Author Archives: Rabbi

Israel’s Illegal Immigration

Posted on July 10, 2012 | 1 comment

(The following was originally drafted for and can be accessed at www.Jewishvaluesonline.org)

What is the Jewish perspective on the illegal immigration crisis in Israel? The Torah commands us to care for the foreigners and immigrants among us. Does that extend to illegal immigrants? Is it right to send them back, as is happening now, or are we obligated to take them in and help them?

The presence of illegal immigrants in Israel presents a most delicate and vexing issue. Emotionally, it is difficult to turn away any person who flees persecution and suffering, as we are quite mindful of our own recent history and the doors that were closed to Jews who wanted to flee Europe. The situation is exacerbated because these refugees are primarily Christians who are fleeing from Muslim persecutors, and ironically seeking safe haven with Jews.

Rationally, though, we recognize that every nation must place limits on the number of foreigners who wish to reside there. If such is true of the largest countries in the world, including the United States, it is certainly true of small Israel. Illegal immigrants currently number in the low hundreds of thousands – not significant in real terms but most substantial in relative terms. In a country with approximately six million Jews, and over a million Arabs, the character and culture of the Jewish state will be diluted once a critical mass of non-Jews is allowed to permanently reside there. If the gates are completely open, Israel can be overrun with another million or more foreigners – non-Jews who do not share the values and destiny of the Jewish people, and the Jewish State will begin to evaporate.

Obviously, the Torah recognizes limitations on a non-Jews’ right to live in the land of Israel. First and foremost, only gerei toshav (literally, resident aliens) – those who formally accept the seven Noachide laws – are allowed to traverse the land of Israel, much less live there. But the numbers have to be monitored so the foreign influences do not predominate. And that is the problem today, along with the fact that we no longer formally accept gerei toshav.

Rav Shlomo Aviner, the Rav of Bet El and one of the great rabbinical leaders in Israel today, notes that most (not all) of the illegal immigrants are law-abiding and have come to Israel to improve their lives. That they do – despite all the threats and problems in Israel – is a tribute to the remarkable character of the State of Israel. But the primary responsibility of Israel has to be to Jews, not non-Jews. Israel is in the process of gathering all Jewish exiles, including us. They will need jobs, homes, and infrastructure. It is simply not possible for Israel to become the world’s haven; it lacks both the physical space and the material resources. He concludes: “We must distinguish between individual morality and communal morality. It is impossible to run a country based on emotions. Everything must be carefully analyzed.”

Therein lies the critical distinction between the Jewish experience and these illegal immigrants. Jewish refugees often sought temporary refuge in friendly countries (like Shanghai, China, declared an international free zone during the Holocaust) but permanent residence in countries where we would be welcomed, and legal residents. We are obligated to offer temporary refuge to any person, to assist him in his time of need. But the emphasis is on “temporary.” The Torah obligates us to assist non-Jews – their poor, their sick, their homeless – in order to set them again on sound footing. But we are certainly not obligated to provide a permanent solution to an international crisis, a “solution” that will surely undermine the viability of the world’s only Jewish state. To channel Justice Robert Jackson, the Torah (like the US Constitution) is not a suicide pact. Nations can operate in their own interests in order to preserve their viability.

An illegal immigrant should have no expectation of remaining in the country that he has infiltrated. The reference in the Torah to the “strangers among us” relates primarily to those in the land when we arrived, and not necessarily to foreigners who came later. Some did, and all are to be treated humanely, but the notion that illegal immigrants have a moral claim on the country to which they emigrated is novel. It is part of the new American ethos that “illegal immigrants” are not really “illegal” but just “undocumented.” But they are more than “undocumented;” they carry no “documents” because, unlike millions of others trying to come to America but are obeying its laws and waiting their turn, they chose to break the law and breach the borders of the country.
The same applies to Israel’s illegal immigrants. The Vietnamese boat people who were admitted in the late 1970s by PM Menachem Begin were admitted because of their desperate plight and their relatively small numbers. The new illegal immigrants are far different in scale, and not all are political refugees. Any nation that has porous borders will soon cease to be a nation, and Israel’s margin is much smaller than most other countries. What is required is an international solution that provides a permanent home to these unfortunates. Otherwise, massive illegal immigration will be among the frightening enemies Israel has to overcome in the next two decades.

