the political sphere at all. There are almost countless scientific and technological advances reported each day in professional journals and other non-“news” venues that will change our lives down the road: pharmaceuticals & health (new vaccines, drugs, and bio-tech); transportation (drones, flying cars, autonomous vehicles); economics (cyber-currency, cybercrime, online banking, telework); environment (rising sea levels, catastrophic weather, global warming, bio-extinction); and so on. Of course, these are covered by the news, but with a frequency nowhere near the impact that they (will) have on our lives. So what’s the problem?

I think that there are a few explanations. First – as Tevya the Milkman once said: “tradition”. Newspapers, as we broadly understand the term, commenced about 400 years ago; the profession of journalism started about 200 years ago (earlier than that the publisher/printer doubled as “reporter”). Back then, “politics” was just about all that was happening! Modern science was barely getting started; there were almost no macro-economics to talk about (or understand, until Adam Smith’s 1776 Wealth of Nations); the lives of common folk interested no one (most couldn’t even afford to buy a newspaper); not even team sports existed to fill news space!

In that news black hole, politics – war, diplomacy, rulers’ machinations – was all there was to report on (other than announcing which ship just docked with what imports for local sale). This “tradition” then self-reproduced itself even when more non-politics did emerge in the 1900s, and continues to this day. In fact, there is a general term for the generational continuation of an original practice: “path dependence”.

The most famous example of this is the QWERTY keyboard – completely illogical, as its layout has no connection whatsoever to the frequency of letters typed or even letter contiguity in the English language. How, then, did that get started? The first typewriters had an “arm” for each letter that struck the ink ribbon on top of the blank paper. But as that early typewriter was quite primitive, if one typed too fast the arms would get stuck together – so the keyboard was designed to make typing MORE difficult (and slower)!!! By the time this physical problem was fixed on ensuing versions the secretaries had already learned “touch-typing” on that QWERTY keyboard and refused to change to a more sensible layout. So look at your advanced computer keyboard – still back in the mid-19th century!

One can add to the “tradition” of political journalism the fact that reporters and editors are like almost all other humans – they follow the herd. Indeed, one could argue that news is merely “I herd it through the grapevine”, with each journalist reporting on those matters that other reporters are covering. What about their constant quest for the “scoop”? That’s new news within the same general subject area, i.e. politics!

A second (or third, if the “herd” counts as separate) factor turns the mirror from journalists to each of us, the news consumer. Human beings are invariably “here and now” creatures. From an evolutionary standpoint (until the modern age), there were too many present obstacles and dangers to contend with; thinking about “the future” was a luxury that almost none could afford (which is why Pharaoh was so taken aback by, and taken with, Joseph’s highly unusual plan to save grain for 7-14 years hence). And on top of that, predicting the future was such an “iffy” affair that other than professional “predictors” (oracles, prophets, seers etc), no one even tried it.

Given this built-in human myopia, it is hardly surprising that journalists too would focus on the immediate present – not only because most understand the “iffiness” of future prognostication, but because their readers, listeners, and viewers just can’t get too worked up over the “future”. A perfect example: it has taken decades for journalism to really start focusing on global warming and other serious environmental issues – in large part due to the “ho-hum” response of its audience to bad things that will take place “decades from now”. When did the “environment” finally get serious public and journalistic traction? When the politicians started fighting over it!

In short, getting journalists to consistently focus on any serious or significant topic is a lost cause – unless someone (economists, scientists, pressure groups etc) can turn it into a “political issue”. This “topic myopia” is certainly short-sighted (by definition), but it’s what we – journalists and public alike – have been trained and accustomed to.

I guess by focusing most of my academic work on political science and mass communications I made the correct professional decision – which doesn’t mean that in practice, combining the two should be the be-all and end-all of our news production and consumption practices.

Introduction

  By admin | 24/09/2020 - 11:45 |
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My father Arthur Wilzig was born in 1910 in the tiny Polish-German (the nationality depended on the era) town Krojanke; my mother Jenny Weinreb (1925), in Hamburg, Germany, moving to Berlin at age 2. From there the “wandering Jew” syndrome took over for both: he moved to Cuba in 1936 (where there was a large Polish-Jewish expat community, fleeing the Polish pogroms in the mid-20’s), and she escaped from Nazi Germany in 1939 to Lisbon, and from there to a British-run refugee camp in Jamaica, and from there to Cuba in 1944, where she met my father who by then was Vice Chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee, greeting Jewish refugees in his official capacity. They married in 1946 and I was conceived in Cuba in late 1948, when they immigrated to the U.S. with me in utero – making me a truly “international baby” (1949). No surprise, then, that 28 years later I too moved halfway round the world to Israel. But more on all this later… 

This is not a memoir. I might have lived a fairly interesting life – interesting, that is, to me and perhaps a few loved ones – but certainly not enough to entice a wider audience than that. Rather, I am using certain aspects of my life as a diving board to jump into some deeper ruminative waters that I trust will be of interest to many people. Each “chapter” starts with (or includes) a short personal event or happenstance – and from there I delve into what I believe is the “larger, more universal meaning” that others can learn from these. Thus, you need not read these in order – it’s altogether fine to cherry-pick the ones whose title and topic catch your fancy.

