AJC Executive Director David Harris blogs for the Jerusalem Post. From his latest entry:

On May 11, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora had an op-ed in the New York Times.

It reminded me of a Cold War-era joke.

An American and a Soviet debated which country was more open. The American boasted that, without fear of arrest, he could stand near the White House and denounce President Nixon. The Soviet, clearly unimpressed, replied that the USSR was freer. He could stand near the Kremlin and assail the US leader, too. Not only wouldn’t he be seized, but Chairman Brezhnev would personally come out to thank him.

Saniora used the Winograd Commission report, a product of Israel’s democratic process, to criticize Israel, while failing to engage in any parallel self-reflection.

Saniora’s message falls short [JPost]

Complete list of Harris’s blogs [JPost]

Listen: [audio:101meeting/allam050407.mp3]
Magdi Allam, editor at Corriere Della Sera and commentator on Arab and Islamic affairs, was presented with the Mass Media Award on May 4, 2007 at AJC’s 101st Annual Meeting. Here he gives his acceptance speech.

continue reading "Audio: Magdi Allam Accepts Mass Media Award"

Back in 2003, when I was still living in London and working as a journalist, I came across a newspaper advertisement slamming Israel which had been signed by a number of British trade unionists. Among them was Jeremy Dear, the Secretary-General of the union I belonged to, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).

Like many other members, I had no meaningful involvement with the union. The only tangible benefit of membership was a press card which you could whip out, should the need arise, to demonstrate your bona fides to a policeman or a government official. But when I saw Dear appending the name of the NUJ to this ad, I decided I’d had enough. Why, I fulminated, should I pay membership dues to a union that had embraced the demonization campaign against Israel? Why should I, even in a small way, subsidize the salary of a man who, in addressing a rally opposing the Iraq war, declared that an invasion of Israel would be the morally correct alternative?

continue reading "Confronting the NUJ’s Israel Boycott"

The enormity of this event lies in its pettiness.

A few weeks ago, Rabbi Micky Boyden, a well-liked Reform rabbi in the town of Hod Hasharon, a quiet Tel Aviv suburb, was invited to recite a prayer at the local commemoration of Israel’s war dead on Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day. Rabbi Boyden, who lost his son Yonatan in combat in Lebanon in 1993, founded the local “Kehilat Yonatan” synagogue and was active in the Yad Labanim organization that memorializes Israel’s war dead. However, a few days before the ceremony, he was called by the organizers and given an ultimatum: Either he agrees to deliver the prayer without the use of his “rabbi” title or he would not be allowed to participate.

Stunned, he refused.

continue reading "Fighting for Democracy and Pluralism in the Jewish World"

As Israel celebrates its 59th anniversary, David Harris, AJC’s executive director, discusses what Israel means to him.
Listen: [audio:WhatIsraelMeans041907.mp3]
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As the evening shadows fall upon Jerusalem, and Yom HaShoah (the memorial day for the Holocaust, according to the Hebrew date of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943/5703) is ushered in, the official ceremony at Yad Vashem is never free of an internal built-in tension. It is an official, orchestrated act of the State of Israel, with all that this entails — the central role accorded to political leaders, the presence of a military guard of honor, the presentations treading the path of a well-established ritual.

Many young people find themselves somewhat alienated by the formal and forbidding proceedings. And yet there are moments of heartbreaking humanity, as the stories of the six torch-lighters — one for every million murdered — are told in their own words; as young Israelis, singers and choirs, give words and music to the agony and loss; and sometimes, when the words spoken, even by officials, do reach beyond the worn phrases and remind us of our duty to commit to what those terrible years have taught us.

This year there were important new notes in two of the central speeches.

continue reading "In a Place of Shadows: Olmert’s Yad Vashem Speech"

This is the good news: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has emerged as one of the strongest advocates of Israeli security of any European head of state in recent years.

After Germany assumed leadership of the European Union and the Group of Eight in January, Chancellor Merkel revived the Mideast Quartet (the U.S., the EU, Russia and the UN) to bring movement into the nearly defunct Mideast peace process. In early April, on her second visit to the Mideast in two months, Chancellor Merkel warned Iran to stop threatening Israel, made abundantly clear her abhorrence for terrorism, and refused to meet with Palestinian officials who are members or supporters of Hamas.

This is the worrisome news: A Global Scan poll commissioned by the BBC in March 2007, determined that 77 percent of Germans believe that Israel has a negative impact on world affairs. In fact, only 10 percent of Germans believe Israel has a positive impact, scantly more than the new European Union member countries Poland and Hungary.

continue reading "Germany and Israel: Friendship and Criticism"