Temporary refuge – yes. Permanent home – no. Clearly, the Torah, which delimits the very residence of non-Jews in the land of Israel, endorses the deportation of illegal immigrants, young and old, who would threaten the existence and welfare of the State. Do all have to be deported? Certainly not. But the number of people that need to be deported must be determined by the government which is mainly responsible for the lives and well-being of its citizens. That number will certainly be informed by the humanitarian impulse that characterizes the Jewish personality. As Rav Aviner wrote: “Although we have a great desire to help humanity, our primary obligation is to strengthen ourselves here, and then we can bring a blessing to humanity.”

A good part of that blessing should be the concept of universal human rights and dignity, so that human beings are not forced to flee the evil that threatens them in their native lands, and a permanent end to the reign of the tyrants who torment millions across the globe.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Halacha, Machshava/Jewish Thought

The Shamir Legacy

Posted on July 4, 2012 | 2 comments

Israel lost one of its great leaders this past Motzaei Shabbat, with the death at 96 of former PM Yitzchak Shamir. Like his name itself – steely, flinty – Shamir represented an old breed, a lost generation, of Israeli leaders. With his funeral occurring at the very same time former PM Ehud Olmert is on trial for taking bribes and other felonies, the contrast Shamir presented could not be starker.

Those who assert, as PM Netanyahu said many years ago, that “the view from here is different from the view over there,” all said to rationalize the dramatic shifts in policy by Likud prime ministers shortly after they take office, apparently never accounted for Yitzchak Shamir. He was unyielding on matters of principle, Jewish rights, Jewish peoplehood and the inviolability of the Land of Israel. The policies of the others shifted suddenly not because their “view” changed but because their values were never resolute. Sure, they often said the right things, especially during campaigns and even while they were altering their policies, but they rarely lacked the will to see them through in the face of threats, recriminations and dangers. Shamir was unchanging.

Thus, Shamir remains the only prime minister since the Six-Day War not to retreat even one centimeter from the Land of Israel. (Levi Eshkol also did not surrender any land, but not for lack of trying; he offered to return almost all of it, but found no Arab interlocutor and died less than two years after the war ended.) Shamir was a faithful custodian of the territory entrusted by G-d to the Jewish people for eternity. Nothing could budge him – not personal threats from allies, not economic sanctions, and not even the pleas of the people who sought the safety of illusions rather than the cold harshness of reality.

And the threats came in abundance. James Baker became an open nemesis, even admitting his exasperation with Shamir before Congress in 1990, offering the White House phone number, and adding, “When you’re serious about peace, call us.” Two years later, Israel requested $10B in loan guarantees from the US to be used to resettle new immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Bush I and Baker demanded that in exchange Israel freeze all construction of new settlements. Shamir refused. Later that year, a new prime minister, Yizchak Rabin agreed to the condition, and received the loan guarantees (which enabled Israel to borrow money at a reduced rate; Rabin, among his other misdeeds, then proceeded to squander the money on national infrastructure rather than on factories and housing that would produce revenue and make loan repayment easier. By the time payment was due, Netanyahu was the prime minister for the first time and forced to clean up the fiscal mess left by Rabin).

But Shamir refused, recognizing as few other Israeli leaders ever have, that “no” is also an answer. (How well does “no” work ? In 2010, US envoy George Mitchell suggested that the US would again withhold loan guarantees from Israel unless Israel re-entered “peace” talks with the Arabs and were more compliant. Israel’s response? Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said, “No, thank you,” that Israel doesn’t really need the loan guarantees anyway. End of threat; Israel has no problem repaying its international loans. The same, sadly, cannot be said for the United States.) The other side may not like the answer, and they may intensely dislike the person who gave the answer, but “no” is also an answer. Shamir was one of the most unpopular Israeli leaders ever to grace the international scene – but one of the few who was genuinely respected for his toughness, his principles, his indefatigability, and his personal history.

With Shamir’s death, the era of the founding fathers of Israel is ended. The fighters and leaders, in the Hagana and the underground movements, have passed from the scene. Shamir, as one of the triumvirate that led the LECHI, was notorious in his time but obstinate and inflexible in pursuit of his goals. He often saw what others did not – that compromise played into the hands of the Jews’ enemies who themselves would only seek compromise if it garnered them an advantage and diluted the power of the Jewish idea.

He was naturally suited to the underground – terse, secretive, self-deprecating and sparing of words. His autobiography barely consists of 250 pages; by vivid contrast, Obama’s two books of memoirs, and devoid of any real accomplishments, stretches to more than 1000 pages. Shamir was extremely slight in appearance, surprisingly so; I hosted him once, and towered more than a foot above him. But what he lacked in physical stature he more than compensated for in moral and ideological gravitas.