Obviously, I have no pretensions to completeness or comprehensiveness. A person can live only a very small number of the life possibilities afforded by modern society. But within that circumscribed life, each of us comes up against many of the same problems, issues, dilemmas, and other choices that make living in our era so challenging (and interesting). It is to these aspects that I devote my attention here – indirectly suggesting some of what made, and makes, me who I (S)am.

Which leads to my first warning: I love puns, and am known in my circle of friends as being a real groan-up. I’ll try not to overdo it here, but as I really do not have any addictions, let this be my worst vice.

Indeed, if you didn’t notice, the title of this series is a pun (I just did this twice: the first and also the last time I explain a pun of mine). As suggested earlier, I am trying to do two things here: reflect on life in general through specific mirror reflections of things that I have done or that happened to me. These are not necessarily the most important things in my life, but rather events that set me thinking about important issues of living in general.

The reader will very quickly discover that I have very wide-ranging knowledge in quite a number of disparate disciplines. To use Isaiah Berlin’s terminology, I am not a hedgehog (digging deep in one field) but rather a fox (moving hither and thither to gather food – for thought, in my case – among several fields).

“Wide-ranging knowledge”? Doesn’t that sound somewhat conceited? Forthrightly, I have tried my very best in this book to be completely honest about myself for better and for worse. You will read about several of my “accomplishments” but also discover a not inconsiderable number of “failures”. Temperamentally, I am very averse to telling anyone what I really think about them; but I have no problem doing the same about myself. As we grow older, we prefer less and less to look at the mirror image of our physical visage, understandably so; however, maturity demands of us to metaphorically look into the mirror about who we really are. If I have succeeded in anything, it is this willingness to see my character warts and try to smooth them over, if not eliminate them altogether. Why and how – I leave that for later elucidation.

And now for a few “apologies”:

1) Everything here will be the truth, but not necessarily the whole truth. We all have “dark secrets” – some very significant and evil, others minor and simply non-normative. Although “letting it all hang out” seems to be the new zeitgeist in our social-network-driven world, I come from the old school believing that there should be clear limits to self-baring selfies. Indeed, it would be better if we spelled the word “sell-fees” because in trying to sell ourselves there is usually a heavy price to pay down the road.

Moreover, many things in our life involve others – spouse, children etc – so that their privacy and feelings have to be taken into account, even if the memoirist was willing to “bare all”. This is not a “bug” of any (auto)biography but rather part of the code. Just as a newspaper editor will not let the reporter write a 5000-word description of yesterday’s event that includes every minute detail (and even some, not so minute), so too the (auto)biographer has to be selective in what to display. But again, this book is not an autobiography in the classic sense; rather, it’s a vehicle for significant life ruminations based on selected elements of my far less significant life.

2) Some people tell me I have an annoying habit of writing with too many parenthetical asides (the ones inside parentheses, just like this one). This could be annoying, but there are two good reasons for this.

a- I have been trained to think “associatively” (or maybe I was simply born that way?), and coupled with my wide range of knowledge, I see (too?) many connections between seemingly disparate facts and phenomena. I could put these into footnotes – but as an academic I have had more than my fill of that!

b- Details, details: too often readers misconstrue or misunderstand (or are simply confused by) a comment without sufficient context or explanation; I prefer to err on the side of “over-explanation” so that you don’t err in understanding what I write.

3) As an academic, I know full well the importance of “sourcing”: where does this fact come from? who said it or verified it? is it speculative or proven? On the other hand, as a reader of much academic work I am also aware of how all this can complicate and even undermine comprehension, especially for (even highly educated) lay readers. So I shall forego citations, sourcing and other academic paraphernalia. In the age of Prof. Google (Scholar), it is quite easy to find relevant sources for any idea, argument, theory, factoid and the like. If any idea among my ruminations strikes your curiosity bone, feel free to do some intellectual detective work by yourself. What I reflect, you are welcome to refract….

And Now for the Good News…

  By admin | 27/04/2009 - 19:39 |
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Isreality

Israel: And Now for the Good News…

Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Schusterman Visiting Israeli Scholar, Brown University

Anyone following the news might think that Israel is the most dangerous place on Earth – and that it is a country torn by constant political and social strife. In fact, based on the media, one might wonder how it exists at all!

