Jonathan Feldstein http://www.jta.org/user/profile/43120 Jonathan Feldstein has a long and distinguished career in Jewish non-profit work. He has been cited for establishing many innovative programs, successful fund raising campaigns and PR initiatives. In 1988 he was named "Person of the Week" by ABC News as a result of his long time advocacy for Soviet Jewry and helping to get his adopted family free from the USSR. He and his wife made aliyah in 2004 with their five children and have a sixth child born in Jerusalem, the first native Israeli in the Feldstein family in seven decades. en-us zsilberman@washingtonjewishweek.com Copyright 2012 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Very nice collection and its admirable that so many groups want to help. But it's odd that in terms of actual hands on rescue and relief, the only one organization that is providing services is American Friends of Magen david Adom. I'd certianly hope that the others collecting general funds were to realize this and allocate their funding to MDA. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 A View of the Elders’ View of the Middle East Jonathan Feldstein No1abba@gmail.com It’s the ultimate of ironies sitting in Jerusalem reading Jimmy Carter’s latest anti-Israel scourge, “The Elders’ View of the Middle East,” and on the same day, in the same newspaper (the Jerusalem Post), a front page report of a Gaza based, Al Qaida affiliated terrorist admitting that they attempted to assassinate Carter and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. It’s one thing for Carter to use the pulpit of Op Ed pages of the world to espouse his bias against Israel. It’s quite another when he resorts to lies, as is his all too frequent MO, to distort reality which ultimately promotes terrorism and brings the Middle East further from peace. Carter states that Gaza is a “walled in ghetto.” Really? What vivid imagery. He must be referring to the walled in ghettos that kept Jews apart from their neighbors, or as a means to kill them easier, that was the standard for centuries. Where’s the wall? A border fence exists to keep would be Palestinian terrorist infiltrators from crossing into Israel via land, despite their proclivity to fire thousands of rockets above the ground and tunnel under ground on both sides of the border. And while Carter decries preventing things like fertilizer from crossing the border from Israel into Gaza, things that can be used to create more explosives, he seemed to overlook the fact that these Palestinian tunnels from Gaza have been used both to smuggle weapons and other illicit materials, as well as to traffic in humans and also to kidnap Israelis. Perhaps the “Elders” blinked and missed this. Carter cries for the Palestinians of Gaza who “cannot produce their own food” but he and the “Elders” must have missed it when Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, leaving behind numerous greenhouses and the infrastructure not just to produce food, but the foundation of an independent economy. And he and the “Elders” probably did not see these because the Palestinians rioted, looted, and burned these greenhouses that were paid for by foreign donors, and ungraciously destroyed them leaving no trace in the wake of Israel’s leaving them behind intact. Cater and the “Elders” viewed Israeli news headlines that spoke of the conditions of freezing growth of existing communities and neighborhoods over the Green Line, and he is critical of the terms being proposed. But, as the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. Carter and the “Elders” must have been elsewhere or otherwise occupied a few weeks earlier trying to solve other world problems when the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah sat in Bethlehem and renewed their demands which simply echoed voices of terrorists past, including “armed struggle,” aka suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism. Of course, had Carter, and presumably the rest of the “Elders,” seen this they’d not have blinked because Carter even endorsed Palestinian terrorism himself in a recent books by suggesting that Palestinians only had to end their armed struggle after Israel capitulated to all their demands. Another statement which goes beyond Carter’s tendency to twist reality and omit critical facts is his statement that it is “obviously the goal of Israeli leaders” to create one state. It’s almost comical to know which “Israeli leaders” Carter and the “Elders” saw who stated this because Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have adopted a two state solution, as have recent past Prime Ministers Olmert, Barak, Peres and Rabin. Perhaps Carter and the “Elders” had an intimate meeting with former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who lies unconscious in a Tel Aviv hospital. Perhaps, when asking Sharon if he supports a two state solution, they must have seen him blink once, and interpreted it as his support for a one state solution. Not to be outdone, fellow “Elder” Desmond Tutu had the audacity to suggest that what he viewed was that the Palestinians have become the second victims of the Holocaust. In addition to being a gross affront to the memory of six million Jews who were mass murdered by the Nazis and their followers, Tutu’s observation suggests that Israel only has legitimacy because of the Holocaust. ‘Poor Palestinians,’ he suggests. ‘If only the Jews were not murdered in the Holocaust, you’d all be living peacefully in your own Judenrein country because the Jews would have stayed in Europe.’ How ironic. How offensive. For a few years two decades ago, I had the opportunity as a student at Emory University to hear Carter lecture many times. His anti Israel bias was clear then and has grown faster than the interest rates the US suffered under his one term presidency. He ends his article with an observation about a Palestinian and Israel community which have worked hand in hand to protect their shared valley. His suggestion is that if only everyone would follow this model, we’d have peace. I’d suggest Carter and the “Elders” consider two other facts. First, is that as long as there are fanatic hate bent terrorist groups and people who support their ideology, like the very group that just admitted to having tried to assassinate Carter himself, there can be no peace. It’s not about territory for them; it’s about accepting Jewish sovereignty, or presence at all, in what they view as their land. Second, Carter and the “Elders” would do well to stop blaming the victims, and be honest about the facts. Short of that, Carter and the “Elders” views’ just come across as a new Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and that just leads to more hatred, terror and brings us further from peace for which we pray. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 I guess I have to speak up as one of the silent majority of "settlers." First, if the numbers represented in this article are accurate, 1000 out of nearly 300,000 is statistically irrelevant. it is odd to me that such a small number of people (as a percent of "settlers" and as a percent of Israelis) would warrant such an "investigation." Having said that, I decry the violence against Israeli soldiers and police, as well as the violence against Arabs and their property. I decry the incitement that is behind these. neither of these are in the range of acceptable Jewish practice and shame on the rabbis and other leaders who think that they are. Writing such an article may be timely given the rant from Washington against "settlements" but only adds fuel to the flames. Why not an indepth following of people like me who live here, peacefully, not in any way as "obsticles to peace," observing both the laws of the state and the laws of the torah, if not respecting our Arab neighbors certianly doing and wishing them no harm, and the conflicts we face as jews living in the land of israel, challenged by political leaders in Washington, Jerusalem and around the world for our right to be here. Replace "Jews" and "West bank" with "blacks" and "deep south" or "Japanese" and "california" or any other minority prevented from living anywhere peacefully and the racism of the argument preventing our being here jumps out. it also begs the question, why is it just a problem for Jews to live in the West bank. Just because Jordan occupied the West Bank from 1948-1967? Did I miss it that the world recognized these "borders" of the state of Israel? What makes theis sacrosinct? Why not prevent Jews from living anywhere else? Tel Aviv, Haifa, even sderot. Or what about the Upper East Side as used to be the pratice? why is this racism acceptable and for other minorities it is decried from the highest mountains? The issue is far to complex for JTA to present in 1000 words and as the JEWISH Telegraph Agency, I would expect better than something that does not give deeper context and other perspectives. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00