Ron Kampeas http://www.jta.org/user/profile/1112 Ron Kampeas is JTA's Washington bureau chief. en-us zsilberman@washingtonjewishweek.com Copyright 2012 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Or, emended it, as it were. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Mr. Edelstein is quite right -- I employed a sloppy shorthand. I amended the text. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Bugmenot -- I'm saying this sentence is factually wrong: "In previous years, that vote had gone the other way." In 2007, it went the same way. Thanks- 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Hey David -- thanks for finding this! It helps reinforce my point: ADL in Augiust 2007 urged Congress not to pass the resolution -- it passed anyway on October. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Hi Todd- Remember my profile of you in the Nation mag? Those were the days. I didn't include this in my original piece because I had no idea-- Lenny had the logs, not me. I posted it when he sent it to me. But it bears further inquiry, for sure. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Indeed, the teaser made me crazy (although I can't say for sure if she was responsible): Al Qaeda recruits in training; a Sunday morning TV evangelist preaching hellfire; and a Hasid shaking a lulav. Because lulavs are deadly weapons, I guess. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Adam- Forgive me for calling you a Stalinist. I know the BBC describes East Talpiot as a settlement, I'm simply not sure if that extends to the international community. Like Ramat Eshkol and a sliver of the Galilee south of the Golan, these are areas that Israel claims according to the 1949 armistice line but that were subsequently occupied by Arab powers. (Israel's neighbors have similar counterclaims, beyond lands captured in 1967; Jordan and Egypt have resolved these.) In any case, I don't object to the designation -- like I said the neighborhood could be seen as being in dispute -- as long as it relates to my coverage of Jerusalem and its neighborhoods which is why I disclosed it. What I object to is how it crops whenever someone objects to what I report -- and not even how I report it -- and no matter how remote the fact is from my reporting. Some of the best and most honest reporting I've seen on settlements and issues pertaining to them has been by reporters I know who indisputably live in settlements. Repeatedly invoking this status is, I think, a creepy means of impugning my credibility -- and all the more insidious because I made the disclosure in order to sustain my credibility. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Adam, my little Stalinist enforcer, The plan for the additional homes has been in the hopper for years. The Peace Now objection, as framed here -- http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=3&id=1174 -- has to do with how the homes will be positioned; they would, according to Peace Now, erase a natural line between an Israeli neighborhood -- East Talpiot -- and a Palestinian one. East Talpiot: At the end of December 2007 Israel published tenders for construction of 400 new units in East Talpiot. The construction would establish Israeli housing only footsteps from the Palestinian neighborhoods of Sur Baher and Jabal Mukaber. Such construction will make any future separation between these Israeli and Palestinian neighborhoods more difficult. This is in all likelihood one of the goals of the project. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Not at all. Arafat was in, until I remembered Chamberlain, who seemed to me even more catastrophic. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Hi Arthur- She kept out "Zionism is Racism," it's true. But no one here is claiming she did not. The final document singles out the Palestinian issue and not any other issue -- in a world that, at the time was dealing with oppressions in Chechnya, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc. etc. etc. that dwarfed Palestine. And many of these were racially tinged. So she kept out an odious calumny, not by standing up to those perpetuating it, but by wheeling and dealing with them, and coming up with a disingenuous compromise -- citing Palestine alone among all other examples of suffering peoples. This does not strike me as particularly brave or commendable. She might have, like the United States did, made a hard decision and walked away, as I would have expected her to had the Serbs been present and had successfully persuaded China and Russia to back a request that the expulsion from Krajina make the final document to the exclusion of all other atrocities -- or whatever other example you might pick. That singling out compromised the whole document, but so did her willingness to deal with racists compromise the whole affair. There have been many undistinguished Medal of Freedom over the years -- as I note in the same post. (I'd suspect, however, that Kemp's inclusion had something to do with the political risks he took in confronting his party on race.) Jewish groups have every right to criticize the selections that exercise them without attaching a list of others deemed undeserving. And Arthur, you have every right to question my motive as a journalist. I think it's in bad taste, though. I like your newsletters, I agree with some of your insights, disagree with others -- but no disagreement has ever driven me to question your credentials as a rabbi. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 My point is transparency and dealing with criticism; HRW seems about as adept at it as Israel's government and some of its defenders. For an organization dedicated to scrutiny, HRW resists it mightily -- something my past experience along with the current imbroglio bear out. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for HRW and AI not to track hate crimes, some of which I outlined; but we'll never know, since they steadfastly refuse to address the issue. I address two of Daniel's major points; he says this is all about deflecting Israel criticism; that may be part of it, but that doesn't mean HRW shouldn't answer for Whitson's appalling conduct; and he says Whitson has sharply criticized Saudi Arabia in other contexts; fine, but it's beside the point in this matter. I link to Goldberg because that's what bloggers do when other bloggers make a point worth repeating. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00