I don’t have any pretensions to definitively clear up this distorted perception but rather wish to offer parts of a picture that one hardly ever sees or reads about in the news (foreign or Israeli), mainly because the media do not deal with “good news” (and all of us are partly at fault – imagine our response to a newspaper that reported mostly good news…). Moreover, the media are not geared to offering a long-term perspective on matters of state – what happened 2 days ago (not to mention 2 years ago; forget about 2 decades ago!) is alta zakhen. But “good news” and “bad news” is a contextual matter – the real question is in which direction is the trend going, and how do things compare with the way they were in the past?

This is not merely an academic exercise but rather has important consequences. For example, if overseas Jews get the feeling that Israel is a basket case of bombs and internal turmoil, this will impact immigration into the country. If Gentiles get the same impression, that will influence for the worse their willingness to support Israel; people tend not to want to be on the side of a “loser”. Not to mention Israel’s enemies who have the impression that Israel will ultimate collapse of its own weighty problems – and thus these opponents have no incentive to compromise with Israel and end the conflict.

1) Ethnic Tensions

As a result of historical injustices, perceived and real, the Jews from Arab countries suffered greatly in their absorption process after the state’s establishment. By the 1970s a severe backlash ensued with second generation “Black Panthers” rioting in the streets of Jerusalem (and other slum areas). By the early 1980s, Israel was rife with election strife around this social issue, leading to the rise of the TAMI party and later SHAS.

Today, while perfect equality has not been achieved, there is little (if any) strife at all. Progress has been very impressive. On the political and public front, to name but a few high level positions, Israel has had 2 Mizrahi Presidents of the State (Navon, Katzav); a Speaker of Knesset (Itzik); 3 Chiefs of Staff (Levi, Mofaz, Ashkenazi); major businessmen (Gaon, Tshuva). Moreover, huge numbers of Mizrahim are highly prominent in the entertainment field, while there has been a significant narrowing of the higher education and income gap in society between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim.

2) Macro-Economic Policy

Unprofessional economic policy and poor decision-making under both Labor and Likud governments led to a complete banking system collapse in the early 1980s and subsequent hyper-inflation. At that point (1984), the newly elected National Unity Government with PM Peres and Finance Minister Moda’i at the head, called in the academics to try their hand at saving the country, and in 1985 the New Economic Program was promulgated under the leadership of Prof. Michael Bruno.

“Miraculously”, inflation was stopped cold in its tracks – and ever since, the “Finance Ministry Youth” have run Israel’s economy in practice, with spectacular results. This responsible macro-economic policymaking laid the foundation for overseas investment in Israel that in turn contributed to the high-tech miracle (“Silicon Wadi”) as a result of massive foreign investment. Obviously, Israel is not immune to the vicissitudes of the world economy, but it now is able to weather such storms without asking for emergency aid from Uncle Sam and other world institutions – indeed, lately the shekel has been stronger than the dollar!

3) Bureaucracy

Israel‘s early quasi-socialist, highly centralized approach to governance ultimately led to a huge, sclerotic bureaucracy. One example among all too many: by the 1970s, the average wait for a phone line was 2-3 YEARS!

Starting in the 1980s, Israelis decided to take matters into their own hands in what I have called the phenomenon of “alter-politics” – the quasi-legal and occasionally illegal establishment of alternative “social services” by the citizenry itself: Black Health (paying for medical attention in hospitals after hours), Black Dollar (illegal foreign currency transactions), Underground Economy (circumventing tax payments for services rendered), Gray Education (in-school, after hours, “private” classes), Pirate Cable TV (neighborhood wires strung from apartment to apartment for video movie viewing) and Pirate Radio (by the 1990s over 150 stations!), private “public transportation khappers” plying the same routes as the always-late buses, etc etc.

All this eventually forced the government into massive reform of the system (parallel to improving “macro-economic” policy), along the lines of decentralization and privatization. Today, citizens can get their blood test results on the internet, in a top notch health system (Obama Administration, take note); no one goes to the bank anymore (total online banking); one can get as many landline and cell phone numbers as one wants with much better reception than in the U.S.; Israelis can renew their driver’s license thru the internet; there has been an explosion of colleges (63 institutions of higher learning in a country of merely 7 million souls!); over a dozen licensed, regional radio stations are broadcasting; ditto regarding a plethora of cable & commercial TV stations. It’s a completely different, and radically improved, social service landscape.