He grew a beard in the underground (posing as Rabbi Shamir), married in the underground (a secret wedding officiated at by HaRav Aryeh Levin, the tzadik of Yerushalayim; a minyan of strangers was grabbed off the street), arrested several times, and escaped several times, once from Africa. He had a fierce sense of right and wrong. Like Menachem Begin, he eschewed any activity that might result in a civil war among Jews, even though he and others were persecuted and informed upon by the Zionist-socialist establishment. In the underground, he ordered the execution of a rogue LECHI member who wanted to eliminate fighters he held to be weak and unilaterally set off bombs in public places to rile up the population against the British. In office, he presided over the immigration of hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews, transforming the very nature of Israel.

Even his compromises were tactical. He was part of two national unity governments, but preserved his second tenure from the “stinking maneuver” of his erstwhile partner, Shimon Peres, who tried to unseat him. His non-response to the Scud attacks during the Gulf War in 1991 was requested and respected by the US, but the US knew that Shamir’s patience was limited. When word leaked that Israeli missiles were being readied for attack, the US destroyed the Scud launchers in western Iraq. Later that year, and forced to go the Madrid “Peace” Conference, he insisted that only non-terrorist Palestinians attend, and only as members of the Egyptian and Jordanian delegations. Shamir then spent the conference berating the most despotic Arab regimes.

He yielded nothing. He said in the late 1990s what he would say in the early 1960s: “The Arabs are the same Arabs, and the sea is the same sea.” Did he fail to see the “opportunities” for peace? No, he refused to deny reality and grasp the straws of illusion.

His greatest flaw was that he was not a natural politician. He did not warm to people, was not an orator, and was certainly not given to making empty promises of “peace is just around the corner.” He was hardened by events, braced by the Holocaust that killed his parents and older sisters (his father was killed by “friendly” Polish neighbors), and schooled in genuine self-sacrifice. But in that, he failed to give the people hope – to people less schooled in self-sacrifice, more susceptible to delusions and fantasies, and “more tired of fighting and winning,” in Olmert’s lamentable phrase.

Contrary to public perception, Shamir had weathered even the effects of the first Arab civil war that began in 1987. By 1992, terrorism had declined, the IDF countermeasures were prevailing, and roughly 20 Jews were murdered by terrorists. Paradoxically, his government fell when the right-wing parties pulled out in response to the Madrid Conference. The subsequent election brought Yitzchak Rabin to power, Oslo to the fore, and ended ignominiously with almost 2000 Jews killed in several waves of terror. Memo to right-wing parties: The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Perhaps the greatest contrast to today’s leaders: Shamir died in poverty. He made little money in government, sought nothing from others, and did not use public service to line his pockets. He was a man of simple tastes and great passions. When his government pension did not cover his nursing home expenses, a Knesset bill to cover the difference was first voted down, until someone came to his senses. Again, aside from Begin, it is hard to recall another Israeli leader who did not profit substantially from his government service. To Shamir, the material meant little. What mattered most were Jewish lives, the Jewish State and the Jewish land. That is both his legacy, and his challenge to this generation.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Jewish History

Headlines II – Obamacare Decision

Posted on June 28, 2012 | 1 comment

SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS CONSTITUTIONALITY OF OBAMACARE – Chief Justice Roberts: “The Federal Government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance. Section 5000A would therefore be unconstitutional if read as a command. The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance.”

The only non-surprise was the closeness of the decision, a classic 5-4 vote. Everything else stuns, especially the critical component of the decision. The Court upheld the individual mandate – the clause that obligates every American to purchase medical insurance or pay a penalty – but not on the grounds that Congress is within its powers of regulating commerce. That notion was specifically and properly rejected, as the Commerce Clause does not permit Congress to “compel citizens to act as the Government would have them act.”

Rather, the Court ruled that the individual mandate can be construed as a tax, which is within the power of Congress to levy. In effect, people who choose not to carry medical insurance will be forced to pay a tax (something less than $1000 per year for most people, technically about 2.5% of household income). The problems with this approach are numerous, not least that the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress effectively pulled a classic “bait and switch” on the public. Obamacare advocates were outspoken during the “health coverage” debate, while the bill is pending, that the individual mandate was not a tax. Obama himself publicly disclaimed that it was a tax. They said repeatedly it was not a tax, but a penalty.

