No suicide bombers, no wall. Acceptance of state of Israel, negotiations on  boundaries. Just what you call "Palestinian land" is disputed territory which Arabs have refused to discuss. There would be a Palestinian state had the Arabs wanted one in 1936, 1947, 1967, 2000. Instead there was Intifada. Marriages can be made and recognized by the state but not by the Jewsih Orthodox rabbis.You ignore or downplay Arab rejectionism and attacks.

by philip rosen (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 98 comments) on Saturday, Dec 29, 2007 at 2:53:33 PM

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Thank you for your well written article "Alone"

Philip you may be interested in this proposal by the Arab Nations.

http://www.mideastweb.org/saudipeace.htm

by IwasJulius (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 31 comments) on Saturday, Dec 29, 2007 at 4:49:39 PM

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The writer is misinformed about marriage in Israel. There is no civil marriage. The only marriages performed in Israel are under religious auspices. This was the pattern everywhere until quite recently. Israel's government recognizes all religious marriages -- Jewish, Christian and Muslim. The government also recognizes all marriages performed outside the country, including civil marriages.

The comparison between Israel's border fence and the Berlin Wall is inappropriate. The Berlin Wall was not constructed "to separate people"; It was built by East Germany to keep East Germans from fleeing to the West. The minefields, watchtowers and barbed wire were all on the eastern side of the wall. Those who sought to breach the wall came only from the eastern side. No one ever tried to break into East Germany.

Israel's security fence, in contrast, is there to keep people out. Visualize a wall 20 feet high, topped with razor wire, running more than 750 miles along the border. In some places, it cuts through private landholdings, severing farms and villages. Where it is impossible to construct the wall, a "virtual wall" is in place, with infra-red detectors, motion detectors and radar to spot infiltration attempts. Helicopters patrol overhad, and law enforcement officials arrest anyone caught trying to sneak through. No, no -- this is not Israel's fence. It's the border security system recently voted by Congress along the US border with Mexico. Its primary purpose is to block immigration by people who just want jobs. If, like Israel, the US had to contend with suicide bombers walking across this border, blowing up kindergartens and pizzerias and supermarkets and religious establishments, you can be sure we would have erected our wall much sooner.

Meanwhile, NATO has contracted with the State of Israel to consult on a security fence about Kosovo.

Why should Israel be the only country required to have open borders? The first duty of any government is to protect its citizens from attack. The security fence has sharply reduced the number of suicide bombings in the country.

ALONE's description of the architecture of the new Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem left much to be imagined. The design is a pyramid laid on its side, penetrating a mountaintop. One enters at the large end, some 50 feet high. The exhibits here are about Jewish life in Europe before WWII. You cannot meander about. There are deep fissures in the floor that require you to travel the designated route. As the visitor proceeds linearly through the museum, the tapered gray concrete walls and ceiling close in on him, while consecutive exhibits show how the world of the Jews was constricted as they were herded down a narrowing path to death. At the far end of the museum, the walls suddenly open out to reveal a magnificent panoramic view of Jerusalem. The symbolism is both obvious and profound.

While ALONE''s comparison of the concrete walls of Yad Vashem's museum with the concrete of the security fence is an interesting idea, it does not turn out to have the same meaning to me. I see both as symbolizing the grim threat of death, and of constricting options for the Jews. The Palestinians have steadfastly refused numerous opportunities to have their own state alongside Israel, beginning with their rejection of the 1948 UN partition of this corner of Ottoman Palestine.The Hamas charter rejects peace with Israel under any circumstances. Fatah recently published a poster showing all of Israel included in a map of "Palestine," with a kaffieh draped over it. As long as both parties of the Palestinian government seek the elimination of the 6 million Jews of Israel, there will be an implied comparison with the Holocaust. As ALONE has reminded us, the walls of the Yad Vashem museum resonate with the wall of security on Israel's border, assuring Jews worldwide that never again will our options narrow to a death camp, a gas chamber, a bullet in the back of the neck..

by Thor (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments) on Sunday, Dec 30, 2007 at 12:31:52 AM

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EXPERIENTIALLY, I am a bit astonished by the inadmission that using 8 to 10 meter long unadorned concrete blocks doesn't leave one--AS A VISITOR-- cold AND LIFELESS in a sense when visiting any museum on a planet with the similar "plattenbau" architecture of the post-modern era.

The same sorT of unadorned cement is used at Dachau and elsewhere to conjure up the soul-lessness of th 1930s and 1940s of the totalitarian era.  It was also definately used to build a new identity across Germany and Europe after thE WAr--even some post modern churches and Chagall windows convey the same sense--even if some hope shines from the colored glass & images.

Finally, the photos of the bare unadorned walls of the misguided plans of some confused defense contractors (Read family of Sharon et. al) show time and again a similarity in either Nazi or Communist German world views. of the 20th Century.

This is anyone's experience when visiting the Walls and the yad Vashem in a single 24 hour period.

It is haunting.  The connection is obvious for the visitors who have gone beyond the Potemkin villages of Israel to see what is behind the wall, too.

The disorientation of the border crossing with Jordan and Israel is confusing and shows how the Auschwitz scam was pulled off on so many unsuspecting peoples entering the train yard.  This similarity becomes quite real when visiting the Auschwitz display in Yad Vashem,

Go back and experience shuch border crossing and Yad Vashem on a single day.

Tragic.

By the way, I do think Yad Vashem is up to par with other Holocaust museums and memorials--but it's location on the planet in 2007-2008 demands stronger critique (not the powder puff critique.)

Dachua, Bergen Belson, and ohter memorials like that in Berlin have faced heavy critique--NOW IT IS time that the gloves come off and YAD VASHEM gets evaluated even handedly.

I imagine if you are more informed about Yad Vashem than i am about various WWII memorials around the world, you could do a goood critique of Yad Vashem--better than I can.

I encourage you to do so if you apply the same historical criteria to yad Vashem that has been applied in Europe and other locations in recent decades.

by ALONE (196 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 557 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Dec 30, 2007 at 1:11:01 AM

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I don't recall trying to pass on any of the information that Rosen feels is neglected in the piece.

The focus is on the amzing contrast felt by a someone who went to Bethleham via vorder checkpoints and overseeing the MAMMOTH BARRIER WALLS of UNADORNED CONCRETE and having visited YAD VASHEM on the very same day.

Note:  Yad Vashem does very well in many facets--however, the creation of a fascist German type wall has transformed meaning for many a viewer.

Finally, after having followed the HOOPLA about German memorials and memory for 50 years, it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT ROSEN and others ignore the shortfalls in YAD Vashem design and the misleading narrations of certain tour guides with their own radical programs.

by ALONE (196 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 557 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Dec 30, 2007 at 12:54:40 AM

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