4) Women

Despite the “myth” of female kibbutz equality, Israel has always been a very macho society (Golda Meir was a fluke – a “temporary” compromise candidate between two young males, Yigal Allon and Shimon Peres, on whom the party elders could not decide). Women had very little influence de facto and were not found in any important public positions. Today? True, because of the centrality of Israel’s army (and general security problems) the country remains male-“oriented” to a certain extent, BUT…

Women now serve in 90% of all army jobs (including fighter pilots); Israeli women receive 60% of all BAs and 50% of university PhDs; the country has enacted strong sexual harassment laws with heavy penalties (see: President Katzav and former army General Yitzchak Mordechai!); women by law cannot be fired if pregnant, and receive 3 months of paid maternity leave (with a guaranteed return to their job); there are a growing number of women mayors (e.g. Netanya, Herzliya) as well as women holding high level government positions (today’s Leader of the Opposition; the recent Speaker of the Knesset); they have even made impressive inroads in corporate Israel (e.g. CEO of Bank Leumi, the #2 bank in Israel, not to mention the owner of #1 Bank Ha’poalim)!

5) International Hasbarah

Because of the too close government / national-media relationship over the years as well as for other cultural reasons, Israel had almost non-existent overseas public relations, as government officials tended to believe that overseas media would print/publish whatever it sent them. The situation today has changed radically for the following reasons: a- the coming to power of a more media-sophisticated political leadership understanding the power of image and images; b- the clear, steady erosion of international support for Israel; c- a huge expansion of Mass Communication programs in the country’s universities and colleges – forming the core of a more media savvy public service corps.

The recent Gaza campaign is illustrative of this turnaround: Foreign Ministry emissaries were sent all over the world before the outbreak of hostilities to explain why and for what; the army now devotes significant ancillary resources to its media campaign (e.g. drones filming Hamas shooting from citizen’s homes to prove the enemy’s immoral war tactics, and immediately uploading such video evidence to YouTube); Israel’s Foreign Ministry updating the news media every few hours (not days), all the while responding immediately to the other side’s “accusations” of army “atrocities”.

**********************************************

Let there be no mistake: Israel is still far from being a social, political and economic “utopia”. Problems abound, and will not be eliminated for a long time to come. However, it is important to understand that despite massive security concerns, Israeli society has successfully dealt with, and in many cases successfully resolved, many of its original flaws and serious problems. With a clear conscience, I can honestly say about the State of Israel on her 61st birthday: “you’ve come a long way baby”!

April 27, 2009

Israel, Hamas and Gazan Democracy

  By admin | 16/03/2009 - 22:13 |
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Isreality

Israel, Hamas and Gazan Democracy

Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Schusterman Visiting Israeli Scholar, Brown University

The military campaign in Gaza might be receding into the mist of history, but not so the political campaign to delegitimize Israel’s incursion or at least the “disproportionate” level of “civilian” destruction. Indeed, many critics have taken to accusing Israel of undermining democracy itself, for after all, didn’t Hamas come to power in legitimate democratic elections?

           This broad-based attack, a “throw in everything but the kitchen sink” form of propagandistic vilification, actually undercuts its own logic – and when one thinks about it, actually strengthens Israel’s case. Here’s how.

           If Hamas came to power through fair elections, then that means that the public supports its governance and policies. And if indeed Gaza remains a “democracy”, then certainly that same public could do much to make its displeasure known if Hamas were pursuing policies inimical to that public’s interests. One need not look further than Pakistan’s very recent mass protest and subsequent government concessions on the issue of the judiciary to understand how democratic extra-parliamentary activity can force policy change in Third World democracies.

           The picture in Gaza is quite different from what we have just seen in Pakistan: most Gazans voted for Hamas because of its anti-Israeli policy (correction: terrorist missile lobbing policy), continued supporting it up to the Israeli incursion, and continue to support Hamas despite the massive Israeli destruction which their government brought upon them.

           What that essentially means is that the concept of “innocent civilians” caught in the crossfire is meaningless or worse: it is outright misleading. Anyone supporting a combatant – not just militarily or logistically but politically as well – is fair game in war. Otherwise, FDR and the entire Allied leadership during World War 2 should have been held accountable as “war criminals” for bringing destruction on Germany’s civilian population, despite the fact that they voted Hitler into power and continued to support his regime for years thereafter. But of course, precisely that civilian support is what immunized the Allies from being “war criminals”. And lest there be no mistake, I am not over-reaching in such a parallel. From Israel’s (Jewish) perspective, Hamas is Hitler redux: a violent, ideologically-driven movement that has explicitly declared its policy of making Palestine judenrein.