As I noted earlier, several columns back: “It is interesting that Congress could have chosen to raise taxes to fund a universal health program – but that was politically unpalatable. So the Dems chose the underhanded approach of asserting that the fee Americans must pay for failure to procure insurance a fine, not a tax, but, curiously, a fine to be collected by the IRS.” It was only before the Supreme Court, during oral argument, when the administration (in the guise of the Solicitor-General) sought to characterize the individual mandate as a tax, in case the Commerce Clause argument fell.

That the Supremes now become a party to this subterfuge is reprehensible. The American people were bamboozled.

There is more to the decision that troubles thinking people. CJ Roberts in his opinion duly noted that the Court was not commenting on the wisdom of the law, only its legality. Since the balance of the law was declared constitutional, one part that remains is the obligation on private insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions – and not to penalize people with those conditions. But what is to prevent anyone from not buying insurance, paying the small fine (pardon me, “tax,” which is much less than the cost of health insurance), gambling that he will not consume $10-25,000 of health services in any particular year, and if he suddenly needs medical insurance because of an unexpected illness or injury? Just go out and then buy insurance coverage, which cannot be denied because of your now pre-existing condition – the illness or injury. So, too, Congress mandated that insurance companies cannot charge higher premiums to those with pre-existing conditions. Sensible employers similarly will cut off employee coverage, pay the fine (i.e., tax) and let employees fend for themselves.

The net effect will be the mass removal of consumers from the insurance market, and a concomitant and drastic increase in premiums for the remainder. Perhaps the Court could have addressed the “wisdom,” at least in passing. Certainly, CJ Roberts surprised, acquiescing to the “bait and switch” and upholding the law in conjunction with the four liberals on the Court. But, as he wrote, “we do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies.”

Roberts bought the Government’s argument in the alternative: “Instead, the Government asks us to read the mandate not as ordering individuals to buy insurance, but rather as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product,” even though “the most straightforward reading of the mandate is that it commands individuals to purchase insurance.” Nonetheless, five justices decided it was a “tax,” but curiously, under the statute, a tax whose failure to pay mandates no criminal prosecution (because Congress averred that it was not a tax!). At least now we understand why the IRS was to collect this penalty.

But how are insurance companies or the medical industry helped in their obligation to provide coverage for everybody if the “tax” levied goes right to the government? Not everyone who doesn’t carry insurance is Medicaid eligible. The government coffers are thereby burgeoned at the expense of those who are actually providing the services.

As the dissent pointed out, Obamacare will necessitate that insurance companies increase their premiums in order to survive – but as its premiums are already inflated, it is likely to price itself out of the reach of the average citizen. (The analogy would be to government mandates that automobile companies sell only electric cars that are better for the environment. But the cost of those cars is today prohibitive – even considering the government subsidies one receives to buy them – and if made a universal requirement would simply drive people away from buying cars.) Thus, whether the mandate taxes or penalizes, governments’ heavy hand intrudes on private conduct that undermines the proper relationship of government and governed.

The issue of penalty v. tax is more than semantics. It goes to the heart of congressional intent in the legislation itself. While Congress has the “power” to tax, the question here is whether it used that power in this legislation. By its own admission, it did not – so how could the Court construe it as such ? The dissent: “In a few cases, this Court has held that a “tax” imposed upon private conduct was so onerous as to be in effect a penalty. But we have never held—never—that a penalty imposed for violation of the law was so trivial as to be in effect a tax.” Almost by definition, a “tax” is never an exaction for unlawful activity but a predictable source of revenue for traditional activity. An exaction for “unlawful activity” – such as failure to buy health insurance – is by definition a “penalty.” Except by the Supreme Court’s awkward and contrived definition.

And the dissenters are clear keen to the politics: “For all these reasons, to say that the Individual Mandate merely imposes a tax is not to interpret the statute but to rewrite it. Taxes have never been popular. .and in part for that reason, the Constitution requires tax increases to originate in the House of Representatives. That is to say, they must originate in the legislative body most accountable to the people, where legislators must weigh the need for the tax against the terrible price they might pay at their next election, which is never more than two years off. “

Here, the Court gave that feckless Congress a pass, even with the vengeance enacted upon the legislators in the 2010 elections.

“The Court regards its strained statutory interpretation as judicial modesty. It is not. It amounts instead to a vast judicial overreaching. It creates a debilitated, inoperable version of health-care regulation that Congress did not enact and the public does not expect. It makes enactment of sensible health-care regulation more difficult, since Congress cannot start afresh but must take as its point of departure a jumble of now senseless provisions, provisions that certain interests favored under the Court’s new design will struggle to retain.”