           The critics of Israel’s attack on Gaza make a fundamental error in conflating legitimate democratic processes with the automatic legitimacy of any policy that derives from such a process. The second does not follow from the first: on a personal level I can sign a “legal” contract with another person (legal in the sense that all provisions and remunerations for such agency are properly spelled out), but if the contract is for murder, such legalistic niceties have no moral force in law! The same with Gazan democracy: those who voted Hamas into power and continue to support its murderous policies “democratically”, should remember Shakespeare’s warning of being “hoist with his own petard”. Such democratic support makes the supporter an accomplice to murderous-terrorist policies, and as such fair game by the rules of warfare.

           And when Hamas is not shooting missiles at Israel? Where is the legitimacy of Israel’s blockade (other than humanitarian supplies) when there’s a hudna (temporary truce)? Here too – to mix my metaphors – what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If Hamas refuses to recognize the “Zionist entity” in principle, why should Israel be asked to do anything that enables the “Hamas entity” to survive? And if Gazans support such a negation of Israel’s right to exist, why should Israel enable anyone from the outside to support the Gazans beyond the minimum necessary for human sustenance? Let Hamas publicly recognize Israel’s right to exist and we shall see how fast the borders open up and trade ensues (fror proof, see “Fatah: West Bank” as an example of Israel’s underlying philosophy of tit for tat, this time in a positive direction).

           The bottom line: those who use Gazan Democracy as “proof” of Israeli perfidy should think twice about their position. Democracy in Gaza that maintains Hamas’s hold on power only strengthens Israel’s case and provides ample legitimacy for its policies, past and present.

March 16, 2009

The Coalition-Formation Politics of Israeli Constitutionalism

  By admin | 04/03/2009 - 19:21 |
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Isreality

The Coalition-Formation Politics of Israeli Constitutionalism

Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Schusterman Visiting Israeli Scholar, Brown University

Americans can be forgiven for missing the recent (Feb. 24) 206th anniversary commemoration of its revolutionary Supreme Court decision Marbury vs. Madison (1803), in which the principle of judicial review was officially incorporated into the political system. By now, everyone accepts that the Supreme Court has the authority to rule whether Congressional laws are constitutional or not.

           Israel should be so lucky. While foreign attention is focused on the peace process, Israelis have been involved for the past few years in an extremely and (even for Israeli politics) unseemly political brouhaha over this very question. Indeed, its reverberations are being felt in the present coalition formation negotiations, with Yvette Lieberman demanding the retention of the highly controversial Prof. Friedman as Justice Minister, and almost every other coalition partner not on the far right demanding his replacement. What’s the core issue here? There are two: overt and covert.

           Israel has a parliamentary form of government. As such, the principle of judicial review is not appropriate, as parliament is considered supreme – unless it explicitly sets up a Constitutional Court (as did Germany). Israel’s Chief Justice Aharon Barak (now retired), unquestionably the greatest constitutional expert in Israel’s history, thought otherwise. He pulled a “Marbury vs. Madison” back in the mid-1990s, claiming that Israel’s Supreme Court does have this power.

           The right-wing camp was not happy, because although the Court has not yet canceled any specific legislation, it has interfered in governmental policy-making, usually regarding national security matters (the Wall/Fence; expropriation of Palestinian land; etc.). But the broad left and center of the country, taking its cue from Uncle Sam, were quite pleased that finally there existed a real defender of civil rights in what had heretofore been an overly centralized polity, with almost unchecked power in the government’s hands.

           Matters came to a head in the Olmert government when Prof. Friedman – a noted academic legal scholar in his own right who had excoriated the court’s “usurpation” of judicial review – was appointed Justice Minister two years ago. He promptly set out to clip the Court’s wings in several ways (among them, changing the membership of the Appointments Committee that decides on new Supreme justices) – and all hell broke loose. Why did PM Ehud Olmert – by this time no right-winger – do such a thing?

           As is well known, Olmert has been under police and Attorney General investigation for several years, for a host of possible offenses. Speculation has it that appointing Prof. Friedman was his way of getting back at the entire judicial system. Reinforcing that impression is Lieberman’s demand that Friedman be retained – for Lieberman also has spent the last decade (yes, 10 years!) under police investigation for assorted white collar crimes. Of course, as a bona fide right-winger on national security matters Lieberman might also be worried about the Court’s overly activist, intervention approach. In any case, as he is under a police cloud of suspicion, Lieberman himself (or anyone from his party) cannot be appointed Justice Minister so that Friedman is the only alternative from his perspective.

           There is an irony of sorts in this. Let’s return to Chief Justice Marshall’s important ruling. Without going into the convoluted details, the bottom line back in 1803 was that he “created” judicial review by arguing that Congress’s law enabling any American citizen to turn directly to the Supreme Court for succor was itself unconstitutional because the Constitution clearly stated that the Court could only receive cases on appeal through the court system. Thus, to this day American citizens cannot turn straight to the Supreme Court for help.

           Not so in Israel! There the Supreme Court wears two hats: 1- Court of Appeals; 2- High Court of Justice (BAGATZ). Through the latter (that has existed from the start of the State of Israel), any Israeli citizen can directly petition the High Court against bureaucratic malfeasance, arbitrary decisions etc. It is actually under this hat that the Supreme Court has expressed its judicial activism and fomented the ire of the Right. In short, the Court is being formally attacked for something it is not in fact doing (nullifying legislation) and not attacked for what it is – legitimately – doing!

           So if you thought that the coalition negotiations are complicated by the peace process divide between Kadima/Labor and Likud/Yisrael-Beiteini, that’s only half the story. In the end, it might well be the “abstruse” constitutional issues of judicial review and control of the Justice Ministry that determine the character of Israel’s next government.

March 4, 2009

(Political) Resurrection in the Holy Land

  By admin | 21/02/2009 - 00:25 |
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(Political) Resurrection in the Holy Land

Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Schusterman Visiting Israeli Scholar, Brown University

When an American President or British Prime Minister leaves the scene after a political defeat, it marks the end of a political career (see: Jimmy Carter, George Bush the Elder, John Major, et al). The Land of Israel, however, is used to resurrections of all sorts – especially the political type.

How else to explain the incredible comebacks of Yitzchak Rabin (15 years after leaving the office after a minor financial scandal) and now Binyamin Netanyahu (after a disastrous electoral defeat in 1999 and an even worse election debacle in 2006), who has just been officially nominated by the State President to try and form a governing coalition? What does this say about Israeli society, the Israeli system, and/or the Israeli electorate?

First the good news: the Israeli public demands a long comeback and some proof of continued capability. As mentioned above, Rabin had to wait 15 years, in the meanwhile (re)proving himself as Defense Minister; Bibi has had to wait 10 years since the end of his former prime ministership, in the meanwhile serving as an excellent Finance Minister.  Moreover, Israelis do not automatically enable political resurrection. Thus, despite Ehud Barak’s professional work recently as Defense Minister (at least militarily-tactically, the Gaza campaign was carried out in almost exemplary fashion), the Labor Party with Barak at its head collapsed electorally in the recent election to the lowest point in the party’s history.

The bad news: such resurrections are further evidence of Israel’s broken election (and representation) system. Forget for the moment that coalition building has become an almost insuperable problem with so many parties needed to form a government, and that once formed the lifespan of recent governments has been short indeed. Beyond this is the underlying problem in which the Israeli electorate has no direct way of voting for its leaders and representatives. True, there are party primaries in which the candidates for the party list are chosen, but only a very small percentage of Israelis bother to register as party members (and it also costs some money to register as a party member), so that these lists are not very “representative” of the wider party’s constituency. And if a specific candidate does not function properly in the eyes of the broad electorate, as long as that party leader maintains party popularity among the narrow membership base, s/he can continue serving “forever”.

Put another way, it is extremely difficult for Obama-type new faces to make it relatively quickly up the ladder to a position of leadership. Even Tzippi Livni – a relatively “new face” – has been in the Knesset for ten years! And she became a candidate for prime minister only due to completely unexpected circumstances: PM Sharon’s coma and then PM Olmert’s corruption investigations.

This is not to say that only “the system” is to blame. One can well understand Israelis, constantly faced with existential threats to the nation, gravitating back to the tried and true (albeit flawed) – instead of the fresh but unknown (and perhaps even more flawed?) – leader.

So if you think that you have seen the last of Ehud Olmert, get ready for a surprise. Assuming that he can finalize the Gilad Shalit return to Israel before leaving office, and then can overcome his judicial problems, we might well see him running for the prime ministership in 2012 or 2016 at the head Kadima. If that thought does not get the new government moving seriously in the direction of major election reform, then nothing will!

Feb. 20, 2009

Israeli Coalition Building: There’s (Much) More than the Peace Process

  By admin | 11/02/2009 - 17:32 |
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Israeli Coalition Building:

There’s (Much) More than the Peace Process

Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Schusterman Visiting Israeli Scholar, Brown University

The American media may be forgiven for having focused on the national-security / peace process aspects of Israeli party platforms during the recent election campaign, and now during the complex negotiations to form a new government. But if the matter were merely “Right-Left” regarding the Palestinian conflict (Syrian negotiations too), the new government could be formed tomorrow with a coalition of 65 (out of 120) Knesset seats belonging to what is generally called the “national(ist) camp”. However, there is a lot more involved than this centrally salient issue – which is why there are going to be some “surprises” up ahead. Here, then, are some of the other important issues that will complicate the coalition-forming process.