In retrospect, Nancy Pelosi was right. She said during the debate that “we have to pass the law to know what is in it.” Even she didn’t realize how correct she was. It took the Supreme Court to expose the tax increase that is at the heart of Obamacare that, along with diminished coverage and increased costs for all, will be its legacy until it is repealed.

Now is the time to hold Obama and the Democrats accountable for this outrage. The President will undoubtedly trumpet the mandate’s constitutionality, but completely ignore that his theory of constitutionality was explicitly rebuffed. And Congress’ public standing should further decrease, although at 10% approval, it doesn’t have that far to fall.

This will be a net loss for Obama politically. Obamacare’s unpopularity will skyrocket as the terms “Obamacare” and “tax” begin to merge in the public mind. It would be fitting if this convoluted and strained decision, a temporary victory, advances and assures his defeat.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events

Headlines

Posted on June 26, 2012 | 1 comment

ISLAMIST ELECTED PRESIDENT OF EGYPT – Islamist, of course, is the politically correct method of referring to radical Muslims, distinguishable from moderate Muslims in ways that are somewhat ambiguous. If one wants to posit that there are Muslims who oppose terror, suicide bombings and the beheading of innocents, then I not only accept that but I also celebrate that and wish those Muslims were more numerous and especially more outspoken than their extremist brethren. In fact, they do exist, but they are either intimidated into silence, or they are perceived as less committed than the radicals. Thus, the defining characteristic of Islam in today’s world is its radical nature, rendering the term “Islamist” somewhat redundant but politically necessary.

To date, every country that has seen a struggle between radical Islam and either secularism or moderate Islam has seen the radicals prevail. I assumed this would happen in Egypt as well (like in Turkey, Libya, Gaza, etc.) but I thought it would take several years, not several months. It is disheartening that across the Muslim world, people given the choice between liberty, the crown of democracy, and a narrow and harsh form of Islam, have always opted for radicalism. Churchill’s dictum leaps to mind: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” It is hard to conjure a situation in which the tide is reversed without bloodshed, as it is to conjure even having another free election in any of those places. The forms of democracy are abused in order to produce a government that is devoid of the substance of democracy.

All of this places Israel, which already has enough problems, in a serious pickle. Certainly the peace treaty with Egypt, linchpin of Israeli diplomacy for more than 30 years, hangs by a tenuous thread. Its fate rests not in the hands of the Israelis but in the need for Egypt to continue receiving its $3B annually from the United States (probably stopped if the treaty is summarily vitiated), or to find some method where they can renounce the treaty and still receive the money. The Egyptian military, of course, is the party most interested in maintaining the US financial pipeline, and Egypt is headed for serious strife in the months ahead as its two power structures negotiate some political arrangement. Nonetheless, whatever agreement signed by the Muslim Brotherhood will be breached as soon as it suits them, and eventually the military will come under their control with the general-holdouts killed, exiled, or imprisoned.

Thus is demonstrated again the folly of democracies negotiating long-term agreements with dictatorships. For sure, there was a value in 30 years of non-belligerence on Israel’s southern flank. Thirty years is nothing to scoff at. Several times the Book of Shoftim (Judges) notes that after the reign of certain judges, “the land was tranquil for forty years” (once even for eighty years!). It is only now (aside from scattered terrorist attacks over the decades) that the loss of Sinai to the Egyptian dictatorship will be keenly felt.

Both Egypt and Israel have to navigate treacherous waters ahead. Egypt, as noted above, has to temper its radical agenda in order to retain the American largesse that enables it to feed its population until such time as it can have both – both the money and the radical agenda. Such is not at all farfetched. There will come a time when Egypt has long forfeited its justification for American assistance which will nonetheless be forthcoming in order to allow the US to “retain its influence in the region.” (That is why the PA is still funded notwithstanding its open association with Hamas.)

Attempts are already being made to humanize the Muslim Brotherhood, and to project onto them Western values and political interests (“they must produce or they will be voted out.” See above.) That trope was applied to Bashar al-Assad when he took power – he’s Westernized, an ophthalmologist, not like his father, etc. – and that hasn’t quite worked out.

And the Assad failure will not stop the liberal sages from pontificating about the “newfound moderation” of the Islamists who rule Egypt. Barry Rubin of the Gloria Center has it right (http://www.gloria-center.org/2012/06/egypt-a-muslim-brotherhood-president-does-not-prove-that-we-are-all-chimps/). Check out the acrobatics of the persistently-wrong Thomas Friedman. A few months ago: “The popular trend is not with the Muslim Brotherhood.” Now: “That the Brotherhood and the Salafist Nour Party have garnered 65% of the votes in Egypt’s elections should hardly come as a surprise.” Give that man another Pulitzer, or at least make him a meteorologist. Only naïve Westerners assumed that the protests in Tahrir Square, and the Arab Spring itself, would bring greater liberty to the Muslim world.