1) Election Reform: I have already written about this issue in a previous post (http://profslw.com/?m=200812 – Dec. 1) and predicted there that this would be an important issue for the coming government. I was “wrong” – it is THE central issue, if one can judge by the pronouncements of almost all the important parties once the election results became clear! Israel simply cannot continue on the path of fragmented politics with elections held once every 30 months or so. Who is against such reform? The smaller parties (e.g. MERETZ; Bayit Yehudi) and the sectoral ones (Arab; SHAS). As the entire right-wing has only 65 seats, this essentially gives SHAS and other smaller right-wing parties veto power over electoral reform – something that Lieberman’s party has clearly said that it will not countenance (it strongly supports electoral reform). Thus, there is very serious disagreement on this critical issue within the right-wing camp.

2) Child Allowance: I have discussed this profoundly important issue in a previous post as well (same URL – Dec. 9). Briefly, SHAS demands the return of the child allowance cuts; both Netanyahu and Lieberman are dead set against it. So once again, it will not be easy at all to get SHAS to join this coalition. Moreover, most of the right-wing parties have a relatively strong capitalist bent, as opposed to SHAS’s Socialist-type of governmental largesse. After having saved the Israeli economy from disaster in 2003 as Finance Minister, Netanyahu will not want to jeopardize his image by going on a spending spree – especially with the economic tsunami hitting the world and catching Israel in its backwash.

3) Conversion and Civil Marriage: If there is one issue that Lieberman’s constituency demands to be dealt with immediately, it is the problem of hundreds of thousands of former-Russian “Jews” who need to somehow be formally incorporated into Jewish society through an easier conversion process and/or legislation enabling civil marriage. On the other hand, the ultra-Orthodox parties (SHAS; Yahadut Ha’Torah) have drawn a line in the sand on this issue. Both sides see it as central to the continuation of the Jewish State – the Russian immigrants in order to strengthen the State with more “newly minted” Jews; the ultra-orthodox by maintaining Jewish “purity” through conversion exclusively by way of the traditional (and very arduous) process. One should also keep in mind the personal animosity that this election campaign engendered, with SHAS’s spiritual leader Rav Ovadia Yosef lambasting Lieberman’s supporters for their “pig-eating tendencies”.

           Therefore, left to their own devices, Netanyahu and Livni have the task of squaring the circle inside a triangle – an almost insuperable task without combining forces to form the core of the new coalition. If, on the other hand, they form the government’s foundational structure with their collective 55 seats, perhaps also adding Lieberman’s 15 seats to reach 70 in total, then they can turn to the other right-wing parties with a “take it or leave it” offer – and be certain that enough of the smaller parties will swallow hard and accept the Likud-Kadima(-Lieberman) principles of government that will call for election reform, civil marriage, and economic sanity. And if the smaller parties refuse? Even a coalition of 70 seats with three parties is more than enough to maintain a somewhat stable government for the foreseeable future, and certainly more stable than a 65 seat “right-wing” coalition spread over six parties!

Feb. 11, 2009

The Paradox of Israel’s Post-Gaza Election Polls

  By admin | 30/01/2009 - 06:37 |
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The Paradox of Israel‘s Post-Gaza Election Polls

Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Schusterman Visiting Israeli Scholar, Brown University

As far as the Israeli public was concerned, the IDF’s latest war campaign in Gaza was a resounding success. A huge majority of  (Jewish) Israelis supported the war in principle from the start, a similar majority still feels that the war was conducted in a professional manner (unlike the Second Lebanon War in 2006), and all three leaders – Defense Minister Barak, Foreign Minister Livni and PM Olmert – have seen their personal popularity ratings increasing significantly. The number of Israeli soldiers killed (10) was amazingly low, considering the nature of urban warfare, so even in this most vulnerable area of Israeli sensitivity, the campaign ended with very minimal harm to Israeli society.

           As a result, one would have expected the election survey data taken immediately after the cessation of hostilities to show the electoral strengthening of the governing parties. Instead, the party that has increased its strength is the Likud! Such a counter-intuitive development demands explanation.

           It seems to me that there are two different but complementary reasons for this “paradoxical” outcome. First, the “I told you so” factor. Benjamin Netanyahu, the head of the Likud party, has been arguing for several years that we will have to move into Gaza with military force to stop the missile attacks. The present Kadima-led government, especially, had been loath to do so, in large part due to the lack of army preparedness as exhibited in the Lebanon 2 campaign. This is not to say that the government was wrong to wait and try to exhaust all diplomatic channels before the incursion; it is to say that Netanyahu warned that diplomacy was not going to succeed when faced with an implacable enemy such as Hamas. So in a sense, to paraphrase the Bible: “the hand is the hand of Olmert (et al); the voice is the voice of Netanyahu”.

           The second factor – and to my mind even more important – is the “conclusion” of the campaign. Israel has (hopefully) achieved all of its explicitly stated goals: stopping the smuggling of arms and cessation of rocket attacks for at least a year and perhaps more (a la Southern Lebanon, which has been quiet for 30 months, notwithstanding a couple of token missiles shot over the northern border during the Gaza campaign). However, precisely because Israel is facing an implacable enemy that in principle will not recognize the right of Israel to exist, the most recent polls also show that an overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews feel that no matter how many Israeli soldiers died the war should not have been stopped at this stage but rather taken to its “logical” conclusion: the elimination and annihilation of the entire Hamas leadership. Given that with Hamas continuing at the helm, the missile attacks will sooner or later commence once again, the Israeli public wanted to see a strategic end to the Gaza problem and not merely a temporary, tactical one. However, as it is only the latter that the Olmert government achieved, Israelis are now turning to Netanyahu who will not make the same mistake if and when the IDF will once again have to fight in Gaza in the coming years.

           Many pundits have suggested that the current Israeli government wanted to end the war before Obama’s inauguration as a sort of good will gesture to the new administration. I think that Israelachieved the opposite. Had the war continued another week or two and the Hamas leadership decimated, the Barack/Hillary team would have had a far easier time of it bringing some semblance of a genuine peace process to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. With Hamas remaining in power, they might well find themselves talking to a wall – a true Middle Eastern “Wailing Wall”. In such a situation, the Israeli public has more confidence in Netanyahu/Likud than in Livni/Kadima.

Jan. 28, 2009 

Who is an Innocent Civilian?

  By admin | 13/01/2009 - 05:48 |
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Who is an Innocent Civilian?

Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Schusterman Visiting Israeli Scholar, Brown University

Does this story seem familiar to you?

The society is on the brink of economic and social collapse. Democratic elections are held and the public decides to vote for an extreme, ideologically-based party that views Jews as its mortal enemy. The party is not satisfied with its election victory and within a short time frame carries out a putsch in which all opposition is violently banished from the political system.  With no internal opposition left to block it, the extremist party goes on a militaristic binge, and among other things it fires hundreds of lethal rockets into populated areas of what it considers to be its enemy. Ultimately, the people fired upon decide to fight back and eventually invade the attackers’ land, causing massive destruction of army and civilians alike – far more of the latter than died in the initial rocket attacks.

I’m sure you are asking why I am repeating what every one is quite familiar with – the recent and contemporary history of Hamas in Gaza and its actions against Israel. In fact, however, I am actually writing about quite a different scene: the rise of Nazi Germany, its attacks on Britain, and the subsequent allied invasion of Germany with the ensuing total destruction of its infrastructure, not to mention the deaths of millions of German civilians.

My point is not to draw a direct parallel between Hamas and the Nazis, although one could make a good argument of (too) many parallels and similarities. Rather, I wish to raise another question: “who is an innocent civilian?”

Israelis are scolded for attacking Hamas which came to power in democratic elections. Precisely! This is an extremist party that did  not take power against the wishes of the local population, but rather was elected by the Gazan populace, due (in part) to its implacable hatred of Israel and everything Jewish. The policy of rocket fire into Israel these past few years was not opposed by Gazans but rather was tacitly – and occasionally actively – supported by Gaza’s civilians.

Does this mean that Israel can indiscriminately fire at anything and everything in Gaza? To judge by the precedent of World War II (Dresden anyone? How about Hiroshima?) – and numerous other wars (Vietnam etc.) in which the West did precisely that – the answer would seem to be a resounding “yes”. However, from a “just [moral] war” perspective that Israel tries hard to adhere to, the answer is obviously “no”. Nevertheless, given that civilians elected and supported Hamas’s casus belli policy from the start, it is also clear that the principles of “just war” have to be modified when dealing with a population that was not held ransom by its own political outlaws but rather consistently supported and condoned the policy of indiscriminate rocket attack against Israeli civilian targets.

Gazan civilians are being shot in the crossfire of war? Perhaps if they would have acted from the start a little more civilian and had tried to dissuade their duly elected leaders from pursuing an immoral policy of shooting at Israeli non-combatant citizens (i.e. “just warfare” morality), they would not find themselves in the present bind. As to the rest of the world looking on in “horror”, bewailing the Gazans’ plight, they would do well to consider whether these “innocent civilians” are indeed not at least partly to blame themselves for the present carnage.

Jan. 13, 2009