Israel’s dilemma is profound. The treaty with Egypt bars the introduction of Egyptian military forces into Sinai beyond a small number that can carry only light arms. Ariel Sharon in his day already allowed Egypt to violate this treaty in order to prevent terrorists from south Gaza and Sinai from invading Israel after Sharon expelled thousands of Jews from Gush Katif, destroyed their homes, and abandoned Israeli control over the Philadelphi corridor in the south. But now, with the increase in Hamas-sponsored terror from Sinai, Netanyahu can ask the Egyptians to send in even more troops with heavier equipment to patrol the Israel-Egypt border in order – get this – for the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt to stop its ideological brothers in Gaza from attacking Israel. Once that is done, then the Sinai is no longer demilitarized, and Egyptian troops will again be massed on Israel’s southern border, as they were on the eve of the 1967 Six Day War.

In effect, Netanyahu can effectively waive a key clause of the treaty and allow the Egyptian army into Sinai, or…what? There is no other option, as Israel cannot itself encroach on Egyptian territory to preclude a terrorist assault. It is bad if the Egyptian Army comes and it is bad if the Egyptian Army does not come – quite a Hobson’s choice. In a normal democracy-democracy treaty, both sides could easily re-negotiate, as over the years relations between democratic parties to a treaty generally improve. But relations with Egypt have only grown colder over the three decades of the treaty, hence the trepidation on Israel’s part – a trepidation that might induce Israel again (as in Gaza) to accept a certain level of terror, death and mayhem, as long as it doesn’t exceed some mysterious level in either intensity or casualties.

For times like these, prayer on a Biblical level (Ramban’s opinion) was created and rational decisions focusing on Israel’s interests – not, for example, expending energy evicting settlers – are necessary. Egypt should be made aware that Israel will respond harshly to any provocations, and that Egypt in its own interest should coordinate with Israel.

ISRAEL DEDICATES MONUMENT TO WORLD WAR II RED ARMY – This sounds as bizarre as it reads. Tomorrow, off the main square in Netanya (where I have family roots for over 40 years), Israel will unveil a monument to the heroism of the Soviet Red Army that was triumphant in defending the motherland during World War II. Russia’s President (for-life) Putin will be present, along with President Shimon Peres and PM Netanyahu. One may ask, WHY?

The short answer is that Netanya has among its residents hundreds, if not several thousand, Russian-Jewish veterans of the World War II Red Army, and the monument is a tribute to their service. Of course, it is hard to imagine the Russians erecting a monument in Sochi to the outstanding contributions of Russian Jews to the IDF (to be unveiled in time for the Winter Olympics in 2014), and it is exceedingly rare for any country to pay any tribute to the military of another country that is not allied with it in wartime.

The longer answer might involve Israel’s need to curry favor with Putin, who can greatly influence the potential resolutions in two hot spots for Israel – Russian allies such as Iran and Syria – and especially when the US seems today like a less reliable ally, and certainly less influential across the globe. I do not doubt that occasionally one has to swallow one’s pride and pay tribute to the less-than worthy in order to achieve some noble end, nor do I doubt for a moment the valiant contributions of Jewish soldiers to the Red Army. But really? Honoring the Red Army?

Anyone with a faint sense of history can recall that the Red Army at the beginning of World War II was allied to Hitler and joined the Nazis in invading Poland. Thousands of Jews were killed in its territory – not systematically, as in Nazi-controlled areas – but killed nonetheless. The Red Army only found itself on the side of the angels when Hitler renounced his treaty with the USSR (see above about negotiating with dictators) and launched Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941 that saw a massive and brutal invasion of Russia. That same Red Army oversaw the deaths by starvation of millions of Ukrainians in the 1930’s, and together with the other elements of the Security Services of the USSR, administered the banishment and persecution of Jews before, during and after the War. Granted, this was all at Stalin’s behest, and granted as well, Jews were conscripted into the Red Army like all other citizens during the War. But to honor the Red Army? In Israel? In the presence of its most recent dictator?

It shouldn’t be that difficult to remember that most of the Israelis who were citizens of the former Soviet Union lived as prisoners, without basic human rights, and tormented by the KGB for whom Vladimir Putin was a faithful agent.

Not every bad idea is meant to be implemented.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel